by D. P. Prior
‘You plan to use statue to get past soldiers?’ Huntsman appeared where before there had only been cobwebs. ‘I warned you, music man, not to use its power.’
Elias went white. ‘It won’t happen again. I’ve got ways and means of my own, you know.’
The Dreamer stood in front of him and held out a hand. ‘It begins. He comes. Give statue to me.’
‘No!’ Elias backed away, tripped over the dead mawg and fell flat on his backside.
‘Yes!’ Huntsman commanded. There was a moment’s resistance and then Elias handed over the black serpent, which was still veined with glowing amber.
‘You do not know me, Deacon Shader,’ Huntsman said, turning away from the bard, ‘but I know you. Take this. Eingana wills it.’
A fist-sized lump formed in Shader’s throat. ‘Why…Why me?’
Huntsman thrust his weazened face towards Shader. ‘It is what statue wants. Your friend said this would happen—bald meddler. He said statue would choose you. You carry Archon’s sword.’
‘Aristodeus? But how…?’
The statue dropped into Shader’s hand. The sibilant voice in his head returned for an instant. Deo gratias. Deo…wasn’t that one of the forbidden words, a blasphemy punishable in the Judiciary’s dungeons? Shader thrust the statue back as if it were on fire, but Huntsman was nowhere to be seen.
Breathing deeply to calm his nerves, he turned the serpent over, running his fingers along the stony scales. Its mouth gaped wide as if about to strike, but it had no fangs, just dustings of ash that spilled out onto Shader’s coat. Above the mouth there were only empty sockets for eyes.
Something moved in his peripheral vision, and Shader spun to see a large spider scuttling across the floor and squeezing through a crack.
‘Great!’ Elias said. ‘Ter-bloody-rific! Without the bleeding statue I’m up shit creak.’
‘Thought thou had powers of thine own,’ Maldark said.
‘Ha shogging ha! Remind me to book you for the panto next Christmas—not that you bloody Philistines would have any idea what a panto was. Nor Christmas, for that matter. Come to think of it, you probably don’t even know what a Philistine is either!’
‘Thou wouldst be surprised at what I know.’ Maldark’s voice had dropped to a whisper. His shoulders sagged, and some of the fire went from his eyes.
‘Well, if you’re not going,’ Ioana said, ‘perhaps you could give us a lift back to the templum. All this excitement has quite worn me out and I’m about ready for bed.’
‘And another thing,’ Elias said. ‘How come I’m the only one to get burnt?’
Shader wondered about that, too. Of the three, Elias was the only one not dressed in the white of Nous, though the dwarf’s cross symbol could hardly be described as a Monas. Divine protection? Not likely, he thought.
‘Perhaps there’s evil in your heart,’ Ioana said, with a cheeky grin. ‘Or lack of faith.’
‘Not evil,’ Maldark said, drawing Ioana’s gaze. ‘That cannot be the answer.’ The priestess seemed about to say something, closed her eyes briefly, and patted him on the arm.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Elias asked as Ioana led the dwarf from the room.
‘Maybe the power was focused on you.’ Shader stood aside to let the bard go first. ‘Perhaps they saw you as the greatest threat.’
‘You think?’ Elias said, cocking his head and rubbing his chin.
‘Either that, or the mawgs thought you’d be more palatable toasted.’
‘Hilarious. No wonder you couldn’t hack it as a knight, copped out of being a monk, and screwed up with Rhiannon.’
Shader glared, fingers tightening around the hilt of the longsword. Elias seemed oblivious, flouncing past as if a sword thrust in the back was the last thing on his mind.
‘Ain had it all mapped out from the start.’ He waved his hands about in mock awe. ‘You’re a shogging comedian!’
THE BLACK HAND
The Grey Abbot lay curled in the foetal position sobbing like an infant. His cell was a coffin, cramped and airless; the fire depicted in the great painting a foretaste of the Abyss; the dragons malefic demons eyeing his remains. Clumps of white hair came away in arthritic fingers with skin the texture of ancient parchment. If only he’d still had the Monas he could have kept mortality at bay, stopped the disintegration of his body.
He winced as his tongue dislodged another tooth and salty blood oozed from his gums. His eyes blurred with tears. Was this how it would end—the immortal Grey Abbot putrefying in a pool of his own fluids, flesh wasting, bones crumbling?
Panic gnawed at his stomach like rats eating their way out of a corpse. How could he even consider himself the Grey Abbot anymore? That man had perished the moment the Monas was stolen, leaving behind an echo that should have been long-since dead: Alphonse LaRoche, born in the Old Faith ghetto in the South of France—back before the Templum had renamed it Gallia; Alphonse the founder of Pardes in the days leading up to the Reckoning; Alphonse the old man who had watched the cataclysm and would have died in the aftermath had Huntsman not come to him with the eye of Eingana. Alphonse: the seed from which the Grey Abbot had grown; the carcass to which he returned now that time fed inexorably upon its rightful dues.
The brothers took it in turns to stand outside his cell, knocking every few minutes, ostensibly to offer reassurance, but the Grey Abbot knew they were checking whether he was still alive. The decay was progressing with frightening rapidity and he knew he had only hours to live. Almost a thousand years of existence and still he couldn’t face the thought of death. With the Monas, he’d been supremely at ease, the consummate Nousian; but for all its benefits, it had eroded his faith. There had been no need of faith: once he’d achieved immortality, Alphonse La Roche had outgrown his dependence on the unseen god the Templum knew as Ain. The thought had never previously crossed his mind, but now, as the cells of his body returned to their constituent parts, he realized he’d unwittingly lived a godless life since the time of the Reckoning. Since the man, LaRoche, had become his own god. The wiser you were, he thought, the longer you lived, the greater the capacity for self-deception.
‘Ain! Ain! Forgive me!’ The prayer started as a whimper, but ended as a mental echo.
Ain!
Was it the Grey Abbot who pleaded or Alphonse LaRoche, striking for the surface of his mind like a drowning man? Could Ain hear his distress? Did Ain even care? With a creeping chill inching up his spine he realized with appalling clarity that there was no Ain; and in that instant his loss of faith was joined by the failure of hope, the corrosion of love. All that remained was the Void.
The Grey Abbot let out a long groan of utter hopelessness, prompting the monk outside to knock on the door with renewed vigour.
‘I’m all right,’ he rasped, adding in a whisper, ‘Go away, you ignorant fool.’
Reaching out with the last vestiges of strength that remained to his spirit, he sought out the residue of magic that had permeated the world since the Reckoning. He’d been aware of it for centuries; he’d known others to use it; been tempted himself.
The Grey Abbot’s desperation to cling to life guided him, and soon he heard a faint click as his spirit freed itself from the rotting flesh that housed it like a tomb. He soared above Pardes, speeding towards Sarum, spirit eyes darting this way and that searching for a clue that would lead him to the Monas. He would find Callixus, or whatever master he served, and strike a bargain. After all these centuries he’d accumulated much knowledge that would prove beneficial both politically and scientifically. There must be something he could trade in return for the eye of Eingana.
A dark shape rippled in the sky high above Sarum’s steeples, so high in fact that it seemed to seep between the stars. The Grey Abbot sped towards it, his mind racing with the arguments he would use to secure his continued existence. Once he’d done so, he reasoned, he would devote his life to the faith, see if he could find Ain, rediscover the truth between the lines of the Liber�
�a truth he’d once sworn to preserve, but had allowed to be perverted by misprision and innovation. The prospect of a godless universe, one in which he was prone to annihilation, was too horrifying to contemplate.
He drew closer to the shape and slowed down as he saw what it was: a vast hand, blacker than the night sky, gaseous fingers twitching, grasping, questing.
‘Callixus?’
The hand slammed into the Grey Abbot’s spirit body, the pain visceral, as if his physical form had been crushed by a boulder. Cold fingers tightened around him.
‘You have basked in the power of Eingana.’ There was no emotion in the voice. Barely a trace of inflection. The voice of someone he could not make bargains with.
‘The eye was stolen from me.’ The Grey Abbot blurted the words out as if telling the truth would make everything all right. ‘But I can find it for you.’
‘No need,’ the voice said in a disinterested monotone. ‘I will dredge the knowledge from your—what shall we call it? Soul?’
Spoken with the same condescension the Grey Abbot had used with the dullest of novices. There was no malice in the voice, no relish; merely dispassion.
As his spirit screamed its last, a peculiar image popped into the Grey Abbot’s mind: a recollection of a school room centuries ago, where he’d stood with other equally curious pupils and watched as the master dissected a cockroach for the purposes of elucidating biology.
THE MEETING
Sixty-five, sixty-six, sixty-seven, and break.
Cadman gave a slight shuffle, glancing about to make sure no one had noticed, and resumed his plod along the great corridor that dominated the fourth floor of Arnbrook House like a clogged aorta. Council staff bustled this way and that leaving him feeling like a rock in a fast-flowing stream, clerks and cleaners swirling around him like rapids, nodding and cow-towing with obvious feigned deference.
Arnbrook House. He counted off the letters for the umpteenth time whilst still monitoring the number of his steps within a deeper stratum of his mind, and reaching for his cigarette case with the layer beneath consciousness. A-R-N…seventy, seventy-one…
He emerged from the gaggle of plebs into an antechamber, feeling somewhat like he had as a schoolboy summoned by the headmaster. A young chap slouched on a bench beside the grand oak doors, head in hands, blond locks tumbling about his shoulders and crying out to be trimmed. The lad was armoured and wore a white surcoat bearing the Nousian Monas.
Curious. Though it does lend a certain credence to the rumours surrounding our beloved Governor.
‘Afternoon,’ he said, touching his forelock in the absence of a hat to tip.
‘G’day.’ The youth forced a smile. Looked like he had a broken nose, poor chap.
Cadman bent closer to examine the stitches. Good grief, what did they use, a knitting needle? ‘Ernst Cadman, public health advisor to Governor Gen. And you are?’
The door opened before the fellow could answer and Lallia slid through the gap. She looked a mess, to say the least, but that was nothing unusual. Her chestnut hair was bundled up on top of her head, presumably because she’d not had time to brush it; and her eyes were set in dark cavities.
‘They’re waiting.’
Seventy-seven steps in all. Two sevens are fourteen and one plus four equals…
Cadman flipped the cog on his lighter and sucked on the cigarette. ‘Who’s in there?’
‘Everyone.’ Lallia rolled her eyes and opened the door a little wider.
‘Everyone? Never a dull moment, eh?’
Lallia shoved the door back for him and held up a hand to the youth who had risen from the bench. ‘Wait here.’
Oh, the dominance of the woman! Where did Zara Gen find her?
‘Governor Gen!’ He gave a little bow as he entered the meeting room, one sweep of his eyes taking in the motley crew assembled around the table. ‘Master Frayn,’ he acknowledged the black-clad guildmaster twirling his oiled moustache. ‘Gentlemen.’ He nodded to a red-faced man in chainmail with a much more manly moustache than Frayn’s, and to a stiff, important-looking weasel with a haughty demeanour, dressed in the yellow robes of an Imperial herald. He was already thoroughly familiar with the last person he turned to. ‘Dr Stoofley.’ Cadman gave his most affable smile to the cachexic old idiot hunched over the table beside Master Frayn.
Stoofley inclined his ridiculously large head towards him and attempted a smile that was more of a snarl, tufts of cotton-fine hair sticking up on his liver-spotted pate. ‘Cadman,’ he said before looking away, no doubt shutting his eyes and mentally shaking his head.
Lallia pulled out the chair next to Stoofley and gestured for Cadman to sit.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ he beamed, before adding in a whisper, ‘Late night?’
‘Dr Cadman,’ Zara Gen’s voice was all business—clipped and perfectly accentuated like an actor’s. ‘Thank you for coming so promptly.’
Heads turned at that, but Cadman thought it best to take it in the positive sense in which it wasn’t meant. ‘Urgent matters require a hasty response. I only wish I could have made it sooner. I assume this meeting concerns the plague?’
Lallia seated herself beside Zara Gen and picked up a pad and pencil.
‘Amongst other things,’ Frayn said, twanging his moustache with a flourish and doing his utmost to maintain eye contact.
‘Quite.’ Zara Gen raised a finger. ‘But the plague is top of my list.’
Frayn nodded rather too enthusiastically. ‘Absolutely, Governor. The plague is priority number one.’
‘Too bloody right!’ said the herald. ‘Some of us have messages to carry to a master who will not brook tardiness.’
‘Which is why you have been invited to our emergency meeting, Mr Torpin. It’s in all our interests to end this plague as soon as possible.’ Zara Gen turned to Cadman. ‘Doctor, this is Dan Torpin, herald to…I’m sorry, who was it again?’
‘Duke Farian, second only to the Emperor himself.’ Torpin touched his hand to his breast.
‘Honoured to meet you,’ Cadman said.
‘Likewise, Doctor. Likewise.’
Stoofley splayed his fingers in a gesture that looked part exasperation and part indignation. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Governor, I fail to see why it is necessary to have two medical experts on this panel when both Dr Cadman and myself are extremely busy with the sick and dying. I’m sure, if the doctor wants to return to his patients, I will be more than able to speak for both of us.’
Zara Gen sighed and twiddled with his ponytail—a sure sign he was fuming, Cadman knew from experience.
‘I appreciate your concern, Dr Stoofley, but there are important differences in the way you two practise that might actually help in this instance.’
Stoofley gave a sullen nod and picked up his pen, fanning the air and coughing delicately.
Cadman held up his cigarette. ‘My apologies, Doctor. Such a disgusting habit. I would put it out only—‘
‘Here.’ Lallia pushed back her chair and came round the table to snatch the cigarette from him. Cadman thought she was about to stub it out on the carpet, but instead she sauntered over to a window and flicked it outside before returning to her seat with another roll of her eyes.
Obviously didn’t find what she was looking for last night.
‘Besides the plague and Master Frayn’s little matter,’ said Zara Gen doing his best to avoid Frayn’s look of affront that said his matter was anything but little, ‘are there any other issues you’d like to table?’
The ruddy-faced solider gave a polite cough and leaned forward.
‘Captain Harding?’
‘Just one matter, Governor. A spot of bother at the Arch of Foundation. Ringleader’s outside. Thought you should see him.’
Zara Gen frowned and took a deep breath. ‘Thank you, Captain? Anything else? No? Good. Dr Stoofley, perhaps you could fill everyone in on this blasted plague.’
Stoofley coughed into his fist and knitted his brows, nodding sagaci
ously. He left a long enough pause to ensure all eyes were upon him, and just when Zara Gen seemed about to prompt him to get on with it, Stoofley spoke. ‘One hundred and twenty seven dead,’ he paused for effect, ‘and by my last reckoning, two hundred and sixty-six in the infirmaries. Perhaps Dr Cadman will correct me if I’m misinformed.’
Cadman beamed at him, reached for another cigarette, caught Lallia’s glare and dropped his hand to his lap. ‘I have absolute faith in your figures, Doctor.’
Zara Gen put his head in his hands, but only long enough to realise he was doing it. Before the others had noticed, he was leaning forward intently, hawkish face thrust towards Stoofley. ‘Are we coping?’
Stoofley sat back and spread his hands. ‘As soon as the infirmaries fill up they empty again, but not because patients are getting better. The death-carts are collecting night and day, and the grave pits are woefully inadequate.’
‘Excuse my ignorance,’ Cadman said in his most affable voice, ‘but shouldn’t we be burning the bodies?’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Stoofley gave an exaggerated sigh, ‘but I was under the impression there was a fire ban. The last thing the Governor needs,’ he gave a sycophantic nod to Zara Gen, ‘is a bush fire. We’re already stretched to the limit.’
‘Burn them,’ Zara Gen said.
‘But—‘
‘Dr Cadman,’ Zara Gen turned away from Stoofley, ‘what is your opinion of this plague?’
Magic, of course, and if I wasn’t wasting my time at this tedious excuse for a meeting I’d be well on my way to discovering a cure. Not that he was unduly concerned about the victims; the wretches started along the path of decay the moment they were born. Accelerating the process was neither here nor there. But the matter of their dying by the hundreds was turning all eyes towards the source of the pollution—for that’s what it was, not a bacillus. They were like dead fish floating to the surface of a poisoned lake. Sooner or later people would realize the only remedy lay in identifying the contaminant and removing it; and Cadman doubted whether they’d differentiate between the amber pieces of the Statue of Eingana and his own dark craft which they amplified. The side-effects of such a communion had at first been a curiosity, but had now rapidly become a concern. ‘If Aeterna would open its archives, we’d have it beaten in no time.’ That’ll put the cat among the pigeons.
