The Curse of Salamander Street

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘What is he?’ Tanville asked.

  ‘A wandering Aramean, cursed to live forever.’

  ‘Is he human?’

  ‘And something more …’ Raphah said as he took her by the hand and led her on. ‘What goes on within him is against the authority of nature. Barghast needs our help.’

  From somewhere in the dark cavern came the sound of footsteps clattering against the stone. A shovel sounded as it was dragged across the wave-cut rock. Dimly at first, a light came into view.

  ‘We’re followed,’ whispered Tanville as she and Raphah stooped through the tunnel and into another cavern. They walked up a narrow row of hand-cut steps that led to a high stone gantry. Each one still bore hurried chisel marks. The steps took them higher, almost to the ceiling. They stood in a large cave, its roof garlanded with stalactites that dripped and dripped cold, echoing water. To one side was a vast heap of rock that looked as if it were a flow of frozen magma spewed from the centre of the earth and then petrified.

  Lady Tanville took her cape and shielded the Glory Hand within it as the chamber was plunged into darkness.

  ‘What if Bragg is found by Barghast?’ Tanville asked as they followed on.

  ‘Then our job will be done for us. Bragg must know more than he says.’

  ‘He was the last one to hold the picture of Lady Isabella – sold it to a man named Galphus. I follow Bragg to Salamander Street. I read a letter when I took the money from him. Galphus wrote to Bragg saying it would be good to meet him in person and not by courier. Bragg has an old goblet that Galphus has bought from him.’ She spoke urgently, holding on to Raphah’s coat as they stumbled up the dark passageway. ‘You promised to come with me, Raphah – did you mean that?’

  ‘I promised,’ Raphah said. ‘That is enough.’

  ‘Then I will tell you this. On the night the dog attacked me, I had listened at Ergott’s door. I heard him talking to someone, a man. He spoke about the journey. He too spoke of this man, Galphus, and two children. He told the man about Bragg and a chalice.’ Tanville stopped for a moment and then went on, speaking even quieter. ‘Ergott argued with the man in his room about finding children. Ergott had asked the man what he would do with them and he’d said they had to die – I know these are the companions you seek.’

  ‘How did you know?’ Raphah asked, sure that she could not have discovered this by mortal means.

  ‘It … It was Beadle. He didn’t want to tell me but …’

  ‘Beadle?’ Raphah laughed. ‘The first sign of friendship and he cannot control his tongue. Beer and good companions. Did he tell you everything?’

  ‘For an hour, as we searched the cellar and the edge of the cavern. Beadle told me about your magic. He thinks much of you. It was you who changed his heart.’

  ‘I’m a stranger to magic. Beadle changed himself. He had lived under the curse of his master and when he was free he found himself,’ Raphah said.

  ‘You never take praise, always give it to another.’

  ‘Why seek praise?’ Raphah said.

  The sound of the water torrent beat louder as the light of a travel lamp below lit a glow around a pair of feet.

  Neither of them spoke as Bragg came into view. He was carrying a shovel and lamp. Strapped around his capacious frame was a linen bag. He muttered as he walked, swinging the lamp back and forth and unaware of their presence. Bragg walked as if he knew the caves well and his stride said that he walked to meet someone.

  He left the chamber and continued on through a narrow passageway that led upwards. Raphah and Tanville walked on, close enough to hear the tap of his step but far enough to whisper to each other without being overheard. They followed the light of Bragg’s lantern as it disappeared ahead of them.

  They kept three coach lengths from Bragg. The path went on forever. It climbed high and circled a large vault of a cavern. Old ropes hung from the ceiling. Coils of loose hemp were spun on the floor. By the entrance was an old hut built of rocks piled upon old wood. There was a doorway the size of a child. Raphah looked inside and saw the remnants of a fire long since dead and covered in the dust of a hundred years. He thought about who could have lived there. A house in perpetual darkness, in amongst the dripping cold stone.

  It was a whole world beneath the ground. Coated with black soot from a thousand fires, the ceiling dribbled the cold drip of limestone water. From the heights above them hung what looked like stone gargoyles, etched through the years by flood water.

  The wind gusted stronger as they neared the entrance to another passageway that led from the chamber. The air vibrated and moaned as it was sucked into the narrow opening. Raphah thought it strange that such a storm should blow this far beneath the earth, and wondered if miners had cut some kind of air channel to bring the breeze to the depths. Upon the ground were several footprints: two from passing animals and another from a man.

  ‘This way,’ Raphah said as they stooped through the entrance of the narrow opening and made their way onwards. From the footprints in the sand he knew it to be where Ergott, Barghast and now Bragg had trod. A little way ahead they heard the sound of digging, of metal clashing with stone.

  In the shadow of the lamp, Bragg sweated as he dug at the earth. When the spade was no use he got to his knees and dug with his hands. Raphah couldn’t make out if Bragg was digging something up or burying an item so that it would never be found. Bragg wheezed, golem-like as he slathered his breath, spittle drooling from his jowls. In the shadows of the cave he looked like a dog slobbering over an old bone.

  High above him in the arch of the cavern, Raphah crawled to a ledge to gain a better view. Lady Tanville waited in the passageway. She shielded the flickering light of the Glory Hand with her coat. From where he hid, Raphah could see Bragg scrabbling in the dirt, his face lit by the smouldering wick of the old lamp that he had wedged between two large stones. The cave was filled with shadows. Bragg dug even deeper.

  Raphah watched as Bragg fumbled with a small chalice that he was trying to wrap in a black cloth. Bragg wiped the remnants of dirt from its rim and sniffed the cup. He looked about, as if he knew he was being watched. Then he shrugged his shoulders and with one hand pulled the collar of his coat to hide what he was doing. Picking his way through the stones, Raphah climbed higher. Far below at the bottom of the cave, Bragg took the vessel and wrapped it in the black silk.

  Without any fuss he took the bag that was wrapped around him and put the cloth within it. Like a pedantic gardener, he placed the bag upon the shovel and then began to fill in the hole he had created by hand. The chalice hung on the handle of the spade, wrapped neatly in its sack. Every now and then he would look up and smile at the hidden cup. Quite neatly, he placed several stones in the hole and then covered them with the fine sand. With a fat hand he then scrubbed out any trace of his presence.

  Raphah looked on from the shadows as Bragg turned to face the lamp and pick it from the floor. His face changed: he began to smile, and a word of greeting formed on his lips as if to welcome someone he knew. Bragg’s eyes then changed, widening with disbelief as he took a pace backwards. It looked as if he was about to scream or shout out when …

  There was a sudden rush. Something glistened as it flew. A knife spun through the air. Raphah cried out as Bragg clutched his chest. He staggered forward, looking for his bag as if he was quickly losing his sight. Raphah clambered down the rocks as Lady Tanville dashed from the hiding place, her clothes torn as if a beast had set upon her. She screamed as she ran, looking for Raphah.

  Bragg stared at her. The smile came back to his face. ‘Capacious Alta … Consanguineous,’ he said as the blood dribbled from his mouth and down his chin.

  Bragg fell backwards like a crashing oak, his hand flailing about him as he desperately tried to hold on to life. Upon his face he carried the grimace of a frightened child. As Raphah scrambled towards him, he could see that the man feared death. Bragg pouted like a dying fish gasping for air.

  ‘Capacious Alta �
� Consanguineous,’ Bragg said again as he reached out to Lady Tanville. Without a word, she walked to him and pulled the knife from his chest. Bragg gasped, muttered to himself and then fell, face to stone.

  ‘He came from the tunnel – I didn’t hear him. He attacked me … Then this,’ she said between each breath. ‘I never saw his face, but it was a man – that’s what I think he was … He threw the knife.’

  ‘I saw no one, just Bragg, I thought he had seen you and that’s why he smiled.’

  ‘Smiled at the one who killed him. There are others here. We must leave now,’ she said as she shivered, cold as an arctic monkey.

  ‘Not without Barghast,’ Raphah said.

  ‘Then I leave alone and take the Glory Hand.’ Tanville panicked, looking frantically about the cave for some sign of the killer. She held the knife in her hand and dripped the blood to the floor. ‘Why did he kill him?’

  ‘For this?’ Raphah asked as he picked the bag from the shovel and took out the cup. ‘This is the goblet, hidden here for safekeeping. This is the cup that Galphus wanted.’

  ‘A pot mug, why should he want that?’ Tanville asked.

  ‘More than that, much more than that,’ Raphah said. ‘If I am right then this has not been seen for many years.’

  ‘And should never have been seen at all,’ Barghast said as he limped into the cold chamber holding his arm. ‘Ergott has gone, nowhere to be found,’ he said wearily.

  Raphah held the cup in the light of the Glory Hand. The hand dimmed suddenly in the presence of the chalice as if it demanded reverence. He and Barghast stared at the goblet. It was meagre and bare and quite ordinary. All that set it apart from a fireside drinking pot was the silver rim inlaid into the clay. Years had hardened it to stone that felt as strong as metal in Raphah’s fingers. ‘Do you know of this?’ Raphah asked.

  ‘I have heard of the Grail Cup,’ Barghast said in awe as he looked at the simple goblet of fire-hardened clay. He reached out and touched the inlaid silver rim. ‘I met a dandy who dined out on telling the tale. Said it was buried beneath a rose by an abbey wall. The entire world was captured by his ramblings. And to think, they have searched the codes and all the time it was here at Peveril, in a cave below the old castle.’ Barghast wanted to laugh; his neck felt too weak to hold his head. ‘I’m weary, Raphah. It is a good feeling,’ he sighed. ‘The beggar is near, I know it. One more road and then I’ll taste the sublime slumber.’

  ‘What will you do with the goblet?’ Tanville asked as Raphah put the bag around him.

  ‘It is a morsel to catch a rat,’ he said as he lifted the lamp from the floor and stared at Bragg slumped in the dirt.

  ‘What of Bragg?’ asked Barghast.

  ‘Killed by a knife,’ he said.

  ‘Then whoever did this is not far. In fact they could be in our midst,’ Barghast replied. ‘I will tell the innkeeper. He will not want another death. We’ll put Bragg in the grave with Mister Shrume. There is no reason to lament his loss. He shared a carriage with Julius Shrume – now he can share his grave.’

  From somewhere high above came the moaning of an agonised man. Barghast sniffed the air as if to scent from where it came. The sound of the carping echoed through the caves. It was quickly followed by the noise of heavy boots scrambling upon the rocks. It got closer and closer by the second.

  Raphah looked to Barghast. ‘Bragg’s assassin?’

  Barghast listened intently, his eyes searching the cavern. ‘Ergott,’ he said slowly.

  Holding the lamp higher, Raphah looked towards the pathway that led from the floor of the cave, up through the scree of broken rocks to the entrance to a higher chamber. Like a blundering blind man, Ergott stumbled from the pitch black and into the paltry glow of the lamp.

  ‘Bragg? Is it you?’ he asked. His hand covered his face to shield it from the brightness. ‘I’ve been lost, man, for many hours. Lamp burnt out and have stumbled my way back. Bragg?’ He spoke the last word as he looked down from the path and saw the humped body of Bragg face-down on the dirt. ‘What have you done to him?’ he asked, not daring to come any closer.

  ‘Not us, but another,’ Raphah said.

  ‘You stand above him like witches at a cauldron and you expect me to believe your lies?’ Ergott said, not desiring to take another step. ‘Look, that is a dagger I see before me … and something is rotten in this kingdom.’

  ‘We didn’t do this, Ergott. It was your disappearance from the inn that brought us to this place,’ Raphah said. ‘What are you doing in the cavern?’

  ‘I could ask the same as you,’ he snapped. ‘I was lost, went for a walk in the fields and found my way in here. The lantern burnt out and I couldn’t find my way. Why should I explain myself to you?’

  ‘Because Julius Shrume is dead and Lady Tanville was attacked by a hell-hound,’ Barghast said.

  ‘And am I responsible for both?’ he replied coldly, looking at Bragg. ‘Do you take me for the hound?’

  ‘Your excuse is not one that can be easily proved,’ Raphah said.

  ‘So choice, coming from a thief,’ Ergott said coarsely, and he began to move away from them. ‘And how will you explain the demise of Mister Bragg – self-inflicted wounds? I will have my account to give.’

  ‘I trust the magistrate will not take too much notice of a man obsessed by magic and whose habit of smoking, shall we say, clouds his understanding. Then we shall see,’ said Barghast as he searched the pockets of Bragg’s coat.

  Within them were many things: balls of string, empty shells of various snails, a large monocular spectacle and the dried tip of a woman’s finger. In one pocket was a silk ribbon and attached to that a thick brass key. Sundry papers and bills of sale lined the other pockets, and nothing to incriminate Ergott or indeed Bragg could be found. As he was finishing his search, Barghast had almost given up when his finger struck upon a small piece of metal. He picked it carefully from the lining of Bragg’s coat and pulled it into the light.

  At first glance it looked nothing more than a large button cut with three rectangular holes. It was only when Barghast put it to his mouth and blew sharply that it made a distinctive high-pitched sound just at the reach of human discernment.

  Ergott appeared to grow more and more uncomfortable. He itched his neck and twitched his face as he fumbled with the wand in his pocket. He muttered to himself and rubbed his chin.

  ‘A wolf whistle,’ Barghast said as he put the metal to his lips again. ‘What was the rhyme?’ he asked and then went on. ‘Once to call from mountain range, twice the wolf to man will change, thrice will change him back again, once more for luck and see him then – is that how it should go, Mister Ergott?’

  ‘I have no idea, Barghast. Silly children’s riddle and of no meaning. Why Bragg should carry a wolf whistle is beyond me. Perhaps he had a desire to see if there were any such beast left in the country?’ He stuttered uncomfortably and panted like a dog. ‘Now that I have found a light I will take it and be gone, I have been without sleep and need to rest before the journey.’

  ‘I play games,’ Barghast said. ‘It’s been a long time and in a different land that I last saw one of these. Used to call a man-wolf from the hills by its master.’

  ‘Master?’ Lady Tanville asked, never having heard of such a creature.

  ‘There is a belief that when a man or woman is charmed by a magician they can be turned into a creature of their desire by the playing of an instrument. In the case of the wolf it is always a silver whistle. These are highly collectable and very rare. To blow it in the presence of a man-wolf would render it transformed immediately. This is something to keep should we need to find the beast.’

  ‘Then I wish you luck,’ Ergott said. ‘I am a dowser and not a magician. My art is a science and as I have said I search for that which is lost – not that which wets against the trees and chases sheep. So if I can be excused?’

  ‘We will walk with you so that the assassin does not strike again,’ Barghast said.

>   Raphah knelt upon the floor and, putting his hand upon Bragg’s head, closed his eyes and stilled himself. In that moment all were silent. No one dared ask what he had done. All knew that he had sealed Bragg’s passing.

  ‘One more thing,’ Barghast asked of Ergott. ‘Your uncle is Lord Finesterre, I believe?’

  ‘What of it?’ Ergott snapped.

  ‘He sent you on this quest to search for two lost children?’

  ‘That he did. What concern is it of yours?’ Ergott asked.

  ‘Your uncle and I share a common acquaintance,’ Barghast replied.

  ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘Obadiah Demurral.’

  Ergott did not reply. He stood and stared, the shadows flickering upon his face, his brow twitching with every heartbeat. Slowly and carefully he licked his lips and swallowed hard, trying to bring a smile to his face.

  ‘Really?’ asked Ergott. ‘Then upon my return I shall seek him out and give him your favour.’

  *

  No one saw the figure of the man who looked down from a high balcony cut by long-dead hands into the rocks above. He watched intently as they left the cavern, taking the light with them. Once they had gone, he took a silver bowl from the leather sack that was strung around his neck and scooped water from a nearby pool of lime-water. The man crouched in the darkness and struck a flint against a burnt rag and then lit the lamp by his feet. Long shadows flickered against the high walls as he took a small knife from his pocket, cut the tip of his finger and dripped seven drops of blood into the bowl. With the blade of the knife he stirred the water and watched as it turned to solid ice. As the liquid froze a vision appeared in the ice. The man watched as Raphah and Barghast walked through the cave. It was as if a floating eye followed their every move.

  ‘Never shall they be from my sight,’ he muttered angrily as he looked upon the vision that danced in the ice. ‘From the day I first saw him I knew he was the key to the world. Seven drops of blood will fill the Chalice around his neck and bring down the kingdom of heaven.’