Vicious Magick Read online

Vicious Magick

  written by Jordan Baugher

  Copyright 2010 Jordan Baugher

  Chapter 1: Claustria

 

  Zanther sits at the bar. He nurses a pint of Dragon’s Leg, the cheapest swill available in Claustria. As he digs around in his pocket searching for a leaf of thinpaper and a pinch of smokeweed, he observes that the seats around him all seem to be occupied by black-vested Darrinians who keep eyeing him as if he were a treat to be unwrapped.

  It should be noted here that Zanther isn’t all that pretty.

  These Darrinians have the stocky build and matted, greasy hair of their counterparts back home, but unlike most Darrinians, these men have thick muscles and each carries on his back a gleaming, flawless longknife forged with the precision of a master military smithy. The emblems on the hilts of their weapons mark them as a special detail assigned to do the bidding of the Kleptocratic Party, the de facto rulers of Darrinia.

  Zanther takes another small sip of his beer before rolling his cigarette. He snatches up a small candle sitting on the bar, using it to light his freshly-rolled smokeable. Before he can exhale his first drag, a half-dozen stools are overturned and longknives are drawn, all of them pointed at Zanther’s head.

  Disturbances at the Stuck Pony are rare, so the patrons are watching the scene tensely, torn between their desire to flee and the chance to be entertained. With Claustria Castle just a few blocks away, soldiers typically deal quickly and harshly with any violent acts.

  Zanther holds his hands in front of him to show his cooperation, and as soon as the points of the blades lower just a tiny bit, he uses that moment of hesitation to reach for his own longknife.

  He poses in defiance for but an instant before realizing that he’s holding only a rusty hilt; the blade remains firmly wedged in its scabbard. He ducks between the slashes of the two nearest Darrinians as he contemplates his next move.

  It’s here when everything gets sketchy. Zanther’s vision becomes altered; the color is drained from his surroundings and everything he sees is black and white and blue. He can see the veins of his attackers pumping their angry blood, but their movements are languid, almost lethargic. Zanther ponders this for a moment before realizing that time itself seems to have slowed.

  Rather than try to figure out the reason for this shift in perception, Zanther makes the most of his advantage and reaches for a mop in a bucket a few paces away. He swings it at the face of the nearest Darrinian, breaking it in half on his nose. Left with a pointed stick, he drives this into the chest of another Darrinian, watching as the blue blood gushing from his heart turns red upon its exposure to the air.

  As this second black-vested man drops his longknife in a futile effort to pull the stick free, Zanther snatches the falling longknife and uses it to decapitate two more of his attackers, their faces frozen in shock as they struggle to process what is happening.

  With a few quick thrusts, Zanther decommissions the last of his enemies. Time regains its normal fluidity and heads and bodies fall to the ground in a sick succession of splats and thuds. The patrons of the Stuck Pony stare, mouths agape at the speed and quality of the carnage wrought by this single, scruffy man.

  Zanther reaches into the pocket of one of his slain foes and produces a few dodeckas, the de facto currency of Upper Kleighton--the value of the dodecka is currently pegged at one-twelfth of a goat. He drains the remainder of his drink before dropping these coins onto the counter and stepping out into the night.

 

  In this world, there are good kings and bad kings. A good king spends most of his time in his palace, cutting babies in half and solving other disputes, while a bad king dons a disguise and walks among his people pretending to be a revolutionary in order to draw out his enemies and study them face-to-face before having them tortured in inventive and horrifying ways.

  Madra is what one would call a bad queen. She’s among her enemies all right, but she doesn’t do much walking. Her small, pleasing frame and innocent eyes conceal a cruel and calculating intellect honed in her twenty-four sunspins of crushing rebellions and thwarting assassination attempts.

  She is also at the Stuck Pony this night, seated next to a duke. Due to Madra’s presence, the Stuck Pony is filled with guards, all of them dressed as plainfolk, their weapons concealed by long coats and simple cloaks. As soon as the first longknife is drawn, a dozen eyes shoot to Madra for guidance. With a single finger, she commands them to hold their positions, and they do this without protest

  She watches as Zanther slices his way through his attackers. She isn’t smitten; the smitten ones are the Darrinians. A feeling stirs in her nethers, but it isn’t love. Madra decides at once--she will have this young man, she will possess his quick movements and powerful thrusts.

  The Duke unconsciously licks his upper lip as he looks Madra over, noticing none of the violence just a few paces away. Her leather top reveals a generous amount of cleavage, cupping her tiny breasts tightly to her chest. While such an outfit would normally be viewed as unfitting for a female monarch spending a night on the town, the voices of those who would dare object to any action of Madra’s have long been silenced.

  As soon as Zanther leaves the tavern, Madra rises from her seat. Marchand, the leader of the Stoneguard, the highest-ranking soldiers in Claustria and the personal guard of Claustrian royalty, rushes to her.

  “Shall we apprehend him, your Highness?”

  “Not yet. I wish to speak with him first--alone--to try and gather a little more information about this fracas.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise, your Eminence?” the Duke asks.

  Dressed in puffy silks, white frills poofing out from between his lapels, his sleeves inflate his shoulders. His white makeup, his fake mole, his white wig, Madra notes all of these. It strikes her that this prissy aristocrat is the complete opposite of a man, an ideal clearly illustrated not ten eyeblinks ago by the dusty knifesman outside the Stuck Pony.

  “You seek an audience with the Queen of Claustria to discuss special dispensations for your properties and then you question my judgment. Would you consider that wise, Kaverle?”

  “I beg pardon, your Eminence.”

  “Beg is the operative word,” Madra says as she steps away from the table.

 

  There’s a third person with a personal stake in Zanther’s exploits tonight. His long robes are dark blue. He stares at his drink, a Mongovian Brain Buster. As he watches the men point their longknives at Zanther, he pulls back a frayed sleeve and twists the outer ring on the face of the gold watch he wears on his wrist.

  As it does for Zanther, time slows for this observer as well. He looks on as Zanther stabs and cuts his way through the men. His eyes follow Zanther out the door, and his attention then turns to Queen Madra. She exchanges words with a muscular man, probably one of her bodyguards, before approaching the bar.

  He pretends to focus on his drink as Madra approaches.

  “You’re a little far from home, aren’t you, wizard?”

  He shrugs his shoulders, keeping his eyes low. “I haven’t called Arcania my home in quite some time.”

  “There seem to be a lot of out-of-towners at the Stuck Pony tonight,” she says.

  “By morning, you’ll have one less outsider to worry about--I plan to be well on my way by then.”

  “It’s odd,” she says, “your drink was full before he started hacking apart those men, and yet it’s now empty. I never saw you take a sip.”

  “It’s awfully dry in here--perhaps it evaporated. I suspect it was mostly water to begin with.”

  “Why’d you help him?”

  He smiles sheepishly. “Help? I never left my seat.”

  She bats her doe eyelashes at him, then clear
s her throat.

  He relents. “Okay, okay. I didn’t like the odds. Thought I’d even things up a little.”

  She nods and walks toward the door.

 

  Zanther cracks two flintrocks together. It takes almost a dozen tries to get enough of a spark, but he eventually gets a small fire to catch as he takes a drag of his cigarette. He feels a tug at his gray canvas shirt. He coughs up smoke in surprise as he wheels around to find a sultry young brunette wearing a leather top, a silky skirt, and no shoes.

  “I saw you back there, you were great,” she says with glowing eyes.

  “Um...thanks?”

  “Listen, your name’s Zanther, right? That’s what the bartender said. I’d like to...take you somewhere.”

  Zanther flashes his teeth in a grin. “I’d love that, actually. Really, I would. The thing is, I’m not really looking for that right now. For one thing, I don’t think I could afford your services, and--”

  “My what?”

  “I mean, that is to say--”

  She slaps him hard across his face. “You’ll regret this. You’ve no idea.”

  Madra storms off into the shadows, muttering curses.

  Zanther watches her go as he rubs his sore cheek, confused. “Did I say something...wrong?”

  “You don’t have any idea who that girl was, do you?” asks a voice from a nearby rooftop.

  Zanther looks up to see a figure clad in a dark blue robe. “I don’t mean to be rude, but who in the High Hell are you?”

  The figure falls from the roof, landing gracefully in front of Zanther with a minimum of bruising. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Novanostrum Singularis, Maximagus of the Third Circle.”

  Zanther nods, shaking the young wizard’s hand. “You have a very long name.”

  Varello sits in a small clearing by the river, strumming a few chords on his lute as blocks of wood assemble themselves in front of him and burst into a campfire. A fish dances frantically in the water, flopping onto the shore and into the flame, crackling and bubbling. After its crisp scales achieve a palatable shade of black, Varello snatches it out of the fire and bites into it, saliva and grease dripping from his lips.

  Five or six man-lengths away, two soldiers with X-shaped insignias on their helmets interrogate a blindfolded drunk.

  “Priester! We traced it to you. We know you had it, so just tell us where it is now and we’ll let you be on your way.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t hear very well. Please speak louder.”

  One of the soldiers grabs his pinky, twisting it until it breaks with an audible snap. “Where is it?”

  “I...I don’t have it. I lost it in a card game to some guy back in Dahlworth. Zinter? Zanter? I don’t remember exactly what his name was.”

  “Where?” demands the other soldier, the tip of his spear nudging the drunk man’s throat.

  “Claustria!”

  “Enough!” Varello shouts, wiping his greasy hands on the cape of the closest soldier. “Cut him loose. I’ll make for Claustria while you two report back to your commander. We’ll need more troops, especially if the Queen gets wind of this.”

  The soldier looks Varello over, his eyes lingering on his pointy hat and red mantle. “We shall request that the commander send men to Claustria as you ask, but this one shall not be set free. The Pontiflex Minor has given us orders to expale traitors to the Church.”

  “He’s just a drunk,” Varello says, “hardly a traitor. The man’s a priester, for the Gods’ sake. I doubt it would be a terrible thing to let this man go back to his business.”

  The soldier shakes his head. “You forget your place, bard. You’re not here to give orders. While under the employ of the Pontiflex Minor you shall not hinder us, lest you find yourself solved for X.”

  Varello sighs and returns to his campfire. A few moments later, a scream tears through the silence of the valley, causing a flock of sheep to turn their heads in the direction of the noise. They panick for a moment before following the lead of the head ram, who has already fallen back asleep.

 

  Madra kicks open the double doors leading to her spacious personal chambers as Marchand appears in the hallway.

  “Is something wrong, your Highness?”

  “I need you to assemble the Stoneguard and locate Zanther Maus, the criminal who murdered those men back at the Stuck Pony. You are to bring him to the dungeon--unharmed.”

  “He...turned you down, didn’t he?” Marchand asks in disbelief.

  “That bumpkin, he thought I was some common whore.”

  “Well, I mean, if he’s never been to Claustria, and with that outfit...”

  Madra narrows her eyes at him and clears her throat. “What about my outfit?”

  “It is the, uh, the very essence of refined tastes and royal elegance.”

  “That’s better. And my orders? Were they to stand around gawking at me?”

  “Er, no. The criminal--he shall be collected forthwith,” Marchand says with a salute.

 

  “So, Zanther, what did you do to merit a Darrinian assassination squad?” Novanostrum asks.

  “They want this,” he replies, producing a tattered map from his pocket.

  “What’s it lead to?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. I won it in a card game. The guy I got it from, this drunken priester, he said it shows where some drawing is hidden, some famous piece of artwork. ‘Nexus’ something. ‘Nexus Sketch,’ maybe? Supposed to be worth a lot of money, if you buy into that.

  “Personally, I thought it was a load of horse-hockey at first. I’d have rather gotten some coin instead, but that priester didn’t have a dodecka to his name--I checked--so I took his map. He seemed somehow, I don’t know, eager to be rid of it. And now I can see why. Still, if those Darrinians were so eager to get it, I’m thinking it might be worthwhile to track this so-called Nexus Sketch down so I can sell it.”

  Novanostrum lights his longpipe as they walk toward the city gates.

  “Hey, wizard, what do you want, anyway? What I told the girl about my not being interested, that goes double for you, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “Actually, I’m also interested in that map you have. I was hoping to accompany you to retrieve the object in question.”

  “Yeah? And why should I trust you?”

  “How do you think you were able to kill those men back at the tavern? Felt like you had a little help, didn’t it? Time dilation is a marvelous thing. Those assassins, they were just the beginning--there’s a whole host of terrible things waiting for you down that road, and you’ll need my assistance.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Zanther says with a sigh. “What do you say we meet up here in the morning and get out of this wretched place?”

  Varello sits on one of the many stone fenceposts encircling the cemetery. With his lute in hand, he smiles as the moon breaks through the thin cloud cover. He starts to play, plucking the strings slowly at first, then gradually increasing the tempo to a frantic pace before slowing it again. He continues playing his melody in random fits and starts, pausing occasionally as he surveys the area.

  Near each crumbling tombstone, there are movements as the ground swells and sinks. Sounds of stirring and scratching can be heard. Overshadowed by the din of the lute, this stirring and scratching increases in volume to a dull rumble.

  A decaying hand punches through the earth in front of one of the tombstones. Moments later, other hands emerge, dragging out the bodies they are attached to.

  Varello watches as the reanimated bodies dig themselves free and converge around him. He stands and makes his way toward the entrance of the graveyard, continuing to pluck the strings.

  He skips across the darkened plains, the wet grass and sod sinking under his steps. He strums his lute as he goes, the horde of deadders shambling along in his wake and groaning incoherently. A stray dog wanders up to Varello, and he whistles to it. The dog freezes, and Varello keeps skipping al
ong as the dog is absorbed by the horde.

  A flock of sheep, a few wolves, they all become food for the undead. The flesh and bones of the animals are quickly dissolved by a sea of gnashing teeth and toxic saliva.

  In the distance, Varello can see the dark outline of a castle spire against the moonlit sky.

 

  Zanther walks between the similar-looking buildings, all of them constructed of the same grayish brick. It takes time, but he finally manages to locate the inn where he stayed the night before. Before he can walk through the door, he senses a movement. He turns around to find twenty spears pointed at him.

  “Can’t we talk about this? Maybe over a few drinks?” Zanther asks, coughing out a nervous laugh.

  One of the soldiers starts to say something about how a drink would be nice, but he is quickly silenced by the glares of his cohorts. The leader of the group claps irons on Zanther’s wrists and gives him a push in the direction of Claustria Castle.

  On a rooftop less than a block away, Novanostrum watches as Zanther is shoved through the castle’s main gate.

  “Can’t leave this guy alone for a tick,” he says to himself, inhaling a breath of smoke from his longpipe, “I wonder what I can use to blast through stone?

  “Yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious. But if I start calling up bolts and fireballs, they’re going to realize pretty quickly they’ve got a wizard to contend with and that Queen already knows I’m here. It wouldn’t be great for my continued anonymity.”

  Novanostrum’s eyes are drawn to a barrel in front of a shop selling powderblasts.

  “Yeah, that’d do it.”

  He drops to his feet on the cobbled road and tips the barrel onto its side. He rolls it nonchalantly down the sleeping streets, the wood bouncing on the cobbles. With every bounce, he shudders, bracing himself.

  As he gets closer to the castle, he scans its outer wall for a clear spot which isn’t in the immediate vicinity of any guards. He finds a suitable place and sets the barrel down, removing the lid before tipping it onto its side. He draws some of the black powder out into a thin line to serve as a fuse and produces a small box of matches from his sleeve. Just as he’s about to strike it, he hears...musick, someone strumming a stringed instrument off in the distance.

  He pauses to see if he can hear anything else, and he does--he hears screaming.

  An old man whispers something in Varello’s ear before scurrying off into the shadows. Varello nods, then looks back at his horde of deadders, all the while absentmindedly repeating a simple succession of notes on his lute. The tone of the song grows more serious as he straightens his posture and begins walking.

  Varello leads his undead army straight down the main street leading from the city gates towards the castle, with a few beggars and bystanders fleeing in terror in an attempt to avoid being absorbed by the putrid mass of groaning bodies.

  He continues to play, seemingly oblivious to the pandaemonium taking place directly behind him. As he approaches the castle’s main gate, the guards protecting the entrance drop their pikes and dash away, escaping down side streets as they scream.

  The horde of deadders parts around Varello and converges upon the giant, wooden door. They crash through, toppling it with the sheer power of their weight.

  Peeking from behind a building, Novanostrum watches as the bard and the deadders enter the castle and decides to use the distraction to his advantage, hoping the chaos will divert attention from his fireworks display. He strikes a match and holds it to the line of black powder.

  A piercing explosion blasts a hole in the castle’s stone facade, showering the immediate vicinity with rubble and burning fragments of wood.

 

  Zanther is chained to the wall, stripped to his undershorts. He is blindfolded and gagged, and he can feel the cold, mossy stone walls pressing against his exposed skin.

  He hears a familiar voice outside his cell command the guard on duty to stand down so that she may interrogate the prisoner alone. He listens as the door is unlocked and footsteps approach. A hand pulls the blindfold down around his neck.

  “I told you you’d regret it. Now we’re going to do this on my terms,” she says as she puts the blindfold back in place.

  Zanther attempts to scream, to wriggle, bracing himself for the inevitable touch of a blade or a burning hot poker, but the sensation he feels on his skin is somewhat different--wetter and warmer and far more fleshy.

  A fist pounds on the door to the cell. Zanther can hear the telltale sound of fabric rubbing against skin as the woman struggles to dress herself.

  “I have not finished interrogating the prisoner yet!” she tersely replies to the guard outside the cell.

  The door bursts open. “Your majesty, the castle is under attack! We must get you to safety!”

  Despite still being blindfolded and gagged, Zanther reflexively attempts to smile.

  “Let me borrow your longknife,” she says.

  An instant later, Zanther hears a hollow clunk as the flat side of the blade connects with the back of the guard’s skull. The woman immediately removes his blindfold and gag and sets about freeing him from his shackles. Zanther notices the unconscious guard crumpled near the door.

  As soon as he is free, she hands Zanther the longknife. “Get dressed and help me get the hell out of here. I can’t rely on these idiots.”

  “You think I’d help you?” he laughs as he says this, slipping into his clothes.

  She removes her diamond necklace and puts it in his hand. “With the proper incentive, yes, I think you would.”

  Zanther shoves the necklace into his pocket, cautiously peeking his head through the doorway only to find corpses dragging themselves toward his cell from both ends of the hallway.

  He closes the door again and turns to the girl. “I might have some trouble killing these people.”

  “Why?”

  “They look like they’re already dead.”

 

  Novanostrum runs down one hallway, then another, looking for some sign of Zanther. He rushes headfirst into the grand foyer and immediately finds his way blocked by the horde of deadders. In the center of the group of undead, he watches as the bard directs them. They all seem to be shambling in the same direction, down a set of stairs. Novanostrum decides to find out what they’re heading for.

  He twists the ring on the face of his on his watch, and the tempo of the bard’s song slows exponentially. The deadders, whose languid movements are not sprightly to begin with, become nearly statuesque. Novanostrum rabbits his way through the crowd and slides down the banister.

 

  The door to the cell falls inward under the crush of fetid flesh, and the deadders pour in. Zanther steels himself, preparing for his final battle as the woman crouches in the corner of the room, quaking in fear. He experiences a sense of déjà vu as time once again slows for him. Just as it did at the tavern, his vision is drained of color and he springs into action, swinging his newly-acquired longknife through undead flesh, severing limbs and heads and torsos.

  He finishes slicing up the dozen or so corpses only to see Novanostrum step into the frame of the door as time and perception return to normal. The wizard surveys the cell, taking in the aftermath of Zanther’s spree.

  “The royal consort. You’re really moving up in the world. Looks like you don’t need my help at all.”

  “I don’t, but I won’t turn it down.”

  “That’s good, because there are a lot more of these things on their way here as we speak,” Novanostrum says as the sound of a plucked melody echoes through the stone corridor.

  All around them, arms and heads twitch and writhe instinctively toward their living flesh.

  Madra grabs Zanther’s shoulder. “Will you two cut it out? You can hold hands later. We’ve got to get out of here. Come on, I know a nice little way out of the castle.”

  They rush down narrow stone hallways, following her into a storage room cluttered with dusty ches
ts and tables. In the corner of the room is a large, wooden wardrobe. Madra feels around under one of the chairs and produces a rusty key. She opens the wardrobe, reaching behind moth-eaten cloaks and dresses and twisting the key into a lock they can’t see. The back of the wardrobe reveals itself to be a door leading to a coffin-sized room containing a rope and no floor.

  Hanging on one of the walls of the tiny room is an oil lamp. Madra hands it to Novanostrum. He lights it with a match and holds it above Zanther and Madra as they climb down the rope. He closes the door to the wardrobe behind him.

  “Hey! Catch this,” Novanostrum says as he tosses the lamp to Zanther and grabs the rope, pulling the door to the tiny room closed before he begins his descent.

  It’s not a far climb, only two man-lengths until Novanostrum’s feet land on a wooden deck, a short pier. In the light of the lamp, he sees the glimmer of the surface of the subterranean river and the outline of a small boat.

  “Do you bring all your men here?” Zanther asks.

  “Just the ones who save my life,” she says with a wink.

  Varello, taking care not to break his rhythm, skips through the castle’s halls searching for his quarry. He notices an open cell with a few severed arms and legs in front of it and glances inside to find a pile of wriggling body parts.

  On the floor of the cell he spots an unconscious guard.

  His nostrils flare, drawing in the smell of the Queen’s...perfume over the stench of death and decay.

  He follows the trail of feminine stink to the storage room. Aside from some wooden boxes and a few sticks of furniture, the place is empty. Under his melody, he can hear a sound echoing into the room: flowing water.

  With an angry flick of his wrist, Varello strums a diminished chord which echoes throughout the castle’s stone corridors in a shockwave that topples his entire undead army, knocking them back into their respective eternal slumbers.