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Druze Wozencraft hoped the barbarian girl’s megrym brother was quietly resting beneath a mountain of fortress stone. But centuries in the world had taught him never to rely on hope. So he wasn’t shocked when a megrym showed up with a caravan trader—few things ever shocked him—but he was annoyed.
He didn’t abandon all hope right away. Perhaps this megrym wasn’t the brother of the barbarian girl. After all, his basic order was for the workers to directly report any strange megrym presence. By definition, “strange” encompassed that whole race of slimy lizards.
Druze walked with the shipping steward who had reported the megrym. The morning air was brisk as they walked through the gardens to the exchange yard. In a week or two the leaves would start changing and another autumn would have its turn in the world.
Despite the fact that the sun was just beginning its climb, the Hierophane was bustling with activity down at the exchange yards. The mages traded with all flavors of nations and groups. Not only that, the Hierophane moderated transactions and guaranteed security of goods, so many traders came there to trade with one another. The shipping steward led Druze through various crowds: high-cheeked Hillanders haggling with Agoni nomads, aian bakers unloading confections preserved from the ovens of Nasreddin, nasran Denizbashi showcasing delicate carpets made from the rare kelp of the Azure Coast.
On a small patch of grass on the outskirts of the exchange enclave, one trader had parked his contraption engine. The megrym was there, completing the ensemble of a thoroughly motley band of rabble.
“Hey! You the one running this theme park?” the megrym asked Druze as he approached.
“Theme park?” Druze asked. The steward had been right to report this megrym; he was strange even by megrym standards.
“Yeah, rides, guys in costume,” the megrym said, pointing to a mage apprentice who was traversing the courtyard on a floating tile. “You should add concessions and charge for this, but whatever. I’m looking for a warrior chick. Steel drawers, big ass sword on her back. Seen her?”
Druze let out a sigh. So much for optimistic thinking.
“I have,” Druze said. “Mike, is it? I was told you may come here. You and—” Druze went up to the small fellow with a face that looked like he routinely washed in road dirt except for the clean circles around his eyes. “—a man named Runt, I believe.”
“Yo,” said a different man, one as big as a weagr.
“You would think otherwise, right?” said the dusty faced man, offering a friendly smile and hand. “I’m Ruki Provos of the Provos Trading Company. I’m just a businessman with a pleasantly settled contract.”
Druze took neither the hand nor returned the smile. These people were all irksome and confusing. If the big one was named Runt the tight-lipped nasran woman must be named Straight Legs.
The shipping steward whispered in his ear that Provos had delivered three crates of Maltep hexes. That got an eyebrow raise from Druze; none of the other merchants had been able to trade with the tight-fisted bastards for months now.
At least something good came out of this caravan. Druze turned his attention back to the thing that wasn’t.
“Follow me,” he told Mike.
“Word,” the megrym said with a nod. He turned to Provos and stuck out his little purple hand.
“Aight, Ruki. Preciate the ride. Stay up, playboy.”
The tradesman grabbed the megrym’s hand and shook it vigorously. “You all have been the best investment ever. I’m going to remain in Ardenspar for another day, restocking the caravan and all. Once you finish your reunion, come and celebrate our good fortunes with me. I’m lodging at the Exquisite Promise.”
“Bet.”
Druze turned and began the walk through the trade exchange. But he heard more than just the megrym in tow. He turned and saw Runt on one side of the megrym and the nasran woman on the other. He looked down at the megrym.
“What?” the megrym asked with a shrug. “Following you.”
It was bad enough playing host to a bunch of pendulum rejects. Now he had to extend the courtesy to their hangers-on as well. But Druze nodded, kept walking, and kept his tongue still.
The moment the fake gray robe completed his mission couldn’t come soon enough.
He led them out of the exchange yard, through the gardens to the dormitories. They could stay in the same rooms as the last guests. High up and out of the way, cooling their heels until the others were done.
The megrym must have grown restless passing by the various enclaves and buildings to get to the dormitories. Druze heard him stop.
“Ok, so where’s Melvin?”
Druze turned his head to speak as he continued walking. “First, I am going to show you to your rooms.”
“I don’t want a room. I wanna see my brother.”
Why, thought Druze. Why do these people make everything so complicated? He turned to face the megrym. He was going to have to explain what happened to his brother, in tedious detail, until Mike nodded his little purple head and got on the walkway so Druze could float him up to his room and forget about him.
Something was missing. Not something. Someone.
“Where’s the nasran woman?” Druze asked.
“Took off for the pisser,” Mike said. “So where’s my brother?”
Druze found it hard to understand more than two words at a time from Mike, but he got that the nasran had left to relieve herself. She’d likely pee all over the floor rather than figure out how to use the fixtures. Yet another reason why he just wanted to get this brood in their rooms and contained.
“Your brother is on a vital quest on behalf of the Hierophane. He will return soon enough. Meanwhile, I’m sure you and your friends are tired from your journey here. I will show you to your rooms where you can relax and recuperate.”
Mike looked at Druze, his face scrunching up in disbelief. “Vital quest? What vital quest?”
“You were at Fort Law. The creature your brother and his companions freed cannot be allowed to roam unchecked. So they have gone to contain it.”
“Contain it? You mean the big black monster that crashes through solid stone walls like he’s a stripper popping out of a cake? Big as four Runts, with wings, lives underneath the zombie apocalypse and has no problem getting along with the neighbors? You sent my little brother to go heads up against that?”
“I assure you, your brother and his friends are well-suited to the task.”
The little lizard looked up at Runt. “You believe this dude?” he asked the oversized man. “He’s assuring me of something my own eyes can’t.”
The megrym turned his attention back to Druze. “I’m also well-suited to a task, the task of finding my brother. Where is he now?”
Druze shook his head. “I’m sure you will understand when everything is explained fully. For now, know that pursuit would be impossible. I cannot allow it.”
“Man, you may be able to get kids on board with that, but I don’t follow the orders of a dude in a snuggie. Where is he?”
Mike was starting to become the loose end Druze had wanted to prevent. The last thing he needed was some half-informed, half-crazed megrym running around trying to stop the others from completing their mission.
He had lost some of his proficiency in interacting with people over the centuries. It was always easier to incinerate them or wait a few decades or so until they died.
The thought of incinerating Mike popped up, as warm a thought as his charred body would be, but the repercussions were something Druze wanted to avoid at all costs. His daughter had grown unduly fond of the fake gray robe and she would be livid. Her good-intentioned, guilt-filled heart would drive her to tell the fake robe and he would tell the barbarian girl and maybe they’d all quit the quest. So, no, he couldn’t incinerate Mike, at least not here. He changed his tack.
“You are right, megrym. I cannot tell you what you can do. So allow me to offer help. I will escort you to your rooms, where you can wash up and refresh yourselves. While you two are doing that, I will prepare some maps and some packs filled with rations and travel supplies. Is this agreeable?”
Mike looked up at Runt and they exchanged brief nods. “Word,” Mike said to Druze.
Druze led them the rest of the way to the dormitories. Soon enough they’d be lifted up on a tile and locked away in the tower. And when he found the nasran woman, Druze would incinerate her just for associating with this annoying megrym.
Inside the dormitory tower, Mike looked up at the doors and the few people that floated to them on tiles. “Sweet,” he said. He smiled as he looked at Druze, little razor teeth peeking out behind thin lips. “We get to ride on the tiles up to our room?”
“Of course,” Druze said. “Right this way.”
Mike approached Druze but stopped suddenly. He stared at something beyond Druze in the courtyard gardens. He walked up to a flower carefully.
“Oh my god, they got Gahniytues! How’d you get these?”
“I think that’s a daisy.”
“Did you say a damn daisy? Man, I know the difference. Those are daisies,” he said, pointing to a bunch of identical flowers. “This is a Gahniytu. Don’t you see the difference in the petal and stem?”
Mike looked at Runt. “I thought you said these dudes were smart.”
Frustrated, Druze went over to the stupid flower to see what this insufferable toad was talking about. He leaned closely to look at the flower and compared it to the other white and yellow flowers.
“It looks the same as the daisies,” Druze said looking at one and then the others.
Behind him, Druze heard Mike’s voice. “Good night to you.”
He felt a thud at the back of his head, and everything went dark.
*****
SAVASHBAHAR VENTURED a peek around the corner. At the opposite end of the hallway, two factory mages were engaged in conversation. Soon their path would lead them elsewhere. Then she could see where the stairs going down led.
It might be enough for her people to blame the Hierophane for the Hollowers and just sit idle on their accusations, drinking and crying over needless deaths. It was not for her.
The coast was clear. She darted down the hallway and into the safety offered by the darkness of the stairwell. She took a few cautious steps down into the pitch-blackness.
These stairs had no torches. Good. When humans had things to hide, secrets that lived among their bright and shining towers, they buried them. What she sought would be deep in the dark.
She felt the walls and stairs turning like a corkscrew as she descended. The stairs emptied out into a passageway, and she could see torches flickering at either end. The torchlight illuminated damp, moss covered walls.
One end of the passageway opened into another passage, this one clean, free of dust and well lit with torches hanging in neat intervals. She turned around and went back the other way. The other end was in disrepair, the moss thick on the walls, and lit with only the briefest touches of torchlight.
This was her path. She crept along, keeping silent and straining to hear anything outside the occasional crackle of the torches. Getting discovered down here would be hard to explain.
The passageway turned, but offered very little in ways of options. When she got to her first intersection, there was a young, brown-robed mage at a table hosting a pile of thick books. He was leafing through one of them.
Savashbahar saw the glow of the mage’s soul about him, a shimmering that never lied like mouths did. His shimmer told her he was innocent and unburdened. A good person. Behind him were stairs.
She watched from the shadows awhile. A brown-robed woman came, a warm shimmer about her and a sour look on her face. She and the one at the table talked, discussing the tragic circumstances that got them both stuck down here.
They were students serving some sort of punishment. Now it all made sense to Savashbahar. What better way to guard something without showing you’re guarding it than by forcing the unwitting to stand watch in the guise of something else? These students didn’t know they were supposed to guard the stairs. But they would read their books in penance and be present to stop intruders like Savashbahar all the same.
Savashbahar looked down, at the dozen hexes that hung from her belt. She grabbed a utility hex, one that bent and flowed like wind.
“Serpent,” she named it in a whisper. She bent down and the snake wriggled from her hand and turned the corner. The girl screamed and the boy jumped out of his chair in surprise.
It was a utility hex; the snake would not bite. But it would serve its purpose and distract. The girl tossed books at it while the boy chased it around the corner, shooing it. While their backs were turned, Savashbahar made the stairs and descended.
These stairs were another dark corkscrew. As she descended, a slow steady drone grew in volume, like she was falling into the maw of a machine.
There were two rooms at the bottom of these stairs, both lit by the blue demon light humans called netherfire. One room had nothing. The other held shelves laden with golden bricks, silver coins, and gemstones.
No one guards in secret the things they should guard openly. She went back to the empty room. Walking slowly, she pushed along the walls.
Her hands fell through at one point. There was a passage way, disguised by factory mage illusion. She stepped through the illusion into the entryway of a dungeon laboratory.
Two rows of netherfire burned in floor channels running the length of the room, bathing everything in their unnatural blue light. The walls were host to dangling chains and strange apparatus. Shelves and tables held devices, books, even hexes.
Despite only having eleven hexes, she wasn’t tempted to pick up the extra hexes that littered the various tables. Who knew what the factory mages did with them, bending them, perverting their purpose.
A clinking of glass got her attention. A mage was engrossed in work at one of the tables. He wore purple robes, the mark of the nightmare bringers. He looked up from his task and their eyes locked.
His shimmer stabbed out in angry, piercing bursts like lightning. What she saw in those sporadic lightning strikes of shimmer told her he was as twisted as the robes he wore.
But it was what his shimmer told her when it wasn’t lashing out that made her blood boil. For when there was no lightning there was nothing at all. An unholy void of soul. He was her proof.
He was a Hollower.