Escana

by J. R. Karlsson

  A few council members shuffled in their seats, but upon seeing none of the others move they remained in their place.

  Kelgrimm didn't like surprises. He didn't like the unexpected, it was difficult to manage and divine and manipulate. Each man sitting still in silent resolve was filled with a level of fear that should have had him tearing at the doors blubbering for escape, they all remained seated as one and refused to be coerced into doing otherwise.

  He shrugged mentally, there were now two options left and he preferred the less bloody route to his victory.

  He nodded at El-Vador, it promptly took a step forward.

  'You are going to agree to what your Lord Kelgrimm next suggests to you. You will continue to agree with what his Lordship has said until long after he has dismissed you.'

  The air grew tighter with each tingling note that the creature spoke, as if he wove the future around him in a pattern of Kelgrimm's choice. It had taken some time to get used to the sensation, but whatever else he could fault El-Vador for, with power like this he remained a useful tool for the master manipulator. It hadn't escaped him that the power may well be manipulating him, there simply wasn't any way of knowing.

  Kelgrimm spoke now, his voice carrying itself directly into the minds of those seated before him. 'You will submit entirely to my authority, all malcontent you harbour towards my person will be extinguished.'

  He looked up at Ermentine now, a familiar glazed look of confusion passing from his eyes.

  'Well councilman, do you agree with what has just been said?'

  The man looked back at him blankly, shaking his head as if waking from a deep sleep or drunken stupor. 'Submit to your authority? That is entirely out of the question!'

  The rest of the men grumbled in agreement.

  El-Vador drew a breath that sounded more like a hiss. 'My Lord Kelgrimm, the thirteenth man is no man, I strongly advise that we depart immediately from the vicini...'

  'Then we shall have to do this the hard way!' Kelgrimm roared over the top of him.

  The man on the thirteenth seat rose and drew his sword, Kelgrimm had no idea how he had smuggled the weapon past the guards but he was going to pay dearly for it.

  He felt a touch of ice on his wrist, staring down at the pale hand he realised that El-Vador was holding him fast.

  'I warned you that this possible conflict would cause the destruction of the entire city, yet you chose to ignore my prescience. I would make light of it at this juncture but the Emperor will be most displeased and that is entirely intolerable'

  Kelgrimm watched in horror as the councilmen rushed out past the advancing man with the blade. El-Vador promptly vanished.

  50

  Ella

  She stared vacantly into the empty streets ahead. He had only just opened his eyes when she had heard the knocking on the door. She had watched as The Hermit had picked up Mildred's body with a look of self-loathing and forced himself to open the door. When she heard the sword cut through the air she knew they were going to have to run. Why had she obeyed his instructions? Why did she bolt with Jimmy when together they could have carried Jakob out?

  Jimmy had seemed oddly assured about the matter at first but as the darkness grew closer his confidence seeped from him. Neither of them had looked back at the conflict, they had just put their heads down and sprinted until their lungs felt like bursting. What if The Hermit knew of Jakob being wanted by the law? What if his efforts to help and protect were all the lie she had suspected? The questions kept spinning around in her head, taunting her for her own stupidity. She had just let herself be dictated to by a complete stranger and surrendered to it utterly.

  'We have to go back for him,' she finally said.

  Jimmy looked as if he was about to disagree, yet he must have been thinking the same thing as her when they finally turned back.

  It was then that they realised the true magnitude of the problem facing them.

  The city stretched out before them, a network of alleys criss-crossing in a mind-boggling fashion. They had dashed desperately from alleyway to alleyway, avoiding the open streets and dead ends for fear of being accosted, now they were well and truly lost.

  She could feel his frustrations as he looked at her helplessly. 'I don't know where we are.'

  For reasons she couldn't quite fathom, he patted her on the shoulder. 'We won't find it by standing still, will we?'

  She shuddered as he turned, wiping at her shoulder and finally following him. 'Keep an eye out for anything familiar looking,' he said, glancing at her over his shoulder. 'The Urians appear to have built one alley much like any other so anything to distinguish them would be helpful.'

  It had been a long time since she felt the need for words, now wasn't the time for them. Perhaps Jimmy sensed that after seeing his various efforts at engaging her in conversation fall flat.

  He wasn't lying about the alleys. She hadn't noticed it in the blur of her initial flight but the structures were identical down to the very colour of the stone used to create them. Even the positioning of refuse bins and piping seemed in line with some greater plan that she was entirely unaware of. The deliberate attempt to replicate something so soullessly filled her with unease and hopelessness. The place was a maze, they were never going to find their way back to Jakob.

  She halted in the middle of the street. That was it.

  'Jimmy?'

  He had already turned around to see why she had come to a standstill. 'Yes?'

  'If we find the main street, the way to the market can be navigated from there, then we can go on to the well.'

  Jimmy waved his hand in a circular motion, urging her to continue.

  'I think I remember how I returned from the market, once there we can find our way back to Jakob.'

  He smiled that intensely irritating smile of his again, as if bad things never happened in his life. 'Now all we have to do is find how to get out of these alleyways.'

  She looked at the walls surrounding them, frowning. 'How do you suggest we do that?'

  He tapped his ear, smile still stuck in place. 'The main street will still be packed with people, if we can't avoid it getting back to where Jakob is then we just need to work our way closer to it.'

  He set off again in the direction he had been going, as if the conversation were finished.

  'How do you know it's that way?' she asked after a time.

  He looked back at her and shrugged. 'I don't, we have to go some way. Besides, I have a hunch about this way.'

  Fortunately he didn't see the withering glare she gave him. She knew that it would do no good but she couldn't help herself. That carefree strut, the beaming smile, they were both back as if nothing had happened at all.

  She kicked a stone with all her might, sending it bouncing across the alleyway and narrowly missing Jimmy's legs, she couldn't consciously remember aiming for them.

  He looked back one last time, and she gave him the biggest smile she could. He returned her smile after a moment of bemusement but didn't say anything.

  They pressed on into the dwindling twilight, their pace becoming more laboured. Ella was sure they had passed the same building several times but then they all looked alike from her perspective. She felt very cold.

  Jimmy finally stopped, she guessed his endless reservoirs of optimism had run dry.

  'We're being watched. Stay very still.'

  A light chuckling seemed to fill the alleyway.

  'You look exhausted good man. Mayhap one such as I may sweep you off your feet and place them upon the cusp of terror to rest but a brief while?'

  She heard Jimmy whisper something that she couldn't catch.

  'No? Why my good young fellow, the request is not a perfunctory one to be shrugged off. In hindsight you may come to the dawning realisation that it was indeed a demand of a most sincere kind. Though the rapid beating of your heart tells me that you are aware of the gravity of your current situation. You are one of the lucky few to have chanced my acquaintance p
rior to this, I can sense it.'

  She watched Jimmy fall to the floor as if in a dream, feeling the need to step forward and help him yet not finding the power to do so.

  'Yes, this good fellow and I are closely acquainted through completely coincidental means. Which brings me on to you.'

  She stiffened as the musical voice seemed to transfer itself from the air around her directly into her mind.

  'A co-conspirator or a hapless follower? Let me gaze into your thoughts and pluck the juiciest morsels for my delectation.'

  Time seemed immaterial as he gazed upon her mind, she felt entirely aware of what he was doing in a detached sense. All the hidden doors, all the secrets were spread for this being to peruse.

  'You shouldn't be here,' he finally said, easing her back into her own consciousness. 'Follow me, your friend will be with you shortly.'

  She saw Gadtor and Thom shuffle into the alleyway, as if crudely jerked about by a poor puppeteer. For some odd reason she found the thought of the Escana Warden being controlled and ridiculed highly amusing. She looked back at Jimmy and felt nothing.

  El-Vador smiled at her as he put his icy arm across her shoulder, leading her away from the scene.

  51

  Hern

  He had been forced into exhuming another of his cage fellows, a tall skinny youth with an ugly face and smouldering eyes. He was extinguished in short order in spite of the blistering heat, having chosen a time to strike when everyone was watching.

  Hern doubted that anyone would pick a fight with him after this encounter, the numbers in the cage had diminished to a level that lynching the strongest was no longer a sound tactic.

  Being no stranger to harsh weather, Hern felt most inconvenienced by the sweltering conditions that the desert provided him. It would seem that the guild had no interest in the comfort of his journey, he had seen no preference from the guard whatsoever, it was entirely likely that they didn't know who they were dealing with.

  Truly the most irritating aspect of the journey was the stop-start nature of the desert path. The first time the cage had ground to a standstill Hern had woken to the thought that they had arrived at their destination, each stop after that served as an interruption to sleep. The reality of their juddering progress through the desert was made clear to him on their course. The maintenance of what could charitably be called the road was entirely reliant upon the good folk traversing it. It was a small mercy that they hadn't encountered any of the sand storms that had caused the path to be completely engulfed for parts of their journey.

  He watched as the torn canvas sheet came down to obscure his delightful view of the desert, it would seem that the guards didn't want anyone else dying of heat stroke before the journey reached its conclusion. A touching concern that they had severely lacked in the earlier hours of their venture. He surveyed the floor, having little else to look at, it had been a long time since fresh corpses outnumbered the occupants but there it was for all to see, the guards had been negligent in cleaning the cage floor of late. He knew this was a temporary arrangement, if they didn't reach their destination soon there wouldn't be much left but corpses.

  Hern had deigned to lighten the load of a number of them and was clothed in the garments of several dead men. He chose not to hoard the little warmth they provided and sported three layers, enough to keep him from catching a chill from the night. He had seen that mistake made right before his eyes, a greedy fool swaddled in cloth like a babe who couldn't move quickly enough to defend himself from a swift attack.

  The tedium of the night drew to a close in his usual spot in the cage, he fell asleep to a well-worn thought in situate: how much longer could he survive these conditions?

  He awoke to the familiar sound of the cage wheels grinding to a halt, it would appear they had stopped again. He waited patiently for the sound of the guards dismounting and locating their shovels. They dared not employ the slaves for the task, lest some mad fool start a free for all in an attempt to win control of the cart hauling the cage.

  His thin brows furrowed, they should have started digging by now. His mind ran through all the possibilities, had they finally arrived? Had the guards suffered a mishap and been forced to stop? Was this some half-way point they had reached to gather supplies from? With the sheet still covering the cage it was impossible to determine what had happened.

  It was then he noticed that there was a shadow on the sheet, and not one caused by a guard coming to remove the dead – it was much larger than that. Carefully creeping closer to examine it, he realised that it was a shadow cast from some large cliff face or structure. Whilst it was feasible that they had stopped beside a cliff, he felt it was altogether more likely that they had reached their destination.

  The shuffling of boots and the number of silhouettes dotted around the canvas confirmed his suspicions.

  Silent, alert and concerned, most of the residents of the cage were reflecting Hern's own feelings. At least they now would know what they were getting from the desert journey. Their moods mirroring his spoke of another fact previously unknown to Hern, most of these men didn't know where they were and what was about to happen.

  The canvas was lifted in no great haste to reveal a series of armed men staring grimly into the cage, their eyes meeting the occupants as if in some kind of challenge.

  If the men had expected Hern to scowl back at them like the rest they would have been disappointed, he only had eyes for the structure beyond. It would appear that he had indeed been sent to the indomitable Fort Greyhawk.

  The wooden palisade may have served to hide the ground level of the structure, otherwise it seemed entirely redundant. There appeared to be three levels, each carved of weathered arenite and sporting holes for windows. Altogether it seemed an archaic but practical build of curved construction to reduce erosion from the buffeting storms.

  His brief surveillance of the surrounding architecture was interrupted by a vocal tub of a man yelling at them from the cage door.

  'Alright you fuckers, I know that each and every one of you is clinging to this here cage for dear life, so I'm not expecting any resistance. Understood?'

  He heard the sound of several crossbows being tightened up, he doubted that this was an act.

  'You will each leave the cage and proceed into the fort beyond. Make any trouble for my lads and we'll fill you full of bolts.'

  Hern was expecting a longer speech, something more derogatory and wild. Perhaps a combination of the heat and having to do this every time new meat was brought for the slaughter was sapping the man's strength. The ability to shoot any of them dead at will should be more than adequate to keep this lot in thrall even if they were well enough to resist.

  The guards impatiently shuffled them into line, clearly not comfortable out in the open desert. Hern was beginning to piece together why that may be.

  Doubtless he was going to be told this later, the true prison was not Greyhawk but the desert that surrounded it. Any man planning an exit would find themselves more than welcome to a vast sandy death trap that was impossible to traverse alone. In fact their only means of escape was now lumbering away down the desert path. It seemed their delightful locale was to be shared by their drivers and the Urkata. A fresh team had been hooked up to their former abode and they dragged it away quite happily with the others.

  Hern was actually surprised at his lucidity after the lengthy journey in captivity. There were few around him that weren't wilting in the heat as they struggled out of the cage. Perhaps it was impulsive defiance on his part but he chose to walk out of the cage steadily, as if exiting a carriage after a pleasant romp through the garden state.

  The round little swearing man chose not to react to this beyond deepening his scowl, there would probably be a battery of tests in the nearby future to fully ascertain how much of his stance was bravado.

  They were boxed in by soldiers now as they ushered them roughly towards the fort entrance at an entirely unnecessary speed. Several of the men s
tumbled and fell in their states of exhaustion, only to be trampled upon by the officers at the rear and left in the desert to die. Apparently Greyhawk had no quota to fill in terms of man power.

  The burning in his legs coincided with the pain lancing up his back at each stride, not that he would show any weakness. Much like his journey it was decidedly uncomfortable and required remedying upon the first opportunity.

  They didn't enter the front of the fort, instead the soldiers marched to a side entrance, the smells from which sent pangs of hunger grumbling through him. If Hern were a praying man he would have sent one up for a meal to chew over, he doubted he would simply be handed such fare.

  The room they were forcefully ushered into consisted of a single long stone table and another entrance to the side, presumably leading to the cooking area. That was all Hern's senses took in before they were overpowered by what the table had been encumbered with.

  It was a feast fit for a king, meats of all shapes and sizes, large rolls of cheese, innumerable spiced delicacies and a number of dishes that Hern had never seen before. He felt an almost overpowering urge well up around him as the group of slaves collectively gazed in ravenous wonder at the food in front of them. He was jolted back to himself by the sound of crossbows being tightened and the solitary figure rising in the midst of it all.

  'You, my friends, are the survivors,' the man said, still chewing on a leg of fowl. 'You have traversed the desert imprisoned with some of the fiercest and most dangerous criminals of our time and somehow you conspired to cling to your lives.' He set the leg down upon the table absent-mindedly, as if unaware of their starvation. 'For your mastery of whatever tactic you used to resist those long hours, I salute you.' He swept his hand out in the gesture that Hern had been waiting for. 'This feast is yours.'

  Several men dashed forward and started cramming their faces with the food, to a beaming smile from the figure.

  'I see that some of you are much too eager to sample the delights I have prepared for you.' His voice grew cold. 'I do not recall saying that you may start eating.'