Horsemen of Old

by Krishnarjun Bhattacharya

  22

  There was a man, and he wore a hood. ‘Let me,’ Gray mumbled weakly. ‘Let me go.’

  A lamp burned. A strong smell, chemical. The room was small, the roof low. Claustrophobia. A bed, white walls. The hooded figure turned to look at him. ‘You are not a prisoner,’ the voice whispered. Hoarse, strained. Nothing else was said, but that was enough for Gray to admit sleep. When he woke again—he did not know after how long—there was a wooden ladle in front of him, something warm swirling in its hollow. He sipped. Another ladleful of it, a gloved hand holding it firm. He sipped again and again until he was full. Then he slept.

  The burning woke him. His chest. It was bandaged, and he felt it again and again, the firm bandage, like a tougher skin. It reassured him. He tried to get up once or twice, and then he gave up. These were the healing days, Gray thought. Days spent nursing the body, days with nothing to do, dreamless and faint, with stabs of pain. The frog man’s cave, the traveller’s lodge, now this, wherever it was, all healing days, a part of the system, a necessary waste of time. If one were to fight, one would bleed. He did not like the fact that he was alone. He was lonely, he felt lonely, and as his mind healed, he realised Fayne and Zabrielle’s absence wasn’t a good thing. Then the assassin walked in one day.

  ‘Sleep, myrkho,’ he said.

  ‘What in God’s name does myrkho mean?’ Gray mumbled.

  ‘Someday, I shall tell you.’

  It felt like a year, perhaps a couple of years, but the day Gray got to his feet he was told it had only been three days. He had fought off a poison, one his father dried in his wolf nails. He was lucky, very lucky. And his immune system was strong. He walked out of the room with Fayne, asking about Zabrielle, but he was cut short by the sight that awaited him.

  It was a city, a white city. He had walked out into a terrace, a large one, overlooking a white city existing in darkness, with a giant, giant hanging torch acting as the only illumination, like a small sun.

  ‘Zaleb Khadd,’ Fayne said.

  There were buildings that had been homes, buildings that had been watch towers, but everything was now deserted, empty. It was also silent, and Fayne’s grunt echoed across the black chasm that seemed to surround the city. The white buildings reminded Gray of New Kolkata immediately, but the architecture was different, like nothing he had ever seen before—bizarre, uneven, almost futuristic—large segments becoming shapes, segments purely visual, giant curves and arches and extensions fitting unnecessarily into each other, a visual treat. An enormous spiral staircase awaited them, and they began descending.

  ‘Where was it? How did you find it?’ Gray asked.

  ‘We had help. The city is beneath the stones, beneath the courtyard.’

  At the base of the staircase was a long road, straight, white, the same white dust moving as they moved. Ahead of them stood two figures, talking to each other in the distant, powerful torchlight. Zabrielle. And the hooded man. Gray met Zabrielle with a great joy, and she hugged him as one missed.

  ‘Forgive me, young Gray,’ she said into his ear. ‘One tried to visit you, but there are rules here.’

  Gray, surprised by the hug and the rush of affection he felt for her, for seeing that she was alive and well, could only nod. He also noticed she was carrying his backpack. ‘Who . . . who are you?’ he turned and asked the stranger.

  ‘Someone who still walks on the ancient bones of the cursed city, amidst the shadows,’ he said in a low, low voice. Gray had to strain to hear him.

  ‘My companions trust you,’ Gray said, ‘and I realise you’ve saved my life. And normally, that should be enough. But not today.’

  ‘You saved your own life,’ the man said in his hushed voice. ‘It was impossible. To find the poison. Administer the antidote. All so quickly. I only treated your wound, your body’s immune system killed the venom.’

  ‘My immune system? Really?’

  The hooded man nodded. ‘Never seen anything like it,’ he said.

  ‘My immune system has always sucked, man,’ Gray shook his head. ‘I kept getting the common cold for years, it can’t fight off poison. Tell me what you’ve really done! Who are you?’

  The hooded man nodded again. ‘So be it,’ he whispered, and his hands slowly drew back his hood. Gray had already noticed his long nails, and now he saw a new face, one the likes of which he hadn’t seen before. He was young, still young, the man—his face had neither wrinkle nor blemish; it was the face of a human, good looking, untidy hair, fair, fair skin that seemed blue in the light, and sharp, eastern features with a protruding chin—but then there were the horns. They grew out of his forehead, like Ba’al’s and Zabrielle’s and twisted upwards, pointing backwards, scaly and reptilian. He was a Darkchild.

  ‘My name is Daan,’ he moaned, ‘the Whisperer.’

  ‘No way,’ Gray said.

  Daan bowed. ‘And it is an honour, Spider Lord.’

  Gray glanced at Fayne. ‘I didn’t imagine hearing that,’ he said softly. ‘My mother, then.’

  ‘Daughter of the Spider King, Ardak. There is much you do not know, but we do not have the time. We must walk.’ He turned abruptly and started down the white road. Gray did not move, frozen until Zabrielle put a hand on his shoulder. He jerked out of his stupor then, and hurried to catch up with Daan.

  ‘Why is there no time?’ Fayne asked.

  ‘I have received word that the Horseman Death is on his way,’ Daan mumbled, walking fast.

  ‘Tell me about my mother,’ Gray said, walking alongside, his chest hurting.

  ‘I will tell you of your lineage. You are a Spider Lord, descendant of Aasa, the bold and beautiful, and of Ardak, the great Spider himself. You hold power, but you are also a sworn enemy of the Horsemen, all because of a blood feud. A feud that never really ended, but was merely put on hold, as your entire clan went to sleep.’

  ‘This sleep thing again! How long can they possibly sleep? Can I wake them?’

  ‘You and your sister are the only ones who can. But your grandfather has chosen you to bear his great gift and curse, and it falls to you, this task of the awakening.’

  Robbed of sleep we are

  Under your fair heels, my master, your horde

  Awaken us so we may rest

  Every sharpened sword

  ‘I get it, but I’m so damn confused!’ Gray swore angrily. ‘I deserve a longer explanation, I need more time!’

  ‘We do not have much. I know why you are here. I am taking you to meet the only other being who resides here.’

  ‘The Keeper,’ Zabrielle said quietly, feeling the soul gem against her bosom.

  ‘How do you know so much about me? What did Ardak plan for me?’ Gray asked in exasperation. He hated the Horseman in that moment, hated him for cranking up the pressure. He hated his father for using the poison, without which he would’ve had three more days to ask his questions.

  ‘I support balance,’ Daan said. ‘I am a Shade now, a soldier of darkness—but I know light and its power. You must walk the path of the light, even as your sister walks in shadow. There are grave injustices that happen in every world, no matter how much we try to improve upon it—and I act, have forever acted upon what I have felt to be right.’ He paused and took a turn. They walked down another white road, under giant arches that led towards an enormous gateway.

  ‘Melas and I, we have supported the Spider King out of personal choice,’ he continued, ‘and I have watched over you, as the Dwam Stalker had, long before this.’

  ‘I saw you once,’ Gray said, remembering. ‘On the Howrah Bridge. You were watching us. Then you blinked.’

  ‘We all must do what we must do,’ Daan said. They reached a stairway leading down, deeper into the city, a stairway so wide an army could have marched down in a single horizontal file.

  ‘What happened with the lobos?’

  ‘Later. There is no time for that now.’

  ‘What is our plan now, then?’

  Daan stopped. Then
he turned and faced Gray, still not meeting his eyes. ‘You must talk to the Keeper, Spider Lord. You must conclude your business with him, finish what you came here for. I, in the meanwhile, will arrange your transport out of here. If the Horseman arrives, everything that we have worked for will burn. I am powerless to stop Death.’

  ‘I wish the Leviathan would eat Death,’ Gray swore.

  ‘But before I escort you to the Forgotten Door, there is one last thing. Something Ardak wishes you to have.’

  They entered a hall, a gigantic place which would have looked beautiful if not for the lack of light. The singular lantern outside lent shades of light within, through holes in the wall and the broken roof. Daan blinked to the end of the hall, to a pedestal, snatching something off it rather ungraciously, and blinked back with a burst of darkness.

  ‘This,’ he said, handing Gray the ring from his dreams. It was small, made of ivory, the symbol of the eye with the spiral engraved within.

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It wakes,’ Daan said simply, and swept off again, the others following hurriedly.

  ‘I’ve got to study my culture,’ Gray mumbled, turning the ring over in his hand before slipping it into a pocket. It was difficult wearing a ring with one hand, and Gray wouldn’t bother with the embarrassment right now. ‘My damn new culture. I don’t know anything about the Spider Clan.’

  ‘You and your sister are living proof they ever existed,’ Daan breathed. ‘That, and the ring. Of course, the Araakh, the ebb blade, the one that turned the Tantric Adri Sen to dust, that was your grandfather’s weapon. Fate is strange.’

  A small passage and they were out of the hall, on dim, dark streets, past empty houses and courtyards of marble and stone. More stairs. More twists and sudden turns. A labyrinth. Their guide walked without pause, without needing to be sure, without stumbling in the dark.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to the Keeper,’ Gray blurted. ‘Ba’al had mentioned reasoning with him, tricking him if we had to.’

  ‘Do you know what to say to Ba’al?’

  Gray was taken aback. ‘What?’

  ‘As far as Ba’al is concerned, Spider Lord, I do not exist. You do not breathe a word of my existence here to the Demon Commander.’

  Gray glanced at Zabrielle, but her face was a mask. ‘She knows,’ Daan said, ‘and she has agreed to keep my secret.’

  ‘Then I agree too, though I must know why.’

  ‘There is no time here for old stories of friendship and destruction. I am not the enemy, neither is Ba’al. The enemy is time.’

  ‘You’ve certainly got a flair for drama, Whisperer.’

  ‘We are all slaves of time,’ Zabrielle said. ‘Ekt Mish Rjhem.’

  ‘Rjhem Si Oshh,’ Daan said. ‘Time creates the great theatre.’

  ‘Tell me about the Keeper, dammit,’ Gray said.

  ‘I will tell you this,’ Daan said. ‘You underestimate yourself. You are a Spider Lord, heir to Ardak’s empire, a powerful warrior and a beacon of truth. Do not be afraid when you talk.’

  ‘All that? Wow. No. I got my ass handed to me in a fight back there. By my own father, no less.’

  ‘All great power has one thing in common, Spider Lord,’ Daan said.

  ‘What?’ Gray asked.

  ‘It needs to awaken.’

  Gray thought it was a rather clever pun on his responsibility, his newfound burden of having to awaken his entire clan from its collective siesta, but he let it pass. The Forgotten Door loomed before them. It stood at the deepest point in the entire city, a great door of stone, white like everything else. No inscriptions, no Abandon All Hope declaring dread. A plain white door, just large, ominously large. The giant footprint outside and the large sizes of everything here made Gray nervous. He dared not ask how tall the Keeper would be.

  The doors opened then, silently, without the aching groans and the shaking of the earth one would expect—a silent welcome that was perhaps more unnerving, the quietness of it all, like an inaudible whisper from beyond the grave. There was another passage, and lights flickered in the distance.

  ‘Go on,’ Daan said hoarsely. ‘He expects you.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I shall join you after I prepare your exit route.’ Daan produced a small, silver pocket watch from his robes and checked it.

  ‘How long can I talk?’ Gray asked. ‘I mean, with the Horseman approaching—’

  ‘A conversation with the Keeper is never too long,’ Daan said, and left. Gray looked after him for a moment before looking at the others. ‘And how much of all that did you guys already know?’

  ‘Some,’ Fayne shrugged. Zabrielle looked apologetic.

  Gray shook his head and faced the open door again. The corridor ended in another hall, much like Ba’al’s library, had Gray seen it, except it was a library of a different kind. All they could see were souls. Hundreds of thousands of souls, in soul gems of different sizes and shapes, all stacked up on walls ascending to impossible heights. The shelves held bronze plates beneath, a small tag, a name and nothing else, all in a hundred thousand aisles around them. They spun and swam and circled in their gems, the souls, all looking down on them, three insignificant beings amidst this universe of the bodiless. Torches burned everywhere, and the gems reflected and winked at them as they walked and stared, transfixed, powerless. There was nothing else here, nothing but the souls and the torches. The air smelled clean, sterilised, the torches did not give off the stench of burning.

  Gray stopped and turned to Zabrielle. ‘Protect Adri, no matter what,’ he said. ‘Do you understand? The Keeper cannot take him.’

  Zabrielle nodded, and then her eyes went wide, looking past Gray. He turned around. A figure was gliding towards them.

  Of course it was the Keeper, there was no one else here, but the sight still scared Gray. The Keeper towered over them at nine feet. He was dressed in a black hooded robe like Daan. His arms were crossed, hands resting inside opposite sleeves, and the bottom of his robe dragged along the floor as he smoothly glided towards them, a mass of moving, slithering robes. There was no noise here, only a silence, a silence that they noticed now.

  Then Gray threw his chest out, his neck straight, and faced the advancing creature with both feet firm on the ground. It stopped, mercifully, a little distance away. Its hooded face slowly looked up at them, and Gray saw the eyes. Two slit like eyes, glowing a profane purple. Everything else within the hood remained unseen.

  Gray took it all in with a deep breath. Here he was, facing the Keeper, the legendary Keeper of souls, at long last, something that had started off as Maya’s idea and turned into his conviction, his burden. Here he was. This was his one chance, his one moment to make it all count, to make Adri come back. There was no room for the slightest error.

  Nothing happened as the two parties studied each other. Gray suddenly realised, amidst his awe and fear, that he did not have his shotgun with him, nor had he seen Fayne’s khopesh. Zabrielle would have her ghost swords, but he knew combat was not the answer. Combat would be a grave mistake.

  The Keeper spoke then. Sharp, rather penetrating, his voice made Gray intensely uncomfortable. There was something about it, something moody, it turned and twisted around in its own amused fashion. It took some time for Gray to realise that the Keeper had spoken directly in his mind, like a voice inside his head, maintaining the silence of the Soul Library.

  ‘Spider Lord. Why are you here?’

  Gray looked up at the towering figure. Tall, lean, hands still hidden. ‘Keeper,’ he said, bowing. ‘I must ask for your help.’

  ‘That is no excuse,’ the Keeper said in his mind again. Gray realised what Mazumder must have felt like. ‘Too much work. You waste my time.’

  A touch of hostility. Gray had to be careful. This could not be allowed to go south. ‘Forgive me if I have offended you,’ Gray said. ‘My lifespan crumbles before your eternal self. This is not a trip I could have made in my old age.’

 
; ‘I don’t care much for flattery,’ the Keeper said, now clearly displeased.

  Gray dropped the polite voice. ‘Fine, I’ll be honest with you then. I need you to restore a soul to a body.’

  There was a strange sound, a sound akin to the vibration of a guitar string long after it has been plucked, at least that was what Gray made of it, before he saw the other shape emerge out of the Keeper’s robes, from somewhere deep within its folds. A shape, an arm, the hood, cloth turning, warping—another Keeper. A mirror image, similar in every aspect. It emerged and floated off. Gray stared.

  ‘Ignore him. We have work. This way I can tend to your problem.’

  Gray saw Zabrielle nod slightly and realised the Keeper was speaking to all three of them. Good. At least he seemed more interested now that Gray had mentioned soul. Gray wondered if he should ask the favour directly, or if he should skirt around the topic for some time, know more about the process.

  ‘Where is the body?’ the Keeper asked first. ‘Have you brought it with you?’

  ‘What body?’ Gray asked.

  ‘The body that the soul belongs to, the soul gem the Demon carries.’

  Gray glanced at Zabrielle, preparing his reply. The soul gem was hidden, but he had sensed it. Of course the Keeper would sense it, what was he expecting?