City of Hawks

Chapter 3

“Your hair is lovely this evening, mistress,” the serving girl said as she held up the mirror.

Meleena peered into the glass and turned her head slowly from side to side, scrutinizing every detail of her coiffure that she could see. The sapphires in the comb that adorned her rich, chestnut-hued tresses matched her eyes perfectly. At last she smiled and motioned the girl away, completely pleased with herself and her situation. New servant, new wardrobe, new jewelry… a new life!

“Fetch my fur-trimmed cloak, girl,” Meleena said, trying unsuccessfully to maintain an attitude of aloofness and not give a hint of the secret pleasure she felt inside. “I will be going to the Citadel tonight,” she added, every word exuding happiness and pride. Thanks to Wanno, there was every likelihood that young Lord Roland would notice her this very evening. In addition to providing her with clothing, jewelry, and a great sum of gold, some of which she had spent to attain her new station, the mage had promised to use his power and Influence to bring her to Roland’s attention. Although she had not seen Wan-no for several days, she had no reason to doubt that he would be true to his word. Meleena was certain that she would soon be someone in the city.

“Here is your cloak, my lady,” the serving girl said happily. It was evident she shared the glory of her new mistress this night as she spoke. “There is a litter waiting outside too,” she gasped breathlessly, “with two linkboys and a guardsman!”

At that Meleena could no longer help herself. She smiled and hugged the thin girl, “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said with a little giggle. Then, recalling her new station, Meleena quickly released her servant and stepped back, once again a cold and important lady. “Sleep on the rug by the hearth, for if I happen to return late tonight I might need you.”

“Yes’m,” the girl replied as she opened the outer door for her mistress to depart. She was pleased at the prospect, for her usual bed-place had no warm fire to add comfort to the hard floor. After shutting and latching the door, the girl quickly tidied her new mistress’ bedchamber and went to her assigned place by the embers. Thinking that no one would notice, she added a few big chunks of coal to the fire and snuggled down on the thick rug.

She felt a bit guilty about using the coal, for she was a devout person and the deity she worshiped would not have condoned such an action. But she did, after all, deserve what little comfort she could procure for herself, so long as she did not hurt someone else in the process. She would be able to sleep for several hours, undisturbed and toasty. This was luxury indeed, she said to herself as she drifted off to sleep, clutching the symbol of her faith that she wore around her neck.

Meleena was thinking similar thoughts as the bearers carried her hooded chair along toward the fortress that was the governmental heart of Grey-hawk Before her great good fortune of the last few days, she had been merely one of the many maids-in-waiting amid the welter who served the oligarchs. As the orphaned daughter of a petty landowner and unsuccessful merchant, she had been fortunate to get even so lusterless a position as that.

Wanno, the Master of Magics to the Oligarchs of Greyhawk, had first seen her by chance at the Halls, when she had come to protest the annexation by the city of her father’s property upon his death. Initially Meleena had thought the weird old man was lusting after her, but the mage had not so much as laid a finger on her. Wanno had simply silenced her useless protests to the unsympathetic clerk, taken her to another building nearby, and informed the functionary there that he should give her immediate status as a waiting maid to the oligarchs. The fellow had done just that after Wanno had presented him with the mage’s own writ, and hied himself quickly to the task too. Spell-binders were not noted for their patience with petty bureaucrats.

Although he had spoken to her seldom over the next few months, Wanno had certainly kept track of her. This Meleena knew because of the little hints given to her by others in the same station within the Citadel. Like her, they were quartered in dreary lodgings in the Halls District and had to come to the fortress center of the city every day to await instructions as to their duties. Usually there was nothing to do save attending some oligarch’s wife, seeing to an important female visitor, or serving dainties at a feast or function. In truth, she and the others were nothing more than glorified serving wenches themselves, and but slight the glorification at that. Meleena flushed with indignation as she thought about how she had been ordered about, humiliated, and often degraded during that time.

Then, one day, Wanno had summoned her to his own quarters and questioned her at length. There were many bubbling retorts and smoking pots and braziers in the place. The fumes muzzied her. Meleena recalled, and the bloodshot eyes of Wanno had bored Into her brain.

Afterward the mage had been kinder still, and certainly friendlier. During this meeting, Wanno had informed Meleena that she was soon going to have to care for the little son of her deceased cousin Ermantrude. Try as she might, Meleena could not recall ever having heard of Ermantrude-nor, for that matter, of her mother’s sister, someone whom Wanno referred to as her Aunt Una. However, Wanno convinced Meleena that he had researched her family history, through means that only an accomplished mage such as he could command, and he had found that she was assuredly the infant’s only known relative. Meleena could hardly remember her own mother, who had died when she herself was a babe, so she scarcely wondered that she had trouble recalling her Aunt Una and her cousin Ermantrude. Once she had gotten over the surprise of hearing all this information for the first time, Meleena readily assented to taking charge of the child-and Wanno had been mightily pleased at that.

As part of his final preparations for Meleena’s assumption of her new responsibility, Wanno had sent word to another official in the Citadel, and soon she had been moved from a waiting maid to a position as Lady and Ward of the Lord Mayor. No more daily drudgery, only occasional summonses to official functions where Meleena would sit at table with those of rank and high station. This very night was her first such occasion-her coming-out, as it were.

Good things come in threes, it was said. Meleena was convinced that, for her, it was so-the babe, her newly exalted station, and the means to maintain and enjoy that status. And all of it revolved around the efforts of the kindly old mage. Wanno told her that he had taken the time and trouble to personally investigate the circumstances surrounding her cousin’s death, and the case was worse even than her own, where property rightfully hers had been taken by the powers that governed Greyhawk.

In Meleena’s own case, Wanno told her, he had come on the scene too late to help. But luckily, he had found out about Ermantrude’s demise in time to act swiftly. It seemed that the woman had been very wealthy. The officials of Hardby had meant to seize that wealth and make the Infant a ward of the state, but Wanno’s intervention had saved the situation. The mage, being one whose abilities and influence were respected even where his name was not known, demanded to be recognized as the infant’s official guardian, and could not be refused that right since he had come forth before any judgment had been rendered. To the dismay of the court officials. Wan-no’s status also carried with it the right to administer Ermantrude’s considerable fortune, so long as It was disbursed with the infant’s welfare in mind.

Fortunately for both Meleena and Wanno (whose life was not one that could easily accommodate the raising of a child), he was permitted to delegate the responsibility for the day-to-day care of the infant. Since he was later able to identify and then locate Meleena, the babe’s only relation, she became the logical-and from an ethical standpoint, the only-choice for a nursemaid.

Getting a chance to be a mother was wonderful enough in itself. Having her station in life elevated (in the interest of giving the babe a decent upbringing) was an exciting additional benefit. And there was more: As long as Meleena cared for her cousin’s infant son, she would receive a maintenance stipend-stipend, mind you, she thought to herself, was how Wanno put it-of five golden orbs each month!

As if that wasn’t enough, then the goodly old dweomercraefter had produced a chest filled with beautiful clothing and jewels-a part of the estate of her poor, dear cousin. Meleena regretted that she couldn’t recall anything about Ermantrude, for she must be… must have been… a very sweet and wonderful person.

“Please alight, m’lady. We are at the Grand Palace,” the guardsman said deferentially as he swept aside the heavy plush drape to enable Meleena to leave the sedan chair.

The sound and the motion snapped her back to the present. “Thank you, my man,” she said with a detached tone, emulating the women she had waited upon until recently. “This is for your services,” she added, drawing a silver coin from her purse and holding it out to the brawny man. “Please make certain that all is well until I return.”

The affair was as splendid as Meleena had imagined it would be. Many a handsome young gallant noticed her. Many of the older ones saw her too, and they were more aggressive than the less experienced or less secure younger fellows. Yet she managed to fend them all off while awaiting her chance at Lord Roland-and it finally came. He even danced with her, and they laughed together at his missteps in leading her through the complicated tracery of the pompous rite. “I am hopeless, I fear, dear lady,” he apologized. Meleena quickly blamed her own lack of grace for his blunders, then nearly stumbled and fell over his wrongly placed foot. When he caught her and clutched her close to keep her from injury, and in doing so looked so concerned as to be near comic, Meleena laughed in combined happiness and mirth. That was enough to provoke the nobleman to laughter himself, and the remainder of the night, which she spent almost entirely in his company, was a dream come true.

“May I call on you tomorrow. Lady Meleena?” Lord Roland asked at the close of the evening.

“Yes, m’lord. It will be my pleasure,” she replied then, consciously appreciating that just days before she had received her first stipend and taken more suitable quarters pending the arrival of her orphaned infant cousin.

“Just off the Street of Silks, you said?”

“Your lordship has a good memory. It is the house at the very end of Vertwall Close, just off the middle of that very street you named.”

“I shall call in the afternoon, then. Perhaps we can stroll the Gardens?”

“We shall see. Lord Roland, when the time comes.” She had overheard enough of such banter to know precisely how to reply.

Despite the damp chill of the night air, she insisted that the curtains of the litter be left open on her way home. Meleena needed the cold air to clear her head of wine and calm her dizzying state of excitement. Every time she thought hard about what had occurred this night, it made her head swim-and, at other times, it positively ached with sadness and sympathy when she thought of Ermantrude and the poor little waif she was soon to become foster mother to. It occurred to her, during one of these musings, that she had never been told the infant’s name. But as soon as she realized that, it ceased to concern her. No doubt Wanno, or someone he had designated to deliver the babe, would tell her what to call her newfound child. By the time the bearers had carried her up the Processional, along the Street of Silks, and to her own apartment in Vertwall Close, Meleena was cold to the bone and weary too, but still floating on a cloud of joy.

Lambent eyes watched Meleena as she climbed stiffly from the chair and entered her apartment.

They were slit-pupiled and red, the evil eyes of a monster not of this world. As the door closed behind her, the fiery orbs became disembodied and floated upward. Where they had been was empty space, and neither the porters nor the guardsman noticed anything as they trudged wearily away.

The attendants had not been gone many minutes before a pair of black-garbed figures entered the close. Silent, no more noticeable than shadows in the darkness, the two men took up stations a short distance from Meleena’s residence, and the evil eyes of the nether-plane watcher seemed to narrow in pleasure at the sight of the pair.

“Up, lazy wench,” Meleena said cheerily when she found the servant girl fast asleep before the embers of the fire. “You must help me undress, for I am utterly exhausted!”

Despite her sleepy state, the serving girl detected her mistress’ mood immediately. “You look radiant, m’lady, and your voice is filled with happiness.”

Meleena stopped and smiled at the thin girl. “Thank you. It was a nice evening. Now I must rest, for I am tired, and my head throbs so when I try to think that it makes me dizzy! Be a dear and hasten me to my bed.”

Clad in a warm nightdress and ready for sleep, Meleena was just about to dismiss the girl from her bedchamber when a sudden gust of wind shook the house. The shutters rattled, timbers creaked, and the wind howled and groaned and shrieked in chimney, eaves, and cracks. Both women were frightened by the onslaught. Then the wind suddenly entered the chamber in full force, and all the candles in the room were instantly snuffed out.

“My lady?” The servant girl’s voice was small and thin, but its tone was nearly hysterical.

“I’m fine, girl,” Meleena managed to quaver from where she sat nervously on the edge of the bed. “Light a candle, quickly now.” The wind had let up somewhat, the sounds had lessened in intensity, and through the darkness she thought she heard a baby crying.

“The shutters blew open, ma’m. I’ll close and latch them first, for if I don’t the wind is likely to come again and put out whatever I light.”

“Well, hurry then,” Meleena said urgently. She was beginning to feel terrible now. The gladness and exhilaration that had filled her was being replaced by an awful feeling of foreboding and a malaise that sickened her to the core. “I must lie down quickly.”

The girl trod carefully around the room, the sound of her passage occasionally punctuated by the banging of shutters-and then, finally, the scratch of steel on flint. A tiny flame blossomed into warm light as it climbed eagerly down the wick to consume the tallow below.

“Look!” The servant’s tone was one of amazement, with a tinge of happiness.

Meleena turned toward the sound, and saw what had prompted it. There, a few feet away from her on the floor, in a tangled bundle of wrappings and a sigil-embroidered shawl, was a tiny baby. Its little arms were waving helplessly, and its legs were kicking as it let out a wail of distress. “This can’t be,” Meleena managed to say weakly. She had expected an infant to arrive, but not like this…

More than shock was affecting her now. Waves of sickness and excruciating pain were sweeping over her body. Nevertheless, she tried to reach the infant and see what was wrong. The instinctive desire was not strong enough, and blackness claimed her just after she got to her feet, before she could accomplish more than a single small step. She collapsed back across her bed.

The two black-clad watchers outside had heard a keening wind but noticed nothing else, for they were staying at a safe distance to avoid being detected. They were uneasy but remained still, eyes upon the house. Above the steeply angled rooftop of the building, however, another sentinel reacted quite differently. The slit pupils of the thing’s eyes widened as the roaring gust of air came sweeping toward it. Whatever the thing was, it gathered in upon itself, lambent eyes turning into mere slivers as the wind howled past and down. Then the thing expanded and followed. As the rush of wind shot off into the night, the fiery-eyed creature floated slowly down to where light glimmered from the cracks in the shutters covering a window.

“There, there, little one,” the servant girl crooned as she picked up and held the infant that had so suddenly appeared in her mistress’ bedchamber. “I am here to protect you. It’s all right now.”

A splintering crash brought another wail from the baby. The shutters of the high window broke inward as if struck by a giant hammer. The servant girl’s eyes grew round with terror, for in the gaping space where the shutters had been a moment before she saw a terrible visage, a thing barely discernible, with shadowy fangs and burning orbs that fixed her evilly. Without thinking, the thin girl dropped the infant on the bed so that it lay next to her unconscious mistress. Then the girl stood so that she was between the tiny baby and the awful thing at the window.

A fiendish laugh issued from the near-invisible monster that hovered there, a sound both mocking and anticipatory. It was followed by a hissing sound, a billowing, and then the thing was inside the chamber, slowly taking shape-bloated, reddish-black, ugly, with a mouth larger than the span of the thin girl’s shoulders. As the monstrosity formed, the girl shrank back but did not panic. Instead, she reached inside the neck of her smock and drew forth a silver object that hung from a leather thong. Without hesitation, she tugged, and a portion of the object came free. From the cylinder she had extracted, she shook out a spray of liquid. The stuff splattered over the creature with the huge mouth and the burning eyes, and wherever it touched the thing, flesh steamed and hissed and became insubstantial once again.

The thing voiced a nearly inaudible scream when the tiny shower hit it. Its evil eyes shut tight, and its great maw snapped open and shut convulsively as it shrieked its pain and agony. There was but a small amount of the liquid, though, just the single splattering. The monster recovered and reshaped itself once more. Now its eyes were more wicked than before, and it relished the way this confrontation would end.

Then, through the intervening space, the silver cylinder flew. The monster saw it and tried to avoid the missile. But, not fully corporeal yet, it was too slow. The silver tube struck the thing squarely in its leering face, and the malign visage contorted in agony at that blow. When it opened its eyes again, only the right one glowed with the evil fire of the nether planes; the left was a blank, black space.

The liquid and the cylinder were gone now. The thin girl stood unmoving. She had no more defenses against the creature. Strong, sinuous arms with taloned fingers reached out. Before she could move to avoid their grasp, or even utter a scream of fear, those fingers were upon her and tearing. A gout of red spurted forth, and the thin girl’s head sailed across the room while her lifeless body toppled to the floor in gory testimony to the rage of the. thing that she had dared to oppose. With fury and disdain, the creature picked up the body and flung it into a dark corner. Then, moving its talons greedily, the monstrous thing turned to where Meleena lay unconscious with the now-silent babe next to her. Despite the pain that continued to assail it, the creature gave voice to glee as its single remaining eye saw the pair. Its long arms stretched forth, ignoring the woman… intent on the child.

“Yeeeraagh!” The cry came from the thing, and it was very substantial this time, for the monster was fully formed now. The rusty-black body was being buffeted, the leathery folds of its gross, misshapen body were torn and rent, its bulk spun and wrenched by unknown forces it could not control or combat. The one-eyed thing tried to react, did its best to fight off the attack and reach the baby, for its ultimate duty was to rend the infant into shreds.

But a spinning circle of bodies kept the thing from its goal. Shapes that moved in blinding speed, forms that were blurred but held weapons that sliced and gashed the thing mercilessly, were always before it. It could not remain still, let alone advance upon its intended victim. The monstrous beast was spun and turned, driven backward, and all the while slashed and torn. In moments the battle, such as it was, was over. The nether-plane thing rotted and decomposed into a slime, which itself vaporized. One burning eyeball rolled, flickered, and went out. Where it had been there was a charred mark on the floor, nothing more.

The awful sounds of the struggle awakened many of the other residents of the area. But even before the first of the neighbors’ lamps were sputtering alight, the two dark-clad men were racing toward the house. They arrived at the door to Meleena’s dwelling, kicked it in, and entered with drawn swords.

“I don’t see no gods-blasted brat!”

“Ain’t even the bitch here,” his companion said, peering under the bed.

“Somebody was here, fer sure,” the other one remarked, noticing and pointing to a pool of blood on the floor.

“The window?”

“Only if they had wings, pal. No couple of wenches could get out that way with a squawling brat in tow.”

They looked blankly at each other. Then they heard sounds from below. “Looks like we’d better take off. We’re already In it deep… What in the hells are we going to report about this?”

“Bugger it! Let’s get moving. It ain’t our fault if the misbegotten daemon they sent screwed things up… or didn’t. All we were supposed to do is watch the entrance and kill ’em if they tried to get out that way.”

Still bantering back and forth, the two men slid over the window sill and away into the darkness. The climb down was easy for them, and the two were already away when the first head poked into the room to discover what the matter was all about. Save for the gory mark and the mutilated body of the girl that was discovered in a dark corner, the mystery had no clues, and those who were interested could only speculate about what had occurred.