Turold stopped at the tailor’s before his appointment with Sir Otrygg. Best to look the part, on the off-chance the astrologer actually took the trouble to explain himself. He didn’t like visitors, whether announced or otherwise, and visitors from the Council would be extremely ill-favored. Turold didn’t know him very well, as they had a falling out at their first meeting. In short, he lost his temper after the astrologer called him a “costermonger” which sounded like the gravest insult (in the end, it was only lukewarm).
“Mama, look–an elf-man!” a boy shrieked, pulling at his mother’s arm.
The mother hid her face in a fan and pulled him along. Turold gave a slight bow and vanished in the crowd, accustomed to children’s cries of confusion and delight. They rarely meant anything by it, other than the innocent awe that a man could function at four feet four without a key in his back.
The tailor, an effusive foreigner, welcomed him back and hastened to fetch his outfit. You will seem ten feet tall, he boasted, disappearing behind the counter. Turold caught himself in the large mirrors that adorned the walls, elongated to give the illusion of svelte height. Everyone longs to look like someone else, he thought, or anyone but themselves. He felt the same, looking at his short arms hanging from his sides, the stumpy legs tucked into childish boots, his cartoon head. There were times he almost forgot about his appearance, and fooled himself into seeing his achievements written across every sleeve and spatterdash. In those times, fleeting as they were, he felt almost tall.
Luckily, the world quickly disabused him of such notions, reminding him of his drawbacks and limitations. His master, Hildigrim Blackbeard, once warned him that he might never advance beyond the Fifth Circle. Not because of your talent, no—you could go straight to the First. But the elect will ask why the gods suffered you to look like this, unless it’s to be marked unfit for the greatest assignments.
Hildigrim was both right and wrong: in time, and after many battles, he advanced to the Third. But there he remained. Others, less capable, more corrupt, achieved the Second and First without a headache. And none of them, he couldn’t help noticing, had been asked to call on Sir Otrygg and demand his resignation.
“See here, my friend, what you think? The cloak? The hat? Just as you ordered? So smart, yes? You will be looking like a great wizard now, I think! Striking great fear in their eyes!” the tailor laughed, showering him in fabric.
Turold tried it all on, feeling more like a court jester than a man-about-town. Would anyone take him seriously dressed like this? Would any cut or color of breeches raise his stature? Unlikely. Nevertheless, he paid the tailor for his work—it was good work, done exactly to his specifications—and left the shop, vowing never to wear it again. Sir Otrygg would have to accept him as he was, and strike him down in these second-rate boots and cut-rate cloak.
He caught a coach to Old Town, just beyond the ruined walls of the original city, where thieves and foreigners took up residence. Here Sir Otrygg kept his apartments, probably to discourage guests. It also didn’t hurt that the rent was cheap and job paid very little, being more an honor than a respectable career. As he paid the driver and hopped onto the walk, he was surprised that his very footfalls echoed against the buildings, down the road. Very little stirred here or made an obvious commotion, but you were always being watched.
He consulted the address to make sure he knew where he was going, as many years had passed since his last visit. And that was with his master, who kept up a constant stream of chatter which blurred out the finer details. However, he did remember this neighborhood, the burned-out theatre, the foreign butcher perched at his store-front with cleaver in hand, the crooked and pock-marked road. The apartment was close. A few shadows flitted at the corner of his sight, possibly thieves; they would only strike if you turned around and quickened your steps. He had been robbed—and robbed himself—a dozen times. Let them try.
He reached the apartment without incident and knocked on the door. Did Sir Otrygg still keep servants? The general disrepair of his apartment and the trash cluttering up the window suggested otherwise. Yet he couldn’t imagine the Astrologer Royal answering the door himself, or inviting him in for tea. He knocked again, his free hand gripping his dagger just in case.
No answer. He looked around, but no one looked back in the darkening streets. Out of desperation, he turned the handle and the door creaked open, but only a few inches. It smashed against something hard and refused to budge.
“Hello?” he called into the vestibule. “Sir Otrygg? It’s Turold…Hildigrim’s apprentice? We met once? Are you at home?”
Again, no response, not even the distant shuffling of someone trying not to be heard. Turold slid through the opening—nearly popping off a few buttons in the process—and found himself face-to-face with the obstruction.
The bloated body of Sir Otrygg. Still in his nightgown, as if he had just run to open, or bolt, the door. Dead bodies didn’t upset him, as he had seen his share, but what mortified Turold was his expression. It was cliché to say “it looked like he had seen a ghost,” but in this case, whatever he found had killed him.
He bent down to inspect him closer, covering his nose with a cloth (the smell had to be parted like a curtain). The eyes were wide open, empty, but somehow full of life. He almost felt if he stared hard enough he could make out the final imprint. The hands, likewise, were frozen into fists, one still gripping a candlestick, now a melted lump on the floor. There were no signs of assault or abrasion, no trace of a wound at all. His heart must have stopped, either on the way to answer the door, or from what he glimpsed across the threshold.
Perhaps he had been robbed? Thieves could have easily forced their way into the apartment and overpowered him. If so, would they know what to steal? Turold ventured into the apartment, finding a general state of disorder and filth (as expected from his reputation alone). More surprising was a pile of blackened paper and manuscripts, largely burned to a crisp. A few stray papers had escaped—snatches of spells, diagrams, poorly-drawn illustrations of the city (or of another one, it was hard to tell). It looked like spring cleaning, the tossing-out of years of dedicated research, as if it had all become obsolete.
What had he been doing all these years, if he had enough material to burn and then some? Indeed, piles and piles of papers were still scattered under tables and bed sheets, some in the fireplace which, as far as he could tell, was also a litter box. But if so, where were the cats? He called and clucked for any resident tabbies, but nothing responded. His search led him into the inner rooms: a study full of books and overturned bottles, a storeroom of sorts, which was largely empty, and what must have been a bedroom, though the door was locked.
He was about to turn back when he heard it: the faint sound of breathing behind the door. Someone was just on the other side, listening, waiting for him to leave. He froze, turned silently back to the door. Crouching down, he looked under the door and saw the unmistakable shadow of feet. As he watched and waited, the feet moved away, one after the other. Silence weighed down the space between them, becoming a sound, a presence all its own.
“Who’s there?” he finally whispered.
An intake of breath—faint, but distinct. Could it be the astrologer’s killer? Or his prisoner? Someone he had trapped in the room, a servant, forced to complete some rote task and helpless to escape the apartment?
“I mean you no harm, I’m just here to investigate. Let me help you.”
The sound of feet moving away—running now. Turold flung himself against the door, kicked at it, wrestled the knob; all in vain. Inside, he could hear things falling, breaking. The sound of a window being forced. Whoever it was, they were escaping!
He stepped back and shouted a brief invocation. Fire crisscrossed the door and it shattered in billowy sparks. Turold leapt through the debris and opened his eyes in the room. A short figure was struggling against the window, inching it up slightly, but not enough to climb through. He leapt at her skirt and pulled her down; she fought him, beating at his face and arms, then sprang for the door. He easily caught her again and pulled her down, shouting and begging her to stop, to listen.
That’s when he got a good look at her, this prisoner of the room. He screamed and flung himself backwards, crawling madly away from the woman and into the bedroom wall. The woman got up, moved uncertainly toward the window, then retreated to the door. Her wide eyes stared him down in the mask of a skeleton, the face of a corpse. She had no face at all, just the vague impression of what was once—or might have been—a woman.
“Wait!” he cried, despite himself.
She froze in place, about to dash out the door, but he called again for her to stop. He had no idea why, or what he planned to do if she did.
Luckily, she didn’t listen but raced out the door and vanished from the apartment. The last sound he heard was the patter of her feet against the cobblestone road.
