The walk to from city walls to the House of Hissocking Sprent was approximately as uncomfortable as might be expected. Wide eyes and slack mouthed expressions followed them. Faces stared from windows, but vanished the moment they thought anyone was looking at them. The streets and squares of the slums and poor quarters that surrounded Samakarantha’s recently purchased house were usually full of humanity, hawkers and drunks, washerwomen, children and dogs: not so now. Doors shut all along the street as word seemed to flit along ahead of the strange parade of armed men, a sorcerer and a weird demonic horse.
When they arrived, at last, before the house, Dapplegrim gave out an appreciative sort of whistle, looking around. “Hurm. Who did all this?” He was looking at the old town houses, painted, repaired and generally fixed.
“You can tell?” asked Samakarantha.
“I can smell the magic coming off these buildings, and out of the earth too. Something with the potency of a god went whispering through these streets. Was it you? Hur. I never guessed you had such arts. You kept them quiet enough at the moot.”
Samakarantha answered him quietly. “Somewhat me, yes, and somewhat not. I’ll show you. It’s a matter of something to do with the house itself.”
Though the words had been not much above a whisper, it was still loud enough to draw the attention of Redthorn, who gave the magus a sort of quizzical brow-arched look.
“Sorcerous matters,” said Samakarantha with a nod and a slight, respectful smile. “If they should turn out to be matters of importance for the city of Brae and the kingdom of the land, you will be among the first to know.”
Redthorn didn’t give any more answer beyond a slightly disbelieving snort
But as they neared the house itself, Dapplegrim’s whole manner changed. He stopped short a good few feet from the doorstep, stock still, like a mule refusing to go into a mine tunnel. A shiver ran through his flanks. The red in his eyes, usually not much more than a dull, soft glow, now flared into something approaching fieriness.
“What uncanny monstrosity have you got hidden in this house?”
Perhaps he spoke without thinking, as this immediately got another arch and suspicious look from Redthorn.
But Samakarantha only shook his head and said, “Ah, I did wonder. I did not warn you–but I wanted to know if you would sense it yourself. It is a part of the house… the folks hereabouts think the place is haunted, and I suppose it is, but in a strange, weird way that I have yet to fully fathom. At least thus far, it seems to be harmless enough, or perhaps something like being asleep? I’m unsure. What do you make of it?”
Dapplegrim took a few steps forwards. His hooves make harsh click-tap noises on the flagstones of the square. He bent his head low, and sniffed with big, flared nostrils. “Smells old. And dead. Like a body buried so deep in a bog that it’s turned to leather. The threshold has the worst stink of ritual death… but… hurm…” He considered. “No. There is something else–not connected to whatever is buried under the threshold stone, or maybe only connected by the ancientness of it all? Something that smells like a dead god, rotted down to bones. I’m curious.”
“But not afraid?” said Samakarantha.
Dapplegrim shook his head. “I don’t scare easily.”
“But I do.” It was Ode who had cut in. He was still sitting atop Dapplegrim, and the boy had his head craned back, staring at the exterior of the building. “That’s some unpleasant dark cursing, written there.”
“Where?” Samakarantha was puzzled. He couldn’t see any runes or letters on the building. The men of Brae looked confused too. Presumably most of them couldn’t cipher their letters much or at all, but they would at least recognise writing.
“There,” said Ode, pointed that what appeared to be intricate knotwork carven into twisted shapes of ivy and thorns. “I mean, it’s stylised, heavily, but it’s clearly the Sthathrasog script… used in the cult centres, long time ago now. A sort of death cult, I think.”
Samakarantha could not make out anything that looked like a word to him. “What does it say?”
“I don’t really want to translate exactly. It’s curses on enemies, with all sorts of descriptions of awful tortures… pulling out eyes and feeding them to the victim, cutting off fingers and toes one at the time, pulling innards out, flaying alive… that sort of thing… although some of the descriptions are… I don’t know… um… enthusiastic might be the way to put it?”
Samakarantha looked up and down the seemingly decorative masses of thorns and ivy curls. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, except that there was no sense of magic coming off the stonework at all. “Dapplegrim?” he asked.
But the horse-thing shook his head. “There’s no scent of a real hex or curse… it’s just bluff, or playacting. Hur. Someone who had a bad joke at the expense of their neighbours, I suppose. Who built this place?”
“One of the early lairds who lived here was apparently a bit of an unpleasant and suspicious character. Secretive. Not much liked. Perhaps even dabbling in warlockry. I mean to find out more about him, if possible. There’s certainly something odd about this whole place. Perhaps we will talk to the staff and ask some more questions, or there might be some trove of books or a house of scholars in the city? For now, shall we proceed inside?”
“Sure, hurm, but I’m not touching that threshold stone. Gives me the shivers.”
At this point, Ode got down, stretched himself to loosen his muscles from the ride, yawned and slumped a little. “Tired his muttered.” Samakarantha was struck at how young the boy looked. Perched up on Dapplegrim’s back, it had been a little difficult to make out exactly his height. But now, down on the ground, he looked barely much older than a child.
Once Ode had dismounted, and true to his word, Dapplegrim stepped right over the broad, flat threshold stone as he squeezed himself through the doorway. It was lucky that the front doorway was so large. Even so, it was a close thing, and Dapplegrim had to really work his broad shoulders through the gap.
With the horse-creature safely inside, Redthorn appointed two guards to stand outside the door and watch for trouble. Samakarantha bowed to him. “Peace be with you, and so with you the warm winds of summer.”
“Mind you watch your guest,” was all the reply he got.
Samakarantha stepped up the short jumble of stairs, and promptly closed the door behind him. Ode and Dapplegrim were standing in the grand entry hall. The horse-creature had his dark red-lit eyes on the door. “Adorable, really. Charming.”
Samakarantha looked at him. “How do you mean?”
“That they think two men with pikes would stop me if I really wanted to walk out into the city. Adorable. Worrying perhaps. It suggests these folk haven’t much experience with the dark creatures of the night lands beyond. If they did, they’d have never let me into the city–regardless of how many sun-magi vouched for me.”
“Adorable,” agreed Samakarantha, though his voice didn’t hold the same tone of humour in it.