by Frank Tuttle
I was glad for the daylight. The huldra doesn’t like the sun. And even though it was beginning to wane, the day was bright enough to keep the worst of the darting phantoms at bay.
Rannit is an old, old place. Maybe the oldest from the former Kingdom. The Brown has changed course several times in Rannit’s long history, and though it bisects the city today, once, long ago, Rannit was built on the east bank of the Brown, and it was toward these aged, leaning structures I bade the driver go.
Commerce and the houses thereof simply give up and go home east of the old north-south road called Harken. The streets change from cobblestone to big old slabs of rutted granite. The Regent’s new sewers stop two blocks from Harken. Word is that the digging crews refuse to go any farther east because of the things they unearthed there. Stories vary, but one thing is certain—neither the Regent’s wrath nor his purse could persuade anyone to venture beneath those streets after an entire shovel crew vanished one day, leaving only tools behind.
The houses that line the streets are tall and cheerless. Even the Dark Houses try to keep up a pretense of vibrancy. But past Harken, the tiny windows are all dark, the shutters are drawn, and the black doors firmly shut.
The streets were deathly quiet. Quiet and sunlit and empty. For some reason, that made me uneasier than the docks after Curfew. Here, I could plainly see any halfdead sneaking about.
But some peculiar quality of the silence itself suggested halfdead would be the least of the horrors that lurked behind those doors.
I caught myself shivering and pinched hard at the bridge of my nose. I didn’t feel any telltale hexes slide off my back, but I felt better nonetheless.
I didn’t have an actual address. Just an image, in my mind, of a crooked, leaning house. I knew it stood at the bottom of a hill. I knew it was surrounded by blood-oaks so old they drooped and twisted and were all but fallen down.
And I knew that Hisven had killed dozens, perhaps hundreds, just to keep the location of her home a secret.
My driver was nervous. The ponies were one loud noise short of bolting. Hell, I was one loud noise short of bolting.
But on we went, the only sound about us the clip-clop of the ponies' hesitant hooves and the rattle and grind of the wheels in ruts older than all the history I’d ever learned.
Back and forth we went. I intended to perform an orderly search, but none of the narrow lanes were straight. It was, perhaps intentionally, a maze, and within moments we were lost.
House after house went past. Some were burnt, empty shells, timbers protruding from peeling shingled skins like the bones of monstrous slain beasts. Some were towering darkened spires, spires that should have been visible from all over Rannit, and yet I knew they were not. Some were squat stone keeps, hewn from gargantuan slabs of soot-blackened granite. I began to suspect, much to my discomfort, that the homes east of Harken occupied a plot of land far larger than the space between Harken and the old wall. Which meant magic had reshaped the earth itself.
We kept going. Black house, tall house, burned house, shattered house. Then change the order, and repeat.
The sun withered and failed. The light between the pools of shadow grew silver and dim. I watched the Moon appear in the gap between two monstrous blood oaks and then saw it vanish in the next opening.
After that, I took my eyes away from the fickle sky.
Give my driver, an Avalante man named Jennings, credit. He sat atop the carriage and kept the ponies moving. He saw the same things I did, and he never once said a word of complaint.
Finally, after turns and turns and turns, we rolled down a hill, and passed beneath a trio of spreading blood-oaks, and there it was.
A dark and crooked house. Two tall structures, leaning toward one another, bowed with age and a weight I could nearly feel.
I called for the driver to halt. He did. The ponies stamped their feet and whickered to each other.
The sun was all but gone. I’d counted on having a good eight hours of sun. It felt like we’d seen three, maybe less.
The dark house beckoned. There were windows, but no light. There was a door, but no knocker, no handle, no knob.
I suppose that in itself was a message of sorts.
But I’d come too far to turn back now.
“If I’m not back in half an hour, go home,” I said.
He just nodded.
I went.
There was no fence, no gate. The stones of the street gave way to grass. It was withered and brown and it crunched beneath my boots.
There was a porch. The darkness beneath it was nearly that of midnight. I stepped up on it, my footfalls so loud in the silence I cursed each step.
And then I was at the door.
I lifted my hand and knocked, three times.
The door swung inward. Within was shadow.
I waited a moment, decided no other invitation was forthcoming, and stepped into the Corpsemaster’s dark house.
I was sitting in a chair.
It was a middling comfy chair. The seat was cushioned. The back was high and padded and angled just so. The arms were covered in dark red velvet just a few years shy of being dubbed threadbare.
It was just a chair.
But I had no recollection whatsoever of being seated upon it.
The room was dark. There was a single small window, set in the middle of the wall that I faced, but the sturdy wooden shutters and the thick, dusty drapes kept all but a few weary beams from creeping inside.
I remembered where I was, and why I’d come. I was instantly relieved to feel my own heartbeat, and to take in a great big breath of stale, musty air.
There were dim shapes lined up against all the walls. One moved, stepped away from the window, came toward me on cold stiff legs.
The dim light touched its dusty face. I looked away.
“Welcome, Captain,” it spoke. The word came in a harsh whisper. It could have been male or female, young or old.
I found my voice.
“I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion. I have news. It may involve the people from Prince.”
There was a moment of silence. Another dusty shape detached from the wall and took a few uneasy steps.
There was no stench. No buzzing of flies. Even so, I was not comforted.
“Follow. You are safe in my home. Please have no fear.”
The pair of corpses turned. An open door appeared. They stepped through it.
I rose and followed.
We emerged into a cavernous hallway. The walls were stone. The ceiling was too high to see. Candles on sconces flared to life as we neared and were snuffed out by unseen hands as we passed.
The corpses fell into step on either side of me.
Both were cloaked and hooded. One might have been a woman. One was burned. Both bore years if not centuries of dust.
“I wondered when you would first seek out my door.”
Shapes moved up ahead. I got the impression bodies were being moved out of my sight.
“Maybe it’s nothing. But—”
Both corpses brought fingers to their lips, signing for silence. The burned body’s fingers were nothing but blackened bone.
“Nice place you have here.”
“It serves me well.” We came to an enormous iron door flanked with magelights and glowing sigils worked into the walls. The burned corpse stepped forward and pushed at the door with bony hands.
It swung inward.
The smell and sound of bacon frying came out. And light.
The dead woman touched my elbow and gently led me inside.
I entered a kitchen. The corpses at my sides took a single step in, then backed out, leaving me behind. The door closed firmly behind me.
There was an enormous stove, and a long stone-topped bar, and ranks and ranks of cabinets along the walls. A huge oak table stood to one side. A single chair was parked beneath it.
A grey haired woman, her back to me, peeked inside the oven, mumbled something, and closed the mas
sive iron door.
“I so seldom cook, I’m afraid I’ve quite forgotten how.” She turned.
I’d thought maid or cook or other servant, but it was Hisvin herself.
She had flour on her hands and a dishrag tossed over her right shoulder. Her clothes were simple street clothes, none too stylish. She wore slippers. One was showing a hole at the toe.
“I don’t allow my servants in the kitchen,” she added, smiling. “My sole concession to any lingering vestige of domesticity. Sit.”
I made for the table. A plain wooden chair slid from somewhere in the shadows and came to rest beneath the massive dining table.
I took the nearest and sat. I could have seated fifty of my closest friends around me.
Instead, the Corpsemaster ambled over, pulled back the chair and seated herself.
“Oh, for Angel’s sake, Captain. If I had any intention of killing you I certainly wouldn’t do it here. This is my kitchen, after all.”
I licked my lips. “Sorry. Officers make me nervous.”
She laughed. “Must I remind you that you yourself are an officer, these days?”
“You see my dilemma, sir.”
She shook her head. A silver coffee service appeared, without muss or fuss, at my right hand.
“I take two sugars,” she said.
I fumbled with the spoon.
“Is this better?”
I looked up, and the Corpsemaster had changed.
She was now clad in a black hooded robe. Her hands and face were covered.
“Or this?”
She was a golden-haired, smiling young woman, a bit on the buxom side, dressed in a barmaid’s garb.
“Or perhaps you would prefer this?”
She was Darla, complete with pencil behind her right ear.
I took a deep breath and measured out two spoonfuls of sugar and then poured the coffee in on it.
“This, then.” She was once again the grey-haired lady with the plain face and the weary grey eyes. “Do you know I have not shown my true face in well over a century, Captain?”
“I’m honored,” I replied. “Might I ask why you’ve chosen to do so now?”
“It amuses me. And I believe you can be trusted. And frankly I’m far too tired to keep up a pretense and make breakfast at the same time.”
I found myself chuckling as I stirred. Her cup pulled itself gently away from my hand and glided across the table to hers.
I made myself a cup while she sipped.
“I’ve had some trouble,” I said, after tasting mine. It was army coffee, bitter and strong. “It started in a little farming village. A place called Pot Lockney.”
“I know of it.”
“Mama Hog got involved. She ended it by sticking a former army sorcerer’s head on a pole. Called himself the Creeper.”
Hisvin nodded. “I know the name. One of many whose ambition outpaced their ability in the last days of the War. Why does this Creeper concern you?”
“It’s what Mama found in their possession. Maps. Maps of Rannit. With places on the walls marked.”
“Recent maps?”
“Mama thinks so. She’s bringing the maps back to Rannit. But that will take a couple of days, or longer. And there’s more. Mama also thinks this Creeper character had ties to Prince.”
Hisvin stared into her cup.
“Troubling. Pot Lockney is close, relatively speaking. If this Creeper employed agents, they may have been observing the work along the walls.”
“Could be. Mama can’t read the notations. I didn’t think you’d want to wait.”
“Indeed. I do not. It is good that you came, Captain. I am pleased.”
I nodded. “Oh. I also have word from Evis, who asked me to convey to you his thanks. The Regency is ahead of schedule.”
“Excellent.” She rose, her face grim. “I need those maps, Captain. And the body of the Creeper.”
“I’m afraid Mama removed the head. She has some unique tastes in lawn decorations.” I hesitated. “The whole body?”
“The head will suffice. I have questions. This Creeper may hold some of the answers.”
“I did mention the part about him being dead.”
“You did. A small impediment. I require the maps as well.”
“They’re too big for pigeons to carry, sir. I was hoping you’d have a way to, um, expedite their arrival here.”
“Oh, I do. I do indeed.”
I never saw her speak a word, never saw her so much as wiggle a finger in a mystical fashion.
But she did something.
And she did it to me.
“I dare not leave Rannit myself,” I heard her say, though her words seemed hollow and soft, as though carried across a great distance. “And my servants, though tireless, lack the speed I require. But you, Captain—you still retain the huldra, deep inside. You were quite right. I did give it to Mama, that night. Before you told it your name.”
I tried to speak. My throat was tight as stone.
“I shall awaken it, Captain. Only for tonight. It will trouble you no more, on the sunrise. But tonight, you will walk, and you will seek out these maps, and the Creeper’s remains, and you will hasten to bring them all here to me. That is, I’m afraid, an order. Do you understand me?”
“I do.” It was my voice, but the words were not mine.
The huldra stirred, waking, restless, eager to walk again after sleeping for so long.
I tried to fight it. I did. But I might as well have fought a thunderstorm or wrestled a cloud.
The Corpsemaster smiled, and spoke a long strange word, and the huldra cried out in triumph. I rose, up and up, towering above roof and limb and sky, though never losing sight of the Corpsemaster’s tired old eyes.
I turned, clouds in my face, and I stepped over the crooked house and began my night walk to Pot Lockney.
Chapter Nineteen
Rannit lay wide beneath me. Here and there, lights shone. Here and there, fires burned. Soldiers scurried like beetles. Halfdead crept, thinking themselves hidden in the dark. From my vantage, they shone like scuttling fireflies.
I took a step, moved a mile. My footfalls shook the earth, but caused no damage to the structures upon which I trod. The huldra whispered to me, telling me how I might crush them, and I heard words, but did not speak them.
I walked. Halfdead flickered beneath me. Their lights lit up the Hill, giving it the appearance of a busy bed of ants.
I saw other lights too. Brief, faint glimmers of radiance that fled from my path. The huldra named them as they vanished—Ricoth, the Storm, Nellie Witch-hands. Rivals of Hisvin, fleeing my path, though they could neither see me nor sense my form.
Rannit was filled with sorcerers that night.
I chuckled at their scampering. A sound like thunder filled the sky. I raised my hand, and lightning met my fingertips, and on a whim I cast it down, wheeling and roaring, right into the muddy face of the Brown.
I laughed. The huldra urged me on. My stride took me across whole neighborhoods with each step. Cambrit passed beneath me, tiny and dirty and dark.
I crossed the Brown. Bridge clowns gripped the rails in fear, their wary painted faces turned upturned at the empty sky. The Hill was down there, and Avalante, but I had no time to tarry.
I left the city, skirted the west wall, turned north. The huldra whispered, telling me to avoid stepping in the Brown, to keep to the forests on either side.
I gazed toward Price, felt my sight extend. I could see all the way there, if I wished, but the huldra warned me against it, as other eyes were even now peering south, toward Rannit.
I reduced my stature, pulled in the fog of power that rose off me like steam. Maps, I remembered. Maps and maps and a dead man’s head.
The words ran singsong through my mind. They seemed to amuse the ghost of the huldra, and before I knew it, I was whistling a melody I’d never heard and singing the song in my head.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head…
<
br /> I sang it all the way to Pot Lockney.
Rain stung the back of my neck and washed like ice water down my face.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head…
Plegg House. It stood before me, warped timbers and moss-covered roof lit only by flashes of lightning.
And there, near the house, was a long straight pole, and atop it was the Creeper’s head.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head.
I grew until I could pluck the head from the pole, as if I were out picking grim fruit from the garden of nightmares. The rain had washed all the blood away, but the Creeper’s eyes and mouth were open. Closer inspection revealed that Mama, always one for drama, had propped them open with twigs.
I held the Creeper’s dead face close to mine. The huldra showed me the last vestiges of the dead man’s magic, which still shone weakly in the backs of his eyes.
Maps and maps and a dead man’s head.
I laughed. Thunder rolled.
Mama came stomping onto her porch, cleaver in her right hand, dried owl in her left.
“Boy, what’s been done to you?”
“Good evening, Mama. I’m here for the maps. And this.” I hefted the head. “The Corpsemaster sends his regards.”
“I knowed you’d never be rid of that damned thing. I’m sorry, boy. Well and truly sorry.”
“Yours was not the fault,” I said, the words strange on my lips. “But no matter. It is done.”
“Aye. It is done.” Mama lowered her cleaver. “Maps are in here. I’ll fetch them. You’re a mite too tall to go indoors.”
I nodded. Mama shuffled away, leaving me whistling in the rain.
I tossed the Creeper’s head up into the air, caught it as it fell, tossed it again, much higher this time.
Mama trundled back onto her porch, her arms full of rolled-up papers, each tied neatly with bits of yarn.
“You ought not to be doin’ that,” she said. “It ain’t right.”
I caught the head with a laugh. “As you wish.” Mama put the rolled maps down just inside the wall of water dripping off her roof. “Wait and I’ll get you a sack.”