The House on Durrow Street

by Galen Beckett

  Ivy retreated another step. “Because you took it from him, or the magicians of your order did—the Vigilant Order of the Silver Eye. You took it from him to punish him, didn’t you?”

  Gambrel raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think?” He shook his head. “No, it was not because of us that Bennick lost his magick. That was all his doing. At any rate, I did not come to recount histories. I am here, as I said, to tour the house. I have not seen it in a very long time.”

  Despite her fear, an outrage came over Ivy. “Not since you stole the key to Tyberion, you mean!”

  “So you know about that, do you? You are clever indeed, Lady Quent. Yet do you have any idea why I took the key?” He folded his gloves neatly and tucked them into his coat pocket. “No, I don’t think that you do.”

  Ivy edged back another step. If she could get far enough away from him, perhaps she would have a chance to turn and flee. “It isn’t here anymore,” she said. “It is gone, and so is the Eye of Ran-Yahgren.”

  He gave her a stern look. “Lady Quent, I am disappointed. Such petty lies do not become you. Besides, I don’t care a whit about the Eye of Ran-Yahgren. It was never a thing that suited my purposes. Some of the others approached me last year with their silly little plan to try to gain the artifact, but I would have nothing to do with it. I had a feeling it would end up just as it did. Though, if I had the knowledge I do now, I would have accompanied them merely to gain entry to the house.”

  His gaze roved around the front hall. “I never thought he would have been so bold as to hide it here, but that was Lockwell—ever astute.” Now he looked at Ivy. “Yes, that’s right—I know that the door Tyberion is in the house. It is in the second floor gallery, on the south wall. I know, for Captain Branfort told me he saw it.”

  Ivy was shocked anew. “Captain Branfort? Then it was you who sent him to the West Country to make inquiries about me.”

  He cocked his head, a light of curiosity in his eyes as he studied her. “You are your father’s daughter indeed, Lady Quent. I see I have been shrewd to approach you in the most cautious fashion, to learn all I can first, and not to make the error of underestimating you.”

  “To approach me? You mean to send Captain Branfort to spy upon me!” She began to tremble, and her skin grew clammy, as if a fever had seized her. “That was also the true reason Lady Crayford came to me and expressed her wish to be my friend—because you asked her to.”

  “Of course. She is a good wife, and she obeys her husband.”

  Ivy clasped a hand to her mouth, but she could not stifle the sobbing sound that escaped her.

  “Do not think ill of the viscountess, Lady Quent. Yes, it was because I asked her that she made her first overtures to you. I charged her with learning everything she could about you. However, it was not long before she needed no encouragement at all, for she quickly became fond of you. Lady Crayford cares for you very much.”

  “That cannot be true! She cannot care for me, not if she would willingly and cruelly deceive me.”

  Gambrel waggled a finger at her. “Come now, Lady Quent, the heart is not so simple a device as you claim. We are all greatly capable of deceiving those we love. Indeed, the more we love, the more we are compelled to prevaricate and even lie. Were you not yourself greatly deceived by Sir Quent regarding your parentage and history? Yet still you married him.”

  Ivy clenched her jaw, else she might have gasped as if in pain.

  “For my part, I was very fond of your father,” Gambrel went on. “I still am. It was he who first sparked my interest in magick. I owe so much of what I have become to him. All the same, I did not and will not allow sentimentality to stand in the way of what I need.”

  “What you need? You mean the door?”

  “No, Lady Quent. What I need lies through Tyberion.”

  “You’re mad,” she said. “My father hid it for a reason.” Again she retreated a pace, trying to increase the distance between them in hopes she might have a chance to escape.

  Her movements did not go unnoticed.

  “Do not think you can flee or call for help, Lady Quent,” Gambrel said. “Now that you have allowed me into the house, you have no power to stop me from doing as I will.”

  She lifted her chin and gazed at him directly. “Then why are you speaking to me? Why do you not go to the door?”

  “The magicks I will be working are best performed after darkness falls. Given the inaccuracies of the almanac of late, I couldn’t be quite certain precisely when to arrive. Besides, I am enjoying our conversation. After hearing so much about you from my wife and Captain Branfort, I have been anxious to meet you myself.”

  He glanced at a nearby window; outside, the last light of afternoon was faltering. “It looks like we have a bit more time, Lady Quent. Come—a curious mind such as yours must be filled with questions. Ask me anything you like. I will tell you whatever you wish to know.”

  The last thing Ivy wanted was to engage in idle conversation with the man who had betrayed her father, and who had architected the plan to betray her by means of Lady Crayford and Captain Branfort. All the same, her mind schemed, trying to fathom how she might get away; the longer she could delay him, the more time it would give her to think of what to do.

  “How is it you are a viscount?” she said. “There were many who stood between you and the title Lord Crayford, were there not? I must suppose you murdered them all.”

  He affected a frown. “Really, Lady Quent, I am disappointed you would pose such an uninteresting question. There were not all that many men in my lineage who had to pass away before the title fell to me, and contrary to what you might think, there were none I did away with directly. Though if there were some who were easily enticed to try a hand at magick, and to attempt things that were beyond their power …” He shrugged. “Well, it is not my fault if they lost their minds or their lives through such foolish acts.”

  Ivy could imagine what encouragements Gambrel might have offered to the men who stood between him and the title of viscount—men who, like him, were descended of one of the seven Old Houses of magick.

  He strolled toward the marble fireplace, examining the crest above it, then turned around. “Now, Lady Quent, ask me what is really on your mind. I see you have found a fine example of the Dratham crest. Surely you have questions about him.”

  Despite her dread of this man, and her antipathy toward him, Ivy could not deny that she was indeed curious to know more about Dratham.

  “Was it he who made the door?” she asked. “Did he fashion Tyberion?”

  “Fashion it?” Gambrel shook his head. “No, he did not fashion it, not precisely. From what we learned, Tyberion was a thing he discovered, and it is exceedingly ancient—a relic from a time long before history began. Yet he did work to shape it, giving it the form of a door it now holds.”

  “If it is a door, where does it lead?”

  “It leads just where you would think from its name—to Tyberion.”

  She stared at him, fear replaced momentarily by astonishment. “You mean to the moon of Dalatair?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But that cannot be!”

  He stroked his chin as he regarded her. “I would not think you would make such a claim, Lady Quent. After all, did you not see through the Eye of Ran-Yahgren a place that was similarly far distant in the heavens?”

  He was right. Through the Eye she had glimpsed the world Cerephus. If the artifact was a window to a planet, could not a door open to a moon?

  Gambrel nodded. “Good, I see that you comprehend now. As did Dratham when he passed through the door. He discovered that Tyberion was a sort of way station, for on its surface were a number of magickal doors, all of them protected from the frozen emptiness of the aether by a magickal dome. Long ago, the doors would have opened to many different places here on our own world, allowing one to travel swiftly over vast miles.”

  She struggled to comprehend this. “But why place the way station on a mo
on? If the doors led to places in this world, why wasn’t it here?”

  “Who can say what the intentions of the builders were?” Gambrel shrugged. “Perhaps there was some inherent property of the moon that lent a power to the doors, or perhaps the builders wished to keep them in a place that would not be easy for others to reach. Only someone did reach them, for as Dratham and his companions explored, they discovered that the doors no longer functioned—they had been destroyed. Except, after much searching, they at last came upon one door that was not completely broken, and which still retained a fraction of its enchantment. After much time and study, they were at last able to restore the door to working order, and in so doing they discovered that it led to a very interesting place.”

  A chill came over her. “What sort of place?”

  “To a tomb,” he said. “The tomb of a god.”

  “A god!”

  He made a small flick of a hand. “Well, to the primitive peoples who knew the power of Neth-Bragga, he was as a deity. The Broken God, they called him, for his shape was so deformed, so twisted and hideous to look upon, that the mere sight of it induced delusions and shattered the mind.”

  Ivy shuddered at these words. “You said the door led to his tomb. This god—this being—you speak of must be dead.”

  “Can you really slay a god, Lady Quent?” Gambrel shook his head. “No, Neth-Bragga is not truly dead, not as we know the word. He merely slumbers, waiting for the time when he is awakened by the proper incantations. You see, many eons ago there was a great war—a war in which the stakes were no less than the whole of our world. Some believe that this war was won by mankind, but that is not true. The war never really ended. It has gone on in secret through the ages, even up to this very moment. A time comes soon when the war will no longer be waged in the shadows. It will be played out in the open, and we will all of us be made to choose whether we will fight against them and perish, or join them and be rewarded.”

  A horror had descended over Ivy as he spoke; the twilight seemed to press in from all around. “Who do you mean?” she said, hardly able to voice the words. “Who must we fight or join?”

  “The Ashen, of course.”

  Ivy thought of the world of Cerephus, which she had glimpsed through the Eye of Ran-Yahgren, and of the dark creatures that had swarmed over its crimson surface. Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest.

  “The Ashen,” she murmured.

  Gambrel glanced at a window. “I believe we have a little more time, Lady Quent. Let me tell you a bit more of the Ashen, and what I am doing to prepare the world for their coming.”

  One can be sensible to only so much terror. After a certain point is reached, no further fear can possibly be suffered. So it was with a kind of numbness that Ivy listened as Gambrel spoke.

  It was her father, he said, who first learned of the door Tyberion, and those he entrusted this secret to—Gambrel, Bennick, Fintaur, Larken, and Mundy—helped him to further his research. In time they learned of the society of magicians Dratham belonged to, which met in a hidden room beneath a tavern on Durrow Street. It was from Dratham’s order—the Occult Order of the Sword and the Leaf—that the tavern gained its name.

  While the magicians who belonged to the order were gentlemen of modest fortune and family, they all rose to great wealth and prominence. The secret to their rise was the door Tyberion—or rather, what they found beyond it. On the cold, barren moon, they passed through the one working door they found, and so reached the tomb of the Broken God. There, they discovered that the stone from which the tomb was built had remarkable properties. It had the power to increase the potency of any magick; that was surely the reason why it had been employed by the nameless magicians eons ago, during the war with the Ashen, to imprison Neth-Bragga. Where it was hewn from, Dratham did not know, though that its origin was not of this world, he had been certain.

  Dratham and the other members of his order found that the stones could be arranged in ways that would greatly increase the effect of any spells they worked or arcane energies they summoned. They knew, with these stones, they could all become very powerful magicians. So they conspired to pry some of the stones from the walls of the tomb and bring them back. This they did by summoning daemons for slaves, and by fashioning a new path from the tomb of the Broken God. At last, by their efforts, they were able to retrieve some number of the stones.

  “Did that not weaken the enchantment upon the tomb?” Ivy said, fascinated despite herself.

  “Of course,” Gambrel said. “They studied the enchantments wrought upon the tomb and decided it was a risk they were willing to bear. In the end, while the Broken God’s prison was weakened, still it was not enough that he was awakened.”

  An idea came to Ivy, one she was suddenly certain was correct. “These stones they brought from the tomb—were they reddish in color, with darker flecks that catch the light?”

  Gambrel laughed—a sound of genuine delight. “Once again, you know more than I would have thought you did. You are correct, Lady Quent. Dratham worked a number of stones from the tomb into the walls of this house—that is a great part of the power of its defenses. He hid them in plain view, blending them with stones of a more mundane origin, but which were a similar hue. The others of his order used the stones as well, employing them in various ways. Thus all of them were able to become greater magicians than they ever would have otherwise—though none so much as Dratham himself, for he gained more of the stones than anyone.”

  “That’s why you want to go through the door,” Ivy said, her voice quavering. “You want to gain some of these stones for yourself!”

  “I’m afraid this time you do not know as much as you think you do, Lady Quent,” Gambrel said pleasantly. “My purpose is not to take stones from the tomb. Rather, my intention is to break open the tomb altogether.”

  A gasp escaped her. “Surely that will release the Broken God!”

  “So it will.”

  Ivy held a hand to her brow; she felt as if she were the one who had gazed upon some hideous thing and had lost her senses. “You cannot think you could control such a being to use for your own gain. Why then would you seek to release one of the Ashen into our world?”

  “Because they cannot be stopped,” he said in his soft but compelling voice. “Cerephus returns, drawing ever closer in the heavens. One day, the Ashen will enter our world again, and the war against them will be waged anew. Only this time they will not be defeated.”

  “Why not? Reason holds that if they were defeated once, then they can be again.”

  He shook his head, his expression grave. “No, Lady Quent. The world is a different place now than it was then. This time, the Ashen will be victorious. Which means you can either struggle against them and be destroyed, or you can ally yourself with them and help to shape the future of our world.”

  A revulsion came over her. “No sane person would help you do such a terrible thing!”

  “On the contrary, there are many who are doing so even now. Some of them are great men. There is a cleric I have met—a remarkable man who rises quickly in the Church of Altania. I have had him to my house on occasion. You should see the work he is doing in the name of the Ashen! It is because of men like him that the victory of the Ashen is assured. Your husband could be a great man as well, he could play an important role and be rewarded for it—if only you would encourage him to be so.”

  Now it was a kind of outrage Ivy felt. Who were these people, to make such decisions that would affect the fate of all people in the world? “If they would do such awful things, then they cannot be wise at all!” she exclaimed. “I do not know who these persons are who are helping you, Mr. Gambrel, but I assure you my husband will never be one of them, and neither will I.”

  Gambrel let out a sigh. “No, I don’t suppose you will. I am saddened, but I cannot say I am surprised. Lady Crayford held out a hope that you might choose otherwise, but I knew if Lockwell had any influence upon you that you would not. Lockwell w
as never a pragmatist, not like me or Bennick. He was never willing to put aside his own silly notions of what was right and wrong and instead do what circumstance required. I see you are very like him in that regard.”

  He glanced at a window. “Well, the umbral falls. I’m afraid I must leave you now, Lady Quent. Or rather, you must leave me. There’s no need for you to take me upstairs—I am sure I can find Tyberion myself.”

  As he said this, he took something out of his coat pocket and held it on his palm: a piece of wood carved to resemble a gem. It looked, she thought, like just the sort of jewel that might fit in the pommel of a sword.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Quent. I have waited long years to use this key. To think, all this time it has been right above my head!”

  She thought surely she had misheard him. “What do you mean?”

  “In our meeting room beneath the tavern, there is another door—one that was also created by Dratham. Carved upon it are the shapes of a sword piercing a leaf. The door leads to a chamber we use as our innermost sanctum. Yet that chamber is not, in fact, located beneath the tavern. Rather, by a trick of magick, it lies beneath this very house.”

  Ivy could only stare, beyond words.

  “Dratham wanted the chamber where the order performed their deepest magicks to be near his house,” Gambrel went on. “That way their spells might gain the benefit of the stones from the tomb he had worked into the walls of the house. Magick was not at all tolerated then, so he wanted to make certain any who ever managed to find the chamber would not know where it was truly located. That was why there was no passage leading from the house to the chamber below. Or at least, no passage large enough for a person to move through. I have come upon a tiny hole in the ceiling of the chamber. No doubt he used it to eavesdrop upon other members of his order, for it would have carried sound up here into the house.”