The Hag's Contract

Four

Parniel Bowspear felt like smashing something.

As he stomped from Castle Graben and descended the long road toward the docks, a rage like none he’d ever felt before washed over him. He could have wrung that wizard’s neck—and Harlmut’s, too, while he was at it.

Candabraxis and Harlmut had taken one look at each other and gotten as cozy as old friends. Now the two of them would be drinking and joking together, laughing at what a fool they’d made of him. He scowled.

How easily he’d been charmed, he thought. He’d have to make sure it didn’t happen again. Surely someone in Grabentod could provide him with a protective amulet or talisman of some sort….

Taking a series of deep breaths, he forced the white-hot rage to cool. The wizard’s presence changed nothing. Wizard or no wizard, Grabentod would be his. It just might take a little longer.

He felt light fingers on his belt and whirled, one hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. The thieves guild might be small in Grabentod, but it existed, and he knew the touch of a cutpurse when he felt it.

He found a dirty-faced boy of perhaps eight or ten standing there and looking solemnly up at him. Some street urchin, he thought. He felt no pity or sympathy; life was hard, and it was about to get harder for this little would-be thief. Hard faced, he drew his short sword. He’d give the boy a scare he wouldn’t soon forget.

Then he realized the boy wasn’t holding anything. Bowspear felt his purse and found it right where it belonged. And something extra seemed to be inside it.

“From Haltengabben.” The boy grinned suddenly, then turned and dashed up a narrow alley-way.

Haltengabben. It translated roughly as “Stand and Deliver” … the name used by the woman who ran the Temple of Ela and, through it, the thieves guild. Over the last month, he had met with her half a dozen times. She had wanted assurances that, should his fortunes change suddenly for the better, her place in Grabentod would remain secure. Of course it would, he’d said with a cool smile. He’d never had much sympathy for the thieves guild—after all, he did the same work, but openly and respectably—but he recognized the importance of its support. He would need the guild’s favor to keep the crown.

Bowspear glanced around. A few old women talking on the corner had turned to stare at him, so he resheathed his sword and resumed his walk. Idly, as if reaching for a sweet, he removed the small pebble the boy had placed in his pouch.

White. That meant she wanted to meet with him again. What could she want now? They’d settled everything last week, or so he’d thought.

After a moment’s hesitation, he turned right and headed for the Temple of Ela, on the far side of Alber. Haltengabben hid her illegal activities behind the temple’s facade of respectability. It was an open secret, of course, but she kept up pretenses, nonetheless.

He crossed into the old section of the city. Here the stone houses stood shoulder to shoulder, leaning far over the crazy, unplanned hodgepodge of blind alleys and switchback streets. As always, Old Town bustled with life. Dogs barked and chickens scratched in the street; women headed to the market or swept the cobblestones clean in front of their houses; a few old sailors sat on stools in the shade, sipping ale and trading lies; a ragtag mob of children ran past, screaming and laughing, caught up in some game.

A couple of the old sailors stopped their yams to call greetings to Bowspear. His presence seemed to be causing something of a stir, he reflected. With forced cheerfulness, he waved to the sailors. Few enough high-placed people came to Old Town, and then usually in secrecy and darkness, to visit the Night Walkers.

Now, as more and more faces peered at him from curtained windows, as people on the street turned to stare, he quickened his step. He’d been here too often, he thought, and they had no doubt spent many long hours speculating on his visits to see Haltengabben.

At last he reached the imposing Temple of Ela, a huge stone building set well back from the street. It took up half of a block all by itself, with tall narrow windows set high up on its walls and equally impressive oak double doors. Allowing himself not a second’s hesitation, Bowspear strode up the broad steps and into the entry hall.

Two smoking braziers stood to either side of the doorway, and incense spiced the air. Somewhere ahead, deeper in the temple, he heard the ching-ching-ching of small cymbals and the frantic strumming of an eight-stringed lute. He paused a second, listening and peering around in the dimness. Someone had met him here every other time he’d come, but today he found himself alone.

He moved forward slowly, rounding the large marble statue of a beautiful woman—the goddess Ela—with her arms outstretched as if in supplication. She was the patron goddess of thieves and prostitutes and those who worked the darker professions; like his men, Bowspear preferred Sera, the goddess of the sea.

The music grew louder as he stepped through the doorway to the temple’s main hall. Bowspear drew up short, staring.

Half a dozen men and women dressed in loose black clothing danced with wild abandon around the altar stone. He felt the hair on the back of his neck beginning to prickle in fear. The dancers’ arms rose and fell as they gyrated; their heads whipped around; their hair lashed. Still the cymbals ching-chinged and the lute played, the melody pulsing like a heartbeat.

On the altar, movement caught his eye. A huge serpent lounged there. It had to be forty feet long. Languidly it raised its head, tasting the air with its forked tongue, and when it turned toward him, its eyes began to glow with ruby light.

Bowspear found himself transfixed by its gaze. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He heard blood thundering in his ears. Then slowly, like a flower unfurling its petals one by one, a coldness began to bloom in his chest.

He found himself floating away from his body, and his consciousness took in the whole of the room. He noticed, in every corner, huge brass braziers filled with burning coal. From them rose a dense black smoke that writhed in time to the movements of the dancers. It seemed to him, then, that the snake and the smoke and the dancers were all a single part of some larger being.

Abruptly the snake lowered its head and hissed at him, and suddenly he found he could move again. He stumbled backward, making a quick sign to avert evil, then turned and fled.

What in Sera’s name had he seen inside? Some dark, unholy magic, an inner voice said. Something he didn’t want to see again.

Reaching the street, he ran. From somewhere behind him he heard a wild cackle of laughter, but he couldn’t tell whether it came from Haltengabben, one of her subjects, or something not quite of this world.

Haltengabben finished the Harvest Ritual, then passed around a bowl of ceremonial white wine. The dancers, drenched with sweat, panting for breath, paused to sip long and hard.

“Dismissed,” she said, waving them away.

Rising, they trotted into the back of the temple. They would bathe, change into fresh clothing, and retire until the early evening. Then their work would begin. Bowspear had brought in a new shipload of loot, and she would take the temple’s share that very night, under the cover of darkness.

She sighed as she thought of the ruined ceremony. Bowspear’s gesture of aversion—done so quickly and thoughtlessly—had set the spells off track. Nevertheless, she placed no blame on him.

The real fault had been hers: she never should have sent for him until after the Harvest Ritual had reached its conclusion. She hadn’t expected him back from his meeting with Harlmut so soon.

Rising, she trailed the serpent into the back part of the temple. She found the creature coiled in her office, before her desk. It held its head level with her own. Its ruby eyes glinted as it stared at her, and slowly it began to sway back and forth, making a low crooning sound deep in its throat.

“None of those tricks,” she said sharply. “Ela protects me from such charms.”

The serpent hissed sharply: a laugh. Then, with the Hag’s voice, it said, “So true, my pretty. At least so far.”

“What do you want?” She moved a pile of scrolls from her chair onto her equally cluttered desk. The serpent had appeared in the middle of the Harvest Ritual, but had made no interruptions until it finished.

“A ship has come, and on that ship there rode a man in green. I want him dead.”

Haltengabben blinked once. Other than that, she showed no sign of surprise. The Hag had hired her people several times over the years to provide various and usually highly secretive services. Never, though, had the Hag asked her to kill.

“It will cost a lot,” she said. “Assassins are few and expensive in Grabentod. I assume you want the best.”

The serpent hissed, eyes glowing, and drew back its head as if to strike. A negotiating plot, of course, Haltengabben thought.

She didn’t have time for such games today. Stepping forward, she slid a long curved blade from inside her sleeve, then pricked the serpent under its chin. A single drop of oily black blood appeared.

The serpent hissed, but faintly this time, and slowly those glowing red eyes turned dark again.

“No tricks, Hag,” she said. Haltengabben hid her distaste behind a smile. “If you don’t like the price, you can find someone else. We have no need of your patronage here.”

“Sssssso,” it hissed. “A pound of gold for his death, Haltengabben. No more.”

“Agreed.” She returned the blade to its arm-sheath, crossed to her desk, and sat.

The serpent had already begun to fade. The Hag’s sendings were getting stronger, she thought uneasily. Whatever powers the abomination controlled, she certainly used them to good effect.

Haltengabben chewed her lip thoughtfully. This stranger … she’d heard something of him already from her spies on the docks. What had they said? A man in his early thirties, wearing green robes, with a long black beard … a man who made friends quickly with Bowspear. An ally in his grab for the throne? Perhaps … or perhaps something else. Might he somehow pose a threat to the Hag?

She considered that possibility for a moment. The Hag controlled a barren, unpopulated area of the Drachenaur Mountains to the east. That land offered little of importance, and it had no great natural resources to speak of. Only the Hag and her minions … and the Hag’s reputed treasure.

In the decades since the Hag had assumed her powers, quite a few adventurers had set out to rid Cerilia of her. Few of them had come back. The Hag, rumor said, had accumulated vast stores of weapons, armor, and gold taken from these foolhardy adventurers.

Now, what would Bowspear need to help him seize Grabentod for his own? Nothing but weapons, armor, and gold, she thought smugly. How simply everything fell into place. This stranger must be a warrior of great prowess … or a wizard.

Picking up the small golden dagger she used as a letter opener, Haltengabben considered her options. She could have the stranger killed now, possibly angering Bowspear and pleasing the Hag, or she could wait a little longer and see what developed. If the man in green killed the Hag, that treasure would make a tidy prize. She could kill the stranger afterward, fulfilling the word (if not the intent) of her contract with the Hag, and collect his share, too.

Her decision made, she slammed the dagger point first into the much-nicked desktop. It stood there, quivering faintly, and Haltengabben began to smile. Yes, she’d figured it out now.