Seven Sorcerers (34 page)

After a moment she calmed down and began to think. It was unlikely that Mr Strood would come in here at this time of night. Perhaps she should give it half an hour or so before she moved. Hopefully any end-of-the-day activity would have finished by then and everyone would be in bed, leaving her free to make it to the Sunatorium in safety, as long as she managed to avoid the Eyes.

While she waited, Nin took a look around. The study was furnished pretty much like everywhere else, except for a large window behind the desk. Unlike the others in the House this one was not blocked up, just covered with a heavy velvet curtain. She peered behind it, but backed off quickly when she realised that it overlooked the Maug’s courtyard.

The other walls were lined with bookcases and Nin
wondered if some of the books might hold useful information. She began to browse along the shelves.

Her first discovery was a row of large volumes bound in faded silk that must have once been vivid scarlets and blues. They were titled
The Deeds of King Galig of Beorht Eardgeard
, and he had to be a Fabulous because no mere Quick life could fill that many volumes. Nin found herself longing to read the stories, but she did not have time and so she moved on to a smaller bookcase where the books were thinner and mostly seemed to be Mr Strood’s poetry. She wondered if they would be like a diary, a record of the House and things that happened in it, so she took one down and dipped in.

To her surprise they were fascinating. They told the story of Celidon, giving her a taste of life in a dying world where desperation walked the streets and even the strongest lived in fear. Then she found the last ballad of the book.

It had originally been called ‘The Ballad of the Final Gathering’, but Strood had obviously changed his mind, and had scored though that page and then started again with the title ‘Gan Mafig’s Servant’. The poem was different from the rest and had been written directly into the book instead of being drafted on scrap and copied in when it was finished. The writing was larger and more sprawled, perhaps done in a hurry or with anger. Further down Strood had given up on poetry altogether and had just written words so furiously that in one place the nib of his pen had torn the page. Nin began to read:

Cowards! Cowards! Stinking cowards may their innards rot forever. And history dares to call them Great!

Do you know what they did? These GREAT sorcerers.

They were dying and knew it and they wanted a way out, a way to extend life. AT ANY COST.

Cowards. Bone deep, jelly-livered COWARDS. Call them Fabulous!

And Mafig. The GREAT apothecary. Miserable, treacherous son of a sewer rat. Nothing fabulous about him. He was just a chemist. Just a pitiful, grovelling, whinging chemist. He ran away, yellow-hearted gutter dog. RAN AWAY.
After all the years I served him. All the years of faithful service. May his brain fill with pus and his heart burst! But then, I saw to him, didn’t I? I made him pay for what he did to me. I couldn’t get them, but I got him all right. I got HIM
.

  And then suddenly the evening lamps went out and night took hold of the Terrible House. With the door closed and even the hall lights gone, Nin found herself in a darkness so thick that all she could do was crawl into a corner and shiver until exhaustion plunged her into a sleep full of confused dreams and the painted image of Gan Mafig’s tortured face.

aggit Sepplekrum had long since finished his last grave of the day. As usual at the end of a lot of hard digging, he had thrown his spade to the ground, wiped his clammy forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt, and reached for his flask of soured milk. After a long swig he had settled back on the grass, staring at the distant ceiling with the flask balanced on his middle while late evening crept into deep night.

A fly buzzed past. Absentmindedly, Taggit flicked out a long black tongue and snapped it up.

He had been talking to Jonas for less than half of his morning, but however brief it had been, the contact with someone from outside the House had brought back memories of a time when his world had not been confined to the graveyard. Inevitably, that led him to the event that had changed his life beyond recognition. Like many other Fabulous, Taggit Sepplekrum had witnessed the Final Gathering.

Back in those days, when Celidon was a living world, the House was called Sea View and it belonged to Gan
Mafig, the evil genius behind the Mortal Distillation Process and the greatest Quick apothecary that Celidon had ever known. So, when the Sorcerers came together to cheat the plague, they gathered at Sea View with Gan Mafig present to distil and weave the spells, and Gan Mafig’s servant on hand to hold the cloaks.

And it was after the Final Gathering, when the world was picking up the pieces and trying to get on with life not knowing yet that life would never be the same again, that Taggit Sepplekrum made the worst decision of his life.

Celidon was dying. The Final Gathering of the Seven Sorcerers had failed and soon even they would be gone. Although the goblins, bogeymen and tombfolk might hang on for a century or so, eventually they would join the rest of the Fabulous in extinction. But, after the events of the day, Taggit knew in his bones that when Celidon was dead the power that ruled the remains would be living here at Sea View. And if Dread had anything to do with it, Sea View would be the last part of the Land to die.

A few weeks later, Arafin Strood took a horrible revenge on Gan Mafig for his part in it all and the apothecary vanished without trace. Some said he was still imprisoned within the House, but Taggit knew that story couldn’t be true. The Final Gathering had taken place too many decades ago when Mafig was already in his sixties. Even if Strood hadn’t finished him, Mafig would have died of old age long ago.

After Mafig had disappeared, Strood had claimed ownership of the House and had begun to draw a web of power around him. So Taggit had decided to stay and help with the excavations, overseeing the Quick and the Grimm whose hard work built the down-house. And after that he had taken the job of gravedigger. Since then, all he had done was dig graves. Taggit blinked thoughtfully. After a life packed with event and adventure he had spent the last few decades digging graves. Nothing else. Not a thing.

He had stayed at the Terrible House because he wanted to live longer, but as it turned out he hadn’t been living at all.

As Jik swam through the walls towards the centre of the Terrible House, he heard something howl. It was muffled by the layers of earth around him, but it was unmistakable. Jonas was still alive. Jik also guessed from the horribleness of the howl that its owner would not be in a fit state to do any rescuing. It was all down to one mudman, and time was ticking by.

Jik paused, listening to the Land. He could sense its disturbance, as if something bad was nearby. He knew that he was passing close to a small room on the thirteenth floor and so he stepped out of the walls to take a look.

The room was dimly lit, and in it, strapped into a large wooden chair with leather belts, was an old man. Beside
the chair, on a tall rod of ornate silver, a yellow candle burned with a red flame. Tallow dripped like oil on to the floor to join a spreading pool. There was a second, unlit candle on the other side of the chair.

The figure stirred and Jik could see that it was human, but only just. The old man was little more than a skeleton covered in yellowed flesh with a few wisps of hair clinging to his withered skull. His eyes, set deeply in their sockets, were a pale, milky blue and huge as marbles. They focused on Jik.

The mudman stepped forward. ‘Mik Jik. Yik?’

There was a long silence while Jik waited patiently. The Quick had long outlived its natural span by some means or other and was finding it hard to operate the desiccated body it was trapped in. A ghastly smile stretched its lips.

‘Mafig,’ it said in a voice like dead leaves rustling. ‘Gan Mafig.’ It gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Once, I was the owner of this House.’

Jik made a massive effort. ‘Likik fik Nikikik Rikstik. Shik wik Strik. Escik.’

Mafig began to laugh again. It shook his frail body like a leaf clinging to a branch in a high wind. Then he began to cough, which shook him even more.

‘Nothing escapes Strood,’ he whispered. ‘I should know. See those candles?’ He turned his milky eyes to the one at his side. ‘They keep me alive. One burns, the other grows. When the burnt one is done he lights the other, and while that burns the first remakes itself.
Endless life so long as I am within their light.’ He cackled, like it was a huge joke, his head bobbing madly. ‘A present to Strood from Ava Vispilio.’

‘Jik pik ik ik?’

‘Only a sorcerer can put it out!’ Now he howled with crazy laughter. ‘And you don’t see many of
those
about nowadays!’ He stopped suddenly, alert and listening. His eyes rolled upwards and he shuddered. ‘The shadows,’ he hissed. ‘The SHADOWS! The shadows are coming. See them?’ His voice became urgent and foam flecked his mouth and chin.

Glancing around nervously, Jik backed away.

Mafig leaned forward again. ‘He made them especially for me, the shadows. Do you know what they are? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DO?’

Jik backed away so much that he ended up in the walls. Hurriedly, he moved onwards and upwards, wondering as he went what it was that the man had done to offend Strood so badly. Or Vispilio for that matter.

As he rose steadily through the earth foundations of the House, the image of the old man, horribly tortured in some nameless way, stayed with him, making his eyes glow like scarlet bonfires with fear and rage. It had never occurred to him to doubt that Nin had survived so far. She was his creator and he would know when she died. But this was the Terrible House of Strood where a poor Quick’s life could be lost in a heartbeat and even if she was alive NOW, every hour, every minute, could bring
her closer to a horrible end. If Jik was to save her, he had to move fast. There was no time to lose.

He tore on through the walls until at last he rose from the earth into a dark, cool cellar. Shaking himself to throw off any loose soil, he noticed that some of the mud clung to him like a thin topcoat. The new earth was darker than his old, reddish mud giving him a dappled look. He could do with a baking, but that would have to wait. At least his core was still nice and hard.

It took him no time at all to get out of the cellar, through the silent kitchen and into the hall. From here he could turn either left or right. He chose to head towards the back of the House, because he knew the front was full of guards.

Around him, the lamps went out, even in the hallways. Only a few dim night lights burned in the main corridor. Everything was still, with that waiting quality that places have at night.

Except that there was life in the corridors after all.

Jik hopped seamlessly into a doorway and flattened himself against the wall. He watched the odd thing as it went past, its eyes reflecting the night lights in their bulging, shiny surfaces.

When it had gone he waited for few seconds then moved on, head up, sensing the air. It wasn’t much further before he caught an echo of Nin’s presence somewhere up ahead. He was close, very close, so he got moving. He was concentrating so hard on getting to Nin that he didn’t hear something coming up behind him.

Before he knew it, Jik was seized and lifted from the ground. As he whirled through the air he caught a glimpse of a large Grimm, a push-along trolley and a metal bin. He was so shocked he hadn’t got around to objecting before the Grimm threw him into the bin, the lid thumped shut over his head, the latch clicked and he was trapped inside.