Memories of Ulenpor
By
Joshua Gates
The smell of Ulenpor remains on my hands to this day, as do the colors, marring them with the dull grayness of the tomb. The smell and the colors leave unease in the stomach, a churning, an unfettered dread. I need not look to the callouses on my hands or the scars that break my otherwise smooth skin to remember the place.
You may know Ulenpor as it stands today. A veritable metropolis straddling the banks of the River Purge, perched on the verge of Iz Ibek, that impenetrable thing they call a jungle. A safe harbor inside the Straits of Mur. Safe indeed from privateers: to Ulenpor they pay all homage.
Possibly you have visited its winding alleys, its buildings like canyons, cut by bridges stretching in all directions and at all altitudes like the webs of a spider. And, possibly in doing so, you avoided a knife to the back, were able to hold onto your coin. Unlikely, but stranger things have occurred. Those webs are not just a metaphor. Many a fly has been caught in their grasp.
Or even, the safer areas. The cafes that extend along the Ortusian Canal, or to parties in the upper reaches of Southtown, the hills at your back, the sounds of strange things carrying in on winds from the sea. The smells of dead and dying fish. To look at the bobbing lights in the harbor, the small craft making their way to and from a variety of destinations. A sea of scattered light, diffused into the rolling of the waves.
The locales I remember are different. So different.
I was nine when they brought me to the city. My family, so called unclean, forced into the servitude of the state. Ulenpor, if you know your history, was then a province of the Family. To be unclean and exiled to Ulenpor meant death for all but the lucky few.
There, at the very canal that now caters to elite clientele--purveyors of art and literature, government officials, merchants--we were separated. My sister into service with the Blue Sisters. My mother to parts unknown. My father, pleading with the guards until they beat him into the ground, eventually forced into the labor camps in the northern jungle, where he died of some exotic disease. So they say.
I was made the servant of a wealthy criminal turned merchant (is there a difference?), a man also known to history: Vel Marik. I was to be taught the manners of proper society, to work as a sort of engine, given my capabilities, and to fulfill any and all pleasures that Vel Marik required. His tastes were vast. My patience, even then, was not.
Pain—both of the physical and mental variety—serves memory like few other senses, save the sense of smell. I know both sensations. My memory is clear:
I made my way through the university district, past the engineering school and the static display clockwork constructs that border the archway into that place. When I passed them, a flight of ravens burst from one of the things' shoulders, momentarily blocking the sun and scattering it about me. In their wake came the smells of the dockyards beyond. Smells of rot and industry; some of the students wore masks when they passed this way. I could understand why. It seemed as if the odorous clouds remained attached to the corridors of my lungs.
Though Ulenpor did not and never will match the pregnant industry and shipbuilding of Foundry, it held its own then in the manufacture of materials. Thus, the engineering school and its arteries extending into business. When I had passed the engineering school itself, I cut back through an alley, past piles of twisted metal stacked in parodies of erotic gestures. An accident to look so, but the metal found its way into such positions. I had seen Vel Marik's illustrations and the semblance of the same was uncanny. For a boy of fifteen, I held no illusions and was already seeing the simplicity in things.
Through the alley and to a simple wooden door painted over in crimson. It sat hinged to arched brickwork. I took the metal handle and rapped twice. The sound echoed up and down the alley, was caught in the twisted metal and held. A man passed the mouth of the alley, looked at me, his mouth agape, then continued on. The door opened.
I had been to this place before, on errands for Vel Marik, and each time was a seemingly new experience. Despite the light of day the darkness crept out, clung to the walls of the alley, seeking purchase in the brickwork, in the interstitials between. And then, with that display, the alley changed, shimmered and when it had solidified, a bear of a man was standing before me. His jaundiced eyes bespoke his lifestyle, as did his bellicose nose and the veins visible on his face, his neck. His hands, hanging at the waist, opened and closed constantly into clawed fists. They were stained with a purple glaze.
“You again boy. I suppose you’ve come for it then, eh?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Well, step inside.” He leaned against the doorframe, held his arm open in welcome. Despite myself, I shivered and as I passed the man, a weight came over my being, discarded when I passed the boundary into the place. Within: Rudimentary benches lighted by patchwork lamps, networked into exposed wiring; lab equipment and vials spilling over with a profusion of colors; a small kitchen bordering a sweat-sodden bed. Though in general disarray, the apartment was laid out with the expectation that anything could quickly be located.
The man closed the door behind me, shutting out the last bit of natural light. He stepped past me, moved to the bed and, sitting, pulled forth a well-worn pipe. After he had reached for a nearby box of matches to light the thing, he looked to me again.
“And I suppose you have something for me as well, do you boy?”
I nodded, pulled the sleeves of my tunic past my elbows, exposing the tattooed lines that extended from my wrists into the depths of the shirt. I turned my arms over and then back, showing the lines to him while he lit the pipe, inhaled. He then motioned to me and I stepped closer. With pipe clenched in yellowed teeth, he gripped me. Hazed eyes rolled back into their sockets and from the tips of his fingers I felt a fire reach into my gut. The tattoos came alive, illuminating the walls of the small enclosure, revealing insects nestled in the beams, now seeking pools of shadow, their brief and miniscule lives exposed. I gasped, falling backwards. The man held me firm, took a bit of my soul. I tried not to scream.
It was nearing evening when I departed. The man had been charitable, only taking a brief amount and though my legs wobbled, I found that I could move with some measure of confidence. The sky above was washed in violet and a pattern of clouds flowed past, away from the sea and towards the mountains, where I knew they would leave the weight of their journey behind to soar into other realms. I longed to join them, to leave such weight behind, to drift onwards.
I made my way back through the district, the weight of the sack in my hand pulling me to one side. I cinched it around my wrist, righted myself against a wall and after several deep breaths, continued on, the sack swaying. Streetlamps had come on and I dashed from each pool of light to the next, wary of the people who populated the area. The pubs were alive with noise and light and I avoided these as well, making my way along the curbs and across the broad avenues. And then to the station, where I waited for the train.
As I sat on a cold bench, watching the play of lights from the city beyond, I contemplated my existence. My rage was a burning thing but one that was hidden deep. I gritted my teeth, contracting the muscles in my neck and shoulders. Not for the first time, I looked to the sack, and wondered: Did its contents weigh my arm down with doom or as shackles, soon to be released, for freedom.
“You have obtained the item?” Vel Marik asked. He was sitting behind his massive desk. Sun from an overhead window brought the gold out of its lining, seemed to illuminate the man. It was an intended effect. He stroked his oiled point of beard, peering at me through rounded spectacles. His two bodyguards, each adorned in leather armor and leaning against wicked looking swords, bordered the man. Vel Marik’s power was palpable.
“Yes,” I said. I stood with my hands clasped behind my back, careful not to look him in the face. “It is here, in this sack.”
“Good boy. Very good. You’ve done well.” Vel Marik motioned and one of the guards moved forward, took the sack and placed it on the desk before him. He grinned, stroked the exterior lovingly and then looked back to me.
“And how much did that bastard take from you? Not too much I hope. He has a way of being greedy.”
“Not much,” I said. “He spared me.”
“As he should. He must understand his place sooner or later. Well boy, I think you’ve earned a bit of rest. Go to the kitchen and make sure Herik gives you plenty of food, then take the rest of the day off. Return to me in the morning.”
I nodded, turned to leave. Vel Marik’s voice stopped me.
“You know what’s in this sack?” he asked.
I turned back to him. Our eyes met and this time, despite the consequences, I held the stare.
“Yes,” I said.
“Never get any ideas. You understand me? Remember your place. Besides, I’m the only one who can use it. I’ve been enabled by the bearded man.”
I nodded, stood for a moment, then turned to leave. As I opened the door and stepped into the hall, a mocking laughter echoed from the room I had just left and the golden glow of the desk was matched and then dominated by another, sicker light.
It wasn’t long before I had indeed forgotten my place. With my way of talking back, I was surprised that Vel Marik hadn’t chosen to destroy me. Regardless, my defiance was often an animal thing. It may have been my blood, the unclean part of me, that oft refused to bow to power.
With work-shirt sticking to the freshly carved canals on my back, I worked the Mindari mines for the third time in as many years. Punishment for my sins. The clay of the place seeped into my skin, into my eyes. I—no, we—were alien things, covered in gray. My fellow slaves worked to either side. Our hair had been shaved to prevent the claw-worms from clinging. When we looked to one another, we stared into vacant, dead spaces that had once been eye-sockets. I had learned to ignore the pain in my back, was in fact operating on rage alone. Where others had died, I burned with inward fury, my arms, back and legs fueled by a raw thing. I wasn’t sure if I would need to carry such a thing for some time, or if Vel Marik would send for me again. And so, I worked. I bled. I hungered.
All that while I maintained my real purpose at the camp, seeing to Vel Marik’s property. When a slave would fall, either to starvation, thirst or exhaustion, I would be called over to the corpse. And there, in the gray depths of those pits, I would give a bit of myself, the others standing around me in awe. Moments later, the crowd would part, allowing the formerly deceased room to return to his or her work.
It was during my stay at the Mindari camp that I began to evolve my plan, to work it over in my mind.
When I had first begun to formulate my method of escape, it had been a simple idea. Indeed, if I had followed through, I would have made my move when I had had the object in the sack. But now, the pain of the camp, the humidity of the jungle and its biting insects had evolved the idea into something grandiose. On the hard slab of wood that was my bed, I spent the nights scheming.
Of course, there was the problem that I was in fact in the camp itself. My idea relied upon Vel Marik summoning me back. I was in a way his novelty and I had my special uses. Also, he liked his meat to bleed before he disposed of it, to suffer, to agonize over the situation. My gamble was that he wasn’t done with me yet, that he wouldn’t let them kill me. I was correct.
“You were a problem at the mines they tell me,” Vel Marik was saying. I did not respond. I was rooted to the spot, the chains around my ankles anchored to posts in front of his desk.
“Inciting revolt, fighting with the guards. The only reason that you are not dead was that I prevented them from finishing you,” he said. “You should have been an example. An example of what happens when insolence is allowed. I’m giving you one more chance, if only for what you are. Fuck up again, you will be feeding the fish in the bay.”
He stood, crossed over to me, then slammed his fist into my face. I sank back onto the chains, my ankles twisting savagely. I let the blood seep into my mouth, let the salted taste burn there, held it. He motioned to one of his guards.
“Let this bastard free.”
I was put back to work. One of Vel Marik’s specialties was security mechs for the war. By harvesting my soul through the tattoos, his men were able to generate energy for their machines. Each turn of a gear, every crank of a mechanism was a part of me, gone. And with that departure came a loss of empathy. It poured out, into all of that metal. My fellow slaves were less than humans to me. My overseers not even animals. I fought where and when I could, gnashing with my teeth, rending with my hands. No one was safe in my presence and soon the whispers in the hall were that Vel Marik should destroy me soon, if only to save his other property. But Vel Marik needed me. With what I gave, his small criminal empire expanded. Soon he was selling his clockwork engines to the state, fueling their bitter war.
More, word had gotten out about a criminal able to take on the guise of any person. This so-called changeling criminal was taking on the role of politicians, bankers. By accessing their hidden information, this criminal was manipulating events. No one was safe. Twins were killed, often mistaken for the doppelganger criminal. He or she could walk into any facility, any location. And with that, Vel Marik’s wealth grew.
A short time later, I put my plan into effect.
Night at the mansion. Guards walked the compound walls, leashed to razor-dogs who sniffed their way past every bush, every door. From his living area, Vel Marik’s laughter could be heard, mixed with the sounds of women and men talking. A small gathering, not uncommon. I had seen the way they went about their revelry. As I said, Vel Marik’s tastes were vast. These young men and women, lured to such gatherings often left changed. Staring eyes, mouths open. All the while followed by more of that laughter.
Having completed a portion of my plan earlier that day in the mech bay, I moved through the halls, seeking refuge behind tapestries, under desks while patrols passed by. To be caught now would mean death. No more leeway from the master, he would end me for such transgression. I stalked my way past the party, now listening to howls of pain instead of jovial noise. Vel Marik was occupied. I had timed my movement perfectly.
And then I was through the door, looking at the desk with its inlaid gold and now looking beyond that, beyond to the copper box resting on its pedestal. If the others, these sycophants, these cronies of Vel Marik, had understood what was in that box, would they have taken similar risk?
I moved to it and when I neared the box itself, a low humming began. It turned into a smaller rumbling and then I was racing for the lock, racing ahead of the dweomer laid upon the perimeter of the thing. And when my skin touched the lock, I sent a fire into it and was then moving for the balcony, the item in my grasp.
This time there was little light to reveal the twisted metal in the alley. The crimson door looked black in the meager illumination from the clouded moon. I knocked hard, fast, hoping against hope that he would answer.
I was about to give up, to slide down the wall and accept my fate when the door opened.
The bearded man sat on the still sodden bed, smoking the same pipe. Its acrid smell added to the nausea seeping into my stomach. From his workbenches came the sounds of percolating liquids, a bubbling. Something muttered from a cage in the corner. Its voice was guttural, clicking. I kept my distance. He stared at me for some time and I could see thoughts moving behind his eyes.
“All of it. You are willing to give all of it for this?”
“Yes,” I said. “Everything I have in sacrifice for what I am asking.”
“And what if I don’t help?”
“He knows that I am here anyways. He is coming. You will still have to deal with him.”
“No I don’t. I can hand you over. Gain even more favor.”
“And miss the chance at what I am offering? Besides, you would have favor with me as well.”
“From a mere boy.”
“A boy with lofty plans. Will you or won’t you?”
He thought some more, tamped out the smoldering pipe, then looked at me again.
I had never been sure where they had come from, those marks on my body. All I knew then was that they were like an umbilical to elsewhere. To that world across the veil. They were a part of me and every time I used them, it took more from the other side. I could feel that bit slipping away, at times, though I would often gain some of it back, usually when raising the dead.
The marking, the lines, traced my veins in a myriad of colors. They were the reason I was alive and not where my father had gone. Vel Marik had paid a high price and was loathe to waste me too quickly. I was a gift that he wished would keep giving. I knew that when I had expended myself that it would be the end.
I have vague memories of my mother tracing those lines, humming to me a melody of her own youth. It was a hazed memory and even then I was losing feeling for people. Where humanity had once thrived only numbness now reigned. I sought rage simply to feel. To find something left that made me an individual. Something worthy of even trying. It wasn’t about mere revenge. It was about a future where I could control my own destiny.
I stood before the bearded man. The fingers that grasped my wrists were each covered in opulent rings that contained a trace of the foreign. They seemed to writhe over his skin. He breathed several times and I breathed with him and then his eyes were rolling back and this time I did scream.
It was then that I felt the connection slip. I had burned that other side, that other part of me out. When I came to, the lines were scars. My soul was no more.
The bearded man seemed flushed. His skin, its heat, could be felt from a distance. He could not stop smiling.
Reaching over, he took the item that I had stolen from Vel Marik. Holding it up, he let the liquid light of the room seep through the four holes. Eyes, nose, mouth. A flesh colored mask.
“When I am done with you,” he said. “You will be anyone you want to be.”
It took several more minutes for him to finish. The pain was intense, the melding a base thing. I placed the mask over my face and thought of a man that I knew well. The bearded man brought forth a mirror and I looked into it.
Vel Marik stared back.
A knocking came against the crimson door. A voice called from outside. The true Vel Marik, his voice strained. It was filtered through the wall, muffled.
“I know you are in there boy. Best you let me in so that we can settle this.”
The bearded man moved to the door.
“He isn’t here. Move on.”
“Ah yes. And what has he given you? How much did you take this time? I bet you are bleeding over with it. Fucking bleeding over. Open now.”
The bearded man hesitated only a moment and then something slammed against the door, sending him reeling back. He tripped over his own feet, fell into a workbench. Chemicals tipped, shattered, sprayed. The bearded man screamed. The door however, had held. Ancient rites could be seen carved into its surface on this side. They were alit now. The door shook again, held.
I moved to help him. When I saw his face, I took an involuntary step back. His beard was gone. His face was a grotesque mockery of itself. Tendrils of smoke rose from the melted skin. He tried to moan. It issued forth through something that had once been called a mouth. His eyes were pooled egg-whites, draining down his cheeks, runnels carved into the red and pink of raw flesh. The door shook again. It would not hold for long. Whatever was in the cage was keening, mewling.
I moved to the wall, took the device from my pocket that I had stolen from the mech bay. I pressed the lever, watched the gears turn.
The bearded man had stopped moaning by the time the door finally burst. He lay still. I was not sure if he remained alive.
The moonlight caught a shape in the doorway. Spectacles. Oiled beard.
“Ah, yes. The mask. Well, you’ve chosen a fine visage, I must give you that my little bastard.” Vel Marik’s voice was pitched awkwardly. He was drugged. His veins stood out on his neck. He coughed several times then took another step towards me, then saw the body on the floor. “Chk, chk. Ah professor. I never trusted you. Doomed by your own creations I see.”
“I’m doing being your slave,” I said. My voice was his. “I’ve waited years for this. Planning. I am my own master now.”
“Oh, and what do you expect to do, eh? Are you going to be the old man now, is that it? You want the business? Oh, boy, I’m so sorry for you. I really am. The little slave has visions of grandeur. How precious. Give me the fucking mask and I may spare you. I have use for ingenuity.”
I watched as his bodyguards stepped through the entry. Behind them I could see men with lantern, razor-dogs leashed to their arms.
“You can’t have it,” I said. “I’m done doing what you say.”
He motioned to one of the guards. The man drew his pistol and pointed it towards my chest. And then the once bearded man rolled, slapped something in the corner. I heard the cage open. A shadow surged forward, all crooked, misshapen limbs and teeth. The thing slammed into the guard, who jerked his pistol upright, fired a shot into the ceiling. The blast lit the room for a heartbeat and I saw what was on his face. Vel Marik did as well. He turned to run.
And then from outside came a whirring.
The mechs created from my very being came from both sides, chain guns rotating chuk chuk, the alley alive now, the twisted metal shown as wicked shadows on the brickwork. From my vantage I watched as a razor-dog charged one of the things, fangs bared, was cut down in with a sickening chopping noise as bits of fur and flesh scattered. The thing lay, blood issuing forth from its mouth. And more, Vel Marik’s men tried to fight. They managed to take one of the mechs down but by then there numbers were diminishing. They lay in heaps, pressed obscenely against one another. The once bearded man’s cage-thing was on the other bodyguard, chewing. The man tried to scream. It came out as a sputtering. I saw twines of wet things from his stomach on the floor. He mucked about in it and then stopped.
Vel Marik, seeing what was happening outside, turned and ran back inside, straight into the once bearded man, then fell back. Through his melted demeanor, the once bearded man seemed alive like never before. I could see my energy at work, already fixing the wounds. He knelt, searching for Vel Marik, trying to grab him about the neck. Vel Marik scurried away. I could see him trying to draw forth a weapon. I dashed forward, my shock finally sliding away and when he had pulled out the small pistol, I was on him.
We rolled about, each vying for control of the weapon. When we rolled through the blood on the floor, Vel Marik slipped, his hand falling away. Trying to brace himself he turned, looked back into my face. He didn’t have the grace to say anything. I put the muzzle under his chin and pulled the trigger.
The broadsheets were vague about what had happened in the university district. Something about a battle. The militia had found bodies, assumed it was part of gang warfare. Nothing was ever mentioned about Vel Marik, or the mechs. Even the bearded man had gone.
I read this over breakfast, enjoying a second helping washed down with coffee harvested from Iz Ibek. It was bitter, but sweetened with sugar from my outlying plantations.
I spent the next days moving about Ulenpor. Men and women, seeing who I was, would look to the ground or move out of the way. My new escorts made short work of any the malingered. The city was different now. The smells from the bay were different…better. I found myself enjoying the architecture, though I still disliked the place. It was in my bones and I did not very much like that.
Months passed and still the scars remained on my arms. The servants and slaves must have assumed that it was due to whatever had happened in the university district. For his part, the bearded man’s beard grew back. He had relocated and I had never asked what was in the cage. I did not want to know. I did know that he kept another thing caged. A man, brought back to life, changed. It was a pathetic thing, so he said. A plaything. It suckled at the bars of the cage when I visited. I paid it little mind.
I’ve since moved operations to Abadon, to better leverage my interests there. I rarely visit the place called Ulenpor, though one may see a figure, often with a different face, wandering alone their some nights. Regardless of his guise, his hands are gray and he smells of the jungle, of death. He smells of history.
The End
