“Good evening,” said the shadows behind him.
Gael screamed as his heart hammered into his throat, while the looming figure of a bugbear stepped from the gathering dark of the alley. He towered a good yard over Gael’s stooped frame. He wore a long, charcoal-gray leather jerkin cinched by a traveler’s belt. His wide head was shrouded with a hood.
“Darkness take you!” Gael strained out in an angry whisper as he tried to catch his breath. “You Buchak? That old frog, Ghur’kek, said you had some blackweed you wanted to unload.”
The bugbear uncovered his head to reveal a leathery face the color of river stones wreathed with brown hair showing snowflake sized flecks of white. “Yes, Ghur’kek said you were buying up as much blackweed as you could get your hands on.” He drew out the statement, head tilted, eyeing the smuggler.
Gael scowled at him as he grasped his chest and tried to get his breath under control. "Maybe, if it's any good. Lots of garbage ditch grass out there that folks try to pass off for blackweed. Where is it?”
"This way, my friend," said Buchak, "The goblin helped me stash it back this way before heading home, follow me."
They left the shadows of the plaza and went deeper into the narrow alley, the hooded traveler leading the way. Cobblestones grew slick with the sheen that accumulated from bucket chuck, yet proved no difficulty for the massive bugbear as he deftly strode down the alley. Gael, however, had to mind his footing all along the gully-wash that ran down the alley, more than once sinking ankle deep into the muck.
Turning down a side passage even Gael didn’t recognize, they stopped at a door, not much more than a small wood panel, but just l wide enough for a hunched bugbear to enter. Buchak kicked at the bottom of the panel until it loosened. Once pulled away, Buchak lit a torch revealing a low passage with a well-worn dirt floor.
He encouraged Gael to enter first. The old thief sniffed the stale, squalid air within the passage.
The sewers. Why did smugglers always want to trade in the sewers? He hated the stink of the old tunnels. Plus, rumors said there was something big down there that ate the rats.
He cursed out loud at the stink. He was getting too old to be tunnel running.
He entered the tunnel, Buchak closing the panel behind them. They scrambled along in the flickering light of the bugbear’s torch.
The low passage soon turned into a narrow flight of stairs that led to a small vaulted chamber. Rounded cobblestones lined the curved chamber ceiling, which sloped down to a crowned floor that allowed effluent to flow along the edges down into the harbor. The chamber was full of large woven baskets and pleasant aromas strong enough to contrast the surroundings.
Gael went to the closest basket and untied the leather fastening holding the lid. Lowering his arm into the container, he felt the leafy contents on his skin as he dug to the bottom ensuring the baskets were filled completely. He pulled out a small sample, his arm stained brown from digging amongst the leaves, and popped it into his mouth. A bitter, burning juice flowed over his tongue, mixing with his saliva.
He swallowed and felt the pleasant buzz mingling with slight nausea. "Very nice, it's stronger tasting than others I’ve had,” he remarked smacking his lips at an unexpected flavor. "What's that tang? It supposed to be there?"
"Yes, that. Our crofters will sometimes ferment the weed before curing. Especially if the crop bore a high yield. It allows them to get everything processed in time without worrying about spoilage." The bugbear sniffed the basket. "But, in this case, you are tasting the chokeberry juices soaked into the leaves. We steep them before flue curing."
Gael blinked and a smile began to spread across his face. "You mean to say that you can change the flavor?"
"Indeed, we have methods of curing that allow us to create all sorts of pleasant effects. Flavor, smell, even the tactile nature can be modified." Buchak said wistfully. "When I was a cub, my father would make his own batch that would allow your lungs to breathe more easily."
He remembered the days working with his father in the curing barn, rubbing the leaves with various spices and aromatics. "Which, in turn, would also allow you to better receive the blackweed benefits."
Gael's mind filled with the image of coins falling into his pockets. His buyers purchased what was brought, they never requested anything beyond that.
He was certain no other blackweed supplier knew about this. This could be his big chance! He could corner the market!
Gael’s Aromatic Blend!
Or perhaps…
Gael’s Lung Strengthener!
"Aye, my good friend, this’ll do. But next time do you think you could bring a sampler of what is available from your verdant homeland?" he said smoothly to the bugbear as his mind began to calculate what he could get for this bespoke batch.
"Certainly, but mind you, availability will depend on the harvest. You never know what will come from the ground in the spring or how it will fare over the summer." Buchak pulled his own blackweed pouch from his belt and put a pinch behind his oversized jowls, grinding his teeth ever so slightly against the herb.
Gael licked his fingers clean.
"Fine! Fine! Just you bring it all to me directly, my buyer will want as much as you can ship."
The bugbear grunted in agreement, but cut his reply short as a sound whispered and grew out of the darkness.
It came from further down the passage. Buchak, but not Gael, looked in its direction. The old human was too lost in fantasies about his coming wealth.
Something wet slid across the stones towards them. A rattling, scraping, biting wet something.
Gael’s thoughts broke as he felt Buchak tugging on his arm. "What!?" he snapped.
"Something is out there," the bugbear said with a quiet, even voice. His tone chilled Gael to the marrow.
This wasn't the reasonably common sound of a sewer rat falling from the ceiling. This was the sound of something heavy slapping down upon the stones, advancing.
Just then another, similar sound echoed from the tunnel on the opposite side of the chamber.
The bugbear growled and pulled a club from his belt, "We aren't alone down here."
Gael’s attention caught on the torchlight. The dim corona that shone down the passages began to retreat to where they were standing. A bubble of light pressed in around them, shrinking. He felt trapped.
A foul smell, strong enough to overpower the fetid air of the sewer, assaulted Buchak and he covered his mouth and nose as he regarded the wrongness of the encroaching darkness.
It was shifting, swirling.
"That’s no shadow," Gael hissed.
Blacker than black, twisting, writhing shapes slithered against and around each other.
Gael shuddered in horror at the awful sound of the shapes approached, slapping and rubbing like a brothel turn nightmare.
He couldn't take his eyes away from the corpulent, black, squirming mass. Its bulk roiled further into view, into the very chamber, filling the space without opening the exits. Buchak swung his club, his bulk and strength were meaningless against the creature. Like a mother taking a toy from a child, it caught and twisted the club from his hands.
The entity towered over their heads and scraped the vaulted ceiling, even as more inky, iridescent, fat ropes undulated and crashed down towards them.
Gael clapped a hand to his mouth, to keep himself from screaming or vomiting, he wasn’t certain, as he watched the shapes pull away from each other, revealing gaping holes in the creature’s center. A sound like talons in a sewer pipe emanated from within the thing.
"Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke!" sang the abomination.
Hundreds of bulbous entrails slid out from the widening gaps, their ends terminating in sphincters ringed with nodules.
The old man's mind reeled as the nodules began to swell. Yellowish, white spheres pushed out and stretched the membranous skin. Inside they spun and human eyes rolled into view. They stared at him, shuddering under their skins. The keening cry grew louder withi
n the mass. Gael and Buchak covered their ears, falling to their knees.
As the tips of the entrails began to bloat, their sphincters dilated open, emitting a stench too great for Gael to withstand. He toppled forward, retching with his eyes clenched shut from reflex until, at last, his stomach was empty.
His head down, sweat dripped from his fevered brow. He sobbed like that little girl he saw outside.
He dared not look at the horror before him and remained huddled on the ground, hoping absurdly the thing would be satisfied with the blackweed and go. But as he sobbed tiny, wet tentacles began trickling over his fingers and he could no longer bear not knowing.
He opened his eyes and there, inches from his face, a mass of oculi stared at him. A hundred sphinctered eye stalks prolapsed and extruded toothy masses around their stems.
As the unctuous fanged ends of the tentacles caressed his salty, wet forehead, Gael began to scream. The dark gibbering mass towering over him sang along with his shrieking, monstrous joy echoing his terror "Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke!"
Gael’s screeches shifted uncontrollably, mirroring the abomination, "Ke-ke-ke-ke-keeee!"
He gasped between the screams, unable to stop or draw a complete breath.
“Blessed Saorsa! Blessed Saorsa! Blessed Saorsa!”
The sewers shuddered from their maddening chorus. The mighty bugbear fell unconscious and tentacles wrapped around him in an oily embrace. He was gone before Gael could suck his next breath.
The smuggler’s mind split open and emptied its contents into an infinite penetralia of twilight.
10
Vicar Osric Fingerhut hefted the Holy Scroll of the Pure Human Spirit over his head as if it were going to fly away like a dove into the vaulted temple ceiling. For what was easily the two hundredth time during his tenure, he closed his eyes in prayer.
“We lift up our voices in unison to bring forth our communal spirit! Let us no longer be without honor! Let our minds be open and raise each other up in good faith! By our will, we shall grow in Purity of spirit, body, and power!”
Lowering the scroll onto the lectern, Fingerhut heard his voice echo above him and fall silent on the crowd before him. Underkeepers, acolytes, the laity, and every trade-meister in Port Myskatol stretched their arms towards the altar.
As he evoked the litany, hands hover over the scroll, and the crowd in front of him responded to each line, enthralled.
“We shall cleave unto each other!”
“We shall cleave unto each other.”
“May our struggle for purity be blessed!”
“May our struggle for purity be blessed!”
“May the Assembly be blessed!”
“May the Assembly be blessed!”
“I shall now read from the Holy Scroll!” he announced. The congregation brought their outstretched hands up to cover their eyes, their palms facing out towards the scroll.
“In the presence of these Pure words, which represent our Primus and are the Embodiment of the Pure Human Spirit, we swear to devote our all to him. He is the Shepherd of our proud nation. We devote our lives to his strength and to the Assembly.”
“Blessed Primus, you are our Great Shepherd. Thy name makes subhuman filth tremble. Thy will alone is the Law of the Land. Let us hear daily thy voice. Order us by thy Leadership, for we will obey to the end and even with our lives. We praise thee! Blessed Primus!”
“Primus, our Primus, protect and preserve our land. You saved the Fatherland in our time of need. Primus, my faith, my light, Blessed Primus!”
“Blessed Primus!”
The vicar rolled the scrolls back up and the crowd took their hands away from their eyes. Fingerhut raised his right hand in benediction, “Live Faithfully and Die Bravely!”
“Live Faithfully and Die Bravely!”
“We were born to die for the Assembly!” he cried, spittle flying out of his mouth.
“We were born to die for the Assembly!”
“We are nothing, but the Assembly is all!” screamed the entire temple.
As the service ended, an Underkeeper captain stepped before the pulpit to issue orders for the day. Fingerhut squeezed out of the pulpit to make his way to an alcove that accessed the temple catacombs. There Osric would find the Primus in his meditation chamber.
He took and lit the tin lantern hanging by the passage entrance and descended. Darkness surrounded him and he could only see a few feet ahead by the scant light.
He felt his way along the cold, wet wall with his free hand. The air grew damp as he traveled deep beneath the city.
Osric trembled at the thought of meeting the Primus down here. The meditation chamber was gruesome, walls lined with the bones of deceased Assemblymen.
‘A reminder of our temporary nature and a testament to the strength of the Pure Human Spirit.’ was what the Elder Vicars said they represented.
But Osric knew what the true intent was, intimidation. He felt it and so did every supplicant that came for an audience, a lingering horror. Dread that one’s bones might join the ranks of that morbid mosaic.
After what seemed hours of descent, Osric stepped off the stairs into a passage stretching in either direction. Raising the lantern over his head, he turned into the darkness, heading towards his Master.
In the blackness of the tunnel, he could hear a wet scratching. A rat?
Sounds played tricks on one's ears beneath the city. You couldn’t tell from which direction noise came. Lantern light didn’t reveal nearly enough either.
He knew rats inhabited these tunnels, but as he thought back over the months, the sightings of the unclean creatures seemed to have grown fewer and fewer. But he thought he could hear them moving in the dark whenever he ventured down here.
Another sound in the dark, this one closer. Was it coming towards him? He quickened his pace. The noise closed the distance. Slithering. Sliding. Scraping.
It was all around him now, but he couldn’t see anything. The tunnel was empty.
Then, as quickly as it came, the noise passed by.
Alarmed, Osric ran the final stretch of his passage through darkness.
Flanking the door of the meditation chamber two of the Spiritus Sentinels, the Primus’ personal guard. Dressed in black and red, their heads encased in cold iron, wrought in writhing worm-like shapes. Fingerhut paused before them. The guard to his right stared at him from within his black helm, nodded, then motioned for him to enter.
Inside the torch-lit vault, Osric could see Primus Morrow Sharpe beside his desk speaking in a whisper to a cloaked figure. The mysterious figure turned to look at Osric as he paused in the doorway.
He couldn’t make out any features within the dark hood, but for a moment he thought he saw a dark purple glow. Realizing he was interrupting, he ducked back into the passageway, chiding himself for letting his fears in the dark tunnel set him to imagining things.
He heard the Primus beckon him from inside the chamber, “Come now Osric, don’t be shy, you came all this way at my summons, no sense in hesitating now. Enter”.
Trembling, he peered around the corner. Primus Sharpe was alone. Where was the person he’d been speaking to?
“M-master? Yes, I am here. How may I serve you?” he stammered.
“Good Osric, I have great need of you!” his superior said with a thin, vainglorious smile. “Our plans to ensure human supremacy in this corrupt world are close to fruition!”
Sharpe drifted towards Fingerhut, almost as if he were gliding across the damp flagstones.“I recently secured a large shipment of blackweed. It entered the city via a subhuman source. They no doubt wanted to circumvent the tariffs, filthy creatures I need you to send it to the warehouse immediately for treatment”
Osric mirrored his Master’s smile but not the pleasure. All he felt inside was an empty solitude. “That is excellent news, Your Worship! I shall do as you wish.”
The Vicar paused, “But according to our estimates, we are over a thousand bushels short to accomplish the
binding, notwithstanding tonight’s confiscation.”
“Indeed Osric and fulfilling that requirement is how you will serve the Assembly next,” the high priest agreed.
“Me, Your Honor?” he puzzled at how he could serve the Assembly in such a momentous way after his failure in Kazan, “How am I to do this?”
“Our eyes in the sewers have informed me from whence this shipment originated.” The Primus indicated for him to approach the desk where he pointed at some markings on a map. “You will travel there and secure every last ounce of this motherload.”
“But that’s deep in bugbear territory, Your Honor! Are we to raid as we have done before?” Osric squeaked, his fear lodging in his throat.
“Indeed not!” Sharpe said with glee. “No, this time you shall travel as a mere merchant. I’m sure it will be an extremely rewarding journey, for your renewed accountability and the Assembly’s mission to raise the standards of Purity in our world!”
Osric couldn’t find the appropriate words. He froze in place, knowing how the Primus’ mood could shift dangerously at any sign of imperfect faith. He managed to find his tongue once more. “But, what am I to say to them? Surely they will suspect my presence!”
Images of slaughtered bugbear children and crushed skulls swam before his mind’s eye. “You are sending me to my doom!”
“Not to worry Vicar!” Sharpe said brightly, clapping his large hand painfully against Fingerhut’s back.“Warden Baumwolle will accompany you on your journey and his Underkeepers will escort you!”
“But,” Osric finally blurted, “won’t the subhumans, the bugbears, know what we did on their shores?”
Sharpe’s smile hardened and his glee filmed over with mock sympathy. “I see your concern Osric, but believe me when I tell you those ignorant beasts have no idea we’ve been in their lands. My sources guarantee it. Now please don’t feel like you have fear for your safety in that regard.”
Fingerhut choked down his remaining questions, he had been both dismissed and cautioned.
✽✽✽
That evening bells rang throughout the city as the sun descended, their peals echoing through alleys and gardens. Primus Morrow Sharpe looked down upon the Temple District from his tower.
The Necrosopher’s Apprentice Page 9