by Max Anthony
He headed back towards the orangery, seeking out Lisan Flamuscrax. The guests had left, leaving Flamuscrax in no doubt that her membership of the society would be closely scrutinised, with a great likelihood of it being revoked.
The lady of the house was no longer present, so Skulks wasted no time in taking an uneaten slice of fruit cake from a plate, leaving the glass-walled orangery and directing his feet back up the stairs. His knowledge of such houses suggested to him that the master suite would be located on the third floor. The lower floors would be used by guests, while the top floor would be given over to storage and probably stuffed with portraits of out-of-favour family members, precious furniture that was in fact poorly-made tat, unplayed harpsicords and so on.
His assumptions appeared to be correct, for the third floor was awash with traps. Skulks brightened at the thought that this also improved his chances of building on his evening’s spoils of one stolen earring, one dark gold band and eleven Solids. A corridor stretched ahead and also to his left, oil-lamps flickering at intervals and illuminating small tables hosting a ghastly array of vases, figurines and other hideous ornamentation that displayed the power of wealth over taste. Each ornament was fastened in place by a hidden thread, which, if tugged would release a dozen darts from concealed holes in the wall at ankle level. The maker of these traps could count themselves lucky that Skulks was lacking the appetite to festoon himself with the dreadful gewgaws on show, for the traps were feeble in their implementation.
Further along the corridor he happened upon a trap that was more of a challenge. A magical barrier surrounded a large, grand door, expertly made from a Frimpsian Hardwood, a tree which did not grow within Ko-Chak. Feeling that such a grand door would conceal something important (or valuable), Skulks set about the task of de-trapping it. If something is more of a challenge, that does not necessarily make it a challenge in itself and so it was here. With trap removed he listened carefully. Faint rustlings within implied the presence of a person or persons, though not close to the door itself.
The door drifted silently open and no-one was observed to enter the room within. As it happened, the door opened upon a suite of rooms, which befitted the owner of the house. Skulks found himself in a sizeable chamber, which functioned as a hallway - the last place in which to compose oneself before stepping out into the house proper for a day of excess and harp-playing. The floor was laid with beautifully-fitted wooden tiles and there were several ornamented mirrors. Skulks recognized one as the work of Scratchings and Sons, a trio of artisan mirror-makers from Jingus over in Rhult. The proprietor, a Mr Flynn Scratchings was a compulsive gambler and Skulks had once deprived him of a considerable amount of coin by wagering that he could consume more mugs of ale than Scratchings before succumbing to the requirement to have a piss. Naturally Skulks had been cheating, unburdening himself via a thin tube into a potted plant adjacent to the table.
Skulks hadn’t seen it as cheating per se. After all, Scratchings made himself a very handsome living by utilising his talents in the production of fine-quality reflective surfaces. Why should Skulks consider withholding his own talents at making money in order to fit with other people’s perception of morality? In fact, he told himself, it was his duty to make as much use of his talents as possible, for it would be tantamount to a crime of its own were he to not to celebrate his own ability and individuality.
Tan Skulks gave himself a little nod of approval at this dubious self-justification of his lifestyle, and headed towards the first door that took his eye. Once more, this door fell silently open, as if nuzzled lovingly by a sourceless zephyr. The room behind this door was not empty and Lisan Flamuscrax was sitting facing the aperture in a large, comfortable-looking leather armchair.
“Ah!” she exclaimed happily. “The Wielder!”
Skulks didn’t have time to wonder how she was able to see him so easily, much less how she knew who he was, for Flamuscrax directed a gout of flames from her hand, which came spitting towards him. By now he was fully committed to entering the room, so threw himself forward, catching his feet in a pair of carelessly discarded silk bloomers, but escaping the flames without so much as a singed eyebrow. “Is there anyone who isn’t a wizard in this city?” he asked himself from his position of disadvantage on the floor.
With a gesture another spell was cast upon Skulks, causing a maddening itch in his scrotum, which even a flurry of scratchings was unable to dispel.
“I hope you like that one,” said Flamuscrax, standing up. “It caused my dearest sweet Beriol to kill himself in less than an hour. I think you’ll find that….”
Unfortunately for Flamuscrax her monologue was cut short by a dagger-sword entering her left eye, toppling her back unceremoniously into the chair. Her skills at wizardry were slight and her predilection for boasting had provided Skulks the short amount of time he needed to remove the hex of itching and for his dagger to pass final judgment upon her eyeball.
Chapter Seventeen
The night was well-progressed when Tan Skulks exited the four-story house that had been the abode of the former Lady Flamuscrax. In true burglar style, he had a large sack slung over one shoulder, which made a clanking and a clonking as his stride jostled the ill-gotten contents. He did vaguely recall Heathen Spout’s admonishment to him that he should try and restrain his thievery and he’d done his best, taking only a fraction of the goods he’d wished to abscond with. By the time he’d put a mere three streets between himself and the scene of the crime, he’d convinced himself that Spout would be proud of his display of control.
Back at the Filigreed Whore he dumped his sack of plunder carelessly in the corner. Skulks was something of a Glitter Bird. This was a feathered avian with an eye for anything with a bright or reflective surface and which stored such items in its nest even though they served it no purpose. Shiny things caught Skulks’ eye and he wanted them. Then, once he had them, he became bored with what he had, but wanted more of them. He was far more interested in the chase itself than the product of a successful hunt.
After three hours of deep slumber, Skulks was awoken by his belly’s urgent enquiry as to whether or not his throat had been cut. He rolled out of bed, stuffed his pockets full of coins from the sack and left his room.
On the street outside, a lucky baker found himself on the better end of a deal as he received twenty Slivers for three of the fresh loaves on the tray he was carrying to his nearby shop. When Skulks had plenty he became careless with his expenditure, which explained why he had no great wealth stashed secretly away in a Treads banking house, nor chests of gems and jewellery buried beneath a sandy beach somewhere.
He’d already finished the three loaves, his stomach juices converting them into energy quicker than his throat could swallow them, when he reached the Chamber Building intending to report to Spout that which he’d seen so far. It was early, but he expected to find her sitting at her desk with a tray of pastries for him to work his way through while they discussed matters.
As it transpired, events did not work out quite so smoothly. Outside the door of Chamber Member Spout there were signs of violence. Her two door guards were gone, but Skulks was able to discern a new gouge in the wood of her door, along with several splinters of metal on the floor. There had been no sounds of alarm so far. Cautiously, Skulks opened the door and looked in. The room was empty of life, though there was death present in the form of the door guards who had been chopped to pieces by objects of a sharp nature. Of Spout there was no sign.
Skulks dropped himself into the state of concentration required to hear what had happened in the room. He drifted back through time, but heard nothing at all as far back as he was able to go. This, at least, told him something. Whatever had happened here had been yesterday evening, probably not long after he’d spoken to Spout.
At that moment there was a timid knock on the door, which Skulks wrenched open. A lady was standing there, bearing a tray of pastries which Skulks relieved her of, thanked her for and then c
losed the door in her face.
In Spout’s office, Skulks stalked up and down, pastry in one hand, with the back of the other hand pressed against his forehead. A natural showman, even where an audience was lacking, Skulks could have done his thinking just as adequately while standing still or sitting. Had there been a trapeze suspended from Spout’s ceiling, Skulks would surely have been swinging upside down from it and waving to a non-existent crowd. The conclusion would have been the same: there were sure signs of a struggle and Skulks was certain that Spout had been kidnapped, rather than killed in this room.
He marched down to the Office of the Watch, having carefully closed and locked Heathen Spout’s door behind him. Within the Office of the Watch, he was pleased to find the same elderly clerk with whom he had spoken the other day.
“Give me the Duty Ledger!” Skulks told him.
Not taking offence at this brusqueness, the clerk waved his hand over a book on his desk, which Skulks snatched up. It took him only seconds to locate the duties of the guards last night and to discover that the Underman brothers had been given the patrol route which encompassed the corridors outside Heathen Spout’s office. Further checks of the patrol change records showed no signatures against their names. It appeared that they had kidnapped Spout not long after darkness and made good their escape when the building was closed to normal citizens. It was time to speak to the other two members of the Chamber Council.
Harman Granulis and Glady Fulup completed the trio of the Chamber Council. Had each been slightly less fervent in their devotion to the city, three of them would have been insufficient to oversee the upward-sprawling city. It was Hardened’s good fortune that Granulis, Fulup and the now-missing Spout were all devoted and expert civil servants, able to run the city without interference from either a monarch or the army. Though Hardened possessed a small army of about a thousand (it had once been closer to one hundred thousand including reservists), it was led by a woman with the rank of captain, who reported to the Chamber Council. It had long been realised that if the commanders of the army were given empowering titles such as ‘General’ or ‘Field Grand Marshal of the Blessed Army of Hardened’, they started to get ideas above their station. Ideas along the lines of overthrowing the Chamber Council and letting the superior minds of the military rule in their stead. Whilst Captain Jives Honey was de facto a higher-ranked officer than, for example, the lowly Captain Tan Skulks of the Chamber Council guard, her title didn’t reflect it.
It hadn’t taken Skulks long to locate Granulis and Fulup. As it happens, Granulis was relieved to be drawn from his meeting with a representative of the pig farmers’ union who were requesting tax-exempt status on their manure in return for quietly accepting the tax on pork that Skulks recalled hearing about in The King’s Giblets a few evenings gone. Granulis’ relief would be short-lived.
Fulup, meanwhile had been deep in thought over the woodmen and bargemen strikes. Both parties were demanding an extra eight Slivers per day. It seemed inconceivable that they weren’t in collusion somehow, but she couldn’t figure out how they were managing to coordinate their efforts. Neither woodmen nor bargemen were renowned for their activities in the field of politics. Certainly an extra eight Slivers per day was out of the question. Before they knew it, everyone would be wanting a slice of the pie. If the farm labourers also demanded a big pay rise, inflation would rocket in the city and before long even a loaf of bread would cost a morning’s pay. Fulup too, felt a modest amount of consolation at being drawn from her ponderings.
Heathen Spout’s room seemed as good a place as any to give them the good news. Both Granulis and Fulup had dealt with Skulks before and knew exactly what he was doing in Hardened, for Spout kept them advised on a daily basis.
“Kidnapped?” thundered Granulis. He was an elderly gentleman, short and wiry but not at all decrepit. His eyes were bright green and his voice deep. “That’s preposterous! Who would want to kidnap one of the Chamber Council?”
“And murder two of our dedicated guards!” spoke Fulup angrily.
“The brothers Underman, who were working within the building, appear to have been agents of an outside force. I believe they have slain their colleagues and have taken it upon themselves to kidnap Lady Spout.”
“Skulks, what is happening here?”
“I have both good news and bad news for you,” Skulks advised. He considered a dramatic pause before he launched forth, but realised that discretion would be the better part of valour in the circumstances.
“The good news is that I have stopped the murders in the city.”
“Who was the culprit and what have you done with them?” asked Fulup.
“The culprit was a beast known as a Qamunol. Summoned here from places unknown to kill at the command of its master. I have despatched the creature, though it tested me greatly!”
Neither Fulup nor Granulis knew what a Qamunol was and Skulks had not expected them to. He was therefore deprived of their stunned admiration at finding themselves in the presence of one who had single-handedly destroyed such a mighty foe. Skulks quelled his slight disappointment. Any master of his or her profession knows this feeling, when their work is so complex that it must perforce be distilled into a few simple words in order to be understood by the majority.
“Who summoned this ‘Qamunol’ and why?” Granulis wanted to know.
Sighing inwardly, Skulks advised him of his belief that Tiopan Lunder had been responsible for bringing forth the beast. Furthermore, that he believed Lunder was involved in a much larger plot than the mere killing of a few citizens of Hardened.
“We must summon Captain Honey!” exclaimed Granulis. “Send some soldiers around to this Lunder’s abode and thrash him until he talks! And bring back Spout!”
Skulks explained that Lunder was a mage of some power and that fifty soldiers, including the army’s three adepts might find it beyond their capabilities to deliver unto him the proposed beating and that besides, the city’s law-judges would take a dim view of the Chamber Council meting out its own punishment without recourse to due process. Far better, he told them, for an off-the-books individual to pay the Lunder dwellings a quiet night-time visit, wherein this individual may have his hand forced into providing the correct punishment to the aforementioned Lunder. In addition, were a force of men to prove successful in apprehending the mage, it would be likely that any evidence of a plot would be destroyed in the melee and were Heathen Spout to be incarcerated at this location, there would be ample time to do a fatal disservice to her person.
Bowing to the juggernaut of Skulks’ logic, Granulis and Fulup subsided into momentary silence.
“We’ll need to increase security in the Chamber Building,” said Fulup. “Though it looks like an inside job, we can’t go around letting ourselves get kidnapped. People will start thinking something is wrong.”
“We should have an escort to and from the Chamber Building,” said Granulis. “Or maybe we should start sleeping here.”
With his message imparted and an agreement that he be left alone to continue his investigations, Skulks left them to iron out the details of guard patrols and their own protection. As he made his exit from the room, a clerk happened to be coming in his direction, feet changing course to indicate that Skulks was his destination.
“Captain Skulks! Your children are here to see you!”
Had the clerk been keen-eyed, he may just have noticed a small tic appear next to the eye of the guard captain. Composure, had it ever been lost, was quickly returned and Skulks enquired where he might find his beloved, sweet progeny.
Chapter Eighteen
Back in the foyer, a pair of children was waiting patiently for him, looking for all the world like the most perfectly well-behaved pair of children one could dare to hope for. Having already charmed some of the guards with their polite good manners, they were sitting on chairs, legs swinging as they ate orange chunks of fruit brought in by one of the guards for his lunch.
The first c
hild, a girl, was smartly turned out in a blue dress and flat shoes, with mousey hair long and tied back; she looked to be about ten years old.
“Oh Father,” she exclaimed, launching herself across the room and attaching herself to Skulks’ left leg, adoring blue eyes looking up at him.
The second child, a boy, was dressed equally smartly in grey formal trousers and shirt. His hair was nearly blond and cropped short and neat. He also appeared to be in the vicinity of ten years old.
“Oh Father,” he exclaimed, only a tiny moment after the other. He too sped across the room, clamping himself to Skulks’ right leg, clinging on tightly as if to prevent a much-loved, yet errant parent from leaving him again.
“My darling children!” exclaimed Skulks. Had nearby listeners detected just a slight note of insincerity in Captain Skulks’ voice, they would have easily dismissed it as the suppressed emotion of a man overjoyed to see his children, yet not wanting to behave in an unseemly manner in front of the guards he oversaw.
“Haven’t I told you not to come onto the streets on your own?” he admonished. He could feel small hands exploring his clothing, seeking his coin purse. They’d been practicing.
“Father, it feels like an age since we’ve seen you!” said the girl. “When will you come home to see us?” A hand had located one of Skulks’ purses and was worrying at the strings.
“Yes Father, your shifts seem so long and we couldn’t wait to see you!” said the boy. The hand had now located the hidden bottom in the coin purse and was reaching within. A further hand was closing in unerringly on the coins sewn into a pocket in his tunic.
“Why you little scamps!” said Captain Skulks, tousling their hair perhaps a trifle too roughly, though neither child seemed to mind. “Whatever will I do with you?” Inwardly he smiled as the exploring hand discovered the finger trap in the hidden bottom of his coin purse. It closed with an audible snap about the digits which came upon it.