The bony mural proved to be but the first of many immured remains in the cave beyond. The walls encircling the ledge were literally laced with bones. In fact, the cave seemed constructed more of bone than stone in places. At first Lakif suspected that the place was the ancient site of mass burials. But there was another possibility. They could be the victims of the cataclysm at the close of the Renaissance. Maybe the earth had melted under the meteor’s impact and dripped down to encase the troupe.
Not a soul stirred in the ghoulish gloom, and Lakif feared that the Bard had either already left or the musician had been mistaken.
One skeleton had collapsed from the wall in a heap. Lakif realized that they were being presented with an opportunity to acquire another of the ingredients for the ritual. These bones surely had never touched the light of day. The Acaanan pointed this out to her friend, and the two busily began scooping up fragments. Collar bones, ribs, phalanges, all were wrapped in cloth and buried in Lakif’s travel bag.
“The curtain is rising. Please sit down in front…” A crepitated voice drifted up from the darkness. Lakif turned toward the voice but saw no one. She questioned whether the order had hailed from this cave or if it had in fact echoed in from across the ruins.
“Look!” Bael, who bore the torch, pointed a trembling finger toward the rear.
XXIX
The Bard
LAKIF PEERED CLOSELY INTO THE MURKY REACHES OF THE CAVE. AT THE EDGE of their light, a figure lay prostrated against the wall of bones. It was so stiff, in fact, that Lakif took it for another skeleton that had fallen free from the walls of the Human tomb. But she noticed that the figure clutched a bottle. The sight of the article reminded her of the parting advice offered by Eyre Rasp. In unison, the three exchanged astounded glances.
Torkoth was first to approach the form, although with trepidation. He hadn’t freed his sword but nevertheless closed in with caution. Bael moved to follow, but Lakif stopped him short. This sort of reconnoiter was exactly the motive for bringing the Half-man along. As the torch bearer didn’t advance, the figure still lay just beyond the rim of light.
“Are you Cawjul?” Torkoth asked. Lakif had filled him in on the modest information they had concerning the figure.
“Are you an usher?” the voice replied, although Lakif couldn’t be sure it came from the body in question. It hadn’t budged, and its mouth appeared frozen. “Is it my time to go, just before the next act?”
“We seek Cawjul of the law firm,” Torkoth reiterated.
“Then you have succeeded, in a sense,” the voice replied. There was no doubt that it issued from the corpse. The body twitched and lurched to the side as if it had been rolled over by unseen hands. The empty bottle dislodged from its grasp and clattered down the rocks into clear view. Its ruby glass glimmered in the incident torchlight.
“We were expecting someone different.” Lakif blinked, fearing that the gloom was playing tricks on her eyes.
“And I was expecting a concert, but here we are, babbling away. At least sit down!” The corpse astounded them all by suddenly lifting a hand and pointing to the pebble-strewn slope. The gesture was accompanied by a dry creak, like an attic hatch opening. Gossamer dust rained down from the jarred limb.
Torkoth complied by sidling and resting against the bony mural. Once again, Lakif and Bael shared worried glances. But it was the Kulthean who took the initiative and approached first. As he did so, his torch light washed over the figure. At the sight, Lakif choked on her own breath.
The Bard’s visage was shocking. His face was morbidly white; had he been wearing a mask of clay, he would have enjoyed a healthier color. His skin seemed little more than a thin membrane stretched impossibly tight over a skull. A sea of creases arched out from the corners of his eyes and mouth, stretching toward his ears like thin wires. Perhaps this taut meshwork alone kept his rotten face intact. A few wispy hairs lay across his cranium, revealing a skull stained with blemishes. Eyes shrunken to the size of olives lay deeply set in wide black lacunas. White hair sprouted from his knobby ears like whiskers of a cat. His lips resembled thin wood kindling. Although the Acaanan couldn’t see most of his body, she was certain it was equally as mummified. Lakif wondered how the Bard wasn’t reduced to a pile of dust under the weight of his overcoat. His tattered pant legs rode up, revealing sickly yellow shins encrusted with purple blotches, the mottling of death. A dull odor of vinegar nipped at Lakif’s nose. She suspected that it was the fermentation of the Bard’s long since curdled blood. He was so impossibly worn, and the clothes so disheveled, that Lakif suspected the desiccated carrion had been unearthed from some grave and dragged here by a pack of dogs.
The Acaanan cringed before the ghoulish figure and refused to approach an eyelash closer. Were they hallucinating? This couldn’t be the Bard!
“In all my years, I have never seen an Acaanan pale! Fear not, I should be the aggrieved one,” the voice called out. The wooden lips quivered, although the jaw didn’t budge. “Come!”
The mummy reached up a trembling hand and beckoned to the Acaanan. His fingers were gnarled like roots of a tree. Patches of flesh dried into scales peeled off his knuckles. The shreds resembled curled, dried tape that struggled to connect the digits.
A quick look to Bael revealed that her companion was equally disturbed by the sight. But he rested the torch against a stone and sat down cross-legged. Mustering her resolve, Lakif followed suit, seating herself obliquely facing the figure. Torkoth elected to remain standing, balancing his short sword behind his neck. Lakif noted that the Half-man, poised against the skeletal wall, was so positioned that part of a skull leered out next to his face. The Half-man didn’t seem disturbed at the proximity of the death mask.
“The locals call you the Bard?” Bael inaugurated the conference. Lakif found her own mouth baked dry and her lips parched.
“Some do.” The corpse slowly nodded. Lakif thought the shriveled spine would snap under the torque. The identity confirmation did little to ease the Acaanan. The Bard’s mummified appearance deeply disturbed her. He truly could be the age alleged by the accountant. His withered cheeks, vacant eyes, and fermented flesh flouted life. The Bard stood on the very cusp of death’s kingdom. Lakif wanted to speak, but feared that the breath from her words would be enough to flake off scaled flesh or shed the few remaining strands of hair.
“It is said you are part and parcel of the history of Grimpkin,” Lakif struggled to speak coherently before the grim reaper. “Seeing you thus, I harbor not a doubt. We have come seeking your wisdom.”
The Bard simply stared out with empty eyes that sucked the warmth from Lakif’s breath, and it seemed her words fell frozen to the ground. Lakif suspected that he couldn’t hazard any genuine expression, for any such distortion would shatter his face into pieces.
“You bring with you the winter. Although it has just begun, its days are numbered, as with us all,” the low voice echoed. It was so thin that Lakif felt it was in fact from another person speaking through a long tube into the back of the skull. “So you seek my counsel? Did you bring the appropriate tribute?”
“Of course.” Lakif riffled though her backpack and produced the bottle of liquor. They had wisely complied with Rasp’s counsel and bought it from a dubious vendor they found loitering in the Fornix. Hopefully, it would meet the Bard’s standards.
The Bard reached out a shriveled hand. In response to the movement, a cloud of dust effervesced up from the pile of robes. That mist was truly the verdigris of profound age. The move shocked the Acaanan, for it seemed an impossible task. Shreds of cloth dangled from his sleeve, like wispy chains pinning him to the rock below, or perhaps locking him to mortality. All his fingers fanned outward in different directions, much like a squashed spider. His grip was so mangled that she doubted if the Bard would be able to even grasp the bottle.
Lakif maneuvered herself to avoid even the briefest contact with his fingers. She feared that a mere touch would spell imminent death, as if
his profound age was an infectious disease that rapidly and irrevocably sucked all life from its victims.
She carefully handed over the token. Miraculously, the Bard’s fingers managed to curl around the bottle’s neck. As his knuckles widened, Lakif could see beads of sweat smearing the dorsal surface of his hand. The hand started jittering and sent the bottle into agitation. The cloak over his belly began undulating rapidly, mirroring his frantic breathing. To Lakif, the symptoms reminded her of alcohol withdrawal.
“To await the train’s arrival,” the corpse toasted.
“Train?” Bael asked. Lakif immediately thought of the Leviathan.
“The platforms of our lives are alive with feverish activity, but we all buy a ticket for that train at one point or another. Sometimes the vessel comes with a roar, other times with a whisper. But when it arrives, we are the sole passenger. The steam from those engines shakes all the bells of Grimpkin, marking the spirit’s flight.”
“Bound for where?” Torkoth asked from the outskirts.
“Oblivion.” The Bard sighed.
“I would prefer to miss that hour,” Lakif quipped.
“So you are dying?” Bael asked.
“Aren’t we all?” the voice moaned. It could equally have issued from those vacuous eyes as from the wooden lips. The Bard pointed up into the air.
“The first breath of these poisonous vapors seals our doom.” At the reference, Lakif decided to breathe slowly, now convinced that the Bard’s exhalation was none other than death’s fragrance.
“Your tribute is well advised,” the Bard continued. “You command my ear.”
“We are looking for an alchemist,” Lakif stated. She looked to the Kulthean for reassurance that they were not getting themselves into some dire situation. For a man who snubbed death, they could expect anything from the Bard. “Any such one in Grimpkin will do.”
An awkward silence ensued. Lakif feared that the Bard had suddenly expired after two centuries.
“What say you, wise one?” Lakif had a difficult time equating any masculine features with the corpse, so she opted for a gender neutral reference.
To the surprise of all, the Bard started laughing. His face furrowed with stress cracks.
With each chuckle, his body trembled and dust puffed up like the fusty perfume of time. The cloud waffled over his garments like soupy fog over a bog. The eerie laugh rhythmically reverberated around the bony tomb.
“What makes you laugh so?” Bael asked. Lakif wondered if it was due to the dementia of extreme age.
“You pose a most difficult question.” The Bard raised the bottle and began chugging his first drink. Lakif watched in amazement as he finished off the entire bottle right before their very eyes. The Acaanan knew the rum was particularly bitter and exceedingly potent. How could the savant empty the entire bottle with but a single quaff? More importantly, where did the rum go? Lakif couldn’t believe in the integrity of the Bard’s internal organs. Was there a hole in the back of his mouth leading into a subterranean lagoon of liquor? After the herculean quaff, the bottle rolled from his fingers with an empty rattle.
“The rum is your enlightenment?” Bael asked.
“It is my Aganippe.”
“What’s that?” Bael asked.
“Aganippe was the inspiration to the muses of old. So the rum is to me. But it’s also my curse. It is my mortal enemy, every night swooping down like a vulture and tearing with vicious talons here,” he tapped the upper right side of his abdomen. “But by sunrise it forms anew like the phoenix of old.”
Lakif wondered what on earth the Bard was jabbering about.
“What was the question?” the Bard asked, as if he had completely forgotten the request. Strangely, his voice was much clearer now.
“We are seeking an alchemist,” Lakif repeated.
“Yes, I can see now,” the Bard began. Lakif had the feeling that the alcohol was waking some inner muse of knowledge. “But there are no alchemists in Grimpkin, lads. They are all gone. And what a pity it is…”
Lakif snarled at the response. After all their endeavors to locate the Bard, they ended up with the same news that Ceric Dumont had offered! Would they have to travel to another district to track down one of those elusive scientists?
“But there were, at one time?” Bael pressed the point.
“Of course, Kulthean! There was an era, well before my time, when alchemists were aplenty. They were the veritable cherished sons of Grimpkin. Under their hand, this district was sculptured from the wreckage of the Renaissance. From their magic kettles poured out life-giving streams that gave confluence under the city, pooling into the mighty river Gjoll. That waterway underpinned the expansion of the entire district! Their wondrous powders pulled away the veil that concealed the stars. The night sky spangled anew like a glittering treasure chest. Their brews breathed vitality into the mighty Talos. Yes, their marvelous works forged the very face of Grimpkin.”
Lakif’s spirits buoyed. The Bard was at least affirming that alchemists once existed, an issue she had strongly doubted. But the description was at odds with the Acaanan’s preconceived notion of alchemists.
“Were they warlocks?” Lakif asked, perhaps foolishly. The miracles the Bard levied on their shoulders were only within the purview of magic weavers.
“Heavens no! The alchemists derived their feats through manipulating the raw essences of nature.”
This explanation did little to settle the issue with the Acaanan. She thought the same could be said of warlocks.
“We need to find an alchemical shop—even if it is defunct,” Bael importuned. Lakif knew her friend was on the right track. They didn’t need an alchemist per se, but simply access to his specialized forge. If alchemists once were bountiful, there should still be a few of the forges extant.
“Why on earth would any sane man seek out the furnace?” The Bard’s face twisted into alarm. Lakif feared the parchmented skin would rip open.
“You know of one?” Lakif’s heart seized.
“For sure. I have lost much. My mansion has moldered. My spouse and friends have long since been reclaimed by the earth. My body has been twisted on the rack of time. But the memories of the alchemist and his furnace will never abandon me. It is my shadow haunting me to the grave.”
Lakif blanched before the Bard’s sudden sober demeanor.
“Give us the fire of your knowledge. Tell us of this place,” Bael begged.
“As you have paid the proper respects, I shall oblige your curiosity. It was many, many years ago.” A wicked smile warped his ossified features, revealing black fissures between almost transparent teeth. Its eerie quality was only accentuated by the Bard’s sightless gaze. Lakif was left with the impression that the Bard was recalling an innocent, happier time. A gentle breeze waffled through the cave. Where did it come from, Lakif wondered. It stirred up the dirt into twirling clouds that spun around the tomb. The spiraling dirt scratched over the barren rocks, sounding like curled leaves crinkling in the autumn wind.
“I was a lad, basking in the innocence of youth. In that time there was a church in my neighborhood called the Lucent, the shining light. It boasted as its parish a large wedge of central Grimpkin. The Lucent was a hauntingly simple edifice, which greeted the sun with glimmering stained-glass windows. Each day, a steady stream flocked to the church. It was the spiritual magnet for a world-weary populace.
“But Sunday service was the church’s éclat. The morning bell sounded, announcing the advent of mass and welcoming in the crowds that filed in from the streets. The sunlight, however feeble outdoors, invariably streamed gloriously through the tinted windows. The pews were choked with faith-famished parishioners. Their prayers were accompanied by the dulcet, melodic hum of the children’s choir overhead.
“The centerpiece of the service was the bishop, Darmedes Sarcofigol. Although youthful, his wisdom betrayed a more seasoned mind. The locals affectionately referred to him as Dando. From his pulpit, the man intoned the
service with vigor. His lofty rhetoric mesmerized the parishioners. His smile alone could pack the pews with female admirers. Silver was too base a metal to be associated with that gifted tongue. Each word was a linguistic triumph. Each utterance shimmered in the air, like a note from the polished bronze organ. Although the church itself was handsome, to the parishioners, Dando was the Lucent personified.
“Darmedes had been a bishop there for recorded memory. A single man, he lived in private quarters at the rear of the church. Among its pews and relics he labored day after day, refusing vacation, tirelessly collecting alms for the poor, and maintaining the brilliant luster of the church.”
The Bard paused and the smile slowly dissolved.
“Go on!” Lakif urged. Her curiosity was raging.
“One morning…oh, it was a raw and gusty morning! I was a fledgling ostler, just starting out on that uninspiring profession of service at a local inn. The tedious quiet of that morning was sundered by a cry. A local girl burst into the inn, screaming hysterically. The consternation below dispelled my sleep and prodded me to investigate.
“Thus, I abandoned my pleasant dreams, only to descend into a daytime nightmare. There on the floor she was, naked and covered with dirt like a zombie freshly freed from its earthen bed. I feared that the dead had finally been called to return and terrorize the sunlit lands.
“I recognized her as being from the neighborhood. Emaciated and pale, the girl was as tense as a plank. Her limbs trembled, and those frail fingers were clenched so impossibly tight as to bleed her palms. But what I remember most were her eyes. They were large and round, like white saucers of milk. Her only clothing was two leather straps that suffocated her wrists, ringed by dried blood like scarlet bracelets.
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