by Caro King
‘Yep. Tipped me out right on the rug.’
‘So …’ Polpp’s voice took on a tone of awe, ‘so ’ow come yer ’ere?’
Nin smiled. ‘I got away from Mr Strood,’ she said quietly. ‘And if you like, you can be the first to tell the other BMs how. Only there’s a price.’
‘I’m list’ning,’ said Polpp. And he did.
When she was done, he chuckled. ‘They’re right about yew bein’ a lucky sort then. Snails outa the blue, eh?’
While Nin waited patiently, the hollow boom of the Evebell echoed through the down-house. She was hungry and her throat was dry with talking, but any minute now it would all be worth it.
‘Well,’ said Polpp cheerfully, ‘yer’ll be wantin’ me t’ keep my part o’ the bargain, eh?’ Reaching out he grabbed a book from the shelves and ripped out a page. Then he ripped off a splinter of book shelf, burned it into charcoal and began to draw. When he had finished he wrote two words above it and underlined them heavily.
They were:
Memory Room
Then he handed it over to Nin.
Samfy was in the laboratory feeding the kid in the cage when two guards struggled in carrying something between them in a net. Outside, the Evebell began to toll as the sun slipped low in the sky.
‘Watchit, the blimmin’ thing jus’ bit me again!’
They headed towards the second cage and yanked the door open, throwing the struggling thing inside. Then they left, sounding a lot more cheerful and talking about a nice cup of tea.
The kid in the cage, a small blond boy with blue eyes that seemed to grow larger and darker every day, went pale. He shivered inside the loose shirt and trousers that Samfy had given him to wear instead of his pyjamas. Mr Strood had been keeping the boy caged up, waiting for the time when one of the garden spiders wandered into the House and got caught. Samfy hadn’t told Milo anything about it because she thought he would be upset, she had just done her best to make the captured kid’s last days bearable.
She reached in through the bars with her small hand and stroked his head to comfort him.
‘They don’t hurt people,’ she said. ‘It’s only so big because Mr Strood experimented on its great-grand-spider, that’s all.’
The kid in the cage looked at her with his violet eyes and Samfy tried not to cry for him. She knew what the captured spider meant. The experiment to make new Eyes could begin and she had better hurry out of the way before Mr Strood turned up to start preparing some of his special Fusion.
But she stayed a moment longer to hold the boy’s hand.
Jonas strode on up the stairs. He felt torn inside. Part of him was elated at having found another escape route so easily, the rest was angry and afraid.
Sitting with Gorgle while he cried over his brothers and sisters, Jonas had finally understood that Strood was both insane and evil.
Somewhere a bell began to toll, its deep boom echoing down the corridors, filling his head. He was beginning to hate the terrible House of Strood. The things that were done here filled him with rage, and the fear of what might happen to Nin was growing with every step. And inside him, the hound began to pace.
At last he made it to the storerooms. Staring down the long, dimly lit corridor, Jonas rubbed a hand over his face and was surprised to find that he was crying.
Some time later he ground to a halt. He had been from one end of the storerooms to the other and although he had found a great many things, he had found no trace of Nin. He was tired, afraid and angry and the hound inside him was close enough to bring a weird light to his eyes. Once or twice he caught himself snarling under his breath. He began to pace, going back over the corridors even though he knew that Nin wasn’t there.
An inner lurch brought him to a halt, a moment of confusion while he worked out where he was. Jonas gazed around, trying to hold back the tide of panic growing inside him. A moment ago he had been near the stairs, wondering whether to go on up or sleep where he was. Now, somehow, he was halfway down the corridor again. The lamps had been turned off and only a couple of night lights lifted the darkness.
There was a blank in his memory. Time was missing.
Jonas looked down. His hands were bloody, the nails ripped and broken. He looked up. The earth walls around him were scored and marked in a hundred places, as if some hound had been clawing at them, trying to get out.
Jonas flung back his head and howled.
Then, overcome by a wave of sickness, he sank to the floor. His head was spinning and he could feel darkness lurking behind his eyes. Darkness and something else.
The battle with the hound had begun.
29
The Ballads of Arafin Strood
ost of Skerridge was curled up in the dusters box in the cupboard next to the servants’ quarters. It was quiet and comfortable there, apart from something knobbly hidden amid the dusters and wedged up against his left shoulder.
The tiny grains of Sunatorium crystal rubbed into his skin had been multiplying all through the afternoon and evening, each new particle fastening itself to a cell in his body and starting to twang it to and fro between yesterday, tomorrow and some completely random time in the past. So, while some of him was reliving the morning’s elation at getting in over the roof, other parts of him were feeling the pain and regret that tomorrow would bring. On top of that, more bits of him were locked into memories of so long ago that he couldn’t even begin to remember what they were about.
He was feeling worse than he had ever felt in his life. Everything was blurry and his head hurt. He couldn’t remember what day it was and once or twice had found himself holding conversations with people he hadn’t seen for years. One of them was actually dead and had been for nearly three decades.
The small part of his brain that was hanging fiercely on to reality was aware that this was just the beginning. Once the Temporal Phase Fever really got going, conversations with dead people would be the least of his worries.
The disease reached its peak not long after the lights dimmed and the House began to settle down for the night. The molecules of crystal began to work in harmony and Skerridge’s jumbled dreams of the past became clear and focused. Once TPF had fixed on a memory, it dragged its victim there and locked them up, making them live in the event until the fever passed, killed its victim or turned them permanently insane. By now, the conscious part of Skerridge had lost contact with the dusters box and was watching in a disembodied way as the most significant event of his past played out before him.
Skerridge had been there at the Final Gathering, had been part of the fateful event that marked the last days of the Seven Sorcerers, the rise of Mr Strood and the dreadful end of the apothecary, Gan Mafig. The memories were scored into his brain like images carved on a monument and right now, fired by the TPF, they were becoming as sharp and vivid as life.
In the real-time House something howled, the sound echoing up from the night-time corridors far below. The servants shifted in their beds or paused at their late suppers, and the guards glanced uneasily over their shoulders, but the Terrible House was used to horrible howlings from the Maug and on the whole took no notice. If he had heard it, Skerridge might have realised that this time it wasn’t the Maug, but he was too far in the past by now, whimpering nervously as he realised what he was about to live through all over again.
In front of him the scenes of the Final Gathering began to unfold.
Nin closed the library door quietly behind her. She was feeling a lot more positive about things. Polpp had gone about his business leaving her free to search the library, so she knew for sure that Toby wasn’t there. She just had to hope she would find him on the empty floor. And then she would have him and the map to the memory room and all she would have left to do was find the tunnel in the graveyard.
She paused, thinking about her next move. It was growing late and she knew that she should go back to the Sunatorium. A maid creeping about the House at night would be worthy of notice.
&nb
sp; Something howled, its chill sound sweeping over her and making her skin prickle. She couldn’t tell exactly where it came from, but it didn’t sound like it was far away. Nin shuddered, remembering what Milo had said about the housekeeper being part werewolf.
With something like that around, she didn’t fancy going back through the dark storerooms. Head down and clutching her broom like a talisman, she flew along the corridor and up the stairs at the other end, the stairs that led to Mr Strood’s laboratory and the hallway to the Sunatorium. No one passed, not even an Eyes. It was some time since the Evebell had sounded and the House lamps, bright during the day, were now turned low.
When, at last, she reached the Sunatorium, something made her pause, she didn’t know what. It was a good thing too, because there was somebody there – a woman, tall and angular, a bunch of keys hanging from a chain around her severe, brown dress. She was staring out of the crystal wall, gazing at the fat, nearly full moon that stared back at her, turning the trees to ink silhouettes and gilding the floor with silver. Nin had no doubt at all that this was the half-wolf housekeeper. And if that was the case then what was it that had howled so horribly in the down-house? It couldn’t have been the Maug because the Death Dog lived up here and the sound had definitely come from below.
Jonas, she thought. Jonas followed me. She turned at once to go back. She would have to find him, help him fight the Hound inside him and then together they could look for Toby. She had barely started down the corridor when she heard the heavy tread of one of the guards coming towards her. She had no choice but to run the other way, up the hall towards the picture of Gan Mafig. In the dim light it looked even more horrible and the old man’s eyes seemed full of unspeakable torment.
This was the point where the corridor branched, left towards the Maug and right towards the kitchens. Now she could hear something else, a soft padding that might be an Eyes. Frozen she stared left and right into the gloom, but whatever it was had not yet turned the corner. Behind her, the door to the Sunatorium swished open. Panic gripped her. The werewolf Grimm would see her. She was going to be caught.
Quickly, Nin ran up the stairs. There was a half-open door so she hurried in and pulled it shut behind her. She looked around at the solid slab of a desk in the middle of the room. Her heart began to thump as she realised that she was hiding in Mr Strood’s study.
After a moment she calmed down and began to think. It was unlikely that Mr Strood would come in here at this time of night. Perhaps she should give it half an hour or so before she moved. Hopefully any end-of-the-day activity would have finished by then and everyone would be in bed, leaving her free to make it to the Sunatorium in safety, as long as she managed to avoid the Eyes.
While she waited, Nin took a look around. The study was furnished pretty much like everywhere else, except for a large window behind the desk. Unlike the others in the House this one was not blocked up, just covered with a heavy velvet curtain. She peered behind it, but backed off quickly when she realised that it overlooked the Maug’s courtyard.
The other walls were lined with bookcases and Nin wondered if some of the books might hold useful information. She began to browse along the shelves.
Her first discovery was a row of large volumes bound in faded silk that must have once been vivid scarlets and blues. They were titled The Deeds of King Galig of Beorht Eardgeard, and he had to be a Fabulous because no mere Quick life could fill that many volumes. Nin found herself longing to read the stories, but she did not have time and so she moved on to a smaller bookcase where the books were thinner and mostly seemed to be Mr Strood’s poetry. She wondered if they would be like a diary, a record of the House and things that happened in it, so she took one down and dipped in.
To her surprise they were fascinating. They told the story of Celidon, giving her a taste of life in a dying world where desperation walked the streets and even the strongest lived in fear. Then she found the last ballad of the book.
It had originally been called ‘The Ballad of the Final Gathering’, but Strood had obviously changed his mind, and had scored though that page and then started again with the title ‘Gan Mafig’s Servant’. The poem was different from the rest and had been written directly into the book instead of being drafted on scrap and copied in when it was finished. The writing was larger and more sprawled, perhaps done in a hurry or with anger. Further down Strood had given up on poetry altogether and had just written words so furiously that in one place the nib of his pen had torn the page. Nin began to read:
Gan Mafig’s Servant
T’was on the day eve of Candlesong
When all the sky was dark,
Sorcerers came they seven strong
And EVIL it did made its mark.
For evil cruel deeds they did that night
Under the cloud-filled skies.
They used their Fabulous magic might
To cast the Spell of Lies.
And with them went the apoth chemist,
His servant at his side,
To mix twine their cast with soul-mist
And death from life divide.
Cowards! Cowards! Stinking cowards may their innards rot forever. And history dares to call them Great!
Do you know what they did? These GREAT sorcerers.
They were dying and knew it and they wanted a way out, a way to extend life. AT ANY COST.
Cowards. Bone deep, jelly-livered COWARDS. Call them Fabulous!
And Mafig. The GREAT apothecary. Miserable, treacherous son of a sewer rat. Nothing fabulous about him. He was just a chemist. Just a pitiful, grovelling, whinging chemist. He ran away, yellow-hearted gutter dog. RAN AWAY. After all the years I served him. All the years of faithful service. May his brain fill with pus and his heart burst! But then, I saw to him, didn’t I? I made him pay for what he did to me. I couldn’t get them, but I got him all right. I got HIM.
And then suddenly the evening lamps went out and night took hold of the Terrible House. With the door closed and even the hall lights gone, Nin found herself in a darkness so thick that all she could do was crawl into a corner and shiver until exhaustion plunged her into a sleep full of confused dreams and the painted image of Gan Mafig’s tortured face.
30
One Burns, the Other Grows
aggit Sepplekrum had long since finished his last grave of the day. As usual at the end of a lot of hard digging, he had thrown his spade to the ground, wiped his clammy forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt, and reached for his flask of soured milk. After a long swig he had settled back on the grass, staring at the distant ceiling with the flask balanced on his middle while late evening crept into deep night.
A fly buzzed past. Absentmindedly, Taggit flicked out a long black tongue and snapped it up.
He had been talking to Jonas for less than half of his morning, but however brief it had been, the contact with someone from outside the House had brought back memories of a time when his world had not been confined to the graveyard. Inevitably, that led him to the event that had changed his life beyond recognition. Like many other Fabulous, Taggit Sepplekrum had witnessed the Final Gathering.
Back in those days, when Celidon was a living world, the House was called Sea View and it belonged to Gan Mafig, the evil genius behind the Mortal Distillation Process and the greatest Quick apothecary that Celidon had ever known. So, when the Sorcerers came together to cheat the plague, they gathered at Sea View with Gan Mafig present to distil and weave the spells, and Gan Mafig’s servant on hand to hold the cloaks.
And it was after the Final Gathering, when the world was picking up the pieces and trying to get on with life not knowing yet that life would never be the same again, that Taggit Sepplekrum made the worst decision of his life.
Celidon was dying. The Final Gathering of the Seven Sorcerers had failed and soon even they would be gone. Although the goblins, bogeymen and tombfolk might hang on for a century or so, eventually they would join the rest of the Fabulous in extinction. But,
after the events of the day, Taggit knew in his bones that when Celidon was dead the power that ruled the remains would be living here at Sea View. And if Dread had anything to do with it, Sea View would be the last part of the Land to die.
A few weeks later, Arafin Strood took a horrible revenge on Gan Mafig for his part in it all and the apothecary vanished without trace. Some said he was still imprisoned within the House, but Taggit knew that story couldn’t be true. The Final Gathering had taken place too many decades ago when Mafig was already in his sixties. Even if Strood hadn’t finished him, Mafig would have died of old age long ago.
After Mafig had disappeared, Strood had claimed ownership of the House and had begun to draw a web of power around him. So Taggit had decided to stay and help with the excavations, overseeing the Quick and the Grimm whose hard work built the down-house. And after that he had taken the job of gravedigger. Since then, all he had done was dig graves. Taggit blinked thoughtfully. After a life packed with event and adventure he had spent the last few decades digging graves. Nothing else. Not a thing.
He had stayed at the Terrible House because he wanted to live longer, but as it turned out he hadn’t been living at all.
As Jik swam through the walls towards the centre of the Terrible House, he heard something howl. It was muffled by the layers of earth around him, but it was unmistakable. Jonas was still alive. Jik also guessed from the horribleness of the howl that its owner would not be in a fit state to do any rescuing. It was all down to one mudman, and time was ticking by.