The Pharoah Contract

The messenger climbed into the driver’s seat, which had been raised by cushions to enable him to see through the cloudy windshield. He darted a hot warning glance at Ruiz, as if daring him to comment. Ruiz smiled blandly. The messenger released a brake lever and pushed a steering yoke forward to feed power to the tall iron wheels.

The machine hesitated briefly, uttered a sibilant protest, and then chuffed away from the Denklar Lodge. Ruiz looked back at the whitewashed building, feeling an odd regret; his stay there had been pleasant and unalarming, all things considered.

The tiny man drove with insouciant abandon, slowly picking up speed as they jolted to the top of the track. When he turned on to the main road, he shoved the yoke all the way forward and the chariot seemed to leap over the washboard road. The springs were not especially effective, and before they’d gone a kilometer, Ruiz’s kidneys began to ache. He wondered if the messenger had held his position since early childhood, and if its rigors had somehow stunted his growth. By the time they reached the foot of the mesa on which Brinslevos Keep stood, fifteen minutes later, Ruiz imagined that he might be a few centimeters shorter than when he’d left Stegatum.

The messenger slowed abruptly for the climb up the switchbacks to the keep. The road here seemed in worse repair than the one leading down into Stegatum, and Ruiz was constantly poised to hurl himself from the cab, should the crumbling verge give way under the great weight of the chariot. But they made it safely to a portcullis set into a sheer cliff. The way led through a twenty-meter tunnel cut from the bedrock and then into the main courtyard, where the chariot stopped amid a venting of steam that for a moment obscured the sights of Brinslevos Keep.

When the steam cleared, Ruiz looked about glumly, unable to resist a sudden fit of pessimism. Several iron cages hung from the heights, clasping shriveled corpses. In the center of the courtyard a number of tall sharp poles thrust from a little shrine; their aspect suggested a macabre function, as did their proximity to a three-loop gallows. Ruiz shuddered. Denklar claimed to moderate the Lord’s behavior — Ruiz wondered….

“We’re here,” the messenger said, with an air of grim finality. His small face reflected no joy at the arrival, and Ruiz surmised that Brinslevos was not well loved by his liege men.

“So I see,” Ruiz answered.

“Well then, get out. The steward yonder will see you to your quarters and the Lord will summon you when he wants you.” The messenger pointed to a small door in the western inner wall, where an elderly hunchback waited, a look of benign idiocy cloaking his lumpy features.

Ruiz alighted from the chariot, and gave the messenger an affable nod. “A pleasure to ride with you,” he said earnestly. “A fine machine you drive.”

The messenger’s face warmed slightly. “Yes, she is. Though she deserves better care than she gets.” But then he flushed, as though he had said a foolishly dangerous thing, and his face closed tight again. The chariot chuffed off toward the carriage house, which apparently lay on the far side of the gallows, through a low wide archway.

Ruiz shrugged and carried his pack over to the door — evidently the tradesmen’s entrance. “Hello,” he said to the hunchback.

The hunchback bobbed his head, swung back the door, and gestured for Ruiz to follow. Ruiz got the impression that the hunchback did not speak.

Inside, they went down a dark hall to a narrow stairway. The steward lit a candle and preceded Ruiz up the stairwell, which twisted and turned in a confusing eccentric fashion. They passed several tiny landings; there were no windows. Finally they reached the floor on which Ruiz would be housed, and the steward unlocked both the door to the landing and the door to Ruiz’s room, which was small and musty. Ruiz stepped inside on unwilling feet. Apparently Lord Brinslevos kept his guests in a vertical dungeon. High on one wall a slit of a window admitted a beam of sunlight. A bed frame with a rope mattress, a chamber pot, a washstand, and a tattered quilt comprised the furnishings. Ruiz sighed. The Denklar Lodge seemed in retrospect a haven of comfort and safety. At least, Ruiz thought, the room was dry and no large vermin were immediately apparent.

The hunchback grinned toothlessly and bowed his way out. He closed the door, and a moment later Ruiz heard the clatter of the key in the lock, followed by a more distant rattle as the steward locked the door to the stairway. The locks were a comfort, in a way. They wouldn’t long resist Ruiz’s implements, if he needed to get out, but they reassured him as to his safety, at least for the moment.