My breath caught in my throat. “I d-don’t know what you mean,” I lied.
A low laugh started…then spread to the other cells, until we stood in the midst of a whole ward of laughing, cackling, giggling lunatics. “Don’t you?” the sailor asked. “It sings to you as it sings to us. In our dreams.”
“Whyborne,” Griffin said urgently, but he seemed very far away. On the other side of the world, or at the bottom of a well.
I took a step closer to the cell, fascinated by the tattoos on the sailor’s back. Was it a trick of the light, or had they begun to move?
The lunatic sprang to his feet, slamming into the bars, mere inches from my face. “It sings to you!” he screamed, spittle flying everywhere.
No, not spittle—sea foam. Somehow—I didn’t know how—the ocean had risen into Stormhaven, an inch of water splashing beneath my feet, the scent of the murky depths filling my nose. It wasn’t possible—it would take a cataclysm indeed for the ocean to rise so high, and surely the building would have been swept away. But where did the water come from?
What was happening to me?
“It’s coming!” the madman howled, shaking the bars of his cage. “The dweller in the deep is coming! The god is coming, singing; don’t you hear it, don’t you hear it?”
A hand touched my arm.
Chapter 16
I screamed and spun, to only to find myself face-to-face with the girl—Amelie—who had given me the flower on our first visit. She screamed as well, and I stumbled back, tripping over my own feet and falling to the floor.
The perfectly dry floor.
“Whyborne! Are you all right?” Griffin exclaimed, dropping to his knees by me.
“What happened to the water?” I asked, hysteria kicking my voice into a higher register than usual.
Griffin stared at me in bewilderment. “Water?”
“The floor…it was flooded…” But obviously that wasn’t so. “Never mind.”
Griffin helped me to my feet, his brows drawn with concern. At least his worry for me seemed to have relieved his impending fit; perhaps only one of us would end tonight thrashing about on the floor. “Are you all right, my dear?” he asked anxiously.
“I’m fine.” The atmosphere of the ward had surely played tricks on my mind.
Amelie drew closer, peering up into my face. “You’re here,” she said, and poked me in the chest. “Actually here.”
“Er, yes. And so are you.” I looked about uneasily. Surely, she shouldn’t be on this floor at all, let alone in a male ward.
She nodded solemnly, her red-gold hair rustling about her shoulders. Her bare feet were stained with grass, as if she’d been running wild outside just moments ago. “Yes. Follow me.”
She walked purposefully away from us, heading deeper into the ward. Around us, the inmates groaned and screamed and snarled like…well, like mad things. Thankfully, none of them tried to speak to her.
“What should we do?” I asked Griffin uncertainly. Amelie seemed as if she had some destination in mind, but there was no knowing what it might be.
Griffin shrugged. “We follow her.”
I supposed we had no choice; we could not, in good conscience, let her wander alone amidst a bunch of violent men, even ones who had been restrained. As we followed her, I continued my examination of the patients, but to my disappointment didn’t spot Allan amongst them.
Amelie led the way to the end of the ward, where the heavy steel door stood open by just a crack. Was that how she’d managed to get in? Hadn’t the nurse said something the first day about Amelie somehow getting through locked doors?
She boldly pushed the door open, and we followed her into the centermost portion of the asylum. A single glance confirmed we’d reached our destination. The superintendent’s living space was much finer than the rest of Stormhaven, at least the parts I’d seen. To one side was a large, comfortable parlor, while to the other lay a dining room with a long table for entertaining. A cupboard filled with cut glass and china stood against one wall.
“Ooh, pretty!” Amelie exclaimed, and ran to peer at it closely.
Griffin sighed. “Zeiler won’t keep anything incriminating lying about where anyone could find it. Let’s search his chambers. See if you can convince the young lady to follow us.”
She pried at the front of the cabinet, so I hurried over to her, visions of her happily breaking the glasses and summoning every attendant in Stormhaven dancing through my head. “Er, come along, now,” I said.
She let me lead her away, but not without numerous glances of longing back over her shoulder.
A little hall opened off the back of the parlor. Griffin led the way, and Amelie danced after him, her skirts swishing about her knees, as if we strolled down a country lane. “I like your eyes,” she said, smiling winsomely at me. “They’re pretty.”
Griffin chuckled. I blushed. “Er, thank you. You’re, um, very kind.”
“Will you kiss me?”
“Good heavens, no!” I exclaimed. Griffin muffled a snort of laughter, curse him. At least he had regained his equilibrium, even if it was at my expense.
Two doors opened off the short hall. The one on the left appeared to lead into Zeiler’s bedroom, and the one on the right to a small study. Griffin chose the study, which contained only a chair and curtain top desk, at which Dr. Zeiler might write his private correspondence. The desk had been left open, the chair shoved back, no doubt when the sudden darkness interrupted the doctor’s evening. His writing set was out, a pen lying abandoned on its side, atop what appeared to be a half-composed letter.
Griffin went to the desk and began to rifle through it with quick efficiency. Amelie stood too close and stared fixedly at my face, as if something about me fascinated her. I, in turn, resolutely watched Griffin and prayed we’d be out of here soon.
From somewhere outside, a board creaked, as if beneath a footstep.
Beside me, Amelie froze, her gaze locked on the door, which we had foolishly left open. Griffin gestured frantically for me to shutter my lantern, which I did, plunging us into darkness. My mind immediately populated it with horrors: an insane murderer, creeping in on silent feet to chop us apart with an ax. Or perhaps, something worse, something which whispered words I couldn’t quite make out in the voice of my mother…
“Is anyone there?” called a woman. One of the nurses, no doubt. “I heard you, so come on out if you’re here, or things’ll go worse for you!”
I felt Amelie shudder. Her hand touched my arm lightly in the dark. “Stay here,” she breathed in my ear.
She slipped away before I could stop her, bare feet almost silent on the floorboards. Once she left the room, however, she began to sing nonsense in a loud voice.
“Amelie! I should’ve known!” the nurse exclaimed. There came a loud crack, as of an open hand on flesh, and Amelie fell silent. “Shop that infernal noise. Now no tears, or I’ll give you something to cry about, I will. Come on, you stupid slut, it’s back to your room with the others.”
My hands curled into fists…but Amelie had deliberately sacrificed her comfort for our mission, and the only way to repay her was to soldier on. I listened for what seemed like forever in the dark, but was probably only a few minutes. Eventually, Griffin unshuttered his lantern, the beam blindingly bright.
“Here,” he said, voice pitched low as he held something out to me. “I spotted it just before we heard the nurse. What do you make of it?”
I took the paper from him. “It’s a copy of the inscription from the ceremonial bowl,” I replied. “And a translation—fairly accurate, I think…oh. Oh dear.”
“What is it?” Griffin asked.
“It’s an invocation to summon the god.” I looked up and met his eyes, saw my dread reflected there.
“Summon? As in…?”
“Yes. They mean to release the dweller of the deep from its ocean prison and set it free upon the land.”
~ * ~
Griffin swallowed hard.
“Why?”
I shook my head slowly. “It doesn’t say…but I can guess. Power. Revenge. The favor of the god, whatever form that favor takes.”
We stood in utter silence for a long moment, both of us contemplating the horrors a man like Zeiler might loose on the world. As if summoned by our thoughts, the superintendent’s voice echoed faintly from somewhere outside the room.
“Damn it,” Griffin hissed. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me after him into the hall, and then the sitting room.
“…it doesn’t happen again,” Zeiler said from the southern stairwell.
We dashed to the northern stairwell, plunging down the wide steps just as the beams of lanterns appeared at the southern landing. “Who’s there?” Zeiler called.
Blast the man for spotting us. Griffin didn’t hesitate, however, dragging me down the stair after him, even as Zeiler yelled for us to stop. Had he seen our faces, or recognized us?
The stair let us out on the first floor. More shouts echoed from above, along with pounding footsteps coming down the southern stair. Griffin rushed to the front door, flung it open, and hauled me after him out into the foggy night.
We dashed across the lawn. My heart thudded in my chest, and a stitch formed in my side, but I pressed on over the damp grass. More shouts came from within—did they think us escaped patients, or intruders? Either way, it would be a matter of minutes before every attendant in the place turned out to search for us.
Griffin ran unerringly to where we had left our things at the foot of the wall. He threw the grapple, cursed when it failed to catch, and tossed it again. The clang of metal against stone echoed through the foggy night. “Who’s there?” someone shouted.
Griffin scrambled up the rope, perching on the top of the wall to haul me after. Lantern light cut through the fog when I was halfway up, and there came another shout of alarm. “You there! Stop!”
Something—fingers?—brushed the bottom of my shoe. I didn’t look down, focusing instead on Griffin’s face. With a last heave, he pulled me atop the wall. The knees of my trousers scraped the stone, but I didn’t care.
We dropped from the wall, as the shouts grew louder behind us. Griffin ran and I followed him, tripping over rocks and the uneven ground and leaving Stormhaven behind us.
~ * ~
Later that night, I found myself at the bottom of the ocean.
The cyclopean architecture loomed overhead, clinging to the sides of a great trench, its spiky towers and nonsensical angles clear to my sight despite the utter darkness of the abyss. Muck sucked at my feet as I walked down a great thoroughfare, and all the detritus of the miles of ocean above my head floated down like strange snow. A hellish glow showed far off in the distance, as if the great crevasse opened in places onto the bowels of the very earth. Columns of boiling water streamed up from the vents, and monstrous life grew thickly nearby. Fish floated past, flashing green and blue lights, like fireflies trapped on the bottom of the sea.
Somewhere, my mother sang.
I ran to her, the weight of the water no obstacle. She needed me, I knew it, but I still couldn’t make out the words she sang.
There: she waited in front of the great temple. She’d escaped somehow. And yet the realization, which should have brought joy, instead filled me with dread. I slowed, every instinct shrieking at me to turn, to run, even though this was my mother, who I should be rushing to save…
No, wait. It wasn’t mother, but Griffin. He stood alone in front of the temple, head bowed, tattered clothing drifting in the current.
He needed me.
Despite my mounting horror, I forced my feet forward, one step, then another. As I approached, he raised his head and looked at me. His irises had turned to gold, the pupils the oblong slits of a cuttlefish eye.
~ * ~
When I arrived at the Ladysmith the next morning, I found a small package from my father waiting for me at the museum. Taking it to my desk, I tore open the brown wrapping paper. It contained a slender volume of thoroughly modern origin and a note.
Percival,
I assume you’ve, as usual, not taken my advice, and have continued to delve into the matter with the Eyes. As I mentioned when we spoke, my fellows and I were in the habit of keeping watch over other organizations with similar interests. Here is what we gathered on the Eyes; the information is twenty years old, but that shouldn’t matter when it comes to a cult spanning millennia.
And no, I did not have it in my possession the night we spoke, nor did I know for certain I could obtain it. I didn’t wish to encourage you by mentioning its existence, but you’ve always been damnably stubborn.
I would tell you to be careful, if I thought you’d listen. Instead I say, for your mother’s sake, at least, don’t be foolhardy. Although I haven’t agreed with your decisions, your actions of the last year suggest I may have underestimated your courage.
Yrs truly,
Niles Foster Whyborne
I read through the note several times. What the devil was the man about? Although I was grateful for whatever assistance the volume might provide, Father never did anything without some advantage to himself. Did he think to woo me back into the fold with such a gift?
Let alone his baseless flattery. “I may have underestimated your courage”—did he think me Stanford, to lap up such extravagant praise? I was well aware I had no more courage than the next man, and far less than someone like Griffin.
No doubt he intended to lower my guard. Probably he meant to ask another favor of Griffin, and thought I would argue his case for him, despite his possible involvement in Griffin’s confinement. If so, he would have to resign himself to eternal disappointment, as he had with all other matters concerning me.
Putting such useless speculation aside, I opened the volume he’d sent and examined it. Written in plain English, using only the simplest of ciphers—the Brotherhood had indeed been confident no one would ever breach their secrets. Generations of wealth and power had a way of instilling a sense of invulnerability, I supposed. Just look at Stanford.
I took the volume with me and returned to the library. If the Eyes truly meant to raise some blasphemous creature from the depths of the sea, and unleash it upon the land, we had to find some way of stopping it. Surely, between the Arcanorum, the Brotherhood’s investigation, the Al Azif and the other resources of the Ladysmith’s library, I could discover its weakness.
I hoped. The alternative was too awful to consider.
If something happened to Zeiler, would the creature simply find another vessel to do its work? How widespread was the cult? Was Zeiler its slave, driven to enact its will, just as poor Allan had been unable to control himself at the sight of the cult’s symbol? And if not, what did he hope to gain from unleashing it? Then again, crushing the world beneath the heel of one’s god had proved tempting to men throughout history; how much more so if your reward came in this life instead of the next?
Zeiler. Hate flashed through me, and I tasted seawater in my mouth. I could turn my sorcery against him. Find a spell in the Arcanorum to force him to do my bidding.
Griffin would never forgive me. My use of magic already worried him; if I took things much further, he’d be furious. And if the dweller simply used one of its other minions instead, it would all be for nothing. I had to find a way to stop it from rising.
I blinked and realized my mind had drifted. Lack of restful sleep was beginning to take its toll on my ability to concentrate. I focused again on the words in front of me.
The air pressed heavy against my skin, like water. Strange sounds echoed from elsewhere in the library. Footsteps. Rustling paper. Even someone singing.
Mr. Quinn wouldn’t like that. This was a place for quiet research, not frivolity.
The song grew louder, though. Haunting and beautiful and unearthly, it both called to and repulsed me.
I had to go to the singer. I had to.
Seaweed and barnacles clung to the library’s shelves, currents stirring the page
s of books. Fish darted past my face, and the light had a strange, bluish quality. I walked out through the underwater library, into the great, sunken city with its mad geometry. How had I not realized the city and Widdershins were one and the same before? That this terrible place was my home?
Of course it was. And the singer was my mother, or perhaps Griffin, who was in terrible danger. I picked up my pace, hurrying through the titanic city, making for the temple where everyone I’d ever loved was being held prisoner—
“Whyborne? What are you doing?”
The words meant nothing. Nonsense sounds, spoken by an unrecognized voice. I had to hurry.
A hand closed around my wrist, jerking my arm aside. I spun on my assailant with a snarl. No one would keep me from the singer.
“Whyborne!”
I fought, wrestling against the hands grabbing me. Whoever this was, I had to get away, Mother needed me, Griffin needed me—
“Ival, stop!”
Griffin?
I blinked. I stood on the familiar sidewalk of River St., in front of the department store. Griffin gripped both my arms; several people had stopped to stare, but I was too aghast to feel embarrassment. How could I have not known Griffin? For that matter, how had I gotten here in the first place? “Griffin, I—I’m sorry!”
Worry creased his brow. He loosened his hold on me, although he didn’t let go altogether. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“No,” I said miserably. “I don’t think I am.”
Chapter 17
I sat behind my desk, cradling the cup of coffee Griffin had fetched for me, unable to bring myself to look at either of my friends. Griffin had brought me back to the museum, alerted Christine something odd had happened, then had her sit with me while he found coffee. No doubt he’d been worried I’d wander off in an unseeing daze again.
“I’d come to meet you for lunch and find out if you would accompany us to the park later on,” Griffin said. He perched on the arm of my chair, one hand resting lightly on my back. “As I was climbing the steps to the museum entrance, you walked out. I spoke to you, but you didn’t acknowledge me at all. It was as if you didn’t even know I was there.”
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