Blood of the Underworld

11

Antonil surveyed what was left of the bodies and shook his head.

“What’s that put the death total at?” he asked Sergan, his most trusted friend. The man was a ruffian in soldier’s armor, big features, dirty hair, and an even bigger axe across his back. He was a good man, though, disciplined, and always willing to tell Antonil the truth no matter how little he wanted to hear it.

“Not the best at numbers,” Sergan said, turning to spit. “Think we’re getting beyond what I can count. About fifteen or so of Victor’s men in and about his home. Twenty gray cloaks in there with them. Three or four on the way to here, and now this…”

Sergan gestured to the crater in the street, the corpses scattered about, some killed by fire, some maimed by heavy, blunt blows.

“What you think? Fifteen? Eighteen?”

“Lord Victor was a fool to think they’d let him go unpunished,” Antonil said. “Which of these bodies do you think is him?”

Sergan squinted at a few nearby, frowned.

“Not seeing any wearing fancy enough clothes. Might still be alive and cowering under a rock somewhere, though I doubt it’ll mean shit. His fool’s quest is over. Once he’s done wiping his ass, he’ll take the first wagon out of Veldaren, I guarantee it. Question is, what do we do? Pretty obvious the Spider Guild is the one responsible for all this. Think we could have the King declare them all under arrest?”

“Perhaps, if we wanted to send them all into hiding and make all our lives miserable for the next ten years. Who killed the Spider Guild, though? Don’t see any of Victor’s guards having made it this far.”

“I don’t know, but whoever it was was doing us a service.”

Antonil let out a grim laugh.

“Don’t let Thren hear you say that. I’d hate to have to find myself a new trainer for the guard.”

More city guards arrived from the castle, wheeling a cart behind them. At Sergan’s orders, they began loading up the dead and shifting aside the larger stones to reopen the road for travel. They’d been at it for hours, all to clean up the mess the attack had caused and clear away the rubble and the dead. The sun was rising above the city wall, reminding Antonil how tired he was, and how long a day he had ahead of him.

Antonil watched his soldiers work with a pall cast over his mood. He’d known this was coming. It seemed everyone but Victor had known it. But expecting it and actually seeing the anger and power of the underworld rise up to strike were two different things. And lest they risk all-out warfare on the streets, Antonil could do nothing about it. It used to be that the easy money made the guilds soft, but no longer. The Watcher had been the one to keep the more troublesome in line, but this was beyond him. Perhaps it was beyond them all.

“Something bothering you, beyond the obvious?” Sergan asked, coming back over from the crater.

“If necessary, we could raise an army to battle off kingdoms, perhaps even the wrath of the elves,” Antonil said. “Yet we are so powerless against these thieves. How? Why?”

“Once the worm gets in the apple, it’s near impossible to get out,” Sergan said, smacking Antonil on the shoulder. “Our walls don’t work against this enemy. They’ve got boundaries, no diplomats, no castles to take or crops to burn. Just men, sticky fingers, and a frightening amount of daggers. Much as I’d like to have every one of them thieves stretched out before me in an open battlefield, they ain’t that stupid. So we’ll do what we can, with what we’ve got to work with.”

“They’re killing everyone who talks to Victor’s men,” Antonil said, revealing what had weighed most heavy on his heart.

“Thought you were posting guards?”

“It isn’t enough. It never seems to be enough. My numbers are stretched thin as it is.”

Sergan shrugged.

“You’ll think of something. You always do. And besides, weren’t you listening? Victor’s going to be halfway to Ker by this afternoon, and all the way to Mordeina by nightfall. There won’t be any more witnesses to protect. In a few days, it’ll all die down to the quiet little insanity we’ve learned to live with lately.”

“Forgive me, Sergan, but I have my doubts.”

The weathered man raised an eyebrow, spat again.

“Why’s that?”

In answer, Antonil pointed to where Lord Victor approached with a large retinue of his men, their armor gleaming in the morning light. Antonil bowed at his arrival, and Victor responded in kind.

“Good to see you safe and well,” Antonil said.

“I’m surprised myself,” Victor said before gesturing to his men. “Whatever help you need, my men are here to offer it. Much of this is my fault, and I won’t leave you to clean it up alone. Once it’s done, we can resume the investigations.”

Antonil managed to hide the surprise from his face and voice, but only because of a lifetime of discipline.

“You’re still to remain in Veldaren?”

Victor clapped Antonil on the shoulder.

“I don’t scare that easily. We’ll use more caution, of course, take things a bit slower now that we know what lengths they will go to.”

Antonil had Sergan dole out orders, then asked Victor if he’d join him for a moment so they could talk privately.

“Something wrong?” Victor asked as they put their backs to their men and walked.

“It’s the men and women you’ve been bringing in to testify,” Antonil began. “I’ve tried posting guards, but many go into hiding, and even the ones I do protect have been killed. Often my guards die, as well.”

Victor nodded while listening, and Antonil saw the hidden anger and frustration.

“Casualties of war, captain,” the lord said, but he couldn’t quite keep the dismissive tone from wavering.

“Your war, not theirs.”

Victor sighed.

“What do you want me to do, Antonil? I won’t leave, not after all this. Would you have me render their deaths pointless?”

“I’d have there be no deaths at all. Conduct these talks in secret. Give shelter among your soldiers for those who request it. Once we’ve weakened the guilds, these measures won’t be necessary, but until then…”

“Enough,” Victor said, his sharp tone startling Antonil. The guard captain watched as Victor turned away for a moment and stared at the crater in the street and the bodies being loaded onto the cart.

“I thought I was prepared,” Victor said, his voice softening. “I thought I could bear the burden. And I still will, Antonil. I will bear it. But it is far heavier than I ever imagined.”

“It will get worse before it gets better,” Antonil said.

“I know,” Victor said, turning back to him. “I will do what I can to hide the identity of those we bring in, whatever good it will do. Your king has already agreed to let me use his castle, so I will question everyone there. As for those in fear for their lives…”

He gestured down the street, where work had already begun in repairing the wall of Victor’s repurposed tavern.

“There are many rooms within, as well as space on the floor. Bring them there, until there is no room left.”

“Will it be safe?” Antonil asked, thinking of the attack only hours prior.

“From the outside, yes,” Victor said. “I can promise you that. But inside…I don’t know. I invite assassins in with every man I give shelter. I pray you understand the risk I take, and hope I never have reason to regret it.”

“I’ll have my men keep an eye on your place, as well,” Antonil said. “My liege would have me work with you, help you in any way I can. Just ask, Victor, and I will, so long as it protects this city and the people in it.”

Victor offered his hand, and Antonil clasped it.

“I would have us friends rather than enemies,” Victor said. “But tonight has done me well. I know how strong we must be to succeed. Trust me. Last night will not happen again.”

Antonil nodded, wished the man well. Still, when he left to join Sergan, he did so with a heavy heart. Something about the way Victor had said that made the hair on the back of his neck itch. Victor’s response to near death and failure was not to doubt, but to harden his resolve. What could he do to the thief guilds that would be any worse than what he did now?

“What do we do with the dead Spiders?” Sergan asked at his arrival. “Hold them for a day at the castle, let family members come and see if they recognize them?”

Antonil chewed on his lower lip.

“Bury them all in a common grave, not a name given for any,” he said. “They’re enemies of the peace, enemies of our king. They deserve no better.”

“Might piss ‘em off.”

Antonil laughed, and he waved his arms at the wreckage about them.

“Any worse than they are now? Bury them, and forget them. We have a lot of work to do, and not anywhere near enough time to do it.”

Nathaniel hovered around his mother the early part of the morning, but her mind was clearly elsewhere. His attempts at talking to her always ended abruptly, her answers terse and distracted. Henris, the scribe sitting beside her, seemed more important, his questions given more thought. Terrance was also there, looking nervous and incredibly young next to the wrinkled old scribe. He didn’t speak much, only when the scribe directly asked him something. Nathaniel tried being more persistent, until Alyssa looked up from the table in her study and snapped at him.

“Must I make up tasks so I might have a moment of peace?”

Nathaniel flinched, but he’d listened to Lord Gandrem’s words closely, and knew such childish fits were not becoming of him. He grabbed his stump of a right arm, just a small chunk of bone and skin coming down from his shoulder. Nervous, he drummed his fingers atop the bone like he did when he needed to distract himself. Alyssa saw this and immediately softened.

“Come here, Nathan,” she said.

He walked closer and leaned his head against his mother’s stomach as she wrapped her arms about him.

“You’ve endured troubled times before,” she said. “This is one of them. I haven’t forgotten you, though. Tonight, I’ll fetch us a bard, and pay him to dazzle us with a dozen songs. We’ll listen together, and you can tell me which is your favorite. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

He nodded, and she kissed his forehead.

“Go play,” she said. “Otherwise I’ll have John find you something to do.”

“He’ll just make me practice with my sword,” he said. “He knows it gets heavy.”

“That just means you need to practice more, until it feels like a part of your arm.”

“Milady, may I ask the source of these imports?” Henris asked, pointing to one of what seemed like a thousand pieces of parchment. Alyssa turned back to the man, and Nathaniel knew that was his sign to leave. He wanted to stay, to stomp his foot and demand attention, but he imagined the way John would react should he hear about such a display.

“Yes, mother,” Nathaniel said, even though he doubted she heard him. At least her promise about the bard was exciting. He loved listening to their stories, most of them anyway. Some dwelt on lords and ladies, and who was in love with whom. They bored him to tears. The ones about dragons, paladins, orcs, wolf-men, and other creatures of the Vile Wedge…those were the ones that kept him up far past his bedtime, wide-eyed in the lap of his mother. He especially loved hearing of the war between the gods, back during the creation of the world.

Nathaniel left the study, left the adults to argue and bicker about money and paper, as John had once put it. Part of him felt sad knowing that that was the fate awaiting him when he got older, not charging into battle on a horse like he dreamed. His missing arm alone ruined any chance of that. No, he’d bicker with old men and women, count coins until the moon was high, and trade things he did not have for things he would never see.

So much better the life the bards sang about.

While on his way to see Lord Gandrem, Nathaniel passed by the door to his grandmother’s room. She must have seen him, for he heard her call his name. Rolling his eyes, Nathaniel turned around. He always felt awkward in his grandmother’s presence. He didn’t know her, had barely even heard of her until her sudden arrival, yet he was expected to act as if she were close family. It left him confused, unsure of how to act. That, and the way she looked at him, her eyes always watery even if she wasn’t crying, made his stomach twist.

“Yes, grandmother?” he asked, stepping into her room, which had been a guest bedroom mere weeks before. His grandmother lay in the center of the bed, as she often did. Alyssa had said she had gone through many trials, and was left weak because of it. But she didn’t seem weak to Nathaniel. Instead, she seemed like a coiled spring, wound up and unable to move.

“Please, just Melody,” she said, shifting to the side so she might put her feet off the bed. “Though it warms my heart to hear you say the word grandmother.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She laughed as if this amused her, though he’d purposefully chosen not to call her Melody.

“You look upset, dear,” she said. “Is your mother still busy with that worm of Victor’s?”

Despite himself, he cracked a smile, thinking of Henris’s scrunched in face.

“He doesn’t look like a worm. He looks like one of the gophers groundskeeper Willis hates.”

To his relief, Melody laughed instead of getting upset for him saying such a thing.

“Watch your tongue in their presence,” Melody said, gently easing herself off the bed. “But don’t worry about me. I spent too much time in silence to care for tempered words and padded half-truths. I say if a man looks like a gopher, call him a gopher, don’t you?”

Nathaniel nodded. He still felt awkward, but at least it seemed like he could trust Melody to pay attention to him, and not care if he said something John would claim was ‘improper’. His grandmother walked over to her expansive closet and opened the doors.

“Can you can keep a secret, Nathaniel?” she asked as she peered into its darkness.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Lord Gandrem says my word should be my bond, and to never break it.”

“John’s a smart man,” Melody said. “And you should trust much of what he says. But I’ve spent a few afternoons with him, and he is lacking in knowledge of the gods. Tell me, Nathan, what do you know of Karak and Ashhur?”

As she asked this, she pulled out a small wooden box from the far recesses of the closet. Nathaniel stepped closer, his curiosity too strong to resist. Her question itself, though, nearly deflated him. His teacher of numbers had been devoted to Ashhur, always telling Nathaniel lists of rules, expectations, and everything Ashhur would be sad about for him doing.

“My teacher made me memorize some things,” he reluctantly admitted.

“I don’t mean prayers and sermons, Nathan. The gods are not figments, not boring lessons with names. They were real. They wielded blades, raised armies, and conquered the wildlands Dezrel used to be before their arrival.”

Nathaniel’s eyes widened. Now this was more like the bards’ songs than the dry lecturing of his teacher. When Melody opened the box, his eyes widened further, so much that he thought they’d bug out of his head. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. The base was a circle made of dark stone, with two soft indents on either side. The center almost like a bowl, but much too shallow. Laying in it were nine precious stones, each with a thin silver chain encircling it attached it to the base. The stones were all different, ruby, sapphire, emerald, topaz, even a couple he didn’t recognize. Each one was the size of his thumb.

“When I was in the darkness, this was all I had to keep me company,” she said. “Your grandfather didn’t want me to have it, but a good friend gave it to me anyway. Pull the curtains across the window, child. We must make it as dark as we can.”

Nathaniel hurried to do as she said. Even with the lavish lifestyle he was accustomed to living in a house of the Trifect, he was still excited by the sheer wealth before him that Melody held. Whatever it was, it certainly was worth a fortune. That she had somehow hidden it in a dungeon was stunning. As he tugged on the curtains, he thought to ask her of her time spent imprisoned at Leon Connington’s mansion, but dared not. Deep down, he knew that what he might hear was something he would not enjoy, and involve things he was only starting to understand.

The curtains were long, and sewn thick, so when Nathaniel returned to the closet, he had to hold a hand against the wall to guide him there until his eyes adjusted.

“Remember, Nathan,” Melody said, “you must tell no one of this. This is a chrysarium, and is worth more than I could ever replace. I’ve long kept it hidden, so do not make me feel foolish for showing such a young child.”

“I’m not so young,” Nathaniel said, puffing out his chest. He caught a smile from her, just a crease in the shadows, and then she lifted the chrysarium. Her thumb and palms pressed against the grooves on the sides, the rest of her fingers holding it from beneath. Melody’s eyes closed, and he heard her whispering. The words were too low and quick for him to understand, but he felt something strange and foreign building in his chest. Panic struck him, and he wanted to flee, but before he could work up the nerve, the gems began to shine.

It was soft at first, just a flicker of color, like sparks of tinder on a fire not yet caught. The emerald shimmered first, a deep glow growing in strength from the very center of the gem. Next was the ruby, its blood-red light swirling within, as if each gem was filled with a smoky liquid. One by one the rest lit up, growing in strength as his grandmother continued to pray. Nathaniel reached forward, pushed on by a compulsion to touch them, but a sudden fear overcame him. His hand dropped to his side.

“They shine by the power of my faith,” Melody said, pausing for a moment to catch her breath. Even as she spoke, the glow began to fade. “Watch the center, Nathan, and open your heart to matters beyond this world. Let the spirit guide you, and you will see.”

He didn’t know what she meant, didn’t understand what to do, or what the spirit was. But then she prayed again, louder, stronger. The gems shook in the chrysarium, flared bright, and then lifted in unison from the stone. They floated in the air, higher and higher, until the length of silver chain holding them stretched tight, halting their ascent. Nathaniel gaped, mouth open in wonder. So strange was this light. Though at times it was so bright that it hurt his eyes, it did not spread. The walls of the closet remained dark, and even when Nathaniel had brought his hand close to touch them, their light had not shown upon his skin. A strange hum filled his ears, though where it came from, he did not know. It made his stomach tighten, but he could not stop, could not leave.

In the center of the chrysarium, where it should have been brightest because of the gems, it was darker than anything he’d ever seen. That is where the monsters live, he thought, not knowing why. That is where the stars hide.

“Look deep,” his grandmother instructed. Her voice was a songbird over the din of a thunderstorm. Much as it frightened him, he looked inside, into the darkness, and therein he saw the first of his visions.

He saw a man crying in darkness, but when the man looked up, Nathaniel realized it was not a man but a woman. Her tears shone silver. Shadows turned, and another woman held her, her tears made of gold. Above them roared a lion, and from the creature’s throat poured a thousand stars. They washed over the two, bathed them in light, and together they emerged as one being whose hands were stained with blood. Next came Veldaren, seeing it as if he soared high above like a hawk. Below, the city burned, a hundred suns igniting within its depths. Nathaniel tried crying out, but he heard nothing of his voice, and was only dimly aware of his own body. Another vision, that of a hundred rows of wheat. They swayed in the wind, then withered and died as the moon rose. Reapers, their faces hidden by masks, collected the dead wheat, gathering it together in a great pile. When they set it aflame, Nathaniel felt the heat of it on his skin, felt his sweat pour down his neck. The bonfire split, revealing a great canyon, its depths endless. Stomach churning, he spun about, until he was standing on one side. On the other, a great army gathered, muscular bodies made of darkness and shadow lifting swords and axes high above their heads. And amid them, laughing, was a faceless man with eyes of fire.

“No more,” he begged as the laughter filled his ears. “No more, no more, no more!”

Pain on the back of his head pulled him out, scattering the visions. He lay against the side of the closet, Melody cradling him. The chrysarium lay beside her on the floor, looking nothing out of the ordinary beyond the wealth of the gems.

“You poor boy,” she whispered. “You poor, poor boy. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right,” Nathaniel said, his voice coming out drowsy. His words were an immediate response, a desire to comfort her, for he knew something he’d done had frightened her. What was it? Laughter rang in his ears, and he felt his skin crawl.

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “The chrysarium always showed me pleasant images, fields of flowers and mountains in distant lands. I didn’t know it would work so differently on one so young. I should have warned you, I should have made sure…”

She was crying, he realized.

“I’m fine, everything’s fine,” he said, standing so he might hug her. She kissed his cheek, and he felt her tears brush against his skin.

“Thank you,” she said, wiping them away. “I only meant to show you something wonderful. I fear my god thought to use you for some other purpose. I caught only glimpses, but you saw a vision, Nathaniel. You witnessed the future yet to come. You should feel honored, for few are blessed with such a gift. You truly are a special child.”

Nathaniel didn’t feel special, or blessed. He felt awkward again, and the darkness of the room only made it worse.

“I should go attend my duties,” he said, rushing over to pull aside the curtains. When the room flooded with light, he trembled. The warmth of it felt divine on his skin, and it chased away the last image in his mind of those terrible burning eyes.

“What duties are those?” Melody asked, slowly rising.

“Lord Gandrem will have plenty ready for me,” he said, drumming his fingers across the bone of his stump. “Thank you, grandmother.”

She smiled.

“Remember, it is our secret,” she said. “And please, don’t forget what you’ve seen. A vision from the gods should never be ignored, nor forgotten. And if you need to talk about it…”

“I will,” he said, still in a hurry. He wanted out. Just out. Opening the door, he fled the room, eager to be back in John Gandrem’s world of chores, duty, and learning. He’d had a taste of what it meant to deal with the divine, and suddenly the tales of the bards seemed so far away from the truth.

Come that night, and the bard’s arrival, Nathaniel cuddled with his mother, listening to stories of doomed lovers, wars between lords, and the fall of dragons. Only once did the bard, a portly fellow in red, try to sing of Karak and Ashhur. Nathaniel had frowned, and begged his mother to make him tell a tale of monsters, princes, even thieves and murderers, just anything else but that.