Songs of the Dying Earth

At this, her manner inexplicably altered. She shouted vigorously in several octaves. Finally, she called on a demon, whom she named Cardamoq, demanding that it chastise whoever so insulted a poor working girl. In haste, Evillo and Khiss withdrew.

Quiet returned. Outside, the tired sun sank behind the Tired Sun, and unspeakable things playfully splashed into the canal.

3: The Old Town

During the night, the leucomorph, having with some difficulty detached itself from the branches of the tree, bounded through the inn window. It had followed Evillo’s scent trail and entered the city — an act unusual for its kind — next clambering up the inn’s rickety wall.

A deal of noise resulted. Yells and curses, sounds of blows and counter-blows, the crash of furniture, augmented by warbling growls.

Next, the chamber door burst wide. Evillo and the leucomorph erupted forth, to the elaborate consternation of other guests. Within minutes, many of these rushed screaming from the inn and down the street, wrapped only in bed-sheets. Others hid below tables in the main hall where, in the general distress, a lamp was inevitably knocked from a low rafter, causing a fire. At last, Evillo and the leucomorph, still locked in combat, retired once more into the upper room, where the young man succeeded in braining the thing with the night-pot, then casting it back from the window into the canal. Here it sank amid a cloud of white bubbles. Below, the fire was extinguished. Evillo lay down, ignoring his bruises, and returned exhaustedly to sleep. Sleep was of short duration however.

No sooner did dawn tip the sky than the door of his room once more crashed open.

“Arise, villain!” roared the muscle-girt captain of a band of city militia, each man brandishing sword and club. “You are to accompany us to jail.”

Evillo, yet somnolent, still felt his mouth sparkle with words. “You mistake your man!” he cried.

“No, not we. You are a wretch who lured a filthy monster into this inn, wherewith to wreck the establishment. Worse even than this, as was earlier reported by the landlord, you have impersonated a member of the royal household.” Eloquently plead as he would, Evillo found himself disarmed of his sword and briskly conducted into the street. He was then marched away into the pillar-fallen and ruinous Old Town of Kaiin, where stood the fearsome, seven-storey dungeon errected aeons before by Gbile the Intolerant. Only when cast upon a vast and stenchful floor in semi-darkness, did he discover that Khiss had accompanied him, and still sat on his left shoulder.

There passed then an unpleasant compendium of hours. The large room was already well stocked with criminals. Some groaned, and some uttered maledictions against various persons, amulets, and gods which had failed them. Some, more energetic, brawled and rolled across the space. Some crept about and attempted unneighbourly acts on the rest. One of these even essayed the theft of Khiss, thinking it to be a jewel. Evillo dissuaded the man, telling him that the gem was worthless, and besides carried a malwill, being the very cause of Evillo’s imprisonment.

At noon, a panel was undone in the iron barrier, and a communal cauldron of lumpy, steaming gruel pushed through. On this, most flung themselves, slavering and hooting. Only those too weak, or in such despair as to be beyond nurture, desisted. Evillo numbered himself among the latter.

However, with noon some little drips of maroon light had also penetrated the prison, through an assortment of cracks. By these miserable rays, Evillo noticed a tall and well-dressed older man with sable hair, who sat to one side. Neither eating or grieving, nor complaining, he had fixed Evillo with a piercing grey gaze.

“Behold,” whispered Khiss, as if to itself, “it is the sorcerer Pendatas Baard.”

Evillo racked his now burnished wits. He did not identify the name, although, for a fleeting moment it had seemed familiar. But the man’s gaze disconcerted him, and, presently, lacking the guidance of Khiss, Evillo rose and went towards him.

The cold eyes lifted. “And do you know me?” inquired the mage.

“You are Pendatas Baard, the sorcerer. Why therefore are you in a dungeon? Do your powers desert you?”

This was perhaps too bold; the man grimaced, then smiled in superior fashion.

“My powers are formidable. I was well taught by my father, the lamented Ultra-Mage Kateraspex. Know then, I am here due to an experiment on my part, extrapolated from Phandaal’s empurpled theorem of Locative Selfulsion.”

Evillo recalled that Khiss, at their first meeting, had mentioned this particular magic.

“What does the theorem entail?” he asked.

“Surely,” said the mage, “so much is evident?”

Evillo temporized. “You will pardon me, I hope, but it seemed to me that you stared at me a while. Maybe you have some task for me to perform? Even decidedly, such a necessary task as will cause my swift liberation from this jail?”