Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

The structure rose like a serrated spike of black tourmaline in the middle of the city, reaching toward the cavernous roof. The azure glow of the vast braziers that kept the city in perpetual cold twilight danced along the jagged edges of the towering structure so that it almost seemed to breathe. The idea of such a vast structure hidden in the depths of the world, much less the city that surrounded it, strained the edges of Milo’s understanding. From the moment his foot struck the causeway, he’d felt like a man caught in a drunkard’s mad dream.

A dream that teetered toward a nightmare.

Flowing up and down the causeway were rivers of ghuls, often with some form of magically animated corpse acting as a porter or a beast of burden. Here and there Milo saw spectral entities, some bearing the shapes they had worn in life, while others were little more than fractured images or vague clouds of darkness or phosphorescence.

Milo felt a shudder of disgust when he looked at the specters, remembering his first encounter with a shade in Room 7. He knew he’d have to contend with the incorporeal eventually, but for the moment, he decided to study the living denizens of Ifreedahm.

Many of the ghuls were similar in form and appearance to Imrah and Fazihr, but there were variations−what might have been deviant strains of the creatures. Some were shrunken, spindly things that looked like pictures Milo had seen of the monkeys and lesser apes that dwelt in southern jungles. A cart whose wheels were rounded blocks of granite drawn by a team of animated ox bones hosted what looked like a family of the goblin-sized ghuls. The smallest of their number peeked over the edge of the cart, staring at Milo with pale, bulbous eyes.

Another deviation was hulking brutes, built along similar lines as Ambrose but the height of giants. Even stooped with their knuckles dragging the ground, Milo would have had trouble touching the monsters’ craggy chins. A pair of the immense horrors stomped by, heads swaying from side to side on their thick necks, and up close, Milo saw they had no eyes. Above their tusk-festooned mouths and snuffling snouts were bony wrinkles where eyes ought to have been.

As they passed, one snorted and swung its barbarous head around to glare sightlessly in Milo’s direction. He wondered what they would do, trapped as they were on the causeway, if the monster took offense at the scent of their party. Milo had a pistol and Ambrose a rifle and a bayonet, but looking at the malformed muscular bulk of the huge ghuls, Milo wasn’t sure those would be enough to stop them. As he felt the weight of their tread shake the causeway, he wasn’t certain an artillery shell could stop them.

Thankfully, the pair went on their way, and the escorted humans continued into the city. In truth, though they received many questioning glances, Milo was amazed that they were not accosted by any of the traveling ghuls. Given that Imrah and Fazihr had said no human had ever been here, it seemed strange that the denizens were so sanguine about their presence.

When he raised this question as they neared the city, Fazihr had twisted his neck back to answer as he continued to follow Imrah’s lead.

“Imrah is known to many,” he stated simply. Seeing the humans' furrowed brows, he added, “And it is unwise to hinder the daughter of Bashlek Marid.”

They entered the city by passing through a wide arch, where ranks of unliving people and beasts stood in burnished baroque armor as silent, unflinching sentinels.

They came to a harbor of sorts among the tall, narrow buildings that comprised most of the city. In this broad space, a sort of market or bazaar had been built. Stalls and blankets and tents littered the area in sporadic rows, creating twisting avenues and alleys between the various merchants hawking their wares. All of them called out in the ghul tongue in a chorus of viperish rasps that set Milo’s teeth on edge. It was just as well that he couldn’t understand them because the assortment of objects they hoisted into the air or displayed for inspection seemed only to have being bizarre and grisly in common.

“Dear God,” Ambrose whispered. He elbowed Milo before pointing at a wide red and black domino blanket. “Would you look at that?”

Spools of what might have been glistening entrails or perhaps immense veiny worms sat on red squares, while assortments of small bones with jewel inlays lay on black squares. The ghul proprietor sat cross-legged, smile proudly displaying gem-studded fangs. Just past that, corroded bells and keys on strings of knotted hair jangled in one stall across from a pavilion where smokeless green flames burned and a chorus of whispers could be heard every time someone moved within the shadowy canvas.

“The markets of Ifreedahm offer goods and services to rival any in the world,” Fazihr remarked after noticing their gaping. “An absolute necessity when you think about how many ghuls there are, and all the supplies and alchemical reagents they require.”

“Naturally,” Milo commented as they shuffled past a huge ghul looming over several tables, where skins of varying shapes, sizes, and colors were stretched on racks. All were liberally decorated with more of that bizarre writing that made uncomfortable pictures. Milo wasn’t sure which was more disconcerting, the images formed by the script or that some of the skins still bore recognizable features, confirming that they came from humanoids.

Following their ghul guides as close as they dared, Milo and Ambrose passed through the market and into another part of the city. Here buildings lined the broad streets, though all were open-faced so that they resembled roofed stages more than shops. One glance said that these places offered trinkets, materials, and products as strange and macabre as those in the market.

It was here that Milo and Ambrose saw other living humans, or at least some near cousin to their species.

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