Such Wicked Intent aovf-2

by Kenneth Oppel

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” said Elizabeth, and I could tell she struggled to keep the annoyance from her voice.

  “Very well.” The professor took up his lantern and handed another to Father. “The way’s steep and dark, but there are crude steps cut into the floor. They’re slippery, though, so please be careful.”

  In me was a ravenous curiosity. Since hearing that unearthly noise emanate from the passageway in the spirit world, I’d craved more knowledge of it. The way down was indeed perilous, the walls moist with dew, the shallow steps slick. Deeper into the earth the atmosphere grew decidedly more humid and carried an earthy hint of freshly turned soil.

  “Are you all right?” I heard Henry ask Elizabeth.

  She nodded, and I smiled to myself. I knew she was made of sterner stuff than Henry supposed.

  From below I caught a faint flicker of light, but it was several long minutes before the passage leveled out abruptly and we found ourselves in a long narrow chamber.

  Skeletons were laid out on crude shelves cut deep into both sides. Our lantern light blazed off the bones, ghoulishly animating them. Near the ceiling some skeletons had become calcified, almost overwhelmed by a blanket of white mineral moss, their gaping jaws disgorging strange spiky blossoms.

  “A burial chamber,” said my father quietly. His voice was subdued, and I couldn’t help wondering if the sight reminded him, as it did me, of our own family crypt, and the body we had recently left there.

  “It’s quite a find,” said the professor. “I don’t think there’s been anything like this discovered on the continent.”

  “How old are these bones?” I asked, and I touched one with my fingertips. Instantly I had in my mind a sense of immense age, too old to fathom.

  “Very old indeed,” said the professor, “based on the strangeness of their skeletons.”

  “How are they strange?” Elizabeth asked.

  The professor stepped up to one of the best-preserved skeletons and held his lantern close. “Take special note of the knee joints, and here, the skull. The thickness of them. I have never seen the like on any human being.”

  Coldness ghosted over my skin. “You’re saying this fellow here was a giant?”

  “This fellow is actually a woman,” he said with a grin made eerie in the swinging lantern light. “And, no. Though brutishly built, they’re roughly the same height as us. But I wonder if those buried here were actually human.”

  “What else could they be?” Elizabeth asked, startled.

  “It’s very controversial,” the professor said somewhat uncomfortably, turning to my father, “but I know that you, Alphonse, are a man of wide and liberal beliefs.”

  “Speak freely,” Father said.

  “There are theories, unpopular still, that we were not always as we are. Some think that before man was man, he was something else. That over thousands, if not millions, of years we changed from one thing into another. These skeletons here may be what we once were. Before we became properly human.”

  “The first Frankensteins, perhaps,” said Henry with a nervous attempt at laughter.

  “Would this have been the tomb of an entire clan?” Father asked.

  “Possibly,” said the professor. “But these skeletons here are merely a prelude to something else.”

  “Why do you say that?” Elizabeth asked.

  “You will see.”

  He led us farther along the chamber until it opened into a much larger one. At its very center was a raised mound, encircled and entirely covered by a profusion of ornaments carved from stone and bone. As we drew closer, I saw that some were fist-size figurines of men or women. Others were carvings of animals-all the great beasts depicted on the walls. In wonder I knelt down to see them better.

  “In many ancient cultures,” said the professor, “it is common for a chief or shaman or king to be buried with family members or dignitaries who were chosen to share the tomb.”

  “Those skeletons in the passage?” Henry asked.

  “Precisely.”

  “But given their sheer number, and the profusion of ornaments here-and that wall image in the chamber above-I believe whoever was buried beneath this mound was considered a god.”

  CHAPTER 11

  A DOOR OPENS

  I’d meant to wait till after midnight before making my entrance to the spirit world, and must have fallen asleep while reading on my bed. I woke with a start. The candle had all but burned down. Quickly I stood, walked to my shelves, and opened my chess set. Nestled beside the queen was the key to the bottom drawer of my desk. As I crossed the room, I faltered. Lingering in the air, like the memory of some spectral perfume, was the sense that someone, not long ago, had just been here.

  Uneasily I opened the drawer, and stared in panic. The spirit clock and the green flask of elixir were both gone. Had we been discovered? Had Father stolen into my room and seized these things?

  I took several deep breaths. No. Not Father.

  Silently I crept out into the hallway and made my way to Elizabeth’s bedchamber. What right did she have to confiscate my elixir, to try to control my actions? Inside my head angry words tumbled one over the other. Her door was locked, but I’d anticipated this and took from my pocket a slender two-pronged device I’d mastered at the age of twelve. In four seconds the door was open and I walked inside, my angry speech already rehearsed.

  She was lying fully dressed on her bed. Her eyes were shut, each of her hands holding something. In her right I caught sight of the outlines of the spirit clock.

  She was inside!

  After all her talk of never going in again, she’d gone inside-and without me!

  On her night table was the green flask. Hurriedly I drew out the dropper and let it drip once upon my tongue. I replaced it and sat down in an armchair. I pulled off my family ring to grasp in my hand. I had only a few seconds to wait before***

  — I open my eyes in Elizabeth’s empty bedchamber. At once I see a colorful butterfly launch itself from my body, and with a grunt of dismay I realize that this is the spirit, my spirit, that has been upon me all day, giving me such strength and mental agility. I stand and follow it out into the hallway, lifting my hand, but it flutters high out of reach.

  “Come back,” I whisper, feeling a flicker of panic within me.

  But almost at once it crosses paths with a black butterfly that spirals gracefully down toward me, its musical wings softly thrumming as it lands upon me. At once I feel the familiar pulse of energy and calm.

  I hear voices, and pad silently down the hallway to Konrad’s bedchamber. The door is ajar, and I peer inside. Konrad and Elizabeth are sitting as close together as they possibly can, talking tenderly. My brother has his head lowered to avoid her glare, and he certainly hasn’t noticed mine. I open the door and stride in.

  “You hypocrite!” I say to Elizabeth.

  They both turn in alarm, Elizabeth with her hand to her chest.

  “Victor! I thought you were fast asleep.”

  “No doubt you stole them for my own good,” I say mockingly.

  The surprise on her face becomes defiance. “I did nothing of the sort, though it would’ve been good for you! You’re not one to resist temptation easily.”

  “Nor you, clearly.”

  “And why do you get to keep them locked up in your room as if they belong to you alone?”

  “I found them.”

  “No more than Henry or me.”

  “They’re mine. And how did you know where I kept the key to my drawer?”

  “You’ve been keeping it in your chess set since you were twelve years old! I was going to return them as soon as I was done. Anyway, is it so wrong to want some time alone with the person I love most in the world?”

  “Not at all,” I say dismissively, though her words sting. “We had the same idea.”

  She laughs. “No, we didn’t. You’ve come to see what’s in that burial mound.”

  “Well,” I say, taken aback at be
ing caught out so swiftly, “I’ll admit to being slightly curious. So you told Konrad about what the professor found?”

  From the moment I’d heard the moan from that slanting passage and had felt the strange energy wafting up from it, I’d known it was only a matter of time before I made the descent to find its source.

  “Don’t go, Victor,” Konrad says.

  “You needn’t come, either of you, if you’re afraid,” I say, knowing this will light a fire under both of them. “But I’ll need to slow the clock, to buy myself more time.”

  Reluctantly Elizabeth hands it to me, and I urge the supernatural gears to slow until they are scarcely turning.

  “Victor,” my brother says, “whatever’s down there is dangerous.”

  “We don’t know that yet,” I insist. “But if it’s so true, surely we ought to know about it.”

  “True enough,” Konrad says with difficulty.

  But I’m also thinking, There’s a power in that place, and I need to know what it is.

  At the threshold of the slanting passage Konrad falters.

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” he says when I look back to see if he’s following me and Elizabeth.

  “You’re safe with us,” I tell him. “We’re the living. Nothing can hurt you while we’re here.”

  His fear is etched deep into his face, but he takes a determined step after us, sword in hand.

  Not a single menacing sound have we heard during our descent. Indeed, the caves have seemed eerily peaceful, the paintings muted. Now, as the slanted passage begins to level out, I see the skeletons on either side of the narrow chamber, exactly as they are in the real world. But when I enter the larger chamber, gone is the burial mound heaped with ornaments. Instead, in the room’s center is a huge open pit. A silent energy hovers over it.

  “The skeletons are the same. Why isn’t the mound?” Elizabeth asks.

  I step closer. “I don’t know.”

  I have no idea what to expect. At the edge of the pit I look down and down. It is extremely deep. At the bottom lies a vast hunk of whitish stone.

  I stare harder, trying to peer deeper into time, to see what was once here, but for some reason, even with a butterfly upon me, this thing defies my scrutiny.

  “It’s nothing,” I say, strangely disappointed. “It’s just a piece of rock.”

  “No,” Elizabeth says in amazement. “Look closer.”

  She’s right. Chiseled lightly into the stone’s surface is the vaguest outline of a curled-up human figure, as though a sculptor had carelessly marked out his work and then abandoned the project.

  Warily peering down, Konrad says, “It reminds me of those pictures Father once showed us of the victims of Pompeii, fossilized by volcanic ash.”

  “Only this is much, much older, if the professor’s right,” I say. The stone seems so heavy and inert that it’s difficult to imagine this is the source of the strange noises we’ve been hearing. And yet, from this object emanates an unmistakable aura, like heat off a hot paving stone.

  “If it’s so old, why is it still here?” Konrad says. “Why hasn’t it been gathered?”

  “It’s like it’s been abandoned down here,” Elizabeth says. “There’s something pitiable about it. See how its knees are pulled up. It’s like a baby in a stone womb.”

  “Babies are meant to be born,” says Konrad numbly.

  The huge stone jerks slightly, as though something within has moved. At the same moment a tortured moan wells from the rock’s pores and rises to engulf us. I’m aware of Elizabeth and Konrad stepping back from the edge, but I’m frozen in place-not with fear but with fascination.

  “It means to wake,” Konrad says. “That thing will wake!”

  And he’s running up the passage.

  “We must go with him,” Elizabeth says, hurrying after. “He might get lost.”

  With reluctance I turn from the pit and follow them, so I can lead them out of the caverns.

  Emerging from the secret stairwell into the library, we find Analiese waiting for us.

  “I saw the door ajar,” she says, “and thought I heard your voices from below.”

  “It must be killed,” Konrad says, still frantic. “Is there any way to kill it? Victor, you have special strength and power. Can you kill it?”

  “What have you seen?” Analiese asks, her eyes wide.

  Konrad paces. “There is a thing, a monstrous thing, in the caves beneath the house, trapped in stone. It needs to be destroyed.”

  “Why do you assume it’s evil?” I ask calmly.

  “The thing positively reeks of malevolence!”

  “I don’t feel it,” I tell him honestly. “We don’t even know who or what it is. Who’s to say it can even be killed?”

  “It could simply be a soul waiting to be gathered,” Analiese says. “Only, it’s been here a long time to atone for a very great wickedness.”

  “Yes, wicked enough to be here thousands of years!” Konrad says. “I shudder to think what it will be like when it’s birthed from that stone womb.”

  “You’ll be long gone by then,” Elizabeth says reassuringly. “Your new body will be ready in a matter of days.”

  Konrad sags, momentarily calmed, but then shakes his head in distress. “But what of Analiese? What if it wakes before she’s gathered?” My brother looks in my direction. “Victor, can you grow a new body for her as well?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” Analiese says humbly. “I would rather leave my fate in God’s hands.”

  “Ana, we can’t just leave you here!”

  “Ana,” I hear Elizabeth murmur, surprised by this endearment.

  “No doubt it will seem old-fashioned to you, but my faith in God is absolute,” the serving girl says. “In any case too many years have passed. I have no place in the world now, no people of my own. Where would I go?”

  “Well, we’d make sure you got a position in our household,” says Konrad impulsively. “It’s easily enough done, isn’t it, Victor?”

  All this time I’m watching Elizabeth, seeing the jealousy that in the real world she would have ably concealed. But here it blazes on her face. She turns away and walks restlessly toward the library’s French doors.

  And I see that Konrad has given me a gift, all the more wonderful because I’m not sure I would have thought of it myself. He wants me to create a rival for Elizabeth.

  “Well, I hadn’t thought about any of this,” I say. I try to appear reluctant. “It’s no easy thing to achieve, but if you feel so strongly about it, I could find her grave and take-”

  Analiese gives a blood-congealing scream, and I see her staring at Elizabeth. I whirl, and in shock see that Elizabeth seems to have tripped, grabbed hold of the doorknob of one of the French doors, and pulled it open.

  At once crackling white mist pours itself into the room and resolves itself into a thick tentacle. With astonishing speed it slithers along the floor, aimed directly at Analiese. Thrice it winds itself around her ankle and jerks her off her feet, dragging her toward the open door. Shrieking in terror, she kicks frantically, clawing at the floorboards.

  Impulsively I rush toward the open door, where Elizabeth stands frozen, watching, and throw my whole weight against it. I feel a strong, almost fleshy resistance and have to heave once more before the door squishes shut. Outside comes the shrill, enraged howl of a gale. It pounds at the glass, making the door shake.

  At my feet the white tentacle thrashes about, its severed end spraying out an eerie vapor. But the thing still has abundant life in it and continues to whip Analiese about on the floor as she screams.

  Konrad stabs at the middle regions of the thing repeatedly with his sword, but the tip scarcely pierces its misty skin.

  “Let me!” I cry, and after only a moment’s hesitation he tosses me his saber. I seize it with both hands and drive it into the tentacle. Again and again I impale it, and quickly its thrashing weakens and it begins to dissolve before my eyes. Its tentacle grip on Analiese re
leases, and with a gasping sigh it all at once disintegrates.

  Analiese tries to push herself from the floor but gives a whimper as her arms fail her. For just a moment her black dress flickers, and in that one blink of an eye, her beautiful figure frays and distorts, as though her spirit has forgotten its former bodily shape altogether. Even her mane of fair hair darkens, shrinking back as if burned. But she takes a deep breath, squeezes her eyes tightly shut, and is immediately herself again. It all happens so quickly, I wonder if anyone else has seen it, or if I merely imagined it.

  Instantly Konrad rushes to her side and puts his arm around her shoulders to help her sit up.

  “Thank God,” he says. “Are you all right, Ana?”

  Shakily she replies, “Yes, I think so. Thank you, sirs… for saving me from that vile thing.”

  “What happened?” Konrad looks over at Elizabeth in confusion, and I catch an almost accusing look in his eyes.

  “I grabbed the doorknob to steady myself,” she says defensively. “The door just sprang open… I’m sorry.”

  “No, no, miss,” says Analiese. “It was an accident. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

  We all look out through the glass and see the mist coiling and uncoiling, restless, predatory.

  “Such malignant power,” mutters Konrad, helping Analiese to her feet. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “Quite fine, thank you.”

  “You see how dangerous this place is, for both of us,” Konrad says pointedly. “You must make Analiese a body as well.”

  “No!” says Analiese with uncharacteristic force. “I don’t want my grave defiled. It’s not right.”

  “But-,” Konrad begins, looking pained.

  “I prefer to wait till I’m gathered,” the serving girl says, more mildly now. “Though, I’m very grateful to you for such kind thoughts.”

  In my pocket I feel the vibration of the spirit clock and pull it out.

  “Our time’s up,” I say.

  “Good-bye,” Elizabeth says curtly to Konrad, and quickly leaves the room.