No matter how much I hated what Malveil was doing, it had also given Eliana back to me, even if only for a short time.
That mattered. That was everything. That had dictated my choices before tonight, and it would do so again in the future. I made no excuses and sought no absolution for that decision. It was the only one I could make, and it felt like it might be the only thing left in my life for which I had no regrets.
Eliana had vanished again when I reached the square. In a daze of grief, guilt and mournful hope, I crossed the slick flagstones to the cathedral. The doors were shut, but a chattering servo-skull flew down from its perch among the gargoyles. Its teeth clacked together with a stuttering, mechanical rhythm as it performed an ocular scan. Recognising who I was, it issued a binharic squeal, and the locking mechanism on the other side of the door released, granting me entrance.
The interior of the cathedral was dark. There were only a few dim lumen globes, every ten yards along the nave, bathing the marble floor in a low crimson glow. There was just enough illumination for me to make my way towards the back. Above me and to the sides it was pitch-black. It was like walking down a narrow plank through the void itself.
The darkness rustled. Silence twisted itself into sibilant whispers. Laughter haunted the edges of my footsteps’ echoes. The tendrils of Malveil’s influence reached even into this sacred ground. I walked faster, as if I could outpace my spectres.
The rectory was attached to the back of the cathedral, linked to the main building through the vestry. Another servo-skull registered my identity and flew off through conduits to wake Rivas. I didn’t wait. I pounded on the door of the vestry, as much to block out the sounds of the whispers as to call the cardinal.
Rivas opened the door after a few minutes and ushered me into the vestry. The illumination in the chamber was warm, and I collapsed gratefully into the chair Rivas offered me. He sat beside me, looking very worried.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
‘Too much.’ Shivering with cold, I recounted everything that had taken place since I had last spoken with him. The shadows in the room seemed to darken, but the whispers had stopped. For the moment, I had a refuge. It was only temporary. Horror, and the duty to fight it, waited for me in the night outside.
When I was done, Rivas said sadly, ‘I asked you to keep me informed.’
‘I am now.’
‘You know what I mean.’
I nodded. ‘There were things I felt I needed to understand for myself first.’ I looked at him. ‘Well? Is my family beyond salvation?’
‘I hope not. I devoutly hope not. The Strocks are Solus’ bulwark against the Montfors. You represent what our nobility must aspire to.’
‘Can any number of good works expiate what Devris did?’
‘Good works alone cannot, no. You need the intercession of the Emperor to cleanse your house.’
‘That can be done?’
‘I want to say yes. There are sacred texts I must consult first. We have a battle ahead of us.’
I grasped his hand when he said we. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘You are my friend,’ he answered. ‘We are fighting not just for your family, but for the soul of our world. If you are destroyed, Solus will never again crawl out from under the control of the Montfors.’
‘What I do not understand,’ I said, ‘is why that hasn’t happened long ago. Why haven’t the Montfors used that painting against us? Why hasn’t Veth Montfor used it against me? If I am truly threatening to her, why not destroy me now?’
‘She can’t use it,’ said Rivas. ‘It is the most damning proof of Devris’ heresy, but it is a proof so dangerous, it cannot be used. It must always be hidden. Simply possessing such a cursed object could see the Montfors condemned before the Inquisition. If they had revealed it as soon as they discovered it, that would have been one thing. But they did not. They have kept it to themselves, and that fact becomes more damning for each succeeding generation of that house. The deeds of your family seek to expiate the crime of one ancestor. The secret they keep incriminates them more and more deeply. They need some other kind of proof.’
‘The painting traps us both.’
‘If the evil can be purged, then you will be free. The painting becomes Montfor’s crime alone.’
‘So we must prepare for battle.’
‘Where are your children?’ Rivas asked.
‘I’m not sure. They were going to be late returning.’
‘Not this late, surely. It is almost dawn.’
It had taken me longer to walk here than I had realised. ‘Then they are at the house.’
‘They must leave. Tell them when you see them. They must leave and not return.’
‘I think it would be better if that came from you,’ I said. ‘Your words will carry more weight in this matter.’ I was thinking of Zander’s reaction when I had tried to talk to him about Eliana. And Rivas would know if he was speaking to real children or not.
Is Kalvan real?
Yes. I have seen him nowhere else. I just felt his arm under my hand.
‘All right,’ Rivas said. ‘I will speak with them. In the meantime, you will stay here. When I am ready, we will confront Malveil together.’
‘No. I have to go back.’
‘In the name of the Emperor, why? I implored you before to leave the house. I am begging you not to do this.’
‘I understand. And you must understand that I must.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I finally saw Eliana again tonight,’ I said. ‘I have abandoned her for the last time. If I do not go back, I break my vows to her.’
‘There is no Eliana!’
‘There is. She is real. I know that with all my heart. She is as real as I am.’
More real than anyone else around me.
‘One day,’ Rivas pleaded. ‘Give me one day.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You know what you are risking?’
‘I think I do. If I am killed, then so be it. And there is no reason for me not to go. The spectres follow me. I’ve seen them in this city. I saw Eliana at the foot of the Cardinal Reinhardt Bridge. I saw her at the edge of the square. I heard them moving in the cathedral.’
‘What taint is this?’ Rivas whispered, horrified.
‘One I know we cannot allow to stand. We must destroy what Devris unleashed once and for all. It has trapped Eliana in some kind of prison. I have to try to save Eliana and–’ I’d been about to say and the children. I stopped myself. Which ones does he believe in? The adult ones. Tell him something he can understand. ‘The work will not die with me. Katrin and Zander will carry it on.’ They did say that, didn’t they? If the adults are real, then that is true. ‘I’ll keep everyone away. No one will be in danger except me.’
‘Like Adrianna and Tervine?’
‘They came to Malveil. They died there. I can’t keep people away from the house if I’m not there.’
Rivas stared at the floor, thinking. At last, he said, ‘I can see there’s no talking you out of this.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘Very well. I’ll have you driven back.’
‘Thank you. For everything.’
I saw no phantoms on the return trip. I felt stronger, determined. There was action to be taken. I was always better when I could bring the fight to the enemy. Maybe the spectres sensed it.
I had no fear of my own death. Failure, dishonour, damnation, the destruction of those entrusted to my care – those were the things I feared.
The house was quiet when I entered it again. I mounted the great staircase warily, anticipating horror around each corner. Gloom and silence greeted me. Nothing else.
I did not pause outside Zander’s and Katrin’s doors. Whether I heard nothing or signs of life, either could be a deception.
I had to remain focused and not let the house distract me from the true battle that would come tomorrow. Let Rivas make himself ready and gather the weapons he would need for this campaign. I would prepare the terrain as best I could from here.
And Eliana would know I had not left her.
I was in a state so far beyond exhaustion it had no name when I collapsed into bed, yet I did not fall asleep right away. Tervine’s mutilated body rose before my mind’s eye, and next to it was Veiss’ corpse, crying out for justice. I groaned with horror and guilt, and gradually, Eliana came to my rescue.
Her image grew stronger in my imagination. Seeing her again, even from a distance, after I had fled like a coward in the Vault Secundus, gave me a hope that was a rich nectar, soothing yet agonising for my soul. Longing, joy and grief were a single burning intensity. She would come back to me, and this time I would make true amends. The need to make amends was all the greater because the pain of her loss was as strong and fresh as the first moment of bereavement. I had dreamt that I could speak to her one more time and say what I had to say, and make a proper farewell. The dream had become a nightmare, and the nightmare had become part of my waking reality. But so too had a miraculous hope. I would see her again. That certainty was a kind of ecstasy.
‘I love you, Eliana,’ I whispered.
I was sinking away from consciousness. The longing followed me.
‘I miss you so much.’
The grief came too. And the regrets, not just for all the things unsaid and undone but for the things that were said, and were done, all of the joys, little and great, that I would never feel again. I could hope to free Eliana. I could hope for a farewell with meaning. But what had been lost would not return.
The sound of her laughter. The sceptical upturn of her voice when I said something stupid. The casual touch of a hand on the back of my neck. The amused look of a shared joke.
All gone. Memories only now. Memories that were uncertain, distorted, incomplete, fading. Loss was not a single event. It was a terrible, merciless process. Eliana’s death was only the beginning of losing her. Time would erode her image in my mind until there was nothing left except the pain of regret and the consciousness of the full, miserable, pointless cruelty of loss.
‘I want you back!’ I cried out in my dream.
And in my dream, she answered. Eliana came to me.
I turned on my side and she was there, in the bed, and there was her smile, and there were her eyes. There was the promise of comfort that had been taken away forever.
‘Oh, my love,’ I whispered. I wept.
‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘Everything is all right. I’m here now. I’m here now.’
She cupped my cheek with her palm. A thumb wiped away my tears. I wept again at that touch. I knew it so well. I felt the warmth of her skin against mine, and there was one of the lost joys returned to me. I whispered her name and reached for her. Then she was in my arms, and I was in hers.
We kissed. The beginning of the kiss was filled with joyous disbelief. Our lips barely brushed, as if their touch would end the dream and hurl me back into the cold hardness of grief. She did not disappear. She kissed me back, harder, and I responded in kind.
We moved from disbelief to tenderness to passion.
My tears were running, and between the kisses, she smiled once more and said, ‘It’s all right. I’m here now. I’m here now.’ We held each other with greater urgency.
Eliana’s grin was wide before me. Too wide.
‘It’s all right. I’m here now. I’m here.’
Eliana changed. Her body softened, melted. Flesh came apart in stringy masses, flowed like quicksand and reformed with scales. With horns. With laughter like the clanging of terrible chains.
Her fingernails were like claws.
Like spikes.
‘I’m here now. I’m here now.’
Her voice was rough, the smile spreading, her cheeks splitting. Flesh sloughed from bones, wrapping itself about me. Her hair was like a web, a spider’s web, and then webbed flesh slapped around my head.
‘I’M HERE! I’M HERE!’
Her snarl was in my ear, her teeth biting my lip, and I screamed. I thrashed, but I was drowning in an exultation of flesh. Choking, suffocating, I screamed and screamed in muffled horror for the dream to release me, for the flesh to let me go.
At last I woke, howling and sobbing. I could not see, not because there was flesh-hair over my eyes but because they were closed, and it would be all right, I could open them now, it was just another nightmare. And so I opened my eyes.
I caught a glimpse of something vanishing back into the dream, the hint of a massive pincer.
And it had to be a dream. There was no Eliana in my bed.
But there was blood. It was mine, flowing from cuts in my back and a puncture in my side where it felt like something had been.
On the bed was the depression where Eliana had lain, and around its outline were writhing fragments of pale skin. They twisted on themselves, shrinking, disappearing, and as they dissolved, they giggled with satiated lust.
My mouth was wide open, painfully open. My howl grew too big. It caught in my chest. Only a faint whistle emerged, the sound of the shame that should have torn me in half.
And the flesh of the nightmare laughed, and laughed, and vanished.
Chapter 17
It was some time before I could draw breath, and when I did, it was with wrenching, ragged gasps. I was beyond tears. I moaned, the sound emerging from me as if claws had yanked my heart from my chest. It began as a keening whine, my eyes squeezed shut against the world, against the traces of what I had done. When I opened my eyes, they rolled back, my stare utterly blank. The entire world was a monstrosity I could not face.
I tore at my flesh with my nails, scraping long welts in my left arm, clawing back and forth until I bled, whimpering in shame. I attacked myself as if I could tear away the taint of what I had done.
‘Obey, and be purged,’ I prayed. ‘In obedience, there is no room for thought.’ I scraped harder, and now blood flowed down my arm. If there had been a whip in the room, I would have flogged myself until I had flayed every inch of skin from my back.
‘I did not do this. Emperor, grant that I did not do this thing.’ Unholy flesh had lingered on my bed after I woke, but that was the key. I had woken. Malveil had attacked me in my sleep. I had fallen to foul temptation.
That wasn’t Eliana.
But she felt so real…
Not her. Wasn’t her. Wasn’t wasn’t wasn’t.
Skin curled under the nails of my prosthetic fingers. Pain was expiation, but there wasn’t enough pain. Not yet.
It seemed like her because I have memories of her. She was made from my mind. The sin is mine and not hers. She was not here.
Malveil was trying to make me fear her. It was trying to drive us apart. I should draw hope from that. The attack should make me even more determined. It meant that I was a threat, that I really could do something for Eliana.
And the attack had very nearly worked. When I tried to think of Eliana, all I could picture was her body turning to a formless, enveloping mass of hungry flesh. It was my shame alone that kept me from surrendering completely to horror. Malveil had overreached. In desperation, that was the splinter of hope I clung to. I burned with self-loathing. I wanted to consign my body to flames, to purge my sin and my weakness, to consign the filth I had become to ashes. That was what Malveil wanted, I was sure, and that blow had landed. My hatred for myself, though, kept me from drowning in a horror of Eliana.
I was the one who must be punished. Not her.
I still believed in her. In saving her. More than ever, her salvation would be my own. The only way I could wash away my shame was by fulfilling my vow to her.
My left arm trembled. Pain throbbed from wrist to shoulder. It was a mass o
f welts and bruises and blood. My thighs were raw and bleeding too. My body was tainted. I did not think it would ever be clean. My soul was wounded too.
But not killed. The war was not over. I would not surrender. I would defeat this house.
I stayed in my chambers, watching from the window, until I saw Katrin and Zander leave the house. I could not face them. I could not trust them. I did not trust myself with them. If they were real, then Rivas would warn them away from Malveil, and, with the grace of the Emperor, they would be safe.
Like Adrianna was? Like Tervine was?
If they were imposters, I would not have to deal with their pretence.
Rivas would keep his promise. There was no question of that. He would come today, and we would do battle with Malveil. In the meantime, I would prepare the field as best I could.
I dressed as if I were going to council. The long governor’s coat concealed the blood seeping through my shirt. Karoff was waiting for me in the entrance hall when I descended.
‘Shall I call for Belzhek to take you to the Council Hall, my lord?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t be needing her services today. Nor yours. I wish to be alone. I want everyone out of the house.’
‘Until this evening, my lord?’
‘Until further notice. No one is to set foot in Malveil until I say otherwise.’
The old major-domo could not keep the frown from his face. He looked at me with concern. ‘With respect, my lord, and with the most profound apologies for the presumption, I would beg you to reconsider.’
‘Your misgivings are noted and appreciated, Karoff, but my decision is final. This is my will. Please see that it is done immediately.’
He stayed where he was. The struggle to break from immediate obedience must have been huge. ‘I would not be doing my duty to you if I did not urge you to change your mind. There is… This is…’ He struggled for the words. ‘I believe it is dangerous for you to stay.’
‘I know,’ I said gently. ‘That is why I want you and the others out of here.’
‘My lord, please do not ask this of me. I have seen what lies down this path. I do not want to lose another Lord Strock.’
The House of Night and Chain Page 20
