Absence_Mist and Shadow

by J. B. Forsyth

  His eyes were shining with such intractable righteousness that in the end Kye looked away. Ormis didn’t understand – would never understand. All of a sudden he felt a compulsion to get as far away from him as possible. So when the exorcist finally stalked off, he took several steps around Kring and sprinted away.

  Madness

  Kass Riole stared into the green light of his mistlamp. The Caliste had been using the lamps for over two hundred years now, after it was discovered that Eastland mist continued to swirl and glow if it was trapped in glass. This it seemed to do indefinitely; with no deterioration in the intensity of its light. The only change was: it stopped pulsing the moment it was isolated. No one knew why this was so; but his favourite theory was that the pulses were generated by a power residing in the Abyss – a power which the separated mist could no longer be influenced by. But despite this loss it retained much of its hypnotic quality and as he brooded on his thoughts he stared into its green swirls as he would the flames of an open fire.

  He had returned to the Caliste two hours ago, forcing himself up the Cragg’s four hundred and eleven steps in order to carry out his required study. The office of the High Exorcist was built into the eastern end of the battlements and one of its walls was a bulging grey mountain face. Its natural light came from two windows. One offered him a view of the main gate through the cloister and the other; a fiery depiction of the setting sun in stained glass. The room itself was sparse; cleared out of most of his furniture when he became a permanent resident of Irongate Tower. All that remained now was an ornate chair and a desk he hadn’t wanted. They were hand carved and embellished with symbols of his order – bespoke furniture the craftsman had no doubt regarded as appropriate for the High Exorcist, but which he regarded as uncomfortable pretension. He shifted in the chair now, wondering whether Izle Rohn had once suffered its hard angles as he contemplated his dark deeds.

  There was a knock on the door and Hayhas came through. ‘The people have got wind of the King’s death and half the city’s been out on the streets demanding confirmation. Lord Beredrim addressed them an hour ago and told them he died in his sleep.’

  Kass tore his eyes from the mistlamp and scraped his chin. If the people of Irongate had heard about the King’s death; someone must have told them. He was well aware that secrets separated from people like oil from water; but the men he had entrusted with the information were not the sort to run their mouths. ‘Did he give a date for the burial?’

  ‘In three days and the first Reader Ceremony the day after that.’ Kass nodded. Three days was the traditional period of mourning. ‘I spoke to Solwin about the recall and he thinks it’ll be a while before everyone’s back. Amris and Farim have been working in Galthro and should be back tomorrow. But the others are much further afield. Pavro’s way out at Pebblesham - investigating a haunting in some tidal caves.’

  Kass sighed. ‘I don’t think it’ll make a difference anyway. For a collective exorcism to work one of us will need to fix the spirit with a draw, and after today I don’t think that’s possible… It’s too clever to get caught in the open and you’ve seen how quick it transitioned to possession. It swept into Altho and there was barely any latency before it took control of him. It was sent by Izle and I’ve no doubt it’s one of his fifteen. It knows our methods and it knows what our options are. What’s needed is something radical… Something it won’t expect.’

  Hayhas raised his eyebrows and looked at the book on his desk. ‘Solwin said you’d been browsing some interesting shelves. Find anything?’

  He had indeed, but it wasn’t something he expected Hayhas to approve of. He had come to the Caliste to lay hands on this book and had even wasted precious time smuggling it past the librarian. Over the last hour he had read one particular section over and over again. He rose from his ornate chair and rotated the book towards Hayhas. The leather cover spun on the oak table and in his near empty office it sounded like a dragon, shifting in its sleep. With a sweep of his hand he invited him to look, then shuffled out from behind his desk and limped to the stained glass window.

  Hayhas watched him go. But when it became clear Kass had no more to say, he went to the table and bent over the text; squinting to focus on the faded letters.

  ‘Meld exorcism,’ he said and straightened up. Kass made no response and continued to look down into the city through a strip of yellow glass; wondering where the spirit was hiding and how long he had to prepare. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s the only way to weaken it.’

  ‘But you’d need another spirit; and of similar potency.’ Again Kass was silent, knowing that he would come to it. He felt his eyes on his back and even pictured them widening when he spoke again. ‘You can’t be thinking… Surely not?’

  Kass could hardly believe it himself, but he was thinking that very thing and he used another stretch of silence to confirm it. He had joined the Caliste whilst Hayhas was in training and they had been close friends ever since. Of all the opinions he could solicit on a difficult matter, he valued his the most. And whether or not he approved of what he was about to do, he couldn’t do it without first hearing his council. Hayhas had always been one to speak his mind and he turned back to face him, bracing for a forthright response.

  ‘It’s madness.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You ordered him bricked up.’

  ‘I did. And there was good reason. We weren’t learning from him anymore and some were getting hurt. It was only arrogance and a childish need to prove ourselves that drew us to him.’

  ‘You make my case.’

  ‘I need only to draw him and purge him at the right time.’

  ‘Oh come on! What did Cudgil say about holding him? … Something about an asylum in his head. He’ll drive you mad.’

  ‘Yet Cudgil kept his sanity. He walked him through the city and all the way up the Cragg. I’ve been through his notes. A dozen exorcists escorted him, but he didn’t use a single one… I won’t leave the cell until I’m sure he’s safely contained and if I can’t do it, I’ll think of something else.’

  ‘Let’s say you can do it. What about the meld? It’s only been done once before.’

  ‘I know. With spirit demons in Rockspur Caves. I’ve been through all that.’

  ‘All other attempts have failed miserably and you want to exhume this technique in the middle of Irongate with thousands of people around. If you fail, we could end up with two spirits - or one of unimaginable power. And what about his indomitability? There’s no reason to think it won’t transfer to the meld?’

  Kass felt the words maul him. It wasn’t so much what Hayhas was saying as he had already considered such things. It was more the tone of his voice and his incredulous eyes.

  ‘I don’t plan to exorcise him. I’ll meld him and bring him back here. If that poses too much of a problem, I could always take him to our holding cell in Irongate Gaol.’ He paused, feeling his confidence wilt under his old friend’s gaze. ‘It’s all I have Hayhas,’ he went on, aware now that strain and desperation was leaking into his voice. ‘You haven’t felt this spirit as I have. When it grabbed my throat I felt its fingers individually. I didn’t think the Membrane could be stretched so thin. It had absolute power over me and when it comes again, it’ll be our last chance.’ He hobbled back to the desk and swept his hand over the book again. ‘Izle won’t have thought of this. It is our one recourse and I’m going to take it.’

  ‘What about the girl? We could wait to see if Ormis brings her back. She might have some answers.’

  ‘Now you sound desperate. Ormis could be days, even weeks, and this whole episode could be over by sunrise.’

  Hayhas studied him for some time and Kass could almost see the machinery whirring in his wise old head. He expected another mauling or at least a trademark puff and was surprised when he simply said, ‘You’ll need me with you when you draw him.’

  ‘I’ll go alone.’

  ‘But the protocol -’


  Kass waved a hand dismissively. ‘- I’ll take the risk. There’ve been one hundred and eight recorded visits resulting in one broken arm, a sprained ankle and five admissions to the asylum.’

  ‘But those numbers are based on his visitors following protocol – going in two at a time. It says nothing about the risk of going alone. And the two-man rule’s not just about safety. It’s to stop him using his visitors to walk himself out.’

  ‘Izle went alone.’

  ‘And look how he turned out. There’s a good chance those visits had something to do with what happened to him.’

  ‘We can’t both go. I need you down in the city with Djin.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I want you to find Beredrim and get him to loan you half a dozen men. Use them as you would our own; in preparation for a collective exorcism. Let the spirit think that’s our plan. I’ll join you as soon as I can.’

  Hayhas puffed. ‘Are you sure you can even get down there and back up again? You’re an old man with a rusty hip and a bad heart.’ There was a familiar brightness in his eyes and Kass knew he was on board.

  ‘I got up here didn’t I?

  Hayhas smiled. ‘Very well then.’

  He felt a weight lifting from him and only now realised how important his support really was. He stepped forward and grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘Thank you old friend,’ he said through a lump in his throat. ‘Madness can be a lonely place.’

  Dungeon

  The arched iron door that led to the dungeons beneath the Caliste was set into the west wall of the cavern, behind its cloistered courtyard. It had rested on its hinges undisturbed for more than twenty years and it squealed now as Kass pulled it open and stepped through; casting the green hue of his mistlamp down the stair lined throat beyond. He locked the door behind him and started down, squinting into the shadows as they fled before him.

  The warren of caves and passages beneath the Caliste were for the most part a natural feature of the Cragg, but they were extended and developed as a prison under the infamous Lord Hygol; for use as a place of interrogation, torture and death. He reached the bottom and hobbled into a cavern. There was a large mistorb on a high ledge - the last of many spherical lamps once used to illuminate the dungeons and it glowed on its perch like a bewitched eye; as bright as the day it was set there, a hundred years ago.

  The cavern was once the main guard room, but it had been stripped of everything except a number of small barrels that were stacked against the wall. He grimaced at them and wondered if they had ever been used as a receptacle for severed fingers. Barrelling was one of the worst atrocities his order had presided over; a mass punishment reserved for communities found guilty of witch harbouring or in repeated breach of doctrine. A barrel, marked on the inside at a level deemed to reflect the seriousness of the crime, was placed in the centre of the offending town at dawn and collected at dusk. And if it wasn’t filled to the mark with severed fingers, the exorcists would make up the difference by cutting thumbs. In small towns the practice was devastating – leaving whole communities with only three fingers. And children weren’t spared. Historians agreed it was the increasing frequency of such atrocities that pushed the people of the Westland into the years of revolt that ultimately reformed his order.

  Kass hurried through the cavern, refocusing on the work ahead of him. He left by another passage with cells on either side. All doors were open and there was a key in every lock. Years ago, the belly of the Cragg was home to over two hundred inmates. But those days were long gone and so were all the prisoners… Except for one.

  He swept by the empty cells without so much as a glance into their dark interiors – shadows shrinking back from his mistlamp and insects scuttling into cracks. He passed confidently across two intersections then hesitated at the third before turning right. With the slightest movement of his lips he counted doors until he arrived at the ninth. He stepped through this one; casting light onto walls that hadn’t felt it in years. Besides the shackling hoop set into the floor, the cell was empty and there was nothing to distinguish it from any of the other cells he had passed; except that it was the ninth.

  He went to the rear of the cell, set his mistlamp on a rock shelf and took up position over the shackling iron. He grasped it with both hands and pulled, grimacing against the grating of his hip. There was a scraping of rock and a square section of floor lifted free. He heaved it clear. The stone clonked down and the metal ring clanged - sounds that fled like escapees, only to be gobbled up by the hungry silence of distant corridors.

  He retrieved his mistlamp and fed it to a black shaft; illuminating the top of an iron ladder. He clamped the handle between his teeth and climbed down; the cold iron rungs progressively numbing his hands. When his boots struck rock he stepped off into a semi-circular cave. Three cells had been cut into its curved wall and there was a half mined opening that contained the tools of its forging.

  The middle cell had been bricked up on his orders - to keep people out rather than to keep its resident in. But he was here to open it up again. He set his lamp down carefully, considering for the first time the consequences of breaking the glass and having to find his way out of the dungeons in complete darkness. He selected a sledge hammer from the stash of tools and planted his feet in front of the brickwork. He swung hard; striking a clean blow with its heavy face. But the wall didn’t give. He swung twice more in quick succession. The first blow loosened a single brick against the mortar and the second knocked it right through. Encouraged, he battered the wall until his breath ran out and his forearms were ringing like bells.

  He lowered the hammer and leant on it while he surveyed his demolition. The pine and rose petal aroma of alushia sap filled the air – liberated by mortar dust that was settling in green swirls. The opening he had created looked like a toothy grin and as he stared into its ominous black mouth, he reconsidered his purpose here. Hayhas had called it madness and perhaps he was right.

  The entity that waited in the cell was known within the walls of the Caliste as the Indomitable Spirit. But to the common man he would always be known as the Butcher of Baker’s Cross. Setting aside books concerning the five disciplines, no other subject occupied as many shelves in the library as the Indomitable Spirit. The boundary between knowledge and ignorance was a natural place to apply the mind, popular with the novices and masters alike.

  In life the Butcher was a spirit lure – a common calling for those with Membrane sensitivity. Most lures were discovered and dealt with before they caused too much trouble. The heightened spirit activity they generated gave them away, and given a few days a competent exorcist could usually triangulate their location using Membrane trails. But the Butcher knew this and he evaded detection by staying on the move – practicing his arts as he travelled the Westland. He settled in Irongate after mastering his craft and by then he was able to create trails that confused the resident exorcists for many years.

  At some point he began taking his spirit summoning much further than most – drawing them inside and risking possession in order to imbibe their secrets. He began to profit from his work by using what he’d learnt from the dead to exploit the living. He blackmailed murderers, thieves and philanderers; extorted businessmen and courted widows. And by the time of his arrest he was one of the richest men in Irongate.

  But his intimate spirit probing was also his undoing. He held them for too long and they left an impression on him – reshaping part of his mind in their image and character. As spirits came and went he relinquished more of himself to this process, until he was but one personality in a growing congregation. He struggled to control their many voices and in the end they drove him mad. Soon after he crossed another line, drawing animal spirits that engendered him with blood lust, compelling him to commit a string of brutal murders in Baker’s Cross.

  He was caught under a full moon, biting the cheeks off an eviscerated barmaid as she lay dying in the snow. He didn’t run when the city guards approached and it
took four of them to hold him down whilst an exorcist scoured him. Out of his depth and in his own words disturbed by his scour, the exorcist ordered the guards to carry him up to the Caliste, where senior exorcists worked on him for five days. It was only when the great Cudgil Orgra finally drew and purged the spirit inside him that they realised he wasn’t possessed at all. The entities they had toiled to extract were all a part of the Butcher’s own multifaceted soul and when Cudgil ripped it out; he died instantly.

  But that wasn’t the end of it.

  Reports soon reached the Caliste of a spirit terrorising the streets of Baker’s Cross. After a three-day pursuit and a difficult collective draw, they realised they had hold of the Butcher again. He had survived the exorcism and returned to his old haunts. Cudgil brought him back to the Caliste where it was agreed a second exorcism should be attempted in a special cell coated with alushia sap, through which spirits are unable to pass. It didn’t work and after years of fruitless study and failed exorcisms they were forced to conclude that he was immune to them. The cell Kass stood before now had been built to hold him permanently and he had resided here ever since.

  Hayhas had called his plan madness and he had to admit it was recklessly ambitious at the very least. In theory he could use the Butcher for a spirit meld - but Theory and Practice weren’t identical twins. Theory stood for inspection in bright sunshine, with short sleeves and polished buttons. His scruffy brother Practice, slouched in the shade; his long coat full of hidden pockets in which any amount of surprises could be concealed. Mentally, he had given the scruffy brother a good going over; dragging him into the light and turning out as many pockets as he could find. It would have to be enough. He reached into the gaping brickwork with his mistlamp and stepped through.