Act of Will

SCENE XXXIV



The Ritual

Mithos and I walked our horses down to the eastern edge of the city. Much of the second level, below the palace and public buildings, was a walled enclosure of public grazing land and private crop fields that were designed to keep the citadel going in times of hardship. Since the majority of the region’s agricultural produce came from Verneytha by road, this was going to be one of those times. Below the cobbled, narrow, and spiraling streets were vast water cisterns, cut out of the rock and fed by springs. If need be, this place could close its gates for a very long time.

The citadel made up in fortifications what it lost in military presence. Soldiers patrolled the walls, but there weren’t many of them for a city this size: just four hundred. Garnet and Renthrette had it all penciled out: half infantry, half local militia. The latter were mainly city police and would not be called upon in the event of a military confrontation. That was what Shale was for. Still, with fortifications like this, Greycoast didn’t need much to defend the place.

Our tavern lay up against the far eastern wall of the citadel in a maze of narrow streets with butchers’ shops on every corner. Greying meat was laid out on stone slabs in the sun where old women fanned at flies as they haggled over prices. Rabbits were suspended from poles, and cow heads, as yet unskinned or de-eyed, watched us from the gloomy interiors.

The Swan with Two Necks was the kind of hole you might have expected it to be, so I won’t waste time telling you about its various surprisingly unpleasant aromas and their close relationship with the clientele. It was the kind of place you went armed to and carried only as much as you intended to spend. Its menu was miserable but it had, as a house special, a dish intriguingly named after the tavern itself. We ordered this with cheerful expectation, but the “swan with two necks” turned out to be a scrawny chicken with two hopefully positioned blood sausages. Delightful.

“How long do we have to stay in this dump?” I wanted to know.

“A night or two,” said Mithos, pulling gristle balls from his teeth and pushing them to the side of his plate. “No more. We just have to ask around. See if anyone can tell us anything interesting.”

“Is that likely?” I asked, regarding the bar’s dodgy-looking patrons.

“No,” said Mithos shortly, “though I expect everyone has a theory.”

“Well, we’ll see,” I said, cheerfully producing a pack of cards.

Mithos gave me a look and said, “Be careful, Will. There aren’t enough of us to bail you out tonight.”

“Come now, Mithos,” I said, “Cautious Will?”



We spent the next two hours moving around the tavern individually, asking leading questions about raider attacks. Not subtle, I confess, but fairly safe, since it seemed that the inn was holding a Village Idiot convention. An eager young man told me that the raiders were a fiction created by a top-level group of conspirators whose motives were obliquely linked to a suppression of the lower social orders. The barmaid had it on good authority that they were ghost riders who vanished at dawn. One genius produced a matchbox from an inside pocket and confided that he only let the raiders out when his wife beat him for coming home drunk. . . .

The less hopelessly moronic people that I spoke to presumed I was an adventurer wanting to hire myself out as a guard. A fur trader offered me fifty silvers to ride with him to the Hopetown market. I tried to get him to pay me in advance but he wasn’t that stupid. I made friends with a couple of young ladies and introduced one of them to Mithos. He just shook his head and moved away. The ladies, irritated at his lack of interest, doubled their prices, and that was my night blown.

Close to midnight the room was starting to empty. All around us people were pushing clubs and daggers into conspicuous scabbards to deter attackers in the dark streets. Only then did the barman come over and tell us we had a guest. He was sitting by the empty fireplace, a heavy and moth-eaten cloak drawn about him. We approached and he rapped on a pair of chairs with a stick. We sat and listened.

“Been asking about the raiders? Not adventurers neither, else you’d have taken up with the fur man. So, different interest. Like me.”

He looked at us suddenly and his face was sweaty and scarred, ugly in the lamplight. His eyes had a mad, sightless look.

“Yes,” said Mithos simply, leaning closer to him. I had begun to notice something about him that I didn’t like, a smell not unlike the rancid butchers we had passed earlier. Dirt and blood, caked and drying. Foul.

“You want to taste the power,” he rasped. His voice had a thick, sluggish quality that made me faintly nauseated. Mithos nodded and drank from his mug.

“Drink,” said the man significantly. “Drink ale till you can get something better.”

I stared hard at Mithos. I had a very bad feeling about this.

“Drink of the destroyer and you’ll never be destroyed,” rasped the voice. “I know where it is, if you want it. Though it will cost you.”

“How much?” said Mithos mechanically.

“A little gold.” He shrugged. “Maybe more. But you know it’s worth it.”

“What is it?” Mithos asked, and I saw a tension in his shadowed face.

“The ritual,” he answered, “the blood charm. The life of a raider engorged with the lives of his victims. Yours for the drinking. Yours for life.”

He leaned close to me and smiled. Something black and coagulated stuck between his rotten teeth. His breath smelled like decaying flesh. I turned away, suppressing the bile in my throat.

“Take us there,” said Mithos, rising.

The stranger rose and lurched towards the door, swaying strangely, his dark, decrepit cloak trailing through the sawdust. We followed.

He led us through the streets, through alleys I wouldn’t have dared to pass at this time of night in other circumstances, though I was too focused on the shambling figure in front of us to worry about anything as mundane as a mugging.

“What are we doing?” I whispered to Mithos.

“I’m not sure,” he replied, “probably nothing of any use. Still, we’ve nothing better to do.”

I could think of a hell of a lot of things that were better than wandering the lightless streets with this foul-smelling maniac, but I said nothing.

All of a sudden we came to an unmarked doorway. He led us inside and up a narrow, creaking stairway. I put a hand into my cloak and gripped the hilt of my shortsword. At the top of the stairs was a big man with a shaved head and a spiked mace. I let go of my sword. Behind him was a curtain of wooden beads, and as our guide muttered to him, he stepped aside and we passed through.

On the other side we found ourselves in a small room dimly lit with thick candles that made the walls flicker madly. The bead curtain rattled behind me and I felt eyes turn upon us. There were people arranged in a circle around what looked like an altar stone. The stone was at least six feet long and on it rested the body of a headless man. He was naked, and a similarly naked but ancient woman was chanting over his corpse, opening his veins with a large knife. There was blood all over her.

“Oh, this is great,” I hissed at Mithos, “I just love black-magic rituals. They’re so rational. And they attract such nice people.” I tugged desperately at his sleeve, whispering, “Let’s get the hell out of here. Now.”

Silently he nodded at the corpse’s feet, where clothes and armor were piled. I saw the folded scarlet cloak and the bronze cuirass. There was no helm, but since there was no head, that wasn’t surprising. I looked at Mithos again for explanation but he was staring at the naked priestess or whatever she was. Her tired flesh hung in ripples and bags, which the candlelight caught and emphasized.

She was collecting the corpse’s thickened blood in a goblet, mixing it with some strong-smelling alcohol to make it fluid, and heating it over a candle, all the while chanting something inaudible under her breath. The air was heavy with the scent of blood and hot wax. It stuck in my throat. The woman pushed her hand into the corpse and there was a sucking sound. I looked away at this, but Mithos pressed a coin into the hand of our guide, who was leering at us with gruesome satisfaction, and started whispering to him. “Where did you get the body?”

“North, towards Hopetown. They attacked a wagon of silver traders. Killed them all. Only this one of the raiders fell. We have his blood, his life. Now it is time to drink.”

“Actually,” I muttered, “now that you mention it, I think I’ll pass after all. I’m sure it’s delicious, but I had a really big dinner. . . .” I stopped as the priestess took a long gulp from the chalice and some of the thick liquid dribbled down her chin. I could bear no more.

Blundering out, down the stairs and into the street, I spat and gasped and waited for Mithos to follow.

He didn’t. Ten minutes passed before he emerged, wiping his face and marching me swiftly along the narrow street back towards the Swan.

“What happened?” I gasped.

He didn’t reply, just kept walking. I repeated the question but he muttered, “Nothing. Come on. This is a dangerous area.”

He didn’t relax till we were back at the inn. He threw himself onto his bed and sighed up at the ceiling.

“Such a pleasant evening,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And worthless.”

“No,” he said, “it wasn’t.” Fishing in his pocket, he produced a small leather purse. “This was taken from round the raider’s neck.”

He emptied it onto the floor and I pulled the lamp closer to see. Some small coins rolled out and under the bed. A square of stiff paper fell to the ground. It was a pass to the Hopetown market dated three days ago. The blank spaces on the printed card had been filled out by a strong hand in black ink. “Permission given to a group of six under the name of Mr. Joseph (trade party leader) to trade in the Hopetown market for the date of 7.7.” Three days ago.

“Which means what?” I said.

“It means we head north at first light,” said Mithos. “Better get some sleep.”

He blew out the candle and I lay there in the dark, trying not to think about the blood ritual, or what Mithos might have done to get his information.