The sun was setting when the Noschseedian trader Vignus Daneggia announced himself at the gates of the Court of the Seven Talons. He was masked, in the way of the high-ranked of Noschseed, but he carried no weapons. He allowed the gate guards to inspect his retinue of five unremarkable, somewhat slow-witted men while he patiently fanned himself and waited. The men had a small hand-barrow with them, and in it was a short barrel.
‘I believe I am expected,’ Vignus said. ‘I was told to ask for someone by the name of Apolonia. I have a gift for her master.’
‘If it’s drink you’ll be off to a good start,’ one of the guards said with a brown-toothed grin.
‘Drink?’ Vignus echoed. ‘I assure you, this is a sample of the very finest vintage Noschseedian firewine to ever make its way across the Mortal Realms to the Eightpoints!’
‘Whassat then?’
‘Drink,’ Vignus admitted, and the guard laughed. ‘Very, very fine drink.’
‘In you go then,’ the guard said.
Vignus retraced the steps he had taken that morning while wearing another man’s dying face, and settled down to wait in the Hall of the Supplicant with his thralls around him. This time he was not kept waiting anything like so long, and he was met by the High Courtier Claudius Malleficus’ major-domo herself.
Apolonia stood seven feet tall in her clawed boots, whip-thin and with a great mane of matted silver hair that reached almost to the waistband of her studded leather britches.
‘You are the firewine trader?’ she demanded, looking down at Vignus and his retinue. ‘You’d better have brought some with you.’
Vignus turned and gestured to the small barrel that was nestled in a bed of straw in the hand-barrow, carefully wrapped to protect the precious cargo.
‘A gift, of course,’ he said.
‘Obviously,’ Apolonia said. ‘The High Courtier does not trade.’
Vignus thought of the carefully brewed potion he had mixed into the barrel of firewine, and smiled broadly behind his mask.
Oh, he will, he thought. He will beg to trade with me.
‘Of course not,’ he murmured. ‘It is an offering, no more than that, made as a symbol of my greatest respect for your master. I am Vignus Daneggia of Noschseed, and I can be found at the old forge by Fleshripper’s Gate.’
‘Who cares?’ Apolonia snapped. ‘Come here and open it.’
‘Mistress?’ Vignus asked.
‘Open it, I said,’ Apolonia demanded. ‘You think I put just any gift in front of my illustrious master? This is Carngrad, you fool – everyone here is always trying to kill everyone else. You’ll taste it yourself, to prove to me it isn’t poisoned.’
Vignus forced himself to remain still.
‘I understood that my noble friend Nasharian gave assurances…’ he began.
Apolonia snorted.
‘Nasharian is neither noble nor anyone’s friend,’ she scoffed. ‘Tap the barrel and drink, trader, or I will assume it is poison and have you flayed alive.’
Vignus looked at the barrel, and thought again of the extraordinary combination of rare and foul poisons that he had mixed and poured into it. He had long since built up an immunity to most of his noxious alchemical creations, of course, but this?
No, not this one. He had never made this poison before.
This was something he had not foreseen.
Curse that worthless slaver, he raged to himself. He is not so trusted here as he thought he was, it would seem.
There was nothing else for it – he was going to have to drink the stuff and pray to the numberless Lords of Chaos that he could remain sane long enough afterwards to try to make an antidote. It was time to cast the dice.
Unwilling to risk suspicion by raising further complaint, Vignus did as Apolonia bade him. He tapped the cask and poured himself a cup of what, to eye and taste at least, was an extremely fine firewine. He raised his mask just enough to drink it down where the towering major-domo could see him do it, then lowered the mask once more and sighed with satisfaction.
‘It is very good,’ he said. ‘A gift fit for a king.’
Apolonia watched him through narrowed eyes, but Vignus simply stood and bore her inspection in silence. Inside him it was another story. His body, long accustomed to dealing with poisons and hallucinogenics in all their many forms, was screaming danger at him so loudly he could scarcely think clearly.
‘Very well,’ Apolonia said at last. ‘Leave the barrel and get out.’
Vignus bowed deeply to her, his haste to be away making it far easier to swallow the insult than it would normally have been.
You’ll see, he snarled silently to himself as he hurried from the Court of the Seven Talons with his disguised mindbound around him. This is a gift that no man can resist for long. And when it is gone… oh my dear, your precious master will crawl to me to beg for more.
That was well and good, but already his vision was blurring at the edges and he was beginning to hear sounds that he knew were not real.
Vignus made great haste back to the forge by Fleshripper’s Gate, trying to hide from his thralls just how badly his hands were shaking. For the first time in a great many years, Thrallmaster Vignus Daneggia was afraid.
He blundered into the forge and kicked over a chair that he had mistaken for a large rat. He cursed as his vision swam and he saw it was just a chair after all.
‘Palania, stay with me,’ he ordered. ‘Everyone else, get out. Now!’
Calcis gave him a curious look, but the mute luminate pointed at the doorway and snarled until the mirrorblade did as her High Master bade her, taking Darrath and the mindbound with her.
Vignus turned to his luminate and found that he was panting like an ice warg on a hot summer’s day.
‘Poisoned,’ he gasped. ‘By my own hand! I need you to help me, Palania, and tell no one of this. No one!’
The mute gurgled at him, and Vignus brayed laughter into his mask. Already he could hear the brittle edge of madness in that laughter.
So soon, he marvelled with the part of his mind that was still sound. Truly this time I have excelled myself. I had just not planned to consume the distillate myself!
He laughed again, shaking where he stood, and ripped his mask off so he could wipe his sweating face. That Palania could see his face was truly the smallest of his concerns at that time, and he could be assured the tongueless woman would tell no one of it.
He began to laugh once more, and struck himself brutally across the face to make an end to it.
‘Prepare the alembic,’ he snapped, balling his hands into tight fists as he forced himself to concentrate. ‘Light the burners, Palania. I must work, and with great haste!’
So it was that Thrallmaster Vignus Daneggia worked through the night with only his mute luminate for assistance, raving and screaming by turns but forcing himself onwards, only the strength of his towering will enabling him to fight the madness of his own making long enough to concoct an antidote that he could be sure would work. Even then it was only his existing immunities that made it possible – the poison he had made had no known antidote, he had made sure of that.
At last, as the sun was coming up outside, he drank down a viscous liquid so foul that he almost vomited it up again on the spot. He beat his fists against the anvil and forced himself to choke it all down, then sagged to his knees and rested his naked face against the cold iron block and wept as he gave thanks to the nameless Lords of Chaos for his deliverance. He knew that he was without dignity in that moment, unmasked before a subject and weeping on his knees, but already he could feel the barbed talons of madness beginning to recede from his mind.
That was the closest he had ever come to succumbing to the insanity which he spread so freely around himself wherever he went, and the fear of it had almost unmanned him. At last he hauled himself to his feet and reached for
his mask with hands that trembled a little less than they had an hour ago, and set the mask on his head once more.
‘I have triumphed,’ he said. ‘My Word is mighty.’
Palania simply looked at him, but as Vignus had said, she would tell no one.
It took three days and a night, no more than that, and on the morning of the fourth day Apolonia, major-domo of the High Courtier Claudius Malleficus, made her way to a small, sturdy forge in the broken streets near Fleshripper’s Gate.
She was surrounded by guards and resplendent in a flowing gown of sewn human skins, but still Vignus could see the worry in her eyes when Calcis admitted her to his presence.
‘Why, my dear Apolonia,’ he said, fanning himself idly as he reclined in the chair he had killed Nasharian in. He had buried his disgrace deep inside himself, and no one would ever guess how close the great alchemist had come to destroying himself with his own poisons. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’
Behind him, the body of the smith hung crawling with maggots and reeking on the wall.
‘My lord trader,’ Apolonia said, and swallowed. ‘I must offer apology for my brusqueness, the last time we spoke. I meant to offer you no offence.’
Liar, Vignus laughed to himself.
‘It is nothing,’ he said. ‘How may I serve you in my humble abode?’
‘My master, the High Courtier, is… in need of soothing,’ Apolonia said diplomatically.
He’s tearing at his face and seeing horrors that aren’t there, Vignus thought, and suppressed a shudder at the thought that he had so narrowly avoided exactly the same fate himself.
‘Oh?’
‘He was much taken with your offering of the fine vintage firewine, and sends his most sincere thanks.’
Has he started soiling himself in public yet? It can’t be far away by now, if not.
‘My pleasure to serve,’ Vignus said.
‘My master is a man of… of noble appetites,’ Apolonia went on, stretching euphemism to the breaking point, ‘and I fear your gift has already been wholly consumed. He is greatly desirous of more, if such could be had. I am, naturally, more than prepared to pay this time.’
He’s screaming for it, isn’t he? Oh my dear Apolonia, when I brew an addiction, it could break the soul of a God.
‘Firewine is difficult and expensive to import over so great a distance, and is thus very costly,’ he began.
‘I have gold,’ she said.
‘Extremely costly.’
Apolonia’s jaw clenched, but the determination in her eyes told Vignus that her High Courtier was by then all but tearing down the Court of Talons with his bare hands in his desperation.
‘I have a great deal of gold,’ she said.
‘So be it,’ Vignus said. ‘It seems that perhaps the High Courtier does trade, after all.’
Of course the High Courtier trades, Vignus reflected. Everyone does, one way or another.
He had relieved Apolonia of eighty grains of gold for another small barrel of firewine, and the dose of his personally created, ferociously addictive alchemical hallucinogen in this one had been double that of the last.
Once she had left him, Vignus sat down before the fire and permitted himself a smile of satisfaction. He allowed his eyes to close behind his mask, and opened his Seeing Eye. He reached out across the Paths of Chaos and found the small silver-and-gold Eye of Noschseed that he had hidden in the Hall of the Supplicant whilst he had been waiting there wearing Nasharian’s face.
Through it, his Seeing Eye watched Bravuk the ancient third under-domo pacing nervously up and down, clutching at his robes in obvious distress.
‘Keep calm, Bravuk,’ someone said, out of the Eye’s field of view. ‘She will return with more.’
‘What if she doesn’t?’ the old man whispered. ‘What then, Ulluk? Are you going to be the one to tell the master? Well, are you? Will you be the one to say “no” to him?’
‘Not likely,’ the other man said. ‘If Apolonia fails then she’s telling him herself.’
‘He’ll flay her with her own teeth! Actually that wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Might mean a promotion, that.’
‘Rather her than me, and if anyone’s getting promoted around here it’ll be me not you,’ Ulluk said. ‘Anyway, she won’t fail. She never does.’
He shuffled into view then, another old man in stained robes, with a pronounced hump to his back.
‘You didn’t hear how she spoke to the merchant when he came here,’ Bravuk fretted. ‘Noschseedian nobles are haughty types at the best of times, and they don’t take insults lightly. He won’t like it.’
‘She took a hundred grains of gold with her, he’ll like that well enough,’ Ulluk said. ‘A hundred grains for a barrel of drink, for the Great Lord’s sake! Ain’t no merchant in the Mortal Realms would turn that down.’
‘It’s not just drink,’ Bravuk muttered. ‘It can’t be. I like a drink as much as the next man, but it don’t make me want to worship dead women who quite obviously aren’t there!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Ulluk urged. ‘People listen, and they gossip and tell tales. This is the Court of the Seven Talons, everyone listens and tells tales. Do you want the master hearing that sort of talk? It’s not that I like you, you understand, Bravuk, but if you go to the flaying pits I’ll have to do more work, and I don’t want that.’
‘No one’s going to the flaying pits,’ Apolonia’s voice cut over them, then she strode into view with a rapidly uncoiling whip in her hand and lashed each old man viciously across the back with it, the barbed leather splitting their robes open and drawing blood. ‘I have more, and for only eighty grains.’
‘That’s still a fortune,’ Ulluk muttered, pulling sullenly at his bloodied robe with a three-fingered hand.
‘Yes, it is, and I dare say next time it will be even more costly,’ Apolonia said, ‘but it seems we are set on that path now. The master is far past listening to reason on the matter.’
‘And what happens when this merchant runs out of the stuff?’ Bravuk said. ‘There’s only so much of it he can have brought with him all this way.’
‘I don’t know about you,’ Apolonia said, ‘but when that happens I intend to be as far away from here as I can get.’
You can’t run, Apolonia, my dear, Vignus thought to himself as he closed his Seeing Eye and looked into the forge fire once more. Everyone thinks they can run from me, and everyone is wrong.
Four days later Apolonia returned to the forge’s door, and this time the fear in her eyes was plain to see.
‘The price has gone up,’ Vignus said bluntly when he finally allowed her into his presence.
‘Oh, of course it has,’ the major-domo said, the bitterness like venom on her tongue. ‘Who are you, trader? What do you want of my master?’
Vignus had spent a good deal of time over the last few days thinking on his plan to eradicate the Corvus Cabal in Carngrad, and now he smiled behind his mask as the first opportunity to put that plan into action presented itself.
‘An audience,’ he said. ‘A personal audience, with your master and his inner circle of advisors and warriors.’
‘I can arrange that,’ Apolonia said at once. ‘Consider it done.’
‘And a hundred and fifty grains of gold.’
She blanched at that, but she paid anyway. Of course she did. Vignus knew all too well what she would have returned to in the Court of Talons, had she refused him. He was supposed to be playing the part of an avaricious merchant, after all, and gold was always useful.
That had been two days ago, and now the time of the appointed audience had arrived. Vignus set out into the streets of Carngrad with Calcis at his side, both of them masked as befitted their station and with Palania and Darrath and five mindbound around them. They had brought yet another barrel of doctored firewine with them.
A large one.
Vignus was welcomed at the gates of the Court of the Seven Talons as an honoured guest, and nothing was made of the glaive on Calcis’ back or the blades and chakrams carried by her men, nor even of Palania’s sickle-topped war-staff. It was clear that orders had been given to admit him and his retinue, and with all haste.
Once within they were ushered into the Hall of the Supplicant where Apolonia was waiting for them in a gown of human teeth sewn over supple leather. She led them down one of the seven long, winding corridors that led from the hall, one for each of the courtiers of the Seven Talons. Her master’s corridor led out into a small amphitheatre of tiered seating with a huge carved throne of bones looming over it. There a man sat wearing a coat of human scalps, flowing with matted, greasy hair of various length and hue. He was raving, clawing at the air around him with his free hand even as he gulped firewine from a fine crystal goblet.
Various advisors, soldiers, fixers and hangers-on clustered the benches below the throne, dressed in a wide array of attire, from heavy armour to flowing painted silks.
‘My Revered Lord Malleficus,’ Apolonia said, ‘may I present the Lord Trader Vignus Daneggia of Noschseed?’
‘Firewine!’ Malleficus roared, upending the goblet over his mouth and swallowing enough to drive a horse insane in a single gulp.
He is so far gone already, Vignus marvelled. This vintage may be my very best yet.
‘Who is this masked savage?’ one of the assembled advisors barked. ‘Seize him and confiscate his barrel!’
‘You seize no one in my court!’ Malleficus screeched, and hurled his empty goblet at the advisor’s head. ‘I rule here! Me! Me and her!’
He waved vaguely at the space beside him as he spoke, the space where there was no one.
‘My lord?’
‘She rules beside me! Beautiful!’ His voice broke then, and a sob caught in his throat as he began to weep. ‘So… she is so beautiful in her suffering. You are not fit to… You! Not fit to gaze upon her wounds! Punish him!’
Guards rose up from behind the tiered benches and seized the advisor who had spoken, clubbing him brutally to the ground in the name of a wounded woman who quite clearly did not exist outside of the courtier’s own broken mind.
Warcry: The Anthology Page 10