by Paul Williams
in Issue 111, April 2021
The Marquis sent six soldiers, two to arrest Pridatakia, and four to arrest anyone who objected. The military rarely ventured near goblin lands, so they attracted a crowd of peasants who laughed at the bright red coats and marvelled at the well-groomed horses with decorated saddles. Pridatakia’ s donkey, embarrassed in such company, retreated to the back of the field, and pretended to nibble on the overgrown nettles poisoned by his master that morning.
Pridatakia saw the activity from his chair, positioned in front of the open door. He got up when the horses stopped outside his gate and poured what remained of the nettle killing concoction into his fireplace. The smoke swirling out of the chimney warned goblins to stay away.
The Captain of the soldiers dismounted and pointed a spear at the gate. Pridatakia came out slowly, kicking the gate open. He smiled at his friends in the crowd, hoping that none of them would risk their lives to protect him. Having never seen a massacre the younger ones would be less afraid. They needed words, not smoke signals. He hoped his smile reassured them.
“You are the pest controller?” asked the leader.
“I serve the villagers in many ways.”
“The Marquis has need of your services.”
“I understood that even wasps do not dare nest on his land.” Once that had been the boast. Pridatakia now knew that both native wasp species only nested in two types of tree, neither of which grew on the Marquis’s land.
“Wasps are not the problem. Come.”
Pridatakia closed his door. No need to lock it as none of the villagers would steal from him. He reluctantly climbed behind the thinnest soldier and grabbed his waist. The horses began moving, trotting at first through the village then picking up speed when they left the ramshackle huts, watchers, and sparse fields behind. In single file they crossed the rough path surrounded by biting flies and the dying scent of autumnal flowers. Snakes, lizards, and small rodents darted away. The horses passed over piles of discarded leaves and around the unevenly spaced trees without hesitation. Pridatakia clung to the silent solider, making sure his hands didn’t venture any lower. Finally, they cleared the trees and the unkept grass became farmland, some with vegetables tended to by hat-wearing peasants and the others occupied by grazing cattle. Here the people were used to soldiers passing and did not look up.
After rows of farm cottages, many with unpatched holes in the roof from the last storm, the walls of the Marquis’s palace fronted the town. They extended in a circle with spikes on the top row. When Pridatakia last visited the heads of the Marquis’s enemies were displayed on the spikes. Today they were empty, and he hoped that one was not reserved for him.
Five soldiers protected the gates, refusing to open them until each of their colleagues, and Pridatakia, dismounted. Grooms ran out to take care of the horses. Walking gave the occupants of the house time to prepare for the visitors or to shoot them as they approached. There was absolutely no cover on the path. No trees or plants and the surrounding grass was cut below toe length. Around the back there would be magnificent gardens, with servants tending flowers and chasing away pests. Earning more than Pridatakia did, with some food and perhaps a bed included. The Marquis had enough staff to protect his premises. He did not need Pridatakia for conventional duties, which could only mean that he sought access to the magical practices that his family had long since outlawed.
Pridatakia kept his head high, reaching the waist of the shortest soldier, as he mounted the six stairs to the front door and followed the soldiers across a hall longer than his hut. There were pictures of the Marquis’s ancestors on the wall, painted whilst they were alive, along with disturbing pictures of goblins being burnt. Males, females, children. Fat and thin. The people depicted clapping the executioner reminded Pridatakia of those watching the horses earlier. They had the same expressions of excitement, awe, and apprehension.
The Marquis waited in one of three public chambers. After a difficult interview or a smelly witness, the chamber had to be deep cleaned. Allocating three allowed daily business to continue. They were used as courtrooms, trading centres and for royal receptions. The Marquis wore black robes, like his ancestors, and exercised his right to be clean-shaven, probably with the help of a trusted slave. Two guards, one on either side, carried long cutlasses. Another man, unarmed, stood behind the Marquis. The soldiers lined up against the far wall, dropping their weapons. Deferring to the superior cutlasses held by the inner bodyguard. Pridatakia stepped forward and bowed, hoping he didn’t appear too theatrical.
“You are the pest catcher,” said the other man.
“I am not unique,” he replied. Several of the signs on the farm cottages advertised similar services. The elimination of rodents and insects. The Marquis would include goblins.
“So modest,” stated the Marquis. His lips curled and he spat, “Your mother was a goblin.”
“I am surprised you hear tavern gossip.” Pridatakia saw no value in pointing out that it was his grandmother. In most circumstances he passed for human. During his youth he had sometimes dyed his skin to hide the greenish tinge. As he got older it had faded naturally. The ears were clearly not human but usually he wore a hat over them.
“I hear everything,” snapped the Marquis. “Especially at night when an accursed goblin creature roams my chambers.”
“Impossible.” Pridatakia was relieved to see the other man, who he assumed to be the Captain of the Inner Bodyguard, nodding. “Even if a goblin could gain entrance they would not dare. They remember the punishment.”
“My grandfather burnt 300 of them,” said the Marquis, smiling. 306, thought Pridatakia but again he did not correct. “The anniversary is fast approaching and perhaps it is time to re-enact the occasion.”
“And start a war?” The Marquis’s soldiers could wipe out most of the goblins, but not without sustaining casualties. Enough to weaken his reserves against attacks from other human forces to the West. The stalemate suited all three parties. The Western King had no financial incentive for war but would be seen as weak if he failed to take an opportunity. Everyone knew that peace depended on the goblins keeping away from the Marquis and the Marquis keeping his sanity.
“Trespassing in my bedroom is an act of war.”
“You want me to ask the goblins for assistance?”
The Marquis laughed, scornfully. “No, I want you to catch it. That is your trade, is it not? Catch the pest and remember that all use of magic is punishable by death.”
Pridatakia spent the rest of the day in a room on the second floor with a guard behind the door. He looked through the bars at the town below, observing the subtle changes since his last visit eighteen years ago. The lack of repairs to storm damaged buildings indicated either a reduction in builders or in wealth. Skilled workers had flocked to the outskirts, finding more regular work, but in recent times the flow of merchants and leisure travellers to his village had slowed. The goblin economy remained stable.
He could not smell a goblin in the palace and knew of none who had travelled north. After the burning they retreated to the wastelands, a place unwanted by the Marquis. Gradually groups of humans also fled the town, setting up smaller settlements and farming the limited produce capable of growing in that soil. They traded with the green folk and sometimes that led to hybrids like Pridatakia. His heritage had never been a problem for him. Often it was an advantage. People assumed, rightly, that he knew magic and used him as the intermediator when they wished to do business with the goblins. He understood both cultures, united by their fear of the Marquis. Now, after so long, they were about to remember why that fear was there.
As the night flies, who bit more than their diurnal cousins, started entering through the window the Captain of the Inner Bodyguard escorted Pridatakia upstairs to the Marquis’s bedroom. It was twice the size of his cottage with a large luxurious bed, fitted with sheets, and a private bathroom. Few unrelated males were allowed in.
Two guards accompanied him, saying that they would also stay for the night. The Marquis was sleeping in his second bedroom. Pridatakia did not dare ask if he was alone. Tavern gossip said that he picked a different woman every night, hoping to find one to replace his late wife whose head had once adorned the spikes, due to an unfortunate embrace with a guard. Local females were willing to share their favours, at little risk if they came from the common class. Wealthier ones had to underperform in the bedroom to avoid a proposal. That was another reason for the exodus to the borders.
No candles were lit, keeping away insects. Pridatakia usually advised using scents, variable by season. Sometimes they could be incorporated into candles or other lights. He checked that the door, the bathroom door and the window were tightly closed. Nothing without wings could get through the window anyway. It overlooked the moat then the walls with no possibility of an arrow or other weapon. Nevertheless, he positioned himself to watch the window, with his back against the bed. The guards stood, they were not allowed to sit, by the door.
They waited for hours. Pridatakia kept rotating his head to stave off sleep. All he heard was the heavy breathing of the guards, the occasional squawking of birds, and movement of people in the rooms around. Eventually there was a closer sound. Those unused to magic might have interpreted the scratching as a rodent or large insect. He sensed the difference and felt afraid for the magician who dared oppose this magic. Not scripted or controlled. Raw. Powerful. The guards were leaning forward, hearing but not seeing. Their cutlasses scraped the floor and one of them had a hand ready to knock on the door and summon light.
Pridatakia stuck out his own hand for silence. He scanned his mind for information then felt something inside him. Scanning him. Looking for information. No, not information. Existence. A shape began to form. Pridatakia recalled legends muttered by his grandmother. He closed his eyes, muttering as she had done, “Come to me. Come to me.”
The scratching stopped. The breathing intensified, not from the guards. A heavier, odourless breath. Like that of a freshly cleansed child. Pridatakia opened his eyes. A green shape solidified beside the bed. Black circular orbs pleaded from the head then the guards rushed forward, shouting, and more burst in with candles. The creature vanished. The original guards stared around, confused, trying to explain what they had seen.
The Captain of the Inner Bodyguard arrived. He heard their stories before looking at Pridatakia, who stood up and bowed. The cutlasses all pointed at him.
“You summoned a demon,” said the Captain.
“The Tulpa was looking for the Marquis. Each time it sees him it will grow stronger. I must advise him.”
“No,” said the Captain. “The Marquis’s sleep must never be disturbed. You will speak to him in the morning. Place him in the cells.”
As the guards grabbed his arms, Pridatakia reminded the Captain that he was summoned at the request of the Marquis. “If I am ill-treated the Marquis may remember that.”
The Captain hesitated then decided that Pridatakia could stay in the room, with both guards. None of the three men slept.
It was past dawn when they came for him. Enough time for the Captain to convince the Marquis that Pridatakia meant him harm. Nothing was said as they marched down the stairs and into the room where they had met the previous day. Pridatakia felt strangely honoured that he was considered clean. The room was adorned with daylight as the sun streamed through the huge back windows. Pridatakia bowed again.
“You saw the goblin?” asked the Marquis.
“No, sir,” said Pridatakia. “I believe it was a Tulpa.” The Marquis looked at the men behind him. None of them had a definition or an explanation. Why should they? The humans who practised magic were no longer in the town. Those who survived were known only through tavern gossip. Besides the Tulpa came from goblin, not human lore.
“Magic?” asked the Marquis finally. Fear made him more dangerous. Pridatakia realised that.
“I am afraid so. Tulpa’s are beings imagined by a sorcerer as a lifeless form. They live inside their creator’s body and come out, usually at night, to seek the soul of a designated person.”
“My soul?”
“Yes, it seeks to take over your body. As it grows it absorbs energy from the creator. Eventually both die unless the Tulpa finds the host designated by the creator.”
“You must kill it first.”
Pridatakia hesitated, aware of the weapons. He could see the spikes through the window. “I cannot, sir. The legends specify that the link can only be broken in two ways. The first is by destroying the creator before the Tulpa can live independently, and the second is by the creator transferring it to a second person.”
“Then you will find the creator, the sorcerer, and he will die.”
“But it could be anyone.”
“Anyone?” snarled the Marquis. “Do you infer that I have multiple enemies and that sorcery is widely practiced in my kingdom?”
“Not at all, sir. I meant to say, anywhere. Perhaps there was an opponent in battle, or someone who is purely evil. Most citizens revel in your benevolence.” He glimpsed one of the advisors smirking and hoped that he had not antagonised the Marquis.
“But you know enough about sorcery to identify the creature.” The Marquis grinned. “You called to it.”
“Only as a means to remove it for you.”
The Marquis ignored him. “I could execute you just for that. Instead I will demonstrate my benevolence. You and your goblin friends will remain unharmed provided that you rid me of this creature within three days. You will bring me the sorcerer or die in his place. And, to ensure, that the magic dies with you, your village will be incinerated.”
Pridatakia was given a cottage in the rear of the palace, in full view of the guards. The Captain of the Inner Bodyguard told him he was allowed to roam as he pleased but, if he failed to return within the three days, his village would be destroyed. He had no opportunity to warn them, realising that traders would not be allowed out until the crisis was over.
“I have questions,” said Pridatakia. “About the enemies of the Marquis.”
“None are known to indulge in sorcery.”
“It takes about eight weeks to imagine a Tulpa. Someone will have a grudge from that time, perhaps a bit before.”
“It’s not the person with a grudge,” said the Captain. “It’s the sorcerer they paid. Find him and he will incriminate the others.”
Pridatakia did not believe it was a commercial transaction. If someone had money to pay for harm to the Marquis, they could find an assassin in the town. An ex-soldier or a woman with a knowledge of poison. Sorcerers did not openly advertise their wares. He knew of none operating in the area. None that had passed through his village. Still, without any other leads, he went to each tavern in the town, asking for details of strangers who had stayed there ten weeks ago. There were none, assuming that he was told the truth. He found no evidence of magic on display in the markets and shops. If a sorcerer was in town, he concealed himself well.
“What about staff?” he asked the Captain. “A dismissed servant.”
“They could not afford a sorcerer’s fees.”
“All the same, I would like a list.”
Reluctantly the Captain found someone who could write down the names of seven people who had left the Marquis’s employment in the last year. Pridatakia scanned down them, struggling with the handwriting, and stopping by Erabethalle, who worked as a maid in the Marquis’s bedroom and chambers. The other six had either died of natural causes, or execution, or been too ill to continue. No reason was given for Erabethalle’s departure.
“What happened to her?” he asked, tapping the name.
“Look in the graveyard,” said the Captain.
Pridatakia wandered out to the other side of the town. The vast field with rows of headstones was organised by class. The poor were buried in the first section and the rich at the rear. As the land angled upward, they were closer to any heaven and further away from burrowing predators and goblins. Humans still believed that goblins desecrated the dead, even though most of them had never seen one. It didn’t help that the Tulpa in its present form looked enough like a goblin to fool the Marquis and presumably others.
He went through the recent lines of the poor, finding no trace of a name that looked like Erabethalle. It was often difficult to read the scratching on the smaller stones. Some had clearly been done by illiterate relatives. Then he crossed the road to the piece of field on the other side, that slunk downhill rapidly into a pit. Here lay the unmarked remains of those who died shamefully, at their own hands or those of the executioner.
And here a woman was crying. An old woman, her back hunched and her arms clinging to a thin stick. He turned his back, respecting the right to private grief then saw the reflection of her eye on the grave. A black circle.
He approached her and stood silent for a while, staring down into the pit at the seething mass of worms and the bodies piled lazily together. “Erabethalle,” he said. It was a statement not a question. She blinked at him. One of her eyes no longer worked. The other was alert with the same black colouring of the Tulpa’s.
For a moment he doubted. She was too old to be Erabethalle’s mother, but she had the Tulpa. He could see its shape now, coiled inside her. Moving. Trying to reach the creature that had denied it access. Confusing him with the Marquis, but it was not yet strong enough to get out in daytime.
“Grandmother,” she whispered. “I raised her. Taught her to be respectful. Warned her. Told her not to go to the Marquis.”
“She couldn’t refuse,” said Pridatakia. He pictured her, pretty no doubt, working in one of the taverns with the Marquis watching her. Or one of his servants trusted to find the type of girl that he liked. Then came the offer, more money that she could make anywhere else in town without becoming a prostitute. An elevated status. A chance to be successful and to pay for the medicine her grandmother desperately needed. He knew the rest of the story, without asking. It was how the Marquis and his family had operated for centuries. The townsfolk were their slaves, devoid of rights.
“She never told me about the baby,” said the old woman. “I saw the bulge when they dumped the body. I wanted to bury her properly. They made me drop her in the pit. Dragged her myself. They all laughed.”
“So, you went home and made the Tulpa.”
“I know how to dream,” she said. “All I can do these days. At first it was for me. A replacement child. Then it wanted more.” Unscripted magic. A being born from hatred, not design. Or a thought that had floated in the atmosphere for centuries, waiting to be summoned. The “Come to Me,” prayer might be a summons not a control mechanism.
“You put your hate of the Marquis into it. Now you can take it away.”
“Never,” she spat.
As she hobbled off, glancing back to make sure she wasn’t pursued, Pridatakia thought of the last grandmother who made a Tulpa.
On the third day Pridatakia told the Captain of the Inner Bodyguard about the old woman. He had delayed as long as he could, hoping that the Tulpa would be strong enough to reach the Marquis during the intervening nights. Initially observers would not see any difference, unless they looked him in the eye, and he felt that the possessed Marquis would grant his freedom. His second hope was that the old woman would wander off into the woods and he could then blame the guards. He’d thought about offering her sanctuary in his cottage, but she would still die when they burnt the village. There were about three hundred people in the village and an estimated seven thousand goblins. Combined their lives meant more than hers, which was nearly over anyway.
Also, the Tulpa was dangerous. Nobody knew how they long it lived. How many times it could hop between hosts, unrestrained by any social conventions. Gathering information and becoming stronger. Potentially learning how to reproduce and conquer. Created from mental energy it would learn to despise the organics that it once needed for survival. His grandmother realised that.
He kept repeating this but still felt that he was betraying the old woman.
The Captain of the Inner Bodyguard made him Pridatakia go with them to a tiny shack in a part of town that smelt of decay. The other residents stayed indoors, tending feeble fires, and watching with sad and angry faces through tiny windows. Pridatakia waited outside the hut where Erabethalle had grown up dreaming of a better life. The guards dragged the old woman past him, her arms already in chains. Her good eye looked at him. “I will transfer it,” she said.
The trial was a formality. The guard Captain informed the Marquis that there might be embarrassing revelations and that the woman refused to confess. Such difficulties were usually resolved through torture, but the Marquis did not want her dying in the cell. Only a burning would remove the creature and deter the public. Pridatakia thought the Marquis looked weaker as he agreed to a hearing without the accused being present. Why risk sorcerers being allowed to contaminate honest people?
The public were not allowed to attend either. The official communicator wrote down the proceedings so that he could tell people afterwards. To avoid embarrassment the presence of the Tulpa in the palace was not mentioned. Officially the Marquis became aware of a sorcerer operating in town and Pridatakia identified her. One advantage of this, to the Marquis, was that Pridatakia now appeared to be an informer.
“You’ve seen it in daylight,” guessed Pridatakia, after his evidence. “That means it’s getting stronger.” One of the guards hit him for his impertinence.
“Yes,” said the Marquis, motioning for the communicator to stop. “Every day I sense its presence, but tomorrow it will be over. When the sorcerer burns so shall her evil creation. Let it be done. You will remain in town until after the execution.”
Pridatakia was not allowed to sleep in the grounds of the palace that night. He wandered back to the old woman’s shack. Another family had already moved in, but they made space for him, when he lifted his hat. “Can’t you make it rain?” the man asked. “They can’t burn her in the rain. Several days heavy rain. That will give you time.”
“I’m not that sort of magician,” he said. Truth was he wasn’t any sort of magician. He was just a hybrid who knew a few herbs and couldn’t save an old woman from the flames.
“Is there still magic out there?” asked one of the children.
“No,” he told her. “Magic is dead.”
She started to cry but tears were better than the flames. If she grew up believing in magic someone would inform on her. He waited for her to sleep then he muttered the prayer, “Come to me. Come to me.”
The Tulpa never came.
The town all turned out to watch the execution. Some made a conscious choice to enjoy it. Others attended because they feared being accused of sorcery if their absence was noted. Pridatakia was near the front, wondering if he could do anything to ease the old woman’s suffering. He watched the guards piling sticks around the stake, leaving room for her to walk through. Close to the stake but not close enough to catch the embers was a wooden platform with seats for the dignitaries.
Then the clock struck the eighth hour of the day and they brought her out. The chains were gone and so were her clothes. He could see the Tulpa inside her, a bulge extending up her back. If there had been a delay for rain it would surely have emerged. There was a deliberate slowness to the guard’s movements. They wanted her to see the crowd and the stake. To show her fear. She was tied facing them, her eye defiant and her lips whispering soft curses.
The Marquis strolled out casually and sat in the best seat. His entourage followed. The Marquis glared at Pridatakia. A clear warning not to interfere. To be gone after the ceremony or goblins would be pulled out to suffer the same fate.
Pridatakia felt ashamed. It should be his life not hers. If he had admitted failure and pleaded for the villagers, the Marquis might have been persuaded to spare them.
A judge read the sentence. An expectant hush fell amongst the crowd. There was no rain, not even the hint of a cloud. She was allowed to speak, words that would not carry beyond the first line in the crowd. Pridatakia heard.
“It came from a goblin,” she said. “Made to avenge those who burnt goblins for fun. But the goblin woman realised it was dangerous. She took poison.”
Pridatakia, not looking at the old woman or the Marquis, slunk backwards. The executioner, wearing a black cloak, lit the pyre. Fire crept slowly towards the old woman. She kept her eye away from it. Smoke swirled, almost hiding her. She coughed. A green shape lunged from the fire. Sticks rolled everywhere, knocking into the bystanders, sending them screaming away in search of water. The Marquis was on his feet. The Tulpa, fully formed, jumped onto him. They struggled on the platform as the Inner Bodyguards slashed their cutlasses. The Tulpa twisted and the Marquis’s body fell into the flames. Pridatakia joined the fleeing crowd. He passed the little girl pointing in delight. “Magic,” she breathed. “Magic.’
On the way back Pridatakia stopped in every tavern to tell those who had seen him riding past that he was alive, and the dreaded Marquis was not. Stories of the fire were spreading, and many men had ridden to the town to help extinguish it. He spoke freely of the Tulpa, warning them that it might come their way if it had not already passed through. “It has life now, but it does not understand it,” he said. “Without the old woman it must seek someone else to guide it. One of her relatives perhaps.”
Or the girl who now lived in the old woman’s house. It was all speculation.
When he got back to his own house, after explaining everything again to all his friends and neighbours, his donkey ambled across to greet him. Its eyes were glowing black.
©April 2021, Paul Williams
Paul Williams has published non-fiction, including an award-winning guide to the Jack the Ripper suspects, and 60 short stories in various anthologies and magazines. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery.