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By Ste Whitehouse
'THE HURT GOD?’ Alanna said incredulously. I didn’t blame her. The Hurt God was one of those ancient myths that were around when the first fucking gods appeared. ‘The Scape-god?’ she added for good measure.
‘Well. That’s another name for them, yes.’ A damn silly name in my opinion.
‘And Ms Thyannẹ...’
‘Cold Ethal.’
‘…Cold Ethal told you that this mythical creature was responsible for my father’s death?’
‘Cold Ethal runs ALL the Family business in Pharshan. There was a time when you couldn’t pick a pocket without her say-so.’
Alanna struggled to equate the tall elven woman we had met yesterday[1] with the tales that surrounded Cold Ethal. A ruthless Matriarch who had worked her way up, and through, most of Pharshan’s lowlifes. One body at a time. She was renowned for epic gestures of violence. All admittedly in the distant past.
As Pharshan’s only private investigators both Alanna and I are used to some strange occurrences. Working for a woman on the ‘Very Extremely Wanted’ list of all the major police stations across the plains was perhaps the strangest. Oh, and I’m a Broken, meaning I can never use magick. A bummer in a world full of it and a city positively revelling in it.
‘But the evidence we gathered. It points to them.’ Alanna was focused on what I had been told the night before.
‘The money trail does but the motive was always off. Any Venn diagram including Pharshan’s wealthiest criminals and your father shows zero interconnection.’
‘So? We look deeper. You cannot just drag the bogeygod out of your hat just because there is no strong evidence for actual criminal involvement.’
‘One.’ I held up a finger. ‘We have dug so deep that all we’re turning up now is dwarf shit. Two.’ A second finger. ‘Do you know the reason this “myth” is called the scapegod?’
‘Yes. When the first gods became addicted to worship from the six sentients they quickly realised that no mortal sentient wished to revere a god associated with anything negative. Even the Trickster gods were full of charm and elan to draw people to them. The gods easily slipped into roles unconsciously desired by all sentients. Gods of war and love, weather and wine; but no one wanted all the other facets of mortals. There were no gods of hate or despair or racism. No gods devoted to murder and spouse-beatings. None to rape and anger. Nothing negative. But sentients were full of this, so the gods, in their wisdom, created the Scapegod, a Hurt god. A god to draw the nastiness inherent in sentients away from the pristine heavens and hels that the gods wished to create. Then the six sentient races rose up.’
‘And here we are,’ I added. ‘Just over two thousand years later in a world where the gods have been banished, the fae reduced to mere phantasmagorical whisps of ǽther and ents no longer exist. The thing is, this hurt god, if he exists, would want to stir up things. Create confusion and chaos. Which is exactly what the witch who caused the suicide of your father and the company using cursed objects to assassinate sentients did. Then there was that serial killer case at the beginning of the year. He swore he had “heard” a god tell him to kill. All to bring about chaos and confusion.’
Alanna still looked doubtful.
‘Look over the parchments Cold Ethal gave us. You’ll see the money trail clear as day. You’ll also see the effect all these murders have had on The Families’ coin. They’ve lost coin by the handful. Gold coin at that.’
‘Fine. I will look over the figures while you meet your handsome Captain.’
‘Do you want me to look? Originality is a fresh pair of eyes,’ I said.
Osary stretched. ‘Could not hurt. And you have a connection to the case anyway.’
‘I do?’
‘The two dwarfs you apprehended. With the odd facial tattoo. The flea market a couple of months ago and the one yesterday.’
‘Underhill-iron-of-ancient-places-clan-of-the-houses.’
‘That’s the one. Remember I told you we’d had other crimes committed by dwarves? Well, slowly we have found a network of them. All with the same facial tattoo.’
‘Dwarfs working together? Whatever next? Orcs having a bit of a skirmish?’
He gave me a clear eye roll. ‘The thing is this Underhill-iron-of-ancient-places-clan-of-the-houses is not a clan anyone has heard of.’
‘Obviously not,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen the tatt. Rough as bark. I suspect that clan-of-the-houses means the city and no dwarven hive would consider settling in a city.’
‘Added to which. The five dwarfs we have managed to place in custody, with your help, are certainly not from the same hive. One is a hill dwarf. Three from the high southern mountains of ice and one a sea gnome.’
Sea gnomes were basically a dwarven hive who went to sea and alleviated other sentients of their possessions. Pirates by any other name. They just dressed better and sported a tan. They also sailed on smaller ships which made their life expectancy longer than most other pirates. Harder to hit, see.
‘Which says that there is someone here in Pharshan setting up a wild hive of assorted dwarves drawn here by tales of streets of gold.’
Osary shrugged. ‘To be fair, after the pubs close the gutters definitely run gold.’
Hey! That was one of my jokes.
Osary cast an arm theatrically across the paperwork. ‘The thefts take place across different areas. They target a wide variety of sentients. There is no pattern to be seen.’
He does like his patterns.
‘There can’t be many places underground to build a hive, surely?’ I said before thinking. He gave me a pitying look. He was right of course. Pharshan was built on dozens of ancient coal and iron mines. There was a massive volcano just a few miles away, fed by vents and magma chambers that spread far and wide. The remaining iron disrupted any use of ǽther to probe deeper, but it was well known that there were layers of limestone deep within the ground. Limestone and running water make cave systems that can run for miles. Add to that the ancient sewer system built when the city was first stumbling into life. A system said to be so complex that it was bigger than the city itself—hence the term ‘The Mirror City’—and Pharshan could probably hold four or five dwarven hives without anyone noticing.
‘Okay. My bad. But when you break it down it’s still correct. The mirror city is well used by smugglers, stragglers and constabulary patrols. We know most of the old mining systems because of the pull of ǽther.’
Osary spoke. ‘That still leaves plenty of places. And the Hive may not even be in the city. Dwarfs are notoriously urban averse when it comes to Hive building.’
‘And how would they smuggle a queen in?’ I said out loud. The dwarven MotherQueen could birth a hundred or more drones a year. The term dwarf could never apply to her. ‘So. What do you know?’
Osary showed me the report. Neatly scribed clay, dry and unyielding. It’s always a bad sign when all your intel can be found on one side of a clay tablet. It didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already known.
‘There is the tatt,’ I said.
‘It must be home inked. None of the tattooists we have spoken to know anything about it.’
‘And sentients always tell the truth,’ I replied flatly. He was correct, though. Tattooists were part of the magick triangle. If not for their skills, most sentients would end up emolliating themselves instead of the kindling. They had been registered, recorded, taxed, assessed, drafted, stratified, noted, certificated and educated to the hilt. There was not another profession more highly observed apart from sorcerers themselves.
The answer was simple. ‘You’re looking for an unregistered tattooist.’
Osary scoffed. ‘Unregistered? There is no such thing.’
My silence, with added smirk, said otherwise.
‘You have to be kidding me?’ Osary looked shocked.
He had reason to be sceptical. A slight variation in a line and you go from sweet colourful fireworks to napalm. That’s why there’s a size limit to tatts. Too small and if you even breathe in at the wrong moment you could alter the spell. Did I mention how heavily registered tattooist’s were?
‘They don’t ink runes. At least not working ones. There’s a whole load of kids who want to be seen to be cool. So, they have a dozen or more tattoos.’ I raised my hand even as he was about to speak. ‘Yes. I know that once their skin is inked their chances of becoming highly skilled practitioners in the magickal arts drops. But, as I said. Teenagers, and these are never the sharpest tools in the mineshaft to begin with.’
‘And of course you know where these illegal tattooists are.’
I smiled broadly. ‘Of course.’
An hour later we were visiting the third on my mental list. The good Captain was becoming slightly frustrated. I tried to cheer him up.
‘Karol may be the one. They’re fairly new. Unskilled.’
Osary just grunted. The rain probably didn’t help.
‘This is it.’
I indicated a small bakery that had seen better days. Paint peeling. The odd scurry of rats and mice. Never a good sign in food establishments if I’m honest. Unless you actively wish for a ratburger.
‘Right.’ He looked like he had decided something. ‘You stay here. I’m tired of all this bonhomie. I want answers. Not intel on aunts and cousins.’
I sighed silently. Osary had so much to learn about the back streets. Remembering family and who was related to whom was half the code. Half the lock into getting people to open up. Still, it was his investigation and who am I to interfere?
He stormed into the shop. From somewhere a chicken fluttered out of the half-shuttered window. There were raised voices. Then silence. The good Captain appeared, pulling a reluctant ork out of the shop.
‘He was the only one in there,’ he called across to me. ‘When I asked about tattoos he just clammed up. Carol isn’t there. I checked the back room. Everything’s set up to run an illegal tattooist. Just no one there.’ He shook the ork. ‘So? Where is she?’
The ork looked at the ground gloomily. Trying, and failing, to look innocent.
‘Hi, Karol,’ I said breezily. ‘How things?’ Osary looked at the ork puzzled. I could see his mind trying to figure out why a male ork was called Carol.
‘Not good at th’ moment. T’be honest.’ He darted a glance at Osary.
‘We just want to ask a few questions. I promise the constabulary won’t come down heavy.’
‘Really?’ they both asked with surprise.
I smiled at the Captain. ‘Look. You want the thieving bastards making your crime rate take an upward trend. Not some poor ork doing a harmless trade in tatts.’
He was about to say ‘harmless?’ when discretion got the better of him. No one was going to end up dead or penniless because they’d had a tattoo inked illegally. The Tattooist Guild was the wealthiest on the continent. It frowned upon illegal tattoos but frankly had much bigger fish to keep happy. Its clientele, for one thing. The overlap between stupid teenage show-offs and serious magicians was around the zero level. No harm. No foul.
‘And this is Karol with a K. Orkian writing.’ I turned to Karol. ‘We’re looking for a group of dwarves. Not your typical hive clan. Mixed. Some with sticky fingers. They’ve set up a clan here in Pharshan and we need to find it. Underhill-iron-of-ancient-places-clan-of-the-houses. Their tatt looks like this.’
I scribbled in the dirt the start of the dwarven runes. Ħ ƃǮ ϼ ѪԆ ⸖Ꝟ Ꝡꝣ ꟿﬗ. Karol looked anywhere but the ground. He also looked flustered and leery.
‘Karol,’ I asked pleasantly. ‘This is me asking. In ten seconds I will leave you with this very handsome detective sheriff inspectorate. What happens between you and the DSI stays between you and the DSI. Understand?’
The ork nodded. A lot. I indicated that he could speak, and the words flowed from him like shit ten hours after eating a bad omelette.
‘The first dozen came at the beginning of the year. Last week of First Moon. Said they wanted a facial tatt to signify brotherhood. Showed me what to ink. Since then I’ve ‘ad seven or eight a moon turn up. Always the same markings. Gotten better at it,’ he added with pride.
‘Any idea which way they came from?’ Osary asked.
‘Oh. That’s easy. From over Seven Temples Row. Across from the square round-a-bout.’
I looked around. Seven Temples was half a mile east. ‘That’s awfully specific, Karol,’ I said.
‘That’s cuz I see a couple of them come out of the old Tharaity Tenement occasionally when passin’. They wave and smile. Figger that’s where they’re staying.’
I looked at Osary who nodded. ‘The old Tharaity building is empty now. Not even a squat. There was an argument one night between a dozen squatters and someone with a variety of issues. The squatters used their fists. He used a machete. They say it is haunted now.’
Hence no squatters.
‘Aye. It is. I’ve seen ’em. Sprites, more than fae, less than people,’ Karol said solemnly. ‘A dire sight.’
I tossed a bronze coin into his palm. ‘Thanks, Karol. Consider this a token of the constabularies’ appreciation. And I’d move to your third location sharpish.’
He nodded and hurried away.
‘Are you aiding and abetting in the escape of a felon?’ Osary asked.
‘Of course not,’ I exclaimed. ‘I was just suggesting he take a holiday break. Go visit family. That sort of thing.’ Adding, ‘And I thank you for not arresting him.’
We started to walk towards the square round-a-bout.
‘Handsome eh?’ Osary said suddenly.
‘Eh?’
‘You think I’m handsome?’
‘I was just trying to butter him up. Orks love a pretty human and if he thought you were in some way attractive, he might give up the info,’ I lied.
Osary gave me the sort of look that said he did not believe me. Frankly. I didn’t believe me.
We strolled. We promenaded. We talked. We passed the derelict shell of the Tharaity tenements. A number of times.
‘Do we go in?’ I asked.
‘If your ork is to be believed there are around at least sixty to seventy dwarfs in there. I think we may need some assistance.’
‘We?’
He bowed formally. ‘I cordially invite you to the opening of Pharshan’s first dwarven hive later today.’
‘You do know how to spoil a boy,’ I said with a smile.
While Osary returned to the central constabulary station I hurried back to my office and prepared myself. Later that afternoon we met on the same corner. The empty tenement looked even more derelict. Moss and grass grew everywhere, giving it a forlorn appearance. Osary was already there with a team of constabularies. A dozen sentients milled around slightly aimlessly. They looked awfully green, even the non-orks. He noticed the concern on my face and spoke.
‘Don’t worry. These are just for backup.’
‘For the two of us?’
‘No.’
He looked a little embarrassed.
‘No. Don’t tell me you’ve brought S.W.A.T. along?’
‘Fine. I will NOT tell you that I have engaged Sorcerous Wands and Tactical.’
Just then Condo strolled, well, swaggered, around the far corner with Alley and Peak following. There was movement on the roof of an adjoining building and I looked up to see Lucozade standing as if posing for a sketch. From somewhere a wind swept his mangy hair wonderfully. I half expected to see a fan brought in especially for the effect.
‘Osary,’ I began to protest.
He cut me off. ‘Look. Every other constabulary is busy. I was lucky to round up these deputies; and S.W.A.T. were free.’
‘That’s because no one wants to use these guys. When all you have is a very large hammer, everything looks like a very small nail.’
The Captain just shrugged. ‘We have a possible eighty plus dwarfs down there. Do you really think that they are all going to come peacefully?’
He had a point. In the history of dwarven fighting, few had ever captured a hive. At least not without a 70% death rate and the obliteration of the defending dwarves. Attrition amongst dwarf on dwarf was closer to 90%. I looked at the deputies. All fresh out of the academy. Their lives before them. Their dreams still bright and not laced with horror and despair. It was a tough choice. Lead them to their deaths or expose them to the horrors that were S.W.A.T. Decisions, decisions.
Condo and the rest made their way to the opposite roof. Each had a bloodwood wand, dotted with etched crystals, each of which cast a different spell. There was, admittedly, a skill to using wands. Bloodwood has an iron-based sap, hence its name, after the red sap, but was generally inert unless acted upon by ǽther and blood. Similarly, the jewels would each be etched in runes. A good sorcerer could mix and match each jewel, creating unique forms. Any fool could use a simple one, barring we Broken obviously, but mastering the complex wands that S.W.A.T. used took years. S.W.A.T. was a team effort, as each member brought a different set of spells to the fight.
Condo flicked the wand. Not a necessary move but it looked cool. A shimmer of ǽther congealed in the air between the two buildings. Nonchalantly he leapt across the vast divide, landing squarely on the floating slab of ǽther, and propelling himself across to the roof of the building which housed the dwarfs. Alley followed with a somersault flourish. Peak and Lucozade followed her.
They began to make their way downwards to the ground level. We could hear shouts of clear, every so often. It was all so theatrical and wonderfully performed, but everyone knew that you’d never find a dwarf on the floor of any building with a window if he could help it. The hive was below ground.
Finally, the S.W.A.T. team exited and gave the thumbs up. The empty building was in fact empty. I followed the constabulary across. Osary and I had spotted a small heap of rubbish on our first visit that morning. A cursory look had shown a small gap behind an old wicker fence. We stood around watching the hole as though it would morph into an elaborate entrance. It didn’t.
‘We go first,’ Condo said briskly, the high pitch of his voice ruining the affect. That and the imperceptible lisp. A stray colon and ‘we go: thirst’ could mean an hour down the pub.
Peak went down first simply because he was the smallest. Fully human, tanned, with fewer rippling muscles than the others—including the feminine Alley. He called out.
‘Twenty David in.’ Which seemed redundant as we had all just seen him enter the hole. A minute later the ubiquitous ‘Clear’ echoed out. I went next as it was thought that any magickal traps would find short shrift under my empt. Also Broken are broadly seen as replaceable. One of our many uses.
The hole was little more than an enlarged rabbit burrow. It widened out significantly within five feet and then slipped downwards with tiny steps cut into the bedrock. A second later the tunnel opened into a large low hall with soft carved pillars and a dozen statues that hugged the natural rock formation. The floor was solid stone, painted like the statues in garish reds and greens.
The rest of S.W.A.T. followed me in with Osary quickly on their heels. As we shuffled forward the constabulary entered. With the roof being so low, more than a few of us were stooped. Obviously, our wild gutter-dwarves did not have that luxury of tall ceilings this close to the surface.
There was a wide staircase leading down into another chamber. This one was of the ‘bloody-massive’ variety. Tiled flooring. Ornate pillars reaching up towards the heavens. Chandeliers of ornate wrought metal held over-elaborate candles that cast soft yellow light across the room. Lavish carvings along the decorative walls. With every surface coated in paint. Delicate I give you, but so vivid and loud that I wished someone would invent spectacles that had darkened glass to tone down the effect. If I was hungover this was definitely NOT the place I would want to visit. I told everyone to be careful. We made our way down the steps. There was a soft click, hardly perceptible through the thick soles of my work boots.
Now. I saw a play a few moons ago. Not in one of the highbrow theatres, you understand. A large vaudeville which put on the bawdier type of play. The hero, an O’hi O Johns, was in search of ancient artifacts. The play revolved around him trying to enter an ancient temple. There were, of course, booby traps. Trip wires. Arrows shooting through the mouths of faces carved into the walls. I recall wondering who would do such a thing? After all, the first dozen sentients to traipse through the place would clear the area of arrows and boiling oils. And exactly how do snakes live long enough—or oil stay boiling—to wriggle at the bottom of a pit that last saw sentient habitation a thousand years previous?
All that flashed through my mind as the step clicked. The difference with an ancient temple and a dwarven fortress came down to the caretaker. The bloke whose job it was to keep the arrows in good nick and the oil on the boil. Who needs screaming hordes of warriors when there’s a bloke happy to spend his, or her, Restday’s refilling the snake pit?
There was a dull thud above me. I looked up to see the shimmer of solidified ǽther. Also, very large, very heavy, very sharp spears were pointing down on me. I stepped, carefully, out of the way. The spears dropped. Most traps have ǽther as a basis, but this was the first I had seen that would be specifically aimed also at a Broken. If my empt had been deployed as with most other Broken, the spears would have fallen whether I stepped on the trap or not. These were dwarfs who didn’t even have a box to think in.
Scanning the walls and ceiling, it was relatively easy to spot the small circular holes. A wave of my hand, empt field extended fully, and the spears dropped or flew out into empty space. Slow, painstaking work which also meant we had lost the element of surprise. There was an upside to this. Of sorts. Traps are not fussy about who they hurt. If you step in the wrong place then you’re toast. Whether or not you’re only two foot high.
That meant time for us. There would be no running battles here on the stairs, because of the traps. That meant any ambush would be in the next room. Circumnavigating the stairs successfully, we carefully made our way through the large entrance hall. Marvelling at the stonework I doubted that this had been started only a few moons ago. There was a sense of age to some of the columns, measured in years and decades, not moons.
TO BE CONTINUED
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