Torrodil

by Luke Geraghty

  The trio turned in the direction of the voice. There, emerging out of a cloud of smoke, came a rat-faced man with a pipe balanced precariously on a set of talon-like nails. The man played a game with it, spinning it between his fingers. His hair was unkempt and his eyes were bloodshot. ‘Two Venecians and a Carric birth brand. Interesting interesting.’

  ‘Watch who you slur, Mezzer rat,’ rasped Andres.

  ‘A Venecian with a will of his own? I like. You know what I like more? You do? Coins as golden as the sands. Lots of them. You said you had some. Were you lying?’

  Andres looked at the man standing before them. ‘This could turn…uglier.’

  They went for the door.

  ‘No no. Gazon is wrong to be unkind. Gazon has a wife and three daughters that like new pashminas every week. You want to go out into the desert. I can take you, so long as the price is right.’ The man wasn’t fully stitched together, his speech stressed in bizarre places. ‘Why do you want to go?’

  ‘We’re searching for somebody,’ answered Anna.

  ‘The daeva. I see it in your eyes, girl. What else is there? Something dark. Pain. What have you done? Done done.’ He grabbed her hands. ‘Dirty girl.’

  Anna snapped them away and mumbled, ‘Nutter’.

  ‘Gazon take you. If the price is right.’

  ‘We don’t have much,’ admitted Cesar.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Five sovereigns.’

  ‘Pffffffff. You know what’s in that desert? Darkness. They say it takes you in your sleep. Gone. No-one sees. I am not going out there for five sovereigns. What would that buy me? Zilch. Zip. Buy me zip zip zip.’

  ‘It’s all we have. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Leave it. Nobody will take you. Come back you will. And make sure you come with twenty sovereigns. I will not move for anything under twenty. Twenty five would be better, but the pashminas…I need the pashminas. I forgot one of their birthdays. I cannot even sleep in my bed anymore.’

  ‘Anna, we really have to see about that camel ride soon.’

  Gazon’s ears pricked up. ‘Camel ride, you say? I’ve got some camels you can use. Four of them. One, two, three, four. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘To Tenés on the Venecian border.’

  Gazon started maniacally laughing, which turned into maniacally coughing when his lungs gave out. ‘You won’t—’ Another bout. ‘You won’t be seeing Venecia for many a moon. How have you not heard? Jungle mud on boots. Mire’s taint. Yes, you did not take a boat the whole way, did you? You went through the Wilds and got out alive. Alive alive.’

  ‘Stop rambling. What about Venecia?’

  ‘There is war between the two great nations. The birds have brought news of it. No camel rides, no anything from these lands to either place. Won’t go near them. Don’t want to get involved. Not our business. Twenty sovereigns. I need a pashmina soon. I will be in the corner, resting. My eyes…why burn, why burn?’

  Gazon scurried back from whence he came. The trio fought their way through a fresh batch of opium fog – courtesy of two desperately puffing patrons – and emerged into the hectic surfaceworld, hoping that the other group had been triumphant where they had been just trumped. And by a Mezzer rat, too.

  Mateo’s face fell. ‘War? I d-d-didn’t think it would be this soon.’

  ‘Forget the camels,’ said a pacing Cesar, ‘we can make it back. We’ll walk north across the desert.’

  ‘It’s too far. We’d never make it on foot,’ said Andres, sitting with his sorrow a little away from the rest of the seven.

  ‘Then we’ll take the river,’ blustered Cesar.

  ‘You know it doesn’t go anywhere near the border.’

  ‘You do not understand. I have to get home. My father, brothers, uncles. The King will send them to their deaths for his crusade. I will not let that happen.’

  ‘Do not take your anger out on me. Just because I didn’t grow up on a ranch with a family that bred like alley cats does not mean that I don’t have one.’

  Cesar grabbed Andres by his tabard. ‘Never speak ill of them.’

  The daeva reminded them that fighting wouldn’t get them anywhere. Two hotheads ready to duke it out, she thought. Always the same with boys. Rather beat one another to mush than have a civilised conversation.

  ‘Unless you want an arrow in your backside the next time you sleep, I would listen to what she said.’

  Cesar let go in a huff and mumbled something in Venecian about Andres not being worth it. The chief hothead turned to the daeva and asked if there was anything she could do to help.

  ‘Even if I could, I wouldn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

  Cesar sat down by Mateo on the bed. Their entire journey had been in vain. All that effort and for what? So they could stew in some other smoky fleapit inhaling fumes. True, the fumes were making Cesar feel kind of special inside, but no drug could take away the disappointment. ‘What are we going to do, Lysander?’

  The monk had stayed quiet, mulling over the prospect of war as well as the fate of the three former bandits. ‘If what the— What did you call him?’

  ‘Rat man,’ came three voices in sync.

  ‘If what the rat man said is true, then you do not have many options. Stay here and try to persuade someone to take you at least some of the way, or—’

  ‘Do not say it, monk. Do not even think it. You said it was going to be Carrics-only from here on out,’ said Kara.

  Cesar rose from the bed. ‘What is your problem? We’ve been nothing but good to you and even I can admit you’ve been less horrible than normal lately.’

  ‘I do not want to argue, Cesar. I’ve had a good day and I was merely reiterating a fact. If you’re gaming for a fight why don’t you take you and that pubescent woe of yours to some pokey watering hole and challenge a member of the local riffraff to a duel or whatever it is you Venecians do to pass the time. It’s a darn sight better than standing here and poisoning us slowly with your vapours.’

  ‘What is this?’ asked Cesar, ignoring her and picking up a pouch to smell inside. ‘Eugh. Oh, it’s in my eyes, it’s in my eyes!’

  ‘Lyrdrake dust,’ she replied, snapping the pouch out of his hands. ‘If you start to see spots don’t worry, that’s perfectly normal. Unless the spots don’t go away after an hour, in which case you may have a problem.’

  Tommy manoeuvred past Cesar to examine Kara’s stock. Smelly pots filled with grey gloop. Purple powders. And is that a shrunken head?

  ‘How did you afford this?’ queried a suspicious Lysander.

  ‘I’m a good haggler.’

  ‘They don’t speak Carric.’

  ‘Some things transcend language. Love. Hate. An innocent girl’s smile while she distracts a shopkeeper and steals behind his back.’ Kara was inspecting her items, laid out over a table. She had been reorganising everything so it would sit well in her knapsack. Regrettably, she hadn’t the time or space to brew up anything in the city.

  ‘If that’s everything you own then why are you still jingling?’

  ‘Well…I…’

  ‘I think we may have solved our gold flow problem.’

  The group’s eyes descended on Kara’s knapsack, which she flipped down and into her hands, embracing it tight and shielding it from their filthy mitts. ‘No. No. You’re not getting any of it. Don’t you come close. Especially not you Tommy. I know where those hands have been.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘This is mine. You never did anything to earn it. Depositories, church collections, orphanage safes. I stole from them all! I’m going to buy myself a house out here and brew vials and pilfer from every market stall in sight. But I need this gold to do it.’

  ‘Kara,’ chided Anna lightly.

  ‘You don’t understand. It’s everything I have. There aren’t people waiting with bated breath to see if I poke my head through the door. And you don’t want this gold anyway. Think of how I got it.’

  ‘We don’t want the
whole lot, only enough to get us out of here.’

  ‘Twenty sovereigns? Inconceivable.’

  ‘Why? How much do you have?’

  Kara chewed her lip and looked down at the knapsack. ‘Very little.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I won’t take any.’

  ‘You will judge me.’

  Anna threaded an imaginary needle across her mouth.

  ‘Okay, but just you.’

  The knapsack opened and Anna looked inside. There was a large, square box and nothing else. She carefully unclasped the lid and lifted it open. What a shock! She could barely believe her eyes. Tens, no, hundreds of polished, circular pieces of gold sitting on top of each other. To take one and keep it... Anna extended for a piece, fingers anxious in anticipation of holding it, nails unfortunately grimy but Her Ladyship hadn’t seen. Anna picked up a gold coin and as soon as she did the knapsack was pulled from her grasp.

  ‘Won’t take any, huh? Grubby little birth brands are all the same.’

  ‘Lysander’s right: she’s absolutely loaded.’

  ‘Kara,’ he said, ‘you did not leave Old Haven to settle down in a place like this and fritter away your days on greedy exploits. We need twenty pieces and I promise you I won’t allow anyone else to take any more. You have my word.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have to. It’s not my fault that none of you are resourceful enough to take care of yourselves.’ Kara gripped the knapsack tighter to her chest and placed her chin down on top of it like a petulant child might cling to a doll.

  ‘We would be in your debt,’ said Lysander.

  ‘Wait a minute—’

  Lysander interrupted Cesar before he could ruin his plan. ‘And that might be something that would interest you, wouldn’t it? Something you’d like to remind us of daily?’

  ‘Mmm…’

  ‘And as soon as we were able we’d pay you back. Until that time every moan, every grumble, every insult that emerged from your lips we’d have to take. And think of how annoyed we’d get. Heck, we’ll be at one another’s throat by the end of the day.’

  Kara’s wicked eyes widened.

  ‘But we couldn’t say a thing. You’d have the upper hand. You’d have gotten us out of here. Saved us.’

  ‘Alright, alright, I’ll do it!’

  Lysander leaned back, pleased with himself. ‘You just made a deal with the Horned One,’ was one whisper. The monk would have agreed, had he believed in Him.

  With the problem of gold for Gazon settled, the seven turned to their next impediment: the three stranded Venecians. Tensions had cooled and they were no longer interested in fighting with one another, but the prospect of returning home had been their sole desire and reason for coming; they were understandably disheartened to discover it could not be done. Lysander consoled them with the belief that the travel ban would likely give out soon enough. Tommy was ecstatic that they may be coming with them as he’d never wanted them to leave. Yet it was Anna’s mouthpiece they sought. This was, in spite of everything, her quest, whether led by another or not.

  ‘I don’t know what the right thing to do is; I can’t tell you. But I know what it’s like to want to go home. I won’t hold it against you if you decide to stay here and see if you can find someone who’ll take you.’

  ‘Would you even want us with you?’ said Cesar. ‘After everything…’

  Anna wasn’t going to get soppy. She swore it. And that wasn’t fondness in her eyes. ‘Well I suppose if I have to take a stubborn Venecian along to get two other capable ones—’ Cesar cleared his throat. – ‘You know I don’t mean it. Look: I’m seventeen, dirt poor, naïve, grumpy—’

  ‘Criminally dumb. Sheds hair like a cat. Swears like a lumberjack,’ continued Tommy, ticking off the check list.

  ‘My point is I’m gonna need all the help I can get. And us seven got ties, haven’t we?’

  ‘Is that so?’ asked Cesar with a wink.

  ‘Yes, even if we may have a funny way of showing it sometimes. This is where you want to be, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’d rather be back at Riverdale Farm, tell you the truth,’ said Tommy again. ‘Haven’t had a decent meal in weeks.’

  ‘I too would rather be at Riverdale Farm.’

  ‘Me three.’

  ‘Where’s Riverdale Farm?’

  ‘I was in the middle of something,’ said Anna. ‘Cesar, as acting leader of the Mendidos, could you and your two remaining bandits be spared to help a girl out if she promised to do the same when the time was right?’

  ‘I do not know. This girl: is she pretty?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Charming?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Mean? Rash? Rude?’

  ‘I’m not sure. She’s a very quiet girl. No opinions of her own.’

  Cesar conferred with his comrades, raising his head at intervals to peer over at Anna. ‘We think it’s a possibility. Until anything better comes along, that is. Bandits make unreliable mercenaries.’

  ‘I would never have guessed.’

  ‘And we don’t want any comments on the way we dress.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Then it is agreed. Your quest is ours, Anna Gray.’

  Smiles were exchanged and a moment of peace settled over the room. Kara sunk into a chair and folded her arms. ‘And the day had been so good up until now.’

  Eighteen – An Awful Rumbling

  For two days and two nights did the seven and their guide Gazon wander the Nhamoon Desert. If the day was unforgiving and hard, then the night was benign and gentle, keeping them spellbound with an assortment of stars. Gazon’s father had taught him the constellations as a little boy. The Hunter. The Tower. The Big Nipper. Yes, legend says he was the lover of the six-armed goddess Di’shon before he was turned into a wildebeest for comparing his good looks to a god.

  It was on the second night that Mateo first heard movement under the earth, like a set of cogs whirring round. The others slept and he turned over to press his ear up against the ground. What was that? Almost as if something was churning at a high speed. Before he could discern anything more the sound stopped and sleep took him, where he dreamed about a genius inventor living in caves underneath the sand, building an army of golems to strike down the surface-dwellers.

  Day broke on the horizon and the eight moved on. They had no camels because a greedy Gazon wanted far more than they were worth and a belligerent Kara outright refused his offer. The seven had, however, purchased scarves to cover their heads and protect their eyes from shifting sands.

  Gazon led them on at a breakneck pace. When asked where they were going, he spouted some gibberish: ‘Great stone. Existed for thousands of years. Who knows how it got there. Winds is what I think. Winds winds.’

  Information about the daeva did come together piecemeal. The people of Mezbollah knew of their existence, but it was not spoken of. When the women came into the city for goods, they were dealt with promptly and fairly. Fables had been woven into history about their wrath. Rumour has it that nature was torn asunder to kill a band of men who dared challenge them. But that was rumour. Whenever the women were in town they went about their business and did not interfere with anyone else’s.

  Lysander told them how Oded had said they were ‘men-hating sorcereresses’. The boys laughed it off. They had a daeva of their own and she would do that fire and brimstone thing and they’d be fine. The monk did not mention the girl and mother Oded had seen shattered before his eyes.

  ‘Lysander?’ asked Anna, startling him. ‘You’ve been lagging behind the whole day. Usually it’s me and Tommy at the back and while I appreciate the different company I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose.’

  The others were ahead, trying to keep from sinking into the sand, and he and Anna were alone.

  ‘Gazon’s happy to lead,’ he stated, allowing himself a half-smile, almost as if he was seeking a moment of confession. ‘I
t gives me time to reflect. I was thinking about you actually. Anna Gray: such a small name for such a girl.’

  ‘It was nearly Lutecia Gray. Thankfully that inspired idea died on the vine. But I’m guessing you’re talking about something more abstract. I have to say I’m not one for puzzles. Seems a whole waste of everyone’s time to me…’ She went on like this for several minutes and long-suffering Lysander supported her with small interjections, not rolling his eyes or displaying any signs of irritation, for he knew he would get a chance to say what it is he intended to. ‘…I’m still talking, aren’t I? You’ve got to stop me if I start rambling. I think this heat makes it worse, ya know?’

  He considered his words and, in a measured tongue, drew them from his mind. ‘What I meant was that it’s interesting to consider where we end up compared to where we start.’

  ‘I see…’ said Anna, trying to decipher the significance.

  ‘You are, if you don’t mind me saying, a girl from an otherwise unremarkable village. Your parents are labourers and you yourself have no schooling beyond the little they have been able to provide. Yet here you are, in a desert, hundreds of miles from home with this ability and no permanency in your life, and you are coping. Considering all of your experiences to date and your background, this is noteworthy.’

  ‘Ah, but you forget: who knows who I’m really descended from. You could be in the presence of a deity; a child born of the stars themselves.’

  Lysander queried her with an arched eyebrow.

  ‘Kidding, Lysander. I don’t think deities go around with half a dress and sand in their hair.’

  ‘At least not the respectable ones.’ Anna cracked a smile. ‘You six are quick with your jibes. I believe it is starting to affect me. Will have to meditate at once. Can’t be doing with it.’

  She went to laugh but his face was grave and stern. She didn’t know where to look and decided to stare forward to avoid his judgement. It was not long before he gave her a prod with his staff that took her by surprise.

  ‘You really are easy.’

  ‘You horrible man!’ she exclaimed, whacking him back. ‘I believed you.’