The Withered King Page 3

  “Ok, I’m opening the images you sent me right now.” Harland took his seat, put his cell phone in speaker mode and turned on the holographic projector of his desk without letting go of his coffee.

  “What should I be looking at?” Harland paused, retching, spilling his coffee. The images were very disturbing. “That’s not good. Yes, I know, Agent Culph. I will be there soon with the files... are you sure you want him there? I know, it looks pretty grim and with signs of being caused by dark magick. Fine, I’ll call him too. We will meet you there as soon as possible.”

  Harland turned off the holoprojector and pinched the bridge of his nose. Looking once more at the framed picture he thought, I’m sorry for bringing you into this, my friend, but I really need your help.

  “How bad is it boss?” Amy said, breaking the silence.

  “Bad enough,” he said absently. His mind was running through what the Agent had told him while still looking at the files. He recalled reports of a town near the Jagged Mountains that had been destroyed under mysterious circumstances a month ago. It sounded familiar but he couldn’t pinpoint why. “Why does Lemast ring a bell?”

  ”Excuse me?” Amy asked. Harland was so troubled that he had forgotten she was still there.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “Please get me a ride to Hunt’s house.”

  Amy nodded and left. Harland was left alone with his thoughts and he looked at the photograph again. “Fionn, my friend, what sort of trouble are we getting pulled into?”

  † † †

  Fionn drove at a reckless speed, his shoulder-length hair flowing behind him. The trike ate up the road with furious speed, roaring across the routes crossing the maple and red cedar forest known as White Creek. In its wake, the Paidragh lamps that protected the roads from spirits and fae trembled. The advantages of owning a stallion trike are that you could use less traveled roads and it was faster than public transport. And since most roads were empty he was making record time towards his destination.

  He had opted for a civilian outfit rather than a more official one, white t-shirt with a black leather jacket, black jeans, and red sneakers, as it was more comfortable for riding and would help him to pass unnoticed. His hands were covered with dirty white bandages, the kind used for combat training. Only a pair of goggles protected his eyes from the dust of the road. It was the first time in months that he had left his house at Mount Shamheil. The ‘haunted hill’ gave Fionn much desired seclusion as lately he had good reasons to eschew human interaction. Namely, after a decade, people in the village near his home were starting to grow suspicious of the hermit living in the mountain who wasn’t getting older. He wasn’t in the mood to answer questions about this and it was becoming complicated to keep unwanted attention away from himself. His efforts to do so were becoming noticeable.

  Black Fang was tucked neatly in the side compartment of the trike, with only half of the scabbard visible. From afar, the scabbard appeared to be carved as if it were a tree branch. Behind him, a duffel bag was secured on the seat. Harland’s call had sounded tense enough to warrant bringing a few pieces of special equipment. His friend usually kept his cool, but this time he sounded worried. Fionn pressed the engine of the motorbike. Harland must have arrived at the house already and he wasn’t a fan of waiting.

  It was afternoon by the time he arrived at the professor’s house, which looked as Harland had described it. It was a closed gate affair, located on top of a small hill, no doubt to overlook the sowing fields below extending for kilometers. The style of the brownstone house was classical, from pre-war times, making it at least a century old. Professor Hunt clearly wasn’t much into the renovation of the building, as the walls enclosing the place were dilapidated. Despite this, and the faint white paint now falling away from its walls, the actual house seemed to have been spared from most of the ravages of time. Not a mansion, but it seemed big enough to hold what Harland once had called ‘the best-curated book collections on obscure topics.’

  He took off his goggles and fixed Black Fang on his belt. Slinging the backpack over his shoulder he waved at Harland, who came out to greet him.

  “Thank Heavens that you are here,” Harland said, his intense gaze on Fionn. “You haven’t changed at all, still looking the same.”

  “I know.” Fionn gave a faint smile. “It has become an issue lately. Anyway, what do we have here?”

  “Follow me,” Harland replied, leading the way to the front entrance of the house. Fionn noticed the two police officers guarding the entrance. With them a man stood wearing a sharp suit. He was their superior officer. Fionn knew him very well as they had crossed paths on previous cases that the crown had considered sensitive because of the presence of dark magick. Culph was one of the few that was privy of Fionn’s true identity.

  “Agent Culph, nice to see you again.” Fionn extended his hand. But Culph barely acknowledged the gesture.

  “Leave the pleasantries for another day. This is bad.”

  Fionn’s smile faded. He and Culph had a long-established friendly rivalry and he was used to trading barbs with the detective. Seeing Culph worried like this meant that what had happened inside was worse than Fionn thought.

  “Can you give us more details?” Harland asked.

  “Sure. So far we know that when the housekeeper left last night around eight, the professor seemed fine, absorbed in his work. She returned earlier this morning and found the place ransacked, the walls splattered with some black and oily liquid that smells like rotten eggs. It trailed out from the study, where we found it mixed with blood. I sent the investigators to the scene, but after a few minutes, they came running out, screaming. The only thing I could get them to say was something about ‘walls bleeding black blood.’ They were so unnerved I had to send them to the hospital. The housekeeper says nothing of value was taken. We are thinking, despite what rules tell us, that it was a dark magick ritual gone wrong.”

  Fionn and Harland looked at each other.

  “This is odd,” Fionn said.

  “Told you,” Harland muttered.

  “There is one more thing: The woman,” Culph said.

  “Which woman?” Fionn asked.

  “The housekeeper says that a young woman, by the name of Gabriella, kept trying to contact the professor through various means in the past weeks, to no avail. Then, the day before the professor went missing, she appeared here, yelling that he needed to hear her warning, as she apparently dreamt that something was going to happen. The professor chased her away from the house.” Culph handed the case notes and data cards to Fionn. “I think this case is up your alley. And given your rank as Justicar, you can have it.”

  “And where is she now?” Fionn asked.

  “I don’t know,” Culph said. By the expression on his face, he didn’t like not knowing where she was.

  “What do you mean by that?” Harland looked annoyed.

  “She had returned early this morning to try to talk once more with the professor, but the housekeeper told her not to enter the house as ‘something bad’ had happened. She remained here with the housekeeper to keep her company until we arrived. We thought she was a suspect but her alibi checked, she was playing her guitar at her hotel’s lobby bar and both the barman and the night manager can confirm that. We really didn’t have grounds to book her. The only thing we could do was to take her personal details and ask her to keep in contact since she is considered a person of interest, before letting her go. Don’t look at me that way. I’m not stupid, I sent an undercover officer to keep tabs on her, but he hasn’t reported yet,” Culph explained.

  “We need to find her,” Fionn said.

  “Are you planning to take the case?” Culph asked with an uncharacteristic eagerness.

  “Maybe,” Fionn replied, clenching his left fist around the pommel of his fangsword. He turned to Harland. “Are you coming?”

  The hous
e emitted a black miasma. The whole environment was full of malevolence. Fionn could see a dark aura around the building. He had seen that aura before, on many places during the post-war days, when he travelled around with Izia. Everybody looked at Harland, who swallowed hard.

  “Is it necessary?”

  “Do you want to find out what happened or not?”

  “Damn you,” Harland replied.

  They entered the house. Inside, the entrance hall seemed to be undisturbed. Besides a thin layer of dust, there was nothing out of place, not even a stain of humidity on the wallpaper, despite the cold, damp air circulating around. It was as if the house had been abandoned for years, which was at odds with the description that Culph had given to them. The remaining rays of light entering through the stained glass gave the place an eerie ambiance. It was no wonder that the police officers were reluctant to enter and search for clues when the whole place appeared to be trying so hard to keep you away on a subconscious level.

  “Something is wrong,” Fionn said, his breath condensing in the cold air.

  “You think?” Harland rubbed his arms to keep them warm. “This place looks dusty but otherwise fine. Yet the pictures…”

  “That’s the point.” Fionn handed the backpack he brought to Harland and from it took out a bullseye lamp, with engravings and sigils similar to those seen in older Paidragh lamps. “Brace yourself. Whatever you see from now on will probably be an illusion.” Fionn closed the door behind them and lit the lamp.

  “Probably?” Harland asked, his voice trembling.

  “Eighty percent sure.” Fionn smiled, trying to reassure his friend.

  “What about the twenty percent left?”

  “Let there be light,” Fionn murmured while tightening the grip of his left hand on the handle of his sword.

  The walls of the house started creaking in the places touched by the light of the lamp. Fionn removed the lamp’s cover, the engravings on its body shining red-hot as if they’d been hit by dragon fire. The whole building rumbled, creaked and shook as if weighed down by the entire mass of Mount Shamheil. Dust danced in the air and the wooden floor tiles jumped out of their place. Harland closed his eyes, expecting the worst, such as some creature straight from the Infinity Pits, the realm of evil; but everything stopped and settled into an eerie calm.

  An obnoxious odor filled the air, a combination of putrid fish and sulfur, coming from oily black ichor plastered all over the walls of the corridor that ended in the library of the house. It was the kind of smell that registered in the primal part of the brain, urging you to run away without stopping until you reached the next town, if not the next continent.

  “What the Pits?” Harland was trying to cover his nose, looking around, disoriented.

  “It was some kind of illusion. That gooey liquid is the reason people were feeling uneasy inside the house,” Fionn said, covering the lamp and putting it back into the backpack. He walked into the corridor, with a tight grip on the handle of his sword.

  “How? What? You need to explain this,” Harland asked, intrigued, but looking at the black gooey liquid with disgust on his face.

  “Long story, you don’t really want to know,” Fionn kept walking across the hallway at a slower pace.

  “Humor me,” Harland insisted.

  “Shortest version, this is not the first time I’ve seen something like this. The ichor is like the footprint left by gruesome events, which fades from sight with time but remains for ages. The lamp just brought it to the surface again.”

  “When did you learn that?” Harland asked, giving a good look at the lamp. He noticed that it was of freefolk origin and had Fionn’s house sigil, a gray dragonwolf in mid-stride.

  “A long time ago, with Izia and my grandfather,” Fionn replied. His tone of voice left it clear that he was finished with the subject. “Let’s go.”

  They reached the end of the corridor and came to an unlocked door. There were a few scratches on the inside of the door, but otherwise it looked perfectly fine. Beyond the door was a room filled with ancient tomes, maps, weird sculptures, and the occasional skull. The décor of the room didn’t help to lessen the unsettling image of the house. This time Fionn stopped himself from using the lamp, to avoid destroying crucial pieces of evidence. The room was in total chaos, with papers, books, and broken statues all over the place. There were blood stains, recent ones, but not big enough for Fionn to think the professor was dead. It was clear that a struggle had taken place.

  “Funny,” Fionn murmured when he got close to the window behind a mahogany desk.

  “What’s funny?” Harland asked.

  “The window is broken, but the glass fragments are on the outside, not inside. See the damage on the surface of the door? Those scratches are on the inside and yet, the lock is in good shape. Aside from the state of the room, the house is in perfect condition.”

  “You and I have very different definitions of perfect condition,” Harland countered.

  Fionn picked up some documents from the floor. Most of the papers were notes on the professor’s current research. The handwriting was hard to read, tight and continuous, but Fionn noticed the mention of a cult, old temples, and caves under Belfrost, the city of spies at the edge of the Ionis continent. He decided to take the notes with him for further examination.

  On closer inspection of the floor, Fionn noticed several wadded-up pages that looked like trash, but he could make out a symbol between the wrinkles. Fionn picked one up and flattened it out to reveal an omega symbol enclosed within a triangle, with three crossing lines on each side, like rays of light. Fionn’s memory wasn’t what it once had been, but he was well aware of where he had seen that symbol before. His worst fears were hitting him; he was grinding his teeth and his nostrils were flaring. It took him a few seconds to calm himself enough to clear his head.

  Fionn folded the notes and put them into a pocket of his jacket then walked away, seeing pieces of candles and cheap trinkets on the side of the desk. It made sense now; the officers thought they were on the scene of a magick ritual gone wrong. Fionn rolled his eyes. Hunt might have been a bit over-enthusiastic in his studies in arcanotech and ancient traditions, but he certainly was smart enough not to try rituals that could go awry in the wrong hands. The trinkets were more likely protection wards, a reasonable precaution in a place full of old tomes of forgotten lore.

  “There is good and bad news,” Fionn took one of the seats and let out a deep breath.

  “Tell me the good news, please,” Harland said, letting out a sigh of relief.

  “This is not the scene of a dark magick ritual gone wrong, nor a burglary.”

  “Good, and the bad news?”

  “The bad news is that this was the scene of a kidnapping by a dark magick ritual gone right. Something from the Outer Side snatched Hunt and took him somewhere else,” Fionn explained, his left hand opening wide to entrap his right hand, mimicking the way some plants entrapped their prey.

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Harland asked, waving dismissively.

  “No. But it is funny to see your face.” Fionn laughed while Harland flipped the finger at him.

  “Can you guess who took him?” Harland asked, giving a look around at the ransacked room.

  “Of that, I can’t be certain yet. The blood on the walls is not human,” Fionn said, offhandedly. “But I’m inclined to believe that whoever broke in here didn’t find all they needed.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Harland inquired, leaning in.

  “Those symbols and notes mention an ancient spell, but they seem incomplete. I will be sure when we give them a closer look. I wonder why the professor didn’t heed the warning from that woman since he was clearly a believer. We need to find her too.” Fionn’s lips tightened. He knew he was going to regret this.

  “Does that mean that you will take the
case?” Harland asked, with hope in his voice.

  “Sadly, yes. I can’t say no to my best friend,” Fionn replied while looking out the window and into the valley where dark clouds were amassing. Fionn clenched his hand and stood up to take a look through the open window. Outside, storm clouds reflected the inner turmoil inside him. He knew it was a secondary effect of the Gift. A sinking feeling in his stomach mixed with a speeding pulse sent his mind into a vortex of doubt. His mind was weighing the pros and cons of taking the case, trying to verbalize the source of a deep-seated anger and fear that were battling for dominance inside him. Memories long suppressed were coming to the front, racing to make sense of everything and making the sinking feeling even worse. This could be big. As big as the conflict he saw towards the end of the Great War.

  What that hell am I getting myself into this time? Fionn thought, his gaze lost in thought, staring at a black and red raven flying outside the window.

  Chapter 3

  The Dreaming Woman

  “I need to order more food,” Fionn said.

  “How can you eat so much food?” Harland asked, annoyed.

  “I’m always hungry. A side effect of the Gift. Lucky for me that you are paying,” Fionn shrugged, before downing a chicken wing.

  “Lucky for you that we are in one of the few places where the whole menu is up to your tastes,” Harland signaled a waitress.

  A couple of hours after leaving the house, they were at The Harris, a local bar in the small city of Carffadon. Like many cities built in ancient times on the Emerald Island, it was crossed from side to side by the Breen, also known as the ‘Dragon River’ for its serpentine yet powerful current, connecting Carffadon to a trade route used by e-caravans in their boats. The river was a safer and cheaper option than the expensive warptrain or the spirit-ridden roads with rogue clockwork golems mindlessly walking the valleys.

  Fionn had visited The Harris before and enjoyed the small bar, while he knew that Harland, with his bohemian proclivities, loved it. Carffadon was home to famous writers, artisans, and wealthy merchants. On the surface, the city was a cradle for creativity and snobbery, with its marble arches and thermal baths. It enjoyed a bustling nightlife with the coffee houses and pubs open for a good part of the night. E-caravan merchants lit their lamps to lure customers to overpriced wares.