Absence_Mist and Shadow

by J. B. Forsyth

  ‘He won’t be able to.’

  ‘Why?’

  And there it was: a question that would require her to lay bare a lifetime of secrets if she were to answer it. They looked at her and she looked at them – one an exorcist and the other a potential spirit lure - the kind of people she had been running from her whole life. In the short time she had known them, one had nearly killed her and the other had saved her life. If Izle knew a way to trick The Reader he had to be stopped and now her uncle was gone, they were the only people in the whole world who could help. Whether she liked it or not, she had to trust them. So, hoping she wasn’t making a big mistake, she opened her mouth to answer…

  Revelations

  ‘There’s much more to this than you know,’ she began. ‘Absence permits me to leave my body, but it serves in other ways too. It allows me to purge pain and disease and it extends my life, keeping me young… My real name is Laurena and I was born in Joebel over five hundred years ago. I witnessed the creation of The Reader and I felt the earthquake that tore open the Abyss.’

  Kye’s jaw dropped and Ormis’s eyes took on the shine of blown glass.

  She paused, allowing time for her revelation to settle. She expected the exorcist to erupt, but he said nothing. His face was an unreadable mask, his body as still as The Reader itself. She saw now how much he had changed since they were together at the gaol. His face was drawn and his clothes hung in dirt caked folds. He was no longer in possession of his broad rimmed hat and his hair was unkempt and matted together in greasy clumps.

  ‘My people are from a different world – a planet just like this, orbiting a star in the Wagon Wheel Constellation. Many years ago they found the jewel that hangs around The Reader’s neck. We called it the Creator Stone for some believed it was the womb from which the universe was born. My father once asked me to close my eyes and he put it in my hand. When I opened them I was staring into an endless depth of stars through which my eyes could have fallen forever – a thing of such power and beauty we thought it lost or discarded by a god.’ Her voice strengthened as she spoke - the mere thought of it imbuing her with courage.

  ‘A second stone was found within days of the first. That one I haven’t held and wouldn’t wish to. For where there was light and creation in the first; there was mist and malice in the second. The stones were separated and studied. My father was among those who studied the Creator Stone and they learnt much from it - not least the secret of Absence. But their greatest discovery was the stone’s power to create what was in its user’s mind. The problem was: to create what you desired, you had to think of it with extreme focus and clarity, and if your mind wandered the results could be disastrous.

  ‘We tried to make livestock, but the cattle clustered together with sad eyes and died in agony within a few days. Their proportions were never quite right and their meat had an odd taste no one liked… We created buildings that were unstable or made of alien materials that hummed when you got too close. Worst of all, someone created a mountain range right over one of our cities, killing thousands. After that, our leader Gallianos forbade its further use. He said fallible men weren’t supposed to wield the power of gods and it was a mistake to even try.

  ‘Those studying the second stone became secretive and after a few weeks they disappeared altogether. When they reappeared it was clear their stone had power too, but it had poisoned them body and soul. We called them the Uhuru - an ancient word that means empty souls. They tried to take our stone and there was a long war that nearly destroyed both sides. In the end we escaped, using the Creator Stone to create a portal to this world.’

  The exorcist was a statue of himself and there was no way of telling what he was thinking. But she went on regardless. Her words flowed confidently and she never faltered. It was a history she had discussed hundreds of times with her uncle; a history that was documented in a little book he had written at the hideaway and a history she knew inside out.

  ‘We lived on the Eastland plains for many years before the Uhuru found us. They used their stone to make their own portal – appearing from tunnels of green glass they burnt into the rock beneath the city. Hundreds poured out, killing my people wherever they found them. Many died that day – including my parents. The survivors were beaten back to the mountains. On the eve of our inevitable defeat and with the prospect of the Creator Stone falling into enemy hands, Gallianos decided to use it again - to create the titan you call The Reader. At first the image in his mind was denied. What he tried to create was a titan that would act in our interest, but the stone wouldn’t produce it from thin air. It showed him such a thing could only be made with the flesh and blood of healthy men.

  ‘He spoke to my people and told them what he had seen in the stone. With the Uhuru army gathered at the foot of the mountain and defeat only hours away; every last able bodied man volunteered to sacrifice themselves for its creation. Lots were drawn and those selected were led to a place high on the mountain. What happened next I saw with my own eyes… They drunk something that knocked them out and Gallianos used the stone to build the titan from their bodies. When it was done, the drink was taken by seven elders, whose rising souls were passed through his mantle and used to give it consciousness. The next morning Gallianos sent it down the mountain to where the Uhuru were camped - his mantle allowing him to communicate with it. In less than an hour it destroyed the Uhuru and sealed the portal between our worlds. Afterwards Gallianos took the titan west and hid it in thick forest. The battle with the Uhuru was won, but he told my uncle he was appalled by the sacrifice and repented his use of the stone. He gave it to the titan to protect and hid the mantle in the rocks between its feet – hoping never to need it again.’

  Still no reaction from the exorcist. He hadn’t even blinked. Kye looked like someone watching a magician’s trick and there wasn’t a wrinkle on his amazed face.

  ‘In the following days we returned to Joebel and started rebuilding. But we were soon struck by a second disaster from which we never recovered. A huge earthquake shook the city one morning and it was torn apart by the bottomless chasm you call the Abyss. We thought it had something to do with the Uhuru portal – either it hadn’t been sealed properly or our old enemy had forced it open again. And when their poisonous mist rose from the Abyss that night we fled, fearing their return. They never came – but the mist eventually forced us over the mountains. We settled in the Westland and soon the old war and the origin of The Reader were forgotten... But if Izle knows about the Creator Stone and the mantle, you’ll be powerless against him once they’re in his possession…’

  As her words ran out she expected the exorcist to speak. How much of her story was written in the old library of the Caliste she didn’t know, but judging by the glassy shine of his eyes, there was very little. It wouldn’t be easy for a man like Ormis to take on board what she had said. He was one of those men whose knowledge was engraved in stone tablets and who required a hammer and chisel to write over it. But before he could speak, she began again. With her story out she felt years of fear and indignation bubbling in her chest; demanding to be heard.

  ‘There’s something else I want to say while I still have the courage.’ He permitted her to go on with a nod that was barely perceptible. Kye sensed how hard the next bit was going to be and squeezed her hand in support.

  ‘The first ghosts appeared shortly after the Abyss opened. Before then there were no such things. People lived and people died. There was no after. Some blamed the forging of the portal – saying it brought the spirit plane closer to our world. The ghosts of those that died in the earthquake were the first to rise and the panic they caused hastened our departure. The further west we went the more dispersed we became – living in small communities we had to fortify against the horrors that started coming out of the mist. Fear and superstition poisoned our minds and we began to distrust our neighbours and friends - a path that eventually gave rise to the exorcists.’

  Her tone changed to one of accus
ation and she squeezed Kye’s hand.

  ‘For most of our lives my uncle and I have been hiding from exorcists - in fear of what you might do to us. We were in Irongate when the first stones were laid in the Caliste, and in Hanlow when extracts of the Witch Laws were nailed up in every village.’ The next words were anathema to her and she recited them with venom. ‘The coupling of spirit and host can only be undone in death; the pain of which must transcend earthly suffering if the bond between them is to be broken, the spirit banished and the host to find peace.’

  She got a reaction from Ormis now. His face twitched and his lips separated with a short, gasping breath.

  ‘Those words have haunted me a lifetime and if another passage has caused more pain and suffering, I haven’t heard it. I’ve seen women slow torn by horses roped to their arms and legs and children staked out for starving rats. I’ve seen an old man wrapped with glowing bands of iron and a young girl sanded to a pulp with deadwood. Atrocities inflicted by friends and neighbours who, despite the screams, were convinced they were doing a good deed… Your order claims to have changed, but has it? I’ll do all I can to help you stop Izle getting his hands on the Creator Stone. But when all is done, I fear you’ll lock me up in your black rock until you’ve taken everything I’ve got left.’

  She was trembling now, but she forced herself to look the exorcist directly in his eyes. She wasn’t sure how he would respond to this, but his reaction was a complete surprise. He blinked and whirled away, hurrying to the door and disappearing down the stairs without a single word.

  ‘It’s the truth Kye.’ she said when his footsteps faded away. ‘Do you believe me?’

  ‘I think so… But it means you’re very old.’ He squinted, pretending to make some difficult calculation. ‘Maybe five times as old as Lady Wiblow.’

  She remembered the old widow who lived in a row of little white houses on Agelrish Ridge and smiled. ‘Maybe six,’ she said with a sparkle in her eye.

  He laughed and she did too. It seemed absurd after all she had just said, but it was born more out of relief than humour. She had unfurled a festering secret and thrown it to the wind. And in that moment she didn’t care where it came down or what the consequences might be. She felt light and liberated - an absence in her own skin quite different from the Absence she knew.

  And it appeared Kye had accepted her for who she was - just like that.

  She could see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch. He was the first friend she had no secrets from and despite everything, it felt good.

  Vision

  Ormis leant against the tower wall, trying to get his emotions under control. He was standing on the very same step Griglis had run to three days earlier, following a very different, but equally revelatory experience with the girl. After hearing voices at the top of the tower he had rushed up the stairs two at a time, priming his draw as he went. He had expected to find the living embodiment of the black wraith he exorcised two days ago, but he found only a frightened girl instead. She was paler and thinner than when they first met in Agelrish woods – but the same girl nevertheless. She had survived his exorcism unharmed and unchanged. There was precedent for this. The Indomitable Spirit’s immunity was well documented, but as inexplicable as his talent was, the girl had surpassed him – surviving an exorcism physically as well as spiritually.

  Her story was as tall as the tower he was leaning on, but he believed every word. Her extraordinary talent lent credence to it, but it was more than that. He was an interrogator of spirit lures and lynch mobs – work which brought him face to face with deceivers every day. He had watched her closely as she spoke, but there wasn’t anything in her face or manner to suggest she was lying. If anything – the truth had radiated from her like heat.

  But astounding as the girl’s revelations were, it was her recital of the old Witch Laws that struck him a blow. There was only one known copy of the first Witch Laws and it was kept in a hallowed corner of the Caliste’s library – one of a number of priceless books Solwin kept under lock and key. A book that could only be viewed with the old librarian looking over your shoulder to assure its pages were spared unnecessary wear. He was familiar enough with the passage the girl had recited to know she had spoken it word for word. Not as though she was reading it from the text – but as if it were burnt into her mind.

  The extract was from the Principle of Pain Purification, an idea later rejected and renounced by the Caliste. But the girl was right – it was a superstition that had motivated many atrocities over the years and still continued to. By the time the Caliste retracted the principle it was too late. The idea was fixed in the collective consciousness and no amount of denouncements had been able to erase it.

  He first heard the Principle of Pain Purification when Lord Riole read it aloud in a cold classroom and it had filled him with a disabling mix of grief and resentment that came from nowhere. The girl’s recital had triggered that strange vulnerability again – an emotional turmoil that had only strengthened as he fled down the steps. Now, as he fought to get himself under control he was struck by a vision. In the foreground was an abandoned market with vegetables strewn over the tables and scattered on the cobbles. Beyond the stalls was a brick building with a smoking chimney. A dead man was slumped against its wall and as he looked into his vacant eyes a terrible scream lanced from the chimney.

  He dropped to the steps, clutching his chest. There was some great horror in his vision - some deeper meaning just out of reach. His life before the orphanage was screened away behind a mental cliff face that had been crumbling over the last few months and the girl’s recital had brought it down in one great landslide; allowing him his first look behind. He closed his eyes and saw a woman wearing a lace trimmed blue bonnet. Her features wouldn’t resolve, but he knew with sudden certainty it was his mother.

  All at once he felt small and desperately bereft…

  The vision dissolved into a background of courtyard walls and he started to feel better. When Suula came through the gate he pushed himself to his feet and tried to cobble together some presence of mind. There was much left to do and he wouldn’t let what was going on inside his head interfere with it. If the girl was right and Izle was heading for the city, he had to get there as soon as possible.

  ‘The girl’s awake,’ he said as she sprang onto the steps beside him. ‘You can untie her if the boy hasn’t done so already… Bring them straight down, I want to be at the Wall by nightfall.’

  Her dark eyes lingered on him for a second, then she disappeared into the tower.

  Pssst

  Ormis separated from a bustling crowd and climbed the steps of the Black Tower. At the top, one of the guards stepped forward and placed a hand on his chest.

  ‘Sorry, but Lord Beredrim’s receiving no visitors today.’

  ‘I bring important news. If you send word, I’m sure he’ll make an exception.’

  ‘Orders are clear. He’s not to be disturbed – by anybody.’

  ‘But -’

  ‘- Look. There’s been some big changes around here the last few days. You might want to try back tomorrow.’

  Ormis held the guard’s gaze. There was much he had to speak with Lord Beredrim about that couldn’t wait. But Rauul had personally trained the Tower Guard and there was little chance of these men disobeying orders. So he pushed down his irritation and turned away; hurrying back down the steps and disappearing into the crowd.

  The Night Earl watched him go; signalling an accomplice who fell in behind him. There were other exorcists due in the next few days and there was a substantial purse on each of their heads. But this one was to be kept alive - ten times as many silver moons for his safe delivery. He had wondered what was so special about him; but hadn’t dared to ask. For the men from whom he had taken this contract made his skin crawl and when they spoke, their voices echoed in the back of his head. On fulfilment of the contract he would receive more money than he made running the street gangs in a whole year. But if tru
th be known, it wasn’t the money that motivated him to put so much of his own time into seeing it done. Though he would never admit it to anyone, he feared the consequences of disappointing his current employers and had already decided never to do business with them again. He swaggered away to find some shade, stealing an apple from a stall and fixing the seller with an icy glare; daring him to complain.

  Ormis pushed through the crowds. He had returned to a city much different from the one he left behind. The Reader Ceremony was underway and the streets of Irongate were suffocating under the weight of visitors. The sun was scorching a path across an unblemished sky and it was showing no consideration for those that braved the streets – baking their heads and immersing them in a thick blanket of stale air. Permits had been granted to merchants and artisans from far afield and their stalls were set up in rows along the full length of Reader Way. He passed one behind which a grinning man was whittling miniature Readers from blocks of sycamore – his knife flashing in the sun as he made a series of confident cuts. There was a small army of finished products set up in rows in front of him, all of varying size and price. The next stall belonged to a huge apple of a woman, dressed in a bright red and orange dress. She offered him a toothy smile and drew a hand along a rail of shiny silks. But she read his disinterest and her hopeful eyes were quick to find a more promising prospect in the clot of people behind him. Outside The Moon and Cobbles, a group of red faced men were quaffing ale from silver tankards. A street girl was attending one; pushing her fingers through his curly brown hair while three ladies at a nearby table looked on in disgust. As he passed the inn, the crowd pressed him against a boy with a dirty face and opportunist eyes. He gave him a knowing look, but his pockets were empty and he made no attempt to protect them. It would be a good day for the boy though – as there was much to gain for quick little fingers in a tight flow of unwary visitors.