by William Ray
Emily nodded and was startled by a sudden flash of light from the window. The patter of rain was light against the window but reminded her that Gus always did poorly in storms. Another distant rumble of thunder prompted her to dispense with further niceties. She looked back up at Parland and said, “There is something else I need. Gus was arrested in Market this afternoon.”
The petitioner sighed and looked out the window. The raindrop tempo increased, and although she didn’t see the flash, she heard another rumble, nearer than the last.
~
“Health of Gemmen”
In Gemmen last week, 2398 births and 1387 deaths were registered. The deaths included 9 from redpox, 62 from solmuel, 36 from shakers fever, 19 from diphtheria, 85 from drop-cough, 1 from typhus fever, 7 from enteric fever, 2 from ill-defined forms of continued fever, 32 from diarrhoea and dysentery, and 2 from simple cholera. In Wider Gemmen, 3018 births and 1658 deaths were registered.
– Gemmen Standard, 9 Tal. 389
~
- CHAPTER 11 -
Gus shivered in the cold of his cell as the frigid rain of early spring leaked through the barred window at the back of the room and dribbled into a growing puddle on the floor. His cellmate lay in a bunk opposite Gus’s own, fixing him with a territorial glare. A distant rumble made Gus close his eyes and pull the cheap prison blanket more tightly about his shoulders.
Bright light flared through the window in jagged bursts he could sense even with his eyes closed. His cellmate grumbled incoherently, his words lost to the pounding of rain and the rattling of the glass in their cell’s high window. Each flash grew brighter than the last as lightning fell closer and closer, the thunder that followed growing louder and louder.
Clapping his hands over his ears, Gus began humming a song he’d learned in Aelfua. He’d picked up the tune from a ghastly fiddler there that had somehow mesmerized an entire village with it. Claude had made up words for the song, but the music was slippery, and hearing it dulled the mind into a gummy stupor—Claude’s lyrics had always trailed off before he could finish the song.
They had discovered they could get a little further by focusing intently on the notes, but even still Gus never managed more than a few bars before his mind wandered off. In a pinch, that poisonous song had sometimes helped him get through a bad night when more reliable remedies were unavailable.
The room filled with light just as a blast of thunder rattled him from the fugue of his humming. Each crash felt too regular, too steady for a storm, and wrapped tightly in his blanket, Gus felt his heart beat as if he were running. The fiddler’s tune eluded him, so he tried to remember Claude’s lyrics, and eventually the melody came back to him.
Another blast struck, the report so powerful that it shook him from his reverie again. Through the high window, Gus heard a savage growl from just beyond the outside wall. He leapt from his bunk and ran to the barred door opposite. Despite his cellmate’s grousing for him to lay down and be quiet, Gus shouted for help, for someone to come open the door. No one was there.
There was a bestial roar from the window, followed by a loud crash as the thing outside struck at the wall. The impact sent cracks through the plaster and revealed bricks buckling behind it. Gus pressed his back to the bars of the door, staring in horror as the outside wall began to crumble, and through the window, he caught a momentary glimpse of the giant’s pale scarred flesh.
There was another crash of thunder, and the wall exploded, sending debris everywhere as the mortar between the bricks gave way, the strangely unbroken clay blocks scattered across the cement floor of the cell. The room was filled in unbearable light as another thunderbolt struck where the wall had just been.
In the fading electric brilliance, there stood the Sentinel, every bit as Gus remembered it: a hulking figure half again Gus’s height but proportioned more like a great ape. Its grey flesh rippled with impossible muscle, the rain covering its skin highlighting a network of savage scars that covered its monstrous body.
It roared again, and a huge arm reached into the cell. It snatched the ankle of the poor cellmate who had not scrambled back in time, and the man shrieked as he was yanked from his bed and held aloft. The Sentinel flung the man down at its feet and roared again as it pummeled him, striking so hard that it cracked the concrete floor beneath as it beat the man into an unrecognizable mass of bloody meat and shards of bone.
Someone gripped Gus’s elbow, tugging him back, and he was shocked to see Emily there, pulling him through the now open door of the cell. They ran.
They fled through twisting corridors and past the constables still casually loitering in the office beyond the cells. The Sentinel’s unmistakable pursuit crashed behind them, thunder falling with every footstep. Looking back, Gus saw the thunderbolts that accompanied the Sentinel’s every step were cracking open the building to the sky, tearing off the roof to let in the rain while simultaneously setting fire to everything below.
Charging past astonished constables, Gus and Emily dashed from the building and out into the street. Emily led the way, pulling him along through a labyrinth of narrow alleys as if they were chased by some ordinary pursuer who could be shaken off their trail by a confusing urban maze.
With a shock, Gus realized they were already in the alleyway across from his office, and he watched in horror as the bloated corpse of the dog that had lain there for weeks suddenly raised its head to snarl at them. Gus shouldered Emily to the opposite side of the alley, and they dashed on as it lumbered shakily to its feet, barking and gnashing its teeth. It stumbled forward on rotted legs, but then they rounded another corner, and Gus lost sight of it.
Emily pulled him onward, into a construction yard for the underground train. The mounds of earth there had been shifted and built into defensive walls, which were manned by Verin soldiers. The men on the wall worriedly scanned the horizon and paid no attention to the two stragglers clambering over the earthworks.
Beyond the wall were a series of trenches, just like he had fought from in Rakhasin. Whoever was giving orders must have expected an attack from both sides. Gus and Emily dove into the first trench, just within the wall, pushing past uniformed soldiers of the 37th regiment. He could not see the enemy yet, but whistles sounded, and the Verin soldiers began steadfastly loading their rifles and shooting into the rain-drenched blackness beyond.
They paused to catch their breath, and he was startled when someone thrust a rifle into Emily’s waiting hands. For the first time Gus realized she was wearing the blue tunic and red sash of a soldier in the Verin military. He had once seen her in something similar at a burlesque, but that had been more a playful costume than what she had on now. Dumbfounded by the absurdity of seeing a woman in that uniform, Gus simply stared as she turned to join the ranks blazing along the trench.
All his questions bubbling up were dashed away as a hideous cackling came from overhead. Gus shouted at Emily, telling her to get down, but instead she looked up in confusion. A pale woman in a fluttering white dress descended from the sky, her face hideously disfigured by her huge fanged maw. It was the Lady Paasil, one of Gedlund’s most horrifying Everlords, and somehow she had found him.
The flying woman swept in at incredible speed but veered aside before striking at Gus, instead grabbing Emily and yanking her skyward. Gus lunged to grab for Emily, but her wet hand slipped from his as she was pulled, screaming, up into the air, dropping her rifle somewhere beyond the wall.
“I need a rifle! Where’s my rifle?” he shouted. Looking around, Gus saw several bodies in the trench; he had no idea how they had died, but all of their rifles were gone. He began to panic, but then someone thrust the weapon he sought into his hands. Gus was startled to see Glynn, looking exactly as he had last seen him before the corporal deserted in Gedlund and left Gus there on his own.
Together, they shot up at the retreating Everlord as it carried Emily off to certain doom, but the immortal shrugged off bullets with mocking indiffe
rence. Her wicked laughter floated down, echoing strangely, and yet somehow easily heard over the rain, the thunder, and the thunderous rumble of rifles blazing into darkness.
He started to climb from the trench and pursue, but Glynn yanked him back, yelling something and pointing towards the front line beyond the trenches. A marching line of undead soldiers emerged from the shadows; ashen parodies of the Verin lads he fought alongside. Though torn and tattered, the enemy wore the same uniforms, but their skin was gray and their bodies streaked in gleaming embers, like burning logs yanked from the fire. Gus took up his rifle, blazing repeatedly into the massed forces marching implacably towards the trench.
Seeing the spirits unslowed by their wounds, Gus took a deep breath, struggling to calm himself and aim carefully for the head. As he lined up another shot, sighting into the face of the enemy, he felt a chill of familiar dread when he realized the one at which he aimed was once his dearest friend in the world. It was Claude, just as Gus has last seen him: a man of ash, his face covered in a web of glowing embers as if he were being seen through a broken glass.
Gus trembled, fighting to hold steady but still unable to pull the trigger. He could not shoot his friend and turned to tell Glynn as much, but the corporal’s rifle was already raised. Following his sights, Gus realized that Glynn was aiming right at the charging specter of Claude. Glynn wouldn’t miss. Glynn never missed.
Gus looked back and forth between them, and finally shoved the corporal’s rifle upwards, throwing off the shot to spare his long-dead friend. Time slowed, and Gus stared at the corporal, unable to tear his eyes away to look back at the specter of Claude that no doubt still marched towards them on behalf of the enemy. Glynn looked back to Gus, face twisted in fury. Teeth bared in a silent snarl, Glynn turned on him, bayonet thrusting toward Gus’s chest.
Gus screamed and jerked upright, looking around the confines of his cell. The pale plaster walls were unbroken, despite the cold rain trickling in through the poorly framed windows and forming a puddle on the floor. His cellmate scowled groggily over at him as Gus gulped for air. Breathless and sore of throat, Gus wondered how many times he must have woken the poor fellow over the course of the night.
He hoped the man wasn’t there for murder or something equally ill-suited in a disgruntled roommate.
Thunder crashed outside, but it was distant and presumably natural thunder. Their cell was frigid, and Gus wrapped himself again in the thin blanket they had provided him. Gedlund had been colder, but he’d been allowed to go out and warm himself by the fire there. No such luxuries were afforded in the local constable’s prison.
He curled himself up as best he could, but his left leg couldn’t tuck in as well as the other, so it sat outstretched, chilly and stiff. It always hurt at least a little, but for some reason it was worse in the cold.
Gus had fought goblins in Rakhasin and faced Everlords in Gedlund, with few scars to show for any of it. Instead, he was shot by an idiot private—a new man who had missed all the excitement and only joined them in Gedlund after Sikaardal. One dull afternoon as the new recruit was fooling around with his rifle, he somehow managed to shoot his sergeant in the leg.
The injury proved a small blessing in some ways, since it got him released early, with pension, but the daily pain of the thing often made Gus wonder if the remaining years had been worth the trade. With the Tuls looking likely to seize Gedlund for themselves, getting out had seemed rather fortuitous at the time. All his closest friends were gone by then, and Gedlund had seemed especially cold that winter in more ways than one.
Now, as he sat staring at cold toes he was unable to curl under the blanket, he thought a few more years on guard duty in Gedlund might have been the better fate.
Against all expectation, the Tuls had been too distracted with internal politics to come spilling over the mountains that year, and it would have been a quiet tour. With that winding down now, they might yet make a move on Verin holdings in Gedlund, but Gus would have been long gone by now either way.
Another crash of thunder came, still distant and irregular. He reassured himself that it was not Gedlund’s Sentinel. The Sentinel lay buried under a mountain of rubble, and not even it was strong enough to shrug that off. It was a ritual reminder by now and one he had gone through in every thunderstorm since he saw the thing buried.
Usually he imagined that it still seethed under those tons of stone, but perhaps it was relieved to finally have shelter from the lightning. It was as close to defeat as that monstrosity was ever likely to come. It was gone.
The dreams were another thing. They were at their worst in storms but came almost every night, and the best treatment for them he had found was to drink into unconsciousness. He’d always been a bit of a tippler but as a matter of recreation rather than medication. Now, so long as he could afford it, each night he would drink until he passed out.
Whether that stopped the dreams or merely his recollection of them, it made the nights pass more quietly and left him better rested. Ever worried that he drank to an intolerable excess, Emily had tried convincing him to take the cure several times; she never understood that the trouble she hoped to cure was merely the cure that masked another trouble.
Eventually the storm subsided, and the cold rain seeping through the window slowed from a trickle to a drip and then to nothing as the morning sun rose over the city beyond the barred window. It melted away the last of the rainclouds and slowly warmed the room.
Gus’s cellmate was still asleep when the constables came to roust them. They hauled the man off shortly after dawn, and he gave Gus one last angry glare before he departed as if trying to burn into memory the face of the man who had so badly disturbed his sleep.
The night of interrupted sleep left Gus feeling dazed and drained. The continual morning hangovers of his usual routine were far better; at least they felt like something he could struggle against. All he wanted to do now was lay quietly resting, but he was so tired that if he did, he might fall asleep again and just get more of the same.
He sat there shivering for a few hours before the constable came for him, clutching Gus’s arm tightly as he led him out into the office just outside the jail, a large room with several desks shared by the various officers working here. It had a small kitchenette with a cistern for water to give any late-working officers all the comforts of home.
The entrance stood at the opposite side of the offices from the corridor with the jail cells, perhaps to force escapees to flee past the entire constabulary or perhaps just to conceal their conditions from visitors. Adjoining the main office were several smaller rooms where a constable could interrogate prisoners in discomforting privacy.
Gus’s leg was painfully stiff, and it was a struggle to keep up as the constable pulled him onward at a punishing pace, not giving him a chance to stretch it out or any consideration for his condition. The constable guided him to one of the desks and shoved him down into the chair, grumbling some complaint about how Gus was being ‘laggardly’. The hard, wooden chair was uncomfortable, but the room was thankfully warmer than the cells had been.
After taking a moment to stretch his calf, Gus tilted his hat back as he looked around. Detecting-Inspector Clarke was standing in the entrance accompanied by a familiar looking older woman. After a moment, Gus recognized her as Phand’s housekeeper, but in his sleepless daze, he could not put together any plausible reason she should be there or what Ollie might be discussing with her.
Eventually, the inspector nodded, and the woman left while Clarke took a moment to flip through his little notebook. Frowning, the inspector made his way from the entrance back to the constable’s desk, where Gus sat quietly staring up at him. Clarke pulled up a chair and sat across the desk from him. After taking a moment to look over his bedraggled prisoner, Clarke said, “Hmph. You look even worse than usual, Mister Baston. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought you spent the night out drinking.”
“That was the plan
, but I got a little sidetracked,” he croaked out, suddenly realizing how desperately thirsty he was. It was clear in his voice, and with an irritable grimace, Clarke rose up and crossed the room to the cistern, filling a tin cup with water. His voice rasping a bit, Gus said, “You seem frustrated. Does that mean the kidnappers still haven’t sent a ransom?”
“Was the plan to have sent one by now?” Clarke replied as he slapped the cup down upon the desk, heavily enough to splash a bit. Gus grabbed for the cup and thirstily tossed it back, gasping in relief and then laughing with a bit of embarrassment at his pathetic condition.
Clarke must have interpreted the laugh differently, since he just looked annoyed by Gus’s reaction, and grumped, “You put on a fine show for Missus Phand just now, limping out here like that. She took pity, but despite that, wouldn’t confirm your story. I asked her if she hired you, and she told me she had never seen you before in her life, so why don’t you tell me again why you were following after Doctor Phand just before he was nabbed.”
Gus shook his head wondering if Clarke’s meeting with that woman were staged to trick him into a confession. “That woman you were just talking to? That’s not her! Alice Phand came to my office—younger woman, blonde, very plummy. She said she wanted to catch him cheating, so she hired me to find when he’d be going out and ….”
He trailed off as he watched Clarke’s thoughtful contemplation and fell silent when he realized it wasn’t a trick. If the woman he had worked for wasn’t the real Alice Phand, that left him as an unwitting accomplice to the crime. He wasn’t sure what the legal consequence for that was, but he knew Clarke would never accept his innocence in that arrangement, regardless.
