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YANAR DAGH

A group of unallied adventurers are mysteriously drawn together to locate a collapsed mine shaft and its earnest workers, assumedly buried alive and without hope. This work of period-set fantasy fiction contains uncompromising situations, which some readers may find disturbing.

CHAPTER ONE

The magician, travelling under the name Oostergouw for the purposes of professional anonymity, left a single silver coin spinning on the table as he drained the thimble of lucidly-spiced tea and rose unsteadily to his feet. The coin was copper by the time the teashop’s proprietor had dropped it into his collection bag.

The teashop, at which Oostergouw had parked himself, lay across the broad harbour walk from a battered old balinger marked “The Engulfing Heart”, a ship from which the magician had emerged not half an hour earlier. Over the coarse of his voyage, he had found himself afflicted with a delicate stomach and eyes unaccustomed to daylight, but the spiced tea had most certainly put the colour back into his plump cheeks.

Oostergouw was a thoughtfully-dressed gentleman, with his garments featuring many layers that gave consideration to his lengthy travels. There was the odd flicker of flamboyant colour here and there, which he used to signal his trade to those with a need for it. He was a stocky figure, bordering on chubby, but carried himself well without the assistance of a cane. His manner was outwardly bright and amiable, but a cunning eye and watchful mind crouched predatorily in abeyance. He suffered fools gladly, as they were his livelihood; however, he was not an unkind man, merely a disenfranchised one given to fits of conservative charity.

The Engulfing Heart was heading south along the east coast, with a bond to gather merchant cargo at three fishing villages and one major port. At the behest of a lord, the vessel had been chartered at haste and drawn from port prior to the dock master's signature. Its boisterous crew, enlisted from a quayside rabble bearing forged letters of endorsement, cheated at cards and cursed everything from the they breathed to their own toothless old mothers. But they were generous with their liquor and the warmth of their bodies, both being valuable commodities during Oostergouw’s three cold, storm-tossed nights at sea. The ship's captain, a heartless bastard by the name of Herrington, was a self-righteous teetotaller, expecting the same from his crew. However, a hidden cache of a sweet, salty liquor, said to be brewed by reclusive monks in the northern mountains, had become the warmer of many a lonely heart aboard The Engulfing Heart.

After the magician buttoned his cloak, he waved a loving farewell to the grizzled seamen, who were knotting rope and rolling barrels onto the dock.

“Be seeing you again!” Oostergouw said to the men, before turning off the walk down an alley alongside the teashop.

He dodged a rush of stray cats on the prowl for monstrous seagulls and pushed through a rabble of floating bar patrons, stinking of spirits and barking violent protestations at invisible prosecutors. From a brothel nestled in a doorway stumbled a holy man, lashing himself repentantly with a richly-decorated leather belt. Oostergouw nodded to him, respectfully, as the holy man held out a jittery hand.

“Caritas for the poor, my lord?” Said the holy man, his eyes clouded with ecstasy and the skin on his fingers peeling from scurvy.

Oostergouw helped steady the man with a gentle hand on his shoulder. The magician mouthed a silent phrase, which the holy man’s darting, fever-ridden eyes failed to capture. There was a sudden ripple of peace across the holy man’s face, before he stood upright with renewed vigour and assurance.

“Tell me, father, where might one find a coach for travel into the vale?” Said Oostergouw, leading the holy man out of the way of pedestrian traffic into an awning of merciful shade.

The holy man nodded repeatedly, as if taking direction from voices in his head. He then looked up, as if in a trance, and connected with Oostergouw’s gaze for the first time.

“Over the bridge, beyond Nickel Alley, sweet sir.” He said, before dropping his bejewelled belt absentmindedly to the cobblestones.

The holy man then turned his back on the grinning magician and strode purposefully back into the makeshift brothel. The buxom, good-natured woman awaiting the holy man’s pleasure, winked thankfully at Oostergouw, who recovered the holy man’s belt and rolled it into his satchel. It would pay for his lodgings and meals for a week. Good portions, at that.

At Sunk harbour, cheap decadence was in high demand as an instant curative. Oostergouw reserved his judgement, for such matters were all too trying for his weary attention.

As the bacchanalian loitering continued, as did Oostergouw’s journey on foot

The town, a small seaport on the southern lip of the mouth of the River Broad, was roughly five miles from the geographical intersection of Bradbury Vale. Sunk was known to thrive with commerce as the sun rose and cursed with amorality as it fell. Or was it the other way around?! Oostergouw was never truly certain. 

Leaving the feline-infested alleyway, which played host to pathetic religious shrines honouring local gods, Oostergouw strode up the cobbled hill. Breathing in the fresh, sea-salt air, he entered an urban square walled by sun-baked hovels. The crumbling walls weeped with piss-washed laundry. In the centre of the court huddled a gaggle of wiry little whores, boys and girls, drearily awaiting their next buggering. Oostergouw spat on the ground as he passed their rat-eyed keepers, who sneered rapaciously back at the magician.

"Keep moving, dog!" One of them snarled to Oostergouw, who did indeed find his pace quickened by the sly shimmer of steel amidst the traders in prepubescent agony.

Life on the streets of Sunk had improved somewhat, Oostergouw mused darkly to himself. You were now generously warned before your assailment.

Before moving on from the court altogether, Oostergouw began scanning the minds of the child-mongers for whence their ill-gotten silver might be stashed, but something interfered, something that Oostergouw could not explain. It was not an aggressive act, nor even an intelligent or seemingly-conscious one, but the chance meeting of a magic that diluted his own. Perhaps his craft did the same to theirs, if the power indeed had an owner. 

Sheepishly ducking out of sight, Oostergouw rested for a moment by a dried-up drinking fountain set into a wall, awaiting the clearing of his mind. His travel exhaustion could very well be playing tricks on him, he reasoned. Yes, that must be it!

Once the unfamiliar and disturbing sensation had passed, Oosterouw continued on his way, minding to dwell on the matter no further. He found Nickel Way, a barrel graveyard set between two warehouses, and the small bridge beyond. The holy man had directed him well. Oosterouw dutifully crossed the bridge, then located the line of rivalling coach yards with little stress. Choosing the company with the soberest-looking driver, Oostergouw boarded a stage bound for Waddlescross, a parish inland close to the Bradbury Vale, and hooded his weary head for sleep.