TombGeld: Chapter One
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 @ 2:46 PM
In a city 50 miles from where our story begins, a man banged on the door of an apartment building. There was no answer. He collapsed outside the door, gasping for breath.
Inside the apartment, a woman was taking a bath. Hearing the knocks on the door, she locked her bathroom door and turned her radio on louder. “Stupid idiots,” she muttered, rolling her eyes in irritation. “They come here to be healed at all hours of the day, no consideration for the healers, for crying out ---“ her sentence abruptly cut off, as she realized who it must be at the door. Fumbling with the locks, she opened her front door.
The man, lying in front of apartment 66, was dead.
The woman screamed.
****
When our story starts, David is asleep in bed. It is not he who hears the cry of the healer, in fact, no-one in the town of Granyts heard anything at all that night. It is his companion, Mithra, who hears the woman’s cry and looks out the window worriedly.
Mithra jumped down from her perch by the window, fluttering her wings slightly to ward off the chill in the room. She pecked at David’s ear and pillow, and finally he woke with a start. Mithra sat back on her haunches, pleased with her success.
There’s another man dead, she said, gesturing out the window. One of our kind this time, not the peasant riff-raff that normally go to Morgira’s place. I suppose she’s the best any of them can afford, Mithra added with a sneer. Never do a lick of work around this filthy city, so they don’t have any money to pay off the halfway decent healers like Giro and his crew. Not that they’re any good, either, she added quickly, ruffling her right wing’s feathers and her left wing’s scales. Us Gelders are the best.
David sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking blearily at Mithra. “What’re you on about now?” he asked, irritated. “And why are you waking me up to report a death, someone who’s already past saving, not that that’s my job anyway, at… what time is it?” he checked the clock by his bedside table. “5 in the morning?”
Master gets up at 7 a.m. anyway, said the winged creature, disgruntled. Now you’ll actually have time for a decent breakfast, and you’ll remember to feed me, too, she said, smiling widely and exposing a line of razor-sharp teeth, which glistened brightly in the light coming from a streetlamp out of the window.
“You’re avoiding my question,” David said, as he started to walk out the door to his room and down the long flight of stairs. “Why should I care if some local idiot got killed by one of your wild friends?”
He’s not a local idiot, that’s my point, said Mithra, bristling. The fur on her back rose, making her look larger as she leaped off the banister at the top of the staircase and flew down to meet him at the bottom. He’s part of the Guild… or one of the out-sets of it, anyway. How he managed to get himself killed in the first place, I don’t know.
“Must’ve been really dense, I guess,” David said lightly. He grabbed a slice of bread from a package near the kitchen counter, and popped it in the toaster. “Serves him right. If he was stupid enough to get himself killed in the first place, and then stupid enough not to blackmail Giro or another one of the good healers to heal him, then he didn’t deserve a place in the Guild in the first place. Everyone knows that Morgira’s one of the ditziest people in this side of the country.”
Gingerly, Mithra plucked the toast out of the toaster and swallowed it, whole. Disgusting lumpy stuff, she said, grimacing. Can’t you get me some decent meat ever? I’m sick of this…. ‘toast’ stuff, and that so-called cat food you give me. I’m a bloody mythical beast, you know. I deserve better. Then, noticing David’s annoyed stare, she sat prettily, folding her wings behind her and licking one dainty paw. Anyway, this guy wasn’t on a mission, I think. He’d been killed. And that Morgira woman was screaming, Mithra added. She never does that, just makes it out to be their fault they died while she was painting her toenails or something. I guess maybe he knew her.
David put two more slices of bread in the toaster, and then stood in front of it, barring Mithra from grabbing any more of his breakfast. “The GuildMaster said I wasn’t to spoil you,” he said matter-of-factly, choosing a tin labelled ‘Feline Tuna Surprise’ from a selection in a cupboard, and tipping it neatly into a bowl emblazoned with the words ‘Gelder Mithra’. “So… Tuna Surprise it is. And anyway, it was your choice to be a cat. There are Gelders who are horses, or even humans. You could’ve been a human and skipped all this toast-thievery, but you picked a cat and here you are.” He appraised Mithra critically. “An abnormally large housecat with one bird wing and one half-decayed bat one, who has irritatingly good hearing, no manners, and appears to care about the goings-on in a town several miles away.”
For your information, I’m a leopard, sniffed Mithra. Half leopard, one quarter dragon, and one quarter owl. I thought we might go visit the dead man, pay our respects. Maybe he has a Gelder, she added thoughtfully, digging in to the Tuna Surprise. We could take it in for a bit --- Ugh, this stuff is awful, it tastes of celery.
Finishing his breakfast, David looked up quickly. “We’re not taking in some dead idiot’s housepet,” he said firmly. “But we can go look, I suppose. Seeing as how you woke me up early this morning and I’ve got another 3 hours until I have to go anywhere.”
Excellent, Mithra said, grinning. Can we go via the Guild again? I hate flying around in the dark, it’s scary.
“Some mythical beast you are,” David muttered, running up the stairs to grab a backpack and slinging it over his shoulders before walking out into the street, Mithra clinging to his shoulder.
****
The Guild was a large stone building in the centre of town. Surrounding it was the library, the town hall, and the city’s only university. Members of the Guild were an elite, and the Guild building was the most important part of the town. Some people said that the Guild was what really ran the city. Some people said that the Guild was a sinister organization. Some people said that on cold, dark nights, strange creatures could be seen through the Guild’s windows, creatures that looked that many different animals --- and some that looked like no animal anyone had ever seen.
Regardless of these rumours, most young people in the city aspired to be Guildmembers, and the Guildmaster was the most revered man in Granyts, if not the whole of the country. For though the entire Guild population was in Granyts, a tiny town, the Guildmembers had immense power worldwide.
The day that David went through one of the Guild portals to the neighbouring city of Terice, nobody was in the streets. However, when he pulled open the heavy carved door to the building and stepped inside, the Guild was bustling with activity. Mithra climbed off his shoulder and bounded over to a huge Gelder in the shape of a Rottweiler dog. It would have been unremarkable if not for its forked tail and startling red eyes. Behind the dog was an old man wearing a black suit. This was the guard.
“Good morning, David,” said the guard, smiling kindly at him as David walked down the hallway and dropped his backpack on the floor before sitting in one of the squashy benches that lined room. “Why, it’s rare to see you up this early! Mithra have another ‘emergency’?”
“No, nothing like that,” David said. The huge dog gave a barking chuckle, and Mithra preened herself, embarrassed. “Mithra says a member of the Guild died just a while ago. We’re here to go through the Terice portal. Mithra’s scared of the dark.” He shot a teasing glance at his Gelder.
I am NOT scared, Mithra said, mortified. I just hate flying in the dark. There’s nasty things in the dark. Bugs… she shuddered. They fly into my face and bite me.
The guard laughed at Mithra. “I heard about the death,” he said, suddenly solemn. “It was one of the members on some sort of Mission for the GuildMaster. Something about rounding up that batch of wolf Gelders before the mafia got to them.”
David nodded, he remembered the wolf Gelders all too well. They had been a pet project of the GuildMaster, whose own six-tailed wolf Gelder -- each tail was from a different kind of canine -- had become pregnant. When the wolf pups were born, they had grown at an amazing rate, feeding off anything around them. Finally they had escaped, and most of the Guild had been happy to be rid of them. When the guard mentioned the mafia, however, David realized that it had been a foolish kind of triumph. The mafia would most likely try and capture the Gelders for themselves, and the GuildMaster’s Gelder, Kira, would be reluctant to kill her own children. Gelder loyalty was strong, but there were breaking points.
“Did he get them?” David asked curiously.
“The guildmember? Three of the five pups, yes. Two are still out there somewhere. They say he had a lot of bite wounds.” The guard winced.
“We’ll be going, then. Mithra wanted to socialize with his Gelder.”
That’s not the reason, Mithra said, rolling her eyes. Why do you always make fun of me in public?
“Let’s go.” David’s face was worried.
They took a turn into one of the unremarkable white doors in the hallway. Any normal outsider would have assumed that they simply entered the room beyond the door, but close examination would reveal the truth. There simply was no door beyond. Just black space. Black space from the outskirts of Terice at night.
This is stupid, Mithra said, grasping David’s shoulder with her paws. Why do all the portals have to open in these dodgy places? For once, I’d like for one of them to open outside a grocery or something.
“You know perfectly well why,” David said, rounding the corner at the end of the street and walking quickly. Half of the streetlights on the avenue had been smashed. “It would cause a lot of fuss, firstly the installation of what appears to be just a door and a doorframe in the middle of a road, and secondly people appearing out of nowhere. We’re supposed to keep inconspicuous.”
Right. And having a cat Gelder on your shoulder is real inconspicuous. Turn right, she said, amused. The building’s coming up.
“I KNOW!”
They arrived at a large, tan building. It was one of those complexes; the ones with the buzzer at the front and the lock which is supposed to keep people out but doesn’t, mainly because the front entrance is almost always made of glass. David grabbed his mobile out of his pocket and dialled a number. The door opened.
“Works every time,” he said smugly, as they took the elevator to the 5th floor. “So we’re looking for room 66?”
Mithra nodded. He did have a Gelder, she though happily. A young one, too.
He was still on the floor. A woman with long, dyed-blonde hair was sitting beside him, crying. A small white wolf was licking his face and whimpering. Mithra jumped off David’s shoulder and padded over to the wolf.
He’s dead now, she said gently. He won’t be waking. You can come home with us.
The wolf’s expression was pitiful. I’d only just found him… it said, not ceasing from licking the man’s face. He came after us, after we escaped. The others bit him, but I thought he was nice. He was kind to me. And then it was all blurry, and we went through a door, and he had a red spot from the bite. I never got red spots from bites. And the red spread, and he fell down! Why did he fall? it laid its head on the man’s shoulder.
Mithra walked slowly back to David. I think it must be one of Kira’s pups. The GuildMaster will be pleased one turned out so well. So loyal. Can we keep it? she flapped her wings, her imitation of a tail wag.
“Maybe,” said David quietly. “First I’m going to talk to Morgira.” he sat down next to her, while Mithra licked the wolf’s ears.
“What happened here?” David asked Morgira. He knew that the woman probably couldn’t hear the Gelderspeach. “Did you find him like this?”
“I-I’m not sure… if he was l-like this,” stuttered Morgira, burying her face in her hands. “Th-this sort of thing happens to me every day. People d-dying. Sometimes I ignore them. I was having a bath… and I heard h-him knocking. But I didn’t kn-know who it was.” she paused to wipe her eyes on her sleeve.
Typical, snorted Mithra. Taking a bath. What kind of healer IS she?
“I see. Do you know him?” David asked.
“Y-yes,” Morgira sobbed. “H-he’s my brother!”
David took a closer look at the man. Now that he knew that the healer and the dead man were related, the similarities were remarkable. Morgira’s natural hair colour, just beginning to show through her dyed colour, was a light brown, as was the man’s hair. Their eyes were almost the same shade of blue-grey, and he could tell, even with the large wolf bite on the man’s face, that their nose was almost the same shape.
“Why do you think he came here? If you’re related, wouldn’t he be a healer too?” Healing powers were genetic, passed through the generations through the mother’s side. Guild powers were the same, though they were passed through the father’s side.
“I suppose so,” said Morgira, straightening up and stopping her tears. “He used to be able to heal, but I heard somewhere that you can’t have Guild powers and healer powers at the same time. Maybe that’s why.”
David nodded. The whole atmosphere in the building was making him very worried. “We’re going to go now,” he said. “Would you like to keep the Gelder, or should we take it?”
“Please take it,” Morgira said. “I can’t understand what it’s saying anyway, though it seemed fond of him.”
He motioned to Mithra, and she flicked her tail at the wolf before moving out of her crouch to stand beside him. The wolf followed, licking David’s hand timidly. “We’ll be leaving then. I’ll let the GuildMaster know, he should have a proper burial.”
And turning his back on the crying woman, he started down the stairs.