Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley

by Danyl McLauchlan

What now? He had nowhere else to go, so the only thing was to hide and watch, and play the waiting game. Colin—if it was he—couldn’t lurk in the garden forever. Danyl would defeat the SSS through patience and quiet cunning.

  He lay prone on the pine needles. Sticks and rocks poked into his belly. A cool breeze swept through the trees and ravaged his body: Stasia’s stupid backless gown left him defenceless to the predations of the wind. Patience, he counselled himself.

  Several seconds passed. His stomach rumbled. He scratched in the dirt with his fingers.

  Patience.

  ‘Colin!’

  Danyl advanced through the trees, moving slowly across the broken terrain of his yard. He leaned on a pine branch, using it as a cane, and dragged his left foot behind him as he approached the startled cultist.

  He had become bored waiting for something to happen so had hit upon a new, even more perfect plan. Only a few hours ago Colin had seen him crawling away from Campbell’s tower, unable to walk. He’d never guess that Stasia healed him again—because, as previously established, that was impossible—so Danyl would feign injury and his wretched, crippled state would lull the young poet into a false sense of security, and then . . . well, he hadn’t exactly worked out every detail of this plan, but he was confident an opportunity would present itself.

  Colin looked up. He smiled and bookmarked his book. ‘The fat intruder,’ he said. ‘We meet again.’

  Danyl bowed, awkwardly. He hobbled across the garden, doing his best to ignore the pile of furniture lying broken in the hollows beneath the trees, and the glint of foil that identified the package hidden within. Colin fell into step beside him. ‘Hello again. Sorry about locking you in that closet.’

  ‘That is the least of your crimes. And I am the least of your problems. The police were here earlier. They’re looking for you too.’

  Danyl stopped. ‘The police?’

  ‘They say you assaulted an old man and stole someone’s clothes. Don’t worry. I told them we were friends and that you were hiding at the other end of the valley. You’re no use to the SSS in prison.’

  Danyl’s gaze fell upon his kitchen door. ‘So what happens now? Are there squads of cultists inside my house, waiting in ambush, ready to drag me back to the tower?’

  ‘There’s only me.’

  ‘And why are you here? Revenge? I’m already crippled.’ He indicated his crutch.

  ‘I’m here to negotiate with you on behalf of Campbell and our sacred Order. We’d like to make a deal with you.’ They stopped outside Danyl’s back door. Colin nodded towards it. ‘Shall we go in?’

  The kitchen was empty. It glowed with soft, milk-coloured light from the windows in the spare room overhead. The dishes from his power breakfast with Steve the previous morning still sat on the table, unwashed.

  Colin followed him inside and sat down. He saw the notes and diagrams spread across the table and regarded them without curiosity. Danyl shuffled over to the fridge. ‘Mind if I get something to eat?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Want some corn?’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  Danyl set the water onto boil and leaned against the bench. He smiled at Colin, who smiled back. Colin’s face was bruised and he kept one of his arms close to his chest, as if it were lame. Stasia’s dread handiwork. Danyl remembered her seizing Colin by the leg and hurling him through the air; the poet’s screams as he crashed into a crowd of his fellow cultists . . .

  ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on here?’ Danyl asked him. ‘Did Campbell tell you why I raided his tower last night? Did he reveal the identity of the woman who attacked you?’

  ‘He warned me that you would tell me lies about these things,’ Colin replied. ‘He didn’t want to burden me with knowledge I wasn’t ready for.’

  ‘Campbell is searching for something called the Priest’s Soul.’ Danyl poured frozen corn kernels into the steamer. ‘So is the woman who attacked you. He hasn’t told you about it because he wants it for himself. He’s just using you. You want proof?’ Danyl pointed up, indicating the gutted spare room above. ‘There’s your proof. Campbell and his SSS initiates tore that room apart looking for the Priest’s Soul. They’ve done the same to dozens of other houses around the valley. That’s the secret goal of your Order.’

  Colin looked up and inspected the carnage. ‘That isn’t proof. You could have wrecked your own room for any number of reasons.’

  ‘Like what?’

  He thought. ‘I can’t think of any,’ he admitted. ‘Did the SSS really do that?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘When I joined the Order he asked me if I could use a hand saw,’ Colin mused. ‘I thought it was strange at the time. And they’re searching for this Priest’s Heart?’

  ‘Soul,’ Danyl corrected. ‘The Priest’s Soul.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘Ah.’ Danyl clicked his fingers. ‘That’s the real question, isn’t it? Not where is it, but what is it? An archaeological relic? A cursed artefact? A weapon? An empty box? Do any of those searching for it even know what they seek?’

  ‘Do they know?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Danyl admitted. ‘I just know that I don’t know.’

  ‘If you don’t know what it is, then why are you looking for it?’

  Danyl ignored the question. ‘Why are you here? You spoke of negotiations. A deal. What could I have that Campbell would want?’

  ‘He said you have a letter.’

  ‘I stole a letter from his penthouse. That’s why I raided the tower.’ He took his corn off the stove and tipped it into a bowl. ‘But Stasia has it now. You’ll have to retrieve it from her. Good luck with that.’

  ‘Campbell said you have a second letter. A secret letter.’

  ‘Did he?’ Danyl tried to look casual. He salted his corn and spooned it into his mouth. How did Campbell know about the secret second letter? Was Stasia’s room bugged? Or had she betrayed him? Was she in league with Campbell after all?

  ‘If you do have this second letter I’m empowered to offer you an exchange. You surrender it to me, and the Order of Sapiens Sapiens Sapiens will overlook the flagrant act of aggression you committed against us last night and agree to a non-persecution treaty. If you refuse—’

  ‘I know,’ Danyl said wearily. ‘I’ll be destroyed.’

  ‘Campbell used the word annihilated. I’m not sure what the difference is.’

  Danyl chewed his corn. A plan was taking shape in his mind. He pretended to mull over Colin’s offer. ‘It seems I have no choice. The letter is yours. Wait here.’

  Heh heh heh heh. Danyl shut the door to his bedroom and hurried over to his bedside table. There, leaning against the wall, exactly where he left it, was the photo he had removed from the photo album four days ago, showing Wolfgang Bludkraft standing on the street outside his house. It was this photo, Danyl now recalled, that first aroused his suspicions and set him into the quest for the Priest’s Soul.

  He turned it over. The back was blank, yellowed with age. He picked up a pen from his dresser and thought for a moment, then wrote on it:

  February 14th, 1914

  Dear Jack,

  I hope this letter finds you well. Our cherished treasure is safe now. I’ve just returned from the holy site on Aro Street, where we safeguarded it deep underground, beside a large three-storey house on the north side of the valley, just past a sharp bend in the road. It will be safe there forever.

  All my love,

  Anna

  He cackled. These clues were just specific enough to lead Campbell to the current site of the Dolphin Cafe, the restaurant owned by Verity’s spiteful, prejudiced friend Eleanor. If his scheme worked, the SSS would descend on it in the small hours of the morning and excavate the entire outdoor dining area. Danyl hummed ‘The Danyl Song’ in anticipation, slipped the lett
er into an envelope and went downstairs.

  Colin awaited him in the kitchen. He looked up from his phone and said, ‘Campbell is pleased to hear you’ve listened to reason.’

  ‘What choice did I have?’

  ‘He also warns you that if you violate this agreement in any way—if you try to trick him, or pass the information in the letter onto any third parties, or even act on it yourself and attempt to thwart his search for the Priest’s Soul—then the pact will be null and void, and the terrible vengeance of the SSS will fall upon you.’

  ‘So noted.’ Danyl reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew the envelope and handed it to Colin, who checked the contents and then extended his hand. Danyl shuffled towards him, still leaning on his cane, feigning injury, and shook it.

  Colin narrowed his eyes and said, ‘You swear this isn’t a trick?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘You give me your word as a writer?’

  Danyl squeezed his hand. ‘My word as a writer.’

  He had bought himself some time. A few hours, a day at the most. After Colin left, Danyl returned to his kitchen, finished his corn, then changed into some normal clothes—Verity’s kimono and one of his finest grey T-shirts—and went out to the garden. He reached the pile of broken furniture, glanced around and then rummaged beneath it until he found the package wrapped in foil. He opened it, retrieved the Bludkraft book, then turned to the back and withdrew the photograph. He turned it over and reread the faint blue message on the back.

  February 12th, 1915

  Dear Jack,

  I hope you’ll agree this is a better picture. I hope you are well. It is late at night and this is the only time I have to myself. Our treasure is with us. As I write it keeps safely, underground, in the place prepared for it. We were prisoners who could not see our prison, now we are free. I can say no more—you will understand when you return.

  At dawn the Order meets at the well and proceeds to the temple. I think of you always. Stay safe.

  All my love,

  Anna

  It was much as he remembered it. The treasure was ‘underground, in the place prepared for it’. But there weren’t any other solid clues. He needed to read the other letter, the one Stasia had received from her starets and now guarded in her Wellness Centre.

  It was strange, now that he thought about it. How did the letters get split up in the first place? He walked back to his kitchen, deep in thought. They must have been in the box that the Satanist Sutcliffe Parsons stole from Pearl after her father died. But why didn’t Stasia’s starets know there was a second letter, containing more clues? And how did he come by the first letter while he was in a Siberian prison?

  Danyl pondered this mystery. He made a mental inventory of the box he had stolen from the fake Sutcliffe Parsons—who was he, and how did he obtain a box belonging to the real Sutcliffe Parsons?—and then he remembered the photo album. It had two empty frames, he recalled. Surely those corresponded to the two secret letters! That’s how Campbell figured out there was a second letter with more clues, and that it was in Danyl’s possession! Another mystery solved.

  He congratulated himself on this insight. He was making progress. All he had to do now was figure out how to get his hands on Stasia’s letter. Then the Priest’s Soul was his. Danyl!

  He entered the kitchen, stumbling a little on the top step, and a black-robed SSS cultist caught his arm and steadied him. Danyl said, ‘Thank you,’ then recoiled and looked about in alarm as more black-robed figures poured into the room, coming from the hallway, the bathroom, the pantry. The Campbell Walker sat at the kitchen table, Colin behind him. Campbell held the forged letter in his hands. He smiled at Danyl and then slowly tore the letter in half.

  ‘Just for future reference, he said, ‘they didn’t have ball-point pens back in 1915.’

  ‘Well, obviously I didn’t know that.’

  Campbell leaned back in the chair, rested his leather boots on the table and gestured to a cultist, who snatched the book from Danyl’s grasp, fanned through it and drew forth the letter, which he handed to Campbell.

  ‘I swore to destroy you if you betrayed me again, writer. But your attempt to defraud me was so adorably clumsy I don’t have the heart to be wroth. And you’ve brought me this.’ He held up the letter. ‘Behold, my brothers. The final piece in the puzzle. This will allow us to achieve the final, secret goal of the SSS. A goal which I have yet to reveal to any of you, admittedly. Many of you did not know we even had a secret goal. But the time for revelation is almost at hand.’

  He took his reading glasses from a pocket inside his robe, put them on and inspected the letter, examining first the photograph on the front and then turning to the handwritten message.

  ‘Dear Jack,’ he read aloud. ‘Blah blah blah. Here we go: Our treasure is with us. It keeps safely underground . . . I knew it!’ He pounded the kitchen table. Danyl jumped. ‘Underground! That peasant witch Stasia was wrong. The Priest’s Soul isn’t inside a house. If it were it would have been found decades ago by some imbecile home handyman refitting his den. It’s buried somewhere. She had us looking in the wrong place!’

  He shook his head in disgust and returned to the letter. ‘We were prisoners . . . At dawn we meet at the well and proceed to the temple. That must mean the old Epuni well, and the temple to Hermes that the pervert teacher rebuilt. You see,’ he sneered at Danyl, ‘these are just meaningless riddles to a dabbling, interfering buffoon like you, but those of us steeped in these mysteries can—’

  ‘Actually I know all about the well and the temple.’

  ‘Silence. I’m trying to think.’ Campbell reread the letter, his brow creased. Danyl and the cultists waited in an expectant hush, as the expression on Campbell’s face darkened. Eventually he said, speaking more to the letter than the crowd, ‘But there’s nothing new here. This barely adds anything to the first letter. Oh, it says the Priest’s Soul is hidden underground somewhere, but it doesn’t say where.’ He tapped his finger against the edge of the card. ‘But the two cards combined must lead to the Priest’s Soul, otherwise there’s no need to separate them.’

  ‘I was wondering about that myself,’ Danyl said.

  ‘Silence, fool. I need to think. I’m missing some crucial detail.’ He turned the letter over and over with the tips of his fingers. ‘Some tiny, vital—’ He stopped. He examined both sides again. He smiled.

  ‘What?’ Danyl craned his neck forward to see the letter. ‘Did you see something?’

  Campbell dismissed him with a flick of his eyes. ‘Colin?’

  ‘Yes, Deputy High Hierophant?’ Colin rested his hand on his master’s chair.

  ‘I think you can address me as High Hierophant from now on. The previous holder of that title has forfeited her right to it.’

  ‘Of course, High Hierophant.’

  ‘You have pleased me, Colin. Return to the tower, assemble the rest of the brethren, gather ye picks and shovels from the storeroom and load them into the van.’ His gaze swept the crowd. ‘External Security?’ Three of the largest black-robed figures stepped forward and Campbell gestured towards Danyl. ‘Take this silly writer to the Epuni well. He claims to know all about it. Give him a closer look. Maybe there’s something at the bottom he missed.’ He picked up the letter and fanned himself with it, smiling beatifically. ‘Then call me for further instructions. There is much to be done. Time’s entropic arrow flies ever onwards, and we have a Priest’s Soul to excavate.’

  32

  The Campbell Walker triumphant

  Escape was not impossible. That was the worst part.

  The stones at the bottom of the well were rough and Danyl could climb halfway to the top if he braced himself against the sides. Then he could stretch out his hands and grasp the rim—but his grip couldn’t find purchase and there were no more footholds: he could go no further. He simply didn’t have the upper-b
ody strength to pull himself up.

  A real man could escape this well in a matter of seconds, he thought wretchedly as he squatted in the mud at the bottom of the shaft. But then, a real man wouldn’t have curled into a foetal ball when Campbell’s cultists tackled him in his kitchen. A real man wouldn’t have let those hulking goons bundle him into the back of their van and drive him to the top of Epuni Street and then march him along the path to the well. And a real man would not have stood by meekly while they prised the cap off the well with crowbars.

  And would a real man have burst into tears when they ordered him to climb inside and lower himself into the darkness, and instead fallen bawling into the dirt and so he had to be lifted to his feet and helped to walk the rest of the way while he sobbed helplessly? Would he have begged the cultists not to leave him alone in the dark after they had lowered him into the well?

  Perhaps not. Perhaps not.

  Danyl shivered. The night was warm, but it was cool in the depths, and he was dressed lightly in his T-shirt and Verity’s green kimono. Moisture from the muddy bottom oozed into his shoes and soaked his socks. So now his feet were wet. This was intolerable.

  Danyl growled. He didn’t enter the well like a man but, he vowed, he would leave it like one. He crouched—a coiled panther—and then clambered up the wall and leaped, grabbing hold of the lip of the well. His fingernails clawed against the stone, his damp feet slapped against the sides. He roared, a predatory beast. Grunting, straining, he grasped the outside edge of the well, holding fast on the rough bricks, and pulled himself out of the darkness and up into the twilight. His arms shook, sweat poured from his brow and he gave a savage howl of triumph that turned into a cry of despair when the brick came loose in his hand sending him tumbling back to the bottom of the well.

  He sat in the soft mud, his hands submerged to the wrists, whimpering.

  This went on for some time.

  He was trapped. There was no way out. No hope of rescue. Stasia would never find him; Steve wouldn’t even think to look. There was no possibility of escape. Danyl was imprisoned in the well at Campbell’s dark pleasure. And so he wept at the futility of his plight. He wept until his eyes were red; he wept until his tears mingled with the fetid waters of the well.