Sunday, 8 June 2014

Embris

As promised, here is the first story to be posted, though it comes a little later than I'd intended. It's still difficult to muster up the courage needed to actually post my work where literally anyone might see it. Hopefully this is something that will become easier the more I do it. Fingers crossed and all that.

This story is one I wrote about a year and a half ago for one of my modules at University. It was meant to grow into one part of a larger set of short stories focussing on the central character, but I've never gotten round to actually writing any more. Technically this short isn't even finished, as the rather abrupt ending will attest to. I'll talk more about my thoughts on the story and why I haven't written any more of it in another post soon to follow, but for now I implore you to click on the jump and read on. I hope you enjoy what I've chosen to tentatively title "Embris".






This was how I arrived in Embris:

Skin sun-scorched and peeling, my last remaining set of clothes soaked in sweat and sea spray, with an unfashionable growth of unshaved stubble itching my neck and face. The length of passably sharp, rust bitten steel thrust through the knotted rope I wore in place of a belt was unfit to bear the name of ‘sword’. I had a motley assortment of petty coins weighting my pocket that might just have totalled seven silver solahns at a stretch; less if I counted the exorbitant fee the local moneychangers would undoubtedly extort from me.

The Starling’s captain stepped onto the dock beside me and clapped a companionable hand across my sun burned shoulders. I winced and shot him a dark glare which he didn’t seem to notice.

“Ah, you smell that?” he said, completing the cliché with an almost theatrical intake of breath. “Embris, grandest city in all the world.”

The only stench filling my nostrils was salt and seaweed and rotting fish, with perhaps a slight aroma of gull droppings and sewage. Whatever the captain found so appealing was lost on me. Or maybe he smelled the same things as I; he’d certainly given me enough reason throughout that torturous voyage to think him addled.

Perhaps he at last noticed my displeasure, for his expression became sheepish and he said, “Once again, my heartfelt apologies about your trunks. The lads and I are still scratching our heads how they wound up going overboard.” Then he grinned and added, “But we replaced what we could and got you here in one piece. What more can an honest man want for, hey?”

For a brief moment I carefully weighed the pros and cons of punching the incompetent twit across the jaw, and came to the conclusion that I could no longer afford the trouble that would bring. I settled for favouring him with a forced smile, a muttered “Quite”, and clenching my fist around the coins in my pocket until my knuckles cracked. Apparently, for who knows what godforsaken reason, one of the coins had a sharpened edge, as it bit into my palm and drew blood. 

My jaws clamped down on a sudden torrent of screaming expletives that threatened to boil up over my tongue, unleashed by this latest small indignity in the procession of humiliations I had suffered since departing the mainland. All that escaped my lips was a quiet, quavering whine, not unlike the whistle of a miniscule kettle. I felt my eye twitch.

The captain gave me an odd sideways look, eyebrows arching. Then he shrugged and slapped me on the back once more, turned, and strode back up the gangplank onto the Starling, leaving me standing alone, silently fuming, on the dock of an unfamiliar city. I allowed myself a drawn out sight before rummaging about my person until I found a folded scrap of paper. I drew it from the shirt pocket in which it was stowed and began very carefully unfolding it.

It was, or had been, a map of the city, but somewhere along the voyage it had become rather thoroughly stained, to the point that reading the blasted thing required an uncomfortable degree of guesswork and faith. Entire sections of the map were illegibly smudged, but there seemed to be enough left to navigate by. At least I hoped. Fighting down a surge of worry and nausea, I set off into the city. 

Clouds of gulls and other sea birds wheeled through the sky over the dockside, diving down to feast on anything they deemed potentially edible. That mostly meant the masses of poorly attended fish brought in by the boat-full, their carcasses reeking on pallets under the scorching sun as they awaited transport to the cities markets and fishmongers. The swirling flocks produced an enormous racket, thousands of feathered throats singing in a cawing chorus, adding their shrill tones to the tremendous cacophony of clashing sound filling the air. The timbers of dozens of docked vessels creaked and groaned, sea surf slapped and crashed against stone and wood, but drowning out nearly all of these were the voices and hubbub of hundreds, likely thousands, of people.

The dock was packed with them, crowds of folk of every race and creed imaginable, from the ebony skinned Summerlanders all the way through to milky complexions that signified the descendants of outcasts from the nomadic clans of the far north. By far the most common were the reddish browns of the Spine Islanders, the natives of this region. Most of the people on the dockside were, unsurprisingly, sailors, rushing about on errands, unloading their ships, or otherwise walking amongst the crowds with the swagger of men freshly paid their wage and let loose on shore leave to terrorise the local taverns and brothels. The cities merchants were out in force, looking over imported wares, bartering with captains and others like themselves, or watching nervously as sailors, dockhands and hired labourers manhandled their newly purchased goods onto horse drawn carts. Occasionally I caught sight of small groups of young women, lurking at the edges of alleyways.  They wore brief dresses, not much more than gaudily dyed shifts really, that displayed a scandalous amount of bare flesh. Whores, I realised, looking to draw the attention of eager sailors too lazy, busy or cheap to seek out a cathouse.

I even passed a pair of gharim unloading crates from a merchant barque. The hulking creatures resembled crocodiles, but stood on two legs like men. They were dressed lightly in what resembled outsized and heavily patched sailors garb, the gaps in which revealed thick, dark green scales which lightened to a yellowish white on their necks and bellies. Standing roughly nine feet tall, they towered over the humans on the dock, most of which chose to keep a wary distance from the gharim, despite the sturdy muzzles fastened about their jaws and the blunted sheathes capping their talons. Even robbed of their natural weaponry, the creatures were still formidable. Each of them handled the crates – some of which were the size of carts – with an ease and apparent lack of care that plainly demonstrated their prodigious strength.

As I watched them work, I spotted out of the corner of my eye a burly sailor walking backwards, as he spoke and guffawed with a friend following a few feet behind. The careless fool was evidently unaware of the gharim, as he backed into one and rebounded as if he’d walked into a brick wall.

“Oi mate, watch where you’re bleedin’ goin’,” the sailor barked as he spun around, and abruptly found himself level with the ghar’s chest. His expression performed a remarkably rapid u-turn, switching from mounting fury to mortified horror in the space of an eye blink. 

The ghar turned slowly, shifting the crate it carried until it rested on a shoulder, supported by one powerfully muscled arm, leaving the other free. It lowered its gaze, locking it’s yellow-green eyes with his, vertical pupils narrowing into razor thin slits, as it moved to loom over the hapless sailor. A threatening hiss escaped its muzzled jaws. The sailor in return made a strangled noise and scrambled rapidly backwards out of the ghar’s reach. He turned tail, and along with his friend, scarpered into the teeming crowds. The creature watched the retreating sailor for a few moments, its tail twitching back and forth. Some of the sailors watching from the deck of the barque suddenly burst into laughter at the scene, and the ghar’s head swivelled round to regard them. It nodded to its crewmates and began making an odd croaking sound, which I realised was an imitation of their laughter. I repressed a shudder at the uncanny sound and moved on.

Moments before I entered the main thoroughfare that, at least according to my ragged map, would lead me to the city’s financial district, I passed a small, sleek corvette boasting a compliment of Coalition marines in crisp bottle green uniforms posted at regular intervals along her deck. I noted with some degree of concern that they seemed oddly ill at ease for soldiers in what was supposed to be an allied city. Certainly any marine on guard duty would do his best to present a hard-bitten, don’t-mess-with-me image, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they seemed overly tense, as if they were expecting gunfire and drawn steel at any moment. I caught one soldier, a dour looking grey-haired veteran, nervously fingering the trigger guard of his musket. Perhaps I was just being paranoid, but nevertheless I made a mental note to ask a few pointed questions later at the Coalition’s headquarters in the city. Of course, that was assuming I would be allowed within a hundred feet of the building. My current appearance was no doubt little better than that of an armed vagrant or street thug. A bark of bitter laughter passed my lips. That description perhaps wasn’t so far off the mark. At any rate, looking as I did, and with my papers of commission having joined the rest of my belongings as fish food, nothing short of a miracle would get me inside. Another amused thought crossed my mind, and I paused a moment to stare up into the sky. Perhaps a miracle wasn’t so unlikely, given the location.

Towering over the city was a mountain, a mountain so tall that its upper reaches were white with snow despite the sweltering local climate, so tall that its pinnacle was lost in a perpetual cloak of clouds.

God’s Peak, it was called. The priests and other sundry holy men preached that the Almighty Himself held court atop the colossal mountain, where He could view the entire world from its dizzying heights. This was supposedly the original reason for Embris’s existence, why the great city had first been built over a thousand years ago, why it had been fought over time and time again in innumerable bloody sieges and conflicts between dozens of vying nations and religious factions. Even after being burned and razed to the ground twice, once by a sect of zealots looking to deny the holy city from their rivals, and once by a horde of seaborne raiders from beyond the Paling Sea, the city had only risen once more from the ashes, grander and greater than before, a shining testament to mankind’s devotion to their Heavenly Creator. 

At least that’s what the priests claimed. In this modern age, where the twin worlds of science and reason were beginning to supplant superstition, other explanations had moved to the fore – the cities location at the core of the Spine Islands archipelago made Embris a natural trading hub, and a dominating defensive position and staging ground for any naval fleet – and this was fine with me. Let’s be honest, if God had chosen to make His home atop an enormous hunk of frigid rock, unreachable by even the most determined of devotees, then that probably said something about His desire to be close to His creations.   

Not that this stopped the zealots of course. A year rarely passed without news of more misguided attempts by bands of fools with more fervour than sense to reach the mountain’s pinnacle. Those embarking on these expeditions rarely returned, which seemed only to fuel further efforts in the belief that they must indeed have reached the Almighty’s court. A rather more likely outcome, I thought, was that the morons died of exposure half way up. 

I shrugged and continued walking. If there really was a deity somewhere up there, He was unlikely to make any effort to aid a man such as I. On the contrary, should His gaze ever fall upon me I would expect a cavalcade of crippling misfortune to befall me within the hour. Not that I was particularly starved for misfortune of course, as my present predicament amply demonstrated. At any rate, my first objective was to track down a moneychanger to exchange the coins in my pocket from a half dozen disparate currencies into something the local shopkeepers and merchants would accept, preferably one who wouldn’t screw me over, if such existed. The few solahns I was likely to receive wouldn’t stretch far, but with a smidge of luck I would at least be able to afford to make myself reasonably presentable. Perhaps then I’d be able to get close enough to the Coalition headquarters for some officer to recognise me, or at least to hear me out. 

As I moved further away from the dockside, and thus further away from the unpleasant odour of the place and the heaving crowds, I began to find my opinion of the city beginning to shift towards the positive. Certainly the streets were still packed, but not to the same swarming extent as the bustling port, and the rank stench of fish and seaweed had faded to nothing more than the occasional lingering scent carried along by the gentle breeze coming in from the sea. Even that disappeared after another quarter mile. I began studying the cities architecture. The wooden warehouses that had dominated the dockside gave way to whitewashed dwellings which became larger and less squalid the deeper into the city I travelled. As the level of affluence increased the architecture became grander. The whitewashes all but disappeared, replaced by more vibrant paints, mostly saffron and soft blues. Arches and terraces became common place, the streets becoming paved with cut stone rather than bare earth, lined with palm trees and verdant bushes that blossomed with vividly coloured flowers. When I finally arrived at the financial district, the buildings reached a new level of splendour. They rose up three, sometimes even four stories, often boasting wide balconies supported by marble columns. I passed a handful of imposing u-shaped villas, their inner courtyards ornamented with bubbling fountains and majestic statues – rearing beasts, heroic figures and so on. These, no doubt, were the homes of the cities well to do who desired to remain close to their prime business interests whilst still flaunting their vast riches.

Eventually I found what I had been seeking, a stately building bearing a large brass plaque above its open doors which proclaimed it a branch of the prestigious Falkner and Bailock Banking House. A squad of guards stood to rigid attention beside the doors, three of them on either side. Though each bore a pistol alongside their straight-edged swords, they were armoured in silvered steel cuirasses with matching masks; an oddly antiquated defensive measure as any decent musket could punch straight through all but the thickest metal armour. But I couldn’t deny that the guards looked imposing enough, which I supposed was the point. Appearance and intimidation could be of great use, as I had well learned long ago. Their eyes fell upon me as I came towards the door, likely judging whether or not my own unsavoury appearance suggested ill intentions, but they allowed me to pass without comment.

I entered into a cavernous room lit by high arched windows, the sunlight falling in bright beams upon a floor tiled with a chequered pattern of black and white marble. A tall, gaunt valet in a smart black suit approached me, moving with practiced poise, his arms folded neatly behind his back.

“Sir,” he said, looking me up and down with a disapprovingly arched eyebrow which suggested he used the honorific with no small degree of irony. “Might I inquire as to your business here?”

“I require the services of a moneychanger,” I replied using my best imitation of an upper class accent, which if I’m honest was hardly convincing.

“Of course, sir,” the man said with a sour curve to his lips. “Right this way.”

He led me to a side room containing a bespectacled clerk hunched over a desk strewn with various parchments and logbooks. He peered up at me expectantly and I fumbled the assorted coins onto his desk. He opened a draw and extracted a small magnifying glass and a set of scales. What proceeded was a half hour of the man um-ing and ah-ing as he fussed over the coins, weighing and examining each one with painful precision before placing them atop a growing pillar of petty currency. At least he put aside the final coin and handed to me a small purse and a scribbled receipt.

“Three silver solahns,” he announced, “and four bits, minus a fee of one solahn. Thank you for your custom.”

A wave of weary disappointment flooded over me. That was far less than my earlier estimate, but there was little use in arguing. I nodded to the clerk and turned to leave.

“Oh, sir,” he said suddenly. I looked back to see him holding out his hand. I reached over and he dropped another coin into my palm. “I fear that I was unable to ascertain the provenance of this particular coin and must therefore declare it of null value.”

It was a tiny misshapen disc of grubby metal that had been so heavily shaved by unscrupulous hands that it had acquired a sharp edge. It was, I realised, the one I had cut myself on earlier. I felt an alarming stab of irrational fury, and stormed from the room without pausing to thank the clerk. I swept by the valet, who had returned to his post at the doors, who shot a smug sounding “Good day, sir,” at my back.

Outside in the sunlight, rage filling my gut, the full realisation of my predicament struck me like a fist. Alone, no possessions, scarcely enough money to feed myself for a week. I looked about at the splendid structures of the district, and my opinion of the city sunk back to my earlier impression.

All of this grandeur was no more than a facade of course. Like herbs and spices disguising spoiled meat, perfumes to hide a foul odour, colourful cloth to bandage a festering wound, termite infested mulch beneath a surface of varnished oak.

All cities were the same beneath the surface. Every warren where mankind gathers and breeds plays host to the same plague of vices, crimes and abuses that seem to cling to the very nature of man, like some determined breed of parasite feasting upon the hide of a diseased beast. Children orphaned or abandoned to a life in the streets and filthy gutters. Women, like those I’d seen on the dockside, forced to prostitute themselves or let their children starve. Men working themselves down to the bone only to fritter away their earnings on booze and other less savoury substances. Theft, some justified by the necessity of survival, most committed out of rank greed. Murder and rape in night-shadowed alleyways. The wholesale exploitation of the poor, the weak, the vulnerable by those with the gall to name themselves their betters; from brutish street thugs to the noble classes whose genuine superiority so rarely passed beyond the elegance of their dress and speech. 

 It was the same everywhere, from dingy, lawless backwaters to the shining beacons of so called civilisation, like Embris. Peel back the skin and I’ve no doubt you’ll find the same blackened heart pulsing at the core of them all.

So absorbed was I with my furious navel gazing that it took me several moments to realise that someone was calling my name.

“Danick?” called a voice from somewhere behind me; a shockingly familiar, unexpected voice that sent my stomach abruptly lurching in a clumsy somersault, robbing my anger of its ardent heat in an instant. I turned around.

A young woman was standing there, maybe a half dozen steps from the door to the Banking House. She wore an elegant dress modelled after the high fashions of the mainland, though adjusted for the local climate, her dark hair styled in curling ringlets. Her name was Mirelle. She must have seen me leaving the bank. As she saw my face – which I realised had taken on an expression of slack jawed surprise – her own lit up with a bright smile, her green eyes glittering with unmistakeably genuine delight.

“Danick, it is you!” she said, and stepped quickly towards me.

My mouth went through a handful of silent motions before my brain caught up.

“Lady Mirelle,” I all but stammered. “What an unanticipated surprise.”

“But not an unpleasant one, I hope?” she said. “And please call me Mirelle. I believe saving a lady from a den of vile kidnappers entitles one to that much.”

I was about to make what would undoubtedly have been a charming and witty reply, when a handsome featured man in a sharp cavalry officer’s uniform appeared at Mirelle’s side.

“So this is the vaunted Danick you’ve told me so much about?” the man drawled, giving me an appraising glance that bore an uncanny resemblance to the one the bank’s valet had used. “He’s not what I was led to expect.”

“Danick, may I introduce you to Major Steffa,” Mirelle said with an almost undetectable note of irritation. “The good Major has been keeping an eye on me at Father’s behest.”

“Major,” I said, offering him my hand.

“Mercenary,” Steffa replied, giving my hand a perfunctory shake after a moment’s apprehensive hesitation.

Mirelle looked me over and let out a startled gasp, as if she’d only just noted my scruffy appearance.

“Great Heavens, Danick. You look dreadful!” She blushed suddenly. “That is to say, you appear to have fallen on hard times since our last meeting.”

“Somewhat, my lady,” I said, before quickly correcting myself. “Mirelle, I mean.”

“Well this simply will not do,” she muttered thoughtfully. “Steffa?”

“Yes, my lady?” the Major said.

“Be a dear and return to the villa. Tell my Father that I shall be returning late today.” Major Steffa grimaced and opened his mouth to speak but Mirelle cut him off. “Major, if whoever was behind my abduction intended to make another move they would have done so long before now. I assure you I will be quite safe in Danick’s company. And I’m sure that Father can spare a few solahns to aid his daughter’s liberator.”

“Very well,” he said, though he didn’t sound pleased. He bowed politely, gave me a dark glance and then strode away.

“What exactly is going on?” I asked.

She smiled, almost mischievously, and took my arm in hers. “I, sir sellsword, am going to make you ship shape. Come, walk with me”

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