The Lord of the Black Land (Unwithering Realm Book 3)

by John C. Wright

  Faces in the crowd were turning toward us, for even among the bustle and commotion of the embarking, a murder is always a spectacle.

  I still had the gold-and-ruby flail in my hands, so I slung the weapon back and forth, first over one shoulder, then the other. A flexible weapon is a perfectly good tool with which to clobber an enemy behind you. If he had had a skull, it would have been crushed. As it is, I hope I at least managed to break a collarbone.

  A corporal in a plumed helmet stamped over, armor ringing, “What is all this, under-creatures? You cannot do your brawling and messy business here! There are gentle-born present!”

  Knack heaved me overhead, and cast me down onto the clanging metal surface of the aerial wharf, knocking the wind and half my wits out of me. The flail went sliding across the deck, sliding toward the drop, but the corporal put his foot on it, catching it neatly. He looked down at the gorgeous, gold-plated and ruby-adorned weapon, and his eyes narrowed in recognition, surprise, alarm.

  The Blemmyae snorted and coughed at the officer in his whale-song language. The corporal gestured, and two of his men pounced on me, getting me by the shoulders and arms before I could gather my wits or get my legs under me.

  They hauled me upright, and the one on my left drove the butt of his short spear deep into my sternum just for good measure. The scene spun like a drunken ballerina, and I threw up part of the fish stew, my only full meal in recent memory.

  The man in the plumed helmet looked down at me. “I am the corporal of the watch for this district. Kaqqudu Nakasu of the Host of the Sternophthalmoi, who gaze from their chests, is freeborn, a rational animal in service to the Tower. He says you are a slave absent from his master without leave, moving without papers, and you seek to enter a forbidden and holy place in Officer’s Country. He wants to eat you, and claims your meat as his reward.”

  He paused to let that sink in, or perhaps to give me a chance to speak. I did not chance it.

  “Have you any reason why I should not feed you to him feetfirst, here and now, to amuse the loyal troops and their lady wives, who serve the Tower better than you?”

  Several women in the crowd nearby applauded, cheered and giggled, and called out Blood! Blood! Red blood! It was not very ladylike, in my opinion.

  “I serve Lord Ersu the Wise,” I said over the commotion of bloodthirsty cheerleaders. “He gave me his wand as proof of it. I was ordered to take it to him. My papers were stolen by a wolf named Rimanis-izbu, an abomination of the retinue of Ersu. The wolf just wanted to get me in trouble.”

  The Blemmyae spoke again, crossing his arms over his chest, so that his eyes were just above his thumbs, and the corners of his scowl just below his elbows. Several people in the crowd laughed and murmured.

  The corporal said, “Kaqqudu Nakasu says you think us fools, because we are driven mad by the star-lore, and our nurses do not dare to wipe a baby’s nose without consulting a star-chart for the proper time. Because no one gets away with anything here, so no one tries, and no one is on the lookout for crooked folk: but he is from a crooked world, and knows you speak crookedly.”

  The mere fact that the man had to use a round-about phrase like ‘speak crookedly’ itself was evidence that Knack was right about the Ur-men. Was fraud so rare in this weird world that the Ur-speak had no word for it? On my world, police states never actually lived up to their advertising, never actually cleaned crime off the streets. But a police state enforced by all-seeing magicians worked like magic (so to speak), and so people forgot to lock their doors at night, or to watch for folk like me, sneaking around. Knack came from a nastier world, and he did not forget.

  A man in a black robe holding a small square tablet stepped up next to the corporal. “Sir, the records do show a Starmage Lord Ersu the Wise who serves in the College of the Astrology of Abominations. He does have a cynocephali named Rimanis-izbu in his retinue.”

  The corporal said, “Scribe, does the tablet show Rimanis as fated to be investigated, or answering an accusation?”

  “Sir! Not out to the time-range recorded in the first-level reports. I can put in a request for an Astrologer to look further down the fate line for this Rimanis. Otherwise, his record is clean out to the equinox.”

  The corporal took the metal tablet from the scribe. The corporal took his foot off my flail. At his gesture, the scribe in the black robe donned thick leather gloves, knelt, and gingerly picked the golden weapon up.

  Tablet in hand, the corporal turned to me again. “What is the service-name of Lord Ersu? What do those of your rank call him, slave?”

  “Uh … we call him Lord Ersu…”

  “That is his court name. Well? You are in his retinue, or so you say. It is what comes out of your mouth every single time you address him?”

  “Slaughterbench.” I said the name in English, since I could not remember what it was in the Ur-language.

  The corporal frowned at the tablet in his hand, and I heard it clatter as he turned through the columns. The scribe, looking over his shoulder spoke up, “Sir! Look there. That is what the record gives as Lord Ersu’s death-name. It is not unheard-of that this would be used as a service-name for one of an abominable class. Perhaps the underling is legitimate.”

  I was too scared to heave a sigh of relief just yet, but I had convinced the scribe.

  On the other hand, the corporal did not look so convinced.

  “And his praise-name?”

  I started whining. Slavedrivers like hearing a slave talk like an idiot, because it confirms the rightness of their world to them. If I played it stupid enough, then maybe he would just send me on my way. “Well, Master, Sir, this old poor head of mine can't hold so many names, no sir, no sir. I am so sorry…”

  He spoke with the practiced sarcasm of someone born to sneer: “No crooked speaking, slave! You must know your master’s praise name. What epithet do you call him every new moon, and on high days, and sacrifice days, to magnify him? In the long rite, the praise-name is repeated at least thirty times. What do you call him?”

  And he stared at me as if I were a worm unworthy to be stepped on, because I would be too much bother to scrape off the bottom of his boot afterward. Such self-esteem danced in his eyes, and admiration in the kohl-rimmed eyes of the cooing and simpering ladies standing nearby, casting glances at him over the tops of their veils or fans, so at that moment I hated him more than I should have.

  I realized that by trying to trick him, by truckling and whining, I had made myself the same as his slave. And now, but not knowing what flattering bullhooplah Lord Ersu demanded his cringing victims to call him, I was caught anyway.

  There was a man still holding my right arm and my left, but this did not prevent me from straightening my spine: “What do I call Ersu, you ask? I call him damned! I call him — —” When they make my life into a movie, the censor will replace what I said next with an electronic bleep. A pretty long bleep, too. I managed to get most of the swearwords I learned at public school out of my mouth.

  That earned me a boot in the teeth, and a lot of blood in the mouth, so I could not talk very clearly after that.

  But the corporal was not done talking, or, rather showing off to the giggling ladies in the crowd. “Well, under-creature? What is his sign? Even someone who did not know his praise-name would know his birthsign.”

  I figured I had one chance in a baker’s dozen of guessing the right zodiacal sign, but I did not say anything, because my mouth hurt too much, and I did not have any hope in my heart at that moment.

  It was like that moment when the moon was eaten, all over again. The Dark Tower knew everything. I had been a fool to try to fool them. I let my head slump down.

  The spearmen decided to give me a beating with the butts of their spears then and there, and strip me of my mantle and loincloth. To this day, I don’t know whether it was braver to submit to the beating, or whether I should have put up a fight, and killed at least a few before they brought me to wherever I was to be tortured a
nd dismembered.

  I just tried to duck my head and told myself it could not kill me. Without the threat of death, the pain was just pain, and I was not as afraid of it, and somehow it did not seem to hurt as much.

  Routine Police Procedure

  1. Irregulation

  The corporal in the plumed helmet demanded to see Nakasu’s papers, and, squinting narrowly at them, announced, “Your horoscope for today does not predict you traveling to this level. You trying to fight fate? You come along as well.”

  The monster snarled a snarl that went from hipbone to hipbone, and spoke in tones of sullen defiance. Even though he wanted to eat me, I must say I admired him at that moment.

  “Arrest…?” the corporal said back to him. “No arrest. You are volunteering to investigate horoscopic irregularity.”

  The monster clutched his huge belly-mouth with both hands, a gesture that looked both like a child clutching a stomachache, and like a woman putting her hands to her cheeks in shock. He spoke once more.

  The corporal answered with a laugh. “Send a last message to your mate…? Are you mad? If your whelps never know what becomes of you, serves them right. Had you been orderly, they would have known your death-date years in advance. Fate is fated.” And he nodded toward the spearmen of his squad.

  All this was while I was being beaten by the spearmen. One spear butt to the jaw broke something. I spit out a tooth, and some bits of gum and a lot of blood. No one saw it, but my bicuspid lay on the ground, and its roots twitched slightly, like the legs of an insect. If I had not been in such pain, I would have thought it creepy. As it was, I managed to put my hand over it to hide it, and, when they hauled me to my feet, I put my hand to my mouth and I slipped the broken tooth back in.

  By then they were bored with the entertainment of beating a naked prisoner, although the crowd which had gathered to watch the soldiers embark were hooting and cheering. The corporal snapped his fingers, and (after one final round of kicks for pure spite’s sake) two brawny spearmen hauled me to my rubbery legs.

  Being marched, nude as a newborn, across balconies and down crowded corridors convinced me that nudism is no fun. The soldiers in their myriads of troops ignored me, which was not so bad. The women who looked scornfully at my bruises or at my buttocks as I was dragged past, or laughed, or whistled, or spat — that was bad.

  My busted jaw twitched, and then ached, and then there was a noise like a click and it stopped hurting. Feeling around with my tongue, I found the bicuspid had crawled back into its socket where it had been knocked out. It felt strangely warm under my tongue, almost hot.

  I was not sure whether to be grossed out or be grateful. I thought of the dentist bill I’d just saved, and decided on gratitude. “Glorious martyr Saint Apollonia, receive my praise and thanksgiving!”

  I kept my voice down, not knowing whether the magic that allowed the Ur-folk to know all languages let them interpret mutters. But maybe it just sounded like moaning to them, the noise beaten slaves and under-creatures should make.

  “… Let my heart be strengthened in the face of pain and temptation, and intercede to obtain for me a happy death …” I choked on this line of the prayer, wondering if it were kosher for one of my kind, a Lalilummutillut, to ask for such a thing.

  But by then all the teeth in my jaw felt normal in my mouth. I kept my head down too, hoping no one saw how quickly my broken bones unbroke themselves, or my bruises vanished.

  2. Non-Commissioned Officer

  The precinct station (if I can call it that) was set high overlooking an agora or annex where many wide corridors met, with balconies from which to watch the passers-by, or one-way mirrors in the floor. There was a lectern rather than desks for the sergeant and his clerks to stand. I guess the Ur-folk did not much believe in chairs.

  My trial (if I can call it that) consisted of the arresting officer saying to the sergeant, “Paperless slave, Sergeant.” (Massaratim-rabi literally meant Chief of the Watch, but he was not addressed with any of the honorifics indicating an officer, so I am assuming he was some sort of NCO.) “Stolen goods—he’s carrying what looks like a supernatural weapon.”

  The sergeant was smoking a hookah, and marking a metal tablet with a stylus. He did not so much as look up at me. He shouted, “Horoscope predict any meatloaf here now?” (Yes, he actually called me a meatloaf: akalshyri.)

  A voice from another room, this voice as cracked and weary as a grandfather’s, shouted back through an open doorway. “Nothing on the docket, Sarge.” (Ma’saru was a joke or play on words, not a contraction of Massaratim. It actually meant tithe or tenth. Short stuff.)

  There was a groan from the whole room, and the young men shook their heads and rolled their eyes.

  The grandfatherly voice from the other room said, “You want I should start the paperwork on reporting an unforeseen and irregular event? If so, close the doors, and take down the name and horoscope of everyone who witnessed, touched, or was affected or influenced by the irregularity.”

  The sergeant did not look up. “I don’t need the headache. Shoot him through the heart and toss him down the rubbish shaft in the Drudge Closet.”

  The arresting officer said, “What about his stuff? This flail is made of gold, and has an energy signature that turns a watchglass black. If I put it in the evidence locker, that means drawing up a horoscope, and the Astrologer on watch for the precinct, and then the Astrologer responsible for ordnance has to be notified. Every time the locker is opened, it must be noted in the log, sir.”

  “Just chuck the gear in the officer’s mess cloak room for now. I’ll decide how to deal with the paperwork later.”

  3. Six Hundred Paces

  Two men wearing leather coats sewn with brass scales and small round brass caps on their heads took charge of me. I did not see their faces, since they stuck a bag over my head. One had a voice like gravel being ground; the other had a voice like glue dripping.

  Glue said, “We need to check manacles out of supply, and chain him up?”

  Gravel said, “To haul him six hundred paces, you want to go fourteen hundred paces to the supply master? Just cut the tendons in his arms.”

  “Might bleed to death.”

  “So what?”

  This was done, and it hurt, and warm blood was dripping down my arms, which they then grabbed like they were handles made of dead sausage, and just hauled me along.

  They chatted. It was just a normal workday for them.

  Glue said, “How come the Sarge don’t want to question this meatloaf? Find his accomplices; drown his children, that sort of thing?”

  Gravel grunted. “You got a head like a Blem on you! You know the new junior forensic Astrologer assigned to the western annex of the Servile Crime, Disturbances and Disobedience Department?”

  “Lordling Burumameru.”

  “He’s good with figures. He also got a pretty daughter with a good figure. Sarge likes to go see him, because hospitality means the daughter has to come out and offer him a cup of tea, on account of a second son of a second son of a minor lord can’t afford a proper serving girl, but he can’t be inhospitable.”

  “If I’d ha’ been fated to be a star-reader, I’d throw the Sarge asswise down the Great Stairs, if he came a sniffing around my daughter’s skirts!”

  Gravel made an ugly noise that served him for a laugh. “The highborn, they ain’t like us, no more than the wolf-skulls or the blood-quaffers is like us. They’re different.”

  “That’s a word and a half!” Glue agreed.

  “Anyhow, the highborn’s got their rules and their fates same as we got ours. Nobles got to be hospitable even to those they hate, because, hey, ain’t we all One? And the Sarge represents the Crown of Nimrod, on account of him taking the Great King’s Coin, and the Stars can’t throw the Crowns down no stairs.”

  “I’d do it nohow, send his butt bounding and bouncing down the stairs, if’n I were a lordling, and could do figuring, and read stars and all.”

&nb
sp; “You’re a dolt. So if the Sarge gets itching about this meatloaf or his accomplices or whatnot, he’ll use the excuse to nip up to Servile Crime, and have the lordling tally up the fate-numbers on the death-date if there is any follow-up needs to be done.”

  “So we got to make a note of the execution time?”

  “Execution, says he! Execution is what warlords does to generals after losing battles. This? This is hauling out the trash. We get all the trash jobs.”

  “That’s a word and a half!” Glue agreed.

  And one of them kicked me in the leg hard enough that I had to hop and limp all the rest of the six hundred paces to the place where I was killed. I don’t know which one it was.

  4. Drudge Closet

  The chamber I saw when the bag was yanked off my head looked like a small storage room or a large broom closet, with mops and brooms, and chests and shelves of supplies. A coal bin was along one wall, with coal dust darkening the deck and the overhead with a layer of permanent black smears, and along the other were washbuckets or jugs of ammonia. Everything was labeled with a little scrap of paper with the circular designs of horoscopes on it, which I assume was to show when the broom or bottle or bucket was to be used, or by whom or for how long.

  The chamber had that same round hole in the center of it which my cell once had, and the same whistling sound of wind came up from it, but this hole was black, and the wind sounded like a woman sobbing.

  Then I was kicked in the other leg, hard enough that I thought I heard something crack, and Glue and Gravel forced me to my knees. They then proceeded to force my head to the cold metal floor, so I did not see much more of the room at that time.

  I heard the door opening and the footfalls of two more people entering the closet.

  Gravel and Glue released my arms and stepped away from me. I raised my head in time to see the mouth of the weapon held in the hands of one of the newcomers — I got a nice, long, good look at it, business-end first.