by A. C. Cobble
“You’d still think they’d feed us,” he mumbled under his breath, declining to answer her question about first class. He let his gaze fall on the shroud-covered scrying bowl. “What happens if Thotham moves?”
“That’s why we brought the bowl,” she said. “If he moves, our spirit can stay with him and show us his new location. I’m keeping the link alive, I suppose you could say, though it’s actually the opposite. It is much quicker than establishing a new one.”
Oliver sat forward, peering at the shroud.
“What?” asked Sam.
“Is it… glowing?”
“Huh?”
She glanced around to make sure that no one was approaching in the aisle then pulled the burial shroud back. The liquid inside was moving, and it was indeed glowing.
“Maybe he’s relocating now,” speculated Oliver.
“I don’t think… That doesn’t make sense. There should be no light in the water. See, it’s-it’s like… I don’t know. The bowl feels warm.”
“Is that… normal?”
“I have no idea,” she replied. “I’ve seen my mentor do this, but I’ve never done it myself. The bowl didn’t start glowing and get warm when he did it, so no, it is not normal. I’m not sure what it means.”
He glanced at her then gasped. “Sam, your hand!”
She looked down at the bound wound and shrieked. The cloth they’d tied around her cut hand was soaked in blood, and it was starting to drip out, dribbling down the leg of her leather trousers. As they watched, a shadow of a hand, a claw, slipped out from under the sheet and grasped Sam’s wrist.
“By the circle!” she shrieked, bolting upright, rocking the scrying bowl, and spilling the contents on the bench. Then, she picked it up and hurled it at the wall across from them. The glass shattered with the heavy impact of a water-filled bowl smashing into a wooden wall.
Half a dozen shadows rose like smoke, insubstantial, unformed. Oliver scrambled onto a bench, grasping his broadsword which he’d stowed on a rack above, but as he watched, the shapes wavered as if they couldn’t hold their presence in the world of the living. Water leaked down the wall and puddled amongst the broken glass on the floor, and in moments, the shadows faded.
Oliver blinked, wondering if he’d really seen them at all.
Sam tore off her bandage, panic in her eyes as she looked at her wound.
Oliver stepped down from the bench and peeked into the hall where he heard running footsteps. It was the attendant, the same man who had let them on the car to begin with.
“What in the frozen hell are you doing?” he demanded.
Several other passengers were looking down the open corridor, curious but unalarmed. They were seeking entertainment on a long, dark ride, not feeling the same fright Oliver could feel roiling off Sam behind him. He turned, and she was scrambling at her pack, tearing it open and yanking out the second stone vial. She met his eyes then popped it open, dropping the cork on the floor, swallowing the contents in one gulp. Breathing heavily as if she’d just run a footrace, she slumped back on the bench.
The attendant was looking between her, the broken glass, and the water soaking into the carpet of the railcar where she’d shattered the bowl. In the dim light, Oliver was glad the man couldn’t see how dark the liquid was. Water mixed with Sam’s blood.
“I’ll be all right,” gasped Sam.
“Well, this isn’t all right,” cried the attendant. “Why, I—”
“Two pounds?” asked Oliver, reaching again for his purse.
The man glanced at the broken glass and then back to the duke. “Two pounds, but if there’s one more thing…”
“There won’t be,” assured Oliver.
He sat back down, ignoring the attendant as he left and returned with a brush and a bucket, cleaning up the broken glass. Duke had eyes only for Sam. She met his gaze, the fear slowly receding as he imagined the pain in her wounded hand faded. The blood stopped flowing from the cut, and miraculously, it seemed the wound began to heal. He removed a shirt from his pack and tossed it on her lap.
She nodded thanks, wrapped her hand in the shirt, and then laid her head back. In moments, she was snoring, but Oliver stayed awake, the slow rock of the railcar and the dim light doing nothing to lull him to sleep after what he’d witnessed that day. Sam was a priestess and, evidently, a sorceress.
Oliver woke to the squeal of metal brakes on metal axles.
Sam was across from him, back against the wall of the train, legs pulled up onto the bench, arms wrapped around her knees. Her head was bowed, but he saw she was awake.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She looked up at him, grim-faced, her eyes rimmed in red. “I’ve been better.”
“How’s the hand?”
“It will heal,” she replied. “Rather quickly, actually. The potion in those vials last night…”
“I figured,” remarked Oliver. He stood, bracing one hand against the ceiling of the railcar as it slowed to a stop. “Should we find somewhere to try scrying again?”
Sam unfolded herself from the bench and shook her head. “Last night, I think there’s only one thing that could explain the change we saw. I think Thotham is dead.”
She said it matter-of-factly, cold, but he could see in her eyes, in her posture, that the thought hurt her worse than the cut on her hand. Worse than she could admit.
Oliver wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. The hilt of one of her kris daggers dug into his side, and she pushed against him, but he just squeezed harder. She wiggled, trying to get away, but he held her for another long moment. Finally, he released her.
“You’re a strange man, Duke.”
“My name is Oliver, you know.”
She shrugged, stood, and stepped into the aisle.
Checking that his hair was still bound in a tail behind his head by the thin leather thong and that his broadsword was still strapped to his side, he followed after her.
They emerged onto the bustling platform in the heart of Middlebury’s rail station. All around them, people rushed to and fro, whether beginning an adventure, returning from a journey, or, in most cases, merely changing railcars. The platform was packed with people. Over the dull roar of conversation and rushing commuters was the crash and bang from the freight side of the station. Next to the passenger platforms, freight trains were brought in where they were broken up, the cars sorted, reassembled and forwarded on. Middlebury was the beating heart of Enhover’s rail network, and the town had risen a wave of prosperity forty years prior when Oliver’s grandfather had begun spanning the continent with the gleaming steel lines.
If it wasn’t for the discovery of Archtan Atoll’s levitating rocks and the invention of the airships that used them, rail would be the fastest and most efficient way about the country. Instead, it was just the most efficient.
“If you think your mentor is gone,” asked the duke, catching up to Sam, “what are we doing?”
“I’m not sure he’s gone,” she responded. “But if he is, then his killer was here.”
“There are killers everywhere,” muttered Oliver, dodging around a group of scurrying men and women who he suspected were seeing a big city for the first time. “If we had any luck at catching them, we wouldn’t be in Middlebury in the first place.”
Sam shook her head as they reached the end of the platform. “This feels different. If Thotham were after something, he’d be careful, alert. My mentor was not killed by any simple murderer.”
Oliver shrugged. “Where do we start then?”
“The scrying wasn’t specific,” admitted Sam. “I recognized the rail station and the Church. To begin, I suggest we walk between them and see what we see.”
“Should we expect something like what attacked Standish Taft in Swinpool?” wondered Oliver.
“The sorcerer we faced, perhaps, but not the shadow-monster,” replied Sam, stepping out of the archway of the rail station and into the streets o
f Middlebury. “That thing was a shade — a spirit — dragged out of the underworld. If anything like that killed Thotham, it would have been banished back. There are… On his body, a priest like Thotham may have runes inscribed. Bindings to their soul. Those runes will activate when the soul departs the body. When Thotham dies, his soul will take any other spirits down with it. It’s a safety precaution, of a sort, to minimize the damage if any… any priests like Thotham perish in the line of duty.”
“Do you have markings like that on your body?” wondered Oliver.
She did not reply, and he followed her as she weaved deeper into Middlebury, passing from the noise of the rail station into the hubbub of a busy city. Inns, pubs, and other businesses catering toward travelers faded as they walked down the broad avenues, headed toward the soaring spires of Middlebury’s Church.
“Do you hear that?” wondered Oliver. “I—”
Sam grabbed his arm and jerked him to a stop.
The Priestess XII
“It’s a Grimalkin. Run!” she shouted, grabbing Duke’s arm.
Around the corner bound a giant, sleek, black cat, its shoulders bunched with muscle, its tooth-filled jaw slavered with pink blood-flecked foam. The thing stood shoulder high, and its eyes burned with green fire.
A dozen citizens of Middlebury ran before the beast, some pelting around the corner just in front of it, some seeing it on the street and spinning to flee.
Duke ran toward it.
“Fool,” groaned Sam. Then, she broke into a sprint after him.
The grimalkin swung a paw and batted a man across the street like a house cat toying with a mouse. The man’s panicked cry cut off when his body crashed against the stone wall of a building in a crunch of bone and squelch of pulped flesh.
Duke was charging right toward the thing.
Sam followed in his wake, pulling her kris daggers, hoping the nobleman didn’t get himself killed before she could get there.
The grimalkin leapt after another hapless citizen of Middlebury, covering ten yards in a single bound. It landed lightly and snapped its jaw closed, catching the man’s skull. The beast flicked its head, and the man’s neck audibly snapped. The grimalkin dropped him and looked down the street, where Oliver came flying at it, swinging his broadsword like a berserker.
The blade flashed in the midday sun and bit into the shoulder of the grimalkin. Duke howled in celebration, and the giant cat screeched in pain and rage. It staggered back, jerking Duke’s broadsword from his grip, and then sprang at him, blood-stained teeth clacking where the nobleman had been.
He’d thrown himself onto the cobbles and rolled away. The cat’s paw smacked down after him, barely missing his leg. He kept rolling, and the grimalkin pursued.
Sam flung herself at it, jumping into the air, both her kris daggers swinging forward. One caught the creature in the side, sinking between two ribs, and one caught it in the front, plunging into the grimalkin’s throat. A terrible yowl split the air, threatening to shatter her eardrums, and the cat thrashed against her.
Sam dragged her daggers together, the razor-sharp blades slicing flesh and opening long, jagged wounds in the creature. It struggled, trying to wiggle away from her. She leaned on it with all her weight, pushing against it, knocking the wounded beast down. The giant cat was strong and nearly tossed her, but the ragged cuts quickly took their toll, and the creature’s motion stilled.
She waited until she was sure it was dead and then glanced at the nobleman. She saw wide eyes staring back at her. She asked, “Are you all right?”
He looked down at himself. A wide spray of crimson liquid stained his front. Cursing, he began frantically patting himself before gasping, “I think so. This isn’t mine.”
She stood, trying to still the trembling in her legs, and looked at the dead cat.
“What in the frozen hell is that thing?” asked Duke, stooping to retrieve his broadsword. “Do you think that’s what… what killed Thotham?”
“No, I don’t,” she said. “This is a grimalkin. They’re common in the Darklands, trained and raised from birth to accompany the priests of that place. They function as sentinels and watch the back of the priest as they work.”
“The priest?”
“Sorcerer.”
Duke blinked at her, confused.
“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “My point was, this cat wasn’t here alone. If it is here, then so is the master.”
“A sorcerer,” groaned Duke. “So, it may not be just one spirit we need to contest with. It could be someone calling a small army of them, and we just lost our advantage of surprise. Can we find reinforcements at the Church?”
Sam shook her head. “There’s no one there who could help us. Thotham and my training is… specialized. Besides, surprise is our best friend right now. This cat is giant, but it is not supernatural. I don’t know of any link between it and its master outside of the normal connection between man and beast. If we hurry, we still have time. Sorcery is a slow art. It takes a while to fashion the patterns and bindings that allow communication with the spirits. If we can find the owner of this cat, I’m guessing we will find who killed Thotham and maybe who is behind everything else we’ve been investigating.”
“Right,” agreed Duke, looking down the street. “Sorcery is a slow art, you said?”
She nodded, doing the best she could to clean her weapons and check her kit. With what they were going after, she would need to be ready.
“If it’s a slow art,” said Duke, “then how did that man in Swinpool call a shadow-monster, or whatever it was, out of thin air in heartbeats?”
“Preparation,” murmured Sam. “It’s a slow art, but if the practitioner has prepared something, they can release it quickly. That scepter was imbued with a spirit, and when it broke, the spirit was released. All the sorcerer had to do was direct it to a target. We were lucky, actually, because the spirit was confined, its direction was narrow. Its bindings only allowed for one target. That was done to protect the sorcerer himself, so the thing wouldn’t turn on him after meeting its primary objective.”
Duke glanced down the street where the grimalkin had appeared from and frowned. Muttering to himself, he said, “A slow art, layers of traps. So, either the sorcerer responsible for this is engaged in another ritual, or perhaps he was injured or killed in the fight with Thotham?”
“Exactly,” said Sam. “The cat proves the master either died or is still in Middlebury. Now is our chance.”
“Lead on, then,” replied Duke.
She moved to slip her daggers into their sheaths then looked between herself and Duke. They were both covered in the grimalkin’s blood. “You know what, I don’t think we’re going to be able to sneak through Middlebury. If anyone sees us, they’re liable to start screaming anyway. It’s best if we hurry.”
On high-alert now, looking for traps, she started trotting down the street, following the trail of destruction left by the grimalkin. If the sorcerer had the grimalkin on patrol as a sentinel, there could be another one or something even nastier. Would a sorcerer set a sentinel like that, letting the creature loose in the streets? She didn’t think so, but she didn’t know. There was so much she didn’t know. So much she needed to ask her mentor that she couldn’t.
She was so focused on looking for threats she nearly missed the obvious sign. The trail of torn and mutilated bodies ended, and a block later, she saw a bright blue symbol painted on the wall of a building. Sam stopped walking, staring at it. Graffiti, it would appear to be, to anyone who couldn’t read the ancient script.
“What?” asked Duke, gripping his broadsword and glancing nervously at the empty street ahead of them.
“That’s my mentor’s name written in the script of the Darklands,” said Sam. “There can’t be more than a dozen men and women in Enhover’s priesthood who would understand that.”
“And whatever sorcerers are running around,” added Duke grimly.
She frowned. “A sorcerer w
ouldn’t deface a building with my mentor’s name, would they?”
“You tell me,” replied Duke.
“They wouldn’t,” she concluded. “Thotham himself wrote this. It’s a sign, a sign for us to follow.”
Duke scratched his head. “Follow it where?”
“Down there,” said Sam. She stalked to a cellar door set in the side of the building.
“I think this is a soup kitchen for the poor,” mused Duke. “It looks closed, but doesn’t the Church run these things? I seem to recall my brother mentioning it during one of his lectures. The Crown provides the funding and the Church the hands to do the work?”
“The Church does run them,” agreed Sam distractedly. “More importantly, see the lock on this door? It is broken.”
Duke came to stand beside her. He looked at the symbol above the door, at the broken lock, and then at her.
“Down we go,” she said.
Duke grabbed the edge of one of the cellar doors and glanced around to see who was watching — which was no one because they’d all fled or been injured by the grimalkin. Grunting, he lifted the door up, revealing a dark cavity and a set of wooden stairs.
Sam peered into the gloom. Beyond the first dozen steps, there was nothing visible, only black.
“There,” said Duke, pointing to a bracket just inside the stairwell.
An unused torch sat in it, evidently placed there for… for them? Sam wondered what they were getting into but gestured for Duke to take the brand.
The nobleman collected the torch, and after a moment of staring at it, she removed flint and steel from a pouch on her belt.
“No servants around to light it for you, m’lord?”
He grunted. “I’ll carry it and come behind you so your hands are free. Whatever we find down here, you’re probably better equipped to deal with it than I am.”
She nodded and started into the darkness, Duke following a few steps behind her, the torch bobbing in his hand, lighting her path. Ahead of her, the stairs continued down for two flights then opened to a narrow, stone hallway.
