Pillar

Chapter Nine

The Garden District was… green. Leafy vegetation and ivy grew up over the walls, and marble columns topped with carefully carved gargoyles looked down on any entering the area. The hook-horned devilish creatures eyed her warily, their pristine white shells unblemished and polished to a shine, the scent of turtle wax still fresh in the air. It was barely detectable because of the flowering rose bushes along the path leading to an alley into the heart of the District. The guards led her past dozens of white-robed men and women who were standing about chatting as a musical quartet played songs from an open-air bistro. An artist’s gallery with wide windows for walls showcased paintings of far-off lands and statues of exotic creatures. Vivian gawked at a towering silver statue of a Tatzelwurm reared up on its serpentine coil, the larger panther torso emerging from the thickest section of coil, ready to strike at an unseen adversary.

“Wow,” she said, head turning to take in all the sights. “This place is amazing!”

“We know,” Tobald said with a flat voice. “We patrol it three nights a week.”

“Yeah,” Clay muttered under his breath, just low enough to be heard by the three of them. “The nobles and Clan heads of the town prance about up here all day and night, so we have to be on call in case anything untoward happens.”

“Like what?” Vivian asked, curious.

“Well, criminals of all stripes like to sneak up here by scaling the walls and hiding in the foliage. They break into shops and homes, and steal what they can. We always have four or five Royal Guards up here to deter that, but it still happens.” Tobald replied, nodding with a smile at an older woman walking with a golden-haired toddler. “Add to it that barring the few Clan heads, there aren’t really any folks up here that’ve experience life in the rest of Hamlin.”

“Ah,” Vivian said, walking along with them, her staff clacking on the polished slate walkway. She stopped when she felt someone tug at her hair, causing her to turn her head and stare in amazement at a trio of teenage girls, one of which was holding the hoop of her braid with both hands, as if testing the weight.

“Excuse me?” Vivian asked, flicking her braid back, snapping it out of the teen’s loose grasp. “Please don’t just grab my hair like that.”

The teen snorted, her short red curls dancing around her face. “I just wanted to see it, calm down.”

“I’m calm, it’s just a little rude to be grabbing someone is all,” Vivian said before feeling a hand on her shoulder. Looking, she saw Clay pulling her back, eyes pleading with her to just let it go. She shrugged, turning. “Well, you’ve felt it. Have a nice day.”

“I like it, it’s obviously magical from the way it feels. Lightweight despite the gold and silver, with engraving… are they what makes it so hot?” The redhead pressed.

“Yes, I’m a wizard,” Vivian stressed, tapping her staff twice on the dark stone road for emphasis, “and I made and enchanted that myself. It keeps my hair dry and warm despite the conditions I’m in.”

“How much do you want for it?” One of her friends, a blonde wearing an emerald green top with scarves dangling off her shoulders down to her lengthy green silk skirt. “I could use something like that!”

“It’s not for sale,” Vivian forced a smile onto her face, turning once again to follow Clay and Tobald towards the Temple. They followed them, their hard-soled shoes clacking on the stone as they strode to keep up with the guards’ hastened pace.

“My mother says everything is for sale in Hamlin, we’re a commercial hub!” The redhead said, smirking slightly as she reached for a velvet coin purse. “I’ll pay you a gold coin for it. Come on, that’s more than you make in a month, right?”

“Like I said: not for sale,” Vivian replied.

“Stop!” The redhead called out, bringing Tobald and Clay to a grinding halt so quickly that Vivian bumped into them from behind, snubbing her nose on the back of Tobald’s armor. Turning as she rubbed at her aching nose, she glared at the teens. The third one, dressed in a demure sleeveless pink top with elbow length fingerless gloves and a pair of lavender pants made from what looked like dyed wool, looked embarrassed at the situation. The blonde and the redhead were standing with irritated looks on their faces, the blonde tapping her foot impatiently.

“Look, you must be new to the city. You’re here to sell your wares, and if you’ve come up here, then you must be a big deal. I don’t see how, as your chipped leather armor isn’t worth noting, and your pants have holes in them and actual dirt smudges. But your hair… your hair is stunning! It’s actually the only part of you worth noticing and, frankly, I want whatever is doing that for you.”

Vivian sighed, closing her eyes to count to ten to calm her rising temper. “Look,” she said, “I’m operating out of Bed Row for the time being, room 3-F. If you want one of these hoops, then send me a request and I’ll be happy to draft a bill for you. But the one I’m wearing is my personal property. Got it?”

“By the spirits, you’re staying in Bed Row?” The blonde laughed. “How are you even up here if you’re so poor?”

“Yeah, don’t you know this is an invitation only district?” Redhead sniffed. “I don’t think you were on the guest list. Guards, escort her out, please…”

Clay saluted, staring ahead. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but she’s here on official business as a counselor for the Captain of the Royal Guard. She has been invited up to the Garden District for the time being, ma’am!”

“That’s impossible! My father works with Remus and that old one-eyed bastard would never involve an outsider in an investigation. That’s what my father and uncle are for!” The Blonde exclaimed.

The redhead nodded. “Our fathers are Lieutenants in the Royal Guard, they’d hear of this if it were true!”

“That may be true ma’am, but this is a recent event,” Clay announced, still saluting. “Time is of the essence, so I’m afraid we must take our leave of you now, ma’am!”

“Alright, but my father is going to hear about this!” Redhead growled, spinning on her heel to head back to the tables outside the artist’s gallery, her two friends following her.

Vivian turned and looked at Clay, who winked at her while still saluting, a wide grin spreading over his face. “Act like you’re a rube and they eat it up! Stupid cow didn’t even ask for our names!”

Tobald chuckled. “Yeah, we sometimes have to deal with people like that up here.”

“I almost got violent,” Vivian said, shaking her head.

“And we would have stepped in to stop you,” Clay said with a nod. “Though if you really are as great a wizard as Kiara made you out to be, we might not stand much of a chance.”

Tobald snorted. “The Captain has been anti-magic ever since Master Bleaks last duel. He wrecked most of the side path leading to his home outside the Housing District, with the rest of the battle spilling into the Market District. Eleven were injured, two killed. He had to pay hefty fines to avoid being hung and still has two more years’ probation.”

“Frankly, if we could get another wizard here, that could dethrone Master Bleak, then I think the town would be better for it. We may have him on the gag order now, but he’ll just start smuggling again once his probation is up,” Clay said with a bob of his head as they continued towards the Temple. “Most of the people in town hate his guts save for the folks up here in the Garden District. They pay for trinkets and jewelry to be enchanted for the massive fees he levies, and don’t even bat an eye. At least he pays taxes…”

“Why wouldn’t he?” Vivian asked. “And what was he smuggling?”

Tobald, looked back at her as they walked. “Because Holy King Herod III decreed wizards were exempt from taxes so long as they produced one public work a year. For seven years that decree held up, but in the second year of the war he rescinded it, and increased taxes on us all to fuel the effort to maintain our own sovereignty. We may not like being taxed, but we still prefer our kingdoms’ ways over the culture of the Red Marshes. Shame Lady Sandra was married off, she was the nobility that cared for the people.”

 “Not a bad looker either, which is why I think she was the once chosen,” Clay said with a chuckle, turning to look back at Vivian with a nervous glance. “Not that her good works weren’t appreciated during her brief tenure as a Governess during the war, they were! It’s just that with her gone, the soldiers have returned and can return to their normal lives.”

“I was in that war, Clay,” Tobald said. “Once you’re a soldier, you’re always a soldier. That’s why I joined up with the Royal Guard. Figured I could put myself to good use and line my pockets at the same time.”

“As for what he was smuggling, he was shipping prepared bodies to war-torn states. All they had to do was c***k some of that magical crystal over the bodi’s chest and it would awaken as a Vessel, ready to fight.”

“So, what was the war like?” Vivian asked, curiosity peaking.

“Terrible. The Red Marshes are all to the northwest of us, with Summit Oaks serving as battlegrounds, their roots acting as roads and staging grounds. A single root was easily fifteen feet wide, and rose twenty feet above the marshes, so both armies marched along the paths. The soldiers from the Red Marshes had been scouting our borders and taken our outposts out overnight, leaving us in the dark until they were in the Prismatic Fields. The local troll populace actually warned us about the raiding parties, as they mobilized and attacked the incoming armies first.”

“Really?” Vivian asked, finding it hard to believe the lazy troll doing anything but bullying others for profit.

“Didn’t buy us much time, and we lost Relmut and Tous in the first surge. I was already in the army, so we mobilized and met them at the edge of the Prismatic Fields, some five miles from Caldera.”

“They got that close to the capitol?” Vivian asked, shocked. She’d never heard this before.

“Yeah, but you didn’t hear it from me. Supposed to be a secret. Anyway, we pushed them back with the help of the trolls into the Red Marshes, where we started guerilla warfare for two long, grueling years.” Tobald said, a faraway look in his eyes. “We got seven new regiments of a hundred young bucks each, all ready to serve. Only half of them survived their first year, and of them a quarter came back crippled, missing an arm or a leg. Those that died didn’t even get funerals; we just rolled them off the roots into the marshes for the Gemingua to eat. The scaly backed monsters gorged on the combined dead. They grew so accustomed to how we taste that they’d use their tongues, multi-jointed things that fold up inside their long maws, to scratch at the roots during battles, licking up blood dribbling down the sides as it was spilled.”

“That’s so sad,” Vivian said.

“That’s war,” Tobald shrugged. He looked up from his memories at the building they’d stopped in front of. Carved from marble, four columns bearing lanterns led to an underground building, a circular stone jutting from the overhang over the entrance, bearing the mark of the Quartz Emir, the leader of the earth spirits.

“We’re here,” Clay said with a weak smile. “Why don’t you stand guard out here buddy, I’ll take her inside, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tobald said, eyes never leaving the ground. He slumped against the wall and stared at his greaves, leaning heavily on his spear.

Clay led Vivian over a grate and into the cool interior of the stone dwelling. There were a set of great double doors that Clay ignored, choosing to turn left down a hall decorated with geode clusters and tablets bearing poetry or descriptions of certain spirits. Vivian desperately wanted to pull out her journal and sketch one of the geode clusters, but fought the urge. They descended another set of stone stairs into an almost chilly environment, dry air greeting her with a vaguely familiar odor as it swirled about her thanks to her belt buckle.

Walking through what looked like a sitting room, Clay stopped in front of a door and knocked on the wood panel built into the stone door. “We’ve brought someone who might tell us the cause of death.”

“Oh really?” An aged man said, walking into the flickering candlelight, wiping his bloody hands with a brown cloth. “Well, by all means, come inside dearie, and dig in. You can’t possibly hurt them anymore than what they have already done!”

The man, and Clay, laughed while Vivian suppressed a shudder as she finally recognized the dry scent she’d smelled: corpses.