Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, page 10
‘Remove the strings and open the parchment,’ it instructed him. ‘Or you shall be hurt, and hurt again, until you obey!’
Hereward gaped. It was not in response to the creature’s command, but an inadvertent reaction to the sudden arrival of a completely naked yet literally radiant Lallit. Surrounded by a nimbus of the violet hue favoured by her god, she burst into the room and made a swatting motion in the air, as if crushing a mosquito.
A hole appeared in the creature’s chest, followed by a geyser of greenish ichor that splashed the end of Sir Hereward’s bed, the stained linen immediately beginning to send up small tendrils of evil-smelling smoke.
Despite what would be a mortal injury to a human, the beast was not distressed. It turned away from Sir Hereward and tensed to spring at Lallit.
Before it could do so, Hereward jumped up and smashed it on the head with The Compendium of Commonplaces, it being the only makeshift weapon close at hand. The huge, brass-and-leather-bound book boomed like a gong as it struck the monster, and most of the tome turned to ash in Hereward’s hands, leaving him clutching a ragged folio of loosely bound pages, without any binding or brass accoutrements.
Hereward dropped the newly slim volume and dove for his sabre. He drew it and spun about, ready to slash, but there was nothing there to hit. The creature had also turned to ash, had been picked up by a doubtlessly divine wind, and was being carried out the closest window, to be spread to the four corners of the earth.
The nimbus around Lallit faded, her knees buckled, and Hereward was just able to hop forward and catch her as she fell. However, he could not hold her weight with his injured foot, so both of them toppled back into the bed, just as Mister Fitz peered cautiously around the doorway, a sorcerous needle held in his cupped hand, its inhuman brilliance quickly dulled as he took in the situation.
But as the puppet replaced the needle inside his pointy hat, the small guard with the large axe leapt up the last step, his weapon held ready to use on anyone who violated the purity of the temple’s novices.
‘But I haven’t …’ protested Sir Hereward. He reluctantly released Lallit, and started patting out the incipient fire at the end of the bed. ‘We didn’t …’
‘What am I doing here?’ asked Lallit wonderingly. She had the look of someone still waking from a dream. ‘I felt the god …’
‘Narhalet-Narhalit has been here,’ confirmed Mister Fitz. He looked at the guard, his little blue-painted eyes sharp on his papier-mâché head. ‘This is the god’s business, Jabek, however it may appear.’
‘Aye, I feel it so,’ said Jabek. He smiled, and added, ‘But I’ll ask you to explain it to Sister Gobbe.’
‘Oh, the mandora is broken!’ exclaimed Lallit. She picked up the instrument, whose neck was broken, and cradled it to her. ‘Sir Hereward wanted to give it to you for your birthday, Mister Fitz.’
‘A birthday present?’ asked Mister Fitz. ‘For me?’
‘According to the book I was reading, sorcerous puppets have a common birthday,’ said Sir Hereward. ‘The fourth day of the Second Month.’
‘But I am not a common puppet,’ said Mister Fitz. ‘Nor can it be said that I was born on any particular day, given my gradual ascent to full sentience over the course of my making. Besides, those other puppets have their birthday on the fifth day of the Second Month.’
Hereward shrugged, grimacing as he felt a pang from the wound in his shoulder and a renewed ache in his foot.
‘I appreciate the thought,’ said Mister Fitz. ‘Now tell me. This broken mandora doubtless figures in the strange events that have just come to pass?’
‘There is a triangle-folded, thrice-sealed missive inside,’ said Hereward. ‘Which is strange enough, and stranger still when you consider yonder book, which until I hit that shade-walker, or whatever it was, was a much larger volume.’
‘I remember opening the chest to pick up the mandora, and nothing since,’ said Lallit. ‘Perhaps I may take your second blanket for a robe, Sir Hereward?’
‘Pray do not cloak your beauty on my account …’ began Sir Hereward, then, as Jabek of the Axe shifted noisily behind him, hastily added, ‘I mean, please do.’
Mister Fitz crouched over the remnants of the book, flipping the pages with one of Sir Hereward’s daggers. He then examined the mandora.
‘It is simple enough,’ he said. ‘The book – which I am surprised you did not note is set in that type called Sorcery and thus highly suspect – is part of the revenge upon their creditors set in play by the sorcerer-merchants of Jerreke. Forced into slavery by their own economic ineptitude, they contrived to bind twinned otherworldly entities to their service. One would be constrained within a book or some such household item, the other in an instrument, or perhaps a game set. The items would be sent separately to the chosen target, in the hope that this would enable them to bypass any sorcerous protections. When both were in proximity, the bonds would release the entities, who would slay everyone within reach.’
‘But only one entity came forth,’ said Sir Hereward. ‘And it didn’t try to kill me, at least not at first. It wanted me to open the parchment that was inside the mandora.’
‘The sorcerer-merchants of Jerreke were famous as inept merchants and ineffective sorcerers,’ sniffed Mister Fitz. ‘In this case, the spell was set off long ago, but due to the botched execution, only one entity was released. Realising its twin was still entrapped within the mandora, it had to wait inside the chest for the opportunity to make someone else release its companion. Neither Sister Gobbe, who initially brought you the book, nor Lallit, both being in the eye of her god, would be suitable persons to release the twin, so it came down to you. However, by breaking the item that had once held it in bond – the book, or rather the outer pages bound around these remains – you immediately banished it.’
‘But the twin is still trapped inside the mandora?’ asked Sir Hereward.
‘Indeed,’ said Mister Fitz. ‘And as, of course, it is a listed entity, albeit a minor one …’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Hereward. ‘Lallit, Jabek, if you would excuse us for a few minutes?’
‘Certainly, Sir Hereward,’ said Jabek. He turned and left at once. Hereward helped Lallit to stand, holding her perhaps a little closer than was necessary. She looked him in the eye as she stood up, and smiled.
‘I am sorry about your vow, Sir Hereward,’ she said. Her breath was very sweet, and the blanket very loose upon her body. ‘I have a vow also, as do all the novices of Narhalet-Narhalit … that until we are consecrated, we shall not …’
‘I know,’ said Sir Hereward, with a glance at Mister Fitz. ‘I mean, I know now. Best you be going, Lallit.’
‘If it were not for the god’s presence, reminding me of what I will become, I might have forgotten that vow,’ whispered Lallit. Then she was gone, wafting past him.
Hereward sighed, hopped over to his saddlebag, and got out a silk armband, a brassard embroidered with sorcerous symbols that shone with their own light, though this was faint under the sun’s bright shaft that came in through the northern window.
‘Should I fix your shoulder first?’ asked Mister Fitz, as he took his own brassard out from under his hat, and slid it up his arm.
‘It’s only a trifle. I think that Nar-Nar has already stopped it bleeding,’ said Sir Hereward. He gave a grunt of pain that lessened the effect of this statement, twitching his shoulder as he settled the brassard above his elbow. ‘I may well get another wound in the next few minutes, to keep you busy. Now, will you open the parchment and I shall strike it on the head with the mandora?’
‘Yes,’ said Mister Fitz, his slim puppet fingers reaching in through the now-slack strings to pull out the sealed triangle. He held it ready, and looked at Sir Hereward. ‘But first …’
‘I know, I know,’ grumbled Sir Hereward. ‘What’s the thing’s name? Or do I just say “Summoned Antagonist”?’
Mister Fitz looked at the parchment for a long second. His painted eyes could see many more things than any human gaze, both in and beyond the ordinary world.
‘Hypgrix the Second.’
‘Right.’
Sir Hereward picked up his sabre and set it ready on the bed, just in case, before holding the mandora high above the parchment. Then he spoke, the words coming as they always did, familiar and strong, the symbols on his and Mister Fitz’s brassards growing brighter with every word.
‘In the name of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, acting under the authority granted by the Three Empires, the Seven Kingdoms, the Palatine Regency, the Jessar Republic, and the Forty Lesser Realms, we declare ourselves agents of the Council. We identify the godlet manifested in this parchment of Jerreke, as Hypgrix the Second, a listed entity under the Treaty. Consequently, the said godlet and all those who assist it are deemed to be enemies of the World and the Council authorises us to pursue any and all actions necessary to banish, repel, or exterminate the said godlet.’
Mister Fitz broke the seals on the parchment of ‘godlet’, and even as the creature within boiled up like smoke and began to coalesce into something resembling flesh, Sir Hereward brought the mandora down upon it. Both beast and instrument immediately turned to dust, Mister Fitz gestured, and the dust blew out the window and was gone.
Sir Hereward winced as he sat back down on the bed, and looked at Mister Fitz.
‘Now, tell me,’ he said. ‘Why are you covered in salt?’
‘Salt?’ asked Mister Fitz. ‘It is not salt, but powdered bone and chalk. I have been digging in the tomb of some ancient, vasty creatures. It has been most interesting. Though not, it is clear, as exciting as your reading.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Sir Hereward. He lay back on the bed, and pointed at a long wooden case that lay on the floor near his saddlebag. ‘If you can spare yourself from your digging, what say you to a game of kings and fools?’
Mister Fitz’s pumpkin-size head slowly rotated on his ridiculously thin neck, and his blue eyes peered at Sir Hereward’s face.
‘So soon after your last defeat? You are transparent, Hereward, but I doubt you have found some real advantage. The better player always wins.’
‘We shall see,’ said Sir Hereward. ‘Please lay out the set, and if you would be so kind, call down for ale.
‘Oh, and put this back in its place.’ Hereward stripped the brassard from his arm. ‘I trust that I will not need it, at least until we reach Bazynghame?’
‘Best keep it near,’ said Mister Fitz, as he picked up the game box. ‘There is the small matter of what I was digging for – and what I have found …’
LOSING HER DIVINITY
IT WAS A year ago, or slightly more, as I recall. I was coming back from Orthaon, I had been there to discuss the printing works at the original monastery, they had a very old press and, though it worked well enough, it had been designed to be driven by slaves, and since the most recent emancipation a number of the mechanical encouraging elements needed to be removed, quite a difficult task as the original drawings for the machine were long lost and some parts of it were very obscure.
What? Oh no, I was not present as a mechanician, I was there to write an account of the reworking. I thought it might prove to be of some interest, for one of the city gazettes, or perhaps as a selection in a book that I have begun, observations of curious machines, sorceries, and the like.
You might yourself make an interesting dozen pages, Master Puppet. I have heard of you, of course. Read about you too, unless I miss my guess. That is to say, I have read about a certain sorcerous puppet who bears a striking similarity, in the works of Rorgulet and in Prysme’s Annals – oh, of course, Sir Hereward, you would rate at least as many pages, I should think. But you desire discretion, and I respect that. No, no, I will be discreet, I do not write about everything. Yes, I am aware of the likely consequences, so there is no need for that, good knight … Please, allow me to withdraw my throat a little from that … it looks exceedingly sharp. Really? Every morning, without fail, one hundred times each side, and then the strop? I had no idea. I do not treat my razor so well, though perhaps it gets less shall we say … use … no, no, I am getting on with it. Have patience. You should know that I am not a man who can be spurred by threats.
As I said I was coming back from Orthaon, travelling on the Scheduled Unstoppable Cartway, in the third carriage, as I do not like the smell of the mokleks. Speaking of razors, what a job it must be to shave a moklek, though I have heard it said it is required only once, and the handlers rub in a grease that inhibits the regrowth. Done at the same time as the unkindest cut of all, though nothing needed there to prevent the regrowth, of course. It is interesting that the wild mammoths treat the occasional escaped moklek well, as if it were a cousin who had fallen on unfortunate circumstances. Better than many of us treat our cousins, as I can attest.
Yes. I was on the Cartway, in the third carriage, through choice, not primarily through lack of funds, though it is true both fare and luxury reduce from the front. We had stopped, as is common, despite the name of the conveyance. My compartment was empty, save for myself, and though the afternoon light was dim, I had been correcting some pages that the dunderheaded typesetter of the Regulshim Trumpet-Zwound had messed up, a piece on the recent trouble with the nephew of the Archimandrite of Fulwek and his attempt to—ouch!
I told you I need no such encouragement, and it would have been a very short digression. You might even have learned something. As I was saying, the light suddenly grew much brighter. I thought the sun had come out from behind the skulking clouds that had bedevillled us all day, but in fact it was a lesser and much closer source of illumination, a veritable glow that came from the face of a remarkably beautiful woman who had stepped up to the door of my compartment and was looking in through the window. A very good window; they know how to make a fine glass in Orthaon, no bubbles or obscuration, so I saw her clear.
‘Pray stay there, for a moment!’ I called out, because the light was extremely helpful, and the proofs were such a mess and set quite small, and there was this one footnote I couldn’t quite read. But she ignored me, opening the door and entering the compartment. Rather annoyingly, she also dimmed the radiance that emitted not only from her beautiful face, but from her exposed skin. Of which there was quite a lot, as she was clad only in the silken garment that is called a rhuskin in these regions, but is also known as a coob-jam or attanouss. I am sure you know it, a very long, broad piece of silk wound around the breast and tied at the front and back so that the trailing pieces provide a form of open tabard covering the nethers, save when a wind blows or the wearer attempts a sudden movement, as in entering the compartment of a carriage on the Scheduled Unstoppable Cartway.
She had very fine legs. I may have admired them for a moment or two, before she interrupted the direction of my thoughts, which I must confess were running along the lines of the two of us being alone in the compartment, and the interior blinds, which could be drawn, and why such a beautiful, shining woman would intrude upon my compartment in particular, even though of course it is not entirely unusual that beautiful women throw themselves upon … why do you chuckle, Sir Knight? Not all women favour height and splendid moustaches, and the obvious phallic overcompensation and fascination with swords … and yes, daggers like that one, which I do not want thrust through my hand, thank you. This hand that has written a hundred … well, ninety books … and has many more to write! Thank you, Master Puppet. I would be grateful if you could keep your … your comrade contained.
So. She was in the compartment, beautiful, illuminated and semi-naked. Obviously a sorceress of some kind, I presumed, or a priestess, perhaps of Daje-Onkh-Arboth, they tend to be lit up in a similar fashion. I had no idea then what she actually was, you understand.
She smiled at me, winked, and sat down on the cushions opposite.
‘Tell them you haven’t seen me, and put me in your pocket,’ she said, very sultry and promising. ‘It shall be to your advantage.’
‘Tell who—’ I started to ask, but she shrank away before my very eyes, and in a matter of moments there was no longer a shining woman on the cushion, but a small figurine of jade, or some similar greenstone, no taller than my thumb. Now, as you can plainly see, I am a man of the world who has seen a great deal more than most, but never anything like that. I picked up the figure, and was further surprised to find it very cold, as cold as a scoop of ice from the coolthvendors you may have seen along the street here, offering their wares to chill a drink or a feversome brow.
I put her in my pocket, the deep inner one of my outer coat, where I keep a selection of pencils, an inkstone, and other odds and ends of the writer’s trade. It was none too soon, for there was a commotion outside only a few seconds later, with a great clattering of armour and the usual unnecessary shouting of military folk, the roar of battle mounts and the like, all of which I understood immediately to be the sudden arrival of some force bent on intercepting the conveyance, which meant more stopping and greater delay. I was not pleased, I tell you, and even less so when two rude troopers flung open the compartment door, waved a pistol and a sword in my face, and by means of emphatic gestures and strange, throat-deep grunts, demanded that I alight.
Naturally, I refused, pointing out to them that there were numerous treaties guaranteeing the inviolate nature of the Unstoppable Cartway, and that by interfering with it they were risking war with no fewer than three city-states, and the Kingdom of Aruth, admittedly a great distance away at the terminus, and not only these polities but also the parent company of the Cartway, which they might not know was the Exuberant Order of Holy Commerce, well known for its mercenary company business, in addition to its monopoly on Hrurian nutmeg, the original source of the order’s wealth, which by curious chance—
