The Iron jackal

Forty-Three

Crake looked down into the box. It was not a tomb, as he’d first thought. It was a tank full of transparent liquid that glowed with a sullen light from within. And lying there, submerged, was an Azryx.

T?he body floated inside a snaking cradle of wires and tubes. There was no question the man was dead. It was just that he looked like he’d been dead a week or two, instead of thousands of years. His eyes and cheeks were sunken, muscles withered, ribs starkly visible through the taut brown skin of his chest. The last wisps of black hair still floated around his head.

They were real, he thought. They were really real. Even being in this city, walking about inside their buildings, hadn’t brought it home as hard as this. The sight of one of these ancient men in the flesh filled him with a sense of awe such as he’d not felt since he first grasped the possibilities of daemonism.

The man’s mouth and nose were covered by a breather mask, and there was some kind of waste-removal system concealing his nether parts. Tubes ran from chattering devices in the corner of the tank and disappeared into major veins and arteries. Crake surmised that the liquid and the machines must have preserved him somehow, long past the point where he should have decayed. And he could guess at the reason for being in the tank, too.

The man was horrifically scarred. Not from wounds, but from some kind of pox. There were cratered sores all over his face, torso and limbs.

An idea struck him. He went to the next tank in the row and opened it, as he had the first. Inside was another body in a similar state. This one had been tall and brown-skinned, like the last, and was afflicted with the same disfiguring ailment.

What happened here?

‘Crake!’ Frey snapped. He was standing with Ugrik at the bottom of the stairs at the far end of the chamber. ‘You can poke about to your heart’s content afterwards, alright?’

‘Yes, sorry, yes,’ he muttered. He shouldered his pack and retreated from the tanks. His mind was awhirl. He was so bowled over by the magnitude of their discoveries that he’d almost forgotten why they were here in the first place.

After they’d seen to the Cap’n’s little problem, Crake would come straight back here. He promised himself that. Sammies or no Sammies, he was going to have a damn good look around.

Ugrik led them up the curving stairway to one of the galleries that overlooked the chamber. They went through a door and further into the building, and then up another set of steps. The nature of the rooms changed. Crake had expected to see wards and theatres – things he associated with a hospital – but the upper level was laid out in a different style. He couldn’t imagine a place like this crowded with patients and medical staff. It seemed more like some kind of grand dwelling, though it was hard to tell with the majority of the furniture turned to dust and creepers invading through the windows.

‘You know, someone was looking after those bodies in the tanks,’ he said, as they slogged through the corridors under the weight of all the equipment he’d brought. ‘Those things didn’t dust thems; t dust elves.’

‘I heard you the first time,’ said Frey. ‘If they show up, we’ll shoot ’em. How’s that?’

‘About as diplomatic as I’ve come to expect,’ Crake said.

They passed several more doorways, but Crake barely paid attention. His mind was on the pox-covered corpses in the tanks.

A plague? Was that what happened to the Azryx? Was that why they disappeared? But who’s been caring for the patients all this time?

The corridor ended in a room which had a cavity in one wall that looked remarkably like a fireplace. Set into the pinkish, seashell-like surface above it was a large, teardrop-shaped piece of metal, thick with dust but perfectly intact. Frey came to a halt as he saw it. Except for its size, it was identical to the one on the inside of the lid of the relic case, with a stylised jackal at its centre.

‘There are marks underneath it,’ Crake observed. ‘Looks like someone’s wiped off the dust recently, too,’ he added with some alarm.

‘Aye,’ said Ugrik. ‘That was me, last time I was here. I was tryin’ to read it.’ He held up his hand to forestall the question on Crake’s lips. ‘I know Old Isilian. It ain’t far off.’

‘You can speak Old Isilian?’ Crake asked, impressed. He’d assumed, given his appearance, that Ugrik was something of a brute and a dunce. It was hard for him to equate the idea of scholarly excellence with a ring through the nose and blue ink all over the face.

‘I can read it,’ the Yort corrected. ‘Nobody can speak it. Ain’t been spoken for thousands of years.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. But Azryx writing is similar?’

‘Aye.’

Crake was back in a state of academic excitement again. ‘So it stands to reason that Old Isilian came from Azryx, and all the other languages after tha-’

‘What does it say?’ Frey interrupted impatiently. ‘The writing on the jackal thing?’ Frey eyed it uneasily, then added ‘Actually, you can tell me on the way. Let’s get moving.’

‘Couldn’t make out much of it,’ said Ugrik, as he led them into the next room. ‘I think it was the name o’ the feller who lived here. And two words. Warrior and scholar, or near enough that it makes no difference. I reckon that thing is a family coat of arms, or whatever the Azryx had. So I’m thinkin’ this warrior-scholar feller lived above the hospital, might have owned it or whatnot. Studied the. Studie patients, perhaps.’

‘An aristocrat who wasn’t a massive wimp?’ Frey exclaimed. ‘Bugger me.’

‘Ow!’ Crake said. ‘My feelings!’

‘Sorry. Forgot.’

Crake let it pass. When he thought about it, it was a fair comment anyway. ‘It might explain the jackal, anyway,’ he said. ‘The one that’s been after you, I mean.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, it’s kind of like a calling card. So you know who cursed you. The daemon takes the shape of the family’s coat of arms, with a few modifications based on whatever horrors it can dredge up from your psyche.’

Frey thought about that. ‘One thing I don’t get,’ he said. ‘Why have the damned thing turning up over and over again? Why not just have it kill me straight away and take the relic? That’s what I’d do.’

‘Because even the Azryx can’t conjure a daemon that powerful out of nothing,’ said Crake. He glanced at Ugrik, pleased for the chance to reassert intellectual superiority over the Yort. ‘It can only maintain itself in our reality for a limited time. But each time it’s appeared, it’s lasted for longer, hasn’t it? Given its nature, I suspect it draws energy from its victim’s fear. It’s been gathering strength. Tonight, it will be able to bring itself entirely into our reality, and it won’t go away till its job is done. Unless the relic is returned to the place it was stolen from.’

‘So it’s win-win for the owner,’ Frey said. ‘Either they frighten the thief into bringing the relic back, or the daemon eventually kills them and takes it back.’

‘Exactly,’ said Crake. ‘It’s really rather clever, actually.’

‘Yes,’ said Frey flatly. ‘Very clever.’

‘We do have one thing in our favour, though. Previously, the daemon only appeared to one person at a time. Nobody else could see or sense it. But when it’s fully manifested, it’ll be as real as you or I, and we’ll all be able to see it.’

‘Yeah, but can we kill it?’ Frey asked.

‘Not by conventional means, I’m afraid. It’s still a daemon. But at least you won’t have to face it alone.’

‘Reckon we won’t need to worry about that for much longer, anyway,’ said Ugrik. He shifted the relic to his left arm, pointed at a doorway wita doorwah his right and said ‘In there. That’s where I found it.’

Crake felt his heart lift, and he saw the same reaction on the Cap’n’s face. Could it be journey’s end at last? They hurried inside.

The room beyond was darker than the rest of the building. The illumination from the walls and floor was choked by thick vines that coiled in through a great gash on the far side. They’d consumed half the room in a dense tangle, and their furthest tendrils reached almost to the doorway. The full moon glared in through the gap.

‘That’s it,’ said Ugrik, pointing. ‘Took it from there.’

In the centre of the room was a narrow pillar of what looked like coral. It bulged and branched, reaching out arms here and there, forming shelves and nooks and cradles. Most held only dust, but some objects were still intact. A black orb was cupped in an alcove, and there were the remains of mechanical devices, and some ceramic things that might have been sculpture, or awards of some kind. The jackal crest was set proudly into the pillar, made of the same iron-like metal as the one they’d seen earlier. Everything fitted so snugly into its niche that it was hard not to conclude that the pillar had been moulded specifically to their shapes.

Reaching horizontally out at waist height were two delicate branches of coral, curling up at the end to form corners. Behind the arms, the coral of the pillar sloped backwards at an angle. It only took a glance to know what should go there.

Frey looked to Ugrik for confirmation. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It was in the case, and the case was open. Best put it back just the way I found it, I’d say.’ Ugrik held out the black oblong case containing the relic. ‘You ought to do it.’

Crake checked the sky through the break in the wall. It was a deep blue-velvet. ‘It’s not yet full dark,’ he said, with relief in his voice. ‘Despite your lax attitude to deadlines, Cap’n, you might actually have made it in time.’

They took off their bulky packs and put them aside. Frey put the relic case on the ground in front of the pillar and began feeling around its edge. ‘That’s good,’ he muttered. ‘Except it usually takes me quarter of an hour to find the thingummybob that opens it.’

Crake assumed he was exaggerating. He hoped so, anyway.

Ugrik hunkered down next to the Cap’n, offering useless advice and occasionally attempting to interfere until Frey slapped his hands away. Crake left them to it and let his eyes wander the room. Beneath the vines on the near side of the room, where they were not so dense, he could see more shelves and alcoves in the wall, with more objects hidden there. Nearby, he caught sight of a pedestal in the foliage, overturned by the growth of the plants.

Once more he found himself trying to understand his surroundings, to brinings, tog this dead culture to life and connect with it. Was this a trophy room of some kind?

He moved away from the others and began searching the thicker tangles of vines, looking for more clues.

There! he thought, peering into the gloom. What’s that? It looks like Suddenly the shape made sense to him. A white, haggard face loomed out of the dark and he recoiled with a shout of alarm.

‘What? What?’ Frey had his pistol out and was casting around the room for danger.

Crake stared, his heart decelerating. The figure trapped in the vines didn’t move. He began to feel foolish.

‘It’s nothing, Cap’n,’ he said. ‘I thought…’ He decided he’d only dig himself a deeper hole if he explained. ‘Never mind.’

Frey shook his head angrily and went back to the relic case. ‘I’m wound up enough as it is, Crake. Yell like that, I’m liable to put a bullet in you.’

Crake wasn’t listening to Frey’s grumbles. He was peering through the vines again. There was no dead man in there, only a suit of some kind. A black body suit that seemed to be made of tiny scales. There were gloves hanging by its sides, and presumably boots down there somewhere. It must been standing on display once. Some kind of armour, perhaps, but thinner and more flexible than any he knew.

And of course the white, haggard face he saw had been his own, reflected in the blank, smooth faceplate of the helmet. Spit and blood, had he deteriorated so much that he startled himself now? These recent days had worn him down with sleeplessness and care. His beard, which he’d once thought pleasingly rugged, made him look like a hobo in conjunction with those baggy eyes and gaunt cheeks.

Grayther Crake, he told himself. You need to smarten up.

He studied the helmet more closely. It fitted over the whole head, sealing in the wearer. Tubes ran from the jawline over the back. While puzzling over its purpose, his attention drifted to the reflection in the faceplate. In the light from the doorway, he could see the Cap’n and Ugrik, still fiddling with the box.

‘Wait…’ the Cap’n was saying. ‘Got it!’

A small movement made Crake shift his gaze minutely. His eyes widened.

Something was in the doorway, unnoticed by Ugrik or Cap’n. Something that was gliding silently into the room. A glint of tarnished metal.

He spun around with a yell, fumbling his pistol free of his belt. t.

‘What is it this time?’ Frey cried, then went pale as he saw that Crake was waving a gun in his direction. He and Ugrik lunged out of the way, more because they were afraid of Crake than through any awareness of the danger behind them.

He caught only the briefest impression of it. It floated in the air a half-metre off the ground. A ring of long, grasping arms surrounded a cylindrical torso topped with a flat round head, with two lenses of different sizes to function as eyes.

An automaton.

He fired wildly out of panic, blasting off all five chambers as quickly as he could pull the trigger. Bullets caromed off the automaton and ricocheted away. He might have closed his eyes after the first shot; he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that the recoil knocked his aim all over the place, and it had been abysmal to begin with.

Frankly miraculous, then, that when he opened his eyes the Azryx thing was lying on the floor, with one of its eye-lenses smashed. Crake let out a disbelieving gasp.

‘I hit it!’ he said.

‘You almost hit every bloody thing else as well!’ said Frey, as he got to his feet from a cringing position. ‘Including us!’

Ugrik cackled. ‘Looks like he bagged himself an Azryx toy, though.’

‘Exactly! I saved your lives!’ Crake said, indignantly. He strode over to the fallen automaton, slightly miffed that the Cap’n wasn’t more grateful.

Ugrik was already studying it. ‘You sure it was goin’ to hurt us?’ He lifted up one of its arms. What had seemed a fearsome claw at first was actually rather delicate-looking.

‘Well, I…’ Crake began. He swallowed. ‘Er.’

‘I’m just forwardin’ the possibility that you might have just destroyed a ten-thousand-year-old Azryx automato-’

‘It was going to kill you!’ Crake protested. ‘It was pawing the air and stuff!’ He pawed the air to demonstrate, in what he hoped was a sufficiently frightening manner.

‘Aha!’ Frey crowed. ‘ Now who’s the vandal? All that rubbish I smashed back at the Mentenforth institute wasn’t half as old as that !’

In fact, now that it was lying inert, it didn’t look very threatening at all. It began to sink in that this was, well, an automaton. A metal being capable of movement. Quite possibly it was the caretaker that had looked after the bodies in the tanks all this time, which would indicate some kincate somd of complex mechanical thought. And that put it far above anything the best of Vardic scholars could even dream of right now.

‘But… I…’ Crake blustered, horrified by what he’d done. The thought that he might have shot the single greatest scientific discovery since aerium was refined made him nauseous. ‘What do you mean, rubbish?’ he demanded, in a feeble attempt to throw some kind of blame back on to Frey.

‘Vandal,’ Frey said with a smirk. He swept past Crake and knelt down next to the relic. The case had come open, and inside was the double-bladed weapon, resting in its wrought-metal cradle. Crake stared at it, stunned by this terrible turn of events. It lay there, unmarked and pristine, untouched by the calamity and tragedy it had brought. The cause of all their strife and labour. Spit and blood, he’d be glad to never see that thing again.

‘Put it where it belongs,’ he said. ‘Let’s get that damned curse off you and get on with our lives.’

‘Right,’ said Frey, scooping up the case. ‘Where did you say it went again, Ugrik?’

The Yort got up and pointed. ‘Right… er… there.’ He trailed off.

‘Oh, no,’ Frey said quietly.

Something in the tone of his voice send a slow dread creeping into Crake’s belly. All the Cap’n’s cockiness was gone. What was left was fear.

Crake looked at the pillar. Where there had once been two arms reaching out to hold the relic case, now there was only one. The other was lying on the floor, in several pieces.

Smashed by a bullet.

Frey dropped to his knees and hung his head. It was as if all the strength and vigour had suddenly gone out of him, like air from a balloon. ‘Of all the luck…’ he muttered. ‘Of all the shit-eating luck in the world…’

The sheer defeat in his voice terrified Crake. He was suddenly desperate to offer hope, desperate to make amends. Desperate not to be the one responsible.

He snatched up the relic case. ‘No, look, maybe we can still.. .’ He tried to fit it into its spot in the pillar. It wouldn’t stay, so he knelt down. ‘Maybe if we hold it there…’ He struggled to jam it in somehow, but the whole arrangement was too delicate. With that arm gone, there was nothing they could do. ‘If we had some glue. ..’

The silence from the others stopped him. He looked over his shoulder.

Frey had taken off his glove and was staring at his hand with dead eyes.

The black spot was still there.