The magic of the invincible city of Baradon is dying away.  Salan, captain of the Tower Guard, will soon find out that curing its ills is less simple than he thought.
 

Salan knew his city was dying.

Its invincible walls crumbled. Its eternal garden was wilting. Its majestic towers no longer rained brimstone on its enemies.

Why? That was the question everyone wanted the answer to. Did the gods scorn its immorality? Salan didn’t think so. The government was self-serving, but the people were good. Every man he knew loved his wife. Every child he knew loved his mother.

So why?

This was the question he pondered as he walked down Calar Street. It was late. He had been working nights as a guard, sometimes until the midnight bell. But it was the least he could do for his city.

He watched the street’s limestone villas as he walked. Most were spacious, multi-story mansions complete with gardens, stables, and grand dining halls. The stone used to build them came from the western mountains, quarried and hauled into the city by oxcart in blocks. Salan lived on this street. He was the captain of the Tower Guard, the invincible knights who guarded the city. The knights who never bled. The rocks against the tempest.

Or so it had been, long ago.

One of his men, a Tower Guard, met him beside his house. It was Ahmed, a dark-skinned man who was second in command. “Hello, lord-captain,” he said with a smile.

“Hello,” Salan said, “What are you doing here?”

“Just heading home to the Tower. What are you doing?”

“Walking to my house. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Ahmed smiled. “I was in the park, captain, dealing with some thugs.”

“All right,” Salan said, “I will see you in the morning, then. Good day.”

They parted ways quickly.

He turned into a small house he called his own. It was a bit smaller than the rest, plain and unadorned. It was square in shape, white as snow, with a porch outside supported by intricate columns. A small candle, burning bright, illuminated the window. In the front was a garden his wife tended, growing saffron and spices for cooking.

He opened the cedar door, said, “I’m home!” but there was no answer.

His wife, Darmela, lay sprawled across the expensive silk sheets of their bed. As she lay there quietly, he noticed her soft black hair strewn about her back, scented with oils and perfume. His son, Dala, slept soundly in his room. He knew his son missed him.

He had tried to get him to go on the hunt with him a week ago, but Dala hated physical sports. Dala liked reading books, and studying the stars—two things Salan had no interest in doing. At eight years old, Salan could do few things besides shut him up in a monastery or get him an apprenticeship with a scribe. He would not be the next Tower Captain as he had hoped, and so far Darmela had been unable to bear him another child.

On their cedar table was a shiny pewter plate. On it, a tiny portion of roast mutton and some wine of Northern vintage. Both cold. Darmela had probably cooked it for him at about dusk, hoping he would return.

Salan sat down to eat, picking up his prongs and razor-sharp knife. He cut along the bone and chewed the meat, realizing how hungry he was.  He had been too overworked, too concerned, to be hungry. Physical work often masked his weariness—when he was famished in body or mind, all he had to do was go patrol or search for crime.

The wine filled his mouth with flavor.

“Salan,” Darmela said in her sleep, turning on her side. “Salan! Hold me…”

He drank the rest of his wine sadly and ate the last bits of mutton, wiping his greasy mouth with a striped cotton napkin. He wished he could spend more time with his family. He could, he supposed, but he was too concerned with the fate of Baradon. Darmela often said he was more concerned with the city than his family.

“Gods of the sky, heal my city,” he prayed as he had so often before. But the gods never answered. The city continued in its downward slope, and it seemed they turned a deaf ear.  In days long ago the gods had blessed their city greatly, filling it with wealth from every nation in the world. Its wealth stockpiles grew in such excess that gold became a decorative material rather than a currency. But those days were long gone. The great works of gold were now used to pay their dwindling army, to secure their borders and refurbish the invincible walls that now crumbled.

The wind whispered through the shutters. A light drizzle picked up. Wind blew and shook the stalwart cedars in Salan’s backyard.

Rising, he walked to the kitchen to wash his pewter dish.

He poured water onto it from a silver laver, forming a small pool. Then he looked inside the watery plate. And that was when it struck him.

Two luminous eyes stared into his from the waters. He could see a strange figure in the reflection, frightening him a bit. He looked deeper, taking note of a spacious rocky cave. He pondered what it could be.

“It cannot heal itself!” shrieked Darmela, still sleeping. “Only a sword can heal it, and then only a while!”

“The Pools!” Salan said, “The Nine Pools are defiled!”

Lightning cracked a mile away, ushering in a voluminous rain. It pattered hard on the rooftop.

The nine fonts in the caverns below the city held the city’s magic within like a dam did to a river. If touched or even breathed upon, the magic would leak and gush, dissipating throughout the countryside rather than staying concentrated in one location.

Salan opened the door and took off at a brisk walk. He was not in armor—all he had was a small steel poniard and a cloak—and whatever had defiled the Pools needed to be fought appropriately. He needed to get his equipment.

He grabbed his sword and a chainmail shirt from the Tower, then headed to his destination.

The entryway to the cavern was a well-kept secret. No one but Salan and the High Astrologer knew where it was, and he was ordinarily forbidden to go there. If everyone in the city knew, the sociopaths and disaffected thieves, few as they were, would be inclined to defile its waters. But now he had to go in, for the good of the city. The Astrologer would disapprove, but Salan knew what had to be done.

He walked into the city park—a small quarter-mile square with browning grass, cypress and cedar trees. The rain would undoubtedly do the dry garden good. A small cave was nearby; this he entered quietly. Inside sat a pile of stones four feet high. At once he began picking them up. Some were extremely heavy, but Salan tossed them aside with relative ease. He had long improved his strength, fighting Hamminid caliphs of the southwest and even more terrible, nameless things that came from the whispering desert sands.

When they were gone, he stepped down a small hole into a stone tunnel. This he traveled, winding aimlessly. Water dripped from the ceiling and it felt claustrophobic—very uncomfortable, to say the least, in armor, but he continued.

Eventually he came to a door, old and unused, leading to the chamber. He opened it, afraid of what he might see.

He was right to be afraid.

There, standing in front of him, was some kind of hideous fiend. She had crawled out from a hole in the cave. Her skin was deep purple like a bruise, her eyes blazing fires. She looked like some heathen desert goddess—a thing that Hammidian idolaters worshipped in the dead of night, a thing to whom they sacrificed rams and goats on a bloody altar. She had nine arms ending in clawed hands, thirty breasts, and six legs. Her mouth opened and a handful of centipedes crawled out.

Yet still, Salan found her attractive in the most reprehensible and ignoble way. “Who are you?” he choked, frozen. To his great shame, he felt hesitant to strike her down.

She said nothing. She only stared at him blankly, looking venomous in the darkness.

Salan drew his sword. He noticed the Nine Pools were all murky, dark and defiled.  The Hammidian plunderers might soon have their way.

He charged and severed one of the demon’s nine arms. It fell bleeding to the floor, but the demon-queen did nothing. He chopped again. Another dropped, bleeding.

One more stroke cut her in half.

Out of her flesh came a million centipedes, which quickly devoured her skin and her organs to nothingness. Salan grimaced. They crawled away, finished with their meal, and dropped into the defiled pools to brood.

Salan turned around and walked back the way he had come, shivering. He climbed up the hole and out into the park, where the proud cedars were now wet and the thirst of the browning grasses was slaked. The rain hadn’t yet stopped. As he looked around he saw one of the Tower Guards—one of his servants. It was Kamool, an ebon-skinned foreigner from the Deep South. Years ago he had come to the city, and they adopted him into the Tower service. There was a spear in his hand, an exemplary weapon with a cedar shaft and a broad, leaf-shaped blade.

“What are you doing?” asked Salan.

“Nothing,” said Kamool, his teeth white. “I saw you in the park, so I followed.”

“Why?”

“Is that blood on your sword?” asked the ebon-skinned man.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I was resting my bones at the tavern on Green Street,” said Kamool, “You looked concerned, running through the rain.”

Salan nodded slowly. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, eh?”

Kamool nodded and began walking away in the direction of the Guard Tower. Salan eyed him suspiciously.

The cold rain rolled down his cheeks as he walked home.

Contents

Ads on this site are provided by a third party source. Neither MindFlights, Web-Net Solutions, LLC, Double-Edged Publishing, Inc., nor anyone associated with this site endorses or guarantees the products or services advertised herein.