by Jem I Kelley
The first hooded man hood turned as if flicking a wary glance into the empty night. “Marks on their necks?”
“No. That’s why the police don’t think it’s a vampire.”
The man’s voice became harsh. “No marks. What would drain blood but leave no mark? It was you two who spoke of a threat to Haverland when you arrived back from Dazarian some weeks back. What had you heard in that prison?”
“That Haverland was under threat.”
“No mention of blood draining?”
“No.”
The man paused and all Aden could hear was the water dripping to the cobbles, and the sound of his own heart beating with fear.
“Did you see or hear anything from the Dazarian Embassy around the time you found Spud’s body?” asked the man.
Aden thought back to that day. “We heard a cry and then we found him. That was it.”
“His cry? So he was alive when you reached him?”
Aden found his throat full of saliva and swallowed. “Yes.”
A low growl came from the giant, and Aden felt the man’s grip tighten.
“Did he say anything to you before he died?” asked the first hooded man.
Aden paused and this was noticed. “The truth! Did Spud say anything before he died?”
Aden remembered the knife and sensed the man was a hair’s breadth from retrieving it from his pocket.
“Spud said Azabar was the threat to Haverland.”
The man turned and spat the tobacco to the cobbles. “Who in the nine hells is Azabar?”
“An ancient sorcerer. He lived thousand of years ago,” said Bliss quickly.
“I asked your friend, girl. You shut your mouth.”
“It’s like Bliss said,” said Aden. “Azabar was an ancient sorcerer.”
The man spat tobacco again. “How would Spud be involved with a sorcerer who lived a thousand years ago, and how could such a person threaten him now?”
“That’s what we wondered. Perhaps there is a cult named after the sorcerer?”
The man turned, and paced across the width of the lane. “Did this… Azabar… make sticks which could shoot deadly bolts?”
Aden was stunned. “Why would you ask that?”
“Answer me.”
Aden nodded. “Yes. He was a master of such things.”
The hooded man stopped pacing. “Let me tell you what I know. Three of my men heard a scuffle down this lane a couple of nights past. They went to have a look. They swear a figure pointed a stick at them from which a lightning bolt came, killing one on the spot. Then the figure ran off. They were too afraid to follow, but they did find a youth’s body in the alley.”
Aden was shocked “They found Munter?”
The hooded man nodded. “They couldn’t go to the plod, so they hid him under boxes and took their dead mate with them.”
“Killed by a lightning stick?” Aden couldn’t help but think of Azabar and his special magical skill. Perhaps someone had discovered an old cache of wands created by the sorcerer: an ancient hoard brought when Azabar had attacked Haverland all those centuries ago? Pieces of the jigsaw were beginning to come together. But, how did the draining of blood fit into all this? Perhaps… perhaps the lightning bolts had that effect?
“Lightning from sticks fits with this Azabar,” said the man. “My men were drunk, and I thought their tale false. That was until now. I wonder if we have the weapons of an ancient sorcerer in our city?”
“Our city? Who are you?” asked Aden? Over the conversation doubts that these were Marti’s secret friends had grown.
The man threw his hood back, and before Aden stood Grimus Spalding. “Did your chin hurt after Knuckle’s thump?”
Bliss gasped and Aden stared, unable to speak. He felt the hairs on his arms stand on end.
A pleasant smile curved Grimus’s lips. The same smile he’d worn all his life when masking his dark nature.
Somewhere distant cats squawked as they fought in the night.
“Grimus!” said Aden.
The man chuckled and Aden thought it sounded cold and heartless. Then he gave a flourished bow. “Welcome to my kingdom, the night. You’ve met knuckles haven’t you?”
“All right friends?” said a gruff voice from behind Aden’s ear. Knuckles was the man who now held him.
Bliss gasped. “Oh, no!”
“I thought you’d gone to your hideout in the country,” said Aden, trying to think of his options. What options? His arms were pinned securely.
Grimus thrust his hands into the pockets of the cloak. He kept his expression pleasant, but Aden saw the dark glint behind the façade.
“Don’t you think I’ve been in the game long enough to know who will tell the plod what I’ve said?”
Aden winced as he realised he’d been taken as a fool. “You knew I’d tell Plumbert that’s where you were going?”
Grimus didn’t reply.
Only the sound of rain water gurgling from the gutters, and the beat of Aden’s own heart, intruded on his thoughts of betrayal as he stared at the man he’d once been so fond of. The man who been responsible for two years in a Dazarian jail; and the man who had led him to accuse an innocent like Saib Isbar of smuggling drugs. The anger he felt replaced the earlier fear.
“You bastard,” he said. “Why can’t you stay out of our lives?”
What seemed like regret entered Grimus’s eyes for the flicker of an eyelid. Then it was gone and the mask of pleasant expressions snapped shut once more on the true feelings of the man.
“Questions, Aden. Just questions,” he said.
“Why?” asked Bliss.
“Why do you think? I wish to know what killed one of my men. I am concerned that there is something stalking this city.”
“Wouldn’t have thought the safety of the city would bother you,” said Bliss.
Grimus smiled. “Let’s just say I have a complex nature, shall we?”
Grimus returned his attention to Aden. “Who were those men who were in the Lane a while back?”
“Why don’t you ask them?”
“Don’t play games, Aden.”
Aden looked at Bliss, who gave a little shake of her head, as if to say, ‘don’t tell.’
Grimus withdrew the knife from his pocket. “Let’s make this simple. You tell me what I want to know, and I don’t harm you. You play stupid games and I do. Now, what’s your choice?”
Aden tried to think of a lie, but nothing worthwhile came to mind. He had no choice but to speak the truth. “They were friends of Marti Bart.”
“Indeed? And how does the Northerner fit into all this?”
Aden paused for too long, and Grimus moved the knife closer.
“With a slashed throat you may die of blood loss, or suffocation.”
“Marti isn’t the murderer, I'm sure of it.”
Grimus’s voice was soft. “But there’s something about him isn’t there? If I find evidence the Novogoradian was behind Spud’s murder, then he’s dead. But I won’t take such revenge unless I’m sure. Tell me what you know.”
Aden felt himself tremble. The anger he felt at Grimus had dissolved as his own mortality was put to the test. “All right. I’ll tell you. Marti is not what he seems. I don’t think he’s the murderer, but he’s not who he says he is, either.”
He told Grimus about the way Marti had told the friends he was a farmer, yet could fight like a knight; of how he had strange friends like this Wulf, and of how he had visited a house in the Rich district.”
Grimus listened. “Hardly damning evidence of the man being Spud’s murderer, I agree. Yet it does suggest the Northerner and his friends are up to something. I might investigate this Marti. Now, is there anything else to tell me? Trust me Aden, I am all the bad things you think I am, and worse. But I protect my own, and more importantly I will protect this city from what preys on it.”
Aden thought hard, and realised there was something else. “Bliss and I overheard Sardohan’s daught
ers talk about the Dazarian embassy cellar.”
Grimus interest sharpened. “What of it?”
“Sardohan has something hidden down there he doesn’t tell them about.”
“Indeed? Lord Kesskran has impacted on my affairs too much these years. It would make my revenge simpler if he is behind these murders too.”
He rubbed his jaw and came to a decision. “I’m going to place someone inside the Dazarian Embassy. It’ll take weeks, but I’ll discover what’s in the cellar. In the meantime I ask you two to keep off the streets at night.”
The friends agreed and Grimus walked away from them. The grip on Aden’s arm’s vanished.
“Let’s hope we don’t meet again,” said Grimus, reaching the end of the lane.
In moments Grimus Spalding disappeared into the night, and when the friends turned, they found Knuckles too had gone.
Chapter 57: The Duggiral
At long last, thought Aden, as Friday night arrived: the expedition to the new world. He could forget all about murders and threats and have adventure. Almost as good, the following day he could roam free in the streets of Haverland again. Plumbert had decided the public finally believed the police that Munter had been killed hours before Aden’d found him. Perhaps Bliss whispering words in one park, and then quickly sprinting to another park and whispering the same words, had helped.
Before you can go on expeditions to new worlds, you have to have plans. Plans so that parents don’t know what you’re doing. Because, they’d stop the whole thing quicker than you could blink.
The plan now was to say they felt ill before they went to bed and for Granddad Todd to suggest the two were resting late the next morning too. That would give time for the expedition and the return home, and no-one else would be the wiser.
The first part went smoothly.
Aden put his hand to his forehead and groaned. “I’ve been feeling woozy all day.”
“Funny,” said Bliss, “I don’t feel too good either. Got the runs, I think. The latrine’s walls are plastered. ”
Everyone was in the living room. The adults were playing cards.
Granddad Todd ran a worried eye over the friends. “Well get to ya room before we all come down with it. And if I was you I’d stay there till late in the morning tomorrow. Give ya both a chance to recover. Hey! Stop peeking at me cards, Arthur!”
Aden protested. “I don’t feel that bad!”
Martha Todd looked over her cards at the friends.
“Do as Granddad Todd says, both of you. I’ll come and see how you’re feeling in a while.”
Being stuck in a room when you’re healthy is boring. Having to go to your bedroom and pretend to be ill whenever Martha checked on you, was worse.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Aden and Bliss heard Bliss’s parent’s creep up the stairs to bed.
It was time to go.
Aden pulled on his thickest pair of trousers, two jumpers and his thickest coast, then checked he had packed everything into his haversack. Satisfied, he took the Disc-Artefact from the bedside table and held it out to Bliss. “Ready?”
Bliss pulled the hood of her coat over her head and put her mittens on, “How cold do you think it’s going to be?”
“According to Kurt’s books your pee can freeze before it hits the ground in the some deserts at night.”
Bliss winced; she lifted the hooded lantern and lit it with the bedside candle. Strange shadows bounced across the walls. “Ready.”
She touched the artefact with her free hand and as she did so Aden pressed the button.
The familiar dislocation took them and they appeared on the stone circle in Blissaden. Aden managed to keep his feet as the vertigo swept over him. Recovering, he realized everything was not as planned. “It’s day!”
There was a sun in the sky. It wasn’t the sun they’d been used to though. This one was larger, and a dull red in colour.
The friends scrambled to take off their coats, two layers of jumpers and mittens as the heat beat down on them, until at their feet there lay a pile of clothing. Aden felt the suns’ warmth and shook his head.“But it can’t be day! It’s night back home.”
Bliss blew the lantern out. “That’s not all that’s odd.”
She was looking at the entrance to the tunnel. A wooden door stood there; it had simple carvings of leaves on its surface. “Granddad Todd came here four days ago; didn’t say anything about fitting a door to the entrance.”
Aden glanced at the Disc-Artefact, in his hand, and felt uneasy; it would be half an hour until the thing re-charged and they could use it again. “Perhaps its your granddad's idea of a surprise?”
“I grokkin well hope so.”
Aden was trying to think what to do. It shouldn’t have been daytime but it was; and he had a horrible feeling the door was nothing to do with Granddad Todd. Something about the stone circle was different too. It took a moment for Aden to realize what, then it hit him: the dust had been swept from the stone.
“What would Kurt do now, Bliss?”
As Aden spoke, the door opened.
Bliss stepped back a pace. “Oh hell...”
From the tunnel strode a tall man. He had striped trousers, tan tunic with voluminous sleeves and carried a wide brimmed hat. Frizzy hair sat above a dark skinned face. He had a noble set to his face.
Bliss whispered: “W…what now?”
Aden bowed towards the man. “In her books about exploring Sally mentioned she always gave the inhabitants lots of respect,” he whispered.
Bliss bowed awkwardly. “i think Kurt would have armed himself,” she replied.
“Good idea, you get a few stones while I speak to him.”
Aden walked halfway across the gap between himself and the tall stranger. He could feel his heart beating in his chest. “I am glad to meet you, I’m sure.”
Bliss walked past the rim of the circle and looked for stones.
The man held his hand palm up towards Aden, then touched his chest with his fingertips. He spoke and his voice was deep and powerful.
“I am Ab’n Mere. I too am glad at this meeting.”
Bliss came back to stand beside Aden, stones in hand. “How come you can speak Haverlander?”
The man’s brow furrowed. “What is Haverlander?”
Aden thought back to what Duncan, the librarian priest, had told the friends about language. Haverlanders used to speak something entirely different; but, over the three hundred years of Amari rule the language of that race had become fashionable and had largely supplanted their own. He realised this Ab’n Mere was speaking a version of Amari, as they did themselves.
“My friend means, Amari. We speak Amari and so do you. Are you Amari?”
Ab’n Mere looked at the friends carefully and then at the Disc-Artefact in Aden’s hand. “No, I am not Amari. From your words I can assume you are not either. What are you doing with an Amari disc?”
Aden dropped the artefact into his pocket. “It’s ours.”
Ab’n Mere eyes narrowed. “Indeed? what do the Amari have to say about this?”
Aden felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple. “The Amari left our world years and years ago.”
Ab’n Mere gestured at the door into the tunnel. “Come, we have much to talk about.”
The friends hesitated. Bliss whispered in Aden’s ear. “What if he kills us and takes the disc?”
Under Ab’n Mere’s watchful gaze and feeling stupid Aden whispered back into Bliss’s ear. “I think we can trust him. Anyway we haven’t got much choice.”
“Come,” said Ab’n Mere, “you will be safe.”
Aden walked towards the door.
Bliss grimaced, juggled the stones in her hand, and followed Aden into the tunnel.
The room beyond the tunnel now contained five rocking chairs, a low table, and a cupboard. On the table sat a clay urn and five wooden cups. A wooden plate had fruit on. Candles sat on the table and even the corners of the room had light
. Aden noticed all the wooden articles had ornate carvings on them, and their overall design was more pleasing to the eye than equivalent Haverland objects. The table was neither oval nor a circle; but, a curving fluid shape which bent around on itself to provide support. The rocking chairs had back support which stretched in whorls; the wooden plate was formed into two levels, each containing a different variety of unknown fruit.
Ab’n Mere flung out an arm to encompass the room. “When we realized the great Amari circle was in use I was dispatched to investigate. I prepared the tunnel and rooms to accommodate and refresh our Amari guests after they had arrived. Please feel free to drink the water or eat the fruit.
He passed into the next room.
“Not the sort of thing a murderer would do, offer food,” said Aden, following.
Bliss stuck out her tongue at Aden.
In the second room now were five beds and a wooden toilet pot. The beds hung from rope set into the rock ceiling. The man told them if they visited the planet again, they could use both rooms as if they were their own.
“Cool,” whispered Bliss to Aden. “This is much better than having a tree den.”
The man led them back to the room with the chairs. He sat, and indicated the friends should do likewise.
Bliss lifted a piece of fruit from the bowl and weighed it in her hand.
“How did you know someone had been using the circle?” She asked.
“One of our children saw a beetle squashed on a rock. We didn’t know for sure until I arrived here.”
Aden thought back to the beetle he’d seen near the village, the one Bliss had stamped on, and sighed. “Who helped you carry all the furniture up here?”
Ab’n Mere blinked. “Nobody, I used an Amari Artefact just like you.”
Understanding came to Aden and he turned to Bliss. “One of those Disc-Artefacts we saw in the dome thing, in their settlement, it must have the stone circle outside as its destination.”
“That is correct. You have been in our tower then?”
Aden noticed Ab’n Mere’s look of suspicion and disapproval, and swallowed.