Chương 78: V3: Chapter 19: Footsteps in the Dark

The rain had ended, but the streets were filled with puddles, and with so many open lamps extinguished, Hadrian struggled to keep his feet dry. Once again, the city had changed its disposition. Dark, slick, and silent, except for the dripping that was everywhere at once, this new temperament felt not at all wholesome. He had delivered Millie to The Cave, which was pretty much just that, a hole in the side of the cliff where long ago salt had been mined.

Because the miners had been dwarven, however, they embellished it with columns and engraved designs that Hadrian was certain meant nothing to anyone now, but once had. Hadrian had declined Millie's offer to take the book from Royce and run off with her to excavate dwarven gold. First, he explained that stealing from Royce was about as intelligent as slapping a rattlesnake, and second, that Royce didn't have a book to steal.

He didn't bother mentioning that even if the first two weren't true, he still wouldn't do it because he and Royce were more than partners, they were friends. For some reason, Hadrian got the impression she wouldn't understand that part. Millie refused to believe he didn't have access to the book, and that had dampened the mood far more than the rain.

For his own good, she'd refused to let him into The Cave, because Andre would be inside, and she thought it best that fire and grease should be kept a safe distance apart. She wasn't the sort to take no for an answer, so she asked him to think about it. If he changed his mind, Hadrian was told to tie a white cloth to the hammer of Andvari Berling's statue, the one down at the harbor, and she would meet him at the Parrot at sundown.

Later, as he made his way back along Berling's Way, heading back to the selfsame danthum, Hadrian wondered if she had chosen a white flag because it was easy to come by, easy to see, a symbol of a truce, or the flag of surrender. He wanted to think it was one of the first three but suspected it might be the last. He walked all the way back down to Tier Six without seeing another living soul, although he did hear the distant bark of a dog, which only made the night more dismal.

Something about a lonesome animal howling in the dark always set him on edge. In the military, sentries often had dogs. They were trained to be quiet but to bark and growl when the enemy was nearby. As it was difficult to train a dog to know who the enemy was, the mutts barked at anything unusual. Strangers mostly, and generally they were right. He spotted the lamp shop where Angelius had his stand. The roadside chef, the awning, cooking pot, and campfire were all gone.

In their place was a dark puddle where the rain had mixed with the ashes of the old fire. It's the emptiness and solitude. Hadrian had been trying to pinpoint why he felt so anxious. There was a sense that he was somewhere he shouldn't be, except he'd been there before and had felt fine. Hadrian remembered talking with Angelius and enjoying the hakune and the conversation. Now, the same place felt forbidden, even a tad sinister. It's the lack of people. He looked up. And the lack of stars.

Invisible clouds hid everything overhead. Without the sky, he felt as if he were walking through a cave — one that belonged to someone who might not like him being there. No, he reconsidered, not some one, some thing. And what bothered him was wondering if they — or it — was still there. Once more, Hadrian lamented his lack of weapons. Albert had said The Blue Parrot prohibited swords, but he wondered if the city itself had an ordinance.

Since arriving, he'd not seen a single one; not even the Port Authority officers had worn any. The lack of long blades had made the city feel friendly, inviting, and safe. People wore weapons for a reason. If they didn't — that was for a reason, too. He liked that about Tur Del Fur. The whole place felt polite, respectful, and civil, which was where he supposed the term civilized came from. Hadrian had also enjoyed how light and unencumbered he felt in just his cloth shirt.

He didn't need to be paranoid about turning and knocking over an expensive vase. But that was all beneath the sun and the moon, when the streets teemed with people. In this dark world of shiny streets and inky pools, Hadrian felt naked and vulnerable. He was just passing the puddle where Angelius had sold him the hakune his brother had caught when Hadrian heard the first sounds other than dripping water and the barking dog.

The noises were exactly what he expected to hear in that place under a black sky: scuffling, grunting, and a cry. Hadrian also anticipated the sound of ripping, snapping, tearing, and eating. The memory of a voice from the past sprang to Hadrian's mind.

"The murders happen at night or around dusk in a heavy fog, and in every case, the victims are eaten." It had been in Rochelle, almost a year ago, and Seton had been the one to say those words to him. He'd thought she was a young girl, but it turned out she was probably close to a hundred years old with next to no human blood in her veins. Yet that wasn't the point, but rather, how on particularly dark nights something hunted people and ate their faces.

Hadrian had once stumbled onto such a victim on just such a night. This night was a lot like that: different city, different country, same state of affairs. And me without my swords, or even my blue scarf. The sounds came from just off Berling's Way. They bounced around a little, but Hadrian guessed the something happening took place behind the cabinetmaker's shop across the street. Like most every building, the shop had been carved from the original stone.

But up on the higher tiers, where the land began to flatten a bit, there were more connecting streets, turning the place into a complicated maze of stone islands hewn into buildings. In any other place, a passerby would likely guess that the shop carved in such a lofty fashion from solid rock might be a small church, but in Tur Del Fur all the buildings were made of stone.

This one had a signboard in the shape of a cabinet, and on its porch — safe under awnings swollen heavy with pooled rainwater — were a half dozen examples of the woodworker's craft. The dog barked again, this time louder and closer and from the same direction. The shadows behind the cabinet shop appeared to be a popular place. But that prompted the question: popular with who, or... what? Just keep walking, he told himself. Nothing good ever happens behind a cabinet shop in the dead of night.

"Nowhere else to run. I'm gonna kill you, boy." A man's voice so filled with hate that to Hadrian it sounded inhuman. It came from — where else — behind the cabinet shop. Why Hadrian began circling around the building was still being debated in his head. The word boy was an obvious trigger. An actual child wouldn't be out that late. Given the sounds that accompanied the words, he deduced that an angry man was about to kill the dog for barking. Starting with this premise, Hadrian filled in the rest of the picture.

He surmised that the man was a light sleeper and that the dog had woken him. Now the frustrated man was going to silence the animal forever. Hadrian also imagined that under the light of day, the would-be killer of over-excited mutts would never dream of harming a cute little pooch. I'll be doing the guy a favor and saving him the guilt and grief he'll feel in the morning.

Hadrian believed this was the case, but his gut weighed in with an opposing and convincing argument: Nothing good ever happens in the dead of night behind a cabinet shop. Walk on. Hadrian ignored his gut and moved around the building. The rear of the cabinet shop was a fenced yard that housed sawhorses and numerous piles of lumber. Some were out in the rain, some covered in tarps, but most were stacked high beneath the shelter of roof-and-post sheds.

An elderly man dressed in a knee-length nightshirt was out in the yard brandishing a long-handled broom. He was barefoot, his thinning white hair a tousled mess. The dog, a fair-sized mongrel, was well within broom distance, barking incessantly. All of this was expected, but from that point on, the scene diverged from Hadrian's imagined narrative. The animal wasn't barking at the old man, and he wasn't yelling at the dog. He wasn't even looking at the mutt.

Both of them were focused on something perched on the roof of one of the sheds. Treed like a fox, a person, wrapped in a cloak and hood, clung to the steep roof. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Help!" the figure cried. The man swung and just missed a foot that dangled.

"Hold it! What's going on?" Hadrian demanded, trotting into the yard. The man, who didn't seem surprised to see Hadrian, pointed and said, "He's up there."

"I can see that, but why?" The man appeared confused by the question.

"There's plenty of lumber. Get yourself a good stick. We'll drag him down by the ankles and beat him to death." Hadrian shook his head.

"Again, I must ask why?" The man stared, puzzled.

"Look at him!" he shouted, and what followed was more of a scream.

"HE'S PURE EVIL!" At the outburst, Hadrian took a surprised step back. The elderly fellow in the wrinkled nightshirt began panting, breathing violently through his mouth as he wrung the broom handle with bony hands. The dog alternated between snarls and growls. The animal's hair was up, and long strands of saliva dripped from its jowls as hiked lips exposed fangs.

"Oh, please help me!" the guy on the roof cried.

"Call off your dog," Hadrian ordered the man with the broom.

"Not my dog," the man said.

"This isn't your dog?"

"Not my rats, either." The man pointed with the broom at several dark rodents that leaked out of the woodpiles and climbed the shed posts. Two made it to the roof and bit at the legs of the cloaked figure. Dirty feet kicked them off the edge. The rats' bodies thumped hard on the dirt, but the fall didn't kill them, nor did it change their minds. A moment later, they were climbing again. The dog didn't interfere. What's going on?

Hadrian looked at the old man, the dog, and the rats all unified in their hatred of the person on the roof.

"Oh dear! Please help! I can't keep holding on." The voice was that of a young man who spoke with a southeastern accent that reminded him of — "Master Hadrian, please, help me!"

"Pickles?" Hadrian didn't say it loudly. He said it mostly to himself in the way a person might use profanity to express shock.

"You're alive?"

"Yes! Yes! And so are you. We are both so very much alive... but for not so very long, I think. Please help. This roof is steep, and I am losing my grip." Stunned, overwhelmed, and baffled beyond knowing where to start, Hadrian didn't bother. He set the whole thing aside while he dealt with the issue at hand. Grabbing the broom handle, he wrenched it away from the elderly man. Hadrian expected a fight, but once more the man just seemed confused. Using it, Hadrian struck the rats climbing the post. They scattered.

Then he charged the dog. The mongrel startled, retreated, then halted. Looking back, it growled. Hadrian advanced again, swinging the broom and shouting. The dog gave up and trotted into the shadows.

"Okay, come down, Pick —" The boy fell and thumped onto the dirt, letting out a yelp of pain. With no more than his bare hands, the old man advanced. Hadrian stepped between them.

"You need to kill him," the man declared with religious passion.

"Why?"

"Because he's evil!"

"He's not. He's Pickles." Hadrian heard the flutter of wings as a seagull swooped down and clawed at Pickles, who lay on the dirt, fending off the feathered attack with one hand. He got in a good swipe, and the bird flew off into the dark.

"See!" the man said.

"When have you ever seen a gull attack a person? A gull — at night! This thing is a demon and must be destroyed!" Hadrian stared after the bird. That is really strange.

"Ah-ah!!" Pickles shouted in pain. Turning, Hadrian saw the kid slapping himself on his arms and legs as he quickly scrambled to his feet.

"What now?" Hadrian asked.

"Spiders and ants! They keep biting me!" Hadrian looked at the broomless man, then back at Pickles. He appeared like the kid Hadrian used to know, sort of. His hood had fallen back, revealing that familiar face, only now a bit thinner — older. The features, as Hadrian had predicted, were different, too. Not so carefree or innocent as before. The boy had become a man.

"But you were dead, and now you're here, and everything is trying to kill you. Taken altogether, that's... disturbing."

"Oh yes, Master Hadrian, you must believe, it is me. You must help me." That he was older, Hadrian took as a good sign. Hadrian thought that if he were a ghost or a demon posing as Pickles, he would appear exactly the way he had at his death. Seeing this mature version suggested it really could be the genuine article.

"I am as much of flesh and blood as you," Pickles said.

"But..." Hadrian's eyes widened.

"But? How is there a but to that?" Pickles looked down, ashamed.

"I'm not a demon, or a ghost, or anything like that. But I am cursed." The man whose broom Hadrian held had wandered away, muttering to himself about how late it was and how his lumber was likely to warp because of the rain. The rats, too, had vanished back into the countless holes under the woodpiles, and the dog, wherever it was, had stopped barking. The clouds thinned in just the right place, and the three-quarters moon cast the yard in a pale light that gave Hadrian a better look at his old friend.

Pickles wasn't doing so well. His eyes looked weary: dark, with puffy circles beneath them. The cloak he wore was tattered and frayed along the edges. Beneath it, he wore only a stained vest and short trousers, but in his right hand, he held a...

"Pickles? What is that you're holding?" The boy — turned young man — glanced down at the book he clutched to his chest and performed his old familiar embarrassed grin while rocking his head.

"Is that what I think it is?" Pickles bit his lip, then said, "That all depends on what you are thinking it is being."

"A book." Pickles looked down again as if to verify.

"Then yes, your thinking is most correct."

"And what do you mean by being cursed?" Pickles lifted his shoulders.

"Forgive me, Master Hadrian, but I do not know any other way to say it. It has been a bad week." Hadrian continued to stare, dumbfounded. He planted the end of the broom on the ground and shook his head.

"Arcadius told me that they executed you. He said Angdon accused you of attempted murder. He said they..." Hadrian shook his head.

"But you're alive."

"I am, but once more I am thinking perhaps not for so very long." Pickles was staring past Hadrian with a look of dread on his face. Hadrian turned and, in the moonlight, saw another figure enter the lumber yard. A man with cadaver-white skin and hair the color of a robin's breast approached. He wore an old-fashioned gray cloak that looked to have seen more miles than the rag Pickles was wearing. His hair was long, his mustache thin, and his beard pointed. Across his neck was a thin red line.

Behind Hadrian was a friend he thought was dead, and in front, a man who looked every bit alive, but whom Hadrian suspected might be dead. This is a nightmare — but it's not mine. Hadrian took that moment to apologize to his gut: This wasn't good. What happened to my irritable old man angry at a mangy mutt for keeping him up at night? Maybe the redhead is just really sick. But Royce said he cut off his head, and that looks like the sort of mark such a thing might leave. But dead people don't walk around.

So, maybe... What? Head severing isn't what it used to be? I'm dreaming. That has to be it. But what if I'm not? Facing a walking corpse while wearing only a light shirt and no weapons in the empty ink of an eerily dark night was enough for Hadrian to give up the field. He would have fled in the hope that the walking dead were not the best of runners, except... Pickles has his book. The man wasn't there for Hadrian; he was after Pickles.

If everything from ants to seagulls to old men were drawn to murder the kid, why not the dead as well? Just as when they first met on the docks at Vernes, Pickles forced his decision to stay and fight. Hadrian braced himself for the attack, but the man surprised them both. He approached just short of arm's reach, then stopped. Giving only a momentary glance at Pickles, he turned to Hadrian.

"Thou dost not wish his death?" the corpse asked, his voice a horrible rasp. At least there was nothing especially demonic about it. Hadrian shook his head.

"He's a friend of mine."

"Such shouldn't matter." The corpse continued to study Hadrian, looking puzzled. Then he looked at Pickles.

"If thou returns our book, the curse shall be lifted. Heed not, and each day thou shall endure ever greater suffering."

"The book is cursed?" Hadrian asked.

"Only if read," Falkirk replied.

"He hast read the words." Hadrian looked at the man and guessed he wasn't the sort to haggle.

"Pickles, I think maybe you ought to give the nice man his book."

"But you don't understand, Master Hadrian. I have gone through so very much in the obtaining of it. You are a great warrior. Can you not defend me?" Hadrian continued to watch the redhead, who stood before them with the patience of the perished. Concern was nowhere in his posture.

"I don't have my swords, and I don't think it's that kind of fight. For one thing, I think he's already dead. Give him the book."

"But Master Hadrian, this book holds the secrets to ancient treasures in the lost dwarven city of Neith!"

"Pickles," Hadrian began, "We already have all the dwarven troubles we can handle at the moment. We don't need any more. There's a good chance a dwarf named Gravis Berling is going to use Drumindor to destroy the whole city. I really don't care about dwarven treasures."

"But Master Hadrian, this thing I carry is important; my life is not." Hadrian finally turned.

"It is to me."