Harry Gets Sprung

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Two: Serious Business

Harry Gets Sprung

* * *

I woke, glad of the opportunity.

I was in no pain. Another reason for cheer.

Daring to hope that three would be the charm, I opened my eyes.

I was in a bed. It was comfortable. I felt clean. And naked.

All good.

I was in a small room with no visible means of egress, not even a window.

Not so good.

I wasn’t alone.

Twisting my head to see better caused my skull to throb painfully. I remembered the blow that had felled me and reached up, feeling a cloth bandage wrapped around my head.

“That’s going to ache for a few days, but it isn’t serious.”

Rather more carefully, I again turned my head. It still hurt but was manageable.

Sitting in a plain wooden chair by the head of the bed was a Hermetist, female, Hyborean…and not bald.

That last descriptor was unique in my experience. She was also old, with fine wrinkles and shoulder length silver hair. Her hat was not in evidence. Her uniform was mostly white and red. That meant her rank was higher than Abram’s, higher than any Hermetist I’d ever met, in fact. Suddenly, I felt exposed. How much did she know?

Tan, gold-flecked eyes glared at me under thunderous brows. Or maybe that was just her normal expression.

I met it with my own best ‘don’t fuck with me’ face.

The staring contest lasted longer than I thought it would; she didn’t break.

“Why am I here?”

“You were arrested for espionage.”

“I must have done my spying after someone coldcocked me.”

“Right after.” There wasn’t the slightest trace of humour in either her eyes or her tone.

“Is there to be a trial or will I just be hanged?”

“The punishment is death by vivisection.”

“I stand corrected.” I’d faced death more than once in my career. If I was going out, I was going out tough. I’m certain she got nothing from me but casual contempt.

“That’s not going to happen to you. Unless you prove uncooperative, that is.”

“What exactly requires my cooperation?”

“I have questions in need of answers.”

“Fire away.”

“Why are you on Hyborea?”

“If you didn’t already know the answer to that one, I wouldn’t even be in this cell.”

“I’m sensing an uncooperative attitude.”

“I’m investigating claims of abduction and attempted murder by a client, name of Drago, who claims to be a native of Hyborea.”

“Is he a native?”

“Yes.”

“You have a doubt.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered, anyway. “According to an astronatal scan, there’s only a seventy-three percent chance of that. I do think he is a native Hyborean, though. He certainly looks like one.”

“Seventy-three percent is low. What are the other possible locations?”

I did some mental calculations. My experience of Hermetists told me that bluffing or lying to her would be a horrible idea. I quickly decided that full disclosure was my only chance of leaving here alive. “The only one that stands out is Oerth.”

A slight twitch in one of her eyes. That had rattled her. I did not think that boded well for me. She recovered quickly. “That makes no sense.”

“I agree. My conclusion is that the result was simply an anomaly. It’s my understanding that they happen from time to time.”

“You’re probably right.” I had no idea if she believed that. Abram had said something similar, but he had been shaken as well. “Anything else odd about this Drago?”

“There is also some doubt as to the date of his birth.”

“Oh?”

“He claims to be thirty-three and looks it, but according to the scan, the odds he is native to this world jumps to over ninety percent—if he was born three hundred years ago.”

“Impossible.”

“Again, that was my conclusion. That scan was messed up in some way.”

She paused then, just staring at me. Finally, “What else have you learned?”

“That he’s likely telling the truth as least as far as he remembers it.”

“Is that all?”

I hesitated, but only for a moment. I’d already committed myself, after all. “That Hermetists were almost certainly involved in his abduction.” I went on to describe what I knew or surmised about the circumstances.

“Why would Hermetists take him?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You have a guess.”

She wasn’t wrong. “It has something to do with the Silvergrey Sea.”

“Any idea what?” She really wanted to know how much I knew.

I reassessed my chances of escape and didn’t like the answer. Bad idea or not, it was time to lie. “No. I was hoping for a clue in the records here.”

The Hermetist sat back. To my relief, she decided to give the wall the evil eye, obviously thinking. I was glad to let her; I was getting a crick in my neck.

Time for a distraction. My gut told me it was past time to eat. “Any chance of food?”

“What? Food? Oh, of course.” She walked toward the wall at which she’d been staring. Touching the stone in three places caused a section of wall to fade into nothing. She took two steps and addressed someone to the left of the entranceway. The hall beyond the door was Blaxstone.

As she returned to her chair, the opening once again became stone. I decided it was worth the risk of death and sat up.

The Hermetist didn’t mind. In fact, she extended a slender hand. “I’m Nija Hermit, Superior of the Kasaskini Chapterhouse.”

“Harry Tranker, Private Investigator.”

“I know.”

“Of course you do.” A slight lightening of Nija’s scowl.

“Besides food, I’ve sent for your clothes. They’ve been cleaned.”

Remembering the glimpse of the Blaxstone hallway I had just had, “I thought I was in the palace.”

“You were, but I had you moved here. The rest of your belongings I had removed from the inn where you were staying. There’s a suite of rooms at your disposal here in the chapterhouse.”

“You’re being awfully nice for someone who only moments ago was threatening to gut me slowly.”

“I didn’t threaten anything. You’re no longer under arrest, nor are you under the civil authority of this world.”

“You just let me think I was under sentence of death to get me to answer your questions.”

She shrugged. “Simpler than torture. More reliable, too.”

“And nowhere near as messy.”

“That, also.”

“What now?”

“I’d like your help.”

“I’m currently engaged on a case, sorry.”

“It’s about your case.”

“What about it?”

“Do you know anything about the Meraculus Mercurius?”

“Freshman Alchemy was a long time ago.”

“It’s not a substance; it’s a banned movement within the Order of Hermes.”

“You’re being quite candid about this. Why?” I had begun to suspect the M.M. One of many things I knew about the Order of Hermes that I wasn’t supposed to was the existence of the Pure Mercury. I was glad I had decided not to reveal that to Nija.

“We’re approaching a crisis point. Secrecy will hurt more than it will help from here forward.”

I wasn’t convinced by that reasoning. I suspected I was being played again. I had no reason to trust Nija. Neither had I incentive to challenge her. I was in a tight spot and needed her good will to get out of it. Mentally shrugging, “I suspected something hidden within the Order might be responsible for Drago’s quandary.” Safe enough. She would expect me to have made some deductions in that direction. “Getting any info on who it was has been next to impossible. That’s why I’m here. Someone among the natives must have known something about whoever snatched my client.”

“This is bigger by far than Drago. It goes back much farther than three hundred years, as well.”

Was I imagining things, or had Nija just given away that Drago was that old? “Care to enlighten me?”

“That would be too dangerous for you and for me.”

“So, you’re not part of this ‘Meraculus Mercurius’?”

“No. I’m investigating them on behalf of the Albedo.”

That was eyebrow-raising. No sign she was lying, but I’d met consummate liars in my day. “The Order is that worried.”

Nija Hermit nodded.

“What happened to my client?”

“Sorry, that’s classified.”

“You expect me to risk my neck for you. I think that entitles me to some answers.”

“I agree. But you can’t have them yet. Trust me; it won’t hamper your efforts. You may even discover the truth on your own if you are successful.”

“What’s the job?”

“I need you to visit the Kusini.”

“They don’t welcome offworlders down there.”

“I know.”

I sighed. “What’s down there that is worth risking my neck as a non-Hyborean and a male?”

“An answer to all the riddles.”

“I can’t pay my bills solving your riddles.”

“Can you pay them from a cell on Mercurius?” One raised eyebrow.

* * *

Six hours later, I was on a steam driven riverboat, heading down the Alph, a river so long and wide it beggared the legendary Nile on the equally legendary Oerth.

Fully half this world’s water flowed south in a form resembling a mobile ocean more than a mere river. Its source was the seasonal thawing of the continent sized glacier that capped this world’s northernmost regions.

The heat in the southern hemisphere created a skyborne river that flowed north where it generated winter monsoons that weekly dropped meters of freezing rain and sleet. Each summer saw the epic thawing of the glacier from which the Alph flowed.

The river delta-ed many times after crossing the equator, providing most of the southern hemisphere with water. Owing to the wetter and warmer climate, most of the equatorial south was covered with a dense tropical rainforest.

This jungle was the home of most of Hyborea’s women.

In its native constellation, Hyborea was the only inhabited world. As a consequence, space travel had never been a Hyborean technological priority. Officially, no Portals touched this world, either. That left the Silvergrey Sea as the only point of access to other worlds.

Though there was no legal prohibition against offworlders travelling to the south, the peculiarities of geography combined with the lack of a global infrastructure isolated the lower end of Hyborea’s largest continent. This meant that non-natives were a rare sight indeed.

I had to be on my guard and not only for the obvious reason. The other was the message from Nija telling me about this boat to Kusini. Messages, I should say, because two had been sent. The second one said more or less the same thing as the first, even naming the same captain. I was certain the latter was fake. What I couldn’t figure was why both steered me to the same boat. I knew to distrust the captain, though. I had briefly considered not going at all, but I needed the info and like the man said, the best way to avoid a trap is to spring it.

I was travelling much as all men had ever done to get to the south.

Luckily for me, it looked to be several days before the tub I was on got close to the sole metropolis of Kusini.

I spent most of that time drunk off my ass.

The boat’s captain was a surly raw-boned woman of middle years who looked as tough as an old tree root. She didn’t think much of my chances of surviving to return north.

She didn’t think much of me either but did share her food and her supply of tobacco when my own stock of cigarettes ran out on day five. Making rollups with the pipe tobacco wasn’t as difficult as trying to taste my food after smoking them.

One more thing about the captain; she wasn’t wearing a collar. I considered asking her about it a half dozen times, but I didn’t fancy her punching my teeth out the back of my skull.

We stopped to refuel and reprovision once a week in tiny villages, for the most part. At the first three stops, I only saw males.

I asked in increasing desperation for anything nicotine related that could be set fire to, but they had nothing to offer but my captain’s preferred brand of lung tar. I considered switching to a pipe, but my self-respect proved stronger than my desire for a few more years of life. At least they sold decent liquor.

The first village in Kusini, the women’s part of the planet, was ominous. Like the others before, we saw not one woman. All the trade was done by collared males; most of whom looked so like Drago they could have been family. One gave me a look containing so much fear, I guessed life had to be brutal for him. It was only a day later, after much reflection, that I realized he had been afraid for me.

I got especially drunk that night.

As we chugged along past that first town in Woman Country, the weather quickly warmed. I ditched the opera coat. Two days later, I only wore my trench coat when it rained, which by then it was doing every other day. By day five, I even considered removing my fedora.

Desperate days, indeed.

The boat hit jungle at the end of day seven.

As the Alph was twenty miles wide at that point, it was some time before I noticed. It was just possible the haze of inebriation might have had something to do with it. Maybe.

Probably.

I sat on a coil of rope while leaning on the rail, watching the strip of wrinkly white get closer. Captain was steering closer to the starboard shore for some reason.

White.

The jungle was white. What the hell? We’d left the land of the ice and snow behind days ago. I reflected that I really should have spent more time preparing for this visit to Hyborea.

With growing interest, I watched the albino foliage get closer. It was getting louder, too.

The sun, still white, was close to the horizon, giving the air a dirty yellow look. That might explain the noise. Various critters were bedding down or waking up. Night would soon be upon them all.

I was finishing another industrial strength rollup and a fifth of something local that I was determined to get imported to Noir when I got back. Even so, the smells still hit me strongly while the shore was still a quarter mile away. They weren’t bad smells, merely pungent. They weren’t animal smells. The plant life had to be generating them.

Over the chugging sound of the engine, “Hey, Captain! Does it always smell like that?”

The captain emerged from the cabin, “What?”

I pointed to the jungle. “That stink. Is that just a seasonal thing?”

A husky laugh. Captain pulled the short clay pipe from her mouth and spat something brown over the side. “Every evening. Then again in the morning. You’ll get used to it.” She ducked back in to take the wheel, keeping the boat a couple hundred yards from the shore.

The view was quite something. The plants weren’t white, exactly. They were tinted many colours and seemed to flash or flicker between pastel shades as the motion of the ship and the occasional breeze moved them. I could see nothing of the wildlife that was making all the racket. They must have been further inland.

I let the rolling view lull me into that special trance state that only indolent drunkenness can achieve.

Eventually the noise died down. The smell, once overpowering, was fading, too. Either that, or I was becoming used to it.

I was shaken out of sleep (or stupor. Whatever). “Tranker!”

“Wazzit?”

“Better get some sleep, boyo. We hit Kusini City in about six hours.”

Groaning, I sat and then stood. Standing took a couple of tries. Deep night had fallen. The sky was clear and denser with stars than any other sky I’d ever seen. After almost two months, I still marvelled that it was bright enough to cast clear shadows.

It was a bit cooler than the last couple of nights had been. I took a deep breath of the air and spent ten minutes hacking up phlegm. I really hoped they had cigarettes or decent tobacco at this temple city.

A small hatch led down to a teeny room with a bed and not much else. I stripped and was asleep in moments.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

© Gideon Jagged
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