The Spirit of Solstice

by Charlotte E. English

  ‘Excuse me,’ she murmured and rose from her chair, the wan shade of Kish vanishing into smoke with her movement. ‘One moment.’ She lit a second lantern and took it with her as she left the room, leaving the first on the table at Konrad’s elbow.

  This was more promising than Konrad had dared hope, and he hardly dared hope now. He waited in painful suspense as minutes ticked by in darkness and silence, an insistent weariness beating at the back of his mind.

  She hasn’t run off, has she? Eetapi’s question slithered through Konrad’s thoughts like a chill breeze, and he shivered.

  Why would she run off? hissed her brother. This is her house.

  Ootapi, go and check.

  You go and check!

  ‘Silence,’ muttered Konrad.

  Eetapi grumbled something slithery and mutinous, but fortunately it was pitched too low for Konrad to hear. He chose to pretend that he had heard nothing at all.

  Mrs. Halim came back into the room, her arrival taking Konrad by surprise, for he had heard no footfall announcing her approach. She moved silently indeed in her soft cloth slippers. She said nothing, but put a book into Konrad’s hands as she passed, and returned to her chair.

  Konrad’s heart beat faster with hope. The volume was slim, the leather smooth beneath his fingers. He held it up to the low lamplight: crimson-red binding, deeply engraved lettering.

  Lost Folklore of Kayesir.

  Konrad clutched the book tighter, lest the sudden tremor in his hands cast it tumbling to the ground. ‘This is more than I imagined possible,’ he whispered. ‘Thank you.’

  He knew the question was coming, of course. ‘Why do you seek this book?’ said Mrs. Halim. ‘And what became of the other copy?’

  Konrad spent a few silent moments in thought. How much should he tell her? Hers was a sharp mind; if he tried to lie, she would soon spot the holes in his story. But how much of the truth could he afford to reveal to her?

  ‘Did you hear of the robbery of the Volkov Library, last week?’ he began.

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Of course.’

  ‘This is the book that was taken.’

  ‘And subsequently burned.’

  ‘Yes. It was destroyed by the man who took it, though I do not know why.’

  To his surprise, Mrs. Halim shook her head, her lips tightening. ‘No. Ivorak Nasak would never have burned that book.’

  Konrad was too surprised to speak. He could only stare, flabbergasted.

  ‘Yes, I knew Ivorak,’ she continued, answering one of his several unspoken questions. ‘He came to me in search of this book, but I did not give him my copy. He tried to take it, but found my house harder to rob than he had imagined. I did not see him again after that. When, two days later, the Volkov Library was robbed, I was not surprised to see Ivorak’s face in the paper, and it was not difficult to guess which book he was looking for.’

  ‘Did he say why he wanted the book?’

  ‘Not in so many words. But he was afraid, and angry. He spoke of a threat, a danger thought lost but as alive as ever. I believe he expected to find some manner of evidence for it in the book.’

  ‘He was from Kayesir,’ said Konrad slowly.

  Mrs. Halim merely nodded.

  ‘You have read this book, of course.’

  ‘Long ago. I read it afresh, after Mr. Nasak’s visit.’

  ‘Do you know what was the danger he spoke of? Is it discussed herein?’

  Mrs. Halim’s confidences appeared to be at an end, for she regarded Konrad narrowly and did not answer. Instead she said: ‘You are most insistent upon this topic, Mr. Savast, and the significance of the unfashionable hour of your visit has not escaped me. You spoke of urgency.’

  ‘Why was this book burned?’ he countered. ‘If Ivorak did not destroy it, who did?’ He had not forgotten Nuritov’s theory that the killer had burned it instead, but he wanted Mrs. Halim’s ideas.

  ‘Mr. Nasak was afraid,’ she repeated. ‘He imagined himself followed. Hunted. Whether there was any truth to his fears, I do not know.’

  ‘He is dead.’

  Konrad had hoped to surprise Mrs. Halim with so blunt a statement, to shake her impeccable composure. He succeeded, to some extent; her next words died on her lips, whatever they might have been, and her lips parted in shock. ‘How did he die?’ she said, so softly he could barely hear her.

  ‘He was found with his throat torn out.’

  He received the impression that this piece of information did not surprise her at all. Rather, it confirmed a fear; he had said exactly what she was hoping he would not say. Her eyes closed briefly, and she swallowed. ‘Poor man,’ she said at last.

  Konrad did not mention the laughter. Considering the absolute lack of mirth Ivorak had displayed at the library, Konrad could not readily account for the laughter. Perhaps it had been hysteria.

  Mrs. Halim watched him carefully. She appeared to sense that there was more to the story; she awaited it with, he thought, some trepidation.

  ‘I saw his corpse,’ Konrad continued. ‘And I saw him once more, after that. For a dead man, he was unusually talkative.’

  Konrad was certain he did not imagine the flash of fear he saw in her eyes. ‘He rose?’ she whispered.

  ‘He was perambulatory, chatty. Decidedly lively, for a murdered man. And, I would say, in utter despair.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Mrs. Halim spoke calmly, but she gripped the arms of her chair so tightly that her hands shook.

  ‘I do not know. I encountered him at the Volkov Library; I believe he followed me there. I have not seen him since.’

  Kavara Halim visibly composed herself. Kish reappeared in her lap, purring brokenly, and she lifted one hand to caress the cat’s decaying, incorporeal head. ‘Read that book, Mr. Savast,’ she said softly. ‘I direct you in particular to the sixth chapter. Read it quickly, and soon.’

  ‘Will you not tell me what you fear?’

  ‘The book will tell you, far better than I can.’

  Konrad nodded, and rose from his chair. He bowed to Mrs. Halim, and tucked the book into his pocket. ‘I will return your book,’ he promised.

  ‘I am more concerned that you should stop the… man, that pursued Ivorak Nasak. And killed him.’

  Konrad regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I shall do my best,’ he promised, aware that in doing so he was confirming her unvoiced suspicion: Konrad Savast, of Bakar House, was no mere idle gentleman at all. ‘Do you know anything else that might assist me? Anything about Ivorak?’

  ‘Ivorak was made prey, but he was a hunter first. He sought to prove the existence of this so-called “lost” threat, and in so doing, he drew its notice. Be very careful, Mr. Savast.’

  He bowed. ‘I am no prey,’ he assured her, and withdrew. Mrs. Halim did not follow.

  Eetapi dashed ahead of him to the door. That was a good parting line!

  Thank you, said Konrad modestly. It was, wasn’t it?

  Ootapi’s shimmering tail lashed with disapproval. Over dramatic.

  Sweet, delicious drama, said Eetapi on a dreamy sigh.

  Konrad let himself out of Mrs. Halim’s house, and gently shut the door behind himself.

  Immediately he encountered a problem. Snow had been falling, softly but steadily, ever since the sun had set on Solstice Eve. While he had been in Kavara Halim’s house, the snowfall had become a blizzard, and a deep drift of snow was beginning to pile up around the steps.

  ‘Great,’ Konrad muttered. ‘To think I could be home in bed right now, fast asleep.’

  He had not gone more than three steps from the door when Tasha appeared, looming out of the snow-struck darkness so abruptly that Konrad nearly screamed. She was moving at a dead run.

  ‘Nuritov sent me,’ she panted. ‘Tavern near the Darks. Two dead.’

  Konrad did not need to wait for more details. Two with their throats torn out, killed while he sat chatting with Mrs. Halim. ‘Which tavern?’

  ‘Crow’s Foot.’

  We g
o, Konrad called to the serpents, and away they flew.

  Cloak clutched close against the driving snow, Konrad followed as fast as he could, Tasha by his side.

  Chapter Eight

  The Crow’s Foot was more improved than otherwise by the heavy snow cover, for the thick, pristine white hid the general decay of its exterior. Approaching the building at as near to a run as he could manage against the force of a driving, snow-choked wind, Konrad found his mark by way of the tavern’s creaking sign, displaying a glossy black crow with only one leg.

  He threw open the stout oak door and dashed inside, Tasha quick upon his heels.

  The scene inside was horrific. Most of the tavern’s patrons had, presumably, fled. The two remaining lay in the centre of the floor, throats torn open, their torsos soaked in crimson blood. They were both men, middle-aged: labourers, judging from their weather-roughened faces and hands.

  Inspector Nuritov stood with Nanda a little ways off, some two or three of his men around him. And there was another woman, Konrad belatedly noted. She wore the same calibre of clothing as the two dead men, coarse cotton much patched up. Her face was wet with tears, and she trembled with fright. The barkeep stood behind his bar, ashen-faced.

  ‘Revelry was going on late,’ Nuritov said to Konrad in lieu of a greeting. ‘The season, you know. A man came in, ordered ale, but sat a time without drinking it—’

  The barkeep interrupted. ‘He tried it. Took a sip an’ spat it out again. My ale ain’t that bad!’

  Nuritov nodded acknowledgement of the interjection. ‘Sat a while with his drink and then… went mad.’

  ‘Savage, like a wild beast,’ said the teary-eyed woman, and she wrung her shaking hands together as she spoke. ‘Went at Yegor and tore out his throat with his hands, just like that, and then Iosif, too. And then…’ She could not seem to continue, fell silent with a gulp.

  ‘And then?’ prompted Konrad, as gently as he could.

  ‘You will think me mad,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then the gent will have to think both of us mad,’ said the barkeep. ‘I saw it, too. Turned into some kind of beast, he did, but it weren’t no living animal. You could see right through it.’

  ‘A wolf,’ whispered the woman. ‘A ghost wolf. It — it drank blood from Yegor and Iosif and then howled, the most horrible sound I ever heard. Then it ran out the door, and we never saw it again.’

  ‘Konrad,’ said Nuritov. ‘It was Ivorak. The man they are speaking of was Ivorak Nasak.’

  Ivorak was made prey, but he was a hunter first.

  Konrad dragged the book from his pocket, fumbled through the pages. Sixth chapter, sixth chapter…

  There. Ilu-Vakatim. Nightwolves. The chapter was short; he read it in haste, and the pieces came together at last.

  ‘Konrad?’ said Nanda, bemused. ‘You are… reading?’

  ‘It’s the book,’ he answered absently. ‘The one that was burned.’

  Nanda was at his side in an instant, demanding sight of the text. He handed it over. ‘Ivorak came here hunting something,’ Konrad told Nanda, Nuritov and Tasha. ‘Someone. A person afflicted with what the Kayesiri call the moon curse. As the moon waxes, such a person experiences changes to their physique. Subtle at first: a lengthening and sharpening of the teeth and nails, a growing hunger that no food can satisfy. At full moon, a total transformation occurs — into a nightwolf, a ghostwolf, a feral creature with no thought for anything but to devour blood and flesh. Preferably human.

  ‘I think that Ivorak knew such a person. He followed him here, perhaps hoping to destroy him. Instead, he was killed — and turned. He’s a nightwolf himself, now, and out of control. That’s what happened to these two men.’ He stared an instant at the lifeless, bloodied shapes upon the floor, and amended his ideas a little further. ‘I think he killed the others, too. Nightwolves are said to enjoy enhanced senses of all kinds, in particular to be able to discern the relative health of a living human body. Probably in order that they can choose the liveliest, healthiest targets, but I think Ivorak did the opposite. He was at Parel’s Bridge, he saw Albina there. He sensed that Albina was dying; that’s why he chose her, crazed for food as he was. Maybe Illya was sick, too.’

  ‘Yegor weren’t sick,’ said the tearful woman. ‘Iosif neither.’

  ‘He is losing his grip on himself, I fear.’ The picture they had painted of Ivorak was of a man in despair, and losing control of himself. He ought not to have come to the Crow’s Foot at all, but he had, and he had left two slain men behind when he’d fled.

  Konrad looked at Tasha. ‘Where would Ivorak go, if he wanted to get away from people? Was there somewhere he lived, in any sense? Somewhere he felt safe?’

  ‘I don’t know! I hardly knew him!’

  ‘It’s important, Tash. Think.’

  With a short sigh, Tasha tore the dark cap off her head and turned it distractedly in her hands. ‘He was at Parel’s Bridge so much, I wondered if he ever really left the area. If he lives anywhere, I’d bet it’s somewhere near the bridge.’

  ‘Good, Tasha. Thank you.’ He looked at Nanda, who was still intent upon the book. ‘Nan, I think we will need you.’

  She tucked the book into a pocket of her coat, and nodded. ‘I’m with you.’

  Konrad raised an enquiring brow at Nuritov, who hesitated. Then he gestured with his pipe towards the door. ‘Your territory, not mine. I’ll clean up here.’

  He was right: with no supernatural powers of any kind to draw upon, Nuritov would have little to contribute, and he would be in considerable danger. ‘Wise,’ Konrad said. ‘I’ll report soon.’

  With that, he went out the door and back into the night. The blizzard had lessened somewhat, to his relief; even the heavy cloud cover had cleared in patches, revealing a glimpse of a fat, silver moon…

  ‘We’d better run,’ said Konrad. ‘Will you run with me?’

  They knew what he meant; they had witnessed it before. Both women nodded, and Konrad took their hands in his own.

  Then he cast off his guards once more, let his mask of sober gentility fade, became the Malykant in all his terrible might. Setting his face to the frigid wind, he began to walk. His strides lengthened and lengthened, until his legs ate up an impossible stretch of ground with every step.

  When he ran, he outpaced the wind.

  Five in the morning, and the revelry at Parel’s Bridge had finally run its course. The bridge itself was lost in shadow, but a scattering of inert figures lay prone in the snow around it, some mere inches away from falling off the bank and hitting the frozen river beyond. Breathless, Konrad ran from person to person, shaking them, brushing snow from their blue faces. They were only drunk, unconscious, not dead. He was relieved, but his relief was short-lived, for if they were not dead yet, they would die of exposure before long.

  He hesitated, torn. He could not leave them, but Ivorak was a more pressing problem.

  ‘Go,’ Nanda said. ‘Find Ivorak. I will deal with these, and follow soon.’

  Konrad and Tasha ran on, Eetapi and Ootapi riding the swirling currents of the winds overhead. Parel’s Bridge was one of the oldest in Ekamet, and it had not been well maintained. Konrad could hear its aged timbers creaking as he approached, could almost see it swaying under the onslaught of the weather. Few were fool enough to try to cross it.

  ‘We’re going over,’ Konrad said to Tasha.

  ‘In this weather! Are you crazy!’ She had to shout to make herself heard over the wind.

  ‘The river is frozen,’ Konrad yelled back.

  Tasha eyed the dark, looming shape of the bridge with clear misgivings. The river was wide here, and the bridge arched up high… ‘It’s a long drop! I may be undead but I can still hurt.’

  ‘Then we will have to be intrepid, won’t we?’ Konrad sent the serpents on ahead, with instructions to scout for gaps, missing planks or other dangers. Then he mustered his courage — for Tasha was right, crossing such a bridge on such a night, when he could barely
see two feet in front of his face, was foolhardy — and stepped onto the bridge.

  The experience would not rank as one of his better decisions. The snow-laden wood was slippery, and though he clung tightly to the railing, his feet often threatened to slide out from under him and dump him into the snow. He could see very little, even with the glowing, dual presence of his serpents drifting just ahead. Tasha gamely trudged along in his wake, though he could hear her cursing in a fluid stream of vulgar language.

  Halfway across, when they had inched their way almost to the apex of the bridge and it poised ready to sweep downwards to the far shore, Konrad found what they were looking for.

  A little shanty-hut had been built against the side of the bridge — wrought, probably, from planks of wood taken out of the bridge structure itself. It was crude work, but it provided meagre shelter from the wind and snow. If Konrad had nowhere better to go, he supposed he, too, would find it adequate enough.

  ‘Ivorak!’ he shouted. ‘Ivorak Nasak! Come out, we are here to help y—’

  ‘GO!’ The word roared forth from the darkened interior of the little shack. ‘Stay away! I hurt you, I cannot help it, you must leave.’

  Konrad approached the shack and stood directly outside it, his back turned to the wind. ‘You won’t hurt us. Tasha’s dead already and it’s not easy to cause me any harm. Come out.’

  Whether it was the prospect of relative safety that drew Ivorak forth, or whether his curiosity was roused by the notion of Tasha’s being as undead as himself, Konrad could not tell. But Ivorak Nasak crawled forth from the dubious shelter of his tiny shack, and stared up at Konrad — resplendently deadly as the Malykant — in stark terror. Eetapi and Ootapi’s sickly ghost-glow dimly illuminated his face. He looked better than he had at the library: healthier, less… dead. He had fed, of course, copiously. He kept his mouth shut and his hands hidden from Konrad’s sight.

  ‘Show me,’ Konrad said, quiet but firm.

  ‘Who are you?’ Ivorak whispered. He looked away from Konrad, to the dark, silent shape of Tasha just behind.

  ‘Not one of his. I am the Malykant. Do you know what that means?’