Against the Unweaving

by D. P. Prior

  Shader curled his fingers around the hilt of the gladius. This Cadman was a liche. Had to be, with that sort of power over the dead. A liche like Blightey and the things that served him in Verusia. He nodded grimly to himself and went back to stand with Maldark. The dwarf was twirling the haft of his hammer, the stone head grating against the floor.

  “I am impatient for the battle to commence,” the dwarf said. “It vexes me to just sit and wait.”

  Shader put a hand on his shoulder, thankful Maldark was with them. “I don’t think this is going to be an ordinary battle.”

  Memories of Trajinot crept up from the dark recesses of his mind. When the aberrations had surged out of the trees and the advance of the Seventh Horse had faltered, Shader had felt one overwhelming emotion: terror. His stomach knotted as the corrosive onset of despair threatened once more to take hold. He’d done the only thing he knew how to do back in the Schwarzwald skirting Verusia, the thing he’d been trained for since birth. He’d charged, and seeing it as a sign of bravery, the Seventh Horse had charged with him.

  Maldark looked at him with eyes that had seen their own share of horror, eyes that seemed heavy with a secret burden; and for an instant something was communicated between them. There was no give in the dwarf, Shader realized. He’d never falter, and right now he couldn’t have wished for anything more.

  THE SUMMONING

  Cadman stepped inside the carriage and rapped on the ceiling with his knuckles. The ever silent driver cracked the reins and they lurched away from Arnbrook House. A scattering of militiamen had barricaded themselves in the alleyways leading off of Mercator Street, watching, but taking no action against the graveyard ghouls now prowling around the Council buildings.

  Cadman rubbed at his fleshy chin and pondered. He’d grown euphoric on the power of Eingana, and as far as he was concerned there was nothing more dangerous. Euphoria bred carelessness, and carelessness led to mistakes. Not only that, but it was an almost indisputable law of life—sod’s law, they used to say—that such rapturous feelings always preceded a calamitous crash. He needed to sober up, so to speak. Sober up and stop burying his head in the sand every time he heard those infernal caws and felt invisible eyes watching him. Sober up and take stock of the state of play. He’d had a good innings so far, but that usually meant time was running out until the opposition started padding up to bat. Soon he’d be forced to take up his fielding position. He just hoped it wasn’t silly mid on.

  Commanding the undead marauding in and around Arnbrook House was as effortless as the automatic counting that ground on of its own accord in a detached compartment of his brain. It had also become easier to maintain his corpulent form, and his appalling parasitic hunger had retreated into the background. He no longer felt compelled to send the ghouls—or Callixus—in search of sustenance; indeed, he was starting to feel repulsed by the practice of filching, as he’d termed his feeding habits centuries ago. It was a repugnance he’d not experienced since he’d first discovered his need for the warm lifeblood of humans to maintain his precarious hold on existence. Had it been worth it, he wondered? All those decades of skulking unnoticed in the great population centers, barely daring to act in case suspicions were aroused; suspicions that every so often gave rise to fear, anger, and retribution. Had mere endurance ever been enough?

  Cadman shuddered at the thought of the alternative, and then smiled as he recalled the promise of the Dweller: not only immortality, but self-contained immortality. No more dependence on the lives of others. No more parasitism. No more filching.

  Careful, Cadman, he admonished himself. You’re getting hooked again. Caution first, caution last, caution always.

  Ah, said an emboldened part of his mind that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades. But you’re already in too deep. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they used to say back home before the Templum graced us with denarii and aurei. Pretentious Romanophiles.

  Was he in too deep? Cadman had a vivid image of the carriage hurtling down a sheer slope, over the edge of a cliff and shattering into pieces on a rock-strewn beach. Every action has its consequences, and he’d been far too active of late; ever since his dreams had been invaded by the Dweller.

  I suppose I’m to blame for that, am I? said the old familiar voice in his head.

  You didn’t have to listen, said the resurgent one. But now you’ve gone this far, there’s no turning back. What’s the worst that could happen?

  The carriage slowed to a halt outside Cadman’s townhouse. It was an undistinguished three-story building nestled amongst a score of similar dwellings in a quiet and not particularly desirable backwater. He wrinkled his nose out of habitual disdain for the neighborhood, but he had to admit it had served its purposes admirably.

  Cadman waited while the driver clambered down and went to check for intruders. He flipped open his pocket watch and kept an eye on the front door once the driver had disappeared inside. The curtains of the house next door parted slightly, and he caught sight of his nosey-old-hag-of-a-neighbor peering out at the carriage. She saw he’d noticed and dropped the curtains back in place just as the driver re-emerged and nodded the all-clear. Thirty-two seconds in all. The man was getting faster. Cadman only hoped he wasn’t getting careless. He thrust the pocket watch back in his waistcoat, trying not to think about the sum of three and two.

  He waited on the pavement as the carriage clattered away to whatever dark and neglected part of the city the driver kept it in. Cadman would really rather not know. The man, or whatever he was, had given his services in return for treatment for a cat. It must have been over fifty years ago when he’d entered the surgery dressed from top to toe in black. He’d not spoken a word, merely held out the stinking mog and ignored Cadman’s protestations that he was not a vet.

  The animal had been dead for weeks by the look of it, but the man seemed incapable of accepting the fact. He’d stood with his arms crossed, sullen eyes staring from beneath a battered top hat. Despairing of ever getting the man out of his surgery, Cadman had engaged in a little necromancy. He’d been in agony for weeks afterwards, but the cat had moved and hissed and the fellow had seemed quite pleased. He’d offered no money and Cadman didn’t press the point, but the next day he’d arrived outside in the black carriage and had dutifully come whenever Cadman had called ever since.

  Cadman paused in the hallway to make doubly sure it was safe, looked in on the surgery to check nothing had been tampered with, and then lumbered up the stairs to the attic where he would attempt to summon the Dweller.

  He still felt torn about which path to take—withdrawing and hoping the whole affair died down, or pressing on in the acceptance that things had already gone too far. He very much wanted to hide away, but the new voice in his mind was growing more insistent and had started to convince him that inaction at this stage would nevertheless still constitute action, and most likely a fatal one at that.

  The other voice, the one that had guided him successfully all these years, reminded him he had no real idea what he was dealing with. The Dweller had radiated such malevolence and power, and in spite of its praise he’d felt condescended to, as if all the forces he’d learned to manipulate barely broke the surface of an ocean of mystery.

  His initial plan had been to use Gaston’s knights, backed up by Callixus and the Lost, but Callixus had been spooked by the presence of Deacon Shader. And there was something unsettling about the ferocious dwarf who had taken up residence in the templum. Better to make certain, he told himself. The Dweller would most likely annihilate the lot of them and then Cadman would use the power of Eingana to send it back to the Abyss. And if that attracted unwanted attention, then so be it. After all, what were they going to do, caw him to death? Probably a damned sight worse, said the cautious voice before he squashed it with a metaphorical boot and ground it underfoot.

  Cadman’s experience in the mantic arts initially came from Blightey’s occult practices, but he’d later learnt to exploit the residue of m
agic left over from the Reckoning. He’d long ago discovered that, since Huntsman’s use of the Statue of Eingana, the Earth had been permeated by a web of enchantment that was connected to the Dreaming, and was infinitely malleable to those with the knowledge. It had been child’s play to Blightey. He’d been typically smug about it, said he was already more than intimate with what he sneeringly referred to as the Dreaming. Cadman, on the other hand, had dedicated years to the study of the phenomena that followed the Reckoning, the horrific creatures of nightmare that had sprung up all around the world, the blossoming of arcane powers within the most unlikely of people. He’d researched all the traditions of magic in an attempt to control this new force, but had little success. Ultimately, it was a moving of the heart that gave him the key; or rather a desperate insistence on his own survival. Somehow, inexplicably, he had reached out with single-minded ambition, perfectly focused by his dread of annihilation, and literally forced the enchantment to do his bidding.

  The cost had been great. His body suffered terribly, the joints swelling, bones warping, festering pustules bursting forth all over his skin; but nevertheless, he had endured. He’d come to the belief that these horrific side-effects were due to his abuse of magical currents that were never intended to serve such individualistic ends, and certainly not intended to steal the life force from others in a perverse quest for immortality. Cadman’s entire experience was in the art of necromancy, not the summoning of demons, but he recalled having read much about such conjurations in some of the grimoires he’d been made to study back in Verusia.

  Better safe than sorry, his old inner voice reassured him as he began to draw a chalk circle upon the bare wooden floor of the attic. He painstakingly inscribed sigils in scripts that were termed angelic, often with accompanying words in a long forgotten language, and lit candles at each of the cardinal points. He traced out a triangle to the north, the so-called triangle of manifestation into which the Dweller was to appear, and placed a brass censer within, lighting the charcoal and dropping on a few grains of sandalwood.

  Although the summoning was to be effected purely by the focus of his will channeled through the amber pieces, Cadman chose to recite the Goetic words of invocation Blightey had beaten into him, just in case they increased his control of the demon.

  The air in the attic was thick with candle smoke and incense as he finally settled down within the circle, fang in one hand, eye in the other, and began to incant the barbarous names. It was a shock how quickly his spirit made contact with the demon, which waited just as it said it would. The amber pieces blazed, growing hot to the touch, and suddenly, before he was ready, there was another presence in the room. Not just in the room, but within the circle.

  Cadman opened his eyes and barely suppressed a gasp of horror. The Dweller had clearly not complied with the requirement that it manifest in the triangle and now sat cross-legged only a few feet from him, a sleek miniature humanoid, perhaps three feet tall, its ebon skin glistening and rippling in the candlelight; cold eyes of gray fixing him with their malevolence.

  “So glad you called,” the demon said, slug-like tongue running across thorny teeth. It inclined its head to one side and touched the tips of its elongated fingers together.

  “You will do my bidding?” Cadman asked.

  “If we have a contract. One soul is all I ask.”

  “Good. Then you will eradicate all life within the Templum of the Knot and bring me the piece of the statue they are hiding. For your payment, take the soul of the one you find it on.”

  “I fully intend to.” The demon’s jaw opened impossibly wide, granting Cadman a view of a black throat lined with spikes. “But do understand, if I cannot take that soul, you must provide me with one bound to it in love; otherwise I’ll be feasting on yours.”

  That wouldn’t be a very substantial meal.

  Cadman’s jowl wobbled and he was surprised to find that his illusory body was sweating. “Agreed.” He groaned inwardly as he made the pact, feeling his fate open up before him like a bottomless pit.

  The glistening black figure began to grow and metamorphose, its fingers stretching into sinuous, writhing tentacles, its torso bubbling into a great churning mass from which innumerable misshapen faces leered and gibbered. The Dweller seethed and undulated, its form never static, heads, arms, claws sprouting from its amorphous body, bursting and reforming, bursting and reforming.

  Cadman stood and moved to one side as the horror roiled past him and slithered down the stairs, its grotesque form swelling until, at last glance, it was twice the height of a man and just as wide.

  Cadman held the eye and the fang tightly before thrusting them back into the pockets of his waistcoat. It was done. There was no going back now. He’d played his hand and would have to wait and see what fate had in store for him.

  A fist of ice closed about the shreds of his heart, causing him to bend double and clutch his chest. His fingers were bare bones, rapping against the ribs protruding from his tattered robes. He let out a rattling breath, the jaws of his skull clacking uncontrollably. He took out the amber pieces and was about to draw upon their power to restore his flesh, but something told him not to. Not a voice this time, just a feeling deep in his bones where the marrow had once been.

  Too many risks, Cadman, said his old familiar voice.

  Maybe, said the other, but the alternative is to hunt for food, and you’re hardly in a fit state.

  “Just a little then,” Cadman said to himself, pocketing the fang and accessing the power of the eye—just enough to restore his corpulence.

  He tilted his head and waited.

  Nothing.

  Not the slightest indication that anyone had noticed. He tucked the eye away and trudged downstairs to his bedroom for a well-deserved nap. No sooner had the door closed behind him than it struck him like a bolt of lightning: a single, solitary squawk that seemed to come from beyond the stars.

  “Fiddlesticks!” Cadman said, opening the door and making his way down to the living room.

  No chance of a nap now. Nothing for it but to endure another chapter of Alphonse bloody LaRoche whilst swilling a humongous dose of totally ineffectual brandy.

  He’d barely picked up the book and located the bottle when he felt something tugging at the back of his mind. He approached the window, half-expecting the Dweller to come crashing through the glass at any moment, telling him it had already failed, telling him it needed his soul in payment. He drew back the curtains a crack and dimly saw the shadowy figure of his driver standing on the roadside, waiting, so it seemed. Waiting for his passenger.

  With a sigh, Cadman slung LaRoche across the room, knocked back the brandy, and headed to the front door. Whatever had possessed him to make him think he could sleep this night? Whatever had made him think he could relax enough even to read? Apparently the driver knew him better than he knew himself. There was nothing for it, then, Cadman thought. Nothing for it but to go see for himself what happened when the Dweller arrived at the templum.

  SCREEN 55

  The kryeh cawed again and turned its head, ripping the electrodes from its eyeballs and spraying a fine mist of blood over the screen. The caw became a screech as its wings extended and started to thrash against the railings. Wires tore free of its arms and stomach, but its ankles remained strapped to the chair.

  Sektis Gandaw stepped out of the elevator and did nothing more than raise an eyebrow. It was all that was needed. As the kryeh flapped into the air dragging the chair with it, Mephesch clapped his hands and the sentroid fired. The machine was little more than a levitating ball of steel with a battery of phase canons studded around its circumference. Nothing fancy, none of that anthropomorphized nonsense. It was minimalistic, plain, and purely functional. Just the way Gandaw liked it.

  There was a burst of blue fire, the smell of ozone, the sizzle of cooking flesh, another screech, and a crash as the chair hit the floor of the third tier. The charred remains of the kryeh puffed into the air, a sooty c
loud that cascaded all the way to the ground floor like necrotic snow.

  Gandaw raised a bloodless hand and flicked the dust from his tunic. He tapped a button on his vambrace and a mannequin rose from the floor wearing his brown overcoat. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, he shrugged the coat on, it was a dirty tunic. All this activity was making the kryeh excitable again, and if there was another thing he couldn’t stand, it was deviation from the task in hand. The creatures were good, their senses as keen as he could get them, but they weren’t perfect. No matter how much he manipulated the basic elements nature had bequeathed him, nothing was ever perfect. Never would be until he stripped it bare and started again from first principles.

  “Another surge from the statue?”

  Mephesch pointed at the screen as a team of homunculi wheeled a replacement kryeh into position, wiring in the eyes. The sentroid began to spiral down the chamber one tier at a time, vacuuming up the dust, careful not to let even a single speck remain.

  “Sarum again. Just a blip, but it set the kryeh off nonetheless.”

  “Increase the sedative,” Gandaw said matter-of-factly, eyes narrowing as an LED winked on his vambrace. He punched in a response and braced himself as a circle of the floor detached itself and bore him upwards past the banks of screens, each with their own wired-in kryeh staring unblinkingly at whatever the satellites showed them. The circle brought him to the top level where he seated himself in the projection chair. The black gauntlet, drained from its crushing of the old monk, was re-charging on its plinth. The power it required was astronomical. It could be hours before it was ready for use again. It really wasn’t good enough.

  Pulling down the data screen, Gandaw conducted a quick review of the knowledge he’d dredged from the monk whilst opening a channel to the shaman who’d just contacted him. It had better have a very good reason.