by Jack Yeovil
The novice of Morr was insistent. He would not give up the horses, and be stranded on an open road with a cartload of fast-spoiling bodies.
Suddenly, the novice changed his mind. There were other voices. Other men, not on foot, had come out of a copse at the side of the road, and were insisting the novice turn over the duce's horses to their comrades, whose own mounts had been killed. There were voices all around and Kloszowski heard horses snorting as they drew near. The cart was surrounded. One of the horsemen spoke surprisingly well, addressing the novice in cultivated Old Worlder. He claimed his men had been unhorsed during a bloody battle with a band of foul skaven, the ratmen who were such a problem in the Blighted Marshes, and that the novice should be proud to help out such heroes.
The novice at least pretended to believe the man, and the horses were unharnessed. The foot-weary travellers strapped their saddles to new mounts, and the whole band rode off, hooves thumping against the soggy road.
'Banditti,' spat the novice when the party was out of earshot.
Kloszowski wondered if his back had snapped under the strain. If he tried to stand up, would he find his bones turned to knives, carving inside his flesh like Tancredi's white-hot skewers. Certainly, the pain was spreading.
The cart wasn't going any further. Thunder sounded again.
He moved his arms, testing their strength, hoping his spell in the dungeons had not sapped him too much. Then, he pressed against the bottom of the cart, pushing his back upwards. It was an agony, but he felt bodies parting as he fought his way up through the pile. His head pushed against the canvas sheet that had been tethered over the corpses. It was leashed tight, but the fabric was old and rotten. Making a fist, he punched upwards, and felt the material give. He stood up, the canvas tearing as he forced his way through the hole he had made. There was a sigh of escaping corpse-gas, which fast dispersed, leaving only a vile taste in the back of his throat.
It was evening, night not quite fallen. In early spring, the swamp insects were already active, although not the murderous nuisance they would be at the height of summer.
He breathed clean air, and stretched out his arms in triumph. He was not broken inside.
The novice, a very young man with his hood down around his shoulders, screamed and fainted dead away, slumping in the road.
Kloszowski laughed. He could imagine what he looked like, exploding from among the dead.
The sky was thick with irritated clouds, and neither moon was visible. The last of the sunset spilled blood on the horizon, and scattered orange across the marshlands to the south. A light rainfall began, speckling Kloszowski's shirt. After the heat and the grime, it was pleasant, and he looked up at the sky, taking the rain on his face, feeling the water run down into his beard. It began seriously raining, and he looked down, shaking his head. The rain was purer water than he had tasted in weeks, but it felt like just-melted chips of ice, freezing him to the bone in a minute.
The poet-revolutionist clambered down from the cart, wondering where he was and what he should do next.
To the south were the Blighted Marshes, currently agitated by the downpour of pebble-sized drops. To the north was a thin, scrubby forest and a thick mountain range that ran along the Bretonnian border. Neither direction was particularly inviting, but he'd heard especially vile stories about the marshes. It was sound sense to stay away from anything that announced itself on the map as being blighted.
In the distance, he heard horsemen. Coming this way. They would be in pursuit of the banditti, but they wouldn't be averse to recapturing an escaped prisoner. His decision was made for him.
* * * * *
III
The library of Udolpho was one of the largest privately-owned collections in the Old World. And the most neglected. Genevieve stepped into the huge central gallery, and held up her lantern. She stood on an island of light in an ocean of shadows.
Where were Ravaglioli and Pintaldi?
There was dust thick on the floor, recently disturbed. Ravaglioli and Pintaldi were in the book-walled labyrinth somewhere. Genevieve paused, and tried to listen. Her ears were abnormally sensitive. Ravaglioli often said there was something strange about her.
She could hear the rainwater blowing against the five thirty foot high windows at the end of the gallery. She knew there was going to be a daemon of a storm. Often, storms raged around Udolpho, besieging the mountain fastness as surely as a hostile army. When the rains fell thick, the passes became gushing culverts, and there was no leaving the estate.
Somewhere in the library, a wind blew through a hole in the walls, producing a strange, flutelike keening. It was tuneless, but fascinating. Vathek claimed the cries were those of the Spectre Bride, murdered four centuries previously by her jealous brother-lover on the eve of her wedding to Melmoth Udolpho's great-great-grandfather Smarra. Genevieve believed few of Vathek's ghost stories. According to the family lawyer, every stone of Udolpho, every square foot of the estate, was triply haunted by the ghost of some ancient murdered innocent. If he were to be taken on trust, the estates would still be knee-deep in blood.
Blood. The thought of blood made Genevieve's heart race. Her mouth was dry. She'd been off her food lately. She imagined nearly-raw beef, bleeding in a tureen.
She was walled in by ceiling-high cases, weighted down with more books than were imaginable. Most of the volumes had been undisturbed for centuries. Vathek was always rooting around in the library, searching for some long-lost deed or long-forgotten ghost story. The cases were the walls of a maze no one could completely map. There was no order, no filing system. Trying to find a particular book would be as futile as trying to find a particular leaf in the Forest of Loren.
'Uncle Guido!' she shouted, tiny voice bouncing between bookcases. 'Signor Pintaldi?'
Her ears picked up the clatter of sword on sword. She had found the eternal duellists. A cloud of dust descended around her. She held her breath. Between the tinkling clashes, she heard the grunts of men locked in combat.
'Uncle Guido?'
She held up her lantern and looked towards the ceiling. The cases were equipped with ladders to provide access to the upper shelves, and there were walkways strung between them, twenty feet above the flagstone floor.
There were lights above, and shadows struggled around her. She could see the duellists now, clinging to the bookcases, lashing out with their blades.
Guido Ravaglioli, her mother's brother-in-law, was hanging by one arm from a ladder, leaning into the aisle. Genevieve saw his bristle beard above his tight white ruff, and the white splits in his doublet where Pintaldi's swordpoint had parted the material. Pintaldi, who claimed to be the illegitimate offspring of Old Melmoth's vanished son Montoni, was younger and stronger, leaping from case to case with spiderlike dexterity, but her uncle was the more skilled blade-man. They were evenly matched, and their duels usually resulted in a tie.
Very rarely, one would kill the other. No one could remember what their initial argument had been.
Genevieve called to the duellists, begging them to stop. Sometimes, she felt her only position in Udolpho was as family peacemaker.
Ravaglioli hurled an armload of heavy books at his unacknowledged cousin-by-marriage. Pintaldi swatted them out of the way, and they fell, spines breaking, to the floor. Genevieve had to step back. Ravaglioli thrust, and his swordpoint jabbed into Pintaldi's shoulder, drawing blood. Pintaldi slashed back, scribing a line across Ravaglioli's forehead, but he was badly thrown by the wound and his hand couldn't grip the sword properly.
'Uncle, stop it!'
There were too many duels in Udolpho. The family was too close to get along. And with Old Melmoth still on his deathbed, nobody could bear to leave for fear they'd be cut out of the will.
The fortune, she understood, had been founded by Smarra Udolpho's father, a plunder-happy pirate who had ravaged the coast with his galleass, the Black Cygnet. Down through the centuries, the money had been compounded by a wide variety of brigand
ry, honest endeavour and arranged marriages. There was enough for everyone but everyone wanted more than enough. And, despite the visible fortune, there were forever rumours that the Black Cygnet had concealed the greater part of his treasure in a secret location about the estate, prompting many persistent but fruitless searches for buried gold.
At least, this was what she understood. Details were often hazy. Sometimes, she was unsure even of who she was. She remembered only Udolpho, one day much like the last. But she did not remember ever being younger than her sixteen summers. Life in this house was unchanging, and sometimes she wondered if she had lived here all her life or merely for a moment. Could this be a dream? Dreamed by some other Genevieve, intruding into an entirely different life, forgotten entirely when the dreamer was awake?
Pintaldi staggered across a walkway. Its ropes strained, and Ravaglioli hacked through the support ties, laughing madly.
Her possible second cousin fell to his knees. He was bleeding badly, the red standing out against the white of his open-necked shirt. Pintaldi had finely-trimmed moustaches and, understandably, a face lined with old sword scars.
Shouting with triumph, Ravaglioli used his sword like an axe, parting another thick rope.
The walkway fell apart, wooden planks tumbling to the floor, one single rope remaining. Pintaldi fell, his unwounded arm bent around the rope, and dangled in mid-air. He cried out. His sword plunged down, and stabbed into a fallen book.
Ravaglioli was sagging against one of the shelves, squeezed against a row of huge, thick books. He didn't look triumphant now. There was blood in his eyes.
Pintaldi tried to get a firmer hold on the rope, reaching up with his hurt arm. But his fingers wouldn't make a gripping fist. Her uncle wiped his face off, and made the last cut, parting the rope. Genevieve gasped. Pintaldi swung heavily into the bookcase, bones breaking, and fell badly before her. His head was at an unhealthy angle to his body.
There was nothing she could do but wait.
Wearily, Ravaglioli descended from his perch. He'd been hurt himself during the duel, and was bleeding into his clothes. He couldn't get up the energy to hawk enough phlegm to spit on his slain opponent.
Genevieve looked at him, not needing to restate her complaint. He already knew this family feuding was pointless, but couldn't stop fighting any more than she could stop peacemaking. That was the way of Udolpho.
Why did the blood seeping from his shallow headwound excite her so? She could smell it, taste it. It glistened as it trickled. She felt a thirst she didn't understand.
A forked spear of lightning struck the ground beyond the windows, filling the library with a painful flash. The thunder sounded instantly, shaking the whole edifice of Udolpho.
She supported Ravaglioli, helping him to a couch, and sitting him down. He would need sleep.
Later, she would have to give a full report to Vathek, and he would take it up with Old Melmoth. The will, a much-discussed secret between the patriarch and his lawyer, might have to be altered. The will, the main topic of conversation in the halls of Udolpho, was always being altered, unknown clauses being added, taken out, restored, substituted, reworded or rethought. Nobody but Melmoth and Vathek knew what was in the will, but everyone thought they could guess
She walked to the window, and looked out into the night. The library was the heart of the southern wing of Udolpho, a mansion built like a vast cross on its plateau, and from its windows there was a view of the slopes which descended towards the plains. When the weather was clear, admittedly a rare occasion, you could see as far as Miragliano and the sea. Now there was only a spectacular cloudscape, and a fascinating pattern of rain splatters. One of the sickly trees by the ruined Chapel of Manaan had been struck by the lightning blast, and was burning like a lamp, a tattered flame amid the dark, fighting lashing sheets of rainwater. Its flickering light made the stones of the chapel seem to dance, animated, Vathek would have claimed, by the souls of the victims Smarra's pirate father had sent to the bottom of the Tilean sea.
A hand fell on her shoulder, and she was spun around.
'Fire,' Pintaldi said through his twisted throat. 'Pretty fire'
Pintaldi had a fascination with fire. It often got him into trouble. His head still hung at the wrong angle, and his shoulder was caked with dried blood.
'Fire'
Gently, with strong hands, she took his head and shifted it, setting it properly on his neck. He stood up straight, and experimented with nods. He was put back together again. Pintaldi did not thank her. His eyes were fixed on the burning tree. There were flecks of foam on the ends of his moustache. She turned away from his gaze, and watched with him as the fire was crushed by the storm.
'It's like a struggling soul,' Pintaldi said, 'at the mercy of the gods.'
The flames were wiped off the tree, and it stood, steaming, its branches twisted black and dead.
'Its defeat is inevitable, but while it burns, it burns bright. That should be a lesson for us.'
Pintaldi kissed her, the taste of his blood biting into her tongue, and then staggered back, breaking the contact. Sometimes, he was her lover. Sometimes, her sworn enemy. It was hard to keep track. The variations had something to do with the will, she was sure.
He was gone. Beyond the window, the storm attacked ferociously, tearing at the stones of Udolpho. The house was colder than ice tonight.
* * * * *
IV
The novice's robe was heavy with chilled water, and Kloszowski missed the warmth and security of his heap of dead people. He was lost in the forests. By the ache in his legs and knees, he could tell he'd been climbing upwards. The ground beneath was sloping more sharply, water running in hasty rivulets around his feet. If there were men-at-arms out searching for him, he couldn't hear them over the din of the weather. He would have pitied anyone trying to get through this storm on horseback in armour, and guessed Zeluco's men would have given up by now. Not that that was much consolation.
Lightning struck, imprinting the black and white image of the forests on his eyes. The trees around here were all twisted and tangled, as if lumps of warpstone in the earth, seeds of Chaos sprouting amid the other roots, were turning the forestry into a nightmare distortion. With each javelin of lightning, certain trees seemed to leap forwards, sharp-twigged branches reaching out like multi-elbowed arms. He told himself not to be superstitious, and tugged at his borrowed hood. Freezing water trickled down the back of his neck.
Underfoot, soft ground was a sea of mud. Soon, there'd be little difference between the forest and the marshes to the south. He was wading, and the novice's boots were too loose, already filled with a soft, cold mush of mud that settled a chill into his toebones. If he stopped, he would be drowned where he stood.
He fought onwards, the rain as tough an obstacle as the ever-changing wind. His robes flapped like the ragged wings of a dying raven. The symbol of Morr picked out on his chest was very apt. He must look like death.
Finding shelter was his only priority. None of the trees offered any cover against rain and wind. His knees were on the point of giving out and his exposed hands were wrinkled like those of a drowned sailor who'd been in the water long enough for the fish to eat his eyes. It could be that, with another irony, he'd escaped from the dungeons of Zeluco only to perish of his freedom, not murdered by the malice of the duce but impersonally snuffed by uncaring elements.
The ground was sloping upwards, and there were slow waterfalls of mud streaming around. Surely there must be a hunting lodge somewhere, or a woodsman's hut. Even a cave would be welcome.
Up ahead, Kloszowski imagined he saw a light.
He felt a surge of strength in his legs and shouldered his way through the rain, pushing towards the glow. He hadn't been wrong, there was a light. Somehow, it wasn't reassuring. A pale blue luminescence, it was constant, distorted only by the curtains of rain hanging between Kloszowski and it.
He pulled himself up over a bank that had been reinforced with stone an
d logs, and found himself on the remains of a road. He could see the light clearly now. It was a blue ball, hovering a few feet above the ground like a small, weak sun. And beneath it was an overturned carriage.
A horse, its neck broken, was mangled between the traces, legs sticking out in the wrong direction. There was a liveried coachman sprawled face-down in the mud, not moving, a fallen tree across his back.
Kloszowski ran, boots slapping the pebble-and-hard-earth surface of the road. At least the coach would offer some shelter.
He didn't like to look at the blue light, and tried to keep his eyes away from it. In its centre, the blue became a tinted white, and there were thick smudges, changes in the consistency of the glow, that reminded him of a face.
There was a screeching in with the wind. Someone was crying out. The carriage was on its side, rain streaming in through one of the open windows. There were people inside, arguing. Blue flames fell like little raindrops, and evaporated against side of the vehicle. He reached the carriage, and saw himself bathed in the blue light. It didn't radiate any heat.
'Hello there,' he shouted. 'Friend, friend.'
He climbed up, and looked through the open window.
There was a puff and a fizz from inside, and a woman shouted.
'You idiot, I told you it wouldn't work if the powder got wet.'
Kloszowski tried to pull himself in, but the carriage was overbalanced. He heard a wheel snapping as the vehicle righted itself, and jumped back so it wouldn't break his legs. The people inside were dumped on the floor, and sounded shaken up.
'Back, monster,' a man said.
Kloszowski could see a shaking pistol pointed at him. Its flashpan and barrel were black with soot and still smoking. It wouldn't fire again. He pulled open the door, and forced himself in, slapping the firearm away.
