Story #271 - Backs of the Dead

“You know this city is built on the backs of the dead,” Lionel Craig said with drawn brows.

Kal Rocci sighed. He’d heard that particular expression more times than he could count since moving to the seaside city of Elone, but he’d never had occasion to believe it, nor had it ever particularly mattered if it were true – until now.

“I’ve heard that,” he said drily. “But it doesn’t change facts. I’m going into the catacombs.”

Lionel harrumphed loudly, his silver mustache moving sharply with the force of his breath. He was Elone’s foremost historian, and was convinced that if anyone should venture into the crypts below the city, they would never return.

Kal rose, moving to the small teapot on his stove. Lionel could be forgiven for some of his attitudes about the seaside city, since there had been five disappearances in the last seven years, all of which were attributed to the crypts. Such mumbo-jumbo didn’t sit well with Kal, but that didn’t mean he could go tromping around underground without any preparation. Aside from his particular views on the subject of the city’s underground being haunted, Lionel was a valuable resource – over the years, he had compiled an extensive map, complete with notations about recent shifts in city formations that could cause cave-ins or other issues.

“More tea?” Kal asked politely, but Lionel waved him off.

“Don’t do this, Kal,” Lionel said seriously, leaning forward in his chair. “Please. You’re insufferable, but I’d hate to lose you over a stupid book.”

There was no point in responding – Lionel would never understand. In the same way his historically-minded friend couldn’t leave his study of the city and its secrets, there was no way Kal could let the first volume of his collection disappear. He’d worked too hard, travelled too far to start over.

It was all the merchant’s fault. If he’d just been willing to take a promise of a few silver more when Kal had the means, everything would have been fine. Instead, an argument had erupted in the middle of Tower Street, Kal being called out as though he were a common criminal. A struggle over the few items he taken resulted in the leather-bound love of his life being knocked from his hands and slipping down a broken sewer grate. Only the presence of the town watch had kept him from the merchant’s throat and saved him from a severe beating and a night or two in the stocks.

“It appears we’ve reached an impasse,” Kal said softly, filling his own cup and then setting the teapot back on the burner, “so I’ll ask you to leave. I appreciate the map you’ve provided –“ he moved to the table and grabbed the folded paper before Lionel had the presence of mind to snatch it away, “and I’ll come and see you when I return.”

His friend’s face darkened at the dismissal, and he stood abruptly. Pausing at the door, Lionel snapped out two words before vanishing into the deepening dusk.

“God speed.”

***

At least he knew where the phrase had come from, now.

Kad had assumed “on the backs of the dead” simply meant that Elone had been created using slave labor – a common practice in the West until the reign of King Albor V. Slaves had typically come from the barbaric north, and were given only the more basic of food and shelter to keep them working during the sweltering summer months and vicious storms. Most died during the construction of large projects, so it was no wonder phrases like the one used in Elone had sprung up.

Staring at the deep rows of what had been strong-backed men, browned skeletons doubled over beneath the oldest section of the city square, Kal saw that the words which fell so easily from the lips of those above were absolutely – and gruesomely – true.

He made a quick note on the pad he always carried with him; his own form of shorthand allowed him to compress a great deal of information into only a few lines, and it was essential that he record what he was seeing. Finding his first volume was important, but not at the cost of missing other crucial details about the city. Elone was one of his last stops in the West, and the last major port before he could find a small town and take the time to finish his great work in peace and quiet. How it would be received was something he could not even guess at, but it did not matter. He simply had to finish.

The sound of dripping water led him down a long, arched hallway – his book had fallen into the sewer section of the youngest part of the city, one which ran on an aquifer near the eastern edge of the peninsula. If his book was anywhere, it would be where there was water.

Fear lanced through him, and not because of the corpses around him. If the book was damaged, if even a page was missing, it would be tragic.

Another sound in the darkness brought him up short. Though he knew the sewers used a system of locks and pulleys to remove waste from the city, the noise ahead of him could not be simply that – sewers did not breathe heavily.

“Stay back!” Kal cried, waving his pitch-smeared torch in front of him. Boldness might get him killed, but it was better than waiting in darkness for death to sneak up on him.

A low snuffling was the only response, and after a moment a lurching shape slipped into the pool of light cast by his fire. Half his height, the thing hobbled forward, its twisted back making it easier for the thing to walk on all fours than upright. A grotesquely strained neck had it looking at him sideways, pale eyes questioning.

He quickly pulled out his pad, doing his best to keep his hands from shaking. The men of the north were supposedly long-lived, but he had never thought they could survive in such filth for so long. The backs of the dead, it appeared, were far more resilient than those above ground gave them credit for.

Damn Lionel. Damn him to the Pit.