This unspectacular man couldn’t possibly be Merulo. He stood about my height, but thin and bent, greasy black hair falling in curtains around scooped cheekbones and white flesh. From the frown lines carved into his brow, he was clearly my superior in age, but inferior in most other respects. A thorough victim of famine and poor hygiene.
“Your robe looks nice. Is that tailored?” I asked, complimenting what I could. It did fit well, a richly dyed black that provided a suitable backdrop for his threatening leer. One of the man’s eyes gleamed oddly. I realized, squinting, that it was stone.
When he didn’t answer, I continued, “Is Merulo around? Do you reckon you could call him?”
“I am Merulo.” With a scowl, he looked me up and down,pointedly evaluating. Perhaps taking in my physique, toned from years of swinging a sword. Or possibly my erect nipples, brought to attention by the recent cold and friction. “I suppose you think very highly of yourself.” His voice held nothing but contempt.
“Absolutely not, I am a worm!” I protested, attempting a military posture. Somehow, he looked even angrier. Should I be addressing the sorcerer by a certain title? “Er, do you prefer ‘sir’ or ‘my lord’?”
“Shut up.” Merulo looked distracted, his inhuman eye flashing.
“Okay,” I said. Then, after a pause, “My lord.”
The thin man muttered, his eye flickering, and his attention diverted from me completely. Occasionally, one of his constructs would swing to glare at me—and the sorcerer would twitch his head in an echo of the movement, his stone eye flaring to mirror the construct’s sickly green.
We’d all wondered at how his constructs took instruction, even shouting in argument over it on many a drunken night. Now, I watched as the mystery became unmysterious, and felt nothing but annoyed. This was top-shelf intelligence! He had a magic rock eye! And the people who’d most like to know would congratulate me for the discovery, pat me on the back, then push a sword through my throat.
Waiting for the sorcerer’s scrutiny to return to me, I stood at straight-backed attention for as long as I could manage. Which, as it turned out, was about four minutes, after which I gave up and sat on the cobblestones.
Merulo glanced at me sharply, though he didn’t cease his muttering or flashing.
“I’m injured,” I explained, pointing to my leg. “But take your time.”
With the sorcerer attending to his business, I held an internal strategy meeting. The man obviously lived a lonely, ill-cared-for life. Certainly, he couldn’t have had his body touched in God knows how long—could I work that angle? He’d taken a nice long look at me, and I wouldn’t mind, if it meant a stay to my execution. And though the Church enforced a certain traditionalism, I couldn’t imagine amad sorcererwould feel himself constrained.
While I scratched my head, considering, the sorcerer turned his hateful eyes on me, flicked his fingers, uttered something foul, and everything turned to black.
CHAPTER 5
In Which I Have Been Cruelly Robbed of My Consciousness, In Which That Bastard Has Laboriously Delivered My Large and Muscular Body to Whatever Shitty Room This Might Be When I Could So Easily Have Walked, and In Which, Dare I Say It, I Am Beginning to Doubt My Own Sexual Appeal.
Alright, so the mad sorcerer did not want to sleep with me.
My clothes had been swapped at some point during my unconsciousness, though I couldn’t imagine he’d done it himself. Not with those frail, anemic hands; I’d be too heavy to manipulate. Possibly a construct had changed me, pulling on fresh pants with its evil wooden claws. They fit loosely, and the metallic stain over one hip made me suspicious as to their origins.
“Did you pull these off a corpse?” I shouted to the empty room. “Why did you take off my moderately clean things and put me in unclean things?”
At least I had a shirt again. The fabric felt cheap, but I couldn’t complain given the reprieve from my prophesied death.
“Might I suggest a wealthier corpse next time?” I guess I could complain. The wooden cot was unbearably hard, so I hopped to my feet, turning anxiety into motion.
Pacing the featureless room, the absence of pain struck me. My knee felt sore, yes, but not with the shooting agony that had left it trembling and weak throughout my escape. Ignoring the panic that fluttered through my gut, I felt curiously refreshed. Even my bowels felt taken care of. Had that excessively thin man healed me with magic?
I couldn’t help a smile. This so-called ‘mad sorcerer’ might not be so bad, even if he had dressed me in corpse clothes for no discernible reason.
Still, I couldn’t compliment the man on his accommodations. Only a slim beam of light, falling through a window slit, kept the room from darkness. Outside, impenetrable fog coated the grounds.
“Is breakfast a possibility at all?” I called to nobody, then started as a previously unseen door slammed open. A wooden arm emerged from the doorway, beckoning. Packing my fear into a little box at the back of my head, I followed.
Our footsteps echoed in the corridor. I’d hoped to learn more about the sorcerer from his household decorations, perhaps pass a painting or relic I could drop into conversation later—like, ‘Oh your favourite lancer is Sir Bartimaeus, mine too, let’s pour some grog’—but dust buried the ancient furniture, and the walls were plain stone. All in all, the castle interior looked as shitty and dismal as its master.
Distracted by my observations, I smacked into something hard: the construct, which had stopped at an entrance. “Sorry,” I said, backstepping hurriedly. “Do I go in there, then?”
No response. Hesitantly, I squeezed past the wooden beast through the open door. I’d barely entered when the creature came after me. I whirled, shielding myself with my hands, a memory flashing of Sir Galahad’s face torn to a red soup.
“Relax,” commanded a voice from the corner as the beast curled its talons around my shoulders and shoved backward, forcing me to trip over my own feet until I hit the rear wall. “I had them adjusted while you slept. They should fit as though tailored . . . just like my cloak.”
I failed to understand, until the construct pulled my arm up and, with a clink, closed cold metal around my wrist. An experimental tug produced the rattle of chains. The construct maneuvered my other arm into the same indignity and—needing someone to protest to—I scoured the dimly lit room for the sorcerer.
