The Sorcerer's Appendix

by Andrew Harman

Genres: Fantasy; Humor & Satire

Synopsis

All is not well in the kingdom of Rhyngill. Despite regular payment of tithes, including PAYE (Pay As You Eat), the citizens are all tired and underfed. Firkin, a lad who is definitely alpha plus in the get-up-and-go department, blames the king, and sets out to find an assassin who will rid the kingdom of its ruler. But little does he know that the real villain is someone else entirely - or that the origins of his friends' troubles involve lemmings, pigeons and heavy earth-moving equipment. It takes a pieman, a magician and a knight with a North Country accent to help Firkin see the error of his ways!

Release date: June 27, 2013

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 240

Sample

In semi-darkness, the four figures sat.

In gloom; in half light, broken by a few candles flickering wildly in the draughts, they hatched plans.

In this room generations of kings had invented schemes of wickedness, stratagems of evil, and complex systems of crippling taxation to keep the royal larders brimming and the people under the regal thumb. This was the Conference Room of Castell Rhyngill and it was not designed for pleasure. Unless, of course, you are the type of person that can find thirty-two different ways to have fun with thumbscrews, experience hot flushes of joy whilst torching tiny villages and thrill with spine-tingling delight after adding the last clause to a grossly excessive extortion racket.

A huge oak table had squatted, for centuries, in the centre of the room. It was upon this that countless plans had been drawn up, agreements broken and fists slammed in frustration and/or anger. Behind the table loomed a tall, black monolithic throne whose austerity emanated dense waves of cold, harsh cruelty. It looked as if it had been hewn from a solid block of black slate. It had.

The walls of the Conference Room bristled, in angry sympathy, with that self-same cruelty. Instruments of torture were arranged in bleakly geometric patterns and weapons of pain and destruction hung nonchalantly in rows along the far wall. Swords mingled with tournee lances, fifteen-pound maces rubbed chains with the shafts of throwing spears and cross-bows stood ready to hurl bolts into suits of battle armour standing ready-at-arms in the corners. The effect was at once bleak, tastefully grim and very, very sharp. Well, let’s put it this way: if a maniac mongol warlord, a psychotic murderer with a love of shower curtains and a Victorian killer of prostitutes had been scouring the small ads for a house to share, this room would have been perfect in every detail.

In choosing the decor for the Conference Room, King Stigg, the first, and so far cruellest, King of Rhyngill had remarked in response to an interior decorator’s suggestion, ‘Tapestries, TAPESTRIES! Pah! They’re for Girlies!’ The interior decorator had then been dismissed. Permanently. Right now, centuries later, four figures were sitting in deep debate. Around them the Conference Room almost hummed with centuries of accumulated wickedness.

‘What if we taxed food, Sire?’ asked Burnurd, a member of the Black Guards of Castell Rhyngill, in a moment of rare intelligence.

‘We already do!’

‘Wha’?’ said Burnurd, returning to a more normal level of mental inactivity. The effect of the room already wearing off.

‘We already tax food, imbecile!’ repeated Snydewinder, the Lord Chancellor, with little patience for the lumbering castle bouncer.

‘Oh!’ intoned Burnurd, feeling a little put out that his idea, his brilliant idea, had been sat on so abruptly and so early in its development.

A thick silence fell in the room.

Suddenly, almost as if the room wasn’t going to give up that easily, something began to happen in Burnurd’s head. In the same way that certain concert halls can bring out virtuoso performances from visiting artistes, or that certain sporting venues can always be relied on to produce record-breaking times and distances – in that way the Conference Room worked its old peculiar magic on Burnurd. His eyes opened wider, allowing a glimmer of daylight to sneak under his heavy caterpillar eyebrows. His right index finger twitched, straightening. His hand quivered, his eyes slid slowly upwards, pulling his heavy head with them. The signals halting his train of thought had changed to green and his idea was now thundering recklessly down an uncontrollable incline powered by the racing engines of inspiration. A look of panic flashed across his crimson face. Beads of sweat appeared on his heavy forehead. His lips twitched.

Snydewinder looked up from the black leather-bound book.

The room was quiet… except for the slight hum of evil, at a pitch of approximately 50 Hurts.

Burnurd began to vibrate as inspiration took a firm hold of his right arm. It rocketed skyward.

‘I know…’

It came like the release of steam from some immense volcanic geyser.

All five eyes were glued to Burnurd … waiting.

‘W-w-we could …’ he struggled, unused to the forces of inspiration.

Expectant silence gripped the other three men.

‘We, we could ta – ta – ta – tax food more!’ he blurted, collapsing with the strain of the mental effort.

‘Oh dear,’ murmured Maffew, the other half of the Black Guards.

‘Tut, tut, too bad,’ said the King.

‘I’ve warned him before about thinking too hard,’ sneered Snydewinder. ‘It’s bad for him! He was not born to think!’

Burnurd groaned.

‘I fink it’s a good idea,’ said Maffew, timidly supporting his colleague.

‘Shut up!’

‘But…’

‘Shut up!’ repeated Snydewinder, waving his pointy, steel toecapped boots for effect.

‘But … mmmfph!’

Maffew had been warned. He now sat and nursed a badly bruised shin, the unhappily throbbing recipient of a swift jab from Snydewinder’s boot. Maffew muttered obscenities under his breath. The Lord Chancellor wore deadly boots.

‘Snydewinder!’ snapped the King, ‘What is the level of food tax at present?’

‘Could you be more specific, Sire?’

‘What?’

‘Well, Sire, do you mean Vegetable Tax – (1) Outdoor and its subclasses (a) growing tax, (b) fertilisation tax, or (c) harvest tax; or Vegetable Tax – (2) Indoor subclass (a) cleaning tax, (b) peeling tax, (c) preparation tax, or (d) eating tax; or Meat Tax –(1) Poultry Farming, subclass – (a) battery chicken tax, (b) free range …?’

‘Stop!’

‘Sire?’

‘The overall level of taxation on food.’

‘Global, Sire?’

‘The bottom line.’

‘Including P.A.Y.E.* Sire?’

‘Yes.’

‘With seasonal and climatic adjustments, Sire?’

‘YES!’

‘And Difficult Terrain Collection Increment, Sire?’

‘Just tell me!’ bellowed the King.

‘Ahem … The overall level of taxation on food, as laid down by yourself, His Majesty the King of Rhyngill, on the 14th January OG** 1038, in accordance to the Kingly Laws passed by your Majes…’

‘TELL ME NOW!’

‘Seventy-four per cent, Sire.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, Your Devastating Regality, Sire.’

‘Stop wheedling.’

‘As you command, Your Regal Altitude, Sire.’

‘Hush.’

‘Sire,’ whispered Snydewinder.

Burnurd sat up but still looked a little pale and confused. The mental effort had been a great strain. Maffew still nursed his throbbing shin and cast doubt on the parentage of the Lord Chancellor under his breath.

‘Seventy-four per cent Food Tax,’ mused the King.

Burnurd looked expectant.

‘Well, I suppose seventy five per cent would make the calculation a bit easier.’

‘Yes, Sire.’

Burnurd scratched his head.

‘Make it so!’ the King decided.

‘Yes, Sire.’ Snydewinder fetched his quill and put on his Tax advisor’s hat, ‘a wise decision, Sire,’ he fetched the ink, ‘an exercise in excellent judgement, if I may say so, Sire.’

‘Just put it in the minutes, will you?’

‘Yes, Sire.’

Maffew rubbed his leg and scowled at Snydewinder.

The Lord Chancellor opened the huge leather-bound Minutes book, adjusted his black leather eyepatch, cracked his bony knuckles noisily and began to write.

Burnurd smiled as he listened to the quill scratching over the rough parchment.

His idea was in The Book.

In the early afternoon of a late spring day, the young boy saw the chance he had been looking for. Without a moment’s hesitation his arm shot out, snatching at Mote the Wood-Nymph, his hand huge against its tiny body. Effortlessly the defenceless creature was lifted brutally skywards. Mote did not struggle. Mote could not struggle.

Inevitably, the Wood-Nymph was lowered into Firkin’s hand where Mote joined his brothers, Gnot and Phloem. Now Firkin had three. He needed one more. He released Murrion the Shepherd, tossing him away with a careless flick of the wrist.

Hogshead watched as the Shepherd tumbled slowly forward and landed on the tatty bedclothes below. He scowled angrily at Firkin, looked to his left and forfeited his turn.

Dawn, with a weak grin, reached out and picked up the Shepherd. She slid him in with the other three, tossed away Thrum the Weaver, and revealed the full set of Shepherds to her brother and his best friend.

‘I won,’ she said simply and then coughed violently, the colour draining from her cheeks as she doubled up on the bed.

Firkin looked pityingly at his sister, unable to help. He scowled at her cards, focusing his frustration elsewhere. ‘I was so close! One more pesky Wood-Nymph and…’

‘Yeh … but I won!’ she answered, controlling her coughs momentarily.

‘Another game,’ whimpered Hogshead, desperate to win a hand. ‘I’ll deal.’ He began collecting the cards eagerly from Dawn’s bed.

‘No, I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough today,’ she said weakly. ‘Maybe later, eh?’

Hogshead shrugged his shoulders as he collected a Black Guard and a pair of Jesters.

‘Come on,’ said Firkin, ushering Hogshead out ‘Dawn needs a rest now.’

Almost as a reply, a fit of pathetically weak coughs drifted into earshot.

Dawn was the latest victim of a malady that was sweeping the tiny community of Middin perched high in the Talpa Mountains. Most of the other children and some of the older people had already succumbed to its effects.

It wasn’t really anywhere near incurable, far from it. All that was required was a good feed. That was the whole problem in a nutshell. The new higher rates of taxes, set by the King of Rhyngill, were really crippling life in the village. It was hard enough growing enough food to feed yourselves, especially in these barren, heather-coated mountains. But having to send almost three quarters down the mountain as the King’s Tithe was getting beyond a joke. The word tithe was used entirely for historical reasons, and because it sounds better than tax. It had started as a proper tithe, but had grown way beyond the official ten per cent years ago. The name hadn’t changed partly to save confusion, but mainly because ‘halfthe’ or ‘three-fifthsthe’ is extremely difficult for guards to say through menacingly clenched teeth. Food, and nutrition in general in the village, was now sadly lacking. Most of the villagers hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks. Even months. And it was beginning to show.

Watched jealously by Dawn, two boys ran through the tiny little talpine village of Middin.

Actually, village is a bit of a grand word. Had a hugely successful Elizabethan playwright not stolen the word for the title of a tragic play, hamlet may well be more apt. It conjures up a place about the right size for the measly collection of scrotty wood huts perched high in the Talpa Mountains. But far, far too quaint. If you could view Middin from the air, the overriding impression would be that a very large, and particularly ineffective, raven had, several times, attempted to build a nest. Unsuccessfully.

The ‘high street’ in Middin was a patch of ground that had been left free of debris. It wasn’t so much a deliberate attempt at civil highway engineering but more a bit that they hadn’t got round to doing anything with yet. At the moment it offered a reasonable surface, but when it-rained, well … mud is an understatement.

Either side of the ‘high street’ were the ‘houses’. Nearly all of these looked more like something had fallen down than been built. This wasn’t too far from the truth. One of the finest examples of the ‘hastily-erected-bonfire-after-a-hurricane’ school of architecture, beloved by the inhabitants of Middin, was Franck’s Hut. The destination of the two boys.

Pushing open the rickety door to the hut, which appeared to be held up mainly by luck, the two boys entered the dim and dusty room. They blinked in the dark. Mysterious bottles lined rickety shelves and a mortar and pestle, filled with strange-smelling powder, balanced precariously on the edge of a wormy-looking cupboard. All the tools of the Wizard’s trade seemed to be here. Glass jars, labelled with strange names in strange writing, housed even stranger-looking pickled and preserved creatures whose fate had been sealed long ago. Unlike some of the jars. Pools of sticky ooze congealed down the sides of some of the older-looking vessels. There were mysterious metal constructions scattered in corners whose purpose the boys could only guess at, theodolites, a sextant, two divining rods and one device that looked as though it had been made from the bottoms of two dark green beer bottles and several lengths of wire. A small piece of flint shone with a tiny auric spark. Shallow pots of coloured powder smouldered gently on most flat surfaces giving off a thick oily smoke, that always made the boys choke. In short the whole place had a very mysterious and moth-eaten air to it. Though what sort of a moth it would be that would actually be hungry enough, or mad enough to even fleetingly contemplate eating anything even remotely associated with Franck’s hut was a very difficult question to answer.

In the far corner of the Wizard’s hut was a heap of dark grey rags, apparently flung on to the table and draped on the floor. The boys coughed in the dense dry atmosphere, breaking the dull thick silence.

‘Eh, eh, what, what, what?’

‘Hello, Franck,’ offered Firkin, looking around for the source of the outburst.

‘Eh, eh, what-what, what’s that?’

‘Hello, Franck?’ suggested Hogshead vaguely.

‘Eh, eh, wh- what, what’s that noise?’ repeated the heap of rags stirring up a small cloud of dust.

‘Hello, Franck, its me, Firkin.’

‘What … uh … oh. Come in then.’

‘We already are.’

‘What?’

‘In.’

‘Oh!’

Silence. Nothing moved.

The inside of the hut seemed to turn into a quick-drying oil painting as still life fell and the boys stood expectantly waiting for Franck.

Hogshead succumbed to the atmosphere and suddenly began coughing his head off.

‘No, no, not another one … uh … oh. Oh!’ cried the rags as they sat bolt upright in a shower of dust revealing Franck the Wizard, waving furiously to protect himself from the hundreds of falling somethings in his dream.

‘Who’s that coughing?’ he demanded.

‘Sorry, its Hogshead,’ said Firkin.

‘Hogshead … whatsewant?’ said Franck dozily wiping his eyes.

‘He came with me.’

‘Whaddyouwant?’ he yawned expansively.

‘We came to see you.’

‘Oh … Why?’ said Franck, finally opening his eyes.

‘We thought you’d tell us a story.’

‘Give me a chance to wake up and…’

‘Not another what?’ interrupted Hogshead, controlling his coughing fit at last.

‘Eh …?’

‘You said “not another one” and then sat up.’

‘Oh. Did I … ?’ Franck was obviously not with it. Several pieces of fluff hung messily in his tatty beard. ‘Not another one?’ He screwed his eyes up in an effort to recall the dream. Several hundred yellowish rodents, eyes gleaming in wild abandon, hurled themselves toward him in a flash rerun of the dream, causing cold beads of sweat to spring on to his forehead. ‘Er … Nope. Haven’t a clue,’ he lied. ‘Funny that.’

‘Well, was it a magic dream?’ pressed Hogshead eagerly.

‘Eh? …’said Franck and Firkin together, looking at the small rotund boy bouncing up and down excitedly.

‘A dream, a magic dream, a dream about magic, with magic in … I like magic, magic is exciting, Firkin doesn’t believe in magic. I do, was it a magic dream? hey was it … Ow!’ Firkin kicked Hogshead’s shin and stemmed the babbling berk.

Actually, Hogshead was only a nickname. It was unfortunate that Billy Hopwood just happened to bear an uncanny resemblance to a small squat barrel.

‘What’s that, Firkin?’

‘Er what, Franck?’

‘About you and magic?’

‘Er … well…’

‘He doesn’t believe in magic,’ said Hogshead, rubbing his leg and pulling tongues at Firkin. ‘He told me so, today.’

‘Is this true?’ Franck fumbled with his glasses.

‘Yes,’ said Firkin decisively. ‘I’ve never seen any and I don’t believe in it!’

Franck leaned across the table, looked at Firkin and listened.

‘… And all the stories with magic in are silly and get the heroes out of a fix with the flick of a magic wand. It’s all phooeey. Rot. Rubbish. Hocus-pocus. IT DOESN’T EXIST!’

‘Have you quite finished?’ said Franck, looking down at the red-faced youth.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you about magic.’

‘Oh, no,’ whined Firkin. ‘I want to hear something real. Tell us something like … er … something like … Oh, anything but no magic!’

Hogshead shook his head in disbelief; Franck was good at making up stories but one without magic would be so boring. Nothing interesting ever happened without magic.

‘… and,’ continued Firkin, ‘I don’t want anything made up. I want the truth. Facts!’

Hogshead gasped.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ moaned Franck. ‘Facts, eh? Does this mean that Firkin is growing up?’ he asked, rhetorically. ‘Do I take it,’ he continued, ‘that my tales of swords, sorcery, dragons and damsels are now no longer required…’

‘No …’ started Hogshead.

‘… that the yarns I have spun are wearing thin…’

‘No!’ Hogshead’s eyes were wide. He loved Franck’s tall tales.

‘… that I no longer have such an avid audience …?’

‘No, Franck,’ said Firkin. ‘I like your tales. I just want something a bit more … er … bit more…’

‘… real!’ finished Franck.

‘Yes,’ nodded Firkin.

‘Oh, very well,’ he sighed in mock defeat.

The two boys settled down to listen.

‘This is a secret. None but I know the truth of the marriage of Prince Chandon.’ Had Franck been able to dim the lights, play low ominous music and produce swathes of foggy dry ice, this would have been the perfect time. “Tis a strange tale: of adventure; fortune; shoe sizes.’

The boys’ eyes widened. Franck had started slipping into his pseudo-old-fashioned speech. This normally meant it was going to be good.

Franck stared at the boys for a moment, just to add a little excitement, took a deep breath and began in the time-honoured way. ‘Once upon a time, far, far away …

*

King Klayth’s footsteps echoed down the empty-sounding corridor.

It probably sounded empty because it was.

Empty.

There were miles and miles of corridors like this in Castell Rhyngill.

Bare stone floors separated bare stone walls which ran for miles, broken only by the occasional door into an empty room, or crossed by another corridor which was … yes, empty.

The whole place was empty.

It had been this way ever since he could really remember.

It must have been so different once.

He could ever so dimly recall a time when the whole area rang with life. Over three and a half thousand lives. All sorts of shapes and sizes, from tiny chimney sweeps permanently grey with soot, through parlour maids, cooks, valets, right up to the bristling mass of the black-clad castle guards.

He stood now in the empty corridor and listened. Silence. Thick, deep, absolute silence. The silence of cotton wool. The silence before a thunder storm on a July day. It would never have been as quiet as that in the old, glorious days of his youth. Even in the dead of night there would have been a hum of life. Over three and a half thousand people can never be perfectly quiet. Why else call it ‘sound asleep’? There’s always some noise: the gentle contented breathing of a young girl muffled by her scented pillow; the fitful breaths of a dreamer fighting dragons on a mountain top; and the steam-engine bellows of the snoring cook – a constant hum.

During the day it would have been deafening, with everyone busy with their daily tasks too numerous to mention, all essential for the smooth running of the castle.

The last days of preparation, before the War with the neighbouring kingdom of Cranachan, must have been impressive. People running, gathering, checking-readying. Of course, Klayth hadn’t even known how to spell war then let alone know what it was. It didn’t seem to matter though. People were going away and that was that. He was too young to know why. He could only dimly remember it, walking through the hubbub in quiet bewilderment, close to it but not part of it, like a leaf on an autumn stream. There was an excitement, an electric tension in the air, as if some great god had rubbed the whole castle on a monstrous woolly jumper and tried to stick it to the ceiling. But this was different to anything else, it was a hollow excitement. A final excitement. An excitement marinaded for weeks in a subtle and potent blend of sadness, despair and plain old-fashioned fear.

But suddenly, it went quiet. In OG 1025 all the men left. The women stayed around for a few days, not knowing what to do after all the hectic preparation. Small groups of them would be found sobbing gently in corners. Gradually they drifted away, leaving just a few to keep the castle going, and the King safe. That was thirteen years ago and Klayth had been just over four years old. He’d been inside the castle ever since as it gradually emptied of staff, leaving now just the six of them in a castle built for at least four thousand. It wasn’t, therefore, too surprising that for most of the time, most of the castle was, in fact, mostly empty.

Right now he stood in the middle of one of the hundreds of upper corridors and thought about the people he was left with. The two bodyguards, Burnurd and Maffew, probably had the physical strength but not the mental agility to save him from any willing and able assassin. They were faithful though. Devoted to Klayth and willing to die for him. But he was sure they hoped it wouldn’t come to that. So did he.

There was the cook, Val Jambon, whom he saw on rare occasions and who always delivered the most splendid meals and snacks. He had a daughter, Courgette, young and shockingly red-haired. Klayth hardly ever saw her face to face but would occasionally spy her creeping out into the nearby woods.

And then there was the Lord Chancellor, Snydewinder.

He had, in no particular order, the roles of chief strategy adviser, chief accountant, book-keeper general, Lord Chancellor, tax adviser, teacher … the list seemed almost endless but, thought King Klayth, I expect that’s what Lord Chancellors do.

Shrugging his shoulders he turned down the empty corridor and headed for the library.

‘ “Who-so-ever puts their foot in this tiny sandal is the true-born Queen of my Kingdom,” declared Prince Chandon at the top of his voice.

‘All the guests who had attended the party moved forward and clamoured for attention. The Prince was the most eligible bachelor in the whole of the Kingdom. He was Tall, towering above most men even without his tournee boots; Dark: his mane of black hair was the envy of all men, knights and commoners alike, as well as a fair p. . .