Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  But the great gates were closed at sundown. No one passed through any of them after dark without warrant of the mayor or the king. Unless he were an alderman or noble. But these were blacksmiths, freemen of the city, but not nobility. Aldermen? All of them? It seemed unlikely. It was not unusual for guildsmen to sit on the city council, but usually only the masters. And of those there could only be one for each guild. Perhaps an alderman could command the guards at the gate to allow passage to the rest. Or perhaps the mayor had authorised their passage with a writ.

  Could this be a guild meeting? The men were not wearing any regalia of office, only these orange robes, which made them look like mendicant monks, but more colourful. Also, it was usual for a guildhall to be in the same area as the members’ workshops and homes. Though he had not seen the blacksmith’s guildhall he assumed it was in Blacksmiths’ Way, or at least not far from it; as the dyers’ guildhall was in Dyers’ Lane. No, this was not a guild meeting.

  It had more the character of a religious procession. It was true that some of the guilds doubled as cult hierarchies, however dubious; the Lord of Law styled himself the arkon of Ilsa, high priest of the god of thieves; and sometimes the King of Misrule, who led the actors and entertainers in North Bank, made a similar claim. Alex had heard it said, usually by soldiers more full of ale than truth, that the greatest blacksmiths were the priests of Fulkthra, smith of the gods. If you asked the same men where the shrine was they could never tell you more than they could write neatly in the sawdust with their vomit. Still, it was possible these blacksmiths were going to practice some cult mysteries. Maybe even inner mysteries. He had never seen the inner mysteries of a cult. Usually only holy orders were allowed. If he were caught they might even kill him. If he were caught. The risks made the prospect all the more delectable. He had to see.

  They were near East Gate now, and the great stone towers which flanked the gatehouse obscured the stars. At a distance the towers seemed to be carved whole, but up close you could see stones as large as houses. Each was slightly curved to produce a cylindrical whole, and perfectly fitted to the others. Not so perfect that a thief like Alex could not climb them, but still remarkable. The city truly must have been built by giants. The procession now turned away from the main thoroughfare and into a narrow alley, which followed the curve of East Gate’s eastern tower back toward the southern end of North East Quarter’s outer wall.

  In the narrow street the overhanging upper stories of the houses had no windows but leaned all the way to the stones of the tower, as though to rest against its strength. The result was a dark tunnel so that he could only see the light of the torches occasionally through a gap. He knew the alley well by reputation. The enclosure captured the smells of the street, so that it was almost as aromatic as the refuse plateau, without the advantage of mountain breezes to clear the air. Though the darkness, almost as thick in the day as at night, made its houses seem ideal targets to a thief, the absence of quick access to a rooftop escape made it potentially a death trap. Many a less than innocent thief had been caught there, and a few had been handed over to the watch.

  The inhabitants of the street, as if their souls had been twisted to secrecy and darkness by the slum in which they lived, were more likely to imprison the captives in their cellars, and torture them; or find other uses, arcane or merely perverted, for them or their bodies. Or body parts. Sometimes a resourceful captive would escape before they could suffer dissection. Sometimes they would not have been driven so mad that they could not tell the tale. Of course those thieves did not have Alex’s talent, he told himself, and he would have to show how it was done one day. You did not have to have access to the roofs at all points, you just had to be aware of every possible escape route. If it were not for his curiosity about the blacksmiths’ procession, he thought with bravado more mixed with nervousness than he cared to admit, he would rob one of these houses right now, just to prove how much better he was than any other thief in this city. But there was plenty of time. He was young, and there was so much of this great city he had not yet robbed. So many shops that, if they could ever catch him, would turn him over to corruptible guards like good honest decent suckers.

  He reached a stretch of rooftops that extended along the tower wall solidly for a hundred yards, and when he came to the next gap he could not see any torches anymore. He did not know the street below well enough to know whether there were covered alleys leading away from it. He thought about the possibility of becoming body parts for sale, or maybe mince for some starved madman’s meat pies or sausages. He shuddered. But he was not going to break into any of the houses, for now. He was only risking his life by spying on the blacksmiths’ cult mysteries. They were likely to kill him on the spot, not torture him. That decided him.

  “A clean death I can live with,” he said to himself and grinned.

  He dropped through the gap and looked along the alley. Then he looked back. Nothing. He had lost them. He sniffed. Smell of shit and piss and mould. And rotting flesh. He could not be sure with the overwhelming stench down here, but he thought there was something missing from the bouquet. The smell of recently passed torches. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark then followed the alley back the way he had come. It was littered with broken barrels and crates, even what looked like a large broken coffin, leaning against a wall, and dogs and cats that might have been sleeping if they had not stunk so badly. Perhaps they had been killed for fun by the deranged inhabitants, or starved, or just died of the bad smells. That thought made him worry. Could bad smells kill you? He had been told they could, but he had been told almost as many lies in his short life as he had told others. That was more than a few. So you had to wonder. But still, it was disgusting down here, and he kept looking around, hoping for an alley which might open to the stars. There could not be anything worth stealing in these houses, and any sensible thief would know that, so maybe the rumours about the inhabitants were bullshit. Maybe someone wanted people to stay out of the area. If that were the case, this place might be more than it seemed. So maybe there was something worth stealing after all. Maybe the blacksmiths were the key.

  It seemed less dark up ahead. Among the other smells there was an increasingly strong aroma of mouldiness. Then he smelled something he had been missing. The acrid scent of torch smoke.

  He turned around, looking back in the direction from which he had come, though on the roofs. They had reached this point, or at least their smoke had, but there was no alley nearby. Had they turned into one of the houses? He listened carefully. Nothing. Not a breath. Not a mumble or chuckle or madman’s scream. But there was a soft green glow up ahead. He crept toward it. When he reached it he discovered it was some kind of glowing mould, growing on the crumbling walls of the decaying houses. He had seen this before. Similar mould covered the massive pylons on which the city was built, those furthest in under the city’s streets, away from any sunlight. When the refuse barges floated by the barge men would sometimes extend their torches toward the pylons, and the mould would glow for a while afterwards. He followed the trail. It went back about thirty strides to where the mould started growing. He turned and followed it back the way he had come. He could not be sure in the dark but it looked like the mould extended further than the glowing.

  He could find no door nearby, but a rat gnawed on what might have been a corpse, possibly once human. He decided not to investigate it more closely. He turned to the tower wall. He ran his hand over it, opposite where the glowing stopped. The stones were smooth, not jagged like those buildings of North Bank that were built with stone. He walked back into the glow, which was a sickly green that seemed to pulse, running his fingertips along the stone. He felt the vertical join. He ran his fingers up, and reached a horizontal join. It was about six feet above the ground. But the stones of the tower were much bigger than that. They were two or three times as high as he could reach. He ran the palms of his hands over the surface. No unexpected imperfections. He pressed each of the cobble
stones in front of the door shaped imperfection with a toe. One was loose. He squatted and tried to lever out the stone. It was not loose enough to conceal a hidden catch. It did not trigger a release. He stood again, and searched more carefully over the surface, this time with his eyes too. The green glow was dim but sufficient here.

  There was no imperfection in the stone, but there was a ghostly outline, in the shape of an anvil and hammer. Sign of Fulkthra. At least he knew he was in the right place. He folded his arms and frowned in concentration. He unfolded his arms and searched carefully around the image, then again all over the surface of the door and beyond, this time with considerably more care. He soon satisfied himself that there were no trap apertures that might eject lethal projectiles. He ran a finger along the bottom, and was sure that the join there was so precise no hidden blade could swing out from there. The sides were likewise too well fitted. He looked around and found a sliver of broken crate. With this he pressed at the image, careful to not stand in front of it. It retracted into the surface, but there was no click of a lock releasing. He examined it carefully. It seemed to be merely the shape of the image recessed, but he knew there had to be more to it than that. There might be poison needle traps or poison gas or something more inventive that would be set off by someone manipulating it without the correct key. He reached for his pack, in which he had a range of lock-picking tools.

  A sound of echoing footsteps came from the direction of Main Street, from which the blacksmiths had come. Two distant torches, like malignant, burning eyes in the darkness. He scurried back beyond the illumination shed by the glowing mould, and hid behind the large broken coffin that leaned against one of the houses. Two hooded men approached, stopping at the concealed door.

  “Brandon’s gonna be pissed.”

  “Fuck him! He’s as bad as the puritans. So we’re late.”

  “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “I forgot my hammer.”

  “Don’t worry, I have mine.”

  One of the tardy blacksmiths lifted a hammer, and pressed its top against the door. He held both sides of the hammer head and twisted. The handle of his hammer slowly rotated so that it remained turned the same way, the head clicking repeatedly like a clockwork toy being wound up. Then there was a louder click, deep within the stone. The door swung open and the men stepped in. Alex darted toward the door and placed a hand against it to stop it closing all the way. He waited for a count of thirty then slipped through. As it clicked shut behind him he wondered how he was going to get out. Whether he was going to get out.

  At least the air in here was cleaner. While the acrid smell of torch smoke was much stronger, there was none of the decay that filled the air of the alley. He was in a tunnel, which seemed to follow the contours of the tower wall, curving slightly to his right, and could see torch light disappearing around that curve. He felt the walls and found the tunnel extended in both directions. It would be interesting to explore the whole place one day, but not today. He followed the fading light quickly, and kept it close enough to not lose it but distant enough to not give himself away. Suddenly the light vanished all together. He hurried forward, and almost fell down the central well of a circular stairwell. For a moment he tottered at the edge. He wildly wheeled his arms backwards and regained his balance. He could see the torches dwindling below him, and descended the stairs.

  The stairs circled around the central well without the safety of banisters, but Alex could not keep to the wall without losing what little light came up from below. The air was cool, dry and stale, though sharpened by the acrid smell of the torches. He had to tread carefully but quickly to catch up to the tardy blacksmiths, and hope that the stairs were sound. When he was within less than a single turn of the stair of them he slowed to their pace and pressed against the wall, creeping forward in the shadow that followed the descending light their torches cast against the wall opposite them. They descended for several minutes. The air became progressively more damp and cool, and though the pylons and towers of the city rose high above the waters of the caldera lake he was sure he must be below the water table now, perhaps even as low as the foundations on the lake floor. He did not know how far the foundations went below that. Perhaps he had even descended below the lake floor. Alex noticed that, oddly, he was sweating profusely now. At first he thought it was the exertion of descending so many stairs, but soon he was sure the air itself had started to warm. It was stifling, and becoming difficult to breathe. Still they descended.

  “I’d give my right nut for some fresh air,” one of the blacksmiths commented.

  “What’s so special about this conclave?” the other grumbled, “Brandon’s been whispering like the high priest of mysterious bullshit. I can’t get shit out of him.”

  “He found something. Something…important.”

  “Didn’t say what but, did he? He’s been choking on his fumes too long. Done damage to his head. I’ve told him he needs to ventilate his forge.”

  “This place needs ventilating. I can’t hardly breathe.”

  “Tell me about it. If he’s dragged us down here to melt another little gold anvil I’m gonna hit him in the head with my hammer. I can just as easily worship Fulkthra up in my forge.”

  “The greater the craft the greater the worship,” the other said reverently.

  “That’s right. The ring of every hammer blow is a prayer to the god. Shit! My prentice does more honour to Fulkthra by pumping the bellows than Brandon ever did with his high and mighty rituals.”

  “What if he really has found something?”

  “Then praise be to Him that hammers the substance of the world.”

  “Praise be.”

  “Still, it’s likely bullshit.”

  “Likely.”

  “I’ve been coming down here since my dad died. Never seen nothing but a lot of pretentious twats in orange robes.”

  “And we’re wearing the robes, so what does that make us?”

  “Too bloody right!”

  “Better shut up now. We’re nearly there. Hope they don’t see us come in.”

  After three more turnings of the stairs the light of the torches merged into a deep glowing red. Alex stopped as the footsteps of the blacksmiths faded. They had left the well. He crouched and crept forward until he saw the opening in the wall, opposite himself, from which the red glow emanated. He could see the orange cloaks of many blacksmiths beyond, and there was a low murmur, as of monks mumbling prayers in a chantry. There was too much light here for him to hide in shadow, but the smiths he could see all had their backs turned to him. From this height he could not be sure if there were others facing the stairwell. He darted across the space illuminated by the red light from beyond the opening opposite. Then he crept forwards and down until he reached the opening itself and peered around the edge. From here, standing, he could not see anyone beyond the obsidian above, forming an irregular ceiling extending away from the opening in the stairwell, and the cowls of the blacksmiths beneath. When he squatted he could see Brandon in the space between cowls and ceiling. The probable author of Alex’s pain had thrown back his cowl and was reaching and looking up as though invoking his god. Alex darted past the opening. The stairwell continued down, but it was not dark. He looked over the edge. It was not a bottomless pit. Far below he could see a kind of black sludge. But the sludge was cracked, and through the cracks glowed something bright and red. It flowed, like a slow river, and even at this distance Alex could feel the heat emanating from it.

  He turned back to the opening. The torches the men had brought were now arrayed along the walls in brackets, but the light was not all from the torches. Behind Brandon more of the sludge flowed, in a cascade into a vast trough, and from the trough in streams to the floor and across the floor of the vast cavern. Alex had heard of lava. He had always thought it was nothing but a fiction told to gullible travellers and innocent children. But here he saw it with his own eyes; stone that glowed and burned and flowed. The cowled
blacksmiths stood on islands of solid stone amidst the lava flows, and the murmur was the sound of their voices. A chorus to the honour of their god.

  “Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra, Fulkthra,” they murmured, over and over and over, and the cavern echoed with whispers of the name, and all about the lava of which he was eternally lord flowed, so slowly, as if a mighty river had been hypnotised by their call, burning as their god might will. They swayed and prayed, and all eyes were turned to the natural forge beneath the city, far beneath the caldera lake, deep in the heart of Mount Thedra.

  Before Brandon was an obsidian altar, smooth as molten glass and perfectly shaped for its function, though surely it had been carved by no human hand. On it sat a great iron anvil. On the anvil lay a sword. Alex could see from its missing pommel stone that it was the bone sword Randy had stolen from him. It was in a sheath so battered it could have been as ancient as the rituals practiced here. Here was the mortal echo of a past so distant none but the gods might remember it. To one side of the altar stood an ordinary barrel. To the other stood the man sized statue of a god. The god faced the altar, as if compelled by the blacksmiths to worship. It was not of Fulkthra. Alex recognised Saruthra, his ram’s head with five eagle eyes and one empty eye socket. Saruthra the far seeing. God of the skies, whose voice is thunder, brandishing his lightning bolt, with which he cracks the darkness, strikes down the greatest trees and fills the hearts of men with terror in the dark and stormy night.

  Brandon stretched his arms wide, as if summoning the lava to rise, to rise from the depths, to take over the heights, to rule where men now ruled, and crush their pride beneath the weight of the great mountain’s fiery, liquid heart. He did not sway like the others, but he chanted as they did. With his cowl cast back and his face turned up to the heights of the cavern, lost in darkness far above, his eyes saw what Alex could not guess. His features were red in the light, and as the lava flowed so the colour seemed to flow, as if blood poured onto and over his features from the darkness above.