by Alexis Hall
“It’s quite all right,” I called, rising from my armchair. “I’ll go.”
Perhaps it was presumptuous of me but, even in Khelathra-Ven, a dead body full of wasps did not cut a welcoming figure.
Opening the front door, which I had finally persuaded my companion that we should keep locked, I found upon the step a lady of notable beauty, dressed in a manner that spoke of taste but not extravagance. While I lacked Ms. Haas’s unusual perspicacity, I did not require it in order to recognise that our visitor was in a state of considerable agitation.
“Where’s Shaharazad?” she demanded.
“I fear she is indisposed.”
“Then redispose her. I must speak to her at once.”
I stood aside to allow her ingress, and she swept past me into the sitting room. My efforts over the last weeks had rendered it somewhat more habitable, although I had been able to do little about the bullet holes and scorch marks, or the pervading scent of tobacco and wormwood.
“Please do sit,” I said, “well, anywhere that you can.”
My concerns for the lady’s comfort proved to be unfounded. She draped herself over the chaise longue as though she belonged upon it. By the light of the standard lamp, I could see that she was approximately the same age as myself. Her hair was dark, as was common in the city, and twisted into some feminine knot that I could neither describe nor reproduce. Most arresting of all were her eyes, which were a brown so pale as to be almost yellow and caught the lamplight strangely.
While I would normally have offered refreshment, I thought it best to fetch Ms. Haas with the utmost expediency. I first attempted to achieve this by knocking politely but firmly on her bedroom door. She ignored me. I called her name twice and, when she continued to pay me no mind, resigned myself to entering.
I found her lying crosswise over her bed, in a somewhat immodest position, propped on her elbows over a large, leather-bound tome, her ankles plainly visible behind her and adorned by bracelets.
She didn’t look up. “It is impolite, Captain, to enter a lady’s bedchamber uninvited.”
“I attempted to announce myself, but you did not respond.”
“I hoped you would go away.”
I fortified my equanimity. “You have a visitor, Ms. Haas.”
“Tell whoever it is that they may wait if they wish. But they are likely to starve.”
“The lady seems most insistent.”
“Mr. Wyndham. I am currently attempting to encompass the secret names of the star-demons of Vz’att. This I find interesting. You and your mysterious guest I currently find boring. Persuade me otherwise.”
Later in our relationship I would be well versed in those things that would capture Ms. Haas’s attention and those that would not. At this time, however, I was forced to take a proverbial shot in the dark. “She asked for you by name.”
“I am the sorceress Shaharazad Haas. The whole city knows my name. And those citizens who do not wish me dead and, come to think of it, some of those who do have frequent need for my services.”
“She is in a state of some distress.”
Ms. Haas turned the page. “How sad for her. Tedious.”
I was starting to feel a little desperate. “She’s very pretty?” I tried.
“How pretty?”
“I am not sure I’m accustomed to quantifying these things.” Indeed, there were few things I was less qualified to judge. “Her eyes, I think, are quite fine. They are an unusual shade.”
Her head came up. “Blood red? Viridian? Wholly crafted from copper and emblazoned with sigils of warding? Like unto a window over an endless void wherein stars gutter and die eternally?”
“Um.” This was not going to end well. “More sort of light brown?”
“Yellow-brown or grey-brown?”
“Yellow-brown.”
She leapt up in a billow of purple silk. “Honestly, Wyndham. Why did you not mention this before? Sometimes I think you are intent upon wasting my time.”
She made for the door.
“Surely,” I cried, “you are not intending to greet this lady clad only in a dressing gown?”
“How right you are, Captain.” Pausing by her dresser, which was strewn with a wild tangle of items, several of them mine, she selected a single earring—a modest pearl on a golden chain—and affixed it to her ear. “There.”
And, with that, she pushed past me into the corridor.
Having done my duty, I repaired to my room, only to be violently roused moments later by the sound of shouting from the sitting room. It was against my instincts to pry, but the debate sounded so acrimonious that I honestly feared for the safety of one or both parties.
I made my way cautiously downstairs, where I found our guest standing in the middle of the room, while Ms. Haas paced its confines with the energy and menace of a caged panther.
“. . . frankly insulting,” she was saying, “that you consider it possible I would do such a thing.”
The other lady retained her composure where many would surely have faltered. “What else am I to think? I know of three people you have personally murdered, one you drove to madness for slighting you, six you left to die in the ash wastes of Telash-Ur, and at least four you fed to the Princes of the Mocking Realm.”
“Indeed, I have done all of these things, and more. And yet you still believe that I would resort to blackmail in order to prevent you from marrying a fishmonger?”
At this, the stranger lost all self-possession. Pulling a long pin from her hair, she flicked it at Ms. Haas with uncanny speed and unerring accuracy.
My cohabitant raised a hand, allowing the missile to embed itself into her palm. “That,” she said, “was uncalled for.”
“Cora is not a fishmonger. She is a member in good standing with the Ubiquitous Company of Fishers.”
“She’s a tedious little bourgeois.” Blood began to pool in the centre of Ms. Haas’s hand and she watched it with an air of studied detachment. “And you deserve better.”
“I love her, Shaharazad. It’s not something I’d expect you to understand.”
With an exasperated sigh, Ms. Haas drew the pin slowly from her flesh and licked the tip. “Not even poisoned, dear. I’m not sure if that means you really do care or you really don’t.”
“Neither am I.” Our unexpectedly intemperate guest returned to the chaise longue and arranged herself decorously upon it once more. “But it seems I do need your help.”
“Then you shall have it.” Ms. Haas settled into the wingback chair and stuck the pin into the arm, where I was quite certain it would shortly do someone an injury. “And as for you, Mr. Wyndham, since you have nothing better to do than hover in doorways, you might as well make yourself useful.”
She picked up a notebook from a pile at her feet and flung it towards me. I caught it with only a mild twinge from my shoulder and claimed the other chair. In truth, I wasn’t sure what use I could be, besides note taking and moral support, but it was oddly pleasing to be included. Having resolved the immediate crisis of my accommodation, and my journey to the hospital being so much shorter than it once was, I had found my evenings curiously empty. There are, of course, a great multitude of diversions available in the city of Khelathra-Ven, but my temperament and upbringing left the vast majority of them either unappealing or inaccessible. Growing up in Ey, I never developed the habits of drinking, dancing, visiting the theatre, or, indeed, engaging in any pastime that did not involve venerating the name of the Creator. And, while I have no strong objection to such activities today, it is difficult for me to engage in them without the excuse of a companion.
Crossing one leg over the other, Ms. Haas produced a packet of tobacco and retrieved her pipe from where it had rolled under the chair. “Perhaps introductions are in order. Eirene, this is Captain John Wyndham. He’s from the Commonwealth, which explain
s most of it, and has lived with me for a month, which explains the rest. Mr. Wyndham, this is Eirene Viola. I first met her after she was forced to flee Carcosa some dozen years ago. We . . .”
Here Ms. Haas described in far greater detail than was necessary the nature of her prior relationship with Miss Viola. Modesty forbids me from repeating any of it in these pages.
When my companion showed no sign of concluding her discourse, I awaited an appropriate pause and enquired, “What manner of assistance did you require, madam?”
“She’s being blackmailed.”
At this, Miss Viola turned a sharp gaze upon my companion. “She’s also capable of speaking for herself.”
“Then by all means tell the good captain what you have already intimated to me.” Ms. Haas lit her pipe, this time without the use of forbidden sorcery, and put it to her lips. “I shall endeavour to amuse myself.”
I readied my pen and bade Miss Viola tell me her story. The substance of it was thus. She had come to Khelathra-Ven following the popular uprising in Carcosa, that strange city so ancient and so famed that I am given to understand its notoriety has reached even the most backward of realities. Immediately following her arrival, she had fallen in with a bad crowd, of which I understood Ms. Haas had been a part. The lady was vague on the details of her life since, but I had a strong sense she had been a thief and an adventuress and had dabbled in sorcery. Any one of these would have disqualified her from marriage to any respectable person, even in Khelathra-Ven.
In the last year she had met and fallen in love with a warden of the Ubiquitous Company of Fishers (which, for those unfamiliar with the social and commercial institutions of Khelathra-Ven, is one of the city’s many influential trade guilds) by the name of Cora Beck. Miss Beck’s family had already expressed misgivings about their daughter’s engagement to a Carcosan immigrant, and Miss Viola was concerned that any hint of scandal would destroy all hope of their formal union. The blackmail material had so far consisted of a single anonymous letter demanding that Miss Viola break off the engagement on pain of certain secrets being made public. This letter she produced and handed to me for my perusal.
CHAPTER SIX
The Mysterious Letter
To the Lady Eirene Viola Delhali, daughter of the late Count of Hyades,
You are to break your engagement with Miss Cora Beck or else she, her family, and all society will learn precisely what happened to Benoit Roux.
Do not try me. Do not test me.
I hold your future in my hands.
“If I might ask,” I said, having examined the epistle, “what did happen to Benoit Roux?”
Ms. Haas opened her eyes. “He was one of the four.”
“The four?”
“Do pay attention, Wyndham. The four persons Eirene accused me of feeding to the Princes of the Mocking Realm. She neglected to mention she was as much a part of that affair as I was.”
“I was seventeen,” protested Miss Viola. “I had just fled my homeland and was hiding in fear for my life from armed and fanatical militants. You were two decades my senior and I truly believed I was in love with you.”
“You can hardly hold me responsible for your youthful follies.”
“But I can hold you responsible for persuading me that my surest chance of evading my pursuers was to strike a pact with the lords of a psychedelic otherworld.”
Ms. Haas blew a perfectly formed smoke ring. “Well, it worked.”
I glanced once more at the letter and then at my notes. “Might we perhaps further address the question of the gentleman you murdered?”
“He wasn’t a gentleman,” drawled Ms. Haas. “He was new money at best. And a thoroughly unpleasant fellow.”
“I’m not sure that makes it right to kill him.”
“How dare you, Captain. I certainly did not kill him. Eirene and I simply contrived a situation in which Master Roux, of his own free will, exposed himself to extradimensional forces that tragically consumed him. Had he been less venal, he would be with us today. Not in this room, of course. Ghastly man.”
As I’ve said before, and will say again over the course of this manuscript, I strive never to judge others. I was nonetheless given serious pause by the content of this conversation. And, in truth, I am not entirely certain why I remained part of it or continued to keep company with Ms. Haas afterwards. I can only say that I have never made excuses for my friend’s behaviour and do, on some level, know that she has done heinous things. But I have also never known her to act without purpose nor with wanton malice, and I believe I must have understood this fact even then. Besides which, to be in the presence of the sorceress Shaharazad Haas was to glimpse a world more beautiful, more terrible, and more limitless than anything I could hitherto have imagined.
Miss Viola drew another pin from her hair, letting the whole mass of it come tumbling down, and then began the complex work of rebinding it. “So you see why I came here. Apart from you and I, very few people know what happened to Benoit.”
Tapping out her pipe on the cover of a blameless volume of Ilari love poetry, Ms. Haas rose and snatched the letter from my hand. “Twelve years ago, precisely three people knew: you, me, and du Maurier. All it takes is for one of us to have told one person at some point over the past decade and, suddenly, we have no idea who knows what.”
“If I might ask,” I asked, “who is du Maurier?”
“Another ghastly man,” returned Ms. Haas. “Although he is the chief servant of the Princes of the Mocking Realm, they have thus far failed to devour him. He runs an extradimensional fleapit of a theatre called Mise en Abyme.”
Miss Viola gave a little sigh. “He’s also an inconceivable braggart, which means he could have told anybody. Which means the letter could have come from anybody.”
“Not anybody.” Ms. Haas turned the letter over and peered closely at its obverse. “Just not necessarily someone directly connected to that incident. You know, you’ve been a wonderfully naughty girl over the years. I’m sure you’ve left a veritable legion of jilted lovers, double-crossed associates, and good old-fashioned victims who’d relish the opportunity to even the score.”
“Which means,” said Miss Viola, rather sharply, “that you’ve narrowed the list of suspects down from ‘everyone’ to ‘everyone I’ve ever annoyed.’ I’m so glad I came to you, Shaharazad. Your reputation is nothing if not deserved.”
“Are you like this with the fishmonger? If so, a little blackmail is likely to be the least of your matrimonial impediments.”
“You bring out the worst in me. As you do in most people.”
“You flatter me, dear.” Ms. Haas took a turn about the room. “But to return to your current problem, it is a simple matter of triangulation. We know that whoever sent this letter has reason to wish you harm and has access to at least a small amount of personal information, some of which must have originated at Mise en Abyme. Further, the specific harm they seem to wish you speaks volumes as to their motives. No attempt has been made to extort you financially, suggesting that they have no especial need for money. Nor have they threatened you with violence, suggesting someone comfortable with casual cruelty but held back from more direct interventions by conscience or cowardice. Finally, we know that this individual is right-handed and expected you to recognise their script. It is really very straightforward.”
My own pen had been near flying off the page as I attempted to keep pace with Ms. Haas’s rapid exposition. “I wouldn’t use that word exactly, but I believe I can follow your reasoning,” I said. “At least until you reached the subject of handedness.”
“Whatever is the matter with you, Mr. Wyndham?” She spun round to confront me. “Was it not obvious the moment you looked at the letter that the writer had used the hand they did not favour? Why do such a thing if not to disguise your handwriting from the intended recipient? And since the sloping of the asce
nders and descenders is quite characteristic of the use of the left hand, it follows that our blackmailer is ordinarily right-handed.”
I took the note back and considered it with fresh eyes. Now it had been pointed out to me, I could indeed discern that the writing was shaky and ill formed, as if written with the off hand, and that the letters sloped backwards. It would simply never have occurred to me to see such details as significant. Over the coming years, I would learn to observe things a little more as Ms. Haas did, an exercise from which I have derived both satisfaction and utility, although I never attained her facility.
Setting the paper aside, I asked, “Is there anything else we can conclude from the letter?”
“Not by casual examination. The paper is of ordinary quality and could likely have been purchased from any stationer’s in the city. The ink likewise. There was no postmark so I assume it was hand delivered, but messengers are only a little more expensive than . . .” And here, I am sorry to say, Ms. Haas made a most inappropriate comparison that I would prefer not to repeat. “If you think yourself able, Captain, perhaps you could employ your professional training to test this letter and the envelope for any alchemical traces that may indicate who has handled it or where it has come from.”
“I should be glad to.”
She retrieved her tobacco and refilled her pipe. “Meanwhile, Eirene, I recommend you return home and begin compiling a list of possible suspects. Start with everyone who might want to harm you, and then eliminate those who are in no position to do so or who would choose to do so by other methods. Of those who remain, discard the ones who are left-handed or who have never written you a letter.”
Having given us our instructions, Ms. Haas retired abruptly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Five Names
I scarcely saw Ms. Haas for the next day or so, although I heard her moving about 221b Martyrs Walk at odd hours. For my part, I took the letter into the hospital and began the lengthy process of testing it alchemically for any clues as to its origin. To my considerable regret and frustration, all of the spiritual residues—the transubstantially detectable traces that all sentient beings leave on everything they touch, interact with, or, in extreme cases, think too much about—I was able to distil were quickly identified as belonging to either myself, Ms. Haas, or Miss Viola. Having concluded my shift, I hurried home to report my findings.