by Eric Griffin
“You are too kind to an old fiend.” The Devil lowered the half-empty bowl from his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He drew up short, seeing young Columcille eyeing him from the far side of the room.
“My manners.” he said apologetically. “It’s been some time since I’ve dined in such company. Mostly I take what meals I can get alone.” Then, more confidently, “The stew is excellent. And I suspect you are harboring more than one fine cook beneath your roof. “He peeked around to where Brigid leaned against the table, watching the newcomer with undisguised curiosity. She retreated behind her mother’s skirts.
The Devil finished the fish stew more carefully. One spoonful at a time. By the time he had finished, he had the worst of the cold and pain at bay. The small thatched cottage was cozy enough. A single room. To one side a table, various pots and pans hanging above it, and a pantry. Against the back wall, fireplace and sitting area. On the other side, a curtain of sailcloth separated the bed from the rest of the room and hid a cradle as well, from the sound of it.
“That’ll be Brendan,” Emer said, already heading in that direction. “You’ll excuse me.”
“Of course, of course.”
She vanished behind the curtain and the Devil he waves Corraig closer.
“A fine woman, you’re lucky to have landed her.”
“She reminds me daily. But tell me, now that you have your breath back, what brought you to these parts? Do you have kin here, or just down Dublin-way perhaps? I’m surprised you didn’t put ashore there. We don’t see many, but our own fishing boats dock here.”
The Devil, he wasn’t inclined to point out his host’s mistaken impression. “My people are scattered to the four comers of the globe.” It was not an idle boast. “I would be surprised if I didn’t find some long-forgotten kinsman right here amongst your own. But I was turned about and forced ashore here by the storm. We were indeed making for Dublin town. And I must be away again shortly.”
“Rest easy, your mates will not be putting out to sea again this day. Nor tomorrow, likely. We can send word round to them in the morning. Let them know you’re well and will rejoin them soon. Are you a trader, then?”
“No. Myself, just a traveler, a self-imposed exile far from the comforts of home and family. “And truer words were never spoke.
“But I would like to think that there are one or two in these parts who might yet have cause to remember me fondly.” At this, the Devil he grows thoughtful. “There was a young lady of my acquaintance, a lady of Baeme. A clever lass with a rare knack for finding things that were lost. Everyone for miles about remarked it. But that would have been many a year now since last I darked her door.”
“The Hag of Baeme?” Corraig laughed. “Why I’d be willing to bet no one’s called the Wise Woman a “lass” since long before you or I were born. I only wish she could be here to hear you say it herself. I can see why she was fond on you, old silver ‘tongue.” Corraig’s face became somber. “She was a good woman for all her divining and charms and philtres. She will be missed.”
“What? Do you tell me…”
Corraig raised his glass. “To the Wise Woman of Baeme. May she be in heaven half an hour before the Devil knows she’s dead.”
Sunday, 25 July 1999, 12:31 AM
Chantry of the Five Boroughs
New York City, New York
Part of Foley’s mind was vaguely aware that a disjoint had taken place. That time was proceeding without him.
His eyes opened but, due to the perversity of time, there was a discrepancy between the physical act and the arrival of light waves that normally followed it. The portion of his mind that was still attending to such external details received stimuli that seemed already several minutes old.
His lips were moving as if of their own accord. They chanted words in a dead language. But the time-sense of his speech was different from that of his vision. Words that would only find voice an hour hence mingled with sights that were already lost to the past.
A ripple obscured the time-sense, shifted relationships. Foley saw now the way in which his hands would grasp (had grasped?) the pine sticks. His eyes recorded how he would snap each stick, and how not sap but blood would drain into the silver tray—the blood of a black cat. That was significant somehow.
Of course, Jacqueline! The cat had a child’s face, a little girl. It smiled up at him, baring vestigial fangs. Foley let the face age in his mind. Its lines hardened, twisted into middle age, revealing the familiar features of his apprentice, his judge, his would-be murderer. Of course. Again he heard his mother telling him that a cat in the house would steal a baby’s breath.
Foley was unsure of the passage of time in the outer world and he feared he was collapsing dangerously inward. But there was something more here. Something he had missed. He was very near the center now, the lnteriora Tenae. If answers were to be found anywhere, they would be here. If only he could…
Suddenly, a light flared in the darkness of the labyrinth. A blazing yellow orb. The eye regarded him suspiciously. “Who’s there?” The voice seemed to come from somewhere beyond the eye. “I know there is someone there, but I can’t make him out. You see him? In the shadows, there, between the Witch’s Shins.”
A second voice soothed, “Be easy, dearest. It is nothing. A trick of the light. There is no one here who can harm you.”
Foley warily circled the eye, peering intently into the shadows it splashed upon the labyrinth walls. He thought he could pick out the outline of an opening of sorts, a dark gap where two pillars leaned noticeably together. He moved closer.
“There! It moved again. Catch it. Bind it. Send it away. It cannot be allowed to interfere.”
The second voice tried another tack. “Leopold, look who is here. It is our friend, Foley. Foley has come to visit you. Isn’t that lovely? Leopold, you remember Foley.”
Leopold dropped his chisel. It clattered to the cave’s floor. He refused to turn. “I do not.”
“Foley, come here, into the light, dear. Let me look at you. That’s better. Here is your cousin Leopold. We were just talking about you, weren’t we Leopold?”
Foley still could not pick out the second speaker in the shadowy vastness of the cave. There was a glimmer of something just beyond a turning in the cavern. Something just beyond the edge of his vision. When he squinted his eyes, he had a vague impression of something vast. Something coaxed from the shadows and given form only by the ambiguous magic of reflected light. Something that gleamed dully, with a flat luster like that of beaten gold.
“Foley? Foley. Don’t know any Foley. Oh, send him away.”
“Now, that is no way to treat your cousin. And he’s come such a long way to see you. To see your work.”
At this Leopold turned. He took a quick step toward Foley and then drew up short as if struck. “It’s not finished. Can’t see it yet. Come back later.”
“Leopold!”
The cave itself seemed to reverberate with the force of the gentle scolding. Somewhere behind Foley, the eye flared. Leopold shrank back before its intensity.
“All right. He can wait then for all I care. But not a word out of him or…”
“Now, there will be no threats here, Leopold. There can be no threats between cousins, dearest.”
“Or it’s back down the well with him.”
With growing horror, Foley felt his lips moving, as if of their own accord, forming the dead words begun hours before. He watched the syllables tumble out into blackness.
“Visita lnteriora Terrae, Rectificando lnvenies Occultum Lapidem.”
“What’s that?” Leopold pressed very close to Foley, pawing at him, shaking him. “What’s that you say? Occultum Lapidem? The stone? The secret stone? Give it to me!”
Foley raised one hand to ward him off, revealing the baleful red gemstone embedded deep in his bloody palm. Too late, Foley realized his mistake. He felt a quickening of interest from the darkness, felt the eye press closer.
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br /> But Leopold turned away in disgust. “He knows nothing. Nothing! Oh, make him go away.” He turned upon Foley. “Did you think to tempt me, to dazzle me with your pretty little gemstone? I have called the fire from the slumbering rock. I have molded it in my hands, felt it stream between my fingers. But it is not enough. It is not the medium I was promised.
“Where is your Occultum Lapidem? Your living rock? Bring me the stone that breathes life! Now that would be a worthy gift to set before your cousin. But instead…no. It is enough. You were a fool to come. Take him away.”
“Leopold,” the voice cajoled. “Will you get the pretty red stone for me?”
Foley felt the air temperature drop dramatically. He began to cast about for the way he had come.
“No. Damn the stone. Just go away. Can’t you all just go away? I’ve got so much work to do.”
There. Foley saw two stalagmites that seemed to lean toward one another. He began backing slowly in their direction.
“Leopold…”
The artist fidgeted, picked up his chisel.
“LEOPOLD…”
The voice reverberated, its cry tearing from dozens of separate mouths. Foley, brought up short by the shrieking chorus, stopped, turned. Another mistake.
There, just around a turning in the rock, the cavern opened out and Foley found himself face to face with the enormity of Leopold’s blasphemous, gibbering masterwork.
Foley’s last memory of the cave was of clawing frantically at the stone floor, trying to bury himself from sight.
In the absence of any conscious direction, Foley’s fingers had turned to the familiar comforts of quill and ink. Instinctively, they had scratched out the ravings their master was vainly gouging into the cave floor.
A black cat with the face of a child. A radiant yellow orb. A knock-kneed witch. A golden calf. A one-eyed sculptor. A secret stone. And finally, the faint hint of something vast with a dozen distinct gibbering maws.
Punctuating the macabre illustrations in a shaky script were the words, “Hazima-el, Leopold, Occultum Lapidem. Down the Well.” The bottom of the sheet bore the strange legend, “Leopold = Lapidem(?)”
Foley felt as if he were drowning in stone. Slowly, painfully, he tried to resurface. He seemed lost without the scratching of the quill to guide him. His lips still moved, forming words of power, but no sound disturbed the air.
It was then he felt the impact of a blade. With one precise, forceful jab, it severed his spinal cord. He felt his face crash against the surface of the table. The collapse of the vision pained him far more than the physical attack. The mystical energies he had ridden to the Cave of Lamentations turned upon him. They exacted their due.
April 23, 1890
House of Corraig ap Culain
Malehide, Ireland
An Even-Handed Warrior.
“What?!” that Devil cries aloud. “How can this be so? I’ve had no word of it. Surely if the Hag were dead, I would be the first to know. Unless…no, surely not.”
The Devil trailed off into a distracted mumbling. Corraig eyed him curiously, suspecting the fever was upon him. Every once in a while, a phrase would leap out of the stream of murmurs: “Don’t care HOW you find out,” or “deal with him myself,” or “cleaning up after Kerberos until Hell freezes over. “
Corraig had gone off in some haste and returned with the jug. He poured generously, sloppily, and pushed an overfull cup toward his distraught guest to replace the spilt one.
“Come, friend, a drink to the memory of the Wise Woman of Baeme,” Corraig says again, straightening and again adding the prayer, “If it please our Lord, may she be in heaven half an hour before the Devil knows she’s dead.”
The Devil, he just looks at him, cool-like. The glass untouched at his side. “Corraig,” he says at last, “I thank you for your hospitality, but I have to be going. “He waved aside the man’s protest. “My trip here is all for naught, and I have to away home with all haste. Here now, I’ll have no argument. You’ve been more than generous, and I’ll not burden you further. “
His voice pitched lower, “No, not a word. I know how poor a catch the sea yielded today and no fault of your own. There will be little enough to go around these next few days until the storm breaks. I will not have your little ones do without on my account.”
This approach allowed no room for argument. “That’s settled then,” the Devil said. “But I would like to repay your kindness in some way.” He thought for a moment.
“Hard times lie ahead, Corraig. You may rely upon it. Listen well. Else, when the time comes when your children cry out to you in hunger, and your kinsmen’s children, and your neighbors’ children, you will try in vain to remember my words.
“There will be a child come into your life, Corraig. A foundling, may she ever give you as much peace of mind as she’s given me this day. And as long as you can keep her safe, no harm will come to you or yours. But you must keep her well clear of the Plain of Adoration where the Stooped One broods alone over his dark hungers. An ocean between the two might not go amiss, if you take my meaning. “
Corraig looked up at the Devil uncomprehendingly.
“Remember, Corraig. How will you face them if you cannot remember?” The Devil stepped from the doorway, wings unfurling above him. The rain fell away hissing, sputtering.
Corraig looked on, a forgotten whiskey glass dangling from the end of one arm.
Somewhere behind him, a baby was crying.
No sooner was that Devil outside than the ringing pain in his head returns stronger than ever. Oh yes, a full foul temper was upon him.
“‘Before the Devil knows you’re dead,’” he says aloud and with dripping malice.
Well, blasphemy is never far from the Devil’s lips and with a curse, he turns away from Eire’s fair shores, already plotting mischief. And as he turns, one bead of sweat from his brow falls upon the water.
Up come the fish, boiling to the surface and the waters frothed red and would yield no catch for another season, and many starved and many more went hungry. Some among you may remember the Spring of the Red Tide and will say whether these things are true.
And then the Devil, Chiefest of Calamities and most even-handed of warriors, was gone.
Sunday, 25 July 1999, 12:47 AM
Chantry of the Five Boroughs
New York City, New York
The warlock, deep in trance, had no opportunity to save himself. Anwar’s ferocious thrust-wrench with the katar was one fluid motion, and the kafir struck the table like a fallen timber. Anwar was on his victim and drinking deeply before the eyelids ceased their fluttering.
Hadd. Vengeance.
For five centuries, the children of Haqim had languished under the curse of the Tremere, had been unable to partake fully of the ways of the blood prescribed by the elders’ elder. But now the second fortress, Tajdid, was reclaimed; there would be payment in full for each hour of servitude. Anwar had struck but a single blow—a small step along the road of the hijra.
But there was little time to bask in the deed. New strength flowing through his veins, Anwar glanced at Aaron. The Tremere, his discomfort apparent, gawked at the body of his clansman. Have you no stomach for blood? Anwar wondered. Or perhaps it was the focused brutality of the act that unnerved his guide. But surely he had known.
Slowly, methodically, Anwar began to search the victim. Aaron half turned away. “Is this really necessary?”
Anwar prised open the warlock’s clenched fist. He removed something from the dead man’s grasp. “It is done. We go.”
He wrapped the bloody stone in a cloth and tucked it within his sash.
Aaron wavered for a moment. Then, decisively, he snatched up a piece of parchment from the floor and stuffed it into the sleeve of his robe.
“A memento?” Anwar teased.
“Incriminating evidence.”
Anwar bowed slightly. “Lead on.”
They retraced their steps, Anwar following close on the
warlock’s heels. As they ascended the whispering stairwell, Anwar found himself again on his guard. It was not too late for some devious trap to be sprung, for a horde of warlocks to swoop down upon him and drag him back into the depths of the chantry.
But no hidden assailants materialized. They passed through the upper office and down the short corridor to freedom. Anwar felt the cool night air on his face.
“You should not have spoken to me in Fol…in the warlock’s sanctum.” Aaron accused. “It was dangerous and unprofessional.”
“You are displeased with the manner in which I have fulfilled the contract?”
“And you missed the sketch.”
“Mad scribblings. I noted them. They were of no relevance. I disregarded them.”
“I was in that sketch. If I were implicated in this, you don’t think that would be relevant?!”
“I intended no slight, Aaron, Light-bringer. But it will not be relevant.”
“What do you…”
“Your superiors will be displeased.”
“Yes,” Aaron replied guardedly, “I suppose they…”
With one graceful step, Anwar looped the garrote over the Tremere’s head. The wire dug into the warlock’s neck, slicing through trachea and jugular. A sharp jerk, and the head and body fell separately to the floor.
“This is likely a mercy compared to the fate your clansmen would have devised for you. Rest well, Aaron, Light-bringer. In peerless service, there is both glory and redemption.”
Sunday, 25 July 1999, 9:00 PM
Chantry of the Five Boroughs
New York City, New York
Three sharp knocks. Sturbridge rolled over, slapping at the bedside terminal. At her touch, the monitor blinked in surprise, coming abruptly out of sleep mode. A man’s voice, grumpy, and with a decidedly Cork singsong to its accent, issued from the tinny speakers: “Early-morning guests. / Raiders, famine, boils or fleas / Would be more welcome.”