Lan shambled backwards in a daze.
A whistle came from somewhere. At the open end of the alleyway, several figures quickly closed in, silhouetted against the light, each carrying a weapon. Though her vision was hazy, she noted that the men at the dead end were smiling. The woman she was meant to have saved laughed as she kicked at the back of Lan’s knees, sending her sprawling forwards onto the ice-cold stone.
Lan’s hands and face stung from the impact. She wiped grit and blood from her chin.
‘Wait,’ Lan held out a hand as she climbed to her feet, ‘I was only trying to help.’
One of the skinheads spoke. ‘We don’t need no fucking help, bitch. We’re sick of you fuckers ruining things. You represent authority and power — you’re of no use to us. Can’t you see it’s best for the people if you just stay out of our business?’
‘You work for Shalev?’ Lan spluttered.
‘We don’t work for her. We work together.’
A blow to Lan’s stomach, an iron bar across her back, and she collapsed to the ground as a useless ball of agony.
A squat man with bird-like features poked a wooden club into her ribs and asked, ‘Is this the he-she one?’
‘Apparently. Fancy taking a look to see?’
Crude laughter.
‘See what? S’all changed by cultists, innit?’
‘Fair point.’
Distantly, Lan wondered, How could they possibly know? She tried to come to her senses and her feet, but only managed to rock herself to her knees. She needed to tune into that quality within, to tap that force which she had been given, but the kicks and punches had knocked any concentration out of her system. Clawing at the force within, she pushed her arms aside, the blows knocking back two of her attackers, and they stumbled against the wall. That effort in itself weakened her and she allowed her judgement to drop.
Distances seemed artificial. Suddenly her head felt incredibly heavy. The gang crowded her.
Weapons rained down upon her skin, and she felt them as light taps. One to her stomach: she hunched again. One to her forehead: she flipped gently backwards. One to her hip: she sprawled forwards on the ground.
Gentle strikes to her back and skull, like brutal raindrops…
*
The corpse lay stretched out for them all to see.
Measuring almost seven feet in length, its feet drooped over the edge of the polished granite table in one of the old quarantine sectors of the Inquisition headquarters. Formerly a cellar, the room featured a domed brick ceiling with several open arches for doorways, meaning the place could receive an unusually large amount of traffic, if it wasn’t for the fact that people knew dead bodies were often observed down here. Cressets burned along the wall, as did a huge log fire at the far end of the room, and within these simple confines, Fulcrom, Ulryk, Vuldon and Tane were attempting to make sense of the alien body.
The specimen reeked. What clothing it once possessed now lay in a heap in a metal container by the wall. Sinewy dark skin was taught across jagged bones, which, at the joints, were formidable-looking structures that seemed set to burst through.
It was hominid, as much as they could tell, possessing two pairs of tightly muscled arms and legs, and where its skin had been torn by Tane’s claws, black blood had bubbled upwards to seal the wound. Much of its head had been reduced to mush, as Vuldon proudly pointed out, but what remained now were barely more than fragments of a malodorous skull. Fulcrom had never seen anything quite like this, and he had seen some strange things bred by cultists in his time. No, this was entirely an alien entity, and one he was glad he hadn’t encountered personally.
‘It is called a nephilim.’ Ulryk muttered the word as if it left an acidic taste in his mouth. ‘It is a demon of the church.’
Tane whistled, leaning over to take a closer look. ‘Ugly chap, isn’t he? Vuldon, do you swear this isn’t one of your girlfriends?’
Vuldon ignored Tane and prodded the priest for further information. ‘Why was it after you specifically?’ he asked. ‘From a distance, we saw it went after you alone.’
Ulryk peered imploringly at Fulcrom, and he knew just how difficult it was for Ulryk to explain his past once again.
‘You can trust them, Ulryk,’ he encouraged him. ‘They’re here to help.’
To his credit, the priest encapsulated his story as much as possible, avoiding the questions of altered histories, of politics within the church. He mentioned that the church merely considered him a heretic for his views, and had placed a bounty on his head. His mission in Villjamur was one of great urgency, and the nephilim was sent to prevent him from succeeding. Fulcrom wondered just how much the church knew of the priest’s intentions.
‘Your mission, priest?’ Vuldon stood as ever with folded arms, showing little sympathy for this old man who had fled across the breadth of the Empire simply because of his beliefs.
Ulryk told him he was looking for a copy of a book that would betray the church and everything it stood for.
‘Sounds fair enough to me,’ Tane said cheerily.
‘Idiot,’ Vuldon grunted. Then, to Ulryk, ‘Will you be causing any other incidents that are going to threaten other people’s safety?’
Fulcrom was impressed at how well Vuldon had developed a sense of dedication to his job. If only Tane would at least sound responsible, just once. Every time he spoke, Fulcrom cringed.
Ulryk contemplated those words, closed his eyes, and said something Fulcrom deeply suspected was a lie. ‘The populace will remain undisturbed.’
‘Fine,’ Vuldon replied. ‘Make sure that is the case.’
Fulcrom had put his faith in everything the priest had said up until this point, though he had not fully committed to a belief in him. An open mind was one thing, but here, right before them, was yet more physical evidence that everything Ulryk had said up until now was utterly true.
Yet Fulcrom had never considered just what would happen when the priest obtained his other copy of The Book of Transformations.
‘Investigator,’ a voice came from one of the arches — one of the aides. ‘We’ve another incident. This is urgent.’
‘Do we need the Knights?’ Fulcrom indicated Vuldon and Tane, who were now alert and focused.
‘I think it’s best,’ the aide replied, ‘since it involves the other.’
*
She was strung up by her left foot, dangling from a vast, arched bridge that crossed over one of the busiest irens in the city. Hundreds of people clustered underneath and pointed upwards as she spiralled on the spot in the wind; and from windows, many more silently watched.
Fulcrom managed to remain surprisingly calm. He knew instantly that it was Lan — she was garbed in the iconic uniform of the Knights, and her notable, dark hair drooped down below her head. For the second time in his life, the woman he loved had been taken from him.
In a state of numbness, the following moments became a blur.
He remembered sprinting up a stairwell, slipping on the first three steps and hurting his thigh; Vuldon knocking him aside to charge past him; Tane taking a more complex route via rooftops. Fulcrom vaguely remembered the gust of wind that almost knocked him over when he reached the bridge at the top.
Pushing through the crowds, tears in his eyes, praying to gods he didn’t believe in.
Vuldon and Fulcrom ran to the centre of the bridge, where the rope was tied tightly around a crenellation. Vuldon leapt up onto the edge, his bulk causing a vast shadow and, as Tane arrived alongside, the Knight began pulling in the rope in great lurches.
Fulcrom stood watching Lan’s ascent, her hair all over the place, so isolated and so vulnerable, his tail gripping the side of the wall for security. Below, the crowds were still gathering, their movements gentle and fluid from this height. Morbid curiosity had caused many more to gather near them on the bridge, and Tane and Fulcrom shoved them aside as Vuldon gently lowered Lan’s body down to the cobbles.
Vuldon used his own mass to
push the crowd back.
She was covered in blood. Her face was bruised and bleeding, there were cuts to her eyebrow and chin, and the back of her hands scuffed from being dragged along the street. Fulcrom instantly placed his ear to her chest and… could hear a faint beat. ‘She’s not dead,’ he spluttered, then tried to calm himself. ‘She’s unconscious, but she’s not dead.’ He forced himself to think logically. ‘Tane — we’ll need the cultists immediately. Fetch them. Please, we need your speed.’
Tane didn’t need telling twice. The cat-man vanished into the crowd.
‘You,’ Fulcrom demanded — it was a small boy in smart robes, who looked startled at being brought into this affair — ‘will you fetch me some water and a cloth? This is a Knight of our city and she needs help.’ The boy looked at Lan, nodded eagerly and ran. A few minutes later he returned with them. Fulcrom began tenderly cleaning Lan’s face.
‘Get a hold of yourself.’ Vuldon shook his shoulders. ‘You can’t cry in front of these people. It ain’t manly.’
Fulcrom hadn’t even realized he was crying until he wiped away his tears. ‘Fuck you, Vuldon,’ Fulcrom replied, ‘and fuck being manly. This isn’t the time for your cheap machismo.’
He continued treating Lan, cleaning her up, aware of Vuldon’s burning gaze.
‘You genuinely care for her, don’t you?’ he asked gruffly.
Fulcrom watched the water leak from the clenched cloth, carrying blood down the smooth lines of her face, and ignored him.
*
Lan was still unconscious when Tane and the cultist, Feror, arrived carrying a stretcher.
‘Her bones really ought to have survived the incident,’ the old man advised quietly, ‘but this is merely a precaution.’
Fulcrom and Vuldon lifted her gently onto the stretcher, still with people milling around them — why would they not just leave? They carried her along the bridge, then into a beautiful plaza on the third level, where a horse and immense black carriage stood waiting for them.
They lifted her inside the carriage and laid her on the floor.
‘I’ll stay with her,’ Fulcrom said, an order, not a request.
*
In one of the many drearily lit chambers near the clifftop residence of the Knights, Lan was stripped of her uniform — something that made Fulcrom distinctly uncomfortable — and her nakedness revealed painful-looking abrasions and bruises on her body. He could only imagine what brutality created them. A team of cultists half-immersed her in a bath of brine on a surgical platform. Wires were lowered into the solution, and machines were activated. Metal artefacts hummed and sizzled into life.
He paced back and forth outside, listening to the bubbling and buzzing and spluttered gasps, trying to piece together what was developing behind the metal door, but his imagination soared with variants on how Lan was being dismantled. Instead, he focused on what had happened.
Tane and Vuldon were not much help and, happy that Lan would survive a little longer, had headed back out into the city to see if they could find witnesses or clues. Fulcrom doubted they would find much.
The anarchists were frustrating, militant and smart people. They weren’t just a step ahead, they had whole plans sketched out, and he had virtually nothing to show the Emperor apart from showcase heroics. And he had no idea just how many Cavesiders considered themselves part of the movement. Though the Knights had given the rest of the city something to talk about, managed to prevent many crimes and put offenders into the hands of the Inquisition, Fulcrom realized that all they were doing was trying to plug holes in a dam. There was only so much they could take before the force would become overwhelming. The rest of the Inquisition were overworked with increasing numbers of criminal cases and leads that went nowhere.
What could he do, order a purge of Caveside? Who were they even fighting? Anyone brought in for questioning said nothing. Either they genuinely had nothing to say, or Shalev had inspired such loyalty that they would not give anything away. No, a purge would do no good, and besides the military had already slaughtered civilians.
For the first time in his life, Fulcrom began questioning his purpose as a investigator. Not even when he helped Investigator Jeryd free the refugees, only for them to go straight back into the decrepit camps outside the city walls, did he feel as low as he did right now. His choices were limited: the Emperor would have him killed if he failed or walked away. All he could do was press on.
*
About an hour later they let Fulcrom in to see Lan. She was lying with a blanket over her body like she belonged in a mortuary. But she was, at least, breathing. Miraculously much of the bruising had vanished from her face and, from what he could see, her neck and shoulders.
‘What did you do to her?’ Fulcrom asked the room. Three of the cultists in the corner, busy tweaking bits of equipment, glanced at each other, as if deciding who could be bothered to give such a long-winded answer.
Feror stepped in alongside him. The old man was a reassuring face, as much as a cultist could be. ‘It was me, mainly,’ he said. ‘I guess it’s nice to know I’m not completely letting everyone down.’
What does he mean? Fulcrom thought, observing his nervous mannerisms that contradicted his confident words. ‘Go on.’
‘We essentially bathed her in a solution that speeded up her recovery at the… cellular level.’
‘What?’ Fulcrom demanded.
‘The little building blocks, which make us all.’
‘If there are any secrets you’re keeping from-’
‘It is well known in cultist circles. A lot of the enhancements we’d given her, particularly the skeletal alterations, protected her. If she was a normal woman, she would be dead.’
‘What do you mean by normal?’ Fulcrom snapped.
‘Without our rigorous enhancements,’ Feror corrected, and Fulcrom contemplated the sudden silence between them.
Feror continued, ‘So, what should have taken months of recovery, will now take hours.’ Feror talked about obscure things like oxygen flow, and to Fulcrom the science could have been magic for all he knew.
The important thing was that Lan was alive and would soon be back to normal. The cultists’ work done, Fulcrom was allowed to be alone with her. As they closed the metal door behind them, Fulcrom pulled up a leather chair alongside the surgical platform on which Lan was resting, and slumped into it.
And waited for her to wake.
*
When she was fully conscious and her drowsiness fading, with a beaker of water in her hands, Lan described the attack in full detail to Fulcrom, who stood alongside her bed and affectionately caressed the back of her neck.
‘It was a trap,’ she told him. ‘And it was definitely the anarchists. I remember them arguing how far to take the beating. Someone asked if they should actually kill me, but the woman in the gang — it wasn’t Shalev — she said that they wanted the city to see how vulnerable it is, and how normal the Knights are. That they had the upper hand. They wanted the bourgeoisie to feel scared again, to give people something the People’s Observer couldn’t twist into propaganda. She said they were using me as a symbol.’ Lan took a sip of water. ‘Which explains why they dangled me off that bridge, I guess.’
‘Feror told me if you weren’t enhanced, you would probably be dead,’ Fulcrom said.
‘Oh,’ Lan replied and appeared to contemplate the statement. ‘Perks of the job, I guess.’
Fulcrom smiled. It was reassuring, under the circumstances, to see she still possessed a sense of humour. ‘Apparently your recovery is going to be quick, because of these cultists. You’ve considerable value to the city, you know.’
‘I feel a little guilty, if I’m honest. Especially after seeing so many people slaughtered by the military, for me alone to receive such privilege just doesn’t feel right.’
‘The Emperor has invested heavily in the three of you. He’s simply protecting his interests. Nothing personal, I’m sure.’ Fulcrom winked.
‘You’re full of love this… afternoon?’
‘Nearly. It’s early evening now. You’ve spent a few hours in bed.’
Lan pushed herself so that her legs hung off the edge of the platform, and Fulcrom pulled the blankets up over her to keep her decent, should any of the cultists return to the room.
She gave him an intense look then, and he knew that there was a deeper problem, one that the cultists couldn’t fix. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m… I’m pretty sure they knew my past.’
‘Nonsense,’ Fulcrom reassured her. ‘I promise you, no one outside of the highest echelons of the empire have the slightest clue, and even then the background of the Knights is hugely confidential — just one or two cultists, perhaps; security is tight on this. They wouldn’t gossip.’
Had she imagined it? Her head was hazy from the beatings and the treatments. Maybe it wasn’t true. No one was treating her any differently, were they? And in fact the cultists had just spent their resources repairing her. She felt she should just keep quiet about it.
‘From now on,’ Fulcrom said, ‘I want the Knights only to work as a group, or at the very least patrol the streets in pairs.’
Lan creased her face as little fluxes of pain moved around her body. ‘I feel a little drunk. What did these cultists do to me?’
‘Saved your life, is what they did,’ Fulcrom reminded her. ‘It was Feror’s work mainly.’
‘Good old Feror.’ She gently eased her feet to the floor, Fulcrom clasping his arm behind her for support as her legs took her weight.
She let him prop her up for a while longer, and he walked her around the room in slow circles.
Soon he realized she was walking normally. ‘Do you actually need my arms around you?’
‘No, I can do this on my own — I just didn’t want you to let go.’ She smiled, stood upright, faced him, then with a sigh she held him, burying herself beneath his robes.
For someone who’d nearly been beaten to death, her grip was remarkably strong.
*
When Lan was well enough to return to her living quarters that evening, Fulcrom guided her home, taking care not to be too patronizing with his gestures. He found Tane and Vuldon in the company of Ulryk. Of course, Fulcrom realized, the priest has not yet found a new place where he can shelter. What better place than this?
The Book of Transformations lotrs-3 Page 31
