Book of Transformations

by Mark Charan Newton

  ‘A little?’ Tane said, prancing about the rooftop. ‘A good slice of the populace treat us like we’re gods.’ To prove the point he waved to the people below, who responded with waves and cheers.

  ‘The Cavesiders don’t treat us like gods,’ Vuldon said.

  ‘Neanderthals, the lot of them,’ Tane replied.

  Two city guards appeared further along the rooftop – four, six and soon a unit standing in sharp rows, forming a path. They snapped to attention as Emperor Urtica arrived, his aureate, purple robes fluttering in the sharp wind. He was wearing thick leather boots, a purple tunic and a rich fur cloak. He approached the Knights and only when he was close could Lan smell the musky aroma of arum weed smoke on his clothing.

  ‘Sele of Urtica,’ she remembered to say.

  Tane and Vuldon shuffled into line beside her.

  Urtica issued a professional grin, and an obviously rehearsed speech. ‘My Villjamur Knights, how splendid you look.’ His voice was richer than she remembered. ‘You have been instrumental, if not the sole reason, in reducing crime in this city in such a short space of time. Your citizens hold you in high esteem, as does the Council – and as do I.’

  ‘Thank you, my Emperor.’ Lan could sense Vuldon’s snort of disdain, even though no one else appeared to notice.

  ‘Today, as you know, is important. I am about to open this incredible iren – what a structure! There are soldiers from the city guard and men from a Regiment of Foot stationed on every floor of the building, but I have been receiving certain . . . threats of late.’ His voice betrayed him and Lan could suddenly see the sleepless nights in his eyes. ‘The anarchists seem to think today represents everything they disapprove of. I cannot allow such a rogue minority to ruin this for the good people of Villjamur. This iren is to be a symbol of our wealth, status and pride.’

  Lan smiled but inwardly questioned: who exactly was the majority? The people starving outside the city gates? Those trying to make a life for themselves Caveside? Or those privileged few crowded below them to celebrate the opening of a building created for the sole purpose of pleasure and image?

  *

  Fulcrom stormed across the city, through a light shower of snow.

  All around this region of Villjamur, the city was in the midst of being reconstructed. Horses dragged gargantuan carts of stone and wood precariously across the cobbled roads. Scaffolding webbed over and across buildings as if woven by some monstrous machine, whilst masons and labourers climbed up into celestial mists.

  Fulcrom arrived at the hotel where Ulryk was lodging, a rickety, whitewashed building typical of the lower levels. Fulcrom banged on the door to his room, but there was no reply. In the small, tastelessly decorated lobby, decorated in deep reds, with old furniture and garish paintings, Fulcrom enquired of the landlord of the hotel if he’d seen the priest.

  ‘Nah, not seen the guy,’ he replied.

  ‘Have you heard anything strange from his room perhaps?’ Fulcrom pressed. ‘Or have there been any visitors?’

  ‘He’s a quiet one, aye, keeps himself to himself mainly. No friends, no visitors. Don’t eat with the other residents in the dining room – who’d want to, mind, they’re a freakish lot – but he’s always smiling whenever I pass him.’

  ‘Are his movements strange?’ Fulcrom asked.

  ‘What, like the way he walks?’

  ‘No,’ Fulcrom sighed. Idiot. ‘I mean, the hours he leaves and returns, are they strange?’

  ‘Up and down with the sun, mainly. Though I’ve not seen him return for the last two days.’

  ‘Thanks for your help. If you see him, send word by a messenger to the Inquisition headquarters. We’ll cover the cost.’

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  *

  Fulcrom headed to the Inquisition headquarters. There, in the sanctuary of his office, he sat upright at his desk for nearly an hour, staring into space, turning things over in his mind.

  Warkur poked his head in through the doorway, then knocked on the frame. For a big rumel, he certainly moved with surprising stealth. ‘Fulcrom, got a minute?’

  ‘Of course, sir, come in.’

  Warkur closed the door carefully, then approached lugging a thick bundle of papers. He dumped them on the desk in front of Fulcrom.

  ‘What are these?’ Fulcrom asked.

  ‘Statements from last night,’ Warkur ventured, although he seemed disturbed. ‘You’re in charge of weird shit. Well, here’s a big pile of weird shit.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘We got a stack of witness statements last night, and they’re from people who . . .’ Warkur leaned in as if ashamed to speak the words ‘. . . who claim that the dead visited their houses. If it was one or two people, I’d have slapped them in a cell and let the silly fuckers sober up. But we got over forty declarations that the dead – or people believed to be deceased – were up and about, hassling the citizens of this damn city.’

  Fulcrom breathed out slowly. ‘Right you are, sir, I’ll look into it.’

  ‘Don’t let this get out anywhere, and don’t put too much effort into things. We don’t want to be seen to be wasting our resources on shit that might not even be real.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Fulcrom reassured him.

  Warkur retreated from the room. At the door he paused. ‘I know you’re not their babysitters, but are those damn Knights of yours prepared for today?’

  ‘I believe so, sir.’

  ‘Good. I never trust it when matters the Inquisition should be overseeing fall under the control of the city guard just because the Emperor is present. They’re an arrogant and unsubtle bunch. We should be there – feels like a threat whenever they suggest we don’t get involved.’

  As Warkur left, Fulcrom lowered his forehead to the desk.

  Things were no longer looking so good.

  His problems would not go away. He had loved Adena more than life itself, and it took him weeks to even speak to another person after her death. Her life gone, Adena had been framed for a crime she didn’t commit. It was a savage end for such a beautiful, delicate human.

  People began to talk about him behind his back – sentiments of sympathy at first, and then something more serious, questioning his fitness for the job of investigator. Fulcrom threw himself into his work assiduously, and discovered it was the only thing that would keep him from thinking about her. Eventually the pain diminished, but he was left with a residue in his mind that he couldn’t scrub away, no matter how hard he tried to force the matter from his thoughts. Then years later, there was Lan with her eccentricities and her charms and her differences from anyone he’d met in a long time. Something close to hope had reared itself in his mind.

  And then last night, of all nights to visit, she came back . . .

  Fulcrom glanced through some of the reports from the previous night.

  ‘My Jed was there – it’s been nearly twenty years, but he was there, still a boy, at the foot of my bed.’

  ‘I was in the bath and this presence crept behind me and tried to kiss me!’

  ‘Two of them – the ones that robbed me blind last year, standing there all glowing white and with the knives they carried that same night. They taunted me and my wife and we didn’t sleep at all afterwards.’

  The stories were very similar to his own – visitations and phantoms haunting the living of Villjamur. What the hell had that priest been doing?

  *

  The path inside the iren was lined with numerous ornate cressets that each held a fat-based flame. Across a white marble floor, with mica-covered walls and ceilings, the place was assiduously clean and gleaming, and across such surfaces the echo of their footsteps ricocheted down the corridor.

  Lan felt nervous as the weight of expectation dawned on her.

  Not only were the Knights celebrated by the people of the city, but they would be in the public eye once again. If something should go wrong, the people would not look to the city guard for assistance,
they would look to the Knights – the manufactured symbols of hope.

  The corridor didn’t turn at right angles, it curved gently, implying the vast size of the structure. Soon they found themselves at the top of an iron spiral staircase and, together, they descended, passing portraits of the great icons of the military dressed in various regalia. At the bottom of the stairs the city guard boxed around Urtica, obscuring him with their crimson and grey colours, guiding him forwards, their dull steel shields held aloft as if they were heading into a fracas.

  Then a lower level, wider, lighter, with skylights, wooden rails and gold cressets. Everything here seemed to glitter, as if they were in some heady dream.

  People, who Lan guessed had something to do with the iren, were loitering. Wealthy types, judging from the looks of them, in regal tunics and dresses. All of them desperate to meet the new celebrities. ‘This is bizarre,’ Lan whispered to Tane.

  ‘I love it,’ Tane replied, shaking hands with some of the traders. ‘It’s why I love the taverns so much. I can’t quite get enough of the adoration.’ Then, to those gathered to one side, ‘Nice to meet you. Sorry, must be on my way.’

  ‘Tane,’ Vuldon snapped, ‘watch them closely. See anything remotely strange act on it.’

  ‘I am, big guy, I am. I can hear dozens of conversations. I can do this stuff without even thinking about it, and meanwhile I’m still on the lookout.’

  ‘You good, Lan?’ Vuldon demanded.

  ‘Yeah.’ Lan was now peering into the deepening crowd as their noise swelled to fever pitch.

  A shaven-headed man in his thirties, wearing a dark-brown hood, came to her side – and he was pleading with Lan for a kiss; an admirer. She ignored him at first, didn’t want to make a scene here, but he laughed perversely.

  ‘You look jus’ fine in that outfit,’ he drawled, then groped for her breasts.

  Lan grabbed his outstretched arm, punched his stomach, and he buckled over. Finding reserves of strength that surprised even herself, she grabbed him by the hair, yanking him back, and clutched his throat. She snarled into his alcohol-reeking face: ‘You leave me alone, right?’

  The man squirmed a nod, and she pushed him away. Clawing his throat, he vanished into the masses.

  ‘Well handled,’ Vuldon said, without a hint of sarcasm. ‘Bet being a woman in your position surprises you somewhat.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  On through the horde, shadowing the city guard, who opened out behind a platform overlooking the lower floors in this vast atrium. Above there were two huge skylights, latticed with wood, and made from the most remarkably clear glass Lan had ever seen. The building felt as airy as an outside iren. A faint cough of a pipe as the new fire-grain heating system imported from Villiren continued to pump warmth around the place. This is simply stunning . . .

  Upon seeing the Emperor above them, the audience fell into a hush.

  He cleared his throat and paused. ‘This is a momentous day. One of progress . . .’

  While he recited a prepared script from memory, the Knights moved into position behind the city guard and across to the opposite side, gaining a better perspective on the events. Shops were layered on three floors, nearing a hundred units in all, mainly clothing-sellers and milliners, but also everything from designer carpenters to weapon-smiths, with a few bistros scattered about.

  ‘. . . from the latest materials developed with the assistance of cultists, utilizing the great ancient technologies of millennia past . . .’

  Around the sides of this highest level, marksmen crouched with loaded crossbows. One of them glanced her way and nodded, before allowing his gaze to settle on the throng below. As the Emperor continued his oratory, Lan, too, began scanning the crowd for any signs of trouble.

  It seemed impossible to know what signs to look for. Everyone had been searched on entry and any weapons confiscated – an act all the more ironic considering that expensive blades would soon be on sale here. Lan noticed personnel sporting the new Shelby Corporation colours, white belts bright against the dark-red uniforms. It seemed they were guarding some of the more impressive-looking shops.

  She focused on people’s hands, whether or not they were in pockets, about to draw out something, people nudging those next to them, people gesturing across the atrium.

  Through the glass, she saw something up on the roof. Possibly a pterodette or a garuda on patrol?

  A noise below caught her attention. Someone had knocked over one of the grand portraits. Laughter frothed up around that corner and a man was hauled to his feet, peering around sheepishly whilst members of the city guard restored the work to its place on the wall. He was escorted from the premises.

  The Emperor continued his speech with no pause, his voice carrying across the distance of the atrium. People stood listening in earnest. Again, Lan caught movement – something on the roof.

  Moving through the press of guards surrounding them she reached Tane and Vuldon, who were scanning the crowd below.

  ‘I’m going up onto the roof,’ she said. ‘Is there a way to get there without drawing too much attention?’

  ‘Only the way we came,’ Vuldon whispered, his gaze flitting about the iren. ‘You need support?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just a hunch.’

  ‘Fine. Well, we’ll stay here for now.’

  *

  Lan peered back up over the doorway, and could see the roof extending back overhead, so she gripped the frame and, using her circus skills more than her powers, she quietly hauled herself up to the higher level.

  Crouched by the guttering, wind pummelled her, sending her dark hair flailing around her face, and she pulled the strands aside and under control. Ahead in the distance, the towers of the city soared into a fine mist.

  The roof was curved slightly, banking upwards, constructed mainly from a slate-like material, but one which possessed more grip. Some distance ahead, Lan could see the two vast skylights which focused light into the iren. Each must have been twenty feet across.

  And there, crawling along the outside of a skylight was something . . . some kind of creature. She shifted along the perimeter of the roof to gain a better perspective, being careful not to catch its attention. From behind she could see its body, a brown and leathery skinned beast, twice the length of a human, with four squat legs, a stub of a tail.

  Lan’s foot caught a loose tile and she slipped; the creature froze, then turned to face her, an image of surreal horror: there was nothing but a vast mouth, no eyes, nose or ears that she could discern, just layered rows of teeth set in a slobbering maw.

  The thing tromped on the spot, rotating its fat body. It snorted thick gloop by its feet. Then with a surprising, lumbering speed it charged towards her. When it was less than a few paces away Lan leapt up hovering in the air. The creature reared up, chomping at the air, but couldn’t stop itself from sliding over the edge of the roof and, moments later, came the sound of its mass slapping against the cobbles below.

  Lan lowered herself and looked over the edge of the building. Down below, in a vacant alley, the thing had become a purple aggregation of blood, offal and pulp.

  What the hell was that?

  Lan scanned the rooftop but could see nothing else. She scurried along the edge of the roof, peering over the side.

  At the rear of the iren, a small huddle of figures dressed in dark clothing with scarves across their faces were surrounded by buckets of water. She watched as they placed a hand-sized, dark lump before them, and poured one of the buckets of water over the top. Suddenly the small mass began to lurch and convulse, contorting itself in all directions, and swelling into something altogether larger.

  It ballooned into the precise form of the creature that had attacked her moments earlier, then one of the three – now clearly holding a sword for protection – kicked it so it tottered forwards, out of the alley, up a wall and out of sight. The figure returned to the others, who tilted up a sack to empty out one final dark mass, only to repeat the p
rocess.

  Screams and manic calls for help started to erupt from the inside; she could feel the hysteria through the roof.

  Lan took a leap off the edge of the building. She hung in the air – positioning herself – and then she allowed herself to fall at a velocity that wouldn’t be quick enough to injure her, but certainly hurt the three down below. She collapsed into two of them, catching one on the back of the skull, another in the chest, and they both lay still, dead or unconscious. The third figure swung wildly with a sword, but Lan tuned into her powers to funnel out a blast of energy, repelling the weapon and sending it clattering behind. She followed up with two swift punches to the stomach, kicked the figure’s face, and her victim collapsed backwards.

  Her left leg ached from the fall, but she ignored it, removing the scarves of the strangers – two men and a woman – and recognized none of them. The female did not fit the description of Shalev at all. They were all still alive, so she heaped their bodies in the corner and ripped the now empty hessian sack into strips. She bound them tightly around their wrists and ankles.

  Scooping up the discarded sword she sprinted around to the front of the structure, where citizens were pouring out from the iren’s main entrance and into the wide Maerr Gata. Three of the recently spawned beasts were attacking people as they fled.

  Lan drew on her reserves of energy, and projected herself into the air. She made a huge arc and came down on top of one of the beasts, driving her sword through the back of its skull: the thing heaved, groaned and shuddered into stillness. As she stumbled around to its front, people lurched away in horror – there was a human leg hanging out of the beast’s jaw, and four corpses lying around in close proximity, each with a limb missing. At least the military was present and they were busy escorting people away to safety, apparently unconcerned with stopping the beasts.

  Another beast was dispatched in the same way: a sword to the skull, blood pooling across the cobbles, and this time blood beetles arrived in their droves. Rarely up this many levels of the city, the insects were a glossy black tide devouring chunks of flesh and feasting on blood.