Page 2 of Fate of the Argosi

How awful was this place to which that smug, I-know-better-than-you smirk painted on my disharmony card had brought me? Put it this way: the conditions inside the cramped cells carved into the rock a hundred feet beneath the dried-out heart of a desert are so loathsome that the Berabesq – a profoundly religious people – consider it sacrilege to imprison their own convicts here. Only foreign criminals are consigned to Soul’s Grave, and only foreign mercenaries – those convicted of lesser crimes and offered the choice of serving out their sentence as jailers rather than prisoners – patrol its depths.

‘Bet you’re wishing you’d stayed up on your cosy tower, eh, Conch?’

The spire goat shook his soot-dusted fur and served up a whistling snort I’d come to recognise as meaning, ‘Get on with the job, idiot.’

I’d gotten halfway down the spire when I’d heard the clackety-clomp of the goat’s hoofs dancing along the tiniest of crevices in the building’s mortar. I’d worried he might be inclined to yet another attempt at shoving me headlong to my death, but mostly he just followed behind, bleating in obvious amusement at how slow and clumsy I was compared to him. That only got worse when he trailed me back to my camp outside the city, where Quadlopo was tethered. You wouldn’t think a horse and a spire goat would have much to talk about, but those two got on like long-lost siblings. Couldn’t tell what they were yakking on about at first, but after a few days it became clear they were regaling each other with tales of my ineptitude.

I didn’t mind the extra chatter though. Quadlopo gets real sullen on the long roads. He prefers a sympathetic ear for his complaints. Conch – that’s what I’d taken to calling the spire goat, on account of the blaring noise he makes when he wants something (which is all the time) – was happy to fill that role in exchange for a thimbleful of blue moss every few days. It nearly got me eaten by a hill snake one time, but I managed to harvest enough to keep the goat content long after we’d crossed the Gitabrian border in search of a girl I hadn’t seen in four years and had no clue where to find.

I’d started in Darome, of course; that’s where I’d last seen Arissa, back when she was running with the Black Galleon gang. They were mostly teenage street thieves, with a few rooftop robbers and a couple of long-con swindlers. Turned out Arissa had left them the day after she’d run me out of town at the point of a knife blade. Wasn’t her fault; I’d been under a silk mage’s curse that twisted the love and affection of anyone who came to care about me into a hatred so deep they couldn’t stop themselves from trying to kill me. If I look too close I can still make out the faded sigils of the tattooed collar that mage had etched into my skin. Don’t mind them nowadays. Durral Brown, the Argosi who’d instructed me in the four ways and seven talents, also taught me to find beauty even in the ugliest of places.

Places just like this, I thought as I crept round another of Soul’s Grave’s infamous oubliettes. Hadn’t seen a living soul in any of them so far, which wasn’t to say they were empty.Not sure what beauty you expect me to find here, Pappy.

Conch sidled up on my left. The spire goat could move real quiet when he set his mind to it. Problem was, his temperament generally favoured chaos.

‘Don’t even think it,’ I whispered to him.

As I edged up to the corner of the next passageway, I was greeted by the usual assortment of grunts, dice rolling and ale swilling coming from the alcove at the far end. This was my third visit to the prison in search of a peaceful opportunity to break out my quarry. It ain’t the Argosi way to give in to brutality when kindness or cunning can get the job done. So far, both had failed me.

‘A prince’s decree?’the warden vizier for Soul’s Grave had exclaimed when I’d unfurled the ornate scroll with its delicate gold and silver engraving. I’d done so on my knees, which isn’t a posture to which I’m predisposed at the best of times. I’m even less inclined to genuflection after risking life and limb – not to mention my horse – to recover a priceless sapphire-studded casket containing the ancient saint’s bones the prince demanded in exchange for pardoning the thief I’d come to rescue.

My mistake had been pursuing the Way of Water before I’d followed the Way of Wind. That’s how I’d wound up making a deal with the prince without first learning about the decades-long theological dispute between him and the warden vizier of Soul’s Grave.

‘I will not tear it up,’ the vizier informed me. He spat on the decree before handing it to one of his shaven-headed clerics. ‘Have this framed. Gilded tamarisk oak to bring out the gold inks of His Highness’s exquisite calligraphy. Afterwards, place the document behind ironglass and have it bolted into the rock wall opposite the prisoner’s cell. That way she may gaze at it through the bars each night as she withers away from starvation, humbly grateful to the prince who pardoned her for the attempted theft of my silver-coated stallion.’ Assuming I was an uneducated barbarian, he explained, ‘One of only three in all of Berabesq.’

Like I said, when brokering deals involving sleazy princes and even sleazier religious fanatics, it’s best to do your research first.

The warden vizier ended our interview by instructing his guards to escort me to the border along with his blessing and profound thanks for saving him the cost of feeding the horse thief who, as was made clear in the prince’s decree, was now a free woman.

The Way of Water having failed me, I belatedly travelled the Way of Wind. Two weeks of infiltrating underground taverns and speakeasies, bribing just about the entire criminal population of southern Berabesq, had enabled me to piece together a map of six potential escape routes out of this famously impenetrable prison.

Over the centuries, every time the viziers had expanded the prison, they’d relied on convicts to do the tunnelling. Since criminals are notoriously capricious when it comes to digging what’s almost certain to become their own grave, I’d bet correctly that a few enterprising souls might’ve conspired to leave themselves a way out.

The information hadn’t come cheap. In fact, it had cost me one of the only three silver-coated stallions in all of Berabesq. Yeah, I know, but I’d paid for the pardon once already. Besides, if His Illustrious and Most Pious Eminence the Warden Vizier of Southern Berabesq was so in love with that horse, he shouldn’t keep pissing off the wrong people.

Unfortunately, while excellent for sneakingintoSoul’s Grave, my overpriced map wasn’t any help in getting to the cells without having to go through the guards. Six men and women, trained fighters who’d committed more murders between them than all the convicts they kept locked up in this hellhole, stood between me and the gal I’d come to rescue.

This was the third night I’d come here, the third time I’d hidden in the shadows, forced to listen to the filthy, degrading jokes they made while placing bets on which convict would die before dawn. Wasn’t hard to imagine that when the stakes got high enough an unlucky prisoner might wind up with poison slipped into their greasy soup so that a guard who’d wagered more than he could afford didn’t have to pay up to his equally brutal colleagues.

Six is too many, I thought helplessly. Only three guards were ever supposed to be on watch, with the others walking their rounds. The cleric overseers of Soul’s Grave never descended from their comfortable offices above to check on the guards though. One more reason I didn’t feel so bad about stealing their boss’s horse.

‘Can’t risk it tonight,’ I whispered to Conch, kneeling in front of him so the little goat would see my face. I couldn’t tell for sure if he could understand my words any better than I could his bleating, but he seemed to get my meaning from my expressions. ‘Gonna have to come back tomorrow.’

‘Slit their throats! Let their blood bathe the weakness from your spirit, that you may reconsecrate yourself as our most devoted servant!’

My fingers were squeezing something cold and smooth. Without my realising, I’d slipped my hand into the pocket of my waistcoat and drawn a half-dozen steel throwing cards. I put them back, breathed in what calm I could from the stale air of the tunnel and set my thoughts to dancing around the malignant imperative that was trying to grab hold of my mind.

Conch hadn’t made that sinister suggestion; even spire goats aren’tthatornery. What I had rattling around my head was called the Red Scream: a plague of words and sounds so devious that hearing the verses just once drove the victim to spread the disease to everyone they could, and kill everyone they couldn’t. I knew this because I was the last person ever to be infected with the Red Scream, and the only one to fight those Scarlet Verses off. But they weren’t done with me.

‘Allow us to serve your cause, Argosi!’they hissed insistently. ‘Merely whisper a single one of our verses to the guards, and they will—’

‘Become mindless lunatics tearing across the continent and spreading you to anyone they don’t kill first?’I asked, my thoughts pirouetting around their attempts to ensnare me.‘Sorry, darlings. My plan may have its flaws, but yours comes with too high a body count.’

The verses pushed a little harder, murmuring words in a dozen different languages meant to bind me to their will. I twisted those ugly meanings one by one.Tormentwent from being the infliction of pain to the act of annoyance – something more in keeping with my personality. Toscourgeis to whip or flagellate, but its synonym,flog, is a contronym that contains its own opposite meaning of ‘to promote or talk at excessive length’, which as anyone can tell you, is far better suited to me.

‘You cannot contain us forever, that-which-once-called-itself-Ferius.’

‘The name ain’t “that-which-once-called-itself” anything. It’s Ferius Parfax. I’m the Path of the Wild Daisy, fellas, and if you intend to keep trailing after me, you’d best be ready for some unexpected twists and turns along the way.’

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