Ez Ozel: Prologue to Perdition

by Dave Oliver

  The hunters nodded and left quickly.

  Peltik put his hand on his Warden’s shoulder. “You did good bringing this here. You go get into position too.”

  The Warden glanced over at Casselle and Elress.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Peltik said. “We’re all on the same side, whether they realize it or not. Now go.”

  She rushed out the door.

  Peltik turned back to his two guests. “There’s more we need to talk about, but I don’t think we have any time left now. You’re a long way from the barracks, and I think things are about to get very, very bad. You should get ready for what’s coming.”

  With that, he sidled off into a back room and his agents followed, leaving Casselle and Elress alone. They gave each other a look and then bolted for the door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Karedess was up at dawn, and she ran over to wake Fierd as soon as the sun rose above their destination to the west.

  “Let’s go! If we get an early start, we might get there today.”

  Fierd moaned and swatted at her. “Calm down. I’m awake. Let me get our things together and we’ll—”

  “Already done. I packed us up and loaded the cart. Let’s move, move, move!”

  Fierd blinked up at her, chasing the last bits of sleep from his mind. He looked at the cart with all of their supplies haphazardly thrown in the back. “Well, so you have. I guess we should get moving then. Just give me a minute.” He strolled over to the stream and lay down in it. The water was so warm this far south. He let his bladder loose and tried his best to relax for a moment. He was growing more nervous about finally reaching the big city, but he kept it to himself. This was a new chapter of his life—might as well enjoy it.

  Once he was sure his waste was completely washed away and soaked from his ragged trousers, he stood and walked to the horse.

  Karedess was already sitting on the driver’s bench and tapping on the wood with impatience. He jumped up beside her, his wet clothes dripping down the cart and onto the ground.

  “I have an important question for you,” he said.

  “Hmm?” She stopped tapping and gave him a concerned look.

  “Are you ready to see home today?”

  A huge smile graced her face. “Yes!” She slapped his back. “To home!”

  Fierd smiled. He snapped the reins and the horses started plodding along. He’d never thought he’d have much in common with a little girl, but he hoped they’d stay friends once they got to Ildia. He’d really gotten used to having the kid around.

  They made really good time across the well-worn roads through the plains. They arrived at the eastern gates of Ildia in late afternoon. The gate guards were exceptionally amiable.

  “Name and business?” they asked Fierd.

  “Name’s Fierd. We’re…uh…here to visit this one’s family?”

  Karedess waved from the passenger’s seat.

  “And your name, girl?”

  She squinted her eyes and pursed her lips at hearing “girl” again. “Karedess Prestum.”

  The guard’s eyes widened. “Prestum? You’re that missing patron girl!” He slunk down and looked around at the other guards to make sure nobody had heard that. “You, uh, need an escort home? I can take you straight there.”

  Fierd bristled.

  Karedess slapped him on the shoulder. “Already got one, so no thank you.”

  The guard’s shoulders sank for a moment, but his spirits rebounded. He made a note in the book he was carrying and shook his head with a smile. “What a great day. First the army gets back, now the highest-priority missing person has returned. Go ahead in.”

  Fierd snapped the horses into movement.

  “See?” Karedess said. “I told you the war was probably over already. Our army is awesome. They taught those holy people a lesson about worshipping gods.”

  “Still hard to believe people actually do that. Worship I mean.”

  “Not here. It’s really just the Holy City. That’s why this fight started.” She looked up and squinted as she tried to remember what she’d learned in school. “A long time ago, the Holy City was our sister city, but then they started going on about god and shut us out. Then they stopped trading with us. Then they attacked us. So we had to go and remind them who the big sister was.”

  “You sound like a proud people. There were rumors of a priest wandering around the north lately offering happiness and safety for some horrible price, but I always figured they were just stories to spook and scare. I didn’t think anyone like that actually existed.”

  “Well, I don’t think we have to worry. I’ve never heard of anyone worshipping except the Holy City. Well, I read about another city down in Provenance that worships, but nobody goes there anyway.”

  Fierd nodded. “It’s good your people went out there to quash it. World has enough scary tales without those bogeymen.”

  They trotted down the main alley toward the center of the city. Fierd looked around in awe at everything he saw. The buildings were so tremendously high. They were like thinner versions of the Halefort, but with lighter-colored stone. There were a lot more windows too, and the roads were all cobbled. One of these buildings could probably have fit all of Camston in it, though he couldn’t imagine living under or above someone else.

  Then the smells began bombarding him. Merchants lined the main drag selling various wares, many of them hawking foodstuffs of all kinds. He tried to look at every stall as they passed by, but it was a difficult task. Some of the foods looked appetizing, some looked like they’d give him the shits, and most just looked strange. But loads of people were buying them all up.

  And the people. There were so many of them everywhere. Fierd had never been resistant to crowded places, but he was feeling a bit confined now. So many bodies were flooding the streets and brushing by. He suddenly got nervous about the open-backed cart. Anybody could just take their things from the cart bed. How did people live like this? Was there no privacy or solitude here?

  They reached the market square, where the street opened up into a large circle of road with shops everywhere. There was also a strange statue of a man in a fancy outfit in the middle. He held a large tome in one hand and had his other in a fist on his hip. His chest was puffed out, and he looked off to the north.

  “Who’s that?” Fierd asked.

  “That’s King Faldor. A long, long time ago, he set up a bunch of trade routes through the Commonwealth. He’s the reason we get to eat chocolate all year! Paradisio makes it, and we trade them stuff so we can have some.”

  “Never had chocolate before. Some kind of fruit or something?”

  Karedess smiled uncomfortably wide. “You’ll see for yourself.”

  Fierd followed Faldor’s gaze northward and saw a huge building built right into the side of the coastal mountain.

  He nodded toward it. “That the keep?”

  “Yup! That’s where we should head. My house is in the same part of town.”

  “You live in a castle too?”

  Karedess laughed. “Of course not. Only the king lives up there, but the patron families live nearby.”

  Fierd turned the horse north and headed up the road. It looked like a straight shot down this road most of the way.

  They reached a sharp incline of stone, forcing them to turn right or left.

  “We go left here,” Karedess said. “My house will be on the left in a little bit.”

  Fierd looked at the line of homes on his left. They were incredible. They were all three or four stories tall, had large well-kept lawns, and were decorated in a completely unique fashion from one another. Even the fences and gates were highly decorated, mostly with flashy colors and accessories. Without the real one just north of them as an example, Fierd would’ve been fine calling these castles.

  Karedess bounced up and down on the bench, making the whole cart shift. The horses glanced back a few times in annoyance. They trotted along past seven or eight houses unti
l they came to it.

  “This is it, right here!” Karedess said. She leapt from the cart and ran to the gate. She started to shake it, yelling, “Mama, Mama, Mama!”

  Fierd dismounted and walked up behind her just in time to see a homely woman exit the estate and rush to see what the commotion was all about.

  “Ka-Karedess? Is that you?”

  “Aunt Mair! I’m home.” She turned to Fierd, still bouncing with excitement. “Aunt Mair is our factotum. She helps keep the house looking nice and cooks for us.”

  Mair flung open the gate and knelt down in front of Karedess. She hugged her uncomfortably tight and started to cry. She pushed Karedess out to arm’s length and gave her a look.

  “Where have you been?” Mair asked. “Are you okay?” She looked up at Fierd. “Who…is this?”

  “This is my buddy, Fierd.” She slapped him on the leg. “He rescued me from a group of Ju—… from a group of bandits that grabbed me when I was outside the gates. They got real far north with me, but Fierd stopped them and brought me all the way home.”

  Fierd gave a nervous smile and started rubbing his hands. He wasn’t sure how to talk to someone so well kept and from a patron house, even if she was just the servant. How did people look on northerners here? If he thought they were weird, what did they think of him? Would they welcome him or chase him out? Would they—

  Mair threw her arms around Fierd. “Thank you so much for bringing her home. I don’t know why you’d go to such trouble over a child you’d just met, and I don’t care.” She pulled out of the embrace and looked him in the eye. “We’ve been a mess since she went missing, and you’ve made us whole again.” She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Oh my, but you could use a bath.” She pulled away and brushed at the dirt and crud that soiled her previously pristine uniform.

  Karedess giggled. “We both could, but him more than me. I don’t think he’s ever had a real one.”

  She eyed him up and down before giving a nod.

  “Now, hold on,” he said. “I’ve bathed plenty of times. We had a small river real close to Camston, and I’ve even dipped in Rime Lake a few times.”

  “Not that,” Karedess said. “A real bath with soap and shampoo.”

  Fierd gave a confused look to Mair, but she smiled back with an expression that looked like something halfway between seductive and plotting. She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the house. Karedess followed behind.

  If the exterior of the house was impressive, the interior was otherworldly. There were paintings everywhere, shiny baubles and statuettes on display where they’d be impossible to miss, and ostentatious rugs littered the floor. A giant cluster of metal and crystal hung directly overhead, refracting shards of sunlight to various spots in the foyer, but it was the smell that really grabbed Fierd’s attention. Oh what a smell. It was sweet and alluring—something he’d never smelled the like of before.

  He inhaled deep through his nose and asked, “What is that smell?”

  Karedess took a sniff. “I think it’s cinnamon. Are you making something, Mair?”

  “I am. I was making a giant sweetroll. Your mother has become a bit…preoccupied with sweets since you’ve gone missing. She uses them for comfort to keep her mind from driving her mad about where you might be or if you’re okay.”

  “Where is she, anyway?”

  “She’s at the courthouse. They called an emergency session with the army returning.”

  They reached a room in the back with a round, white basin. It looked smooth and slick like polished bone, but there was a hole directly in the middle at the bottom.

  “Karedess,” Mair said, “why don’t you go get ready for your bath, and I’ll light the furnace for your water.”

  “Okay!” She darted off back into the foyer and ran up the stairs, clomping her feet all the way to her room.

  “And you…Fierd, was it?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll get your water ready too. Go ahead and take off your clothes and put them in the basket over in the corner. I’ll give them a wash.” She scurried out of the room and shut the door.

  He wasn’t sure how someone would “get water ready,” but he did what he was told. He set his pack in the corner and took a quick count of what he had left. He had a few dozen plats, a tiny bit of meat not even worth saving, his bow and some arrows, some twine, some salt, and a dozen other little bits from his survival kit. There was also a little package wrapped in bark paper. It had been hiding at the bottom of his bag, so he’d nearly forgotten about it. He took it out and unwrapped it.

  It may have been the ugliest mug he’d ever held, but it brought back so many memories. Mag had made this for him when they were still just kids. In fact, that may have been the first time he knew that he fancied her. She was always doing generous things for folk. He remembered that when she gave this to him she’d said it was for drinking like a person instead of a horse. Her work got a lot better the older she got, but he liked this ugly mug even more for how bad it looked. It gave it character, and it held her memory regardless of how well it held a liquid.

  He wrapped it back up, placed it gently at the bottom of the pack, and started taking his clothes off. He wasn’t sure why they needed to go into a basket, but he didn’t want to offend anyone by doing something weird. He walked around the small room examining the strange fixtures. It was an odd place. His feet slapped on the cold tiles, and some kind of reflecting wall showed just how filthy he was. It felt more like a place for performing nefarious hygiene rituals than it did a simple washroom. He also feared what the hole in the corner by the window might be for. Did these people actually shit indoors?

  The door opened and closed, and he turned to see Mair carrying a load of clean, white furry carpets. “Oh. Oh my,” she said upon looking at Fierd.

  He stood there watching her try to turn away but still inching her way closer to him. What was she doing?

  She passed by his right side, back always faced toward him, and she set the carpets down next to the basin.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Fierd asked.

  “What? Not at all! Why do you ask?” She still wouldn’t turn around, and she crept into the tub to place a plug into the hole at the bottom.

  “You won’t look at me. Figure I must’ve done something wrong…or maybe I’m more gross than I realized.” He looked down at himself and picked at a piece of crusted dirt.

  “Oh no,” she said, finally turning to him. “Quite the opposite, actually. It’s just…” She looked down and back up again. “You’re completely bare.”

  “Isn’t that what you said to do?”

  She nodded nervously, putting her hands up. “Yes, yes. I did. Of course.” She walked over to the wall and fiddled with two levers attached to two large pipes. Water began running from two faucets built into the rim of the tub.

  Fierd crouched down and stared at it. They were able to make small rivers run right into their homes to fill their baths. How in the world could they manage that? In just a minute or so, the entire tub was filled with steaming water. Mair pulled the levers back with a squeak, and the water stopped coming out.

  He looked at the full tub and shook his head in disbelief. He stood and saw Mair staring at him expectantly. “Do I get in that?” he asked.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “But it’s hot. You bathe in hot water?”

  “You don’t?”

  He shrugged and stepped in anyway. Oh, but it was really hot. He didn’t have much experience with hot water. There was supposed to be a spring well west of Camston, about halfway to the ocean, but he’d never ventured to check it out. So this was what it must have felt like. After the initial pain, it actually felt pretty soothing. He let himself relax.

  “Dunk your head for me, will you?” Mair asked.

  “Huh? Uh, sure.” He dipped his head under and then rubbed the water from his eyes. Not long after, he felt her putting some kind of weird goop in his hair and rubb
ing it all over his head. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “This is the shampoo Karedess was talking about. It will clean your hair.”

  “Water ain’t enough to clean it?”

  “Oh goodness, no. Especially not with how much oil and dirt you’ve got in here.”

  “Huh. Never bothered me much, but we’ll try it your way.”

  She rubbed shampoo thoroughly through his hair and beard. Having someone all up in his beard was definitely a new experience. He didn’t like it or dislike it; it was just odd. After that she pulled out a large, soft object that looked like some sort of dead sea creature. It was squishy, and she used it alongside a bar that felt a little like that rubber stuff that his neighbor Wode had used to make waterproof chests, though this was smoother. She’d slide the rubber bar across his skin and then scrub harder with the squishy sea creature. She scrubbed so hard that it hurt a bit, but he let her keep working. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful for all the effort she was putting into this. The whole process was a bit surreal, but Fierd got used to it.

  Mair emptied and refilled the tub two times and continued to work on him. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. This really was quite soothing. Just relaxing in this hot water while someone scrubbed decades of grime and crud off of him. Was this how the patrons lived? He could probably do his best to get used to it if they’d let him.

  He raised his head and looked at her after she’d spent a considerable amount of time scrubbing his nethers. “I think that’s clean by now, isn’t it?”

  She turned completely red and uttered a few apologies before moving on to other areas. Folk sure were familiar here. Hugging, kissing on cheeks, stroking nethers. That’d be tough to get used to. It was possible there wouldn’t be any chance for privacy at all with how many people were pressed into this city and how close to each other they liked to get. He’d give it a shot, but there was plenty more world to explore if this one city didn’t work out.

  By the time she was finished scrubbing him clean, she had worked up a decent sweat, and she rubbed at her arm muscles.