In his most recent bout, however, his father had decided that the boy should seek his fortune, and that fortune was best found off the island. Venice had a vibrant empire, even though it was a ‘republic,’ and his father had acquaintances who might help the boy. Upon landing, with the day almost half gone, he would try to find the man his father had hoped would set Damiano on the correct path – Ludvigo Zomba.
Zomba commanded a company of Schiavoni in the service of the Doge and the Serene Republic. Zomba was not Italian and his original name was not Zomba – but Zaba. Like many of the Schiavoni, he was originally a member of a Slavic tribe from Dalmatia – a mercenary, but loyal to the Doge. Either through some aid he provided Zomba during the war or perhaps having been an old drinking companion – he was not quite sure which – Zomba owed his father a debt, which was being cashed in via employment. Because of his father’s dealings, Damiano had learned a smattering of German and French, as well as a fair amount of Latin and Greek, which did him well in learned society. The Venetian dialect was different from Sicilian, so he had to pay attention when he asked for directions. Eventually, after getting lost three times, he managed to find the barracks and headquarters of Captain Zomba’s company. Most were fierce looking men, men who had seen a fight or two, but not all were from Dalmatia. Some had dark hair and features of the Dalmatians, others the look of Germans or north men with blond hair and blue eyes. There were even a few Ethiopians with dark skin. He showed a succession of NCOs and officers his letters, and most of them could not read it until he got to the captain’s second in command – Cornet Kerper. Kerper was a German from the northern seas who had made his way to Venice in much the same manner as Damiano. He looked over the count’s letters and seal and told the boy to sit and wait.
The captain came hobbling out of his office a few minutes later. The man was not that old – maybe his late thirties, but had obviously been through a few fights and that aged him in some ways that the average person would not have. He had a scar that ran from the top of the left side of his face to the jaw on the right side, giving him a frightening visage. Then he smiled and extended his arms, grasping the boy’s hand and elbow in one motion.
“Welcome, my boy. It is a pleasure to meet you and to read the greetings from your father. How is my old comrade-in-arms?”
This took Damiano by surprise; his father had never spoken of his military career. To Damiano, his father had always been a magistrate, yet he had heard whispers around town of other times. Many men boasted of their military careers, but not his father. Men always gave him a knowing nod of respect, but he never considered the possibility.
“My esteemed father is in good health and sends his best wishes, Captain-general.” This was a lie of course. His father had just grunted and told him to be wary of robbers and that included the Schiavoni.
“Good, my boy. Your father indicates you are a good swordsman, which will help you, but we will see if you can become a fighter. He has given me a letter of credit to allow me to get you set up, but unless we go on campaign you must watch your ducats.” Damiano liked Zomba, but he reminded him of local politicians who were gregarious in public but could be vicious in private. Although the men spoke of his battle prowess, he was starting to gain in girth and he winced when he rose from a chair.
He was passed down the chain of command from one person to another until he was introduced to another nameless NCO.
“Come on, lad,” motioned the thirty-something veteran. “We eat at sunset. I’ll get you a bunk and some equipment from our arsenal. That will be deducted from your pay until it is paid off, so don’t lose it or you will be working for the Republic in more ways than one.”
Damiano just nodded as if in a haze, said, “Yes, sir,” and continued on his way.
His billet was in a run-down area of the city. While the soldiers worked and dined together, the living quarters were separated into different groups. The non-Dalmatian soldiers were grouped together in one corner. All the soldiers were friendly enough, but he could easily see working clichés in these barracks. The Slavic soldiers stayed to themselves, speaking to each other in their native tongue. They had dark features for the most part so once again Damiano stuck out from the rest of the company. Damiano was given a doublet and breeches, two pairs of hose, shoes, a cap, and of course the straight basket-hilted broadsword of the Schiavoni. He deposited his money and valuables with the company bursar and tried to meet his new comrades. He walked over to the first group speaking in their native language. He tried to speak to them in Italian and they ignored him, then he tried German and finally French. They ignored him, but across the room one of the Ethiopians called to him in Latin.
“Don’t bother, man. They won’t acknowledge you yet. Come here and have a drink with us.”
His messmates were the outsiders – German, French, Italian, and African. There were not many, just ten, out of the seventy-five in the company.
“Relax my friend,” said the Ethiopian. “Here, have some Amorone, it’s a local wine.”
*****
“What of our supporters in the town? Can they help us?”
“The castellan has a blank-fool. He seems right for our purposes if he doesn’t blow himself up. He is just a boy. I think Stanczyk has warned the man.” As he spoke, Mytiaz started to glow again, giving off an orange glow in the void. Tłun knew that Mytiaz still had enough hope to change color depending on his mood – from optimistic yellow-white to sullen red-purple. It was at least something of interest in the void. Currently, it was yellow and pulsated regularly indicating he expected changes in their status soon.
“You hope for too much, Mytiaz. It has been years since that door was opened. I give you permission to try.”
Mytiaz frowned, but he would not relent. “We may not have our minions on this side, but we can still communicate with those faithful to us. We can guide the boy. I fear the others may try to use him as well. If we cannot, there is another potential candidate, however… He is unstable.”
Mytiaz showed no sign of nervousness or fear as befitted his status of a deity, but he also knew that darker forms were at work and started to turn orange in frustration. Tłun’s brow narrowed in thought. This blank conduit could be a perfect subject to restore them to the human realm. If the Eldar Gods got to him first however…
“Then try. We must stop the others. This is our world. They will only destroy it. They will all try to destroy it.”
*****
For the next two years, Damiano learned the way of the warrior as a member of the Schiavoni, in battles against the Turks or other Italian states. At first his unit was used in guard duty for the Doge, but later he was thrust in the line. He scrapped in more than one drunken brawl on the quays and fought two duels with local lads. One of which gave him a swarthy scar on his left cheek – he killed the man for that. Luckily for him they were moving out the next day.
Despite growing up on an island and now in the pay of a ‘naval’ power, he still didn’t like ships and got seasick too easily to the amusement of his compatriots. While many men were heading east in anticipation of war with the Turks, he was sent west to join their new French allies against Milan. For Damiano and his comrades, this was the best option – the lush plains of Lombardy, plunder, and good wine.
The Ethiopian, named Ahmad who most times went by the name of Mateo, was the son of a Spanish mother and a father who arrived and then stayed as an emissary in the Court of Aragon. He was sent by his father to make his fortune in Italy as the Spanish were expelling Moors and the prospects, even though he was Catholic, were not promising. Damiano was glad that the experienced soldier was now with him; he taught the recruit what he needed to know to survive and tricks of fighting in battle where the niceties of dueling didn’t matter. An Ethiopian in Venice was not that unusual, but when his company went in-land, Mateo was treated as an object to be seen. It helped that he was tall and muscular. His head and face was shaven except for a small beard on his chin that he k
ept braided – and he was an expert swordsman, something that Damiano appreciated in more than one scrap with the locals.
Having beaten the Milanese in the war, the Venetian forces moved into territory allotted to them with garrisons to keep the peace. In the summer of 1500, they were posted to a settlement named ‘Chiaggo’ near Vento when the area was shaken one day by an earthquake. It was not much of a tremor as quakes go – the bells in town rang and some of the shoddier construction suffered, but everyone was safe. The captain of his unit had the men survey the damage and he took Damiano to the local prefect. The captain was a simple man who saw the hand of God in all actions and this was no exception, but the prefect was a man of ‘science’ who sought to hedge his bet. Damiano had some schooling in such things so the captain wanted him to translate what the prefect said into plain language.
The prefect was always studying such things - the air pressure (he never felt any pressure from the air), the stars in the heavens, and the tremors from volcanoes and quakes. The prefect explained that this was a big quake; very strong and coming from far away.
“It was most surely from deep within the earth, but far away to the north. The closer to it, the stronger it would have been. See, I have these measurements…” and he trailed off to another area of the room.The captain just made a motion to wave the prefect away, turned and left.
“We’re just all damned,” he muttered and dragged Damiano with him.
As they were leaving he could still hear the prefect just kept on talking as if they were right there beside him. “But my main concern is this reading right here,” and pointed to some machine with pencils hooked into it. Noticing he was alone again he slumped down into the chair behind his desk and put aside the paper he had picked up and shouted, “but this discharge of ozone, this is unusual. No one ever believes me when I show them this…” By that time they were beyond earshot.
In the aftermath of the quake, Damiano noticed many unusual things about the people of Chaiggo; the air took on an odd heaviness that made people depressed; the animals started acted unusual – several of them were breech-born, they became aggressive, and birds flew into the walls of the town and the city hall. Adding to this, there were all manner of queer folk passing through the town mostly going north, but some coming south; ultimately they were trailed by a strange assortment of odd and unsavory characters.
In September, a lightweight traveling coach arrived, accompanied by several lackeys and postilions. Later that evening, Damiano was called into the captain’s quarters along with several of his brothers-in-arms. In the ante-room of the captain’s meeting room several swarthy characters in Hungarian dress stood at the ready. There was the smell of sweat and garlic, and perhaps stale wine in the air. They looked like they would brawl at the drop of a hat, but at the same time also looked like they could not be bothered. Perched on a chair; and he was literally ‘perched’, was a fool; dressed in a motley coat with bells, he alternatively flopped in the chair and sat on his haunches looking around nervously. The door to the captain’s meeting room opened and he walked out with a regal looking woman in a brocade dress and an ostrich plume hat. There were little pearl buttons and spangles on the dress which marked her out as a wealthy woman, but the cloth seemed a little worn.
The guards stood at attention, as did the fool, who took on a mocking copied stance of the Hungarian Guards. She carried herself with a haughty yet familiar manner of someone who was born in the aristocracy and the captain deferred to her as her position required. The Venetians made way as the woman and her guards came through, and Damiano thought she gave him a quick sideways glance as she passed; the fool brought up the rear and also seemed to make eye contact with Damiano and held it for a moment – with a sad, forlorn look on his face. While many court fools were small people or feeble-minded, the countess’ fool seemed like an imitation of one. Hers was neither a child and not malformed, but just a small man who seemed like he was always drunk.
The captain called the group in to address Damiano’s detachment. Captain Zomba always looked stern when he addressed the men – he could be telling them about the dinner menu and it would still sound like he was scolding naughty children. “The noble lady who just left was Countess Engblad, an aristocrat of the Holy Roman Empire. Countess Engblad needs to get back to her estates near Ducal Prussia, to a town called Starybogow. To get there will require her to cross dangerous areas of the Empire. As she is related to Governor Simka, and a friend of my family, she deserves protection. As she had been living in Venice for some time, she also enjoys the company of our Doge. It is decided that we should help her. Her family’s estates have been severely damaged by the earthquake that hit some weeks ago. The route from here to Starybogow is dangerous at best; the route torturous and the food no doubt foreign. With a little luck the wine will be plentiful.” He turned to walk away, preoccupied with a series of thoughts going through his mind. When he turned back and saw the men still assembled, he threw up his arms, “Well what are you waiting for? You have your orders, carry them out!”
*****
There was a surge of light like a flash, then the sound of a boom as the barriers in their portal came down. Perun blinked several times, holding his hand up against the blinding light. When he finally saw his hand, he snatched it down, staring at it as if he had never seen it before. “We are free!”
He looked down at Mytiaz, glowing with blue, then back toward the mystic gateway that resonated with the most arcane magic. “Not all of us; we must move quickly before it closes again.” The portal that was created opened at several different areas where his fellow entities could escape into the human world, but it would only be open for a short time. He feared not all would have the chance to make it across. Crossing through the portal, Perun turned to Tłun “Get as many through as possible.” He took a deep breath in the open air and stretched out his hands. He needed the sun to start to regain his strength. Perun stopped and looked Tłun in the eyes, “Do we still have the boy on our side?”
“For now, the Grand Duke has not gotten him here yet but there are others as well, some we did not see. It was the allies of the Eldar Gods that opened this portal and they have released some of their dark brood. We must gather our forces.”
Perun nodded but showed no sign of emotion. He had hoped the dark ones would still be imprisoned, but no; the struggle continued on in the human world once more. They would have to rely on the belief in humans to aid them until they could reclaim their strength.
He already understood what Mytiaz had said. He had prepared for it. He knew if they could be freed, so could the Eldar Gods. At least, in this realm, they could fight back against them. They could use humanity to reclaim their power and protect this world at the same time.
“This world has changed since we were last here,” Mytiaz said as he walked around aimlessly, sniffing as if trying to find a familiar homey smell. “I can feel that our power circles are no longer intact. We will need to rebuild.”
Perun heard what Mytiaz was saying, but he was not paying him much attention. He was more concerned trying to figure out their location. They were in a catacomb of sorts. As best he could tell they were under a city – their city – what was left from their time was down here. It had been buried by new cities, ever more building; all of that much was for certain. Now there were others that lived above them. Time and war had leveled their land, but humanity built once more. Surely some of their talisman had survived, as he tried to summon his followers. But he was too new back in this world to have any effect. He hoped they had not traded one prison for another.
Perun reached his hand out. He could feel the presence of his people nearby. They would come to him eventually, but he needed to gather his strength, to adapt again to this world, its noises hummed in his head. It would take time though and his kind needed to gather their strength before they were discovered in this weakened state. They were vulnerable now. He opened a passage in the wall and those that had made it through en
tered before he closed it up again. He could feel the others though, the Eldar ones. This would not do; it would not do at all.
*****
The captain decided to give Mateo command of the troops being sent to convey the countess to her estates. She was intrigued by the man she kept referring to as ‘the Moor’ and Mateo had proven his bravery and leadership across several battlefields, not to mention commanding the respect of the men. Between the Venetian troops, her lackeys, and other hanger-ons, they moved like a small army for protection because there was no law between the towns. In the backwaters every petty lord thought he was a ruler, and highways were ruled by brigands who made travel between cities perilous unless one had numbers on their side. Some of these brigands were ex-soldiers who could sometimes be bribed, but mostly they were poor people trying to get what they could.
The whole group was mounted, which allowed it to move quicker, but at the same time required more time to get ready and bed down, as the servants took care of the horses. The animals and people needed food, which required more wagons to protect, and thus extended their lines. Although the soldiers were there to protect the great lady, it was their supplies they were most worried about. Each morning her chamberlain, Sir Kinder, with his entourage, would ride ahead to secure lodgings or a campsite and then alert the Venetians where to go and when they might expect trouble. Surprisingly, they had less difficulty on the road than Damiano would have expected. There was the odd highwayman who would appear and quickly exit, but the organized bands they had anticipated were nowhere to be seen. As they made their way through the passes between the Italian, Swiss, and Hapsburg lands, Damiano expected to meet bandits, but the roads were noticeably quiet.
City of the Gods - Starybogow Page 2