The Stone of Madness

by Nick Baker

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Got gallopin’ consumption, but rather than let it take ’im, ’e threw ’imself from the top of the tower. After that, no one went near the place. As rumour ’ad it, Ælfric came back to haunt it. The tower fell into disrepair, but the fact that it still stands is testimony to them masons as built it. The place was bought up a few years ago, an’ I ’eard some work was done on it, but tha’s all I know. Wha’ sort of state ye’ll find it in, I dunno, but tha’s as far as I’m goin’,’ said Owen, stopping dead in his tracks a hundred yards from the base of the stone monolith. ‘All as I agreed was to bring ye this far. Now if yer don’t mind, I’ll be off.’

  Price regarded the man levelly. He intuitively knew that Owen had been honest with him and that his motivation was purely financial. He had no reason to involve him in anything that was liable to get messy, and Price felt a great sense of relief when Owen turned to leave. ‘Before you go, perhaps you’d consider doing something for me? I’ll match whatever you’ve already been paid.’

  Owen smirked. ‘An’ wha’ might tha’ be?’

  ‘If my car’s still in the village this time tomorrow, I’d like you to call this man. Here’s his number,’ said Price, holding out a card containing Nicolas Fox’s details together with a neatly folded fifty-pound note.

  Owen’s eyes flicked nervously back and forth between the tower and the crisp note in Price’s hand. He quickly came to a decision and snatched the items on offer before turning briskly on his heels without another word.

  Price watched Owen head back along the path until he disappeared into the failing light. He wheeled round to face the tower, which was slowly turning to ruin judging by the state of its crumbling brickwork. He craned his neck skywards, scrutinising the column of high-arched windows cast deeply in shadow. He charged round the building until he came to a high-vaulted arch boasting massive oak doors set back in a gatehouse that abutted the tower. As he approached, there was a flicker of movement that caught his eye. He looked up and locked eyes with a demonic gargoyle staring menacingly down at him. The beast’s wings were folded, but its forked tongue and bulbous eyes could not mask its diabolical intent, yet he still managed a humourless smile as a bat emerged from behind the statue and flitted off into the gloaming.

  Price knocked on the door and waited, but the tower remained ominously silent. He opened the door with a twist of the handle and a gentle push. He passed through the arch and entered a short corridor that led to a metal postern gate blackened with age. He pushed on the door, but it would not budge, and a small, rectangular grille remained stubbornly shut despite his attempts to prise it open.

  He shook his head; it seemed odd that he had been allowed to come so far only to be barred from entry here, but as if on cue, there was a faint click and the door swung open to reveal an octagonal hall illuminated by rows of candles mounted on sconces. The flames flickered from the sudden inrush of air, casting foreboding shadows across the walls. The room was empty apart from a marble bust that had toppled from its column, barely recognisable as a shattered head strewn across worn flagstones.

  The door closed behind him as he hurried across the room towards a low arch that led to a circular turret housing a narrow staircase barely wide enough to accommodate his frame. It appeared that he was being shepherded upwards by whoever was holding Lily, and without hesitation, he ascended the sharply curving staircase. He halted at a cramped landing on the first floor and looked through the window. The night was drawing in and a dense mist rolled eerily across the landscape in great billowing clouds. He turned his back on the failing light and gave the opposing door a shove. The door was locked, and as he continued his climb, the doors on successive floors were barred.

  The muscles in his legs rebelled as he hurried towards the summit, but the final rise of stairs was blocked by an impassable mound of masonry, preventing any possible ascent to the roof. He turned his back on the stairs, and much to his relief, the door on the landing was ajar. He peered through the gap into a small room illuminated by a shaft of light filtering through a narrow window high on the adjacent wall. The walls were caked with aeons of grime, and as he entered the room, he stifled a cough from the stale air thick with dust that filled his lungs. He looked up, drawn by the unremitting sound of water dripping from the ceiling; it was no wonder this place had done so little for Ælfric’s health, he surmised humourlessly.

  He crossed the room towards a heavy wooden door, which was locked, and after several unanswered raps, he turned his attention to an ornate goblet sitting atop a slip of paper on a round table next to the door. He lifted the chalice and looked suspiciously at the steaming, colourless liquid. He held the cup to his nose but immediately pulled away, eyes streaming. The pungent fumes billowing from the goblet smelt similar to the sal ammoniac he used for alchemical experimentation, and he had an uneasy feeling that the contents were intended for him. He picked up the note and read the words written in the same elegant handwriting as the letter delivered to Albright a few hours earlier.

  Drink and you may enter, it read.

  Price considered the words but instinctively knew that he had no choice. He seized the goblet, and without a second thought, he swallowed the contents in a single gulp. The acrid fluid burnt all the way down, and as he waited for the first signs of whatever poison he had doubtlessly ingested, the door flew open.

  His head swam as the liquid took effect, but nothing could prepare him for the sight that greeted him as he stumbled through the door. A narrow arc of light surrounded by an all-enveloping darkness streamed down from a high ceiling, highlighting Lily propped up against the wall. Her mouth was gagged and her head lolled uncontrollably on her shoulders.

  ‘Lily?’ Price whispered, staring in horror at the metal shackles that bound her hands and tethered her to the wall.

  Lily started at the sound of her father’s voice. She strained to lift her head as if it was a dead weight, but as she opened her eyes and looked towards him, a woman stepped into the shaft of light to join her.

  ‘At last! You arrive as a lamb to the slaughter,’ the woman announced, spitting out her words with a combination of glee and malice. She leant forwards and tugged on the tangled strands of Lily’s hair, jerking back her head to expose the pale skin of her neck.

  Price immediately recognised Pearly Black’s one-time accomplice and the attempted murderess of Cornelius Spydre. ‘Aurelia, if you’ve—’ he cried.

  ‘Silence!’ she commanded. ‘We haven’t harmed the girl, and if you wish it to stay that way, you’ll have to be patient. Wait there and do as I say.’

  Price frowned. It seemed odd that he had come so far only to be told to wait. In the ensuing silence, he took the opportunity to consider his surroundings, despite the conviction that whatever he had ingested was insidiously neutralising his intrinsic alchemical talent. He shook his head like a mangy dog in an attempt to prevent the blunting of his faculties before it was too late, and as he examined his surroundings, he immediately perceived an immense power perfusing the room. As he probed deeper, he sensed someone hiding in the shadows, manipulating an obscure, yet strangely exotic force. He blinked, unable to grasp the nature and magnitude of what was staggering in intensity yet impossible to comprehend. He had to find out more, and without hesitation, he stepped forwards, searching for the source of the power.

  ‘I warned you! Stay where you are or I’ll slit her throat,’ Aurelia barked, brandishing a stiletto and thrusting the tip towards Lily’s neck.

  Price jerked to a halt, watching in horror as a drop of blood trickled from a tiny puncture wound in Lily’s neck. ‘Please … put down the knife,’ he said in as calm a voice as he could muster, holding up the palms of his hands.

  ‘If you take another step, I really will use this thing,’ Aurelia affirmed, holding the knife aloft. ‘Now we wait,’ she commanded.

  Price nodded, bowing his head in feigned acquiescence. Whatever the reason for Aurelia’s tarrying, she was
granting him the opportunity to utilise what remained of his quickly-receding skill. He dared not approach her but perhaps there was something he could do about the poison.

  Since he had swallowed the foul-tasting fluid, he had developed a tingling in his fingers and, with every breath, a tightening of his chest. As he turned his mind inwards to analyse the effects of the liquid, Aurelia threw him a wicked smile, rejoicing in the obviously discernible effects of her concoction.

  ‘I’ll save you the bother,’ she gloated. ‘You’ve ingested a naturally occurring neurotoxin, designed to cause muscular paralysis and much, much more. The inevitable conclusion, of course, is a lingering death by suffocation, which will be extremely unpleasant as you’ll be conscious throughout the ordeal …’ she said, pausing theatrically. ‘Unfortunately, the dose you’ve taken is insufficient to kill you … more’s the pity,’ she added with feigned disappointment. ‘I have my orders, I’m afraid, but that pleasure is reserved for someone else.’

  Price shook his head, yet despite the confirmation that the poison was not meant to kill him, in the time that Aurelia had been speaking, a malign burning had spread up his arms.

  ‘No. What you’ve taken is sufficient to ensure that your abilities are neutralised so that you’re powerless to interfere at this vital point in the proceedings.’

  Price forced his chest to rise and fall in short, staccato bursts as if he was fighting for his breath. ‘W-what … have … I … t-taken, Aurelia?’ he said in as pitiful a voice as he could muster.

  ‘A simple toxin,’ she replied, effortlessly falling for the ruse. ‘It’s found in a type of phytoplankton that’s a source of food for many marine animals. I isolated it from a shellfish that goes by the pleasant name of the butter clam; just a little more exotic than the poison I used on that friend of yours. What was his name? Spider or something, as I recall. He only just made it, I hear,’ she added gleefully.

  Price shook his head but kept his counsel, desperately trying to retain the vital information Aurelia was giving up in the hope that it might help him.

  ‘The toxin is a competitive inhibitor of nerve conduction and binds to sodium channels, thus negating the effects of the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. The result is that all muscle activity ceases once the nerve endings controlling muscular contractions are blocked. It also has the added benefit of nullifying your so-called alchemical abilities,’ she continued, showing great delight in demonstrating her own natural brilliance and ingenuity.

  ‘AURELIA!’ a voice called out from the dark.

  ‘You, wait!’ Aurelia hissed, pointing authoritatively at Price before turning in response to the summons.

  Underestimate me at your peril, Price thought, perceiving a dwindling of his singular skills yet rejoicing in the retention of his intellect. He urged himself to think, knowing that while this woman was happy to demonstrate her genius, she was also allowing him the time to act before it was too late. She had revealed that the poison was stifling every nerve in his body, stripping away his body’s functioning, and as the final vestiges of his power slowly dwindled, he knew what he had to do. It was simple; by increasing the concentration of the chemical the poison was acting on, it would displace the toxin and negate its effects.

  He could sense his mind slowing and his muscles failing, and it would not be long before he was completely incapacitated. He steeled himself, internalising his mind to seek out every nerve, synapse and gland in his body. Then, with his eyes tightly shut, he summoned a huge bolus of electrical energy, which he sent coursing down his spine, compelling an outflow of natural chemicals to flood his body.

  Pain exploded inside him. Violent spasms afflicted his muscles, pulling and tearing at every ligament and sinew as if it would rip him apart. His spine arched and his body shook, yet he revelled in the agony, sensing the certitude of his actions. Gradually, the pain receded, and by degrees, the cramps ceased and his body relaxed. He looked around, and as his breathing eased and the pain ceased, his hopes soared. Aurelia was talking animatedly to someone in the shadows, oblivious to what had happened. With an exhilarating influx of lucidity, he sensed the last vestiges of the poison ebb away. He was free; now he could act!

  Price looked at Lily but knew that there was nothing he could do for her until he understood the nature of the enormous power he had sensed when he entered the room. Even now, the bizarre energy force was still there, or was it? On the one hand, he sensed something mere inches in front of him, yet on the other, there was nothing there at all. The deeper he probed, the greater the inconsistency between something he intrinsically felt, but could not see. Then, with a giddy clarity borne of the poison he had banished, he knew. Whoever was hiding was wielding an inconceivable force of negative gravity and mass. It was hardly surprising that he had failed to grasp the incongruent nature of the force in his bewildered state, but now, with his perception restored, he felt the same tainted corruption of alchemical power permeating the ether as the trace he had detected when he had discovered the theft of Piotrowski’s manuscript from his home.

  Price barely had time to digest the implications of the frightening revelation when a blinding light flared in front of him accompanied by a tumultuous crack. He threw up his hands and reflexively backed away. The room shook and the air crackled as if its fabric was being torn asunder. A gaping cleft opened up before him, as black as death. The fissure erupted, releasing malign, flames of hellish red that coalesced into a seething vortex of exotic matter, circulating malevolently around a central empty void. He reached out oblivious to the scorching heat, entranced by the abyss that lay beyond the maelstrom.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ boomed the deep-toned voice of the hidden man.

  ‘If you move another inch, I’ll cut her throat,’ Aurelia shrieked, drawing the blade theatrically across her victim’s neck.

  Price halted. ‘No!’ he cried, staring helplessly at the blade hovering inches above Lily’s jugular.

  ‘Do as you’re told and you may yet avoid witnessing the demise of your daughter,’ Aurelia commanded.

  Price nodded. He could not risk compromising Lily but silently vowed not to waste the time Aurelia was gifting him. As he waited in mock subservience, he racked his brains, trying to recall all he could about exotic matter.

  His thoughts turned to the Academy and a time when he had worked with his one-time friend, Pearly Black, in trying to raise a force of negative gravity and mass by alchemical means. After early experimentation dabbling with this paradoxical force, he had backed off, fearful of the devastating consequences arising from attempts to harness a power that underpinned the cosmos.

  Predictably, Black was not so easily swayed, and after years of obscure experimentation in pursuit of some terrible goal, he made the breakthrough he alone had anticipated. Price could still picture him now, standing egotistically before an auditorium crowded with renowned alchemists and Cambridge dons, Nobel laureates and professors of particle physics, expounding on the complex mathematical equations and alchemical theorems few alone could comprehend. As a finale to his brilliant exposition, he had announced to a thunderstruck audience that an enormous proportion of matter constituting the universe could not be accounted for, and like Einstein incarnate, he had predicted the presence of invisible particles, heavier than protons, to account for the anomalous phenomenon of anti-gravity.

  From that moment on, Black was not to be denied, and as he delved deeper, toying with an energy of negative density and pressure, he dreamt of bending space-time, and the panacea he sought—instant travel between distant points.

  As far as Price knew, Black had never achieved this unimaginable goal, but now, at last, with his faculties fully restored, he perceived that the intangible mass of energy seething inches in front of him had been fashioned into a gate just as Black had envisioned—a portal destined to lead elsewhere.

  Despite his predicament, Price marvelled at the achievement and wondered who was wielding this unimaginable force. Then, as if in resp
onse to his silent query, a voice called out from the darkness. ‘At last, Price, we’re ready. Step forwards and meet your destiny.’

  He had no choice; he knew what he had to do. He closed his eyes, reached out to his daughter and prepared to meet his doom.

  29

  THE STONE OF MADNESS

  Alone

  IN THAT INSTANT, LILY felt the chill touch of another’s thoughts intrude on her despair. She recoiled, straining against the bonds that tethered her, but then, just as suddenly, she relaxed. She had never experienced this sensation before, yet as a child, she had witnessed the silent communication practised by her parents, and now, as the words passed silently through the ether and materialised inside her head, she intrinsically knew that she was listening to the soothing, cajoling words of her father.

  Listen carefully, Lily. Time is short. Remember, I’ll always love you. In a moment, I’ll be gone. Strike during the confusion and flee!

  With these words, she felt her father’s presence depart as he stepped forwards and disappeared into the whirling chaos that separated them as utterly as if he had never been there.

  ‘No!’ she bellowed, desperately trying to cling on to her father’s touch, which had told her so much more than his silent words had conveyed. She had felt his love for her and the pain of his sacrifice, and the unequivocal proof that he truly was her father. She also discerned that he was fully aware of what he was doing as he stepped into the void, and if she had fully understood the emotions that accompanied the melding of their minds, he had quite possibly foreseen his own death. Yet despite all of these things, he had entered the void with a contented smile on his face that arose from the knowledge that he was doing it for the sake of his daughter.

  Lily steeled herself. She would not waste her father’s actions; she had to escape. She blocked out the memory of all she had witnessed, and turned her attention to her captors and the wild, dangerous energy flowing through the room.