by B. V. Larson
The seaweed creatures kept working and the fish kept piling up. The smell of the sea was overpowering. A townsman dared to approach the King, seeing that he was in a good mood. With his hands trembling and his lips twitching into a terrified smile, the townsman begged for Therian’s leave to speak.
“What is it, man?”
“I only wish to point out, milord,” said the townsman, “that we have many fish, but no bread, nor milk. Is it possible…?”
“Such impudence!” Therian snorted. “So, I am a Djinn now, is that it? I exist to conjure your heart’s desires?”
“Not at all, sire!” cried the townsman. He fell to his knees. So many fish surrounded him, he appeared to be hip-deep.
Therian took a step toward him, his brow suddenly clouded. “You can make bread from seaweed, I’ve read of it. Cakes as well.”
“But how, sire?”
“That is for you to figure out,” Therian told him. He drew Seeker and tested its edge on one nail. “Or would you like me to perform a fresh spell for you this day?”
“No, no!” the townsman said. His hands went up beseechingly. “We will make do with what has been provided! Give us seaweed, and we will make fine cakes from it!”
Therian nodded, mollified. He cut the air with Seeker then, striking so close to the townsman’s head that a clump of his hair flew away to land upon the mounds of wriggling fish. An instant after he had performed this gesture, the seaweed creatures fell into shivering masses. All over the docks, the beaches and the cobbled streets, they plopped down and moved no more.
“There is your wish fulfilled,” Therian told the townsman. “Now, mill it and bake it. Or must I summon an oven that fills itself?”
“Thank you, Great King!” shouted the townsman. “The Dragons smile upon us this day. Long live the King!”
“Long live the King!” came the murmured chorus.
Therian nodded and headed back toward the palace. Behind him, Gruum followed.
As they reached the palace, Gruum saw Nadja waiting for them at the gates. She waved at him and beamed a smile. Gruum nodded in return. He saw she had something in her hands. He thought it might be a lock of hair. He was not sure how the girl had come by it.
-3-
The night became unseasonably cold, despite the faint warmth of the day. Gruum went to bed in his quarters with a bottle. He’d eaten his fill of cod, and drank his fill of brandy. He felt good, despite the sputtering fire that could not seem to keep his room warm. At midnight, he managed to doze. He hoped the brandy would keep his dreams at bay. Often, upon witnessing an act of disturbing sorcery, he drank heavily the night afterward. It had become a habit of late.
Gruum turned his head slowly toward his door. He thought to have heard something outside it. He listened for a minute, but the only sound was the crackle of his small fire. He reached forward to stir the ashes and freshen the blaze.
There it was again. He stood quietly, reaching for his saber which lay on the table nearby. He almost knocked the brandy bottle off onto the floor as he lifted his blade, but managed to snatch the bottleneck from the air as it fell.
When he turned back to his door, he saw it hung open.
“My, you are very quick!” said a small voice.
“Nadja?” Gruum asked, knowing it was her. His eyes flickered about the room, but he could not see her. He tried to recall if he had locked the door or not. He could not be sure. Perhaps the princess was not bothered by mundane things such as locks.
“Sweet Gruum,” the girl said.
Gruum whirled, lifting his blade reflexively. She stood between him and his dancing fire. Silhouetted by the light, she appeared to be a mass of shadow. Only her hair gave her color, its naturally black sheen making her head appear to ripple with reflected firelight.
“You’ve grown again,” Gruum said, half to himself.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s about time you noticed. Are you going to cut me with that?”
Gruum blinked and lowered his sword, setting it back upon the table. He noticed that blue-white shimmers chased one another up and down the blade, as if it were covered in a fine coating of oil. The sword did that when strange beings were nearby. This case was clearly no exception.
“Sorry,” he said. “You startled me. You do know that a young girl should not come into a man’s room at night, don’t you?”
“Why not?”
“It’s improper and dangerous,” Gruum said. He wondered at the girl’s attitude. She seemed to be growing up very fast, and without discipline or guidance.
Nadja laughed. The sound of her laughter was different tonight, he noted. It was not the tinkling sound of a child, but perhaps of a teen. Was she maturing already? For some reason, the mere thought of it sent a chill through him.
“Dangerous?” asked Nadja, still laughing. “For whom?”
Gruum stepped to one side and circled around the girl. He wanted to see her more clearly. She allowed the inspection and did not move, except for her eyes, which followed him closely. When the firelight fell directly upon her, he saw she wore a blue dress with black leggings and a shawl of dark red. It was the shape of her face and the shape of her body beneath the clothing that he noticed most distinctly. There could be no doubt of it: she was on the verge of becoming a woman. It was very startling, as he had known her less than a year in total. How had ten years passed upon her body in that short time?
He noticed then, during his examination of her person, that she had something in her hand.
“Is that a lock of hair?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Yes,” Nadja said, looking at the dark, glinting strands as if surprised to see what she carried.
“It’s Ymma’s hair, isn’t it?”
She did not answer immediately. She looked down. He could not read her expression. Was it sadness? Guilt? Or just bewilderment? He was not sure.
“Why do you carry Ymma’s hair?” he asked her.
“I miss her. I liked her.”
“What has happened to Ymma?”
Nadja rolled her lips, making her lower lip bulge slightly. “She…died.”
“I see,” Gruum said. His voice became stern. “Look here, you must learn self-control, girl.”
She looked up at him then, surprised. “Whatever for?”
“So you don’t feel sad, or make others feel sad. Hasn’t anyone here at the palace taught you anything?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“How did you learn the things you do know, then?” he asked suddenly. The girl was a puzzle. He had avoided asking her or Therian any probing questions for a long time, but now he thought was a good time to learn the truth, unpleasant though it might be. He knew that the brandy in his blood and his brain had given him the strength to ask these questions. Now that he was asking, he somehow didn’t want to stop. “How did you learn to speak? How did you learn of the world?”
“I dream about things. People teach me about the world when I dream.”
“You learn about the world in the short time of sleep?”
“Sleep might be brief for you, Gruum,” she said, her face flickering into a slight smile again. “But for me, every dream passes with the slowness of a week or a month.”
“Ah,” Gruum said, understanding at last. “That is why you grow so suddenly, from one day to the next.”
She nodded, almost shyly. Gruum wondered if his understanding of her secrets changed things between them. He looked at her hair, and her pretty face. She was very pale, and her body had only just begun to swell into the shape of a woman, but he could tell she would be lovely soon. Perhaps very soon. The thought was alarming. As a child, she was frightening. As a woman…Gruum didn’t want to think about it.
“Why did you come here tonight?” Gruum asked.
“I wanted to tell you about someone I met.”
Gruum frowned. Young princesses that moved mysteriously around the palace at night should not be meeting people, in his opinion. “Who? A
boy?”
She shook her head. “He is no boy.”
“Who is he then?”
“He told me he’s an old friend of yours. He’s been asking about you.”
“What’s his name then?”
“Karn,” she said.
Karn? Gruum thought, and his mind froze over. He could scarcely breathe. He recalled the time Karn had returned to haunt him, on the deck of the Innsmouth a year ago. Karn had been frightening then—what would he be like today? And how had such a dreadful thing crept unseen into Corium?
Gruum did not ask himself the final, obvious question, which concerned the circumstances under which Nadja had come to make an acquaintance of a shade. He knew the answer to that question already. The girl liked the dead. They were her playmates. She had grown up with them, living in the midst of their death for all her short, odd life.
-4-
The palace slept. It was the deepest part of the night. The corridors were dimly lit and quiet. Gruum found himself following Nadja down dark, echoing passages. He had considered waiting until morning, but knew the girl would not wait. She would be off on her own, doing as she pleased. Days and untold events would likely pass before she returned with news of some fresh horror. The princess was unfettered. Her father was one of the most dangerous sorcerers in the known world and the King of Hyborea to boot. None dared to chastise her. Gruum felt the urge to act as the girl’s father should, but kept telling himself to leave well enough alone.
They turned down a side stair. Gruum had never been in this corner of the palace before. The stair wound around a crumbling pillar to a level below, a servant’s level that was rank with contained steam and moldering walls.
“Where are we?” Gruum asked.
“Just below the laundry,” she answered in a hushed voice. “Whisper, and the servants will never know we’ve been here.”
Gruum’s lantern sputtered, and he shook it back into life. The ceiling was so low overhead it brushed his hair, forcing him to stoop. Every surface was stone and tile. The flooring was silvered by puddles of warm water that lay here and there. The still pools reflected his lantern’s flame like small, round mirrors.
“Are you sure this man said his name was Karn?” he asked.
“He’s not exactly a man. But he knows a lot about you, as a friend should.”
Gruum considered her words seriously, and realized he’d never spoken of Karn with others. Only Therian knew of his existence, and he doubted the King would bring the subject up to anyone else—certainly not his wandering daughter.
“How far down are we going?” he asked. He splashed into a puddle, one of which was deeper than the rest. Trickles of water ran down the worn leather of his boots.
Nadja paused. She looked back at him. Her eyes were big and each reflected his lantern’s flame. She put a finger to her lips, shushing him. She pointed downward to a plug in the floor. The plug was black and coated with waxy tar. It had an iron ring, and looked as ancient as the palace itself.
“You want me to open that?” he hissed.
She nodded, pressed her finger to her lips again, and pointed to the ring.
Gruum sighed softly. He put one hand upon his knee and bent over the plug. Holding the lantern close he saw the ring was rusty despite the tar coating, which had clearly been applied to prevent it from rusting away entirely. Questioning his own sanity, he handed the lantern to Nadja. He took hold of the ring and pulled.
The water began draining away immediately. Nadja stepped close to him. He looked at her, and watched as she stared with wide eyes and open mouth down into the drain. She was excited, he could see. Anxious to see what was down in that round circle of absolute darkness.
“Is Karn down there?” Gruum asked in a harsh whisper.
She waggled her hands at him for quiet. “He sleeps, I think,” she hissed back.
Gruum looked down at the hole. The last of the water dribbled away from around his feet into the unknown sluice below.
“How did he come to be in such a place?” Gruum asked.
Nadja smiled at him. “I trapped him down there,” she said, her voice prideful.
Gruum opened his mouth to speak a new query, but before he could utter another syllable, something grabbed his foot. It was brownish-white, and ribbed with dark wet stripes. He realized it was a bony hand covered not with flesh, but with some kind of water algae. The smells hit him then, at the same moment the hand came up. Odors reminiscent of a deep swamp assaulted his nose. Fetid and rotten.
He yanked back his boot, but the bony hand held on. It was all he could do not to cry out in alarm and disgust. He looked at Nadja, and she grinned back. Was this some trap? Had he played the fool?
Gruum reached for his heavy saber and drew it in a single sweep. He’d not go down without taking a stab at whatever it was that had him, whether it was Karn or not.
Nadja’s small, pale hand snaked out to touch his wrist. She looked into his face, and shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said. “He’s only trying climb out. He has no purchase on these smooth tiles.”
As she said this, another hand of aged, wet bone, equally covered in algae, snaked out and scrabbled at the tiles. Gruum gritted his teeth and held his saber in a white-knuckled grip. He allowed the thing, whatever it was, to hold onto his boot. Its other hand managed to get a purchase on the lip of the hole and it strained to pull itself upward.
Finally, he could see something rising up, something like an overturned bowl covered in mud. As it came into the lantern light, he saw it was skull. The empty orbits turned upward and seemed to regard him.
“Hello Karn,” Gruum heard himself say. Somehow, he recognized this creature, though he had not seen it for many months.
The thing that clutched his boot nodded the dirty skull. The jawbone worked, and the bones clacked, but no sound issued that Gruum could hear.
“He says he’s pleased to see you again,” Nadja said.
“You can hear his speech?”
Nadja tilted her head, in the attitude of one listening. “He’s asking…he begs you to help him out of this hole.”
“Why should we do that?” Gruum asked. Just the smell of Karn and the substances inside the drain were enough to turn any man’s stomach. Gruum freshly doubted his sanity to find himself here, conversing with one of the dead and accompanying another who consorted with them so freely.
“He says he doesn’t like the hole.”
Gruum snorted. “I guess not, Karn old friend. You had something to tell me, Nadja said. This would be the time to do it. Then I will free you.”
Karn’s bones worked, but no audible sound other than clicks and squelching noises could be heard by Gruum.
“He says he can’t tell you,” Nadja translated. “He must show you.”
“Show me what?”
“Something that you must see. Something which you will wish to know about.”
Gruum stared at the two of them. Finally, swallowing hard and holding his breath, he reached down with one gloved hand and hauled upon the slime-covered wrist-bones. He was surprised at how light Karn was. He supposed he should have expected a man’s bare skeleton to be far lighter to lift than a body clad in flesh.
-5-
Karn led them down to the Necropolis beneath Corium. Gruum was not surprised at the destination. Where else would a member of the wandering dead wish to go in this city? He was surprised, however, by the route, which was previously unknown to him. Beneath the servants levels of the palace existed a series of winding passages. Nadja had no explanation for their existence, but Gruum suspected they served many possible purposes. He wondered as they traveled down crumbling stone ramps, hand-carven ladders and slimy chutes, how many clandestine affairs had occurred within the tunnels. In every society, nobility often mixed with the under classes, serving the needs of both parties in secret. Unlike the passages he’d traveled in the royal apartments, however, these were primitive, cramped and well-worn from use.
They e
xited out into the eastern region of the Necropolis, as closely as Gruum could estimate. They were far from the temple of Anduin and the mausoleum where he’d met the black-robed priestesses laboring among the dead. He wondered vaguely if the women had completed their sorcererous construction project.
Karn moved ahead in a hunched, rolling gait. He led them southward. He’d been damaged somewhere along the line and lost a skeletal foot. He’d ingeniously replaced the missing appendage by nailing a length of hardwood on the end of his shinbone. The solution was imperfect, however, as it left one leg three inches shorter than the other, and resulted in an odd walk. Karn’s arms swung wide for balance and his wooden foot clacked slightly upon the stones as he traveled. Still, Gruum was impressed at the skeleton’s speed. Perhaps feeling no pain from his injury gave him a certain advantage over a living cripple.
Still holding his lantern, and desperately hoping it did not go out as he was led further every minute from light and safety, Gruum tried to put up a brave front. If a young girl and a crippled skeleton could travel here fearlessly, surely an adventurer such as himself need not worry. Doubts still gnawed at him with each passing moment.
“Nadja, where is he taking us?” Gruum asked in a whisper.
“Don’t worry, I know this place very well.”
“And what if he burns for revenge?”
Nadja looked up. “What did you do to him?”
“It was your father who killed him and you just locked him up in a tank of muck.”
“Oh,” Nadja said. She turned away and gave a small shrug. “No matter. I’m not afraid of him.”
Gruum eyed her, and indeed she showed no fear. He was not surprised, and did he ask her to explain her reasons. His relationship with the girl was a complex one, he reflected. On one hand, he was afraid of her, but on the other, he felt protective of her. She filled him with worry and curiosity at the same time. She was an intriguing puzzle that he feared to solve.