A House in the Old City, Parts III & IV

III: A Shot in the Light

Galiard lay back on the roof of an anonymous Scurvytown shanty and waited. He knew his chances of staying alive now that he was back in Freeport were slim if he were to keep trying to hide from Bloody Jack. So instead he was going to kill him.

He’d arrived back in Freeport a couple days earlier. He’d sold his boat, spent a goodly amount of the proceeds on a few sets of clothes that didn’t itch whenever he moved, and used most of the rest to pay for a week’s stay at a decent inn. He holed up in his room so he could rest, plan, and grieve. In the middle of his second night back he knew what to do. He began walking as he put the pieces together, and was on the rooftop across from the Cutthroats’ hideout by the time he was finished. He’d been there since before sunrise, and his muscles were beginning to cramp when Bloody Jack appeared.

The dwarf had an entourage, of course--three or four of his brethren, a rather peculiar looking half-orc with dyed white hair cut flat and almost as many scars and tattoos as skin, and a human walking a few paces behind who was probably a lackey. The halfling assassin wasn’t in sight, which made Galiard a little more relaxed for some reason.

Part of Galiard couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy. The other part told him to get on with it before it got harder. Without taking his eyes off the group, he picked up the already loaded crossbow, sighted along the bolt, took a breath, held it, and pulled the trigger.

The soft chunk of the bolt striking Bloody Jack in the chest abruptly ended the lazy conversation the group had been in the midst of. In the silence that followed, the dwarf took a halting step backward, then gave a small shiver, as if he’d caught a chill. As his companions stared aghast at their stricken boss, still uncertain as to what they should do next, Galiard shot him again.

The half-orc turned at the sound of the crossbow loosing its second bolt and found Galiard as surely as if he had called the creature’s name. Galiard thought he might just have pressed his luck a bit too far, a feeling that was confirmed when the half-orc dashed for the building and began to climb its front wall with his bare hands.

Galiard risked another glance down at the now-panicked group the half-orc had just abandoned and noted that Bloody Jack was now flat on his back, two bolts sticking out of his stocky chest, his heels thrumming wildly into the pavestones as if they were keeping time to a tune only he could hear. Galiard weighed his chances of stopping the half-orc with the single shot he’d have time for before the brute was close enough to rip off a limb and found them wanting. He let the weapon fall and jumped off the rear of the roof to the alley below.

Galiard tried to roll when he hit the ground, and earned a sharp blow to his head for his trouble. He got to his feet to find the street canted at a peculiar angle. He found that oddly fascinating, then considered that it might be wise to get moving. He managed a slow jog at first, which he was able to increase to an all-out sprint when he heard something land in the distance behind him.

It didn’t take long before Galiard crossed into the Eastern District, whose residents actually had jobs they would be expected to show up to. He hoped that his pursuer wouldn’t be dexterous enough to dodge the half-awake masses, a theory that bore fruit when he heard the noise of a rough collision behind him and the surprised epithet that accompanied it.

After a few minutes of running, Galiard began to feel a slight pain in his side that grew to an agony of ache by the time he noticed the looming walls of the Old City rising in front of him. He tried to recall a mental image of Freeport’s first district, and thought he might be able to cut through it, head north through Drac’s End and find shelter in the wilderness beyond—if he could continue running that long.

Galiard knew the approximate direction he needed to head in, but the district was not laid out in a fashion that rewarded those looking for a direct route; its streets tended to meander in a fashion that mimicked water seeking its own level. He decided to risk slowing his pace so he could better get his bearings.

He was scanning the street when a sign caught his attention. It had not been well cared for, and the letters were worn to such an extent that they were barely legible, but to Galiard they were clear as a beacon: Ahlzer Street.

He sprinted down the alley, the stitch in his side forgotten. As he ran he saw similar, smaller placards that matched the age of the street sign, even numbers on his left, odd on his right, starting at 300 and making their way down. 290, 280, 270, 268, 266…262.

He stopped. No 264. He checked the opposite side of the street. 263 and 265.

He didn’t have to check the book, he knew the address. Knew it. But there was no denying what he was seeing. Rather than remaining on the street, Galiard decided to keep moving…and ran toward 262 Ahlzer.

Galiard tried the doorknob, found it locked. He applied a bit more pressure, and the knob turned with a sharp crack. Beyond it was a large parlor with two sets of steps, one going up and the other down. Hooded lanterns lit the entire area, but there was no sign anyone had noticed his entrance. He decided not to push his luck, and headed downstairs.

To his surprise, there were more lanterns lit in the basement, which ran the entire length of the house. It was remarkably well kept, and completely empty. The brick walls had no adornments, there was absolutely nothing on the dirt floor, and there were no exits except for the stairs he had just descended.

He had just taken all that in when he was struck from behind with something hard. When he was able to focus again, he himself lying prone on the dirt floor. He rolled over to discover that the half-orc was bearing down on him. For some reason, the muscular humanoid was grinning.

“Hi there!” The half-orc said gaily as he lifted Galiard by the neck with one hand and proceeded to bash his head repeatedly into the wall. Once again, Galiard’s vision began to waver, and he began to feel a warm trickle leaking from the side of his head.

“Wait,” he managed. “Your boss is probably dead by now. There’s no one to pay you if you kill me. Let me go, and you’ll never see me again. I’ll disappear.”

The half-orc seemed to give serious thought to the matter. Then the grin returned. “Nah. Me am rather just kill you.”

With that, he threw Galiard into the opposite wall with such force that it gave way. Galiard fell to the ground among a small pile of bricks and masonry. He tried to catch his breath, and received a sharp stabbing sensation for his efforts. It appeared that there were a half-dozen half-orcs coming for him, all of them smiling.

Galiard tried to scramble to a seated position, but the debris resisted his efforts. His right hand landed on something solid…and heavy. Meanwhile, the herd of half-orcs was reaching for him.

“Goodbye now,” they said, and Galiard swung at them with what strength he could muster. A blur of bricks caught the multiple half-orcs in the temple, and he was satisfied to see blood flowing that wasn’t his own. Without waiting to see how much damage he’d caused, Galiard threw the brick, which made contact with the half-orc’s eye with a soft squishing sound. The howl that followed, however, was anything but soft.

The last time one of Bloody Jack’s men had tried to kill him, Galiard had counted himself lucky to get away with his skin. This time, he wanted something more. He picked up the fallen brick and slowly wobbled his way over to where the half-orc was clutching at his face.

When it was over, Galiard took a moment to resurvey his surroundings. There was a hole in the wall where he’d been thrown against it, revealing only darkness. He took a lantern and moved in for a closer look. He wasn’t certain what to expect, a hidden tunnel perhaps, but the light revealed something a bit larger than an old passageway: it was another room.

Taking care not to knock any other bricks loose, Galiard stepped into the space, the lantern held out in front of him like a ward against the darkness. The room was smaller than the one he’d just left, and based on the amount of dust he was kicking up it had not seen usage in quite some time. There was absolutely nothing in the room, and no way to exit short of the hole he’d just walked through. Who would build a room without exits? And why brick it off?

A glimmer of metal on the floor interrupted his train of thought. Galiard went to look, and discovered a large iron ring. He went to pick it up, and found that it was attached to the floor. Then he noticed a few fine cracks in the dirt floor, which appeared to form a—

He gave the ring a tug, then again, and once more. Finally, like a sodden cork pulled loose from a bottle, the hatch popped free. Galiard had to scramble backwards in order to avoid having his legs crushed beneath it.

The dust hadn’t even had a chance to settle before Galiard was looking down the new hole. A blast of air rushed up to meet him, stale and foul in a way he couldn’t identify. The lantern showed him yet another room, but this time he couldn’t see walls in any direction. Without giving it another thought, he dangled himself over the ledge, pausing just long enough to make certain that he had a tight grip on the lantern and to gauge the distance to the floor.

The first thing he noticed upon landing was the moisture. The air was thick with it, along with the sound of constant dripping, although he couldn’t actually see where it was coming from. He also felt a great deal warmer. After a moment he realized that he wasn’t getting warmer, it was the book.

The lantern’s light still didn’t reveal any walls, so Galiard simply began walking. As he moved deeper into the space, it became less like a room and more like a gigantic cavern. Stalagmites and stalactites began to dot the floor and ceiling, growing thicker as he continued forward. And the dripping became louder.

What he did notice next was a splintered piece of wood lying on the ground, then a few others. None of which prepared him for the next oddity his lantern revealed.

The ground ahead of him had been cleared of stalagmites. Scattered around the space were the remnants of hundreds of chairs. Many of them had been splintered to bits, others were tossed about randomly and left where they had fallen, and there were a few that had been left standing neatly in rows, as if their owners would be returning after intermission. Somehow, these seemed the oddest of them all.

The majority of the chairs were stacked up against the first wall Galiard had seen since he’d descended into this place. There was no apparent order or sense to the pile, just a conglomeration of wood placed as high as was possible without collapsing in on itself. Many of them had been splashed with—and he knew this without having to look closer—blood.

He moved to the stack of chairs and began pulling them out as randomly as they had been first thrown there. Some of the chairs felt sticky, although that was impossible, there was far too much time had passed for the blood to still be sticky.

With a crash, the heap of chairs came down, revealing another, smaller door. There was no handle to speak of, but there was a hole just large enough to stick a couple fingers in…yet the door looked carved out of solid stone. Chances are it wouldn’t even open.

But it did. Beyond it was a room that looked as if it had been carved from the surrounding bedrock by someone using only their bare hands. Inside were more chairs, boxes, and various other detritus that made moving forward an arduous task.

The sounds of water falling were more insistent now, though there was nothing on the floor. The sounds echoed around the small, cramped space, and the darkness felt as if it were trying to extinguish the intruding light. Galiard had only taken a few halting steps into the room when the door closed behind him.

That was when he began to hear the voice. For a moment Galiard thought maybe he was simply speaking to himself, but when he listened closer he could hear it—feel it—rumbling beneath the waves of droplets that never touched stone. It was murmuring, almost indistinct, but then he began to make out a single word that was being repeated over and over: I.

If the book was warm when he had first descended, it was almost hot enough to burn his flesh now. He reached into his shirt with his free hand and pulled it out. It was giving off a light of its own, and getting brighter. Galiard let the lantern fall to the floor, where it promptly went out. When he placed his other hand on it, the book glowed even stronger.

He started forward once more. He didn’t have much choice really, the book was telling him that that was the direction he should go, that the mystery of its contents was close to being revealed, that there was something in this room that would make him forget everything that he’d worried about, everything that he’d done, everything that he’d lost. All he had to do was keep going.

Galiard’s feet seemed to know where to go without his watching. The room was much smaller than any of the others, and he could see no other way out, yet still he was drawn to the other end. And the voice that was throbbing beneath the sound of the unseen dripping was hinting at hidden things, impossible things, unworldly things.

He reached the opposite end of the room, facing the wall. He knocked at it experimentally—it sounded solid. He had no idea what was next.

And then he looked up.

Although he hadn’t been able to see it when he’d entered, he now saw there was a door built into the wall—right below the ceiling. It was not a door in the strictest sense, as he doubted whether he’d be able to fit his shoulders through it, but it wasn’t really anything else either. Galiard didn’t think that he’d be able to climb up to it. As plentiful as the detritus in the room was, most of it was in such a decayed state that he doubted it would hold his weight.

As if something had been waiting for him to reach that conclusion, Galiard began to rise from the floor. Somehow, this felt completely natural to him. Nothing about this felt absurd to him anymore: the fact that he had gained possession of the book that was even now straining in his hands as if it wanted to be reconnected with a lost part of itself, the fact that he had stumbled upon this place, the fact that he was levitating halfway toward the ceiling in a room that no one had probably entered as long as he’d been alive, it all seemed completely natural. And inevitable.

He had no idea how much time had passed by the time his eyes were level with the door that was not a door; the concept of time itself was becoming a misty ideal. It was also getting a bit harder to see, even though the book seemed to be glowing with an intensity that could blind him. Was it minutes? Hours? A lifetime?

He reached out to pry his fingers into a crack in the wall that he knew would open the door...and paused. He had no idea what he would find when the stone opened before him, but he knew that something was there. Perhaps the something that was whispering to him even now, between the falling drops, and perhaps Galiard was beginning to feel them after all, and perhaps they were coming from him, and perhaps they were sweat and perhaps they were something else. And the voice was becoming clearer as the other sounds and other unimportant things were fading away, and the voice was whispering something about itself, and it made sense, what was being said, he could understand it perfectly now: “I am immortal.”

Galiard suspected that he wouldn’t like what he would find behind the stone, something that had been hidden away these last few centuries, waiting. And he was almost certain that what he saw when he clawed the door open would likely be the very last thing he ever saw.

But he had to know.


IV: An Item in The Shipping News

Bloated Body Baffles Bobbies!
by C.Q. Calame

The Sea Lord’s Guard proved their knack for understating the obvious hasn’t diminished of late. Case in point: the latest floater fished out of Freeport harbor just last week. When asked what had befallen the unfortunate, the Guardsman on duty duly noted, “We don’t know. This one’s different.”
A droll bunch, those Guardsman, and Freeport’s finest! The best money can buy!

A mere glimpse at the victim proves how “different” this particular crime was. Other bodies have had a few claw marks here, a missing limb or two there—the usual. This pour soul was missing his whole head—just for starters! It looks like this unlucky lad had someone (or something) rip open his chest with both hands and take out everything underneath! It was a gruesome sight, and not for the weak of stomach (see etching below).

Tanko Sondek had this to say: “Get that out of my face, Calame, and let me do my job.”