“This is crazy,” I said. “Do we have a sudden increase in the amount of garbage around or something? I mean, something must be causing it, right?”
Lilly looked thoughtful.
“Go kill a few harpies, Duke,” she said. “I’ll see you at home tonight.”
There was a knock at the door that evening, but instead of Lilly, there was a messenger there when I opened it, who told me that Lilly wanted me to come back to the watchhouse as soon as I could. Having nothing better to fill my time with, I followed the messenger right away.
Lilly was in a large room on the second floor, where the wizards keep their labs and libraries. A long, wooden table, with several comfortable chairs around it dominated the space. It looked like a room where a lot of people could gather at once for a meal, or to discuss business if need be.
The room was unoccupied except for Lilly and an elderly man, seated at the far end of the table, talking quietly. He was human, and was one of the oldest living people I ever saw, but when he looked up, there was still a gleam in his eye that said the lights were most certainly still lit.
“Duke,” Lilly said, “I’d like you to meet Herr Schmidt. He has an interesting story to tell.”
“Yes, well, I don’t know if it’s interesting, or even true, but it’s what was told to me,” the old gent said.
I took a seat. “Go ahead.”
“I grew up in a town far from here, way to the north, where winters get very cold. A lot of pine forest and mountains. Life wasn’t easy, but the area was beautiful, and as a boy, I was happy. I had no concept then, of course, of how hard life in a place like that could be for parents, and I was sad when they moved us here to the city.
“Before that, there was a legend in my town, about a man in bright clothing who played the most beautiful songs on a pipe, and could bewitch men, women, children and animals at will. We were told that if we misbehaved, this piper would come and play at us, and he would take us away, never to be seen again.
“But he wasn’t always an evil man. He was said to have helped towns who were overrun by rats, or mice, or locusts, as well. He could drive the pests away with the same music that he would use to lure us children. Was he good, was he evil? Who could tell?”
I stared at Lilly while Herr Schmidt told us his tale.
“It is these clowns with the pipes,” I said.
“Could be. It’d be a pretty big coincidence for them to show up at the same time as all these pests, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure would. Herr Schmidt, do the tales tell of anyone who stood up to this guy, or how they might have gotten him to go away?”
The old man shook his head. “No, the tales never said that. Only that he would come and take you if you were bad. I never met anyone who actually saw him.”
“You have now,” I said.
Lilly let her bosses know what she discovered, and the word went out to be on the lookout for the pipers dressed in the multi-colored clothes. Several were seen, but when the Watchmen went to arrest them, the pipers played a tune, and the Watchmen woke up later, with the piper long gone. In the meantime, the plagues of roaches, rats, mice and other pests continued to get worse.
“How did you even find that Herr Schmidt guy?” I asked Lilly, later on.
“It’s amazing what you can find in a library,” she said. “And the Watch has some pretty big resources.”
“Now what?”
“Now we need to figure out how to get rid of them. In the meantime, we’re eating at home!”
I resolved to keep my eyes open and if I found one of the pipers, I was going to lean on him, hard, until he told me what I wanted to know. But, since the Watch were onto them, they no longer lounged against walls, or started impromptu dance parties outside of taverns. Now, they stayed hidden, only being noticed when someone heard the sounds of their pipes, and that was usually immediately before the area was overrun by something disgusting.
All I needed to do was wait around to hear people start screaming in disgust and horror. If I was quick enough, I might catch one in the act, and then I’d find out what I needed to know.
I learned a long time ago that standing around waiting for something to happen is boring work. But at the moment, I didn’t have a better idea. If the pipers were really causing these outbreaks of pestilence, then that was my only lead. It could take days for me to be in the right place at the right time, although you wouldn’t think that people dressed like they were would have that many places to hide without standing out. Maybe they changed clothes when they weren’t serenading rats.
While I waited, the city started to spiral down into panic mode for the second time in a few short weeks. Unlike with the banshee, people weren’t afraid that they were going to die, they were just too disgusted to attend to their normal affairs. At one point, a whole flock of harpies descended on the Royal Palace, and made a huge mess before the Guard could drive them off with crossbows and slings. Word was that His Highness was not at all happy about it, and who could blame him.
I even visited the NHLF headquarters, to see if Brindar had any news, but like me, he was mostly waiting around, hoping to find one of the elusive pipers to question. From what he alluded to, it appeared that he was spending a lot of his time underground, where the dwarves were expanding, and running into pockets of their own types of pests. I didn’t ask too many questions, but the fact that dwarves were busily tunneling under everyone’s feet was interesting.
Finally, after more than a week, I got lucky. It was late in the afternoon, and I gave up for the day. After walking for miles and listening in vain, I was ready to hit a tavern, have an ale or three, and then go home to my beautiful bride-to-be and call it a night. My head was hung pretty low as I walked along, making my way back through the Stews, and feeling dejected.
The melody was playing for a moment or two before I even realized it. It started to rise through my subconscious, until I could hear it plainly. It was a weird, haunting melody, and sounded like it came from more than one pipe at a time. I got a cold chill thinking of what they could be calling to them if there were indeed more than one piper, but I followed the sound, until I realized it was coming from an alley in front of me.
I stopped, pulled out my gun and made ready to set it to...to what? Human? I guessed the pipers were human, but was what they were doing worth killing them over, human or not? Maybe they were practical jokers who got a kick out of grossing everyone else out. And despite the old man’s story, I hadn’t heard any reports of children being led to their dooms, so as far as I knew, they hadn’t actually hurt anyone.
I needed to take one alive, and find out what was going on, so I put my gun back into my belt, and loosened the sword that I still wore. A whack with the flat of the blade upside a piper’s head wouldn’t kill him, but it would put him down. I looked up, and saw that the buildings on either side of the alley were only two stories, although in this part of town, they probably housed several families of goblins, gnolls, or even ogres, in each one.
The music was still coming from the alley in between the two, and there was now a distinctive squeaking noise rising from all around as well. Great, this one was calling rats. Other people on the street were beginning to take notice, and I heard a couple of startled yelps and screams from inside the houses as well.
The nearest alley other than the one the piper was playing in was several houses back, which all ran side to side, with no gaps between them, from that one to this. I turned and ran back to the other one as fast as I could, and using skills developed long ago, made my way up the side and onto the roof. I ran across the rooftops until I reached the gap between the buildings, the alley that piper was standing in playing.
Making my way cautiously to the edge, I leaned out slightly and looked down. It was a scene out of nightmare. The piper, still dressed in those ridiculous bright clothes stood in the middle of the alleyway, legs astride, pipe to his lips. That haunting melody came out, and the rats came to it like it was free
cheese. They gathered around him, climbing over and among each other, bunched near his legs so that you couldn’t even see his feet. More and more arrived with every second, milled around, and left the alley, to run into the street, or to squeeze through cracks in the walls.
I looked around, and found something I could use. A lot of the buildings in the Stews had been there for long time, and a lot of them weren’t kept up as well as they should be. Chimneys deteriorated over time, and some of the bricks on the tops were loose. I took one, walked back to the edge, took careful aim, and let fly.
A moment later, I was rewarded with the satisfying sound of it connecting with flesh, an “oomph” sound, and the sudden cessation of the music. As I made my way down from the roof and into the alley, the rats were starting to disperse, which was nice for me.
He was out cold when I got to him, but to be safe, I picked him up by the front of his shirt, and socked him a good one in the jaw. His feathered cap fell into the grime of the alleyway, and I gladly let it lay where it landed. I took his pipe and stuck that into my belt, sure that Lilly would want to see it. I didn’t know if the magic belonged to the man or the instrument, but I would let the experts work that out.
I hefted the unconscious piper onto my shoulder when I heard more music. It was faint at first, but definitely getting louder. One of this guy’s buddies was coming to rescue him. Well, they’d have to catch me first.
Running with a body over your shoulder isn’t the easiest thing to do, but then again, neither is trying to run and play a tune on a pipe either. There were times that the song would start to get into my head, urging me to slow down, to stop running, to dump my prisoner, but then it would hit a wrong note, or there would be a heavy breath, and the compulsion would disappear, only to start to build again. Every time, it grew a little stronger, and a little harder to resist.
I heard yet another pipe start up, and there was no way I could make it to the watchhouse. The new sound started between me and the direction I needed to go in. They figured out where I was going, somehow communicated it, probably through that infernal music, and made a plan to cut me off.
But they didn’t realize one important thing. I wasn’t headed for the watchhouse. I was headed for home. Let them try their magic pipe playing there, where Petal’s folks were. My money was on the Brownies.
By the time I hit home, I was sweating, and not only from the exertion of carrying the piper. The song telling me to quit was getting harder to ignore by the second, and if I hadn’t had enough of someone else playing with my mind, I might have succumbed to it. But the more I thought of not being in control of my mind again, the angrier I got, and that helped to shield me.
I pushed the door open, stumbled inside, dropped the piper on the floor and sank down, panting heavily. Outside, I could still hear the music, but it lost its power in here. I didn’t know if that was due to the Brownies, or because I was home, but either way, I was safe.
The music stopped, and I crawled to the window, rising up enough to look out, but ready to duck back quickly if needed. There were two more pipers out there, their pipes no longer raised to their lips, regarding my house with quizzical expressions on their faces. They looked at each other, then raised their pipes back up, and walked off in different directions, their music floating through the air behind them.
I sighed deeply and turned back to my captive, who was beginning to stir.
“Buddy, you better hope you tell me what I need to know before Lilly gets here. Trust me.”
He groaned, and I don’t think it was a thank-you. Some people have no sense of gratitude.
When Lilly did come home, I was in the kitchen, sitting in a turned around chair, my hands crossed over the back of it. The piper was in front of me, bound to another chair, but ungagged.
“Ummm...what’s going on, Duke?” she asked.
“I caught one,” I said, not taking my gaze off of the piper.
“I see that. But why is he here? Why didn’t you bring him to the watchhouse?”
I told her about the other two, and the fact that they knew he was here, and about the compelling music and how it lost its power in the house. She nodded as I finished.
“Yep, I guess that would work. Let me see that pipe.”
I gave it to her and she took it farther away from the piper while she looked it over. She set it down, raised her hands over it and said some words in what sounded like a nonsense language to me. Sparks flashed on her fingertips and her eyes turned black.
The piper stared at her in horror while this was going on, a fact which wasn’t lost on her. I’m sure she threw in a few extra dramatics for his benefit, but I couldn’t have sworn to it.
“Interesting,” she finally said. “Have you gotten much out of him yet?”
“Nope, he doesn’t want to talk. I was going to lean on him some, but I know you get upset with blood on the kitchen floor, so I thought I better not. At least not until you were here to say if it was okay.”
“Sweet of you. I don’t think that will work though. I don’t think he really cares if you beat him to a pulp, do you Mister Piper?”
The piper was still staring at Lilly in horror, although now I noticed that his eyes kept flickering back and forth between Lilly’s face, and the pipe that she held in her hands.
“No, beating him up wouldn’t do anything,” Lilly mused. “But, if I was to do something to this pipe, like, oh, I don’t know, set it on fire…”
“No!” the shout burst out of the restrained piper, and he jerked against the rope in a futile effort to get free.
“That’s what I thought,” Lilly said, quietly.
“What?” I was lost, again. That happened a lot when Lilly got rolling. “I don’t get it.”
“They’re one and the same, Duke,” she replied, but her eyes weren’t on me, they were boring into the piper. “The pipe and the man, they’re the same thing. One can’t exist without the other. Oh, we could kill him, but eventually the pipe will find someone else to play it, and then that person will become part of it. But...if we destroy the pipe…”
“Please,” the piper begged, “don’t. Please.”
“Then I think you better start talking,” Lilly said, still holding onto the pipe.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why are you guys around?” I asked. “I mean, what’s in it for you?”
“Money,” he replied. I was disappointed. Why is it always something as simple and base as greed? It seemed like it should be some sort of nefarious plot, not that someone was paying them to…. to what exactly?
“Why?” I asked him. “Why would someone pay you to come here and bring rats and roaches and stuff like that?”
“To cause chaos in the city, keep you all on edge,” he said. “At least, that’s what we were told.”
“By who?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but then clamped it shut again. Well, well. Maybe enough money does buy loyalty, for a little while anyway.
“Dumb move, my friend,” I said.
Lilly stepped in front of him, the pipe held up in one hand and raised the other. Sparks again snapped and popped between her fingers, giving off an acrid odor.
“I can’t!” the piper wailed. “I physically can’t say!”
“Are you saying there’s a spell on you?” Lilly asked him, lowering her hand.
“Yes,” the man’s head was down, and he was panting, glancing at the pipe in Lilly’s hand with desperation in his eyes. “I can’t say, and if I’m forced, it will kill me. All of us, we all had to agree to that to get paid.”
“You must have been paid an awful lot for that,” I said.
“We did. But we would have done it for less.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Capital City,” he snorted. “Everyone here thinks they’re so high and mighty. Greatest city in the world. So enlightened. What a load of manure.”
“Wait,” I said. “You’re telling me that beca
use you don’t like our city, you’re willing to spread chaos and destruction here?”
“Don’t think we’re alone,” he sneered. “We’re just one of the first waves. There’s worse coming. You’re all dead, you just don’t know it yet.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Lilly said, stepping forward again.
She raised her hand, and the piper looked at his pipe and whimpered. But Lilly waved her hand, moving her fingers in a strange way, and he went to sleep. Or at least, I hoped he was asleep. Lilly being a necromancer, you could never really be sure.
“We’ll take him to the watchhouse,” she said. “See what the wizards can do about that curse that’s on him, and what more they can tell us about this pipe.”
“How are we going to get there?” I asked. “The other ones, at least two of them are out there waiting.”
“It’s not that hard, really. Forewarned is forearmed.”
A short time later, we turned the sleeping piper over to the Watch, and removed the wads of cotton from our ears. If the pipers had tried to get to us, Lilly stymied them by the simple trick of making sure we couldn’t hear.
Since I wasn’t part of the Watch, I was left on my own when Lilly was summoned to a meeting on the second floor. She told me that it could be awhile before she was done, so maybe I should go piper hunting, but not to forget my ear plugs. I agreed with her.
Whoever it was that had it in for Capital City, they were devious. First, they made people fear for their lives, and now they’ve made it so that no-one even felt safe in their own homes. Whatever was coming next was sure to be even worse. We could only hope that the wizards would break the curse placed on the piper and get some answers. Then the king could send the Guard after them and end this whole stupid affair.
“I’m off hunting,” I told Sarge. “Let Lilly know I’ll see her at home, would you?”
“Sure, Duke,” he replied, “be careful. Those rats can bite pretty hard.”
Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story Page 35