Dragonblaster cogd-5

by Alastair J. Archibald

  Focus, Grimm! he told himself, trying to fight the cold, disabling tendrils of fear that threatened to overwhelm him. As if in a dream, he felt himself being hoisted onto the shoulders of maybe a dozen Brianstonians, before an impartial blow to his skull deprived him of awareness.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 12: Information

  "Come in."

  Dalquist opened the door to Kargan's chamber to find the bespectacled Magemaster lounging in a comfortable chair, puffing on an ornate pipe. The room was decorated in a bizarre mixture of styles, ancient and modern, whose only common theme seemed to be a riot of colours. Scarlet, satin draperies clashed with pastel shades of green and yellow, and a grey carpet. Golden and blue strips of silk hung from the ceiling like a suspended forest. Dalquist knew he would never be able to relax in such a profusion of conflicting hues, but Kargan seemed almost serene.

  Dalquist noted a sweet, cloying scent in the air. Perhaps the contents of the Magemaster's pipe have more to do with it than artistic taste, he mused.

  "What's the matter, Questor Dalquist? You look as if you'd lost a gold sovereign and found a penny.” The Magemaster's tone was soft and placid, quite unlike his normal, frenetic classroom bark.

  How do I start here? Dalquist wondered. ‘Magemaster Kargan, either I'm under some strange spell or I've lost my mind'?

  Instead, he cleared his throat and said, “I'm not quite feeling my usual self, Magemaster Kargan."

  Kargan put down his strange, convoluted pipe and pushed his blue-lensed spectacles back up the slope of his nose. “Why do you need to see me about that, Questor Dalquist? I'm sure Healer Firian would be more than happy to knock you up some foul mixture or other to sort you out. We're all out of sorts at times, and Firian's always happy to help."

  "Magemaster Kargan: you're a Mentalist, aren't you?"

  "Was a Mentalist,” Kargan corrected, his expression puzzled. “I haven't had cause to cast many spells of that type for several years now. Why do you ask?"

  Dalquist steeled himself to tell the older man the difficult truth. It's now or never, I suppose.

  "I don't think my problem's physical, Magemaster Kargan. I think I may be under some sort of spell. I just… found myself acting in a very strange manner, and I don't feel right at all. It feels like I'm ensorcelled, or something."

  Kargan snorted. “I'm not surprised: a young Questor like you, cooped up in the Scholasticate when you should be out hunting dragons, or whatever it is you do. Never fear: Firian will sort you out some sort of tonic. I'll bet that's all you need."

  "I doubt it's that simple, Magemaster Kargan, I'm pretty sure it's some sort of spell. I doubt Healer Firian would spot that. A Mentalist of your calibre just might. I have a blank spot in my memory concerning a certain person, not a member of our Guild. I… leapt to that person's defence without thinking about it, despite the fact that I know almost nothing about her."

  "Her? I think you've answered your own question there, Questor,” Kargan replied, guffawing. “We all know what happens to mages who play around with the fair sex!"

  "It's not that at all, Magemaster!” Dalquist felt almost beside himself. “I only met her once, and I wasn't remotely attracted to her. I'd hardly paid her a moment's heed, before I was… challenged about her, a few minutes ago. Please, just tell me if you can tell if I'm under some spell."

  The young mage realised his tone was desperate and pleading, hardly what was expected from a Guild Questor, but he no longer cared.

  "I'm not insane, Magemaster,” he said, “but I am deeply worried. Will you help me?"

  Kargan rubbed his chin and shrugged.

  "The spell I have in mind is pretty potent,” he said. “It may reveal far more about you than you would wish to be known. It's ten times more revealing than the clearest Mage Sight."

  "No matter, Mentalist. It's a risk I'm willing to take."

  "All right, Questor. I'm not quite sure how this will pan out, or what it could prove, but I'd like you to lie down on that couch. I haven't done this for a long time, so bear with me. Just relax, please."

  Dalquist reclined on the couch and tried to clear his thoughts. It was not easy, but he managed to find a plateau of moderate internal peace.

  Kargan began to chant in a low voice, his arms outstretched, his eyes closed and his forehead lined.

  "Ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra… ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra…” Beads of sweat began to trickle down the Magemaster's face, but the chant remained even and crystal-clear, perfect in cadence and tone.

  Kargan grimaced between runic syllables, but he maintained the incantation's perfection with admirable control.

  "Ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra… ondjebarumanda-ma-mendra…"

  Dalquist felt something twist in his mind, and he gasped. In a heartbeat, the chant stopped. Kargan slumped, ashen-faced, in his chair.

  "Well, Mentalist Kargan? Did you find anything?"

  "Not a whit,” the Magemaster replied, breathing heavily. “Your mind's locked up as tight as a drum. If I'm to find anything in there, you've got to open up to me."

  "It must be my Questor training,” Dalquist said. “I'm not trying to fight you, I swear."

  "I don't think it's that, Questor Dalquist. Someone, or something, has put some sort of lock on your mind. But you're right: you do have some kind of magic acting on you. Your aura looks fine to me, so this must be deep in the subliminal level."

  Suspicion flared in the young mage's mind. Was this lock of Lord Thorn's doing?

  After all, he did put a Compulsion on Grimm, he thought. Has he done the same with me?

  Dalquist looked Kargan straight in the eye. “Is it some kind of Compulsion, Magemaster Kargan?"

  Kargan shook his head and winced. “I'm badly out of practice,” he admitted. “This has really taken it out of me, I can tell you.” He wiped his brow with a plain white handkerchief from a pocket deep in his green satin robes.

  "To answer your question, Questor Dalquist: it's no mage spell I recognise."

  "Can you dig any deeper?” Dalquist asked, frowning.

  "Not tonight, Questor. I need to build up my strength and consult some of my workbooks and librams. Don't worry; I haven't given up yet. I've still got plenty more tricks up my sleeve-they don't give you seven rings as a Mentalist for nothing. We'll get to the bottom of this sooner or later, Questor Dalquist. Tomorrow morning, I'll tell Senior Magemaster Crohn you're sick, and we'll start early; say seven o'clock."

  Dalquist nodded. “I'll be here, Brother Mage, rest assured of that."

  ****

  "Well, Lord Seneschal, it doesn't look as if we're likely to find anyone lurking around here,” Erik said, kicking a blackened fragment of stone. “This place is a total shambles."

  "When you were looking through your optical tube device, you said you saw several people, Sergeant,” Shakkar replied, frowning.

  "I guess they were looters trying to find stuff in the ruins, Sir. There doesn't seem to be anywhere for them to hide. Perhaps they ran off when they saw us coming."

  Shakkar could not argue with this; the spindly, scorched skeleton of the large building could not have hidden anything much larger than a starving rat.

  "What about over there?” The demon pointed to a strange, domed structure to the right of the ruins, at the bottom of a slight declivity. The hemispherical roof of the circular building looked like an egg with its top smashed in, but the edifice appeared otherwise intact. He realised that the soldier, almost three feet shorter than he, might not be able to see the shattered rotunda. “It is just down the hill, to the right. I will lead the way."

  The grey giant and the green-uniformed Sergeant made their way down the slope, past some wilted, blackened bushes.

  "Looks like it could be more magic,” Erik said, as the building hove into full view. “That dome looks as if it burst from the inside."

  The soldier picked up a fallen, hand-written placard. “One Night Only: Tordun, the White Titan,” he rea
d. “So they were here.” He laughed. “One night only: looks as if they were right about that!"

  Shakkar nodded. “It seems as if the performance brought the house down."

  Erik stared at the demon, his eyes wide and his brows raised. “Was that a joke, Lord Seneschal? I'm surprised!"

  Shakkar shrugged. “It is a human phrase I have heard, which seemed to fit the occasion. I understand that such a phrase with two meanings is, on occasion, held by those of your species to be amusing. Did you find it humorous?"

  "Well, you're going to have to work on the delivery and timing a little, Sir, but I'm still impressed. I didn't know demons had a sense of humour."

  "We do not as a rule, Sergeant. However, since I have been forced to live among your kind, I have found it expedient to adopt your customs from time to time…

  "Hold on, Sergeant: I hear movement inside the structure."

  Slanting his metal weapon across his chest, Erik darted to the left of the wide entrance, motioning Shakkar to the right. For once, the demon decided to defer to the soldier's experience and authority.

  "Attention in there!” Erik shouted. “We mean you no harm; we just want to ask a few questions…"

  He was interrupted by a stuttering explosion of noise.

  "I'm no linguist, but that's a language I understand.” Erik pulled a strange glass-eyed mask over his face. He took a cylindrical, fist-sized article from his belt and grasped a ring at its top.

  The demon thought he recognised the object: a weapon the humans called a ‘grenade', designed to fill a small area with tiny, sharp shards of metal. He knew such a weapon could tear soft human flesh to rags.

  The demon raised a warning hand. “Hold, Sergeant: we want them alive!"

  "It's all right, Lord Seneschal. Just trust me: I do know what I'm doing.” Erik's voice was distorted by his strange mask, but intelligible.

  The soldier pulled the ring from the object, allowing a metal arm to spring from its side, nodded three times and tossed the green cylinder into the building. A loud explosion sounded from within the rotunda, and Shakkar shielded his eyes from a blazing flash of light.

  In quick succession, the Sergeant tossed two more of the explosive items into the opening, and a thick smoke began to issue from the doorway and the hole in the dome.

  In a few moments, three green-clad men staggered out, accompanied by a man in a strange suit of clothes. All were coughing, gasping and retching and their legs seemed barely able to support them. Their faces were wet with tears, and they collapsed onto the grass.

  The Sergeant soon deprived the incapacitated men of their weapons and secured their hands behind their backs with thin white strips of some unknown material. He leapt into the opening, firing his weapon in short bursts, but Shakkar heard no answering fire.

  In a few moments, the soldier emerged, whipped off his mask and saluted. “The area is pacified, Sir! There doesn't seem to be anyone else in residence."

  Shakkar felt impressed: the Sergeant's action had been swift and decisive. He began to realise that the human's occasional juvenile inanity might be a nervous reaction, born of inactivity.

  "Well done, Sergeant!"

  "It's my job, Sir. Everything else is just training and waiting. I live for this kind of action. If you don't mind, I'd like to deal with these fellows in my own way."

  Shakkar shrugged. “You do seem to know what you are doing, Sergeant. Please carry on."

  Erik turned to a uniformed man, and attracted his attention with a none-too-gentle boot to the ribs.

  "That wasn't too friendly,” he said. “Stupid, too. All we wanted to do was to ask about some friends of ours, but you had to up the ante, didn't you? That was really amateurish, opening fire like that."

  The sentry gasped and grimaced as the leather boot struck home. “We never meant you no harm, sodjer-boy; we fought you was the wizard an’ his frien's, come back to finish us off. Mister Chudel, ‘ere, ‘e's the man in charge.” He indicated the prone figure in black with a resentful nod.

  "Thanks,” Erik said.

  As far as Shakkar could tell, the human seemed to be enjoying himself and obtaining useful results, so he remained silent. The soldier turned to the rotund, red-faced man.

  "You: Chudel!"

  The round man groaned and turned his head. “What do you… what the hell's that!” The pained expression was washed away by one of pure terror, as Chudel's gaze fell upon the towering form of Shakkar.

  "This is Lord Seneschal Shakkar,” Erik said. “He's not quite as forgiving or friendly as me, so I suggest you don't do or say anything to annoy him. He doesn't like humans all that much."

  Shakkar rewarded the corpulent mortal with a generous display of fangs, and all colour fled from Chudel's face.

  "What do you want?” the black-clad man babbled. “I'll tell you whatever you want to hear. Just don't set your monster on me!"

  Erik ground the open end of his weapon into Chudel's fleshy gut, provoking an anguished squeal. “That's ‘Lord Shakkar’ to you, worm,” he said. “Now, why don't we start with what happened here?"

  "It was a party we had staying here: three mages and four warriors. The young mage did most of this. Most of the others ran off when he burnt down the Mansion House, but I had nowhere else to go."

  Chudel groaned. “I'm getting a cramp. Can't I at least sit up?"

  "I don't think so,” Erik said. “I don't want you getting too comfortable just yet. Don't worry; if you're nice and co-operative and tell us just what we want to know, we'll be on our way in a few minutes. Of course, if I have to use any extra persuasion, it'll last a little longer. I'm sure you wouldn't want that."

  "What more do you want?” the bound man asked. “One of the warriors was a renowned fist-fighter called Tordun. I didn't recognise the others."

  "We know who they are, fat man; we don't need to know anything else about them. We just need to know where they went when they left."

  "I don't know,” Chudel said, his voice wheedling and pleading. “You've got to believe me!"

  Erik shot a glance at Shakkar, his eyebrows raised in question. The demon shook his head; he could see and interpret human auras, and he knew the mortal was lying.

  The Sergeant nodded in reply, as if a suspicion had been confirmed.

  "I thought not,” he muttered. In a louder voice, he said, “That wasn't the most convincing lie I've ever heard. Which bone do you want broken first, fat boy?

  "No preference? Very well, I think we'll start with your fingers, then move to the toes, then the kneecaps… I'll leave your balls ‘til last, I think."

  Erik removed the long blade from the end of his metal weapon. “Or I could take ‘em off right now, if you prefer. Get it over with, as it were."

  Chudel's eyes bulged, his face suffused with terror. “I can't tell you what I don't know, man!"

  Erik sighed and took a firm, even brutal hold of the man's pudgy right hand. “I think we'll try the right index finger first. By all means, scream if you want to."

  The soldier grabbed the digit and began to bend it backwards.

  "Ready to talk yet, Mister Chudel?"

  "I can't!” Chudel yelled, his cherry-red face streaming with sweat. “I swear I can't!"

  "Sorry, Chudel. Here goes the finger…"

  "Rendale Priory! They went to Rendale Priory!” the fat man screamed as Erik bent the finger almost at right angles to the plane of the back of his hand. “It's about eighty miles south of here! It's the truth, I swear!"

  Erik snorted. He released the finger and took out a glittering knife with a broad blade. “Perhaps we'll start on your balls after all, big man.” He began to cut the buttons from Chudel's trousers with the large blade. “Your voice is pretty high as it is, so I reckon you'd make a sensational soprano."

  "It's Rendale! I swear on my life-I swear on my mother's life…"

  "He's tellin’ the truth, mate,” one of the prostrate guards said. “That old bitch Prioress is there. Thass where they
went, orright? I don't have much time fer the old sod, but ‘e does pay me wages. Go about forty miles due south to Brianston, then it's south-east to Anjar, then south-west to Rendale. Not sure of the distances, though."

  Erik paused for a moment, his knife poised over Chudel's privities, but he sheathed the weapon and stood.

  "I reckon you're a soprano already, Chudel,” he said. “If your voice goes any higher, only the dogs'll hear you, and I don't see why they should have to suffer alone.

  "Shall we leave, Lord Seneschal? There's plenty of daylight left, and it's nice flying weather."

  Shakkar grimaced. His back muscles, so long unaccustomed to flight, blazed as if red-hot wires were piercing them. However, he was not about to admit as much in front of these wretched prisoners.

  "Very well, Sergeant,” the demon said."Let us depart. We can walk down to the gates; I will take my bearings from there."

  "Wait a minute!” one of the trussed guards yelled as the demon and the soldier walked away. “Aren't you goin’ ter let us go first?"

  "I'll let you work that out for yourselves, friends,” Erik called over his left shoulder. “Consider it a challenge."

  The protests of the prone men faded as Shakkar and Erik neared the gateway.

  "Sergeant Erik,” Shakkar said, feeling hot and embarrassed. “I am afraid I do not feel in any condition to fly again today. We will start again tomorrow. For now, we walk."

  "That's all right, Lord Seneschal. I know the drill: bums and backpacks.” The soldier adjusted his webbing and assumed a steady, mile-eating gait. “Let me know when you want to stop."

  Several minutes of silence ensued as the pair marched together, but Shakkar felt the need to ask a question. He felt no especial brief for the odious Chudel, but he found the concept of torture, even the torture of a mere human, distasteful.

  "Sergeant?"

  "Yes, Lord Seneschal?"

  "You would not truly have emasculated that man, would you?"

  "Let's just say I called his bluff, Lord Shakkar. If he'd held out, I don't know if I'd have done it or not. I'm just glad he didn't push me far enough to find out."