Book of Transformations

by Mark Charan Newton

  The tenderness of a hand in his own.

  He’d offered his cloak to Lan, but she said she couldn’t feel the cold since she had become a Knight. The fact was he found her remarkably attractive. He always had a thing for human women: their softness, their gentleness. Their vulnerability brought out his protective side, and a bunch of psychologies he didn’t care to analyse.

  In hushed and broken conversation they discovered a little more about each other. Then they remained in silence for a while longer, looking out across the city, growing used to the feeling that they were alongside each other. Only once did he see how scared she was, too, a look in her eye, a nervous laugh, a shaking hand. Fulcrom had concluded that it didn’t matter who she had been – it had all served to present her as she was: as a beautiful woman, standing by his side.

  Later, Lan walked Fulcrom home, an irony that wasn’t lost on him. She kept on jumping up the sides of buildings, showing off, a little excited by alcohol perhaps, but he liked her sudden childlike tendencies, a playfulness.

  Outside his building, they held each other’s gaze and hands. She was in control now. She knew that he liked her, and she was enjoying the moment. It impressed him, to see her so confident. Gently, they moved their faces closer together, and she kept her lips slightly away from his own, so he could feel her breath on his face. It had been so long since he’d felt like this, been so long that he’d almost forgotten how to do it.

  Lan kissed him with such a softness that it sent a warm shudder through him, and then applied passion, pushing him back against the cold wall of his building.

  She removed her lips as quickly as she had placed them on his, and smiled saucily. ‘Want to see what else I can do?’ she asked.

  They kissed again and she seemed to vibrate, and suddenly whatever powers she had activated slipped into him, fizzing down every nerve in his body like a static shock. She began to laugh. After a peck on his jaw she turned to walk down the street. A moment later he saw her running up the side of a limestone hotel, and up onto a bridge, vanishing into the night.

  He headed inside, up the stairs, into his empty apartment.

  Alone, he got changed into thick nightwear and folded his clothes neatly on the chair by his bed. His tired, beatific mind didn’t want to shut off, and he lay there for a few moments staring at the ceiling, and he couldn’t stop smiling.

  Suddenly, a wind gusted into his apartment, and for some fathomless reason, he felt he wasn’t alone.

  A voice, definitely female and coming in a whisper, was calling out his name. It seemed to linger in the air like a plume of smoke, slowly repeating itself, and then, much harder, in the centre of his mind: ‘I saw your new fancy woman.’

  ‘Who’s there?’ Fulcrom lurched out of his bed and stumbled bleary-eyed around the room, trying to find his way around in the dark. A beam of moonlight pierced his curtains, scattering shine on the glossy objects in his room – the polished wood, his boots, the picture frames. He stood with his hands out wide, ready to grapple with his intruder. His tail darted back and forth in anticipation beneath his nightshirt, and through the echoes of sleep he tried to remember where he kept his spare blades.

  The voice, a blur, came from all sides: ‘What, you don’t remember me?’

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he spluttered. ‘Where are you? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m insulted,’ the voice said, and laughed. ‘I’m in the bathroom.’

  Fulcrom stumbled across his room, guided more by memory than vision. He could feel his pulse racing. He placed his shoulder to the door frame, and glanced around for an object: there, on the shelf, the candlestick. He cautiously lifted the heavy brass object and brought it in front of him.

  Tentatively, he eased the door open . . .

  Even in this small room, Fulcrom could see no presence, no figure, just the metal bath and a small white cupboard. The grey and red tiles were cold underfoot. A chill went through him.

  ‘I . . . I can’t see anyone.’

  ‘Try the mirror, sugar.’ Another chill, this one deep in his core. He recognized this voice, or at least he thought he did. It’s not possible . . . For a long while he didn’t turn around.

  Eventually he forced himself to look and there, in the wide, circular mirror a person stared back at him – and not just any person.

  It was Adena, his dead wife.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Dumbly, Fulcrom dropped the candlestick, and it smashed one of the tiles, but he wasn’t distracted from gaping at the image in the mirror. ‘You’re . . . you died.’

  Almost completely white-skinned, with lank black hair and a heavy fringe, and with a wound at her neck that must have come from the crossbow bolt that had hit her on the day she was killed, Adena didn’t look particularly alive. Seeing her now confirmed just how much Adena looked like Lan – or would have done if Adena was, in fact, alive.

  ‘I did,’ Adena said.

  ‘So how come . . .’ Fulcrom gestured wildly at the mirror. ‘How come you’re here? Is this still a dream?’

  ‘For you? I don’t think so. For me, I have no idea. It kind of feels like I’ve woken up from a really long dream though.’

  Fulcrom struggled to believe what was happening. He stormed out of the room, flung open a window to let the bitterly cold air wake him even further. Clouds of his own heavy breath drifted away into the evening. After a moment he turned and walked hesitantly back into the bathroom, confident that the phantasm in the mirror would be gone.

  Adena was still there, smiling meekly. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Still here.’

  Fulcrom snapped into full analytical mode.

  On a closer inspection, she was glowing, ever so slightly, as if washed in moonlight. She wore thin white rags, and her skin seemed a little blue and unhealthy. There was nothing behind her save the reflection of some items in his own bathroom. She was just there, in the mirror – an apparition. He questioned whether or not he was dreaming, whether or not he had been drugged or taken hallucinogens, but he didn’t think so.

  ‘She seems nice, the new girl,’ Adena declared. ‘I like her.’

  ‘Lan?’ Fulcrom spluttered, feeling a sudden and irrational bout of guilt. ‘How could you possibly know about her?’

  ‘Oh, well . . . You can kind of see stuff when you’re in this state. But, I guess you are allowed to see other women. I mean, I am dead after all.’

  ‘How did you get here, in the mirror?’

  ‘The priest set us free. I don’t know what he did exactly, but after the priest’s visit, some of us seemed to be able to get out of there.’ She gestured down below. ‘Though, it has to be said, most couldn’t be bothered – they’d had enough of the living – it was those who just wanted to come back with unfinished business, that kind of thing. You’re looking well by the way, sugar.’

  ‘The priest,’ Fulcrom said.

  ‘Yes, Ulryk,’ Adena replied. ‘Nice man, if a little silly when he gets excited. He means well though.’

  Ulryk . . . how is he behind this? ‘I don’t understand. You were killed, not put in some gaol – so how could he free you?’

  ‘I wasn’t burned, remember?’ Adena said. ‘The authorities thought I was a criminal. They thought I was in on that robbery and refused to burn me. They buried me – you must have watched them lower my corpse into the ground? Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Well, yes, I . . .’ Fulcrom perched on a stool and pressed his face into his hands, recalling the faces of the mourners and the rain splashing on the mud as her coffin was lowered into the earth. After a moment he looked up again. ‘I did try to explain to them that it was a misunderstanding – even tried to pull strings behind the scenes.’

  ‘I know, my love.’ Adena’s face was serene, if a little ethereal. Very faintly the texture of her skin altered, tiny patterns moving just beneath the surface.

  ‘What happened after that?’ Fulcrom asked.

  ‘My soul was trapped beneath the city, just like every other soul w
ho wasn’t burned on a pyre and set free.’ She chuckled. ‘I suppose it means the Jorsalir priests were right about something. And you know what, there are a surprising number of us down there, and not just criminals who aren’t allowed to have their souls freed – although even most of them say they were innocent anyway. So we are all there, underneath Villjamur, doing what we’ve done for as long as any of us can remember, and Ulryk manages to gain entrance to wherever it is we were . . . I want to say living, but that’s not quite right, is it?’

  Fulcrom was amazed at how light-hearted she was taking all this. She never did take anything seriously, even when she was still alive – Snap out of it, idiot. This doesn’t prove anything.

  Adena continued. ‘Ulryk gave his best religious mumbo-jumbo to set us free, but I think he meant to some kind of heaven. He did some spells, I think, from a book which he was carrying, and I’m not sure what happened, but we all just followed him right out of the underworld and through some strange passageways and up to the city. It took us a while, but previously we’d never been able to leave the underworld. All of us were trapped there, somewhere under Villjamur.’

  Fulcrom tried to process all of this, trying not to laugh at how ridiculous it all sounded. Worst of all was that he was inclined to believe her.

  ‘I came straight to see you,’ Adena said, ‘though at the moment I only appear in mirrors. Some of the others are able to move about the streets – I’m hoping maybe I can, too. So then, tell me all about Lan.’

  Fulcrom turned away. ‘I don’t want to talk about Lan.’

  ‘Why not? She’s important to you, and you’re important to me.’

  ‘I just don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Oh, come on, I don’t want us to argue on my first night back. That’s all we used to do towards the end.’

  Fulcrom was hurt. ‘We did not.’

  ‘You probably don’t remember, burying yourself in your work. My memories are preserved, once they returned to me. They say, in the underworld, that the living have a habit of killing reality. As soon as something’s happened, it’s distorted from what it used to be.’

  Maybe she was right. He was always forgiving her for something or other, always letting her get away with whatever she wanted. He was a pushover, and he remembered now.

  ‘Are you just stuck there, in the mirror?’

  ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘For now I can’t go any further than this. You don’t just appear back in this world, apparently – you make slow transitions. Perhaps I can take more of a physical form soon.’

  ‘And who exactly gives you such information?’ Fulcrom asked, exasperated. ‘Is there a clinic you all go to where you have a nice chat about coming back to life?’

  ‘Now don’t be sarcastic, sugar. You were always a perfect gent when I was alive.’

  Again a sigh, again staring at the floor, the wall, anywhere but at the girl he’d tried hard to let go of for all these years. Eventually he faced her only to say, ‘I need to sleep.’

  ‘Of course you do – you go ahead, and I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Knock before you do,’ he replied, but her image was already beginning to ebb away. The room suddenly lost one chill when he noticed another from the window by his bed – and he walked over to close it. But, just before he did, he swore he could see a couple of pale-glowing figures progressing across the bridges.

  He couldn’t be bothered to explore that. He was tired, upset, and he was struggling to suppress his memories.

  *

  Lan lay awake on her side, glancing out of her bedroom window. Huge columns of snow drifted across the sea, like white banners floating in the breeze, and behind that slate-grey skies extended into the distance.

  Despite the weather, she was in a good mood. No, a great mood, in fact. Last night, with Fulcrom, she felt as though she’d overcome a major obstacle on her journey through life. No matter how organized and skilful he was as an investigator, with her he seemed just as useless in the arts of being a couple as she herself felt, which made everything seem so normal.

  She washed her face in the basin in the corner and got changed into the black outfit of the Knights. Her finger traced the encircled silver cross, their symbol, the one she’d noticed graffitied on walls near Caveside, like a warning. The same symbol that was featured on banners and flags drawn up for sale at the Emperor’s request, that little girls were stitching into their own costumes as they pretended to be her.

  For a moment Lan paused in the mirror, brushed her hair and, with a pair of scissors, she straightened her fringe. A little make-up next. Without the bustle of the show, without other women around her, she enjoyed these little morning rituals. No awkwardness, no glares loaded with meaning.

  After she finished, she headed out of her room, where she found that the boys were up, dressed and eating oats for breakfast.

  ‘What, no women this morning?’ Lan asked, strolling past the large window overlooking the sea.

  ‘Turns out,’ Vuldon said, in between mouthfuls, ‘that Tane’s conversational skills are a bit of a contraceptive at times.’

  Lan didn’t even want to know what he’d said.

  ‘How did it go with your lover boy?’ Tane leapt up off the chair and sauntered to her side, his tail swishing playfully. His irises flared with a feral streak. ‘Did you let him . . . you know?’ He wafted a hand towards her loins.

  For some reason Tane’s blunt charm completely circumvented any awkwardness, and it didn’t hurt to think about it when he was so matter-of-fact. ‘I’m not going to let your lack of personality ruin something nice,’ she said. ‘But no, if you must know, nothing happened.’

  ‘Lan, you need to tell us if you two are intimate.’ Vuldon lumbered over to the corner to stoke the fire and add a couple of logs. ‘Just lay it straight. We need to know – conflict of interests and all that.’

  ‘We kissed, all right, there’s nothing else to say,’ Lan replied with a frown. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t let it get in the way of the job.’

  ‘Good, because we’ve got a heck of a task ahead of us today.’ Vuldon stood up and folded his arms. ‘Everyone who’s someone in Villjamur is going to be at this damn opening,’ he growled, ‘and all eyes are on us, seeing as though we’re the city’s darlings. Let your concentration fall, and you could fuck it up – which means we’re done for.’

  ‘I’m not going to fuck anything up.’ Lan wished he would show her just a little more faith sometimes. Was it the fact that she had messed up one night previously, or did he not trust women to do a decent job?

  *

  All along the Maerr Gata, the largest street on the fifth level of the city, people were stirring. Hunched in their shawls and cloaks and furs, under gentle flakes of snow, men and women trundled towards the new indoor iren, the first covered market installation outside of the caves. At first they came in ones and twos, the early trinket-seekers, and then they swarmed like beetles, scurrying out of cobbled passageways and across buckling bridges to join in with the main crowd.

  The air was laden with expectation. This wasn’t just another iren, it was a statement against the ice age, a defiant gesture that life could go on. Not just that, but the grand opening had been hyped beyond all belief, so much so that the people of the city could well believe that they were about to witness an event on par with the birth of a god.

  Boards advertising the event had been erected about the city; banners of new insignias rattled from metal railings; criers stood broadcasting against the tide of citizens.

  ‘These people,’ Tane remarked, with a gesture down below, which for all Lan knew could have referred to some hell realm, ‘they really ought to get a hobby. This simply can’t be the centre of their world.’

  Lan couldn’t help but laugh at the look of mild despair on Tane’s furred face. The Knights had gathered, in advance, on top of the main structure, keeping an eye on the crowd, and as a visible deterrent against anyone wishing to disrupt the event.

&nbs
p; ‘Says the guy who spent his life throwing fancy parties,’ Vuldon grunted.

  ‘Networking, old boy – it’s a different art entirely.’

  Lan had to hand it to the architects: the iren certainly was impressive. Whilst not mirroring the aesthetics of the surrounding buildings, it had been designed with the future in mind. The three-storey facade was crafted from a green mica, so it shimmered like a monstrous emerald and scattered on its surface were deliberate patches of limestone that made the structure appear as if it was suffering from a disease. Arched windows were placed at regular intervals on each floor with a rigorous attention to geometry.

  Whether or not it would be popular was yet to be determined, but people were pausing before it, cooing or gesturing or beaming. Lan knew then that its intention to offer a distraction against the ills of the world would probably be a success.

  ‘Vuldon,’ Tane called above the wind, ‘did you have to perform such chores back in your glory days?’

  Vuldon perched on the outer wall, peering down with a bemused expression on his face. He rubbed his broad stubbled jaw. ‘After a while it became posing for one thing or another. I tried to fight it off but people just seem to want something to believe in. It happens to soldiers, too – those that come back from big campaigns, especially the commanding officers, become a point of interest.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lan said. ‘I think we’re of more value than this.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ Tane declared. ‘You’re a miserable sod at the best of times, Vuldon.’

  Vuldon shrugged, stood up and brushed the back of his uniform. ‘I don’t care, cat-man, that’s just how things are sometimes – and I’m fine with it. We’ve got a good income, a good lifestyle, and a little attention.’