The Grim Conspiracy Read online

  “What’s that, Icky?” Numa, his wife, asked from another room.

  His eyes narrowed as he felt the heat rise in his face. “How many times must I tell you not to call me Icky?”

  “I’m sorry,” she replied. Her sarcastic tone betrayed her insincerity. “Icky doesn’t like his lovey name.”

  I should make the supreme sacrifice and send her to the breast of the stone god, he thought. He stood up regretting having shattered his favorite cup. The vessel and his wife had been spoils of war from the defeat of Tigmoor to prevent total annihilation. The cup had belonged to its King Agmar.

  As he thought of it, he thought of the book he had secured as part of the spoils of that war. The king’s senior general was taken alive. Terrified, he’d told Ickletor of the book hidden and guarded at their fabled tunnel to the afterlife. The palace guards had defended that access to the last man. The book was so sacred to the Tigmoor’s people that none but the king and high priest had dared touch it. The squirming general told Ickletor it had ancient spells. One was supposed to prevent the souls of the dead from rising through the subterranean river, up the tunnel, and into the world of the living. The general’s tense body and twitching eyes just speaking of it made Ickletor hesitate. Before long, he’d demanded the book to take back to Octar with the other reparations Octar received not to slaughter the people of Tigmoor.

  Sinuous in her barely clad body, Numa came to the door of his chamber, “Is Icky upset his sacrifices haven’t brought rain?” She undulated seductively in the light of the hallway. Slowly licking her lips, she raised her breasts with her hands, suggesting their waving at her husband.

  Ickletor’s sneered and turn away. “Leave me in peace, woman.”

  Numa laughed and turned away.

  When he looked back at the silence moments later, she’d gone. The stench of burning, moldy flesh reminded him she was at work experimenting with her spells and potions.

  He shook his head in despair. A sudden knock at the door ended the introspection. Its feeble tone suggested the visitor’s reluctance to disturb the high priest.

  “What is it?” Ickletor snapped.

  A timid Toda opened the door. He was hunched over and bowing profusely. “Forgive my intrusion, Great One, but noting your stress today, I thought you might need a servant to do what he or she might to take some of the burdens from your most worthy shoulders.”

  I already hate this sniveling, ingratiating creature, Ickletor thought. “And you presumed to bring me your candidates for this position, I surmise?”

  Toda straightened a tad and began rubbing his hands together, interlacing the boney fingers. A slick smile appeared. Ickletor noted dried blood still stained his fingernails. The smell of stale beer reached his nose. The man is all but drooling at the prospect of having won his master’s favor, he thought.

  “Yes, well, knowing how busy you are, I did select a few individuals from the city’s noble houses for your inspection and evaluation.”

  Ickletor sat down at his table and raised his head symbolically allowing the priest to proceed. “Bring them in and be quick about it.”

  Perhaps I shall find this priest’s replacement among them; he thought and chuckled to himself.

  Toda stepped back to the cracked door and bid his servant send in the candidates. Slightly stooped over, a young man stepped forward in the doorway. Ickletor instantly noted his foot dragged somewhat. He had a bit of a club foot. Ickletor sneered at the sight. “Who is this?” He frowned and instantly saw the alarm on Toda’s face.

  Toda jumped and pushed the young man back into the dark hallway. Bowing profusely, he grabbed the next person by the forearm and pulled him into the high priest’s chamber.

  “That fool was just leading the applicants. He wasn’t among those chosen for your inspection. This young man is a scion of the wealthiest merchant in Octar. The esteemed man would be so honored if you would select his son to accommodate your every wish.” The sleazy smile reappeared.

  Ickletor rotated his hand to indicate ‘next.’

  Toda reached back and drew in a lovely girl in her late teens. “This is the daughter of the largest landholder in our realm.” When Ickletor again failed to show any reaction, Toda brought in handsome contenders one by one until half a dozen stood snuggly together in a line before the high priest. When Ickletor still showed no reaction, Toda began to wring his hands. His smile flickered on and off as his eyes twitched.

  Ickletor sneered savoring the worm’s discomfort. He’s terrified he’s presumed too much, he thought. Toda doesn’t know how to distance himself from overstepping his place, Ickletor thought. This worm has taken large bribes to insert spying offspring of the wealthy into my private affairs. Then the high priest sat up and waved away the candidates without a word to any of them.

  As the youngsters filed out, Ickletor called to the frowning priest, “Send in that first man.”

  Toda spun round facing his master. His wide eyes and quivering lips radiated his fear. “That man is nothing, a stupid servant. He shouldn’t even grace your presence, Great One. He’s just a lout I rescued from the city’s slums. I’ll see to it he doesn’t besmirch the temple complex again.”

  Ickletor stood up; Toda hunched down. “I said to bring the man in. Did you not understand when I raised you up from nothing to do my bidding without questioning my decisions and orders?”

  Head unsteady, Toda glanced up into Ickletor’s glare, jumped back, and rushed out the door. In an instant, he returned, dragging the confused, club-footed man behind him. “As you can see, this defective isn’t fit to be in your presence, Great One.” He started to shove the confused servant back out the door.

  “Toda!” Ickletor said. His voice reverberated around the room. Toda froze then baffled, he looked back at the high priest.

  “What is this?” Numa asked, entering the room behind the frightened men. She walked up to Ickletor and then looked at the men she’d passed without acknowledging their existence. Traces of smoke and burned flesh followed her mixing with stale beer stench. She grinned. Ickletor realized she noted the flush in his face. She then looked at the man he stared down.

  “Oh my, this is your new associate priest, isn’t he?” A beguiling smile emerged across her face, and she winked. Toda’s eyes flared for a second before he dropped to his knees, head bowed.

  Ickletor stood tall and tense like a predator about to spring on prey. “This is Toda, my associate priest applicant, and a presumptuous man indeed. That will stop at once.”

  Toda prostrated himself on the floor and didn’t move.

  The wife’s smile withered. Her head lowered slightly making the whites of her eyes seem abnormally large. She reached down and lifted Toda’s face glaring into his eyes. Ickletor saw her eyes flash. The club-footed servant sank to his knees and bowed his head but said nothing.

  “Arrogant, isn’t he?” the grinning wife said, having recovered from some discovery. “Down on the floor with your face planted in the stone!” She then turned to the club-footed man. “And who’s the scruffy one?”

  “Stand up!” Ickletor said. His voice was even and controlled, but the tension suggested that of a stretched rope about to snap.

  The servant looked up first at the wife then at the high priest.

  “Stand up, I say!” Numa said.

  Though pained by his foot, the servant’s head rose, his chest swelled, he stood tall facing the couple, looking them in the eyes.

  He’s not afraid of punishment or death, Ickletor thought. It’s time I shook this place up.

  “What is your name?”

  “I’m called Sestec, my lord.”

  “Sestec, this is my wife, the illustrious Numa, a diviner of the future. You already know your employer, Toda, of course. I assume you know I am Ickletor, High Priest and spokesman for the god Yingnak.”

  With hands clasped, Sestec bowed to each person as named.

  Ickletor faced each of the others. “Numa, Toda, this is Sestec, my new
personal attendant and chief advisor.”

  Astonished, each of them looked at the others. Only Ickletor grinned.

  Toda jumped up. “But Great One, this lowly street trash isn’t worthy to sweep the dust from your sandals.”

  “I decide who is worthy of doing what. If my sandals need dusting, I will rely on you to attend to it.”

  Toda flushed; his jaw shivered from gritting his teeth. He pursed his lips but said not a word.

  Finally, this prancing priest realizes his place, Ickletor noted. He looked at Numa. She stared deep into Sestec’s face; all trace of ridicule was gone. She was seeing the new advisor for the first time, and clearly, she was disturbed by what she saw. Noting her husband watching her, she turned without a word and pranced out of the room.

  Ickletor looked at Toda. “You may go. I will send for you if I need you. You need not wait outside listening at the door.”

  Toda flushed again at the suggestion he would spy on the high priest. An impromptu bow and he backed out of the chamber leaving his former lowly servant established in a much higher position over himself.

  *

  In the hallway, Toda’s right hand tightened into a fist that then slammed into his left hand. My overconfidence has made me overstep this position, and it’s backfired, he thought. He slapped the wall, turned his back to it, and slid down on his haunches to the floor.

  I won’t make that mistake again, he thought. A sound around the corner and he jumped up. I must ingratiate myself with Numa, the whore. Somehow, she can stand her own against Ickletor. I may need her to advance my aspirations now.

  3: Nightmare

  The sinister Nokmoor Forest concealed a strange and unique rocky outcrop above the city-state of Tigmoor south of Octar. The mere sight of it was threatening to any that ventured near it. The brave few who stumbled across the squat entrance to a cave deep within were never heard from again. Sulfurous, black smoke seeped like stretching fingers from the high point of its arch. Brown withered vines hung down from above, but nothing grew close to the entrance. A small, bleak clearing fanned out in front of the entry. In sharp contrast, dark forest of twisted trees and branches hid the clearing and cave from the plain below.

  Skulls Impaled on sticks at the sides of the opening served as grisly guardians. They stared out from hollow sockets at the approach. Bits of skin and stringy hair speckled the bleached bones flicking in the breeze, adding to the menacing appearance. Sun-bleached skeletal remains of some huge, ancient creature lay perpendicular across the entrance. The horned skull and fangs were otherworldly warding off evil spirits from entering the cave on a direct path.

  Inside the grotto, Nokmay, the Witch of Tigmoor stood captivated studying her visionary pool. The ancient being’s blotched, gray-bronze hide stretched over her spindly frame. Blue spider veins webbed her skin out to her gnarled fingers. Time also hooked her nose, pinched her lips, and made her chin protrude below her high cheekbones. Only her black-pupiled, red eyes remained timeless.

  The extreme violence and associated dark energy in Octar had drawn the witch to her pool. There she watched the brutal sacrifices. She observed the bloody bodies tumbling down the stairs with detachment. Transfixed, she saw them buried in the floor of the chamber at the entrance to the tunnel leading down to the underworld far beneath Octar.

  “Fools!” she barked. “Ickletor should not have disposed of the dead near that tunnel. The trauma of the sacrifices will have alerted a lurking evil. He will awaken that which should not be awakened.”

  She was about to turn away from the pool when something dark appeared. She couldn’t see its form, but its yellow, reptilian eyes and the red of its jaw sporting fangs leered at her. She jumped back and fell on the sandy floor. A mist rose from the pool as Nokmay swept her scraggly, frazzled hair back from her face.

  It knows, she thought. She had to gather her resolve before daring to stand. She shuffled to the dark waster’s edge and clawed at the stone to help lift her old bones. The pool was again blank, but a mist hovered above it. She pulled the tattered rags she wore around her boney bodice. Though she burned a fire perpetually to keep the cave warm, she felt chilled. The rags offered no defense against the dread rising in her.

  “That fool priest has stirred Death itself,” Nokmay mumbled. The giant rat that shared the cave with her glanced up at the agitated witch and darted in a dark recess. “I must warn King Agmar. Then I’ll hurry to Octar and warn Ickletor before the fool lures Death from the underworld.”

  She stashed several items in her satchel then grubbed around in the cave searching for an article she couldn’t find. Scratching her head, she tried to remember where she put it. Then she chewed the tick she’d scratched out of her hair and sniffed the moldy air thick with the scent of drying flesh.

  “Where is that troll bone?” She glanced at a box at the back of the cave, remembered, and stamped her foot. “Used it long ago, I did. It’s gone. I need the bone from the forearm of a troll.”

  She glared at the rat that peered out from the shadows gnawing a bone fragment. Nokmay threw a clay pot at the rodent. It was used to her tantrums and scurried into a deep recess in the wall.

  The witch collected her ingredients and set off to find a troll. She’d lived alone all of her life. In her old age, she began mumbling to herself when alone as if she had a companion. She babbled as she hiked through the undergrowth. “Thank goodness it’s so dry, she thought, the forest is a steamy oven after a rain.”

  More than a day’s journey from Tigmoor, the sun had set, and the weight of nightfall suppressed the shadowy dusk. She thought to camp for the night then froze hearing muttering. The deep voice of a big male was more profound than her own. A worrisome silence followed; she held her breath. Cocking her head, Nokmay listened. A nauseating thud racked the silence. The sound of smashing bone muffled by skin was well known to her. She crept closer and slid a large leaf to the side. Foul troll stench washed over her; she almost gagged. A hulking creature with a club in his beefy hand stood on a trail. His triumphant grin exposed yellow, broken teeth as it hunched over a quivering tapir carcass, the skull crushed and eyes popped out.

  All of a sudden the troll’s head shot up, grin gone. Its glaring eyes scanned the surroundings. Nokmay sank to her knees. She released the leaf slowly to hide her presence without drawing attention. She felt a smirk pull back her cheeks.

  And there it is, she thought, just the troll I need.

  She shadowed the creature through the jungle tracing blood oozing from the tapir’s brain. Two miles later the hunter emerged from the thick undergrowth at the edge of a sinkhole, a massive sinkhole. It was old. Trees grew up out of the walls.

  What have we here? She thought. Scanning the perimeter, she noted bats flying in and out from the depths. Then she spotted what she was looking for.

  Ah-ha, he’s been working there on the right side of the sinkhole’s edge, she noted. She sat down on a log and ate her food, watching and waiting. In the moonlight, the plump troll sat on the edge of the cavernous opening. It gutted the tapir throwing the bowels down into the void. He watched something going on down below. Soon the troll took the carcass down some steps it had made in the sinkhole wall.

  Nokmay gave the creature time to disappear then skulked to the pit’s dark edge. Smoke began to rise from a cave midway in the wall.

  “So you have a cavity there in the side of this sinkhole, do you?” she mumbled. “Very clever for an idiot, I suppose. Not clever enough, though. Cook and enjoy your last meal, troll. Be quick. You won’t come out in the daylight, of course. I must have your arm and be gone by then anyway. ”

  Nokmay scanned the area. It was difficult to see, but the moon was full, and it glistened off the many bleached bones scattered around the area where the troll went down the wall. She selected a bone large enough to make an unusual noise when striking rock and small enough she could throw it with her scraggly arm. She plucked the hand ax from her satchel and laid it beside her. Then she hurled the b
one through the troll’s cave opening.

  The disgusting sounds of troll humming mixed with crunching and gnawing bones stopped suddenly. Nokmay held her breath; her fingers massaged the ax handle. To her dismay, the humming and chewing resumed.

  Stupid trolls, I wonder they don’t want educations, but they’re too dimwitted to realize how mindless they are, she thought.

  She hurled another bone and a third for good measure. The noise from the cave stopped. Then she saw a shadow dancing on the wall by the entrance before the troll picked up a bone and sniffed it.

  Frustrated, Nokmay ground her teeth. The fool thinks I threw it something good to eat.

  The troll stepped to the entrance and scanned around the edge of the sinkhole. Nokmay hunkered down, expecting the creature to come to investigate but it turned back. The witch threw another bone which bounced off the cave’s stone edge and struck the troll on the side of its head. The beast snarled, growled, and dropped the tapir haunch he was gnawing. Its massive hands grabbed the pit’s stones, and the troll began to climb out of the sinkhole.

  Ax in hand, Nokmay lay close to the brink waiting for the troll’s arm to come over the edge of the pit. When it emerged, the limb was moving fast feeling for a secure hold on the rocks. The witch acted in haste, and her chop missed. Stone chips flew everywhere; the appendage snatched back down out of sight.

  “Who dere?” the troll asked.

  Nokmay started to scramble back from the pit. I can’t outrun that oaf, she thought. I must get to the forest. No, trolls have a good sense of smell, and I’m not fresh as a flower myself. Panicking, she looked around.

  The troll’s head popped over the edge of the pit and glared at the witch. His yellow eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight then narrowed. He snarled.

  “You nasty, boney, old woman, what did you think you was doin?” He crawled up out of the pit towering over Nokmay. His hands propped momentarily on his ample hips poised to snatch her. He sniffed, “You ain’t fit to eat.”