by Miles Hurt
What a pro.
The vampire hunter moved towards Wlad in slow motion. The blade drifting, the lime green 'on air' light flaring off it. Wlad was panting. He looked at me sideways, widened his hideous eyes. Then he tilted his chin, pointing it at the wall behind me.
He was trying to tell me something.
I looked around. A more astute human might have caught on to what Wlad was trying to indicate. Unfortunately I had no idea.
The hunter spotted me for the first time. I stood up, took a step back, and bumped against the wall.
'And who is this?' he said in Rambunculan. 'Your thrall?'
I blinked.
'Thrall?' I said. 'What's a thrall?'
Wlad was puffing through his nose. He spoke through gritted fangs.
'Don't listen to him, Pops,' he said. 'Hummelman here has been trying to dust me for decades. He thinks he's the good guy.'
'Thrall,' said the hunter. 'I don't know the word you will know. Dogsbody? Patsy?'
He had a pretty good vocabulary for a non-native speaker.
'Leave him out of this, Hummelman,' said Wlad. 'He's nobody.'
I have to admit that Vlad's remark hurt. Despite being completely accurate.
'Gopher?' continued Hummelman. 'Butt monkey? Intern?' He clicked his fingers, gave a satisfied nod. 'Mind slave.'
'Okay,' I said. 'I get it. Thank you. Very descriptive. But I'm not his thrall. We're just friends.'
'Friends!' He smiled. 'With this thing?'
'We go way back,' said Wlad.
Hummelman pointed his sword at the thermos, a bloodied crazy straw leaning on the edge where Wlad had been sipping at it.
'You feed him. Yes?'
'Only the odd pint,' I said. 'Besides, they say that it's good for you to donate blood. It balances the levels of iron in your blood.'
'Does he ask you to bring it,' said Hummelman, 'or does he tell you to bring it?'
A loaded question.
I started to speak, then stopped. I looked at Wlad. He avoided my gaze. Granted, he was impaled to a chair. Probably struggling to maintain consciousness. But he could have put my mind at ease with a mere shake of the head. If he wanted too.
But he didn't.
'Like I say: thrall.' The mocking tone in the vampire hunter's voice cut to the bone. 'Maybe I spare your pitiful life.'
He turned back to Wlad, lifted the blade to deliver the coup de grace.
A strange force overtook me. I surged with anger, sprang into action. I turned, and ripped a fire extinguisher off its wall bracket. Before Hummelman could react I flung it at his head with all my strength.
The fire extinguisher missed by a clear three feet, and bounced off the soundproofed wall. Hummelman gave me an annoyed look, his attention diverted from his prey.
Wlad snapped off the shaft in his shoulder like it was a pencil. In a lightning motion, he jabbed the splintered end of it into the neck of the vampire hunter, piercing his windpipe.
Hummelman fell back, clutching his neck and gurgling.
Wlad eased himself off the stump of the wooden spear, wincing a little. He took the sword from the weakened grasp of his adversary, then in a flash of motion dispatched him with it.
'Terrible shot,' said Wlad, pointing to the extinguisher. 'But well done nonetheless.'
I felt a funny welling of happiness, like a dog that'd just been given a liver treat for biting a hobo. Did Wlad implant this feeling in me?
He dropped the sword to the floor. Sitting down, he repositioned his gold mike in front of him.
'Is it true what he said?'
Wlad flicked a switch on the control panel, playing the next cued track. I stood there like a jilted girl, waiting for an answer.
'Wlad?'
'Hmm?'
'A thrall. Is that all I am to you?'
He sighed.
'I've never liked that word.'
'Answer me!' I was shaking. 'Am I your thrall?'
He pushed his microphone to one side and looked at me with his yellow cat's eyes.
'What do you want to hear?' He became blunt. 'So I use a little mind control on you here and there. So what? Grab a pack of cigarettes from the supermarket, give a little blood, pick up my dry cleaning. Big deal. Do you realise how hard it is to get stuff done when you can't go out during the day?'
I stood there, watching the record spinning, whispering under the needle.
'We could've just been friends,' I said. 'I might have done those things for you. You only had to ask.'
Wlad put his sunglasses back on, crossed his arms.
'I'm sorry, Pops. That's not how I operate. It's a vampire/thrall relationship with me, or it's nothing.'
I was devastated.
So I left for the last time. No goodbyes. I didn't look back. I just walked out on my vampire master.
Right after he used mind control on me one last time, to make me dump the body of Hummelman in the Slowcrawl River.
SIX
My hip is killing me. Time for a rest.
I'm at the river concourse. An explosion has ruptured the ground here, throwing up huge piles of concrete slabs. I clamber on top of one, rusted metal poking out crosshatched. From this vantage I can take in the vista of the Slowcrawl River. Blue sky view. Farther along its length I can see the vast Eternity Avenue Bridge.
Rambunculous is so quiet today. Against its nature. Like a chatterbox who's decided to take a vow of silence.
I lower the box to the ground and take the rifle from my shoulder. The rifle is as light as a toy, made of some alloy I can't name, but it makes my shoulder ache after a while. The butt clinks against the concrete. As if summoned by this noise, a brooding flock of ravens rises up from the riverbank, their wingbeats and cries breaking the silence.
Along this side of the river is a neighbourhood of flat blocks. They're a cut in class above the enormous population solutions I lived in as a child. Architect designed with groovy, pointless shapes jutting from the facades. The flats look kind of interesting, I suppose. But they're less groovy these days, what with all the smashed glass and burnt bits.
The flock of ravens circles the ruptured courtyard between buildings. I ease myself down onto the warm concrete, give my legs a rest.
I'd get a hip operation if I could. Not sure how long I'll be able to keep this up. Hopefully life gets easier soon, now that the Serpent Queen has seen off the rebellion. Long may she reign.
Movement on the distant bridge catches my eye. A group of men on foot, wearing dark grey uniforms. Even from this distance I can pick out their purple berets.
A patrol. Doing a sweep, guns in hand. Keeping the peace, such that it is.
I keep still, hoping they don't spot me. The last thing I want is a bunch of trigger happy snake-boys using me as target practise.
SEVEN
Wait. I know that flat. I lived there during the rule of the Dark Lord.
Not the Dark Lord that Relf overthrew. A different one.
Vorak? Chorak? Something like that. They all start to run together after a while.
Things were pretty good under him. I had a swank flat and a plum office job handed to me. Sometimes it's nice to let someone else run your life for you. And Rambunculous was at peace - more or less. Sure, there was the occasional midnight raid where you got turfed out into the streets in your pyjamas while the secret police searched your home. And the odd person disappeared. But that's par for the course under a totalitarian regime founded on supernatural abilities.
To be honest, I agreed with quite a few of the Dark Lord's policies. Not the genocidal ones. Some of his ideas were pretty progressive, such as universal education. Who could argue with that? As long as you were happy to have your children brainwashed with a revisionist history in which the Dark Lord was cast as a demi-god who had created Rambunculous a thousand years ago out of a lump of his own ear wax.
And he banned advertising, which was a relief. I enjoyed walking down Eternity Avenue without neon lights zapping my eyeba
lls. Sure, the ads were replaced with Dark Lord propaganda billboards a hundred feet high, but he wasn't a bad looking chap.
Except perhaps for the livid burn on his face from where that self-appointed world-saver had chucked a potion in his face. Poor old Borak. The 'heroes' were always at him with their long-shot schemes.
In hindsight, attacking a vampire hunter with a fire extinguisher was probably the most heroic thing I ever did. And look how that turned out. I don't get the attraction to being a hero. Everything riding on your actions? Too much pressure for me. I'd rather let someone else take it on. They're usually queueing up to do it anyway. Rambunculous isn't short of boofhead egotists who think they've got a Sod-given right to save the world.
My old flat looks pretty gutted now. Smashed windows, the interior stripped, some kind of scum dripping from the balcony. A shame, as it was plush when I lived there as a hip thirty-something. A swinging cocktail bar in the sunken lounge, mirrored walls, shag pile carpet. At dusk it had a great view of the city skyline in silhouette, yellow rectangles blinking on as night enclosed the city, the light mirrored in the Slowcrawl. It was a great place to entertain.
A shame, then, that my only close companion at that time was Thoxx Flirguld, the barbarian.
He was one of the aforementioned boofheaded hero types that was always bothering Snorak. He lived in my building, across the hall. What a parasite. Uncouth, boorish and selfish, Thoxx was forever popping over to talk up his most recent quest, and to raid my fridge.
Hard to argue with those muscles, though. And didn't he know it? I never once saw him wear a shirt.
'Can you grant me a boon?'
We were eating some takeout on my couch. Beef and black bean. I'd paid for it, of course. The football was on the little colour television. The Rambunculous Rams taking on the Ha'dath Vultures. We were watching Hayden 'Crush' Magee run riot, in his pomp. Taking down the Vultures almost singlehandedly.
'A boon?' I said. 'What is a boon, exactly? And how do I grant you one?'
'It's akin to a favour.'
'Then why don't you just say favour?' I said.
Thoxx crammed his mouth with food, spitting bits of meat and beans as he spoke.
'Boon has more oomph to it. No-one's backing out of a boon.'
'We'll see,' I said.
'You are in my debt, after all,' said Thoxx.
'Debt? For what?'
'That brawl the other night. In the Hag and Cackle Tavern.'
I poked around in my takeaway box with my chopsticks.
'A brawl that you started.'
Thoxx looked aggrieved.
'That base-born scum was looking askance at my wench.'
I shook my head.
'It's always wenches with you, isn't it Thoxx?' I said. 'Serving wench, slave wench, temple wench. Why don't you ever call them women?'
'Call them what you will, should you ever bed one.'
I drew a deep, calming breath. On top of exploiting my ready supply of breakfast cereal, Thoxx belittled me at every opportunity. It seemed to be the basis of our relationship. I'm still not sure what I got out of my end of the bargain.
'So what's the boon?' I asked.
'You have to agree to it before I ask you to do it. It's the custom of my tribe.'
'Are you daft? Firstly, your tribe got wiped out by frost giants, so they don't have customs anymore. Secondly, that's just dumb. No society could function with such a stupid system of indebtedness. Thirdly, I'm not a member of your defunct tribe, so your made-up custom doesn't apply to me.'
There was a cheer from the television as Rambunculous scored a goal.
Thoxx pounded his fist on the coffee table. The sudden shattering noise made my blood run cold.
'Go Rams!' he bellowed.
He snapped open a beer can with a finger and rocked back on the couch.
The television cut to a state-sanctioned propaganda commercial. The Dark Lord's smiling face appeared. Thoxx pointed at the screen.
'Look, Pops, do you want to help get rid of this guy or what?' he asked.
A prickle shot up my neck. I felt that if my flat were bugged, whoever was listening would have just flicked the 'record' switch and picked up a note pad.
'Of course not,' I said mechanically. 'I'm content with our current Lord and Master. In fact, I appreciate the efforts he's undertaken to improve my quality of life, and-'
'Hide a piece of a magic sword for me,' said Thoxx. 'It's what we're going to kill the Dark Lord with.'
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. The idiot continued:
'I'm going out of town for a while. I've got a big quest coming up.'
'Where? Wait, don't tell me. I don't want to-'
'The Swamps of Grodar. The Oracles have revealed that another shard of the sword is hidden in an old temple there. Or inside a giant crocodile. I forget which.'
Thoxx brushed some invisible dust off his left biceps, began absent-mindedly flexing his arms.
'What is it with these Oracles?' I said. 'If they know where all of these necessary bits and pieces are, why don't they come right out and tell you? Why do they need to drip-feed the information over the decades?'
'Ours is not to question-'
'And if they're so smart, why can't they give you a quicker way to take down the Dark Lord? Surely fitting together magical crowns and swords out of spare parts scattered around the countryside is the least effective method possible of bringing about regime change. You've got the most important members of your resistance scattered to the four winds fighting giant cobras and being frozen in ice and whatnot. Why don't the Oracles ever reveal the location of a high-powered sniper rifle, along with a vantage point for getting off a really good shot? Maybe when the Dark Lord's got his pants around his ankles on the toilet, engrossed in the latest issue of Despot's Monthly? There's got to be an easier way.'
'It's easy to sit back and judge, Pops.'
'That's right, it is,' I said. 'That's why I like to do it. Until somebody tries to drag me into their protracted meccano project.'
'It's just for a week or two,' he said. 'I've got nowhere else to put it. My place gets tossed every couple of days.'
'That's because you're quite obviously up to something.'
'Come on,' Thoxx cajoled. 'Do your bit for the cause. Stand up and be counted.'
'No thanks,' I said. 'I'd rather stay seated and remain a zero.'
He sighed, peering into his empty beef and black bean box.
'What if I fix you up with Clarezza?' he said.
I picked up the TV remote, pressed the mute button.
'Clarezza? The elf maiden? You know her?'
'Are you kidding me? We quested together once.'
I blinked.
'Is that a euphemism of some kind?'
'Come on, Pops,' he pressed. 'She'd be up for it. And she's into dweeby guys. Mages, thieves, that kind of thing.'
'You think she'd go for me?'
'Absolutely.' A grin stole over his chiselled features. 'You're a dweeb, aren't you? She'd go wild for your skinny arms. Look, this thing is tiny. It's a jewel off the pommel of the Sword of Komonar. You could hide it in your toilet cistern and no one would ever know.'
'How many more bits of that sword do you guys need, anyway?'
'Let's see. I think we've already got fifty-two pieces, so there's seventeen to go.'
'And then you need the Crown of Azere.'
'Right, but that's only in thirty-four pieces.'
'All of these quests; it's never ending.'
Thoxx shrugged.
'Keeps you busy. So, what say you? I hear that Clarezza is anyone's after two tankards of mead.'
That was hard to pass up.
'Fine. Where is this all-important jewel?'
He pretended to pull it from behind my ear, and held it up to the light. It was a beautifully faceted sapphire the size of a quail's egg.
He flashed his alpha male grin again.
'Smart-arse,' I said, tucking the gem i
nto my pocket.
'You're doing a noble thing, Pops,' he said. 'Very minor, some might say insignificant. But noble nonetheless.'
'Great,' I replied. 'But if you get eaten by a giant crocodile, I flush.'
EIGHT
I'm lost again.
I'm in a narrow laneway, rows of empty shops on either side. Weathered signs for wooden toy boutiques, chocolateries, cafes side by side. Shattered street furniture strewn sideways and upturned. Wrought iron balconies curling overhead, ornate and rusted. In a side alley, skip bins filled with crusted discs of mould, walls of graffiti slogans. I spot a huge stencil of the tentacled face of Nog Shoth B'zoth looking out at me.
The ugly bastard.
All the shops are deserted, stripped.
I see one that's become a scavenger hovel. It's been gutted, but there's a couple of mattresses, a neat pile of blankets. There's a trangia cooker and some empty food tins. The shop looks like it's home to a small group of scavengers, but these laneways could be riddled with them.
I'm suddenly glad of the weight of the gun on my shoulder. I need to get home. Back to the Nest.
But I still don't recognise where I am. I really need to pay more attention to what I'm doing. None of the shops are familiar, although the laneway seems like it would have been my cup of tea. Or coffee, for that matter.
The laneway enters a building, an arcade with a high, arched skylight. Golden rays slant in on the marble walls. Remains of boutiques and cafes. But then, thirty yards in, the interior of the building just ends.
I come to the edge of a wide open space, a hollow bowl carved out of the ground. It's as though a large sphere of matter was disintegrated here, a chunk bitten out of the building, the bottom portion scooped out of the earth. Leaving behind a smooth dish of sandstone fifty feet deep. The arcade all around has been bricked over, a red wall curving around the weird space.
I know where I am now.
The Immolator Crater.
You'd think that they'd fill in this great big hole, this invisible sphere of emptiness, cut into the middle of one of Rambunculous's cooler lunch spots. But no. They left it that way. At first as a shrine, then as a tourist attraction.