by Lorenzo D. Lopez
Issue 111, April 2021
1
As the barkeep leaned closer, the shadows from the single lamp that illumined the alehouse transformed his face into a sinister mask. He nodded towards the booth where the big outland labourer sat moodily staring into space.
‘You’ve hired an odd one there and no mistake,’ he said softly. ‘People say he walked up out of the sea.’
Arash glanced over his shoulder. The new hireling was sitting alone, while he and his brother Zatoth stood at the bar. Shock headed, with bronzed skin, wearing a threadbare tunic and breeks, the man was massive, his brutal frame rippling with muscles. Wrapped around his brow as a kind of headband, he wore a grimy linen rag with a semiprecious stone sewn into it.
‘We found him skulking about outside Duke Castenir’s tower,’ Zatoth said, greedy eyes glinting. ‘We’ve got a job there, clearing out the catacombs now that Duke Castenir’s gone.’
‘We’d been speaking with Lady Madura’s chamberlain,’ Arash added. ‘She hired us as we had plenty of experience shifting junk. Seems her old pa left a whole heap of it after he went. Me and Zatoth are plenty tough, but when we saw him…’ He nodded meaningfully in the direction of their hireling.
‘He’s a strong man,’ the barkeep agreed, ‘but strange stories hang around his name.’
‘What is his name, anyway?’ Zatoth asked. ‘He didn’t say. He doesn’t say much. But he’s plenty strong.’
As the three men turned to look across the empty alehouse, the man in the shadows glanced up. Sullen eyes, grey as winter skies, caught their gaze and all three looked away.
The barkeep began polishing a tankard. ‘Kell, men call him,’ he said out of the side of his mouth. ‘Don’t anger him. First time he was in here, he got in a fight. Three of my customers will drink no more this side of the last river. I’m surprised he didn’t leave Nancarrow for good. The Sentinels have been given his description.’
Arash had no qualms about hiring a wanted man. If the Sentinels interrogated him, he would deny all knowledge, and who could gainsay him? The outlander should have told them he was on the run. He glanced over and saw that Kell had returned to his rapt examination of the scarred, pitted table. ‘What’s this about walking up out of the sea?’
The barkeep looked surreptitiously to left and right, as if the alehouse were bustling, although it was noontide and the place was deserted. ‘It was not long after the last pirate war. One morning, down by the strand. Folk say he just walked up out of the waters and went into town still dripping.’
‘He’d been swimming?’ Zatoth suggested.
The barkeep shook his head. ‘Folk says nothing about swimming. One moment the water was empty, then that shaggy great head broke the surface. Then Kell walked up out of the water, and into town. Since then he’s been seen a few times. Not so much since the fight. Outlander, they reckon. He speaks the Nancarovian tongue ill. Aye, there was word he’d been seen lurking about Duke Castenir’s tower.’
‘If that’s where he wants to go,’ said Arash with a shrug, ‘he’s joined the right gang. We’re clearing out the catacombs now that Duke Castenir’s dead.’
‘Oho,’ said the barkeep, a cunning expression on his beefy face. ‘So the duke’s dead for sure, is he? I hear they never found the body.’
Zatoth grimaced. ‘He was plenty old. He went down into the catacombs when the pirate war broke out and never came up again.’ He looked deviously at his brother. ‘One reason why Lady Madura wants all that junk shifted. She thinks we’ll find his body. That’ll confirm her title and her inheritance. At the same time, she’ll make a fortune auctioning his junk.’
‘He was a collector, folk say,’ commented the barkeep. ‘You’ll find plenty down there. Plenty of worthless junk. Or plenty treasure, maybe. Plenty of jewels. Nobody rightly knows the size of Duke Castenir’s hoard.’
‘Of course,’ Arash said piously, ‘we’ll hand over everything we find to the Lady Madura’s servants.’ He nudged Zatoth in the ribs and the two small, dark, wiry brothers exchanged gloating, secret looks.
Duke Castenir had been a collector, it was true, Arash reflected as they took the drinks back over to the booth; and much of what he collected had been worthless. The chamberlain had taken them down the steps into the first tunnel while discussing the job. It had been narrow enough, but the piles of old books, broken tools, musty old clothes long out of fashion, worn out rugs and threadbare tapestries, piles of intricately carved mammoth ivory, boxes and bales and bags filled with worthless gauds and trinkets had all told Arash that the late Duke Castenir had had something of the magpie in his makeup. And the labyrinth was rumoured to stretch for miles beneath the city of Nancarrow.
Rumour was often a liar. But the chamberlain had admitted that he did not know the full extent of the tunnels. And there must be something of value down there.
Kell looked up with a grunt as they joined him in the booth.
‘Drink,’ Arash said, placing a tankard in front of the big outlander. ‘Understand?’
‘Me drink,’ agreed Kell, grey eyes gleaming. He took a deep swig, then slammed the tankard down with enough force to spill froth across the tabletop. ‘When us start?’
Arash’s nostrils twitched. The outlander had a strange, musky smell like that of a wild beast. He lacked the civilised refinement to mask his personal odours with the cheap scent both Arash and his brother wore.
‘We’re meeting with Lady Madura in a turn of the glass,’ said Zatoth. ‘She wants to speak with us here herself when she returns from her villa, the chamberlain said. Why she wants to see us in a rat’s den alehouse like this…’
‘You don’t think she wants to be seen with us in one of her uptown taverns, do you?’ Arash said. ‘Ladies like her have a reputation to keep.’
‘So why does she want to come here?’ Zatoth muttered.
Kell finished his drink in another two gulps. He slammed the tankard down again, making Zatoth jump. ‘Us start now?’
Arash scowled at the big outlander. Kell had obviously not been listening. Impatiently he said, ‘Not till the Lady’s spoken with us. You drink ale like it’s water, Kell, if that’s your name. I hope you won’t be drunk by the time she gets here.’
‘Me work for meat and drink, you said.’
Arash and Zatoth exchanged wry glances. This boorish booby would be easy enough to gull. They would have him do all the hard work and the heavy lifting in return for sour ale and cheap mutton; smuggle out any ill-considered trifles they might find to sell to a fence they knew in the thieves’ quarter; and if they stumbled on the Duke Castenir’s mortal remains, well, that was what Lady Madura was hoping for, wasn’t it? Then she’d be able to inherit. Arash sat back and nursed his tankard, and waited for her ladyship to appear.
The alehouse was bustling by the time Lady Madura entered. Men from the harbour, sailors and longshoremen, coarse, grimy rogues, crowded the alehouse and sat drinking at the communal table. A slender figure swathed in a dark cloak, the cowl pulled up to conceal its face, threaded its way through the rough crowd, followed by a dignified, elderly man who Arash recognised as the chamberlain.
Zatoth and Arash rose hastily. When Kell did not get up but continued chewing at the mutton bone Zatoth had bought him, Arash kicked him in the shin and urgently gestured him to rise.
‘Apologies, my lady,’ said Arash. ‘Our hireling is an outland savage, unaccustomed to speaking to persons of quality.’
He placed a stool before the table. Their visitor sat herself primly upon it before lowering her cowl. The chamberlain hobbled up to stand protectively behind her, took her cloak and held it over his arm.
‘Please, sit,’ she urged them in a drawl, smoothing down her cerise silken gown.
Lady Madura was a rare beauty. Coal black hair framed a broad brow whose fine eyebrows arched over long lashes, a long firm nose and high cheekbones. She gazed levelly at each of them, her turquoise eyes distant, cold, rosebud lips slightly parted as if perpetually on the verge of derisive laughter.
Paying no heed to the uncouth throng, she added, ‘I would not want you to stand on ceremony in such a place as this.’
‘Milady is gracious,’ whined Zatoth, settling to one side of Kell while Arash sat on the other. ‘I know that you do not wish to draw attention to yourself. Yet it is beyond me why you would want to join us in such a low class establishment. Surely we could have met at the tower.’ He indicated the goblet of wine they had bought for her, the most expensive the barkeep had for sale, which now sat unregarded on the stained table.
Arash scowled at him severely round the bronzed forearm of Kell as their hireling lifted his mutton bone for another bite. ‘Where her ladyship chooses to meet us is her own affair,’ he murmured, turning to leer ingratiatingly at the young aristocratic woman. ‘But what is it that you wish to tell us that could not be revealed at the tower?’
‘I shall not visit my uncle’s tower,’ said Lady Madura serenely, ‘until his corpse is found and interred according to tradition. Until then the catacombs remain forbidden to all but my hirelings. You will be paid well for your work, because every day you spend down there you will be risking your very lives.’
Incredibly, Kell laughed—as if her ladyship had recounted a vulgar jest.
2
‘What’s so funny?’ whined Zatoth. Kell bit off another chunk of mutton and ignored him as he chewed it.
‘And what’s this about risking our lives?’ Arash demanded. ‘We only agreed to clear these catacombs under your tower.’
‘It remains to be seen whether it will become my tower,’ Lady Madura said. ‘If it does, I may very well have the whole cursed edifice pulled down.’ She paused. ‘Surely you know that my uncle was more than a simple aristocrat of Nancarrow?’
Zatoth and Arash gawked at each other. The lives of the rich and powerful were seldom discussed by men of their social rank; it was unhealthy. ‘More than an aristocrat?’ echoed Arash. ‘What do you mean?’
Lady Madura scowled. Even angry she was still beautiful, Arash told himself, but he’d prefer a placid wench with a face like a cow’s arse to this genteel harpy.
She lowered her voice. ‘Duke Castenir’s studies were far ranging. Due to his fascination with the world of eld he built his tower on the site of the entrance to a labyrinth of pre-human catacombs. He is said to have explored them fully, and found all manner of secrets down there. In his youth he was a student of a certain circle of adepts whose researches led to contact with the netherworlds of Chaos, and he pursued the practical application of such studies for the rest of his life. Do you follow me?’
Dumbly, the two brothers shook their heads. Kell dropped the well gnawed bone onto his platter and wiped his greasy hands on his tunic.
‘Him a wizard,’ he grunted.
Lady Madura looked stricken. ‘Please, eschew such crude language,’ she said. ‘My uncle had some claim to be a magus of some standing, that is all. Offensive words such as “wizard” and “warlock” and “he-witch” are very low class, and betray a lamentable ignorance. Let it suffice that my uncle’s knowledge of the nether realms was drawn upon by the High Lord of Nancarrow in situations when there was no other recourse. Such as a fleet of savage pirates bearing down on the city, ready to sack, loot and burn.’
Arash scratched his head. ‘You mean the last pirate war?’ he said. Nancarrow’s history, and indeed its present, was plagued by incessant wars between the maritime city-states and the pirates of the isles for control of the Shaarnan Sea. In the recent conflict, the pirate king had amassed a great armada to plunder Nancarrow and slay all the inhabitants, but at the last moment the pirates had been miraculously defeated.
She nodded. ‘My uncle lent his assistance. Quite what he did I do not know, nor would I wish to learn. But let us speculate that he had some intercourse with the world of spirits, that “nighted Chaos wherein dwell demons”…’
‘Demons sank the pirate fleet?’ Arash breathed. ‘Sent the pirate king and all his men to the bottom?’
‘In effect, yes,’ said Lady Madura with a quick nod. ‘It seems that, although my uncle’s efforts were an undoubted success, he himself was struck down, or perhaps carried off bodily to the infernal realms. I hope that the former is the case; without physical evidence of his decease it will be difficult to claim title to his inheritance. Nevertheless, you must understand that it was in the catacombs that he is said to have carried out his… dark rituals. And for all we know, the demonic entities that he summoned may still linger there.’
Arash jumped to his feet. ‘It has been plenty interesting meeting you, my ladyship,’ he said, ‘but I’ve just remembered an important engagement on the other side of town…’
The chamberlain blocked his way. ‘Lady Madura is paying you handsomely,’ he said. ‘You have already signed the contract and sworn oaths of loyalty. You cannot back out now, or milady will take recourse to legal action.’
Kell reached up a massive paw and pulled Arash back down. ‘Sit,’ he muttered.
‘No mention was made of demons,’ whined Zatoth.
Lady Madura spread wide her slender, immaculately manicured hands. ‘It is highly unlikely that you will encounter any. However, I urge you to remain on your guard.’
With a rustle of silk she rose. As the chamberlain helped her don her cowled cloak, she added, ‘You will begin at dawn tomorrow. My servant will let you into the tower and you must begin emptying the catacombs at once.’
‘Will we not see milady?’ said Zatoth.
Lady Madura lowered her cowl. ‘You will not see me,’ she said, her smooth voice muffled, ‘until the job is done.’
The chamberlain dropped a bag of coins on the table. ‘A down payment,’ he said as he turned on his heel to lead Lady Madura from the booth. ‘To cover your living costs. You’ll receive the rest when the catacombs are cleared.’
Arash sat looking after the lady and her servant as they departed. Zatoth reached eagerly for the coin bag and Arash’s hand flashed out to grip his wrist.
‘Let me count the coins, brother,’ he insisted. ‘Before you squander it all on ale, we must make sure we have enough to last us until the end of the job.’
Kell seized the bag before Arash could move. He tossed it in his hand and grinned at the jingling it made. ‘Much gold,’ he commented.
Fastidiously Arash plucked it from the big outlander’s grasp. He untied the drawstring and poured a stream of copper coins into his hand. Then he handed one to Zatoth. ‘Take this to the barkeep and buy us a room for the night,’ he said.
#
The tower of Duke Castenir stood three storeys higher than any other building in this part of town. A tapering cylindrical structure of ebon stone, it rose to a spire carved with a bas relief showing scenes from Nancarrow’s illustrious history. Surrounding the tower were several single storey sheds and outbuildings arranged to form a square or courtyard, entered by a wide gateway. The chamberlain waited beside a tethered pony as they wheeled their handcarts up the winding lane in the dismal grey of pre-dawn, a few lurid streaks in the east the only harbinger of daylight.
Wordlessly, he escorted them across the courtyard and up the flight of steps that led to the single massive doorway. He produced a key and unlocked seven different locks to open the door, which creaked with disuse, then led them into a gloomy chamber. A flight of steps marched up the side of the interior wall towards a higher level, which the chamberlain said was forbidden territory. Drapes hung over various items of furniture scattered about the stone flagged floor. Beneath the flight of steps was a smaller door that Arash knew opened onto the steps into the catacombs.
‘You know where you are going,’ the chamberlain said. Arash and Zatoth were affecting a show of attention, but Kell was gazing round the chamber. ‘You know your work better than I. There are storerooms out in the courtyard for anything you find of value. Anything else can be burnt in the yard.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Arash dutifully. ‘We’ll make a start straightaway. We’ll need the keys to the main door and for the door to the catacombs.’
The chamberlain handed them over and departed hastily. As the clip clop of his pony hoofs rang out from the courtyard, Arash crossed to the door beneath the stairway and slid the key into the keyhole. It turned easily, and the door opened to reveal a long stairway leading down into blackness.
Zatoth took an oil lantern from a nearby shelf and lit the wick using his tinderbox. He held it high as he approached the door, and the shadows danced and flickered on the walls. Kell stood gazing down the stairway.
‘Wizard down here?’ he asked.
In the yellow glow Arash could see the foot of the steps, and just made out the edge of the piles of junk. Distant echoes gave an impression of the massive scale of this labyrinth. The carved walls oozed wetly, and a smell of rot was pungent. It was as if they had opened a tomb.
‘That’s something we’re being paid to find out,’ he said, and pushed the big man from behind. ‘You can go first.’
3
Unspeaking, Kell took the lantern from Zatoth’s hand and held it high as he strode down the steps. The two brothers followed behind him, pushing at each other and arguing in muted whispers.
At the foot of the steps they halted. The lantern light shed its yellow glow on the piles of detritus that lined the walls of the dark, dank passageway. Some of them were so high they towered over their heads, even Kell’s. Cobwebs and mould covered everything, and the stink of rot was rank in the air. The walls themselves were barely visible behind the heaps of junk, but they seemed to be intricately carved with scenes of battling warriors and fabulous beasts in a baffling, alien style.
After five turns of the glass they had made barely an impression, although they were all weary. A few of the piles closest to the steps had been removed. One of the outbuildings on the surface was now piled with junk with some resale value, and on a smoking pyre in the courtyard were the ashes of the undoubted garbage. Certain small but indisputably valuable items had found their way into Arash and Zatoth’s pockets. But as they stood at the bottom of the steps leaning on their handcarts, they saw, in the light of the lantern Kell held, nothing but more and more rows of junk.
Kell lumbered off down the passage. Arash dropped his handcart and sprinted after him, clutching at the tail of his tunic. The outlander halted, glaring down at him.
‘Where are you going?’ Arash demanded. ‘We’ve got the rest of this garbage,’—he eloquently indicated the other heaps of indeterminate junk that cluttered the passageway—‘to shift!’
‘Me explore,’ said Kell loftily. He lifted the lantern higher, and shadows went skipping drunkenly down the passage. It opened out into a high vaulted stone room, hung with cobwebs and strewn with dust, in the middle of which sat a low altar.
‘We’re not here to explore,’ he said, looking around nevertheless. ‘We’ve got a job to do.’
Shelves lined one wall, and they were crammed with crucibles and retorts and alembics and less identifiable vessels. Junk littered the floor, and in the dim light Arash thought he saw piles of yellowing bones. Archways led off to left and right. A line of footsteps, furred over with dust, led to the left arch.
Zatoth joined them. ‘Perhaps Kell has a point,’ he said. ‘We don’t know how big this place is. We should have a look round and see what’s what. We might even find Duke Castenir’s body.’ He leaned closer. ‘And maybe plenty else.’
‘Your problem is that you’re lazy,’ said Arash. ‘You’ve had to do honest labour for a turn of the glass, and now you’re making excuses.’
Zatoth shivered with cold. ‘I don’t want to stay down here any longer than I have to,’ he admitted. ‘But your own problem is you’re a coward. You want to skulk round here, shifting and lifting all this trash, rather than go deeper in, find that body like Lady Madura wants.’
‘And maybe we’ll find the evil spirits Duke Castenir summoned,’ said Arash. He had heard as a youngling that if a sorcerer was killed before he could banish the demons he had summoned they would remain in the mortal realm, wreaking havoc until another magician banished them.
Impatiently Kell marched for the left-hand archway. The two brothers found themselves standing in darkness. A rapidly waning pool of light surrounded the big outlander as he strode away.
‘We ought to have kept a hold of that lantern,’ Zatoth said softly.
‘Never mind that!’ said Arash. Kell was through the arch and the light was diminishing. ‘Come on!’
Tripping and stumbling over unseen objects on the rocky floor they hurried through the gloom. Arash fell flat, but Zatoth trotted on heedlessly. Arash, head ringing from the fall, lifted himself up on his hands and knees to see that Kell was gone and he was in utter blackness.
Limping along, Arash called softly, ‘Zatoth? Are you there? You there, brother?’
He collided with a wall. Hands outstretched, he staggered away. Groping along, he came to what seemed to be an open archway.
‘Zatoth?’ he murmured. ‘Zatoth? Kell! Are you there? This isn’t funny. Outlander! We’re not paying you to play the goat! We’ve got work to do here!’
He started running through the blackness. The cold was intense. His heart hammered in his chest.
Again he collided with a wall, and went staggering forward, light exploding in his mind. Except… it was real. He sank to his knees in the entrance to a large, vaulted chamber, washed by yellow lamplight.
Directly ahead he saw a crouching figure, pointing upwards in terror. So greatly did fear deform his features it took some time before Arash recognised his brother. The walls of the chamber were stacked with a variety of oddments: rusting metal instruments, tools, weapons, books, sacks and chests.
Standing on the steps of a stone dais on the far side of the chamber was the hulking figure of Kell, holding the lantern above his head. Against the rear wall stood a stone seat with a high back of carved ebony. Sitting upon it, skin a pale, unhealthy yellow, eyes rolling in their sockets, mouth gaping open although not a breath stirred his ragged white moustache, was a withered old man, clad in ceremonial linen vestments of purple hue and brocaded with cabalistic symbols. In one emaciated hand he clutched a ceremonial staff tipped by a dark crystal orb.
On Kell’s face was a grim expression. ‘Wizard dead.’
Arash kicked Zatoth until his brother clambered shuddering to his feet. ‘That’s Duke Castenir?’
‘M-m-must be,’ Zatoth said. ‘When Kell lifted the lantern to examine him I, I thought I saw him move…’
Arash picked his way across the garbage strewn room and mounted the dais. He examined the withered husk, felt its wrist for a pulse, put his head to the bony chest to listen for a heartbeat.
‘Any fool can see he’s dead,’ he said. ‘Been dead a while, but the corpse is plenty well preserved. Something to do with the cold down here, I guess.’
Zatoth whirled round at a sound. ‘Footsteps!’
He was right. Someone was coming. Someone—or something? ‘Demons!’ Arash said softly.
Kell jumped down from the dais and snatched up a rusty sword from the heap of garbage. ‘Me fight!’ he growled, and strode from the chamber, taking the lantern with him.
The gloom smothered Arash like a shroud. In the fading glow from the lantern he thought he saw the thing on the stone seat move. He leapt down and ran across the chamber, grabbing the whimpering Zatoth as he did so.
Kell was visible in the darkness ahead, the lantern in one hand, the sword in the other. The pounding of his marching feet almost drowned out the distant footsteps.
‘He must be mad!’ Zatoth wailed. ‘Or else a demon himself!’
Who was this big, savage outlander? Why had he come to Nancarrow? Was he some kind of apparition? Conjured up from the sea, perhaps, by the late Duke Castenir?
‘He’s got the only source of light,’ Arash said. ‘We’d better keep up or we could be wandering these tunnels until we starve to death.’
The lantern light vanished as Kell turned a corner. There was a sudden cry, then silence.
Zatoth halted in his tracks. ‘The… the demon!’ he whispered. ‘It’s got him!’
‘That wasn’t Kell’s voice,’ said Arash.
He dragged his brother round the corner and they stumbled blinking out into the altar room. Kell stood leaning on his sword, grim-faced. Standing in front of him, holding another lantern and looking affronted, was the chamberlain.
‘There you are!’ he said as the two brothers appeared. ‘Your hireling attempted to assault me with this antiquated weapon.’
‘Him no demon,’ Kell muttered.
‘A mistake,’ Arash said, laughing nervously. ‘The poor outland fool thought you were an evil spirit. What brings you down here?’
The chamberlain drew himself up. ‘I came to see what progress you were making,’ he said. ‘You have had plenty of time, yet you seem to have achieved little.’
‘We’ve made a start,’ said Arash defensively. ‘But we thought we would explore the catacombs. And it’s a good thing we did. We’ve found Duke Castenir’s corpse.’
The chamberlain stiffened. ‘Make haste, fellow; show me!’
Snatching the lantern from the sullen Kell, Arash led them back along the passage. Moments later, they were ushering the chamberlain through the archway.
‘He’s in here,’ Arash began, then broke off.
The corpse was gone.
4
The chamberlain made a cluck of disapproval. ‘Milady will hear of this.’
‘Where is it?’ Arash was still gazing at the empty stone seat. ‘The corpse was sitting just there. Someone must have… taken it.’ He glanced at the chamberlain. ‘Hear of what?’
The chamberlain drew himself up haughtily, and waved a beringed hand. ‘Why, all of this. Your idling on the job. Your lies about finding the Duke’s corpse. And who knows what else…’
Zatoth squared up to him. ‘Look, friend,’ he said belligerently, staring into the chamberlain’s eyes. ‘Everything happened like we said. The Duke’s corpse was sitting there.’
Kell took the lantern again and went to inspect the stone seat. He began probing at the wall, for all the world as if he expected to find some kind of secret passage.
‘Then where is it now?’ the chamberlain asked with a humourless laugh. ‘No answer. Naturally; I can only assume you invented this discovery in a feeble attempt to draw attention away from your negligence and idleness. I will advise milady to think twice about paying the rest of your fee.’
Arash was furious. ‘You can’t do this!’ he cried. ‘We’ve been working all day! By all the gods…’
The chamberlain turned away. ‘It is no longer up for discussion,’ he said. ‘I am returning to milady’s villa now, and when I return on the morrow I shall anticipate signs of greater diligence, or milady may well be seeking to hire other men.’
He hobbled through the archway and his footsteps echoed as he made his way down the passage. There was a crash as Kell leapt down from the dais. He began questing about on the cluttered floor. Arash watched in irritation.
‘How in Chaos can that corpse have vanished?’ he said.
‘Evil spirits!’ Zatoth stammered. ‘T-took him bodily into the nether realms!’
A voice rang out from deeper into the labyrinth. ‘Sir! Is it indeed you? Milady thought you d-…! No, sir, no!’ The chamberlain’s cry broke off abruptly, replaced by a lingering death rattle.
Kell brandished the naked blade. ‘Come!’ He strode through the arch, taking the lantern with him.
The chamber was plunged into darkness. Zatoth sobbed in terror. Arash gripped his forearm in the dark. ‘We’ll have to go after him!’
He couldn’t see Zatoth but somehow he knew his brother had turned to face him, staring in horror at him in the darkness. ‘But there’s something out there. It’s killed the chamberlain!’
‘Kell has gone to confront it, whatever it is,’ Arash said. ‘And he’s taken the lantern. So we have no hope of getting out of here unless we follow him.’
They found Kell in the first stone room, sword in hand. Beside the altar stood a withered, robed figure holding his staff in one hand, now tipped by a glowing orb. On the ground lay the chamberlain, his head lolling at an awkward angle.
‘Stay back, all of you!’ cried Duke Castenir, clutching his staff. ‘I may be weak of body after my sojourn in Chaos, but the spirits of darkness will come to my bidding!’
Arash and Zatoth halted on either side of Kell. ‘Why did you kill the chamberlain?’ Arash asked. ‘And how can you be walking? You were dead. You had no pulse, you weren’t breathing…’
‘My spirit was elsewhere,’ Duke Castenir laughed, ‘fighting to return to this physical shell after its adventures on the astral plane. He wanted me dead,’ he added, nodding at the corpse. ‘My hireling for two score years, and he wanted me dead. Oh yes, I can read minds, just as I can walk unseen, or journey from one spot to another in the winking of an eye—with the aid of my spirit allies. My charming niece told him to ensure that I was dead, and to work my demise if I still lived. I can read your minds too; Arash and Zatoth, who use your clearance business as a front for petty theft… Only your brutish companion’s thoughts remain a closed book—no doubt this primitive has no mind!’
‘Me have a mind,’ said Kell. ‘Me have a mind—to kill!’
He lunged forwards with his sword. At once Duke Castenir brandished his staff and a wind blew up from nowhere, a howling gale that flung Kell and the two brothers backwards against the stone wall.
To Arash’s horror, he glimpsed leering faces in the vortex of winds that buffeted them. ‘What are they, by all the gods?’ he cried.
‘No gods but demons!’ Kell grunted. ‘Must kill wizard! Him sink my ships!’
He forged onwards into the gale. Duke Castenir’s withered body throbbed with immanent power; he gripped his staff in his left hand, lifted his right hand in a strange sign, calling on the forces of chaos. Tentacles and tendrils of howling air began to manifest, drawing on physical form. Frenziedly Kell swung his sword, and his blade hacked through grasping tendrils like a sickle through wheat. Colourless ichor sprayed through the air, scintillating like powdered diamond. Each time he sliced off a tentacle, it vanished as if it had never been but another two took its place.
Duke Castenir made another arcane sign. Looping out of the air, viscous, gelatinous tendrils of ectoplasm seized the three men despite their struggles. The sorcerer drew closer, peering at Kell.
‘It is good that you reveal yourself,’ he cried over the hysterical shriek of the spectral gale. ‘I had thought all your kind destroyed by my demons when I sent your armada to the bottom.’
‘Me survive,’ Kell growled. ‘Cling to wreckage. Come ashore in this land. Come looking—for you.’ He bared his teeth. ‘Will kill you!’
Duke Castenir gave a wheezing chuckle. ‘Many have tried. Even the spirits I bind to my will rebel. Those who wrought Nancarrow’s victory over the pirates sought my soul to devour, not content with my blood sacrifices. We fought on the astral plane, but I was too strong for them. I kept them at bay…’
With a single deft movement, Kell flung his sword, not at the Duke but at the staff he clutched in his left hand. The glowing orb hit the ground and shattered into a thousand fragments of light. The tendrils of ectoplasm loosened their hold on the three men, and seized upon the Duke. Even as the glowing tentacles dismembered him, a voice on the edge of hearing shrieked out, ‘No! no! not my soul! Anything but that…’
The ground began to shake. Stones and grit fell from the roof.
‘Run!’ cried Zatoth, and the other two followed him as he fled up the passageway.
#
Dawn found them sitting beside the wreck of Duke Castenir’s tower, the chamberlain’s pony neighing nearby as it munched hungrily at a patch of grass. They had narrowly missed being trapped inside as it fell, effectively blocking the entrance to that enigmatic labyrinth of Elder catacombs. It had been midnight when they had escaped, a cold night of glittering stars, and they had been exhausted, but they had found the terrified beast tethered to a wall ring in the courtyard. Celyn had freed it.
‘Too afraid, I suppose,’ said Arash in a murmur.
‘But the demons are gone, aren’t they?’ whined Zatoth. ‘To Chaos with the duke’s soul?’
‘All gone,’ agreed Kell in satisfaction, using a stone to hone the blade of his stolen sword.
‘Who are you, Kell?’ asked Zatoth. ‘Why couldn’t the Duke read your mind?’
‘Me not Kell, me Celyn of Anörea,’ the big outlander grunted. ‘Me the pirate king!’ He tore off his headband and showed the two brothers the black gem it contained. It was of the same nameless material as the black crystal in the wizard’s staff. ‘Me steal this trinket from Archipelagan shaman. No man can read my mind now.’
‘A talisman!’ Zatoth said softly.
The gewgaw was a sorcerous amulet, he guessed, which somehow shielded this Celyn from the wizard’s magical powers. ‘Looks like our job is done,’ Arash said with a sigh. ‘When Lady Madura hears about this, she won’t be happy. She won’t pay us now the catacombs and the tower itself are destroyed, and all the treasures are buried.’
‘She want wizard dead,’ the outlander said, slapping the little man on the back. ‘Maybe she pay you well.’
‘She did say she was intending to pull down the tower,’ Arash mused. ‘But listen, she’ll pay all three of us! Without you we’d have been carried off into the nether realms, Celyn, if that’s your real name.’
Celyn rose. ‘Don’t tell them pirate king was here.’ He mounted the pony.
‘Where will you go?’ Arash asked, but the outlander gave no answer.
He began riding down the lane, carrying the sword over his shoulder. Arash watched, Zatoth at his side, as the dawn light grew, and men began to venture forth from their houses and gaze in wonder and dismay at the ruins. Someone summoned the Sentinels.
But by the time they arrived, the mysterious pirate king was long gone.
©April 2021, Lorenzo D. Lopez
Lorenzo D. Lopez is the author of two fantasy novellas available on Amazon.com. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery.