by Ben Galley
‘Yeah, but I’m your aunt, and aunts always have nicknames for their nephews, or so I’m told. Merion it is. Could you pass me that saw, please? The longer one?’ she asked. Merion followed the direction of her pointing finger and found the saw sitting on a wooden tray at the end of the bench. It shone dully in the bright lantern light. Merion handed his aunt the saw, and took the opportunity to look around the room as she began to remove the man’s head from his shoulders.
The room was sparse, and smelled of death. And sick too, but Merion suspected that was his own. Here and there, intricate instruments sat on trays and bathed in bowls. A pile of towels and bloodied blankets sat next to a sink, ready to be washed. A mop leant on a bookcase in the corner, a bookcase filled with jars and vials of all different sizes and colours. Some of the larger jars held little pieces of human paraphernalia: an ear; a heart; an eyeball in some cases, floating in a greenish soup. The colours of the assorted vials offered the rainbow. Merion was starting to give some serious credence to the idea that his aunt might not be sane. The odds, at the moment, were stacked high against her.
Lilain was pointing again, waving her finger about. ‘Now the syringe, Merion. No, the little one. That’s it. And the vial too.’
Merion watched her as she worked. She had found what was left of the heart, or so she told him, and wanted to take a sample of blood. Once again his stomach gurgled at him, urging him to go back to his room, but Merion was a stubborn fellow, and he forced himself to watch. Lilain lifted the vial up to the light and swirled the thick, dark blood around. She was muttering something, something that sounded distinctly foreign to his ears. Whatever it was, he couldn’t make it out. She put the vial on a nearby table and went back to work with her scalpel. Even though Merion detested her profession, he had to admit she was good at her job. She worked quickly and deftly, slicing little pieces from the heart and placing them in little wooden dishes that were laid out in a row on the side of the table.
‘What are you doing?’ Merion asked.
Lilain smiled. ‘Glad you asked! Samples. See if we can find out more about the railwraith.’
Merion spied a chance to resume his interrogation. ‘Do railwraiths bleed?’
Lilain’s smile grew very wide indeed. She gave him that stare again. ‘Everything bleeds, Merion.’
It took no less, but no more, than an hour to finish with the body. In the end, Merion had to hold one half of the corpse as Lilain sewed the man back together, ready for burial. Merion mentally vowed to burn his clothes. He couldn’t even bring himself to look down at the crimson stains he knew for sure were now decorating the front of his white shirt.
Merion caught his aunt winking at him. ‘You’d make a great apprentice. I do have an opening, if you’re interested?’
‘No, I am not,’ Merion tersely replied. He found himself instantly regretting the sharpness of his tone.
Lilain laughed his guilt away. ‘Position’s always open,’ she said, and then swiftly changed the subject. ‘So Tonmerion Harlequin Hark? What’s that short for?’ There was a hint of a smile on her face.
Tonmerion furrowed his brows quizzically. ‘I don’t believe I follow,’ he replied.
‘Oh never mind,’ Lilain tittered. She brushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, daubing herself with blood. Merion blanched, but his aunt didn’t seem to notice, never mind care. She just hummed to herself and carried right on. Merion thought about mentioning it, but decided to press on with questions instead. It was time to get some real answers.
‘So,’ he said nonchalantly, ‘why here?’
Lilain looked up and sighed. ‘Well ain’t that a question of many halves. Do you mean to ask me why I live here, and not in the Empire? Or are you asking why I live on this side of town? Or perhaps you meant why it is that you are here? Or, do you want to know why we, as a race, are here in the desert, and therefore, why he,’ and here she waved the scalpel at the mangled body, ‘is here? So, young nephew, which one is it to be?’
Once Merion had finished digesting his aunt’s words, he looked around for something to sit upon and found a wooden stool sitting in the corner. Once he had placed himself on its worn seat which, mercifully, was quite far away from any tools, tables, or corpses, he placed his hands upon his knees. ‘All of them, I suppose,’ he replied.
Lilain cast her gaze over the body, and muttered something to herself. ‘Fair enough. Mister Travish will take a lot of needle and twine, by my reckoning. You not tired?’
‘Father used to say a boy is never tired when there are questions to be asked.’
Lilain mulled that one over. ‘Never heard him say that. Wish I had now …’ She stole a moment to wink at him before continuing. ‘Well then. Why am I here, in Fell Falls.’
As Lilain talked, she worked. The scalpel danced in time to her tongue as she probed and cleaned and borrowed. When she was finished with an area, her bony hands would fish out the needle and sew the ruptured wounds shut as best they could. All the while she bent close to the body, her soft grey eyes keeping her bloodied fingers in check. Her voice was quiet but clear, and the way her words tumbled out gave her tales melody and emotion. Merion was instantly absorbed. Nobody, especially young gentlemen like Merion, can resist a natural-born storyteller.
‘Karrigan and I were always two sides of the same coin. We were brother and sister, and yet we couldn’t have been more different, believe me. Karrigan was serious and taciturn. I was annoying and irritating. He was drinking tea and wearing suits while I was still playing with paint and dirt. As we grew older, we just grew further apart. It ain’t uncommon, in siblings.
‘While Karrigan spent his time with father, learning the ways of business and politics, and of bending his fellow man to his will, I spent my time training myself in nature, learning the plants and creatures and the olden stories. He used to call me Molefingers, did you know that? But father had lessons for me too, as well as his son. He lectured me about all sorts. Medicines and herbs, just like his father had taught him. Old friends began to arrive at the door, men of biology and history. Father had them hold private classes just for me. Rats, mice, frogs, birds, fish … we dissected everything, just to learn. So guess what? Molefingers soon became Bloodfingers. It was a wonderful time. Until your father made it to those Emerald Benches, at least. Now listen close, Merion.’
Merion listened very closely indeed.
‘When Karrigan was made an Emerald Lord in his own right, father decided it was time to bestow on his son all his titles and businesses, to step back, and retire with mother. Unfortunately, their version of retiring meant buying a steamship and sailing it straight into the Cape of No Hope. Their bodies were never found. I was devastated when we received the wiregram. You know the first thing your father did, nephew?’
‘No?’
‘He cut me off. Overnight. Said if my science and magic wasn’t going to bring in any revenue, I had to move out of Harker Sheer.’
Merion’s expression grew cold and icy. ‘You’re lying,’ he accused her.
‘Am I? Your father was a ruthless businessman, was he not?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘Trust me on this one, nephew. I’m not trying to soil his name. It was his way of challenging me, see, of getting this olden nonsense out of my head so I could help him run his precious Empire. But I had no taste for it.’ Merion almost missed it, but at that precise moment, Lilain’s hands paused in their work, for just a second. The moment vanished, and the hands kept moving. ‘So I did Karrigan a favour and got myself good and lost. The embarrassing sister, vanished into the wilds, leaving nothing but a note saying “Farewell.”’ Lilain snorted. ‘In truth all I did was get on a locomotive and head to Prussia, but that’s another story. By chance and circumstance, I wound up here in Fell Falls.’
‘But how?’
‘Little over a year ago, I was living in Chicago—’
Merion couldn’t help but interrupt. ‘Undertaking?’
‘Amongst ot
her things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like exploring the wilderness, and hunting down strange and wonderful creatures. Undertaker by day, amateur scientist by night.’
‘But it’s night now, and you’re … undertaking.’
‘It’s just an expression.’
‘You mentioned my father saying science and magic. Did my grandfather’s friends teach you that too? Can you do magic?’
Lilain looked up from the corpse for the very first time, and smiled that trademark smile of hers. ‘Of sorts,’ she replied, almost in a whisper. ‘For instance, I can make the blade of this scalpel disappear.’ Lilain waved her hands around the dirty blade and whistled.
The stool creaked as Merion leant forwards ever so slightly. He couldn’t help it.
‘Watch very closely,’ she told him. The stool creaked again.
With more hand-waving and finger-twiddling, Lilain slowly raised the scalpel high above her head. Then, after a smattering of so-called magic words, she brought it down. There was a thud as the flash of silver buried itself in the dead man’s ribcage. ‘See?’
Merion was not amused. He crossed his arms while Lilain chuckled to herself. Anyway,’ she continued, ‘the contract ran out on my job, and they didn’t need me anymore. The war had moved south, and the gangs were getting bored of fighting each other. Chicago had more undertakers than bakers, so they said. I decided it was time to go where the bodies were. Took what was left of my savings, and moved myself to the frontier.’
‘Here, in Fell Falls?’
‘Right you are, and to skip a question or two, this town was built here because the Serped Railroad Company has been hired by good King Lincoln to forge a path to the Last Ocean. The towns move with the rail. When the rail moves too far away from the last town. A new one is built and the frontier moves. Except the rail ain’t moved more than a couple of miles in a year and a half. Now Mr Tavish here,’ Lilain slapped her client’s ruined chest, ‘is lying on my table because he strayed into the desert to take a piss. Strayed too far and paid the highest price. The railwraith had dragged him half over the hill by the time the sheriffsmen caught up with it.’
‘Did they kill it?’
‘Gosh, no. Just scared it off with guns and nitroglycerin. Now,’ and it was here that she began to work faster, reaching more for the needle now. Merion could tell question time was nearly up. Like any good story-teller, Lilain was holding something back, and the urge to uncover it almost made Merion squirm.
‘Now, to tell you why I am here at the edge of town means I have to explain a little bit about American superstition. What do you think of when we talk of magic?’
Merion scratched his head. ‘Rabbits in hats. Doves. Cards,’ he said.
‘Now, that’s magic. What about magick, with a k?’
‘I would say you have atrocious spelling.’
Lilain clicked her fingers. ‘Ha, well, young nephew, it’s actually the olden spelling. Differentiates between the magic of stage magicians and con artists, and real magic, the stuff of wizards and shamans.’
‘What is this olden you keep mentioning?’
‘Ever heard somebody say “in the olden days”?’
‘Yes. Margrit, one of the servants in the house. Never stops saying it. Stopped.’
‘Well, once again, modern times have twisted our view of things. Olden days doesn’t just mean a few decades ago, it means centuries ago, when humans were young and new to the world.’
‘You mean, when we lived in caves?’
‘Sort of. These are what we true historians call the days of olden, the time that myths and legends come from. Olden ways and olden stories. They’ve both been lost over the years, as we’ve grown up. We don’t believe in such things any more, do we, nephew? We don’t burn witches at the stake and we don’t believe in fairies. We believe in the Almighty and all his creation. Right?’
Merion thanked the very Almighty in question that Lilain did not see him flinch at the mention of the Fae. He just went along with it. ‘The stuff of fairy tales and bedtime stories.’
‘Bingo.’
Merion didn’t know what bingo was, but he assumed it meant he was right.
‘Well, the olden days aren’t all that olden here, not in the west. Magic is spelt with a k here, nephew, don’t forget that. This is the sort of place where the stuff of fairy tales breaks down your door at night and skins you from tip to toe, the sort of place where monsters really do have a penchant for sleeping under the bed, and where wives’ tales always end with the wives being eaten alive. America hasn’t had time to forget the olden days, nephew. They’re still very much alive and kicking.’
Merion felt the blood draining to his toes. ‘I thought you were trying to convince me to stay?’
‘I am! Isn’t it exciting? All that history, all these creatures. It’s incredible.’
Merion rolled his eyes. It was like being invited to a knife fight on the premise of it ‘being a laugh’. ‘You sound like a woman I met on the ship. Forgive me if I don’t share your enthusiasm, Aunt Lilain.’
‘You’ll see soon enough,’ she told him. ‘And so in summary, I live out here on the edges of town because the others are afraid of ghosts and zombies and other such undead creatures.’
‘And …’ Merion couldn’t help but stammer at the mere mention of the undead. They scared him more than he liked to admit. ‘… are they right to be worried?’
Lilain hooted with laughter as she closed up the last of Mr Tavish’s gruesome wounds. ‘Hah! Not in the slightest. Human spirits aren’t strong enough to maintain ghost-like form, never mind manipulate anything. Older spirits can though. Zombies?’ And here she shrugged. ‘Possibly. But I always take my precautions.’
‘Pre—precautions?’
Lilain tied off the final loop of thread, and Merion’s heart sank a little when the scalpel cut it clean. ‘A little sprinkle of the right kind of dust here and there does the trick,’ she mumbled to herself. With a sigh, she stood upright and put her hands together. ‘And I believe that brings us to the very last of your questions, doesn’t it?’
‘It does.’
Lilain took a moment to walk around the table, so she could lean against it whilst facing her nephew. She crossed her arms and looked at him. ‘So, why do you think you are here?’ she asked.
Merion knew this one. ‘Because somebody murdered my father,’ he replied flatly, begrudging saying it aloud.
Lilain shook her head solemnly. ‘No that’s the answer to the question of why my brother is dead. Why are you here?’
The young Hark sighed. He despised guessing games. ‘Because my father thought it would be a good idea to ship me off to the edge of the world for five years, leaving my inheritance protected only by law and open to the pilfering of thieves and jealous lords?’
‘Wrong again.’ Seeing the colour growing in his cheeks, Lilain decided to put him out of his misery. ‘You’re here, nephew, because I just happen to be the only family you have left on this earth. My father and mother were both only children, like their parents before them. No aunts, no uncles, and no cousins. Why, Karrigan could have left you in the care of the party, or the law, but from what little I know of politics and the thieves you talk about, that would have been a very bad idea indeed. No, you’re here because this is the best place for you. Your father wanted you here. Not out of spite, nor lack of love, but out of design.’
Merion took several slow and long breaths. It all seemed logical, but he still didn’t like it one bit. ‘You may see a design in all of this, Aunt Lilain, but all I see is a mistake,’ he said, almost growling his words.
‘With all due respect, Tonmerion Hark, you ain’t seen shit yet,’ she replied, grinning wide. She knew then she had possibly pushed him too far.
Merion got down from his stool and straightened his shirt. He wrinkled his lip when his fingers rediscovered the sticky bloodstains he’d forgotten about. Merion looked past her as he spoke, at the stairs in the
shadows beyond. He could not quite meet her twinkling eyes.
‘This all seems rather like a joke to you, Aunt. I was expecting the sister of my dead father to be a little more … upset at her brother’s murder.’
Lilain’s face fell into the very picture of gravity. ‘I have done my grieving, nephew. I won’t let anybody tell me different,’ she replied. There wasn’t a single trace of humour in her voice. ‘Duty’s done.’
Merion didn’t reply. He was already halfway to the stairs. Lilain didn’t stop him. Instead she let him go, waiting until his feet disappeared from view to call out. ‘The way I see it, I may have lost a brother, but I’ve gained a nephew. The Maker’s ever fair, in my eyes.’
She received no reply, save for the creaking of the basement door. Lilain brushed that offending strand of hair from her face once more, and clapped her hands against her thighs with a sigh. ‘Well, Mr Tavish. Let’s get you to bed, shall we? I’ve got a dog to see to.’
Mr Tavish didn’t complain one bit. He just smiled his awful smile up at the brick ceiling as he was wheeled into the cold darkness of the basement.
Chapter VIII
THE MAN AND THE MAGPIE
‘Must keep running. I’m not letting that fucking Queen win this. I’m not going to die on her terms.’
7th May, 1867
For the first time in over a fortnight, Merion awoke to find his bed was not trembling. That is, his head was comfortably wedged on a friendly pillow, rather than a stranger’s lap, and neither was it numb from being pressed against a rattling window. A scraping noise had awoken him. It was coming from under the bed. Merion opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. The light was streaming throughout the holes in his curtains and making his room glow. It was too bright and cheery for his liking. He reached for the blanket and pulled it over his face. It smelled like mothballs.
‘Must you always sharpen your sword this early in the morning?’ he asked in a muffled voice.
‘Best time to do it,’ came the equally muffled reply. Merion felt Rhin’s words reverberate in the centre of his back. ‘Never know what’ll happen after breakfast.