The Creature in the Case Read online

  ‘This is all rather cloak-and-dagger,’ remarked Nick as he headed down the steps with Hodgeman close behind him.

  Hodgeman didn’t answer, but Nick was sure a disapproving glance had fallen on his back. The steps went down quite a long way, equivalent to at least three or four floors. They ended in front of a steel door with a covered spy hole. Hodgeman pressed a tarnished bronze bell button next to the door, and a few seconds later, the spy hole slid open.

  ‘Sergeant Hodgeman with Mr Nicholas Sayre,’ said Hodgeman.

  The door swung open. There was no sign of a person behind it. Just a long, dismal, white-painted concrete corridor stretching off some thirty or forty yards to another steel door. Nick stepped through the doorway, and some slight movement to his right made him look. There was an alcove there, with a desk, a red telephone on it, a chair, and a guard—another plainclothes policeman type like Hodgeman, this time in shirtsleeves, with a revolver worn openly in a shoulder holster. He nodded at Nick but didn’t smile or speak.

  ‘On to the next door, please,’ said Hodgeman.

  Nick nodded back at the guard and continued down the concrete corridor, his footsteps echoing just out of time with Hodgeman’s. He heard behind him the faint ting of a telephone being taken off its cradle and then the low voice of the guard, his words indistinguishable.

  The procedure with the spy hole was repeated at the next door. There were two policemen behind this one, in a larger and better-appointed alcove. They had upholstered chairs and a leather-topped desk, though it had clearly seen better days.

  Hodgeman nodded at the guards, who nodded back with slow deliberation. Nick smiled but got no smile in return.

  ‘Through the left door, please,’ said Hodgeman, pointing. There were two doors to choose from, both of unappealing, unmarked steel bordered with lines of knuckle-size rivets.

  Hodgeman departed through the right-hand door as Nick pushed the left, but it swung open before he exerted any pressure. There was a much more cheerful room beyond, very much like Nick’s tutor’s study at Sunbere, with four big leather club chairs facing a desk, and off to one side a liquor cabinet with a large, black-enameled radio sitting on top of it. There were three men standing around the cabinet.

  The closest was a tall, expensively dressed, vacant-looking man with ridiculous sideburns whom Nick recognized as Dorrance. The second-closest was a fiftyish man in a hearty tweed coat with leather elbow patches. The skin of his thick neck hung over his collar, and his fat face was much too big for the half-moon glasses that perched on his nose. Lurking behind these two was a nondescript, vaguely unhealthy-looking shorter man who wore exactly the same kind of suit as Hodgeman but in a much more untidy way, so he looked nothing like a policeman, serving or otherwise.

  ‘Ah, here is Mr Nicholas Sayre,’ said Dorrance. He stepped forward, shook Nick’s hand, and ushered him to the centre of the room. ‘I’m Dorrance. Good of you to help us out. This is Professor Lackridge, who looks after all our scientific research.’

  The fat-faced man extended his hand and shook Nick’s with little enthusiasm but a crushing grip. Somewhere in the very distant past, Nick surmised, Professor Lackridge must have been a rugby enthusiast. Or perhaps a boxer. Now, sadly, run to fat, but the muscle was still there underneath.

  ‘And this is Mr Malthan, who is … an independent adviser on Old Kingdom matters.’

  Malthan inclined his head and made a faint, repressed gesture with his hands, turning them toward his forehead as if to brush his almost nonexistent hair away. There was something about the action that triggered recognition in Nick.

  ‘You’re from the Old Kingdom, aren’t you?’ he asked. It was unusual for anyone from the Old Kingdom to be encountered this far south. Very few travelers could get authorisation from both King Touchstone and the Ancelstierran government to cross the Wall and the Perimeter. Even fewer would come any farther south than Bain, which was at least a hundred and eighty miles north. They didn’t like it, as a rule. It didn’t feel right, Sam had always said.

  But then, this little man didn’t have the Charter Mark on his forehead, which might make it more bearable for him to be on this side of the Wall. Nick instinctively brushed his dark forelock aside to show his Charter Mark, his fingers running across it. The Mark was quiescent under his touch, showing no sign of its connection to the magical powers of the Old Kingdom.

  Malthan clearly saw the Mark, even if the others didn’t. He stepped a little closer to Nick and spoke in a breathy half whine.

  ‘I’m a trader, out of Belisaere,’ he said. ‘I’ve always done a bit of business with some folks in Bain, as my father did before me, and his father before him. We’ve a Permission from the King, and a Permit from your government. I only come down here every now and then, when I’ve got something special-like that I know Mr Dorrance’s lot will be interested in, same as my old dad did for Mr Dorrance’s granddad—’

  ‘And we pay very well for what we’re interested in, Mr Malthan,’ Dorrance interrupted him. ‘Don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, sir, you do. Only I don’t—’

  ‘Malthan has been very useful,’ interjected Professor Lackridge. ‘Though we must discount many of his, ahem, traveler’s tales. Fortunately he tends to bring us interesting artifacts in addition to his more colorful observations.’

  ‘I’ve always spoken true,’ said Malthan. ‘As this young man can tell you. He has the Mark and all. He knows.’

  ‘Yes, the forehead brand of that cult,’ remarked Lackridge, with an uninterested glance at Nick’s forehead, the Mark mostly concealed once more under his floppy forelock. ‘Sociologically interesting, of course. Particularly its regrettable prevalence among our Northern Perimeter Reconnaissance Unit. I trust it is only an affectation in your case, young man? You haven’t gone native on us?’

  ‘It isn’t just a religious thing,’ Nick said carefully. ‘The Mark is more of a … a connection with … how can I explain … unseen powers. Magic—’

  ‘Yes, yes. I am sure it seems like magic to you,’ said Lackridge. ‘But the great majority of it is easily explained as mass hallucination, the influence of drugs, hysteria, and so forth. It is the minority of events that defy explanation but leave clear physical effects that we are interested in—such as the explosion at Forwin Mill.’ He looked over his half-moon glasses at Nicholas.

  Dorrance looked at him as well, his stare suddenly intense.

  ‘Our studies there indicate that the blast was roughly equivalent to the detonation of twenty thousand tons of nitrocellulose,’ continued Lackridge. He rapped his knuckles on the desk as he exclaimed, ‘Twenty thousand tons! We know of nothing capable of delivering such explosive force, particularly as the bomb itself was reported to be two metallic hemispheres, each no more than ten feet in diameter. Is that right, Mr Sayre?’

  Nick swallowed, his throat moving in a dry gulp. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead and a familiar jangling pain in his right arm and chest.

  ‘I … I don’t really know,’ he said after several long seconds. ‘I was very ill. Feverish. But it wasn’t a bomb. It was the Destroyer. Not something our science can explain. That was my mistake. I thought I could explain everything under our natural laws, our science. I was wrong.’

  ‘You’re tired, and clearly still somewhat unwell,’ said Dorrance. His tone was kindly, but the warmth did not reach his eyes. ‘We have many more questions, of course, but they can wait until the morning. Professor, why don’t you show Nicholas around the establishment. Let him get his bearings. Then go back upstairs, and we can all resume life as normal, what? Which reminds me, Nicholas—everything discussed down here is absolutely confidential. Even the existence of this facility must not be mentioned once you return to the main house. Naturally you will see me, Professor Lackridge, and the others at dinner, but in our public roles. Most of the guests have no idea that Department Thirteen lurks beneath their feet, and we want it to remain that way. I trust you won’t have a problem keeping our exi
stence all to yourself?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ muttered Nick. Inside he was wondering how he could avoid answering questions but still get his pass to cross the Perimeter. Lackridge obviously didn’t believe in Old Kingdom magic, which was no great surprise. After all, Nick had been like that himself. But Dorrance had voiced no such scepticism, nor had he shown it by his body language. Nick definitely did not want to discuss the Destroyer and its nature with anyone who might seriously look into what it was or what had happened at Forwin Mill.

  He didn’t want to dabble in anything to do with Old Kingdom magic, especially without proper instruction, even two hundred miles south of the Wall.

  ‘Follow me, Nicholas,’ said Lackridge. ‘You, too, Malthan. I want to show you something related to those photographic plates you found for us.’

  ‘I need to catch my train,’ muttered Malthan. ‘My horses … stabled near Bain … the expense … I’m eager to return home.’

  ‘We’ll pay you a little extra,’ said Dorrance, the tone of his voice making it clear Malthan had no choice. ‘I want Lackridge to see your reaction to one of the artifacts we’ve picked up. I’ll see you at dinner, Nicholas.’

  Dorrance shook Nick’s hand in parting, gave a dismissive wave to Lackridge, and ignored Malthan completely. As Dorrance turned back to his desk, Nick noticed a paperweight sitting on top of the wooden in-box. A lump of broken stone, etched with intricate symbols. They did not shine or move about, not so far from the Old Kingdom; but Nick recognized their nature, though he did not know their dormant power or meaning. They were Charter Marks. The stone itself looked as if it had been broken from a greater whole.

  Nick looked at Dorrance again and decided that even if it meant having to work out some other way to get across the Perimeter, he was not going to answer any of Dorrance’s questions. Or rather, he would answer them vaguely and badly, and generally behave like a well-meaning fool.

  Hedge had been an Ancelstierran originally, Nick remembered as he followed Malthan and the professor out. Dorrance struck him as someone who might be tempted to walk a path similar to Hedge’s.

  They left through the door Nick had come in by, out through the opposite door, and then rapidly through a confusing maze of short corridors and identical riveted metal doors.

  ‘Bit confusing down here, what?’ remarked Lackridge. ‘Takes a while to get your bearings. Dorrance’s father built the original tunnels for his underground electric railway. Modelled on the Corvere Metro. But the tunnels have been extended even farther since then. We’re just going to take a look in our holding area for objects brought in from north of the Wall or found on our side, near it.’

  ‘You mentioned photographic plates,’ said Nick. ‘Surely no photographic equipment works over the Wall?’

  ‘That has yet to be properly tested,’ said Lackridge dismissively. ‘In any case, these are prints from negative glass plates taken in Bain of a book that was brought across the Wall.’

  ‘What kind of book?’ Nick asked Malthan.

  Malthan looked at Nick, but his eyes failed to meet the younger man’s gaze. ‘The photographs were taken by a former associate of mine. I didn’t know she had this book. It burned of its own accord only minutes after the photographs were captured. Half the plates also melted before I could get them far enough south.’

  ‘What was the title of the book?’ asked Nick. ‘And why “former” associate?’

  ‘She burned with the b-b-book,’ whispered Malthan with a shiver. ‘I do not know its name. I do not know where Raliese might have got it.’

  ‘You see the problems we have to deal with,’ said Lackridge with a sneer at Malthan. ‘He probably bought the plates at a school fete in Bain. But they are interesting. The book was some kind of bestiary. We can’t read the text as yet, but there are very fine etchings—illustrations of the beasts.’

  The professor stopped to unlock the next door with a large brass key, but he opened it only a fraction. He turned to Malthan and Nick and said, ‘The photographs are important, as we already had independent evidence that at least one of the beasts depicted in that book really does exist—or existed at one time—in the Old Kingdom.’

  ‘Independent evidence of one of those things?’ squeaked Malthan. ‘What kind of—’

  ‘This,’ declared Lackridge, opening the door wide. ‘A mummified specimen!’

  The storeroom beyond was cluttered with boxes, chests, and paraphernalia. For a second, Nick’s eye was drawn to two very large blowups of photographs of Forwin Loch, which were leaning on the wall near the door. One showed a scene of industry from the last century, and the other showed the destruction wrought by Orannis—the Destroyer.

  But the big photographs held his attention for no more than a moment. There could be no question what Lackridge was referring to. In the middle of the room there was a glass cylinder about nine feet high and five feet in diameter. Inside the case, propped up against a steel frame, was a nightmare.

  It looked vaguely human, in the sense that it had a head, a torso, two arms, and two legs. But its skin or hide was of a strange violet hue, crosshatched with lines like a crocodile’s, and looked very rough. Its legs were jointed backward and ended in hooked hooves. The arms stretched down almost to the floor of the case, and ended not in hands but in clublike appendages that were covered in inch-long barbs. Its torso was thin and cylindrical, rather like that of a wasp. Its head was the most human part, save that it sat on a neck that was twice as long; it had narrow slits instead of ears, and its black, violet-pupiled eyes—presumably glass made by a skillful taxidermist—were pear-shaped and took up half its face. Its mouth, twice the width of any human’s, was almost closed, but Nick could see teeth gleaming there.

  Black teeth that shone like polished jet.

  ‘No!’ screamed Malthan. He ran back down the corridor as far as the previous door, which was locked. He beat on the metal with his fists, the drumming echoing down the corridor.

  Nick pushed Lackridge gently aside with a quiet ‘Excuse me.’ He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but it was not from fear. It was excitement. The excitement of discovery, of learning something new. A feeling he had always enjoyed, but it had been lost to him ever since he’d dug up the metal spheres of the Destroyer.

  He leaned forward to touch the case and felt a strange, electric thrill run through his fingers and out along his thumbs. At the same time, there was a stabbing pain in his forehead, strong enough to make him step back and press two fingers hard between his eyes.

  ‘Not a bad specimen,’ said Lackridge. He spoke conversationally, but he had come very close to Nick and was watching him intently. ‘Its history is a little murky, but it’s been in the country for at least three hundred years and in the Corvere Bibliomanse for the past thirty-five. One of the things my staff has been doing here at Department Thirteen is cross-indexing all the various institutional records, looking for artifacts and information about our northern neighbours. When we got Malthan’s photographs, Dorrance happened to remember he’d seen an actual specimen of one of the creatures somewhere before, as a child. I cross-checked the records at the Bibliomanse and found the thing, and we had it brought up here.’

  Nick nodded absently. The pain in his head was receding. It appeared to emanate from his Charter Mark, though that should be totally quiescent this far from the Wall. Unless there was a roaring gale blowing down from the north, which he supposed might have happened since he came down into Department Thirteen’s subterranean lair. It was impossible to tell what was going on in the world above them.

  ‘Apparently the thing was found about ten miles in on our side of the Wall, wrapped in three chains,’ continued Lackridge. ‘One of silver, one of lead, and one made from braided daisies. That’s what the notes say, though of course we don’t have the chains to prove it. If there was a silver one, it must have been worth a pretty penny. Long before the Perimeter, of course, so it was some time before the authorities got hold of it. According t
o the records, the local folk wanted to drag it back to the Wall, but fortunately there was a visiting Captain-Inquirer who had it shipped south. Should never have gotten rid of the Captain-Inquirers. Wouldn’t have minded being one myself. Don’t suppose anyone would bring them back now. Lily-livered lot, the present government … excepting your uncle, of course …’

  ‘My father also sits in the Moot,’ said Nick. ‘On the government benches.’

  ‘Well, of course, everyone says my politics are to the right of old Arbiter Werris Blue-Nose, so don’t mind me,’ said Lackridge. He stepped back into the corridor and shouted, ‘Come back here, Mr. Malthan. It won’t bite you!’

  As Lackridge spoke, Nick thought he saw the creature’s eyes move. Just a fraction, but there was a definite sense of movement. With it, all his sense of excitement was banished in a second, to be replaced by a growing fear.

  It’s alive, thought Nick.

  He stepped back to the door, almost knocking over Lackridge, his mind working furiously.

  The thing is alive. Quiescent. Conserving its energies, so far from the Old Kingdom. It must be some Free Magic creature, and it’s just waiting for a chance—

  ‘Thank you, Professor Lackridge, but I find myself suddenly rather keen on a cup of tea,’ blurted Nick. ‘Do you think we might come back and look at this specimen tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m supposed to make Malthan touch the case,’ said Lackridge. ‘Dorrance was most insistent upon it. Wants to see his reaction.’

  Nick edged back and looked down the corridor. Malthan was crouched by the door.

  ‘I think you’ve seen his reaction,’ he said. ‘Anything more would simply be cruel, and hardly scientific.’

  ‘He’s only an Old Kingdom trader,’ said Lackridge. ‘He’s not even strictly legal. Conditional visa. We can do whatever we like with him.’