by Alexis Hall
“I assure you, my dear, it’s much more fun.”
One of Ven’s hulking, ichthyoid denizens emerged from a passageway I was certain had not been there a moment before. “Look,” I said, “why don’t we ask that gentlebeing for directions?”
“I do not need directions. I know precisely where we are not.”
“Excuse me, siram.” I paddled over towards the stranger, employing the formal neutral address that exists in Khelish but not Eyan or Athran, and which my limited knowledge of the inhabitants of Ven suggested was most suitable for such a creature. My understanding of the species’ reproductive biology was minimal (Ms. Haas once lent me a book on the subject, which I left in my room for some days and surreptitiously returned unread), but I was aware that their culture lacked a concept of gender.
It peered at me with its bulbous, unblinking eyes. When it spoke I was aware that the words I heard in my mind were not the sounds it was, in fact, making, but rather an illusion projected by the Surfeiting Worm. “Yeah? What?”
“We are looking for a person by the name of Enoch Reef, who I believe has lodgings in this area. Might you possibly be able to assist us?”
“Aw, mate.” It made a frankly alien gesture with its claws which, in context, I took to signal the particular blend of sympathy and frustration that one reserves for a well-meaning stranger who has naively asked one for assistance with a task whose magnitude they have greatly underestimated. “You’re well out your way. What you want to do is go back up the Tunnel of Lost Souls, take a left round where the Temple of S’uh’faxla’hca used to be ’til it got closed down and they put one of them fancy pubs that do the posh food over it, then that got closed down on account of health code violations. Then you want to take another left, second right, third down, straight ahead, and if you get to a yawning abyss where the mutilated corpses of drowned sailors swirl in a dance of endless torment you’ve gone too far.”
“Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”
“No scales off my snout.” It kicked its powerful hind flippers and swam off with an alacrity that belied its bulk.
Ms. Haas was bobbing with her arms folded. “It would have been the work of moments to determine that information for myself. But I can’t believe the Temple of S’uh’faxla’hca has closed down. They had the most incredible unholy fornications every ninth new moon.”
With what seemed to be a genuinely wistful air, she reversed course and led me onwards. As I became accustomed to the gloom and the peculiarities of the architecture, I was able to discern more of my surroundings. What appeared from the outside little more than the desolate remains of a fallen civilisation was, in fact, a hive of industry. Much of the industry in question was obviously of a dubious nature, but here and there we saw signs that this otherwise benighted region was beginning to attract the kind of fashionable attention that so often lighted, however briefly, upon such places. Thus a ruined temple filled with worm-addled beggars would sit alongside a bijou kiosk selling hand-curated whelks to gullible visitors in search of an authentically Vennish experience.
Our journey naturally led us to the darker recesses of the district, in both the figurative and the literal senses of that term. So it was that Ms. Haas and I swam through a narrow crack in the side of a great cyclopean stone and found ourselves floating a few short feet from the impaled corpse of a well-dressed young gentleman.
Between a childhood lived under the thrall of a sadistic sorcerer king, an adolescence against the backdrop of bloody revolution, and an early adulthood spent waging ceaseless war against the Empress of Nothing I had seen much of death. As such, I was surprised but not shocked to find a gruesomely skewered cadaver drifting past my nose. Perhaps the fact that I had arrived at my present location as a consequence of following the directions of a talking fish monster and was able to survive only due to the presence of an alien symbiote in several of my more vital passages also contributed to my perhaps callous-seeming equanimity.
“Oh, dear,” I observed. “How regrettable for the poor fellow. I wonder who he might be and what might have brought him to this unhappy end.”
Ms. Haas would have been tapping her foot had she been standing on a solid surface. As it was, it became an odd sort of waggle. “Really, Wyndham. Do you pay no attention? This gentleman was clearly a student of the University of Khel who was ambushed en route to a meeting with the very Mr. Reef we ourselves are seeking by some third party wishing either him or Mr. Reef harm. He was local, of Athran stock, from a good family whose means have recently diminished. He smoked Professor Lipquist’s filterless cigarillos, was frightened of bees, and kept an Ulveshi shape-shifting parakeet.”
“Surely you jest, Ms. Haas.”
“Not at all. Everything is plain to the trained observer. You said yourself that it was common even in your day for students of the university to sell snippets of gossip to Mr. Reef and his ilk. The man is clearly Athran by his complexion and attire, which would at one point have been the height of fashion but, since his wardrobe has not kept pace with current trends, and since the soles of his shoes are worn nearly through, when any self-respecting gadabout would have replaced them long ago, we can deduce quite simply that he once had means but has access to them no longer. His youth makes it yet more likely he is a student and his presence so close to the lair of an information broker is further evidence that he had need of money. I would therefore stake the reputation I do not, in fact, possess on both conclusions.”
“This is remarkable,” I exclaimed. “But what of the cigarillos, the bees, and the parakeet?”
“The ash from his frankly odious brand of tobacco leaves a distinctive stain that I noticed at once on his lapel. Remember, I remarked that he was wearing an old suit. The Ulveshi shape-shifting parakeet is a popular exotic pet, often purchased by young ignorants who do not understand the best way to care for it and come off the worst as a result. You can see the man’s right hand bears a number of scratches, all of which appear to have been made by a different creature. Either he keeps a tiny but extraordinarily diverse menagerie or, like many of his sort, he owns an Ulveshi shape-shifting parakeet. As for his fear of bees, on that detail I was just playing with you.”
She did not use the word “playing.” She employed a different phrase, one with connotations of intimate relations. Having long grown accustomed to such ribbing, I gently redirected Ms. Haas’s attention to the matter of the deceased gentleman. “You also said that he had been ambushed by somebody wishing harm to either him or Mr. Reef?”
“Now I am disappointed. You are a military man, Captain. What do you see?”
I considered the corpse as directed. The spike of a harpoon projected from his chest, but I could see no other signs of injury or struggle. “He was pierced through the back,” I said. “Had this been merely a case of robbery gone wrong his attacker would have been facing him and would have resorted to violence only if there was no way to relieve our unfortunate friend of his valuables. This shot was aimed to kill and clearly came without warning. Thus, it was deliberate murder. Thus, the attacker was motivated by either personal animus against our unknown victim or by enmity, either professional or personal, against the man to whom we presume he was about to sell information.”
“Very good. We shall make something of you yet.” She began to pace, or as close as one could come to pacing underwater, which meant sculling back and forth. “And since it seems improbable that the sort of person who would want to murder a student of little consequence would choose to do so directly on the doorstep of a hardened criminal it is more likely that Mr. Reef was the true target in this case. Which suggests further that we have swum into the middle of an underworld power struggle. Well, bother.”
She did not say “bother.” She used a phrase bearing a striking similarity to that which she had used earlier. We cast about for possible routes of egress but, as fate would have it, we had stumbled upon this scene at th
e least opportune moment. No sooner had we resolved to depart than a band of evident ruffians slithered through a large fissure in the masonry. They were five in total, two probably human, three probably not, all of them equipped with a variety of spears, javelins, and other armaments appropriate to the environment. They moved to encircle us with a precision that, while not military, nonetheless spoke of some familiarity with the business of violence.
Their leader, a tall, loose-limbed lady, whose webbed fingers and silver, piscine eyes spoke of centuries of interbreeding between the natives of this realm and its human visitors, glided forward, pointing a hydraulic dart gun at my companion. “Drop ’em.”
I was briefly uncertain what the “’em” was that we were supposed to drop but then recalled that Ms. Haas still sported her compact harpoon launcher. Considering compliance the most likely path to survival, I raised my hands to demonstrate my good faith. On the basis of her prior behaviour, I laid odds at somewhat less than 50 percent that my companion would do likewise.
She did not do likewise.
“I,” she said, “am the sorceress Shaharazad Haas. I have travelled to the deepest vaults of N’ruh, I have walked alone in the Writhing Halls, and I have whispered to the Gods Who Slumber. I am an anointed priestess of Thagn and Iqthelduroth. I have uttered the Dread Curse of Velrashtoa. Please don’t think I need a pointy stick to kill you.”
Our adversary said nothing. Instead she shot Ms. Haas in the chest.
My hand went instinctively to a weapon I was not, in fact, carrying. Then I watched in horror as my companion slumped, blood streaming into the surrounding water.
The ruffianess turned her attention to me. “I take it you’re going to be more sensible.”
Honour suggested that, my comrade having chosen to fight, I should stand by her to the last. Good sense dictated otherwise. And while I have always prided myself on my good sense, it was not in me to abandon a friend. “I fear I may not be.”
She slotted another barb into her dart gun and trained it upon me. “Tell me who sent you.”
“Dear lady, you have as good as murdered my companion in front of me. You find me in no mood to be compliant.”
From nearby, I heard a low but disquieting murmur. The blood that still seeped from Ms. Haas’s wound flowed black, then green-black, and a similarly hued ichor began to ooze from the walls. When my companion raised her head, I saw that yet more of the vile fluid flowed forth from her mouth and eyes, coalescing into blasphemous tentacles. Observing the same, the band of ne’er-do-wells turned upon their heels, or appendages that passed therefor, and fled into the darkness. Their leader, however, swiftly found herself ensnared by the loathsome members that my companion had conjured from what recesses I dared not speculate.
“Your loyalty is touching, Captain.” Ms. Haas’s voice was full of echoes and whispers. “But believe me, when I am murdered it shall be spectacular.”
She was, in retrospect, partially correct on that account.
With a twist of her fingers, she dragged her captive across the chamber and spun her to face us. “Now, who are you and who do you think we are?”
“I have no interest in cooperating with you,” retorted the prisoner, struggling vainly against her tenebrous bonds. I should also mention at this juncture that the word “you” was preceded not by the phrase “I have no interest in cooperating with” but by a single word whose connotations we have already discussed at length.
Ms. Haas rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, you’re being terribly defiant. But now I’m bored. You will answer my questions or I will rend your body asunder and gift your soul as a plaything to Iqthelduroth the Lurking Effulgence, whose unspeakable depredations will prove really quite unpleasant for you.”
There was a reflective pause. Then, “Name’s Asenath Reef. And the way I see it, you’ve just shot one of Enoch’s informers.”
“Ah.” My companion cast me a look of significant self-satisfaction. “You see, Mr. Wyndham, I was correct in every particular. We have, indeed, become entangled in an underworld conflict, and young Asenath has clearly mistaken us for agents of their enemy. Wilde, perhaps. Or the Throat-Slitters’ Consortium. Possibly even the Unquenchable Flame. I understand they’re getting rather big in these parts.”
Miss Reef gave a largely tokenistic tug at the bands of living darkness that still enwrapped her. “Seeing as how you’re so well-informed, doesn’t seem like you’ve got much use for me.”
“In your position,” returned Ms. Haas, sharply, “I’d be very careful about making myself sound dispensable.”
“Enoch won’t be too happy if I wind up dead.”
“Do you really think a Vennish gossip peddler is remotely capable of harming me? Judging from your example, his minions pose me no danger and I have no fear of scandal.”
“My brother deals in more than scandals.” A flash of too-pointed teeth. “A sorceress lives or dies by her secrets.”
“I’m not sure I respond kindly to blackmail.”
“I’m not sure I’ve seen you respond kindly to anything.”
Ms. Haas seemed genuinely wounded. “You shot me. In the circumstances, I feel I took it rather well.”
I cleared my throat, or attempted to, realising too late that the orifice in question was still occupied by a symbiotic worm. “If I might, we’re becoming a little distracted.”
“Quite right. Where was I?” My companion subjected Miss Reef to her steeliest gaze. “We have business with Enoch. You will take us to him. That is the end of it.”
She did. But it was not.
CHAPTER TWENTY
An Impediment
Miss Reef brought us, by a labyrinthine path, to a building that may once have served some unholy and unknowable purpose but which now seemed to function primarily as a warehouse. It was here, Miss Reef informed us, that her brother held his ramshackle court. We entered, although Ms. Haas insisted that Miss Reef remain a few paces ahead of us, far enough forward that she would be first to trigger any booby traps, but not so far that she could easily flee into a den filled with her compatriots.
As we made our way through stacks of barrels packed with I knew not what illicit merchandise, it became increasingly apparent that something was very wrong. We found the first body, bloated and distended, knocking lightly against the ceiling. Miss Reef covered her mouth with her webbed fingers, recoiling in obvious horror.
“Interesting,” murmured Ms. Haas.
The next two corpses lay withered near the floor, their limbs twisted at grotesque angles.
My companion prodded one gently with the tip of her harpoon gun. “Most interesting. What do you make of this, Mr. Wyndham?”
Had my past been other than it was, I am sure I would have had no idea what could have reduced these people to such detritus. Unfortunately, I knew all too well the kinds of sorcery that desiccated the flesh and rotted the viscera. “Did I not know better, I would suspect the dread servants of the Witch King. Since he is dead and they are ashes, I presume our culprits are unrelated practitioners of similar necromancies.”
“It does seem that way, does it not.”
Miss Reef’s already wide eyes widened. “It’s the bank. It’s got to be. They’ve had it in for Enoch for years.”
“Take heart, dear lady.” Despite her recent attempt to murder us, I felt for Miss Reef in that moment. It is a difficult thing to lose one’s family. “Your brother may yet be well.”
“Come, Captain,” said Ms. Haas, with the merest trace of a sneer. “Do you really think the Ossuary Bank would send a team of mystically empowered assassins into the depths of Ven specifically to kill one person, and then let that one person get away?”
“There is always hope, Ms. Haas.”
“I have met Hope. It is a terrifying entity with altogether too many eyes.”
We progressed deeper into the warehouse, finding yet mo
re bodies in similar states of distress, and coming at last to a small private office, where one last corpse floated forlornly behind a desk littered with meticulously inscribed wax tablets. Judging by our escort’s visible distress, this must have been the man we were seeking, Mr. Enoch Reef.
“Well.” Ms. Haas nudged her captive farther into the room. “I daresay that this piece of theatre has been more diverting than the last we attended. But if you do not cease playing games and tell us where your brother really is, then I shall stop being bored and start being angry.”
Miss Reef twisted her fingers agitatedly through her hair. “What are you talking about? He’s there. Poor Enoch. They’ve finally got him.”
“Word of advice: stick to shooting people. You’re a terrible actress.”
I glanced between the corpse, Miss Reef, and Ms. Haas. “I fear I’m quite at sea.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Mr. Wyndham,” said my companion at last. “If that pun was intentional, you are a villain. If it was not, you are a fool.”
“I would probably rather be a fool than a villain, but I don’t understand why you are so convinced of this lady’s insincerity.”
Ms. Haas drifted over the desk and began sifting through the documents that lay upon it. “Various reasons. Firstly and most simply, it would be an extraordinary coincidence that Mr. Reef would happen to be murdered by a disinterested third party at the precise moment that we were visiting and that a rival criminal power, unrelated either to us or to the individuals who purportedly carried out this crime, was launching an attack against him. That we would stumble into an underworld conflict is possible. That we and the Ossuary Bank would stumble into the same underworld conflict simultaneously without crossing one another’s paths is manifestly implausible.”
I turned to Miss Reef, to gauge her reaction to these observations, and found her curiously impassive.
“Secondly, as you observed, our companion exhibited obvious shock on discovering the bodies of her former associates. She, however, is clearly of the blood of the deep places and her kind are not like ours. They are slow to take fright and slow to anger, which suggests that this pantomime was entirely for our benefit.” My companion caught Mr. Reef’s body, drew it closer, and began a thorough inspection. “Thirdly, a direct frontal assault is not the modus operandi of the Ossuary Bank. After all, we are here because the last time that group quarrelled with dear Enoch they responded by bribing one of his associates to betray him. While they made a token effort to kill me, I don’t think their heart was really in it and I had just beaten one of their members in a magical duel. Their policy is normally to repay like with like, and while they could send an army of undead monstrosities to suck the life force from any who stood in their way, we must remember that they are, ultimately, a pack of bean counters in silly costumes. And, finally, why don’t you take a look at this body, Mr. Wyndham? While I”—she readied her harpoon gun—“ensure that Miss Reef doesn’t try anything silly.”