The Ways of Khrem

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  If he lived that long.

  Drayton gave me that wry smile again, took a deep breath, and then went crawling back up the tunnel.

  I sat at the entrance to the tunnel, waiting to hear a crash or a final scream. When he pulled himself back up into the basement and out of my view, I ran back to the coffin and started selecting items to use on my long journey.

  All of my old gear was neatly stowed in a pack. A small chest under a false bottom in the other coffin contained a considerable investment in small jewels, and there was also a packet of forged letters of introduction and other papers useful for establishing a new life elsewhere. Now it was a matter of waiting for the chance to get free of the captain and the murderous spider, and getting to that ship.

  So I sat back down and waited.

  Almost immediately the sound of a loud crash issued from the tunnel. That didn’t bode well at all. I feared what end that portended for the Captain, for despite all the chaos he had brought into my life, he really was the likable sort.

  So it came as something of a pleasant surprise when he dropped back into the hole at the other end of the tunnel.

  “Mr. Cargill!” he called. “It’s safe, the monster is gone.”

  Yeah, sure.

  “Captain, I’m delighted you’re alive,” I answered, remaining safely within the crypt. “What was the crash that I heard?”

  “I’m afraid that was your sitting room, Mr. Cargill. It seems to have joined much of your kitchen in the basement. The beast tore through support beams and load-bearing walls in its efforts to get at you. You probably ought to get out of there before the whole house comes down and seals you in.”

  Well, if he was going to put it like that…

  Chapter Six

  “Saalback is the sole city of note in the frosty Akartic nation of Bardok. Girded by bleak gray walls of tremendous height, it is packed full of dwellings made of wattle and daub. The smoke from its multitude of chimneys often fails to rise, instead filling the walls like a great cup before spilling out over the parapets and into the neighboring fields. Inside is a smoky maze that only the life-long native dweller can ever hope to navigate.”— Kasean’s Nations of the Akartic

  The sky in the east had just begun to lighten when Captain Drayton's coach arrived, bearing Heinryk and Poole.

  A second coach, carrying more watchmen, pulled up behind them. They stared in wonder at the tottering wreck that had once been my home. While the front of the house seemed pretty much intact, the second floor had caved inwards, bringing much of the roof with it.

  Overall, it made a pathetic sight, and one that filled me with mixed emotions.

  Logically, I knew I shouldn't care. I intended to be taking the first opportunity to slip away onto a ship, leaving Khrem forever. But another part of me started getting mad as all the hells.

  That had been my house, the house where I intended to retire and spend the rest of my life in a sane and fear-free fashion. I put my life on the line on numerous occasions to gather the funds for it. And I had made it! I had escaped the fear and the desperation and traded it in for a respectable life, where I could deal with ordinary people, face-to-face, without contrivance.

  Damn it all!

  There was even that certain high-stepping redhead on Waterdancer Street who probably considered me an acceptable suitor, and was willing to allow me to rescue her from the tubs and install her as the proper wife of her own house.

  But then the rational, detached part of me prevailed.

  I have seen angry men walk right to their deaths with their fists clenched before. Being victimized didn’t mean the world would just let somebody march in and strike back against more powerful forces with impunity. Far from it. It usually meant they had encountered something more dangerous than them, and they would be well advised not to cross it again.

  My ability to let my rational side rule had kept me alive all these years, and I would rely on it to keep me alive again. I could not hope to be a match for a vengeful god and his giant spider, and I would be a fool to stay and fight them. Reason dictated I board the boat to Saalbach and that is exactly what I knew I must do. I intended to do the rational thing.

  Right then, I hated myself more than I ever had in my entire life.

  A loud crash shattered the morning quiet as my chimney leaned, and then slipped to join my sitting room and kitchen in the basement.

  Oh well, I could hate myself on the boat.

  The time had come to get moving. I turned and walked over to the captain.

  Drayton stood by my front gate, also staring at the ruin of my house. Arms folded across his chest, his jaw clenched so hard I noticed two pale scars visible beside his right eye. He looked even angrier than I had been a moment ago, and I noticed that all the other watchmen were standing a little away from him at a respectful distance.

  Ah well, good for him. He was welcome to the rage. I needed to bid farewell and be on my way.

  “Captain,” I sighed, “it appears I have a lot to do. I had better get down into town and start hiring carpenters and masons. I thank you for your company last night, as I would have hated to have faced such a thing alone. I will not forget your courage.”

  I turned to leave.

  “Mr. Cargill,” Drayton gritted out in a whisper, “you will stay with us until this matter is resolved. You will not leave my sight without my permission. Poole, please help Mr. Cargill into the coach.”

  So much for that idea.

  Poole shrugged at me and nodded toward the coach.

  This would be harder than I thought. Running couldn’t be further out of the question, and I had a better chance of picking up and carrying off that coach than I had of overpowering Poole. For now, I would have to bide my time. As I climbed in the coach, I saw Captain Drayton giving orders to the watchmen from the coach at our rear. He seemed unusually intense. Two of them walked over and took up positions in front of my house.

  The rest climbed back into their coach, which trotted off down the street at a brisk pace. Drayton and Heinryk started walking back toward us with the captain appearing to be giving Heinryk some kind of instructions. Then the two men climbed into the cab and, with a rap on the ceiling from Drayton, we jerked into motion.

  The mood in the carriage was grim.

  Drayton leaned back with his arms crossed, glaring at the ceiling like he intended to bore holes through it with his eyes. Heinryk and Poole wore their usual expression of unreadable nonchalance, typical of guards on an unpleasant detail. I descended into a private, quiet gloom.

  Whether as a prisoner or as someone in “protective custody,” the obvious destination for this trip would be the old Second Wall Gatehouse, the barracks having been converted to a jail. I doubted the rats in the lower cells were truly as large as dogs, but tales from former prisoners of having to fight them for their meals didn’t help my state of mind. Others claimed it was all a bunch of lies, because the rats would never lower themselves to eating the food served to the prisoners.

  We turned onto the South Caravan Road and started heading southeast.

  The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the traffic had already started to pick up. We worked our way past one caravan from the west that must have spent their night outside the gates, but were now heading for the Stoneforest Market. Drivers were cursing and whipping their mules into action, desperate to finish their commute before morning traffic thickened. The idea of moving among the stalls and columns of the Stoneforest Market filled me with nostalgia for a freedom I had lost only moments ago.

  Other people who weren’t going into a dark cell hurried about their morning business.

  “Where is it to be, Captain?” I inquired quietly. No point in wondering all the way there.

  “We’re going to Three Gallows Square, Mr. Cargill. The Temple of Talanturos.”

  Of course we were.

  The Gatehouse would be the destination for sane Watch Captains with prisoners.

  “Um, pardon me, Captain, but di
dn’t we conclude last night that The Temple of Talanturos is the exact location the giant house-eating spider was headed?”

  “Precisely.”

  “The same giant house-eating spider that nearly ate us?”

  “That’s the one.”

  I gaped at him in awe, realizing that when it came to the pantheon of lunatics, I now sat in the presence of true greatness.

  The lightening sky disappeared as the coach turned off the South Caravan Road into the tunnel that was Hinge Street, and headed for Three Gallows Square.

  The traffic became unusually thick and kept getting thicker. A crowd had formed in the square ahead. Rapping on the ceiling for the coach to stop, Drayton leaned out the window and waved over a watchman.

  He was a grubby fellow, eating a sausage purchased from a nearby vendor while he watched the crowd pass in the gloomy street.

  “What’s happening here, Sergeant?”

  “We ‘ad a miracle last night, Captain! The spider god, Talanturos, ‘as appeared and is in ‘is temple.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Yes, sir, and it ain’t just some stunt, either. A bunch of watchmen saw ‘im appear in a great green flash of light on top of the Imperial Market Bridge. I was there. Saw it with my own eyes last night, sir!”

  Drayton turned his head and gave me a long, measured look.

  “I see.”

  “Aye, sir. Now we got a whole crowd gathering ‘ere to see ‘im, and probably buy lots o’ those little wooden things you can burn and get even with those who wronged you and such. I mean, what with the god showing up and all, you got to think there’s a better chance ‘e’ll listen and get the bastards what’s got it coming to them.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  With another rap on the ceiling, we proceeded forward. The incongruity of me being brought into Three Gallows Square in a watchmen’s Coach, without there being a noose at the other end of the ride, was not lost on me.

  The nearby Haribbean priests broke into their morning song just as we came out of the darkness of Hinge Street and entered the square.

  The tops of their towers glowed in the sun, although the square itself still lay in shadow. It was already about half-full of people, probably the largest crowd this place had seen outside of executions. The murmur of the crowd, combined with the smells of sausages and fresh pastries, lent a carnival atmosphere to the gathering.

  The hawkers and vendors had reacted to the new development admirably, offering such wares as “Sausages of Justice,” “Justice Kebabs,” and “Justice Meat Pies,” with a little eight-legged cutout in the crust. Another, who sold little miniature gallows with nooses, had already removed the nooses and had attached little string webs in their place. Halib the Herald had switched from yelling exaggerated lies about whoever was being executed to shouting what were probably fictional verses from an equally fictional Book of Talanturos as he snagged coins out of the air that were tossed his way.

  The crowd thickened at the other end of the square, where the Temple of Talanturos squatted between Balmir’s Southern Fish Market and Azamin’s House of Delights.

  It was a low, single-story affair topped by a tall wooden dome. The dome had an odd crosshatched pattern, and reminded me more of a pinecone than anything else. It may have once been painted, but that had flaked away, revealing the weathered wood underneath. A covered porch, supported by more weathered wooden columns, faced the square. A set of double doors, each with a large image of a spider carved into it, opened out onto the porch.

  The place had an air of poverty and neglect.

  A line of people extended from the door to well out into the square. A short, chubby man in a brown robe ineffectually hurried up and down the line of people, trying to maintain order. His job got made even more difficult when the crowd found itself forced to part as Captain Drayton’s coach pulled up beside the temple.

  The round little priest came flapping up as Drayton and the rest of us exited out of the coach. Bald, with bulging eyes and a neck even fatter than his head, the poor man sweated profusely from exertion.

  He hustled up and gave a quick bow to Drayton.

  “Good morning, Watch Captain!” he gasped. “How may I serve you?”

  “Who are you, and why hasn’t someone summoned the Watch to help manage this crowd?” Drayton snapped. “Who is in charge here?!”

  The fat little man wilted under Drayton’s glare. If possible, his eyes bulged even more as he looked around, frantic.

  “Um...ummm....Eggors, sir! Errrr....that would be me...um... who is not in charge here, sir. Ahh...Anaksos...ah...I mean High Priest Anaksos...is in charge, sir. Umm...not managing the crowd of course...but the temple....inside.....sir...”

  “Right,” Drayton replied, cutting through Eggors’ babbling. “Poole! You take charge of the door and don’t let anybody else in. I can see the reinforcements I ordered are arriving across the square. Have them put some order to this mess out here! Heinryk, you and Mr. Cargill will accompany me inside. Eggors, stop flapping and lead the way.”

  Drayton strode through the doors, into the temple.

  Fortunately, only a small number of people had been admitted thus far and were still inside the foyer, waiting for a second set of double doors to open and admit them to the temple proper. Most of them grumbled when the Captain ordered them back outside, but were expertly ushered out by Heinryk.

  Drayton walked over to a large crate sitting beside a side door into the foyer. Lifting the lid, he pulled out a little wooden figurine and a spool of silk. The crate appeared to be stuffed full of them. A steel drum with a coin-sized slot in the top stood nearby.

  “Expecting to do some brisk business today, I see. Nothing like being prepared, eh?”

  Eggors, who still flapped helplessly, was at a loss for words and settled for shrugging.

  Holding up the figurine, Drayton looked pointedly at me and sighed.

  “Problem Number Three, Mr. Cargill.” He turned back to the priest.

  “Tell me, Eggors,” Drayton continued, examining the figurine, “how does this work?”

  “Ah...well...you take the figurine and write the name of...of... the one who wronged you...on a piece of parchment...and then you wrap it up with the figurine with a...a...long thread of silk. Then... you burn it in one of the offering bowls inside the temple...and...ah... then Talanturos will judge your prayer.”

  “Judge my prayer?”

  “Ah...ah...yes, sir. To see if you were really wronged. If... ah...justice had really been denied you...and if...it was really...um... justice that you were after...sir.”

  “And then?”

  “Well...ah...if your prayer is worthy...ah...”

  At that moment we heard the soft sound of a gong or a large bell. The deep tone resonated through the chamber, obviously intended to herald an event of some import. Then the inner doors that led into the temple slowly swung open.

  Turning around to see what waited within, we found ourselves facing the monster from last night.

  The spider was indeed home.

  Chapter Seven

  “A crime and its price are truly nothing but different aspects of the same event. Like the two faces of a coin, there is no hope of one without the other. I am that inevitability.” —excerpt from The Canticle of Talanturos

  The monster squatted on a dais in the center of the surprisingly large rotunda.

  The ceiling arched high overhead. The dome seemed filled with beams crisscrossing at all kinds of odd angles, obscuring the source of the light that filtered down and illuminated the room. An odd, peppery scent tinged the air, mixed with the smell of smoke. Copper offering bowls on pedestals ringed the circular room. The marble floor had been inlaid with a pattern representing a giant spider's web.

  Apparently the resources of the temple had been reserved for the upkeep of this room, as it appeared to be in splendid condition.

  A swarthy, hawk-faced man in a yellow and black robe stood facing us, directly in f
ront of the spider. He possessed a regal bearing, and looked down his nose at us with obvious disdain.

  There could be no doubt that we were in the presence of the High Priest, Anaksos.

  One of the great spider's forelegs rested gently on Anaksos' shoulder. The priest idly stroked the leg, unconcerned over his proximity to the hideous thing. The little fat underling, Eggors, gabbled something and hustled over to a little alcove in the side of the rotunda.

  "Captain Drayton, I presume," Anaksos intoned. "Why are you here disrupting our rites?"

  The Captain didn't respond, turning to Heinryk and I instead.

  "Heinryk," Drayton said softly, "get back to the front door and wait. You already have your orders. Mr. Cargill, be so kind as to go over there and keep an eye on that little priest."

  Both the spider and the high priest ignored me as I skirted the room and joined Eggors at the alcove. They were staring at the Captain, who approached them.

  Drayton locked eyes with Anaksos, as if the spider wasn't even there. The acoustics of the rotunda were impressive, and I could hear Drayton clearly as he softly addressed Anaksos.

  "I want that creature out of this city by tonight," he hissed. "And then, you are under arrest for the murders of Madame Vedure, one Half Pint Carew, a transient name Redpot, and quite likely others yet to be discovered.”

  The priest smiled thinly

  “You can’t be serious. Do not act above yourself, Captain.”

  “Hauling off murderers and their pets is just part of my job. Now restrain that animal and go outside and get in the coach.”

  Anaksos’ face darkened with rage.

  “No, Captain. You do not storm into this temple and give me orders. How dare you presume to evict the great Talanturos from his earthly house!”