by Ben Stivers
They looked about as hospitable this morning sitting on the porch planks of a second-rate whorehouse. Blade had followed along behind him a few steps back, but Wolf ignored him. He could do nothing to force the irascible Blade to behave. Therefore, he could be on his own cognizance. Forcing him to do something other than what he wanted to do was paramount to pushing Arthur into something he had not decided upon doing himself.
“Detur. Morm. I thought you two would be in the Downs.”
Detur simply frowned, looking away, not interested in engaging Wolf in conversation. Morm met his eyes, but if he expected her to speak, those expectations might starve awaiting nourishment.
“Scralz said that the Snipes and Alones might be in the Labyrinth. The entrance is under this building. Want to come along?”
Detur got up off the porch and walked away to Wolf’s left. Wolf twitched two fingers behind his back for Blade to keep an eye on the assassin. Two-by-two always proved better than two-on-one. Morm continued to frown thoughtfully at Wolf and finally said, “A little hard to get under this building.”
“They don’t seem to have any trouble getting out,” Wolf replied, and a new suspicion niggled the edges of his thinking. Why protect a whorehouse? “We could pull up a few floorboards, find the entrance and go down from there.”
“I’m not sure the owner would appreciate that,” Morm remarked with flint in her voice.
“And who might that be?”
“If they wanted that known, they’d probably put it on their sign,” Morm countered. “Why don’t you be on your way.”
Wolf felt an itch. “Why don’t we just burn the damned building down. I’ll bet then the owner would show up, and we would know who we were supposed to talk to. They’ll be glad you didn’t tell me.”
Morm’s hand began to slip from the front of her belt to the side.
Wolf glanced at her hand and then captured her eyes.
“Put your hand on that dagger and you will have seen your last sunrise. You’ll be dead before you get it out of its sheath,” he warned.
“Morm!” came Anthony’s voice from across the street. Detur visibly flinched on the edge of Wolf’s vision. Detur’s fingers flexed, but returned to his belt. Seven of Anthony’s archers, wearing the uniforms of Templars stood on the rooftops of three different buildings. Anthony had suggested his men take the guard from the usual assignees until Arthur was safely back in their custody. Scralz had assured him Arthur would be cared for, but Wolf and Anthony had ignored her assurances with some prejudice. From the looks of it, they had chosen wisely.
“You’re looking for trouble,” Morm said quietly.
“You’re standing outside of the Downs,” Wolf replied. “We own this part of town. I respected you. Respect me. Either that or we can settle this now.”
Morm backed away toward her other half and the two of them pointed at Anthony’s men, shaking a middle finger in Anthony’s direction. He did not seem put off by the gesture.
Deciding his next step, Wolf walked onto the porch of the Haunted Virgin, and then turned back to Blade. “Are you going to wait here, or are you coming in too?”
Blade snorted and stomped a foot. Wolf turned away, grinning to himself and knocked on the door. When it opened, he went in.
Octavus sat on a broad rock and whittled away at a stick of locust, carving a new knife for a boy in Drybridge named Ginz. The child was seven and followed Octavus around like baby ducks trailed their mother. Before him, Lieala and Joanie had left Drybridge, Octavus had promised to make the boy a knife, and while he and his wife waited for the Council to conduct their business across the moor, he had been idly working away on the project after striking camp. Wooden knives could teach a boy much without the dangers of steel. His own father had made one for Octavus when they lived in Rome. For weeks, he had been the envy of the other boys his age.
Over Joanie’s shoulder, his eye caught the disturbance. The air congealed, lifted from the earth like a gigantic bubble bursting the surface of a placid lake. The edges shimmered as a half-sphere formed, broadened, widened, shoving the edges in all directions.
“Joanie,” he shouted, as the shockwave tore toward them, flattening grass, small trees and scrub brush like a heavy hammer. He grabbed her shirt while speaking and yanked her over the top of him, hauled them around the side of the boulder upon which he had sat and lay on her.
She began to protest when thunder erupted into the countryside. Joanie screamed with her hands to her ears, but he could hear nothing except the pain of his own ears complaining. The wave passed quickly, but his ears rang with a high-pitched whine as Joanie rolled on the ground, back and forth.
Trying to shake away the stun, Octavus clambered to his feet. Beyond his hearing, he had avoided other injury, but the damage in the distance stripped severe. The forest where the druids had vanished for their Council laid flat, trees snapped off at the middle, at the bases, thrown around like twigs. Everything between him and that place was flat.
Nearby, Octavus and Joanie’s horses floundered, tossed from their feet by the convulsion. Lieala’s mare had not tried to rise, but stayed on her side. He imagined she had suffered a broken leg.
With his ears ebbing to a dull growl like boulders cascading down a mountainside, he pulled Joanie up by her shoulders and asked, “Are you hurt?”
The madam of the Haunted Virgin resisted answering Wolf’s questions, but when she mentioned she had a missing whore, he managed to sweeten his words and chiseled the information out of her concerning the mercenaries that had been there.
“I don’t know the rest of the men’s names, but the leader’s name is Aerilius.”
“Was.”
“He is not dead,” she said, answering Wolf as if he were an idiot. True enough that the bodies had not been in the street when they returned to the scene, but he had marked it up to normal Hellsgate scrounging. “He stopped by here. His hand looked just horrible, but he would not let us tend it.”
Wolf digested that information. “Ma’am, I know you run this place, but do you own it?”
“No,” she stated firmly.
“Do you know that it sits directly upon the entrance to the labyrinth where the Necros used to live?”
Her eyes narrowed and she stated she did not. “I don’t even know what Necros are. Don’t think I want to know.”
“Well, the newest abominations in town make the Necros look like desert roses.” That said, he took her through the detail. In the end, she agreed to talk to her benefactor about allowing Wolf and a hunting party to tear up some floorboards to enter the labyrinth.
“No promises,” she stated at the last.
“I’m not looking for any. But if those things come pouring from under the building one night, who do you think they are going to kill first?”
Arthur awakened to the smell of meat cooking although he did not open his eyes. Instead, he tried to grasp and hold the vision that had just gripped him, but try as he might, what had been before slipped beyond his muddled thoughts.
Finally, giving up, he dismissed that struggle and opened his eyes. Heavy shutters on the two apparent windows kept out the daylight, should it be day. Still, above him, a small cast iron fixture hung from the ceiling by baling twine. The fixture held two stubby brown candles. Both were lit, but the cups that held them kept the wax from dripping on him. At least that was what he supposed. He had seen more mischievous things in his life.
“Thankful for that, I guess,” he murmured. He had been in Hellsgate. Where was he now?
He attempted to sit up, but found himself firmly restrained. The ropes that held him creaked against the wooden platform upon which he lay, but they did not intend to release their confident grip upon him.
“There now! You hold still in there,” came a voice from another room. Arthur strained to turn his head, but stopped as a scrawny man entered. His skin barely covered his flimsy bones. “Give me a minute and I will get you out of that contraption.”
 
; “I don’t like being restrained,” Arthur retorted. “You are not starting off on my good side.”
“Yes, it took Scralz, Morm, and Detur all they had to get you to stop squirming around. They ensured me that you were a worthy son-of-a-bitch and warned me you might be a pain in the ass if you made it beyond death’s grasp. Young man, let me tell you, if it weren’t for them, you’d be dead as dirt. Well, and me of course.”
“You?”
The stranger moved out of Arthur’s field of vision and began finagling with the ropes. “Goddamned sailor knots. I learnt how to tie’em, but never had to untie them much.” In answer to Arthur’s question, he replied, “I am Crabwell, your healer.”
As the man moved to Arthur’s side, he felt the ropes loosen slightly, but then Crabwell continued on, working on the next knot. The skin on his arms sagged and wrinkled. Brown spots as dark as Arthur’s saddle covered the man’s arms and face. Arthur looked at him, and skepticism crowded out his curiosity. The man’s hair sprouted about his head, most of his skull being bald with splotches of grayish brown hair randomly thrown on his skull. He had a green left eye that looked true and clear, but strikingly, his right eye socket held a polished round alabaster. Crabwell’s moving eye met Arthur’s gaze, and a crooked grin with only half a dozen teeth met Arthur’s surprise.
“Purty, ain’t it?” Crabwell continued his work and before Arthur could answer, the first major knot loosened under Crabwell’s skilled fingers. Arthur tried to sit up, but Crabwell put his hand on Arthur’s forehead and said sternly. “Lay still! You’re tightening the damned thing up again!”
Arthur complied and pressed his head back against a feathered cushion while Crabwell continued his tale. “I got this eye from a Spaniard when I sailed on the Flight. Up to that point, I had to get by with an eye patch. That suited. Looked good when I was piratin’ but if you’re going to be a dirt dweller, need a good eye for people to look at. Kinda matches, don’t you think?”
Arthur did not wish to have a rock for an eyeball, so he nodded with Crabwell in agreement. The healer’s laugh rolled out as an honest one, raspy, but from his gut.
The ropes suddenly fell free, but he put his hand on Arthur’s upper left arm and said seriously, “You can get up, but do so slowly, Mr. Temper. You been off your feet awhile. You could get dizzy. Got some mighty potent herbs in you, son. Ain’t used to them, you might fall down.”
Arthur complied, though he did not know why. Something in the way Crabwell gave direction made him sound like Arthur’s mother, but other than their apparent ability to heal, they were nothing alike.
“What happened? How did I get here?”
“People don’t ask questions in the Downs. So, I will answer that one, but if someone else shows up here keep your trap shut,” Crabwell replied, lifting the opening in Arthur’s linen blouse and inspecting underneath. “There was a fight near the Dark Embrace. Although I hear the other guy got the worst of it, you got skewered by a sword in your diligence—pretty badly. Just my opinion, but I think your career will be short if you keep that up. You’re not exactly a springling, you know.”
“Yes, life keeps reminding me.”
Satisfied with that remark, Crabwell continued, “Generally speaking, the quarrel ended in the Downs. That makes it our business, not the business of Hellsgate. Be that as it may, your friends brought you into the Downs.”
“What friends?”
“If’n you’ll hush long enough and stop interrupting, I’ll tell you.”
Arthur felt duly reprimanded. In all honesty, he would have said much the same if he were in charge, which he evidently was not. He held up his right hand in surrender. “I capitulate.”
“Good. As I was saying, no one bothered to mess with Morm, Detur, and Scralz to vouch your way. Your bearded friend got some scrutiny. They turned him and your horse away. He felt like a big argument, but Scralz said something about bashing him in the old hangers. That made him back up and take that ill-mannered stallion with him. Thought we might lose you there for a bit, though. You were delirious. Gabbing in your sleep. Don’t ask me what you said. None of it made any sense. You’ve been sleeping three days. Just sit there. I will get you something hot to eat.”
Arthur lifted his shirt and looked under it when Crabwell shambled away into the other room. Directly under his collarbone, a new scar ran from his shoulder nearly to his neck.
From the next room, “I hear you got a woman. I’d say you got a fancy scar to impress her now, but I saw a bunch of them on you. I suppose she might not be so dazzled if she is half as headstrong.”
Arthur decided to keep that momentous opinion to himself. Who knew if Shanay might hear it one day and knuckle him just to give him another.
“This wound is nearly healed,” Arthur said with a new admiration in his tone. Despite his decrepit look, Crabwell’s competency could not be questioned.
“I took the liberty to steal some hair from your horse’s tail. He tried to brain me, obstinate beast, but I managed. Anyway, I packed the wound with yarrow and your horse’s hair the first three days—all the way through. You got a matcher on the back by the way. After that, I boiled some of Scralz’s elixir and poured it straight in.” He turned away from the steaming pot he had on the stove, slapped a knee, and said with mirth, “Goddamn, you didn’t like that much. Too damned much squirming. Detur, Morm and Scralz held you while I tied you down, put a red hot flat paddle on there, then I closed you up and elixered you cold. After that, there was nothing to do but wait. I figure you should be feeling righteous after a good meal. Want to try to stand?”
Arthur did, throwing back the burlap blanket off his lap and the ropes with it.
“Watch your head,” Crabwell remarked without looking up from whatever he stirred in the large kettle on the stove. On a griddle, he stuck a fork in a hunk of meat a third of the size of a horse’s flank and flipped it over.
Arthur stood up, ensuring not to hit his head on the candelabra. Disorientation threatened, but did not sweep in. He took a step and then another. Raised his left arm slightly and then some more. Although he would not say it felt good as new, all that remained was stiffness.
“You are good at this,” Arthur said. “My mother is a healer.”
“Is she now?” Crabwell replied. He motioned Arthur into the next room where only a stove, a fireplace and a single table resided. From there Arthur saw the entrance to a cellar and a room full of barrels in the next room, all stacked and labeled. “Healers are worth their weight in gold for violent men. Have a seat.” He pulled out a chair, stuck a fork in the meat and flopped it on a square metal plate. “You haven’t eaten since you go here. Get as much of this in you as you can stand. I’ll take a final gander at that scar and if you are still feeling tetchy, I will send someone to fetch your armor. You had a hole in it—like you!”
Another strong laugh rattled against Arthur’s nerves, but the knife that Crabwell had given him was sharp and the steaming beef tasted delicious.
“Better than Scralz’s ale,” Arthur remarked, holding up a fork full.
Crabwell took a deep slug from a mug he had sitting on the stove and said, “She’s a bartender not a healer. Makes her money getting’ men drunk and doin’ it cheap. Want some?”
“What is it?” Arthur asked.
“Some of Scralz’s elixir. She brings it to me. I have the carcinos. This keeps it pushed back, though I think it still eats at me. Her elixir extends my life.”
Arthur had heard of the disease. A plague of sorts that ate men from the inside out.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but Crabwell brushed aside his apology.
“It pushed me off the sea, but it brought me here. If I hadn’t come here, I would be dead by now. Scralz let me try it as a favor. Been feeling stronger ever since.”
Arthur took a mug Crabwell offered. “How long have you been here in the Downs?”
Crabwell’s eyes twinkled as he replied, “Son, I been in Hellsgate since Rumbar ran the show
. I was here when you met the blind crone here in the Downs. You were a young whelp then. Took guts, you coming down here, but you were kind to her. I been kind to you. Outside of that, you don’t belong here. Still, enjoy my hospitality while it lasts.”
He sat the mug back down on the table and withdrew from the conversation until Arthur had finished. The food tasted better than any he remembered and the elixir strengthened him, sweeping away the remnants of too much marshal rest.
The melee marched into his consciousness. “I remember now. We ran into those, the branded ones.”
“We have seen some of them in the Downs in prior days. They didn’t make it out.”
“Do you know who they are?”
“We attempted to glean that. Such a flavor of information would have sold for much gold. Still, they did not tell their inquisitors. Their minds were locked up—almost like they knew who they were and what their mission was. Other than that, when questioned hard, they simply died.”
“You tortured them?”
“Not overly much. Just when we pushed on who they worked for, they dropped dead. Keeled right over. Seemed odd to me; so I opened one of them up. His heart had ruptured.”
“Did you ask them about the brand? Did any of them wear an amulet?”
“We asked them. The question confused them. As for the amulets, as soon as the men died, the amulets dissolved.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dissolved. You know—disappeared, poof, thin air. Magic for sure.”
“Can you take me to where they died?”
“I don’t know about that. That would have to be negotiated.”
“With who?” Arthur asked.
Crabwell reached up and adjusted his alabaster eye. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”