Absence_Mist and Shadow

by J. B. Forsyth

The Indomitable Spirit

  There was about three feet of space between the other side of the brickwork and the door of the cell. He produced his key and turned it in the lock. Three keys had been made, but the whereabouts of the other two were unknown – a situation which had factored strongly in his decision to brick it up. The iron door whined as he pushed it open and he stepped through into a small antechamber. He closed it behind him and turned to face another door, beyond which was the Butcher’s cell. The antechamber had been deemed a necessary fail safe in case the Butcher managed to trick his way out, and like the main cell it had been treated with several coats of alushia sap. The protocol that Hayhas had got so worked up about, dictated that no one visited the Butcher alone; the antechamber’s doors were opened one at a time; and the visiting exorcists conducted thorough scours of one another on their way out. This ensured that if the Butcher took residence in one of them, he was discovered before he could truly escape. Kass had broken with this part of the protocol by coming here on his own, but he adhered to another section now by raising his draw to the required threshold before opening the second door and stepping into the short passage that fed the cell. He closed it behind him and raised his mistlamp; illuminating hundreds of leather strips that hung from the ceiling. They yielded as he walked through them, whispering against the stone floor and clicking softly as they closed around him. The pine and rose petal aroma strengthened with his every step as the alushia sap with which they had been treated was released into the stale air. The strips were a physical barrier to the Butcher; an ingenious way of keeping him from entering the antechamber when the inner door was opened.

  When the last strips swung together behind him he sidled along the cell wall, knowing that stepping into the open space was inviting the Butcher to throw him against the rock. But then he stopped…

  Something was wrong.

  The cell felt empty. He couldn’t feel the Membrane and that meant there was nothing moving, or even resting on it. He produced a small phial from his breast pocket, pulled the stopper out and held it up. But instead of buzzing to life the little fieraks lining the bottom slept on.

  The cell was empty.

  He stepped away from the wall and pointed the open phial at all four corners of the cell. But still, the fieraks were unmoved. He was just beginning to consider the appalling possibility that the Butcher had escaped when something struck him beneath both hands, liberating the phial and the lamp from his grip and sending them smashing to the floor. He watched with dismay as the mist bled from the lamp and seeped into the fissures of the stone floor. A second later he was plunged into darkness.

  Oh what a fool he’d been.

  He flinched as his Membrane sensitivity fired up, indicating a powerful presence right behind him. He braced for a blow, but none came. The fieraks started to buzz and the cell began to brighten with a green light.

  ‘Who are you old man?’ asked a voice that was like slivers of ice on the Membrane; the voice of a woman caught drowning babies. Kass turned. Towering above him in an aura of excited fieraks was a spectre who was easily seven foot tall. She had a bald head and a rudder like nose that channelled the malevolent glare of her black eyes. Her shoulders were narrow and gowned in a cloak that hung over her jutting collar bones and impossibly thin frame.

  Kass shrank from her; losing the last of his fragile composure. This was not the face he had expected to see. But with the Butcher of Baker’s Cross it was best not to presume anything. ‘How did you -?’

  ‘- Evade your detection and the appetites of your pet flies?’ A hideous smile crossed her face. ‘Do you think we’ve been idle in this stinking prison? We’ve learnt much by fermenting what already exists in our minds.’

  We instead of I. Kass had forgotten how the Butcher referred to himself. To him the many personalities of his divided mind were separate entities. The spectre drifted to the far side of the room where she faded into blackness once more.

  As Kass inched back to the wall a broad shouldered man materialised in the middle of the cell. He was much shorter than the woman, with a pocked face and square jaw. But his eyes were ice blue and cramped; like drops of sea water through which hundreds of drowned souls were peering out. This was the prisoner’s true form – the Butcher of Baker’s Cross.

  ‘The Witch of Winter Wood,’ he said with a grin. ‘Beautiful isn’t she? Your order burnt her at the stake during a snowstorm; right outside this city. She hates exorcists more than the rest of us put together.’ He drifted away then turned back suddenly. ‘Tell us old man, where is your High Exorcist?’

  ‘Gone. Disgraced. Expelled from the order more than twenty years ago and hiding in the Wilderness.’

  The Butcher threw back his head and laughed and it was like the laughter of an entire theatre released into the cell. ‘Then you are Kass Riole. Yes. Kaaaaaas Rioooole. Forgive us for not recognising you. Twenty years is a long time and your whiskers are now white.’ The Butcher lunged forward, appraising him with bulging maniacal eyes. ‘We told him to kill you,’ he said, drawing back. ‘Now you are here and he is not. Don’t tell us Rioooooole. You command now in this black rock - highest among your soul burning fraternity.’

  ‘Correct.’

  The Butcher revolved, revealing the witch’s face where the back of his head should have been. But he completed the revolution with a new face.

  ‘Do you recognise him Riiiooole?’ he said, using the man’s mouth to speak the words.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s one of your ancestors - Hobe Riole was his name. Hanged for cutting a fair lady’s throat. But not before siring the boy that would become your great grandfather. We thought you’d like to meet him.’

  ‘Hello,’ said the face.

  Kass paled. He was well aware of the games the Butcher liked to play; but he was still taken aback by this chilling diversion.

  ‘He told them all he was very sorry as he stood on the scaffold. But his fake remorse was for the benefit of his mother who crumpled in his stepfather’s arms as they adjusted the rope on his neck.’

  ‘What I really thought,’ said the man, ‘was that I should’ve cut out off her face and worn it as a mask.’

  The man’s delivery was so cold and sincere that it turned Kass’s blood to ice. His head rotated to reveal a snarling wolf which lunged forwards, snapping its jaws in front of his face and making him jump half way up the wall.

  ‘Boo!’ said the wolf with a wink of its eye. Then it drew back and laughed in that terrible discordant blend of dead voices; its tongue hanging inanely from its mouth. It morphed back into the Butcher, but now he was wearing wolf paws. He drifted forward, his face expanding and distorting until it seemed to Kass like he was looking at him through a fish bowl.

  ‘We wonder. Have any of your grandfather’s predilections filtered down the generations to you?... Do you harbour a secret desire to butcher your students and dance through the halls in garments made from their skin?’ Kass stared into the Butcher’s huge eyes, unwilling to facilitate this line of inquiry.

  ‘So the reason for your visit? Have you come to exorcise us Riiiole of throat cutter’s lineage? You have, haven’t you? We could feel the wax and wane of your draw the moment you stepped in. And we can feel it now, building inside you like a wave… Tell us, what makes you think you can succeed where others have failed?’ Kass made no reply. He stood flat to the wall, watching and calculating. The Butcher had sensed his draw, but it was protocol to maintain one in his presence. A way of preparing the body for a sudden spiritual assault; much like a fighter bracing his abdomen for a physical blow. ‘Does your aged frame house a power of which we should be wary? Or are you just an old fool? And this wavering of your draw. Is it poor control or the resting tremor of a has been that should have given up his mist stone years ago?’ He twitched in ridicule and an idiotic grin appeared on his face.

  The Butcher was more sensitive than Kass remembered. He was well aware of the tiny fluctuations in his draw, but was surpr
ised he could sense them. If anything though, it helped his situation. He didn’t want to be seen as a threat; on the contrary, he wanted to be seen as vulnerable. The physical fitness required to draw the Butcher was many years behind him, so the only way he was going to get hold of him was to get him to attack. And once he had hold of him he was confident he could contain him. His draw had weakened over the years, but his grip on a captured entity was still the spiritual equivalent of a bear trap.

  ‘Why don’t you come here and find out?’ he said, realising only then that it might be a mistake to challenge him directly. No one had visited him in a long time and a confident challenge would make him cautious - suggesting he was here to try out a new purge technique.

  The Butcher’s grin fell away, but against all hope he stared at him as if considering his offer.

  Come on, come on, thought Kass. Maybe the direct approach would work.

  But it didn’t.

  He drifted away instead.

  ‘Hang him by his bowels,’ said a boy.

  ‘Call the crows to peck out his eyes,’ said a girl.

  ‘Well if you’re not here to exorcise us Krrrriole,’ said the Butcher, turning back, ‘why are you here?’

  ‘To ask a question,’ he lied.

  ‘Then out with it.’

  ‘What business did Izle have with you?’ He had prepared the question as an ostensible reason for his visit as it was the obvious question to ask. He wanted to appear as an inquisitor rather than a threat. His plan was to engage him in conversation and direct it in a provocative way.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Butcher. He floated into a corner and a hundred hushed voices began speaking all at once. Kass couldn’t understand what was being said, but it sounded serious. The Butcher dimmed to a deep shade of maroon and he bent over as if in secret conference with the voices. It ended abruptly and he turned back with a crafty smile. ‘We will speak of his business, but first we must know why he was expelled.’

  ‘He was abusing his position. Using his scour to enslave those who had placed their trust in him.’

  ‘And you had him arrested?’

  ‘We tried. He fled into the Wilderness with those already bound to him. We went after him, but in the end we thought him dead. Another victim of the jungle.’

  ‘But you were wrong, weren’t you?’

  Kass nodded and the Butcher drifted to the opposite corner, gripping his ghostly face. When he turned back his eyes were bright and mysterious.

  ‘How many of your order did he enslave?’

  ‘Fifteen. All of whom fled with him.’

  The Butcher jerked and his face morphed into that of a little girl. ‘Sixteen,’ she whispered, putting a finger to her lips. ‘But don’t tell him we told you.’ Her image flickered, once, twice and Kass got the feeling she was a part of his personality he was trying to suppress. Finally, the Butcher won out with a twitch and he never saw her again.

  ‘We will tell you what you want to know,’ he said, drifting back over with blazing eyes. ‘And it will be our pleasure. Because we want you to know that we orchestrated your predecessor’s fall from grace.’

  Kass felt his focus waver once more. He had always believed that Izle’s visits with the Indomitable Spirit were motivated by obsession with mastery, but the Butcher’s offer suggested there was more to it… Or was this just another game?

  ‘Like many before him he came to exorcise us. To validate himself as the greatest amongst your order. From the moment he knew of our existence he could not rest. He purged us again and again, but always we remained - an ever deeper splinter in his boundless ego…’ Kass’s interest was piqued by this unexpected turn in the dialogue and the answer to his question now seemed to be of primary importance. ‘… He didn’t take it well. And after a while he started coming on his own, resorting to more drastic methods that the rest of you would not have approved of. He drew us and held us; studying us with internal scours as if we were a riddle to be solved. But it was all he could do to stay sane and he achieved nothing. Achieved nothing because it was our game all along. Our game!’ His voice rose triumphantly and his head produced a foam of faces.

  ‘Kill him,’ said an old lady with a squint.

  ‘Spill his insides so we can lick up his blood,’ said a little girl.

  ‘Sixteeen!’ said a man with a finger to his lips.

  ‘Riiole high, Riiole low, what’s going on he don’t know,’ sung two little girls who sunk back into him in a fit of giggles. ‘Reeole pee ’ole, stick it in his keyhole.’

  Kass wondered if Cudgil had seen some of these faces when he first drew the Butcher or if these were different ones. In one of the reports he had just read, Cudgil said it was like the whole city had joined them for his exorcism.

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ he said, reclaiming his face. ‘We are not so different you and we.’

  ‘I think not. You are a rapist and a murderer and we have nothing in common.’

  The Butcher laughed with genuine mirth. ‘You have a point Riiiole. You have a point indeed.’ He stared into space, his eyes bright with cherished memories. ‘Blood is such a special fluid don’t you think? Sometimes bright, sometimes dark. And you can never tell how it will flow from a person until you bite them. Will it trickle or gush? Or will it spurt or spray? You should see a puddle of it steam like hot piss on a cold day… But you misunderstand our point. Our skills and methods are much the same. We are both manipulators of spirits. The only difference is you spit them out. We could have taken your path Krrrriiole. Exorcisms are not difficult and we have done many ourselves. We would have been great, perhaps greater than you. Spirits gravitated to us like bees to a pretty flower and we could vanquish a legion of spectres without leaving this prison. But we can’t see the point of destroying something of such potential. Can we?’ In response to this the Witch of Winter Wood appeared briefly and shook her head, her black eyes swirling beneath her hairless brow ridge. ‘Each one a mine of knowledge and experience. Each an enriching addition to our community of minds. And if we come across any that displease us we purge or ingest them… You have your books Reeeeole… We have our minds.’

  ‘It’s forbidden.’

  ‘Forbidden by whom?’ said the Butcher, spinning into a vortex of colour so bright Kass had to shield his eyes. ‘Forbidden by men, not by nature! An arbitrary law of your beloved Caliste. Such rules limit your progress and stunt your growth. The time we spent beyond these walls, we spent preying on lost souls and taking their skills and memories for our own. And now we are them and they are us.

  ‘We know things that would fascinate you Ree hole – like what the Baby Killer of Barrowey did with all those little bodies and why King Rothway’s daughter ended up hanging from the city gate by her intestines… No? Too macabre for your taste. Well maybe you’d be interested in knowing who set that fire in your library or who has the other two keys for my cell?’

  Kass felt his heart skip at this last. He truly would like to know who had those keys but he wasn’t about to take the Butcher’s bait. He kept his face straight, feigning disinterest.

  ‘Still no? But I think there is one among us whose story you won’t be able to resist.’ He paused and his eyes brightened with an excitement that seemed to infect all those drowning souls within them. ‘A girl who fascinates us still. It was her story we used to corrupt the great Izle Rohn.’

  Kass felt a sudden twist in his gut and he got a feeling that some dark unknown was about to step out from behind his ignorance.

  ‘Will you hear her story Kass Riole?’

  Kass had come here with plans, but the importance of what he had to say was written in the air and he couldn’t leave without hearing it.

  ‘Tell it Butcher.’

  His face lit up as he glided to the centre of the cell and he looked like he was going to explode with excitement.

  ‘We found her in the mountain village of Lyell during our travelling days,’ he began. As he spoke his face morphed into that of a girl wi
th corn coloured locks and blue eyes. ‘Laurena is her name - though she has gone by many others in her long life. We stopped for the night, renting a pitch in the field behind The Tickled Pig tavern. But before we went to sleep we cast our net in the hope of catching some local delicacy. We were hoping to attract the ghost of a local boy who we were told had wandered too far from home and had been eaten by a wolf. But it was the girl that came and we weren’t disappointed were we?’

  ‘No we weren’t,’ said a little boy who replaced the girl for a few seconds. ‘It was like she had a hundred story books in her head.’

  ‘It soon became clear that she wasn’t an ordinary backwater ghost,’ the Butcher continued. ‘We passed her on the lane a few hours earlier and her ghost came to us while her body still breathed! Have you ever heard of such a thing Riiiooole? Or even read about it in your dusty library?’

  The blood drained from his face. He hadn’t heard of such a thing until yesterday, but now he knew with utter certainty, he was talking about Della.

  ‘She’s the reason you cannot purge us. She is a child of the old world and during her short visit we used what was in her to make us immune to your pathetic purges.’

  Kass twitched and his draw fizzled away to nothing.

  It lives!

  The Butcher watched him with relish.

  ‘It is her story we want to share with you now. She was born to this world a long time ago, and her parents came from another world altogether; forced to flee across the universe from a race called the Uhuru… Did you hear that Riiiole of the Cragg? The uuuuniverse,’ he said this with an air of grandeur; punctuated by a gasp of wonder from his internal entourage. ‘We can see it as clear as day. As if we were crouched on the mountain ledge instead of her.’ His face morphed back into the girl’s and this time her eyes were lowered as if fixed on something far below. ‘Listen to her story Riiiiole,’ he said and then added in a voice charged with childish inspiration. ‘Oh and we’ll use her voice to tell it; you’ll like it better that way.’