Songs of the Dying Earth

The Caravan town of Dirind Hopz was overflowing with displaced pilgrims, merchants, and wayfarers. Bandit activity and general mayhem were so rampant in all directions south that even the most pious worshipers bound for Erze Damath found themselves halted in Dirind Hopz until private armies could clear the roads. There was a huge temporary encampment on the plains just to the northeast of the town and most of the pilgrims in Shrue’s caravan camped there, living in their wagons, and Derwe Coreme and her Myrmazons set up their own city of tall red tents. Shrue, however, in his guise as rugseller — and because he wanted to get as close as he could to the mountain along the river that had the Ultimate Library and Final Compendium at its summit — brought KirdriK and sought out an inn.

All the finer establishments were on the bluffs high above the Dirindian River, where they received cool breezes, offered expansive views, and kept their distance from the many sewers that opened into the Dirindian; but all the finer establishments were full. Shrue finally found a tiny room and tinier cot up under the eaves in the ancient, leaning, ramshackle Inn of the Six Blue Lanterns but had to pay an outrageous twenty terces for it.

Schmoltz, the one-eyed innkeeper whose forearms were thicker than Shrue’s thighs, nodded at KirdriK and said, “An extra twelve terces if your monk sleeps on the floor or stands in the room while you sleep.”

“Followers of the Firschnian Eye seek only mortification and physical discomfort,” said Shrue. “The monk, who never sleeps, shall be satisfied to take shelter in your barn amidst the dung heaps and foul-smelling brids and mermelants.”

“That’ll be ten terces for use of the barn,” growled Schmoltz.

After securing KirdriK in the barn, Shrue went up to his room and set one of his own rugs on the floor — it filled the small space between the bed and the wall — and then laid his own clean sheets and blankets on the dubious cot, burning the old ones in a flameless blue vortex. Then the diabolist went down to the common room to eat his late dinner. Rug merchants of Azenomei Guild never removed their hats in public, so Shrue felt moderately comfortable with his disguise under the low-hanging velvet brim, silk straps, half-veil, and floppy ear coverings.

He’d finished only half of his stew and drained just one glass from his flagon of indifferent Blue Ruin when a short, balding man slipped into the empty chair opposite him and said, “I beg your pardon for the intrusion, but do I not find myself in the company of Shrue the diabolist?”

“You do not,” murmured Shrue, touching his merchant’s hat with his bony fingers. “Surely you recognize the sign of the Azenomei Guild?”

“Ahh, yes,” said the short, heavy, beady-eyed man. “But I apologize for any effrontery if I add that I also recognize the long, strong features of an arch-magus named Shrue. I had the pleasure of seeing the famous diabolist long ago in a thaumaturgical wares-fair in Almery.”

“You are mistaken,” said Shrue with an inaudible sigh. “I am Disko Fernschüm, rugseller and calendar-tapestry menologist from Septh Shrimunq in Province Wunk in south Ascolais.”

“My mistake then,” said Faucelme, “but please allow me to explain to the honorable merchant Disko Fernschüm the pressing business that I, Faucelme, would have had with the magician named Shrue. It will, I promise, be worth your while, sir.” And Faucelme signaled the serving person, Schmoltze’s ample-bosomed young wife, over to order a better flagon of wine.

Shrue knew of Faucelme, although the two had never conversed nor been introduced. Faucelme lived a life of some obscurity in the forest-wastes far north of Port Perdusz, living in a modest (for a magus) manse and pretending to be a most minor magician, all the while terrorizing his entire region, murdering and robbing wayfarers, and slowly building his magical powers through the acquisition of curios and talismans. The man himself looked harmless enough — short, bald, stooped, with a nose like a Gyre’s hooked beak and tiny, close-set eyes. A fringe of unkempt gray hair straggled down over Faucelme’s equally hairy ears. The old magician wore a black velvet suit, shiny and thin with age, and only the rich rings he sported on every finger gave any sense of his wealth and mendacity.

“You see,” said Faucelme, pouring Shrue a fresh goblet of Schmoltz’s best red, “just to the southeast of this weary — and smelly! — little caravan town, upon the summit of Mount Moriat, there lies the Ultimate Library of…”

“What has this to do with me?” interrupted Shrue. He’d gone back to drinking his lesser Blue Ruin. “Does the library need rugs?”

Faucelme showed ancient yellow teeth in a rodent’s smile. “You and I are not the first wizards here since Ulfänt Banderz’s death,” hissed the little guest-killer. “At least a score have left their carcasses on Mount Moriat’s summit, just outside the spell-shield wall the master of the Library left behind.”