Thurmond looked on from horseback as a score of villagers searched the woods on the outskirts of Roscoe’s property. As he expected, they had found nothing. There was no evil spellcaster lurking in the trees.
To the east, he could see the Royal Highway. This was the main road to the city, so there should have been a steady stream of riders, vehicles, and pedestrians, but today the normally busy track was deserted. More troubling, a column of dark smoke was rising from the direction of the Gray Friars’ monastery. What could that portend?
He touched his heels to his mount, a sturdy-legged cob named Millie. Torgul was still off beating the bushes with the villagers, so no one would miss him if he went to see what was causing the smoke. A small, grassy hillock lay just before him—from that vantage point, he should be able to see the monastery.
Thurmond did not like the greedy friars. They held a royal warrant allowing them the exclusive privilege of grinding all grain from the neighboring estates. This enterprise had made them so wealthy that they had relinquished the saving of souls for the counting of coins. Thurmond would not have cared if the whole monastery went up in flames.
Cresting the hilltop, he confirmed that the fire was indeed at the Gray Friars, though a screen of trees kept him from seeing which specific edifice was ablaze—perhaps a barn or granary. The major buildings, including the mill, were all massive stone affairs, so he doubted they would be burning.
The hillock also gave him a good view of the Royal Highway, and it was down this fabled avenue that a most unlikely conveyance suddenly hove into view—a sedan chair.
These were popular in the city, where they saved the shoes of the wealthy from the muddy, dung-covered streets. But they were a most unlikely choice for long distances. Chair-carriers moved slowly and wore out quickly. A swift palfrey or horse-drawn carriages were far more expedient options for the open road.
Yet, this sedan was coming fast, its four carriers running tirelessly, keeping a smooth, even pace in spite of the burden they bore. Intrigued, the young Adventurer rode toward the road for a closer look.
Drawing abreast of him, the chair came to an abrupt halt. The curtains were thrust back, and a voice called to him. A man’s voice, though high-pitched and squeaky. Obviously belonging to someone accustomed to obedience.
“You! Boy! Come hither!”
Curious, Thurmond rode closer to the edge of the road. Here was something one did not see every day. The sedan’s occupant remained invisible behind the curtains. The voice came again.
“I would speak to a fellow known as Roscoe—Roscoe Appleman. Are you his man?”
Thurmond was a bit offended by the question.
“I am no one’s man, sir. But Roscoe Franklin is my boon companion. He styles himself Appleman no longer.”
The voice came again—fussy, imperious, entirely oblivious to the distinctions Thurmond had tried to make clear.
“You will take me to him at once. Ride on—my bearers will follow.”
Thurmond had half a mind to turn and ride away, to leave this pompous buffoon sitting in the middle of the road. But he was intrigued. With such strange doings in the wind, perhaps this outlandish man was worth tolerating. He turned Millie down the Royal Highway and then took the narrower track leading off toward Grimsgard.
As they approached the village outskirts, Torgul appeared and nudged his horse next to Thurmond. The dwarf was likewise curious.
“I’m wonderin’ about this thing behind us.”
“Aye—as am I. He called to me from the road—says he has business with Roscoe. Mighty prideful he is, too. Didn’t bother to tell me his name.”
Torgul scowled.
“Not surprisin’. Didja have a good look at them creatures carryin’ the chair?”
“They just looked like servants to me. Must be strong, though, to be running like ....”
“They ain’t human, boy. There’s some magic on ‘em to make ‘em look man-like, but underneath, they ain’t nothin’ more than bones. Them are skeleton-men carryin’ that chair.”
Thurmond was thunderstruck.
“How do you know that?”
“Grandma’s gift.”
Torgul claimed to have inherited a bit of the second-sight from his maternal grandmother. It had served them well on prior occasions when he had descried non-corporeal entities invisible to his companions.
Thurmond considered riding ahead to warn Roscoe of their visitor’s peculiar method of transportation—he needed to know what was coming at him. Necromancy was a deadly sin, so the use of animated skeletons as chair-carriers was an abomination most foul. No human being with the slightest pretension of decency would even consider such an outrage.
But he was too late. Roscoe was exercising his stallion in the fallow field next to the village. Spotting the approaching sedan, he spurred to the tower, dismounted, and tied his steed to an adjacent hitching post. He struck a commanding pose by the front door, hands on hips, chin raised, shoulders square. Every bit an Adventure Captain.
Thurmond and Torgul arrived within moments but kept their mounts. The sedan followed close behind, and as soon as it was lowered to the ground, a fantastic creature emerged—extremely rotund, with legs concealed beneath the skirts of a long velvet robe of the deepest purple. Arms and hands were hidden in voluminous sleeves. Thurmond thought he looked like a grape.
Only the shiny bald head and fat round face were bare. Cheeks and lips were puffy and pink, childlike.
“Roscoe Appleman?”
Roscoe granted his guest a slight nod. When he spoke, his voice was aloof and wary.
“I was once known by that name. These days I prefer Roscoe Franklin.”
The stranger’s lips quivered slightly as if he were trying to suppress a giggle.
“So I’ve been told. Well, that is of no consequence. What matters is that you are known as a man of skill, but more importantly, as a man of discretion.”
Flattered, Roscoe allowed himself a restrained smile.
“Well, if those aren’t pleasin’ words to hear. And who might have been sayin’ such lovely things about my humble self?”
The stranger offered no answer, only a single falsetto snigger such as a naughty girl-child might make. Roscoe’s smiled faded.
“Did I say something amusin’?”
Instead of answering, the stranger spread his arms wide and smiled broadly.
“Do you have the slightest inkling who I am, fellow?”
Roscoe was growing peeved. He did not like being addressed as fellow, especially on his own doorstep.
“Nay—can’t say that I do. Now suppose you explain why you’ve come callin’ here today.”
The stranger’s tone became serious.
“I’ve come because I have need of someone like yourself—someone brave, resourceful, skilled at battle, experienced. I need something … acquired.”
Roscoe’s eyes squinted in distrust.
“Then I’d like to know who I’m negotiatin’ with, sir.”
The small man’s voice came as a menacing whisper.
“You may call me Asmodeus.”
This caused everyone present—with the exception of the skeleton-men—to freeze and blanch. Everyone knew that name. Asmodeus was the most powerful sorcerer in Gorgonholm. An almost total recluse, he seldom ventured beyond the gates of his great mansion, so few could vouch what he looked like. But the mere mention of his name could scare the unruliest child into submission.
In one oft told tale, Asmodeus was said to have encountered an arrogant young squire who refused to step aside on a crowded street. Offended, the wizard turned him into a ginger biscuit and bit off his head. In another, he caused a saucy servant girl to be snatched through the ceiling of her sleeping chamber by two gigantic, night-black phantoms.
At this moment, Sarah emerged from the towerhouse. Having heard the voices outside, she wanted to see who had just arrived. The small pink man was unfamiliar—she had not heard him say his name—but she was immediately struck by the enormity of his psychic emanations. The magnitude of his power filled her with cold terror. It was far greater than any wizard’s she had met before. He seemed not so much a man as an adolescent godling.
Hearing the name, Roscoe’s demeanor at once took a different turn.
“I beg your pardon, milord—there was no way I could know who ….”
The sorcerer waved a dismissive hand. He was familiar with every imaginable excuse. His next remark was not a question.
“You are the Roscoe who recovered the Mortimer heirloom gems.”
Roscoe and the others were stuck dumb. This was a most carefully guarded secret.
The nasty giggle was back, accompanied by an equally threatening smirk.
“You’re wondering how I came to know that. Well, it’s my business to know great secrets that are hidden from lesser men.”
The sorcerer paused to dab at his lips with an embroidered handkerchief. Finally, he continued.
“As I was saying—I want to make an acquisition, and you are best qualified to fetch the item for me. Here—take this!”
A pudgy, ring-bedecked hand extended from one of his sleeves and thrust a large leather wallet toward Roscoe. The old Adventurer flinched away from it, taking a half-step back.
“Nay, Master Asmodeus—I can accept no payment from you until we’ve struck a proper bargain—a mutually satisfactory arrangement of conditions, as it were.”
Asmodeus raised his eyebrows in feigned surprise.
“Your reticence disappoints me. I would have expected the promise of so much gold to whet your appetite for adventure.”
He unbuckled the wallet’s flap and held it open for all to see. It held a fortune in bright golden sovereigns.
Thurmond disliked and distrusted the arrogant little twerp and doubted that the gold was real. He had been fooled once before by enchanted river rocks made to appear as gold coins and figured that Asmodeus was tying the same trick. He had to warn Roscoe, but he was too afraid of the Grape to blurt out his suspicions.
Many glamour spells could be disrupted by simply disbelieving them. Staring at the horde of gold, he chanted silently—I disbelieve, I disbelieve, I disbelieve. Despite his effort, nothing changed.
Roscoe cleared his throat and spoke in a most respectful tone.
“Master Asmodeus, you must appreciate my situation. That sack of gold is temptin’, in sooth it is, but you’ve yet to tell me what it is your seekin’ or where it might be found. Such particulars are critical, so they are.”
The sorcerer rolled his eyes as if Roscoe were an imbecile.
“Very well, Master Appleman …”
His tone was dripping with condescension.
“… I seek a hand. A living, crawling hand that the Blue Friars called the hand of Saint Aphazia. It wasn’t her hand, of course, but it made them a lot of money, so they named it such and kept it in their cathedral. It has escaped, and I want it. As to where it might be—it is somewhere in the Catacombs.”
These words hit Thurmond like a fist driven into his stomach. He knew exactly what that hand really was. But no one—not even his boon companions, not even Sarah—knew that it had been himself who had brought the vile thing into the city in the first place. Unless—Oh! God’s holy toes! Nay!—unless the Grape knew.
Roscoe took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was in a very delicate situation. If he declined the offer, he risked offending a magic user renowned for his capricious, vindictive temperament. If he accepted, he might draw down the ire of the Holy Church, which regarded the hand as its rightful property.
Had he been desperately broke, he might have considered taking the job. But his coffers still contained coin from his last adventure. He took another deep breath.
“Master Asmodeus, I am honored that you would come to my humble self with your proposal. And the gold is generous—very generous. But I must regretfully decline. My estate, you see, like all the country hereabouts, is sufferin’ from some malady that’s turnin’ the minds of men and beasts. I cannot go off when things is in such straits. I am sorry.”
He tensed, expecting Asmodeus to wax wroth, to perhaps fling a lightning bolt in his face, but instead, he gave another of his irritating giggles.
“Quite all right, quite all right—though not what I expected from a man of such reputation. You’ve put the adventuring life behind you, it seems. You’ve become a country gentleman.”
These words were meant to rankle, and they hit their mark.
“I’m no gentleman, sir. Just a humble franklin tryin’ to do the best he can.”
Again, the giggle.
“To be sure, to be sure—but perhaps you’ve not lost all taste for excitement. Even country gentlemen are allowed to enjoy a bit of sport, are they not?”
“Aye, sir, there’s many that enjoy huntin’, cock fightin’ …”
“Horse racing?”
“Aye—that’s a most popular pastime, so it is.”
“That’s a fine-looking stallion you have over there. I saw you on him as we approached. Is he fleet of foot?”
“Aye, sir—fast as the wind, as they say.”
“Well then, Master Appleman, let us make a wager. I will pit my sedan chair and its four bearers against your stallion for a distance of, say, two furlongs. If you win, you may keep the wallet of gold without further obligation. If I win, you will still keep the gold but will also undertake my quest.”
Roscoe smelled an ambush. Something was wrong about the proposal.
“Where will you be while the race is run?”
“Why, in my chair, of course. Just as you will be on your steed’s back. Oh—if you’re worried—I promise to cast no spells or use any of my powers to boost the strength or endurance of my bearers, or to interfere with you in any way.”
Roscoe was mightily tempted. How could he lose? No human could outrun even a second-rate horse over that distance, let alone humans carrying a heavy chair with a fat man inside. The gold was beckoning, calling for him to accept the wager. So was his bruised pride.
Thurmond read the look on his friend’s face, knew that he was about to agree to the magician’s suggestion. He opened his mouth to warn him, to reveal the truth about the chair-carriers, but no sound came. He had been struck dumb.
He shot a glance at Torgul, who, like himself, stood silent with a gaping mouth. And then it was too late. Roscoe replied.
“All right, Master Asmodeus, I accept your wager.”
Once those words were spoken, there could be no backing out. Lady Fortune would bring dire sorrow to any who reneged on a wager. Everybody knew that.
The race was over before it was well begun. The proper distance had been laid out on the Royal Highway, and both chair and stallion had taken their appointed place at the start line. At Sarah’s signal, the stallion shot forward like a bolt from a ballista, while the chairmen moved at an almost leisurely fashion as they lifted their burden and proceeded down the road.
Roscoe had a substantial lead before they took their first step. With such a short course, there could be no doubt as to the race’s outcome.
But then something extraordinary occurred. The sedan began to pick up speed, the legs of its bearers pumping up and down, up and down, faster and faster, blurring now, but with no strain visible on their expressionless faces.
The chair soon pulled abreast of the thundering stallion, then slowed sufficiently to keep pace with it. Roscoe looked on in astonishment as the curtains were drawn back to reveal the laughing, mocking face of Asmodeus. He gave the old Adventurer a waggle of his fingers as the chair sped on to victory.
When Roscoe reached the end of the course, the sorcerer was waiting for him. His stallion was lathered and panting, but the chairmen were entirely unfazed by their efforts. They had not even worked up a sweat. Asmodeus tossed the wallet of gold onto the ground, calling back as the sedan began to move away.
“I will return with instructions. Be ready to depart at once!”
And with that, he was gone.