by A. C. Cobble
Oliver grunted.
“I can’t say I’m looking forward to this,” continued Ostrander, “but if there’s anyone I’d want by my side, it’s you. You did right by us in the atoll, m’lord, and…”
The commander frowned, and Oliver glanced up the street.
Over the cacophony of the drunks in the pub, he heard the all too familiar shriek of panicked screams. It was coming from up the hill, closer to the palace than the harbor. Toward the Church’s library. Why would there be a panic near the Church’s—
“Fetch a company of marines,” he instructed Ostrander. He frowned. “Make it two companies, if you can find enough of them awake and sober. Full arms, but speed is more important than preparedness.”
“What?” questioned the commander, peering into the thick night air and looking for the source of the alarm.
“Go get them now,” instructed Oliver. “When you’ve got them assembled, come to the Church. Ostrander, be ready for anything, and hurry.”
The Scholar I
Timothy Adriance set down his quill and rubbed his eyes. They were burning from exhaustion, and when he glanced at the half-dozen candles he’d placed on shelves around the room, he realized it must be several hours after dark now. On a table in front of him was a sheaf of parchment covered in his cramped notes, an ash-gray, clay tablet, and a half-yard tall wooden figurine.
The figurine, an uvaan, was roughly-hewn but with some skill, like a talented artisan had worked with primitive tools. It was enough that he could see it was a bald, portly man with a menacing scowl on his lips. The uvaan’s face belied the jolly curve of his belly. Details were missing, but the figurine evoked a sense of uncomfortable familiarity, as if the bald man was a neighbor, one who constantly caused trouble.
Along the base of the figurine were crude symbols and letters. Adriance believed it was the tongue of Imbon, though he could find little information about the written form of the language. The tablet had the flavor of the Darklands. Ancient Darklands, bastardized and evolved. It was as if settlers had left that secretive land, and for generations, their speech had grown into something new. The thought brought him some comfort. It made sense, after all.
Had a group left the Darklands and found a home in Imbon? Darklanders seldom traveled, but he supposed they could have. Nothing was known of the Darklands’ history prior to the accession of the Wellesleys and the initial spread of Enhover’s commercial empire. Geography wasn’t his field of study, but as far as he knew, it was entirely possible that the island of Imbon had been settled by refugees or explorers from the south.
It led him no closer to deciphering any messages the objects held, though. He was passing fair in ancient Darklands, as were any of the Sect of Sages scholars, but he did not know Imbonese at all. He wasn’t sure if anyone in Enhover knew that tongue, but he knew no one in Romalla did. He preferred his books, but he wasn’t completely unaware of what was happening in the world, and he certainly wasn’t going to travel to Imbon and ask one of the rebels to help him. If a translation happened, it would be done by him alone.
Duke Wellesley had related that the natives claimed a reaver was held within the figurine. It was a generic term, either through poor translation or poor imagination, and it could have described any number of underworld creatures that had crossed the shroud over the years. Timothy Adriance estimated half of those tales may have some seed of truth, and the other half did not, but none of the creatures he’d read about seemed any more likely to be referred to as a reaver than any of the others.
For a while, he’d speculated whether the nature of the figurine was the reason for the term. Was anything imprisoned in such an object referred to as a reaver and hence the generic designation? Unfortunately, there was no way to know if that was the case.
He’d become sure, though, that there was something within the figurine. The tablets remained obstinate, but the figurine itself was curiously cool to the touch. He’d experimented and held a candle close to the wood, but no matter how long he’d held it, no matter how close he’d gotten, it didn’t warm the statue. A vestige of contact with the underworld? It was a question written in his notes, along with many more.
Reavers. He frowned, twirling the quill in his hand. He hadn’t heard the term used specifically before, had he? He shook his head, stretched his back, and then bent over the clay tablet again.
What if the script was read from the righthand side instead of the left? In the Vendatt Islands, some of the local languages were written as such. The characters on the tablet originated from the Darklands, but what if the way the tongue had been written had been influenced by a new locale?
His breath coming in quick, excited bursts, he tried to read backward, sounding out each letter and word. It was still foreign, but some of the roots of the words began to feel familiar. Yes, ancient Darklands, he was sure of it. The three symbols there, it was a common formation. And there, another that he recognized. It wasn’t just a few stray characters that matched. The core of this language was founded on the same principles as Darklands script. It was just written backwards.
Whispering, he continued, working out words, unable to understand many of them initially but thinking he was getting the pronunciation close. Over and over, he repeated the phrases, most of them foreign to him, but a few began to feel correct, like they belonged on his lips. They were spelled differently, but he teased out meaningful sounds. The words began to spill out effortlessly.
Growing excited, he read faster, listening to the cadence of his voice as he repeated the script. He adjusted pieces, changed his pronunciation, and he organized his thoughts.
Ancient Darklands from six- or seven-hundred years ago he thought. Faster and faster, he repeated the phrases, his deft ears picking out common elements. The meaning was drivel, nothing that he could understand—
In the center of the table, the wooden figurine caught fire.
He blinked at it. The flame burned bright purple. Purple flame. Where had he read about purple flame?
It danced merrily, but he felt no heat from it, and he saw it was leaving no mark upon the wooden table. He picked up a scrap of paper and tentatively held it to the growing fire. Nothing happened. He frowned and moved his fingers back and forth through the odd flame, feeling nothing. How long had he been studying the text? Was he having visions?
Despite the lack of heat, the exterior of the figurine burned quickly. In moments, the entire object was charred black, and the flame sputtered out. Then suddenly, it split, like a fire-roasted chestnut, and bitter cold exhaled from the hollow interior of the statue.
Adriance peered at the opening and saw it went deeper than just the shallow indention he expected. Even in the light of the candles, it was dark, like a tunnel. He leaned forward, staring into the black beyond, squinting his eyes to see into the darkness.
Then, he regretted doing that.
Scrambling from far away was the skittering sound of claws against stone. Dozens then hundreds of fat, black beetles flooded from the interior of the figurine.
Adriance staggered back, knocking over his chair, staring open-mouthed as the things burst into the light and took flight, purple bodies shimmering in the candlelight beneath black wings. They buzzed around him, their wings making a high-pitched whistle. He swung his hands violently, trying to keep them from his face, backing against the wall to avoid the worst of the swarm, but they showed no interest in him.
The cloud of beetles poured into the room and then vanished outside into the hall of the library, their buzzing wings causing a hideous drone that nearly covered the shouts of surprise and alarm from other library patrons outside. Beneath that, Adriance heard something else. A scrape and a drag, like furniture being moved.
Timothy Adriance glanced back at the figurine and screamed.
Standing before the open container, too large to have been inside it, was a desiccated corpse. Echoing the flame, its eyes burned a malevolent purple, and its flesh was pallid gray. Its body wa
s wrapped in tattered, decaying remnants of a burial shroud. It opened its mouth, showing jagged, yellowed teeth but no tongue. It was laughing or crying out maybe, but it made no sound until it staggered toward him.
Adriance could only stare in horror as the thing closed on him. A reaver. A corpse preserved and then animated. That was where he’d heard the term before. Like a violent slap, the knowledge crashed into his memory, but it was too late. He recalled a depiction of the creatures just like this one. He knew what they were.
It was his last thought before the creature reached out with supernaturally powerful arms and gripped his shoulders. Suddenly, a terrifying urge to live cut through the fog of his fear. Adriance began to struggle, but it was too late. The thing had him, and it pulled him closer toward its open mouth. It smelled like dust and old parchment.
The yellowed teeth closed on his forehead and cheek, and with a turn of its head, the reaver ripped a strip of flesh away. Red blood covered his vision. The reaver’s broken teeth closed on him again. Unable to free himself from its iron-grip, he jerked his head. With the movement, his skin tugged, tearing away from his skull. Blood poured like a waterfall down his chest as the monster ate him, one bite at a time, ripping off the skin of his face in ragged flaps.
Finally, its bone-crushing grip on one of his shoulders relaxed, and he thrashed with his arm, beating at the thing helplessly. His eyes were covered in blood, and he could no longer see, but he could feel.
He felt cold, bony fingers grip the collar of his priest’s robe and the thin chain of the Sect of Sages. With a powerful yank, the reaver tore the fabric and broke the chain, exposing more of his skin. The reaver chomped down on his neck, pulling with its teeth, ripping away his flesh, chewing and biting until everything went mercifully black.
The Cartographer IV
He ran through the soot-covered streets of Southundon, dodging around mechanical carriages and pedestrians, most of whom were walking with the queer, shuffling gait of those who’d had too much to drink, stumbling home long after they ought to have been abed. As he ran, even those glassy-eyed night stalkers began to get odd looks on their faces, and Oliver wasn’t the only one staring toward the Church.
From two blocks away, he could already see a bright orange glow emanating from the windows of the library. The clang of the fire brigade’s bells filled the space between the panicked wails of… something.
Oliver skidded to a stop on the broad avenue that led to the double-height doors of the Church’s library. The doors were open, and there was fire inside, but that couldn’t have caused the panic he was hearing.
Few people were out in the courtyard before the Church, as it had been closed to the public for hours, but Oliver saw one man staggering across the cobblestones. He strode toward the man and caught his sleeve. “Hold on. What happ—”
A face turned to him, glistening in the yellow light from the gas lamps that circled the plaza. One eye, quivering in pain, was all that was recognizable of what had once been a man. The skin of his face had been torn away, showing red muscle coated in crimson blood. The man’s teeth gleamed white in the night jutting from bare gums, while his second eye socket looked back at Oliver, empty and black.
Oliver backpedaled, shaking his hand, sticky from the blood that covered the man’s dark coat.
The man opened his mouth as if to scream, but his tongue was missing, and only a pathetic whimper escaped where his lips had been. His lone eye stared at Oliver, pleading.
Glancing around wildly, Oliver saw more victims lying prostrate on the cobblestones, slumping against the walls of the buildings around the library, or staggering lost and confused like the man.
“Spirits forsake it,” whispered Oliver. “What happened?”
The racket of the fire brigade chased him to the side of the avenue, and he watched the giant mechanical carriages, totting huge tanks of water and long canvass hoses, rumble past. Men dressed in treated long coats, wearing thick helmets, and carrying gleaming axes began to spill off of the carriages, racing toward the door of the library. A voice cried out, and Oliver saw Sam dart in front of the men, her arms outstretched, trying to block their way. Cursing, Oliver ran after the brigade.
“You cannot go in there!” shrieked Sam.
“We have to, ma’am,” growled a man who must have been the leader of the brigade. “We have to get to the fire. That’s the spirits-blessed Church, woman! Move aside, or we’ll move you.”
“Hold,” demanded Oliver, skidding to a stop beside Sam. “I am Duke Oliver Wellesley. If this woman says stay outside, then stay outside. It’s for your own safety.”
“Wait a—”
“Sergeant, look at these people around the square,” said Oliver, pointing at a few of the victims. “Look at them hard before you decide you want to rush in and face what did that to them.”
“Sir…” mumbled one of the fire brigade, standing several paces behind his sergeant. Pale faced, the man watched as a blood-soaked woman stumbled into their carriage and fell, her hands gripping her face where her skin had been stripped away. A low moan escaped her lips, and the entire fire brigade stared at her wordlessly.
Oliver turned to Sam. “What’s in there?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was out here attacking people and ran inside when I arrived.”
“You didn’t go after it?” he asked.
She blinked at him then pointedly looked at the burning library. “It killed a score of people out here in moments and then ran into a burning building. Duke, I don’t know what the frozen hell it is. I don’t know how the fire got started. All I know is— Ah hells, I do know.”
“What?” he demanded.
“The uvaan,” said Sam. “The figurines you recovered from Imbon. A priest, a scholar I’d found, was in there studying an uvaan along with an Imbonese tablet I’d collected from your father. The prison and the key. Spirits forsake it, that fool Adriance let out a reaver!”
“Who let— A reaver? Someone let out a reaver?” questioned Oliver. He paused. “What’s a reaver?”
“I don’t know,” snarled Sam, glancing through the open library door at the flames dancing along the stacks of books.
“What do we do, m’lord?” asked the sergeant of the fire brigade.
“Smash the windows and put what water you can through them. Douse the nearby buildings so it doesn’t spread,” instructed Oliver. “Sergeant, make sure no one enters that building. If they do, they’ll die. Spread the word. Commander Branden Ostrander is coming with two companies of royal marines. Tell him… tell him it’s like what we faced in Farawk, off the atoll.”
“And what are we going to do?” questioned Sam.
Oliver drew his broadsword. “We’re going in.”
“Are you spirits-forsaken crazy!” cried Sam, pointing at the flames licking at the books and parchment inside the open doors. “We cannot follow whatever did this inside of there. It’ll… It’ll burn up in there, I’m pretty sure.”
“Do you know what’s on the other side of the Church’s library?” asked Oliver.
“The palace,” snapped Sam. She winced. “Oh.”
“My cousin died yesterday, and I’m not ready to lose another family member,” said Oliver. “Come on. We’re wasting time.”
He dashed up the marble stairs of the library to the massive, double height doors. He could feel the heat radiating from the growing fire. Stacks of books and shelves of rolled parchment were all flaring alight. The crackling of burning paper filled the room, and the flames cast an orange and red glow across all that he could see. Smoke billowed up, clouding the soaring, frescoed ceiling. Dancing embers floated through the air like fireflies on a warm spring evening.
“Hells,” muttered Sam, glancing behind them at the gawking people beginning to fill the square.
Oliver strode inside, holding a hand in front of his face in a vain attempt to keep the heat away and to shield his eyes from the flying embers. He ignored the bodies of priest
s that were scattered amongst the aisles and followed the wide pathway between the open stacks of books.
The core of the library, the grand hall, was filled with text after text of religious work — the Church’s doctrine, treatises on that doctrine, and critiques of anything ever written critical of the doctrine. Very little of it was ever read. It burned though, hot and fast, and Oliver broke into a run, racing between the shelves and feeling the heat of the fire sear his face.
At the far end of the hall was the opening to a passageway that led through a private section of the library and eventually to a courtyard, across which was the back entrance to the king’s palace.
Bodies littered the thick carpet they ran down. Throats were torn open, bones crushed, faces bashed in by sheer blunt force. Whatever he and Sam were chasing, it was no longer taking time to flay its victims. It was in a hurry, and as it’d run through, it had caused havoc amongst the people attempting to flee the burning building.
At the opposite end of the hall, Oliver could see several prone figures wearing the livery of the household guard. Halberds and swords lay scattered beside them, gleaming with polish, drawn but unbloodied.
“That thing could be in the palace by now!” cried Sam.
“I know,” he growled.
Then, he was flung like a child’s doll and tumbled across the floor, crashing into a shelf of burning scrolls.
“What the—” cried Sam. Then her voice was lost in a stream of unintelligible curses.
Oliver sprang to his feet, shaking off the ash and flames from a dozen burning manuscripts that had fallen on him, and his jaw dropped to his chest.
