A Darkness of Dragons

by S. A. Patrick

  Furnel unlocked the manacles on his and Patch’s wrists. Patch rubbed at his chafed skin. “What happened to the last prisoner who was in here?” he asked.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” said Furnel. He walked across to the corner where the bundle of rags was, and lifted it up in his arms.

  It wasn’t a bundle of rags. It was a corpse.

  Furnel carried it to the corridor and set it on the ground. Patch saw the dead man clearly now – ancient, and thin to the point of being just a collection of bones. “Innocent Jack, they called him,” said Furnel.

  “Why did they call him that?”

  “On account of him being innocent,” said Furnel. “Found guilty of murderin’ a man through Piping, then the man showed up alive only last year.” He shook his head. “Shame Jack died. His review was only a couple of months away. They’d probably have let him out!”

  “How long had he been here?” said Patch, looking at the old face, its skin like parchment. Must have been a long, long time, he thought. Perhaps it’s possible to live long enough for the Council to come to their senses and let me go…

  “Jack was convicted when he was twenty,” said Furnel. “So, let’s see now –” his eyes went to the ceiling as he worked it out – “he’d been here almost fifteen years.”

  Patch stared at Furnel in shock.

  “Time in here takes its toll,” said Furnel. “Well, good luck, lad.” He swung the huge cell door closed, and Patch heard the man’s heavy steps vanish back along the corridor. Then he could feel the walls, unbearably heavy, crushing him…

  He ran to the tiny window, stretching up on tiptoes to put his mouth to the slight draught that came in. Breathing deeply, he waited for the panic to subside.

  He thought back to the message Wren had signed to him in the Council chamber: Don’t give up.

  But how could he not? Right now, there seemed to be only one thing that Patch Brightwater was certain of.

  Like Innocent Jack, he would be in this place until he died.

  Patch’s panic was just starting to lessen when he heard something that didn’t help at all.

  “Hey!” said a man’s voice.

  Patch pulled back from the window. “Who’s there?” he said, looking around.

  “Down here!” came the voice again, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere.

  Aren’t things bad enough, thought Patch, without having to share my cell with the ghost of Innocent Jack? “Who are you?” he said. “Please, just leave me alone!”

  “Look, mate,” said the voice. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so let’s try and get along, eh? My name’s Vague Henry.”

  “Are you…are you dead?”

  Vague Henry sighed. “I’m your neighbour. Just look at the bottom of the wall. See the hole?”

  Patch looked at the wall to his right. There was a dark area, smaller even than the five-inch window. It was level with the floor, and as he moved towards it he realized it actually was a hole. “I see it,” he said.

  “Stick your eye up to it and say hello!”

  Patch put his eye to the hole. It was a long, dim channel cut through the thick stone wall, but at the other end – perhaps five feet away – was another eye, looking back at him. “Hello,” he said.

  “You’ve only got me as a neighbour, since you’re at the end of the row,” said Henry. “The holes are part of the plumbing, but it’s a handy way to chat without having to shout and annoy everyone. So you’re Patch Brightwater, eh?”

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “Word travels fast down here! Pleasure to meet you, Patch. We’ve not come up with a nickname for you yet, though. Not like Jack, your cell’s previous resident.”

  “Innocent Jack,” said Patch.

  “Indeed! Used to be Murderous Jack, of course, before the whole innocence thing happened. Your nickname usually has something to do with why you’re in the dungeons, see.”

  “So why do they call you Vague Henry?”

  Henry paused. It was a long pause, and a strangely awkward one. “Dunno,” he said.

  Patch waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. “Uh…okay,” said Patch at last, wondering if his question had been answered.

  “What’ll we call you?” said Henry. “Doomed Boy Patch? Bleak Young Patch? We’ll get it. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Right,” said Patch, the words “plenty of time” filling him with horror. He pulled away from the hole and lay on his back, staring up at the rough stone ceiling.

  “Some advice for you,” said Henry. “First up, when feeding time comes, the guard calls out ‘tubes’.”

  “Furnel mentioned those,” said Patch. “Why do they use tubes?”

  “So they don’t have to open the doors, lad,” said Henry. “Be ready to catch it when it comes – especially the water! When it rains, you’ll see the rainwater come in through holes like this one and run through grooves in the floor. See ’em? See where they lead?”

  Patch looked to the floor and saw them. Grooves a couple of inches across ran towards the hole in the floor that Furnel had pointed out previously – the toilet. “I see them.”

  “Exactly. We get some of the, er, waste water from above us, and we’re five levels down. So don’t drink the rainwater, however thirsty you get, however clean it looks! And for your sake and ours, make sure your hole doesn’t block up!”

  “Will do,” said Patch. “Henry, is it true that you can hear the Hamelyn Piper scream at night?”

  “Oh, you’ll hear him all right,” said Henry.

  “Doesn’t it frighten you? Being so close to him?”

  “The Hamelyn Piper? He’s a wreck. His brain is nothing but mush by now. But no, I’m not frightened, not by him or any other Piper here. It doesn’t matter how well a prisoner can lip-play to whistle up a Song. Hell, even if someone managed to get hold of a Pipe, it’d do ’em no good. They have precautions.”

  “Precautions?”

  “Haven’t you seen the depth of the doors and windows? If you look close, you’ll see that every way out of your cell is lined with little furrows.”

  Patch looked into the hole that led to Henry’s cell. Dark as it was, he could make out a slight twist here and there on the stone, a pattern carved into the rock. “Sound baffles?” said Patch. He’d heard of them in training – they confused any Songs you played, and took the edge off the magic enough to render them useless. They only worked for conduits that were long and thin, so they were no good as a general defence; they were more a curiosity of Piping theory. In here, though: perfect.

  “Precisely,” said Henry. “The workers down here are almost immune to Piping, lip-Piping at any rate, but the baffles make sure. It’s why the walls and the doors are so thick, and why they feed us with the tubes. Inside your cell, you can’t affect anyone else. So don’t let the Hamelyn Piper frighten you. He’s harmless now. Especially with what they did to him!”

  “The Iron Mask,” said Patch, nodding to himself.

  When Patch was younger, his grandmother had often told him the story of the Hamelyn Piper, but only when he pestered her. She preferred to tell him about the adventures of the Eight as they hunted him down and caught him, rather than the horrors that had led to their quest in the first place.

  She would say, “I don’t want to frighten you, Patch.”

  And he would insist, “It doesn’t scare me, Nan.”

  Eventually she would give in, and Patch would thrill at the tale. But he had lied to her about it not scaring him. He knew that once she was done – the instant his candle was blown out and the door shut – his courage would fail and he would lie in his bed and tremble, wondering when the long bony fingers of the Hamelyn Piper would wrap around the door handle.

  She always began with the same words, words which, even when he thought of them now, brought back a strange combination of adventure and terror: Have you heard of the town of Hamelyn, Patch? It was once overrun with rats…

  Have
you heard of the town of Hamelyn, Patch? It was once overrun with rats.

  Of course, every town has its rats, but one summer there were so many that the Mayor of Hamelyn brought in rat-catchers from all around, and they did their work. In the past, this had always done the trick.

  But not this year.

  At first the rat-catchers were happy. The more rats they caught, it seemed, the more rats they saw, and as they were paid for each rat they killed, there was real money to be made!

  Then they began to grow nervous.

  “It’s not natural,” they said to one another. “We catch a thousand a day, yet their numbers just keep rising!” They began to think the town was cursed, and one by one the rat-catchers left.

  The townsfolk were angry with the Mayor for letting them leave, but what else could the Mayor do?

  A Piper!

  Much more expensive than rat-catchers, yes, but a Piper was the answer.

  One thousand gold coins were raised and locked in the Town Treasury. By early evening the Mayor was sitting in the Town Hall surrounded by the most powerful people in Hamelyn, writing a letter to summon a Piper: one thousand gold coins, it said, to the Piper who rids us of our rats.

  As he was placing his seal on the envelope, the door to the hall opened wide. There stood a Piper so tall and so thin that he seemed to be built entirely of edges.

  “I heard you had a problem,” said the Piper.

  “You did?” said the Mayor, wary. He looked at the letter in his hand. “And how did you hear?”

  “From the twenty rat-catchers I met along the road,” said the Piper. “But now I’ve arrived, and the rats will soon be gone! For five hundred gold coins.”

  The Mayor nodded, and tried to stop himself from grinning. Five hundred! he thought. Only five hundred!

  He carefully placed the letter in his pocket before standing, and walked over to the Piper. “A hefty price,” he said, looking up at the considerably taller man.

  “Well, if you’d rather find another Piper—” began the stranger.

  “We accept!” said the Mayor. He offered out his hand and the Piper shook it.

  The Piper smiled. Those in the hall smiled back, even though they all thought that the Piper’s teeth seemed a little sharp, and the smile a little cruel.

  The Piper cleared his throat. From his coat he produced a long thin Pipe, and began to play. As he played, he took slow strides out of the hall, then along the street outside.

  The first rats appeared from the shadows, watching him, but soon they followed in the same slow rhythm: step – step – step!

  More and more rats poured out from every house, every street, and by the time the Piper reached the edge of the town there was a vast shifting carpet of rats coming after him. The Mayor and all the people watched this huge procession leave, cheering that the town would soon be free of its rat plague.

  The River Weser lay ahead, beyond the walls of the town. At the river’s edge, the Piper stopped walking. He raised his arms out to his sides, and the rats reached him.

  The townsfolk shuddered, seeing from a distance how the wide column of rats engulfed the Piper, crawling up his coat then down the other side into the water to drown. It was almost an hour before they had all completed their final journey and the Piper was revealed again.

  He lowered his arms and returned to the town. The townsfolk cheered and applauded. The Piper took an extravagant bow and smiled. The Mayor stood outside the Town Hall, waving to the crowd to make sure he would always be remembered for such a great success.

  As the Piper reached him, the crowd fell silent.

  “My job is done,” said the Piper. “I will take my payment.”

  The Mayor summoned the Town Treasurer, who brought a bag that was so heavy it needed its own cart. “You have counted the coins?” asked the Mayor, and the Treasurer said he had. “Here is your payment,” said the Mayor to the Piper. “Five hundred gold coins!”

  The Piper opened the fastening at the neck of the bag and thrust in his hand. When he pulled it out, it was only sand that ran through his fingers.

  A shocked gasp spread through the crowd. The Mayor stared at the Treasurer. The Treasurer stared at the bag; he darted forward and tipped the contents of the bag out. Nothing but sand!

  “You try to trick me?” said the Piper.

  “No!” said the Mayor, terrified by the malice he saw in the Piper’s gaze. The Mayor looked to the Captain of the Town Guard, and pointed to the Treasurer. “Arrest this man!” he cried. “And bring five hundred gold coins from the treasury vault!”

  The Treasurer protested as he was taken away. Soon, the Captain returned and shook his head. “There is only sand in the vault, sir,” he said.

  The Mayor was speechless. He looked at the Piper, who scowled.

  “I see you have a thief in your midst,” said the Piper. “I will return tomorrow to collect my payment.”

  The Piper turned and walked out of the town.

  The Mayor looked to the Captain. “Find the money!” he said. Then he turned to his most trusted advisor. “You are now the Treasurer! Raise more, in case we can’t find the missing coins!”

  The next morning, the River Weser burst its banks downstream as the rat corpses blocked the flow of water. Fields of wheat and barley were destroyed. The townsfolk set about clearing the corpses and built pyres to burn them on. By afternoon the air was thick with the smoke of the pyres, and the stench of burning rat flesh.

  The stolen money was not found; the previous Treasurer had refused to admit taking it, whatever unpleasantness was done to him. In the end, the Captain of the Town Guard stopped torturing him and concluded that he was innocent.

  The new Treasurer, wary of the fate of his predecessor, managed to raise enough for the Piper’s pay, but it was difficult. When the money was gathered, it was all witnessed by trusted men of the Town Guard, who then stood watch over the vault.

  As dusk approached the Piper was seen coming along the road to town. This time the crowd was silent as he came. There was a fearfulness that was shared by all.

  The Piper was brought to the treasury, where the vault stood closed. It had not been left unattended, not even for a moment.

  “Greetings, Piper,” said the Mayor.

  “Greetings, Mayor,” said the Piper. His smile seemed dangerous. “My payment?”

  The Mayor nodded to the new Treasurer, who opened the door of the vault and handed the Piper the first of the bags that were inside. The Piper untied it and tipped it out.

  Sand.

  “No!” cried the Mayor.

  “No!” cried the Treasurer.

  The Piper shook his head, tut-tutting. “Such a terrible crime problem you have here,” he said. “What are we to do?”

  The Piper’s eyes were aimed directly at the Mayor, that sinister gaze drilling deep. The Mayor could see a darkness there, unlimited and uncaring. He cleared his throat. “We have no more money,” he said. Suspicion and fear almost overwhelmed him. He thought of how the rat-catchers had been so wary of the rats, some of them believing the infestation was unnatural; he thought of the money disappearing repeatedly, with no apparent culprit.

  He could see suspicion in the eyes of others around him, too, all looking at the Piper. But what could they do? People looked from the Piper to the Mayor, waiting for someone to speak.

  “Don’t worry,” the Piper said at last, but in a voice that was far from soothing. “Tonight I will take my pay. I will take things that are often unwelcome. Things that everyone, at some point, wishes were gone. Could I be fairer than that?”

  The Piper turned and left. Silence filled the entire town until he was far in the distance.

  The Mayor looked to the Captain. “Ready your men,” he said. “Guard the gates. Let nobody in tonight.”

  Night came.

  In the distance, the pyres still burned.

  The guards were ready. The townsfolk locked their doors.

  It was midnight when the sound
of Piping began. The music grew louder. The people of Hamelyn could hear their own children stir from their beds, laughing. The children came out, unlocked the doors and danced into the streets. The adults all found that they could not move, could not even speak.

  They could only watch.

  And the Piper, his eyes burning like the distant pyres, danced by each house and smiled a wide, sharp smile, and the children of the town followed him towards the town gates, dancing with unbounded joy. The gates were flung open by an invisible force, and the Piper led the children out of Hamelyn.

  It was not until morning that the townsfolk could move again. They fell to the ground, wailing in horror at what had happened. Then they ran, seeking their children, following the road, seeing where the grass at the edges had been trampled by the dancing.

  On and on they went, until the trampled grass veered onto a smaller pathway that went up Koppen Hill. Near the top of the hill, the trail ended by a sheer face of rock.

  The children were not there.

  The townsfolk heard the sound of sobbing, and found one small boy, who had been lame since birth.

  “I couldn’t keep up,” he cried, again and again, despairing.

  “Where are the others?” asked the adults. “Where are all the other children?”

  “He promised us a Land of Play, with all the toys and sweets we could want,” said the boy. “When the Piper reached this point, a doorway opened in the rock and they all danced inside. But I couldn’t keep up! I was too late!” He burst into angry, desolate tears. “The door shut before I got to it!”

  They found no sign of a doorway. In all, one hundred and thirty children had been taken by the Hamelyn Piper.

  It took over a year to catch him.

  The Pipers’ Council assembled a group to track down this evil creature who had brought shame on their kind – a group who became known as the Eight, their exploits now legendary.