"The Dean's Hunt"

A Story of the “Passeneden Series”

An Anthology of Short Stories from Another World’s Holy Land

by Benjamin Nanke

Into the Dean’s office came the University’s oldest professor, that ancient, wise alien from beyond the Staunchwood and, as requested, he had brought the spider with him. The Dean sat behind his desk. In his mid-forties, Conrad Herschel’s hair had gone grey years ago at a young age, but was still thick and combed back with a wax. He had a trimmed beard that framed his face, and a pair of reading spectacles resting on his beakish nose. He was, as was his fashion, dressed in a waistcoat, shirt, and trousers, along with his leather buckled shoes. His desk was minimalist, and held a quill and inkpot, a sheaf of imported fine writing stationary, and a strange gyroscope-like object, fine brass, on a wooden stand. It rotated gently there, and glinted in the sunlight like a blade.

The early morning light from towering stained glass windows behind him filled the room with a bathing glow that reminded one of the seventh heaven. Odd metal curio of a vaguely antiquarian nature lined the shelves and tables. The University of Balustrade had become something of a nucleus for curiosities in recent years. Amidst the already strange collection within Conrad Herschel’s office, both the mechanical spider and the person carrying it, Professor Seyfi, were among those curiosities. 

Professor Dinçer Seyfi was a member of the ancient race of halflings that lived beyond the Staunchwood. He was a small, strange man of seemingly limitless age, perhaps the height of a young child of six or seven, with dark copper skin, pointed ears that stuck out from his head, no eyebrows, and a dusky-violet gemstone embedded in his forehead. His beard and hair, pulled back into a knot, were black as coal. He wore draped, dark-colored robes with elaborate geometric embroidery, gold, copper, and bronze ornaments, and a violet sash.

Though Conrad Herschel had certainly not been there at the time, or even been born, Dinçer Seyfi had begun his tenure at the University of Balustrade forty-seven years ago. He had not been a young man when he came, and was not seemingly all that old of a man at present. It was a feasible topic of conversation between a grandfather and grandson to reflect over their mutual tutelage under Professor Seyfi. And Seyfi was no oddity within his race, for many of them lived to such venerable ages, perhaps five or six lifetimes of men, but no one could say for sure.

The mechanical spider Profesor Seyfi had brought with him was not an unfamiliar object to Conrad, for he had seen it in action several weeks prior when he had sliced open his own hand. Three years ago, Seyfi had taken leave and disappeared for a time to investigate the wasteland of a long-lost civilization. He’d returned to Balustrade with, among many other artifacts, a fairy that he’d found within the ruins. The small creature, as it turned out, had proved to be exceptionally inventive and clever and had constructed a small mechanical spider of marvelous capabilities. 

Over the years, Professor Seyfi began working with the creature, and had lately brought the spider into Conrad’s office. To test it, Conrad had sliced open his own hand with a letter opener from the web of his thumb to the opposite wrist. With unfathomable precision and speed, the spider had sprung to action and used its appendages to medicate, close, and suture the wound. The thread had been like spidersilk: imperceptible except under light. Conrad looked at his hand now — there was no more indication of his impromptu knife-work than the faint appearance of a pale pink thread across his skin. No limitation of movement, no soreness or ache. A medical miracle spider. 

The little creature had a bulky body like a fat heater shield, but crafted of the lightest silvery metal, with eight delicate, articulated legs that swayed and adjusted as Professor Seyfi walked into the room. As Seyfi climbed the short few steps, the creature shifted and braced. It seemed to have a mind of its own, but Conrad knew it could not. 

“Thank you for bringing the spider, Professor Seyfi,” Conrad said, removing his spectacles and rising from his desk. He crossed the room, his shoes padding across the carpeted floor. “I think you’ll be intrigued by what use I have for it.”

Dinçer Seyfi looked up at him. Seyfi’s eyes were all dark, with no whites to speak of.

“After your last presentation,” Seyfi said in his thick, guttural accent, “I am no doubt highly anticipative of your next feat.”

Conrad laughed. The Boduri had a droll sense of humor that slowly became moderately familiar and welcome.

“No doubt,” Conrad repeated. He walked to a shelf and withdrew a strange cloth bundle, about the dimensions of a sword.

“I was down in the Iron Fair, talking with some of the ironsmiths from that curious new guild” Conrad said, “and one of the more ingratiating ones presented me with a little present and proposed that I take a look at it.”

He unwrapped the bundle and revealed the object. It was some manner of hand cannon, like the bulky kind of culverin used by heavy troops, but more refined, with a smooth barrel made of iron, and a wooden stock that seemed to be for bunting up against the firer’s shoulder. The whole contraption seemed to have some kind of complex mechanism near where the wood and iron met.

“The artisan gave it the name musket,” Conrad said, turning over the weapon in his hands to examine the metalwork. “It’s a prototype, he said, but has been in development for over half a year now. The gunsmith’s guild seems to feel confident this could be a breakthrough in our war with those Boma natives.” 

“Quite impressive,” said Dinçer Seyfi, “but of course the Boma have such guns of their own, and the Allgemein is merely catching up to their technology. You know this.”

“Yes,” Conrad said, slowly, setting the musket on the nearby counter, “but the Boma do not have the arcane education we received from your people,” he said knowingly, “and are a nervous and superstitious people who fear such things.”

Dinçer Seyfi nodded but said nothing.

Few men had ever seen the legendary cities of Professor Seyfi’s people, one of the several kingdoms of small folk that supposedly lay within the thick tangle of jungle to the east. If the stories were to be believed, what these people lacked in physical stature they made up for in sheer, unfathomable advancement in all ways. If the tales were to be believed, the Boduri, Seyfi’s own nation, could reshape reality to their liking with simply an iron stylus and the power of will, could build cities that defied imagination and shifted strangely before the eyes, and could kill a man with a charge of lightning expelled from a simple branch. They had no need of such a musket, but they were not known to war with anyone, regardless.

“You have not yet told me your plans for this spider, and what it has to do with your new musket,” Dinçer Seyfi observed.

“Indeed,” Conrad said, picking the musket back up and cradling it’s weight in his arms. “I would like to hunt something with this musket. To test both it and the spider in action. To kill two birds with one stone, if you understand my meaning.”

“I do not,” Seyfi said flatly, “and I question your skill, that you would kill birds with such a device. Would you hunt some larger creature of the grasslands? A rhebok or plains valt?”

“Certainly not,” Conrad said, training the barrel hastily on some distant glass cup on a shelf, “I fired the weapon yesterday. The time it takes load from the muzzle and priming the match cord is far too long, too loud, and would scare the creature off long before a shot could be taken.”

“So what creature, then, do you intend to hunt?” Seyfi said, leaning against a pillar. The spider skittered around his wrist and elbow and came up to perch itself on his shoulder.

“Something larger,” Conrad said thoughtfully, “I have in mind the Hampish. Have you heard of it?”

“I have heard it described,” Seyfi said, scratching his beard, “a large, leathery beast of the savanna, made of muscle, with a bony plate on its forehead and two hard horns for goring and ramming. Stories tell that they charge relentlessly at the slightest threat, and travelers of the Marge give them a wide berth. You would fire this gun at such a creature?”

Dinçer Seyfi laughed at him.

“I suppose the spider is for your inevitable wounds from its legendary horns?”

Conrad leaned on the musket like a walking cane, frowning at the Boduri professor, who seemed to be mocking him.

“To be forthright, I had not considered the goring,” Conrad said, “but the volatility of my weapon of choice. The artisan told me that several earlier prototypes of the musket had erupted violently backwards with a great surge of explosive force that mangled the firer’s hand beyond repair.”

Dinçer Seyfi frowned, although without eyebrows this expression was lessened, and it also seemed Seyfi always frowned slightly.

“Perhaps you could simply fire this weapon at a nearby stone wall until you were injured instead of instigating some wild beat of the field with it?” Seyfi said dryly.

“Yes, but where’s the sport in that?” Conrad replied.

Conrad’s logic and boyish adventuresomeness were unbeatable, something that he knew Professor Seyfi had come to expect and, perhaps, appreciate. The spider was handed over without further debate. The gadget remarkably collapsed itself into the size of an average egg for easy transportation. Conrad tucked the bauble into his waistcoat pocket and set off to ready himself for his grand expedition, the musket resting over his shoulder, and the ancient Dinçer Seyfi looking on with a bemused smirk.

In the mid-morning, Conrad set out on horseback from the eastern gate through Grover’s Watch and took the Sarh Road, cutting off the path after a few miles’ ride before the shores of Lake Sarh. He intended to circumvent the lake and come to a boggy stretch in between that lake and another, further out from the city, where he knew large creatures sometimes came to dredge. 

Reaching a place he had in mind, he left the horse next to a copse of trees just up the bank from the eastern bank of Lake Sarh, by a cluster of flame-colored lowland flowers. The horse set about chomping on them at once as Conrad unloaded the musket from it’s rump, along with an iron rod with small hook on one end that the artisan had given to him, designed to stabilize the weapon if terrain permitted. He tied the beast of burden to one of the trees and told it to stay put.

It was a thirty minute overland trek to the place where he would shoot the Hampish. He couldn’t see it yet, but he knew the creature would be coming — he felt it in his gut. He set himself up on a little rush-choked ridge, above a particularly reedy area thick with mud and peat. The air was quite humid and the flies were already coming out since the sun was up.

Conrad fished the little metal egg from his pocket and popped it once to get the delicate legs to come out. The creature skittered up the sleeve of his light cotton coat, and then back down to his palm. He felt it’s pointy metal tweezers gently poking his hand. He wondered how true-to-life the spider really was, and whether it might eat the flies. After watching it for a moment sway gently in his palm, with a little green fly even landing on the tip of his thumb and coming down right within easy striking distance before lifting off, the spider did nothing but sway. His hopes were dashed. He folded the trinket up and put it back in a pocket.

It was another thirty minutes of boredom before the Hampish came into sight. He spied it through some trees in the distance, about a quarter mile off, blurry in the haze of the day. It’s pale grey body lurched and lumbered in the soft soil, coming down lazily through the hillside shrubs looking for a meal and for mud. It’s lumbering gait told Conrad something of it’s weight, and he could tell it was very heavy. Hopefully the stopping power of the musket would be enough. By the time it made it’s way down to the boggy lowland in front of him, it would be around ninety yards away, well within effective range. He calculated his odds there in his head. 

He knew that, for someone familiar with the weapon, the musket took roughly twenty seconds to load and perhaps another seven seconds to aim and fire. He was not all that familiar with the weapon, so he reckoned another ten seconds for fumbling. Thirty seven seconds per shot. He’d need to withdraw the paper cartridge, bite one end off, pour the gunpowder into both the pan and the muzzle of the gun, cover the pan, then drop a little iron ball down the muzzle as well, along with the wadded paper cartridge, withdraw the ramrod (and that part, Conrad wondered, might spook the Hampish if it made a loud scraping noise) and reverse it to hold, scour the charge down the barrel, replace the ramrod, light the match cord, blow it into a cinder, fit the cord into the serpentine lever at the right length so it makes contact with the powder when the lower lever is pulled, and then open the pan cover, look down the barrel, find the target, accounting for its movement and the distance, and pull the firing lever.

And of course, all of that was for one shot. Given a miss, he’d have to do all of that with a two tonne beast charging at him full speed. If his first shot was at 90 yards, it would take approximately thirty seconds to reload, counting for nerves and some fumbling. Based on how fast he’d seen Hampish run on a plain, he reckoned it could travel nearly twice that distance in about… thirty seconds. Conrad frowned. Making adjustments for the hillside’s incline and the underbrush, best case scenario, perhaps, 80 yards in thirty seconds? And based on his prior calculation, he would have just finished reloading the musket as the beast bore down on top of him, provided that he had lost those ten seconds to inexperience.

So he’d have to shave off those ten seconds.

Besides, perhaps the beast would take a few seconds to identify where the shot came from. Yet there was the risk of missing the shot — nay, both shots — that loomed as a possible unpleasant contingency. That would really complicate things.

But he knew he could make the shot. And worse case, he had the spider. He tried to imagine it using it’s little appendages to knit up a gaping puncture wound, or perhaps severe powder burns to the hand and face. The gunsmith had warned him to keep the burning match cord away from the black powder during reload, lest it prematurely light and blow up the whole mess. Some of Conrad’s hair came loose and fell into his face, and he swept it back up with the rest and rubbed it with his palm to keep it all in place. 

“All right,” he said under his breath to the distant Hampish, “prepare to be shot.”

Like Conrad predicted, the beast lumbered all the way down to the bog until it was there, slopped in black mud about 90 yards away. Seeing it there, he realized it was admittedly a particularly far shot. But never mind that, he thought. He anticipated the creature would stay there throughout the heat of the day, staying cool in the bog. But there was no time like the present.

Conrad felt his hand clasp around the narrow iron bar of the hooked pole that he would use to stabilize the rifle. He would go through his loading ritual, stand up, lock the hook into the little hole in the rifle’s underside designed for it, and then line up the shot and fire. Simple. Conrad took a deep breath and readied himself to do just that. 

In…

…and out.

He reached into his leather pouch and withdrew the paper cartridge. The back of his hand brushed the metal spider. The paper cartridge came out without an issue and he took the small paper bundle, brought it to his mouth, and bit the end off. It was harder to tear than he imagined and when it was open the powder was quite acrid. It almost made him cough. He felt the powder smoke bloom up into his face but forced the cough and the sneeze away and cleared his eyes, taking the little paper envelope in one hand with the rifle balanced across his knees in the underbrush, poured just enough of it into the pan and closed the cover, then stood the rifle up on end and poured the rest down the muzzle.

Then he went for the musket ball, feeling their heavy, clacking weight in a separate bag — he held the musket upright with his knees and used his free hand to pull out a ball. The air was still humid and his hands were starting to sweat. Readjusting the musket, he dropped the ball down the muzzle with a dull clank, louder than he’d intended. He glanced at the Hampish, down below, but it didn’t seem to have heard. Good. He crumpled the cartridge paper and dropped it down the muzzle as well, and then withdrew the ramrod with a loud hiss as it detached from the barrel. He looked again and the Hampish shook it’s head and huffed. Unclear. He had to move quickly. It had been about 18 seconds, five lost to the bad business with the cartridge dust.

Reversing his grip on the ramrod he forced it down the muzzle five or six times, each with a loud hiss, before he felt it was rightly packed into the barrel. He reversed the ramrod again and slid it back into it’s place alongside the barrel, a clumsy maneuver made more difficult by crouching in the underbrush. 

He realized he’d have to strike flint and tinder to get the match cord lit, so he drew a small tinderbox from his nearby pouch and withdrew the elements from there. Again he balanced the musket between his knees and used the flint striker and fire steel to catch the tinder he’d use to light the match. The match cord was lit and secured at thirty-two seconds, the tinder extinguished and put away at thirty-eight. The Hampish seemed suspicious below and had raised itself again from the bog, sniffing the air. Here it was. He leveled the rifle and flipped open the pan cover.

Standing up suddenly, he went for the iron rod and fumbled it, dropping it into the underbrush.

“Damn it,” he cursed. No time for it now.

The Hampish seemed to have spotted him now, for it made it’s slow, lumbering turn and let out a warning bellow that sounded like some beat-up brass instrument at full lung capacity blowing.

Conrad lined up the shot, looking down the barrel. He saw the Hampish lumber up out of the bog, up onto the bank, shaking it’s body to get ready for a full charge. At the last second the creature turned its head to the side.

He pulled the firing lever. The serpentine arm pulled the burning match cord in an arc and pushed it straight down into the gunpowder. The pan flashed and sparked a colossal boom that shook the musket. The faint smudge of black went flying off into the lowland. It went down and down. And then, by the way the Hampish jerked it’s head a second later, by the saints, the ball seemed to have struck it’s mark.

But despite it all, the damned beast was still going to charge him.

It broke out into a sprint. It was wounded by the iron ball but still was coming hard and fast, bellowing furiously.

Conrad grabbed another paper cartridge and stayed standing. He tore it hard and quick with his teeth, breathed out from his nose to keep the dust away, and poured the powder into the pan again, spilling a little along the side of the musket. He glanced at the match cord still burning, closed the cover and carefully brushed it clear with shaking hands. He poured the rest of the cartridge down the muzzle. The Hampish was at the base of the hill now, coming faster. He reached into his bag for an iron ball. The first one slipped out of his sweaty hand, down into the brush. He grabbed another one quickly and brought it up and nearly dropped it again, barely making it down the muzzle with a clunk. Then the crumpled paper, then the ramrod, draw it out quickly, flip it, scour it four times down the barrel. Pull it out. He tossed it aside. The Hampish was halfway to him. 20 seconds gone.

Conrad’s hands were shaking. He felt the breath come falteringly as he tried to blow the match cord into a red cinder. Against all odds he saw it flare up. With fumbling hands he fastened the smoldering cord into the serpentine arm. He fitted it by sight alone. He hoped it was at the right length to catch the black powder. Flies landed on his face. 27 seconds.

He brought the rifle up to his shoulder and saw the Hampish’s bone-plated head down the iron barrel. It’s horns were coming straight on: ivory bayonets pointed right at him. Just thirty feet away, gaining speed, cresting the hill, right in front of him. He could see it’s black, beady eyes now, on the sides of its head, looking at him with some primeval, animalistic hatred. He smelled it’s sweat and overwhelming musk, felt the radiating heat from it’s charging body. He’d never been this close to so large an animal. It opened it’s jaw and let out a bellowing howl, and Conrad leveled the gun, pulled the firing lever hard, and shot the iron ball straight into its mouth.

The next day, Dinçer Seyfi came by the Dean’s office to reclaim the metal spider. In the early morning sun, Conrad Herschel was silhouetted in front of the golden stained glass windows, his feet propped up on his desk. Professor Seyfi ascended the steps and approached the desk, and saw Conrad Herschel with a self-satisfied grin on his face. Two long, ivory spikes laid on the desk top next to the ink pot and the imported stationary, and the metal spider skittered across them with a tinkling sound.

“You appear to be in good health, Dean Herschel, despite the last twenty-four hours. I take it you’ve slain the Hampish, and that these were not merely a gift from someone?” he gestured down at the horns.

“Indeed I did slay it, Professor Seyfi,” Conrad said, “but regrettably I did not need to make use of your colleague’s magnificent spider, whether for powder burns or gore injuries. It’s a shame, really, for I would have liked to see it in action for such a dramatic case as what I might have incurred.”

Seyfi lowered his hand down to the desk top and the spider quickly ascended his sleeve.

“You speak with such assurance. It would have been a real shock if you had died!” said Dinçer Seyfi. “Perhaps to you most of all.”

Conrad laughed and lowered his feet from the desktop. He stood and walked over to the counter where the musket lay on its cloth.

“My assurance comes from trust that I have surrounded myself with good, wise, and intelligent people who produce such wonders that can fire an iron ball at the velocity of an arrow and suture a wound with precision and speed,” he picked up the rifle and shouldered it again, this time training the barrel on a painted ceramic teapot in the corner. “Thanks to the University of Balustrade, all the people of this city will one day have access to such wonders that will let them rest easy, with no fear of sudden death or surprise misfortune, such as what you describe.”

“Then it seems you have learned well from your Boduri teachers,” Professor Seyfi said flatly.

“Have we?” Conrad questioned, lowering the rifle. “I appreciate you saying so.”

“Of course. Why else have the Boduri reached such heights of technological and arcane achievement, to bring the primordial quagmire of the world to true order, if not control of circumstance?”

“Precisely,” Conrad nodded, “this is our aim. Taming a wild and dangerous world.”

“And you would protect yourself from it with the objects you see around you?” he said gesturing at the various intricate objects that lined the shelves, each a pinnacle of achievement in some field.

Conrad sensed he was being led.

“Yes,” he said simply, “we would, for the greater good.”

Dinçer Seyfi laughed sadly to himself, a strange laugh that only an ancient being like a Boduri could fathomably laugh.

“My friend, you place such exorbitant confidence in things that you did not invent yourself and that you do not understand the workings of,” he said at last. He folded the small spider into an egg and dropped it in his pocket. “May they never fail you.” He then walked down the stairs and out of the office.

Conrad sat back into his chair, cradling his rifle amid the golden window light, and wondered at the words of the small, alien man in his employ, whose presence lingered long after he had departed.

—

Credit to Joshua Baker for his wonderful concept of the medical miracle spider, and for his role in the above referenced letter opener incident.