by Greg Curtis
But then a couple of blocks down the street he heard a sound in the distance that changed his thinking. He heard wolves howling.
“Balls!” Manx cursed. He hadn't thought to wonder if there might be other beasts out there.
“Don't worry about a thing, monkey man!”
Manx looked up to see that he was just passing the Oldstone Estate, and his least favourite cat in the entire city was once more sitting on top of a stone column laughing at him. Sometimes he imagined that the damned cat sat there all day just waiting for him.
“And why not you mange ridden rodent!” he replied knowing that the furry little nightmare did not have the slightest concern for his safety.
“Because I'm quicker than you. I'll get clean away while they're busy chewing on your bones! You'll make a great meat shield! There's nothing to worry about!”
“Yes, that was always my worry!” Manx replied sarcastically. “That and my not paying enough taxes!”
He continued on down the street, thinking he needed a bigger club. And maybe somewhere to run to if the wolves came by. And maybe he needed to master sprinting!
But at least he wasn't alone. Everyone else he passed had weapons in hand. Mostly swords and sticks like him. But in the distance he heard gunfire, and guessed that the wolves weren't having a free run of the city. Hopefully they wouldn't be as resistant to bullets as the hell-hounds had been.
Still he wondered as he continued on his journey, where were all these beasts coming from? He wondered it some more when he saw a pair of hippos cross the street in front of him.
“Oh shite!” He stopped dead when he saw them, and started panicking a little. They were huge! Their feet were actually driving the streets' cobbles down into the ground! And with that thick hide of theirs, he doubted they'd even notice his cudgel. Luckily they weren't interested in him. They didn't even turn their heads to stare at him. Instead they simply continued happily on their way to the city's central park. The one with the river flowing through it.
When they'd vanished from sight he started walking once again, wondering what else he might run into. And it wasn't long before he spotted a troop of long tailed monkeys making themselves at home among the taller trees of Watford Street. But they didn't bother him probably because he didn't go near them.
There were hawks too. Or eagles – he wasn't sure of the distinction – making the lives of the city's pigeons much more exciting. But he just pulled his hat down a little tighter and carried on.
Maybe it had been a mistake to go to work, he thought as the centre of the city came into view. Winstone was completely overrun with wild animals! No one was going to be visiting the library on a day like this one. But what else could he have done? Hidden in his home and stared out the window for the rest of his days? But that wouldn't have worked, he realised as he noticed the large numbers of buildings with broken windows.
At least the centre of the city was being defended. As he approached the library, Manx spotted the soldiers in their blue and white, patrolling the streets, their rifles at the ready. And there were more manning barricades in the middle of the street. In fact they'd formed a huge walled off area in the middle of Temple Street.
But there weren't enough city guards for his liking. Worse than that a great many of those he saw were barely more than children. So many had been killed by the demon beasts that the city had recruited practically anyone who could pick up a rifle to replace them. Still, maybe some of them knew what was happening. Which was why he headed for the barricade instead of going into the library. It was only a hundred yards.
“What's happening?” he called out as he approached. “There are wild animals all over the city and wild boars in my garden!”
“Dunno,” the nearest of the guards answered him. “They just turned up.”
“But how can they just turn up?” That didn't make any sense to Manx. “There's sheep with spears on their heads! And I just saw a pair of hippos crossing the street! How can there be hippos in the city?”
“Haven't you worked that out yet?”
A woman's voice came from just behind Manx making him jump. And when he turned to see who it was, he almost took a step back in fear. Lady Marshendale was standing there in her armour, staring at him with those ice blue eyes, and he felt distinctly unsafe. She was not a friendly woman. And if she guessed what he'd done to the city gaol?!
“There's a wizard loose in the city,” she continued.
“A wizard!” Manx's voice became a little shrill. “There's no such …” He stopped speaking when he considered everything else that had happened lately. If there were demon beasts around why not wizards?
“I'm sorry, Lady.” He nodded to her. “It's just so hard to believe.”
“I would think you of all people would be more accepting,” she replied. “I mean there must be something in all your books about this.”
“But they're just stories. None of them are real!” He stared at the street behind him, and the monkeys making it home. “This is just madness!” He didn't know how else to describe it. Then a thought struck him.
“If it's magic can't you just get on your unicorn and wave your glowing sword around and send these creatures back to wherever they came from?” He noticed her unicorn wasn't anywhere around that he could see. But she did have her sword on her hip. “Like the demon beasts?”
“It's not that simple. Eslee won't fight these creatures. She likes them. And the sword doesn't work on them.”
“It doesn't work?!” He stared at her in disbelief. “But it turned those hell-hounds into dust!”
“It's enchantment is against evil and unnatural things. These are neither. They're just animals.”
“Even the sheep with the spears on their heads?” They hadn't seemed very natural to him.
“Even them,” she replied. Then she turned her attention to the cudgel in his hand and shook her head pityingly. “I don't suppose you have any useful advice for dealing with the creatures? You seem to know how to destroy everyone's day after all.”
Manx shuddered a little when he heard her say that. Was she talking about the way he'd ruined her chance to hang him and his family? Or did she know something about what had happened in the gaol? He feared it was the latter.
“Only that you shouldn't shoot the hippos. Their hides are so thick that bullets would only make them mad.” It was actually good advice he thought. He was sure he'd read a great many books about hunters being trampled by the hippos they'd just kept shooting. But she didn't seem appreciative. “Let them get to the river, and then don't go swimming.” Not that a lot of people did go swimming. But the ducks and other waterfowl might be upset about having to share their home with the beasts.
“I think we'll worry about the wolves for the moment,” she told him dismissively, then stared at him as if he was nothing more than a target to be shot.
“You should go home. Nothing's open and everyone's staying indoors while we try and stop these creatures. There's nothing you can do.” She put a little emphasis on the “you”.
“Actually I can open the library,” Manx replied. He didn't like being pitied, and that was what he saw in her eyes. She thought he was helpless.
“I don't think you'll have many customers.”
“Maybe not. But it's a big, strong building, ten feet above the ground in the heart of the city. It'll make a good shelter for those who need it. And I can make tea and coffee.” It wasn't much, he knew. But it was something. And maybe he thought, he could invest in a pistol in time. Not that that would make him a soldier. But at least the damned woman wouldn't look down on him with quite so much pity.
“Then do as you will. But don't get yourself killed. I still have questions.” She dismissed him and turned back to her soldiers. Her real men.
Manx left her then and headed back to the library to do as he said. But as he did so, he felt smaller than he'd ever felt in his life. Relegated to something less than a man by a woman! It was humiliating. But what
else could he do? He couldn't fight. And none of his magical gifts would help him against the animals. But then they weren't really gifts. They were mockeries. Signs that the gods were laughing at him.
But he supposed there was one good thing to come from that. She surely couldn't suspect that he could have had anything to do with the attempted escape of Walken several nights before. Or maybe it had actually been an escape – he hadn't heard anything about that. The man's name had not been in the papers.
Ten minutes later he had the lights on in the library and the signs out telling everyone that it was open. And after that while the kettle heated, he sat at the check out counter and started reading up on everything he could about the animals that had invaded Winstone. After all, it seemed the thing to do and the Lady was right, he was no fighter. This was the one thing he could do. And there was one thing he quickly realised about this latest attack. The creatures didn't all come from the same place.
The mountain sheep – that was actually what they were called – came from a long way south, and were used to a climate that was far colder than Winstone's. The hippos came from the tropics as did the monkeys. Lands that weren't even part of Redmond. They had to be freezing to death here. The boars and the wolves could have come from anywhere. The demon beasts of course, didn't come from anywhere in the known world. But what all of that meant he didn't know.
As he worked, he also welcomed customers to the library. Lady Marshendale might have thought there wouldn't be any, but she was wrong. There were quite a few. Not the library's usual customers, and none of them seemed to be interested in reading. But there were still more than he would have expected. Civil servants who despite the wild animals in the streets had decided to try and do their duty. Worried people out searching for loved ones. And people who had been out in the city, got caught and seen the lights of building. So when they found the chance they hurried inside, and by then he had a kettle boiling most of the time and mugs laid out with tea and coffee, waiting to be filled.
It did his heart good to see them and to know that he was helping. And to see that this time the street wasn't littered with bodies. He might not be a soldier, or even particularly manly as far as the Lady was concerned, but he could still be useful. And while they were safe in here, the city guards were busy outside. Every so often he heard the sounds of gunfire, and he guessed the wolves were finding city life not to their liking.
On the other hand more unusual creatures were roaming Winstone. Antelope with huge antlers passed by the windows at one point, probably looking for food. But no one shot at them and there wasn't much in the way of grass in the street, and they soon moved on. The elephants were more of a worry, but they were at least peaceful. For the moment. And they too moved on in time, once they'd finished grazing the ornamental shrubs in the middle of the intersections.
Meanwhile the library's customers, took up seats in front of the windows and watched the streets as if what was happening was some sort of entertainment. No one was reading any books Manx noticed. No one but him that was.
In time, as the library began filling up with people, he moved on to magic. Or rather to the types of magic and wizards that could have brought all these creatures to the city. The library didn't have any works on the practice of magic, casting spells and performing rituals, for obvious reasons. But strangely there were some books on the subject. Old books of course. Civilization and reason had come to the world centuries before, and technology had swept all before it. Magic had largely been confined to history after steel had arrived. At least in Redmond. It was just ancient superstition. Or it had been until now. But the library had copies of some ancient works in its collections, and one by one he began pulling them out.
By mid afternoon he had started to make some headway. Though in all honesty he wasn't sure if it was progress or the onset of dementia. Either way he had some names. Ancient names of ancient spell-casters.
The first was a fiend. The wizard – if it was a witch or a wizard who had brought the demon beasts to Winstone – was called a fiend. There was little in the books about fiends, save that their magic spanned the gaps between worlds. Between their world and the underworlds. Apparently there were a number of them. As to what one looked like, he didn't know. The only thing that was written about fiends was that they were covered from head to foot in black ink. Arcane tattoos. The markings were what kept them connected between the different realms and allowed them to bring creatures back and forth. Everything else that was said about them seemed to change. Some works claimed they were human. Others that they were from the pit themselves. Some even said they had three eyes. But on that one point they all agreed. They were covered in demonic script. And on one thing more. The way to defeat them was to remove their markings. How you did that, Manx didn't know. But he doubted soap and water would do.
The fiend though hadn't brought the creatures of the wilds to Winstone. Instead it seemed they were looking for a shaman for that. That had caught him by surprise. He'd always thought of shamans as priests found living in some of the primitive lands of the world, who chanted a lot, painted their faces and pointed sticks at people. Manx had been thinking that they would be looking for a wizard of some sort. But two things had changed his mind. The first was that everything he'd read about wizards of whatever stripe, was that their spells were limited. Whether you called them druids or mages or warlocks or whatever, their magic was fairly much local. They could summon creatures from across the world, but according to every book and every story, it was one creature at a time.
The other thing that had told him it was a shaman that they were looking for, was that this had happened once before. Four hundred and fifty years before. In the city of Moonfield. There someone, a shaman, had summoned whole herds of wild animals and released them upon a city of half a million people. Things had ended badly.
That shaman had been a priest of the Goddess Ao. An ancient goddess of nature and chaos. And the shaman's work had matched her nature perfectly he supposed. So was this another of her priests in action? Manx thought it likely. But that probably wouldn't help them find him or her.
Again the descriptions of the shamans were vague. Most of what was said about them, was contradicted by other books. But one thing was certain – the Shamans of Ao hated the modern world. They rejected everything about it. Iron was poison to them. Steel burnt them. And they choked on the smoke from burning coal. They also would not or could not live in a house. They wanted the open sky above their heads and the soft earth under their feet. Their bare feet that was because naturally they did not wear shoes.
Still all of that he would have put aside as the delusions of a desperate man, if it hadn't been for one other thing he found in the books. There were no more fiends. And there were no more shamans. Because the Silver Order had killed them all!
That sent his thoughts turning in another direction. It reminded him of the very first question he'd asked himself when he'd seen the woman on her unicorn charging the demon beasts. Where had she come from? How could she have been there, fighting the beasts just when they'd attacked? It had seemed far too convenient. And then the very next day she'd had a witness come forward and started to try him. Things had been moving far too fast. It had been almost as though she'd known what was coming in advance.
Now her weapons didn't work? What had happened to her advanced knowledge? Especially when it was her own order that had destroyed the shaman of Ao before.
There was a connection there. Something between her and her order and the various creatures attacking the city. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he knew it was there.
His time with the books came to an end not long after that, when one of the city guards walked in and announced that the library was closing for the day – and probably the rest of the week. There would be armed soldiers to escort everyone back to their homes, and after that they were expected to close their doors and stay there until they were told they could leave.
Manx had
expected that. Obviously Lady Marshendale thought they were in the way. She didn't want to have to worry about civilians being caught in the crossfire while her soldiers hunted down wolves and other dangerous creatures. And he knew better than to defy her. He'd already escaped the noose once. He didn't know if he could do it a second time.
But it was a shame. He wanted to uncover more of the secrets of magic. And the Silver Order. Magic most of all because it occurred to him that if there really were wizards and spells in the world, then there were also surely healing spells. The physicians had done everything they could to treat his injuries. It hadn't been enough. But magic? What could it do? He didn't know. But what he did know was that it was something he'd never tried. And maybe, just maybe, it was hope. He hadn't known that in a very long time.
As for the Silver Order and the attacks on Winstone; he wanted to know about that because there was a riddle there. And he hated a riddle he couldn't solve.
But he supposed as he locked up the library for the night after everyone else had left, and prepared to be escorted home, he had a week or so to think about it. And he had a cat waiting for him, no doubt working on pulling more wool tufts out of his living room rug as she waited for her dinner! He could only hope she hadn't found his slippers!