The Death of Me: A Tor.Com Original
Page 5
* * *
The village – it had a name, but Cabal rarely used it – lay some four miles away from where his house stood in its sheltered little valley, a location calculated to prevent the slightest tone of a church bell reaching it even with a tailwind. Four miles is also, incidentally, an awkward distance for a torch-bearing mob to cover: torches gutter, pitchforks grow heavy, and the length of the walk robs a lynching of its necessary spontaneity. Not that the villagers did very much of that, not after the last time.
Cabal kept his visits there to the bare minimum, and for their part, the villagers tolerated him with a forced civility that said as much for their Englishness as for any fear of him. The grocer would take his order in polite silence, only speaking to make the mandatory opening conversational gambit of greeting and comment upon the weather, then to clarify any ambiguities as he transcribed Cabal’s list of requirements, and finally to bid him a sincere and relieved goodbye. People on the street ignored him. Even the most wilful teenager knew the stories and avoided eye contact.
The only individual who sought Cabal out when he visited was Sergeant Parkin, the senior officer of the village’s police force, consisting of Parkin, two unambitious constables, and an ageing Alsatian called ‘Bootsy’. People liked Sergeant Parkin and were grateful for the calm way in which he dealt with the Cabal problem. ‘He knows better than to throw his weight around here,’ Parkin would say, while drinking on duty in the saloon bar of The Old House at Home. ‘We treat him polite, like, and he’s here and gone, and good riddance.’ The villagers might have been less pleased to know that Parkin’s public-relations efforts were entirely focused upon them, as Parkin himself was in Cabal’s employ. In return for a suitable emolument in a brown envelope every Christmas, Parkin kept the village in a state of delicate uncertainty, as a Swiss village might be beneath a mountainside deep in snow: providing they remained calm and quiet, no avalanche would descend upon them. Parkin saw no clash between his role and his actions. After all, his primary concern was to keep the peace, and this he did.
Parkin was talking football in the pub when Mr Jeffries, whose home overlooked the dusty and rarely travelled road that ran by Cabal’s house, entered, approached the sergeant directly, spoke quietly and calmly in his ear, and left again.
Parkin frowned and looked at the calendar hung behind the bar. Beneath a gaudy McGill painting of an exasperated judge and a smirking divorce case co-respondent (‘You are prevaricating, sir. Did you or did you not sleep with this woman?’ ‘Not a wink, my lord!’), the date caused him some mild consternation.
He buttoned up his uniform tunic, put on his helmet, said, ‘Duty calls,’ to the landlord, slung the last inch of his pint down his throat, and went out to face the dreadful Herr Cabal.
Cabal was unsurprised to see Sergeant Parkin waiting by the pump, trough and rarely used well on the village green, his arms crossed, his expression vexed. He walked directly to the policeman, aware that every busybody in the place was watching them. It did not help Cabal to undermine Parkin’s authority, so he exhibited enough deference to maintain the sergeant’s standing, and just enough coldness to remind the onlookers just who they were dealing with here.
‘Funny time of the month for you to be out of your bailiwick, isn’t it, Mr Cabal?’ said Parkin, loudly enough to be heard by the watchers. Then, more quietly, he added, ‘Bugger me, chum, a word of warning would have been nice.’
‘Of course, Parkin,’ replied Cabal, also quietly. ‘I should have sent a member of my extensive household to tell you. The under-butler, perhaps, or a footman, or possibly one of the many grooms.’
Parkin, who knew that Cabal was the only inhabitant of his house, or at least the only living human inhabitant, grunted, and let the point go. ‘All right, so you’re here now. What is it you’re after? You only had your groceries last week. You haven’t run out, have you?’
‘No. I have had visitors. I believe they are staying at the tavern. I wish to speak to them.’
‘What?’ Parkin shot a glance at the Old House at Home. ‘The undertaker, the unfrocked priest and the bloke who looks like an alky? I knew all that codswallop about butterfly hunting was bollocks, but I didn’t know they were anything to do with you. I don’t recall you having any visitors before, Cabal.’
‘I have visitors, just not often, and they don’t normally stop here.’ Cabal was aware of hostile eyes upon him, and of the delicate status quo of the relationship between the villagers and himself seesawing dangerously. ‘Is this a problem, Sergeant?’
‘If you go blundering into the pub, yes. That’s sacred ground, Cabal. Don’t ever go in there. That’s somewhere safe where they can whine about you to their hearts’ content, safe knowing you’ll never show your face in the place. Going in would be … provocative. No, I’ve got a better plan.’
The villagers watched the doughty Sergeant Parkin and the vile Johannes Cabal negotiate quietly until, with dangerous anger showing clearly in his body language, the necromancer turned and strode back out of the village in a cold fury. Parkin stood, arms crossed and haughty, and watched Cabal go until he was past the post office. Then, duty done and the village once more safe, he strolled back to the pub to be bought a pint on the house, a suitable reward for a conquering hero. While the landlord pulled the pint, Parkin made his way into the snug and there found Messrs Shadrach, Corde and Bose eating lunch and muttering to one another in conspiratorial tones until Parkin’s entrance plunged them into an embarrassed silence.
‘Afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said jovially. ‘If you wouldn’t mind eating up smartish, like, packing your bags, and pissing off out of it, the parish would be grateful.’
There was a shocked silence. Shadrach made as if to say something, but Parkin leaned down and said, close enough to Shadrach’s face that he was momentarily overcome by pipe tobacco and beer fumes, ‘It’s not a request, sir. It’s not a request.’ Then, dropping easily to a penetrating whisper, he added, ‘You gentlemen have an appointment,’ and quickly pressed a folded piece of paper into Shadrach’s hand. ‘I wouldn’t be late if I were you, squire.’ Parkin rose, shot them a cynical salute, and went off to claim his beer.
* * *
They found Cabal sitting on a fence by the road a mile out of the village, shying stones at a crow. He didn’t appear to be working very hard to hit it, which was just as well since the crow was remarkably good at dodging, and indeed seemed to regard having lumps of rock cast at its head as a show of affection on Cabal’s part. ‘Kronk!’ it cawed joyfully, as a lump of flint the size of a baby’s fist hissed by the tip of its beak.
‘You received my communication, I see,’ said Cabal, as they approached. He climbed down and went to meet them. As he did so, the crow belatedly realised the game was over and flew up to land on Cabal’s left shoulder. He shot it a glance from the corner of his eye that it chose to ignore.
‘You have a crow for a pet, Mr Cabal?’ asked Corde.
‘Hardly that. More a fellow traveller. You want my decision?’ The three men nodded, more or less gravely. ‘I agree to your proposition. I shall guide you into and through the Dreamlands. I emphasise that the knowledge on the Dreamlands I bring to this enterprise is based upon the writings of others, and can only be considered as reliable as they are.’
‘Of course,’ said Shadrach.
‘So, if we get lost, I do not wish to hear a single solitary word that the failing is mine. If I do, I shall feed the complainant to the nearest gug.’
‘What is a gug?’
‘Exactly my point. I know, and you do not. My knowledge of the Dreamlands may be flawed, but it is still magnitudes greater than yours. With that caveat, do you remain committed to this undertaking?’
‘We do,’ they chorused, a little shakily.
‘You are sure?’ said Cabal, smiling slightly at their quavering voices. He fed the crow an aged macadamia he had found in his jacket pocket. ‘I ask merely because I have a sense that the Phobic Animus is here with us n
ow, for some reason.’
Not trusting themselves to speak, the three men nodded their assent.
‘Good. Well, now. I assume you have easy access to your institutional funds, as I shall be spending a lot of them immediately. Equipment is by the bye: the Dreamlands will provide what we need, at least to begin with. We shall need to travel, however.’
‘Travel, Mr Cabal?’ said Bose. ‘But surely the Dreamlands are coterminous with all space and time? We can enter them as easily from here as from Timbuktu.’
‘I do not recall suggesting Timbuktu,’ said Cabal. ‘Yes, you are right, but simply standing beside a boundary does not allow you to move through that boundary. A high wall allows no access, not until you find the door. I cast lots before I came out today, and I have found a place where the veil between this world and the Dreamlands is suitably fine that the Silver Key will make short work of it. That is where the Gate of the Silver Key lies, gentlemen, and we should make haste before it decides to relocate to the heart of the Sahara, or the depths of the Antarctic, or – gods forfend – Wolverhampton.’
‘And where does it lie now, Mr Cabal?’
‘Somewhere beneath the sagging gambrel rooftops and behind the crumbling Georgian balustrades of Arkham, in the state of Massachusetts. Arkham, that lies upon the darkly muttering Miskatonic. I have not been there since…’ He paused, remembering, and that faint ironic smile twitched across his mouth. ‘Since for ever. Witch-cursed, legend-haunted Arkham. Ah, how I’ve missed it. Oh, and the university library has a copy of Enquêtes interdites. I must remember to steal it, time permitting. That is for later, however. Can your organisation foot the bill for our travel and accommodation?’
‘It can, Mr Cabal,’ said Shadrach, with encouraging firmness. ‘Ever since its creation some thirty years ago, the Institute has been saving its resources for this great endeavour. We shall have all we need, and more.’
‘Good, good,’ said Cabal, distractedly shooing the crow from his shoulder.
‘We will alert the treasurer of the Fear Institute by telegram immediately, and…’
He paused: Cabal was holding one index finger up in a gesture of enquiry. ‘The Fear Institute?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it named after a Mr Fear?’
‘No.’
Cabal laughed, a dry, cynical noise that stirred and died in his throat. ‘There is nothing mealy-mouthed about you, is there, gentlemen? Good. I approve.
‘To the Fear Institute, then, I offer my services.’
1 It is illustrative of the workings of Cabal’s mind that he readily associated religion and moral dissolution.