by Chris Turner
Baus glanced furtively toward the barracks. He gave his head a fretful shake. “This is growing interesting, but with each disclosure, Trimestrius, your tale grows ever more implausible. Who is Aurimag? How does any of this relate to your erstwhile entombment?”
“Ah! That is the question.” A sad cluck came from the midget’s mouth. He threw a backward glance to the site of his once prison and his eyes glowered with hate. “This glass cage—how the smiting memory of it brings me tears and to my tale’s end! Somewhere, between the time of Aurimag’s audition at the Hall and my confrontation with the Huarbane, some manner of treachery had been played on him. Something to do with his powers, something so dire to his spiritual essence and his dearest ambitions that he thought me his worst enemy. To this day I know not what brought the rogue to this conclusion, other than that perhaps I was the messenger of this untoward news. Only then do I remember, that in my three-day confinement in his forest cave by the Lim, racked by torture instruments—and interned in agonizing silence and ignorance, I felt a great rush of water, a sudden roaring in my ears—many queer sensations as nauseating as sulphur, as spell-ridden paste was splashed over my body.”
Baus recalled the perfervid incident involving Weavil in Nuzbek’s tent and wondered if it were similar. He only vocalized a smiling, offhand acknowledgment.
Trimestrius’s ears perked at the comment and he agreed. “The final day Aurimag put to me a spate of questions about the ‘Oblong’, or some weird talisman, and its source—a thing of mindless unreason, a strange, fractured prism or pyramid that would strip men of their minds and mental powers—something that he seemed in the past to have come into contact with. I was totally without understanding as to the device or its perfidious nature and its relevance to my predicament. He claimed that I was a traitor, that with my associates of the Circle, I had spied on him, committed treachery so vile as to be punishable by death. To this, I could only claim ignorance. No solace could I offer this wicked blackguard on the subject of the ‘Oblong’ or the neomancer’s wretched dark hate for the entirety of the Circle.
“Out of my mind’s eye, I suddenly remember spying snatches of an ungainly apparatus cached in the backdrops of his cave. The grotto was hidden below the dark roots of the great phantom elm—tubes, luminous rods, dials, beakers, flasks, vials, funnels—a maze entwined and conjoined, bearing multiple fluids and arcane unguents and oils and bubbling slimes of greenish-brown filth. Vapours, stenches and miasmas—they all filled me with great dread and contaminated that fetid space during the endless decanting and distilling, always frothing and bubbling alongside the unsettling whines of engines, gears and pulleys which spun and turned their power—all for some haunted purpose. A huge arcane disk pulsed luridly in the air, floating and twirling on high above all the pots and beakers—like a flattened saucer from hell, blindingly yellow. It marked the fuel and source of the great engine that was Aurimag’s part alchemic, part mechanical apparatus, but whose soul seemed driven by litanies and forces born centuries earlier and that came whispering mystically from his bloodless lips. Of that oleaginous liquid that he spread on my skin, I knew nothing, except that when I was shrinking, I knew it would be some agent that promised midgetness for an eternity. My body oozed strength; my limbs slackened like dough. I felt like a water bladder that becomes suddenly deflated by the prick of a knife. My body sagged, it become a bleak empty vessel! I felt my gladius thrust in my hand before me. I was imprisoned in one of Aurimag’s ghastly spheres, entombed in a vile liquid in which I am still drenched, but which somehow kept me alive . . .”
Baus mused. “The yarn is a most odd rendition.”
“Odd? You call it odd? I call it scandalous! Do not mock me, rascal, or I’ll have your tongue!” His tone became sharply unpleasant.
“I do not mock you,” professed Baus in a voice of easy assurance. “It is merely odd that you should mention the word ‘neomancers’ in your lengthy story.”
“Why is it odd?” Trimestrius demanded, his thin-edged blade circling up to Baus’s ribs.
“Enough of your pricks and barbs!” Baus cried, leaping back with rancour. “I only meant to say that there is a magician here who dwells on these premises who calls himself a ‘neomancer’, or something like it—so at least the slip came from his lips.”
Trimestrius’s eyes blazed with wrath. “A magician? Describe him!”
“A tall willowy man, skinny legs, a long back-sloping brow, narrow cheeks, black hair, a love for black hats . . .”
“It couldn’t be . . .” The dwarf squinted his eyes half shut and flourished his rapier close to Baus’s privates. “The eyes! Describe the eyes!”
“Beady! Beady, as a snake’s, set together craftily like a rodent’s, amber not brown.”
“And the nose?” urged Trimestrius fervidly.
“Pug and round!—like a small ape’s. The lips are thin and white. The disposition is pompous as a wegmor in heat. What more do you want?” Baus cursed. “Shall I proceed to describe his toilette? Look, the hour is late! and I wish to return to my dormitory.”
Trimestrius sank to the ground with moaning anguish. His face was wet with grief and a grey cloud passed over his face and looked as if he had been struck a blow. “It is he!” He clutched at his hair as if seized with a vertigo. “I shall carve out this blackguard’s gizzard. I shall feed it to him in cups of broth of his own urine!” He lurched up, poked the rapier’s needle deeper into Baus’s belly. “Where is this inhuman rogue?”
Baus blinked in amazement. “Yonder in the hive along the south wall. Is this all you wish of me? The rogue’s name is Nuzbek.”
“Nuzbek, is it? Well, we shall go and visit this ‘Nuzbek’,” crowed the dwarf with delight.
Baus sniffed uncomfortably at the thought. “I don’t advise the act. The villain is securely kept, but hardly the monster-mongering death-bringer that you describe.”
“Of that we shall see!” Trimestrius cried with fury. Rubbing his damp locks, he demanded: “Can it be so easy to slay the louse who delivered me so much misery? Yes! If luck holds, then I must truly be a man blessed!”
“It is still an ill idea.”
“Hold your tongue, Master Baus.”
“Snauzzerhounds haunt the hither side of the wall,” persisted Baus. “They cognize intrusion at the merest drop of a pin and shall wake the entire compound.” He motioned to the watchtower. “Look. Over there stands Skarrow guarding the tower as you see to the south. The sentry Mulfax stands aside the dormitory. Soon the lookout will rouse himself from his spell of immobilization and descend on us with snapperwhip and poison dagger. Better to climb back into your bottle where I can cache you and recover you at a later time.”
Trimestrius laughed at such a preposterous idea. “You are an amusing fellow, Baus. Suffice it to say that I shall not follow these instructions. So where does that leave us? Attend! I suppose we must see about these rare hounds, won’t we?” He piked a jewelled finger into the air. “Trimestrius, Prince of the Third Realm shall not to be deterred by a few mangy curs, or a twain of drunken watchmen!”
Baus sought to delicately dampen the volume of the green-robed man’s boasts. “Hush now! I shall leave you to your deeds whilst I repair to my pallet.”
“Do not utter quips in my presence!” railed the nobleman. “I have plans for you.” He blocked Baus’s way and brandished his sword. “You are a likeable sort, Baus, but a bit slow, neso let us keep it that way. We have destinations in common—amongst other important missions. Speaking of which, what business have you in this bleak yard? I have prattled on overlong while you have barely tweedled a dull note from time to time.”
Baus acknowledged the truth of the statement. “I am currently on the lookout for means to escape this ‘yard’. If you regard, we are surrounded by four very insurmountable walls.”
“And what of it?”
“It seems that a mutual enemy has been responsible for our incarcerations and I point out that this ‘enemy’ is at least
yours, and has buried more of your colleagues at our feet.”
Trimestrius’s eyes flashed with dark amazement on Baus. “You say there are others like me interred under the earth?”
“I do. I thought to uncover at least one of them, namely you, and search for magical items or puissances that might be employed in securing an avenue for my freedom. But I was interrupted, as you can see. Now modulate your tone! Skarrow guards the south precincts with sharp ears.”
“I grow weary of this fellow ‘Skarrow’.” Trimestrius skipped about with his lips knitted in displeasure. “Skarrow can fly down from his perch if he likes, but I shall disembowel the cretin if he annoys me. Now, what about these ‘other individuals’ in these jars?”
Baus refused to shed light on the mystery until Trimestrius had at least quieted down, at which point the little man put two fingers in his mouth and loosed a loud whistle.
Wincing with exasperation, Baus snatched at the midget’s fingers, but Trimestrius clicked his heels and strutted about in a very wide circle, smirking and hoisting his sword in time with his marching.
Baus fixed lips into a distasteful grimace. It seemed that matters were worsening and he must take decisive action. Skarrow was on the brink of sensing a disturbance and Mulfax’s head bobbed, a sign of reviving from his stupor and delivering woe. Baus’s well-formed plans would be for naught.
He took a deep breath and leaped backward toward Trimestrius’s hole. The little tyrant came resentfully after him, his wandering blade questing for Baus’s navel.
A sudden inflexible cry rang through the air.
Mulfax’s! Almost as suspiciously, there followed a distant rumble of thunder drifting from the seaward direction.
Trimestrius spun short, surprised by the disparate sounds. Distracted, he did not perceive Baus reach for Nuzbek’s baton and touch him on his damp cheek.
The dagger tumbled from Trimestrius’s grasp. The dwarf stood immobilized. His head was half turned in a perplexed grimace.
Quickly Baus hefted the irritant back into the jar. The touch released the spell and the dwarf began to squirm in passion.
Baus ignored the dwarf’s struggles. He replied with blows. “Carefully there, swain! Into your shell.” A fierce knock on the crown thrust the plumed troublemaker down into the foul brine. Baus grinned. The lid clasped shut and Baus gave it a satisfied twirl.
The pounding of boots immediately thundered nearby.
Baus flung himself to the ground. A visceral instinct told him to wait, that capture was impending, so he groped about in confusion in the sand, his fingers grasping a sizeable pebble which he hurled toward the barracks.
The stone smacked against the side face, creating a dull thud.
The footfall halted. Baus snatched another projectile and hurled it in the same direction. It found another trunk, that of a lone hazel in the center grounds and produced further tumult as it plunked down onto a shell pile.
Baus snatched a look over his shoulder. Mulfax was speeding in the new direction. The guard raised a pike, ears cocked wildly. He bounded toward the pile of clams.
Wasting not a second, Baus flung sand over the hole. He seized the midget’s gladius and ran helter-skelter toward the barracks. He saw the hilt was inlaid with moon sickles, the guard like a serpent’s coil. Intriguing. The gleaming goldness of the instrument whispered of a magical presence, which Baus did not resent having on his person. The weapon seemed gifted of a hue so brilliant as to enthral the eye.
He shook his head; unlikely that he could keep such a prize. He pitched the weapon into his pouch and had only just gained the front deck and lurched into the dormitory before Skarrow staggered on site. The guard’s whip was held high. He waved a guttering torch in front of the window. He had not seen Baus, but was ready to enforce a penalty on the skulker. Cognizing sudden commotion, Skarrow pre-empted his rush. He came dashing down to the hazel tree to join his partner. Mulfax came blindly about, spearing clams looking for hidden escapists, but there were none. He scratched at his ears in perplexity. “Come out, you sordid villains! I shall skewer your black hearts with this pike.”
Some of the prisoners were roused by the ruckus. And upon seeing Baus’s entry, they raised astounded outcries, but Baus hustled quietly to his bed and threw his head under the covers. Weavil noticed his friend and peered at him with distaste. Baus ignored the scrutiny—there were other things of more pressing attention.
Mulfax burst through the door moments later. Skarrow was on his heels, whip snapping rudely, pike and torch held aloft. Mulfax’s black-beard ran down his chin with oily disgrace and Skarrow’s heavy chest puffed with annoyance.
“Who comes and who goes?” demanded Mulfax fulsomely. “It seems there’s been a pack of miscreants skittering about the yard! Well, who owns up to the violation?”
Valere grunted up from behind a pair of blurry eyes, “Pester us with your drivel at a more appropriate hour, Mulfy. You and your girlfriend can plainly see that we lie cached here as snug as maybugs. Count us if you like: one, two, three, Zestes, Paltuik, Lopze, Yullen—”
“And surely several angels more,” ribbed Zestes.
“Cease your japery!” ordered Mulfax, incensed. “A serious circumstance has presents itself.”
Lopze looked up with concern. “An obnoxious dabchick? Or just a killer tamegendron on the loose?”
“Quiet your tongue!” growled Mulfax. “I heard human voices, not a fowl.”
Leamoine’s eyes blinked dreamily under the glare of the brands. In his most captivating voice, he gave a sweet blowing kiss to Mulfax and lodged a complaint: “Post your inquiries to Baus, Mulfy dear. Moments earlier, we saw him loitering by the door, attempting to hide his breach of curfew.”
Baus scrambled erect with a throat thick of protest: “Careful with your accusations, Leamoine! Must I be designated a blackguard, monitored and judged while I simply rushed forth on my way to the latrine to investigate an uproar?”
“Enough of this inane disputation!” rasped Skarrow, cracking his whip. He turned coldly to Mulfax and demanded: “These whispers of intruders—wouldn’t be perceived as the same coming from Nuzbek’s bottles on the first night, Mulfax?”
“They certainly are! But those were muffles only. These were actual voices. Recall, the fleeing figures that I glimpsed under the beobar.”
Skarrow made an inarticulate noise. “Enough laughter, mugs.” The whip came careening down. “You saw for yourself. There were no intruders there, Mulfy! Not even a little whelp like Weavil could be up to mischief.”
Mulfax shook his head with stubborn disbelief. “I know what I saw! Wizardry walks rife amongst us in tall shadows!”
“Impossible!”
Nolpin made a keen observation. “Nuzbek tried to warn you. Now look at the evil you have stirred upon yourself. Hauntings and phantasms.”
“Shut up, you cock-eyed loon.” Skarrow slashed a stinging lash on Nolpin’s throat.
Nolpin cried out in pain.
Zestes, who feared none of the guards or their whips, put a hand of panic to his mouth. “Oh, Mulfy, please don’t hurt us. Protect us from the big bad spirits who come to tickle us in the night!”
A ruckus of laughter broke out amongst the convicts, which bordered on prompting a riot.
“Shut up, you gibbering mugs!” fumed Mulfax. “On the morrow there’ll be a severe accounting. Oh yes, a merry one! There’s a full day’s work on the Brimhaven road, which I know shall occur in the rain.” He gave a satisfied leer. “The wind gathers, the stormclouds brew, so enjoy your little game while you can.” He turned angrily on his heel. “Come, Skarrow!” The lockless door slammed shut and Mulfax resumed his post.
Baus heard a battery of muttered curses without. The retreating tramp of Skarrow’s boots seemed pitched in weary disgust. Baus pulled the mildewy blanket over his head. He breathed a sigh of strangled relief. All could have gone terribly awry, but lady fortune had shone. Fortune had not been so kind to Trimestrius. The little pr
ince had failed miserably to undermine his sense of cunning—and Baus’s smile became wistful as he felt the prince’s new gladius press warmly against his thigh.
VIII
True to Mulfax’s words, rain came hard that morning: a dull downpour that promised not to abate for days. Under the supervision of Mulfax, Voin and Skarrow, the bedraggled company trundled toward Brimhaven by wagons two leagues down the potholed inland road. The men were issued chisels, hammers, mattocks and rakes and chipped at the twelve boulders lying in the ditch that were quarried from the seaside bluffs. Another team, leg-shackled with ball and chain, gathered road-ready chips into barrows and spread them on the muddy track. The remaining convicts were enjoined to smooth out the road, so that water could drain from the side.