by Dan Abnett
They began to study the maps. Voriet uncased a portable cogitator and plugged its cables into a vox-caster signal amplifier that stood on the floor nearby. He began to type.
‘Damn,’ he muttered. ‘The link keeps going down.’
‘We could drive back to Unkara Town,’ said Macks. ‘Use the hardwired system in the Magistratum building.’
Voriet looked doubtful.
‘I’ll keep trying for now,’ he said. ‘This storm’s got to ease back at some point.’
‘There’s nothing on the maps,’ said Garofar.
Drusher was peering over the deputy’s shoulder. He had quickly identified the symbols for ruin (standing) and ruin (site). Most of the latter represented sites that he doubted would be apparent to anything except ground-penetrating auspex, geophysical detectors or the high-gain scanning of fleet survey vessels. You could visit them in person, walk around and see nothing that suggested a structure had ever been there. He found Helter Fortress marked and saw there were several ruins (standing) and ruins (site) to the south and west within a hundred kilometres. But nothing to the north and east, where the spur of the range ran.
‘That must be the pass,’ he said, tapping the map with his fingertip to indicate a significant pass through the Karanine range that lay north of Helter Fortress.
‘The Karad Pass,’ agreed Garofar.
Down towards the pass… that’s what the ghost had said.
‘So he must have meant this area here,’ Drusher mused. He circled the tract of mountain country between their current location and the dramatic formation of the pass at Karad.
‘Who?’ asked Macks.
‘My source,’ said Drusher carefully.
‘Look,’ said Macks, ‘if it’s not a place, like Hadeed says. Not an actual place…’
‘It’s just a story,’ said Garofar. ‘Honestly.’
‘What? We’re wasting our time?’ asked Drusher.
Macks shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Like you said just now, it could be an old name for something else. Or a fanciful name someone gave to somewhere else. I mean, not official. Look, imagine Fargul had moved into this place and decided to call it Fargul’s Palace instead of Helter Fortress. That wouldn’t necessarily be recorded on a map or the title register. Likewise, he could have called it Elysium or Vaartuk. You know, ironically?’
‘Vaar-what?’ asked Drusher.
‘Vaartuk,’ said Macks. ‘It’s a local dialect word for heaven or paradise. Udaric, right, Garofar?’
‘I think that’s right,’ said the deputy.
‘You mean, he calls it that because it’s a nice place to retire to?’ Drusher asked.
Macks looked at him patiently. It was a look he knew well.
‘You’re getting hung up on my example, Valentin,’ she said. ‘I’m making it up as an illustration. This Draven Sark… you said he was a rich man. Influential. He had a grand country seat. He could have cheerfully trashed any name it used to have and given it a new one. Something his friends and acquaintances would know it as, but it wouldn’t be official.’
‘So it could mean anywhere,’ said Garofar. ‘Any old site in the province?’
‘Potentially,’ said Macks.
Drusher sighed.
‘I don’t think so. Near to Helter, but towards the pass. I know that’s not specific enough, but it’s still specific. That’s the area.’
‘Well, you’ve seen for yourself,’ said Macks. ‘There’s nothing in that area at all. It’s wilderness.’
‘We could try older maps,’ said Garofar. ‘What about the settlement-era territory surveys? They might be on file at the Administratum annex. Or even in the museum?’
‘No,’ said Drusher. ‘We’re not looking for some site so ancient it had vanished before we started making modern maps. It was an occupied dwelling less than a century ago. It can’t have completely vanished in that time.’
‘Unless, you know, it’s a shade hall,’ said Garofar.
Macks and Drusher looked at him. The deputy gestured, embarrassed, to brush his remark aside.
‘Ignore me,’ he said. ‘It was supposed to be a joke.’
‘I’ll ignore you, Garofar,’ said Macks, ‘once you explain what a shade hall is.’
‘Well, that’s what they said about Keshtre in the old stories,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘In the faerie stories. That it was only there some of the time. It appeared at night, so the monsters that lived inside could roam, then it faded away at dawn, back into the realm of shades.’
Macks glared at him.
‘I shouldn’t joke,’ said Garofar. ‘I know this is serious, mam. I’m sorry.’
‘The shade hall or faerie mound is an ancient trope,’ said Audla Jaff, looking up from her work. ‘A liminal location, a threshold place, that exists between the material world and the otherworld. It’s a concept that recurs in works of folklore right back to Old Terra.’
‘Don’t try and make excuses for him, mam,’ Macks said to her. ‘We’re not looking for a faerie mound.’
She turned her attention back to the deputy.
‘Garofar? Why don’t you go see if Master Nayl needs help with the sweep?’
‘Yes, mam,’ said Garofar sheepishly, and hurried from the room.
‘Anything?’ Macks asked Voriet. He was still at work on the cogitator.
‘I might have found a reference to the name Sark,’ said Voriet. ‘But the link is damn slow. I keep having to resend and start over.’
Drusher wandered over to the bookshelves. He ran his finger along the old, decaying spines. There were a lot of books of natural history. Esic Fargul had liked his ornithology. Drusher saw old treatises on migration and nesting patterns, guides to birdsong, feeding grounds. He saw a slim volume at the end of the shelf called Folk Verse of the Karanine Passes and took it down. Damp had got to it. It was very much the worse for wear.
‘There’s nothing in that, sir,’ said Jaff, not even looking up.
Drusher frowned at her dubiously.
‘She knows, magos,’ said Voriet. ‘Trust me on that.’
Drusher opened the old book anyway. The pages, rotted away, flaked out in a puff of damp fibres, unintelligible.
‘Literally nothing, in this case,’ he said. Macks sniggered.
Drusher looked at the book for a moment longer, the empty, discoloured cover, the mulch of paper fibres clinging to the binding. Something that had been but was no longer.
Valentin Drusher’s worst enemy was his own imagination. It was a fact he had recognised and accepted many times in the past.
‘What if…’ he began.
‘Valentin?’
‘Macks, what if the deputy was right?’ he said.
‘Meaning what?’ asked Macks, coming over.
‘That this Keshtre place only partly shares our physical reality? That it’s not… not there all the time? Just like the scary bedtime stories say?’
Macks put her hands on her hips and gave him a withering look.
‘I know,’ he smiled. ‘The version of me that got here this morning would have looked at me exactly the same way. But… Germaine, the things I’ve seen today. The impossibilities… I have always been able to codify the living world, according to its rules and its laws and its constants. I look for that. My work is about that. It’s reassuring. It’s comforting when things make sense. But now I’m not sure of anything. I think anything is possible. The rules of sense be damned.’
TEN
Restless
The storm continued into the small hours. After midnight, the thunder diminished into a background grumble, but the downpour increased, beating at the walls and roof like tympani. It felt as though the whole mountainside would wash away in a deluge of mud and take Helter Fortress with it.
‘I’m going to do a sweep,’ said Macks. In truth, she needed to clear her head. She was beginning to fall asleep over the charts. A circuit would clear her drowsiness.
Voriet and Jaff barely
looked up from their work to acknowledge her comment. Drusher had already retired – to his bed, Macks presumed. She buckled on her uniform jacket, picked up her riotgun and a plastek slicker, and left the library.
The fortress was silent, except for the drumming rain and the constant spattering chime of the roof leaks spilling down into pans and buckets. Everything smelled damp. Only a few lamps and candles had been left along the galleries and staircases, so Macks fished out her stablight. On the second floor, she saw Medea Betancore on a bench outside the chamber reserved for Eisenhorn. Betancore was working through a data-slate. She looked tired.
‘Anything, marshal?’ she asked as Macks approached. Macks shook her head.
‘He’s sleeping at last,’ said Betancore, tilting her head towards the chamber door. ‘He needs it.’
‘You need it too, mam,’ said Macks.
‘In a while, perhaps,’ replied Betancore. ‘I’ll stay here for now, in case he needs me. The dreams… wake him.’
Macks nodded. Betancore returned to her data-slate, and Macks made her way back to the stairs.
She went down to the main entrance, pulling on her slicker. Nayl had set up lighting rigs in the yard on their arrival, and she could see their white glow backlighting the small windows above the door.
She dragged the door open.
The yard was bathed in harsh white light from the rigs. Where the heavy rain caught in their stark glare, it made dark stripes like vertical interference bands on a pict-feed. Macks could hear the chatter of the portable generator running the rigs, a murmur behind the constant snake-hiss of the downpour.
She saw Nayl across the yard by the gate. Edde was with him, and they had the main gate dragged open a yard or two, so they could look out into the night. Macks hurried across to them, the rain pattering off her plastek shroud. The air was cold and fresh. She already had water running down the back of her neck.
‘Anything?’ she asked.
Nayl glanced at her, water dripping off his solid chin.
‘Something tripped the outer sensors about half an hour ago,’ he said. ‘Probably just an animal, but Garofar and Cronyl are checking.’
‘Should I get everyone up?’ she asked.
He shook his head.
‘Probably just an animal,’ he repeated.
‘Keep me advised,’ she said. ‘I’ll sweep the house.’
Macks returned to the main building. She heaved the heavy door shut and shook off her slicker. She checked the kitchen, then the small back parlour. The fire there was still burning, making it the most comfortable room in the place. Drusher was asleep in an armchair. He hadn’t gone to bed after all. He’d brought books down from the library, and one had fallen open across his chest as sleep claimed him. A book on migration habits in the Karanines. Macks saw delicate line drawings of wildfowl. She closed the book and set it aside, drew Drusher’s old coat across him as a blanket, and, as an afterthought, bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
He stirred slightly, mumbled and went back to sleep.
Macks had just entered the main hall when she heard the voice. It sounded like a cry. Not a cry of pain, but an urgent call, like someone far away shouting an order.
She halted, listening. The hall was empty, and the candles had burned out. She heard the odd call again, in the distance, muffled by the rain. This time, when it came, her vox-set squawked simultaneously, as if echoing the cry.
Macks adjusted the collar-mounted set. It emitted a quick squeal, then a harsh flood of static.
‘Mister Nayl?’ she said, tipping her head to talk into the mic. ‘Mister Nayl, this is Marshal Macks. Do you copy?’
Static fizzled.
‘Nayl, come back. This is Macks.’
There was a burble of audio noise, and then she heard Nayl’s voice.
‘Reading you, Macks.’
‘What was that?’ asked Macks.
‘That noise?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Not sure,’ Nayl’s voice crackled back. ‘Garofar and Cronyl just got back to the gate. Cronyl thinks it was an animal cry.’
‘Your vox go weird?’ asked Macks.
‘Yeah, just for a second,’ Nayl replied. ‘I think it’s atmospherics. We’ve just got rain here now, but I can see some fierce electrical displays further down the valley.’
Macks wasn’t convinced, but she knew how the storm had played hell with Voriet’s up-link before midnight.
‘Stay in contact,’ she said. ‘I’m going down to the cold store, then I’ll walk the west wall.’
‘Channel open,’ Nayl responded.
Macks opened the cellar door and followed the stone steps down into the undercroft. There was no light except for her powerful stab-beam.
Then her eyes began to detect a faint blue glow.
The door to the cold store was ajar. The glow of the stasis fields was shining out into the hall.
‘Nayl?’ she said into her mic. ‘The door to the cold store is open. Has anyone been down here?’
Static burbled back.
‘Nayl, respond.’
Just more, oddly modulated interference.
Macks waited for a moment. She wanted to move in with backup, but she didn’t want to leave the door open, and she’d have to if she was going to go and fetch Nayl and the deputies. She locked her stablight onto the under-rail of her riotgun and moved forwards, aiming the light beam with her weapon.
The door hadn’t been forced. The bolts were on the outside, and they had been drawn back.
Slowly, she eased the door open a little wider with the muzzle of her gun and peered in. The whitewashed chamber was lit by the blue ghost-light of the field units. The gurneys sat in rows, green plastek sheets over the remains.
Over seventeen of the gurneys…
One, in the middle of the rows, was empty. The plastek sheet was crumpled on the stone floor beside its wheels.
One of the bodies was gone.
Macks cursed under her breath. She edged forwards and slowly settled down into a crouch so she could peer under the rows of gurneys and play her stablight around. Nothing. No heap of bones on the floor.
And how did a bundle of bones fall off a gurney anyway?
Macks rose again slowly, her weapon raised and ready. She realised she was breathing hard, and she forced her herself to slow the rate. She backed gently to the doors and stepped out into the corridor.
‘Nayl?’ she whispered into the mic on her collar.
Still nothing. She braced her weapon with one hand and pushed the cold store door shut, re-setting the bolts.
Something beside her screamed.
Macks jumped in shock and wheeled around, her weapon levelled. Her heart was racing. There was nothing there. She circled, hunting the length of the corridor both ways with her powerful beam. Nothing.
The scream came again.
‘Throne!’ she spat. It was her vox. Her damn vox. It was squalling and yelping, uttering shrill bursts of audio-wash.
‘Nayl!’ she snapped, gripping the collar unit with one hand. ‘Nayl, respond!’
She headed back towards the stairs to the main hall.
‘Nayl? Someone’s been into the cold store. There’s a set of remains missing. Nayl!’
Static fluttered.
She half heard her name, scrambled by the interference.
‘Nayl, do you copy?’
‘Marshal? Say again–’
‘Nayl, the cold store’s been opened. A body’s gone.’
‘Copy that.’ Nayl’s reply was masked with noise.
‘Meet me at the entrance,’ she barked.
Silence.
‘Nayl?’
She reached the main hall and closed the cellar door. For a moment, she thought she saw someone standing at the far end of the hall, a figure in the shadows. But as soon as she turned her stablight that way, it was gone. Just her imagination. She’d got herself spooked. Her mind was playing tricks.
She headed for the fr
ont entrance, but changed her mind and switched down the side passage to the parlour first. Drusher was still sound asleep in front of the hearth.
‘Valentin?’
She shook him.
‘Valentin!’
He woke up, bleary.
‘What? Is it… What?’
‘Something’s going on,’ she said. ‘Get up.’
‘What?’ he asked, blinking. ‘What sort of something?’
‘I don’t know. Something.’
He got to his feet, his limbs stiff.
‘You looked scared,’ he said.
‘Just get your coat on,’ she replied.
‘Germaine, why are you scared?’ Drusher asked.
‘Shut up, and get your coat on, magos,’ she said. ‘We’re going outside.’
He struggled into his coat. She could see that she’d alarmed him. He wasn’t properly awake, and everything was an effort.
‘One of the bodies has gone,’ she said.
He looked at her.
‘Gone? In what way?’
‘In a “not there any more” way, Drusher. I just checked the cold store. A body has gone.’
‘Taken?’ he asked.
‘Well, of course. How else would a body disappear? Someone’s in the house.’
‘You’ve seen–’
‘I haven’t seen anything, but someone must have come in. Hurry up.’
He followed her to the door, and they went out together into the kitchen passageway.
There was someone at the far end, by the hall door.
‘Mister Nayl?’ Macks called out. She raised the stab-beam.
She’d found the missing body.
It was standing up, a twisted skeletal figure, caked in dirt and black organic tatters. It began to limp towards them.
Certain things had trailed Valentin Drusher around his whole life. Poverty was one, frustration was another. A lack of confidence. A wounded sense of being overlooked. All of those things had visited him on an intermittent basis.
But fear had been, pretty much, a constant companion.
Drusher’s fear took many forms. Sometimes it was abstract, like his fear of failure and its ugly, contrary twin, his fear of success. He was afraid of authority and afraid of being forgotten. Mostly, his fear manifested as a simple fear of pain. He was a nervous, timid man, who lived in dread of a midnight knock at the door from a predatory road-mob, or of getting in a fight when he was minding his own business, or of being dragged away and beaten by law enforcement if his papers weren’t up to date. He was afraid of heights and of drowning. He was afraid of being hurt.
