by Dan Abnett
By the time he reached the stream, the fortress long since out of sight behind him, he had his notebook out and his old spotting magnoculars around his neck. He’d seen and noted redbeaks, four different types of arboreal warbler, two root-hens, still dowdy in the last of their winter plumage as they stalked nervously through the ground cover, and a mountain hawk. The hawk had been quite distant. He’d glimpsed it in a patch of sky, framed through the emerald canopy, turning silently on the thermals over the lower valley. Destrus aquilus gershomi, the little hill-hawk. He’d noted another sixteen avian species just from call and song.
The gurgling stream was a meltwater rill that followed the contour of the slope, breaking and sharply plunging over clefts and mossy boulders. He followed its course, and the deeper sound of splashing as it fast-fed a pool somewhere ahead. He watched for tracks in the mud, for ursid spore, but the heavy rain had been too recent.
He reached the pool. It was overhung on the rising side by huge blocks of tumbledown stone, swathed in moss. Three different streams fed the pool, the sparkling rush of their flow producing constant, intersecting ripple patterns across its surface. The skin of the water was also wiggling with hookfly larvae. Drusher climbed onto the overlooking stones and sat down to watch tiny, fawn darters skim and hunt the larvae.
There was a decent view. He could look out across the forest banks below, the dense stands of evergreens, and see the dark, sharp mass of the Karanine peaks that formed the opposite side of the high valley, forty kilometres away through the early afternoon haze.
He sketched the pool for a while, then the view. He sat patiently still for five minutes, with no sound except birdsong and the burble of the streams, as a timid crophorn deer came to drink.
He noticed that, despite extensive weathering, the stone blocks he was perching on had traces of hard edges. They had been worked: the remains of some building or wall, perhaps a watchtower guarding the lower approaches to Helter Fortress.
A cold breeze rustled through the forest, and he felt the temperature drop. The sunlight diminished as clouds passed over. More rain coming, he surmised. He wasn’t bothered. He was shaded by trees, the cool air was a welcome relief from the bright heat of the day, and it wasn’t the first time he’d sat out in a downpour.
Rain was honest. Drusher reflected that perhaps, more than anything else, that was why he had become a magos biologis, to spend as much of his life as he could outside, in nature – whatever nature happened to be – with its simple cause-and-effect systems. It kept him away from the company of people, with their lies and secrets and agendas and games.
That, or he simply wasn’t very good at those sorts of interactions.
The thoughtful smile faded slightly from his lips. He was no longer alone. There was a man sitting by the edge of the pool below him. Drusher had no idea how long the man had been there, but he doubted it was more than five minutes. Drusher had been lost in his own thoughts and the tranquility of the place, but he was surprised he hadn’t noticed the man arrive.
‘Good afternoon,’ he called down.
The man looked up and smiled. He looked pleasant enough. He had a round face, and wore a good walking coat and laced boots. He was sketching in a large, green-covered book.
‘I didn’t see you there, sir,’ the man said.
Drusher clambered down. He got a glimpse of the man’s sketch. It was a view of the valley, very finely done.
‘I don’t mean to disturb,’ said Drusher.
‘Not at all. I was just out, ambling around,’ the man said. He continued to sketch.
‘Are you a visitor?’ Drusher asked.
‘Oh no, I live nearby,’ the man replied. ‘You?’
‘A visitor,’ said Drusher.
‘Ah well, it’s that season,’ the man said. He paused to put a point back on his graphite stick with a little pocket knife. ‘And this area is very pleasant. The Karanines in early summer – wonderful air. Good for the spirit. I sometimes wonder if, when our ancestors first came to this world, they stopped here because it was so agreeable.’
‘It is indeed agreeable.’
‘And fought over it, of course.’
Drusher frowned. ‘Fought, sir?’
‘You know, back in the past. The old tribes of Outer Udar, coveting this region because it was so bounteous compared to their sparse homelands. There were wars in these mountains for centuries. All forgotten now.’
‘I confess I don’t know much about war, sir,’ said Drusher, perching on a rock near to where the man sat. ‘Or history. I am a student of science and nature. A magos biologis.’
The man looked at him with interest.
‘Is that right? Sir, I envy you. That’s a fine calling. As a boy, I wanted to become a naturalist too. I won a place at Delci, the scholam there, to study the sciences of living worlds. But duty, you know. My family is in timber. My dear father, he needed a son with business acumen who could take over the trade, so I transferred to the universitariate at Tycho. Had that not been fate’s path, I might have been a magos biologis myself.’
‘But you still dabble?’ asked Drusher.
‘Oh yes,’ the man said. ‘When I can get out of the office, and away from invoices and shipment manifests and audits and labour disputes with the logging gangs. Any spare moment, you’ll find me out here, away from it all.’
‘You have a good hand,’ said Drusher, gesturing towards the sketch.
The man looked down at his work, and propped the sketch up in its green card cover to consider it.
‘Kind of you to say so, sir,’ he replied. ‘I’m sure I lack your skills of observation and execution. Tell me, are you staying nearby?’
‘Very close by,’ said Drusher.
‘You’re not a friend of Sark’s are you?’
‘Sark?’
‘Draven Sark.’
‘No, I don’t know him.’
The man smiled and shrugged. Drusher found it hard to tell how old he was. He looked Drusher’s age, but that meant little. So many people had juvenat treatment these days, those who could afford it. The man might have been a hundred years old and not look a day over forty. Drusher had heard that recipients of juvenat work lived to ages of a hundred and seventy sometimes.
‘Old Sark’s a friend of mine,’ the man said, returning to his sketch. ‘A neighbour. I only ask because you’re the sort of interesting fellow he has as a guest. In the summer months, they come from all over. Sometimes off-world. I’ll tell you, the people I’ve met at his dinners over the years. Scientists, scholars, merchants, artists, fleet officers…’
‘What does this Master Sark do?’ Drusher asked.
The man frowned.
‘Why, I’ve known him thirty years. Must be at least that. He was one of my father’s friends to begin with. Thirty years, and I confess I don’t know exactly what it is he does. His background is science. Medical science. The old Materia Medica, but I think he’s in investment now. Bulk cargo shipping, mining… that sort of thing. I refer to him as my “very wealthy neighbour”. He lives in the old fortress.’
‘You mean… Helter?’ asked Drusher.
The man looked at him as if he’d made a joke.
‘No, no,’ he said, gesturing vaguely. ‘Keshtre. Further down towards the pass. Much older than Helter.’
‘As I said,’ remarked Drusher with a smile, ‘I don’t know the history.’
‘Oh, the Karanines are full of hill forts. Ancient places. Many are lost now, of course. Some of them are very grand. Palaces. From the Pre-Udarin Age. Keshtre’s one of those.’
Drusher nodded.
‘Out here alone,’ he said, ‘are you not concerned about coming to harm?’
‘From what?’ the man asked.
‘Ursid.’
‘Oh, I see them from time to time. They don’t bother you unless you’re stupid. I’m sure you know that, being a student of nature. You don’t seem to be afraid to be out here on your own.’
‘As you say,’
said Drusher. ‘I know what to do if I run across an ursid. I just wondered. There have been some deaths recently. Ursid kills.’
‘Really?’ asked the man. ‘I hadn’t heard that.’
‘Yes, of late.’
‘Well, thanks for the advice. I’ll keep an eye out. You know, though, one summer… it must be four or five years ago now, I was out sketching. Now, you were kind enough to compliment my work, but I’m very slow. Like today, I can sit for hours before I produce anything halfway decent. So I’d been sitting for three hours, lost in it, and I looked up and – Throne take me – there was a king grey sitting right there. As close to me as you are now. Just minding his business. Huge, he was. So I just kept sketching. You know, no sudden movements. And he sat there for a while longer, then grunted and wandered off into the trees. Funniest thing.’
‘You… you’ve been here awhile today, then?’ Drusher asked.
The man squinted up at the sun.
‘Oh, two hours at least before you came along.’
Drusher hesitated. He was about to speak when he heard someone calling his name in the forests above them.
‘Someone’s looking for me,’ he said.
The man put his sketchbook down and got up. He offered Drusher his hand.
‘Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, magos,’ he said. He listened for a second to the voice calling out from the trees. ‘Magos… Drusher, I believe?’
‘Valentin,’ said Drusher, shaking the man’s hand.
‘I’m Esic,’ the man said. ‘Mind how you go and watch out for those ursids, eh?’
Drusher wandered up the slope from the pool, and saw Nayl coming through the trees towards him. Nayl looked aggravated. He was lugging a large, matt-black lasrifle.
‘What’s the matter?’ Drusher asked.
Nayl slithered to a halt on the mossy slope, and glared at Drusher. He activated the vox-set fixed to his collar.
‘I’ve found him,’ he said. ‘Stand down.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Drusher asked.
‘You left the fortress.’
‘So?’
‘You don’t go out alone. Or without permission.’
‘Why?’ asked Drusher.
‘That’s what Eisenhorn instructed,’ Nayl snapped. ‘Besides, you must have realised it’s not safe out here.’
‘Safe from what?’ asked Drusher.
‘Don’t be difficult,’ said Nayl. ‘Come on. Follow me back.’
‘There’s a man down here,’ Drusher said. ‘It’s odd, actually, he–’
‘What man?’ asked Nayl.
Drusher turned to point.
Down by the pool, there was no one at all.
EIGHT
After Life
‘I just don’t understand,’ Drusher kept saying.
‘Then stop trying,’ said Macks. They were in the old kitchen of Helter Fortress, and she was brewing caffeine in a copper pot.
‘I suppose he could have wandered away when my back was turned,’ said Drusher. ‘But he said he’d been there for hours, and that can’t have been the case, because…’
His voice trailed off. He realised he was chafing his upper arms with his hand, and was still wearing his coat.
‘It’s so cold in here,’ he said.
‘It is,’ she agreed.
He walked over to the sink. His breath was making steam in the air.
‘There’s ice in the sink. Frost on the… on the inside of the windows. Macks?’
‘We’ve been told to ignore it,’ she said.
‘Macks, it’s a warm day outside–’
‘Is it?’ she asked wearily. She put two tin cups of caffeine on the old table.
‘Drink,’ she said.
Drusher peered up through the window. The sky was very dark and unsettled. It looked like evening setting in, but it was still mid-afternoon.
‘Is there a storm coming?’ he asked.
‘I guess there must be,’ said Macks.
He sat down, facing her.
‘What the hell’s going on, Germaine? I walked out of the gates not two hours ago, and it was sunny and clear. Now I come back and it’s like… midwinter.’
She shrugged. She looked uneasy, and Germaine Macks seldom appeared uneasy.
‘There’s stuff going on, and we’re instructed not to ask questions,’ she said.
‘That’s not really good enough,’ he replied.
‘It has to be for me,’ she said. ‘This is my job. I’m assigned to assist.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve had enough of this. I think I might go.’
She looked at him.
‘Don’t screw things up, Valentin,’ she said. ‘They’re offering you an off-world ticket. The thing you’ve always wanted.’
‘Well…’ he began. ‘I’ve done my part. I’ve done what I can.’
‘Tell me about this man you met,’ she said.
‘It was just a man. Out for a walk.’
‘And he vanished.’
‘No, of course he didn’t. He must have walked off. It was nothing.’
‘What did you talk about?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. The countryside. He was a local man. I think he said he was in the logging industry.’
‘Did he have a name?’
Before he could answer, the kitchen door opened, and Voriet and Betancore walked in.
‘We’d like to have a word with the magos,’ Voriet said to Macks. She nodded, then realised it meant they were asking her to leave.
Macks got up, shot a look at Drusher and walked out.
Voriet sat down facing Drusher. Betancore stood, leaning against the larder cupboards.
‘Let’s start with instructions,’ said Voriet. ‘You follow them, magos. You don’t come and go as you please.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Drusher.
‘You do now,’ said Voriet. ‘So that won’t happen again, will it? Not now you know.’
‘It’s for your safety, Valentin,’ said Betancore.
Drusher shrugged grudgingly.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But I don’t like this very much at all.’
‘Now, about this man you met,’ said Voriet, ignoring the remark. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘I just went over this with Macks,’ Drusher said. ‘He was just a… a… He said he lived locally. He knew the area. The way he talked, he knew the history. He ran a timber business. Or his father did. I get the feeling he’d taken it over. That was it, really.’
‘But you thought it was odd,’ said Betancore.
Drusher turned to look at her.
‘Just in hindsight, really, mam,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see him approach in the first place. I just looked up, and there he was. And I didn’t see him leave. But I’m sure that was just me.’
‘You’re a very observant man,’ said Voriet. He put Drusher’s notebook on the table and opened it. ‘You’re a magos biologis. It’s part of the training. These notes you took today, they are testament to an acute level of observation. Details of plant and bird and insect that I would have missed.’
‘I’m not very good with people,’ said Drusher. ‘If he’d been a little hill-hawk, I could have probably told you which direction he flew off in, how fast and where his roost was.’
‘Did he tell you his name?’ asked Betancore.
‘Uh, yes. I think he said it was Esic.’
Voriet and Betancore exchanged glances. Betancore stepped forwards and put a data-slate on the table in front of Drusher.
‘Is this him?’ she asked.
‘No. No, that’s a much older man. Much older.’
She adjusted the display.
‘How about this?’
Drusher pushed his spectacles down his nose and squinted at the pict.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. That’s him. Who is he? Is he a suspect? Is he a criminal?’
‘His name is Esic Fargul,’ said Voriet.
‘So… related to th
e man who died here?’ asked Drusher.
‘Both images are Esic Fargul,’ said Voriet, ‘taken forty years apart. He is the man who died here. In the fifth floor bedroom, thirty years ago.’
There was a long silence.
‘Well, that,’ said Drusher, ‘I mean… that… that’s patently ridiculous. I mean, I spoke to him. I shook his hand.’
‘Quite possibly,’ said Voriet. ‘That doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead.’
‘I shook his hand…’ said Drusher quietly.
‘Take a deep breath,’ said Betancore softly. ‘Sometimes these things are difficult to process.’
‘No, not really, mam,’ said Drusher. ‘Groxshit, however, is difficult to process. Your data is wrong, Master Voriet. He clearly isn’t dead.’
‘He died of age-related illness and poor circumstance,’ said Voriet. ‘He was ninety-seven.’
‘Then the body was misidentified.’
‘Magos Drusher, please try to accept this information,’ said Voriet. ‘Even if Fargul was somehow still alive, you admit the man you saw was much younger.’
‘Well, juvenat work,’ said Drusher. ‘It reverses the ageing process, doesn’t it? That’s what I’ve heard. I’ve never had it myself.’
‘I have,’ said Medea Betancore. ‘I am one hundred and sixty-four standard years old.’
Drusher’s eyes widened.
‘Inquisitor Eisenhorn is at least a century older,’ she continued. ‘Magos, juvenat work arrests ageing. It seldom reverses it. If Fargul was alive, he would not look fifty or sixty years younger than he did in later life.’
‘So, you’re telling me,’ said Drusher, ‘a more reasonable explanation is that I met a ghost?’
‘The term is inexact,’ said Voriet.
‘And shook his damned hand?’