The Song of the Sycamore, page 4
Inexorable, it hovered a few inches from my face, droning like a bee, but coming no closer.
‘I claim your life and give you the moment of your death,’ Dyonne growled. ‘You cannot escape it, Wendal Finn. This bullet will always be there, following you, just out of sight, but ready to strike.’
I could feel the bullet’s heat, its willingness to crack open my skull and puncture my brain.
‘For now, I reserve this moment.’ There was something furious, wild about Dyonne then. Beads of sweat glistened on her head and her teeth were clenched, as though strained by the effort of holding magic too powerful for her. ‘I will keep you safe from all harm, but should you ever cross me, ever try to deny the Magicians their right to the entity you host’ – I flinched back as the bullet zipped an inch closer to my face – ‘your moment of death will find you wherever you stand.’
With a sucking sound, the projectile disappeared, along with the reek of smoke and the ancient weapon. Dyonne appeared to grow. The bubble of protective magic changed, becoming like a scoop or vacuum that gathered up the ghouls, dragging them screaming into a sphere of watery darkness that hung in the air above us. I wanted to both shy away and reach out and touch the sphere. It was like staring into a window of unknowable things.
‘Your Song is sung.’ Dyonne drew herself up regally, wiped sweat from her head. ‘And so, Wendal Finn, it is time to show you just how unique you are.’
II
The Shepherd & the Sycamore
(Three Months Later …)
Chapter Seven
The dead called me Sycamore. I was their Shepherd.
The crossbow was kept atop a crockery cabinet in a pantry, a forgotten trophy stored in what looked to be a simple case. But upon bringing it down, I discovered the case was in fact made from real wood. Rare and expensive to humans; a bonus for Wendal Finn – but that was for him to worry about later. I blew a layer of dust from its dark lacquered top and opened it.
A plain, unremarkable weapon, the crossbow sat on a soft, padded interior. A single bolt lay beside it, a decorative projectile designed as a commemorative piece but no less lethal because of it. The polished head was engraved with words that celebrated the long service of the recently retired army officer who used to own this house. The crossbow was heavy but its action smooth as I pulled the string back, locked it and notched the bolt.
A ghoul stirred in the pantry’s doorway. Like a patch of oily darkness, it slithered impatiently, stinking of sewage, gurgling with the usual sound of a drowning man. Its image, sound and smell heated my blood with a pounding need for vengeance. The ghoul beckoned to me, urged me to follow it, begging for justice.
With loaded crossbow in hand, I was led out of the pantry and into the kitchen. Silver light from the night sky spilled through a window, illuminating the gloom, shining on the pots and pans hanging above a stove still warm from the day’s cooking. The aroma of fried fish lingered on the air. Only households in the southern parts of the city, where the wealthiest Scientists lived, could afford real fish. Wendal Finn had always found the aroma greasy and unappetising.
The ghoul led me down a hallway into a dining room where a large centre table played host to empty padded chairs and a bureau with decanters of better-quality alcohol than most in the city could afford. The ghoul paused beneath a family portrait on the wall. It lingered long enough for me to notice that this family had never had more than two members – one man, one woman; a husband and wife – before slithering off into the lounge. Its darkness oozed over comfy-looking couches and racks filled with books, finally heading to the corner where a skeletal staircase spiralled up to the next floor.
The ghoul ascended. I followed.
Follow. That was all I had been doing for the past three months. Before the Magicians claimed control of me, I decided which host to inhabit, I decided which ghoul to avenge. But now my decisions were made for me. I couldn’t escape the prison of Wendal Finn. The Magicians occasionally let me out to do their bidding. During these brief moments of freedom, there was always a victim of unavenged murder waiting for me, whose passion for justice had become a sweet addiction which I eagerly fed – but I couldn’t escape the Magicians’ leash which always dragged me back into my cell. I had become a puppet, a servant, as weak as the body I wore, forced to experience the slow drip of time as humans did, to feel life as they lived it.
But my patience would outwait them all.
The ghoul was nowhere to be seen by the time I reached the top of the stairs and found a large, rectangular landing. Five bedroom doors surrounded me, all of them closed. A soft voice came from behind one, speaking with a low tone – too low to understand, but I knew who it belonged to. The door didn’t creak when I pushed it open.
Light glowed through drawn curtains. The bedroom smelled of flowers, though none were on display. The owner of the house lay asleep in a four-poster bed. An older woman, pinched face, mouth open, snoring lightly. She wore a sleep mask and the covers were pulled up to her chin.
‘Waste is not an end. Waste is survival.’
The voice came from a glass pyramid that rested on a bedside table. Mostly clear but frosted in places, a dull light pulsed along its base.
‘Waste is a way of life.’
The pyramid was transmitting Dreamtime Theory, a philosophy that played across the city at all times. It ran on a subliminal frequency, drilling straight into the unconscious minds of humans. But I could hear it audibly. The voice spoke for the Scientists, the controllers, the ones who had raised the human race to its greatest height before crashing them down into a wasteland; and the transmission was designed to grease the wheels of their governmental machine. It worked, for the most part, on good citizens who followed the Scientists’ way. The Magicians used spells to block it out.
‘Every good citizen understands their responsibility to Old Castle.’
The woman in the bed mumbled agreement in her sleep. I bared my teeth at her. She went by the name Agtha Martal.
Not long ago, Agtha had murdered her husband and made it look like an accident. He had never treated her badly, and her motives were boredom and greed. Boredom because with her husband retired and home for good, she’d had to give up a secret life of social engagements and lovers; greed because as reward for his years of service to the army, he had been given a slice of a lucrative fishing business on the coast just outside the city. Agtha wanted that business, the wealth and social standing it would bring, all for herself. So she had poisoned her husband and almost got away with murder.
I knew this because her husband had sung the Song of the Dead to me.
Byon Martal’s ghoul materialised in the corner of the room. It gurgled with an insistent noise, hungrily seeking justice for his murder, egging me on. Gladly, I obliged, aiming the crossbow at his widow’s face, judging the position of her right eye beneath the sleep mask.
An odd feeling rose inside me, as though Wendal had turned his back on what was to come.
‘When life ends,’ the pyramid said, ‘the reduction houses will welcome your loved ones. We will ensure that they provide new Dust for your fellow citizens.’
These people! They would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous. They would be glorious if they weren’t so corrupt. Any benefit that would come from this woman’s death belonged to the Magicians.
I pulled the trigger. With a snap, the bolt shot into Agtha’s eye and pierced her brain. Her snoring stopped.
A wave of putrid air filled the room, the stench of war and the wasteland. Byon Martal’s gurgling became satisfied, appreciative, and his ghoul melted to a puddle that stretched across the floor until it touched my boot and became the likeness of my shadow. Then the ghoul evaporated, an avenged spirit at peace, travelling on to who knew where?
The smell of flowers returned to the room. I felt the first stirrings of Wendal climbing up to regain control of his body and mind, signalling that it was time for me to crawl back into my cage. The Song of Always ensured that I couldn’t claim true freedom. Not yet.
And the voice of the Scientists said, ‘Nothing is forgotten.’
Chapter Eight
Life’s conspiracy had made friends difficult to come by, and I only had one – Janelle Memphis. But even she wasn’t too keen on me at that moment.
‘This isn’t going to end well,’ she whispered.
‘Why ever do you say that?’
Her big blue eyes narrowed at me in a trademark glare of, Fuck you, Wendal.
In the gloom of a basement, the tangles of Nel’s hair danced in the flickering light of a single candle flame. Her face usually held an unconcerned and welcoming expression but was now creased into something more anxious.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I promised, with absolutely no foundation for my convictions. ‘Trust me.’
Around us, words of magic had been written in chalk on the walls, ceiling and floor; over empty wine racks, old beer barrels and support pillars. They even decorated the open stairs leading to the upper floor. The script appeared random and chaotic yet somehow formed a beginning, middle and end like a narrative that spiralled around the basement, ending at the man sitting in the centre of the floor.
‘I asked for you to come, and you came,’ the man said. ‘For this, I will make you grateful.’
He didn’t say much that was coherent. He didn’t sound stable when he did.
The growl in Nel’s throat was almost inaudible. She was always asking, ‘Why do I let you drag me into shit like this, Wendal?’ I never had a good answer, but she had stood by me all the same for nearly three months.
The man in the basement was Jon Johnny, though I doubted anyone knew his real name. He was cleanly shaved, his hair short – almost neat. He wore a simple moth-eaten robe and would’ve appeared healthy enough if not for the waxy sheen on his face and the look in his eye that said his perception of the world was somewhat askew and damaged.
‘I don’t like this, Wendal.’ Nel’s hand was thrust deep into the cloth satchel hanging from her shoulder. You never knew what she was keeping in her satchel.
Jon Johnny was a fallen Magician, an addict who didn’t know when to stop. He had probably been suffering the torment of magic poisoning for years. Between the words that Nel and I could understand, he hummed an incantation, preparing a spell.
‘It is written that only the Gardeners held the keys to heaven’s gateway,’ Johnny said. ‘But I know where the dead sing for the last time, where their Songs are judged by the Order of Glass and Words. I have created a gateway to Aktuaht.’
The gateway he was referring to was no more than a hole in the basement floor, which he sat in front of. The area around its rim was stained by what looked to be old blood and vomit.
‘We should leave,’ Nel stated.
Johnny had resumed humming his spell. A collection of small jars sat on the floor around him, some containing oils, others powders of various colours, which he occasionally sprinkled into the hole.
‘I can help you find her,’ Johnny told me.
Nel rolled her eyes. This was by no means the first time she had heard somebody say that they could help me find Eden’s spirit, but would it be the last? The legend of Aktuaht was a crock of shit, according to Sycamore. But then Sycamore had never cared if I believed him or not. He always claimed that the truth was beyond my comprehension. He wasn’t one for straight talking.
The problem with Jon Johnny was that he was a problem. For someone else. We were beneath a gambling house in Reaper Town, a particularly unsavoury area in the east of Old Castle. The Sharpened Card – the gambling house – had recently been taken over by a hoodlum called Mutley, who, if she had bothered to check why the place was being sold so cheaply, might’ve noticed the mad Magician living in her new basement.
Only Johnny knew where he had come from, and his magical antics had scared away the Sharpened Card’s clientele. His influence was palpable; nothing that could be put into words, he just gave the place a bad edge, like a tick burrowed into the flesh of the building, slowly spreading disease. Mutley, devoid of gamblers for her establishment, didn’t know how to get rid of Johnny, and so she had sought the help of the Magicians. Her plight had reached the ears of Dyonne Obor, and that was where I came in.
‘I will open the gateway if you wish it.’ Johnny was rubbing pungent oil into his hands, readying, I suspected, to cast his spell whether I wished him to or not.
‘Wendal—’
I stayed Nel with a raised hand and stepped closer to Johnny. ‘What have you been told about my wife?’
‘Her name is Eden Finn.’ Johnny sprinkled a powdered catalyst into the hole. With a whump of combustion, orange flames began to glow. He leaned over them. Sweat glistened on his face. ‘She’s waiting for you on the other side.’
Nel stepped in front of me, her whispers hoarse and angry. ‘This fucker is well past the point of crazy. I haven’t seen anyone this bad since the war. We. Should. Leave.’ She punctuated each word by jabbing a finger at me. ‘Right. Now.’
There was a conflict of interests going on here. Dyonne had sent me to the Sharpened Card because she thought Johnny might be useful in my search for Eden. Mutley, however, was waiting upstairs with her cronies for news that I had got rid of Jon Johnny for her. Find out what you need and then solve the problem, Dyonne’s letter had said. I had no idea what happened next, but experience told me that the situation would find a painful resolution one way or another.
‘When I open the gateway,’ Johnny said, ‘call for Truth, Mercy and Wrath. Ask the Judges to summon your wife.’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Nel implored. ‘He’s talking shit.’
I knew she was right, but I couldn’t – wouldn’t? – take her advice. All my roads led to Dyonne Obor. She had spun her web over the city, and I could barely move without dancing along one of her threads. She fed off the fact that I’d leave no stone unturned in my search. Undoubtedly, by sending me here, she was now owed a handy debt by the crook who owned this place.
‘This is wild magic, like wastelander magic.’ Nel’s face was pained. ‘There’s no telling what his spell will do. He’s lost control and needs better help than ours.’
And Johnny said, ‘Aktuaht awaits.’
Nel saw my resolute expression and clenched her teeth. ‘Listen to me, Wendal. I’m sorry, but you won’t find Eden today.’
Then when? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? Dyonne had told me so many times that only the mad genuinely dealt with the dead. I always thought she said it to mock me, but what if there was some truth to it? What if Jon Johnny’s madness was the key to finding Eden?
‘No stone unturned, Nel.’
She held my gaze for a moment then stepped aside, muttering, ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ before moving behind me to stand by the stairs.
I nodded at Johnny.
‘Aktuaht is here,’ he said.
Eagerly grabbing a vial from the floor, Johnny popped the cork and poured a white substance, thick like gruel, into his mouth and swallowed. He closed his eyes and a moment passed before he groaned in pain. Leaning over the hole, his gateway to Aktuaht, he retched and gagged until he brought up a pallid mass, a fleshy sac that slid from his mouth like a giant maggot, containing something that glowed.
‘Shit,’ Nel hissed.
The sac split, spilling a wispy fluid into the hole. It crackled when it hit the fire, turning the colour of its flames from orange to vibrant blue. Coughing and gagging, Johnny pulled the remnants of the sac from his mouth and throat, letting it slap to the floor. And that was when his spell backfired on him.
Johnny shrieked as the blue fire shot from the hole and gripped his face with claws of flame.
‘I fucking warned you, Wendal!’
Nel had spoken the truth; I wouldn’t find Eden today.
Johnny scattered vials and jars as he fell back, thrashing, struggling for breath, dragging the fire clear of the hole. It slithered over his body, covering him completely, and he writhed as it devoured his robe and smothered his screams to silence.
This was wild. The only spirit Johnny had summoned was his own.
As Nel spat out a line of curses and rummaged in her satchel, panicking, I watched with fear and fascination, recalling the war, recalling the clansfolk who I’d seen use this spell on the wasteland. Berserkers, they were called, and they summoned their own spirits to turn themselves into human bombs. They exploded with jellified spirit-matter which burned with a heat that even water struggled to douse. I had seen city soldiers incinerated when berserkers summoned their own spirits. I remembered with despair being caught in one of their explosions myself.
‘Get away from him!’ Nel shouted.
I didn’t need telling twice. Rushing to the stairs, I started to climb, but stopped when Nel didn’t follow.
Johnny was on his feet, staggering from side to side. He wore the blue fire like a vaporous suit, a superimposed version of himself, inside which he drowned, screaming silently. I felt a wave of heat coming off him. This was the most tortuous state of existence: a spirit ripped from a living body, both locked in agony. If the spell reached a crescendo, spirit-matter would burn down the basement and probably eat through the gambling house above.
Nel stepped forwards, a metallic sphere in her hands. She twisted it like she was trying to wrench it into two halves. It clicked, whined, and red lines appeared on its surface.
‘You can’t be serious?’ I said.
‘Yeah, I’m the one making stupid decisions.’
