A Bitter Brew

by Greg Curtis

  Lord Peti hadn't just been smuggling. He'd been involved in something much worse. Something that involved stone walls with chains and manacles fixed to them. Cages of rusting iron bars large enough to hold people, as well as an assortment of barbaric looking weapons hanging from the walls. And dark stains on the floors that he could only imagine were the residue of blood. Apparently Old Peti had been running some sort of dungeon.

  Perhaps the bespawling half wit he remembered wandering the streets of the inner city had actually been the pirate the other children had imagined after all. Or something worse. Potentially much worse. Hendrick only hoped he was now dead.

  Then he spotted the locks on the cages and realised they were shaped like dragons.

  “Shite!” Suddenly he understood what Old Peti the pirate had been doing and was sickened. He had been one of the disciples! The new disciples that was, since the original ones according to all the stories had been betrayed by Dibella as she betrayed everyone. The original disciples of the Dragon Queen had sought the magic and might of the dragons and so had made a deal with her. But they either hadn't known or had forgotten, the first rule of dragons. They were treacherous. The most stupid thing anyone could do was to make a deal with a dragon. It was always a bad deal.

  So she had betrayed them as was her want, and her disciples had been destroyed in the bargain. The legends weren't completely clearly on how exactly. Some said they had been killed. Others that their fates had been far worse than mere death.

  But that didn't matter to some. Dibella was still the Queen of the Dragons. She could still grant great gifts to her followers. Immortality, invulnerability, vast strength and the ability to breathe fire. And like all her kind, she could lie. Some though would no doubt still believe her lies and follow her. They would do her bidding. They would even engage in blood sacrifice to her. They would do anything to gain her favour.

  The gods alone knew who and how many Old Peti had sacrificed in this place as he sought to make contact with the Queen of the Dragons. But the blood stains on the floor said it was a lot.

  “Praise be to Tarius.” Hendrick lowered his head and said a quick prayer to the Benevolent One for the souls of the deceased as he stood in the private dungeon. He sometimes prayed to Tarius even though as a brewer Vitanna was his usual god. The priests at the Abbey had made an impact on him even if he hadn't taken up their calling as they'd wanted him to. Besides, this was no place for the God of Celebration to be worshipped. It was a place where the light of compassion needed to shine.

  That done he hurried past all the equipment, trying to suppress a shudder as he did so. He was infinitely glad that Peti was in fact no member of his family despite his claiming him as such. Abandonment of a child was one thing. This was something else entirely. And while it was probably just his imagination, he could almost hear the screams of the unfortunate souls that had been locked up in this place.

  The rusting iron door at the far end of the dungeon opened with a little effort and some squeaking and beyond it was the secret passage into the inner city that he'd been searching for. It led down to the sewers via a set of creaking steel stairs. There he found a mesh walkway suspended from the ceiling above the slow moving river of waste.

  “By the gods!” Hendrick was appalled by the smells and sights that accosted him. The sewers seemed to be a literal underworld. The light of the torch in his hand was the only light there was in the sewer and it simply didn't reveal enough. Looking down he could only just make out the reflection of the torch in the slow moving water below. Ahead he could see perhaps twenty or so feet into the darkness. Meanwhile the mesh under his feet moved and rattled unsteadily. In fact, the whole walkway swayed. The squeaks of rats or bats and other nameless things filled the air. And every breath he took was permeated by the smell of the dead and dying.

  Stepping out into that darkness took courage. It was stepping into the unknown with only a torch to fend off whatever might be waiting ahead while the very ground beneath his feet threatened to give way. If the torch went out he would be completely blind. Still, resolutely Hendrick he did it.

  A few yards along, Hendrick looked back and discovered to his horror that he couldn't see where he had come from. Suddenly he felt very alone on the steel mesh walkway in the middle of a world of inky blackness and unknown creatures. His courage almost failed him then.

  It would have been wonderful to have had a spell of light. Something to illuminate the darkness and show him what lay ahead. But light magic like fire magic wasn't bestowed on a man by Mithril. It was bestowed by the fiery magic metal, Infernium. And as such he would never have either of those magics.

  How much worse must it have been for the men who had built this walkway long ago? Lost in the darkness above a river of sewage, surrounded by unseen creatures, toiling here for many months or years, and breathing air that smelled of decay. And the steel hand rails were anything but solid. Some of the builders he thought must have fallen and been carried away by the river. He wondered if any of them had survived. At least, he thought, he wasn't staying here. And he couldn't get lost. There were only two directions he could go. Forward and back. If at some point he turned around and went back he would find the path leading back to the basement and the rag and bone yard. Hendrick clung to that thought as he continued along the walkway.

  Several hundred paces along he saw a short walkway off the main one and a metal staircase at the end of it heading up. And while he had no idea where it led to, he knew that it led away from this dark nightmare. So he turned on to the walkway and headed up the stairs, worried a little by the sounds the metal made as it protested at his weight. At the top he found the trap door and opened it, to find himself bathed in light. Light so bright that it blinded him.

  But when he was finally able to see again he realised he hadn't reached his destination. This wasn't the Peti Estate. It wasn't even inside the inner city. Instead he had emerged into a masonry yard. He was surrounded by huge piles of stone and just in front of him stood a block of onyx as large as a house that was being cut into tiles. Luckily the steam engine that powered the huge steel saw blade was silent and no one was around. But it still came as a bitter disappointment as he stood there on the steps, half way out of the sewers and knowing he had to go back down.

  Hendrick returned to the mesh walkway, but left the trap door open at the top of the stairs. Though the sun had set and it would soon be night, for the moment the open door gave him some natural light to shine down into the darkness. Even if everything else went wrong and the torch burnt out, he would still have the promise of some light down here when morning came.

  Why did a masonry yard have a trap door leading down to the sewers? Hendrick wondered about that as he kept walking on through the darkness. He could understand the drains all around it that poured water into the sewers. You always poured water onto stone as you cut it and it had to drain somewhere. But an actual secret entrance to the sewers? Was it connected somehow to Old Peti's dungeon? Or was it something else? Were other people using the sewers? He had no answers. But as he walked he guessed that it meant that there had been more going on in Styrion Might than he had been aware of as a child. A lot of it he suspected, nefarious.

  The next staircase he encountered led up to the basement of an empty trading house. Completely empty. The owners had taken every scrap of food and anything else of value before they'd left. But it was still a useful place to find himself in as he found fresh torches hanging from the walls. He grabbed one of them and some flint and steel just in case the light of his torch went out, and carried on. Because as good as it was to be out of the sewers, it was still on the wrong side of the barrier between the terrace and the inner city.

  Hendrick found several more sets of stairways leading off from the walkway on his journey through the darkness, and he explored each one thoroughly before returning. But each one only led to other premises on the second terrace. Though it was hard to be certain in the darkness, he was beginning to rea
lise that the sewer must curve. Otherwise he should have arrived beneath the inner city long ago.

  Stranger still he found one set of stairs leading down from the walkway. And when curiosity made him check, he discovered it led to a small dock where a narrow barge like boat was moored. Why would you have a boat in the sewers? He didn't know, but quickly realised it didn't matter. He had to carry on.

  As the failures kept mounting up as time and again he found himself in more premises in the second terrace he began to wonder if there actually was a way under the barrier. Or if instead he was simply going to keep wandering forever through the sewers under the terrace. Was this some horrible trick of the Goat Footed God?

  Still Hendrick continued on for what seemed like hours until he finally emerged from the sewers into a new basement. This one was lit only by the starlight of the night sky coming through some high casement windows. There were no torches on the walls, though he spotted what might have been brackets for them on the walls. It was hard to tell in the darkness. But it was a big basement. The sort you would find under a grand house. That was a good sign he thought. The largest houses were in the inner city.

  Unfortunately, he had no easy way to find out where he was. The windows were too high to see out of. There were also no writings which could tell him whose house this was. All he knew was that he was in the basement of a ruined building. That wasn't very helpful. Nor was the fact that when he looked at the stairs leading up, he could see that part of the building above – including the basement ceiling – had collapsed on to them, blocking his way up. He wasn't getting out of this basement to see where he was, very easily. And when he stood on a chair to look out through the window right at the top of the wall, all he could see were feet walking by.

  At first that meant nothing to him. Feet were feet. And he thought about simply returning to the sewer and carrying on. Until at some point it dawned on him that those feet were wearing boots. Soldiers' boots. And they were marching. There were no soldiers remaining in the rest of the city, let alone soldiers on patrol! The soldiers and the afflicted had fought one another to the death everywhere else.

  He had reached the inner city!

  “Yes!” Hendrick started laughing with relief, unable to help himself. But he didn't let that stop him from starting to dig through the rubble on the staircase leading up to whatever remained of the building above. He was getting out of here! And then he was going to find his family!

  Chapter Eight

  The inner city was a disaster. Even by night Hendrick could tell that as he walked across it heading for the castle. So many buildings had collapsed that it barely qualified as any part of a city at all. the streets were now more rubble than anything else. Here and there the very ground itself had opened up leaving giant cracks large enough for horses to fall into. He had thought the second terrace just on the other side of the shimmering wall was a scene of complete destruction. This was worse.

  Yet despite that, people were living in the city. Seemingly carrying on with their lives as they had before. He saw a crier walking the streets, making his announcements. Patrons at the alehouses were standing around, drinking and laughing and generally enjoying themselves as if nothing was wrong. Women of the night still walked the streets or stood outside their parlours. And soldiers went about their normal duties, guarding the gate, patrolling the walls and marching up and down the streets. They might have to pick their way through the rubble in places, but it didn't stop them. And it was the only part of the city in which he saw no bodies littering the streets. Someone had taken them away.

  What did that mean he wondered? That the people were resilient in the face of a disaster? Or that they had all been breathing far too deeply of his Lord's mist?

  Hendrick had no answers. But he also felt no inclination to ask any of the people what was happening. He didn't want to stand out. He also didn't want to ask Val. Not when the sage was already so upset with him. Instead he continued on, walking quickly and quietly across the city, his head down as if he was in a hurry, and kept himself to himself.

  It was a long walk. He'd forgotten over the years just how large the inner city was. The first terrace was actually the largest of them all as well as the oldest, and for some reason the narrow streets never seemed to run in a straight line. And his trip was made longer by the circuitous route he had to take to avoid the worst of the rubble. Some streets had to be completely avoided. In other places he found he simply had to pick his way through the rubble or clamber over it. A number of the bridges had also been destroyed from the fighting which meant he had to cross the rivers running through the inner city elsewhere or else start wading.

  Eventually he made it to the castle and breathed a sigh of relief as he approached the guard station in front of the concourse. But it was only a small sigh. Here he would have to face his next hurdle. Finding a way to speak to his mother. She after all was the King's wife, and he was a brewer from a tiny little town. And it was the middle of the night.

  The guards weren't going to just let him in to the royal chambers. They weren't going to let him in to the castle grounds at all. And he couldn't simply announce himself to the guards keeping watch. Some wouldn't believe that he was who he said he was. They would throw him out, or worse throw him in a dungeon. Others might, but might also know that he was one of the afflicted. His kind weren't allowed in the city. They might also know that there was a warrant out on his head. And if anyone realised that he had made his way into the inner city through the barrier they'd raised, there'd no doubt be some more questions asked.

  Breaking in was an even worse option. As a commoner he had no right to enter the castle at all, let alone approach the royals. He would be arrested on the spot and incarcerated if he was lucky. He might quite possibly be killed if he tried. And he would be killed if they saw his markings.

  He decided instead to simply announce himself as Hendrick of Burbage to the soldiers, and then ask them to bring urgent word to his mother that he had news of her son. After that he had to simply stand there and wait, pretending a calm he just didn't have, while one of the soldiers delivered his message.

  It was a long wait. Longer even than the actual ten or fifteen actual minutes it took for his mother to arrive. And for much of it he spent his time staring at the magnificent edifice that was the castle. The home of the King – his father. The home of the Royal Court as well. And it had once been his home as well.

  Of course, it hadn't always been a castle. It had started its life as a fort perhaps fifteen hundred years before. A massive stone fort with six-foot-thick walls and emplacements for the war machines dotted around the walls. That fort was still there, at the heart of what was called the castle. But as the centuries had passed and a succession of kings had one by one carved out the realm that was Styrion from the surrounding wildlands as they were called in the history books, it had grown.

  Two huge six story extensions had been added on, one to each side of the fort, and they towered over the rest of the structure. Then crenelations had been added to the top of the fort and a garden had been laid out on the roof. It was the very royal garden where he had found the fragments of Mithril. Other buildings had been added. A huge barracks and a stables. A blacksmith and an armoury. All could be found behind the fort. And when they had been connected up by a series of hallways and passages, the land in the middle had become a parade ground.

  Then maybe eight hundred years ago the huge outer stone wall had been built. It was easily thirty feet tall and a dozen thick and completely enclosed the castle and parade ground. The six great onyx towers had been constructed as extensions of the walls and then connected up with more walls to divide the entire castle and its surrounds from the rest of the city as it started growing out, terrace by terrace. Towers so tall that as a small boy he'd scarcely been able to climb them. With three of them now broken they no longer seemed quite so tall.

  But even so, and even in the moonlight, it was still an impressive structure. The l
argest building he had ever seen. The straight stone walls spoke of strength and permanence. Nothing, he thought, would ever bring this building down. There simply weren't enough cannons in the realm to do it.

  As the long minutes ticked by and Hendrick remained waiting, he started to wonder if his mother would come at all. He was sure that she would understand the message. But whether she would be bothered to come down and see him he was didn’t know. It was the middle of the night after all. Most likely she wouldn’t want to see him, he thought gloomily. Why would she after all these years apart? Worse, maybe she would think he was one of the afflicted who had attacked the city. Would she bring more soldiers with her?

  It came as a relief therefore when a little while later he finally saw her walking regally across the concourse toward him without an escort save for the one soldier who had brought her the message. Still, he was nervous.

  She was an elegant woman he thought. Not as tall as he remembered, but still straight of back and regal of bearing. She made for an imposing figure in the moonlight, just as he remembered. She walked calmly with her hands neatly folded behind her back, as if the world was there simply to serve her, looking neither to the left or the right. The message was clear. She had nothing to fear in this place or any other. But then she was one of the King's wives. She didn't actually have anything to fear and most of the world was there simply to obey her.