Neither of us expected me to live for long, but it was nice for the both of us to keep up some sort of pretence.
Right in the centre of the very poorest area of East Docklands, down by the city walls and open sewers, squatted the grim stone cube known as the Black Garden, which most Setharii were proud to declare the harshest prison in the world. I’d visited a few in my years of exile, briefly, and it was certainly up there with the worst.
A moat of half-frozen sewage surrounded it, oozing downhill with the meltwaters before eventually flowing out into the bay beyond the city wall. I carefully wound my way across a charred wooden bridge that served as sole access and then pounded on the single small iron door. The thick walls bore the scars of battle: chipped stone and sooty smears, but that heavy door etched with potent wardings bore not a single mark.
Eventually a slot opened and a set of bushy grey eyebrows appeared. “What you wantin’?”
I held up Cillian’s writ and smiled. “I’m here to recruit for the army.”
He let me in, and I entered a gloomy building heaving with a rancid mass of pain, anger and despair. After a bit of wrangling the guards agreed to take me down to the deepest cells where they kept the worst of the worst: the mad and the bad and exceedingly dangerous mixed in with the folk whose only crime had been pissing off the wrong people. It was joining my coterie or this. A magus’ coterie stood between us and danger, keeping us alive while we worked our magic, and I didn’t trust my life to Arcanum cronies – they would be just as likely to stick a knife in my back as the enemy would in my front. I had my ways to make this lot of scum loyal, and nobody would ever care what I did to the likes of them.
The jailor handed me a list of inmates and I stared at one of the names. Jovian? How could my old drinking companion be here? Still, if it was indeed him and he was still whole then it meant I would be out of this dark pit sooner rather than later. My nerves were stretched thin, this gloomy prison far too similar to being buried underground again. “Him first.”
They opened the door to the depths and moist air rose to envelop me in damp, decay, and cess-pool scent. They led me down into the tunnels, passageways lit only by lantern light. I shivered and held my fears tight as the darkness and stone closed in around me. I wouldn’t be in here for long, and the way back remained open – I wasn’t trapped this time.
The jailer showed me to a hulking oak and iron cell door that looked like it could have withstood a battering ram. He pulled a large brass key from among the two-dozen others hanging on a thong around his neck, and unlocked it with a grinding clunk. The door swung open and a dozen filthy figures squinted against the lamplight, all naked and chained to a massive steel ring embedded in the centre of the floor. Several bore black eyes, bite marks and broken noses. All but one – the smallest – were pressed up against each other, edging as far away as they could get from the feral little bastard at the other side. My eyes watered at the smell.
“You don’t want this foreign scum, my lord magus,” the stony-eyed jailor spat, “this little copper-skinned bastard is a black-hearted killer through and through.” And he would have seen some dark as fuck things in his time. “He ate one of the other prisoners so he did.”
“What now, you merda,” Jovian said. “More secret assassins? Or are you finally here to sentence me and cut the head from my shoulders?” He clicked yellow teeth together and then grinned.
The slender Esbanian was a shadow of his former self: sallow-eyed and hollow-cheeked. His once-luxurious mane of black hair and glorious waxed moustache had both been shorn to stubble.
I laughed at the bold little shite. “Jovian of the Sardantia Esban – never thought I’d see you bald and wallowing in filth like the swine you are.”
He squinted into the light. “Who is that? I shall ram my hand up your bottom, rip out your heart, and you shall watch me eat it.” “That’s no way to greet an old friend,” I said. “I’m looking for hard men and women who want a chance at freedom.” And inside his head I added, Stop being a giant cūlus you pedicator and get to your feet. Do you want out of this pit or not? I have a job and I need a second.
“Walker? You pēdere! You live? Been twelve years, no? I say yes. A most enthusiastic yes and please. Thank you.”
“You are the best sword master I’ve ever seen, so what did you do to end up rotting here instead of swanning about the Old Town draped in silk and gold?”
He shrugged. “I stuck the wrong nobleman with my sword.” “You killed him?” “No, no. My other sword.” He thrust his groin at me. “His father was, hmm, unimpressed at the sight of his heir with his bottom in the air and me with only the hilt showing.”
“He was one of those sort, eh?” “Not at all, I had been sticking him too. A mistake, I admit.”
I groaned and turned to the jailor. “Set him free. And for all our sakes get the man some clothes, and a steel chastity belt if you can find one.”
After a few moments they found him some clothes. As the shackles came off Jovian snapped his teeth at the cringing jailor. He laughed, catching and donning a long shirt taken from the prison stores. He rubbed the sores on his ankles and eyed me thoughtfully. “This will be suicidal, yes?”
“Probably.”
He sighed and shrugged. “My gods-given luck has not changed.” He looked me up and down, noting the vicious scars that now marred my face. “Nor yours.”
I snorted. “Never will. If anything it’s getting worse.” Looking around at the other prisoners, I asked in Esbanian: “This lot any use?”
He spat on the filth-crusted stone and then glanced at one of the more attractive men before replying in his native tongue. “Depends what you mean by use.” He grinned. “But if you want good killers, I have better suggestions.”
We went from cell to cell collecting the names that Jovian reeled off, those that still lived. The guards hauled them all into a single large cell and locked us in there. I examined my hauclass="underline" Jovian, five murderers – Coira with cheeks showing the scar-sign of the Smilers street gang; a big brute named Vaughn; three cold-eyed killers named Adalwolf, Baldo and Andreas who were all missing bits of ears – one hired killer and skilled poisoner named Diodorus who specialised in bow and arrow, and one mad-eyed, flame-haired habitual arsonist called Nareene. They were some of the foulest, most disreputable scum this city had to offer, myself excluded.
I opened my Gift and burrowed into their heads to see what use I could make of such terrible creatures.
Diodorus wasn’t evil or insane to his mind, it was simply that he valued gold over useless human lives. Casual atrocities were nothing to him. The hopes and fears and daily life of others were only an irritating irrelevance. He was perfect for my needs.
Nareene was a simple creature. She just loved to watch things burn, the dancing flames and roaring inferno causing an almost orgasmic euphoria. It was infectious and I’d probably have to resist the urge to torch something for hours afterwards.
The others were a mixed bag of bad and brutal with Coira the best of the bunch having taken the fall for her fellow Smilers after being cornered by wardens. Brutal but loyal.
Adalwolf had been a hunter and tracker in the wilds around Port Hellisen, happily married with two sweet daughters until he succumbed to the lures of drink and alchemic highs and needed increasing amounts of coin to feed his addictions. Barred from his own home, he’d fled to the big city one step ahead of hired thieftakers. Something had caused him to snap, a bad batch of alchemic perhaps, and he’d murdered indiscriminately until the wardens found him unconscious and choking on his own vomit and took him in.