The Justice of Kings, page 21
For a horrible moment I thought the physician’s house was being raided by brigands, but even in my confusion I was able to pick out the familiar voices of Bressinger and Vonvalt among the din.
The door to the ward was kicked open by a heavy boot. Four men struggled with a thrashing fifth: Bressinger, Vonvalt, Sir Radomir and another armed and armoured man I did not recognise, but who wore the town’s colours. I could not make out who the fifth was until he was shoved roughly down in the cot next to mine.
It could only have been Graves.
“Light, quickly!” Vonvalt snapped. A sixth figure appeared in the doorway: Mr Maquerink.
All of them moved as though I were not there. For a moment I wondered if I had perished in the night and it was my ghost watching them, transparent and unnoticeable. But the town watchman spared me a brief, grim glance, and I knew that I wasn’t unnoticed. I was being ignored.
I watched proceedings with a horrified fascination, trying to piece together what was happening in spite of the pain in my head. It was only when a lantern was brought in and candles were lit that I could see the long trail of blood leading into the room, and the crimson wetness staining the front of Graves’s clothing and that of most of the men holding him.
“Hold his leg!” Bressinger grunted at Sir Radomir. Graves was thrashing like a rabid dog. I could hear his breath rattling and sucking in his chest. The man had been run through; that much became obvious. I could see the wound, in the ribs on the right. Blood frothed out of it like pink sea foam.
The four of them continued to wrestle the stricken Graves. In the madness and panic, I realised Vonvalt was trying to ask him questions. As Sir Radomir, the watchman and Bressinger struggled to contain the man’s flailing, Vonvalt was examining him as though in the court room. At the time I thought he had lost his mind; quite what he hoped to achieve was beyond me. Graves was in no fit state to do anything except thrash his way into oblivion. But after what came next, I can see now why Vonvalt was keen to try and get something – anything – out of him before he perished.
It was hopeless. I don’t know how long it took Graves to die. I am certain it felt like longer than it was. Most men would drop dead in an instant from a wound like that. With Graves, it felt as though we all had to wait until the last of his blood drained from his body.
And then, after a deep, rattling breath, there was silence. Graves sagged and pulled against those who, seconds before, had strained to contain him. I fancied that his skin took on a waxy pallor.
Vonvalt turned to Bressinger with a mournful expression. “Fetch my things, as quickly as you can,” he said quietly.
Bressinger walked smartly out of the room.
“What happens now?” Sir Radomir asked.
“I am going to try and speak with him,” Vonvalt said.
For a moment the sheriff looked completely baffled. Then realisation dawned on him. “Nema,” he muttered.
“I’ll have no part in this,” the watchman I did not recognise said in a local accent. He backed away from the corpse, shooting Vonvalt a look that was half fear and half disgust.
“Get you gone, then!” Sir Radomir spat.
“You would do best to leave, too,” Vonvalt said once the other watchman was out of earshot. “To say this will be unpleasant would be to understate the matter significantly.” I started as his eyes suddenly locked with mine. I had thought myself invisible in the commotion.
“You too, Helena. You are not ready.”
“No,” I said, surprising myself. I do not know what possessed me to want to witness the spectacle. Certainly I regret doing so. At the time, I think I fooled myself into thinking that it was my duty to watch. Necromancy was a practice that was integral to the Order of the Magistratum. Every Justice had to try to learn it, even if only a minority were able to successfully channel the power. If, despite my constant vacillation, I was to become one, then I would have to start somewhere. Reflecting on the matter now, however, I think in fact it was almost entirely morbid fascination.
Whatever the reason, one thing is certainly true: if I could erase all knowledge of it and purge it from my memories entirely, I would. I did not think for a moment that I would eventually become a practitioner myself.
Vonvalt shrugged. “Suit yourselves,” he said. “Help me move the beds.”
Sir Radomir, Mr Maquerink and I dragged the beds away from Graves, and then Vonvalt and Sir Radomir manhandled Graves’s corpse on to the floor. Blood still leaked from the wound, but it was slow now, brown in the wan candlelight and lacking in all vitality.
“Get back, please,” Vonvalt said. We watched as he fussed over the corpse, until Bressinger reappeared, carrying a black strongbox which I had come to associate with a deep-seated sense of dread.
“Thanks,” Vonvalt muttered.
“Come, Helena,” Bressinger said, moving to take me away.
“No,” Vonvalt said as he opened the box. He pulled out its contents: a number of trinkets, and then the Grimoire Necromantia, a stout tome enclosed by two black leather covers and locked with a clasp.
“You cannot expect her to watch?” Bressinger said, incredulity straining his voice.
“I told her to leave,” Vonvalt said. “She wishes to stay.”
“Helena,” Bressinger said, turning to me. Fear for himself and concern for me battled for control of his features. “You are not ready.”
Before I could answer, Vonvalt clapped a hand on Bressinger’s shoulder, drawing his attention. “Quickly now. We don’t have time for this.”
Bressinger sighed. I watched as Vonvalt donned a silver medallion in the shape of what I initially thought was the deer of the God Mother, Nema. In fact it was the Draedist god Oleni, whom the Sovans had co-opted.
Bressinger and Vonvalt then faced one another. Bressinger put his hand on Vonvalt’s shoulder, and they spoke in High Saxan: “Azshtre stovakato bratnya to zi chovekna eyrsvet linata. Kogata govoria dumitenta boga maĭka, toĭmoz daesevŭrne vyr zemyatra nazivite.”
The candles flickered. I was dimly aware of Mr Maquerink leaving at this point, having had his fill of the arcane, but Sir Radomir remained, though he had backed into the corner. The air was saturated with a nervous energy. I have never known a silence like it.
Vonvalt turned away from Bressinger and unlocked and opened the Grimoire Necromantia. He flicked to the right page, and, satisfied, positioned himself at Graves’s feet.
“When I begin,” he said, “no one is to leave the room. All of you must remain perfectly still and silent. No matter what happens and what you see, do not move. Above all, do not touch me.”
“Wait,” Sir Radomir said from the corner. He was blanched, and his voice was thin and difficult to hear above the raging silence. “I have changed my mind.”
“Out then, and quickly,” Vonvalt said. The sheriff left.
“Do not scream,” Vonvalt said to me. “You will want to, but you must not.”
“All right,” was all I managed. It was a whisper.
Vonvalt nodded to Bressinger, who nodded back. Then he turned to the Grimoire Necromantia and spoke a short invocation which I must not repeat here. Once he had finished, he closed the book and handed it to Bressinger, who locked it and returned it to the strongbox. Then Bressinger took several decent steps backwards.
And waited.
I watched the corpse of Graves. Blood pounded in my ears. The silence was so profound it was deafening. It took me a few minutes to realise that Vonvalt was speaking. It was very low and very soft, and it was in a language I did not understand.
Then Graves’s eyes opened.
It is difficult to express in words the feeling of shock, revulsion and horror that overcame me. I remember my eyes swimming out of focus and my stomach dropping. The feeling was reminiscent of standing at the top of the Tower of Saint Velurian at the Temple of Savare in Sova, the tallest building in the Empire. Looking down at the distant ground, one is overwhelmed with a sense of profound unease; it is dizzying and terrifying and leaves the mind feeling unhinged.
My brain was railing against what I was seeing. It was so deeply disturbing that I began to weep uncontrollably. I wanted to stop watching but the sheer impossibility of it compelled me. Graves’s eyes were black, deep, infinite pools of ink that seemed to suck the light out of the room. His lips twitched. Vonvalt’s words, spoken quietly but urgently in that arcane tongue, seemed to be tugging the man’s mouth open like someone gently pulling on a length of gut.
Graves’s entire body started to crick and crack now, twitching and jerking like a puppet. It was a grotesque sight. His contortions forced more dead blood out of the wound. The sound of popping bones filled the small room and made me want to vomit. Eventually the man’s mouth opened and started to move, opening and closing like that of someone drowning. In the same moment, I felt another presence in the room. I felt it with absolute conviction. My skin broke out in gooseflesh. The candles guttered and faded. I hoped to all the gods I could think of that they would not go out. They remained lit, but the light they provided was different, somehow. It was as though the light itself was black.
Vonvalt stopped his muttering. I looked over to him. His eyes had taken on a glassy expression.
“You work for Lord Bauer,” Vonvalt said.
The corpse twitched and stirred.
“Lord Bauer,” Graves said. It sounded like someone speaking with a mouthful of soil, or marsh water. It was gravelly and bubbly and deep.
“In the town treasury,” Vonvalt said.
“Jade… and cotton on a fair breeze,” Graves choked and mumbled. “Summer lark… a fine bolt of cloth. The sea. I see the sea.”
“Who killed you?” Vonvalt asked.
“Who killed me?” Graves responded.
“Who killed you?” Vonvalt pressed.
“Bloody great Grozodan man, I see him now,” Graves said in a moment of jarring lucidity. I briefly met Bressinger’s eye. He shared my expression of muted horror. I wondered how many séances he had been a part of. I knew from Vonvalt’s conversation with Sir Otmar’s corpse in the watchtower on Gabler’s Mount that he could perform the necessary rites by himself. I found myself wondering what Bressinger’s role in this particular séance was.
“You work for Lord Bauer,” Vonvalt repeated.
There was a long pause. Eventually, Graves said, “Of the things I have done, never in all my life.”
“You helped with the town’s treasury accounts.”
“The Father of Time is a stern patron.”
“Hearken to me!” Vonvalt snapped suddenly, making me flinch.
“The Trickster has me,” Graves said. I saw black goo drool from his mouth as he said it. I could feel myself weeping. Mindful of Vonvalt’s warning, I tried to stifle the sound.
“You worked for Lord Bauer.”
“In the town’s treasury,” Graves drooled.
“You paid money to the kloster.”
“That is a dark place,” Graves said.
“Is Lord Bauer’s daughter a hostage in the kloster?”
“They are all hostages in that place.”
Vonvalt repeated the question three more times before he received a vaguely intelligible answer.
“She is the guest of a dangerous man,” Graves said. It came out as a sigh. “I am in great pain, Justice. Release me and begone.”
“What is the name of the man in the kloster? Who has Sanja Bauer?”
“The kloster… it is a dark place,” Graves said. Now his voice sounded like a young maid’s. “Mine is a black future.”
“Tell me the name of the man.”
Graves’s mouth opened and closed like a suffocating fish. “The Trickster has me,” he mumbled eventually. “The name of the man you seek is the water hunter.”
“Tell me the name of your employer in the kloster.”
“That is a dark place.”
“The name!”
“A dark place for dark deeds. Father of Death, take me. I have told you the name. I see the White Deer.”
“You see nothing but marsh.”
“I see the girl in the room. Who is she?”
I started at this. My skin crawled. A small moan escaped my lips.
“Silence!” Vonvalt snapped. It was unclear whether it was directed at me or Graves.
“I hear her, too.” Graves’s voice had taken on a different quality. Someone – something – else was speaking through him. “It has been a while since we last spoke. Who have you brought to meet me, Justice?”
“You’ve lost him,” Bressinger said out of the side of his mouth. “Come back.”
“No, he is still before me,” Vonvalt said, his eyes still glassy and vacant. I was losing the thread of the exchange rapidly.
“Give this man to me,” Graves said.
“He has not answered my questions,” Vonvalt said.
“You heard him. Your investigation ends in the kloster. But you already knew that. Release him.”
“I want the name.”
“You have had close enough. A name for a name; the girl, in the room. I see her.”
Bressinger looked over to me. He nodded his head towards the door. He was gesturing for me to leave, but Vonvalt had told me to remain still and silent. He had told Bressinger the same thing, for that matter, but the situation appeared to have evolved.
“You see nothing. Answer my question.”
“It matters not. I will meet her soon… The threads of time converge. I see it.” Graves chortled and more black goo frothed from his mouth and trickled down his lips. “Your taskman is right. You should leave. Go back.”
“Out,” Bressinger whispered to me.
I got up to leave. I moved quickly and quietly past Vonvalt. My robe clung coldly to my legs, and it was only at that moment that I realised I had wet myself in fear.
“Girl!” Graves snapped with the sound of a bough struck by lightning. I shrieked and flinched so violently that I came into contact with Vonvalt.
I was no longer in Mr Maquerink’s house. I was standing in a marshland of black water and bone-pale grass. A random scattering of dead trees as jagged as lightning and black as obsidian thrust upwards about the landscape. The sky above was a roiling sea of white which sat beneath a kaleidoscopic array of stars and swirls of cosmic cloud. I saw that every time they broke, a vast funnel-like portal seemed to hang over the world, like the eye of an enormous storm.
I was standing next to Vonvalt. Opposite him was Graves, calf-deep in marsh water. There were other things, other presences I felt as keenly as if they were human men standing in front of me.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Vonvalt said. I turned to him, to see his eyes were as white as balls of marble. “Dubine!” he shouted. I turned back to see Graves reaching for me. I opened my mouth to scream—
And then we were back in the room. I sat, reeling. During the process of being pulled away from whatever place I had just been in, a strange, almost violent succession of visions had cut through my mind like a scythe through rye: Lady Karol Frost; a two-headed wolf cub; a solitary rook in an orchard; and a man tied to a stake in a wildflower meadow, flames licking at his feet.
I blinked as the visions faded from my mind and looked around the room. The candles were brighter. Graves was still, his eyes blank and staring at the ceiling. A thin wisp of smoke was rising from the amulet at Vonvalt’s neck. Bressinger was crouched on the floor, moaning. Vonvalt took a few steps back and sat down heavily on the wooden floor.
“Faith,” he said. His face was pallid and drawn.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “It was an accident. I’m sorry.” I was crying again. The tears came freely. My skin crawled. My mind felt injured. I wished I hadn’t seen any of it. I still wish it to this day.
Vonvalt looked up at me. I had never seen him looking so exhausted. “The two-headed wolf,” he said. “The Autun. Did you see it?”
I had seen it. I nodded.
“Lady Frost too?”
Again, I nodded dumbly.
“What does it mean?” I asked hoarsely.
“I don’t know,” Vonvalt said, almost breathless with the strain of it. “I must rest.”
“I am sorry,” I said again. “Did I ruin it?”
Vonvalt shook his head. “I had lost him already. I should have left earlier.”
“Left where? What was that place?”
Vonvalt waved a visibly shaking hand at me. “Later, later. I need rest. And something strong to drink. Dubine?”
“Yes,” Bressinger mumbled. He straightened up. He looked pale and drawn too. He walked out the room. I heard some distant, muffled conversation with Mr Maquerink, and then a few minutes later Bressinger returned with a flagon and some cups. He pressed one into my hands and then handed one to Vonvalt, and kept one for himself. He poured a generous measure in all three and then drained his in a few large swallows.
I did the same. Vonvalt sipped his.
“We will speak in the morning,” he said. He sounded exhausted, utterly drained of life.
“I don’t want to be in this room,” I said suddenly. “Please don’t make me stay here.”
“Come,” Bressinger said. “We’ll head back to Lord Sauter’s.”
I let Bressinger lead me out of the room. Mr Maquerink was in the hallway. It was disturbing to see a man of learning look so deeply troubled. He led us downstairs wordlessly and gave me a cloak to wear. Then Bressinger took me outside into the cold, snowy air of Galen’s Vale and we began the walk back to the mayor’s house.
I awoke in the morning after a dreamless sleep to find a woman sitting at the end of my bed.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Good morning, miss,” the woman said. “Beg pardon for the intrusion. The Justice requested I attend you. There is a bath prepared for you downstairs, and breakfast is waiting in the dining hall.”
“Right,” I said, feeling thoroughly disorientated, as though I were in some liminal space. The events of the night before already felt unreal and distant in the cold light of the morning.
