Herald of the Storm

TWENTY-NINE

She came for him before dawn, awakening him as the grey light of an autumn day began to filter through the shutters. This time she didn’t speak, but Waylian knew what to do.

Silently he donned his robe, not even bothering to splash water on his face, before following her down the winding staircase to the base of the Tower.

Part of him was thankful no one else had yet risen. For the past few days he’d been too ashamed to show his face in the communal areas, far too embarrassed to see another soul. He could feel them laughing behind his back, pointing their fingers and whispering to one another.

‘There goes the idiot from the refectory.’

‘That’s the one who screams out random profanities.’

‘Yes, I hear he tugs himself to sleep every night too, then cries into his pillow after.’

Waylian could do without the ridicule. He had enough to deal with already, feeling so out of place here now. The books he read made no more sense, the lessons he attended were no more enlightening and it was only a matter of time before he was dismissed from the Tower altogether.

Then at least he would be able to return home.

There would be a certain shame in that, of course, but Waylian didn’t care. He could weather comments about his failure: they would die off soon enough. Then he could become a scribe or scholar of some kind, and settle into a life outside the realms of magick.

He was damned sure he wouldn’t miss it.

His mistress was waiting for him as he made his way down the stairs. Mercifully there was no disdain in her eyes on this particular morning. She might still resemble a leering gargoyle, lacking emotion, still look fearsome, but Waylian didn’t feel any particular hostility was being directed at him. She was just indifferent to him.

Gelredida was through the great double doors before he reached the bottom of the stairs, and Waylian was at pains to keep up with her. Not that it mattered. He must be her silent shadow. Why she even wanted him along was a mystery: it wasn’t as though he could contribute any great insight into things, though he knew by now what kind of things they were heading off to investigate.

This was the third night she had summoned him. The first had been to investigate the hideous, eviscerated corpse that had caused him to evacuate his guts all over the floor. The second was just after he had managed to humiliate himself in front of Gerdy and Bram and the rest of the students. She had come for him that night, waking him from his embarrassed dreams and leading him through the streets to another house surrounded by Greencoats. This time there had been no crowd, no cloying mass of humanity trying to get a sight of the carnage. That murder had been just as grotesque as the first, the body of the man just as badly butchered, the symbols daubed on the walls even more obscene to look upon, though Waylian had just as little understanding of their significance. That time, though, he had managed to hold his evening meal down, despite its insistence on rising towards his mouth.

Now, as he followed Gelredida through the shabby streets, he was more sanguine about what he might see. He guessed one mutilated body was much the same as any other. Tonight’s murder would probably hold few surprises for him.

Waylian took little notice of their route. The streets all looked the same to him: ramshackle houses built too close together, squatting in muddy streets with muddier beggars pleading for coin.

He had expected the Greencoats to be waiting for his mistress as they had been previously, so it came as something of a surprise when she stopped and knocked on the unguarded front door of a huge stone building, its windows long since boarded over.

After some time a shutter in the door opened. There was no exchange of words, but whoever lurked inside must have recognised Gelredida, since the door quickly opened and Waylian’s mistress walked in.

He had never seen the interior of a whorehouse before, but still, this was not what he would have expected. The door opened on a wide room, with several sofas scattered about. Scantily clad girls of various shapes and sizes sat around, some looking bored, others fearful, one openly weeping. This one was being comforted by a whore with a bosom larger than Waylian had ever seen.

It almost made him resentful being so close to these women. He had heard of whores and the men that took solace in their company, of course, but he had never been so close to one. Being in their presence made him feel grimy, as if he might fall victim to some disease just by being in the same room.

Magistra Gelredida was greeted by an ageing woman. Her face was heavily wrinkled and looked grotesque, being as gaudily painted as those of the other whores. She might possibly have been desirable once, it was hard to tell now, age and a livid scar beside her left eye having long since kissed goodbye to her beauty.

‘You’ve told no one?’ Gelredida asked.

The whore raised one painted eyebrow. ‘What do you think?’ she replied.

‘And these?’ The Red Witch gestured to the score of girls in their various states of undress.

‘We both know what’ll assure their silence.’

Gelredida produced a pouch from out of nowhere, and Waylian heard the telltale chink of coins as she placed it in the hand of the brothel-mistress.

‘She’s upstairs,’ said the old whore. ‘The door’s open. The smell should guide you right enough.’

With that she was off into another room hidden by a thick curtain.

Gelredida took the stairs, and Waylian was quick to follow, having no desire to be left alone with these women of the night.

‘Why are there no Greencoats here, Magistra?’ he asked as they reached the first floor landing.

‘It’s the way I want it,’ Gelredida replied. ‘This way we might investigate the scene untroubled and word of this can be kept to a minimum.’

‘But how can you guarantee the silence of those … women?’

Gelredida stopped and turned, regarding Waylian with a wry smile.

‘All men are braggarts by nature, and women of means are most often gossips and rumourmongers. Whores, however, learn to keep their peace … if the price is right. I would sooner trust the discretion of a whore than of anyone else in this city.’

She made her way along the corridor. Waylian followed, and, as the sound of sobbing from downstairs receded, a familiar smell began to assail his nostrils. The stink of rot, of carcasses, wafted down the corridor as though they were about to enter a butcher’s shop. Waylian braced himself for what he was about to see as Gelredida turned through an open door.

There were candles, black-stemmed with glowing red flames, as before. The walls bore their familiar dark sigils — but Waylian’s attention went immediately to the corpse. This time, instead of being splayed on the ground, the body of this unfortunate whore was nailed to the ceiling, her entrails dangling down to caress the floor like the branches of a willow tree. How the killer had managed to nail her there without alerting the rest of the brothel’s occupants he had no idea. But then they weren’t dealing with any ordinary killer. This was a rogue caster, a foul magicker of the most despicable kind. Who knew what fell tricks he had used to accomplish his ghastly deed.

As Waylian regarded her, staring blankly from milk-white eyes, he suddenly felt a pang of shame. Downstairs he had considered those women whores. He had thought them base and unworthy of his compassion. But this was just a girl, not much older than he was. A girl who might have had dreams, might have aspired to something more than spreading her legs for coin, but now those dreams were slain along with her. And slain in the most obscene manner.

‘We should get her down,’ he said, as Gelredida busied herself examining the walls.

‘She can stay where she is for the moment. I doubt she’s late for any appointments.’

Waylian felt anger well up from his belly. The humiliation of the last few days, coupled with his current shame, seemed to boil up within him.

‘We need to get her down!’ he cried, too loud.

Gelredida rounded on him, her face creased in annoyance. He braced himself for the tirade, for the abuse and the ridicule, but it never came. Her features softened and she slowly nodded.

‘Very well. Use that.’ She gestured to a chair in one corner before turning back to the wall and studying the sigils closely, though not close enough to touch them.

Waylian grabbed the chair and dragged it through the pool of blood, the legs making a trail along the floorboards, until it was positioned beneath the girl. He climbed on it, grasping a nail that secured one of her feet to the ceiling. Congealed blood on the head of the nail made his fingers slippery and he couldn’t get proper purchase. After pulling his robe over his hand Waylian managed to get a grip on the nail and he tugged. It finally came away in a shower of plaster and the girl’s leg dropped, dangling uselessly. He used the same technique on the other leg, and her body slumped, hanging from her arms. Thankfully, Waylian had prepared himself, and he managed to take the girl’s weight, her entrails still dangling, soaking his robe in blood. He didn’t care about that. He just wanted her down off that ceiling.

A week ago this would have made him sick to his stomach, but recent events had hardened him. Waylian felt like a boy no longer.

Her exsanguinated body was light as a child’s doll, and even Waylian, weakling that he was, could take her weight. Finally, he managed to remove the nails securing her hands, and she flopped over his shoulder like an old, empty sack. He climbed off the chair and laid her out on the floor. As he knelt beside her he tried to close her eyes but try as he might, he couldn’t seem to get them to shut all the way. She still looked out from half-closed lids, almost as though she were pretending to sleep but still peeking. The splaying of her entrails and the pallid white tinge to her flesh, however, made it obvious she was not.

A sharp intake of breath from his mistress made Waylian glance her way. She had thrown back her hood now, and was standing some paces away from the wall, as though suddenly understanding the symbols daubed there.

‘It cannot be,’ she whispered. ‘Madness. Only a fool would …’

Waylian moved to her side. He regarded the sigils but they only made him feel nauseous. Even though he had no understanding of what they meant, he could sense they were forbidden — writings that should be seen by no mortal eye.

‘What we have here, Waylian, is a ritual of the most diabolical origin.’ Waylian? She called me Waylian. ‘I did not recognise it with the first murder. I did not think it possible with the second, but this poor girl has proved beyond doubt what our foe is up to.’

Waylian could only turn his eyes away from the wall before the bile rising in his throat threatened to make him puke. As he did he saw two burly men at the door.

‘Ah,’ said Gelredida, ‘you’re here. As you can see, it’s something of a mess.’ She gestured to the corpse. ‘I’m sure you know what to do.’ She flung a bag of coins to one of the men, and Waylian began to wonder just how much money she had inside that robe of hers.

As the men pulled out a pile of hempen sacks and some rope, one of them asked, ‘The Storway?’

‘Yes,’ Gelredida replied. ‘And don’t weight the body down this time, otherwise it’ll never reach the sea. We don’t want her bobbing up in the harbour.’

Waylian was suddenly horrified. ‘You can’t just-’

His mistress fixed him with a stern look.

The men went about their business, wrapping the body in the sacks and securing them tight with the rope.

‘No, this isn’t right,’ Waylian said as one of them hoisted the body onto his shoulder. This had been a human being, a girl with a life and feelings. She couldn’t just be discarded like so much sewage. ‘She should be buried.’ Gelredida was annoyed but Waylian didn’t care any more. ‘You can’t. This is wrong.’

He stared at her, trying his best to hold her gaze. She stared back, her eyes boring into him, assessing him as though he were being tested in the classroom. But for the second time she acquiesced to his demands, producing another two crowns from inside her robes.

‘Very well.’ She flung the coins on the ground. ‘You look like resourceful gentlemen, and that should ensure you get the body out of the city unnoticed. See that she’s buried on Dancer’s Hill. No need to mark the grave.’

When neither of them complained, Gelredida walked from the room.

As Waylian followed her he was suddenly aware of the blood covering his robe, the blood of a girl he’d never met and whose name he didn’t know.

Gelredida made her way down the stairs and towards the door, but Waylian paused, turning to the weeping girl.

‘What was her name?’ he asked, as gently as he could manage.

The girl looked up at him, her painted face smeared and runny with tears. ‘What do you care?’ she asked.

‘Just tell me,’ he demanded, his voice less gentle.

‘Kaylee,’ said the girl, before burying her head in her neighbour’s shoulder.

Waylian nodded his thanks and quickly followed his mistress out into the night.

It was some time before he realised Gelredida was not headed back to the Tower of Magisters. Even though his sense of direction was awful he knew they were heading away from the great building.

They came to the end of an alleyway, which opened up to a wide, paved clearing spreading to left and right. Through the gloom, Waylian could see a spiked fence stretching out in both directions. As they drew closer he saw that beyond the fence was a knoll, on which stood a dark and brooding edifice, all crumbling domes and broken spires.

‘What is this, Magistra?’ he asked as they neared the fence, which Waylian could now see was wrought in brass, each stanchion etched with tiny, indecipherable symbols.

Gelredida did not answer, but continued walking along the perimeter, never taking her eyes from the dark monument that squatted ominously at the top of the hill.

Eventually they reached a gate. It was embossed with a grotesque frieze wrought from the same brass as the fence. Rendered in eerie detail were scenes of horror: men, women and children being torn apart by ghastly, emaciated creatures, all talons and fangs and naked fury. Waylian was repulsed by the scene but strangely couldn’t drag his eyes away from it.

In the centre of the gate was a square block of metal, its surface covered with symbols similar to those on the fence stanchions. Gelredida took a deep breath then leaned in close, whispering to the block as though she were confiding in a lover.

The wave of nausea that engulfed Waylian was similar to that he had felt when looking at the daubed sigils at the scenes of the recent murders. He raised a hand to his face in time to staunch a drop of blood as it seeped from his nostril.

Before he could cry out in alarm, the gate moved. The characters depicted on the brass frieze shifted mechanically, some throwing up their arms, other widening their gaping mouths in some macabre mockery of a puppet show. All at once the figures drew back, somehow opening the brass gate and leaving the pathway clear to the imposing monument.

Waylian followed his mistress as she made her way up the hill. Though the feeling of nausea relented, it was replaced with an overwhelming sense of dread, as though they were trespassing on unholy ground and at any moment the guardians of this place might leap forth and inflict their punishment on transgressors.

By the time they reached the monument, Waylian was all but terrified out of his wits.

Gelredida stopped before an entrance to the monolith, which looked to have had a huge stone block jammed into it.

‘The Chapel of Ghouls,’ she breathed. ‘You’ve heard of it?’

‘Yes, Magistra,’ he replied.

‘Of course you have; even the lowliest street urchin has heard of it. For almost seven centuries this tomb has sat in the middle of the city, like a canker at its heart. Over the years people have made up their own tales about this place, much of it myth and rumour. Tales that go back the seven centuries since they were trapped here.’

‘The ghouls?’

‘Yes, of course the ghouls. They ran rife throughout the provinces, threatening to turn it into a land of the dead. It took the Wyvern Guard to finally lure them here with the help of the Crucible of Magisters. This was the only ground on which they could be stopped. By the time they had finally bound the creatures to this place there was almost nothing left of either order.’

‘But what does this have to do with-’

‘Someone is trying to enact a ritual. An ancient and forbidden rite that will bring these monsters back to run rampant. I didn’t want to believe it before, but now it’s time to face the truth.’

‘But why? Why would someone want to release these creatures?’

Gelredida shook her head. ‘Madness. Hubris. Insane curiosity. The motive does not matter. The fact that someone is trying is all that matters. Someone is trying to become the Maleficar Necrus.’

‘Can we stop them?’ His voice quailed, but he was not ashamed of his fear.

‘We have to, Waylian. If these creatures are unleashed on the city they will leave nothing alive.’

He could see fear in Gelredida’s eyes and he had to admit, that unnerved him more than anything else.

His mistress placed a hand on the huge stone slab that covered the entrance as though she were feeling for something. Once satisfied, she nodded. ‘The wards are still in place. They have not been weakened, yet. There is still time.’

With that she turned from the monument, and Waylian followed as she made her way back down the path and out through the gate. He barely heard its grinding and squeaking as the ancient brass portal closed behind them — all he could think was if these ghouls could strike terror in the Red Witch, they must be truly deserving of fear.