“Welcome,” Scheusal said to Potts. “Is this your first time in Suiddock?”
“Yes,” the newcomer replied. He stared at the wild-eyed collection of prisoners in the holding cells. “Is it always like this here?”
“No, this is out of the ordinary, even for Three Penny Bridge,” the sergeant said. “They’ve been coming in all night, begging to be kept safe from whatever or whoever is chasing them. Everyone’s got a different story, but the gist is the same—”
“They’ve all been confronted by their worst fears and nightmares,” Belladonna interjected from the doorway. She and Holismus were dragging the unconscious figure of Silenti into the station, all three of them with scraps of cloth masking their noses and mouths. “We had the same thing, coming back from the wreck. The fog overtook us.”
“In every sense,” Holismus added. “We found Silenti trying to drown himself in a water trough. He’d have succeeded too, if we hadn’t pulled him out in time.”
“Get inside and shut those doors,” Scheusal urged. “Got enough half-crazed people in here already. I don’t want to join them.” He went over to help Holismus get Silenti upstairs to the sleeping quarters, while Belladonna joined Kurt at the sergeant’s desk. Potts introduced himself to her while the captain watched.
“Why don’t you go upstairs?” Kurt suggested to Potts, pointing at the nearest staircase. “Gerta should still be up, and she’ll have a hot meal available if you’re hungry. She’s also find you an empty bed, and show you where to do your ablutions.”
“Yes, captain, of course.”
Belladonna waited until Potts was gone before telling Kurt the cruel fate of the Altena crewmen. “I’ve never seen the like before, and I’ve witnessed plenty of deaths.”
“Who would do such a thing, and why?” Kurt wondered.
“What happened with the Altena, the way this fog came in so soon afterwards, and the effect it has on anyone who breathes in the mist—it can’t be coincidence, all this happening in the one district, not in such a short space of time,” Belladonna said.
Scheusal came back downstairs. “Silenti’s recovering, but he was badly shaken.”
“I know how he feels,” Belladonna sighed.
“Everything that’s happened today—the Altena, the battle at the wreck, the fog and what it’s doing to people—it all starts with that cargo ship,” Kurt decided. “What have we found out about it? Anything might help.”
“Bescheiden got hold of a manifest and a crew list from the docks after you got the summons,” the sergeant replied. “Captain’s name is—or was—Haaland.”
“Don’t say that name,” a frantic voice yelled from the holding cells. “Never say that name!” Kurt, Scheusal and Belladonna looked across at a small-boned man whose face looked as if it had been bleached white by fear.
“You recognise the name?” Kurt demanded, approaching the cells.
The prisoner nodded, his hands trembling. “I tried to pick his pocket.”
Kurt glanced across to Scheusal, who provided an introduction. “This is mighty Massimo, self-proclaimed king of Marienburg’s cutpurses. Lifted more money pouches than I’ve had hot dinners,” the sergeant said, patting his rotund, well-fed stomach.
Massimo grimaced. “I thought he was drunk, this sailor. He had a captain’s insignia, and a bulge in his pocket, so I figured it might be worth investigating. But it wasn’t a money pouch inside.” He pressed his face closer to the bars, lowering his voice to a whisper. “It was a human tongue.”
Belladonna folded her arms. “In normal circumstances…”
“There was nothing normal about this,” Massimo insisted.
“Haaland?”
“Don’t say that name!” the cutpurse hissed. “He tried to kill me, but I ran, fast as I could. That’s when I heard the name. Nearly deafened me, it did. Then he came apart.”
“Came apart?” Scheusal asked.
Massimo described the captain disintegrating into eldritch energy, the way each tendril had snaked away in search of some unknown destination or victim. “That’s when I ran. I needed to confess my sins, all my crimes. The end days are coming, and I don’t want anything on my conscience when I’m dancing with Morr.”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Kurt said, before ushering Belladonna and Scheusal out of the thief’s earshot. “Well, what do you think of his story?”
“Any other day I’d suggest he needs his head examining,” the sergeant observed. “But today… There could be some truth in his tale, however much he’s exaggerated it.”
“I agree,” Belladonna said. “Everything points to a malevolent force being let loose in Suiddock, maybe across the city. But we’re at the centre of what’s happening.”
Kurt nodded, his face a grimace of anger. “You’re both right, I’m sure of it too. Someone—or something—has unleashed dark magic upon Marienburg!”
* * *
The Keeper had been praying since dawn, his eyes fixed on the empty sockets of the skull, watching the steady trickle of crimson seeping from each of the hollow orbits. Sixteen hours on bended knee was enough to cripple the most faithful of believers, at least temporarily, but the Keeper did not surrender to his cramp and exhaustion until he heard the distant chimes of midnight. The noise echoed in the rooms above the oubliette, carried there by walls of stone from some other part of the subterranean temple.
The Keeper relaxed, easing himself back onto his withered haunches. He knew better than to try standing yet. It would be many minutes before the circulation returned to his weary legs. Besides, there wasn’t anywhere much to walk in this underground chamber. He knew every stone, every crevice and object within this place—how could he not? It had been his home since the age of eighteen. Sometimes the Keeper wondered how much the world outside these walls had changed. Did anyone still remember him?
There were days he feared even the guards who stood vigil above the oubliette might forget his presence beneath their feet. He had no way of leaving, unless someone unlocked and opened the hatch set into the ceiling overhead. Meals were lowered through a smaller hatch within the hatch, no wider than a man’s fist, while all his bodily waste vanished down a privy hole in one corner. Thirty years he had remained in this space, denying himself the sun, the moon and the stars. All for the love of his life: Solkan.
Not once had he heard the voice of his god, or known for certain if he was truly doing Solkan’s will. He had to survive on the strength of his beliefs. True faith needed no proof, no certainty, no guarantees. True faith was enough, in and of itself. So when the skull spoke to him, the Keeper did not know what to think.
Are you a true servant of Solkan?
The Keeper blinked. “Who said that?”
Are you a faithful disciple of Solkan?
“How can you ask that?” The Keeper whirled round, trying to discern where the voice was coming from. He could see nobody else with him in the oubliette, no mouth from where the words could emit.
Are you willing to prove your devotion?
“Yes, my lord, of course! I am your chattel, to do with as you wish.”
Are you willing to die for me?
A jolt of realisation shook the Keeper. He was not hearing these words—they were being spoken inside his mind. How was that possible? Had he succumbed to madness after so long alone? Or was this the voice of Solkan, come to answer his prayers at last? How would he ever know which one of those alternatives was true?
By surrendering yourself, your life to me.
The Keeper nodded, his eyes still searching the oubliette for answers he knew they wouldn’t find. He was on his feet now, the pain and weariness in his legs forgotten in the excitement of the moment. “I am your vessel, lord. Your will is my command.” Then the Keeper saw where the voice was originating: the holy relic, the skull.
We must become one, it spoke into the Keeper’s mind. We must be as one.
“Tell me how and it shall be done.” The Keeper could not help staring at t
he skull. It had sat immobile and lifeless on the stone pedestal all the years he’d been guardian of the oubliette, awaiting the coming of prophecy. The weeping of blood was the first sign of the horrors to come. But none of the sacred texts of Solkan made any mention of what was happening now. The skull was coming to life before his eyes.
You must die so I may live again, it whispered in his mind.
The blood that had pooled round the skull was rolling back up its sides, adhering to the bone surfaces. The Keeper watched amazed as the liquid transmuted into flesh and sinew, vein and skin, as if thousands of years of decay were being undone in moments. Baleful eyes grew out of the empty sockets, while jet-black hair sprouted across the brow and billowed from the glistening scalp. The skull was recreating itself before him.
“What must I do, lord?” the Keeper asked.
Kill yourself, the skull urged. End your life so I might live again.
The Keeper was shaken. “But… I cannot.”
Why?
“Your laws forbid it, lord. Taking the lives of others in vengeance is the way of Solkan. But a true believer cannot take their own life, else they face damnation.” The Keeper didn’t understand. How could a god not know his own catechism?
You’re already damned, fool—like the rest of this city.
The skull’s eyes blazed with malevolent fury, an unearthly energy building up inside those black, soulless pupils. The Keeper wanted to tear his gaze away from them, wanted to run, but he was trapped inside the oubliette. He looked up at the ceiling, intending to hammer on the hatch for help, but it was there no more—gone. Vanished. There was no way out, no escape. The Keeper realised whatever was inhabiting the holy relic had nothing to do with Solkan. This was another kind of vengeance, something far more terrifying. Eldritch energy burst from the black eyes, boring twin holes into the chest of the Keeper. He screamed and screamed and screamed—
The Keeper jolted awake, his body stiff and sore on the cold, stone floor. He gazed round, trying to comprehend what had happened. Atop the pedestal the skull was the same as when his heavy eyelids had closed, gentle trickles of blood still oozing from the empty sockets. The voice, that terrible taunting voice— he had dreamed it. A nightmare, that was all it had been. The Keeper let himself relax, the furious thumping of his heart easing back down to a normal rhythm. But even as he let out a sigh of blessed relief, something was still troubling his thoughts.
The oubliette was supposed to be protected from attack by its position beneath the holiest temple to the glory of Solkan in all of Marienburg. During the Keeper’s many years in this cell, he’d never known a bad dream or had his sleep troubled by fear. How had this torment crept into his dreams? How had it penetrated the temple’s defences?
The Keeper did not notice the wisp of mist as it slid back down the privy hole and drifted out through the sewers to the sea. He did not know his death was now assured.
Stefan Rothemuur did not enjoy being heir to one of the richest fortunes in all of Marienburg. Sickly as a child, he had grown into a weak and often ill adult, prone to catching every cold, sniffle and sickness that passed by the door of the Rothemuur palace in central Goudberg. His father enjoyed a rude good health and Stefan often felt an overwhelming sense of shame from old Maximilian at having sired such a feeble boy. But that didn’t stop the patriarch trying to marry off his sole male heir as a bargaining chip in business negotiations with the House van de Kuypers.
The Rothemuur fortune was based on importing precious goods from two main areas—Araby and the New World. The House de Roelef was Maximilian’s competition for the Araby trade routes. He’d once tried to eliminate that competition by proposing marriage to Clotilde de Roelef, matriarch of the rival household—she’d laughed in his face. Now Maximilian sought to shore up his alliance with the Van de Kuypers over the New World trade routes by marrying Stefan to that household’s sole heir, a ruddy-faced, muscular woman called Geertruida.
The prospect terrified Stefan, who thought he’d be lucky to survive a night in their marital bed if the union went ahead. Geertruida was likely to crush him to death between her bulging thighs. But Maximilian was determined to see his son married profitably, and had invited the Van de Kuypers clan to a grand ball. Stefan spent the night hiding in various nooks and crannies of the gaudy Tilean-style palace, using its ornate fountains and pastel marble corners as refuges from the dreaded Geertruida. Eventually he retreated to one place Stefan was certain nobody would ever look for him: the family crypt.
Generation upon generation of Rothemuurs were laid out in stone tombs beneath the palace, each incumbent resting beneath the family crest of three blood-red circles on a golden shield. Stefan knew he was fated to spend eternity down here once his life was over, but had long found that prospect comforting. To know one’s last repose offered a reassurance most citizens of Marienburg could not hope for. As a Rothemuur his mortal remains would crumble away to dust in dignity without need for quicklime or the crematorium’s flames to hasten the process. It was natural, it was proper.
Stefan had played in the crypt since childhood, knowing few but him ever ventured down here, below the wine cellar and quarters for the family’s private militia. A dozen burly men resided under the mansion, ready to spring to the defence of the Rothemuurs. But there had never been an attack on the family, its home, its fortune or its status as one of the great merchant houses—one of the Ten. The only threat Maximilian and his kin faced came from business rivals, not armed assault.
It was no coincidence the name of Goudberg could easily be translated as Gold Mound. The district was home to a citizenry of conservative, upper middle class families, all devout followers of Manann or Haendryk—gods of the seas and prosperity. So the Rothemuurs’ private militia was fat and complacent, not nearly ready for what Stefan found when he sought refuge among his ancestors in the crypt.
The family heir unlocked the rusted, dusty metal gates and pushed his way inside. It was more than a year since he’d visited the crypt, not since his aunt Karin perished at a ripe old age. Stefan’s father had grumbled it wasn’t worth burying her: Karin was so old her body was dry and brittle as ancient papyrus already, but tradition was tradition. She had joined all the others, dressed in a splendid white gown of finest Araby cotton. Stefan was sorry for her passing, since Karin was the closest thing to a friend he had among the family. True, he was coming to the crypt to avoid Geertruida, but it was also a chance to pay Karin a visit, perhaps offer a last farewell to her.
He’d brought a lantern down with him, the light throwing strange, ragged shadows across the crypt. Bleak silhouettes moved back and forth across the walls and tombs, almost as if there were others down here with Stefan, scuttling from darkness to darkness. That was impossible, of course. The fine sheen of dust across the floor proved he was the first visitor since Karin’s committal.
Her tomb was at the far end of the crypt, where the walls curved up into the high, vaulted ceiling. Stefan never ceased to be amazed at how dry and arid the chamber was, when it stood so deep beneath the palace that it must be well below sea level. When Stefan reached his aunt’s tomb, he found the slab of stone that once sealed her resting place had been pushed aside, and the dust beside it was disturbed. Almost as if something from inside had forced a way out. Something, or someone…
“Looking for me?” The words were hissed from behind him, like an accusation.
Stefan recognised his aunt’s voice, but he knew she couldn’t be alive. They had all watched her die, skin stretched like taut linen across the bones of her face, the sickly yellow pallor, the wheezing gasps for breath fading to naught. They had seen her entombed down here, locked away for all eternity with no food, no drink and no light. She couldn’t still be alive. She couldn’t be. It was impossible, Stefan told himself.
A skeletal hand closed on his right shoulder, flaps of rotten skin hanging from jaundiced bones, a whiff of decay rising from the desiccated fingers. “If you wanted to see me, honey boy, all
you have to do is turn around,” Karin’s voice whispered.
Honey boy was the nickname she’d given him. Only his dead aunt knew that name, it was their little secret. Karin had taken it to her final resting place, but now her tomb was empty and her voice was in his ear. Stefan felt something warm and wet running down the inside of his legs, as fear stole away control of his bladder. There were other noises in the crypt, the grinding of stone against stone as the lids atop other tombs slid sideways, and bony, decrepit hands emerged from inside.
“It’s been too long, honey boy,” Karin cooed. “Give your old aunt a kiss.”
Out of the corner of his eye Stefan could see her rotting face creeping towards him, lips puckering together. Grey hairs sprouted from above the lips and a fat, white maggot was worming its way out of her festering nostrils. It was all too much for the heir to the Rothemuur fortune. Clamping his eyes shut, he stumbled past his dead aunt, groping his way towards the crypt gates. “Guards!” Stefan shouted, his own voice sounding more like a hoarse croak than a cry for help. “Guards!”
“It’s happening across the city,” one of the Knights of Purity said. “All the dead in crypts below sea level are rising from their final resting places, demanding to be set free. Fortunately, only the richest families have crypts in their homes, and they also have private militia they can call upon to keep the problem under control.”
The cabal had come together in the secret temple at midnight, to hear reports of the past day’s events. The news was worrying, confirming the warning given by the Keeper at dawn—the prophecy was coming true. The cabal’s leader had listened and brooded, not speaking except to call for the next report. Once all the other Knights had finished, their leader strode to a tapestry on the temple wall. It showed all of Marienburg, each district signified by a different colour of thread. “You say these incidents, the dead rising from their tombs, are happening across the city?”
[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg Page 8
