400 Boys and 50 More

by Marc Laidlaw

  But still he feared, for he knew his own vulnerability. He easily pictured what could befall even the most carefully concealed tombs of the great kings. The vast estates of the dead that skirted the edges of Commorium were a waste of plundered crypts—and in all the eons of ice that lay ahead, there was no telling what manner of greedy cold wretches might come in search of the fabled lair and resting place of storied Sarn Kathool. Therefore, the warriors, bred to protect the mother and her handmaids—and to do so with all their wiles, with every trick of ruthlessness and cunning their vicious nature could devise. Any thaw, any disruption to the frozen vaults sufficient to disturb the maiden’s rest, would also stir the warriors, and in this way bring on the certain death of any violator. But Sarn Kathool could not shake the foreboding, sharpened by the incipience of ice, that this was not enough—that the maiden herself had need of innate defenses.

  After much consideration, and convinced of his design’s foolproof nature, he began to make certain alterations to the maiden homunculi, although nothing that could express itself without the proper triggering conditions. In the presence of threat, at the danger of rape for instance, the maiden mother would find herself possessed of all the cunning strength and violent power necessary to exterminate her assailant. It pained him to compromise the creature’s innocence, but dark ages lay ahead. What if the warriors did not wake? What if the maiden was left alone and at the mercy of her violators? Who would protect the sanctity of Sarn Kathool’s homunculus then?

  No, the female must be permitted some subtle yet potent means of defense.

  And so, more generations of maiden mothers were bred, refined, and from their selfsame stock bred again. Within the wombs of his select matron, a lineage of perfect mothers waited as if queued to receive the seed of Sarn Kathool, prefiguring the perfect race that one day would venture forth. While this program wended on, Sarn Kathool neglected not the furtherance of the warrior breed, and with all he learned from his practice on the maidens, the male lineage was also improved. From the inferior yet no less fertile wombs of the subsuperior parti-matrons, he hatched males of inarguable ferocity, continually eliminating the weak or hesitant, honing the protector until he felt he had a specimen that could protect his mother from any future harm, no matter how unimaginable.

  At last there came a stretch of howling whiteness, a plunge of temperature so cold and penetrating that its menacing ache could be felt in the deepest vaults of Sarn Kathool’s redoubt. On what promised to be the last morning of Hyperborea’s fleeting age of glory, the old mage, weary beyond belief yet elated by his success, mounted to the highest turret of his grim frost-locked citadel and permitted himself a final glimpse of the world he had labored so strenuously to save. The program had cost him the final centuries of his life, and in that time he had scarcely allowed himself to be distracted by the encroaching of the glacial horror that had claimed the Earth while closing around him slowly, as if saving Sarn Kathool for last.

  From where he stood, it was no longer possible to see the peak of Eibon’s lofty tower, for it had long since been buried beneath the hungry blue-green waste. Weird lights glowed through the ice at that spot, and that was the only clue that Eibon had ever existed. Wherever else Sarn Kathool looked, there was not even a memorial glow. All the works of man were locked in ice. The glacier itself possessed a demonic soul, a spirit that remorselessly sought the extirpation not only of Sarn Kathool, not only of all intellectual accomplishment, not only of Earth…but of all. The fiend’s disregard for the greatest of minds was the ultimate insult to Sarn Kathool, and yet he had met it full on. His victory was a feat to be flung in the demon’s howling maw. It had not defeated him, nor would it outlive his progeny.

  As if sensing his moment of gloating as a challenge, the winter-thing sped at him, wielding an ice-edged sword of wind—the blast that through some irony would come to be known as boreal, even though through all the ages of Hyperborea’s existence that phrase had evoked balmy cosseting breezes and green, sweet-scented zephyrs. Sarn Kathool cringed back inside and sealed the outer portals. Frost burned through the walls, rendering them searing to the touch, turning the lush and colorful arrases hung there to brittle grey wafers that shattered at a breath.

  He turned to the spiral stairs and wound his way quickly down into the depths, and the cold chased him, icing over the steps as he descended. There could be no return. The passages were choked with crystals of ice; his very exhalations solidified and fell crashing around his feet, while the air in his chest threatened to transform into sharp shards that would stab his lungs from within. The demon howled! And Sarn Kathool repressed a youthful exuberant laugh, so narrow was his sense of escape. A joyous exhilaration quickened his steps.

  And then he was in his final chambers: His workshop, his lair, and in the last and deepest room, the nuptial laboratory. It crossed his mind that the laboratory was perhaps a degree warmer than it ought to have been—as if the ice had not yet reached these depths; as if it had exercised restraint. As to why the uncalculating ice might have let a spark of warmth remain, his suspicion was so faint that he scarcely troubled with it. It was time to put aside all thoughts of restraint.

  His maiden bride awaited, locked in artificial slumber. He gazed upon her beauty and saw that he had created perfection. A suitable mother in some distant age, but for now an irresistible and alluring mate. She had been prepared for him by her handmaids, themselves now locked away in secure adjacent galleries to which the demonic cold had been cleverly diverted. The warrior breed had also been frozen into their holding cells; with the chiefest of them, and her most perfect protector, cast into stasis in this same chamber, nearest to wake should she require protection.

  All was utterly, completely still. The demon’s howl was inaudible.

  Sarn Kathool despite the elderly gasping that his hurried plunge had elicited, felt a youthful quickening in his blood. And as he beheld his maiden matron, primed to receive him, the quickening came to a point.

  Erect, flush with his life’s masterwork and the pride of his achievement, he advanced on his maiden receptacle, the vessel who would carry him into whatever future awaited, and entered her like an old man easing himself gingerly into a rocking boat.

  That was not quite the last sensation he felt, nor quite his last awareness of existence. For although his spine broke instantly, there was enough life left in his eyes to see the grinning face of the warrior protector as his fierce creation twisted the wise old head entirely backwards on its neck; and with another half-turn, continuing the revolution, he was able to gaze into the wide-awake eyes of his no less ferocious maiden-but-not-mother, who was pleased beyond measure by what she saw in his expression. And even as their laughter rose in his ears, and as the obscene noises of their twinned passions commenced, to intimate exactly what form of race he had visited upon the future as the mother and father of mankind’s newest iteration, there came a storm of deafening white sound flooding his awareness, boastfully and wordlessly, mindlessly gloating— informing him how in all ways he had failed: the insane, incomprehensible, and purely witless tittering of the ice.

  * * *

  “The Frigid Ilk of Sarn Kathool” copyright 2014 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in Deepest, Darkest Eden: New Tales of Hyperborea

  , edited by Cody Goodfellow.

  THE GHOST PENNY POST

  I hope London’s trust in me is not misplaced, thought Hewell as he sought his valise under roadside ferns. He spotted the leather case, still buckled, its sheaf of papers safe. Drawing it from among the fronds, he climbed out of the ditch to stand beside the carriage. Always fond of a good puzzle, Hewell was none too keen on mysteries; but events of the morning suggested more of the latter than the former were in store for his afternoon.

  He offered the harried driver a hand strapping their trunks back in place. The man had managed to calm the more nervous of the two horses, shaken after the affright, or attack, or whatever it had been. When the incident occurred, even though it
was still shy of noon, Hewell had been dozing uneasily inside the compartment. His seat suddenly slewed, twisting him out of a restless dream, flinging him first against the door and then through it, onto an embankment carpeted in moss. Blessed moss! The coach had very nearly toppled over onto him. Thank God for a skilled driver and at least one imperturbable horse.

  Just as their luggage was settled back in place, the other passenger returned from scouting the woods and approached the driver with more questions. “You say the figure rushed from where to where?”

  “Well, he come up from here,” the driver said, pointing, “and then run off that way, toward Pellapon Hall. From what I hears, they be having a deal of trouble in these parts, but I never thought to fear any of it meself.”

  The other man, who had said hardly a syllable to Hewell on the journey from the local train station—being as buried in notebooks as Hewell was in postal documents—appeared to be traveling in some sort of official capacity. His tone was consistent with his superiority. “I need more details, if you please. Dressed in what fashion? Speak up!”

  Hewell felt it was no one’s place to pester the poor, rattled driver. And yet he was interested in the reply.

  “As I said, it was all very fast, but . . . I thought I saw a figure all in black, covered head to toe in a peculiar kind of cape. Had on a hood to hide his face and a pair of horns atop it all. Like goat horns, I’d say.”

  “Or Devil horns, perhaps?”

  “I don’t know about that. Never seen the Devil meself, couldn’t speculate on the nature of his horns. But I seen goats aplenty and I’d say these were more that sort.”

  The officious gentleman nodded and turned away, making notes in a tiny journal.

  Once they had settled again in the carriage, to be shaken in the more ordinary way by the resumption of their journey, Hewell cleared his throat and said, “I’m an inspector myself.”

  The other passenger gave him a direct look. Bushy eyebrows, gray-salted whiskers, a beard barely attended to. Hewell felt a pang of pity for the man: self-groomed, a bit threadbare, yet with an intensity of gaze which suggested that he scarcely noticed the lack of coin or comforts. He would be baffled by Hewell’s sympathy.

  “Which is to say, if I am not far amiss, that you, too, appear to be an inspector of some sort.”

  The man closed his notebook and returned it to an inner pocket. “Forgive me a professional reticence, but my employer would rather I not speak openly until I have conferred with him.”

  “Might I hazard a guess as to your employer’s identity?”

  “I can hardly prevent you from speculating.”

  “We traverse at this moment the ancestral estate of the Pellapons. Is this name known to you?”

  “That great house is indeed my first stop. But I can say no more.”

  “Naturally. I myself am free to come forward in my public capacity as an inspector of the Royal Mail. I am traveling only slightly farther along, to the village proper, Binderwood. You are aware, perhaps, of certain irregularities—one might even characterize them as abuses—in the local mail? London has grown alarmed. I am here to investigate.”

  “As you say. And without compromising my discretion, you are undoubtedly apprised that these irregularities have affected Lord Pellapon’s affairs in matters of business, person, and privacy.”

  “Say no more,” said Hewell. “It is not entirely unlikely that even though the London office ordered me here, a request from Lord Pellapon was behind that command. Therefore, if I may in any way be of service, please do not hesitate to ask. It might be to both our advantages were we to occasionally pool our findings.”

  “Indeed.” The eyes of the other gent began to twinkle. “I like this thought. I like it very much. As two outsiders in Binderwood, we are certain to encounter nothing but resistance, doors slammed shut in our paths. But doors are ineffective if one can come at them from both sides at once! We shall beat them at their own game, sir, whatever it may be!”

  “Hewell,” said Hewell, extending his hand.

  “Deakins,” said the other, almost certainly a detective of the private variety. His skeletal fingers managed a firm grip as they shook.

  “I did not see you on the train from London,” the detective said, “despite several strolls from one end to the other to work my legs.”

  “I ride in the mail car,” Hewell said. “I wish I could recommend it as a mode of travel but its comforts are few. There is little in the way of seating, and one is constantly hampering the sorting clerks and made to feel unwelcome. Even though I repeatedly reassured them I was there purely as a passenger, they never believed me. In truth, I couldn’t help but notice some deficiencies in their methods, yet could say nothing after my promises. On my return, I will certainly avoid that particular car. The hardest thing is to know a truth one cannot speak.”

  The coach stopped and the driver hopped down to put his head in. “I hope it’s no bother, Mr. Hewell, but I been instructed to deliver Lord Pellapon’s guest right quick. It’s a short deviation and we’ll proceed into Binderwood straightaway after, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Hewell answered, pleased that he would get a look at Pellapon Hall. Since it figured into his investigation, he was glad of the opportunity to locate it in relation to various landmarks he had committed to memory. Studying the district map had given him only the faintest impression of the region.

  They headed up a long drive among mature yet sickly hornbeams dappled with anemic sunlight, and the woods thinned to give glimpses of the grounds. There was not much to admire: a ragged sweep of bare, salted lawn cresting hills that ran toward the sea; and, at the end of the drive, a tall manor with wings not quite fully spread, like the halves of a traveling apothecary’s dispensary trunk interrupted in the opening. The stone of the place was rimed and spotted; sea spray and lichens had brought the house into sympathy with the local limestone. It was as if an architect had taken a stern hand to an outcrop.

  A smattering of domestic staff awaited the coach, at their fore a hale, ruddy-complected figure with a raw nose and wispy hair that had gone to gray yet still retained a memory of orange. This attribute gave unspoken testimony that the twin girls waiting beside him were his daughters.

  Hewell attempted to remain within the coach, but Deakins said a few words to Lord Pellapon and he found himself compelled into the house for tea. The driver, having no other passengers, was content to wait.

  “Run along, girls!” Lord Pellapon barked as he led the way down a dim corridor toward the sitting room, for the two ginger lasses appeared inclined to lurk and listen to every word. They drifted away with whispers and titters, but Hewell sensed they were never quite out of earshot—his or theirs.

  “Twins?” he asked.

  “What’s that? The girls? Yes, and a trial to me as never to their mother, God rest her. I have no aptitude for the raising of such angels. Under my care they have become perfect devils!”

  His face reddening, he looked on the verge of a fit until Deakins put a hand on his shoulder and said, “But your troubles hatch elsewhere, Lord Pellapon. With those resolved, I have no doubt your family will be restored to a more harmonious state.”

  “Naturally,” Lord Pellapon agreed, subsiding into a state of quietude and a chair of oxblood leather near a window overlooking the cliffs. Through lozenges of poor consistency, Hewell saw the gray and restless bosom of the ocean. The sky was at the mercy of mist and cloud, and he supposed he might stand at this window for a year and never see an horizon. He felt grateful that his own chambers in London held no such views, or any at all, to distract him.

  “My Lord,” said Deakins, “I thought since Mr. Hewell is here that you might be able to acquaint both of us, as one, with the details of your present difficulties. As I understand it, they revolve around the mail.”

  “Yes, and I have had no satisfaction from the local authorities. Merricott is quite unhelpful. Incompetent, I daresay.”

  “The
local postmaster?” Hewell said. “Well, that is why I’m here. An obstinate fellow will be dealt with to the extent of my powers, keeping in mind that he may have a certain vestigial authority that proves recalcitrant. It is often the case with these local offices. They resist any attempt to bring them in line with the latest procedures, and any mention of increased efficiency is frequently met with outright hostility. If you knew the outcry we faced at the proposal of installing postboxes in regions even less removed than this . . .”

  “Shameful, I’m sure,” said Pellapon. “But Merricott is not obstinate. He’s an idiot!”

  “That does not necessarily make matters easier,” the detective said. “A measure of intelligence often leads to quicker arrival at an agreed destination—once trouble has been turned from its deviant course. What the perpetrators will not expect is a ferocious imagination—mine!—turned upon their plots. There is no mischief they can concoct that is inconceivable to me, and in this wise I shall expediently outwit them.”

  Idiots and deviants, Hewell thought. They are certainly eager to work from assumptions.

  “On behalf of the Royal Mail,” said Hewell, “I can promise a thorough, sober, and clear-eyed investigation. Now, as I understand it, Binderwood has experienced a tremendous rise in the volume of local correspondence—”

  “To such an extent my business is suffering! Letters lost. Valuable communiqués gone missing in this deluge of packets, this . . . this torrent. I am constantly receiving missives full of nonsense while my own transactions go astray. A letter of patent I expected a month ago turned up last week in an illiterate cotter’s hut. It would be there still had not Doctor Ogilvy paid the poor wretch a visit to treat a milk-rash and spotted it in service as a blotter.”