Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger

by Philip Blood

  “That would be my suggestion,” Jatar responded.

  G’Taklar carefully slid down the steep slope to the path below, making sure he had enough friction on the stone to keep himself from going too fast and ending up in the river. He had just started down the rough stone path when a loud and deep voice boomed out from above and behind. The voice echoed through the vast cavern, even over the sound of the rushing water.

  “Ebemoon eat brains, eat you!”

  G’Taklar’s head snapped around in surprise and fear as he looked for the source of Ebemoon’s echoing voice. Through the dim moss glow, he could barely make out the souldead's misshapen humanoid form. It had monstrous shoulders and long arms, with a smaller bump of a head to the side of the larger one in the center. The creature leaped down from the mouth of the tunnel from which G'Taklar had just escaped.

  “What should I do?” the scared young man gasped to Jatar in desperation.

  “Jump in the river,” was Jatar’s immediate advice.

  “I don’t know where it goes, I could be jumping to my death,” he retorted.

  “Then run,” Jatar said, not wishing to waste valuable time arguing, “that thing will be on you in moments and it doesn’t sound like Halvisun has any control of him right now.”

  G’Taklar followed the path downriver as fast as he could manage in the dim light. With a deep bellow, Ebemoon ran along the path and after his fleeing quarry.

  G’Taklar fled precariously down the thin winding path while attempting to keep his balance and footing on the rough stone that he could barely see in the dim light.

  “Is he catching up?” the terrified young man asked in a panic. He was trying to spot a long enough level section of path, so he could use that moment to glance back over his shoulder to find out how close the horrid souldead creature had come.

  “Food now!” Ebemoon screamed from right behind G’Taklar, which pretty much answered G’Taklar’s question.

  The voice was so loud and close that G’Taklar nearly leaped out of his skin as he tried to spin around to face the creature and keep his footing on the path. He lost the battle for his balance and waved his arms widely as he fell backward into the flowing river. As he fell backward he glimpsed two thick grasping hands, with long nasty looking claws, as they just missed his falling body. A moment later he hit the cold water with a mighty splash.

  He surfaced a couple of heartbeats later and spit out a mouthful of the river water. Through the dim light and water, he made out the inhuman Ebemoon pacing him along the shore. The arms of the souldead were nearly long enough to drag on the path. G’Taklar could hear the voices of Ebemoon and Halvisun screaming from the shore, though the sounds of the water kept him from understanding what either of the heads was trying to say.

  G’Taklar saw Halvisun’s small head yelling into Ebemoon’s ear, and figured that he was attempting to distract his companion head. Then a strong current pulled G’Taklar under again and he was fighting for his life as he tried to get back up for air. When he finally surfaced Ebemoon was behind him and losing ground to the swift flow of the river. G’Taklar tread water as best he could and turned to look forward. Downriver he could see the cavern ceiling getting lower. He took one last look back and saw the souldead creature following doggedly behind his escaping meal.

  “What now” G’Taklar gasped to Jatar.

  “When the ceiling starts to get too low to get air, take three deep breaths, hold the last one and kick underwater with the current until we get to the next air pocket.”

  “What if there aren't any air pockets?” G’Taklar asked, worried.

  “Keep kicking until there is,” Jatar answered.

  G’Taklar would have continued to argue, but the cavern ceiling was getting too low, he took Jatar’s advice and started his three breaths. He took the third as the ceiling nearly hit him and dove under the water. Kicking along with the current, he went as far as he could, until his lungs ached and hurt, calling for air. He felt along the ceiling, nearly passing out from the effort of holding his breath when he suddenly found air. He gasped, pulling lungs full of musty cavern air into his chest; he thought it was the sweetest tasting air he had ever breathed.

  The swimming boy had barely caught his breath when the ceiling started to close in again. G’Taklar quickly gasped in three more breaths and went down. He found three more air pockets the same way. As he dove from the third, he instantly felt a massive acceleration as some mighty current sucked him down. He was sure this was the end as all light faded and he felt the water pulling him further and further down some vast chute.

  “Protect your head, curl into a ball,” Jatar yelled in his mind.

  Just in time he did as instructed and his body struck the side of the cavern once, hard, then he was back into the main flow.

  His breath began to run low when he felt the water sweep upwards swiftly and suddenly he was in the air, completely, but only briefly. He plunged back into the river, but this time, the ceiling was far above and it was brighter. G’Taklar looked back and saw a giant fountain of water erupting straight up towards the ceiling of the cavern.

  He realized he must have been spewed up into the air by the exiting water. Treading water he gasped in sweet breaths of air. When he finally looked up towards the cavern ceiling he saw a strange sight; little points of light dotting the darkness.

  “What do you think those are?” he asked Jatar.

  “Stars, we’re out! This is the exit of the river, you're free of the caverns!” Jatar exclaimed, thrilled at their sudden escape.

  “I can’t believe it, I made it!” G’Taklar joined Jatar in jubilant excitement.

  A moment later the water current had taken them out of the canyon to where he could swim to a small sand beach. He could not see the surroundings very well, so Jatar suggested they climb up the side of the nearby hill where they could wait for the sun to rise and give them a view of the surroundings.

  G’Taklar climbed upwards and soon passed over a dirt wagon road. He continued to climb upslope until the road was out of sight. Utterly exhausted the young man curled up and went to sleep behind some boulders.

  CHAPTER FIVE - RACHAEL

  Rachael was serving three Tchulian soldiers kier when Fats the innkeeper spotted her. He had been counting the round in a box he hid behind the counter under a loose brick. There wasn’t enough there to buy him the horse he had taken a liking to the day before, and he was angrily looking for a reasonable justification for his poverty when his squinty eyes fell on the new girl, Rachael.

  “She’s a good looking wench, even if she is a bit small,” the rotund man thought for the hundredth time, “She must be taking in lots of metal with looks like that,” he figured.

  He decided to see if she had any round, especially since he had already warned her about giving him his ninety percent of her earned coinage from the men she serviced in her room. "A room I'm giving her without charge!” he rationalized.

  He moved back and waited inside the kitchen door for the young girl to come in to fill an order.

  She came through the door a moment later with her tray held in her left hand, balancing four empty mugs.

  Fats grabbed her by the right arm which caused her to drop the four mugs off the jolted tray. They crashed to the ground and broke on the bricks into shards of dark brown pottery.

  “You’ll be paying for those out of your tips, you clumsy idiot!” Fats yelled at the cowering girl, “Or you can pay with the round you’ve been taking in upstairs after you pay me my ninety percent right now!” he demanded.

  “Please sir, I only have the round from my tips, but I’ll pay for the broken mugs from that,” she promised in fear of losing her job and only place to live.

  Fats glared at her with his beady eyes, “Don’t feed me that crap again! I know you must be taking men up there, a cute little vixen like you can make a fortune before your looks go!” he exclaimed, pinching her rear with his fat fingers.

  Rachael jumped away f
rom his hard pinch and exclaimed, “I haven’t taken any men, I swear!”

  “I don’t believe you, but I’ll let the past slide, however, I’m expecting you to make some serious round tonight. I’ll send you some business to get you started. Sergeant Herms and his three corporals will be in, and they can have you for five silvers apiece, but I’ll expect twenty-seven silver crowns at the end of the evening, so you’ll have to find two more men to service at five apiece on your own. I can’t be doing you favors by finding your marks continually."

  The young girl's eyes darted around desperately, but she didn't dare speak out.

  Then the fat innkeeper leered at the young girl and added, “And you can give me a free one afterward for supplying you with the sergeant and corporals,” he finished as his eyes peeled her dress from her curvaceous young body as they followed her rounded contours.

  “Now go get freshened up, the sergeant is a friend of mine and since you claim he will be your first I want him to have you clean. He should be here in about two bells,” Fats promised.

  With her eyes downcast and resignation in her voice, the young girl answered, “I’ll do as you say.”

  She knew she had no choice. A few months back she had watched as the bandits who killed her father tried to rape her mother. Her mother fought them until one of the bandits finally got angry enough and killed her, right before her young daughter’s eyes. They had turned to have their way with Rachael when a group of Tchulian soldiers had galloped over the rise nearby and the bandits scrambled to get on their horses and escape. She’d seen what fighting back had cost her mother and now the young girl saw no reward for resistance.

  The Innkeeper pinched her rear again as she turned to leave and it took a great effort of will to keep her revulsion hidden from the smelly, disgusting man.

  The thought of Fats and the dirty sweaty old sergeant, not to mention his ugly corporals, laying their hands on her nearly made the young girl physically ill.

  She staggered up the stairs to her room and began to freshen herself up as instructed. As she used her small wash pan and a rag to bathe, Rachael searched for a way out of her dilemma, but her other options were worse places to work or death.

  Rachael had lost both of her parents to that bandit raid and though the Tchulian soldiers had saved her from being raped and possibly murdered, or even worse, sold into slavery, they had also abandoned her in this garrison town. Upon reaching the town they had told her to get a job and left her on the street with nothing, but a few pieces of clothing and other articles she had been able to carry. The bandits had taken all the money her parents had with them for the journey. Now the young girl was faced with selling her body or being thrown on the mercy of the desert.

  A girl with her meager belongings and no family could not get out of this town; the desert was too far to travel without help that she could not afford. This was a garrison town; all working girls beyond a certain age had to service the Tchulian soldiers.

  Rachael could think of no way to escape. She tried to look on the bright side, the officers tended to come to this tavern and pay fairly well; at least that is what the other girls had said. The regular soldiers were rougher and paid less. If she went somewhere else she would still have to sell her body, but for even less.

  The poor girl was barely fifteen years old. She wept on her bed for a little while, but when that didn’t help she suddenly got angry at her predicament and a new plan came to mind. “My first time is not going to be with that foul sergeant; at least that can be my own choice. I’ll pick a good looking boy of my own age, that way I can close my eyes and remember him when I have to deal with those disgusting soldiers!”

  She quickly fixed her hair and put on a dab of precious perfume that had been her mother’s. She snuck down the back stairs and went looking for the young man of her dreams.

  G’Taklar woke up to the sounds of horse hooves clopping, leather creaking, and wagon axles grinding. Concealed behind the rocks he could just see a flatbed wagon on its way into a small dusty town. The young man sat up and surveyed his surroundings; the wagon was well past, so the lone man driving the two horses didn’t see him pop up. G'Taklar took in his surroundings for the first time in the light of day and his mind immediately noticed the color brown. Everything around this area was a different shade of that dreary color. The stones around him were light beige, the hills looming around him were the chestnut color of dull pottery, and the huddled buildings of the town below were made of bricks created from dried mud. The muddy tan river flowed out of the cave below him and past one end of the town. If the sky had been brown instead of blue, G’Taklar would have been sure he had awakened in a different world, a world of boring browns.

  G’Taklar himself was an exception to the standard color of the area. He noticed the colors of his clothing for the first time in the sunlight: pink pantaloons with a blue belt, green silk half jacket and yellow slippers. “These aren’t exactly the clothes Furnian the mighty wore while saving the Lady of Zil,” he complained to Jatar.

  “They are better than what you woke up wearing in the cell,” Jatar pointed out in return.

  Looking down on the town below G’Taklar could see an obvious main road dissecting its length, but there were many other smaller ones branching off into the buildings surrounding the center thoroughfare. The outlying buildings were small, but a few larger two-story buildings lined the main road down the center of town. Those were obviously the places of business.

  His eyes followed the road about a league past the outskirts of town to where he saw a large walled-in complex of some sort. It had long and low brown uniform buildings dominating the inside. Whatever the complex was, it looked like a dry and dusty place to G’Taklar, he decided to avoid it at all costs.

  The sun was high enough to tell G’Taklar and Jatar that the young man had slept past sunrise. Townspeople were moving about the streets below, and horses and wagons traveled the roads on their owner’s business.

  “I’m going into town, I’m hungry,” G’Taklar said to Jatar.

  “There are worse things in life than being hungry, are you sure you want to take the risk?” Jatar replied just to make the inexperienced young man think about what he was about to do.

  “Yes, I don’t know where I am and I’m starving,” he replied.

  “All right, but be careful. Try to blend in, don’t become a spectacle,” Jatar cautioned.

  “Hey, this is what I’m good at, cities. I may not be experienced when dealing with underground caverns and creepy two-headed monsters, but I know cities,” G’Taklar answered with self-assurance.

  “You’re used to the court, not cities. Remember, this is a small town and that means a big difference from Tarnelin and its nobility court,” Jatar cautioned again.

  G’Taklar gave a flip of his hand to show the insignificance of the difference and said, “People are people, I’ll be fine.”

  “Just remember that you’re a wanted man and soldiers from that keep above will be looking for you. Try and keep a low profile, just for my sanity, all right?” Jatar coaxed his unseasoned host.

  “Of course, Jatar, if you ask me to I will. What would be the best way to enter the town and get some food and directions?”

  “I would suggest you enter a side street just off the main road and then after you get into town you work your way toward the center. You don’t want to catch too many eyes by entering down the main thoroughfare, and you don’t want to enter the complete outskirts where you would stick out from the residents like a visel in the klutcha coop. Once on the main street, look for a tavern, you can probably get information and possibly some work there, cleaning up or something,” Jatar answered.

  “Cleaning up in a common tavern? I have never done any such work!” G’Taklar exclaimed indignantly.

  “Oh good, then this will be a new experience to expand your horizons unless of course you don’t want to eat?” Jatar replied sarcastically.

  “Of course I want to eat, that�
�s why I’m going down there!” G’Taklar said with exasperation.

  “They’re not going to feed you because of your good looks, you know. You’ll have to pay them, or steal it,” Jatar replied.

  “Of course I’ll pay them, I’m not a thief. I’ll give them my word that I will send them twice their price, the word of a nobleman,” the callow young noble answered.

  “Listen G’Taklar, I have some experience in this type of thing from my youth; they won’t take your word in place of round. They won’t even believe you’re a nobleman, much less care. From the look of that keep on the hill, this is probably a rough garrison town. Nobles will be far away and unknown to these people, they will only be used to soldiers and they won’t trust soldiers when it comes to paybacks. If you act humble instead of haughty you might get a job washing dishes for a meal, but you’ll have to swallow your pride or they’ll just boot you out the door,” Jatar advised his young friend.

  “I’ll try, but I guess I don’t understand this type of people. I am not a criminal, so why wouldn’t they trust me?”

  “Because they’re used to criminals, so they treat everyone as if they are trying to rob them. In places like this, they treat you as guilty of a crime until you prove yourself innocent, they have to because most of their clients probably are guilty,” Jatar replied.

  “Then this is a bad place, and I don’t want to be here,” G’Taklar replied illogically.

  “If you want I can take control and get you through this, as I mentioned a moment ago I have some experience with this type of town from my adventuresome youth.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’ve already explained why I can’t ever let you control my body, I’m sorry,” G’Taklar replied apologetically.

  “Don’t apologize, I understand. Let’s get on with this and see what the town is really like,” Jatar suggested.