Maledictions

by Graham McNeill et al.

  ‘Singing.’ Skam took a step, and Tooms interposed his truncheon, stopping him from going any further.

  ‘Best not to listen.’

  Skam shook his head, as if suddenly awake. He nodded blearily, and Tooms gestured to Dayla. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked, in a low voice. Dayla frowned.

  ‘Nothing. Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘Maybe something,’ she said, glancing at Guld, who shook his head.

  ‘Don’t look at him,’ Tooms said. ‘Look at me. What is it?’

  ‘Just… stories. Tales my gran used to tell.’ Dayla swallowed, and looked at the mould, as if expecting something to look back. She gestured, and Tooms leaned close. ‘I think it’s listening,’ she said, in a hushed voice. ‘We need to leave. We shouldn’t be here. This isn’t our place, not anymore.’

  Tooms blinked and looked at the sagging folds of fungus, considering. Finally, he shook his head. They had a job to do.

  ‘We keep going.’

  ‘This is a kindness.’

  Whose voice was it? Hers, or Agert’s? Tooms couldn’t tell anymore. He knew only that he was up again. But he didn’t remember standing.

  He lurched forward on wooden legs, numbed by cold and pain. There was no light, but he wasn’t looking where he was going anyway. He was just following the water. His head hurt, and he felt loose at the ends, as if he were coming unravelled.

  Unravelled, just like the others.

  A kindness, Agert had said, but not in his own voice. In her voice, like the creak of branches in a strong wind, and the rush of water over smooth rocks. Had it even been Agert, or had it been her from the beginning? This place had been hers, once, and it would be again. Life was change, a cycle, a wheel turning forever – birth, death, decay, and new life in the ruins. Why should here – why should he – be any different?

  He slumped against the wall and looked at his hands. Even in the dark, he could see that they were the colour of sunset, and that the flesh sagged. He had torn his palms on the walls, but there was no blood. His skin felt pliable, and rubbery. He itched all over, and had to fight the urge to scratch.

  Tooms coughed, and the air filled with dust. He watched as it danced above the water, briefly consolidating into what might have been a face, smiling sadly, before dispersing on the air. The cloud of dust stretched away, like a beckoning hand, and he lurched forward again, though he couldn’t feel his legs.

  He couldn’t feel anything.

  ‘This is a kindness.’

  Her voice beat at the air like sweet rain, singing a gentle song. He wanted to scream, but his voice was gone. Just like Agert was gone. Just like Skam and Guld and all the rest.

  Gone.

  Tooms awoke.

  He did not otherwise stir, but instead scanned his surroundings. Just in case something had crept up. Skam was supposed to have woken him, but the Aqshian was nowhere in sight. Tooms rose slowly to his feet, drawing a knife.

  The lantern still burned, casting flickering shadows on the walls. They’d made camp in a wide alcove, set back from the water. They were close to the Cathedral Hill cistern, and the water was deep here, and the current was fast, running north. But he could hear distant splashing – and something else. Almost like – singing?

  Quietly, he woke the others. Questions followed, but he ignored them, instead, searching for any sign of what might have happened. But the only thing he found was Skam’s axe, lying beside the lantern. As if he’d forgotten it.

  ‘I knew it.’ Guld frowned and flexed his big hands. ‘I knew it.’ He looked at Dayla, who sat hunched and silent, cradling her handgun as if it were a talisman. Tooms watched them both for a moment. Then he turned away, straining to catch the sounds he’d heard earlier. But it was gone, lost to the water’s murmur. He let his hand trail through the water and ran it through his thinning hair, cooling him. The tunnels were humid at the best of times, and sweat had soaked through his clothes.

  It was quiet. Tooms had always preferred the quiet. That was why he’d taken a job down in the deep dark in the first place, despite the smell. Down under the streets, where the sky was stone, a man could think. Up there, with the smoke and noise, you were lucky if you could hear anything other than the city, humming its tune.

  Down here, all there was to hear was the water. The water flowed everywhere beneath the city, from one side to the other, round and round it went. And if you followed the water, it always led you right where you wanted to go. That was what Agert always said.

  He heard it then, a snatch of sound, soft, high and sweet. Like a woman, singing to a sleeping child. He strained to listen, despite himself. If he could hear it, he might know what had happened to Skam. Or Agert.

  Why had Agert come all this way? Had he heard the singing, and decided to investigate? Or had he found the mould? Or maybe both. The singing rose and fell, and he wondered that none of the others seemed to hear it.

  Maybe they did, and they were just pretending not to.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Huxyl asked. ‘Should we go back?’

  Tooms looked at him, water dripping from his face. Huxyl looked away. Tooms grunted and stared at the water. A scattering of gold and orange spores floated on its surface, riding the current. He saw patches on the walls that hadn’t been there when they’d made camp. Whatever it was, it was spreading. ‘Time to break camp.’

  ‘You mean to go after him?’ Dayla asked. She sounded frightened.

  ‘I mean to go after them all. You don’t leave a man in the dark.’ Underjacks couldn’t count on anyone but other underjacks, down in the dark. You’d brawl with each other, even steal from each other – but you never left someone in the dark. Never that.

  Not unless there was no choice.

  He stepped down into the water. The current shoved against him, and tiny islands made of spores swirled about him. They formed strange shapes as he swept them from his path. Almost like faces.

  Out in the dark, the singing swelled and stretched into silence. The others fell silent. Tooms frowned and looked at them.

  ‘On your feet.’

  ‘On your feet, friend.’

  Tooms surfaced, water streaming from him. He’d fallen again, though he couldn’t remember when or how. Agert’s voice – or maybe Skam’s, or Guld’s – echoed through his head. Beneath the words, someone was singing.

  ‘Up and down, round and round.’

  ‘No,’ he croaked, gripping the wall, trying to hold himself in place. ‘No, no farther.’ He could see his surroundings, though there was no light. Everything had a damp sheen to it, as if he were peering through wet glass. His throat felt raw and full, and there was a taste on his tongue that he could not name.

  He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t find the air to do so. He felt hollowed out and full all at the same time, and wondered if Agert and Dayla and the others had felt the same. As if he were coming apart at the seams.

  ‘Not yet, just a bit farther,’ she said. ‘It is a kindness, really.’

  ‘No.’ He bent his head and leaned against the stones, feeling the rhythm of the city. The heartbeat of the beast. Life, but not as most knew it. A life of stone and steel, of pulsing smoke-stacks and clanging hammers. Greywater Fastness lived.

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Agert said, only it didn’t sound like Agert. Her words, his voice. ‘But it will, in time.’

  Tooms closed his eyes, trying to ignore the feather-light touch of spores as they choked the air of the passage. Great clouds rose from the water and drifted along, following him – or maybe leading him on. He couldn’t tell anymore. He didn’t know what he was doing or where he was, only that he had to get back. Back to the light. Back above.

  They had to be told. They had to be warned.

  He stumbled on, shoulder dragging against the wall, leaving a smear of something that glistened in his wake. B
ut he kept moving, following the current, hoping it would take him where he needed to go. Just like Agert always said.

  ‘Follow the current.’

  Huxyl was the next to disappear. Dayla followed soon after.

  The Chamonian had followed a sound around a corner, and vanished. Dayla had slipped and fallen. By the time they reached the spot, she’d gone. There one moment, gone the next. But her voice was still there, and Huxyl’s, calling to them from far away. Skam, too. All three of them singing, somewhere in the dark.

  Guld said he couldn’t hear it, but Tooms knew he was lying. He could see it, in the way Guld jumped at every sound, and muttered under his breath. He was saying prayers, but not to Sigmar, like a proper Azyrite. To another god, one whose name was all but forbidden in the city, and for good reason.

  Tooms said nothing, though. He was having a hard time focusing on anything but putting one foot in front of the other. Sweat stung his eyes. It was hot, down here. Hotter than it should have been, and the air was thick with gossamer spores, dancing on humid currents.

  The stones felt strangely soft beneath his feet, and the lantern flickered like it was struggling to stay lit. Overhead, the city went on about its business. There was a rhythm to it. Noises slipped one into the next, until it sounded as if all of the realm were in uproar. Greywater Fastness clanged and groaned throughout the day and into the night. It was a beast of iron and smoke, always hungry, always growling. And the deep dark was its belly.

  Only now there was something in its belly – an infection. A tumour. It needed cutting out. Tooms knew that. Every underjack knew that. You found infection, and you cut it out. That was their duty. That was their honour. He glanced back at Guld. At least it had been, once. Tooms felt old and worn down, and wondered if Agert had felt the same. Things had changed, and the city wasn’t what it had been. Nothing was what it had been.

  ‘What do we do?’ Guld whispered. ‘What do we do now? We can’t keep going.’

  ‘Follow the water,’ Tooms croaked. ‘Just keep following it.’ He held Skam’s lantern in one hand, illuminating floating spores and hummocks of fungus, rolling in the current. The walls were shaggy with the stuff, and the light caught on gleaming lengths of bone, picked clean by the mould that cocooned them. Not just one skeleton, but dozens – more, even, than that. Not just rats and men, but other things as well. Hundreds, perhaps, attached to the walls and rolling underfoot. As if they’d died, one after the next, all in a line.

  He could not say how long they had been walking through the forests of the dead – days? Hours? Only minutes, perhaps. He was tired, and the song made it hard to concentrate.

  ‘They’re gone,’ Guld said, hoarsely, from behind him. ‘You understand? We’re alone, old man. Just you and me. We can’t keep going. We can’t.’

  ‘We will, or I’ll gut you here and now.’ Tooms turned and shoved the bigger man back against the wall. Puffballs burst around them, and Guld gasped as bones clattered down around him, freed from their mouldy prison. Tooms drew a knife and pressed the tip to Guld’s face, just below his eye. ‘We find them. We find Agert. That’s what underjacks do. You understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Guld muttered.

  Tooms let him slump, and turned. The water was still flowing, leading them on. Dayla and Huxyl couldn’t have gone far. Something told him that they were closer than he thought. ‘We’re close. The Cathedral Hill cistern is through the next archway. If Agert is down here, that’s where he’ll be.’

  ‘And the others?’

  Tooms glanced at him. ‘We find Agert first. Then the others. Come on.’

  The aperture that led to the viaduct wasn’t far. Two grim-faced duardin statues crouched to either side of the opening, their stout forms shrouded in mould. Clouds of water vapour emerged from the aperture, warm and damp. Tooms passed between the statues, without waiting to see if Guld followed him.

  The cistern-chamber was like some great cathedral, rising up and spreading out before him. Great sheets of water hammered down, pouring through culverts and grates, filling the air with condensation. The thunder of its fall blocked out Guld’s voice, as he shouted something. Tooms shook his head.

  Waters poured down, running to either side of a set of wide, semi-circular steps. The steps led up onto the stone causeway that crossed over the lake-like cistern and passed to the other side. Broken statues lined the causeway. Whether they had been duardin or human, Tooms couldn’t say and didn’t care. His attentions were elsewhere.

  Shimmering fungal orbs of monstrous size floated in the waters of the cistern, or hung pendulous from the chamber ceiling. They spread across the walls and floor. A forest of human-like shapes stood silent around the cistern and along the causeway, their features hidden by the clouds of heat and vapour.

  Guld leaned close, shouting. ‘What are they?’

  Tooms lifted his truncheon. ‘Let’s find out.’ He started forward, ignoring Guld’s shout of dismay. As he drew close to one of the shapes, he saw that it was rooted to the stone of the causeway, its form covered in a thick, fungous shag. The others were the same. They swayed in the damp air, and he felt something – a pulse, a current travelling between them. As if they were speaking.

  ‘Can you hear them?’

  The voice was hoarse and raw. But familiar.

  ‘Agert,’ Tooms said, as he turned.

  Agert smiled, and mould burst and tore as his face moved. He was only barely recognisable, his body hidden beneath a tabard of mould and his head half eaten away. But it was him, the same Agert who’d taught Tooms about the currents and the dark.

  ‘What happened to you, Agert? What is all of this?’

  Agert nodded slowly, and made a hoarse, gasping sound, as if trying to speak again. But the only sound Tooms could hear was the soft pop of puffballs, and the roar of the water as it carried the spores away. Agert uprooted himself, and took an unsteady step. Then another, growing more sure with each. Behind him, Tooms saw others – shuffling, shambling fungal shapes, creeping towards him out of the clouds of water vapour.

  He hefted his truncheon, but they stumbled past him, heading away, into the dark of the tunnels. They crumbled as they walked, and he could see bone, in places. The fungus was eating them alive, devouring them bit by bit. But they sang as they stumbled, the same strange, sad song he’d heard in the tunnels. Sickened, he looked at Agert.

  ‘They… feel… nothing,’ Agert said, in a voice like breaking glass. ‘Kind. She’s… kind.’

  ‘Who?’ Tooms asked, not wanting to know the answer, but unable to stop himself.

  Agert pointed. And Tooms saw her, then, and wondered how he’d missed her. His stomach lurched at the sight, and Guld made a strangled, animal moan. The… woman crouched over them all, a giantess made of spores and water and sound, filling the cathedral-like chamber with her presence.

  She cupped her hands and thrust them into the cistern. Shambling, fungal petitioners knelt in her palms, in their hundreds, as she lifted them from the mould-shrouded waters. She lifted them up with gentle, hideous strength and blew on them gently. The petitioners came apart in clouds of spores that swirled away, filling the upper reaches of the chamber. The mould clung to every stone and duct, growing, creeping, spreading.

  Vaguely, he thought he heard Guld screaming something that might have been a name, but he couldn’t look away from her. She loomed mountainous and impossible, filling his vision and his senses. She smiled at the shuffling things in her hands, and he felt his heart stutter in primal terror.

  He knew her name, but could not bring himself to say it. He tore his eyes away, unable to bear such awful majesty, and found himself face-to-face with Agert. Over his shoulder, Tooms saw Skam, and Huxyl and Dayla. They surrounded Guld, moving with awful slowness, their voices raised in that sad, strange song. As he watched, Guld’s blade dipped, and they closed in.

  ‘It’s a kindness
,’ Agert said, only it wasn’t Agert’s voice, now. It was a woman’s voice, issuing from Agert’s mossy lips. The words sliced into Tooms like knives. He shook his head, trying not to listen. Not to see. He backed away, but Agert followed. ‘You do not deserve pain, though you have caused much. It was not malice, but ignorance.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Tooms whispered.

  ‘You know who I am. This place was mine, before it was his, and it will be mine again. In time. I am patient. Eventually, my song will be heard by all, and all will know me and join their voices to mine.’ Agert’s face sloughed away, and something new peered out of his skull, a new face – one of golden spores and water vapour. Her eyes caught him, held him, and she began to sing, and Tooms felt as if he were burning under his skin.

  For a moment, he saw things as Agert and the others must. The song folded him into itself, and he saw great shapes dancing in the light of phosphorescent mould. The fungal spheres were not simply spheres but shapes that were all things and none, silvery and bright. There were faces there, and he could hear them crying out, impatient and eager to be born. To see the light and taste the air.

  He knew what they were. Every underjack did. They were the reason men kept to the roads and never went into the forests. The reason that the pyre-gangs had been formed, to clean the land around the city walls. They were worse than any orruk or troggoth. Older than any city, they had ruled this realm once, and some thought they would again, though it was a fool who spoke of such heresies where the witch-takers might hear.

  And even as he recognised them, he knew at last what Guld had been trying to say. What Dayla had been afraid of. He knew her name now, though he could not say it.

  They are beautiful, aren’t they, she whispered, in a voice like rustling leaves. And strong. So strong. Stronger than flesh, stronger than stone and steel. And they are kind, my children. So kind. They let you hear the song. They let you join it. Her voice became harsh. Sharp, like branches cracking in the cold. It is a kindness that you do not deserve.

  He felt a different sort of heat now, and crushing, grinding pain. Smoke filled his lungs, and his flesh blistered. You burned them. Chopped them and beat them. For what? A grove of stone and iron? Is this what he teaches you, your God-King?