No Strings Attached - Prologue

Prologue

42nd Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

Harbour Town, Harbour Isle, the Sapphire Ocean 

“This way, sir, to the dead. Though as I said via our correspondence, the dead are slim-pickings at the moment,” Plowthorn said. The man was a portly sort of fellow, with a jovial smile and a relaxed, almost lazy gait. The spark in his eyes had long since dulled, but this was Harbour town, and people with anything approaching ambition usually used it to leave the isle entirely.

“That’s fine. I assume that the Wyrm Council took the subjects that remained?” Magus Maldrak Hollowspine asked. He smiled, showing off teeth that were straight and true, and white besides. Behind him, his attendants--two young men in dark, featureless robes, looked on impassively.

Mister Plowthorn nodded. “Oh, yes. You missed most of the good ones, I’m afraid. Though if you wish, I could set aside some of the more interesting specimens for you. For a small nominal fee. Nothing egregious, of course.”

“Of course,” the Magus replied.

They were on the wharf, though that wasn’t saying very much. Harbour Town, as the name implied, was mostly made up of wharfs, docks, piers and even a few jetties, though the last were still under construction.

Ten years ago, this town was a small space, occupied by a village of a hundred and ruled over by a lesser baron barely worthy of the title. Now it housed ten thousand, and twice as many people passed through every moon.

War galleons and shipping vessels were moving about over the waters even now, and the place was as busy as it had even been.

“Right this way, sir Magus,” Plowthorn said. There was a small business, just off of a narrow pier and built on sturdy stilts above the coast. A barn, of sorts. A freshly painted sign over the door hinted at its usage. Plowthorn and Son’s Bodies and Seaside Salvage.

Plowthorn pulled out a piece of cloth from a pocket and wrapped it around his head. “Ah, does milord wish a handkerchief as well? The stench is... well, quite predictable.”

“No, I’ll be well,” he replied. “This won’t be my first meeting with the dead.” A flick of his fingers and there was a shift in the wind around them, enough to make the edges of the magus’ long black robes flutter.

The portly man bobbed his head, glanced at the two servants with the magus, then dismissed them from his thoughts as he entered the location of his business.

The barn was a decently large warehouse of a building. There was a small office space to one end, with a large window overlooking the sea. Beyond, the main room was filled with long racks. These were as deep as a man was tall and built to house long wooden slabs. The air within the room was chilly, a mixture of clever architecture with air circulating in from slats in the roof, and cooled by several large stones held up on plinths. These were covered in a thin layer of frost, and the plinths below were designed to carry the condensation runoff out and towards a waiting bucket.

The drip from the magical cooling devices tapping into the nearly-full buckets was the only noise in the room, at least until Plowthorn spoke up. “Boy!” he snapped to a young man. “Empty the buckets! And then get the others to help. We’ve got a customer here.”

There was rapid movement as the boy in question hopped to his work. Soon the buckets were emptied and the occupied slabs slotted into the wall-mounted racks were pulled out.

“Only three?” the Magus asked.

“Only three at the moment, good sir,” Plowthorn said. “And I’m afraid these three are the ones that the Wyrm Council had no interest in.”

The Magus frowned, delicate brows meeting together, but he didn’t dismiss the man outright. “Well, let’s see, shall we?”

The occupied slabs were moved onto a small wheel-barrow like cart designed for the purpose, and all three were brought to the far end of the room where the lighting was better and where several garlands of strong herbs hung from the ceiling.

The corpses were naked and bloated. Skin blued by water, and purpled by necrosis. The Magus scanned them all. “No missing limbs,” he said. “Some amount of rot. These aren’t the freshest, but nothing unusable. Why were these rejected?” 

Plowthorn gestured towards the bodies. “Women,” he replied. “The Wyrm Council will rarely make an exception for that sort of thing.”

“Ah,” the Magus replied. The Wyrm Council did tend to favour men for their tools. Stronger musculature, it was believed, and any discrepancy in talent with regards to the womanly arts of mathematics and incantation didn’t matter when a corpse could so rarely accomplish either. “I suppose I should count myself lucky, then.”

“Indeed, sir Magus. Just a month ago the Wyrm Council would have cleared out my entire inventory, regardless of gender and missing limbs,” Mister Plowthorn said. “Now they’re being a lot more careful about their choices. It won’t last.”

“It won’t?” the Magus asked. “How would you know?”

Plowthorn adjusted the fit of his handkerchief and gave the Magus a long look. “You’ve only been on the isle for a few days, yes?”

“My ship arrived a fortnight ago,” Maldrak replied. The information wasn’t confidential. His ship, the Gentle Tidings, was moored nearby still. He and his servants and aides had been the only ones aboard, other than the crew, of course. For the moment he was residing in an acquaintance’s estate further inland. A newer construction, as most on this island were.

“I see, I see. Then you haven’t seen the number of corpses that have gone past. The Wyrm's have been bringing them in by the cartload and shipping just as many out. I’ve been able to make a respectable business just picking them off the sea and along the coasts. A number of them have the marks that the Wyrm’s place on every body.”

“They don’t mind you reselling them their own stock?”

“I give them a discount,” Plowthorn said with a dark chuckle. “Ah, but that’s another topic for another time. It’s been happening in waves, you see. The Wyrm creates an army and sends it out, then a month later it isn’t enough and more need to be bought and shipped to the mainland. Again and again. And they’re not the only ones with an interest. It’s a tidy business. In any case, sir, I wonder if these three will be suitable for you? Otherwise, I can mark out any incoming bodies for your use, for a small fee.”

The Magus hummed, then gestured to one of his assistants. The young man caught on immediately and reached into a pouch by his hip to retrieve a small leather roll filled with implements. Knives and spoons and the tools of an embalmer. 

He inspected each body one after the other, headless of any odours or the like. The first was a younger woman, one unused to manual labour, judging by the condition of her hands. Flaxen-haired and fair of skin, at least before it was discoloured by death.

The next was taller and even slimmer. Her skin was the darker hue of someone from the Northern kingdoms. She was well-muscled, though he could tell little about her otherwise. The corpse was the most beaten and aged.

The last was larger, better muscled. The kind of build he would have expected to see on a farmhand, or a hardy, well-fed and well-worked peasant.

“These will do, I suppose,” he replied. 

“Ah, you don’t mind the state of them?” Plowthorn asked.

“When I’m done, that will hardly matter,” he said before turning to his men. “Take these three to the docks. We’ll bring them aboard the Gentle Tidings. Mister Plowthorn, I imagine that you don’t mind speaking to my associate here with regards to the matter of price.”

“Of course not, milord,” Plowthorn replied with a quick bow. “I’ve been honoured to be able to help you. Though... will you be remaining on Harbour Isle for long?”

“No, not very,” the Magus said. “My business is on the mainland, though I worry about setting foot upon it.”

“Aye,” Plowthorn said. He cleared his throat, as though realizing that he’d spoken like a common man rather than the businessman he tried to appear as. “It’s bad news, setting foot on the mainland. Best to keep to the shore at most. The madness is still running rampant, and there’s tales that even the cleanest seeming lake is tainted by dragon’s blood. Ah, but the riches! It’s driving many to push past the risks, isn’t it?”

“I’m not so keen on the riches,” the Magus replied. “But rather... I have a burning desire to discover what led to the madness and the fall of an entire civilisation. Some would say the greatest that ever was. And... I had a few companions that were living on the mainland. I’d like to know what happened to them.”

“Ah well, good luck with your ventures, sir Magus. I wish you the best fortune. And when you need more bodies, you know where to come.”

Magus Maldrak Hollowspine, mage of the First Order, scholar of the Avaris Myrcana Academy, Grand-Master puppeteer, and very curious old gentleman, looked upon the three bodies he’d just purchased. These would be his key to uncovering why the great nation of Draya Calyrex had fallen.

***