“Don’t worry about it. By all accounts, most of the creatures of the region have answered Keithus’s call, so we probably won’t see much of anything until we find him, at which point we’ll almost certainly be hopelessly outnumbered.”
Marcus groaned. “I hope you have a plan for when that happens.”
“I might do. I’ve been thinking about it, but I’ll have to see what the situation is for real before I’ll know if I can put it into action or not. Anyway, for now, Tiski, resupply.” While they’d been talking, the coach had come within the shadow of the town’s walls, and the Assassin, who was once again driving, flicked the reigns, directing the horses towards the tall gate that appeared to be the only way in and out of the town. Musk hopped down to the ground, and jogged on ahead to talk to the heavily armed and armoured personnel who appeared to be in charge of overseeing the gate’s operation.
They were not the only people around. The last few days had marked a continuous stream of dusty, bedraggled refugees travelling past them in the other direction, displaced folks who had eyed their coach and supplies with lustful envy but who were not desperate enough to accept a chance of aid that was travelling in the wrong direction, and now it seemed that they had found that river’s source. Thick, sad-eyed crowds swarmed around Tiski’s walls like the world’s most lethargic besieging army, moving between the various small camps that had sprung up along the roadside, sheltered from the wind in the shadow of the town’s walls. They stared into space and looked upon the approaching coach as if it were something not of this world, but, watching, Marcus saw that they were also talking, eating, drinking and singing, bonding together over their shared absence of anywhere better to go.
“Where are we?” asked a familiar voice over the hubbub, and Kendra pulled herself up over the side of the coach, missed a handhold and fell against Marcus awkwardly. “Ouch,” she added.
“Tiski,” Marcus answered, pulling her up into a sitting position. “Northernmost settlement.”
“Oh, cool,” she said absently, looking around. “A lot of people about. I guess they want to be on the other side of those big, safe looking walls. I know I would if I was running away from an army.”
“Well, you’re in luck,” Marcus said. “Hopefully, once Musk is done arguing with those guards, we get to go in. We’re resupplying before we head off to go and get ripped apart by monsters.”
“Your pessimism is very endearing, you know,” Kendra said, punching his arm affectionately.
Marcus contented himself to rub his arm better and not say anything, until Musk came back over to where the Assassin had parked the coach. The man was now leaning against it and smoking breezily, and looked inquiringly at Musk as he returned, looking slightly displeased.
“They’re going to let us in,” he told them, “but they won’t let us stay. I was rather hoping we might be able to stay here for the night, since I doubt there will be much comfort in the days ahead. But no, apparently the town’s already overpopulated with refugees, and they’re not letting anyone in. It cost me much more than I would have liked to change their minds, and I still had to threaten to punch holes in their walls before they’d back down, but they have kindly made an exception for us. We have until sundown, to get what we need, and be on our way.”
“We’d better get started, then,” the Assassin said.
“Yes. Lucin, can you hear me?”
“Wfsts?” came an indistinct voice from inside the coach.
“Good. Get what’s left of our funds together, then split it three ways between yourself, the Assassin and me. I’ll sort out food and water, you” - he indicated the Assassin – “sort out supplies for the horses, and you, Lucin, are in charge of making sure nothing happens to that last third, in case we need it. Marcus and Kendra, I want you to head out into the town and see if you can find out anything of use to us; now that we’re further north, we should be able to get a more accurate idea of exactly where Keithus is holed up. Okay?”
There was a chorus of nodding agreement. “Good,” Musk said happily. “Remember, wherever we end up parking, be back there for sundown. And please, please, try not to cause any trouble.”
21
It only took a few minutes to steer the coach past the hordes of refugees, past the unsettlingly reproachful disapproval that crept into their faces when they realised what was happening. Shortly, their stares were obscured by the small legion of guards that stepped forward to hold back the surge forwards that came with the opening of the gates, and after that, with the lost now forgotten beyond the walls, Marcus was able to feel better without guilt.
They pulled the coach up at the side of a gatehouse, on the wings of a small square just inside the gate. Here Musk found himself trapped by a particularly irate guard who wouldn’t let them park there without either a permit or a fight, and it was as he tried to navigate this knotty problem that Lucin made his exit. The short man had been trying to convince Musk that the safest thing that he could do with their spare money would be to take it out into the city, find a card game and double its worth, and Musk had been in the midst of expressing some scepticism towards this idea when he’d found himself distracted, thus leaving Lucin winner by default, and therefore first man out into Tiski’s closeted urban sprawl. Marcus and Kendra set out behind him, leaving Musk and the Assassin to team up on the guard before setting out in pursuit of their own affairs.
The architecture of Tiski was not exactly what Marcus had expected. Although the emphasis was, as it could only ever been in a town so small that its walls were visible looming beyond the end of every street, on building upwards, the structures were far more elegantly constructed than the solid stonework of the walls suggested from without. Multi-levelled pagodas that reminded Marcus of his Eastern travels rose up around him, with each floor designed to a specific purpose in such a way that a single building could be simultaneously a blacksmith’s forge, a bank and a fancy restaurant with city views. Further structures balanced on tall stilts over squat stone hubs, connected to their surroundings by a complex system of bridges that ran above the streets. These in turn met up at the spiral staircases that stood, totem-like, at intervals along the long roads, providing access to the town’s many levels. Tiski defied the idea of a city beholden to the ground just as the Northgaters of Portruss did, but it did so with an elegant, decorative order that even the wide crowds of a packed town could not overcome.
Within a few streets of walking, Marcus and Kendra found themselves on a road full of inns, which they judged to be a pretty bad setup from a business perspective but a great place to go about their research. Their options ranged from a high-class converted temple all the way down to a rotted husk of a building that had been plastered with a big ‘condemned’ sign, a slight disadvantage that the inn’s enterprising owner had gotten around by painting the words ‘the’ and ‘inn’ around it, then taking down the bar’s old sign and redirecting his mail to the same address. Kendra politely declined Marcus’s semi-serious suggestion that they check it out, and shoved him instead into the next bar they came to; an ill-lit underground locale that was, for some reason, named The Griever’s Shoe, and which appeared to be doing a bustling trade. Within, they found most of the patrons gathered by the fire, observing a card game that it seemed Lucin’s instincts had overlooked. The other occupants were scattered about, either propping up the bar or else minding their own business at a private table, and all doing their damnedest to ignore one particular patron, who was quietly mumbling to himself at the end of the bar in a way that seemed, to Marcus, disturbingly familiar.
“Two beers, please,” Kendra addressed the barman. “You alright?” she asked Marcus.
“Fine,” he murmured, dismissing the image. “You’re drinking beer?”
“Living on the edge,” she said cheerfully. “Ta,” she added, successfully navigating the exchange of money with the barman, who wandered off to serve a group of serious-looking armoured men further down the bar.
“Shall we mingle, then?”
Marcus shrugged. He’d never found himself in such a situation before, asked with extracting information from the local populace, and didn’t really have much idea how to go about doing it. Should he just walk up to someone and ask them if they’d seen any monsters lately? Worth a shot. He wandered over to a group who were observing the fireplace card game and did exactly that.
“Are you kidding me?” one of the group, a shifty-looking merchant type, asked. “Is this guy kidding me?” His friends murmured nonchalantly, eyes still on the game. “Wow. What planet did you drop in from? This is the Northlands, mate, what do you think?”
“I know what I should think,” Marcus said levelly. “I’m still asking. And since you asked, Earth.”
The man blinked. “What?”
“The planet I am from is Earth.”
“Oh hell,” the man said, eyes suddenly darting around the room to check if Marcus was alone. “You’re a Viaggiatori? It was just the once man, I didn’t mean to do it, but I needed...”
“I’m not a Viaggiatori,” Marcus cut in with absolute honesty.
The man paused. “Oh. But then.. oh no.. are you him?”
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
“Oh no, you are aren’t you? I heard a rumour you were coming north for some reason.. I never thought it’d be to come and track down me.. Look, man, they were on to me, and bringing stuff through the place is scary enough as it is without a tail, I had no choice. But look, it’s still in there, right? You could go find it, yeah? So it’s not like you really lost anything, is it?”
“Shut up,” Marcus said. “You know nothing, and your ignorance has placed you in debt.” He paused for a moment, both for effect and to marvel at the ease with which deadly serious lies were strolling along his tongue and diving out into the world. “But,” he continued, “I’m feeling forgiving. I have come north not, as you may believe, in search of your ragged lies, but for another reason. If you can help me out, then I might have cause to forget that I ever knew you. Sound nice?”
The man actually sagged. “Oh thank you, thank you..”
I probably shouldn’t be enjoying this, Marcus thought. Out loud, he said “monsters, then?”
“I haven’t seen any south of here for months,” the merchant said. “Trade is booming with the newly safe passage. I’ve even been north a few times, and it’s desolate up there. I saw a small pack of roaming orcs once in four journeys, and they didn’t even attack me. Which was nice. It seems like literally everything nasty has gone to that weirdo soiree in the mountains.”
“That’s what I’m looking for,” Marcus said. “Which mountains?”
“You’re – what? You’re actually going up there? You have business with that?” The man stepped back, stumbling over a chair and almost upending himself over the card game that continued behind them. A few of the players looked up briefly, but it must have been a hugely suspenseful game because no-one offered further comment as the merchant backed away from Marcus.
“Hey,” Marcus said, “calm down. You don’t need to be involved. Just point me in the direction I need to go, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
The merchant narrowed his eyes. “How can you not know? I thought you were supposed to be some sort of hyper-professional – it was everything-in-its-place with the instructions you sent to me..”
“Not everyone requires such constant motivation,” Marcus said significantly.
“Bah,” the merchant said, regaining some hauteur in the face of Marcus’s quickly invented disdain. “Fine, last I heard they were gathering towards the Aglaecas. Now please leave me alone.”
Marcus shrugged. The man sighed with relief and turned back to the game, leaving Marcus to sip his beer and look around. Kendra was deep in conversation with the armoured folks at the bar, so he decided to let her be. Instead he found himself irresistibly drawn towards the lone, muttering man who sat at the end of the bar.
“Hello,” Marcus said, sliding onto the next stool along. Up close, Marcus saw that the man was terribly unkempt, and also smelt quite strongly of stale beer. There were a lot of glasses arrayed in front of him that the man was busily rearranging into size order as Marcus arrived. Happy with his work so far, he gave it a nod and collapsed face-first onto the bar.
Carefully, Marcus reached down and pulled the man up by the shoulder. Glassy eyes stared back at him from under the man’s ragged hair.
“Hello,” the man said, returning Marcus’s greeting as if nothing had happened.
“Hi,” Marcus returned. “I’m Marcus.” He extended a hand, which the man eyed warily.
“Shake?” Marcus added questioningly. A light appeared to come on behind the man’s eyes, and he leant down and shook the hand. “My name,” the man confided, “is Mud.”
“Literally?”
“Yes. And no. Drink!” The man called down the bar, and the barmaid slid up and poured him a large dose of what appeared to be whiskey. The barmaid glanced from Mud to Marcus, and at a nod from the former, poured Marcus a smaller measure.
“What do can I for you?” Mud asked, chinking his glass to Marcus’s absent-mindedly. Marcus sniffed his glass warily before answering, conscious of what had happened the last time he had drank whiskey, and how dangerously similar it had been to this situation. He decided to stick to his beer.
“I was just.. You looked like you needed some company. Like a man with things on his mind.”
“And it is your pierogi-tin to disturb such a man?” Mud asked.
“Well, I know I appreciate distraction from my thoughts, sometimes,” Marcus said wistfully.
“Ha!” the man snorted, then burst into full peals of laughter, wobbling dangerously on his stool. “A man of wise indeed! Yes, I have bad things on my mind. And they say it helps to share.” He glanced at Marcus significantly.
“Go ahead,” Marcus said, sipping his drink.
“Ah well. Yes then. I was once the master of an inn that I co-ran with my brother. Far to the north. Lovely place, very homely. Log cabin for prospectors, or crazy people who come ski. Well defended, never bothered by locals. Wasn’t the most profitable of places, but we did well. Then all this war business starts up on our doorstep, and whoosh, no more custom for us. Winter be come soon – no food, no supplies, an army round the corner. I tell my brother, I say, we must leave. He says no – our inn in our family for generations, could not abandon for their honour. Terrible guilt – was always loyal, but loyalty gives way to silliness. I tried to convince him, he tell me to leave. Disown, he said. He would stay and hold the inn no matter what come. Always stubborn. Probably dead now, and I am of shame. So do I drink, drink to forget.”
There was a quiet moment, in which Marcus imagined the room grew darker. “Where was your inn?”
“Foot of Aglaecas Pass,” the man murmured, his eyelids beginning to slide shut. “Beautiful. Scenic, dangerous, all sorts came to see it. Now the plateaus are full of monsters and the old castle run by demons, and no-one want it. Thought to go back at winter’s end, but spring has not come, and now it seems this season will outlast me. Grew up on mountain air. Die on stale bar air. Heh.”
The man slumped forwards, eyes staring ahead but no longer hardly seeing. “Come on,” Marcus said, reaching out to him, “you don’t have to die here..”
He paused. Now that Mud had slipped forwards, Marcus became aware that there was someone sitting on his opposite side, quietly stirring their drink and staring ahead into space. The figure was tall and black-robed, and, as it became aware that it was being observed, turned to look at Marcus, who found himself staring once again into the endless eye sockets of a grinning skull.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Death said. “I mean, seriously, how funny is this?”
Marcus said nothing, but reached behind him for where he’d propped his scythe.
“You really should stop hanging out around things that are about to die,” Death said
wisely. “It makes you rather easy to find. Not that you will have a chance to follow that advice. No tricks today, Marcus. No slipping away just in time. Ready to give up the scythe?”
“No.”
Death growled, a terrifying sound that twisted Marcus’s insides. “How about now?”
“Still no.” Marcus slipped off his stool, bringing the scythe round to hide behind.
“Well, well,” Death said thoughtfully, rapping his fingers on the bar. Next to him, Mud had begun to sink slowly in place. “How curious. Every time I meet this Marcus chap, who just seemed so ready to die the first time I encountered him, he seems to have become more and more stubbornly attached to his life. How odd! Could it be that in this unlicensed afterlife he’s decided to be something other than nihilistically bleak? Will he object to my constant pursuit with sound and valid reasoning?”
“Would it make a difference if I did?” Marcus asked, surprised.
“Not to me,” Death snapped, dropping from his own stool and drawing his sword from somewhere within his robes. “Last chance to come peacefully.”
Marcus readied his hand on the knot of the staff, ready to pop out the blade but not daring to make the first move. Death stood impassive, impossible to read, although the way the sword wobbled in his grasp betrayed the fact that it wasn’t his weapon of choice. Skeletal fingers tightened around the jewelled hilt. It seemed to have gotten even darker. Any minute now, the Reaper would lunge..
“Hey Marcus, what’s happening?”
Marcus froze in place as he became aware of Kendra standing next to him.
“Why are you so tense? Who are you looking at? Who’s the unconscious guy? Ooh,” she held a hand up to her mouth, “so many questions!”
Marcus quickly glanced at her faintly confused expression before flicking straight back to Death, who had also frozen in the act of drawing back his sword. “Can’t you see.. him?” He could have sworn that he saw Death roll his eyes as Kendra turned to stare at him, apparently unseeing.
Mirrorworld Page 27