The House on Durrow Street

by Galen Beckett

  Rafferdy drew in a breath, then lifted his cane and pressed the tip against the arch. As quickly as he dared, he uttered the runes carved upon the stones. As he spoke them, a faint purple glow appeared within the blackness of the archway. The light rapidly brightened into an amethyst sparkle, and in its midst was a shadow, almost like the silhouette of a man. At that moment, Rafferdy uttered the final rune. His ring let off a brilliant flash. Blue sparks coursed down the length of his cane and struck the arch, sizzling as they spread out across its stones.

  There came a deafening crack. Black lines appeared upon the stones and snaked across their surfaces. The arch gave a violent shudder. Then, all at once, it collapsed in a heap of rubble, throwing up a cloud of dust. Rafferdy stumbled back, then stared at the pile of stones. Gradually, a comprehension of what had happened came to him. The arcane power that suffused the air in this place had made his enchantment far stronger than he had intended, and his spell of binding had instead become a spell of breaking.

  It was just as well. Now it was assured that Gambrel could never pass through the door. The Broken God would remain asleep in its tomb—and the Evengrove would continue to guard its secret.

  His task finished, Rafferdy turned to start back down the path. Now that he was moving away from the pyramid, he found that he could not go swiftly enough. He broke into a run, not caring one whit how undignified it might make him look. At last, his heart beating rapidly, he reached the edge of the clearing.

  And there she was, standing among the trees, smiling at him.

  “Oh, Mr. Rafferdy!” she cried, and she took his hand, squeezing it tightly. As she did, he felt an energy that had nothing to do with magick run tingling up his arm.

  “It is done,” he said, surprised at how haggard his voice sounded. “Let’s leave this place, and may we never return.”

  She nodded, her face still pale and drawn.

  “You had better take me back to the door in the wall,” he said. “I fear Coulten will wake soon, if he already hasn’t by now, and I don’t want him to get in trouble with any soldiers.”

  She placed a hand on the trunk of a tree, then looked at him. “Are you ready, then?”

  “Very ready,” he replied.

  And this time, he was not the least bit shocked when the branches reached down and plucked him up off the ground. Rather, despite the awful nature of this place, he laughed out loud. In moments the two of them were lifted up to the crowns of the trees, and there they were propelled along at a thrilling pace while the moon and stars glittered above.

  All too soon, Rafferdy caught a glimpse of a thick gray line through the branches. They had reached the wall. The branches slowed their motions, lowering him to the ground, and there released him. However, they continued to twine about her, holding her aloft a dozen feet off the ground.

  “I think it is best if I return through the door to Arantus,” she called down to him. “If Lord Coulten is awake, it is perhaps prudent that he does not see me.”

  “I think he would be struck unconscious again if he did!” Rafferdy called back brightly.

  Cane in hand, he moved to the wall. As he did, the branches lifted from the mouth of the passage, clearing the way. He turned, looking up at her, and gave a nod.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Quent.”

  “Only for now, Mr. Rafferdy.”

  She smiled down at him, a stray moonbeam illuminating her face. And as she floated there amid the branches, like some ethereal being, he thought that he had never in his life seen a woman more beautiful.

  Then came a rushing noise, like a wind, and she was gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  ONCE AGAIN, THE illusionists joined hands on the stage and bowed as thunderous applause shook the theater. The house had been full that night, as it had been every night of late. These days, there was not a person who came down to Durrow Street with a quarter regal in hand who did not want to see the illusion play at the Theater of the Moon.

  The play there had already been the talk of Durrow Street for the past month. However, when a new scene was added, its first performance caused a sensation to sweep along the street and into the city at large. The broadsheets quickly printed stories about it, and by the very next lumenal it was a matter being discussed in every tavern, club, and house in the Grand City of Invarel—even by those who would never think of doing something so scandalous as to attend an illusion play.

  The scene in question had appeared at the very beginning of the second act. Usually, at that point in the play, mercenaries in the employ of the Sun King pursued the youthful Moon through locales in the far south of the Empire. However, as the red curtain opened that night, it was not an exotic Murghese city that the audience saw. Instead, it was a perfectly wrought scene of Invarel, and the soldiers who pursued the silver-faced youth were a band of redcrests clad in blue coats.

  In the center of the stage were two churches, and for all that they had been shrunk to fit within the confines of the proscenium, they retained their imposing presence. On the left soared the pale, graceful spires of St. Galmuth’s cathedral, while on the right sulked the charcoal walls of Graychurch.

  It was to St. Galmuth’s that the Moon went. He pounded upon its doors, calling out for sanctuary. After a moment those doors opened, and he was let inside.

  Just then the soldiers who had been pursuing him arrived. They shouted out, demanding to know where the Moon was hiding. In response to their words, the doors of both churches opened, and a figure appeared on the steps of each. Before St. Galmuth’s on the left, dressed in a snowy robe, was an old man with a long white beard and an angelic expression on his face. While on the right, upon the steps of Graychurch, was a tall figure with fierce blue eyes, wearing a cassock of livid crimson.

  At this a murmur ran through the audience, and many shifted uneasily upon their seats. That the man in white was meant to be the Archbishop of Invarel, while the figure in red was the Archdeacon of Graychurch, was clear to everyone. However, so fascinating was the scene that all in the audience watched with hardly a blink or breath.

  Again the soldiers shouted out, demanding that the Moon be surrendered to them. The priest in red claimed he was not in Graychurch, so the soldiers advanced toward the steps of St. Galmuth’s. As they did, the cleric in white held up a hand. You shall not bring your swords within these holy walls, he said, for he has claimed sanctuary here.

  So rebuffed, the soldiers could not enter. However, at that point the priest in red scowled and rubbed his hands together. He descended the steps of Graychurch, and now the scene shifted and moved around him as he walked across the stage, and by the sights flickering behind him all could see that it was down Durrow Street he walked.

  Now the audience’s nervousness was released in peals of laughter, for the actor who played the priest in red made him at once a sneering and foppish figure. He used a handkerchief to bat away soiled urchins who begged for coins, plucked fastidiously at the hem of his robe as he stepped over drunks and offal in the gutter, and recoiled from voluptuous women who batted their eyes at him, as if they were the most hideous things.

  At last the scene changed again, showing a dilapidated chapel that rose on a hill above an unsavory street. In the way that only illusion could manage, the scene rippled and blurred, following him as he went into the chapel, down to the crypts, and below, to a labyrinth walled by red curtains.

  There he came to a place where several men sat bound to chairs, heads drooped as if in slumber. The priest took a crystal orb out of his red robe. Then he went to one of the men and, with a motion such as one might make when pulling a thread out of a frayed seam, he pulled a silver cord from the man’s brow, then touched it to the orb. The man screamed, then fell still. The priest went to the next man, and the next, pulling a silver cord from each one’s head and touching it to the orb.

  At last he laughed, holding up the orb. Through the power of illusion, the orb grew for a moment, until it seemed to fill the stage, and all could
see the hideous scenes that flickered within it: images of fire and blood, fear and death, and lumbering, monstrous forms. They were nightmares, all knew at once, taken from the dreams of the men and placed in the crystal.

  The orb shrank to its previous size, and the priest ascended from the maze beneath the old chapel. The scene changed once more, so that the forms of St. Galmuth’s and Graychurch once again dominated the stage. Still the soldiers stood before the cathedral, rebuffed by the white-robed cleric.

  Only then the priest in the red cassock approached, and he ascended the steps of the cathedral. He smiled, an awful expression, and held out the orb of crystal to the other priest. The white-bearded man smiled in return, then looked into the orb.

  His expression became one of horror. Silver threads sprang outward from the crystal, passing into his forehead. Then he turned and rushed down the steps, his eyes wild, his hair standing on end. For a minute he ran to and fro upon the stage, clutching his head, raving about the scenes of doom and destruction that had been revealed to him, and the audience gasped, for they knew he had been driven mad.

  Upon the steps of St. Galmuth’s, the priest in red smiled again, and he tucked the orb into his robe. Then, gesturing for the soldiers to follow him, he walked through the doors of the cathedral.

  At the same moment, the silver-faced figure of the Moon appeared from behind the cathedral; he had slipped out the back. He looked both ways, then dashed offstage. After that the play continued just as it always had. However, throughout it all the audience whispered about the scene they had watched, and their whispers became a roar as they left the theater.

  By morning, the rumor was being repeated all over Invarel, from Waterside to Gauldren’s Heights to the New Quarter: that the Archdeacon of Graychurch was some manner of sorcerer, that it was he who had caused the Archbishop of Invarel to become insane, and that he had done this so he could become archbishop himself.

  These charges were as astonishing as the fact that the play at the Theater of the Moon had intimated them. While it was not uncommon for a play to lampoon or tease a famous figure for the amusement of the audience, to so clearly imply one had committed a heinous deed was another matter altogether, and usually a theater would have been shut down by the Crown for such libelous acts.

  That might have happened in this case, except that Lord Valhaine, no doubt in an effort to dispel the rumors, dispatched a few soldiers to investigate beneath the old chapel at High Holy. There they found horrible things: a labyrinth of red curtains, and men who were chained to chairs, some long rotten, others alive but quite mad, and all with their eyes burned or plucked out. At the same time, a number of receipts were delivered to the publisher of The Swift Arrow by an anonymous hand. The receipts were for the purchase of red curtains, and they were all signed by Archdeacon Lemarck.

  After this story was published, the Black Dog himself went to Graychurch, and the archdeacon was led away to the Citadel to be questioned. He was kept there for several days, and though he confessed nothing, it was noted by the priests at St. Galmuth’s that during this time the archbishop’s condition rapidly improved. His eyes grew clear, he became lucid, and he no longer claimed to see any sort of visions. It was as if he had awakened from a nightmare, he was reported to have said.

  Previously, the archdeacon had been known to visit the archbishop at least once each lumenal and umbral. Now, after just a few days without these visits, the archbishop’s madness had ceased.

  As if this was not damning enough, just as this news reached the Citadel, one of the soldiers guarding the chamber where the archdeacon was being held suddenly turned upon his fellows, hacking at them with his saber, shouting that there were shadows inside them he had to cut out. He slew two men before he himself was shot dead.

  No further proof could be needed. Upon Lord Valhaine’s order, the archdeacon was swaddled all in red cloth, with a red bag covering his head, and was hauled to Barrowgate. He was placed in a cell deep in the bowels of the prison, in a room with no windows, into which not the faintest scrap of illumination might seep. It was utterly lightless. These things were done, it was said, based upon advice received from a number of illusionists on Durrow Street.

  There the archdeacon had been left to await his trial. However, earlier today, a new and shocking story had appeared in the broadsheets. When the door to the archdeacon’s cell was opened to deliver food to him, he was found not to be moving. At last the prison’s guards dared to light a candle, and what they saw was a gruesome scene. Archdeacon Lemarck was dead, his flesh gray and sunken against his bones.

  The broadsheets stated that the cause of the archdeacon’s demise was a mystery. Only it was no mystery to any illusionist on Durrow Street. Down there in the dark, he had been unable to resist the temptation to conjure visions for himself. Or perhaps he had simply gone mad and could not help summoning phantasms. Either way, the results were the same. As there had been no light in the cell to draw upon, he had instead drawn upon his own. He had used every last bit of his light, until it was utterly gone, and so the Gray Wasting had taken him.

  Throughout all these investigations, the play at the Theater of the Moon only increased in popularity; everyone wanted to see for themselves the scene that had incriminated the vile Archdeacon of Graychurch. Tonight’s audience was no different. However, after today’s grisly news, Eldyn knew that tonight’s performance of the scene had been the last.

  The players stepped back as the red curtain closed. Merrick, Mouse, Hugoth, Riethe in his red cassock, and all the other men embraced and laughed, and they shouted out in delight as Master Tallyroth and Madame Richelour appeared from the wings to share the largesse of that night’s bulging receipts box.

  Eldyn did not take part in the merriment. Instead, he slipped quietly away. He paused for a moment before a mirror, using a cloth to wipe away the silver paint from his face. Then he climbed upstairs, to one of the small rooms above the theater. The door was ajar. He hesitated a moment, then he knocked softly and entered.

  Dercy looked up from the chair where he sat. His beard—its bright gold now flecked here and there with gray—parted as he smiled. “Well,” he said, “how did it go tonight?”

  Eldyn smiled in return. “It was a great success, of course. Madame Richelour could hardly carry the moneybox. Everyone loves your scene.”

  Dercy made a dismissive gesture with a thin hand. Eldyn could not help noticing the way the back of it was traced with blue veins, and how it trembled as he moved.

  “It’s not my scene,” Dercy said. “It was your idea to do it.”

  “Yes, but it was you who schemed up how we would accomplish the staging.”

  “Well, I suppose so. But the embellishment and execution were all yours, Eldyn. And it was brilliant. I could never have given so great a performance.”

  “Yes, you could have,” Eldyn said. He went to Dercy, knelt beside him, and gripped one of his hands, stilling its trembling.

  Dercy started to protest, only then a cough wracked him. At last his paroxysm subsided, and they were both silent for a time.

  “You won’t be doing the scene again, I suppose,” Dercy said at last. He glanced toward a broadsheet that lay on the bed. ARCHDEACON OF GRAYCHURCH MEETS GHASTLY DEMISE, the headline read.

  Eldyn shook his head. “No, I don’t think we will.”

  “Good” was all Dercy said.

  Eldyn stroked that pale hand, and at last he dared to ask the question he had wanted to ask all during these last days. At first Dercy had been too ill, confined to his bed while Master Tallyroth and Madame Richelour tended to him. As he grew stronger and passed out of danger, Eldyn had still found himself reluctant to speak of it; he had wanted Dercy to think only of getting well, not of what had brought on his illness.

  Now, though his eyes were too bright, and his cheeks were grayish and hollow beneath his beard, Dercy was sitting upright, and his trembling was not so awful, confined mostly to his hands. It was time.

  “Why
, Dercy?” he said softly. “I couldn’t work illusions. Oh, I could manage small glamours well enough, but no real phantasms. You knew that I couldn’t. Only, you gave me your light all the same, all those times we were here in this room together. Why did you do it?”

  Dercy did not look at him. A grimace crossed his face, like a spasm of pain, only after a moment it became a smile.

  “I did it because I wanted you to be with me, here at the theater.”

  These words caused a pang in Eldyn’s chest. “Even at so great a cost to yourself?”

  Dercy shrugged. “It was not so very great.” He reached out and touched Eldyn’s cheek. “What was giving up a year or two of my life to spend all those that remained making grand illusions with you?”

  “But I can’t work illusions!” Eldyn cried. “It was all you—it was all your light, not mine. Now look what’s become of you!”

  Dercy shook his head, and his expression was stern. “That’s not true, Eldyn. I helped you, yes. I showed you what you were capable of. But as time went on, I gave you less and less. You were learning to find your own light. By the end, I was lending you the barest glimmer. And now …” He sighed. “Well, I certainly wasn’t helping you tonight, was I? That was all your own doing. Which means what I told you all those months ago was true. No matter what you thought you might be, you are an illusionist, Eldyn Garritt.”

  Eldyn’s eyes stung, and an anguish gripped his throat.

  “Besides, it was not because of anything I gave you that this has befallen me.” Dercy withdrew his hand and held it up, so that the palsy that shook it could not be hidden. “You know who did this to me.”

  “You’re getting better, though,” Eldyn said, finding words at last.

  Dercy grinned, and the expression had something of his usual mischief in it. “Yes, I’ll live. So Master Tallyroth assures me, and I suppose he should know. He told me earlier tonight that my mordoth is not even as bad as his, and that we both have many years left in us, as long as we are careful.”