Briardark, p.16
Briardark, page 16
The word brought a gasp from Cicely. Samuel’s hand reached to his neck for the talisman he’d once worn. Chaos. Of all the horrors a mind could contemplate, it was those inflicted by the Dark Gods that had to be considered the most malefic. They brought not merely death but corruption, a perversion of all that was natural. Those who succumbed to Chaos were beset by mutation and madness. They were consumed in body, mind and soul. By their very existence they spread the contagion of their corruption, warping the world around them by malign degrees, gradually drawing it into the infernal dominion of daemons.
‘Do you think that is what menaces us?’ Samuel asked, hoping Aaric would dissuade him of the hideous possibility.
‘I don’t know,’ Aaric admitted. ‘From what you’ve told me, I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.’ Again he tapped his finger against the table. ‘Your account leads me to believe that there’s a deliberate system in play. From that evidence alone we can discount coincidence.’ He shook his head. ‘Coincidence,’ he repeated. ‘The most irrational conclusion any mind can reach. It means a pattern that is incompatible with pre-established belief and expectation. A placebo to discard the inconvenient.’ He smiled and dipped his head in apology. ‘We’ll have no talk of coincidence in this matter.’
Cicely looked up and struggled to hold her uncle’s gaze as she posed a question to him. ‘What do you think is happening?’
‘These deaths are certainly not random,’ Aaric stated. ‘The factors that appear random I’m convinced are simply because we don’t know enough to understand how they fit. The differences in age and occupation, the gaps between when these deaths occur, all of them must be determined by criteria we’ve yet to establish.’
‘There’s also the randomness of how–’ Samuel was rebuff by an irritated look from Aaric.
‘As I’ve said before, when first you brought this matter to my attention, that is only an illusion.’ He picked up the knife on his plate and made a thrusting motion with it. ‘If I stab you, then the weapon was this knife.’ He turned the blade around and made a sweeping swing. ‘If, however, you’re slashed, the weapon remains the knife. Only the nature of the wound has changed, not the instrument. So, I am convinced, are these killings. The “accidents”, as they seem, are but wounds. The instrument that inflicted them is some pernicious magic.’
‘You sound very certain of that,’ Samuel objected. ‘Surely you need to know more before drawing so firm a conclusion.’
Aaric’s visage darkened before he made his reply. ‘There’s a pattern that is too terrible to deny, yet you’re too close to it to see it. Or you don’t want to see it.’ Samuel noticed the look of horror on Cicely’s face when her uncle pointed to her. ‘There have been two more deaths since you left. A woman and a young boy. They were known to you?’
Samuel’s insides turned cold. He knew now what Aaric was driving at. ‘Emelda’s sister, Viktoria, and my nephew Sebastian. You’re telling me this malign power is targeting my family.’ He shook his head, desperately rejecting the idea. ‘You forget Alastair. He wasn’t part of our family.’
‘But what of Thayer’s allegations?’ Aaric said. ‘Perhaps Alastair and Anya were married in secret. It wouldn’t be the first time a clandestine marriage took place.’
‘But there’s also Saint and Octavia,’ Cicely suddenly interjected.
Samuel sighed at Aaric’s confused expression. He started to ask about these other murders, but now it was the hunter’s turn to interrupt him. ‘My gryph-hound and Anya’s cat,’ he explained. ‘Both had accidents.’
‘Fatal accidents?’ Aaric probed. Cicely nodded, and a satisfied look appeared in the scholar’s eyes. ‘These deaths happened before the first human casualty… the child Barnabus?’
Now it was Samuel who nodded. He didn’t understand what Aaric was building towards, but it seemed this confirmation supported his theory.
‘Don’t you see? The animals are connected. Whoever or whatever is perpetrating these murders had to make a test first.’ Aaric warmed to the theory, pushing ahead with eagerness. ‘That the animals belonged to your family is important. It meant they were connected to you. That gave this unknown malefactor a hold upon them. Sorcery is at its most potent when it can form sympathetic bonds, a kind of arcane resonance. By attacking the animals first, it was establishing that connection.’
Cicely dropped her spoon onto her plate. Samuel was stunned to see how pale she looked. He thought he recognised the onset of another attack. She excused herself and quickly withdrew to her room.
‘I’m sorry,’ Aaric said. ‘I let my excitement overcome my judgement. When I focus upon a problem, I sometimes lose sight of how others will react to the conclusion I draw. I apologise for upsetting my niece.’
Samuel was quick to reassure Aaric. ‘She’s been unwell ever since her brother died. These attacks come upon her sometimes even before she’s aware of them.’
Aaric frowned at the reminder. ‘That was after they were both attacked by a wolf in Briardark?’
To hear the event described in such a tone by the occultist set icy dread into Samuel’s heart. ‘You’re not thinking that it was an ulfwernar and she was infected?’
Aaric smiled and made a placating gesture. ‘Ease yourself, Samuel. I’ve studied greatly in dark subjects others are afraid to confront. In all my research, I’ve yet to find a substantiated report of anything like an ulfwernar. To be certain, you do find stories, but they’re just that.’ He pointed to the stand where their coats were hanging. ‘Besides, one of the first things that happened when you received me into your house is Cicely took my coat and hung it for me. If she were an ulfwernar, she’d never have been able to touch it. Silver is as toxic to that breed as troggoth bile is to us.’ His smile broadened. ‘At least, if you believe the legends. As I said, I’ve seen no proof of such things.’ He sighed, and the humour left his features. ‘It will always be a mystery to me why, with all the real horrors in Shyish, people see fit to invent further ones.’
Samuel felt some relief to have that particular fear allayed, but there was still the grim spectre Aaric had raised regarding the pattern to the mysterious deaths. ‘You are convinced these tragedies are being directed against my family?’
‘Aren’t you? The evidence certainly lends itself to that conclusion.’ Aaric chewed on a spoonful of stew before elaborating. ‘If we set aside the death of Alastair Greimhalt, the rest are certainly connected to you. Right down to the animals. There’s a systemic quality there that can’t be ignored.’ He set down his spoon and leaned forwards. ‘Tell me, Samuel, have you made any enemies? Anyone who hates you enough to try to destroy everything around you?’
A bitter laugh was the first reaction Samuel gave. ‘I’d have said Thayer, but the man would never strike his own son. Allowing, of course, that he even had access to the kind of witchcraft you’re describing.’
‘Thayer knew enough to explain why Anya would kill her own son with magic,’ Aaric cautioned. ‘Sacrifice is a common means by which those who would beg power from the Dark Gods prove themselves vile enough to be given what they seek. There are records of the most depraved outrages performed for the express purpose of propitiating the Ruinous Powers. No, what Thayer said is established precedent in the arcane.’ The scholar scowled and scratched his head. ‘But it doesn’t fit. If Thayer did sacrifice his son, then it wouldn’t explain the earlier deaths… and I’m convinced none of them were an accident.’
Samuel clenched his fists. ‘If I knew who was behind this, I’d strangle him with my bare hands and leave his body to the corpse-rats!’ He closed his eyes and rapped his knuckles against his brow. ‘But I can think of no one. No one who could hate me or my family that much.’
‘There is, of course, your cousin Rukh,’ Aaric said. ‘If he knew of his wife’s dalliance with Alastair, that would be reason to kill them both.’ Even as he warmed to the possibility, Aaric discarded it. ‘Why persist in the killing though? And, as you pointed out, would he be so determined on revenge that he would kill his own son?’
‘Then what is the answer?’ Samuel wondered. ‘Some murderous malignant seeking revenge for wrongs done to it by my ancestors?’
Aaric mulled that over for a moment, but then rejected it. ‘If it were any form of undead, your priest would have recognised its presence. I don’t know what sort of man your Pater Kosminski is, but the priests of Nagash generally fall into two camps. There are those who seek to foster harmony between the living and the dead. If Kosminski were of that sort, then he would be seeking to appease this spirit and protect your community.
‘But if he were of the other sort, those who simply seek power for themselves, then Kosminski would try to exploit the malignant’s outrages to aggrandise himself.’ Aaric waved his finger at the ceiling as he made his point. ‘He’d preach a cadence of terror to your town that would paint him as their only salvation from this scourge. You tell me that he’s done neither, which in turn leads me to believe that Kosminski has failed to detect any trace of necromancy at work here.’
‘Which leads us back to where we began,’ Samuel groaned. ‘This is worse than trying to track a beast in the forest. At least on the hunt I have some idea of what I’m hunting. Here we don’t even know what we’re looking for… or if it even exists at all!’
The scholar’s face was grim. ‘Oh, it exists. Of that much I can assure you. What it is, its absolute nature, these are things I can’t tell you.’ He reached across the table and gripped Samuel’s arm. ‘But there’s a way that we could find out. If you have the courage to permit it.’
‘What are you proposing?’ For some reason he couldn’t explain, Samuel was afraid. There was a suggestion in Aaric’s voice that went beyond any demand for mortal courage. Something beyond the mere risk of life and limb.
Aaric maintained his grasp and locked eyes with Samuel. ‘You told me that Thayer consulted a spirit-speaker, a medium.’
‘Yes… Mama Ouspenskaya.’ Samuel could perceive now what Aaric was leading towards. ‘You can’t… It wouldn’t be right.’
‘The spirits learn things in death that were obscured to them in life,’ Aaric stated. ‘The quickest way we can discover the path we must investigate is to consult Ouspenskaya and have her conduct a séance.’ Sympathy crept into his face, and his tone was regretful when he added the part that Samuel railed against. ‘Emelda’s spirit would surely answer if you called to her, and the circumstances of her death would certainly be known to her.’
Samuel shook his head, horrified by the proposal. ‘Don’t ask this of me.’ Tears formed in his eyes and started down his face. ‘I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t listen to her voice… knowing.’ He stiffened and wrenched his hand from Aaric’s grip. ‘Can’t you see? To hear her again, to know she was near but also to know… Gods! It would be like losing her all over again!’
Aaric was quiet. He gave Samuel a moment to compose his grief. ‘You know that I’ve gone through what you’ve gone through. Your sister… I…’ His expression hardened and there was an edge to his voice. ‘But it isn’t our dead we must think of. It isn’t our own anguish and misery. We can’t be so selfish. What we must think of now are those who are in danger. Forget about the dead and focus on the living who are threatened!’
Samuel did. He thought of Cicely, the only child left to him. He imagined her being struck down by sorcery. He looked into Aaric’s eyes with a steely gaze.
‘I’ll do it,’ the hunter agreed.
‘The best ones to tell us who killed them,’ Aaric said as he leaned back in his chair, ‘are the victims themselves.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The spirit-speaker, Mama Ouspenskaya, had been an institution in Felstein for as long as anyone could remember. Samuel could recall his grandfather speaking of her as already old when he was a young man. There were some who claimed she’d learned something of the necromancer’s art to extend her life. Others whispered that the medium wasn’t truly alive but was in fact one of the undead herself.
Samuel took a more pragmatic view. The Mama Ouspenskaya of today wasn’t the same woman from his grandfather’s time, but rather just the latest spirit-speaker to adopt the name and mantle. It was much easier for a medium to assume the legacy of another than it was to build their own reputation.
The medium’s residence was situated on a dreary side street, a half-timbered structure of two storeys whose most notable features were the iron gargoyles perched atop its gabled roof and the assorted hex signs painted across its facade. The buildings to either side of it were in advanced stages of dilapidation, derelicts that had been uninhabited for decades. Only the desperate would take up residence adjacent to the spirit-speaker, fearful that some apparition called up during a séance might be unwilling to return to the underworld and would continue to haunt the area. Those who made a try at it would invariably quit after a few months, their nerves worn thin by the outré goings-on. Strange lights and eerie noises were often found emanating from Mama Ouspenskaya’s house.
‘Do we have to do this?’ Cicely stopped outside the front gate, one hand gripping the iron railing. Her voice was tense, her expression pleading. Samuel felt sorry for her, remembering the first time he’d gone into the medium’s house. That had been when Cicely’s grandmother had lost a family heirloom and thought the spirits could tell her where to find it. Any doubts he might have had over the medium’s powers were settled when the ring was discovered exactly where the séance told them it would be found.
‘I’m afraid it’s the quickest way,’ Aaric said. He frowned as he regarded Cicely. Samuel could guess the reason for his concern. She was looking less robust than she had yesterday. The old complaint was sapping her strength again.
‘You don’t have to go,’ Samuel told her. ‘Your uncle and I can do this. You can wait for us at home.’
‘I’ve done enough waiting already,’ Cicely retorted, annoyance in her voice. ‘You’ve only just come back from Gothghul Hollow and the dangers of that journey. I’m not going to sit back now and let you assume more risks.’
Aaric tried to offer some comforting advice to his companions. ‘In a séance, the risks are entirely assumed by the medium. Remember that she is the foundation for any manifestations. The spirits that appear aren’t independent, like malignants. They remain tethered to the underworlds, unable to truly leave. The degree of their interactions in the mortal world is wholly dependent on how much energy the séance provides to them.’ He raised a warning finger. ‘Remember, it is your fear that is the greatest threat. The spirits can’t hurt you, but you can hurt yourself. I have been present at a séance where one of the sitters was so frightened that his heart failed him and he collapsed dead at the table.’ A contemplative look came upon the scholar, and he added, ‘It would have been amusing had the medium been able to bring his spirit through while we were still present.’
Samuel gave Cicely another worried look. He wasn’t confident her mind was composed enough for this. ‘You don’t allay my concerns with that story,’ he told Aaric.
‘I repeat, then, that the real risk is that undertaken by the spirit-speaker,’ Aaric said. ‘She will be using her body as a gateway by which the spirit can slip away from the domain Nagash has judged it to belong in. As the example of the various undead shows, those who’ve passed on feel both a desperate longing and a bitter loathing for the realm of the living. It is this all-consuming conflict within themselves that renders the undead so inimical to us, even when they were known to us in life. Spirits called in a séance can exhibit the same obsessions. When they do, instead of merely seeing the medium as a conduit through which they can manifest and communicate, they treat her as prey.’
‘If Mama Ouspenskaya is the only means by which they can manifest, how can the spirits threaten her?’ Cicely asked.
Aaric glanced at the house with its gargoyles and hex signs. ‘Those are protective wards,’ he said. ‘Designed to oppose occult energies, repel any amethyst magic that could seep through and permit a spirit to strengthen itself. When you see Mama Ouspenskaya, she’ll no doubt have many rings and charms intended to shield herself from the same arcane influences. A sufficiently powerful spirit could fasten upon her and seek to draw her soul into the underworld.’
‘Wouldn’t that end the spirit’s manifestation?’ Samuel wondered. ‘If Mama Ouspenskaya is the only link between worlds, breaking that link would send the spirit back.’
‘Typically,’ Aaric agreed. ‘An angry spirit won’t take that into consideration or simply won’t care. Sometimes removing the medium’s soul won’t be fatal and the body will live on as a mindless husk… or as a shell of which the spirit can take possession.’ An uneasy expression entered his eyes. ‘There are also those very rare times when the spirit is malevolent enough that it can strip away the medium’s energies completely and use them to transform into a wraith.’
Samuel saw the way Cicely flinched. The recent fears over Alastair returning as such a murderous apparition were still fresh in everyone’s memory. Even more with Anya’s tragic accusal and death.
‘If I didn’t feel it was absolutely necessary, I wouldn’t suggest this action,’ Aaric said. ‘Time, however, is vital. The force that is preying on your family could strike at any moment.’ He unlatched the gate. ‘Whatever risk you believe awaits you here, remember what we hope to learn. Remember that if this malefactor is left at liberty, the next victim could be one of you.’
No doubt the gravity of the situation justified Aaric’s curt summation, but a sidelong glance at Cicely caused Samuel to interrupt the scholar. ‘You should go back,’ he told her again. She just shook her head, that mix of fear and distress etched across her face. What was it, exactly? Anxiety, or anticipation? Samuel thought he understood. This was a chance, perhaps a final chance, for her to speak to Emelda. He abandoned the idea of coaxing Cicely to leave. However afraid she might be, what daughter could walk away from the chance to speak to her dead mother?
