The Vagrant (36 page)

Seconds later the servant’s head jerks up, suddenly awake. He blinks twice, blushes, and straightens.

‘Dada?’

The Vagrant attends to Vesper.

‘Dada?’

The Vagrant nods.

‘Dada?’

Again the Vagrant nods. A stream of bubbles appear on the surface of the water. Vesper points at the Vagrant.

‘Dada!’

Eyebrows raise, indignant. Vesper laughs and laughs, until at last, the Vagrant smiles and joy rings from the walls.

The Vagrant stands in fresh clothes, awkward. Vesper pulls at hers, unable to remove them.

‘Better,’ declares Obeisance, much to the relief of the staff. ‘Though it will not be accompanying us, I had your goat seen to. She will be bred with local stock to improve taint resistance.’

The goat is brought out. Rarely has she looked so clean, or so dangerous.

‘Goat?’

The goat gives her a black look.

‘Goat!’ repeats Vesper with confidence.

‘Come, it is time. You wish to take the child?’

The Vagrant nods and they go.

‘Bye bye goat.’

They return to the ground beneath the sanctum. Already there, the Knight Commander waits by a staircase, silver wrought. Each step is thirty feet across, one foot high. There are forty nine in total. The last step leads only to air, the great cube floating high above.

‘Scary isn’t it?’ says the Knight Commander. ‘They say that The Seven carry you the last of the way, so you have to put your faith in them. Not everyone makes it.’ He watches Obeisance walk past. ‘She’s been doing this since she was about your girl’s age. I’ve only had to for the last five years but we both agree, it never gets easier.’

Like pilgrims, they ascend. The Vagrant’s injuries force him to move slowly. Obeisance is the first to reach the highest step. She does not break stride, toes spreading in the open air to find purchase. Behind her the two men stop and stare.

‘After you,’ says the Knight Commander.

The Vagrant picks Vesper up, rests her on his hip. He draws the sword with his other hand, watching the tiny wings as they unfurl, moved by different currents. He holds the blade out over the edge, feeling the firm tug. The Vagrant looks down, looks up again quickly.

‘This is as good as it gets. Best to go now.’

Little hands cling to the Vagrant’s arm, pinching skin.

A glance back reveals the Knight Commander, still waiting. The Vagrant’s lips shape a prayer, he takes a deep breath … and steps out.

Vesper buries her head in the Vagrant’s chest.

The air is not solid but there is resistance. With spongy strides, the Vagrant goes up. He focuses on the cube, muscles tight with tension. One step, then another, fighting the urge to look down. As they get closer, details emerge on the side of the cube. A lip juts out below an archway, inviting, the back of Obeisance’s cloak already vanishing through it.

They follow her in, arriving in a small antechamber. Doors behind them slide closed, sealing the room. Obeisance tries to open the doors opposite but they are blocked, forcing them to wait. Noises come from beyond, tapping, cracking, the labour of many people.

Obeisance counts, face creasing in concern.

The sounds get louder, coming from the base of the door.

Time ticks by.

Vesper yawns.

The door crunches open, stopping halfway. Obeisance steps through, beckoning the others. They arrive in a larger chamber carpeted in stone. People in skinsuits and glowing collars work to chip it away by hand. Some are attached to the wall, some squat down, attending to the floor. As fast as they work, the stone grows back like a weed, stubborn and grey.

The Knight Commander pauses at the entrance. ‘It’s getting worse isn’t it?’

‘The Seven descend deeper into silence but we care for Them as we have ever done.’

‘Have you ever seen it this bad before?’

‘There is no “bad” when one is tending The Seven, Knight Commander. Let us continue.’

As they step onto the living stone an eye opens, taking in details. Soon, the sword tremors in the Vagrant’s hand. By the time they reach the door to The Seven’s chamber, the sword is raging. Around it, air shimmers and hums.

The stone is thicker here, forming a second barrier to those seeking passage. The Vagrant stops and looks at the sword. It looks back and something like agreement seems to pass between them. He puts Vesper down on the ground, guiding the toddler behind him.

Obeisance and the Knight Commander take a step back.

The sword swings, singing, and rock falls like rain, breaking into chunks, into powder. Gleaming doors are unveiled. They open for the Vagrant as he limps forward, sword held high. Vesper is dragged after, clinging to the back of the Vagrant’s coat.

The Knight Commander raises a foot to follow and an eye glares at him. Swallowing, he puts it back. Obeisance gets the same treatment. The sword watches them both until the doors close.

Pale lights illuminate The Seven’s inner chamber. Once bright, the lamps are overgrown, dimmed by a sheet of stone. The room is octagonal, one side for the supplicant, unadorned. Six others each house a figure, statue-like, covered from head to toe in a thick layer of rock. All appear human shaped, with discernible wings, their postures neutral, dead. The seventh alcove lies empty.

The Vagrant holds the sword up, letting it hum, calling, calling.

As if returning from a dream, The Seven respond, slowly, sonorously. Splitting the shells that cover them, yawning into life. One by one, they catch the call and return it, till the harmony swells, reverberating from the walls and leaping up, vanishing into the fathomless, ceilingless dark above.

Beautiful sounds mature, becoming words, musical, passed from one to the other, filling the chamber and the Vagrant’s ears.

‘Mourning has become morning, and we rejoice …’

‘We rejoice in the proximity of your flame once more …’

‘Once more we are Seven …’

‘Are Seven together, come …’

‘Come and join with us …’

‘Join with us your light, diminished but still bright.’

Six arms drift out, gesturing to the last alcove, inviting.

Neither Vagrant nor sword move. An eye studies the chamber, pausing at each alcove, noting the blades housed there, buried beneath layers of stone, useless. Rage simmers between sword and Vagrant. He takes a lock of hair from an inner pocket, throws it down on the floor between them. The sword lowers to point at it, then sweeps across the figures, then makes a hard stab towards the doors.

Six faces freeze as the joyous echoes of song die out.

The Vagrant swallows in a throat suddenly dry.

Vesper dares a quick peek from behind the Vagrant’s coat.

Alpha, of The Seven, sings out. The note begins wondrous but imperfect, the others soon match him.

‘We see now your pain, most furious …’

‘Most furious you are and desperate to fight …’

‘To fight once more, your desire …’

‘Your desire we grant, go forth, take a second flame to our enemies …’

Voices come together, their force rocking the Vagrant backwards until he is pinned to the wall. Vesper holds his hand tightly, little feet rising from the floor.

‘Do not stop …’

‘Stop when the cancer …’

‘Cancer is cut …’

‘Cut from the bones …’

‘Bones and flesh …’

‘Flesh of the land …’

‘Land is clean!’

The Vagrant closes his eyes, squeezes them tight. He braces himself against the sound, pulling Vesper behind him raising the sword in front. Silvered wings unfurl protectively, shielding his face. An eye widens, blazing with indignation.

‘Then …’

‘Then, then and only then …’

‘Only then will you be free …’

‘Be free to return to us …’

‘Return to us and rejoice …’

‘Rejoice for true, complete again. Immaculate.’

Six go quiet, demands echoing after. Vesper’s feet touch floor again and she wraps herself around a comforting leg.

In the Vagrant’s hand, the sword trembles, humming dangerously. He takes a deep breath. From the depths of his stomach something is forged, travelling inevitably, gaining force as it goes, following tubes behind ribs, up through the chest, into the throat, teeth parting, allowing it outside.

The Vagrant opens his eyes, they are full of weariness, disgust, conviction.

‘No.’

The Knight Commander and Obeisance wait before the doors, indecisive. Of the two she is the more composed, having endured The Seven’s silence for many years. Before it was empty, a void which threatened to swallow her, bone and soul. Now, it is full of potential, deafening. The inhalation before the storm. Such subtleties are lost on the Knight Commander. Dimly, he perceives a deep and fathomless terror, nothing more.

Regardless, the two wait, held in place by strong will and stronger training.

‘That sound, that was Them, wasn’t it? They’ve returned.’

Obeisance does not take her eyes from the doors. ‘They never left us.’

‘Of course. I did not mean … But that was Them, and They sounded joyous. That was a good sign, was it not?’

‘Did you feel joyous when you heard Them?’

The passing of those feelings have left tracks in his spirit, easy to find and recall. ‘Yes.’ He does not add that he felt more than simple joy, does not dare.

‘And how do you feel now?’

‘I …’ He tails off.

‘Precisely,’ she adds. There is a wrinkle in her cape, irritating. She does not touch it, does not move. Her stillness serves to underscore each creak of his armour, each nervous breath.

The doors swing open and they both bow, deferent.

The Vagrant strides out, sword in one hand, Vesper wrapped around the other. He passes them by without pause.

The Knight Commander risks a glance. Eyes widen in surprise and words blurt. ‘Wait! Where are you going? What’s going to happen to us?’

His question bounces off the Vagrant’s back, unnoticed.

Anger comes, pushing past confusion. The Knight Commander goes in pursuit. Before he can catch up, Obeisance rushes between them, forming an obstacle stronger than steel, a wall built of oaths and honour. He cannot move her, cannot even touch her. For she is an instrument of The Seven, not above him so much as beyond him. It does not stop his anger however. ‘Let me pass. He denied The Seven! He is taking the sword we have waited so long for!’

She shakes her head. ‘The denial was not his alone.’

Anger drains, replaced by dread. ‘But what does this mean?’

‘It means I must go to inside. Maintain order until I return. Allow none to pass.’

He nods, glad to hide behind duty.

Obeisance seems to glide through the doors. They close, leaving the man alone. He ponders what to do as the seconds pass into minutes. Then there is a change in the air. The doors begin to shake, slowly at first, then faster, building, humming. On instinct, the Knight Commander starts to run.

Tremors pass through the inner sanctum as six voices rise together, passing through stone and silver, through men and women, land and sky.

Keening.

With a last pull, the commander’s boot sucks free of the marsh. Samael helps steady him as he moves onto solid ground. They continue the remainder of the journey more directly, a welcome contrast to what has been. Maimed and weakening, the commander has been forced to hide along the way, like a thief. Necessity is well understood but a sour taste remains.

Nobody stops their approach to the Fallen Palace but things watch, ready to pounce if the commander falls. Several times he staggers on the sloping floors, thoughts drifting, along with his essence.

But he does not fall.

Iron will drives him forward. He neither knows nor cares anymore about its origins. When it wavers, Samael is ready at his side, obedient to the last.

They walk alone through broken streets and under the shadow of buildings, lurching, until at last they reach a tower, hints of brass hidden behind lichen.

Samael assists him up winding steps, through corridors well walked. The Man-shape sees them approach and opens the door.

Inside, the Usurper lurks, its body a mass of repairs. It is hard to reconcile the ailing thing before him with the great monarch whose name inspires fear in human and infernal alike.

Shrugging off any further help, the commander walks the final steps towards his old master. At every moment he expects to be exposed, for the Usurper to see him for what he is and attack, but it barely seems to notice him.

As the end of his journey draws close, he stumbles, legs finally giving way to gravity.

Sensing something at last, the Usurper looks up, opening its arms to receive the commander as he falls.

The battered shell is drawn close and the Usurper licks the rim of the commander’s visor, drawing back essence spent long ago.

The commander is absorbed whole, experiences, wants, desires, failures, regrets and something else. A single note, a call to action, a message of malice sent by Gamma’s sword, passed through the commander and into the Usurper.

As the sound reverberates inside it, dark lines manifest in the Usurper’s essence, scars from its battle with Gamma, still fresh.

The great infernal feels a flash of terrible pain as old injuries stir from their slumber. It tries to hold itself together, to fight as it has always done, but it is tired, weak, and the scars deepen, open, living wounds that rend the Usurper from within, tearing essence in all directions, singing their song of death.

The Usurper’s destruction sends ripples through the ether. Invisible, silent, they are nevertheless felt far and wide.

At the Fallen Palace, infernals pause in their business, slapped with sudden freedom. Thoughts turn to the empty throne and who among them might fill it. Monsters circle one another, wary, while the lesser infernals cluster, gambling on new masters to take them through the coming chaos.

Further north, in New Horizon, the Demagogue’s relief is palpable. It holds a celebration, grotesque, and begins to plan.

Elsewhere packs of infernals drift apart. No longer driven by the Usurper’s order, they wander, mindless, allowing petty hungers to lead them. Attacks on human settlements become increasingly random, increasingly petty. Few of the victims appreciate the difference.