The hag or ogre wife or whatever she was stepped into the room, still looking like a sweet grandmother with her knitting bag and little spectacles. Then she saw the dead spider lying on the hearthrug.
She screamed in horror, rushing over. “You fiendish little pig! What have you done?” She picked up the corpse. “My baby! My poor precious one! Speak to me!”
Her knitting bag fell to the floor, Norret’s glove on top. While I was frozen with fear, my spirit wasn’t. It grabbed the glove and pulled it on.
The unicorn’s jewel shone on the back, glowing with ruby light.
But I wasn’t the only one using more hands than he rightfully should. “Oh no, none of that,” snapped Madame Eglantine. Just like she sometimes seemed to have more eyes, she now definitely had more arms. While two were cradling the dead spider, two more appeared and wove a magic pattern in the air. Then I was looking at not one Madame Eglantine but five, each as monstrous as the last.
I swung the poker at the nearest one and she shattered like a soap bubble. The rest laughed mockingly like a chorus of schoolgirls. My spirit swung at another. The glove’s jewel blazed with light as that illusion vanished as well.
“What are you, you horrid brat?” snarled the three remaining Eglantines. “A sorcerer? An oracle? Some halfling wizard masquerading as a child?”
I swung again, but missed. “I’m the one who’s going to stop you, you cannibal witch!”
A ghostly wind began to blow. The cobwebs fluttered and another bell jar toppled from the mantel, its head bowling across the floor.
“Oh, I’m not the cannibal,” laughed Madame Eglantine. “I have never eaten my own kind. All my husbands were human, and while I ate every last one after he violated my private sanctum, the only true cannibal here is you...”
As she said this, she became fatter and squatter, her body becoming more hunched and spidery, until all that was left was a garden spider the size of a woman, a cross-shaped marking on her back big enough to protect a wedding cake from a whole troop of dancing pixies. It was the mother of the horrible little spider I’d killed, mirrored three times, moving around one another like walnut shells shuffled by a charlatan hiding a pea.
I screamed and ran at them, hitting one with the poker while my spirit swung at another. The illusion before me popped on contact with the iron bar, but my spirit felt the glove slap the spider’s flesh, burning it, antitoxin meeting toxin.
Madame Eglantine hissed and reared. Then the sound of ladylike laughter issued from her horrible spidery maw and webbing shot from her abdomen, a great net like you’d throw to snare songbirds for a pie, thick and sticky as bird lime.
It covered me and I was stuck fast, both me and the fireplace poker, her web pulling taut against the walls as it dried. But my spirit’s hand was still free and I slapped at her again with the glove.
The last illusion vanished with a flare of ruby light. Then the spider shifted back to the form of the spider-armed woman. She reached into her bag and drew forth one of her knitting needles, ebony capped with silver. She waved it about like a wand, weaving magical patterns in the air and clicking her tongue like a Mwangi witch out of a story. A gray ray shot from the tip, hitting the glove.
The light of the unicorn’s jewel died, the spider woman smothering its good Galtan magic with her evil foreign spell. I felt my soul’s hand slapped back as the glove fell to the floor.
She picked the glove up with the tip of her knitting needle as if it were a dead rat. “Just what are you?” She flipped the glove into her knitting bag, stuffing it down to the bottom with the wand. “I’m curious to find out...”
She shifted back to the form of the giant spider. Then she crawled over me, her huge bloated mass avoiding the sticky strands the web. She leaned close, her horrible fangs dripping venom, and bit me.
I felt pain, and then nothing, the poison numbing, putting my limbs to sleep and freezing them, like when you wake from a nightmare but still can’t move.
But the nightmare was not over. The spider woman tenderly, carefully, bit through the strands holding me on the left and the right. She freed the fireplace poker and threw it to the floor. Then she put her claws on me and began to spin me, like a woman twirls a drop spindle. Webbing flew from her abdomen, smooth and soft as silk, wrapping around me, cocooning me as she had Norret.
At last she stopped spinning me. I was terribly dizzy, but my eyes focused as she turned back into a woman. But not all the way. She still had eight eyes and six arms. Then the most horrible thing—her bottommost pair of arms reached into her bag, pulled out a half-finished stocking, and began to knit as if nothing were odd at all.
“Now what are we going to do with you, Orlin?” she mused. “You’re a bit young for husband material, though your brother’s comely enough, if a trifle thin.” She poked Norret’s middle with one long-fingered hand. “Yes, too thin for my tastes. But I’ll plump him up once I have the right charms brewed...”
She picked up the two heads tumbled on the floor, placing them back on the mantel. Norret moaned. Madame Eglantine paid no mind. She looked into her bag and selected a different knitting needle. She mumbled a charm and waved it over a pile of broken glass. Half the pieces flew up and reformed into a bell jar. She repeated the charm and the other was restored as well.
Norret opened his eyes halfway and saw me. “Orlin...” he whispered. “Her bag... bottle... spiderbane...”
He was delirious, but my body was paralyzed by poison, and my spirit as well. A fine time for it to be properly tethered to my body.
But I was not the only spirit about. While I couldn’t feel my jaw, I could sense it opening. “Rhodel...” I croaked.
"Galt’s people don’t take kindly to monsters in their midst."
Madame Eglantine fussed with her dead husbands’ hair and so didn’t see the knitting bag behind her tip on its side. One by one the balls of yarn rolled out, as if an invisible kitten were investigating them. She replaced one of the jars as Norret’s glove appeared, the unicorn’s jewel still dead from the spell. Then as the second jar was being replaced, a crystal flask rolled free. Pretty and faceted, it was a treasure that once belonged to the duchess of Dabril. It was filled with a golden liquid.
“There, much better.” Madame Eglantine looked at her husbands’ heads, now back in their places. Then she looked mournfully at the dead spider. “Poor little dear. I’ll have to put her in the garden and plant a fruit tree. Maybe a sour cherry.” She turned. “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
Then she saw the bottle floating up.
She dropped both the dead spider and the half-finished sock as she sprang forward, grabbing the flask with all her hands before Rhodel could work the stopper free.
“Oh, tricky,” she said admiringly. “Very tricky. But not tricky enough. Your brother said this held my doom, but he talks too much. I got the jump on him, and the same with you, Orlin. But I do wonder what it is. A poison for spiders, perhaps? Maybe some grand mithridate like the glove, or an antivenin to sour my venom in its sacks? I suppose I—”
A girl appeared next to her, a beautiful young woman dressed in the livery of a page of House Devore.
“Who are you?” asked Madame Eglantine, shocked.
“Death,” replied Rhodel. She ripped the bottle from the spider woman’s hands with the strength only the dead could possess and pulled the stopper free. “Never trouble a child of Dabril!” She threw the contents into the witch’s face.
Rhodel disappeared, the empty bottle and stopper clattering to the floor as Madame Eglantine screamed, clawing her eight eyes with all six hands. Then she stopped screaming as the room became filled with the overwhelming scent of honeysuckle.
“Perfume?” Madame Eglantine gasped. “Perfume? That’s all you have?” She exploded into gales of laughter. “Oh, that’s rich! That’s the cream of the jest! Two riddles solved for the price of one! You, my child, are nothing more than a baby bone oracle! And your brother? Not even an alchemist! A mere puffer who thought to bluff me with a bottle of perfume!”
With that, the windows began to spring open, one by one, the cobwebs ripping free as Rhodel let in the fresh air of the garden outside.
The fresh air—and the wasps and bees from the garlands of eglantine that hung about the house.
Madame Eglantine screamed as the insects swarmed her, stinging her as she shifted into her monstrous spider form. She sprayed webbing as quickly as a magician conjures scarves, but still more came, drawn by the pure scent of honeysuckle absolute.
Then came a droning buzz loud enough to be a roar. Bumblebees the size of lapdogs and wasps the size of small ponies came through the windows, the pets of Calistria, goddess of trickery and vengeance.
The spider woman played her own tricks, multiplying her form with one illusion, turning herself invisible with another. But the swarm was too great for the decoys to last, and the scent of Norret’s perfume unerringly guided the wasps to their prey. Madame Eglantine was stung again and again, until at last she was as paralyzed as Norret and I, trapped as a bloated spider with a woman’s head.
It was then that the wasps did as they always do when they win a battle: They returned to their nest with their prey, as well as the bodies of their fallen comrades—for to a wasp, meat is meat—and any other meat they can find.
The corpse on the table was carried off. The heads of Madame Eglantine’s husbands as well. Even the slab of half-smoked man-bacon from the hook at the back of the hob.
Lastly, the wasps looked at Norret and myself, still paralyzed and caught in the spider’s webs. They bit us free, picked us up in their claws, and carried us back to the nest as well.
Meat is meat, after all.
∗∗∗
Fortunately for us, their nest was the temple of Calistria, and Mistress Philomela knew us.
We were cut free from the webs with Calistrian daggers, had the poison neutralized with one spell and our wounds healed with another.
There was no balm for the horrors I’d seen save holding my brother’s hand. I knew he must have seen worse during the wars, and I understood why he had to bring me back.
Family is worth more than any gold, even if you come back wrong.
“Gingerbread?” offered Mistress Philomela. We were back on her balcony, sitting beside each other on the yellow divan. She held out a plate. On it were three gilded figures: a wasp, a dagger, and a beautiful elven woman.
I took the dagger. I didn’t want to have anything to do with cannibalism, even in the form of gingerbread.
Norret must have felt the same, since he took the wasp.
Mistress Philomela took the one in the shape of her goddess and delicately nibbled her ear. “The only thing sweeter than the cakes of Calistria is the taste of revenge.”
A great cry of exultation came up from the crowd. Rather than a load of fresh prisoners being delivered by tumbrel cart, there was only one late arrival, but arriving in style: a gilded, magical chariot borne by giant wasps hove into view, driven by one of the priests of Calistria, dressed in a golden loincloth that left little to the imagination, especially when it flapped aside. But hanging from the back of the chariot was what truly captured the interest of the crowd: a horrible monster, half woman, half spider, paralyzed by wasp venom, a look of terror on her eight-eyed face because she knew what her fate would be.
The priest did three laps of the street, to greater cries of bloodlust each time, until at last the Gray Gardener on the guillotine’s platform signaled for him to land. He did.
There was then the usual dry speech about the values of Liberty and the enemies of the people, as well as the thanks of the people for those who’d apprehended the enemies of the Revolution, especially fiends and monsters. It was then that I realized I was supposed to stand.
Norret squeezed my hand and I stood next to him. Mistress Philomela stepped aside and applauded us and the rest of the crowd below followed suit. I also realized I was still holding the barely nibbled gingerbread dagger. I raised it over my head. “Victory!” I cried.
“Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!” responded the crowd.
“Vengeance,” added Mistress Philomela with an amused smile.
The execution of Madame Eglantine was very much like any other. Madame Margaery’s blade was hoisted up. Madame Margaery’s blade came down. A woman’s head bounced into the basket. A giant spider’s body lay on the stage. The crowd cheered, all except a group of women in the front row who for once stopped their knitting, looking at the head in the basket, then at each other with expressions of mute horror. The Gray Gardener standing on the stage looked down at them with his gray mask.
You know he was thinking exactly what they were thinking.
There would be questions for Madame Eglantine’s head. Questions for the heads of her husbands. Questions for myself and Norret.
I already knew my answers. We had rehearsed them before.
We were two brothers from Dabril. My brother was a veteran who had returned from the war. My father and brother had died, so my mother remarried, and my brother had taken me with him to be his apprentice when he returned to the capital. Any peculiarities about me were likely just a bit of sorcery unlocked when I was ill. Nothing more.
Norret squeezed my hand. I looked at him. He smiled and bit off the wings of his gingerbread wasp. I smiled back.
Mistress Philomela was wrong. Revenge was sweet, but the sweetest thing was fraternity—having a brother there for you.
Coming Next Week: A sample chapter from Hugh Matthews’ upcoming Pathfinder Tales novel, Song of the Serpent, plus a fantastic new illustration from Eric Belisle!
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of numerous stories, poems, and novels, as well as a writer for Wild Cards, George R. R. Martin's shared-world anthology line. His previous Pathfinder Tales stories include "The Secret of the Rose and Glove" (also starring Norret) and "The Fifth River Freedom," the fourth chapter of Prodigal Sons in the Kingmaker Pathfinder's Journal. For more information, visit his website.
The innwife woke me at dawn. I’d spent the night beside the fire. Someone had picked my pocket during the night, so the gold Norret had given me was gone. All I had left was the little horn spoon.
The innwife made it clear that if I bought breakfast or even ale, I could stay, but if not, I should go. I left, stepping out into the cold morning.
Cries of “Gardyloo!” came from up and down the street. Maids and goodwives threw open windows, emptying chamber pots. Piss and night soil spattered the cobbles, running down to the grate that led to the sewers below. Horrible stories were told about those sewers, but nothing could be more awful than the stench. I wished I had one of the paper nosegays Norret and I had spent hours making, but had to make do with the woodsmoke on my clothes.
A moment later, I realized I was crying.
I bit my lip and forced the tears back. Life in Galt was harsh, and I had no illusions. Madame Eglantine was a witch, and she’d warned us not to pry into her business. What that business was, I could only guess. Summoning devils like the vile Chelaxians? Worshiping nightmares from beyond the stars? Smuggling nobles out of Galt?
Whatever it was, it was awful enough that my brother had decided to do something about it. But the witch had won.
How she had won was the question. My brother could be injured, dead, drugged, or even turned into a toad for the witch to feed flies and taunt.
Given Madame Eglantine’s ties with the Revolutionary Council, the cruelest possibility was that he would join the next cart of condemned to feed the guillotine.
The window of the uppermost gable of the house at the top of the street popped open and a familiar female voice cried out a warning. The night soil flew down and the window snapped shut, the little diamond panes frosted from the inside to ensure the old woman’s privacy.
She was unusually late. Normally Madame Eglantine would have done this before dawn, giving her time to go down to the kitchen and fix breakfast for the guests.
I steeled my courage and made my way back to the familiar house. I slipped in as one of the other boarders stepped out—the old wizard Norret had got the manuscript from, off to take his morning constitutional before returning for breakfast.
The rooms Norret and I had shared were bare as when we moved in. The only change was a pile of ashes in the grate. The air smelled strongly of irises and alchemist’s fire.
I made my way to the dining room. The other boarders greeted me kindly, inquiring as to when Norret would be by and how his research was going. I shrugged. The old wizard returned shortly, reeking of cherry tobacco and snuff.
A half-hour late, Madame Eglantine came in, bearing a tray heavy with pork pies and mirabelle plums. “My pardon, gentlemen. There will be no croissants this morning. I missed the baker’s boy when—”
“Where’s my brother?”
The old witch looked at me, shocked, but quickly regained her composure. “My dear child, you’re still here? I thought you left with him last night. Your brother gave notice and cleaned out all his things.”
“I waited at the tavern. He never came.”
A look passed among the guests, a sad one, and the old wizard turned to me and said, “Did he leave you no money?”
“A little. My pocket was picked.”
There were more sad looks and tut-tutting. The old wizard produced a few silver coins and pressed them into my hand. “You must take care of yourself now, Orlin.”
Madame agreed. “I’m not in the business of charity. You’re welcome to stay for breakfast, but you’re almost a grown man. Inquire at the workhouse, or perhaps with the army.”
“My brother would not abandon me.”
She looked very sad, but it was an actress’s look from a melodrama, a practiced expression of grief that had nothing to do with the cold glittering little black eyes behind the half-moon spectacles. “I’m sorry, but you are not the first child in Isarn to believe that, nor will you be the last.”
“People are only human,” the old wizard agreed sadly.
I did not mention that my brother had given up a fortune to bring me back to life. I only burst into tears and ran from that house, unable to think how to save Norret.
I had no way of knowing that he was not already dead. But if you’re from Galt, you know that the only truly final death comes from one of the Final Blades.
No one knows that better than myself. Even coming back wrong is better than not coming back at all.
My handkerchief fluttered out of my pocket, drying my tears without me touching it.
“Th-thank you, Rhodel,” I snuffled, retrieving it. I blew my nose and put it away.
I still had hope. The witch had gone with the lie that Norret had abandoned me, not that he’d pried into whatever awful thing went on in her attic. That meant that she’d have trouble having him arrested and sent off to meet Madame Margaery.
The Gray Gardeners always asked questions, sometimes even after people died.
I thought about what I knew of Madame Eglantine. The only way into her apartment was the door at the end of the upstairs hall, set with many locks and charms. Once I’d glimpsed a spiral stair beyond it, thick with cobwebs. I could only guess that there would be another door with far more dangerous locks at the top of the stair. All the windows locked from the inside. To get up to the gables would mean scaling three stories and a slate roof. The boarding house also had a climbing rose—an eglantine, like its owner. The vine was heavy with little white blossoms, thick with thorns, and infested with famished bees, the fat little garden spiders that preyed upon them, and the wasps that preyed upon them in turn.
Madame only left her attic to fix breakfast and supper, meet with tradesmen, and tend her beloved garden. The only time she left the house was to attend an execution, which was a general holiday. That was also the only time the cook fires were banked.
I saw a halfling walking down the street. He was wearing a short cap and a pair of heavy gloves, and had a wire brush over his shoulder. The only parts of him that weren’t covered with soot were the gilded buttons on his coat.
I stepped into his path. “Teach me your trade.”
The halfling looked up at me and laughed. “Not that I ain’t always lookin’ fer apprentices, but ye’re too tall, lad, and y’look like ye’re gonna get a dem site bigger before ye’re done.” He then turned more serious. “Parents tossed ye out? Tell y’wot. Y’can touch me buttons fer luck fer free and be on yer way with me best wishes. Sound right?”
“How about I buy you a glass of wine and you tell me about your trade?”
“Halfling size or human size?”
“Your choice.”
He grinned. “That’d be halfling size. It’s bigger.”
I ended up buying the whole bottle with a couple of the wizard’s silver pieces, but found I what I needed to know. Most of what I needed I already had—a cap and a pair of stout gloves. What I didn’t have, I didn’t need either. I had no interest in cleaning Madame Eglantine’s chimney, with or without a wire brush.
The halfling did an excellent impression of the mistress of the boarding house: “‘Yes, citizen, I am quite aware of the perils of chimney fires. Be that as it may, I have spells to clean my chimney, and I’m more limber than I appear. Indeed, I think you’d be quite surprised at how small a space I can fit into...’” He snorted. “Nasty old harridan. Lost a few snakesmen to her back in the day. Steer clear of that one if’n y’know what’s good.”
“Snakesmen?”
“Burglars,” the halfling confessed drunkenly. “Second-story men. Never seen hide nor hair of ’em ag’in. Bet she turned ’em inta mice an’ fed ’em to the cat.”
Feeding someone to a familiar was awful magic, but Madame Eglantine did not have a cat that I knew of. The only pets Madame appeared to have were garden spiders.
There were a great many of them in the garlands of eglantine that twined around the boarding house. I climbed the rose the next day, after watching Madame and half her boarders leave for the executions. I couldn’t believe my luck—the windows of Norret’s and my old rooms had been left open to air. They still smelled very strongly of iris.
I brushed the little spiders from my clothes, then went to the fireplace. It was still warm. The hearth fire had been banked in the kitchen. But not for long.
I took the wine bottle from the inn, reached up the flue, and dropped it down the chimney.
There was dim tinkle and the sound of a small explosion. Norret had taught me the formula for extinguisher grenades. It had taken the last of the wizard’s silver at the apothecary, but was worth it.
I waited for the fumes to clear, then stuck my head up the flue. It was dark, and soot drifted down over my face. I did as the chimneysweep had told me. I tied my scarf over my face and pulled my cap low over my eyes, then worked my way up slowly.
There were handholds in the brick, but the safest way up was bracing my back against the back of the chimney and my feet against the front. I wormed my way upward, higher and higher, until I found the next flue, the one that led to Madame Eglantine’s attic apartment.
I came down carefully, expecting that I might step directly into a cauldron, but her fireplace only had an iron hook at the back. It held a slab of Madame’s delicious bacon smoking over the hob. Another hook held a kettle for Madame’s tea. The fire was out save for a few banked coals, but the ashes smelled of applewood.
"Madame Eglantine is more than she appears."
I moved the fire screen aside and ducked out into the apartment, shaking the soot off onto the hearthrug. The apartment was the most cobwebbed place I’d ever seen. Madame might want her guests to tidy up after themselves, but had clearly never seen fit to clean her own rooms. What I had taken for frosted glass was a thick film of cobwebs on the inside of all the windows. It made the light far dimmer than day, but still brighter than it had been in the chimney.
There were cases of books and bric-a-brac, shelves containing the oddments and curios of a lifetime. Then I turned and saw the mantel. My heart stopped cold.
Where a scholar might keep the bust of a great philosopher, or an artist might place a single skull for still lifes, Madame Eglantine had done them one better. On the mantel was a row of bell jars like you’d use for growing vegetables or protecting mantel clocks. But under each jar was a severed head, preserved by magic or alchemy, fresh as they day they were chopped. Their eyes were wide and staring, their mouths half open. I expected them to start speaking any moment.
They did not, but as I stumbled away, I wished they had, for they could have warned me not to look at what I saw next.
Stretched out on a table was a corpse—without its head, without its hands, without a great many parts. At first I thought Madame Eglantine must be an anatomy student or necromancer, but then I saw the chart, like a doctor might use, but marked like a butcher’s with notes like brisket and good for paté. I realized that Madame Eglantine must be some horrible hag or ogre wife like in the stories. Suddenly the bacon hanging on the hob didn’t seem so appealing.
Then I saw Norret.
He was poisoned. I sensed it immediately. He was hanging in a great spiderweb strung in one corner. I rushed to him, but before I touched him, I stopped, remembering the terrible stickiness of such webs from the bard’s stories. I ran and got the fireplace poker and used it to rip the webs away.
He was still alive, but paralyzed and poisoned. And it was then that I sensed poison again. But this poison was moving.
It was a spider. A garden spider like the little ones in the roses outside, squat and brown and marked with a cross like a festival cake frosted to keep pixies from dancing on it. But this spider was the size of a crab.
It scuttled toward me. I smashed it with the fireplace poker, hitting it with the hook. It hissed like a pastry dropped into hot fat and scuttled away. I stepped back. Then the hearth broom levitated, swatting at it—Rhodel trying to help, but only swatting it on the backside.
It leapt at me.
I swung the poker, but it went wild. I lost my grip, the iron bar striking one of the bell jars.
It shattered. The head bowled across the floor, eyes blinking.
I caught the spider. It bit at me, drooling poison, but my gloves were stout. I shoved it against the mantel with one hand. With the other, I reached for my belt knife, hoping to stab it. My hand closed around something smaller than expected, and I realized that I had grabbed the little horn spoon instead.
It didn’t matter. The handle was ivory and pointed, and had come from a unicorn. I jammed it in, point first, again and again, stabbing it over and over until the horrible monster vomited blancmange. It died with a shudder.
I was crying again. I went and got the poker and used it to rip the webs away from Norret. Somewhere in his gear he had a jewel that had once belonged to Dabril’s duke, a magic ruby set in a glove that could neutralize poison. If I could just find it, I might heal him, and we could both escape this chamber of horrors.
“I believe,” said a voice behind me, “you are looking for this.”
I turned. Madame Eglantine stood framed in the doorway, taking Norret’s jeweled glove out of her knitting bag.
Coming Next Week: Further horrors in the final chapter of Kevin Andrew Murphy’s “The Perfumer’s Apprentice.”
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of numerous stories, poems, and novels, as well as a writer for Wild Cards, George R. R. Martin's shared-world anthology line. His previous Pathfinder Tales stories include "The Secret of the Rose and Glove" (also starring Norret) and "The Fifth River Freedom," the fourth chapter of Prodigal Sons in the Kingmaker Pathfinder's Journal. For more information, visit his website.
Norret had theories, but then my brother always had theories. It’s part of an alchemist’s job. He’d heard some story about assassins wanting to kill an ancient king, and rather than do something obvious like stab him, they got a girl and slowly fed her poison until she was immune but it oozed out her pores. The plan was that once the king made love to this girl, he’d die.
It seemed rather unlikely to me, since it hinged on the king actually wanting this one girl, but the assassins in bards' stories were never the ones who came up with practical plans. In any case, Norret wondered what happened to the “poison maiden” after that. It might also explain how Madame Eglantine’s husbands died.
He also mentioned something called an upas tree, a poisonous mulberry travelers said grew in Tian Xia. The perfume from its branches was supposedly so deadly that it would kill everything in fourteen miles. Were such a tree to have a dryad, that fey woman would undoubtedly be just as toxic.
This was a rather frightening thought, but as I remarked, if there were an upas tree growing somewhere in Isarn, someone would have noticed by now.
Norret’s third theory was that maybe Madame Eglantine was a toad witch like the legendary Crapaudine, mother of Coco the cockatrice, who everyone sang dirty songs about back in Dabril. If she’d used witchcraft to turn herself human, she still might detect as poison to my unicorn-horn senses.
I didn’t think Madame Eglantine had enough warts to be a toad. I also couldn’t picture a toad knitting. But being a witch and brewing so many poisons that some of them stuck to her? That seemed likely.
In any case, her food wasn’t poisoned and she was quite a good cook. It was hard to get food in Isarn, especially meat, but evidently proximity to the Revolutionary Council had its benefits. For our first supper there, there was a beautiful pork roast with gravy, fresh bread to sop it up, and baked apples. After months eating at second-rate inns or choking down my brother’s cooking, it was the sweetest meal I’d ever tasted.
My brother is a very good man and a good alchemist, but not a good cook. It’s a horrible thing to say about a Galtan, but it’s true. If you gave Norret a chicken, he’d be more likely to blow it up or bring it back to life than turn it into anything decent to eat.
The other boarders were mostly scholars, and while they were also appreciative of Madame’s cooking, they told us to get used to pork. There was occasionally goose for holidays, but meat mainly consisted of pork roasts, stews, dumplings, sausages, and even wonderful things like smoked ham and bacon and pork-liver paté, all accompanied by bread from the baker and fresh produce from the garden. The working theory was that Madame Eglantine had a longstanding affair with a high-ranking member of the hog butcher’s guild. There were also jokes about sympathetic magic and Madame using witchcraft to turn men into pigs, but the resident wizards all agreed there was no more magic in the meat than good Galtan cooking, and the only way anyone was going to turn into a pig was through gluttony.
Norret was a bit more worried because the elixir that brought me back from the dead was philosophic mercury, the same magic quicksilver that had gotten into his eye when he cracked the philosopher’s stone hidden in the duchess’s basement. “It’s an amalgam,” Norret explained. “The philosophic mercury mixes with natural magic and enhances it. I used eyebright to heal my eye, so the mercury fumes bonded with the residue. The unicorn’s horn is suffused with healing magic, so it brought you back to life and also let you detect poison. If the mercury were to alloy with other substances...”
I was horrified. “You mean if I eat enough pork I’m going to turn into a pig?”
Norret looked thoughtful. We were back in our chambers with the door locked, so he had his eye patch flipped up. The iris of his left eye was shimmering and silver like a mirror. “Probably not all at once,” he said at last. “You’d probably just grow orc tusks first. They’d actually be boar tusks, but everyone would think you were a half-orc, so it would still come to much the same thing.” I was even more horrified until he tousled my hair and I realized he was making fun of me. “Relax. I’ve got a present for you. I know you’ve been complaining about my cooking, and there was trouble getting food before, so I made this...”
He reached into his pocket and took out a silver nutmeg grater. He flipped the catch and inside it were little ivory nuts. They were part of the unicorn horn that had resurrected me. There was also a longer bit, the tip of a spiraled horn. Norret had shaved it down even further. As he took it out, I realized that he’d carved it into a horn spoon like you’d use to eat eggs.
“Watch.” Norret took one of his alchemist’s bowls and placed the spoon inside. All at once it began to leak white fluid. It rose up, higher and higher, thick and pasty until it threatened to overflow the sides, at which point Norret removed the spoon and pushed the bowl toward me. “Here, taste it.” He handed me the spoon.
I half expected it to crawl out of the bowl, some horrible animate pudding or jelly like they told nightmare stories about late at night in the taverns, but while it quivered, it stayed where it was. At last I put the spoon in and took a taste of the white pudding. It tasted... like paper maché, with maybe a bit of goat’s milk.
“Do you like it?” my brother asked proudly. “It’s blancmange. Your favorite!”
I remembered. Our mother used to make blancmange for Crystalhue. It was a pudding of rice and almonds with maybe a bit of shredded white chicken breast if we were lucky, flavored with rosewater and once a pinch of cinnamon smuggled in from Katapesh. “It could maybe use a little rosewater...”
Norret gave a wry smile. “I tried to add that, but it wouldn’t take. But at least we do have plenty of rose oil on hand.”
While my brother couldn’t cook, he could make rosewater. It made the pudding taste better, if not much.
That said, the ivory spoon was a very thoughtful gift, and amazing magic besides. “How does it work?”
“Spontaneous generation.” Norret said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The same way that barnacles drop into the sea to become geese, the alicorn produces unicorn milk and bone porridge.” He grinned proudly. “It should be very nourishing. My friend Melzec once told me about a dwarf whose son was suckled by a unicorn and grew to become a giant.”
I stopped eating. “So if I eat this I’m going to turn into a giant?”
“Well, probably not all at once.” My brother looked thoughtful. “I’m tall so you’ll probably be tall anyway, and you could always stoop. And it’s better than boar’s tusks.”
All at once the bowl levitated into the air and the spoon flew out of my hand. Norret opened his mouth to say something more, but the spoon flew in, feeding him a spoonful of bland blancmange like he was a very large baby.
Sometimes being haunted by a dead strumpet isn’t that bad.
“Maybe you could find a way for us to see Rhodel,” I suggested.
Norret opened his mouth again, but every time he did, he got another spoonful of pudding. Eventually he just nodded.
Another thing you should know about my brother is that when he’s given a task or a puzzle, he sets to it with a single-minded passion. He’d already talked to enough necromancers about my condition, so he knew about folk who could see into Pharasma’s realm. Finding an alchemical formula to do that, however, was the trick.
As much as I love my country, I also have to admit that many of Galt’s best wizards died or fled during the Revolution and took their books with them. What’s left are fragments, but fortunately Madame Eglantine’s boarding house had a number of residents with some of these fragments, and Norret was able to trade secrets. One wizard sold him a formula for a costly ointment that was supposed to allow one to see through illusions and deceptions. A bard told a story about another salve that allowed a midwife to peer into the First World of the fey.
There was no recipe for that second salve, but while inquiring about it, Norret was able to bargain for a copy of a manuscript the wizard claimed had come all the way from the Library of Leng.
I’d never heard of Leng, but Norret was certainly excited about it, so I guessed Leng was some dead noble.
In any case, the manuscript was partially burned and written in strange runes, but Norret was able to translate the most important bit: a method to see through the doors of reality into the chambers beyond.
There were pages of complicated illustrations showing rays coming out of eyes like Calistria’s daggers, pictures of all sorts of undead—horrible things like glowing skeletons and men flayed alive—and requirements for everything from alchemically purified pitchblende to the perfume of “the flower of the messengers.” There were even partial instructions for forging a magic ring.
Norret thought that wizards were always overcomplicating things with rings, which he thought they used for status more than anything else. Beyond that, the iris of the eye was a ring already. The “flower of the messengers,” it turned out, was another iris, as “a message” is what an iris meant in the language of flowers.
The iris was also the flower of Isarn, the ancient crest of the city. Set into the curve of the river, Isarn had a huge number of the flowers fluttering along her banks like yellow flags. Before the Revolution, the royal irises could only be picked with the king’s permission, on penalty of death. After the Revolution, there was no king, but the penalty was the same.
It was a deed that could have cost us our heads many times over, so Norret and I gathered the armloads we needed in the dead of night. Dodging the city watch and patrols of the Gray Gardeners, we took the flowers back to the boarding house. We wrapped them in greased cloths so they would breathe their perfume into the fat as they died, then cleaned ourselves up and went and ate the leftovers from Madame Eglantine’s excellent supper.
Three days later, the iris pomade was washed with alcohol, then evaporated down to a golden perfume absolute. Norret mixed this with the yellow powder he’d extracted from the pitchblende. “All right,” my brother said, holding up the few precious golden drops, “let’s see if the librarians of Leng had their manuscripts in order...”
"Orlin is no ordinary child."
He tilted his head back and dripped the drops into his left eye, blinked a few times, then looked at me. His left eye changed from quicksilver to gold and began to glow. “Orlin, are you all right?” He took a step back, a shocked expression on his face.
“I’m fine, Norret.”
He continued to look disturbed, then looked at the door. He stepped toward it, then bumped into it. “Is there a door here?”
“Uh, yes...”
He began to look at his hand then, clearly fascinated, looking at it as if he’d never seen it before. “I’m... not undead now, am I, Orlin?”
“I hope not.” Honestly, my brother’s left eye was glowing like they say the eyes of liches do in all the stories.
He stepped back toward the worktable, bumping into it. “Fetch me the lead foil. It’s right there.” He pointed at his backpack, but I had to sort through several inner pouches before I found the one he wanted. Norret took it from me quickly and held it up, covering his eye, then breathed a sigh of relief. “There, that’s better...”
“What’s better?” I asked.
“Those old wizards, they weren’t as foolish as I thought. This phenomenon would be much better with a ring you could take off...” He took the lead sheet away from his glowing eye and looked at me, then moved it back. “Hand me the tin snips, would you?”
I found them, and the metal punch too, and Norret quickly fashioned an eye patch from the lead, which he placed over his regular eye patch.
“So you’re not seeing Rhodel?”
Norret chuckled darkly. “No. Very much not so. I’m so used to looking at alchemical allegories and metaphors that I failed to read the literal meaning. The wizard’s method for looking through doors into the chambers beyond? It’s not for looking into Pharasma’s realm, or the First World either. It’s for looking through actual doors into literal chambers beyond. It also lets you see bones through flesh, or even look through walls.”
He paused then, glancing at the ceiling. Our rooms were on the uppermost story of the boarding house, and on the other side of the ceiling was Madame Eglantine’s attic apartment.
Norret flipped his lead eye patch up, then went pale. He stepped about, looking, then looked back at me. “We can’t stay here, Orlin. We have to go.” He covered his eye back up, almost as an afterthought.
“What?” I said. “And miss supper? Madame said she was serving croque-monsieur with ham!”
Norret looked like he might never want supper again. “No. We won’t be having supper here. Gather your things and go wait for me at the tavern at the bottom of the street. There is something I must do here first.”
“What’s going on? What did you see?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“What? I’m not a child. I’m almost twelve! I’ve even been dead!”
“Yes,” Norret said, “but I’ve been to war and you have not.” He took me by the shoulders and looked me squarely in the eyes. “Trust me, there are some things you see that can never be unseen, and will haunt you worse than any spirit.” He glanced apologetically to the air. “Present company excepted.”
The last time I had seen my older brother this serious was when I asked what had become of our father and our brother Ceron. I knew he was trying to protect me. I trusted that he’d give me an answer in his own time, so I went to the tavern at the bottom of the street and waited.
He never came.
Coming Next Week: Mysterious disappearances in Chapter Three of Kevin Andrew Murphy’s “The Perfumer’s Apprentice.”
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of numerous stories, poems, and novels, as well as a writer for Wild Cards, George R. R. Martin's shared-world anthology line. His previous Pathfinder Tales stories include "The Secret of the Rose and Glove" (also starring Norret) and "The Fifth River Freedom," the fourth chapter of Prodigal Sons in the Kingmaker Pathfinder's Journal. For more information, visit his website.
They say the wickedest thing about the old nobles was that they were always coming back from the dead, 'cause folk never came back quite right.
They don't know the half of it.
I swore.
"None of that, Orlin," my brother corrected. "We're in Isarn now. Remember your manners."
"But Norret!" I pointed. "Look! She's at it again!"
Indeed she was. One of the little bouquets from my tray had floated in the air, high over the crowd waiting for the executions, and up to one of the windows of the House of Joy.
That's what they call the temple of Calistria in Isarn. Back in Dabril, Calistria's temple was just the beekeeper's house, and no one besides him did much in the way of worship. In Isarn it was one of the old palaces. But instead of nobles, each window had a beautiful woman or a half-dressed man.
Each also had a window box of carrots instead of flowers, since the Revolutionary Council had recently declared that everyone, even the temple of Calistria, had to grow vegetables, and use horse manure besides.
It made the city stink even worse than usual. That's why we were selling nosegays.
Norret swore too, an expression I'd never heard before. I guessed he'd picked it up soldiering. He followed it with a growl: "Rhodel..."
That was the name of the old strumpet back in our town before I died. Before she died, too, and went off to serve Dabril's patron goddess, Shelyn.
I should probably have mentioned the dying bit.
I died, I guess. All I know is I had a fever and I had this dream. There was a beautiful lady who wanted me to come with her, and a grave lady who said that I couldn't because there was someone else coming for me. Then the beautiful lady made me a bed of roses, told me to sleep, and I did.
I swear they were Shelyn and Pharasma, the actual goddesses. I mean, who else could they be?
The next thing I knew, I was being woken up by a pretty girl a little older than me, maybe sixteen summers, and she definitely wasn't Shelyn or Pharasma. She said she was Rhodel, and she looked sort of like the old Dabril prostitute, only young and pretty. Rhodel told me she was a friend of my brother's, and I should come because he was waiting for me.
So Rhodel took my hand, and next thing I'm standing in the town graveyard, it's winter, and Norret's there, but he's all grown up. Last I saw him, he was barely older than I am.
He used to be fun, too, but now he's all learned and trained in alchemy, which is what he used to bring me back. Of course my brother doesn't know everything, since he didn't expect he'd get Rhodel in the bargain.
He spent what coin we had to talk to some necromancers, and they told him stuff about "psychopomps" and "spirit guides." Even Norret was confused by all of it, which is saying something. Me? All I know is that I came back from the dead and now I'm being haunted by a dead harlot.
A dead harlot, I should add, who was currently taking one of our boquets to a living one. Not that you're supposed to call the priestesses of Calistria that, since they're "sacred prostitutes," and when they're not turning tricks or playing them, they're getting revenge, and they ride around on wasps the size of ponies. This one was tarted up in a gown of yellow-and-black oiled silk, and even had a fuzzy black-and-gold-striped muff to match. Except that it wasn't. It took wing, and I realized the muff was a bumblebee the size of a lapdog.
The bumblebee bumbled around the nosegay, caught it with its claws, then brought it back to its mistress. She took a whiff, smiled, then looked down from her balcony and gestured for Norret and me to come up.
The guards let us use the outside stair, and next thing the sacred dollymop was rising from her divan. Excepting my dream-Shelyn, she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, with honey-blonde hair done up in patriotic Galtan braids and three patches shaped like daggers rayed around her right eye. She was dressed a lot sluttier, too.
"What a delightful tussie-mussie." She smelled the flowers again. "These blossoms are mere tissue paper, but their scent is fair enough to fool a bee." Hers sat on her shoulder, eyeing the bouquet with eyes like perfume-bottle stoppers. "How can this be?"
I half expected Norret to explain how he'd found the secrets of the perfumers' guild hidden in the diary of the Duke of Dabril, and how we'd been using them to make fake flowers, but all he said was, "Ah, fair lady, the flowers are false but the scents are true. Floral essences from the fields of Dabril..."
She laughed lightly. "I've heard tell of the legendary artisans of some Mwangi queen, able to craft false blossoms so lifelike that they fooled all but Calistria's bees. You, it seems, have done them one better. But I wonder... can your false flowers be used to encode a message like a true tussie-mussie?" She looked at the bouquet, inspecting the blossoms. "Ah yes, here's honeysuckle, for ‘the bonds of love'... And vervain—that's ‘sorcery,' yes?" She looked at Norret and then at me. Rhodel had picked up another of the nosegays, and it was floating. I reached out and grabbed it back. "Ah yes, definitely ‘sorcery.' Your assistant is far too young to be a wizard, but definitely has the mage's hand."
She was wrong on both counts, but not by much as I realized both of my actual hands were still steadying the tray, while my spirit's hand was on the tussie-mussie and was playing tug-of-war for it with Rhodel. It must have looked like two invisible bridesmaids wrestling for the right to be the next one married.
Like I said, people never come back from the dead quite right. The overpriced necromancers told Norret stuff about spectral hands and phantom limbs. All I know is that my soul isn't tied to my body as tightly as it should be and that's not good.
The Calistrian dollymop sniffed her bouquet. "And lavender... That's either ‘devotion' or ‘distrust'... I forget which. I'd have to check my floral dictionary." She looked closer. "Or is this sea lavender? And what is that?"
"‘Sympathy,'" Norret supplied quickly. "And you are correct. It is sea lavender."
"The ‘sympathy' that's used by sorcerers or the type that goes with tea?"
"Does it matter?"
She dimpled. "Always." She tucked the nosegay into the front of her bodice, between breasts each bigger than her giant bee. "A worshiper of Blackfingers, I take it?"
"What makes you say that?"
She winked and gestured to Norret's face. "It's not a mask, but a patched eyed gives an air of mystery..."
"Just a war wound," my brother explained self-consciously, leaving important bits out, like the fact that he'd since used alchemy to heal it, or that he'd also got some magic mercury in it, making it look a bit odd. And in Galt, odd was not good unless you were looking for a place in one of the tumbrel carts headed for the guillotine.
One of those was finally headed through the crowd now, and a cheer went up.
"Oh come, join me," the woman said. "Only the tricoteuses have a better seat..."
"The knitters," Norret explained to my baffled expression. "The market women there."
I looked. Right in front of the Monolith, Isarn's prison and Hall of Justice, was the guillotine with its famous Final Blade known as Madame Margaery. And right there before Margaery's basket with the very best front-row seats was a group of women like you'd see at any market, with aprons and white caps fitted with ribbons. Every last one of them was knitting.
"How might we address our hostess, O beauteous demimondaine?"
Norret liked big words and flowery talk, but from the way she laughed and smiled, I guessed that this was a really nice word for ‘dollymop.' "You may call me ‘Mistress Philomela.' And this," she said gesturing to her giant bumblebee, "is Honeybun."
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mistress Philomela. I am Norret Gantier and this is my brother and apprentice, Orlin."
"A Calistrian priestess can be a good friend to have, but you don't want to get on her bad side."
I tugged my forelock. "Pleased to meet you."
She made space for us on the divan, which was feathery soft and upholstered in yellow silk, the brocade done with a pattern of vines and blossoms and what looked like skulls. "The fell and fabled creeper," Mistress Philomela explained, seeing Norret's interest in the floral theme. "The pollen produces the most fabulous yellow dye and is of great use in charms of passion and fascination."
"Truly?" asked Norret, touching the silk.
"So I've been told," the dollymondaine admitted. "It's from before the Revolution. It might be saffron from Jalmeray or just common dyer's weld." She smiled conspiratorially. "I've also been told that if you can obtain honey from that particular vine, you can make a mead that acts as a love philtre." She reached for a decanter filled with a pale golden liquid and poured each of us a crystal flute full, as well as a shallow dish for Honeybun. The bee crawled off her shoulder and began to lap it up. "This hydromel comes from the flowers of Calistria, the honeysuckle that we... used to grow here," she finished lamely, looking at the window boxes filled with carrots and horse apples.
Her look continued beyond. Ever heard the expression "to look daggers" at someone? Well, these weren't just normal daggers, but Calistria's, tipped with all of the revenge goddess's wasp venom, and they were aimed straight at the line of knitting women in front of the guillotine. I half expected the three little patches on Mistress Philomela's face to go flying after them.
"A toast," she said, raising her glass, "to the wisdom of the market wives who convinced the Revolutionary Council that every citizen, regardless of station or vows, should grow a victory garden of vegetables, to feed themselves and the hungry folk of Isarn..."
"To victory," said Norret, raising his glass.
"And horse apples," I said, raising mine.
Mistress Philomela nearly choked, then added smoothly, "Yes, and to the wisdom to use the effluence of the streets to fertilize our gardens..."
She and Norret both drank, and I did too, after checking for poison.
I don't quite understand it, but Norret said he used unicorn horn in the potion to bring me back to life, so some of the unicorn's magic must have stuck to me. Which means I can tell if there's poison in something.
There wasn't any poison in the hydromel beyond a bit of alcohol, so I drank it. Then I drank some more. And a little more after that. It was good. I was only able to watch a couple beheadings before my own head hit the pillow at the top of the divan and I fell sound asleep.
I awoke in a room that was definitely not the balcony of the temple of Calistria. Instead of soft silk and swansdown, my pillow was linen over bedstraw, and the room was plain and a little cobwebbed. My brother was there as well, talking to one of the market women. She had her knitting put away, but the bag was by her feet, and she looked very old—at least fifty.
"So who told you I had a room for let?" the woman asked.
"Someone in the crowd," Norret lied. I know when my brother lies—the corners of his eyes go all crinkly. "I gave them a nosegay and they gave me some advice. Said you ran a boarding house with good food and weren't averse to alchemy or magic since you had some skill yourself."
The woman clicked her front teeth together. "Well, that much is true, but—" She paused, and then her small black eyes met mine, magnified and multiplied by little half-moon spectacles that made her look like she had four or more eyes. "Ah, he's awake."
She turned to me and I became acutely aware that my bed was in the corner of the room. "Young citizen, your brother informs me you're called ‘Orlin.' You may address me as ‘Madame Eglantine' or ‘Grandmother Eglantine,' as you prefer, or just as ‘Madame' or ‘Grandmother.' I will not answer to ‘Eglantine' by itself, for only my husbands addressed me as such, and they are all now dead." She smoothed her skirts. "Aside from that, a few other rules: I serve breakfast a half hour after sunrise and supper an hour before sundown. If you arrive at other times, you must make do with what's on the sideboard. The only exception is on days when there is an execution, when I shall be joining my fellow ladies for our knitting circle. On execution days, I set out a cold buffet. Take what you need but leave the rest for the other guests. Don't be greedy but don't expect there will be anything left by suppertime either."
She placed her hands on her hips, her long fingers digging into the fabric of her apron. "As you're from Dabril, I also expect you to be of great help to me in the garden." She fixed me with a steely glare. "Beyond that, both I and my guests value our privacy. That means that locked doors are to be respected and keyholes are not to be peeped through. This goes especially true for my private apartments in the attic. If you pry, you may get what you deserve. That said, if someone breaks into your chambers and blows themselves up with, say, an exploding book, you are responsible for both the damage and the cleaning."
She paused then, placing a finger to her lips, then added, "As for cleaning, I expect you to tidy up after yourselves. The only thing I forbid is harming the spiders, both in the garden and in the house. They are here to catch the dirty flies and those nasty wasps. Leave their webs alone and let the little darlings do their work. Any questions?"
I could only shake my head dumbly.
"Good," she said. "Welcome to my house. I expect to see you tomorrow at breakfast."
With that, she left, and the door latch clicked shut behind her.
Norret turned to me and I said one word. "Poison."
"What?" said Norret.
"Poison," I repeated. "I'm detecting poison."
Norret didn't normally question the new sense I'd picked up, but he glanced to the door and then back. "The old lady? She has poison, or she's been poisoned?"
"Neither," I said. "She is poison."
Coming Next Week: Magical investigations gone awry in Chapter Two of Kevin Andrew Murphy's "The Perfumer's Apprentice."
Kevin Andrew Murphy is the author of numerous stories, poems, and novels, as well as a writer for Wild Cards, George R. R. Martin's shared-world anthology line. His previous Pathfinder Tales stories include "The Secret of the Rose and Glove" (also starring Norret) and "The Fifth River Freedom," the fourth chapter of Prodigal Sons in the Kingmaker Pathfinder's Journal. For more information, visit his website.
"We should leave," Beeah said, tears in her eyes. "If what you say is true, we can't fight Lord Suvarian."
"Who is he?" piped up young Rayallan. The boy looked around curiously. Rorr caught his breath looking into the boy's face. He saw Ulane there, never quite sure what was going on but interested all the same. And usually wrong when he decided.
"He thinks he's got the right to take our property," Fren said.
Rorr wasn't sure about his older stepson. Some of Beeah shone through, but none of her fearfulness. And Fren lacked the wide-eyed wonder Rayallan showed. He wished the boy were older. He could use a strong arm protecting his back.
"He is a petty lord, like—" He bit off the rest. There was no point describing Suvarian in terms they wouldn't understand. "I've seen men like him. Thievery is always their first move."
"He's got a lot of armed men," Rayallan said. "Fren said there were half-orcs. I've never seen one." The longing in the boy's voice also reminded Rorr of his brother. Never quite brave enough to explore his world, but always certain something lay just beyond the horizon. Ulane had died unfulfilled in so many ways.
But he'd had a loving wife and two fine sons. Rorr let out breath he hadn't realized he held.
"If we run, we will have nothing. The harvest will be lost. The house and everything in it will be destroyed."
"We can take some things..." Beeah looked around in despair.
"The Torvans probably thought the same. If they got away, it was with little more than what they wore."
"That was a lot of grain that burned," Fren said. A wild light came to his eyes. "You should have seen it blow up. It was like—"
"Like what will happen to our grain, to our house and barn unless we fortify," Rorr said. At some point listening to his sons and watching his wife agonize over losing hard-won furniture and keepsakes, he had decided. They would fight.
"How?"
"Board the windows. Rayallan, you're good with a hammer. See to using that pile of cut planks out back."
"I'm good with a hammer? You mean it? Yes!" He rushed off, excited at being praised—and needed. Rorr hoped that the boy would live to brag about it.
"What can we do?" Beeah asked. Fren scowled at his mother as she wrapped her arms around him in a fiercely protective hug. "Fren and I can help."
"They use fire arrows. Water will keep anything surrounding the arrow from burning, but the arrow itself cannot be extinguished."
"Tongs," Fren said suddenly. "Fire tongs. And heavy gloves. I can pluck the arrows out that way!"
Rorr nodded. It wasn't likely to work the way his son thought, but it might save some damage.
"What are you going to do?" Beeah wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. She shook. Rorr moved to comfort her, then realized there was no time. He heard the pounding of hooves in the distance.
He swung about and went to the oak where the hole among its roots still beckoned. Dropping to his knees, he pulled the final oilcloth-wrapped package from the ground. He stripped away the thick cloth and gripped the sword within. It felt familiar in his hand, bringing with it memories of other times. He settled the buckler on his left arm, adjusted his greaves, then went out to face the riders before they had a chance to set fire to his house.
A quick glance over his shoulder showed his younger son hammering furiously to fasten the wood over the windows. Rayallan paid attention to nothing but his work. Every blow of his hammer drove a nail in. Some took two strikes, but Rorr approved. Through the open door he saw his wife and other son moving furniture so the doorway could be blocked in a few seconds.
He had no more time to consider how the defense went. A dozen riders approached, slowing and finally coming to a halt.
"You're still here," the lead rider called. He urged his horse forward a few yards, cutting the distance between them in half. He wore light plate armor emblazoned with the sigil the others had worn. An articulated glove on his right hand curved around the saddle horn. His ungloved left hand dangled free at his side but was only inches away from a large shield, also decorated with the gerfalcon rampant.
"It's my land." Rorr held his sword at his side and partially behind him to hide it from the man.
"Lord or no, Suvarian is far from noble."
"I'm Lord Suvarian."
Rorr knew the lord expected a reply. He remained silent.
Suvarian bristled and drew his sword, brandishing it over his head.
"You defy me, man of dirt. You are a farmer. I am lord of all these lands! Go to your knee! Show me respect."
"You're a cattle herder who takes on airs," Rorr shot back. "Are you truly royalty? Or are you some squire's bastard son out to make a name for himself?"
Suvarian roared and galloped forward, sword slashing. Rorr stepped to the left side of the lord's horse, forcing the man to awkwardly reach across his body in a futile attempt to land a blow. Before he could gauge the proper distance, he was past Rorr and fighting to wheel his horse about.
Rorr looked at the other soldiers. They wore heavier armor than the men he had killed. None carried a bow and arrow. That brought a slow smile to his lips. He might have destroyed all their bowstrings, or perhaps these were Suvarian's personal guard and fancied themselves swordsmen. They sat awkwardly on their horses and seemed uneasy with their weapons.
"These are back-stabbers, not fighters," Rorr said. He pointedly turned his back on the dozen soldiers and faced Suvarian. "Take them and go. I have work to do."
Rorr widened his stance as Suvarian prepared for another attack.
"I have wasted enough time. Leave or die!"
"How many of your men have I killed already? I lost count. A battle scribe will be needed for the tally if you refuse to leave now."
"You? You, a farmer?" Suvarian barked the words, but a hint of uncertainty came and he looked over at his guardsmen. He boasted for them—and to bolster his own courage. The failed first attack had obviously unsettled him. "Give this whelp a sword. I would fight him."
"After I kill you," Rorr asked, "your men will depart?"
Suvarian laughed. It carried a hint of madness in it.
"You cannot slay an armored knight. I am lord of these lands and a master swordsman!"
A rider came up with a sheathed sword. He threw it to the ground beside Rorr.
"Then your death will be mourned near and far." Rorr kicked the sword aside without looking at it. "I prefer to use my own."
He lifted the sword from where he had held it at his side. Sunlight glinted off the intricate hilt, the fine etching on the blade, the wicked, slightly curved tip and the edge so sharp that it cut through the air without even the softest whisper.
The soldier who had dropped the sheathed sword moved away a few yards. He called to the others, "He has an Aldori dueling sword!"
This caused momentary furor among the men.
"Where did you find the sword, farmer?" Suvarian called. "You can hurt yourself with such fine steel."
"I never so much as nicked myself through three border wars." Rorr lifted the sword to display the intricately decorated boss at the end of the hilt.
"A swordlord's seal. Where did you steal that, plowboy?" Suvarian sounded less sure of himself.
"It has been my soul and companion for four years."
The lord's face drained of blood. "You are a thief and a liar!"
"I challenge you, Suvarian. Fight or leave my land now!"
The soldiers murmured when their lord did not instantly move to slay the impudent peasant.
"You," Lord Suvarian called to them. "Yorrial, Juston, Jerra—kill him! Fight him!"
"I challenged you, Suvarian."
"All of you, attack! Kill him!" Suvarian tried to force his horse to back away, but the animal balked.
His warriors milled about until one finally let out a battle cry and galloped forward. Rorr looked from Suvarian to the attacking soldier. He took a quick double step to the side, ducked, threw up his buckler to deflect the slash, and straightened his bowed legs. His sword tip found the spot at the vulnerable bottom of the rider's armor. Rorr felt first resistance, then none, then resistance again as the blade drove through internal organs. As the rider toppled, Rorr yanked back his blade. He held it high, letting the dead soldier's blood run down the small channels on the Aldori sword so the others could see.
A second warrior started an attack, then veered away.
Rorr turned his back on the tiny knot of fighters and faced Suvarian. The man fought to control his horse. Rorr walked forward, tongue clacking at a pace and frequency to unsettle the horse further. It had worked before during many battles where he had faced impossible odds. It worked again.
The horse reared and tossed Suvarian to the ground. The lord landed hard on his back and struggled to sit up. His armor wasn't full plate, but the pretender found it too heavy to move.
Rorr stopped a pace away, eyeing the fallen lord. Suvarian screeched like an owl as Rorr slashed. The shriek turned to a blubbering sob as Suvarian realized the cuts had done nothing but sever the leather straps holding his armor.
"Stand and fight," Rorr said coldly. "If you don't, I'll kill you like a rabid dog."
Suvarian rolled from side to side, then shucked off the armor like a snake molting its skin. He struggled to hands and knees, then forced himself to stand. He clutched his sword in a clumsy double-handed grip.
"I'll cut out your eyes and feed them to crows," Suvarian said in a shaky voice.
Rorr tapped his cheek with the boss at the end of his hilt in silent prayer to Gorum. Then he flashed the sword in a mocking salute.
Suvarian attacked. His assault was primitive, and Rorr hoped that his own untrained sons would have done better, had he handed them a sword.
A quick flurry of parries and a simple thrust sent Suvarian staggering away, a long cut across his torso.
"Kill him, you cowards! Do as I order!" Suvarian gripped his weapon fearfully, more like an ax than a sword. His eyes widened in fear as Rorr slashed the air. The lord switched from threatening to cajoling. "A thousand acres of pastureland to whoever kills him. Two thousand!"
Rorr heard nothing behind him to hint that any of Suvarian's soldiers found the offer intriguing enough to die for. He stamped his foot and sent Suvarian scuttling away.
"You don't deserve to die by my sword—not this sword, with so proud a history." Rorr thrust the blade into the ground so hard it quivered for several seconds. He saw calculation come to Suvarian's eyes. The lord's courage returned as Rorr advanced, weaponless.
"You are a fool, farmer." Suvarian screamed and charged.
Rorr watched, gauged where the pretender's foot would be planted, then swept up his shovel where it had been thrust into the ground at the middle of a plowed row. He swung the tool with his right hand as he parried Suvarian's thrust off the buckler. The tiny shield whined with the impact—and Suvarian fell facedown, tripped up by the shovel's shaft.
The man tried to rise, but Rorr's patience was at an end. He gripped the shovel handle with both hands and swung, batting the sword away. A foot in the middle of Suvarian's back forced him flat again and pinned him there.
A quick look up told Rorr what he needed. None of Suvarian's brigands made a move to aid their lord.
"You should not prey on those unable to fight back," Rorr said.
"I'll see you executed!"
"No, you won't." The shovel rose and fell. Suvarian's head rolled away and stared off down a plowed row, as if making a final examination before approving the straight furrow and deep, even cut.
Rorr left the shovel buried in the ground, walked deliberately back to where his sword thrust up. He withdrew it from the dirt, prepared for a fight against the remaining soldiers.
Only dust met his eyes. When the cloud settled, his view was unobstructed all the way to the trees at the far side of his land, save by the occasional bush or sapling. Those would be removed as autumn plowing went on.
He turned and saw Beeah and his two children. Fren and Rayallan stared openmouthed at Suvarian's body. His wife's eyes never left him.
"I'll tend to this," he said. "Go back to the house. You did a good job of fastening the planks over the windows, Rayallan. Now get your brother to help you remove them."
"There's no more?" Fren sounded disappointed.
"Go," Rorr said, but there was no crack of command in his voice. He was no longer a commander of men. A father directing his sons was more appropriate now.
"Aw, Pa," protested Fren. Then he punched his brother in the shoulder and challenged him to race back to the house. Only when they were halfway back did Beeah step up.
"I don't understand," she said. "How—?" She looked at Suvarian, then jerked away from the gory sight.
"No one threatens my family or my land."
Fear widened her eyes—fear of her husband.
"We have work to do."
She opened her mouth to speak, then clamped it shut once more as she shook her head.
"I'll plow. When the boys are done with the house, send them back. There will be work for them in the fields."
"He was a lord," she said, her voice cracked with emotion. "He will have an heir."
"He was nothing but a brigand."
"Someone else will come. If not his heir, then another in his company. What will we do then?"
Rorr looked at his wife and held up the shovel. She recoiled. He drove the blade into the ground, then heaved the dirt high into the air. Wind caught the soil and scattered it. Beeah backed off, then almost ran to the farmhouse.
Rorr took a deep breath, threw the shovel aside, and went to harness the plow horse. It took close to a half-hour to return to the field with the horse dutifully pulling the plow. Rorr spit on his hands and bent forward to guide the plow. There was real work to be done.
He didn't even look up when the cougar howled in the distance.
Coming Next Week: A sneak peek at Dave Gross's latest Pathfinder Tales novel, Master of Devils.
Robert E. Vardeman is the author of more than fifty science fiction and fantasy novels, including both original series such as Cenotaph Road, War of Powers, and Swords of Raemllyn, as well as tie-in novels for such notable properties as Tom Swift, God of War, Battletech, Star Trek, and Magic: The Gathering. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, and is one of the founders of the New Mexico science fiction convention Bubonicon. For more information, visit his website.
Rorr used the shovel to turn dirt amid the tree roots until he struck the buried packages. He dropped to his knees and used his hands to brush away the remaining dirt, revealing several small packets and one larger one. That last one he ignored, instead pulling the oilcloth wrappings free from one of the smaller bundles.
Inside lay bronze wrist guards. He ran his fingers over their nicked, rough surfaces. At one time they had been smooth. Proper care demanded that he smooth down the deep cuts and curls peeled back from the surface.
Rorr settled them on his forearms without further consideration of proper appearance. They would do. Greaves followed. He sat with his legs thrust out as he adjusted them. A long-bladed knife came next, its keen edge gleaming in the starlight. Rorr had always taken better care of it than his wrist guards. The final package he drew forth, blowing off dust and dirt, was a small buckler. The faded sigil couldn't be discerned.
At one time, that would have bothered him. No longer.
Settling the strap around his left wrist, Rorr turned the buckler this way and that, feeling the strain on muscles unused for a year and longer. He picked up the knife and sheathed it behind the buckler, then stood.
The greaves felt awkward on his legs, and the right wrist guard chafed. If he had worn it earlier, the half-orc's arrow wouldn't have penetrated his flesh. More than once, the brass guards had safely turned away arrows or sword thrusts. They might have to again.
He returned to the bodies of Lord Suvarian's brigands. No matter that they claimed to be on a royal mission—Rorr knew them for what they were. Killers. Thieves. Highwaymen, and nothing more. He dragging the bodies out to the field where he had already plowed, laying them heel to head, then covered that row with dirt. It provided a sorry grave for the soldiers, and animals would come to dine on the carrion. Rorr wanted only to keep the corpses out of sight from his wife and children.
Soon enough they would see death. Of that he was certain, but until then he would shield them however he could.
With long strides, he went to the nearby coppice most likely to shelter the soldiers' horses. A small smile came to his lips when he saw the steeds. It took only a few minutes for the horses to accept him. Rorr selected one and mounted. The other would serve as a second plow horse afterward.
Afterward.
Rorr couldn't find the trail taken by the two soldiers, so he simply relaxed his hold on the reins and let the horse have its head. It would return to the camp it had left. If not, he suspected it would take him in the proper general direction. As he bounced along, he half slept, letting his mind settle. There had been other battles, and he knew the need to be rested.
Yet in those other battles, his wife and their children had not been at risk. This bored into Rorr's brain and rooted around, turning him uneasy. Some might say marrying his brother's widow was wrong, but he had known Beeah long before Ulane wed her, and he would not leave his brother's wife to starve, or take up with a lesser man. Their sons were strong and smart and would make good farmers one day. Ulane was the better farmer, but Rorr had not been a poor student. Life on their childhood farm near Gralton had been easier, with better soil, longer seasons, and access to irrigation. But for all the challenges here, Rorr knew this farm could be proved, and they would all flourish.
Asmodeus take upstarts like Suvarian, who thought to steal what he could not otherwise own.
Rorr perked up when he saw a pair of low campfires in the distance. Dawn was still two hours from arriving, fresh and cold. Again, he resented Lord Suvarian's intrusion on his schedule. The fields had to be properly prepared, and winter cover planted to ready them for spring.
As sharp as his eyesight was, he saw no movement in the camp. No dim shape passed in front of the glowing coals in the fire pits. Those in the camp slept. Did they follow military procedure enough to post sentries? What of warding spells? It wasn't unusual for a minor sorcerer or priest to travel with a war party and cast simple spells or offer healing. Putting out a simple ward spell was a moment's work, even for an apprentice.
The closer he rode, the more he doubted any magic had been employed. They thought they were safe in their numbers. Force of arms against dirt farmers was enough to correct any small misjudgment in that respect. What did they fear a man armed only with a pitchfork, when they had bows and arrows, swords and shields?
He slipped from horseback and grabbed the reins, leading the reluctant horse away from the rude corral at the far side of the camp. Undoubtedly the horse remembered being fed and watered there. Rorr secured the reins in such a way that the horse could nibble at tough grass and dying plants, then advanced on foot.
Buckler kept low and away from the fire to prevent a warning reflection, he moved to within a few paces of the sleeping men. A slow count of dark blanket-covered lumps told Rorr that six men slept. He backed away, circled the camp, and counted horses.
Eight.
Two sentries had been posted away from the camp, but neither had spotted him as he approached. Rorr considered his route to the camp and decided that the guards either slept on duty—a crime punishable by twenty lashes in most armies—or he had inadvertently chosen the proper direction where each picket thought the other had returned to camp.
If each sentry made a half circuit of the camp, he decided that the first had to be some distance from the camp amid a tangle of thorn bushes. No soldier waited at such a place. Rorr looked up into the tree above the thicket. A slow smile came to his lips. A dark knot lodged in the crook of the trunk and first limb could only be a large hunting cat—or a sleeping soldier.
"A man may try to forget the past. But his arms remember."
Rorr slowly paced in the opposite direction. Pulling a guard from the tree was easy enough, but the noise would alert the others. Better to deal with the second guard, if he had remained on the ground.
He almost stumbled over the sleeping sentry. The man sat with his back against a tree trunk, legs drawn up and head resting on his knees. His sword lay at his right side where he could grab it in an instant.
If he were awake.
Rorr moved like a disembodied spirit, bent and silently lifted the sword from the ground. The guard stirred, sneezed and then returned to his dreams. Rorr backed from him, the captured sword gripped tightly. It fit his hand poorly. The guard's fingers were shorter, stubbier, the breadth of his hand far less than that Rorr's. Not the hand of a swordsman, but of a craftsman.
Suvarian sent pot-throwers to fight farmers. Rorr couldn't help sneering. He was about to throw the sword away when the guard sneezed again and looked up.
The man died on the point of his own sword, thrashing about noisily before having the good grace to die. Rorr left him impaled on the sword and returned to the camp. None of the soldiers had stirred from the commotion, but that didn't mean the other sentry hadn't been alerted. He circled the camp once more, approaching the distant picket high in the tree.
He heard snoring before he got close enough to reach up and grab the man's ankle. With a quick jerk, he dislodged the man, who fell heavily to land belly-down. Rorr dropped so his knee drove into the small of the man's back, pinning him. With a quick move, he reached around the struggling man's throat, caught his chin, and twisted hard to the side. The man died immediately.
Rorr stepped back, panting with the exertion. He felt a little sick to his stomach at the deaths, then remembered what these brigands had done to the Torvans. The entire family might have been murdered. If they hadn't, they had been driven away from their land and harvest. It was not a choice he would want to make.
He sighed. He knew how he would respond if it came to that. He would leave the homestead behind to save Beeah and the boys. Cursing Thom Torvan for making a similar decision did no good.
He looked through the trees and saw the first hint of dawn—it was likely false dawn, the lightening before a deeper darkness followed by the sun creeping above the horizon. Time crushed down on him as surely as he had thrust his knee into the dead soldier's back.
Moving faster, making more noise, he returned to the camp. Most of the sleeping men held their swords or lay alongside them, making removal difficult. He poked through the contents of their gear, taking each bowstring he found. The knife slid from its sheath on the back of his buckler and chopped the strings into short pieces. He found the longbows and similarly tended to their strings. Then he began sawing and hacking at the arrows in quivers. A hundred arrows he broke or cut the fletching off.
Only one arrow had been dipped in the oily black substance that had ignited Torvan's granary. Rorr lifted it from a separate quiver and peered at it in the darkness. A skin sheath prevented air from touching the incendiary liquid. He slung the quiver over his shoulder and settled the arrow, not sure how he could use it.
He took one last look around the camp and knew he had destroyed what he could. The remaining six fighters began to stir as daylight filtered through the trees. Rorr walked steadily to the horses tethered to a rope. His knife rose and came down, its sharp edge slicing through the restraining rope. He waved his arms and spooked the horses.
As they ran off, the men in camp realized something was seriously wrong. They drew swords and reached for bows.
Rorr laughed at the archers' impotence, but the swordsmen came for him, yelling to be sure all their companions were awake and alert to the danger.
He swung, used his buckler to deflect the nearest soldier's thrust, then stepped close and drove his blade up under the lowest rib and into a beating heart. Before he yanked the blade free, that heart ceased throbbing. The warrior fell to the ground.
He saw the other five note his expertise, coming to the realization that only through united action might they continue to live.
"To his flanks! Move, damn your eyes!" The soldier bellowing orders from the center was either an officer or someone the others obeyed without question.
Rorr reached into the quiver and used the edge of his blade to peel away the skin sheath around the fire arrow. He waved it around above his head until it ignited. For a moment, the fighters retreated.
He laughed loudly. The light from the fire arrow cast shadows on his face, turning him into something less than human. The instant of their hesitation would be short. He flung the arrow directly at the officer, forcing him to dance back.
In the confusion, Rorr stepped into the forest, found a trail, and fell into a ground-devouring stride. The brigands were slower following, giving him the chance to pop into a clearing, get his bearings off the rising sun, then strike out directly for his own horse.
He stepped up into the saddle and wheeled the mount around just as three pursuers burst out of the woods after him. Rorr had no reason to fight them. They were without horses, at least until they tracked them down.
His heels raked the horse's flanks and set it galloping in the direction of his farm.
This skirmish was not a battle. The true battle would come when Lord Suvarian learned of his men's failure. Rorr had to prepare his family for the final fracas. Either they would defeat Suvarian, or Rorr and his family would die.
He put his head down and rode faster for his farm.
Coming Next Week: Blood in the fields in the final installment of Robert E. Vardeman's "Plow and Sword."
Robert E. Vardeman is the author of more than fifty science fiction and fantasy novels, including both original series such as Cenotaph Road, War of Powers, and Swords of Raemllyn, as well as tie-in novels for such notable properties as Tom Swift, God of War, Battletech, Star Trek, and Magic: The Gathering. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, and is one of the founders of the New Mexico science fiction convention Bubonicon. For more information, visit his website.
Rorr exploded through the wall of flames and stumbled past, finding relative cool beyond. The fire arrow had not yet spread its fury deeper into the granary, but he knew that the building and its grain stores were already far past saving.
"Fren!"
"Pa! Over here!"
Rorr followed the faint sound, again grimly satisfied that his stepson once more called him father. That was an obstacle he had long sought to overcome. His brother's son was not his own. How could he be both uncle and father to the boy? Yet he wanted to. It had proven difficult for all of them—Beeah especially, since she had to see her children's father reflected in him. Rorr knew he was a pale reflection of Ulane, but the resemblance was still there.
"This way! I can't get the door open!"
Rorr coughed as he skirted the bin of grain. Torvan had the central bin filled and had left a path around it, possibly to afford easier access to the oldest grain first. He passed more than one portal that might open to pour out a steady flow of the harvest wheat.
Gasping for breath, he ran into Fren before he saw him. The smoke had become too thick, and his eyes watered.
"It's a door to the outside, but I can't open it. I tried to go back, but the flames—!"
Rorr threw back the latch, but the door refused to open. He hunkered down, then blasted out, shoulder smashing through the wood. For a moment he thought he would be held captive in the center of the door. Then the hinges broke and he tumbled outside. Smoke billowed out.
"Are you all right?" Fren laughed without humor. "The door swung inward, not out. We were—"
Rorr extracted himself from the wood, splinters poking from his body like porcupine quills. He scooped up his stepson and ran, ignoring the boy's frantic attempts to break from his grasp. Gasping from exhaustion, he finally dropped Fren and pointed.
"Horse. Get on. "
"I'm not a child! You—"
Rorr once more engulfed his stepson in a powerful hug and clumsily mounted. Even before he had his seat, his heels raked at the horse's flanks, getting it moving. The horse had barely gone fifty yards when the granary exploded like the very sun. Burning grain cascaded down in fiery flutters around them. Rorr kept the horse trotting along at its top speed. Only when the roar diminished did he slow and turn to look back.
"What happened?" Fren coughed and wiped soot from his face. "The grain?"
"The dust catches fire easily. Trapped inside the granary, it exploded."
"You knew that would happen?"
"I've seen such things before." Rorr said. In truth, he had loosed such a ferocious storm on others before, for the same reason as the brigands.
"What are we going to do?"
Rorr let his stepson find a less awkward seat on the horse. He took a deep breath to clear his lungs, then said, "We search for the Torvans, but I don't think we will find them."
"Do you think they got away before the soldiers came?"
Rorr said nothing.
∗ ∗ ∗
"There was nothing you could do to save the grain?"
Rorr smiled a little at his wife's question. Always the practical one, Beeah. He shook his head.
"Since you found no trace of them, I can only assume they simply left."
"Ma, it wasn't like that. There were these soldiers, and Pa stood up to them." Fren looked at Rorr with a glimmer of respect. "He saved me when the granary caught fire."
Rorr hadn't bothered relating the details. Letting Beeah know only what was necessary seemed most prudent. Worry over brigands and the like served no purpose, now that the attackers lay dead.
"We need to finish plowing," he said. "As much fun as speculating about Thom Torvan and his family might be, it does nothing to prepare us for the winter."
"He's right," Beeah said, lips drawn into a disapproving line. "No time to waste now. We can sit around the fire this winter and spin wild tales of how Thom and Ganley are off somewhere with that brood of theirs, enjoying the fine weather on a southern beach."
"But Ma, those men were killers. They—"
"Work, young man. Now. You too, Rayallan. You weren't finished sorting through the onions."
"Aw, Ma, there aren't any rotten ones."
"Then start with the potatoes. Small ones in one pile, larger ones in another."
The two boys went off, but Beeah reached out and stopped her husband. He winced, just a little, as her fingers gripped his forearm.
"What really happened there?" She peeled back his bloody sleeve to reveal the wound he had field-bandaged before returning. "Are the Torvans dead?"
"Didn't find bodies. They might be dead." He forced a smile. "Or they might be relaxing on that southern beach, waiting for winter to freeze our bones so they'll have a laugh on us."
Beeah started to say something, hesitated, then muttered, "You're just like Ulane."
"We are—were—brothers," he said, unsure of what else to say.
"The plague did so much damage. I thought we were safe. The Torvans, not a one of them caught it. No one else this side of Pitax caught it."
"Except Ulane." Rorr hugged her, then pushed back as he became self-conscious about such a display of affection. He realized he was trying to convince himself that the past meant nothing, and that the future didn't hold a fate like the Torvans'. "There're fields to be plowed, and I don't trust Fren to cut a straight row."
"With that worthless horse, how could he? It wanders from side to side like a drunken gnome. Get on, now." Making her words light did nothing to brighten the darkness in Beeah's eyes. Rorr quickly left.
He could deal with a balky plow horse, or the annoying worms that gnawed at the roots of his crop. Even the brigands who had plundered the Torvan farm.
That last worried at him as he walked slowly to the field. Brigands would have stolen, not destroyed. Selling such bounty in Port Ice would have brought enough wealth to keep them in whores and ale for the entire winter. Something about the destruction wasn't right.
"All hitched and ready to plow," Fren called, seeing him approach.
"Why didn't you begin? There're miles of rows to be plowed." He bent, caught up a thick, dry clod and tossed it playfully at his stepson. Fren dodged it easily.
"The horse wants you and nobody else."
"That's an inventive excuse. Get to moving the rocks at the far side of the field into a stack so I can keep a straight row."
Rorr slid the reins over his shoulder, took the plow handles, and called to the horse to begin pulling. As terrible a riding horse as this one was, it had strength and surefootedness in the field, and more often than not it dropped a load to help with fertilizing. The first two long rows went well, with the brittle husks cut and turned under the soil to rot and give sustenance to new crops in the spring. On the third, Rorr stopped and stared.
His eyesight was keen, and the approaching riders became visible minutes before his son saw them. Then even the boy could not miss the riders.
"Who are they, Pa?"
"Don't say a word when they get here. No matter what I say, you obey instantly. Understood?"
"But—"
"Understand?" The edge in his voice made the boy recoil, then nod slowly.
"A thief in livery is still a thief."
Rorr stepped away from the plow, wiped sweat from his forehead, then faced the four riders. All wore tabards with the same coat of arms he had seen on the brigand's shield. He started to order Fren to the house, but the lead rider motioned and another rode to a position where such retreat would be cut off.
"Stay close," Rorr said in a low voice. Louder, "Who might you be?"
"Soldiers of Lord Suvarian, peasant. Show respect for vassals of your lord."
"There's no lord to rule over this land. This stretch of the River Kingdoms hasn't had royalty to govern it since the last border war."
"That has changed. Suvarian claims this land all the way to Brevoy."
"The farm is mine. By edict of Duke Gessmen."
"Who is dead in a border skirmish. How is it you claim ownership through a duke long deceased, yet deny Lord Suvarian's rule?" The soldier rode closer. Soot lay heavy on his tabard, disguising much of the gerfalcon rampant coat of arms. The man wore leather armor beneath and carried his sword in a scabbard slung from his saddle and under his left leg. The scar on his face, his lean body and quick, nervous movements, told of a soldier anticipating battle.
"I want only to farm my land in peace."
"Peace," the rider said, sneering. "There can be none as long as you befoul Lord Suvarian's land."
"This is my land," Rorr said stubbornly.
"Pa, he—"
"Quiet," Rorr snapped. He saw the outrider's amused expression, but the soldier watched like the bird sigil on his chest. It would take but an instant to draw his sword and swoop down should Fren bolt for the house.
"My lord—your lord—claims all this land for grazing. He has a vast herd and supplies the war effort along the Sellen."
"Then grain would be in demand. I can sell—"
"Milord doesn't want your filthy grain. It's not even fit for his cattle. If you leave this land now, it will return to grass by the summer and provide proper fodder."
"Where would you have us go?" Fren pushed past Rorr and stared at the soldier, too young and foolish to understand fear.
"What does it matter? Leave. Your neighbors have departed."
"The Torvans? Where are they?" Rorr saw the smirk and how the warrior unconsciously touched the soot on his armor.
"It doesn't matter. Perhaps they have gone to the Boneyard. If you want to avoid meeting them in Pharasma's sweet embrace, leave."
"No!" Fren jerked free of his stepfather and moved forward, fists small and bony.
"One of them has sand in the gizzard," another soldier said, amused.
"Give him a sword, Darrotte," ordered the leader. "I would see if their skill matches their fine words."
The warrior reached behind his saddle and whipped out a short sword. He held it high to catch the sun, flashed it in Rorr's direction, then sent it wheeling through the air. It landed point down in the plowed ground at Rorr's feet.
Rorr held Fren back to keep him from seizing it. "We're farmers," he said. "What chance would we have against four warriors?"
"The best in Lord Suvarian's army," bragged the leader.
"It would be doubly foolish for a farmer to fight you, then."
"They would drive us from our land!" Fren showed his outrage, but Rorr tightened his grip to hold the boy back.
"Keep the sword. You might need it—as you leave Lord Suvarian's pastureland!" The leader laughed, pulled hard on his horse's reins and motioned for his men to follow. They galloped away.
Only when they were out of sight did Rorr release his stepson.
"You can't let them chase us away. This was my father's land! My real father!" Fren's eyes welled with unshed tears of rage.
"This is what I think of their weapons." Rorr yanked the sword from the dirt, placed the point at an angle against the ground, and stomped down hard. The blade broke raggedly a few inches above the hilt. Rorr flung the piece in his hand as far away from him as he could.
"Coward," Fren grated. He ran for the house.
Rorr let the boy go. It would do no good to explain that these four meant nothing. They were messengers only.
But messengers could be dangerous. Rorr heaved a deep sigh, then returned to his plowing. The cold wind blowing from the north chilled him more than ever.
∗ ∗ ∗
Rorr poked at the food on his plate. Both Fren and Rayallan had chosen not to sit at the table with him. He understood but did not approve. He looked up at Beeah and said, "This is our land."
"It's Ulane's," she said, not meeting his gaze. "There's no reason for you to fight for it."
"It's our land," he said harshly. "Ulane is dead. Would you have me die at the end of a sword wielded by those brigands?"
"Fren said they were a lord's officers. Knights."
"You would have me fight them? Or give in to them? Make up your mind."
"Do as you see fit. You always do." Beeah threw down her spoon and left Rorr alone at the table. He dropped his own spoon and went outside into the cold night air. The stars burned brightly above, and he made out the patterns he had used for so long to navigate. The pointers showing the route northward beckoned.
"This is my farm," he said as he looked over darkened fields. It mattered little to him whether the thief called himself a lord or a brigand. Theft was theft, and he would not be chased away.
He went to the barn, saw a shovel Fren had left out, and picked it up. The night's dew would cause the tool to rust, but he didn't put it away inside the barn. Instead he walked, slowly at first and then with longer strides, to the small hill a hundred yards behind the house. At the summit he looked down at the grave.
He had buried his brother here. Then he had married his brother's wife. Rorr had not intended that, but he had come to love Beeah. He was less sure of her affection for him. A widow with two young children faced a difficult life.
The past year had been good. Crops, improvement on barn and house, long days and enjoyable nights—he thought enjoyable for them both, though he could never tell.
This was his land. His family's.
Voices carried up from downslope. Swords glinting in the starlight, two men made their way toward his barn. Their words drifted up to him.
"...burn him out."
"We should kill them all, as we did the others. Suvarian would approve."
"You're a bloodthirsty one, Darrotte."
Rorr heard admiration, not denunciation, in that simple statement. He gripped his shovel with both hands and hurried down the hill toward the barn.
The two soldiers heard his approach and greeted him with leveled swords.
"The farmer must be sleepwalking," Darrotte said. "Why else would he confront two of Lord Suvarian's warriors?"
His companion chuckled. "We dare not tell the lord of this one's death. He would accuse us of drowning kittens."
"You have one chance only," Rorr said, squaring off and lifting the shovel. "Leave and I won't kill you."
"Ho! A threat! He won't hurt us!"
"I said I won't kill you," Rorr clarified.
Darrotte smiled. "No, plowboy. You won't."
The soldier with Darrotte rushed forward, sword lifted for the kill. Rorr saw flashes of light and shadow, but the path of the sword was obvious. He swung the shovel, deflecting the sword off its blade with a long blue spark. The impact staggered the soldier, letting Rorr sidestep, then thrust out his foot.
The soldier crashed to the ground and the cutting edge of the shovel descended, chopping into the back of his exposed neck. The slight resistance of the yielding spine signaled another death at Rorr's hand.
The farmer ducked, avoided Darrotte's savage circular slash, then drove forward, arms circling the warrior's waist. With a grunt, Rorr stood and squeezed. Hard. The sudden constriction caused Darrotte to drop his sword.
Rorr tightened his hold around the small of the man's back even more. Work-hardened muscles driven by fury powered his grip. The sound of thunder drowned out the man's cries. Rorr felt something give. He relaxed, dropped the still living man to the ground.
"My back. You broke it." Darrotte's voice was tight with pain and fear, but strangely calm. "You will die, farmer. My lord will kill you slowly."
"No," Rorr said, picking up the shovel. "He won't."
The edge of the blade rose and fell.
Rorr stepped back and looked at the two dead men. They should be buried, but to what purpose? Not to hide their deaths, certainly. Lord Suvarian had sent them on a mission. When they didn't return, others would be dispatched.
With these deaths, Rorr realized, the fight was not over. It had just begun.
Coming Next Week: Screams in the night in Chapter Three of Robert E. Vardeman's "Plow and Sword."
Robert E. Vardeman is the author of more than fifty science fiction and fantasy novels, including both original series such as Cenotaph Road, War of Powers, and Swords of Raemllyn, as well as tie-in novels for such notable properties as Tom Swift, God of War, Battletech, Star Trek, and Magic: The Gathering. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, and is one of the founders of the New Mexico science fiction convention Bubonicon. For more information, visit his website.
It took several minutes for the cougar's ululating screech to make Rorr look up from his autumn plowing. The day was unseasonably warm for Neth, and sweat trickled down his back. He knew the heat was an illusion—cutting through the dried brown chaff remaining in his field and plowing it under for spring fertilizer had to be completed soon, before snow buried the land. Already at night the wind off the distant Lake of Mists and Veils cut through even a well-padded jacket and brought tears to unprotected eyes. Soon enough a heavy doublet would be necessary when venturing outside the comforting warmth of his small farmhouse.
If he didn't complete the turning of the soil to provide composting, the thin, rocky dirt would be worthless in Pharast and he would be forced to grow a cover crop—perhaps oats—and let a valuable portion of his farm lie fallow if he wanted cash crops another year. Rorr cursed himself for not undersowing, but too much repair work had to be done on the barn to attend to every detail. After two of his plow horses died of the wasting disease, there had scarcely been time to plow the more productive of his two large fields. Even working his two stepsons until they moaned, he hadn't accomplished enough.
He dragged his arm over his forehead to mop sweat, then wanted to clap his hands over his battered ears—or what remained of them. The cougar refused to be quiet. Rorr stretched to his full height, but that was not enough by half to reveal the big cat that stayed just beyond his sight at the edge of the woods.
He walked around his remaining plow horse and patted the thick neck, noting how the coat had grown matted and tangled. He'd have to curry the burrs out of the mane—or better yet, have Fren or Rayallan do it. If either of his boys had shown any sign of slacking, he would have demanded the chore of them immediately, but both worked sunup to sundown, as he did.
It was going to be a cold winter.
The cougar's scream brought him around, all worry of the coming ice and frigid wind forgotten.
Grumbling, he unhitched the horse and vaulted easily onto its back. His bowed legs fit perfectly around the horse's bulging flanks. At least one creature on his farm ate well, and why not? With its two companions dead, there was no reason to withhold the horse's fodder.
"You are our salvation," he said, bending low and whispering in the horse's ear. The large ear flicked as if a fly had buzzed near. The horse turned a huge brown eye back and stared unblinking at him, as if wondering why he had mounted and didn't insist on plowing still more. Half the field remained to be turned under.
Rorr sat straight and used the added height to cast a sharp eye along the far line of trees. One day he would cut those trees and expand the field, but taking out stumps was tedious work, better left to days when the crops were growing and all the work consisted of plucking bugs off the green leaves and listening to the corn groan with the speed of its growth.
"Fren!" He looked around for his older son. At the far side of the field, the youth of fifteen summers leaned on the handle of a shovel. Rocks had migrated up during the past summer and required removal. "Fren, do you see it?"
He pointed to the trees and past.
"Smoke," the boy called back. "From the direction of the Torvan farm."
"Come on. We'll ride over to see if there's trouble." The Torvans were good neighbors, generous with seed and advice to a man who had long been away from the earth and growing. Rorr found Ganley Torvan, Thom's wife, abrasive—but then, with only one arm, life couldn't be easy for her. Their children were younger than even Rayallan's twelve years, and did little that he could see to help either their father or mother. Rorr felt blessed by Shelyn for his two boys, and for Beeah.
Fren ran, kicked hard, and vaulted up to land behind his stepfather. Rorr had to reach back and grab to keep the boy from toppling off the other side.
"Hang on," Rorr said, snapping the reins and putting his heels to the horse. It moved at a plow horse pace for a few yards, then began to trot at its top speed.
"You're not going to chastise me for almost falling off?" Fren hesitated to hold around Rorr's waist, though he did not easily adapt to the uneven gait.
"Some are natural horsemen. Others learn. You'll be one of the latter."
"Did you have to learn?" Fren asked. "Or did you race a courser before you married Ma?"
Rorr laughed. "Seldom have I ridden a horse better than this one, and always I was glad for it. It takes less time than you might imagine to become footsore."
The boy's hold improved, and Rorr urged the horse to pick up speed. The rising smoke was an ominous, greasy black.
They found the main road and made better time, but Rorr slowed when he came to Torvan's gate. It lay in the middle of the double-rutted road, ripped from the post. Several feet of fence had been trampled.
"Their cattle will get out," Fren said, not understanding what he saw.
"You should dismount, boy."
"Why, Pa?"
Rorr would normally have been pleased at hearing the term from his stepson, but just now he had other concerns.
"Do it." He swept his arm back and slid the boy off the horse's rump. Fren landed hard but kept his balance.
"You have no right—!" the boy began, but Fren was speaking to his back. Rorr trotted forward, the quickest gait the plow horse could muster.
"Fren's a good boy, but he has a lot to learn about the world."
The main house was hidden from the road by a stand of trees desperately harboring leaves against the encroaching winter, but the instant he rode past their screen, heat from the burning house forced him to look away. Throwing up his arm to shade his eyes, he turned back toward the inferno. The building was already consumed—if anyone had been inside, they had found their own funeral pyre.
Riding a safe distance from the house, he circle around to the barn. A coldness settled in his belly when he saw the pigs and chickens slaughtered on the ground. Insects crawled up to feast, and carrion birds had already plucked delicate morsels from eye socket and haunch. The smell of death was hidden by the acrid smoke billowing from behind.
"Torvan!" His call was swallowed by the crackle and roar of the burning house. These flames had not been lit by some carelessly placed oil lamp or spark from a pipe. He called again, knowing there would be no reply but still hoping.
He slid his leg over the horse's neck and hopped lightly to the ground. His bowed legs moved with precision and resolve as he quickly looked into the barn. More slaughtered animals. He let out a sigh when he saw how cruelly Torvan's plow horse had been mutilated. It had been strong and of an age to last a dozen more seasons. A waste.
Cries from behind the barn sent him racing around the two-story building. He stopped under a carefully painted hex sign supposed to turn away evil. If anything, it had attracted it.
Four men astride warhorses worked to light a torch, which they clearly intended to toss into the granary. None saw Rorr as he moved forward.
Torvan wasn't a good farmer, but he had six sons and twice the acreage Rorr did. Their harvest had been bountiful, yet these men with their leather armor and short, businesslike swords intended to destroy what could keep a family of eight alive through the cruel winter.
He reached the hindmost rider, grabbed and caught leather straps fastening the armor around his body. Powerful muscles bunched, and the warrior was lifted from the saddle and hurled through the air. The clank of his sword hitting the ground was as loud as the snapping of bones—almost.
The three remaining warriors turned at the unexpected disturbance. For an instant they didn't understand what had happened. Rorr stepped close to a second one—the warrior holding the torch—and caught his foot as it rested in the stirrup. He twisted viciously and forced the rider to the ground.
"We missed a plowboy," another warrior said sarcastically.
"You set fire to the house. Where's the family that lived there?" Rorr spoke but continued to move with deceptive slowness. He caught a third man's wrist as he reached to unsheathe his sword. That one joined his two companions on the ground.
The one who had spoken backed his horse from Rorr and swung a triangular shield about. Rorr didn't recognize the escutcheon, but he did know better than to reach for this soldier. The bottom edge of the shield had been honed like a razor, and could slice through flesh and bone easily.
Instead of attacking the rider, Rorr swept his leg about in a powerful circle and kicked the horse's front leg just above the cannon bone. From the way the horse reared, he had both frightened it and delivered great pain. It landed heavily on its front legs and bucked, throwing the rider. His shield flew through the air like a deadly silver blood kite and skidded in the dirt just shy of the granary.
"Where's the Torvan family?"
He grabbed one warrior as he struggled to stand and lifted him, fingers sliding expertly under his gorget to dig into his throat. He repeated the question but received only gurgles. Blood began trickling from the side of the man's mouth. Rorr tossed him away—he wasn't likely to get answers when the man had bitten through his own tongue.
"You will die," the shield-man spat. "No one attacks soldiers of our liege and lives!"
Rorr frowned. He knew of no lord holding sway over this land. The ebb and flow of royalty meant little to anyone plowing the land, fighting locusts and drought and wheat intermixed with water-hungry weeds.
The three who could still stand spread in front of him, drawing weapons and advancing.
"Does this lord of yours murder and pillage?" Rorr pointed to the still burning house.
"They refused to pay the taxes owed."
That settled it. Rorr had heard nothing of any lord demanding taxes, and his farm adjoined the Torvan acreage. These were brigands and nothing more. As they came closer, he studied their stance, how they held their weapons and the set to their bodies. They had military training and were used to fighting in unison. That elevated them above common highwaymen.
But not by much.
The one on Rorr's left attacked, thinking to distract him. Rorr knelt, used a leg sweep like the one that had brought down the horse and its rider, but didn't stop after he felt his heel strike the back of the fighter's knee. From his crouch, he launched himself at the man attacking from the right flank. His shoulder caught the man in the belly and bowled him over. As they hit the ground, locked together, Rorr clawed at the brawny wrist holding the sword and wrested it away. A quick roll and he came to his feet with the sword up in time to parry a two-handed overhead cut.
The blades collided and sent sparks dancing away. The impact jarred his attacker; Rorr twisted about and dropped his sword in favor of delivering a hard punch to the man's temple. Delicate bone crushed and drove into brain. The fighter sagged to the ground.
"Rorr!" Suddenly Fren was behind him, voice high and scared. "What's happening? Who are these men?"
Damn it—the boy was supposed to stay clear. "Get out of here, Fren. They're brigands. They killed the Torvans."
A whistling sound galvanized Rorr. He whirled and grabbed, fingers closing on an arrow in midair.
Fren's eyes went wide. The arrowhead with its wicked barbs had been halted only inches from his face.
Rorr broke the shaft and flung it from him. He turned to interpose himself between his stepson and two new combatants, these towering half-orcs.
"What have we here?" one said mockingly. "I thought we'd killed them all."
"These are new." The second half-orc nocked an arrow, drew back the bowstring, and let fly.
His bow had a heavier pull, and the arrow sang through the air at a higher pitch. There was no way Rorr could catch it before it spitted his stepson, but his arm flew up to block. He winced as the arrow drove through the muscle in his forearm. An involuntary reflex as he jerked away robbed the shaft of its power; the arrow remained embedded in his arm.
"Run, Fren. Go!"
Rorr lifted his right forearm and drew out the now-bloody arrow. He stabbed it in the half-orcs' direction. "You're not wanted here."
The pair laughed.
Rorr spun in a full circle and flung the arrow as if it were a spear. The broad head drove through one half-orc's eye.
"Impressive," the surviving warrior said, no fear in his voice.
"I missed. I'd aimed for his throat."
The half-orc laughed and fired another arrow, but Rorr drove hard, legs pumping furiously. He slid through the dirt and grabbed the fallen shield with the knife-sharp edge. The arrow missed him, but a new whistling sounded immediately. The half-orc was competent with his weapon.
Rorr rolled and used the shield to deflect two more arrows, then saw the half-orc had chosen a different attack. From a second quiver slung across his broad back, he brought forth an arrow dripping with black, oily fluid. The half-orc let fly. Rorr watched the arrow soar above him. As it passed, it exploded into flame and continued on to drive itself into the wooden door of the Torvan granary.
The brigand laughed again and reached for another.
Rorr gripped the upper edge of the shield and spun it outward in a glinting arc, then let go.
The sharpened side cut through the half-orc. The chest wound exploded in a bloody fountain, and the archer slid backward off his horse.
Rorr felt no triumph. He bent over and took a few quick steps away from the burning granary. The arrow and its black oil had ignited a fire as fearsome as the one devouring the farmhouse. Nothing could stand against it.
That was when he heard Fren's call for help—from inside the blazing building.
Putting his head down, Rorr charged like a bull, crashing through the door and into the inferno.
Coming Next Week: The dark side of manifest destiny in Robert E. Vardeman's "Plow and Sword."
Robert E. Vardeman is the author of more than fifty science fiction and fantasy novels, including both original series such as Cenotaph Road, War of Powers, and Swords of Raemllyn, as well as tie-in novels for such notable properties as Tom Swift, God of War, Battletech, Star Trek, and Magic: The Gathering. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, and is one of the founders of the New Mexico science fiction convention Bubonicon. For more information, visit his website.
Roubris had no idea what to do with the information he'd just gained. The spirit trapped in the sword leading them to the temple in the Worldwound was not that of a slain warrior, but instead a demon. Can you trust a demon? Ever? It seemed like a bad idea.
Of course, Karatha might know. But at this point, telling her that Serth was a demon also seemed like a bad idea. She would, as likely as not, demand that they turn around and go home immediately. And maybe that would be the wise thing to do, but maybe it wouldn't. Maybe the treasure Serth promised him truly lay within the black ziggurat temple at the top of the rocky spire they climbed.
"I know what you're thinking," Serth's voice said in Roubris's mind. "Well, not literally of course. I can't tell what you're thinking unless you try to speak to me with your thoughts. But nevertheless, I'm certain you're worried that the fact that I wasn't once a mortal soul means I must be lying to you. That this is a trap. I can assure you that it is not. I may not have been what you assumed me to be, but I am still in the dire situation you perceive. I am still a slain spirit trapped against my will in the weapon I once wielded in battle. And only you can communicate with me. Only you can help me. So the treasure vault hidden in the temple ahead is most assuredly real. You get paid and I get freed. That's your standard mode of operation, is it not? This is no different."
Damn it all if that didn't make sense to Roubris. Demon or man, Serth wanted to be freed. Roubris had never thought about it before, but demons must have souls like mortals, right?
He had encountered the spirits of nonhumans trapped in weapons before. Orcs from Belkzen, mostly. Helping them had practically no potential for profit, so he never actually tried. But helping Serth had the potential for the greatest profit he'd ever earned. Or so Serth said.
Serth the demon.
He didn't like the sound of that.
"Your wellbeing is of utmost import to me, Roubris," Serth said mentally. "Without you, I never get out of this. I assure you, the path ahead of us is safe."
Roubris grinned. He still had the power in this situation. He still had leverage.
"All right," Roubris said aloud. "Let's go in." Still holding Serth in his hand, he took a few tentative steps toward the rune-girded doorway that led into the temple. Karatha followed. She drew her own sword, Severance.
To Roubris's surprise, the door bore a conventional lock. He smiled sheepishly at Karatha. "I can take care of that." He put the broken sword away and pulled his set of lock picks from his pack.
"It's a temple of Deskari. We should expect a trap. Or even a curse. Wait." With a brief wave of her hand and an invocation to Iomedae, she cast a very quick spell. She nodded and folded her arms. "There is indeed a ward or something more sinister on the door. Let me take care of it."
Roubris shrugged and backed away. "Be my guest."
Karatha cast another spell. This time, the gestures and prayers were far more involved. Beads of perspiration formed on her forehead. A golden glow limned the door. It brightened, faded, and then brightened again before disappearing. Karatha sighed.
"It was difficult, but whatever nastiness the clerics of Deskari had in mind is now dispelled."
"And the lock?"
"You'll still need to take care of that in the conventional manner." Karatha stumbled a bit over the word "conventional." Perhaps it was the irony.
Roubris nodded and got to work. He had been picking locks most of his life. His mother had him picking simple door locks since he was tall enough to reach them. Although the lock was difficult, his success was never in question. It took time, but as far as he knew, they were in no rush.
Once he finished with the lock, the door swung open, silently.
Roubris rolled backward. His hand went for his dagger. He looked for whoever had opened the door, but no one was there.
"It was probably just designed that way," Karatha said.
He pulled out Serth again. The weapon remained silent, and Roubris decided that he was fine with that. Karatha produced a small, smooth stone attached to a tiny hook and affixed it to her belt. Within seconds, the stone shone with a light as bright as sunshine coming in through a small window. This illumination extended into the dark recesses of the windowless temple. Roubris would have sworn that within that place, the light dimmed, as if intimidated.
As plain as the outside of the ziggurat was, the interior was elaborate. A black iron grillwork covered every surface, with leering metallic faces, claws, and twisted thorns jutting out all over it at unpredictable angles. Dust and cobwebs then covered this baroque, rusting skin.
Within this dangerous-looking environment lay a single altar fashioned entirely from black iron. Unlit candelabras seemed positioned randomly about the walls, and rusting chains ending in cruel hooks hung from the ceiling in similarly haphazard positions. A wall appeared to divide the interior of the small temple into halves, with a wide iron door fashioned to slide from side to side.
Finally Serth spoke up. "Beyond that door lies the treasure I've promised you, Roubris. There's likely more in there than you and your friend can carry, I'm afraid, but nevertheless you'll find yourself an extraordinarily wealthy man once you open that door."
Roubris's mouth watered. He stepped toward the door and heard Karatha hiss through her teeth. He looked back at her. "What is it?"
"I don't know," she said. "I'm just worried."
"I'll be careful."
Roubris stepped gingerly, easily avoiding the sharp protuberances here and there on the floor and giving the hanging chains a wide berth. He got to the door. Nothing happened.
"I told you," Serth's voice said in his head. "It's safe. I want you to get to that treasure as much as you do, my friend."
Still, Roubris's instincts forced him to search the sliding door for possible traps. He envisioned something that would make the metal spikes or other adornments into deadly projectiles. But he found nothing of the sort. Not even a lock. Instead, he just had a vague notion that opening the door would also do something else in the temple. An alarm, maybe? He couldn't tell. It was just a hunch, without evidence.
He considered telling Karatha, but he was afraid that here, so close to the treasure, she would try to get him to leave without opening the door. He couldn't let that happen. Not now.
"Everything all right?" Karatha said, her voice hushed and tense.
"Yes," Roubris said with all the confidence he could muster.
"Right, Serth?" He asked in his mind.
"Correct," the spirit replied. "I assure you that it is safe to open that door and take the treasure within. It is my payment to you for freeing my spirit from this sword." His voice seemed impatient, but perhaps that was understandable considering the situation.
Roubris slid open the door.
Karatha's magical stone sent a shaft of light into the room. Amid shelves of books, idols, and odd religious paraphernalia Roubris couldn't recognize lay a lidless trunk. Gold and silver coins, jewels of all varieties, and solid bars of precious metals filled the box to overflowing. Roubris gasped with the fulfillment of his highest expectations.
Behind him, however, Karatha exclaimed in tones other than delight. Over his shoulder he saw something had appeared in front of the iron altar. A doorway of red and gold flickering light. Screams of terror and pain issued from it like a wave. Almost immediately, something began to push its way through the doorway. It seemed vaguely humanoid in that it had two arms and two legs, and was girded in blackened armor. Beyond that, it resembled a fish or a toad more than a man. This creature moved slowly, as though pushing against some unseen membrane blocking the doorway.
Once over the initial shock, Roubris said aloud, "Serth? What is that?"
No reply came.
"Serth? You promised me no traps. No danger."
"And I shall keep that promise," the creature passing through the doorway of light hissed with Serth's voice. "I will cause you no harm, Roubris."
Roubris's eyes widened. That was Serth? Suddenly, a memory came to mind. Somewhere, someone had told him that when a powerful demon is slain in the material world, it's not really dead. It's just sent back to its home plane.
Serth didn't want to be freed to go on to some afterlife. He wanted to be free to roam the mortal world again. His spirit had been trapped in the sword like so many others Roubris had encountered, but opening the gate restored him to his physical form. And now Serth was entering the material world again. Opening the door to get at the treasure also opened the gate to whatever abysmal realm had spawned the demon.
"Exactly how much is it worth to set Serth loose on the world?"
Even as Roubris stood motionless, mouth agape, Karatha sprang into action. Armed with Severance and the shield emblazoned with the symbol of Iomedae, she attacked Serth while the demon was still midway through the portal. Her blade pierced his scaly flesh, but a single swipe of one of his claws sent her staggering backward, a bloody gash marring her face.
Roubris didn't know what to do. Serth had promised him the treasure, and seemed to be willing to let him take it without issue. But that would loose him upon the mortal world to wreak unimaginable evils. Even if he could live with that, Karatha never would. She'd die before she allowed that to happen, and as he watched the mismatched battle, it seemed as though that was precisely what was about to happen.
Or, he could close the door to the room before him. It seemed keyed to the gateway. Opening the mundane door activated the otherworldly one. Closing it might deactivate it. Serth wasn't yet through the portal, but in mere moments he would be. And then all choice would be taken from him. Karatha would certainly die.
Damn it.
The farther Serth progressed through the doorway, the more his odor violated the air in the temple. Karatha staggered backward, coughing. Roubris's eyes watered. The demon's progress through the gate was slow, but that didn't stop him from lashing out at Karatha with terrible effectiveness. Already her chain shirt hung in bloody tatters and her shield was bent and broken. Still, Karatha's sword sliced across Serth's flesh again and again. Black bile issued forth from the wounds she inflicted. It seemed to only make the stench worse.
Still Roubris hesitated. So much wealth. Enough to keep Roubris in extravagant style for the rest of his life.
More thunderous blows pummeled at Karatha. Serth possessed an unearthly strength as well as razor-sharp claws. Once through the gate, he would likely be able to bite with his wide, toadlike mouth filled with teeth like iron spikes. With that hideous thing, he could bite a foe in half. Which would matter only if Karatha was even still alive at that point. Under the weight of Serth's blows, she fell to her knees, using Severance to protect herself as best she could.
"Roubris, help me." Her whisper was almost inaudible. She coughed blood.
Roubris made up his mind. His face painted with pain, he shut his eyes and slid the door closed.
But it slid only partway. He opened his eyes to see the ruddy light flickering. Nothing more. It caught Serth's attention, however. "Roubris! Don't be a fool. Take your payment and go!" The demon thrust himself against the portal with greater force. Roubris was grateful that the process of transition through this doorway took so long.
Karatha managed to get to her feet, both hands on the hilt of her sword. With all her remaining strength, she plunged it into Serth's slimy, scaly flesh.
The demon howled.
Roubris glanced once more at the glittering treasure in the room and forced the door. It still didn't close all the way, but the fiery glow faltered again.
"No!" The demon shouted. He slashed at Karatha, who toppled backward onto the floor. She landed on one of the many dangerous adornments on the metal grid.
Roubris cried out. Serth turned all his attention on him.
To his surprise, Roubris found himself calling upon Iomedae for strength. Closing his eyes again, he put all his weight into closing the sliding vault door.
At last, it gave way. The red and gold fire disappeared, and Serth's angry roar faded away as if he were falling from a fantastic height. Then it ceased entirely.
The iron door was closed. Behind it lay a hoard large enough to purchase a small town.
Roubris went to Karatha's side. He was both surprised and relieved to find her still breathing. Carefully, he brought her out of the dark temple. With only a modicum of skill, he tended to the most severe of her wounds. Eventually, he hoped, she would return to consciousness and use Iomedae's power to heal herself.
Roubris retrieved his friend's sword and broken shield. Then he went to the broken blade that had held Serth's spirit. Gingerly he touched it with a single finger and then pulled it away. Nothing happened, He lightly touched the hilt. "Serth?"
No reply. The spirit was no longer in the weapon.
After a fashion, he had kept his end of the bargain.
With the broken end of the blade, he scratched words upon the door: "Do not open." Then he tossed the sword to the floor and left, with no intention of ever returning.
∗ ∗ ∗
The road back home was long. Some of Karatha's wounds were beyond her ability to heal with magic, but she seemed confident that time would set her aright.
"I'm proud of you," Karatha said. "And grateful. You saved my life, and I know what you had to give up to do it. It must have been a difficult choice."
Roubris wasn't ready to tell her that he had prayed to Iomedae there, at the end. He would have to deal with that surprising act on his own, at least for now. Instead, he just gave his most charming smile and said, "Not so difficult, my friend."
When Karatha turned back to the road, Roubris's hand went to the leather pouch on his belt. The one that contained a handful of newly acquired, glistening jewels. He smiled even more broadly at the feel of them. A man in Roubris's line of work needed to be fast on his feet as well as quick-witted. Fast enough to duck into a room and grab a handful of choice loot before closing a door.
"Not so difficult," he repeated.
Coming Next Week: The first installment of a rollicking, all-new prequel story to the new Pathfinder Tales novel Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones—now shipping from our warehouse!
As one of the primary architects of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Matter, the d20 Call of Cthulhu system, and Monte Cook's World of Darkness, as well as the author of such notable supplements as Arcana Unearthed, The Book of Eldritch Might, Dead Gods, and more, Monte Cook has left an indelible mark on the history of fantasy gaming. In addition, he has published two novels, Of Aged Angels and The Glass Prison, and his short fiction has been featured in such venues as Amazing Stories and Game Trade Magazine. For more information, visit montecook.com.
The beast fluttered the ramshackle wings on its back, far too small to support its weight. Many toothy sphincter-maws along its wormlike form screamed shrilly. Just as many eyes peered from wrinkled folds of its flesh, seemingly randomly scattered across its body.
"Lady of Valor!" Karatha shouted, drawing her silver-bladed longsword, Severance. Roubris struggled to keep his horse from throwing him onto the ground.
The creature descended toward them, obscene mouths opening to bite. Chew. Devour.
"Run!" Karatha yelled.
Roubris couldn't get control of his horse. It veered back and forth, as if it were caught in a bathing tub with the plug pulled from the drain. The thing loomed closer and closer. It stank of oily leather and burnt coffee.
Karatha slashed in the air above her, but the beast was not yet close enough to strike. "Roubris, run!"
"I know that creature," a voice said in Roubris's head. It was Serth, the spirit within the broken sword.
"What?" Roubris shouted out loud.
"Run!" Karatha screamed.
"I know that creature," Serth repeated. "You must find its one red eye. All of its eyes are green but one. The red eye is its weakness. That is where its dark soul resides. Strike it there."
This sudden information confused Roubris. He hadn't heard from Serth in some time, and he was unaccustomed to getting advice from the spirits that he spoke to. His panic, however, wouldn't allow him too much time to process it all. Instead, he yelled to Karatha, "Strike it in its red eye! Find the red eye!"
Karatha glanced his way. She heard him, although clearly was just as confused at this sudden revelation. Still, she didn't take the time to question him. Instead, she began looking around at the creature's bulbous, pulsating form and all its multitudinous eyes.
Roubris, meanwhile, still moved randomly in circles, carried by his panicked mount. Rather than focus on that issue—which had accomplished little anyway—he also began looking at the monstrosity and its eyes.
The thing was closer than ever, screaming mouths snapping hideous jaws at both of them. Roubris ducked and moved, while Karatha used her blade to defend herself. The stench was almost unbearable.
A mouth slashed Roubris's shoulder like a mass of razors. His leather jerkin tore open as if it were paper—as did his flesh. He cried out. The horse bolted. He lost his grip and crashed to the ground.
Karatha's sword bit into the creature's flesh again and again, but drew no blood. It was as if she slashed at empty burlap sacks.
Roubris looked up, certain of his own demise. Prone on the ground, his leg twisted beneath him, his shoulder bleeding profusely, he had little hope.
"The red eye," Serth whispered in his mind.
Roubris looked up and saw it, gleaming like a ruby among the black and gray flesh of the thing.
He pointed. "There!"
Karatha gave him an urgent look. He saw that now she, too, bore wounds from the thing's mouths. Barely keeping to her saddle, hugging her horse's neck to keep low, she rode toward where Roubris lay.
"There!" He shouted again. The monster's screams made him unsure if she heard him.
She must have, however, for she struck upward with her blade at the glaring red eye. She stabbed again and again. No blood. No effect at all.
Another of the beast's mouths bit her arm in a flash of red. With a scream of pain, she dropped her sword.
"Don't panic," Serth told Roubris, the sword throbbing at his side. "Get that sword. The eyes are difficult to hurt. A lot of flesh surrounds them. She needs to keep trying."
At some point—Roubris wasn't sure when—Karatha had managed to get her shield strapped to her left arm. She used it to batter away the beast's many maws attempting to bite her. She could no longer afford to pay Roubris any attention.
He started to pull the weapon Serth inhabited from where he had tucked it. "No," the spirit in the sword told him. "This sword is old. Broken and unwieldy. She needs to use her blade. It's sturdy. Get it!"
On the ground, Roubris swallowed and exhaled the breath from his lungs. He rolled toward where the sword lay. He grasped it and called to Karatha. "Keep trying!" Roubris struggled to his feet, but only managed his knees. So he knelt. Roubris held the weapon as high as he could reach.
"Serth looks like an ordinary sword, but he's clearly more. Much more."
Karatha heard his shout. Her arm soaked in blood, she stretched down and grasped her sword once again. She cried out incoherently, her pain and exhaustion clear. Using the shield to protect herself, she straightened in the saddle and lunged at the glaring red eye.
A burst of red light and black ichor exploded from the creature. The mouths of the hideous thing all screamed in a cacophonous unison. It rose fifty feet or more above them, shuddering. Wings twisting, it wormed its way through the air, as if to escape. The wound, however, was too grievous. The beast collapsed in upon itself and crashed to the ground well into the distance.
Karatha and Roubris watched in silence.
"Excellent," Serth whispered in Roubris's mind.
∗ ∗ ∗
Karatha's spells repaired most of the wounds the two of them suffered. A hot meal of quail eggs, cured ham, and fried bread cooked over a pleasant fire helped too.
"How did you know about the eye?" Karatha asked Roubris while they ate. "How did you know that attacking the red eye would slay it? I didn't even know what that thing was."
"Neither did I," Roubris replied. "The spirit in the sword told me."
"How did you know about that?" Roubris asked aloud, looking at the sword, which lay next to him near the fire.
He heard Serth's voice in his mind. "I'd encountered a creature like that before."
Roubris relayed that to Karatha and then asked, "What was it?"
"I don't know, exactly. I am not an expert on such things."
"You seem like one to me."
"Well, regardless. It's dead now, and you're safe."
"It was demonic in nature," Karatha said knowledgably. "A thing of fiendish blood. Such horrors dwell to the north, in the Worldwound."
Roubris nodded and munched on another piece of bread. He stared at the sword, but said nothing further.
∗ ∗ ∗
The road offered little for two more days. Serth's directions were not difficult to follow. The occasional traveler passed them by, but the folk of northern Ustalav were unfriendly and wary. Roubris could hardly blame them. The landscape turned decidedly darker and more lifeless as they proceeded.
"We near the Worldwound," Karatha said in hushed tones.
Roubris didn't know much about the place. Only what he'd heard when he was young—a terrible place where the mortal realm intersected an otherworldly realm of demonkind.
"This is where the temple lies?" Roubris asked Serth.
"Yes. It is still a day's travel north."
"That's going to take us close, I think. Close to the Worldwound."
Roubris's half of the conversation attracted Karatha's attention. It was the only half she could hear, but it was enough.
"Yes," Serth said.
"Who builds a temple there?"
"Worshipers of Deskari," the spirit replied.
"Who or what is Deskari?"
"What?" Karatha said. "Deskari the demon lord?"
This gave Roubris a start. Demon lord? He had forgotten he was speaking to the sword out loud.
"Roubris, where is the sword leading us?" Karatha seemed equal parts angry and terrified.
"All he told me originally was that he would lead me to an old, abandoned temple. And that it wasn't dedicated to a good god."
"And you never asked which temple? Or where it lay, exactly? Or which cult built it to which god? I asked you to get that information before we left. I don't know if I would have come had I known we were going to such a place."
"It never occurred to me. I thought..." His voice trailed off.
"You thought what?"
"I thought all temples were the same."
Karatha scowled. Then her expression changed to one of disappointment. Roubris disliked the latter even more than the former. She looked away.
Serth spoke again. "Don't worry about whose temple it is. It doesn't matter. The place should be deserted. You're very close now, Roubris. Just convince her to keep going. Or better yet, send her back home."
The spirit's words made Roubris more uncomfortable than ever. Karatha's friendship was important to him, and he wasn't going to let her go home without him. Besides, he was afraid, and Karatha's skill with her sword as well as her Iomedae-granted magic made her very useful. She was also quite wise. Serth worried him. What if the spirit was leading him into a trap? Not only could she help him in such a situation, but she might see it coming.
"Karatha, I'm sorry," Roubris said. "I shouldn't have said that. I'm an idiot. Please forgive me."
Karatha spun. "We should go back to Vigil. This land is dangerous, and we've no business in a temple to Deskari."
"But the spirit assures me that the temple is abandoned. There's just a treasure hoard left behind there."
Karatha scowled again. At least it was better than the look of quiet disappointment.
"We could destroy it," Roubris said suddenly. "We could destroy this evil temple after we've looted it. Wouldn't that be the will of Iomedae? Wouldn't that be justice? Wouldn't that bring honor to those wronged by the cult's evil?"
Karatha stared. Finally, she gave a soft smile. "You've been listening," she said.
Roubris returned her smile with the most charming one in his arsenal. "Of course."
She kept smiling, so he asked her, "Does that mean you'll go with me?"
"Treasure hoard, eh?"
He nodded.
"My church could use a hefty donation."
He smiled and nodded again.
∗ ∗ ∗
Serth led the pair up a rocky slope. A cold wind blew steadily through the region of bare gray stone. The landscape was twisted into odd spires and irregular gullies. A few plants struggled to live, but appeared the worse for their efforts.
When the slope became particularly steep, Roubris saw that crude stone steps had been carved into the rock, slick with moisture from a chilling rain that had fallen within the last hour. Although the sky remained dark, it would get much darker in an hour or so when twilight came. Roubris didn't relish the idea of spending a night here. He urged them forward. The two of them dismounted and left their horses at the base of the staircase. Serth assured him that the temple lay very close, despite the fact that it was still out of sight.
Roubris was cautious. But why would the spirit lead them into a trap? What could Serth have to gain? Only by helping them would he achieve his eternal rest. They were his only hope of being freed from his imprisonment within the sword.
Roubris knew that while Serth knew more than he did about what lay ahead, Roubris had leverage. He wouldn't be undertaking this if he didn't. That leverage was what had made his "business" so successful for so long.
The staircase was surprisingly long and steep, winding around ancient boulders of great size and the occasional withered tree with black, drooping branches.
"There it is," Serth said.
At the top of the stairs, rising out of the misty gloom, was the temple. A small ziggurat of large obsidian blocks, the temple perched atop a narrow pinnacle. Roubris had no idea how someone would go about building such a structure in such a precarious place. The entrance appeared to be an uninviting stone door surrounded by serpentine runes.
"I don't like the look of this," Karatha said quietly.
Roubris pulled the broken sword and held it in both hands. He whispered, "If this is a trap, Serth, you'll never get out of that sword. You know that, right?"
"Yes," Serth hissed. Roubris thought the spirit sounded indignant.
Roubris remained unsatisfied. He thought back to the demonic creature they fought a few days earlier. The one Serth knew so much about. He considered how Serth knew unusual amounts about Roubris himself, how much more aware of his situation Serth was than any other trapped spirit Roubris had encountered. Roubris looked up at the malevolent temple that lay ahead of him, and then back at the broken sword that held Serth within it. He chewed his lip.
"Serth," he said only in his mind, "you knew a lot about that creature earlier."
"Yes?"
"And now you've led me here, to the edge of the Worldwound itself."
"Yes?"
"You're not the spirit of a man, are you?"
"No."
"You're the spirit of a slain demon."
"Yes."
Roubris cursed.
Coming Next Week: Difficult choices in the final chapter of Monte Cook's "The Ghosts of Broken Blades."
As one of the primary architects of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Matter, the d20 Call of Cthulhu system, and Monte Cook's World of Darkness, as well as the author of such notable supplements as Arcana Unearthed, The Book of Eldritch Might, Dead Gods, and more, Monte Cook has left an indelible mark on the history of fantasy gaming. In addition, he has published two novels, Of Aged Angels and The Glass Prison, and his short fiction has been featured in such venues as Amazing Stories and Game Trade Magazine. For more information, visit montecook.com.
Roubris held the broken longsword in both hands, his mouth agape as it spoke to him.
"It took you long enough, Roubris."
Roubris heard the sword's voice in his head, like how the moon at midnight would sound if it could speak.
"How do you know my name?" Roubris was no stranger to talking weapons, but this was the first time one seemed to know more about what was going on than he did.
"I've been watching you. You've been traipsing all over this battlefield rescuing the dead souls of those trapped in the weapons they wielded. Well, I'm just such a soul."
The tarnished sword had been designed for a warrior with large hands. If it were whole, Roubris would likely have had difficulty lifting it, but most of the blade was missing. Even though the sword's voice was only in his head, Roubris spoke aloud. "What's your name?"
"Serth."
"And you know your situation? You remember the battle?"
"Of course."
This was all very odd. For the first time, Roubris's prepared speech about how the spirit of one that falls in battle is sometimes trapped in a weapon that has slain a foe held no importance. Serth already knew all about that. He knew he was trapped in the sword, and that Roubris's special talents could help him.
"Well, I can arrange to have you sent to your proper afterlife, Serth. I can assure that you get your just reward."
"And what do you need in return, young Roubris?"
Serth's tone suggested to Roubris that he knew very well what was needed. "Serth, how do you know so much? Trapped spirits so rarely do." In fact, they never did.
"Is that really important? You're here to get me to tell you some secret that will earn you a handful of gold coins. Payment for services rendered, correct? Isn't that really the issue here?"
In fact, it was. Roubris was unnerved, but ultimately he was not a particularly curious man. Despite the fact that he dealt with the supernatural on a routine basis, he really didn't care about the nature of spirits or the afterlife beyond what he needed to ply his trade. He had never even questioned the source of his special ability. Was it necromantic magic? Some psychic gift passed down from a distant ancestor? A blessing from the gods? A curse? Were the spirits even there at all until he came along, or did his ability somehow summon them back? It didn't matter. All that concerned him was that it worked and that he got paid for using it. "All right, Serth. You know the routine. Do you have something for me that will cover my expenses? Restoring a trapped soul isn't an easy business. It doesn't come cheaply."
"Ah, there's the Roubris Chor I was expecting. Excellent."
Roubris winced.
Serth's slick, dark voice continued on in Roubris's mind. "My friend, I value my destiny very highly. I am eager to escape my unfortunate imprisonment here. So much so that I am willing to tell you about a treasure hoard well beyond the half-full coin pouches you used to get. What value to me are such things now?"
"A hoard?"
"A temple treasury, my friend. I don't know the exact value, but it is surely the equivalent of tens of thousands of gold coins, as sure as I'm talking to you now. It's some distance away, but I'll guide you."
"Were you a priest when you were alive, Serth?"
"Something like that. Rest assured that the temple with this treasure has been sitting empty for quite some time. No one there will prevent your entry."
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Serth?" Spirits trapped in the weapons he found rarely tried to deceive him. Too much lay at stake to risk it. But there was something about Serth's voice, his all-too-ready and all-too-knowledgeable demeanor. Every warning bell in Roubris's head was ringing with a loud peal.
"What value would there be in lying to you? If you get no payment, I am denied my freedom, right? I value that liberty more than you can know, Roubris. I am willing to pay highly for it. Besides, the temple treasury is what I have to offer. Even if I wanted to offer you something less, I could not. Either way, it hardly matters to me in this form. My concerns are now far less terrestrial."
True, thought Roubris. Serth's grasp of the situation certainly seemed logical and straightforward. He likely had a great deal of time to dwell on it. In the end, this was all quite refreshing compared to the coercion and convincing Roubris typically had to do when speaking with a spirit in a discarded weapon. And if the treasure hoard was even half what Serth claimed... If it was even a quarter or a tenth, it was still the greatest payment he had gained for the rescue of a single soul.
"Well, Serth, why don't you tell me where we need to go?"
∗ ∗ ∗
Roubris carried Serth through the busy city streets wrapped in burlap. People passed by him carrying baskets of fresh bread loaves, sacks of flour, or other items purchased in the nearby market. No one paid him any attention, which was just fine by him. Even the lovelier ladies that he saw did not prompt him to stop and chat, as would normally be his way.
Well, the sight of one young woman with sparkling green eyes did encourage him to stop, bow, and smile, but when she ignored him he did not pursue the matter.
"No one is truly selfless, but Karatha comes close."
When Roubris reached the steps of the temple of Iomedae, he straightened his tunic and brushed the dust from his pants and boots. When he opened the door he paused, reverently, and then walked silently inside. The weapon throbbed in his hands, but he heard nothing.
Karatha walked up to him, wiping her hands on a rag. She wore an atypical smock covered in brightly colored stains. She'd clearly been painting something. "Roubris, how good to see you. Another weapon already?"
Roubris spoke quietly. "Yes. Can we put it in the sacred storage area, like we normally do?"
Karatha furrowed her brow. There was no such area, and it was nothing they normally did. Roubris raised his eyebrows and motioned his head slightly to the right. Karatha, wise as ever, caught at least a portion of his meaning. "Yes, of course."
The two of them walked to a small vestibule where Roubris placed the wrapped sword on a bench. Then the two of them left that area and went back into the main chapel, Roubris closing the door behind them.
"What's going on?" Karatha asked.
"I wanted to talk to you, and I didn't want the sword to overhear."
"Coming from anyone else, those would sound like the words of a madman," Karatha said with a smirk.
Roubris rolled his eyes and gave a wry smile. "Seriously," he told her, "this weapon is different. It's smart. It knows things."
"You mean the spirit trapped inside is smart and knows things."
"Yes, yes. Whatever. You know what I mean."
"What kinds of things does it know?"
"When I found it, it knew its situation, which is usually not the case. Plus, it knew that I'd be looking for it, and what you and I could offer it."
"Fascinating."
Roubris rubbed his chin. "Yes, I suppose so. But it's also a bit unnerving. I don't like it when things are out of the ordinary."
Karatha nodded. "I understand. Well, let's see about sending the soul to its proper afterlife, and then it won't matter anymore."
"Well, we can't. Not yet."
"No?"
"He hasn't led me to my... reward yet. It's a long journey, apparently, and he has to guide me."
Karatha just nodded and stared, not asking the obvious question: then why was he here?
"The treasure is apparently in an old abandoned temple. I don't know much about such things, Karatha. I was wondering if you would accompany me. Or rather, us. I'd feel safer. I could make a special donation to your church on your behalf once we find the gold to compensate you for your time and trouble."
Karatha smiled warmly. "Very generous of you, Roubris. But what temple is this? How far away is it?"
Roubris realized then that it never occurred to him to even ask what god or gods the temple represented. "I'm not exactly sure. I'll try to get the details."
"Well, obviously, I cannot consider defiling the temple of any of the gods of light or justice in any way, nor could I in good conscience allow you to do so either. And I couldn't be gone from my duties here for more than, say, two weeks."
Roubris nodded. He hoped that Serth wasn't going to lead him to such a temple, either. That would be awkward. "I'm led to understand that the temple is abandoned."
"Nevertheless."
"All right. I understand. I'll find out."
"Please do. Once we know, I'll accompany you if I can. Some time on the road could offer us a good opportunity to talk in depth."
Karatha would want to work on him, attempting to get him to see the ways of Iomedae. She was always encouraging him to think about concepts like justice and honor. It's not that he could see no value in such things, just that rigid definitions of either or both sometimes became... inconvenient. Still, talking with her about such things wasn't really all that arduous. She wasn't overbearing about it. And even if she was, it would be a small price to pay for her aid. Roubris was worried—those warning bells were still tolling in his head.
So, however, was the sound of tens of thousands of gold pieces jangling as they cascaded all around him like some beautiful rain shower.
Roubris thanked his friend and fetched Serth. He removed the burlap wrap and held the sword by the pommel. He didn't speak aloud, but kept the conversation entirely in his mind. "Serth?"
"What?" The oily voice sounded annoyed.
"The temple where the treasure is—whose temple is it?"
"Why?"
"It's important. I can't steal from the temple of a benevolent deity."
"You won't be stealing from anyone. The temple is long abandoned."
Roubris sighed. "I know. But before that, what god was the temple's patron?"
"No 'benevolent deity' to be sure. That should be enough for you."
It was. "And how far away is it? We have only a couple of weeks or so."
"That should be fine if you procure some decent horses."
Roubris nodded. Serth was in a foul mood. He found the voice in his head unpleasant. "Thanks, my friend. We'll hopefully make it quick and get you to where you're going."
Serth didn't reply.
∗ ∗ ∗
The first day's travel north took them into a land of rolling hills and isolated copses as they headed toward towering, snow-capped peaks. The horses Karatha procured had been expensive, but even Roubris's untrained eye could see that they were of quality. The day's ride was quiet and the roads lonely, which they agreed was for the best. Neither Roubris nor Karatha was thrilled to ride into the unruly land of Ustalav with its feuding nobles and the dangers of the Hungry Mountains looming above and ahead of them.
After a brief stay in a public house found at a crossroads, they continued on. They proceeded through narrow mountain passes and rocky ravines, over majestic hilltops and down deep gullies, always keeping to the road. The days grew dark. On the third day a storm steeped on the horizon. By that evening, it plagued them with wind and rain. Even after they coped with its torments and it passed them by, the sky remained overcast and grim, as if scarred by the storm. Serth remained tucked into Roubris's saddle, silent. Karatha asked Roubris a few questions now and again about how he felt when he helped the trapped spirits. He told her he didn't do it for the feeling, he did it for the payment.
"People who do good deeds because it makes them feel better about themselves just display a different kind of selfishness," he told her on the fifth day of their journey. "Even if they're not doing it for money, they're doing it to get something they want."
She nodded, then countered. "That might be a consequence, but it's not always the motivation. Some do good and spread justice for its own sake."
Roubris chuckled. "That might be what they say, but people can't truly be selfless. There's no such thing as selflessness. It's right there in the word. If you're a 'self' you can't be selfless. It doesn't even make sense. No one does anything that doesn't benefit them in some way. It just doesn't make sense."
Before she could respond, the dark morning sky filled with angry shrieking and the dull fluttering of large wings. Roubris looked up to see a horrific creature looming above them on batlike wings of flesh. It was like a worm, and like a slug, and yet like neither. Multiple mouths screamed promises of destruction. Multiple eyes glared with malevolent intent.
There was nowhere to run. No time to escape.
Coming Next Week: Monstrous battles and philosophical quandaries in Chapter Three of Monte Cook's "The Ghosts of Broken Blades."
As one of the primary architects of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Matter, the d20 Call of Cthulhu system, and Monte Cook's World of Darkness, as well as the author of such notable supplements as Arcana Unearthed, The Book of Eldritch Might, Dead Gods, and more, Monte Cook has left an indelible mark on the history of fantasy gaming. In addition, he has published two novels, Of Aged Angels and The Glass Prison, and his short fiction has been featured in such venues as Amazing Stories and Game Trade Magazine. For more information, visit montecook.com. .
A few weeks ago, it was my honor to introduce Ed Greenwood and his Alkenstar story, talking about how one of the best parts of this job is getting to work with industry superstars who want to add their two cents to Golarion. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I'm going to have to do roughly the same thing this week. Because this week, we started a new story by none other than Mr. Monte Cook.
I'm going to go ahead and presume that Monte needs no introduction, but if the name sounds familiar and you're not sure why, go take a look at the gaming section of your bookshelf. Dark Matter? The d20 Call of Cthulhu book? The Book of Experimental Might? Arcana Unearthed? The third edition of Dungeons & Dragons? Yeah, that's him. As it turns out, in between (literally) game-changing RPG releases, he's also written a couple of novels and a bunch of short stories. And now he's come to show us what he can do for Pathfinder Tales, starting with this week's entry in the free Wednesday web fiction.
Illustration by Carlos Villa
He doesn't waste any time, either. "The Ghosts of Broken Blades" starts out with a bang as we meet Roubris, a somewhat shady character with the apparently unique gift of speaking to souls trapped within the blades of fallen warriors. (Before you ask: yes, we know how that works in game terms, and no, we're not ready to reveal the answer—yet.) For Roubris, it seems only natural to use his ability to make a few coins here and there, "saving" the souls in exchange for a modest fee. Yet something big is about to come into Roubris's life that could change his worldview forever...
Of course, I'd be remiss to launch us into a new story without putting the spotlight on a fabulous new artist who starts illustrating the web fiction this week. Carlos Villa has done an amazing job of bringing Roubris to life in all his shiftless glory, and if you think this is good, just wait until you see next week's cleric of Iomedae....
When Roubris Chor picked up the corroded battleaxe, it didn't tell him its name. Even when he asked. In fact, it didn't speak at all. So he dropped it carelessly to the ground and walked on, his eyes resuming their scan of the field. He saw broken bits of armor and bones picked clean amid the tall grass, but he ignored them. He needed weapons. Specifically, a weapon that had taken a life or two.
The open field of green grass and wildflowers hid the fact that he stood upon the site of a furious battle from just a year earlier. Such battlefields covered the land of Lastwall like a pox, but it was a pox of which Roubris could make very good use with his unique talent.
A glint of metal caught the man's eye and he stooped low to get a better look. A short sword lay amid weeds and grass. Its blade bore a significant notch. If it were to ever be used in combat again, it would certainly snap in two. The hilt was simple, and the leather strips bound around it were frayed and rotten after likely spending a winter there on the ground. A semiprecious stone sat loosely within a rusted setting in the pommel. He though it likely jasper, but Roubris didn't care about much about it, for the weapon might hold a far greater value. The crossguard bore an inscription: "Never again."
Smiths were always putting meaningless nonsense on weapons. Roubris ignored the inscription and the pommel stone and instead whispered, "Hello?"
"Who? Who is there?" The voice was only in Roubris's mind, but it was clearly not his own. Though a profound baritone, the voice's female characteristics were unmistakable. As usual, it seemed far away at first, and confused, as though the speaker had awakened from a long and deep slumber.
"My name is Roubris Chor," Roubris said aloud. He didn't need to speak aloud for the spirit inhabiting the blade to hear him, but it was easier for him to manage the conversation if at least one of them was truly audible. An entire conversation in one's own head could quickly become confusing, he had found. This was certainly not his first time doing this. "I'm here to help you."
"Help me?" The voice seemed closer now. Clearly coming from the sword. The weapon, in fact, almost thrummed with its words. As always.
"Yes. I can help put you to rest."
A pause in the conversation suggested that the voice from the blade spent some time considering.
"You may not realize your situation," Roubris said. "Many of you don't. You're confused. It's understandable. You're the spirit of someone who died in battle. Do you remember your name?"
Again a pause. Then, "Nivua. Nivua Aranash." She said it as though Roubris should have heard of her. He hadn't. He never did.
"All right, Nivua. Pleasure to meet you. Here's the short version of the story, just so you know what's going on. You need to know that you died here wielding this sword. Probably about a year ago. I know, that's not easy to hear. It may not even make a lot of sense to you. You see, your weapon was primed to store a part of your soul because you used it to kill one or more of your foes before you yourself fell in battle. Now you're trapped in the sword. It doesn't happen a lot, of course, but maybe more often than you'd think.
"Don't worry," he added quickly. "I can get you out of there."
"I remember the battle," the voice said, tentatively. "I felled several of the savage orcs. They were monstrous and many, but unskilled. I remember."
"I'm sure you do," Roubris soothed. "It's the last thing that happened to you."
"Is my... is my body around here somewhere?"
Roubris looked around. "Doubtful. Sorry. The battle was a year ago. A lot can happen to a body in a year." Eaten by bugs and worms, devoured by wild dogs... "It's likely that you were pulled from the field after it was all over by your comrades or loved ones or something. They probably had a funeral for you. I'm... sure it was very nice. I'm sure you were well honored."
"Everybody has a gift. How they use it is up to them."
The voice sighed in Roubris's head. He wasn't sure if it was wistful, sad, or just trying to take it all in. Then she began muttering to herself, for lack of a better term, although it was all in Roubris's mind. He ran a hand through his curly brown hair and then across his unshaven jaw. It didn't pay to spend too much time consoling the dead spirit at this point. He needed to get to business.
Besides, the muttering was damned irritating.
"Nivua, if I'm going to help you, I need something."
Her voice sharpened. "What?"
"I need funds. Restoring you is a costly process."
"How can I... I can't pay you. How can I provide you with money at a time like this? Shouldn't a priest such as yourself help a... lost soul... simply to serve the will of the gods? How can you ask me for payment?"
"I'm not a cleric. But I know one. My talent is that I can talk to you, Nivua. No one else can."
"But I have no money. Not like this. I have nothing."
Roubris spoke in a full, forceful voice. He was alone on the field. There was no one else to hear. "You must remember something of value, Nivua. Some spoils of war secreted away for a rainy day."
Again she sighed, then remained silent for a time. Roubris waited. Finally she said, "No. No, nothing."
Now Roubris sighed. He looked into the late afternoon sky, at the billowing clouds overhead, and then at the mountains in the distance. "Well," he said, again in a whisper, "then we're going to have to do this another way."
"What does that mean?"
"Nivua, you probably took some kind of secrets with you to the grave. Everyone does."
She didn't reply.
"You probably know something about someone that he or she wouldn't want anyone to know. Some dark little secret. Everyone's got them. Trust me. Everyone. Tell me something like that, and how to find the person in question. I'll take care of the rest."
"What?" Nivua's voice shouted in Roubris's head. The small sword nearly shook out of his hand. "You want me to betray someone so that you can extort them for money?"
"They won't know it was you. They'd never suspect you. Obviously."
"I can't do that."
"I know it's hard, but you have to understand. The process for restoring you to your proper afterlife is costly, Nivua. I don't like this any more than you do, but don't you want your just reward? Don't you want to see your loved ones again in eternity? I can't help you if you don't do this. To me, getting you to the paradise you deserve is more important than squeezing a few coins out of someone who's likely not as deserving as you."
"Perhaps you could just go to my family. Ask them for money."
That never worked. "They wouldn't believe me. They'd think I was a con artist. They can't hear you, Nivua. Only I can. It's my gift. You have to trust me. I'm the only one that can save you. And you have to do it my way. I've helped people like you before. I know what I'm doing."
Roubris was patient through the next long silence. Eventually, he felt the sword throb. "All right," Nivua's voice said quietly. "I can tell you something. Give you something you can use. It's not someone's secret. I won't do that. It's a hidden cache of gold my family keeps for emergencies."
"Good, good," Roubris said aloud. "That will work fine. This is an emergency, after all. They'd be happy to know how it was spent if they truly understood."
"I still think that if you just went to them and explained—"
"No, Nivua. They wouldn't believe me, and they'd take the sword as a keepsake. You'd be trapped on the family mantle for who knows how long. You might spend eternity as a knick-knack. A keepsake they'd eventually forget to even dust. Worse, after a generation or so, you could be sold to a junk dealer by some great nephew who didn't remember who you were. You'd be melted down as scrap. At that point, I don't even know what becomes of you. Maybe you fade into nothingness with no weapon to hold your soul."
He poured it on thick, but Roubris knew that this kind of treatment usually worked.
And it did. "All right," Nivua said. "It's hidden in a box behind a loose stone in the well behind my old house. I'll tell you how to get there."
"Excellent."
∗ ∗ ∗
Roubris pushed open the massive oak doors and walked into the temple of Iomedae, goddess of valor and justice. "I've got another one for you, Karatha."
The young priestess looked up from where she knelt in prayer. "Hello, Roubris," she said in a gentle voice. She wore the traditional white robes of her order, which did nothing to conceal her broad shoulders and muscular frame. Her long brown hair was straight and pulled back behind her head. She had an angular face. Her eyes were a soft but piercing blue. Karatha Obbaros stood and approached him.
Roubris held the notched short sword in both hands. His pants were still muddy from where he'd knelt to get at the box of gold coins hidden in the well. His jerkin was likewise filthy. He probably should have cleaned up. Probably should have entered the temple more humbly and quietly. Probably should have shown a little more reverence. He had been here so many times before that he didn't think of it. In truth, he hardly thought of the place as a temple. It was just a resource for his "business." Roubris wasn't a religious man, but Karatha was a friend and he respected her devotion. Besides, there were never worshipers or other clerics here at this time of day. He knew Karatha would be here alone.
His behavior didn't seem to put off Karatha. But then, it never did. He knew that she was aware of his activities—although perhaps not the full extent of them. She knew that he got payment from the spirits trapped in old weapons, but she probably didn't know that he sometimes extorted money from people based on the secrets he learned. At least, he hoped she didn't. And after all, he donated some of that money to the temple so that she could perform the needed rites to see the captive souls put to rest. Not all that he earned, of course, but didn't he deserve payment for his trouble? He had to eat like anyone else.
Karatha smiled and said, "A truly honorable thing. You do these lost, imprisoned souls a great service, Roubris."
Roubris felt the familiar twinge of guilt when she said that. He'd become quite adept at ignoring such twinges. He wondered for a moment if Karatha said that in order to make him feel guilty, or if she really meant it.
Probably both.
∗ ∗ ∗
Roubris took advantage of the clear skies and warm temperatures to return to the battlefield he had explored earlier. As the site of a struggle between the orcs of Belkzen and the human Lastwall defenders, it offered plenty of potential opportunities to use his talents.
He spent the better part of the afternoon without success. The broken and discarded weapons left behind by previous scroungers offered not so much as a whisper when he tried to speak to them. None contained a spirit.
He sat down on the grass amid a thick patch of wildflowers to eat the lunch he had brought. From his leather satchel he took out the end of a loaf of honey-baked bread, some blue cheese, and a few slices of dried venison. He ate them slowly, enjoying the flavors, and considered where to search next. Roubris washed down the meal with cold water and felt quite content. He stood, wiped his hands on his cloth trousers—and glimpsed something metallic not far away in the grass, framed by golden blooming flowers.
He stepped forward and saw that it was a longsword, designed to be wielded by a warrior of great size. The portion of the blade remaining was tarnished. Most had been broken off. He grasped it by the large hilt and lifted it to eye level to examine it more closely.
The sword spoke immediately. "I've been waiting for you."
Coming Next Week: Business takes a turn for the weird in Chapter Two of Monte Cook's "The Ghosts of Broken Blades."
As one of the primary architects of the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Matter, the d20 Call of Cthulhu system, and Monte Cook's World of Darkness, as well as the author of such notable supplements as Arcana Unearthed, The Book of Eldritch Might, Dead Gods, and more, Monte Cook has left an indelible mark on the history of fantasy gaming. In addition, he has published two novels, Of Aged Angels and The Glass Prison, and his short fiction has been featured in such venues as Amazing Stories and Game Trade Magazine. For more information, visit montecook.com.
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