Prodigal Sons Read online

  “Would you mind?” the beast said dryly, in the same slightly mad but cultured voice he had used for the puppet Grizzlebane.

  I found my voice. “Stand back, children! It’s a leucrotta!”

  “Look everyone!” The Clever Nella puppet floated in the air. “A wealthy prat!”

  “I’m a Pathfinder!”

  “The two are not mutually exclusive,” said the Devil, alive again, dancing on the tip of the leucrotta’s lion tail. “Daddy bought you a wayfinder, did he?”

  It was then that I felt something hot and wet running down my leg. I looked. The little dog with the basket was lifting his against mine.

  The children all laughed—human, halfling, gnomish, even the half-elven brats who’d been playing under the buffet. I felt a hot blush steal into my cheeks, but I knew noble children, having been one myself. They soon tired of my humiliation and left to find other amusements, leaving me with my shame, the dog, and the monster in the puppet show.

  “So,” said the leucrotta, ducking out under the flap. “Lord Ollix of Kadria, I presume?”

  It was a great beast, but moved with the stiffness of age. I felt compelled to look at it as it spoke. The last thing you want is a leucrotta to know your name, for it gives it power over you. But at this point, I knew there was no use in lying. “How did you know who I am?”

  “I have an excellent ear for both accents and gossip,” the leucrotta explained. “I hear the rounded vowels of the Kadrian court, and I’ve heard its lord has kicked out his only heir...”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m at a loss. I don’t know your name.”

  “Nor shall you.” The monster grinned, revealing black gums and long razor-sharp ridges of bone. “But for stage purposes ‘Professor Grizzlebane’ has sufficed.”

  “Erm snuffles,” said the dog, in a voice that was more growl than speech.

  “Snuffles?” I repeated. First a leucrotta, now a talking dog named Snuffles?

  “Shuffle,” Professor Grizzlebane corrected. “Shuffle the Harrow-Reading Dog, my oldest friend here. ” He looked to the little dog, which sat up and panted expectantly. “Shhhh...” the leucrotta enunciated precisely. “It’s pronounced with front teeth gritted, like baring them at something who wants your kill.”

  The dog’s teeth showed briefly beneath his whiskers. “Wuffle!” He then looked in the basket, wagged his tail, and yapped.

  “No, you may have it,” said Professor Grizzlebane. “I don’t care for marchpane.”

  Shuffle the Harrow-Reading Dog began happily gnawing the left foot of the Rabbit Prince while the leucrotta turned back to me. “You must pardon my friend’s diction. Speech does not come naturally to his breed.” He paused, then added, “And do not fret yourself. Just as I don’t care for marchpane, I’m too old and wise a leucrotta to eat mandrake babies either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Simply think,” scolded Professor Grizzlebane. “I don’t expect your father holds any love for you, but were his heir to die, would he avenge that death, if just to keep up appearances?”

  The beast was trying to get inside my head, twisting its word around my feelings, for while leucrottas are known to relish the kill, what they truly savor is tormenting their victims with every imaginable cruelty. “You lie, leucrotta!”

  The monster laughed. “Perhaps. Perhaps your father despises you so much he would not even use your corpse as a political chit, refusing to shed even a single crocodile tear over something he truly regards as a tragic mistake. Who am I to say?”

  Half of me wanted to say my father loved me, which I knew to be untrue, and the other half wanted to say my father hated me, but not so much that he’d spite his own ambition, which was probably closer to the truth. But mostly I was torn, and I hated Professor Grizzlebane like I hated my old tutor Doctor Birkaius because he made me think.

  “Or perhaps you ran away,” opined the leucrotta. “Perhaps your father tired of courte—”

  “If I tell the truth, will you stop the speculation?”

  “Everyone wants something, little lordling. What would you wish in exchange?”

  “You tell me your tale, I’ll tell you mine.” I stated the bargain as plainly as I could. “How does a monster known to eat children end up on a Sellen pleasure barge performing ‘Clever Nella’ for their amusement?”

  The leucrotta grinned. “Did you watch the show?”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “Well then,” said the old leucrotta, “quote for me the Second and Fifth River Freedoms.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Professor Grizzlebane’s tale was simple yet interesting: When he had grown too old to lead his pack, he had gone off to die, a lone leucrotta, content to indulge in whatever petty cruelties Lamashtu sent his way until the Mother of Monsters granted him the final cruelty and the final kindness. Instead, she sent a leucrotta’s worst nightmare: laryngitis. Thus afflicted, he was trapped, beaten, and as one last indignity, mistaken for a base crocotta and sold to the Cornflower’s menagerie, an error akin to mistaking a naked gnome for a mangy monkey.

  But as is said, even a leucrotta may quote the law. Once he recovered his voice, Professor Grizzlebane did: specifically the Fifth River Freedom, that slavery is an abomination. While his owner was wise enough to invoke the Sixth—you have what you hold—Professor Grizzlebane compromised by invoking the Second: oathbreakers die. While wise enough to avoid indentured servitude, he swore to work for the Cornflower’s betterment and to not devour, kill, or even harm any of her crew or passengers.

  Of course, while this remained true in the literal sense, in the figurative, he was eating us alive, partnered with Shuffle the Harrow-Reading Dog for high-stakes Towers two days later.

  Shuffle riffled the cards, and I still have no idea how little black dog paws could manipulate pasteboard so dexterously. We were playing Towers of Sellen. Unfortunately, this was not Towers as Phargas knew it, so my partner had not only lost the stakes I’d lent him, but most of the money I’d wagered besides.

  Phargas and I played The White Tower, Shuffle and Grizzlebane The Black. The Black Tower currently led, having captured the neutral cards that flowed down The River many times, as the marks on the score sheet mutely attested.

  I discarded two cards and gestured for Shuffle to hit me. Little black nails flipped me a brace. I moaned: The Fiend and The Snakebite again. They kept coming to me hand after hand, and when playing The White Tower, evil was evil.

  “Ah, The Fiend again, young Ollix.” Professor Grizzlebane chuckled. “Are you certain that is not your papa in the picture, devouring his own child?”

  “I think it’s you, Professor Grizzlebane. You’re the only child-eater here.”

  “Tch!” The old leucrotta made a disparaging noise. “Leucrottas do not devour their young. And the little ones here? I feel like they’re my own cubs: their cruel little eyes, their gleeful appreciation of torture, the bad advice they so freely give. Really, what’s not to love?”

  I should have considered it earlier, but the leucrotta’s talent for getting under one’s skin made him an excellent Harrow player.

  “And The Snakebite,” Professor Grizzlebane continued. “Perhaps the cards are trying to warn you? A false friend, perhaps?” His crafty eyes flicked to Phargas, then back. “Or mayhap an ungrateful child? That’s the classic omen.”

  If I’d begotten an ungrateful bastard somewhere, I’d hardly be surprised, but as any of mine could scarcely be out of swaddling clothes, I wasn’t worried. The envenomed dagger worn by the faceless assassin, however? There could be no clearer omen for the Daggermark Poisoners Guild. “Maybe we should just play the game, Professor Grizzlebane?”

  “Of course,” said the leucrotta. “Care to raise your wager or should we just call it now?”

  Towers of Sellen is played with one’s wealth on the table, and you aren’t allowed to wager more than you obviously have. If we lost this hand, Phargas and I would be destitute. But I still had one bit
of wealth visible. “Would you accept this?” I asked, placing my wayfinder on the table. The magic compass glittered in the lantern light.

  “What say you, Shuffle?” the leucrotta asked his partner.

  “Woof!” declared the Harrow-Reading Dog, wagging his tail.

  “Well then,” said Professor Grizzlebane. “We accept. But since we are now open to items of magic, you know this is worth twice that.” The mummified hand the aged leucrotta wore as a necklace uncurled two digits. It was a grisly thing, the hand of an elven mage, but it let him manipulate puppets and even deal cards. Without it, he was merely a very clever magical beast. “You will understand if I do not remove the talisman until the game is complete, but I assure you, it is on the table.” He grinned again. “But now, if you cannot see my wager, you must fold and forfeit, no matter how good your hidden cards might be.”

  Phargas looked at his. Of the ones he had face up, only The Wanderer, the card that portended a Pathfinder, did us any good. But Phargas glanced to me, nodded, then turned to the leucrotta. “We do not fold.”

  “Oh?” asked Professor Grizzlebane. “What do you wager? Another wayfinder, mayhap?”

  Phargas’s eyes narrowed. “I wager my service. A gold a day, or at standard rates for more hazardous duties. Enough to make up the difference. As this is the custom, you must allow it, so call the cards.”

  “If you’ll allow, I’d like to do the same, enough to take this back.” I placed my hand on my wayfinder. I did not wish to make Clever Nella’s bargain, but I am the heir of Kadria, and I would be damned before I let myself be upstaged by an aging priest.

  Professor Grizzlebane glanced to Shuffle, then nodded. “Done and done. Let us call it.”

  "How does he do that?"

  The White Tower goes first. I had nothing, but Phargas revealed his cards: The Hidden Truth and The Joke combined with The Wanderer already showing, giving us the Three Good Books. But more than that, they not only gained control of The Inquisitor and The Vision, which had previously been floating unclaimed in The River, but also transmuted The Snakebite from baleful to beneficent and captured The Rakshasa from Shuffle’s up cards, multiplying the points for the set—Seven of Nine Books, scored for The White Tower. Combined with the other good cards, it could be enough for us to win, assuming The Black Tower had no eleventh-hour treachery.

  Shuffle turned his cards first. Two unmatched Evil cards, then The Cyclone, which magnified The Fiend before me, but not enough to outweigh the good there was before Phargas. But then Professor Grizzlebane grinned. His cards turned over one by one. The Foreign Trader appeared in The River, completing the set of the Three Neutral Books and raising our score. But then The Idiot, the last of the Three Evil Books, robbed us of all the Books so far, raised the score, and put all eighty-one points in contest.

  With what was showing, The White Tower and The Black Tower were matched, the game balanced on The Rabbit Prince’s broken sword.

  But the last card had not tipped. If it was good, or even the right neutral or evil, it could hand us the hand—even the mummified one around Professor Grizzlebane’s neck.

  The final card flipped over: evil. And not just any evil, but The Beating. The card showed a man assaulted on all sides, ghoulish hands rising up from the ground. It completed the set of the Three Evil Hammers and claimed the Nine Books. The Black Tower had won.

  The final card rose in the air, manipulated by the hand of the mage around the wily old leucrotta’s neck. “It appears you shall have a beating in your future as well as your present, O Heir, though I predict this one will be a good bit more physical.”

  “What, are you a Varisian fortuneteller now, in addition to a Clever Nella puppeteer?” I did my best to sneer as I clutched my wayfinder.

  “Hardly.” Professor Grizzlebane grinned, showing his black gums and razor-sharp ridges of bone. “I merely know the Cornflower’s next stop is the Toll Tower of Tymon. And Tymon’s lord is fond of his gladiator pits.” He laughed like a jackal. “And just because I’m too wise to eat a mandrake baby doesn’t mean that there isn’t an idiot somewhere who will.”

  Chapter Five: Chariots of Terror

  by Steven E. Schend

  It should have been bigger. For a place so exalted in tales, Tymon was disappointingly commonplace, buzzing with activity, but none of any importance. Hardly a place worthy of such nobility as us—or rather, me. Then again, with a little time, perhaps my presence could raise this backwater hovel into a place worthy of gentility. I mentioned as much to Phargas.

  The priest cleared his throat and hawked into the river as we crossed the gangplank to the dock. “What did you expect?”

  “Stone and marble, for one. Grandeur, banners, and servants, not more dirt, dockhands, and doxies.”

  The brute prodding us from behind snorted. “Well, there’ll be more servants with you here. Step lively, and head toward Caras there at dock’s end.” He nodded his head toward a slimmer man dressed in the same blue garb as all the Cornflower’s staff.

  Phargas stopped in mid-stride. “How does anyone to expect us here?”

  The giant-sized deckhand smiled at him, exposing three missing teeth. “Every night, boats go ahead of us. No good to have a pleasure barge without folk upriver wanting aboard. The captain sent Caras, and now we see if he found someone to buy your debts.”

  The blue-garbed person we approached gestured toward us. He spoke with a pair of men cloaked in brown and black, both cleaner and better dressed than the rabble around them. “You know, Phargas,” I said, “I really should have thrashed you for dragging me into this low situation. You’re going to be the death of me.”

  The priest coughed and stared at me a moment. Even after all our time together, he was clearly still unused to his betters admitting the common rabble have some effect on their lives. He then rubbed his shaved scalp, yawned, and said, “Milord, this low situation rests entirely on your ‘unbeatable noble talents at cards’ being disproved, not what I wagered. As for the rest, we have only the paths upon which the gods set us. Where we end is hardly up to us.”

  I began to think men like Phargas removed some brains along with their hair when they joined the priesthood.

  “That’s a horrible thing to say, Phargas. A Pathfinder always knows his path and chooses to walk it.”

  “Well, walk faster then,” the fleshy mountain behind us chuckled as he shoved us both forward.

  Phargas smiled. “Forgive me. Your choices are as true as your status, milord.”

  Were it the proper time, I would have rewarded Phargas for admitting the rightness of my stance. As it was, we stepped off the gangplank onto the muddied cobbles of Tymon’s portside, just inside the city walls. The stevedore Caras motioned his friends toward us and said, “Here they are, milords—two able servants until such time that they have served out their incurred debts with you, as exchanged in kind with our Professor Grizzlebane.”

  “You bring them to us armed and unshackled?” The brown-clad man’s hood fell back, revealing a face unshaven and unkempt.

  “Second Freedom, sir.” Caras bowed, as did our juggernaut. “They bet their service and lost, and few’re fools enough to break that oaths. We leave you with the Sixth Freedom and bid you good day, unless you wish to travel the Sellen with the Cornflower.”

  “We have what we hold, indeed,” said the man in black. “Thank you for delivering these men to us, gentlemen.” This genteel man obviously was of good breeding and intentions. Perhaps he was simply in need of quality conversation—a task for which I was eminently suitable.

  The brown-garbed man moved behind us as his companion turned on his heel and walked briskly into the town, motioning us all to follow. While I would have preferred a carriage, his pace and our monetary troubles left me no option but to follow and hope Tymon dust washed out easily. Every time I slowed to look up at some odd shop sign or tavern flag, the brown-garbed man jabbed me in the back with a mace he’d drawn from beneath his cloak. I marked him as I di
d Phargas—useful to his betters but often stepping beyond his place.

  “Sir,” I sent my voice ahead. “Your servant seems overly brusque. Perhaps a lesson needs be made?”

  Our black-garbed host slowed not a whit as he replied over his shoulder, “A lesson is swift in coming, Lord Kaddar, trust me.” He led us all toward a farrier’s stables, where a carriage with two horses stood at the ready.

  Our herald turned to face us and Phargas bowed low. While my situation demanded some courtesy to him, I saw us as being of a kind, above the priest’s station as much as he ascended above the dungsweep in the alley behind him. I merely inclined my head slightly in deference to my debts and his troubles, winking at him to signal my understanding that now was not the time for open negotiations or discussions of money.

  Phargas muttered, “How might we be of service, milords? I am but a traveler and humble priest of Desna. With me is—”

  “Lord Ollix Kaddar, heir of Kadria, yes.” The black-garbed man’s face withdrew deeper into his midnight hood while his smile became brighter still. “And his faithful companion Phargas.”

  “Ah,” I exhaled in relief. “So glad to hear that our reputations precede us. Would you be so kind as to share your names, fellow lords, and where we might be headed?”

  “I would hate to spoil the surprise, Lord Ollix, though you may call me Kerban. I’m sure we’re to be great friends who will laugh over your debts soon enough.” Kerban shifted his hood to reveal a marvelous diadem on his brow, its filigreed silverwork fascinating, and its red gem even more so. The sun must have broken through clouds, though I in truth felt no warmer, as the man’s brown eyes shifted to bronze. “We are friends, are we not?”

  It shows the innate superiority of the upper classes to recognize a kindred spirit and accept the munificence that comes of such a connection. Commoners war among themselves because they lack the minds to comprehend and embrace both their stations and those of others. My musings on this fact were interrupted as Phargas suddenly shoved me bodily into our new comrade. Even Kerban’s brown-clad companion seemed surprised, dropping his mace into the dirt where I had stood even as Phargas whirled and knocked his legs out from under him.