A tale of Earthguard: Semantics

Hang on just one second, would you rather listen to this story? Dom’s actually recorded Semantics into a nice thirteen-minute audiobook, give your eyes a rest if you fancy it.

***

“I want to know why we haven’t got any gold, why haven’t we got any gold Quill?”

It was a simple question, Quill knew it was a simple question and it had a very simple answer. Yet Quill couldn’t bring himself to give Carcarus, famed soldier of fortune, vanquisher of the Eastern Free Cities and Captain of the Sons of The Rapier company, that particular answer. The tall, scar crossed mercenary had been known to swap his wives for coin, to kill his own men for coin, to keep slave boys just to wash his sword, then to trade them at the Penthis slave markets, for coin.

Gods only know why I don’t want to disappoint him, thought Quill.

“I have no idea Captain,” he said, desperately rifling through the great tome as he spoke. It was a horrid thing, aged and wrinkled, a collection of disparate histories written by men who were now little more than dust in weathered tombs.   

He traced his finger across the lines of scrunched up writing on one particular page and prodded at the script frowning.

“It says right here Captain,” he said, voice quivering with fear. “The great conqueror, upon collecting his wares and treasure from his campaigns in the south, took a ship across the sea-“

“Yes, yes,” Carcarus interjected with his customary impatience, tapping his sword menacingly on the tome. “Get on with it.”

“Yes sir, of course,” Quill spilled sycophantically, ignoring the fact that Carcarus had simultaneously stopped him getting on with it, whilst asking him to get on with it. “He took his treasure and buried it in the vaults of the castle on the banks of the Great Brim which would later become the centrepiece of March, one of the Free Cities.”

Carcarus tutted and turned his head to get a better view of the book, squinting at the words. Quill knew this was only for show, feared soldier of fortune though he was, Carcarus couldn’t read.

“It seems you are right,” he said, hot breath in Quill’s ear, the stench of sweat and the tang of blood playing about Carcarus and his haunting voice.

The mercenary pulled away surveying the empty vault before them, the near-impenetrable walls wrought in Elvish Darksteel, the door hanging off its broken hinges, the metal buckled by fire. All that effort to break into the damn thing and it was empty. Bare.

“Bastards!” Carcarus screamed throwing off his gaudy coat, pushing it to the floor and using the heel of his boots to grinding off its silver buttons.

Quill was used to the Captain’s tantrums by now and took a hasty step back, you didn’t want to be caught between Carcarus and the latest priceless garment he had chosen to take his anger out on. The man spat and stamped at his coat, sending buttons spinning across the vault floor, tearing at the fabric and howling every foul word he could think to muster.

And then it hit Quill.

Oh shit, he thought. Semantics had never quite been his thing, strange that, for an orator, to be undone by semantics but well, he wasn’t a very good orator. Or maybe the pressure of a lunatic with a sword and a mind fixed on gold breathing down my neck has forever dented my skills.

If irony had been involved things would be different, he had always been good with irony.

“Actually Captain,” he said voice timid, trembling with nerves. “It does say ‘treasure’.”

Carcarus stopped stamping at his coat, his eyes gleaming in the semi-darkness of the vast vault. “What do you mean?”

“It’s semantics you see, treasure, doesn’t necessarily mean gold, well, treasure could be anything, your sword is a treasure, my pen, a leather-bound ledger, even some parents call their children treasures- agh.“

Carcarus had crossed the vault in three long strides and pinned Quill to the wall. The tome slid from his hands. The pen and ink bottle, so precariously balanced on the book moments before, followed suit, crashing onto the stone floor.

“I’m not here to find children or ledgers or fucking pens!” Carcarus shrieked, stale breath prickling Quill’s face as the Captain’s rage resurfaced like a corpse in water.

“I know, I know Captain,” Quill babbled, eyes darting about the vault, the pupils searching for some impossible way out of the mercenary’s grinding chokehold. “But it does mean that there might, perhaps, be something valuable in here that is not gold but treasure all the same!”

His words lit a small and spluttering fire behind Carcarus’ eyes. One that loosened the grip on Quill’s lapel, though he remained pinned to the wall.

“Still valuable?”

“Yes.”

“But not gold?”

“No Captain.”

“Hmmm.”

Quill slipped a little down the wall, carefully prising himself away from Carcarus’ huge, clutching hands as the mercenary tried to wrap his head around the idea that something that wasn’t bright, yellow and shiny could still be valuable.

“Well, where is it then?”

“Sir?”

“The treasure!” Carcarus said gesturing to the empty vault. “It’s still not in here, is it? There’s no gold, no treasure, no nothing in here!”

He let Quill go, sending the orator plummeting to the ground. The fall was a short and painful one. He hit the flagstones with a sharp burst of pain as Carcarus stalked off, muttering to himself, leaving Quill winded on the floor, his breeches wet with spilt ink, his clothes ruffled.

Quill was about to crawl off, ready to leave the hulking vault where Carcarus’ would no doubt stay for several hours, stewing in his own resentment, when a dash of acid green light played across his face.

The force of it stung his eyes, painting harsh colour in the darkness each time he blinked. It was so strong, so shocking that he stopped, forcing himself to turn back, to find the source of the pulsing light.

He noticed that some of his spilt ink, once night black, was glowing an acrid, poisonous green as it oozed over the vault floor.

He looked closer, squinting. The light was so strong that he half feared it would tear at his unprotected, naked pupils, burn away his sight and leave him empty and vacuous, a sucking mouth and nose, clutching in the blackness.

No, he thought. The glow, the light, it isn’t the ink, it’s something beneath the ink…

He bent down. Carcarus was still muttering to himself, the harsh words echoing, sounding like scratches on the vault walls. “No treasure, no gold, fuck, Gods what will I do? What will I tell the men? Fucking… orators and their words and their… fuck, shit-“

“Sir?” Quill’s voice came out higher than usual, with a clear and excited edge that brought the Captain’s mutterings to a juddering halt.

Quill scrabbled at the floor, wiping the ink aside and seeing that the light was crawling in through a crack in the stone, a winding rent that went through the flagstones and down into some unknown chamber whence the green now shone, pouring into the room like some flowing liquid.

Quill was vaguely aware of Carcarus walking carefully over to him but he paid the mercenary little attention. He was transfixed by the light now burning his eyes, blurring his vision, the lure of the green pulling him in.

“Sir,” Quill breathed, “It’s the treasure, it’s under here, this is what you wanted.”

Carcarus bent down with him, haunches straining to break free of his tight breeches, hands grasping, coming close to the green, reaching out to touch the light, to hold it.

Quill didn’t know why but every instinct, every primal urge was telling him that touching that light was not a good idea, not remotely a good notion, the wrong course of action, something that would surely be remembered as a tragic and rather unfortunate chapter in the unpleasant and unerring life of one Captain Carcarus.

The mercenary’s knuckles, kissed by dark bruises, the trophies of endless scraps, touched the green light.

The sound of Carcarus’ anguished screams echoed in the vault, like the cries of a thousand tortured souls. The piercing, agonising noises pulsated from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, buffeting Quill over, sending Carcarus into a frenzy of spitting, snarling, animalistic whimpers, his legs kicking, his eyes rolling.

The green flame disappeared, burning bright like acidic fire and then vanishing into nothing, leaving only vague light spots sprawled across the dark.

Quill scrambled over to Carcarus who was now lying motionless on the floor, drool spilling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes closed, the deep-set scars in his face rippling with heavy, rugged breaths.

“Captain,” he shook the grizzled veteran, wincing at the strange vacant look on the man’s face.“Captain?”

Carcarus mumbled something incoherent, his mouth slack-jawed, the empty gums, some filled with silver teeth, some yellowing remnants, winking at Quill in the semi-darkness.

“Ah, it seems I am too late, as per usual.”

Quill spun round.

A figure had appeared at the vault entrance. Quill had not heard the footsteps, not heard the man creep past the buckled remains of the door. He had only heard the strong, sonorous voice in the blackness. And it was a voice he recognised.

“Never quite had the timing down, it’s hard when you have lived for as long as I.”

“Wanderer?”

“The Wanderer, if you don’t mind.”

The Runebearer strode forward, bare feet slapping the flagstones, mouth curling at the sight of Carcarus, his domed, bald head covered with black spirals and symbols. Each one a dark and foreboding spell. He looked at the Captain and then to Quill. “Still serving mercenaries Quill?”

“You know Quill isn’t actually my name, he just calls me that because-“

“Did he touch it?” The Wanderer’s voice was sudden and commanding, his poisonous green eyes, darted from Carcarus to Quill and back again.

“Yes... What is it?”

The Wanderer threw a bag at Quill’s feet, it clinked against the floor with a heavy, expensive sound.

“Gold,” he said. “For him.”

“For what?” Quill asked confused.

The Wanderer snapped his fingers impatiently and pointed at Carcarus. “He touched the green flame?”

“Yes.”

“His body will be burning with raw magic at this moment, raw magic that I need. Take the gold and run, or share it, or whore yourself to death with it.”

The Wanderer gestured with one arm, waving it carelessly. “I don’t care, just leave him to me.”

Quill didn’t need telling twice. His hand smoothly clipped the purse strings, flipping the fat bag of Scales up into one hand and then he was on his way, passing the twisted remains of the vault door.

Strange, he thought. Semantics were never my forte, but irony, now that I can do, that I can write, that I can spot.

He smiled, this was damn ironic. Carcarus had wanted the gold and not the treasure but had ended up with the treasure and not the gold.  Now that was ironic.

He skipped out of the room, hearing muffled cries as he went. The noise was followed by rhythmic chanting, the roar and zip of the green flame, raw magic binding itself to the Runebearer.

That was a short story set in Dom’s fantasy world of Earthguard. You can read more from the world of Earthguard in Dom’s fantasy novellas or get stuck into an exclusive extract from his debut fantasy novel A Better Crown.