Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

“Allow me,” said Lallit.

Sir Hereward held up his hand as he swung his legs off the bed. “No, no, remember my vow.”

He hopped over on his right foot, and caught hold of the shutter bolt.

“Might as well have a little more sunshine, while the weather holds,” said Sir Hereward. He did not think that the thing that had assumed the shape of Lallit would be deterred by sunlight, given that the other window was already open, but more might help. He opened the shutter, knelt down by his saddlebag, and cast a smiling glance back over his shoulder.

The light from the second window had no visible effect upon his visitor, but it did allow him to see very clearly that the woman in the door was neither Lallit, nor actually a woman. It was some kind of other-dimensional entity that had assumed the shape of Lallit, and stolen her clothes. Hereward hoped Lallit was still alive in the attic, just as he hoped he would live through whatever was about to occur.

“It’s very good of your god Narhalet-Narhalit to look after me so well,” added Sir Hereward. He leaned into the window alcove, and looked out as if idly surveying the ground beneath. Saying the god’s name might help bring its attention to this intruder in its temple. “Narhalet-Narhalit is good to look after my companion, Mister Fitz, as well.”

He said “Mister Fitz” quite loudly, for the puppet’s senses were extraordinarily sharp. If he was anywhere nearby, he would be alerted. But he was probably off in his sea cave, which meant Sir Hereward must manage on his own.

“The spanner,” said Lallit. The thing was having trouble keeping its voice human. “The strings. The parchment.”

“Ah yes,” said Sir Hereward. He bent down to his saddlebag, and began to rummage through it, removing items as he went, as if to make it easier.

“Let me see. A dagger, needs a bit of sharpening…another dagger, this one’s not too bad…where is that—”

He sensed a sudden movement behind him, and spun about on his good foot, the daggers in his hands. The thing was in front of him, losing its human form as it moved, its claws reaching for his arms. Hereward parried with the daggers, felt the shock of impact, and was borne back to the window and almost thrown out of it.

“You will get the parchment for me!” shrieked the thing. Flesh was melting off it, revealing the scaly, skeletal beast within, a creature not wholly present on the earth, for Hereward’s daggers, ensorcelled as they were, were slowly sinking through its wrists, the scales reforming behind the passage of the steel.

“Never!” shouted Hereward, quickly followed by, “Mister Fitz! To me! Narhalet-Narhalit, aid me!”

“You will obey!” shrieked the beast, and bit at Hereward’s shoulder. He twisted away, but its teeth raked through his night-shirt and tore flesh. At the same time, his daggers lost all purchase on the creature’s wrists. Instantly, it went for him again, and he only managed to avoid its grasp by suddenly slipping down the wall and sliding between the creature’s legs. He was attempting to roll away when it latched on to his back, dragged him up, and threw him on the bed.

“Remove the strings and open the parchment,” it instructed him. “Or you shall be hurt, and hurt again, until you obey!”

Hereward gaped. It was not in response to the creature’s command, but an inadvertent reaction to the sudden arrival of a completely naked yet literally radiant Lallit. Surrounded by a nimbus of the violet hue favored by her god, she burst into the room and made a swatting motion in the air, as if crushing a mosquito.

A hole appeared in the creature’s chest, followed by a geyser of greenish ichor that splashed the end of Sir Hereward’s bed, the stained linen immediately beginning to send up small tendrils of evil-smelling smoke.

Despite what would be a mortal injury to a human, the beast was not distressed. It turned away from Sir Hereward and tensed to spring at Lallit.

Before it could do so, Hereward jumped up and smashed it on the head with The Compendium of Commonplaces , it being the only makeshift weapon close at hand. The huge, brass-and-leather-bound book boomed like a gong as it struck the monster, and most of the tome turned to ash in Hereward’s hands, leaving him clutching a ragged folio of loosely bound pages, without any binding or brass accoutrements.

Hereward dropped the newly slim volume and dove for his saber. He drew it and spun about, ready to slash, but there was nothing there to hit. The creature had also turned to ash, had been picked up by a doubtlessly divine wind, and was being carried out the closest window, to be spread to the four corners of the earth.

The nimbus around Lallit faded, her knees buckled, and Hereward was just able to hop forward and catch her as she fell. However, he could not hold her weight with his injured foot, so both of them toppled back into the bed, just as Mister Fitz peered cautiously around the doorway, a sorcerous needle held in his cupped hand, its inhuman brilliance quickly dulled as he took in the situation.

But as the puppet replaced the needle inside his pointy hat, the small guard with the large ax leapt up the last step, his weapon held ready to use on anyone who violated the purity of the temple’s novices.

“But I haven’t…” protested Sir Hereward. He reluctantly released Lallit, and started patting out the incipient fire at the end of the bed. “We didn’t…”

“What am I doing here?” asked Lallit wonderingly. She had the look of someone still waking from a dream. “I felt the god…”

“Narhalet-Narhalit has been here,” confirmed Mister Fitz. He looked at the guard, his little blue-painted eyes sharp on his papier-mâché head. “This is the god’s business, Jabek, however it may appear.”

“Aye, I feel it so,” said Jabek. He smiled, and added, “But I’ll ask you to explain it to Sister Gobbe.”

“Oh, the mandora is broken!” exclaimed Lallit. She picked up the instrument, whose neck was broken, and cradled it to her. “Sir Hereward wanted to give it to you for your birthday, Mister Fitz.”

“A birthday present?” asked Mister Fitz. “For me?”

“According to the book I was reading, sorcerous puppets have a common birthday,” said Sir Hereward. “The fourth day of the Second Month.”

“But I am not a common puppet,” said Mister Fitz. “Nor can it be said that I was born on any particular day, given my gradual ascent to full sentience over the course of my making. Besides, those other puppets have their birthday on the fifth day of the Second Month.”

Hereward shrugged, grimacing as he felt a pang from the wound in his shoulder and a renewed ache in his foot.

“I appreciate the thought,” said Mister Fitz. “Now, tell me. This broken mandora doubtless figures in the strange events that have just come to pass?”

“There is a triangle-folded thrice-sealed missive inside,” said Hereward. “Which is strange enough, and stranger still when you consider yonder book, which until I hit that shade-walker, or whatever it was, was a much larger volume.”

“I remember opening the chest to pick up the mandora, and nothing since,” said Lallit. “Perhaps I may take your second blanket for a robe, Sir Hereward?”

“Pray do not cloak your beauty on my account…” began Sir Hereward, then, as Jabek of the Ax shifted noisily behind him, hastily added, “I mean, please do.”

Mister Fitz crouched over the remnants of the book, flipping the pages with one of Sir Hereward’s daggers. He then examined the mandora.

“It is simple enough,” he said. “The book—which I am surprised you did not note is set in that type called Sorcery and thus highly suspect—is part of the revenge upon their creditors set in play by the sorcerer-merchants of Jerreke. Forced into slavery by their own economic ineptitude, they contrived to bind twinned otherworldly entities to their service. One would be constrained within a book or some such household item, the other in an instrument, or perhaps a game set. The items would be sent separately to the chosen target, in the hope that this would enable them to bypass any sorcerous protections. When both were in proximity, the bonds would release the entities, who would slay everyone within reach.”