THE STORYTELLER OF KOSS

But try I would.

And for most of that evening I succeeded. These hardy men were simple folk who loved to be enthralled by tales of heroism, of monsters and devils overthrown and of the bold made rich, as this was how they saw themselves when they sailed to sea, though I doubt if any have ever fought a battle in their lives and carry nothing more dangerous than a descaling knife.

At last I came to my final tale, the Saga of Orram the Navigator and the Pirates of Ishbar, and I was ready to slake my thirst with the local wine.

Which was when I was told of the necromancer’s villa.

As I drank my wine I was taken aside by a wrinkled old fisherman whose days at sea must have ended more than a decade ago. Rumour had it, this ancient whispered in my ear, the necromancer Baal worked his blasphemous rites in a tumbledown mansion outside the city walls.

‘Strange sounds came from it the night before the tyrant returned to life, though we didn’t know then who the fiend was, just a masked warrior with money to hire mercenaries.’

‘We found out soon enough,’ I murmured, my voice lowered from habit. While Rianda ruled after he and his mercenaries sacked city after city and established a new empire of fear, it had been unwise to speak openly. There was always someone within earshot who would pass on what you said for a handful of coins.

The old man nodded eagerly. ‘Aye, we found out soon enough all right.’ He spat on the floor.

Spitting at the mention of Rianda or his chief henchmen had grown into a ritual, a satisfying act of defiance now that it was safe to do so.

But I was curious.

‘Where is this villa?’ I tried to appear as disinterested as I could, which was not much.

The old man flashed me a curious glance.

‘Are those coins weighing heavy in your purse?’ he asked with a cunning grin.

The money I had been given for my storytelling today had indeed been generous. Folk always were when tales of wonder lifted them from their mundane lives, if only for the brief spell in which I spoke.

‘Maybe,’ I said, my own smile probably as cunning as his.

I did not, of course, seek out that ill-famed mansion at once. It was still daylight and I needed food and still more goblets of local wine, plus the darkness of night before I would dare to venture to that house with a lamp to guide me down the narrow paths that twisted between hillocks of sand and gorse. The necromancer had chosen it because it was hidden within a garden choked by poisonous weeds, as if its dereliction were not enough to protect it from snooping eyes.

Besides my lamp only a gibbous moon provided scraps of light, and the dark, necrotic shadows within the evil undergrowth were fathomless in their Stygian depths.

Like a grim sentinel a vulture was perched in a gnarled tree beside the villa, silhouetted against the moon as I stood before the rusted gates. They had been abandoned half open. Beyond stretched an iridescent path of marble flagstones. Hidden within the foliage statues stood streaked with old mosses and leprous moulds as if they had succumbed to a deadly disease.

Strange odours seeped around me as I hurried down that broad path, wishing I had company. But I was too eager to salvage what I could from that house. Who knew what eldritch treasures I might find? There was a ready market for artefacts connected to the tyrant Rianda, hated though his memory was. Notoriety was always marketable to the right collectors.

The iron-clad door into the house stood open and I raised my lamp to let its light reveal what lay within.

There, on mosaic tiles inside the hallway lay what I had hoped against hope to find, the discarded sarcophagus within which Rianda was buried a millennium ago before Baal raised him from the dead.

And what a find that was; ornate images artfully carved into the ancient wood depicted the events of his violent life. The same weight in gold would not have been worth half as much to the men who would buy this from me. Spread around the deserted hallway were the necromancer’s artefacts, with which he had practiced the rites that brought Rianda’s corpse back to life. Scrolls lay scattered about the floor, some gnawed by rats and rent apart. The ill-fated sorcerer had never been allowed to salvage his tomes or any of his equipment when the tyrant breathed once more. Instead, he had been dragged in chains to a dungeon cell where he was intended to be imprisoned for the remainder of his days. Such was the gratitude Rianda showed for the man who had given him a new lease of life!

Though I searched the rest of the villa there was little else of value. But I was satisfied, nevertheless.

With that I returned to the Golden Falcon, planning what I would do the next day when I returned to the villa and took everything that was saleable and set off home to Koss.

But that night as I lay on a cramped cot with the rest of the tavern’s guests in its loft, I had disturbing dreams. Besides the snores of my drunken companions, I dreamt of other, more disturbing sounds, while the straw-filled mattress on which I lay seemed unusually lumpy.

The next day, poorly rested, I breakfasted on smoked fish, bread, and a tankard of ale, before carrying out my plans. By mid-afternoon I had hidden my loot beneath sheets of canvas on the back of a cart and was heading down the dusty road for Koss. It was a hot day and flies buzzed around my mule, adding to its truculence. As a result, I was continually forced to use a whip to urge it along and what progress we made was woefully slow. By sundown we were hours away from the next town, stuck in the middle of enormous fields with nary a house nor hut nor any other habitation in sight. Unwilling to drive the rickety cart after dusk, when potholes in the poorly maintained road would be hidden from sight, I had no choice but to set up camp with only the stars above my head.

I lit a fire to scare away any predators that might be tempted to attack my mule, then prepared a meal before lying down beneath my cloak.

Again, noises disturbed my sleep. Furtive, intrusive, it was as if something were deliberately intent on keeping me awake, though when I opened my eyes to peer through the moonlit gloom there was nothing to see.

The next morning, I felt even more exhausted than before and was determined to make sure I spent tonight somewhere I could sleep soundly. Though what could have been better than the Golden Falcon? The mystery of that night’s broken sleep eluded me, though I tried not to think about what might have caused it, determined to get my relics to Koss, however cursed the things might be!

To my alarm my mule looked even weaker today. When I checked to see what ailed it I discovered tiny cuts around its throat as if a parasite, perhaps a vampire bat, had fed off its blood. Whatever the reason, the result was even slower progress and I was continually worried that my wretched mule would collapse and die if I pushed it too hard.

Fortunately, we reached the next town before dusk. Though the sun was low the gates were still open, and it was not long before I found lodgings for the night and stabling for my mule. But again, even though I lay in a comfortable cot, surrounded by other guests at the inn, who appeared to sleep soundly, I had another disturbed night. What it was that woke me I had no idea. Always, somewhere out of sight, it was as if something crept or scratched or made some sort of furtive noise, a quiet cough that somehow didn’t sound like a man’s, or a sly whisper close to my ear, though no one was there when I opened my eyes.

So it was I awoke the next morning more dead than alive. With wearisome movements I broke my fast then retrieved my mule and cart from the stables. Thankfully, there were many travellers on the road today, as the next town was the fortress city of Assabarr whose market was famous for the variety and quality of its goods. A great many merchants were heading there, including slavers, some of whom I passed along the road, with their melancholy goods shuffling under heavy chains with iron collars locked around their necks.

Wondering whether to purchase one to tend my mule while I slept in the back of the cart, I stopped one of the slavers to enquire about his goods. He was a shrewd little man with calculating eyes and an epicure’s mouth, which I always see as a sign of greed, but he seemed honest enough for a man of his trade. In the end I bought a young boy whose timidity satisfied me he would not try to run away the moment I slept.

So it was that I lay in the back of the cart the rest of the day, cushioned as well as I could manage on the wooden boards that had once been the sarcophagus of the dread Rianda. It was a bizarre rest though—if such I could call it, for I was continually woken yet again. It was that whispering. As soon as I began to sleep it started, as if something were hiding near my head. And once, I swear, I heard it laugh right next to my cheek. I convulsed with terror, clamping a hand to my face as if something had touched it—but there was nothing there. Above me the sun shone in an azure sky as clear as any I had ever seen, though grim-faced vultures were circling overhead.

I reached for my wine flask and gulped down most of its contents, then checked on my slave, who I was relieved to see was walking beside the mule, chattering to it as if they were friends.

‘Faster,’ I called, anxious to reach our destination before dark so I could sleep as far from the cart and its dreadful contents as I could, though I knew that would not guarantee a peaceful night.

Nor did it.

The Raven Inn in Assabarr is as fine a hostelry as you could find this side of the Eastern Sea, with clean rooms, soft beds with duck down mattresses and warm woollen blankets, good food and even better wine, yet all that night I struggled to sleep.

Though there was no repetition of the laughter, the whisperings and occasional cough started as soon as I shut my eyes. Though it may have been a mouse or even a rat, there were scratchings too, but unlike real vermin it stopped as soon as I opened my eyes. It was taunting me, whatever it was. Or that’s how it seemed to me as the night trudged by.

It was a relief when daylight shone through the loft windows and I crawled out of my cot, dressed and made my way down to the ground floor, barely hungry enough to eat. I had only just started, in fact, when the owner of the stables where I left my mule, cart and slave burst in.

He was so agitated by whatever he had to say that his words were unintelligible till I pressed a beaker of wine into his hands, and gave him space and time to settle down.

After several gulps, he grasped my arm to tell me something terrible had happened. The City Guard had already been called. My slave was dead. He had been drained of blood.

I felt my own blood drain from my face as I followed him to the stables, where a sizeable crowd had already gathered.

I was shocked when I saw the boy. Bite marks were scattered about his neck. His flesh was so white he could have been carved from alabaster.

‘Some creature must’ve crept into the stables during the night,’ was the verdict of the captain of the City Guard when he examined the boy.

I nodded my agreement, though I had my doubts.

After arranging for the boy to be taken to the temple mortuary for whatever rites were appropriate in this city, I headed for the Street of the Apothecaries, knowing I would find the man I needed there. Sorcerers are always held under suspicion, which is why so many hide behind the guise of being venders of salves, medicinal elixirs and other innocuous potions instead. The man I sought, Ossani the Healer, was one such sorcerer, who I knew by repute to be more reliable than most.

His shop was disarmingly shabby, filled with a myriad of mismatched bottles of every colour known to the glassblowers’ guild, most of them covered in dust. He did little trade there. Instead, when I told him my reason for seeing him, he led me past a densely woven curtain up a series of stairs to his inner sanctum. There, in a brightly lit room with an astrolabe, shelves of ancient books and jars containing many mysterious and peculiar creatures embalmed in liquors, he bade me sit after courteously removing an enormous tome from the only other chair in the room besides his own.

A tall, cadaverous man, Ossani wore pebble-like lenses over his eyes, mounted on a complex construction of wires and leather strapped around the dome of his shaven head. He peered at me through them as he asked what I brought from Arana, tutting at my answers.

When I had finished he said we would need the help of the City Guard.

‘Unless you wish to share the fate as befell your slave we must act before nightfall. You have been extravagantly lucky so far. But it will not last.’

We returned to the stables, where Ossani approached the Guards captain. He and his men were already there when we arrived, having been sent a message by the old sorcerer before we set out.

Quietly, Ossani spoke with him. When he had finished the captain, his face even sterner than before, ordered his men to tether the mule to my cart, then led us to the city gate.

We travelled away from the city till we eventually reached a wide patch of sandy soil, where Ossani called a halt. He paced around the barren ground, tracing a circular design with a stick whilst muttering a spell to himself. When he finished, he asked the captain to order his men to unload the cart and pile everything inside the circle. Though too well trained to disobey their captain, I could see the guardsmen handled the carven boards of the sarcophagus with care as if there was something about them which made even these stout bravos nervous.

When they had finished Ossani ordered his men to break up the cart as well and heap its wood on top. After this, the old sorcerer poured a vile-smelling liquid from a large bottle onto the wood. Stepping back, he set fire to a rag of cloth. No sooner had he thrown this onto the wood than the liquid he had splashed onto it ignited with a ferocious roar.

Perhaps because it was made of such ancient wood the sarcophagus burned even more fiercely than the rest, glowing crimson, then violet as flames raged all around it.

That was when I saw them: small like monkeys but skeletally thin, and covered in patches of coarse black hair, with enormous eyes and cavernous mouths filled with jagged, evil-looking teeth. As the flames licked around them they howled and screamed and leaped about as if they were trying to escape, but they could not pass the circle Ossani had marked in the sand.

‘Rianda was protected in death by earthbound demons. Even when he left the sarcophagus, their blind obedience to the spells to protect it still held fast.’ Ossani shook his head. ‘You tamper with things like this at your peril.’

One by one the creatures collapsed into the fire and were soon reduced to nothing more than blackened ashes.

Though I had lost all the money I had spent on these relics, that night I slept the deepest sleep I had enjoyed for months. Which, my friends, is worth all the fortunes in the world.
 
And with that Nadrain the storyteller rose from his stool and collected the coins tossed onto the rug before him.