Cadman's Gambit

by D. P. Prior

  Before he could put a name to the scene, Cadman’s focus shifted, affording him a glimpse of a shimmering portal, a celestial gateway to another world that evoked within him a tangle of buried desires, forgotten hungers: dreams, magic, the power to endure. For a few seconds he probed and tested the edge of the portal with ethereal hands, and then he was through, his spirit eyes opening upon magnificent alien vistas beneath a heavy cobalt sky. A snow-capped mountain range rolled away beneath him, forming a natural wall between a sprawling desert dotted with settlements and a churning cloud of smog that hung like a pall over the lands beyond. He wafted through a murky forest where the twin suns were thwarted by a thick canopy of leaves and writhing foliage. A colossal man wreathed in flame raged atop a smoking volcano, whilst dark goblins skulked through the trees below.

  Cadman soared in the spirit, ever aware of the anchor of his earthly frame, his life force stretched between worlds like a frayed sinew. He passed a magnificent city surrounded by impenetrable walls made from huge blocks of stone, seamlessly mortared, spires and minarets glinting like fool’s gold. He saw villages amongst the trees, and coracles upon the great lakes. Armoured legions marched across a septic wasteland strewn with bleached bones and bordered by an endless rotting marsh. His gaze was drawn to a single black mountain sticking up from the white desert like a colossal dorsal fin. Silvery spheres spiralled about the summit and one drew closer to investigate, all the prompting Cadman needed to glide away.

  He flew deep into the heart of this new world, diving through the bubbling miasma of a steaming crevasse and into smouldering passages where the whispers grew louder.

  Something roiled and seethed in the shadows below, slick as oil and just as black. Tentacles quested through the darkness, and grimacing heads sprouted from a central brooding mass, teeth grinding, empty eyes reflecting the Abyss. Cadman drifted to the floor of a cavern that seemed to be formed of coal.

  ‘You have done well, Cadman. Soon the pupil will outgrow the master. Even Blightey never held such power.’ The voice had the quality of leaves rustling in the wind, the head that spoke the words bursting and then reabsorbed by the body.

  Lies, Cadman told himself. Don’t believe a word of it. No more reckless action. But, on the other hand, imagine if he did grow more powerful than Blightey: no more hiding in anonymity in the rectum of the world. He could leave Sahul and return to Nousia. Maybe he could even set foot once more on the soil of Britannia.

  ‘My master is pleased with your progress. It is his desire that you possess the entire statue,’ said another head, its neck twisted at a grotesque angle.

  ‘Your master?’

  The head gave a gurgling laugh. ‘I am the Dweller of Gehenna, Cadman. The Dweller on the threshold of the Abyss.’

  Between a rock and a hard place. Cadman groaned internally. On the one side, the sadistic Otto Blightey sequestered in his castle in deepest Verusia, and on the other, the Demiurgos—the father of decay, despite, and dissipation. Ancient balderdash, he’d always thought, but falsification of the myth was proving much more difficult now Cadman was faced with the undulating demon from his nightmare; now that he held within his hands the power of the Demiurgos’s sister. All he needed was for the Archon to show up in a blaze of light and he’d swallow the whole Aeonic Triad creation myth hook, line, and sinker.

  ‘You must think I’m really desperate if you think I’m going to enter into some Mephistophelean pact with your hell-spawned master.’ Now there was a play to fire the imagination, Cadman thought, recalling the terror he’d felt at the protagonist being dragged off kicking and screaming to a fiery pit. He was damned if he could remember what it was called…

  A tremor passed through the Dweller and it shuffled back with a sound like sifting sand. ‘My master is not from hell, though he is acquainted with it. He is lord of his own creation, free from the evils of the Ancient of Days, the capricious god Blightey renamed Nous to hoodwink the survivors of the Reckoning. The Demiurgos seeks only to share his freedom with you.’

  ‘What freedom? I heard he was trapped in the bubble of his own imagination on the brink of the Void. Think I’ll take my chances on my own, if you don’t mind.’

  The Dweller oozed back further. ‘As you wish. I will trouble you no more. Everything is in motion now. Either you will prevail or…’

  ‘Or what?’ Cadman almost shrieked as the demon started to thrash and blister, its tentacles retracting into its body, heads popping and liquefying.

  ‘You have made a gambit, Cadman. A flip of the coin between eternal perdurance and oblivion. The wheels have been turning since first we met, when you cowered beneath the covers on your bed. Since you elected to clutch at hope. Fate plays out inexorably, and who knows what she will bring? Whereas my master only deals in certainties.’

  The Dweller collapsed in on itself and splashed to the rough coal floor; an oily puddle that immediately began to shrink until only a single drop remained.

  ‘Wait!’ Cadman cried, cursing himself for his rashness.

  The drop shuddered and grew, spurting upwards in a great torrent of goo that set like tar in the form of a naked youth with glistening skin, blacker than the shadows.

  ‘I need more time,’ Cadman said.

  The demon bowed and spread its arms. ‘Then you shall have it. By all means, go after the statue on your own. I wish you luck; but if you should need my help, know that it comes at a cost. Like you,’ the youth gave him a sickly-sweet smile that revealed serrated teeth carved from obsidian, ‘I need to feed. One life in return for one task; that is all I ask. We can discuss the finer details nearer the time.’

  Cadman tried to swallow, but there was a lump in his throat. ‘Then you’ll wait?’

  ‘Like an obedient dog.’ The Dweller dissolved into mist and shadows, leaving only empty space in its wake.

  Cadman forced open the eyes of his earthly body and stared at the amber glow from the fang and the eye suffusing his bony hands. ‘The illusion!’ He thrust the pieces into his jacket pocket and raised his fingers to his face, feeling only the dry hardness of his skull, and cavities where once there had been eyes.

  ‘Callixus!’ he rasped, reaching out with his mind and feeling the wraith’s sullen consciousness. ‘I need food. Quickly, bring it to me!’

  Cadman jumped out of his chair as the door opened. Lallia stood there suspended in time as she stared at him with the blankness of shock. Her hands let go the tray, which crashed to the carpet in a spray of china shrapnel and splashing tea.

  Before she could find her voice, Cadman scuttled across the room, tugged her inside and slammed the door.

  ‘I know,’ he said, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘I know I look terrible.’ He locked the door and pocketed the key.

  Lallia never once took her eyes off him. Her mouth hung open and all the blood had drained from her face. She swooned and Cadman grabbed her with a skeletal hand, fearing she was about to faint. Lallia pulled away and then vomited all over his jacket.

  ‘Ugh!’ Cadman leapt back, struggling out of the jacket and flinging it in the corner.

  Yuk! Bodily fluids. I’d probably throw up myself, if I still could.

  ‘You’re…’ Lallia coughed up some more sick, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘You’re a…monster!’

  Cadman tried to frown, but then realized he had no facial muscles with which to express himself. ‘That might be putting it a bit harshly.’

  ‘Help!’ Lallia screamed at the top of her voice.

  Cadman slipped between her and the door, holding his hands behind his back. ‘Now look…’ he started, but Lallia wasn’t listening.

  A shadow detached itself from the opposite wall and drifted towards her. She stammered something and dropped like a stone as Callixus took on some semblance of solidity, red eyes smouldering through the slit of his great helm.

  ‘I brought you these,’ he said, unrolling a cloth bundle and dropping fresh meat to the carpet: a pallid breast, a blood-drenched h
eart, and a succulent hunk of flesh that could only have come from a buttock. ‘Seems you won’t be needing them after all.’

  ‘What?’ Cadman snapped, wondering how he was going to get the stains out of the carpet before his next appointment. ‘No, you imbecile, she’s not for eating! She works here. She’ll be missed.’ He crouched down to pick up the buttock flesh and tore out a strip with his teeth. ‘Where’d you get this?’ he asked with his mouth full.

  ‘Calphon.’

  Cadman half expected to gag, but then gave a shrug. There wasn’t much chance of him catching anything from prostitutes. When you were a virtual cadaver with a burning hunger, one meal was as good as another—as long as the flesh was human.

  ‘It is another mark against your soul, Doctor, using me thus.’

  Cadman spat out a gristly bit. ‘Just do as you’re told. Trust me, Callixus, things can get a damn sight worse for you. And besides, it was an emergency. Do you think I’ve the time to wait around for the ghouls to drag something in?’ And slobber all over it before I get a bite?

  Lallia stirred and groaned. Cadman dropped the meat and helped her to sit. She was initially dazed, but as soon as she focused on him the terror returned.

  ‘This is not what it seems,’ he said, instantly regretting the cliché. ‘I’m still Dr Cadman, it’s just that I’m…how do I put this? I’m not very well.’

  Lallia looked like she was about to scream again. Cadman clamped a bony hand over her mouth.

  ‘Shh!’ he said, releasing the pressure a little when she nodded. ‘Now I realise this is distressing. Believe me, I go through the same thing every morning when I wake up. I don’t expect you to understand, but I would appreciate your discretion.’

  Lallia’s eyes narrowed at that.

  ‘Good,’ Cadman said. ‘That’s better. Now, then, what’s this going to cost me? I have money, antiques, the finest wines from Quilonia.’ He took his hand away from her mouth and leaned in closer. ‘I even have some very potent pills from Aeterna that would heighten your pleasure beyond your wildest dreams.’

  Lallia pushed herself to her feet and brushed the sick from her shirt. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure. I have some pretty wild dreams.’

  Cadman’s joints creaked as he moseyed over to the desk and rummaged about in the bottom drawer. ‘Here,’ he said, tossing her a jar of tablets. ‘Take one half an hour before and the earth will most definitely move.’

  ‘It better,’ Lallia said, thrusting the jar down her top and trying the door handle.

  Cadman waved the key at her, crossed the room and inserted it in the lock. ‘Absolute discretion,’ he said as Callixus drew alongside.

  Lallia’s eyes flicked from the wraith back to Cadman. ‘Deal,’ she said.

  Cadman turned the key and let her go. ‘A plate, Callixus.’ He locked the door and strode back to the meat. ‘Next time bring me a plate and utensils. I will not be reduced to licking my meals from the carpet like a dog, or those infernal grave-robbing ghouls.’

  Callixus followed him like a shadow, eyes flaring, the black mist of his body rippling with what Cadman had learnt was nervous anticipation.

  ‘You don’t need to ask me today, Callixus,’ Cadman said, biting into the heart and reforming the illusion of fleshiness. He rubbed his restored girth with some satisfaction. ‘I have decided to awaken the Lost.’

  ‘My Elect?’ hissed Callixus with a rush of what sounded like excitement.

  ‘The time is right,’ Cadman said, savouring a particularly moist morsel and wiping the blood from his moustache. ‘I know how long you’ve waited, but without the power of Eingana I couldn’t raise them. First we must go to Gaston Rayn. There are things I must discuss with him whilst he’s still receptive. His knights and yours will make a most complementary team, don’t you think? Meet me at the tumulus after dark.’

  Callixus gave a shallow bow before walking straight through the wall.

  Cadman retrieved the eye and the fang from his discarded jacket. They’d returned to a dull amber, cold and lifeless. He slipped them inside his waistcoat pocket and frowned down at the gore staining the carpet.

  ‘Lallia!’ he called, rushing over to the door, fumbling with the key and tearing it open. She should have been long gone by now, but Cadman knew she’d be eavesdropping.

  ‘Yes,’ she said a little too eagerly, looking like she was about to knock on the door opposite.

  ‘I wonder if you might be a dear and help me with this mess.’ Cadman beckoned her inside. ‘I’m such a butter-fingers, I’ve dropped some specimens, and there’s also the spillage from your little accident with the tea tray.’

  Lallia blanched when she saw the half-eaten flesh. Cadman moved to one side in case she was sick again, but she just grimaced and swallowed. ‘It’ll cost you more.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Cadman said. ‘I’ll have a rummage around. I’m sure I’ve got something else just to your liking.’

  Filthy little trollop, he thought as he left her to it and decided to call it a day.

  MALICIDE

  The refectory was rather a drab affair, the walls bare except for a coat of flaking magnolia and a couple of battered cupboards, the floor a jigsaw of cracked and filthy terracotta tiles. Rhiannon was hunched over a steaming cup of tea at one end of the karri-wood table, whilst Soror Agna fiddled with a dusty oil lamp she’d set upon the worktop. The basin was piled with dirty crockery, a sodden cloth draped over the side and smelling like rotten fruit. The failing sun peeked through smeared windows, its sickly light giving the left side of Rhiannon’s face a jaundiced hue.

  Shader lurked in the doorway, wishing Agna would leave Rhiannon alone for just one minute. As if sensing his thoughts, Agna turned her head, thick spectacles crooked on her sallow face and making one eye look bigger than the other.

  ‘Oh,’ she said with a mixture of surprise and disdain.

  Rhiannon looked up mid-sip, rolled her eyes and slurped. ‘What d’you want?’ she asked, setting down the cup with a clatter.

  Shader half-entered the refectory and stopped, feeling awkward and self-conscious—how he usually was around women, but never Rhiannon. She’d always made him feel…all right, whatever he did or said. She just took everything with a pinch of salt, accepted him for what he was, let him move on from his mistakes. And it was so natural, not like the priests in the confessionals trying to view you with the eyes of Ain and all the time letting slip a slight air of condescension, as if they thought you were something they’d just trodden in.

  Agna stepped back from the lamp, raised her hands and looked like she was about to chastise it. Her shoulders touched her ears as she drew in a whistling breath through the gaps in her teeth, and then sagged as she gave an exaggerated sigh.

  ‘Savages.’ She shook her head. ‘Can’t even make a working lamp. That’s one thing you can say for Aeterna: at least there they know how to make stuff. Heathen rubbish.’ She took a swipe at the lamp, stopping a hair’s breadth from hitting it and giving it a flick with her finger. ‘Naughty light,’ she said in a voice like a little girl reprimanding a truculent doll. ‘Come in, come in.’ She waved Shader to a seat opposite Rhiannon. ‘I’m sure you two have lots to talk about.’ The tone was friendly, but the eyes were hard.

  ‘Thank you,’ Shader said, sitting and offering Rhiannon a feeble smile.

  ‘Can I get you some tea?’ Agna asked.

  ‘No thank you, Soror, I’m fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘It’s no bother.’

  ‘No, really, I’m fine.’

  Agna stuck out her bottom lip. ‘Oh, well, suit yourself.’ She patted Rhiannon on the head as she hobbled toward the door. ‘Shout if you need me. I’ll be in the chapel.’

  She gave Shader a final look, nodded to herself with a decisive grunt, and then left them in peace.

  ‘Rhiannon,’ Shader began, his mouth dry. ‘I…’

  Rhiannon stood unexpectedly and went to a cupboard.
‘You acted like an arse. Want some bread?’ She took down a loaf and tore off a chunk, cramming it into her mouth. She winced and touched a hand to her jaw. ‘Shog that hurts. Bloody cock-sucker.’

  ‘Rhiannon!’ Shader stood and closed the door. ‘This is a—‘

  ‘A templum? Yeah, I know. I’m the one in the poxy alb. What, you don’t like the swearing? Not Nousian enough for you? Least I don’t go round with a couple of bloody swords strapped to my waist.’

  ‘Fair point,’ he conceded. ‘We are what we are, I suppose.’ He crossed the room and hovered at her shoulder.

  ‘Lame,’ Rhiannon grunted, spraying him with crumbs.

  Shader made a show of wiping them from his face, doing his best to look stern.

  Rhiannon’s lip showed the barest curl at the edge, and then she guffawed, bent double and clamped her hands over her mouth to stop the bread from spewing out. Shader chuckled, feeling some of the tension leave him, but when Rhiannon straightened up her face was streaming with tears. He felt an urge to hold her to him, to ease away her pain; to reconnect with whatever it was they’d lost; but as he leaned towards her she flinched.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he backed away. ‘I was only…’

  ‘He stabbed him, Deacon.’ She held onto the edge of the table for support. ‘Gaston stabbed him…Dad…a sword in his chest.’

  Shader sat back down. ‘Yeffrik? Gaston…?’

  Rhiannon nodded and returned to her seat.

  Shader put a hand over his eyes and tried to think, but nothing was making much sense. The idea sounded crazy: Gaston killed Yeffrik…with the sword Shader had given him? Barek hadn’t said anything about…Shader grimaced. He’d not exactly given the lad a chance.

  ‘How is your mum taking…?’

  Rhiannon shook her head, her chin trembling with the effort to hold back more tears, to stop her from breaking down completely.