69: The Piper

Before we went to sleep Otto started going on about what great friends we were and how we always helped each other. I got the impression that he thought I had been helping him out when I killed Glimbrin. I wasn’t really helping him, on the contrary, I just wanted not to help, for once. I had been helping everyone, all the time, and no one had been helping me. Otto was keen to get me to talk about Shallya and what she would want me to do, but I wasn’t Shallya’s anymore. I had been punished by her and I resolved to never pray to her again.

A few days ago, after I had met the magical beastman in the forest, I noticed that two uneven horns were beginning to grow from my skull, not unlike the beastman’s horns. And they grew rapidly, pressing against my headdress. When we got to Schoninghagen I had to buy a big hat to cover them up. I told everyone it was to get more respect, not that any of them give me any respect. And now I had the same room as Otto, Kurtis, and Konrad, I had to keep my hat on while I slept.

It was clear that I wouldn’t be able to carry on like this. I would have to leave them all very soon. I wasn’t sure what Kurtis would do if he found out, but I was sure Solvej and Erhardt would kill me, and that would be merciful compared to what Ursula would do.

And we still had the problem of what to do in Jaeger’s Keep, and that all got a lot worse when first thing in the morning a cart pulled into the complex driven by a couple of roadwardens, with Glimbrin’s body slung in the back. We were all in serious trouble now, horns or no horns.

And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Kurtis came round, and I’d run out of graveroot. He demanded to know what had been going on and I had to explain I’d been forced to drug him for fear of Erhardt strangling him, but he wasn’t thankful. And then he stormed off to have a word with Erhardt.

I asked Otto if he had stolen anything of Glimbrin’s that could incriminate us. He mentioned some lockpicks, so I told him to get rid of them, and he threw them in the fire, but he failed to mention the gnome’s flask of brandy which he had also taken.

So Kurtis went down to breakfast and asked Erhardt about all the drugging and strangling. Erhardt insisted it had to be done for reasons of verisimilitude. If we didn’t treat him like a prisoner wanted for bounty, then no one would believe we had really captured him. But Kurtis observed that Erhardt seemed to be enjoying it too much. And so for good measure, in the middle of the inn Erhardt slapped Kurtis round the head and called him filth. Verisimilitude.

Kurtis got really mad at that and told Erhardt that if he ever did that again he would kick the shit out of him. But Erhardt reasoned that it was now even more important that we treat Kurtis badly because if it didn’t look like he was our prisoner then it would look like we killed the gnome. And Kurtis asked, ‘what gnome?’ so he must have been even more out of it than we’d thought.

So over breakfast we had to explain to him all about Glimbrin turning up out of the blue. Everyone was convinced that Otto had killed Glimbrin and told Kurtis that. I defended Otto but didn’t bother to mention that I had done the deed.

I don’t think Kurtis was finding us very reliable witnesses and so went to talk to the landlord. The landlord was immediately suspicious of the famous Kurtis and already convinced that he had killed Glimbrin. Kurtis told the landlord that his friends had drugged him, so the landlord asked whether that was the reason he had killed him. Kurtis tried to explain that he hadn’t seen the gnome for months, but the landlord didn’t believe him, and for good reason, as they had been seen together the previous evening. Seeing this it suddenly struck me that Kurtis, of course, would be the obvious suspect, and I began thinking of ways we might pin the deed on him and get out of Jaeger’s Keep alive, after all.

Meanwhile Konrad and Erhardt were discussing how we (or rather they) might get out alive. I think they decided that almost no one would be stupid enough to follow their contact into the middle of the Schadensumpf, with dozens of witnesses, and simply kill them there, and return to the inn as if nothing had happened. It wasn’t a great defence.

Solvej came down with a new face. I think Erhardt was enjoying this too much. I guess if we all got captured, he would just disappear into the shadows and walk out so he was treating it like it was all a great game. He had previously kept Solvej’s old face but simply given her a big nose, so she looked stupid and now he gave her a strange monobrow. And when Otto asked for one, Erhardt pretended to cast the spell on him, too. I don’t think Otto is one for looking in mirrors much, so probably didn’t even know what he looked like.

Solvej spoke to the landlord, with her new, new face and he warned her against hanging out with the likes of us. He also gave her a decent breakfast while giving us nasty leftovers.

I went outside to take a look at the body. The cart had stopped a few doors down outside an official looking building. I don’t think the old Lukas would have had the guts to talk to the roadwardens, but this wasn’t the old Lukas, and in any case, I didn’t really care what they might do to me. I gave the body a quick once over and told them I thought the gnome had drowned. The roadwarden, Gertrud, told me that this sort of thing was above his pay grade and that they had sent to Middenheim for a witch hunter, who would no doubt arrive by the end of the day. So if I wasn’t in enough trouble with the murder, and the horn mutation, there was a witch hunter coming.

I told the roadwarden that I was in the Order of the Chalice and that I was qualified to investigate such matters, but he didn’t seem that impressed, and then he took my name and told me I would be getting a visit from the witch hunter. So I went back to breakfast and told everyone we were in deep trouble.

We had a chat to sort out our alibis and decided the best story was to simply say that we had gone out in the swamp with Glimbrin and that he had told us he would fetch his contact and went on alone. We waited for a while, looked for him, but he never returned. It was a decent story but whether we could maintain the story under the pressure brought to bear by a witch hunter was anyone’s guess. Looking at Otto, it probably wasn’t that hard a guess.

Solvej went back to talk to the landlord and told him we were all creeps. Not sure whether that was part of her disguise. The landlord agreed and told her that as soon as we went up to our rooms, he would call the roadwardens. He consoled her by putting his hand on hers, and just at that moment, his wife turned up, and attacked him with a broom for fraternising with another guest, after the previous incident of the fluffed pillows.

In the light of the impending raid by the roadwardens I told Otto to go back upstairs and make sure there was no sign of Glimbrin’s lock picks, and then Otto remembered he had also stolen his flask of brandy and decided to get rid of everything by throwing it down the latrine. I decided they were unlikely to notice the signs of rat poison, and so we were safe on that score.

Kurtis left and we decided that our back up plan would be to blame Kurtis for everything, as he was such an obvious suspect. Solvej protested that that was her husband we were talking about and stormed off. That felt a bit precious for Solvej and I think she was just jealous she didn’t think of it.

Kurtis, however, had gone to hand himself in. He had the notion that if he were to hand himself in then he would be eligible for the reward. I’m not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. In any case, you don’t get many spending opportunities when you’re hanging by the neck until you’re dead. On the way back from the latrines Otto interceded and smacked Kurtis round the head and told him to go back to the inn. Gertrud was getting even more suspicious by now and insisted on seeing Otto’s bounty hunter accreditation. But he explained he was just an apprentice and Gertrud needed to talk to Konrad.

Meanwhile Konrad, Erhardt, and Solvej had left the keep and gone out into the swamp. They tried again to work out where Glimbrin had been heading, and find a route across the swamp, but without success. Then Erhardt used his magical powers and detected some sort of sinister musty dark wind deep within the swamp and decided we needed to check it out.

When they came back Gertrud demanded to see Konrad’s bounty hunter medallion, which he found acceptable, and declared he wasn’t on enough money to try and sort out this mess and was sure that the witch hunter would. But he warned us that we needed to keep a better eye on Kurtis as he had nearly got free. Konrad slapped Otto for being such a lax apprentice.

When Gertrud had gone, we filed back out into the swamp and began the trek across it towards Erhardt’s foul wind. The raised path went roughly in the right direction so we stuck to the drier way for as long as we could. It soon grew strangely cold and misty. We could not see very much at all, and it became quite disorienting. We could hear many strange sounds like cart noises, bells, and birdsong, but just as we thought we would come across their source, they seemed to fade again.

Solvej told Kurtis off for trying to turn himself in. I wasn’t really interested in their tiffs, but it was impossible not to hear. She told him he was being self-destructive, but Kurtis still seemed to think it was a decent plan. In any case, Solvej said that if he was going to die, she wanted to be the one to kill him. Young love. Kurtis told her that he had heard that she had looked after him when he was out of it the previous day, and Solvej said that was because she preferred him that way. Otto, who had also been listening pointed out that the whole time Solvej had been away, Kurtis had gone on about missing her. He agreed, but said, ‘and then she came back.’

Some way along the raised road just as it was getting dark, Konrad noticed a pair of small footprints on the edge of the track pointing out into the swamp. I’m not quite sure how he did it, spending all his time in Altdorf studying that sort of thing in the abstract, but you would imagine, someone used to the outdoors, used to hunting for their food, and living or dying by their tracking skills would be more able to spot footprints in the mud than someone like Konrad.

Looking out across the swamp in the direction of the footprints Erhardt could see through the mist where the dark winds had accumulated. We were about to set off in that direction when we heard the sound of horse hooves coming along the road. We tried to hide in what little cover there was, and soon a dark horse and rider emerged from the mist. And sat atop a great black horse was Ursula Marbad.

So, Ursula was the witch hunter who had been summoned from Middenheim. I was dreading the arrival of the witch hunter, and I wasn’t sure whether that coincidence made it more or less dangerous for me. Perhaps Ursula was less likely to suspect me of having a mutation, but she had always been suspicious of me, and she was certainly no less likely to have me burned at the stake for it.

She told us that the murder of Glimbrin wasn’t her main business here, and that she had been called in to investigate the sightings of witches in the Schadensumpf. I wondered whether she was going to let us off the murder, then, as she must have worked out we were behind it. Luckily, she’s best mates with Solvej and so the two of them caught up for a bit before they remembered why they were here. We could see a faint light coming though the mist in the direction of the footprints, and so Ursula tied Magnus II, her new horse, to a tree and joined us wading through the swamp.

The music that seemed to constantly linger faintly around the swamp was suddenly louder now. It was strange pipe music. I thought it was pretty awful, discordant, and somehow wrong and I think Otto agreed, but the rest of the group, including Schnitzel, were captivated by the sounds and it made them want to hurry towards the light.

We all trudged through the water towards the music, and as it grew louder everyone seemed keener to reach it, almost as if they were in a trance. I remembered Kurtis’ dooming which said, "As the piper plays your doom, you hear your heart breaking," and wondered whether this was what it meant. Otto and I could tell there was something very wrong, and Otto wanted them to snap out of their trance, but it seemed to me the best way to find out what was going on was to allow them to continue to. I told Otto we would be able to snap them out of their reverie later, but I didn’t know this for sure, and in any case, I wasn’t really that bothered. I decided it might be better for everyone if Ursula didn’t make it out of the swamp. Otto was a bit shocked that I should risk his friends like this, and suggested we prayed to Shallya and I told him to shut up about Shallya, but he prayed anyway.

Soon the mist thinned and parted to reveal a raised area and an ancient stone circle bathed in a blue glow. By now my five entranced comrades were drooling at the music and clamouring to enter the stone circle. Despite my orders, Otto slapped Erhardt to bring him back to his senses. I think he slapped him a bit harder than he intended and he apologised, but it did bring the wizard round.

In the middle of the stone circle was a strange, shining blue figure of a beautiful woman who seemed to be singing to us. And behind her, there was another figure, shrouded by a cloak, playing a pipe. Kurtis approached and the blue figure clawed at him with her fingernails, hurting him badly, but the blow took him out of his reverie, too.

Erhardt cast a spell of silence upon his staff and moved to the middle of our group so that no one could hear the siren song or the piper. Then he cast a magical bolt at the siren, but it missed. Free of the influence of the music, Solvej drew her bow and shot at the piper, hitting them through their cloak, and whether it stopped the music or not, we couldn’t hear. Konrad came to his senses, too, and lunged at the siren with his sword, but she flicked it away.

I watched all this dispassionately. They were expecting me to intervene, to pray on their behalf, again, or to heal Kurtis’ wounds. They would be taking this for granted, but I wasn’t prepared to pray to Shallya again. While these horns were growing out of my head, it seemed like a pointless devotion to the goddess of mercy and protection. What mercy or protection was I getting?

In any case, Kurtis steeled himself and plunged his dagger into the siren’s body. It let out a strangely melodic dying scream and dissipated. Ursula shot at the piper with her pistols, and Otto ran towards them, tackled them, and dragged them to the ground. Erhardt joined him and pulled the figure’s hood away to reveal, Genevieve.

Genevieve had been left imprisoned in the Iron Tower in Nuln months ago. I had been there when Kurtis promised to come back for her in a few weeks and get her released and as far as I knew, he had never seen her again. He had never even tried to free her, even though he had the ear of the gravin who was responsible for her incarceration. To be fair, it wasn’t all Kurtis’ fault, as I’d learned later, her imprisonment for stealing was down to Solvej framing her, because presumably she was jealous of her engagement to Kurtis. This is what Kurtis and Solvej are like.

And Genevieve had created the pamphlets and wanted posters to get them, or all of us, here so she could have her revenge. She was looking gaunt and haggard and seemed to have aged many years from the last time we had seen her. She was in a much worse state than even when she was in the Iron Tower, and she looked at us with utter hatred in her eyes.

Otto grabbed the pipe from her. It had some sort of inscription about rats on it and seemed to be made from the leg and claw of a giant rat, or something. But it felt strange and tingly to him, like the sword he had picked up from the blood daemons in Kemperbad and Erhardt told him to drop it, so he did.

‘You bastards ruined my life,’ Genevieve screamed at us. ‘You left me to rot in prison and it was months before I even realised my accusers had died.’ Solvej seemed amused by the whole situation and told Genevieve to get over herself.  Genevieve told Solvej that she was a duplicitous strumpet and that she would kill her. But Solvej just laughed in her face and told her she was a weak woman who put herself at the mercy of others, and she had simply got got.

And she told Genevieve that Kurtis had never cared about her. Though I noticed Kurtis was keeping pretty quiet. I have to say I did warn Genevieve about Kurtis a long time ago, and perhaps she should have listened to me. Of course, I knew what sort of people Kurtis and Solvej were, a long time ago, too. Perhaps I should have listened to myself. Perhaps both Genevieve and I have been damned by our association with the pair of them, in our own different ways. It made me wonder how many other lives the two of them have wrecked along the way.

Genevieve asked Kurtis why he hadn’t come back to save her. He told her that we had tried, but it wasn’t very convincing, and Solvej interjected that it was because she was a smelly little brat who was sucking on a rat pipe. Solvej was lovely when we first met her, and so was Genevieve. Now look at the pair of them. Perhaps it was just Kurtis who was the bad influence and Solvej was just as much his victim as Genevieve.

It was suddenly very clear why Shallya did not want me helping these people, and why I had been punished for it. It was amazing, really, that I had not realised this before. I had had plenty of opportunities to leave them behind, but for some reason I had stuck by them, and now I was being made to pay, too.

Genevieve said she would follow us and kill us, and so Solvej stamped on her ankle and broke it. Then she pulled her bow and pointed an arrow at Genevieve’s heart. I think I saw Solvej glance at Kurtis for a moment, and he gave her a nod of approval, and so she loosed her arrow into Genevieve’s heart, killing her instantly. And Kurtis actually looked proud of Solvej.

Otto attended to her as quickly as he could, but I could see that there was nothing he could have done. Then Otto let us know what he thought about it all. He said that Genevieve had been a nice lady, and that he, himself, had once been nice, and that I had once been nice, but had changed, which I couldn’t argue with. He said how Solvej had been nice, once too, and how Kurtis came from good, humble beginnings. He said how Erhardt had been pretty chill (whatever that means) and that he didn’t know Konrad well but that he shouldn’t be hanging out with people like us, because we were bad for people. No one gives Otto any credit for intelligence or eloquence, for good reason, but I think he nailed it there.

We stood around a bit, in shame, wondering what to do next, and Erhardt saw the rat pipe lying on the ground and so wrapped it and picked it up. But Ursula grabbed it from him, saying how it was such a profane item it needed to be destroyed immediately. Then she snapped it over her knee. As it broke, some sort of power erupted from it pushing us all away and knocking us down. I got slowly to my feet and saw a number of our group lying on the ground but could hear Ursula calling to Erhardt for help.

She had been blown beyond the stone circle and was in a deep part of the swamp, struggling to stay above the water. I had been granted the gift of breath a number of times before. It is a common enough blessing of Shallya. I could have prayed to Shallya and Ursula would have been saved. I wondered whether Shallya would even answer my prayer, and I didn’t even want to ask her. And I knew that if Ursula ever saw the horns growing from my head, she would have killed me in a moment. So I just watched as everyone frantically waded towards her and Ursula disappeared beneath the water and drowned.

It took us a while to notice, as we were still lamenting Ursula’s passing, but Kurtis was not around. Like all of us, he had been flung from the exploding magical pipe. But he had slammed into one of the standing stones and he now lay bleeding at its base.

Otto ran to him and tried to stem the bleeding, but he couldn’t manage it. I could have tried, of course, and I was much more proficient than Otto. Perhaps this was a test from Shallya. Perhaps I had already been tested and failed and bore the mark of that failure. Either way, I could not move myself to try to save Kurtis. Perhaps this would be the only way to be free of him. So I simply stood there coldly watching Otto try and fail to staunch the blood. And that is how Kurtis died.