Cedric of Lower Cheltingham coughed, as the acrid stench reached through the silk scarf covering his nose and mouth. The vapour coated his throat in a vile taste that would stay with him until his death. Noxious steam filled the embalmer’s lab, advancing and retreating like a company of rats on a fallen soldier. The muck of the yard covered his Hessington leather boots, and he feared he would never get the odor of this place out of his Fairside Wool riding cloak. He was a long way from the comforts of home.
“Malerence Tenic?” he called into the dim interior. “I have a missive from the council.”
He stepped deeper into the dim interior. There were shelves full of vials, potions and dried things he didn’t want to look at too closely. Tables of bubbling beakers atop bronze braziers filled the right side of the room.
This was his punishment for a thoughtless remark in the presence of the Unseen Society. They ordered him, like some lowly courier, to deliver a message — in person — to the Master Embalmer, Malerence Tenic. When he started to refuse, they brought up the oath, ‘... loyalty and obedience in all things, to the Empress Aurelia eternal…’ Ridiculous old fools. But to please his father, he nodded and obeyed.
Now he was a three day' ride from home and this backwater hamlet didn’t even have a servant to take care of his horse!
“Up here, courier,” a voice called out. The voice had come from above. Cedric saw a walkway and railing above the man-high iron cauldron.
It was an educated voice, almost musical, and that surprised him. He had assumed the embalmers came from common stock. Who but a commoner could work in these conditions, surrounded by corpses and patients? Both of which stank. He considered correcting the embalmer, that he was no lowly courier but Sir Cedric Cheltingham, and then thought better of it. Did he really want it getting back to his peers how far he’d fallen? Better to remain anonymous.
He climbed up the wooden ladder, bemoaning the oily film on the rungs that now coated his Lenox calf-skin gloves. At least the fumes were not as dense up here.
The embalmer was taller than Cedric, stoop-shouldered and rail thin under a shapeless grey smock and the blue embalmer uniform that hung down to the tops of moisture stained boots. The beaked embalmer mask covered his eyes, and he wore a strip of cloth over his nose and mouth. The hood of the smock hid a lumpy bulging deformity.
No wonder Malerence Tenic performed his experiments in this remote lab. He’d never be welcome in society. He could not imagine being seated at court next to such a disfigured creature. Cedric could not wait for the moment he would leave this fetid place and surround himself with the beauty that reflected his own fine features. Careful not to show his disgust, Cedric bowed as expected. “May the glories of old be new again.” He proffered the leather tube with the council's documents, careful not to touch the embalmer. The embalmer’s gloved hand snatched the tube. “Off you go, then. I’m very busy just now.” Cedric bit back the retort that came to his lips. His quick tongue had already earned him a three-day ride to this backwater cesspit. “I’m to wait for a reply, Master Embalmer.”
Malerence Tenic turned away from Cedric and broke the seal on the tube containing the message. The embalmer was still, and Cedric thought he’d forgotten about him when Tenic turned and looked him over. The embalmer’s forehead above the beaked mask wrinkled, and he imagined a frown under the face coverings. “Bend over, man. Let me use your back to write my reply and then you may be off.”
Much as he resented the indignity of acting as a table for the Master Embalmer, Cedric bent over so he might leave there all the sooner. Pain lanced through his body as a heavy object smashed into his skull. He collapsed onto the slimy planks. The Embalmer’s foot shoved him off the walkway and he fell to the stone floor below. His left knee took most of the weight and gave a painful wrench, followed by a horrible crunching sound. Pain flared from his leg. He’d broken it, he was sure.
Figures scurried around him in the mist. Quick, heavy steps and a deep rumbling command. Wait, that wasn’t a boot, it was a hoof! Horned ones!
Cedric looked around in confusion as two more of the Ram-headed creatures raced by. A dozen voices came from somewhere above him. It sounded like they were near the ceiling. How did they get up there? And why weren’t they helping him? He tried to pull himself up to standing, but all he could do was drag his damaged body towards the entrance, the light, and aid. The Master Embalmer strode past him, and he stretched his arm to him. “Help me,” he pleaded. The embalmer ignored him and followed the Horned ones out of the Lab. That’s when he saw the body wedged behind the cauldron, wearing the singular blue uniform, and affixed to the shoulder, the green crest of the Embalmer’s Guild. Malerence Tenic was dead.
Some instinct for survival forced him to drag and crawl his way to the entrance despite the pain. As he pulled himself over the lintel and into the light, six Horned Ones bounded around the building and down the drive leading away from the embalmer’s lab. Above him dozens of Faey Spirits, like giant, rabid dragonflies, chittered and screeched as they flew past and followed the Horned Ones.
How had the Faey penetrated so deeply into Loth without notice? He would bring the wrath of Loth down on them for daring to assault him, a member of the Court!
At the palisade gate the spirits, horned ones and the imposter gathered. The imposter threw off the mask and hood. Cedric gasped. That strange inhuman face was one he’d only seen in pictures from storybooks. A Faey. What he’d taken for a deformity was the rack of antlers that marked a Faey Noble. He started to shake. The Faey Noble drew her hands together, intoning words of power. Cedric watched with a growing realization of what she intended. The air crackled and lines of bright light sparked between the faey noble, the horned ones and the faey spirits. She was a wielder! A glowing orb appeared between her hands. Cedric clawed his way forward, heedless of the filth that covered his fine clothes. He saw the bright ball of light form and watched helplessly as she hurled the sphere of energy directly at the lab filled with the noxious and — Cedric now realized — flammable, potions. He scrambled forward, his will to live overcoming all other thoughts.
A fiery blast rushed overhead and tossed him, flying and tumbling, as the embalmer’s lab exploded behind him. The last thing he knew was the taste of embalming fluid as he opened his mouth and screamed.
A jolt ran through him. Cedric gasped, then screamed in the darkness, expecting to feel the flames consume him. But the flames did not come. He was cool. No, he was cold, and he could smell the rank odor of the embalmer’s lab. He opened his eyes. Above him stood a short man in the blue robes and beaked mask of an embalmer and behind him a half-dozen lords of Loth, his peers. The moon rose high behind them and a dozen buildings still burned from the explosion.
"Thank all the heavens you've found me," he said, marveling at his luck to have survived such a blast! "It was the Faey. Twenty, maybe thirty of them. They can't have gotten far."
He sat up, and pointed toward the palisade when he saw, poking through the ruin of his Lenox calf-skin gloves, the mottled grey pallor of his hand. A bit of skin flapped loosely from his third finger, dirt encrusted his black nails. But it didn’t hurt. It must be the light or some after effect of the explosion.
"Rise, oathbound courier," the embalmer spoke.
“I’m not a cour-”
Oathbound?
Oathbound. ‘... loyalty and obedience in all things, to the Empress Aurelia eternal…’
Oh no.
He tasted the embalmer's fluid on his tongue and knew that he was dead. No. Not dead, Oathbound.