In the Realm of the Midnight Gardener

Standing in the doorway were two creatures, human in basic form: two arms, two legs, a torso and a head, but there the similarity ended. Fingers extended from bony hands were gray and far too long, curling and uncurling in a rhythmic motion, like spiders spinning a victim in strands. Legs, skeletal and knobby, were bent backwards at the knee, giving them a crooked, scarecrow way of standing. Though their full-length robes covered their bodies, the outline of their torsos were the emaciated frames of starved beasts. Most of all, it was their heads, with the sharp angles of chin and jaw, the pointed nose, teeth too long in an awful caricature of a grin.

Their eyes, buried in the shadows of their hoods, remained unseen. No one dared steal even a glance in that direction, for fear of what they might see. Everyone in the tavern knew what stood there in the entrance, and stories abounded of what befell the poor soul who looked upon those hidden eyes.

Boogler was all but shivering when he whispered “Tindalosi”. The fat one shushed him to silence.

“Would ya’ bring their curses down upon us,” the blowhard hissed.

The creatures came across the room, and people parted from them like meat from a blade. They glided silently, smoothly, a gross mockery of human motion, more like swamp birds in the steady strides of predation. They stopped in front of Domingo.

“Dhystara,” one said, with a hissing, clicking inflection. “We come for you.”

Now the whole tavern was looking at Domingo, no doubt wondering what sort of fool would bandy with these demons. The burly one next to Domingo looked him over with a combination of terrified wonder and pity.

“Yep,” Domingo said. He looked around at the blowhard and crew. “You gentlemen wouldn’t mind giving us some privacy, would you?” They scattered like blown leaves.

Domingo watched as the creatures took seats at the table, eyes half-lidded and careful. He’d dealt with the Tindalosi before. These were puppet human corpses, twisted and malformed to suit Tindalosi aesthetics and need, controlled from some other place, some other dimension, where the Tindalosi actually dwelt. He kept up his calm veneer, but was careful to keep a safe distance as they seated themselves at the table. Those taloned fingers were lethal-looking, and more than likely dipped in some wicked poison.

The two corpses and Domingo scrutinized one another a long while, leaving silence to fill the space. He wondered idly who these two corpses had once been before being claimed by the Tindalosi, mutated into these rank abominations. Just some random corpses, stolen by the Tindalosi to serve as vessels. Or Idiots who’d either sided with the inter-dimensional spectres, or who’d been witless enough to try and swindle them. Either way, here they were, once putrefying corpses turned into unliving avatars for these two monsters. Their unpleasant, long-toothed grins leered at him from the shadows of their cowls.

Enough. “Gratified as I am to be enjoying a pleasant silence amongst friends, it would seem prudent for us to dally no longer, to get to the business at hand. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The corpses chattered and hissed and snapped at one another in their perverse tongue. “You mark us as friends?” one of them asked.

Domingo’s brow raised. Tindalosi were known for being short on wit, and either could not, or simply refused to grasp irony. Pearls before undead swine, as it were.

Fine, to the point then. “What do you require?” Domingo asked.

The creatures leaned across the table, and instinct made him inch back ever so slightly. “Retrieve for us a root,” one said.

“A root,” the other seconded. “A precious root.”

Domingo smirked humorlessly. “And by `retrieve`, am I to assume that you mean by whatever means necessary, and discretely?”

More chattering, more clacking of ghastly jaws. “As you say.”

“Alright. What is this root?”

“In our tongue, we have only a part word. The root is not known in our realm.”

Not surprising, that. The Tindalosi, or at least the corpses which they controlled, dwelt on a handful of dismal little worlds and moons where most species wouldn’t bother to live. These inhospitable worlds were living places, and as such had any number of plants and seeds, but little in comparison to the numbers classified and codified amongst the Ixtapodan, the Faer, the Ghorl and the Umnya. New species of flora and fauna eventually crept into their society (if such a thing as a society of puppet corpses were possible), and were given names in their accursed language, but only once a plant’s power and purpose was fully understood and made common amongst them. Any such herbage was at first given a part name, an indication of its mystery to the Tindalosi. If this root still had no full name in Tindalosi, then it would be very valuable to them indeed.

Valuable to them meant profitable to him. Domingo sat up, leaning forward. He was starting to like this.

One of the Tindalosi continued. “In the tongue of the Umnya, this root is brassica sangui.”

“Brassica sangui?” Domingo queried. “You are referring to the blood turnip?” The corpses hissed and nodded. Domingo had stopped liking this. What would these fiends want with blood turnips? He quickly put this out of his mind. A client, even a Tindalosi, had their own reasons for wanting whatever it was they wanted. It was his job to retrieve it. “That is a tall order. Blood turnips grow in few places, on few worlds, and grow to even partial maturity on even less. Many have wasted fruitless years in search of these rarities. Am I to wander hither and thither in search of such a locale, or can I assume you know of such a place where they can be found?”

“We have knowledge of such a place, yes.”

“Nearby?” He doubted this even as he asked it. He knew most everywhere which was nearby, and never had he heard of blood turnips growing in any of them. Come to think of it, he didn’t know of a single place where blood turnips grew at all. He’d never even seen one.

“A short journey,” one of them clacked. “Not so far, so far. We take you on Garden Path to the place. You retrieve the blood turnips for us.”

“Very well. Now, am I also to assume you need me because you are unable to retrieve these yourselves?”

The question set them on edge, and they began croaking and hissing in frustration and distress. These horrid sounds were fast upsetting the rest of the place, and Domingo didn’t blame them. He could think of any number of punishments he’d have preferred to hearing it.

“You are Dhystara,” one of the Tindalosi snapped. “Great, famous Dhystara. Name known far over the Garden Path. You always are success, is said. Is true?”

Domingo smiled. “It is. I pride myself on my reputation.”

Old Juan Polino raspberried. “Your reputation is a stinky load of putrid cat innards. I’d not trust you to find your own droppings if you left them in your pants.” Domingo’s lip curled in irritation, but he didn’t dignify it with a response. Instead, he returned to the Tindalosi. “But first, a few questions more. Where is this fertile ground where I am to collect these blood turnips?”

The Tindalosi corpses were silent. Their thin, black lips quivered, then peeled back to show their elongated teeth up to the gums. “Come, gentlemen,” Domingo said, basking in the unappreciated sarcasm of that particular salutation. “If we are to deal, I must know my mark.”

They paused a while longer, unsure, then one of them said. “The fields you seek are in the realm of the Midnight Gardener.”

There it was. Domingo knew there had to be a catch, and now it was plain. “The Midnight Gardener?” he repeated. “The Midnight Gardener is a myth, mere legend.”

“He lives,” one of the corpses exclaimed. “He is real. We know the paths to his hidden lands.”

Domingo studied the two of them sceptically. Had they been anyone else, Domingo would have laughed this off, stalked away and left them for madmen or at the very least, simple liars. But Tindalosi, that was another matter entirely. “If what you say is true--” he began.

“Is true!!!” one of them snapped, claws digging trenches in the wooden table top in front of it.

He eyed the gouges clinically, but kept his calm. “As I was saying, if it is true, then you know any such retrieval will be very dangerous, quite possibly deadly. What is to be my reward?”

“What do you wish? Coin you seek?”

He chuckled. “Oh, coin, naturally, but that will hardly be sufficient for this level of challenge. As your reward will be great, so should mine. For this endeavour, in addition to the coin something more substantial will be required.”

“What you want, Dhystara?” the Tindalosi spat, the honorific turned insult.

“What I want, gentlemen, is a two kilogram satchel of dried black oil seeds, enough to press a hundred milligram vial of the oil. And not some inferior strain. I require the seeds to come from your world of Icthyn, from the equatorial plains south of the Ghrajiir forests. The seeds must be dried during the peak season, not more than three weeks before the coming of the rains.”

The Tindalosi actually looked shocked. Domingo liked that. For an outsider, for an Umnya, to know so much about their most potent of plants, that was more than they’d expected.

“Black oil,” one of them assured. “We will bring you black oil.”

Domingo waved it away. “Do not insult me, sir. I am no fool. I’ll not be swindled for some inferior product I can procure myself on the markets. No, your request is high, and therefore so will be my reward. A thousand coin and the black oil seeds. Take it or leave it.”

The Tindalosi were distressed. They were clearly unused to such blatant disregard for their fearsome appearance and terrible reputations. Certainly, most Umnya all but cowered in their presence. But this one, with him they were being forced to bargain on equal terms.

Domingo imagined for an instant, only an instant, that he’d overplayed his hand. His arrogant tone, his overconfident (not to mention smug) grin. He’d pushed it too far. Their patience had been tried, and they would leap across the table, then rend his flesh to lifelessness in front of the whole tavern. He doubted very much anyone would attempt to interfere, either.

He kneaded the moist gumpta fruit in his hand under the table. The flesh and juice of the gumpta was all but tasteless and a little gag-retching to humans. But to Tindalosi corpses, the mere stench of its unpeeled flesh would set them to smoking. Were the pulpy meat to touch them, these two would be reduced to gobbets and dissolving chunks in moments. “Never come empty-handed to a meeting,” Juan Polino whispered his old adage to his former pupil.

“Never enter negotiations without a means of killing your way out,” Domingo whispered in response. How wise the crazy old man’s words were. “Do we have a deal, gentlemen,” Domingo asked of the corpses. “Or is our business concluded?”

A long, visceral pause passed, then one said “We will deal.”

Domingo nodded. “Now to the legalities. I have a contract here,” he said, pulling a long sheet of paper from under the table. He produced a pen, and quickly scratched in the details of what he was to procure and of his payment for doing so. “I will retrieve what you wish, and you will pay me for said retrieval. Nothing more; nothing less. Anything outside this agreement is not binding in any way. Neither party may gain or suffer by any amendments without both parties agreeing to said change.” The Tindalosi stared, teeth chattering. “The long and short then. Neither of us can be held accountable for what falls outside of our agreement. Do you accept?”

“We waste time!” one of them snarled.

“Do you accept?”

“Yes! Agreed.”

“Then I need both of you to place one of your hands on the contract, and I will do the same.” His hand hovered over the paper, waiting for their reaction. The creatures reached out and placed their hands on the sheet, and he followed suit.

Both hissed in surprise. “It burns!” one shrieked. “Is a trap!” the other replied.

Domingo winced with the same burning pain.

“This is no trap,” he said, bringing his lightly burned hand away from the sheet. “But you are surprised that you can feel pain?” They clacked in ascension. “This sheet is made from the pulp of the Ghorlish hemlock. In touching this, we have entered into the agreement in as binding a way as is possible. If either of us breaks the agreement now or at some point in the future, then a squad of Ghorls, each sworn to uphold such contracts, will hunt whoever has acted in bad faith until the ends of time. By touching this, we have sealed the deal, gentlemen. The scent of it is irremovable, so don’t bother trying. The Ghorl are quite capable of following its trail wherever it might lead.” It was his turn to lean closer and smile. “I am sure you two of all creatures are aware of how nasty the Ghorl can be when they are bent on a destructive task, yes? Rest assured, that if anything were to happen to me, these Ghorl will find you, and your end will NOT be pleasant.” The corpses snarled and snapped.

While any other threat would be merely to destroy their host bodies, the threat of Ghorls was far more permanent to the Tindalosi. The Ghorl were the only species who could harm the Tindalosi in their own realm, somehow dragging the hideous things out of their inter-dimensional haven and destroying them with the same crushing blows that destroyed their puppet corpses. How the brutish Ghorl did this was a mystery, even apparently to the Ghorl themselves, but it was fact that they could do so. Domingo had chosen them as his instruments of vengeance if the need arose. The Tindalosi and the Ghorl were ancient enemies, a master and slave situation from ancient times, from which the Ghorl had since broken free. The cruelty and humiliation they’d suffered under the Tindalosi was burned into their culture, their beliefs and yes, even into their genetics. They took no greater pleasure than in ripping the spectres to shrieking bits.

“When and where shall we meet again?” Domingo asked, rolling the contract up and stashing it away.