Journey into the Void

S
HADOWING THE TWO PECWAE WAS RELATIVELY EASY FOR THE
Vrykyl, Jedash. The elderly grandmother and her grandson walked slowly, stopping often to gape at the wondrous sights of the city of New Vinnengael.

A street filled with buildings as tall as giants, full three stories, one stacked atop another, astonished the diminutive, forest-dwelling pecwae. The two spent a whole quarter hour staring at this wonder alone. The gaily painted signs of the guild shops and alehouses were meant to attract attention, and they lured the pecwae with their garish colors and outlandish renditions of animals, objects, and people. The Prancing Porker, the Cocked Hattery (featuring a rooster wearing a hat), the Bishop's Miter Alehouse—drew either a shake of the head from the knowledgeable pecwae (the pig had not been born who could prance), or a laugh.

The two pecwae had no notion they were being followed. They had eluded danger, or so they thought. The moment the Imperial guard had come in sight, bearing down on them and their companions, the instinct for self-preservation that had enabled their diminutive race to survive in a world populated by all manner of predators prompted them to flee. Their companions, including Baron Shadamehr and their Trevinici protector, Jessan, had been arrested. Having no orders regarding pecwae, the Imperial guard had not bothered with them.

Jedash had no orders regarding pecwae, either, but he had seen them arrive in company with a Trevinici. Recalling that Shakur, another Vrykyl,
had been searching for a Trevinici traveling in company with pecwae, Jedash had thought this intriguing. He'd reported it to Shakur and taken it upon himself to trail after them. Jedash had been rewarded for his foresight. Shakur sent urgent word through the Blood-knife that Jedash was to capture the two pecwae and bring them to the palace, where Shakur was now residing, having murdered and taken over the body of the young king.

The question for Jedash was how to capture the two without drawing undue attention to himself. And in this, he had rivals.

The sight of pecwae wandering the streets of New Vinnengael was attracting a considerable amount of attention, some of it sinister. About four feet in height, of slender build, with wide eyes and a cheerful smile, the male pecwae had been disguised to pass for a human child, wearing a cap over his delicately pointed ears. The elderly female pecwae, however, had scorned to disguise herself. Small and gray-headed, with a face brown and wrinkled as a walnut, she peered and leered into the faces of everyone they passed; her long, colorful skirt, decorated with beads and bells, clicking and jangling around her ankles. Her walking stick was in itself a curiosity. Carved of wood, the stick was filled with knotholes and every single one of the knotholes was a polished agate, mounted in such a way that each resembled a staring eye.

Most of the citizens who stopped to stare at the pecwae and point them out were simply curious, pausing a moment to gawk at the funny-looking little people. But others were not. Some had a more material interest.

Years past, it had been the fashion among the wealthy of New Vinnengael to keep pecwae as pets. Pecwae children, stolen from their homes, were bought and sold in the marketplace. The wealthy exhibited them as curiosities or kept them as companions, dressing them up like dolls and walking them like dogs. Unused to city life, many pecwae sickened and died in captivity and eventually the Church put a stop to the practice. Dealing in pecwae was now illegal, a crime that could be punished by death.

People found ways around this law, however. Adoption was not only legal but encouraged, and wealthy families could now always “adopt” pecwae children. The Church had no quarrel with this, since introducing pecwae to civilization and the benefits of a Church education could only profit the savage race. The traffic in pecwae was severely curtailed, but a person could still obtain one, if he had the money.

Even on the black market, few pecwae were available, and those that were fetched a healthy price. In order to protect their children, the pecwae tribes had moved out of New Vinnengael and traveled west to the lands of the Trevinici, their ancient protectors. Those unscrupulous merchants who did not fear the Church had a healthy fear of the Trevinici. It was the ancient law of supply and demand.

The sight of two pecwae, alone and unprotected, calmly strolling the streets of New Vinnengael, brought gleams to the eyes of more than one black marketer.

Jedash understood the danger the pecwae were in better than the two pecwae, and he cursed his ill luck. Quite clearly, he stood a fair chance of having his prize snatched right out from under his nose. He recognized two well-known smugglers among the gawkers, smugglers said to trade in all sorts of contraband, from forbidden books of Void magic to night-shade and baneberry to orks' teeth (thought by some to be an aphrodisiac) to pecwae.

Armed with the magical power of the Void, Jedash was not afraid to fight for his prize. The only weapons he feared—the only weapons that could slice through the Void magic that held his rotting corpse together—were weapons that had been blessed by the gods. Jedash was reasonably confident that neither of those two would have such a weapon in their possession.

That said, Jedash was well aware that the smugglers would not lightly relinquish the chance for such a windfall. If he moved in on his quarry, the smugglers would view him as a competitor and try to stop him. There would be trouble, a commotion, screams, blood. To make matters worse, the city was on edge, the streets unusually crowded, for rumors were circulating that New Vinnengael was about to go to war. Shopkeepers had shut up their stores. The wealthy who had country homes had packed up their valuables and were leaving the city. Soldiers went about looking grim and important, and it seemed that every person who could walk or hobble was out in search of the latest rumor. At the first sight of trouble, some nervous busybody would go haring off for the authorities.

Jedash could have dealt with any number of authorities, but he had orders to keep his true nature concealed. He was not to reveal to anyone that he was a Vrykyl. Dagnarus feared that someone might connect him
with the undead Vrykyl, and such knowledge might upset his plans for the conquest of the city.

Traipsing after the pecwae, Jedash mulled over his dilemma, tried to figure out how to deal with the situation. His thoughts were interrupted by Shakur, who was able to speak to Jedash through the magic of the Blood-knives that both carried.

“I have just finished searching the Trevinici warrior. We did not find the Sovereign Stone on him,” Shakur stated. “But he was carrying Svetlana's Blood-knife. The Stone must be in possession of the two pecwae. You said you were on their trail. Have you caught them yet?”

“No, Shakur,” Jedash replied. “There are…complications.”

“Another dragon?” Shakur asked, with a sneer.

“No, not another dragon,” Jedash muttered, adding sullenly, “If these two pecwae are so blamed important, why don't you come get them yourself?”

“I cannot leave the palace,” Shakur returned. “My disguise forbids it. You are responsible, Jedash. See to it that you do not bungle this assignment as you did the last one. Lord Dagnarus was not pleased.”

Shakur severed the mental connection, leaving Jedash on his own.

The Vrykyl ground his teeth in anger, but he dared not say or even think a word of defiance. The last assignment Shakur had given Jedash had been foiled by the fact that the dwarf he'd been supposed to kidnap was being guarded by a dragon disguised as a human female. Vrykyl are powerful in Void magic, and there are some who might be able to fight and defeat a dragon—one such as Shakur, for example. Jedash wasn't one of them. He had fled the premises, far more willing to face Shakur's ire than the wrath of a dragon.

Consequently, Jedash needed to prove himself, needed to ingratiate himself to his lord and return to his lord's good graces. Capturing the pecwae would be his opportunity.

Jedash was not brilliant. He was not even particularly intelligent, but he did have the low and desperate cunning of a trapped rat. Shakur's mention of the Trevinici protector gave Jedash an idea, gave him a couple of ideas.

“If I hand over the two pecwae to Shakur, he'll take them to Lord Dagnarus and claim that
he
found them. Why should Shakur be rewarded with my lord's favor?” Jedash asked sulkily. “Why shouldn't it be me? I'm the one who's chasing them down, after all.”

Jedash kept on the trail. The crowds that he had previously cursed now worked in his favor. Vrykyl maintain their unhallowed life by feeding on the souls of those they murder. Once they have taken a soul, they have the power of transforming themselves into the victim. Jedash could take on the dead person's appearance, his characteristics, his voice and manner. He could perform the transformation swiftly, as he walked.

There were dangers. Anyone looking at him directly would be startled out of their wits to see a person change suddenly into another person. And there was the uncomfortable moment between the two aspects when the hideous rotting corpse that was the true form of the Vrykyl would be clearly visible. Fortunately for Jedash, those in the streets were more intent on feeding their own fears than noticing a man changing his skin as another might change clothes.

Jedash underwent the transformation.

Settled into his new body, he closed in on his prey.

 

Bashae noticed the way some of the people looked at him and the Grandmother. He saw the way eyes glittered and fingers twitched, as if counting money, and he was uneasy. He recalled—a bit late—how Arim, the Nimorean kite-maker, had warned him that some unscrupulous people might kidnap them and sell them as slaves.

Bashae tried to explain his worries to the Grandmother, but she refused to listen. She had arrived in her “sleep city,” the other world to which pecwae travel in their dreams. Entranced by the sights, which she maintained she had seen in her dreams, she walked the streets and pointed out familiar landmarks, heedless of the stares, heedless of the danger.

Bashae was sorry he'd responded to his instincts and fled when the city guards came in sight. He had the feeling he would have been much more comfortable with his friends, even if they were all in jail, than wandering about the crowded streets, amidst the tall buildings that blotted out the sunlight and these people who stared and laughed and watched them with narrowed eyes.

“I wish we'd stayed with Jessan,” Bashae said, after stepping barefoot into some sort of stinking brown gunk.

“Bah!” the Grandmother scoffed. “If we were with them, they would be in more danger, not less.” She cast a knowing look at the knapsack
Bashae carried. “We're safer without them, and they're safer without us. So it all works out.”

Bashae sighed and clutched the knapsack tightly. He had not known what was in it when he'd accepted the knapsack from the dying knight, Lord Gustav. Bashae had thought the knapsack contained only a family heirloom, meant to be delivered to a dear friend. He knew the truth now, knew that he carried with him the human portion of the Sovereign Stone, a powerful magical jewel. Bashae was not very clear on what the jewel did, but he was clear on two points: the first, that everyone in the known world was searching for it; the second, that most of those searching for it would kill to obtain it.

“Jessan will be worried about us,” said Bashae, thinking of his friend and protector, the young Trevinici warrior.

“Of course,” returned the Grandmother complacently. “He's supposed to be worried about us. That's why we brought him along. He's probably looking for us right now. If he's not in a dungeon somewhere.”

“Do you think he's in a dungeon?” Bashae asked, concerned.

“Anything's possible,” said the Grandmother. “Especially in my sleep city.” She seemed proud of that fact.

Bashae cast a hopeless glance at the crowds milling about in the street. He'd never seen so many people congregated in one place before in his life. They were thick as ticks on a bear. He didn't see how Jessan could ever find them.

“Maybe it would be a good idea if we stopped somewhere and waited for him,” Bashae suggested. “You must be tired, Grandmother.”

“I'm never tired,” she retorted. A moment earlier she had been foot-sore, limping, her shoulders sagging. She stood up straight and glared at him. “If
you're
tired, we'll stop and rest.”

A door stoop being convenient, the two sat down. The Grandmother gathered her skirt around her ankles so no one would trip over her bells and placed her stick with its staring eyes across her lap. Bashae was somewhat inconvenienced by the stick, which poked him in the ribs, but he managed to find a comfortable position and settled himself to wait for someone to find them. If not Jessan, then Baron Shadamehr or one of his men. Maybe Ulaf, to whom Bashae had taken a liking.

They had run away in the morning, and by now the sun had sailed across the sky and buildings were beginning to cast long shadows. What
clouds Bashae could see between the tops of the tall buildings had taken on an orange tinge. Night would be on them soon, sooner in this city than in their homeland.

At least no one will stare at us in the darkness, Bashae was thinking when his thoughts were scattered by the clanging and booming of what seemed to be hundreds of bells.

Every bell in the city gave tongue, droning in deep voices or singing out in higher-pitched tones. The clangor woke the Grandmother, who had fallen asleep with her head on the stick. Bashae stared about in wonderful astonishment. He'd never heard anything like this wild, sweet pealing.

Almost immediately after the bells, a man with a booming voice deeper than any bell could be heard three streets away. “By order of His Majesty the King, curfew has been imposed on the city of New Vinnengael. All people are to be off the streets and in their homes at the hour of Eventide. Anyone caught on the streets past that hour will be subject to arrest and imprisonment.”