Faerie Lord

Twenty-Six

For the first time in her long life, Cynthia Cardui felt old. It wasn’t just the stiffness in the joints or the little pains that were one’s constant companion, it was the way emotions lost their power. One was calm. One was far more logical than one ever was in one’s youth. But, as if in horrid compensation, life grew cold.

She stared down at the body of her lover. He had always been a thin man, thin and wiry, but since the life force left him, he looked shrunken, like a dried-out husk. So strange to see him like this and yet feel… nothing.

The embalmers glided around her like wraiths, sober-faced women who all seemed to have slim hands with long fingers. They had inserted tubes into the major arteries of each thigh and attached them to terrible machines. One pumped out every last drop of his remaining blood, the other pumped in spell-bound gravistat to replace it. The gravistat liquid acted to dissolve internal organs while triggering the process of petrification.

They were removing the brain now. (For some reason brains resisted the action of the gravistat.) Since it was important to preserve the skull intact – no cuts were permitted – the embalmers inserted an iron hook and expertly drew it out through the nose.

Cynthia watched as the glistening lump of greyness dropped into a jar. Strange to think of all the prejudice and wisdom it had once contained; and all the love. By faerie custom, it was treated with little deference. She knew that when she left, it would be minced and laid out on a rock behind the palace to feed the birds.

The gravistat itself was beginning to drain out now. The embalmers were used to the smell, but Cynthia took a step backwards. In itself, the liquid was odourless, but once mixed with liquefied intestines, the stench was extreme. From somewhere behind her, a priest-wizard began a sonorous chant.

Had she and Alan done the right thing? The question was almost irrelevant. They had done the only thing. The tragedy was how much their actions had cost. But how bravely he had borne it. He had always been much more determined than she was, much less concerned with the personal consequences.

Such consequences…

She doubted she would ever take another lover, not at the age she’d reached now. She had no children and her profession meant she had few friends. (And was about to lose the most important of them, in all probability.) In such circumstances, she was likely to die alone. But at least Alan had not. She had been with him through the worst of his illness and poor dear Henry had been with him at the end. All exactly according to plan.

She realised suddenly someone was speaking to her and turned to find the Chief Embalmer by her side, ‘I’m sorry – my mind was elsewhere.’

‘The pose, Painted Lady?’ the woman asked her. She wore the expression of professional sympathy that was an embalmer’s stock-in-trade.

Cynthia looked at her blankly. ‘What are you asking me?’

‘For the memorial,’ the woman prompted, ‘I understood you wished to select the pose.’

Ah, the memorial! She fancied Alan himself would have found this aspect of his death quite entertaining. What pose should be selected? Should he lunge forward with an upraised sword, like so many military heroes? Should he clutch a book or a scroll to emphasise his wisdom? She could almost hear him snort derisively at any of the classic postures.

All the same, she would have to choose something. He was Gatekeeper of the Realm, after all, and there was a plinth already prepared for him in the Palace Memorial Garden of Remembrance. Her Alan would join a long line of Gatekeepers stretching back through the centuries. It was a fitting tribute to a great soul.

‘Would the Painted Lady care to study some designs?’ the embalmer asked politely.

Cynthia glanced down to find the woman was holding a large leather-bound volume opened at a painting of the Memorial Garden. Spell coatings presented her with detail after detail of remembrance figures of the other Gatekeepers, including, she noticed with surprise, Tithonus, the Gatekeeper who betrayed his own Emperor.

‘He must be dressed in his Gatekeeper’s robes,’ Cynthia said uncertainly.

‘Of course, Painted Lady.’ The woman glanced delicately towards the bed. Cynthia followed her gaze and discovered the embalmers were doing it already.

How would Alan want to be remembered? She wished she had discussed it with him before he died, but there had been so many more immediate things to consider.

‘There is a certain urgency, Painted Lady,’ the woman told her gently. ‘The gravistat…’

Cynthia understood. Once introduced, the gravistat worked quickly. The body had to be placed in its correct position before the tissue turned to stone.

She hesitated, then all of a sudden knew what she should do. Alan had always loved tinkering with gadgets and machinery. It was how he would want to be remembered.

She took the book from the woman and closed it with a snap. ‘Take his workbench from the Gatekeeper’s Lodge and bring it to the Garden of Remembrance,’ she instructed firmly. ‘Place him beside it, leaning over. He should have a portable portal in his hand.’ She stared soberly at the woman. ‘Try not to make him look an idiot.’

‘Of course not, Painted Lady!’ the embalmer exclaimed.

With her final duty done, Madame Cardui swept from the room. Now she had to face the fury of her Queen.

Twenty-Seven

It wasn’t heavy and it wasn’t strong, but the thing struck Henry with such mindless fury that his face was lacerated and bleeding from a hundred cuts before he could raise a hand to defend himself. The useless lighter flew from his grasp as he struck out wildly.

The creature was about the size of a dog. It looked, in the brief flash of the sparks, like something almost human, scrawny and leprous. But a human that had fangs and claws.

It struck him again, hissing and spitting. This time it clawed his arm, ripping the sleeve of his coat and opening the flesh beneath. The pain was hideous, far worse than the scratches on his face. Henry staggered backwards and suddenly there was light.

The creature howled.

Henry clutched his injured arm. The light was blinding, but his eyes adjusted. He looked around in panic. There was a shattered stone sarcophagus beside him. There were bones strewn on the floor. He was in a ruined tomb. One wall was broken down and sunshine streamed in through it. The creature that had attacked him was crouched in a corner, cowering from the light. It had large, nocturnal eyes.

In the instant it took him to look, Henry realised he’d torn down a hide curtain that had been blocking out the light. It was crudely sewn from animal skins and hung could it have been hung by the thing that attacked him?

The thing clearly did not like the light. It growled and hissed from its gloomy corner, but made no move to attack him again. Now he could see properly, any resemblance he’d imagined between the creature and a human being quickly slipped away. It was humanoid in shape, but that was where any likeness stopped. It didn’t look human at all. But at the same time, it didn’t look like an animal either. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before. He kept thinking of a science fiction movie. The thing in that had come from Outer Space.

Dear God, but his arm was on fire.

He had to get away.

On the face of it, there was nothing to stop him. The wall was broken. The way lay open to the outside. But to reach the opening, he had to move a step or two towards the creature. And to escape, he had to climb a pile of rubble with the thing at his back.

Henry took a tentative step forward. The creature spat again and lunged at him. Despite its humanoid appearance, it reminded him of a cat. Henry backed off which left him further from the opening than ever.

He stood quite still, trying to think despite the growing pain. If he moved forward, the thing assumed he was attacking and fought back. If he stayed where he was… Well, he couldn’t stay where he was, could he? If he stayed where he was, he would bleed to death or starve to death or have the thing attack him anyway once night fell and the tomb returned to darkness.

Henry ran for the pile of rubble. The creature howled and launched itself at him again. He feinted to one side and ran past. Then the thing was clinging to his leg, biting and scratching. Henry kicked back violently and shook it off. Then he was on the rubble, scrambling upwards. The thing was in a frenzy now, screaming, howling, jumping. But it avoided the pool of light.

Henry was almost at the breach in the wall when the rubble crumbled beneath his feet, causing him to slide back down. The movement sent the creature berserk, but it still remained outside the pool of light. Without pause or thought, Henry ran back up the slope and this time he made it through the opening. He tripped as he emerged and fell heavily onto his injured arm. The jolt of pain was indescribable.

He lay for a moment, feeling fire in his arm and a second fire in his leg. Both injuries were so extreme he wondered briefly if the creature might be poisonous. Or perhaps it just carried some heavy-duty bacteria, like a komodo dragon. Either way, the injuries it inflicted hurt like hell. But the good news was the thing hadn’t followed him out of the tomb.

After a while, he dragged himself to his feet and looked around. The tomb was a sandstone ruin that must have been built centuries ago.

A stony desert stretched around it as far as his eyes could see.