Marco's Journal - Voices from the Ancient World

Soon after Cola had received the acclamation of the people, and some gold from Cardinal Colonna, we were rich. Well, rich enough for a poor soldier who arrived at the gates of Rome with only a handful of coins and the clothes on his back. Why we were now rich enough to almost afford the hat a noble might wear walking about town! Still, it was enough to buy me some more war-gear and have a tidy sum put aside for hard times. For those are never more than a broken bone away, and those of us who live by hard knocks know that all too well.

After a wink from Cola, we reasoned amongst ourselves for a while and decided that the House of Crows might make a handy base to explore the tunnels of the ancients that lie below the streets of the Eternal City. The place needed some money spent on it to make it habitable again, so we all chipped in some of our new money. Soon a man-of-business was found to make the great pile of necromantic bodies disappear, one piece at a time, while his gang set to clearing the courtyard orchard which was completely choked with brambles and briars. It would take weeks of work but would allow us to plant a kitchen garden later in the spring, and give us a space to walk about in peace.

Now we had moved in and made a start at making the House of Crows a decent place again, it was time to explore the great darkness below the Eternal City. We had received a tidy pile of alchemical stuff in return for the contents of the Sorceror's laboratory - healing salves, alchemical torches and darksight eye ointment looked especially apt for our needs. So Rocco, Astore and I, accompanied by Father Arturo and Friar Giovanni clambered down the cramped passage below the Sorceror's lair in the basement of the House of Crows. After a few minutes squirming down a tiny passage we found a page of script untrampled on the floor, showing we were indeed on the trail of our quarry.

With the help of Friar Giovanni I write this Journal to aid my recollection in the years ahead, or to help those that come after me. For most who live by the sword do not die peacefully in their beds, surrounded by their family and a priest. Instead they leave this world in pain, mired in mud and blood or wine. Many meet their fate in darkness, but few in a darkness as absolute as the underworld below the streets. It is utterly black there, so a man cannot see his hand in front of his face, and the light of a candle is swiftly swallowed up by the immensity of shadow around it. So we took several lanterns with hours of fuel and extra torches in case of delays, and an alchemical torch as a last hope should all other lights go out.

We proceeded in single file, with a soldier at both front and back and unarmoured priests in the middle - for danger comes swiftly on the unprepared, from any direction. So it was for me, as I passed a low passage joining the the cramped tunnel we were following. Out of that dark opening lunged a srawny thing of claws and teeth, barely visible in the flickering light cast from those behind me. I bore a shield instead of a torch, which served me well as the thing that once might have been a man slashed at me, avid for living flesh. So cramped was that place that no-one could come to my aid while I strove with falcata and shield against this undead horror. A dagger might have served me better in such a squeeze, but at last the thing crumbled into a pile of mouldering bones. All we found was a small gold ring on its finger and a dead end, so onwards we went into the endless night.

Now Astore took the lead while I caught my breath as the rearguard, and it was his turn to face unexpected danger. As he checked out a small side passage, a horde of large rats swarmed around our feet. After a frenzy of stamping, stabbing and cursing he was assailed by a rat so large it walked upon its hind legs and gripped a fine dagger. After a brief struggle this Mother of All Rats was dispatched, but all we found in her nest was a fragment of parchment and a few coins before another dead end.

So much for the treasure of the ancients - we had barely found enough to buy some food and firewood for a week. We needed more, or at least a sign the Sorceror had passed this way, so on we searched , hour after hour. After many twists and turns - carefully marked with charcoal on the walls lest we become hopelessly lost - we saw a faint glimmer of light ahead. A careful advance found a great pyramid of rubbish in the centre of a huge space, illuminated by a beam of light coming from a shaft far above in the ceiling. At the top of the midden, basking in the little shaft of golden light from the living world above, was a creature.

She has been the subject of much debate since, as her form was mostly that of a human female, albeit with prominent horns in her hair and some uncertainty as to her shape below the waist. Some think she had legs to walk upon, while I suspect a more snake-like means of transport through the garbage of centuries. Both Father Arturo and Friar Giovanni believe she was a minion of Satan, left on earth to tempt men from the path of righteousness and squander their souls in foolish bargains. Indeed they were most vehemently of this persuasion, so I record it here in my Journal, although in my own mind I am not certain. For she spoke passable Italian, and conversed politely awhile with Rocco, and made no move to harm him, but introduced her two sisters instead. Now there were three of these unhuman creatures to keep an eye on, but still they made no move against us.

Rocco tells me they gave their names as Aglaia, Euphrosine and Thallia , and were dismayed that none of us had ever heard of them, and did not come to make offerings or sacrifice for their goodwill. They said that this had been the custom of the ancients, and they could bestow Light, Joy and Blooming - or at least something like that; it was hard for me to be sure exactly what they meant for their accent was not what I am used to in Pitigliano. Rocco took courage from this, and gave them his flask of wine as a remembrance of the world above; in return the Maidens of the Midden took a pebble and imbued it with a gleam of sunlight from above, giving it to Rocco as a keepsake. It shone in his hand after he took it from them, and might be a handy thing if it lasts.

Whilst Father Arturo and Friar Giovanni have loudly warned that converse and traffic with demons is a mortal sin, I have to say that Rocco seems quite intact and untainted to the eye of someone less zealous or holy.

So we bade the Maidens of the Midden farewell, and searched awhile longer in the great darkness, but discovered no trace of the Sorceror's trail. Eventually our torches and lanterns burned so low we were forced to return to the living world above, but not before some horrible leech-serpent had sucked half the blood from Father Arturo's leg in a trice before being driven back into the water it had sprung from.

When we made a report to Cola he did not laugh in our faces, but remarked that there were many strange things described in ancient texts. If these were from the ancient world they had lived for fifty generations of men at least. Like us, he wondered what manner of creature they might be, and what they might know of the past.

If Rocco turns into a newt, or runs amok with cold steel in the marketplace, we will know that father Arturo was right all along. Until then I shall wait and see what may yet be, for I think we may meet the Maidens again in the great darkness below.