The Ice House

by Tim Clare

  ‘What?’ Alice said.

  Delphine dropped her gaze. She was only making things worse. Better to leave it. They could talk later.

  ‘Sorry.’ She turned away and hauled herself up into the passage.

  The passage was long and damp, lit by the guard’s dropped lantern. Crude timber supports girded the roof; water followed cracks in the floor. The walls opened onto dark, stinking cells.

  Butler knelt over the supine harka guard, pressing a steaming, blue-limned palm to the ridge of bone between his horns. The guard shuddered and went limp.

  ‘Better he never saw us,’ Butler said. His ears swivelled. He rose sharply. ‘Ah. They’re here sooner than—’

  His left shoulder blew open in a wet blast. He twisted with the impact, spread his wings and slammed flat against the wall.

  Delphine threw herself against the opposite wall. Dazzling lantern light poured into the passageway from an opening at the tunnel’s far end.

  She pumped her shotgun’s slide action, chambering a round: ka-chuk. The noise echoed. Oops.

  She leapt into the middle of the corridor. A tremendous bang boxed her ears. She felt a puff of air against her left cheek. A screw of dust curled from the wall where she had been standing. She dropped to one knee, lifted the Remington and fired towards the light source.

  The gun kicked. The far lantern shattered and dropped. She threw herself flat. Had she hit anyone? She fought for breath, her ears ringing.

  Butler stepped away from the opposite wall. With a neat sweep of his taloned foot he kicked the unconscious guard’s lantern into the busted drain. The passageway went pitch black.

  A scrape. Muzzle flare lit a staccato sequence of poses, Butler seeming to teleport down the passage, first close, then flush with the far wall, then ducking, then thrusting an arm forward, BAM – BAM – BA-BAM – no laser sight, just stark, decisive shots selected by echolocation: one, two, three-four, five, six . . . a lull, her heart thudding in the dark . . . BAM. Seven.

  Delphine lay with her shoulder against the rock, panting. The nape of her neck was wet with cold sweat. Her eardrums ached from the bangs.

  A light appeared to her left – Butler, touching a matchhead to his oil lamp, a splash of orange and blue bleeding outwards. Her hand shaking, Delphine clicked on her gunlight.

  Bodies lay in the corridor. A human woman was slumped against the bars of a cell, her legs jerking, her head tipped back. The other bodies looked like waxworks.

  Butler went cell to cell, peering in. ‘The doors are all open.’ He grabbed one and yanked it back and forth, the hinges squealing. ‘If anyone was here they’ve been moved on.’

  ‘There’s more than this, isn’t there?’ Delphine heard the desperation in her voice.

  ‘Of course. Pull yourself together. Martha – scout the nearest passageways upstairs. We’re in the prayer caves – the main body of the palace is one level up.’

  Martha’s mandibles chewed the air softly. As she began to blur, she touched three fingers to the side of her head in a scout salute.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Butler. He popped the magazine catch on his pistol and inserted a fresh one from his black bandolier. ‘Reload, if you need to. Breathe. Make peace with your creator. After this, we go in.’

  Delphine popped a solid slug out her sidesaddle mount and slotted it into the magazine. ‘Right,’ she said, under her breath. ‘Yours in Christ, etc.’

  Delphine crept down a hallway of curving sandstone pillars, guided by the faint orange glow of Butler’s lantern. The air tasted of wet earth and charcoal. Her boots scuffed channels in the dust. There were already tracks, leading into the darkness.

  The walls were decorated with grand friezes, blistered and peeling with age. Images floated in and out of the lantern light – archers storming a beach, a bearded human declaiming to a mixed crowd in a village square, and a similar-looking fellow stripped to the waist, whipping an eel out of river spray, its thick silver body bucking on the end of a taut line beaded with droplets.

  Butler stopped at a set of double doors with rusted iron ring handles. He put his ear to a big panel of dark, wide-grained wood. Above, a marble lintel featuring a carved lyre was furred with black mould. Delphine held her breath.

  He looked round, nodded. He placed a hand on the iron ring, gingerly turned it. A heavy latch lifted with a shhhhhhack. He pulled.

  The door gave with a resonant groan, the noise echoing down a narrow passageway on the opposite side. She winced.

  The passageway was much smaller than the door. It had cement walls and a low ceiling held up by metal struts. Delphine wondered if it crossed what had once been a courtyard. Martha scouted ahead, then Butler waved them through.

  They advanced at a creep, weapons raised. After a short walk, the tunnel opened out onto steps leading up to a grand portico of black volcanic rock fronted with sandstone pillars. Butler held up a finger. Treading lightly on taloned toes, he approached a huge set of double doors as Delphine and the others waited. The doors were ajar. A faint glow spilled from within.

  He pressed his pistol to his chest, edging closer. The doors were flanked by statues of giant fish. The statues were caked in dust, which gave way in places to green-blue glass. Cobwebs hung between the fishes’ full and open lips, salted with tiny bodies.

  Butler’s ears pricked.

  He beckoned Delphine with the gun. Patience was unwinding the bindings from her arm. Together, they crept up the left side of the steps. Even in the misty cold, Delphine felt perspiration beading on her forehead, trickling behind her ears and down the nape of her neck. Nothing felt real. Her damp vest was chafing. Sewer stink rose from her clothes.

  She lined up behind Butler. She pressed the Remington to her heart. She heard talking. Vertigo surged through her and she had to steady herself against the wall.

  The air near Butler’s leg rippled. Delphine heard Martha click-clicking a message. Butler glanced back and nodded. He set his lamp down and extinguished it. The portico fell into darkness.

  Butler’s slender profile moved into the faint glow of the doorway. He slipped round the jamb and was gone.

  Delphine crept to the edge of the door. Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe. What was it like to die? Would she have time to realise if a bullet hit her head?

  She stepped through.

  She entered a vast, shadowed space with twisted columns, mosaic floors and a high ceiling that vanished into darkness. A sunken area of floor was lit by hundreds of candles in a huge glowing crescent. Their brightness made her eyes water. The air above them wobbled. She could make out silhouettes, blurred against the flames. Running on the balls of her feet, keeping her steps light, she dashed across the open floor and hid behind one of the pillars.

  She pressed her back to the cold, curving stone. Staring at the candles had made her night-blind. She blinked back towards the double doors, saw only the faintest of outlines. Her mouth was dry. She rubbed her eyes and peered round the edge of the pillar.

  Wide stone steps led gradually down towards a floor covered in an intricate tiled mosaic. Harka bodies lay supine or on their sides. Some were convulsing. Limbs were severed, heads stoved in. Jesus. They had been slaughtered.

  A man in a bloodied suit was standing over a fallen child, pointing a sword at her chest. Behind him was some sort of monument – a black sarcophagus topped with a huge onyx statue of a young man in a cloak. An old woman with white hair and a split lip stood to the bloodied man’s right. To his left—

  As she stared, the whole great chamber shrank down to a narrow tunnel. At its end, slightly hunched, stood a naked man, wavy steel-grey hair framing sunken eyes and a stubbled chin. His arms were pale and wiry. Smoke twisted from blisters as they popped and closed.

  It was him.

  Daddy.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE FLESH OF KINGS

  ‘Now!’ cried Hagar, springing backwards.

  The Mucorian-infused harka guards drew sabres and stormed do
wn the steps.

  Morgellon backed away, momentarily bewildered. How odd that a chronic paranoiac should greet the arrival of assassins – former trusted soldiers, at that – with disbelief. He had spent half his long life crushing imagined plots before they came to fruition, conspirators dragged from their beds in the dead of night, tortured, executed. But actual treachery?

  He roared with fury.

  The guards charged, swords raised, filigreed nets of fungus hanging from clefts between their horns. The Mucorians had come. They had come. Glory be.

  The first of their number closed in on Morgellon. Morgellon glowered, evidently trying to seize control of the body – the guard tilted, her leg buckling, and fell sideways. Morgellon barely had time to look alarmed before two more stepped into her place. He pointed at one with his short sword. The guard went limp and collapsed face-first. Morgellon cursed, bringing the sword round to turn aside a blow from the second.

  It was just as she had hoped. His talents were blunted against the Mucorian parasite – she hypothesised because there were two minds interwoven, one dominating the other. Dr Noroc had noted as much in his research notes – a ‘partial immunity’ to mind-affecting powers. Morgellon seemed to be able to disrupt their control over the host body, but he could not seize control himself.

  She gasped as a searing pain penetrated her chest. A guard had thrust his sabre between Morgellon’s ribs. Kenner, bleeding out on the floor, moaned too. Morgellon hacked at the guard’s throat. Dark blood splattered down both of them. Immediately, a mesh of yellow hyphae pushed from the guard’s wound and began knitting it up.

  The two guards Morgellon had incapacitated were stumbling to their feet, more advancing behind them. Morgellon staggered back, swearing. A guard faltered, collapsed. Then another.

  Not mine. Not mine.

  Puffing, clenching her molars, Hagar fought against the pain. Some of it was hers, of course. The bruises from her beating. The friction burns round her wrists. But not the ribs. She felt two rough halves of bone scraping together, saw-teeth snagging sickeningly. No. Despite the pain, she laughed. She was winning. Now she must see this through to its appointed end.

  She advanced on him while he was distracted. The wounded guard gripped the sword stuck in Morgellon’s chest by its hilt and drove him backwards into Mitta’s sarcophagus. She cried out, feeling the sabre-tip pierce his back. Morgellon hacked clumsily at the guard’s throat and shoulder, working faster than the fungal parasite could seal the wounds, splitting bone, the semi-severed head lolling backwards obscenely. He shoved the guard with both palms. The guard tripped and fell, his head snapping clear as he hit the floor.

  Morgellon grasped the sabre by its slick grip and drew it from the scabbard of his ribcage. Hagar clutched at her breastbone.

  Not mine. Not mine.

  He was panting heavily. Another harka guard thundered towards him. He closed his eyes.

  This time, the guard did not fall, but trotted to a halt. With a sharp, decisive motion she swept her blade out sideways and severed her companion’s arm at the elbow.

  Morgellon’s wine-stained lips cracked into a smile.

  Even through the hot, kicking pain, Hagar felt the cold plunge of despair. She had underestimated him. He had adapted.

  The dominated guard pivoted on her hoof and flung her sword at her comrades. A Mucorian in the body of a lean black harka parried, the blade glancing his shoulder.

  Morgellon worked quickly now as his talents waxed – Hagar had seen him use this trick many times, leaping between bodies, controlling a guard for a second, making her strike her neighbour, then jumping into the mind of the guard she’d just hit, making them strike her back. Rapidly the guards lost track of who was controlled and who was not – even their passionless Mucorian demeanours were not enough to stop them hacking one another down in a tumult of futile self-preservation.

  Morgellon’s mouth hung open as he controlled and maimed; he lost himself to the ecstasy.

  Hagar glanced around for Sarai. Her silhouette moved against the river of candles, away from the melee, edging towards Morgellon. No. Sarai was pressing ahead with the plan regardless. She did not realise how strong Morgellon was, how they had already lost. Hagar had watched him use the same tactics to take down whole battalions of mounted infantry single-handed, force ships to ram their allies and captains to disembowel themselves in front of their horrified crews. He had practically broken the Siege of Atmanloka single-handedly. His long survival was no accident, his glory and infamy thoroughly earned.

  Morgellon wiped a grot of purple viscera from his waistcoat then, glancing down, impaled a fallen guard’s skull with her own sabre. Yellow thread fungus began knitting over the wound with dying languor, binding the blade in place before crusting, splitting. The rest of the Mucorian-controlled guards lay massacred, or else so viciously butchered that they could do nothing but twitch as fungal strands knotted useless flesh to useless flesh.

  Morgellon regarded them with the disgust of the sated. He glanced up and noticed Sarai.

  His lower lip curled downwards. Here was an old woman – stopping her ought to be a perfunctory thing, almost beneath his powers.

  Almost. The weak were his favourite targets. He had never been the sort to relish a challenge.

  Glutted on death, and doubtless a little sluggish now that his withdrawal from the black medicine was kicking in, he tightened his hand into a fist.

  Sarai stopped. She held out a hand. Little grey trails, like dirty mist, were rising up from the dying guards, collecting in her open palm. She bent down and pressed her hand to the tiles.

  Hagar watched as a small section of floor pushed up and scattered. From underneath rose a stunted tangle of black briars.

  Morgellon looked round at Hagar.

  ‘This is her, isn’t it? Anwen’s child. She was alive all these years. Ready for when I came.’ For a moment, he seemed too stunned to react. Oh, he had thought she was treacherous, but he had always believed he had the measure of her treachery. That she had acted beyond even the reaches of his rangy paranoia . . . He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Her powers are too slow. I could kill her with a thought.’

  Sarai’s fist rose, then came down and down and down again, pounding her in the mouth, the skull, the eye socket. Hagar winced, feeling the pain as if it were her own. He was supposed to have been distracted. Sarai stumbled as he released her from his grip. He looked her up and down. ‘If you move, I’ll make you tear your own eyes out.’ He looked past Hagar. ‘And who’s this?’

  Hagar felt an immense heat against her back. The air rippled around Gideon as Morgellon puppeted him. Gideon trudged past, coarse dark hairs continually growing and burning away all over his body. Morgellon licked his lips as he scrutinised the stranger, evidently evaluating him inside and out.

  ‘Your mind is restless,’ said Morgellon, bringing Gideon to stand beside him. ‘I can tame it.’ His jaw clenched; the heat warp around Gideon instantly cleared. Burns closed up. Smoke cut out. Gideon staggered, blinked.

  Then he groaned as Morgellon let go. Fire broke out down his arm.

  ‘But you must yield,’ said Morgellon. He turned back to Sarai, and she shuddered as he dominated her again. She began drawing Gideon’s suffering into her, fine black cords that snaked into her nostrils.

  Hagar dragged herself to her feet. She would not die kneeling.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Morgellon, his gaze distant. ‘Never thought I’d live to see a second sorrow-eater. Shall we see what she can do?’ He planted his boot on the dead guard’s head and wrenched out the sabre. ‘Here now.’

  He pointed with the tip of the blade. The air around Hagar fluxed and sucked inwards. She tried to run.

  She came round on her side, blood pouring down one side of her face. Her ears were ringing. Morgellon was advancing on her. She scrambled to her feet, stumbled dizzily.

  He flicked blood from the sabre and moved to a run. She took a step back.

  Morge
llon balled his free hand into a fist.

  Neatly, her leg swung out from under her. Her centre of gravity shifted. She tried to throw her arms out for balance but they would not obey. She toppled.

  Her head smacked the tiles. She saw white flashes; icy pain forked through her skull. She got up. She took a step and her leg folded. She headbutted the floor.

  Her ears were full of the rumble of blood. He had overpowered her protection. She lay on her back. He was toying with her. Killing was not enough for Morgellon. Humiliation. Supplication. Annihilation.

  She was deadly afraid. But she would not give him the satisfaction.

  He forced her to stand. Her limbs worked against her will, hauling her up, swinging her round to face him. Sarai stood at his side, cowed and compliant, her lip swollen, a mauve bruise blossoming round her eye.

  Hagar fought for breath. Warm salty blood dripped from her nostril. She felt him burrowing through her brain, revelling in his conquest.

  Morgellon eyed her with contempt. He said something she could not hear.

  She felt as if she had been kicked in the chest by a mule. She doubled over. The pain was like crushing iron bands. And it was hers. He had seized control.

  He was stopping her heart.

  Nausea washed through her. Her vision smeared. She could not draw breath. She collapsed. She felt the smooth mosaic tiles against her cheek.

  Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. No, no. It was not finished. She did not want to die. Perhaps Morgellon would draw out her punishment. Perhaps his cruelty would override his judgement, and she would have a chance to trick him, or the parasite around her wrist would adapt to his methods, or—

  Morgellon drove the point of the sabre into her chest. He pushed, twisting the blade. Excruciating pain. Burning. She convulsed beneath him. Sweat streamed down her brow. She tasted vinegar. The vice tightened on her heart.

  He yanked the blade out. Through bleary eyes she saw him stab Gideon through the throat. Ah God, he wanted more pain. He was going to puppet Sarai for the final mercy stroke. Hagar felt his control on her relax but her throat was filling with blood. The tick on her wrist beat like a second heart. The world began receding.