Death's Avenger- The Malykant Mysteries, Volume 2

by Charlotte E. English

  A thin voice answered. The Master says as we’re to live again.

  The Master ? Konrad prompted.

  Some time passed, enough that Konrad thought he had lost his conversationalist again.

  Then he heard, distantly: I’ve to answer! What harm can it do us now? Ain’t we fallen as low as can be already?

  We would like to help, Konrad offered.

  After that, silence.

  Then the thin voice said: The Master, that be the old one. They say as he’s ruled down here for hundreds of years.

  Jakub Vasilescu, said Konrad.

  That’s him. He says he and his folk will put us back into our bodies and we’ll go back to the house and after that we’re to set it to rights.

  Konrad judged he was talking to a former housemaid, perhaps. Are all of you to be put to this task?

  No. Some are to work the land—

  As if there’s much left of it, put in another, sour voice.

  Aye. And there’s some as never was bound in service in the first place. Them in the fine clothes. You’d think a person as has money and freedom would find something better to do with it than swear theirselves in loyalty to the likes of our lot.

  Sycophants. Minor gentry or wealthy tradesmen, blinded by the apparent glamour of the grand house at Divoro and its elegant, superior, sophisticated inhabitants. What might such men and women pledge themselves to do, in return for… what? Connections, money, a place at some future table?

  They mean to reign over this neighbourhood again, do they? Konrad guessed.

  That and more. They say as how the Master had great plans, when he was alive, only he died before he could carry them out.

  What kind of plans?

  You know what gentry does.

  Gentry tended to engage, primarily, in alliances — judicious inter-marriages with other wealthy families could bring huge increases in wealth, land and power as the generations passed. But was that all?

  ‘Konrad,’ said Nanda, from some distance away. ‘You should see this.’

  A moment, Konrad excused himself, and went at once to Nanda’s side. Lev, Diana, Alexander and Tasha had already gathered there when he arrived.

  ‘He’s here,’ said Diana.

  Nanda nodded. ‘Look at this lot. What do you make of them?’

  She indicated a few rows of biers with a sweep of her arm. Konrad had not inspected this particular group before, and upon doing so he found they displayed marked differences to the rest. They were all men, for one thing, and they looked to have been powerful men at that. They wore largely identical clothing: dark red coats with polished buttons, tall, sturdy boots, and square hats.

  Soldiers ? Konrad guessed.

  ‘Military men,’ said Tasha, both translation and confirmation.

  ‘This is perhaps not the only such chamber down here,’ said Nanda. ‘There are likely more.’

  ‘All full of soldiers?’ Diana guessed.

  Tasha, tell them that Jakub had major expansion plans when he was alive, and the family’s lands are diminished. He might have meant to expand their territory by force.

  ‘Army of undead soldiers,’ said Tasha, having relayed this. ‘Nice.’

  ‘Few would oppose such a force,’ said Alexander. ‘Easy victories. But it must take a great deal to raise so many undead, no?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Diana grimly. ‘And now they’ve got themselves a Malykant’s stolen shell, and the best living necromancer besides.’

  Burn them, said Konrad.

  Diana, Lev and even Tasha regarded him with something akin to horror. ‘What?’ said Diana.

  Burn all these bodies. It is the quickest way to prevent their being used by the coven.

  Tasha saluted him. ‘I like you more and more all the time.’

  Diana and Lev were not nearly so happy with him, but — having exchanged a long, speaking look between themselves — they nodded. ‘You’re right,’ Diana said to him. ‘But—’

  Anichka interrupted her. But their ghosts. They are bound to their physical forms in some way. What will become of them? Will they be destroyed?

  They must be sent on, said Konrad. They are overdue at The Master’s door as it is.

  No! The thin little voice had followed Konrad.

  It is the preservation of your bodies that keeps you here, Konrad said, as soothingly as he could. Their destruction will weaken those ties, and we will do the rest.

  It is not that, said the voice. I have not breathed for fifty years. What use is dead flesh to me? But we would not be sent meekly on without our chance at revenge!

  ‘Interesting,’ said Tasha.

  How many are there who agree with you? Konrad demanded of the voice. Show yourselves.

  There are many.

  If you would oppose the coven, there can be no more hiding. Show yourselves.

  The owner of the thin voice was the first to materialise. She was, at best, sixteen, Konrad judged, a spindly girl with her lank hair haphazardly bound up. Her manifestation was thin, too, and weak; so pale and translucent, Konrad could barely make out her features. But it was a brave gesture, and he applauded her in his heart. Come on, then ! she called. Here’s our chance!

  ‘They will not all answer,’ Lev warned. ‘Some will still feel loyalty to the family.’

  Largely the ones in the finer clothing, Konrad judged. Had Jakub promised them some kind of reward for their aid? Serpents, he called. Where is the fox? Is she well?

  She is spying on the coven, said Eetapi.

  You left her there alone?

  You needed us.

  Inarguable.

  Watch for the rebels, please, he told them. Those must be caught up and dispatched to The Master the moment they emerge.

  Mere moments passed before the first fell victim to the serpents, judging from the exhilarated shriek Eetapi uttered, and the strangled cry that followed from some hapless soul.

  All around Konrad, the wavering shades of long-dead servants and soldiers came flickering into view. None were much stronger in appearance than the little housemaid; was this what long severance from their bodies did to a ghost? Konrad pushed away the feeling of disquiet this idea produced. The numbers were considerable, but he was not much reassured. They were weak, and had been under the coven’s control for many years. What could they now do to oppose their erstwhile masters, even as a mustered force?

  Alexander and Nanda might not have the eyes to see the growing army of spirits, but the inspector certainly felt them. He inched closer to Nanda, his eyes wide, visibly repressing the impulse to glance over his shoulder.

  If only it had been possible to dissuade he and Nanda from coming at all. It was certainly not the inspector’s field.

  Right, he said to Tasha. We burn everything.

  ‘And if that helpfully dispatches half our force on the spot?’

  So be it. We cannot risk their being raised and turned against us — or the neighbourhood.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘One problem,’ said Lev. ‘I do not like that we have been permitted to wander down here at our leisure, while the family are engaged in such important endeavours above. Why are we not considered a threat?’

  I will investigate, said Anichka, breaking off her conversation with one of the many shades.

  ‘They are planning to do something nefarious and painful to us all,’ offered Tasha with a beaming smile. ‘Something best carried out while we are nicely boxed up down here.’

  ‘At the very least, they’ll have stopped up the exit,’ Nanda agreed.

  I imagine we are supposed to be done in by the first wave of soldiers, once they begin to stir, Konrad said. All the more reason to burn them first.

  ‘And how are we to get out, if the exit is blocked?’ demanded Lev.

  Tasha grinned. ‘Methinks our glorious leader has a plan.’

  Don’t call me that.

  ‘You’re right, you are not at all glorious.’

  Anichka returned. The way out i
s filled in with rocks and snow, she reported. It does not look as though they expect ever to use it again.

  That gave Konrad pause. What would be the use of raising an army of undead servants and soldiers if they could not get out of the caves?

  Nanda thought the same. ‘I think we have missed something. Their plans cannot be so simple. Did — was it said that these spirits were promised life?’

  Tasha pointed a finger at the housemaid. ‘So she said.’

  Nanda frowned. ‘Did they mean a state of undeath, and merely applied a simpler word to the concept? Or did they mean something more akin to true life?’

  Whatever they might have meant before, Konrad said slowly, Might they not alter their ideas based on what has happened since?

  It was Diana who conveyed that thought, and added her own: ‘Divoro is remote, but not that remote. And there are many houses within a radius of, say, a few miles.’

  Anichka said: How many people live hereabouts?

  Diana looked around at the litter of bodies. ‘Enough. More than enough, even if there are other chambers like this one. What they have just done with Jakub, they can do with their servants, too.’

  ‘You mean bind them into living bodies?’ Alexander looked ill at the prospect.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Diana. ‘How are these spirits supposed to restore the house and work the land efficiently as undead puppets? Surely they cannot. Better to grant them healthy, living bodies, even if the procedure proves only temporary. And now that they have proof such a thing can be done…’

  It still does not make sense to trap us down here and stop up the exit, said Anichka. They would need access to the spirits they wish to raise—

  They can summon us, put in the little housemaid.

  Anichka stopped. How?

  The housemaid’s ghost flickered unhappily. Don’t you have servants? We was born here, every one of us. We served them all our lives long. We’re bound here, living or dead, and if they call us, we must go.

  Alexander went suddenly rigid, his nose lifted to the air. He inhaled deeply, and began to look wildly about. ‘We are a bit late, with the burning,’ he said, almost conversationally. ‘They have started without us.’

  Nanda sniffed the air. ‘Smoke. That’s why we are down here. They mean to burn the lot of us.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Anichka,’ said Diana. ‘Did you see signs of another way out?’

  None, said Anichka.

  ‘Tasha?’ Diana said crisply (did nothing rattle the woman?) ‘Serpents. You’ve wandered these caves more than the rest of us. There must be another way out.’

  There is, said Konrad.

  Tasha nodded. ‘It’s not a good way out, but it works.’

  ‘Get us there,’ ordered Diana.

  I hope you know how to find it, Konrad said to Tasha.

  ‘Of course I do.’ Tasha set off — not in the direction of the door through which they had entered, but the other way. An arch loomed in a dark corner of the cave, so well tucked away Konrad had failed to notice it.

  Less promisingly, wisps of smoke drifted through it.

  Tasha, the fire seems to be that way.

  ‘The fire is all ways. This one also leads to an exit. What more do you want?’

  I want my body back.

  ‘Next on the agenda. Everybody with me?’ She did not pause to check, but ducked through the low archway and disappeared into the dark passage beyond.

  Konrad waited while Nanda, Alexander, Diana and Lev followed, and then trailed after them, a stream of agitated ghosts drifting in his wake. He felt numbed. He could see smoke but could not smell it; he could feel neither heat nor cold. Some help that made him.

  He wondered if the spirits who had so long dwelled down here felt any regret at the imminent loss of their wasted physical forms. Probably not. How many years of severance would it take before one’s own body began to seem like nothing more than an old hat or glove, once a favourite but since forgotten?

  The route Tasha took was winding, and far longer than Konrad could accept with equanimity. Small comfort to him that his own body was out of the way of the fire; all the people he cared about in the world were down in these wretched caves, and it was his fault that they were here. He could not feel the gathering heat, nor could the thickening smoke clog his lungs. But he saw the smoky haze well enough, could imagine its choking effects. Nanda wrapped a length of her shawl over her face, her breathing growing shallow, and Alexander began to cough.

  Tash, is it much farther?

  If I could fly everybody there in an instant I would, she snapped. Stop fussing.

  But she hastened, and said a moment later, out loud: ‘Almost there.’

  Another turn brought them into a different space: a rectangle of a room with squared-off walls and a floor of laid stones. A cellar. They had once speculated that another, older layer of cellars and storerooms lay beneath the sculleries and pantries of the house, and here was the proof.

  Tasha marched to the back of the room, and began clawing at the wall with her nails. A block came loose; she dragged it out and hurled it to the floor, where it fell with a rumbling clatter. Nanda fell to work beside her, and soon they had made a hole large enough for a body to pass through.

  ‘What is this place?’ said Diana, muffled behind a scarf.

  ‘Denis Druganin’s cupboard of horrors,’ said Tasha as she crawled inside the hole. Her voice echoed back to them. ‘Complete with removable panels and all such good things. It is actually several cupboards built on top of one another, and properly arranged they make a nice chute up or down which a body might be passed. The problem is—’ her voice grew fainter —‘it is meant for hauling dead weights, not climbing, so I’ll have to go up and pull the rest of you after. Give me a moment.’

  Konrad tried not to notice the thickness of the smoke, or to reflect on its probable meaning.

  He failed. Half the passages we have just gone down must be full of fire by now. How far behind us is it?

  He checked on Nanda. She looked pale but resolute, and not at all frightened, which made him feel both proud of her and ashamed of himself. If she was afraid — and she would be mad not to be — she hid it well.

  Diana, of course, looked like granite.

  There came some clanking and grinding sounds from somewhere above; Tasha clambering up, he supposed, and removing obstructions. This theory was borne out by the sudden appearance of a large plank of wood that came hurtling down, and smashed upon the floor. ‘Ready,’ came Tasha’s voice, distant and echoing weirdly. ‘Somebody take the rope.’

  Nanda goes first, Konrad said, and Alexander. He need not have. Diana spared him a faintly withering look, already pushing Nanda forward. Nan grasped the rope without hesitation, and braced her feet against the stone walls. She soon disappeared from view, hauled up by slow degrees; Konrad heard a faint squeak and a small thud as she hit a wall on the way up, then nothing.

  ‘Next,’ Tasha yelled.

  Alexander followed, then Diana. By the time Lev’s turn came, bright licks of flame were curling around the cellar door, and the smoke was so thick that Lev’s breathing came in harsh gasps. Konrad gave a small, ethereal sigh of relief as the necromancer’s feet vanished up the chute — much more quickly than the others had. He supposed they had all joined in with the hauling.

  Only then did he realise that the room was empty save for himself, and his serpents. The shade of Anichka had wafted away up the chute some time before; but what had become of the other ghosts?

  What’s happened to the rest? he asked of his serpents.

  They surged off, while you were clucking over Irinanda, said Eetapi.

  Surged off where?

  Eetapi gave the snaky equivalent of a shrug. Up.

  Konrad surged up as well, just as fire erupted into the cellar room with a roar.

  Get away from here, he snapped, upon finding Lev and Nanda lingering still near the cupboard. The fire will be up here in no time. Tasha had
brought them back into the pantry in the servants’ quarters — the same room in which he had discovered the bodies of Druganin’s first victims, only the week before. It was empty, dark and cold, but would not remain so for long.

  ‘Diana’s found the rest of the coven,’ said Lev, striding for the door. ‘They have been busy, while we were down there. What was left of the servants have been put to use. We have several new possessions in progress, courtesy of the coven, and they are being used to bring villagers in. Up in the hall.’

  ‘Are you all right, Konrad?’ said Nanda, looking about in a futile attempt to see him.

  No, said Konrad. Yes.

  Of course, she could not hear him. Nor could she feel him, not even when he wrapped his ghostly self around her and tried his best to hold tight. She sighed and walked away, following Lev into the kitchens. Konrad could only drift after.

  The great hall was a scene of chaos; the more so to Konrad’s eyes, for every dispossessed spirit was as clearly visible to him as their living counterparts. Jakub stood in Konrad’s stolen body in the centre of the hall, Olya-as-Anichka at his side. Five others stood with them, all youngish men and women wearing the plain, uniform attire of the house’s servants: these must be coven-possessed. They stood waiting, for… what?

  Gathered at their backs were a host of wavering ghost-forms. These, too, had an air of expectancy. The family’s former sycophants, Konrad supposed. His serpents had thinned their numbers, but not much; there were too many. Clustered in knots in the corners and strewn across the ceiling were the rest of the haunters of Divoro: the erstwhile servants, retainers and labourers so long bound to the house. Wan and weak, they were numerous but feeble; what manner of force could they muster against the might of the coven? Very little. As Konrad watched, one or two of those pallid shades flickered out altogether as their bodies burned below.

  And what did Konrad have with which to oppose the coven? Himself: already bested, divested of his physical form and with it, much of the strength of his powers. Nanda and Alexander, bright minds and brave souls but poorly equipped to fight in this particular arena. Anichka and Lev and Diana: more than a match for a few of their peers, but what could they hope to achieve against so many necromancers — all far older and, in all probability, more powerful than they?