On the night of the dead, which the locals called Samhain, Port St Jean, grand dame of the southern cities, sweltered and festered in her party finery. Along her winding avenues and crooked alleys the scent of wood smoke and cooking spices was added to the more familiar smells of sweat and decay. Torches and braziers blazed along all the main streets and stood guard at her many crossroads, banishing the dark from all but the very heart of the city. Along the whitewashed walls of her buildings a macabre collection of yellowing skulls leered and winked in guttering candlelight, paying silent heed to the people that strolled below. On her porticos and porches, sinister jack-o'-lanterns stood like sentinels. Heedless of the oppressive heat people thronged the streets: sweltering in fanciful and sinister costume - the better to appease the dead - and the clash of cymbals and the skirl of pipes added to the susurration of the crowd as it went about its business.
Into this maelstrom Lyssa the thief sprinted from the mansion like a startled fawn, careering headlong into the maze of narrow alleys inked across the city -- her prize, a dark box wrapped in soft leather, gripped tightly in her hand -- but it was not a clean getaway. Behind her the dark was filled with shouted orders and the baying of hounds...and perhaps worse.
Dressed more for the boudoir than the backstreet, Lyssa was initially grateful for the crowds - at least she didn't look entirely out of place in the thin nightdress she wore - but they quickly obstructed her path, slowing and jostling her, and soon she cursed them. All around, the streets were choked with people: standing, chatting or buying from the many stalls set out to tempt them. As she struggled through, she drew attention: men leered at her heaving breasts, barely obscured by her flimsy dress, or ogled her long legs; women frowned disapproval or glared maliciously from behind their masks. Lyssa knew she was in trouble. With the pursuit close at her heels it would be impossible to fence the item through her normal contacts and she knew of no living soul in this place that would, or could, protect her...no living soul.
All too soon, Lyssa felt herself tiring; the heat was oppressive, draining. Her chest heaving, she collided with another group of revellers - almost knocking a brazier flying in her panic - ran on, ignoring their angry shouts. She headed for the heart of the city, the cemetery. Behind her she could hear more shouting, gauged her pursuit by it...they were closing. She saw the mouth of a narrow alley - less crowded - made for it, sprinting downhill with a flash of pale legs. The air here was acrid: stale urine, rotting food, the stone floor littered with clumped garbage. She glimpsed a drunken man, his demon mask askew, relieving himself against the wall, a second man lying in the shadows: drunk or dead - it mattered not. From the darkness she heard the shrill giggling of a woman, the sound of scuffling. Gradually the sounds of revelry fell further behind, the way ahead was quieter, less well lit.
Wisps of mist started to gather, drifting from the noisome swamp about which the city was thrown. She reached a crossroads, heavy with gathering fog. Despite it, her way was clearer now. On this night, of all nights, the superstitious people of the city had no desire for close proximity with the unquiet dead and the area surrounding the cemetery was both inky black and utterly deserted. Eventually, the alley brought her out next to the high wall that surrounded it. She paused, gasping, eyes casting about frantically -- which way to the entrance? Behind her, the baying of hounds, distant but unmistakable. Gulping desperately for breath - her cropped hair slick with sweat - she picked a way at random and ran.
The gate emerged slowly from the thickening mist, a massive construction of iron railings and ancient stone. In contrast to the forced gaiety of the upper city, here, at its heart, a sepulchral silence held sway. This close to the swamp mist drifted thickly along the streets, drowning what sounds she made: the click of her heels, her panting for breath. Lyssa stopped at the gate, beyond she could just make out the wild shapes of willow and palmetto trees - their branches shadows in the moonlight - and, scattered amongst them, the crypts and tombs of the city's dead. She fingered her prize pensively. In the distance, a long drawn out howl split the air, turning her blood to ice: they had her scent. Hastily, before she had time to reconsider, she squeezed through the wide bars of the gate and passed into the city of the dead.
Off the paved street, the ground was softer, wetter. The air was thick with damp, the decay of rotting vegetation. Away from the sounds of the upper city the air hummed with insect life: the chirrup of crickets, falling silent as she passed. Lyssa picked her way carefully amongst the tombs. Soon, the gate slipped from view and, with it, all sounds from the city beyond. Finally, deep inside the cemetery, she stopped. In all directions crypts peered from the mist, tombs like houses. How did one seek an audience with the Lord of the Dead?
Gradually, like a shroud, a stillness drifted over everything, stilling even the cicadas. Lyssa found she was holding her breath. Then, far away but far too close for comfort, she heard the crash of something heavy falling, something that sounded far too much like a crypt door. She spun about, in the mist it was impossible to tell from which direction the sound had come. She heard another crash, this one closer, up ahead. Instinctively her hand dropped to the small knife strapped to her thigh: someone - or something - was moving through the swamp towards her. No - a number of people. She heard shuffling steps, a low, inhuman, groaning sound: in front, behind - they were all around her.
Slowly, figures started to appear out of the mist: misshapen, twisted, parodies of human form. The stench of decay clung to them like their tattered grave clothes, sweet, cloying in the heavy night. The sight of them turned Lyssa's blood to ice. Frantically, she searched for an escape: seeing none she clambered desperately onto the flat top of a chest high stone sarcophagus. Close now, the lead figure - a crabbed old man little more than bones in his grave garb - saw her and let out a blood-chilling moan. The cry was taken up all around: a sound that spoke of loss, of hunger - of an inhuman lust.
All too quickly the dead surrounded her, made her an island in their midst. Already the first had reached the low fence surrounding her sanctuary and she knew that she had to act fast or be pulled down and killed - or worse. She lifted the box above her head, calling out in a clear voice:
"I seek to parlay with the Lord of the Dead." Her voice echoed across the swamp.
A pallid eyeless face, its lower jaw missing - leaving nothing but a rotted hole - appeared over the rim of the sarcophagus and she flinched away. "I seek to parlay," her voice was shrill, a note of panic. More of the dead reached her, hands clawing out, trying to pull her down.
Desperate now: "I have the rod of the sorceress, Karina. I seek to parlay!" She pulled her small dagger free, dancing away from the grasping hands. The smell of decaying flesh was sweet, cloying: they were thick about her now, cutting off all thoughts of escape, crowding her, reaching for her.
"Please," she sobbed, gathered her thoughts. "I seek to parlay with the Lord of the Dead!" A hand closed around her ankle, little more than bones it gripped her like a steel vice causing her to shriek in shock and pain. A voice boomed:
"What do you bring, thief?" It echoed strangely, as if the speaker called from the bottom of a well - or a crypt. In its wake the dead paused. Her ankle released, they drew back, just beyond her reach.
