The Song of the Sycamore, page 2
‘Find her, Sycamore.’ Hysan’s monochrome eyes darkened with fury. ‘I want my vengeance.’
And in the Song, he died. His body shrank, dried, withered, and his spirit left him. Black with the anger of injustice, it oozed over the table, stretching before slapping to the floor in oily drops. The vision faded. The final image was of the Magician staring at her spell, a red symbol on a leaf of skin thinner than a sheet of paper now resting on her open hands.
The wail of the siren returned to me; candlelight died, replaced by the gloom inside the watch post at the city wall. The ether-cannons had stopped firing. Hysan’s ghoul loitered in the doorway, once again in the dark and featureless shape of a human. His stink offended my nostrils. The Song of the Dead had been sung. It was now mine to avenge.
‘Come, then, Clay Hysan,’ Sycamore said, retrieving the knife. It made a sucking sound as it slid free of the corpse’s neck. I thrust it into my jacket pocket without cleaning the blade. ‘Lead me to your murderer.’
Chapter Three
Falling, dwindling inside my own body, but still dregs of happiness remained to me, lingering memories of laughter, of a love and hope that once held back fear of an uncertain future. There was belief, too; an innocent confidence that the walls of Old Castle would always stand between the citizens and the wars and monsters of the wasteland. But details, specifics, who I had shared these dregs with, were fading fast. I was desperately clinging to the dying ideals of the man I once was, the man who could no longer recall what events had led him to this point.
Sycamore cared nothing for what I had been through or what it had lost me – and I had lost … more than I could remember, something important.
For two days straight, he had been running my body into the ground, I recalled that much. The faces of every victim who had died on this killing spree remained as clear fragments in my shattered memory, along with every desperate word that had begged me to stop. Two days, and now with a fresh knife wound in my side – that I was still walking at all impressed Sycamore; he saw it as a kind of strength not to be wasted. So here I was, a host for a monster, traipsing after a vengeful ghoul, heading towards my next victim.
By the time Clay Hysan had led me to edge of Old Castle’s western region, the siren had stopped and the shield had been deactivated. Night was falling and the air was fresh again with the chill of winter. Now the danger from the wastes had gone, a few citizens were braving the outdoors. Dressed in shirts and trousers and dresses of inexpensive fashion, they couldn’t see the ghoul leading me, couldn’t meet the eye of the bedraggled and blood-spattered vision of Wendal Finn, but they feared what I hosted.
Driven by instinct, they gave me a wide berth on the street, recognising deep down that an animal higher than them in the food chain was on the hunt. As I passed them, downcast expressions and defensive body language revealed the way Sycamore’s presence affected their thoughts; perhaps, after all, it would be safer to return home for the night and wait for the sanctuary of morning.
Hysan’s ghoul led me down a main street which ran alongside a high wall, signifying the beginning of a district known as the Fusion. Sycamore was slowly devouring my being, my essence, but he was also absorbing my generic knowledge of Urdezha, of this city, and his curiosity was piqued by the wall. He wanted to know what lay on the other side.
He was fascinated to learn that the Fusion was a small and forbidden inner district, where only the highest-ranking Scientists were allowed to go. It was home to the city’s main reactor, a feat of magical engineering which tapped into the ether-growth far beneath Old Castle. The reactor drew up power for the shield generators and ether-cannons; it provided the energy by which the populace survived. Without ether, this city would crumble and blow away into the wasteland, meaning that security in the Fusion was permanently high.
Sycamore pondered this.
As Hysan’s oily ghoul led me away from the Fusion’s wall and into a narrow side lane flanked by dirty lodging houses, my feet felt less sure on the stone paving. Strength was draining from my legs. I could hear Sycamore’s thoughts, feel what he was thinking. Perhaps it was time to possess a new host. I would have to die before he could free himself from my body; a simple enough task, but he worried because I had shown him how some humans were harder to possess than others. How long had we been together? Sycamore decided that he had neither the time nor the patience to disrupt his work unnecessarily. Better to use his current host until the very end – an end which had to come.
By now, the city watch were likely discovering the bodies I’d been leaving behind. It was only a matter of time before they followed the trail and caught up with me. Sycamore would select a new host then, someone from the Scientists’ hierarchy with access to the Fusion. There, he could meddle with the ether reactor, disable the shield and cannons, allow the monsters of the wasteland to wreak carnage on Old Castle’s streets. With access to the Fusion, he could cause a citywide catastrophe that dealt with every murderer at once instead of one at a time.
The citizens had no idea what I had brought to their world.
Venturing deeper into the west, we skirted the Tinman District, not a particularly nice part of Old Castle. The Scientists ruled, but the north and south were their main territories, so that was where the bulk of the wealth went. East and west were home to the larger population, the drones of society’s hive, and the streets were not so clean there, the houses not so luxurious. I was vaguely aware that I had lodgings in the Tinman District, but did I live there alone? Was anyone missing me? What had I lost?
Something important … something I had once sworn I’d never forget.
The banality of life in this region was advantageous to the Magicians; it helped them avoid the unwanted attentions of the ruling caste. So when the ghoul led me down a stinking alley, where darkness stalked and even the filth kept old secrets, to the back door of a decrepit building, I assumed that we had arrived at one of the many Magicians’ dens in the area. But the words burned into the chipped and worn wood of the door told a different story.
Dark as charcoal, the words were a simplified form of an ancient alphabet, not unlike magical script. Salabese, the language of the Gardeners. Loosely translated, the words read: Cleanse your spirit. But to Sycamore, they might as well have said: Purchase empty promises.
Clay Hysan gave a gurgle of encouragement and his ghoul collapsed to a black puddle which oozed through the gap under the door. Sycamore had me draw the knife from my pocket and push the door open. It swung closed behind me.
Chapter Four
A Vestibule of Aktuaht, a place of spiritual well-being. It was a smallish room, square, no more than twenty feet in length and width, the ceiling low and dirty. The alley door was the only way in or out, and the Vestibule was empty.
‘Strange,’ thought Sycamore.
Wall-mounted candles flickered light onto a floor of hard-packed earth, grey and dusty. The staleness of old smoke hung in the air, along with the kind of stillness that suggested only spiders and insects were watching me. No citizens sat on the single rickety pew, which was positioned before a worn stretch of floor flanked by two rows of four wooden pillars and which led to a large brazier atop a stone pedestal. The ghoul of Clay Hysan was nowhere to be seen, but I could feel he was close, detect his stench.
Intrigued, Sycamore steered me between the pillars towards the brazier. Salabese script had been carved into each one, no doubt telling the fables of the afterlife which my possessor found so ludicrous. The black metal dish of the brazier held a layer of ash. Behind it, a faded and flaking picture had been painted on the wall. It depicted a golden sun in a blue sky, shining down onto a thick and lush forest: a representation of the peace and spiritual harmony that supposedly waited on the other side.
On the floor beside the brazier, a wicker basket had been filled with the little brown wings of sycamore seeds. I dug into them with the knife’s blade, unable to prevent Sycamore’s scoff escaping my mouth. Uncertainty was a key factor in faith, and many believed that these seeds provided nourishment for the dead, food for a spirit when it entered the afterlife and journeyed to Aktuaht.
This offended Sycamore.
Aktuaht: a Salabese word which meant judicature or trial. It was the name of the spiritual realm that lay between the land of the living and the other side. A court, of a kind, where the dead received final judgement from three eternal Gardeners: Truth, Mercy and Wrath, the last knights from the Order of Glass and Words, an ancient sect whose calling was to protect the weak and defend justice.
The three Judges of Aktuaht decided whether a spirit deserved condemnation to Nothing or passage to a paradise they called the Garden in the Sky. I prayed now to the Order of Glass and Words, whispered apologies for my atrocities, begged Truth, Mercy and Wrath to put me on trial. If they could save the last of my spirit from Sycamore, then I’d take my chances that Aktuaht would witness a good soul worthy of heaven, where the sky was blue, the sun golden and the land was not a ruined waste.
‘Aktuaht is a lie,’ Sycamore thought to me. ‘Death is death, the other side is freedom, and there is no judgement in between. As for the Knights of Glass and Words, the truth about their Order is better left unsaid.’
I tried not to listen, but his discourse came through feelings that bled into my drowning consciousness, demanding that I comprehend a stark reality of human existence before my death: false faith was easier than no faith, and the Magicians were very good at providing the lies that made life easier to live. They ran the Vestibules of Aktuaht, where, for a single coin, citizens could buy a blessing, burn a handful of seeds and earn the kind of favour that offered peaceful nights of sleep and promises of the Garden in the Sky.
The ash in the brazier was dead and cold. No seeds had been burned for at least a day or more. The candles were lit, but the light shone for no one but me. Why was the Vestibule empty?
Hissing, Clay Hysan materialised between the wooden pillars. His darkness rose from the floor to form a human shape, oozing and dripping shadows. Something about the stance of his featureless ghoul relayed mournfulness rather than vengeful anger.
‘Well?’ Sycamore said, joining him between the pillars. He shrugged my shoulders. ‘You led me here?’
‘Help me,’ Hysan gurgled. ‘I don’t know what I want.’
An odd thing for him to say, given that if there was anything a ghoul knew, then it was definitely what it wanted.
‘Where is your murderer, Clay Hysan?’
‘This isn’t fair!’ The ghoul made a sound like a man screaming underwater. ‘I deserve my peace!’
To Sycamore’s surprise, Hysan’s darkness split, shredded into oily curls that burst and dissipated like puffs of smoke until all that remained where he had stood was a circular leaf of skin upon which thin lines of scabs formed a magical symbol resembling a barren tree.
‘What is this?’
The leaf burned to dust with a blaze of quick fire. The symbol became wisps of crimson mist and flew at me with such speed that Sycamore had no time to dodge them. Each wisp hit me in the chest, one after the other, but there was no sensation of impact as the crimson magic sank through my clothes and pricked at my skin. Sycamore ripped my shirt open, popping buttons, and discovered that the symbol had re-formed on my bloodied and scarred chest, smoking, reeking, searing my flesh as though I had been branded. And that was when I saw it: the thing I had lost and forgotten.
From a chain around my neck hung two wedding bands. One was mine. The other was my wife’s. I had lost her. She was dead.
The door to the Vestibule opened and Clay Hysan’s murderer entered.
Head bald and dressed in a Magician’s gown, the woman from the vision took a few steps before stopping to consider me with the calculating eyes of a hunter. A beast of a man entered after her. Broad, shaggy-haired, almost seven feet tall, he closed the door and stood guard, his cold expression alive with the threat of violence in the candlelight.
Sycamore considered this an interesting turn of events. I tried in vain to recall my wife’s name.
The woman stepped further into the Vestibule. ‘They say a messenger has come to Old Castle from Aktuaht.’ She spoke in Salabese, her voice smooth with confidence. ‘The dead are calling him Sycamore.’ She stopped where the pillars began and gave me a triumphant smile. Her pupils were dilated; there was magic ready at her fingertips. ‘They say you are eternal, inexorable, but I say you are as weak as the blood and bones you wear.’
A Magician’s trap, and Sycamore had blindly walked into it. A situation that was easily remedied, he decided. I lifted the knife, intending to cut my own throat so the spirit of vengeance could release himself from his host, but the Magician said, ‘No you don’t,’ and cast the spell she was holding.
On the pillars, hiding amidst the Salabese script, small words of magic glowed with rose-coloured radiance. The light scratched at the symbol on my chest and fatigue beset every inch of my body. My fingers opened and the knife thudded to the earthy floor. Sycamore dared not let me take a single step lest I fall over, and had me glare at the Magician instead.
‘Oh.’ She pouted mockingly. ‘Have your sins returned to you?’
Behind her, the beast of a man snorted his amusement.
I swayed on my feet. Sycamore wondered if he had underestimated the humans of this city.
Offended, he said, ‘Who are you to dare cast your spells on me?’
The Magician shook her bald head. ‘I’m led to believe that a name in your hands will result in dire consequences.’
‘That depends on who introduces me to you. What have you done with the ghoul of Clay Hysan?’
‘He is … safely hidden from you.’
My lip curled into a snarl. ‘You are a child playing a dangerous game, Magician.’
‘Ah, but it’s a game that I’m winning nonetheless.’
The words of magic on the pillars flared brightly. The spell on my chest grew, the red lines searing out to cover my stomach and snaking around to my back. There was sensation then, a deep, dull ache that didn’t just belong to me but also to my possessor. I felt stronger, my being more intact. And Sycamore … I felt his incredulity as his control faltered. His consciousness began sinking. Mine rose, piecing its shattered parts back together. Sycamore could do nothing as the spell overcame his possession and I reclaimed my body.
The sudden release from subjugation forced a bellow from my mouth, aimed at the Magician in rage and confusion and heartache. She stepped back from me as though wary of a wild animal.
Instinctively, my hand gripped the wedding bands hanging from my neck and I remembered the name of my wife. ‘Eden!’ I shouted; and then, ‘Fuck!’ as pain from my wounds hit me, mixed with my fatigue, and drove me to my knees.
Hot tears ran down my cheeks. Sycamore despaired as he sank deeper inside me, clutching uselessly for a hold that might allow him to clamber back up and into control. But he couldn’t prevent the Magician’s spell from pushing him down and down until we had switched places and he became the helpless observer, trapped in a flesh prison.
The Magician was breathing heavily, both anxious and excited, surprised that her trap had worked.
‘Let’s get him to the old monster,’ she said to her henchman. ‘Quickly.’
Without a word, the man came for me. He grabbed my collar and yanked me up. I barely had the strength to keep my feet on the floor and hung limp and hopeless … until he prised my hand away from the wedding bands. Until he tried to pull the chain from my neck. Then I closed my eyes and summoned a primal fury. Thrashing, screeching, my teeth clamped on the first thing they could find and bit down, hard. A roar of pain preceded the taste of blood in my mouth and I chewed on something tough and difficult to swallow.
The Magician shouted, ‘Tamara, no!’ but couldn’t prevent me from being punched so hard that nothing mattered any more.
Chapter Five
Wendal Finn … my name is Wendal Finn.
I died young, though I wasn’t truly dead. I fought in the war, and it was the war that broke me. The army discharged my service before my tour of duty had officially ended. They couldn’t understand the ailment that had fucked me up beyond reason – I still didn’t understand it now. Eventually, the army had decided the surest way to wash their hands of a useless shell of a soldier was to send him back to Old Castle, where I discovered my wife was dead. That was what finished me off.
No one warned me that I’d find an official notice at home, a cold scrap of paper informing me that Eden had committed suicide mere days before my return. It said her body had been welcomed to a reduction house. Welcomed, as though that meant she had been peacefully laid to rest. I was invited to pay my respects at any one of the city’s Gardens – a euphemism confirming that nothing physical remained of the woman I loved.
It was the final stroke, the emotional breakdown which ensured my condemnation. It was the day I lost the battle for my spirit and became a possessed killer who had now attracted the attention of the Magicians.
Darkness receded into candlelight. Air, cool and damp, kissed my skin. There was no pain, no chaos; I had been brought back from the brink of Nothing, but I couldn’t feel my arms and legs.
Immobilised, I lay on the floor of a room I didn’t recognise. The Magician whose trap I had sprung stood over me in the flickering light of naked flames, staring at something ahead. Above her, magical script decorated the ceiling, written in substances I didn’t want to guess at. The atmosphere felt heavy, oppressive. I tried to speak, but no words passed my lips. My tongue was as useless as my limbs.
‘Dyonne Obor,’ said a voice – muffled, oddly threatening in its neutrality. ‘You have brought ghouls to my house. I am not pleased.’
