Maldark rubbed at his beard and shut his eyes as if he were trying to listen. His chest rose and fell like a bellows, the iron bands of his armor grating, leather straps creaking. At that moment, he looked impossibly old to Shader, an animated fossil from a long-forgotten epoch.
“You’re not taking that muck in the templum!” Frater Hugues was beside Elias’s cart engaged in a tug-o-war with the bard, a hessian bag stretched taut between them and spilling black seeds to the ground.
Elias let go his end and Hugues fell flat on his back, the bag’s contents emptying over his face. He tried to sit up, spitting out seeds, but Elias smashed a mandolin over his head, leapt from the cart and scarpered towards the residences. Hugues shouted a stream of obscenities and ran in pursuit with the stiffest, most ungainly gait Shader had ever seen.
“A bacillus, Mater, a bacillus!” Cadman inveighed as they re-emerged. “There are no mysteries except those waiting to be uncovered by science.”
Ioana was no fool, and Shader could tell she was unconvinced by whatever the doctor was telling her. “Ain forgive me for saying it,” she lowered her voice, “but the victims are all cutpurses, whores, and drunkards. You name it, they’ve done it—even the youngsters.”
Cadman snatched away his pince-nez and made a show of looking flustered. “Scum, every last one of them, though I admire your reluctance to call a spade a spade; highly commendable if you ask me. But a plague preying on immorality! As a man of science I really must object.”
“So what’s your theory?” Shader asked, straightening to his full height and narrowing his eyes.
Cadman fiddled with his mustache, crammed the pince-nez back in place and patted his breast pocket three times; twice more, and then—pointedly—once again.
“Filthy people are drawn to filthy places, and filthy places are made by filthy people. Dalantle, Calphon, Edgebriar—rat-infested backwaters with the demography of a penal colony. Ninety percent of the dross of Sarum is crammed into those dumps in the most unsanitary conditions. The docks are just as bad—all those salty dogs and seaman’s logs…”
“Dr. Cadman, if you please!” Ioana’s voice had regained its stridency.
“Forgive me, Mater, but the point I’m making is that plague is spread through dirt and rodents, streets flowing with excreta—all the things you’re going to find in those regions.”
“And the bankers?” Maldark said. “How doest thou explain them?”
“Whores, thieves, assassins—all the sort of company kept by your typical financier; and if the bankers have the pox, well it’s only a matter of time before the merchants come down with it. Mater, I’d like to share my observations with the Governor and arrange for the hospitals to adopt your practices.”
“What observations?” Ioana asked. “Which practices?”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Cadman said, giving Shader a wide berth and raising his eyebrows. “Nice coat. Aeternam?”
“Britannish.”
Cadman inclined his head, his eyes bulging above the pince-nez. “Ah, Britannia, Britannia. All that hope, all that glory wasted on the other side of the world. Alas, Mr. Shader, I fear I’ll never see her shores again.” Cadman opened the door of his carriage and turned back. “Isn’t it a bit hot for a coat, and a black one at that? Unless of course you’re like me. Doesn’t matter what the sun’s doing, I’m always frozen to the bone. Well, cheerio everyone, and Mater, don’t you worry. I have everything I need. You’ve all been most helpful. Together, we’ll soon have this plague under control. Just a quick word in the Governor’s ear and it will all come out right as rain. Right as rain, Mater. Good day.”
The carriage shuddered and groaned as Cadman clambered inside and pulled the door to. “Tally-ho!”
The driver suddenly lurched upright, snapped the reins, and the twin black stallions surged forward.
Ioana came to stand beside Shader. “What was that all about?”
Shader shook his head as the driver turned the horses onto the Domus Tyalae and the black carriage clattered into the distance. “Something tells me there’s more to Dr. Cadman than meets the eye.”
Ioana threw up her hands and then shrugged. “Well whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait.” She wandered back inside, leaving Shader alone with Maldark.
The dwarf leaned on the haft of his war-hammer staring in the direction the carriage had taken. “Eingana called me to Sarum,” he muttered so quietly that Shader thought he might be talking to himself. When Shader made no response, Maldark looked up at him.
“You think you’ve found the reason why?” Shader asked.
“Mayhap.” Maldark shouldered his hammer and headed after Ioana.
Shader put his hand in his pocket and curled his fingers around the statue. It felt cold and lifeless once more. Why had it reacted like that around Cadman? Was it afraid of him? Was it trying to communicate? Shader had the nagging feeling that he’d come close to something important, something that prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. He’d grown sensitive to the aura of evil during the campaign in Verusia, and it was something that hovered around Cadman like a cloud of malarial midges.
Not much he could do about that right now, he thought, and besides, there were other matters that needed taking care of. In spite of what he’d told Barek, Shader had to deal with the White Order. Like it or not, he’d created them, trained them, and then abandoned them. The responsibility for everything they’d done was starting to settle like a mountain on his shoulders.
Then there was the duel with Gaston. He couldn’t back down from it: he knew his own nature too well for that. Finally, there was the thing he dreaded most of all. It might not involve swords and heroic levels of guilt, but he’d rather have faced all the demons of the Abyss in its stead. Uttering a swift prayer to Ain, Shader headed into the templum and went in search of Rhiannon.
ILLUSIONS SHATTERED
A cigarette, a cigarette, a cigarette.
That was the biggest drawback occupying the Office of Public Health in Arnbrook House: it didn’t matter how fine the stained paneling was if you couldn’t have a smoke. Might give the wrong impression. Never mind how lush the carpet, the—Cadman couldn’t quite settle on an adjective for the crystal chandelier suspended dangerously above his head like a big glittery Sword of Damocles. Gaudy, he decided just as the door inched open.
“Anything to drink, Doctor?” Lallia asked, peering through the gap and faking a smile.
Cadman knew she hated having to ask, but that, unfortunately, was her job and he was loving every minute of it. “Tea please, my dear. Britannic if you have any, with a splash of milk and three sugars.”
Lallia entered it all in her notepad, speaking without looking up. “That’s a lot of sugar for the Public Health Advisor.”
She might as well have called him a fat git, thought Cadman, pursing his lips and wondering if that was the correct Sahulian vernacular for the insult. “Yes, I suppose it is,” he said with forced jollity. “Just don’t let on about it.”
He waved her away with a flick of his fingers and the door closed with a resounding thud. He could get used to this: being waited on hand and foot, lounging in luxury, and only intruded upon by the odd sniffling politician trying to get treatment as a personal favor. It never worked. Cadman was almost religious about that. His job was advice and planning. The last thing he wanted was contact with ill people. The thought would have made his skin crawl—if he’d had any besides his illusory corpulence. He could never understand why he’d gone into medicine all those centuries ago. The memory was so remote it blurred with all the stories he’d confabulated about his past. A man needed something to build upon. There was nothing worse than a black hole at the core of your being.
Cadman rested his fleshy chin on the tips of his fingers as he contemplated the amber fang and eye on the desk before him. It seemed logical to suppose they were halves of pairs and that, if the legends of Eingana were true, they belonged to a serpent statue of sorts. Two eyes, two
fangs, one body. Five pieces, in all. Cadman groaned. Not a good omen, and surely all the warning he needed to cease this folly while he still had the chance.
He picked up a piece in either hand and rolled them between his forefingers and thumbs, wondering how they joined to the body. Maybe a fixative was required, although on closer scrutiny he could detect no trace of gum or resin. They pulsed gently, like blood through an artery, and Cadman bent his ear to listen, thinking he could hear them hissing. Shaking his head to rid himself of the sensation, he gingerly touched the pieces together. Warmth invaded his arms, passing through the phony flesh and heating his bones. He gasped and then sighed as it began to drive back the eternal cold. It was like… Cadman dug about for the memory. It was like settling into a hot bath.
Making fists around the amber, he stood and walked to the window. Closing his eyes, he sought out the missing parts of the statue, and to his surprise knew instantly that one was near, so close indeed that he felt he could merely extend a hand and pluck it from the air.
A face formed in his mind, gaunt and hard, scarred with furrows from hidden conflicts. Cadman recognized the chill blue eyes, the firm jaw dusted with dark stubble; long black hair tied behind the neck, the wedge of a widow’s peak retreating from a high forehead. It was the face of a man in his fifties, although Cadman suspected he was considerably younger: he wouldn’t have put him at anything much more than thirty-five. It was the face of Deacon Shader.
That’s what self-flagellation and fasting will get you, Cadman thought, before reminding himself of his own misleading appearance.
A hard lump grew in his stomach, as it always did when he recalled what he really was. It wasn’t real of course, but it was uncomfortable all the same. Crossing his arms over his bulging belly, he shut his eyes and tried to imagine the softness of real flesh, the sensation of warm blood coursing through his veins. On a good day he could almost feel it, but today was too full of worries to be considered good.
Cadman opened his eyes, finding it hard to keep them from the amber relics. They seemed to confirm what he’d sensed at the templum: Shader had a piece of the Statue of Eingana. He’d detected something else too: a residue of power, or perhaps another piece, more distant, better concealed. Maybe with three segments assembled the fourth would reveal itself, but that would involve further action, and something told Cadman this Shader was not a man to be crossed.
Cadman.
He started at the whisper and threw his gaze around the office.
Ice clamped around the black spark that passed for his heart, radiating through his bones and snatching away the brief respite he’d had from the amber.
Close your eyes.
Fat chance of that! Cadman thought, backing away towards the desk. “Where are you?” he said in a voice he hoped sounded more angry than scared. He bumped into the chair and collapsed into it.
Don’t be afraid. Close your eyes.
His eyelids felt like they had lead weights hanging from them. They fluttered momentarily and then shut like the final curtain at a theater. A vignette of heroically attired actors sprang to mind, and lithe and dainty dancers—one might almost say skeletally thin—fanned out on the stage around them.
Before he could put a name to the scene, Cadman’s focus shifted, affording him a glimpse of a shimmering portal, a celestial gateway to another world that evoked within him a tangle of buried desires, forgotten hungers: dreams, magic, the power to endure. For a few seconds he probed and tested the edge of the portal with ethereal hands, and then he was through, his spirit eyes opening upon magnificent alien vistas beneath a heavy cobalt sky. A snow-capped mountain range rolled away beneath him, forming a natural wall between a sprawling desert dotted with settlements and a churning cloud of smog that hung like a pall over the lands beyond. He wafted through a murky forest where the twin suns were thwarted by a thick canopy of leaves and writhing foliage. A colossal man wreathed in flame raged atop a smoking volcano, whilst dark goblins skulked through the trees below.
Cadman soared in the spirit, ever aware of the anchor of his earthly frame, his life force stretched between worlds like a frayed sinew. He passed a magnificent city surrounded by impenetrable walls made from huge blocks of stone, seamlessly mortared, spires and minarets glinting like fool’s gold. He saw villages amongst the trees, and coracles upon the great lakes. Armored legions marched across a septic wasteland strewn with bleached bones and bordered by an endless rotting marsh. His gaze was drawn to a single black mountain sticking up from the white desert like a colossal dorsal fin. Silvery spheres spiraled about the summit and one drew closer to investigate, all the prompting Cadman needed to glide away.
He flew deep into the heart of this new world, diving through the bubbling miasma of a steaming crevasse and into smoldering passages where the whispers grew louder.
Something roiled and seethed in the shadows below, slick as oil and just as black. Tentacles quested through the darkness, and grimacing heads sprouted from a central brooding mass, teeth grinding, empty eyes reflecting the Abyss. Cadman drifted to the floor of a cavern that seemed to be formed of coal.
“You have done well, Cadman. Soon the pupil will outgrow the master. Even Blightey never held such power.” The voice had the quality of leaves rustling in the wind, the head that spoke the words bursting and then reabsorbed by the body.
Lies, Cadman told himself. Don’t believe a word of it. No more reckless action. But, on the other hand, imagine if he did grow more powerful than Blightey: no more hiding in anonymity in the rectum of the world. He could leave Sahul and return to Nousia. Maybe he could even set foot once more on the soil of Britannia.
“My master is pleased with your progress. It is his desire that you possess the entire statue,” said another head, its neck twisted at a grotesque angle.
“Your master?”
The head gave a gurgling laugh. “I am the Dweller of Gehenna, Cadman. The Dweller on the threshold of the Abyss.”
Between a rock and a hard place. Cadman groaned internally. On the one side, the sadistic Otto Blightey sequestered in his castle in deepest Verusia, and on the other, the Demiurgos—the father of decay, despite, and dissipation. Ancient balderdash, he’d always thought, but falsification of the myth was proving much more difficult now Cadman was faced with the undulating demon from his nightmare; now that he held within his hands the power of the Demiurgos’s sister. All he needed was for the Archon to show up in a blaze of light and he’d swallow the whole Aeonic Triad creation myth hook, line, and sinker.
“You must think I’m really desperate if you think I’m going to enter into some Mephistophelean pact with your hell-spawned master.” Now there was a play to fire the imagination, Cadman thought, recalling the terror he’d felt at the protagonist being dragged off kicking and screaming to a fiery pit. He was damned if he could remember what it was called…
A tremor passed through the Dweller and it shuffled back with a sound like sifting sand. “My master is not from hell, though he is acquainted with it. He is lord of his own creation, free from the evils of the Ancient of Days, the capricious god Blightey renamed Nous to hoodwink the survivors of the Reckoning. The Demiurgos seeks only to share his freedom with you.”
“What freedom? I heard he was trapped in the bubble of his own imagination on the brink of the Void. Think I’ll take my chances on my own, if you don’t mind.”
The Dweller oozed back further. “As you wish. I will trouble you no more. Everything is in motion now. Either you will prevail or—”
“Or what?” Cadman almost shrieked as the demon started to thrash and blister, its tentacles retracting into its body, heads popping and liquefying.
“You have made a gambit, Cadman. A flip of the coin between eternal perdurance and oblivion. The wheels have been turning since first we met, when you cowered beneath the covers on your bed. Since you elected to clutch at hope. Fate plays out inexorably, and who knows what she will bring? Whereas my master only deals in certaintie
s.”
The Dweller collapsed in on itself and splashed to the rough coal floor; an oily puddle that immediately began to shrink until only a single drop remained.
“Wait!” Cadman cried, cursing himself for his rashness.
The drop shuddered and grew, spurting upwards in a great torrent of goo that set like tar in the form of a naked youth with glistening skin, blacker than the shadows.
“I need more time,” Cadman said.
The demon bowed and spread its arms. “Then you shall have it. By all means, go after the statue on your own. I wish you luck; but if you should need my help, know that it comes at a cost. Like you—” the youth gave him a sickly-sweet smile that revealed serrated teeth carved from obsidian. “—I need to feed. One life in return for one task; that is all I ask. We can discuss the finer details nearer the time.”
Cadman tried to swallow, but there was a lump in his throat. “Then you’ll wait?”
“Like an obedient dog.” The Dweller dissolved into mist and shadows, leaving only empty space in its wake.
Cadman forced open the eyes of his earthly body and stared at the amber glow from the fang and the eye suffusing his bony hands. “The illusion!” He thrust the pieces into his jacket pocket and raised his fingers to his face, feeling only the dry hardness of his skull, and cavities where once there had been eyes.
“Callixus!” he rasped, reaching out with his mind and feeling the wraith’s sullen consciousness. “I need food. Quickly, bring it to me!”
Cadman jumped out of his chair as the door opened. Lallia stood there suspended in time as she stared at him with the blankness of shock. Her hands let go the tray, which crashed to the carpet in a spray of china shrapnel and splashing tea.
Before she could find her voice, Cadman scuttled across the room, tugged her inside and slammed the door.
“I know,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I know I look terrible.” He locked the door and pocketed the key.
Magic, Myth & Majesty: 7 Fantasy Novels Page 155
