by Ian Graham
Sitting upon the pallet-bed, Ballas whittled at the fork. Offcut curls of wood tumbled to the floor. The resinous tang of a carpentry shop pervaded the room, mingling with the scents of the fire. Ballas worked carefully, and for a time was oblivious to anything except his carving. He pared the fork down to a long strip, then fashioned one end into a series of grooves and ridges. He rubbed his thumb over them. Then he peered at them with the intense scrutiny of a master craftsman. Grunting, he deepened a groove by a fraction.
Nodding contentedly, he laid the piece upon the bed.
Then he realised that the wine flagon was still half full. Downing it in one gulp, he returned to the kitchen. He put the knife back upon the table, and the empty flagon on the shelf. Then—after a heartbeat’s hesitation—he took two more flagons from the shelf.
He went back into his room.
After some time, the church bell tolled: the evening sermon had finished.
Opening the shutters, Ballas saw the congregation filing into the street. A short while later, Father Brethrien emerged from the holy building. He walked back towards the priest-home.
Closing the shutters, Ballas listened intently.
He heard the priest-home door open, then shut. He heard Brethrien placing a metal cover over the fire, dousing it. He heard the priest’s footsteps treading softly along the corridor, to the holy man’s own sleeping-room. A door closed. A bolt was near-noiselessly slid home.
Ballas waited.
As he did so, he uncorked the third wine flagon. He had grown accustomed to its sharp taste. It was—surprisingly—a potent concoction, and a warm numbness crept through his body. He felt ready. The big man tingled with anticipation.
He didn’t have an eye for beautiful things. Of course, he could tell a beautiful woman from an ugly one. But that was an inborn talent. His pulse would race, his child-maker stiffen— all without his volition. It was reflexive, he supposed.
Inanimate objects had no such effect on him. A silken shirt didn’t seem more elegant than a sackcloth tunic. A pebble no finer than a diamond.
But he did understand what others found appealing. What they would spend money to acquire.
Ballas left the sleeping-room. He listened at Brethrien’s doors. The priest’s breaths were faintly audible—soft, regular, they belonged to a man asleep.
He went into the kitchen.
With dull surprise, he found he was still grasping the third flagon. Such an object would be an encumbrance. So he drank it empty, then put it on the table.
Kneeling, he emptied the vegetable sack on to the floor. Carrots, potatoes, peas—the stuff of Brethrien’s meals—tumbled out. Bundling the sack under his arm, Ballas opened the door and stepped outside.
A few stars shone. The moon glowed; it almost formed a perfect circle. Silver light illuminated the muddy street. A cold wind made Ballas shiver. He shut the priest-home door. Then he walked towards the church.
Moonlight glimmered on the Scarrendestin image over the door. Kneeling, Ballas untucked the whittled-down fork from his belt. He inserted its grooved, ridged end into the keyhole. Delicately, he twisted it back and forth. He felt inside the inner structure of the lock. Something was wrong, he realised.
Straightening up, he twisted the ring-handle. The door creaked open.
The lock-pick had not been needed. The door wasn’t locked.
‘ “Bar not the doors of your churches,” ’ he murmured, reciting a passage from The Book of the Pilgrims, ‘ “for no man is a trespasser in a House of the Four”.’ Ballas suspected he’d learned it during childhood. Now it swirled up into his mind, like a gas bubble from a swamp. ‘Holy man,’ he muttered, ‘you take things too literally.’
He slipped through the door into an ante-room. Moonlight illuminated it inside. Ballas found a lantern hooked on the wall. Taking it, he fumbled for a flint and steel—then realised it would not be necessary.
Opening a second door, he moved into the worship hall.
At the far end, on a white altar, a candle burned. Its light was not sufficient to fill the hall: shadows clung to the walls, and to the rafters overhead. Following the aisle, Ballas approached the candle and used its flame to light his lantern.
Yellow radiance spread outwards. Stone pews grew visible as the gloom retreated. The rafters’ outlines became clear; the cobwebs strung among them—too high to be reached—glittered like threads of fire. Upon them dark blots trembled, then fled.
Ballas swept his gaze through the worship hall.
The Pilgrim Church preached frugality. Thus the pews were uncushioned, the floor bare. There were no windows—as if natural light were something decadent.
The walls, though, were hung with tapestries. Each one depicted a part of every Pilgrim’s journey to the holy mountain, Scarrendestin. The tale was a simple one. Four ordinary men— a clothes-maker, a chandler, a tanner and a sailor—were visited, in dreams, by the creator-god. He ordered them to travel across the land and, through suffering and hardship, learn the difference between good and evil. After many trials and virtuous acts, they met on top of the holy mountain, where—in reward for their holy labours—the creator-god joined them into a single divine entity. And this entity became the gatekeeper of the Eltheryn Forest, through which dead souls had to travel to reach heaven. Good souls were shown the way. Bad souls had to stumble through the oak-crowded darkness, suffering all manner of torment, until their souls were purged.
Ballas glanced at the tapestries. Then he turned to the altar.
Upon it rested a Blessing Bowl of finely etched bronze; a model of Scarrendestin, fashioned from brass; and a goblet from which holy wine was drunk. Ballas unrolled the empty vegetable sack and dropped the first two items inside. Lifting the goblet, he found that an inch of holy wine remained in it. He gulped the liquid down, then put the goblet too in the sack.
Around the worship hall, unlit candles perched upon ledges. Each nestled inside a short brass holder. They would not be worth much: a ha’penny each. But a reflex, ingrained by years of rough living, demanded that Ballas take them: it was foolish to ignore an easy theft. He tossed the candleholders into the sack. Giving the hall a final glance, he walked towards the ante-room and left the church.
He took his bearings.
The museum stood on Half-moon Street—almost a full mile away. But he could halve that distance by cutting across Papal Square.
Ballas set off at an easy pace. Dawn was seven or eight hours away; there was no reason to rush.
Yet a kind of excited urgency crept into his steps. He found himself striding out, and grinning … grinning like a child on Winterturn’s Eve, eager to unwrap its linen-swaddled gifts: toys, sweetmeats and sugared apples.
A single thought revolved in his skull: Soon I will be rich, soon I will be rich …
He thought again of the whores he would enjoy. And the sort of lodgings he would take: a comfortable room, in a decent tavern, with a soft bed and clean blankets. He thought about the amounts of wine he would consume. No more would he run out of money before he was sated. He’d be able to drink until his stomach burst.
He laughed breathlessly.
‘They reckon that money changes a man,’ he murmured, emerging on to Papal Square. ‘That wealth bends him into another shape. That it casts a spell, turning him into a different man. Well, it’s not going to happen to me.’
He approached the Penance Oak.
Three heads were nailed to the branches.
Moonlight glinted on their eyes … eyes as lifeless as those of hooked fishes.
Ballas’s gaze flitted towards the Esklarion Sacros. By the dark wooden gates half a dozen Wardens stood sentry. A brazier burned, the hot coal-light glimmering on their helms.
‘No one’ll say, “Money has twisted Ballas”. If they speak of me at all, they’ll just say, “Money has let him be Ballas more vigorously—just as a falcon can act more like a falcon, when it is cut from its traces and permitted to fly free.” ’
Ball
as passed the Penance Oak, then left Papal Square. Within fifty heartbeats he had reached the museum.
He looked up and down Half-moon Street. There was no one in sight.
Kneeling, he pushed his lock-pick into the keyhole—and found that, unlike the priest, Calden, the old man, was a wise soul: the door was locked.
Ballas turned the lock-pick carefully. Its stem grated as it met the mechanism’s tumblers. Then there was a muted click.
The door opened.
Still carrying the church lantern, Ballas entered the first chamber.
Light flashed upon the display cases’ glass panels. Ballas’s image was reflected in them, dark and ghostly. He walked through the first and second chambers and on into the third.
The vault doorway was locked.
Ballas produced the lock-pick—then hurled it away. Taking a step backwards, he kicked open the door. There was no point in being stealthy here.
Ballas went down the steps into the vault.
It was precisely as he remembered.
Upon the shelves stood an assortment of relics: skulls and bones, antique pottery, statuettes, and figurines crafted from glass, ivory and polished stone. Setting down the lantern, Ballas moved to the shelf from which, two weeks ago, the old man had taken the wooden casket that held the iron disc.
He froze.
The casket was not there—only a heap of moth-eaten silk. Reaching out, he touched the material, then tugged it from the shelf. He expected to find the casket behind it.
There was nothing.
‘What have you done with it, old man?’ he asked softly. ‘Where have you put it?’
Stepping back, he surveyed the shelves.
His gaze flicked over the assembled items. The lantern swung slightly in his hand. Shadows swam in a goat skull’s eye sockets. Glints flared on a green glass goblet. Cursing softly, Ballas shook his head.
‘Old man, are you taking the piss, hm?’
He clenched his jaw. The walk to Half-moon Street had made him sweat. His woollen clothes rasped against his skin. His heart thudded. The taste of holy wine lay sour on his tongue.
On a shelf lay a chess set. The board was of chequered red and black glass. The pieces, also glass, were coloured blue and yellow. Was the casket secreted behind this game that sparkled in the lantern light?
Ballas kneeled, intending to take a look. Yet his patience snapped.
‘Pilgrims’ blood,’ he muttered and, hooking his fingers around the board’s edge, he swept it from the shelf. It hurtled across the vault. Striking the far wall, it shattered in a small explosion of red and black. Shards bounced upon the floor, then grew still. The chess pieces lay scattered, some broken, some intact.
Ballas peered at the shelf. The casket wasn’t there.
His face reddened as the blood surged under his skin. He swung his arm along another shelf. A cluster of animal skulls flew through the vault. A lion’s skull exploded against the wall; white fragments pattered down like hail. Ballas stepped back. His heel pulverised a field mouse’s skull. He stared accusingly at the empty shelf. There was still no sign of the casket.
His hands shook. He closed his eyes, slowly. ‘Where is it? Where, in this hoard of useless, pointless shit … where is it?’ His eyes flicked open. ‘Where is it?’ he shouted, his temper breaking. ‘Where is it?’
A red mist clouded his vision. It seemed to seep from the brickwork, from the shelves and from the relics themselves.
Snarling, Ballas lashed out with his fist, clearing a shelf of glass statuettes: the tiny, delicate figures of warriors, politicians and philosophers shattered upon the stones.
Again, there was no sign of the casket. His snarl turning to a growl, the big man swept his forearm through another clutch of animal skulls. Then a row of pottery, decorated by fine Eastern brushwork. The bone- and pot-fragments mingled on the floor: a crunching brown-and-white jumble. Tapestries were heaped on another shelf. Centuries old, and fragile, some tore as Ballas hurled them aside. Others disintegrated into powder. A battalion of carved ivory soldiers—each one no larger than Ballas’s thumb—occupied a further shelf. Ballas’s hand felled them like a lightning bolt.
He looked furiously from shelf to shelf.
Sweat trickled down his face. The sharp edges of a smashed relic—Ballas did not know which—had cut open his palm. As he drove his hand through a group of ornamental cups, an arc of blood streaked the wall. His wounded hand stung slightly. The pain was somehow pleasurable. The noise of destruction—the breaking glass and shattering earthenware—also pleased him. It filled his ears, as loud as the drumming of his heart.
He moved like a tornado through the vault. Soon, every shelf was bare.
Ballas sagged against the wall.
Under his feet, there was a scree of shattered pieces. Glass splinters winking in the lantern light. Fragments of dull pottery. Glossy slivers of porcelain. Pale bits of bone … all were blood-splashed: his life-juice pulsed from his injury. It blotched his leggings, dripped on to his boots. Lifting his lacerated hand to his mouth, Ballas suckled upon the wound.
He took deep breaths.
‘If it isn’t here, it must be elsewhere.’
It was a foolish, obvious comment. Yet it gave Ballas hope.
‘Where will it be? Where would the old man have put it? Surely … surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to exhibit it? To place it where anyone might see?’
Ballas did not know where else it could be. Snatching up the lantern, he climbed the steps into the third chamber.
He moved among the display cases. Each one contained stuffed animals. There were birds, their chests puffed with horsehair packing: ospreys, eagles, hawks, crows, sparrows, magpies … As Ballas raised the lantern, their glass-bead eyes winked. The bottom of one display case was strewn with leaves, twigs, logs; on this replica forest floor lurked rats, mice, beetles, squirrels—even a deer foal. Some cases held spiders, long-legged and shadow-fringed. Others had in them bears, lions, elks …
But there was no iron disc. No gemstone.
Ballas explored the second chamber. Here, the display cases held relics from lost civilisations: artefacts of the harsh-featured, slant-eyed Lectivins from the distant west; of the Vokarian tribes of the south; of the Schabrines from the equatorial regions …
Again, Ballas could not see the iron disc.
Cursing, he half-ran into the first chamber. He found himself surrounded by items from still existent but far-flung civilisations: the Distant East, with its white linen robes and shawls, its hook-bladed swords and knives; the thick furs and spears of the seal-hunting Daskeri, a tribe from the snow-locked Far North …
Once more, there was no hint of the disc.
Ballas swore. His rage blazed sun-hot. He shook his head, disgusted.
Springing forward, he slammed his boot into a display case. Smashed glass spun glimmering into shadow. Ballas stared. He felt his hopes shrinking away. The prospects he had contemplated with near-feverish joy … the pretty whores, unlimited wine, comfortable lodging rooms … they all fizzled out like a warming campfire in heavy rain.
Shouting out, he kicked the display case again, his boot kicking its now-glassless frame. It teetered, then toppled. A jumble of knives and furs spilled out.
Ballas stared fiercely at them. Then he glanced beyond the case, at the wall twenty yards away.
He blinked.
A dark shape stood at the edge of the lantern-glow. Ballas thought at first it was a man: a small, oddly hunched man.
His nerves sparked—then grew calm.
It was not a man at all, but a doorway.
Ballas rushed over. He grasped the ring-handle and twisted. Locked. Lowering his right shoulder, he bull-charged the door, springing its lock and forcing it back off its hinges. Taking a breath, he stepped through.
The room was very small. In the centre stood a tiny desk. The walls were covered with shelves, each one stacked with parchments. The air was very dry.
Ballas loo
ked around. And swore. The room contained nothing except the desk—and parchments.
The big man muttered a profanity. Then fell silent. On the desk was a book. Gilt lettering flickered on its spine in the faint light: Catalogue of the Earth-Bright.
The old man had told the geologist of his attempts to identify the blue gemstone. Perhaps he was still trying to discover what the gemstone was … and doing so here, in this parchment-heaped room?
The light wavered. The lantern’s flame was guttering.
Cursing, Ballas snatched up a candle. He lit it from the last flaring of the lantern. Then he placed it back on the desk.
A huge impatience seized him. He grasped a parchment stack and pulled it off the shelf. The stack broke apart; dry sheaves fell to the floor. Ballas had hoped to find the casket, or the disc, hidden behind the pile. But there was nothing.
Ballas repeated the action further along the shelf—and more parchments, as dry as autumn leaves, floated to the ground. His frustration worsened. His temper blossomed into a red fury. Grabbing handful after handful of parchments, he threw them around the room, until every shelf was bare.
He stepped back, gasping.
‘Damn it!’ he shouted. ‘Damn everything!’
Turning, he kicked over the desk. The Catalogue of the Earth-Bright thudded to the floor. The lit candle fell on to the scattered parchments.
Ballas moved towards the door—then hesitated.
In the corner, rising waist-high, was a tower of parchments. Preoccupied with the shelves, Ballas had not noticed it before. Stooping, he toppled it with his forearm—and found, tucked behind it, the black wooden casket he had seen before … the casket that had contained the iron disc.
Grinning, Ballas took the casket in his arms. It felt heavy; he shook it, gently: something bumped inside.
He tried to lift the lid. But it was locked. He reached for his lock-pick, then remembered that he had thrown it away upstairs, in the third chamber. It did not matter: he would simply have to use more brutal methods to open the casket. Turning, he hurled it against the wall. It struck the brickwork corner first and the lid sprang open.
