by Dan Abnett
‘I think if you were hunting me, I’d want to find a way to stop that. You say the Cognitae are clever and devious. That thing that attacked us in Helter. Animated by a word of power, I have no doubt…’
‘It was.’
‘It seems to me that it was animated once we were all here together. You had been absent for days, and several of your staff were away recruiting me. Only when we all returned did it strike. Because we were there to be killed. Brought there by the mystery of the bodies.’
‘Drusher,’ said Eisenhorn, ‘I am not worried that this is a trap. I am absolutely certain it is one. An effort I cannot ignore, too delicious to resist, intended to bring me to this place and end me forever.’
Voriet clambered back up the slope to join them at the edge of the pool.
‘Sir, we’ve found the house,’ he said. ‘What’s left of it.’
FOURTEEN
Shade Hall
The hunting party moved through the forest from the pool.
‘What did you find?’ Drusher asked Nayl.
‘A ruin,’ said Nayl. ‘Deep in the undergrowth. From the scale of it, it may have been a fortress, but nothing’s stood there for a long time.’
‘How long?’
‘Very long. Hundreds of years.’
‘That doesn’t fit the data we have,’ said Drusher.
‘That happens a lot in my line of work,’ Nayl replied. ‘Unless you’re prepared to scare yourself silly and believe it does fit the data. Just not the bits of the data you’re comfortable thinking about.’
‘Garofar’s shade hall?’ Drusher laughed, nervously.
‘I’ve seen worse things,’ said Nayl. He paused and reached into his backpack. He held out a small handgun to Drusher.
‘It’s the one I took off you,’ he said. ‘I took the liberty of cleaning it and loading it.’
‘Wasn’t it loaded already?’
‘These are better bullets,’ said Nayl. ‘Customised. From my special stash. I thought you might need something.’
‘I’m not really a gun person,’ said Drusher.
‘Do me a favour and take it anyway, magos,’ said Nayl.
The stones that had once been a fortress lay tumbled together under the trees, swathed in moss and climbing creepers. The mist hung heavy and still.
It had been a place of significant size. Some of the stone blocks were massive and suggested a heavy outer wall. But even these slabs, their edges worn smooth by years of erosion, were half-buried in the loam. There was no longer even a sense of any ground plan that could be recognised.
‘If this is Keshtre,’ said Audla Jaff, ‘then Keshtre is not the site we are looking for. This isn’t just derelict. It has been vacant for hundreds if not thousands of years.’
‘Audla’s very pragmatic,’ Nayl said to Drusher, sidelong. ‘She likes to deal in facts. She’s not very taken with other possibilities.’
His grin suggested he was sharing a joke with Drusher, but Drusher didn’t find that reassuring. The idea that their speculation was correct, and some kind of supernatural truth lay beneath their immediate physical reality, was not reassuring.
‘I heard your comment, Harlon,’ Jaff said. ‘The information provided by Magos Drusher asserted that Keshtre had been occupied by Draven Sark and in use as recently as a few decades ago. But this intelligence was imparted as a by-product of an auto-séance. The warp lies and deceives. Its whispers cannot be trusted, or at least, cannot be understood on face value. The magos’ encounter with the ghost of Esic Fargul is open to many interpretations, not least that it was utter, ungrounded fancy.’
She walked through the undergrowth to a nearby tree and ran her hand across its bark, ‘This is a Southern Spur Pine, is it not, magos?’
Drusher nodded.
‘A mature specimen,’ said Jaff. ‘To reach this size, it would take… what? Three hundred years standard?’
‘At least,’ Drusher admitted.
‘Yet it – and others like it – are growing within the bounds of the site,’ said Jaff. ‘Keshtre didn’t collapse and perish in the last few decades. It has been gone long enough for three hundred-year-old trees to grow up through its bones.’
Eisenhorn glanced at Voriet, who was scanning the area with a portable auspex of a type Drusher hadn’t seen before.
‘Nothing residual, sir,’ Voriet said. ‘Nothing electromagnetic or ectomagnetic. No background psionics. Of course, this device isn’t as sensitive as you…’
The inquisitor nodded. He limped through the ruin a little way until he was standing a short distance from them. Then he stopped and closed his eyes.
Drusher and the others waited. Birdsong in the neighbouring glades died away to silence. The breeze stilled, and there was a palpable drop in air temperature.
‘Remain calm,’ Voriet whispered to Drusher, Macks and the deputies.
Macks looked deeply uncomfortable.
‘I’m going to circle the perimeter,’ she said. Voriet nodded, and Macks moved away quietly with Cronyl and Edde in tow. Drusher got the feeling she was simply finding an excuse not to be present.
It certainly wasn’t comfortable. Though the sun continued to wink through the tree canopy above, light in the glade had somehow dimmed to an eerie dusk. Drusher realised his breath was steaming slightly in the cold air. He saw frost dusting the tree trunks and the ground-cover leaves like powdered sugar. He looked up at the sun, twinkling beyond the leaves, to steady his nerves.
The light slowly returned, the temperature rose and birdsong resumed.
Eisenhorn sighed.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘Well,’ said Jaff. ‘I propose we return to Helter and make a new plan.’
‘There are no birds singing,’ said Drusher quietly.
‘What, sir?’ asked Garofar.
‘Around this site,’ said Drusher. ‘No birdsong. You can hear it in the nearby areas, but not here.’
He gestured towards a stand of trees outside the limits of the old ruin.
‘I can see redbeaks,’ he said. ‘And little-tailed skeens. There, up in the branches there. See? But nothing comes this way. We’ve been here ten minutes, and I haven’t seen a single bird enter or cross this area.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Voriet.
Drusher shrugged and looked up at the sun again.
There was movement in the undergrowth, and Macks returned with the other two deputies.
‘There’s a track,’ she said. ‘A hundred metres that way. Looks like it runs all the way down from the mountain trail. It’s been in use. Wheeled vehicles, ATVs, I’d guess. Someone’s been visiting this place, often and recently.’
‘But the track runs out,’ said Edde, ‘ten metres short of the ruin. It just stops, then thick undergrowth.’
‘Well then,’ said Jaff, ‘the visitors – hunters, I imagine – came that close and no closer.’
‘There’s no turning circle,’ said Macks. ‘No crush marks or compressed vegetation at the end of the trail where a heavy vehicle turned around. I don’t know about you, Mamzel Jaff, but I don’t drive an ATV several kilometres down a very rough track and then just reverse back the way I came.’
‘Perhaps we put a watch on the head of the track?’ suggested Voriet. ‘See if these visitors come back?’
‘You’re very quiet, Drusher,’ said Eisenhorn.
Drusher was still looking up at the trees.
‘The trees are growing wrong,’ he said.
‘Expand,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘All the trees growing within the ruin site,’ he said. ‘They’re the same species as in the surrounding woods. But they have a slight inclination. You see it if you look. Growth patterning. It’s to do with the elements. Prevailing wind directions, angle to the sun in different seasons, soil, rainfall. Like the hair on a man’s scalp, growing in a natural pattern.’
‘I don’t really see it,’ said Eisenhorn.
‘It’s the sort of thing I’m trained to no
tice,’ said Drusher. ‘Trust me. The thing is, the trees on this site are all growing to a slightly different pattern. It’s subtle, but distinct.’
‘And what would cause that?’ asked Eisenhorn.
Drusher frowned.
‘It’s like…’ he began. ‘It’s like they are growing in a different environment. Responding to a different sun.’
Eisenhorn looked over at Garofar.
‘In the old stories for children, deputy,’ he asked, ‘how did an outsider find a shade hall? How did an outsider enter one?’
Garofar looked puzzled.
‘Well, sir, they just appeared,’ he replied. ‘You could enter them when they were there. Or you were taken there by the… the monsters who dwelt inside.’
‘Nothing else? No folk tale rhyme or incantation?’
‘I don’t know,’ Garofar said. ‘There was one story about a fellow who called one up. I suppose like an incantation. But I don’t know what words you’d use.’
‘Words…’ murmured Eisenhorn.
‘Do you mean that language thing?’ Drusher asked.
‘I think experimentation would be ill-advised,’ said Jaff.
‘Your objection is noted,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Sark’s home was well hidden. Unnaturally well hidden. It was a place of retreat. Of escape. It was, in literal terms, occulted. This may be a false trail, or it may be that we are standing on the threshold of Sark’s hall. I’m not leaving until we have exhausted all possibilities of making a definitive determination.’
‘Sir, it is a considerable risk,’ said Jaff.
‘You said it yourself, Audla,’ replied Eisenhorn. ‘The word Keshtre. You said the name translated as a “forbidden speaking place”, or “place of unholy speech”. If the Cognitae are hiding in the Karanines, they have built a place of seclusion and retreat, and proofed it against discovery using their darkest skills.’
‘I also stated that it’s not a physical location, sir,’ said Jaff.
‘Not at the moment,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘Not all the time, perhaps. I’d like everyone to prepare themselves. If this works, even in part, there may be some discomfort and disorientation.’
Nayl gripped Drusher firmly and securely by the upper arm. Drusher looked at his hand in surprise.
‘What–’ he started to say.
‘Stick with me,’ Nayl said.
Jaff was objecting again. Eisenhorn ignored her, raised his hands and said something.
It was a word, or at least it seemed to be. Drusher didn’t know it or understand it. He’d never heard it before in his life.
And he never wanted to hear it again.
FIFTEEN
Simultaneous Reality Overlays
‘Stick with me,’ said Nayl.
Drusher was clawing at his head with his fingers. There was a migraine-sharp knot of pain behind his eyes. He could smell blood in his throat. Nausea wallowed through him.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What? What?’
He heard Nayl again, saying his name. Nayl’s voice was obscured by the sound of a drum. Drusher realised it was the blood pounding in his ears.
‘What?’ he repeated frantically. ‘What did it mean? What did he say?’
He retched hard and fell, dry-heaving, onto the cold stone floor. His stomach was in spasm.
Nayl crouched beside him and patted him on the back.
‘Take it slow,’ he said. ‘You’ll level out in a moment.’
Drusher nodded. He couldn’t talk.
‘You all right?’ Nayl asked.
Drusher rocked back onto his heels and knelt, panting.
‘I don’t know what…’ he gasped, wiping his mouth. ‘That word. That sound. I don’t understand what he said. I don’t understand what the word was.’
‘Stay calm,’ said Nayl. ‘Take a few deep breaths.’
‘Why are you whispering?’ Drusher asked.
‘Just stay calm.’
Drusher shifted position, because the hard stone floor was digging into his knees…
Hard stone floor.
Drusher looked down and jumped to his feet with a startled cry.
‘Take it easy,’ said Nayl.
Drusher slowly looked around. The room was some kind of vaulted chamber of unusual height. The walls and arched ceiling were made of fashioned white stone. The floor was dark green marble. There were tall lancet windows of stained glass. Exterior light shafted into the room through the windows, covering the floor with a multicoloured pattern.
He looked at Nayl.
‘We were right,’ said Nayl.
Drusher shook his head.
‘Please tell me,’ he said, ‘that I passed out or something, and you took me back to Helter–’
‘No,’ said Nayl.
‘But we were in the woods,’ said Drusher.
‘And now we’re not,’ replied Nayl. ‘Except I think we are. We’re in the woods and inside Keshtre.’
‘Where are the others?’ asked Drusher.
‘Not sure,’ said Nayl. ‘But if we’ve appeared inside the hall, or it’s manifested around us… whatever… then…’
He gestured to the wall.
‘Macks and Jaff were over there. The others just beyond them. So… that wall appeared between us.’
‘I really can’t tell you how much I don’t like this,’ said Drusher.
‘I hear you,’ said Nayl. ‘Stay right here, and don’t touch anything.’
Nayl unslung his lasrifle and stalked towards the door.
Drusher clenched his fists to stop his hands trembling. He looked around. The air was cool, and there was a lingering background scent of promethium or some similar industrial petrochemical. The room was unfurnished, apart from an unmade wooden cot, a small chair and a blanket box. He walked over to the windows. There was light outside. The glow of it was dyed in greens and reds and golds by the stained glass. He had to stand on tiptoe to peer out.
He swallowed hard.
‘Nayl?’ he whispered. ‘We’re not in the woods.’
Germaine Macks closed her eyes and opened them again.
But it was all still there. She was standing on a metal walkway, suspended over fathomless darkness. Around her, in the gloom, huge mechanisms turned and whirred. Brass cogs many metres in diameter locked teeth with others of their kind, and turned in smooth and uniform perfection. Smaller flywheels rotated rapidly, humming as they whirled. Iron pistons hissed pneumatic sighs, and copper valves opened and closed with automated regularity. The place smelled of oil and hot metal, like a vast machine shop.
‘This is real, isn’t it?’ she whispered.
‘I’m afraid so,’ replied Jaff. She was standing on the walkway beside Macks. She had drawn a small pistol.
‘We were in the woods…’ Macks began.
‘And now we are not, marshal,’ said Jaff. ‘I am as surprised as you are, but we must not give in to shock or disorientation. My master was right. We have been translated.’
‘Into what?’ Macks asked.
‘Into where,’ replied Jaff. ‘A sideways shift. The site of Keshtre evidently represents a bend in the geometry of dimensional reality, and we have stepped around that blind corner.’
‘This is…’ Macks started to say, but thought better of it. ‘What do we do?’
‘Keep our wits and find Eisenhorn,’ replied Jaff. ‘It is likely we are neither alone nor safe here.’
She moved along the walkway, her weapon ready. Metal steps led down to a lower gantry that ran beneath a section of huge, whirring cogs.
‘What is this machine?’ asked Macks, following her. She had her riotgun ready.
‘I’m not able to evaluate that at this time,’ replied Jaff. She held up her hand, suddenly, a signal for quiet.
Macks had heard it too. Voices, ahead of them. Macks and Jaff picked their way down the steps quietly. The lower gantry was quite broad. The mechanism purred both above and below it. At the far end, near a further set of steps, they saw Garofar and Edde.
‘Garofar!’ Macks hissed as loudly as she dared.
The two deputies turned at the sound of her voice, their weapons raised. They lowered them as soon as they saw Macks and Jaff, and came hurrying along the gantry towards them.
‘Thank the Throne!’ gasped Edde. She was clearly shaken, her mind unable to cope. There was shock in Garofar’s eyes too, but he was holding it together.
‘This is the shade hall, isn’t it?’ he said to Jaff.
‘It seems there was some basis to the myth, deputy,’ she replied.
‘Did we open a door?’ he asked. ‘How could this place be in the woods and we not see a trace of it?’
‘I want to go now,’ said Edde. ‘I want to go away from here, right now.’
‘We are still in the Karanine woods,’ Jaff said to Garofar, ‘and yet we are simultaneously not.’
‘What does that even mean?’ he spat back.
‘I could explain at great length about simultaneous reality overlays,’ said Jaff. ‘About areas of binary dimension. I imagine I would be wasting my time. Put simply, this is an extremely rare cosmic phenomenon. An extimate location. Two places occupying the same point of space at the same time, one overlaid on the other and only one of them ever visible at a time, depending on the position of the observer. This is the woodland ruins and it is this structure. We were in one, now we are in the other. Our location hasn’t changed. Our position of observation has. Does that help?’
‘No,’ said Garofar.
‘Then we have been taken through a faerie ring into your shade hall, deputy,’ Jaff said with contempt.
‘What do we do?’ Garofar asked Macks.
‘We get out of here,’ Edde replied, her voice rising in panic. ‘We get the hell out–’
‘Rein it in, Edde,’ said Macks. She got hold of the trembling deputy and almost shook her by the shoulders. ‘Edde? Edde! Look at me. Look at me now. I’m going to sort this out. I need you to keep a lid on, all right? Edde? Can you do that?’
Edde nodded, swallowing hard.
‘Y-es. Yes, mam.’
‘We need to find the others,’ said Jaff. ‘Eisenhorn, Nayl, Voriet, Magos Drusher and your other deputy. They may be nearby.’
