Johannes Cabal The Necromancer (16 page)

If I don’t release him, staying here is a sort of damnation anyway, he thought. What difference does it make if he serves it out in Hell or a rural station? He looked at the soldier’s eyes again and knew what the difference was. In the sheer cliff over the Gates of Hell, defying modernisation and innovation, was still carved Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.

“You and I have something in common,” he said finally. “You don’t have to fill in the form.”

Cabal got up and walked to the door, opened it wide, and stepped over the threshold. He took a piece of white chalk from his cigar case and carefully drew a line from the lower edge of one side of the doorframe, across the threshold, and a little way up the opposite jamb. He stepped back into the room, squatted by the line, and wrote a series of peculiar characters alongside it, mumbling under his breath in a discordant chthonic tongue as he did so. Satisfied with his work, he straightened up, put the chalk away, and looked at the soldier. The corporal had stood and moved closer to see what Cabal was doing. Cabal noticed that he was standing in exactly the same spot where he’d taken his own life. Cabal walked to his side and pointed at the open doorway.

“There. Walk through. It’s as simple as that.”

The soldier bit his lower lip. “I’m not sure I can. I’ve sort of tried in the past. I couldn’t leave here.”

“That was before I opened the way for you. See those signs? Those are P’tithian sigils, the single most powerful and dangerous way of forming a portal known to humanity and, guessing from the evidence, four other intelligent species. Believe me, you can leave.”

“And Katy?”

“There I can’t make promises. But I think the chances of meeting her again are excellent. Now, will you please go? My train is waiting.”

The soldier walked hesitantly towards the open door. The sun had moved low, above the top of the cutting opposite, and he was silhouetted. Cabal was unsurprised to see he was faintly translucent around the edges. He stopped right at the threshold.

“Go on,” said Cabal. “There’s nothing to hold you here. Get moving before I change my mind about the form.”

The soldier looked back, and he might have smiled as he stepped forward. Cabal had the vague impression of something dispersing with unbelievable rapidity, and then the doorway was empty. Outside, there was nothing to see. Cabal walked out and looked up and down the track before looking up into the cold blue sky. “Good luck,” he said almost to himself. “Give my regards to Katy.”

Eventually, he went back to the doorway and looked down at the strange symbols. I knew learning P’tithian would come in useful one day, he thought. The P’tithians had been a particularly useless tribe who’d managed to wipe themselves out almost three thousand years before. Cabal had discovered and painstakingly translated a series of tablets he’d liberated from a small museum that he believed hadn’t realised their significance. The translation showed that they probably had, after all. The P’tithians seemed to have managed to poison themselves with bread made from rye infected with a particularly virulent form of ergot. In an hallucinogenic haze, they had first assured themselves that they were great sorcerers and then demonstrated their extraordinary abilities by levitating, en masse, from a high place. Perhaps they should have chosen a low place to start with. Cabal rubbed out the phonetic characters with the toe of his shoe as he enunciated them, “‘Eenie. Meenie. Minie. Mo.’ There, all gone.” Satisfied, he left the station for the last time.

Back at the train, it took less than a minute to find Welstone Halt on the map and discover that they were therefore on the right track. Dennis and Denzil gave the engine its head, and soon they were barely behind schedule.

At the junction with the main line, they had to get the signalman to change the points for them. Cabal went over himself, climbed the wooden steps up to the signal box, and delivered the customary bribe.

“No trouble at all, sir,” said the signalman. “I’ll have to call ahead so that you’re expected. It’ll take a few minutes for confirmation. Care for a cuppa while you wait?” Cabal took a look at the large tin mugs that hung from pegs behind the sink, thick with accumulated tannin, and declined with passable politeness. Instead, he amused himself by looking at the signal board and found his eye wandering onto “Welstone Halt (Disused).”

“Welstone Halt, sir,” said the signalman when Cabal drew his attention to it. “That’s been closed since the War. Nothing there, that’s why. Not no more.”

“I understand it was once a thriving place.”

“Oh, it was. I went over there years ago, when I was a kid. On a dare, see? It’s meant to be haunted.”

“The station?”

“Oh, yeah. But the town, too. Not much of Welstone itself left now. The station’s the only bit that looks in any sort of fair nick. It was a terrible thing that happened to the town. Well, I call it a town, but it was really not that big. Really a big village with a market. That’s what made it busy.”

The telegraph chattered. The signalman read the tape with interest. “There you go, there’s your clearance. You’d best get a move on or you’ll lose your slot.”

On the steps Cabal asked, “Welstone. I need to know. What happened to it?”

“It were wartime, right? These lines were full of soldiers and equipment for the effort. Well, down the far end of the line you just came down, a munitions train ran into trouble. Caught fire. The best thing to have done would have been to take it halfway up and then abandon it. It would have taken the line with it when it blew, but at least the cutting would have forced the blast up, where it couldn’t do no harm. But the driver was new on this line. Thought he could save the tracks by taking her down the spur that goes behind the station. He jumped out, did the points himself, and took her there. You can imagine what he thought when he came around on th’ spur and found it overlooked Welstone. You could see every house from where that munitions train stood. You’ll have to imagine what he thought, ’cause he didn’t live to tell anybody. She blew up, then and there. There’s a ridge between where the spur was and the station, so the blast was sort of reflected straight out over the town. There was hardly two bricks left standing on top of one another when the smoke cleared. Most of the people living there died in the instant, of course. The irony of it was that the station wasn’t touched at all, but without a village to serve, they closed it down anyway. Anyway, you’d best get a move on, sir. Bon voyage.”

In his office, Cabal found Horst awake and in his chair. “Well, brother,” said Horst without looking up from his book. “What acts of petty despicability have you wrought this day?”

Cabal smiled, and, just for once, it wouldn’t have frightened children and old people. “You might be surprised” was all he would say.

MEMORANDUM FROM THE DESK OF DR. OST,

DIRECTOR OF BRICHESTER ASYLUM

    Dear all:

    As you probably know by now, we have had a little security breach here at Brichester. Now, this is all very unfortunate, and I have no doubt that there will be some repercussions, but I don’t want this to turn into some sort of scapegoating exercise. Yes, we have lost almost three dozen individuals into the community somewhat earlier than planned. Yes, some, possibly most of them have unfortunate records involving some entirely forgiveable dabbling in the dark arts. In fairness, however, they paid for their curiosity by becoming rationally challenged, which is how they came to be under our care and stewardship.

    Although I did say earlier that I didn’t want to descend into apportioning blame for the recent mass breakout, I feel I cannot let the behaviour of one of our clients go unmentioned. Rufus Maleficarus has sorely disappointed me personally. I thought he was making quite a good recovery from what the previous director had unhelpfully referred to as “a soul-searing, sanity-dissolving, profoundly malevolent appetite for power and revenge.” As it happens, I think the finger-painting lessons were going very well, at least up until Rufus used the paint to create a summoning circle, and then rode out of here on the back of an obliging Hound of Tindalos, taking the rest of his section with him. I’m sure he had his reasons. I just wish he’d talked through them in one of our sessions.

    Be supportive of one another in this difficult time. Anybody talking to the press will be fired immediately.

IN WHICH CABAL DISCOVERS THAT HELL COMES IN DIFFERENT FLAVOURS AND THAT ONE SHOULD ALWAYS MAKE TIME

Horst castled and looked out of the window. “How much longer is that signal going to keep us here?”

Johannes Cabal ran a fingertip along his eyebrow while he ruminated, shifted a bishop, and said, “Your game is coming to pieces. Checkmate in three.” He stood, stretched, and looked out along the track. “Over half an hour thus far. It’s an outrage. I’m going to find out what’s going on.” He took his long coat down from the hook. “Care for a walk?”

Horst checked his watch. “A little over half an hour until dawn; that should be more than enough time. Very well.”

Swathed in coats and mufflers, they climbed down onto the track and made their way towards Murslaugh Station, only two hundred yards away but unattainable by train until the signal changed. “A points failure?” hazarded Horst.

“Hardly. There’s been furious activity on the line ever since we got here. Something’s afoot, and the churlish scum have failed to tell us what.”

“You’re in a good mood.”

“No.”

They arrived at the end of platform two and climbed up. The scene was indeed one of furious activity. A locomotive that seemed to have been pulled out of a museum was making a head of steam while civilians, frantic with anxiety, fought for places in the antiquated carriages. The concept of “women and children first” seemed to have escaped a few people there.

“It’s an evacuation,” said Horst, aghast. “What’s caused it? What’s going on? Hi! You there!” He strode forward to argue with a man who’d just pulled two children out of a carriage to give himself space.

Cabal hadn’t time for social justice. All he could see were potential souls skipping town. Looking around, he saw a harassed railway official surrounded by a huddle of desperate people. It seemed as good a place to start as anywhere. He made his way through the group, cracking skulls with his death’s-head cane and hacking shins with his feet. After the first few cries of pain, a path magically opened. Cabal touched the brim of his hat and said, “I am Johannes Cabal, theatrical entrepreneur. What is happening here?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t got time to tell you, sir. The town’s in a state of emergency. You’ll need to get out as quickly as possible.”

Behind him, Cabal was passingly aware of a serious argument breaking out. He recognised one voice as his brother’s. To the official he said, “I don’t think so. We’ve only just arrived. I am joint proprietor of the Cabal Brothers Carnival. I am Johannes Cabal.”

“Yes, sir, you already said,” replied the railway official testily.

Behind Cabal, the argument stopped abruptly with a solid thud. The man who had pulled the children off the train flew past at head height. After a moment, Horst joined Cabal. “I shouldn’t have done that, but he was just so infuriating. I hope I haven’t hurt him.”

“You’ll have to ask him when he lands. This,” said Cabal to the official, “is my brother, Horst.” The official’s testiness evaporated. A strong sense of self-preservation can do that.

“And how can I help you, gentlemen?”

“What’s going on?”

“The most dreadful calamity, sirs. We just heard but two hours ago, and the town’s been in an uproar ever since. I haven’t ever seen anything like it.”

“That’s as may be, but we’ve been stuck just spitting distance from the station for the last half-hour or so. Didn’t it cross anybody’s mind to at least inform us as to what’s amiss?”

“What is amiss, anyway?” added Horst. “Nobody’s being very clear on that.”

“What?” said a small, greasy man, rubbing a death’s-head-shaped bump on his forehead. “You came here by train?”

“No,” said Cabal. “We’ve got an entire carnival in our pockets.”

But a muttering had started. “They’ve got a train… They’ve got a train.” The appearance of a new escape route from Murslaugh was causing a sensation.

“It’s not a passenger train, so don’t get your hopes up,” said Cabal wearily, but it was too late. A small group of men, to whom the phrases “Act in haste, repent at leisure” and “Why a mouse when it spins?”
*
were equally cloaked in incomprehensible mystery, had rapidly coagulated into a mob and were already climbing off the end of the platform before rushing off into the darkness with the intention of taking control of the train.

“Oh, sir!” cried the railway official. “You have to stop them! They’re likely to do anything!”

“You’re familiar with the theory of evolution?” asked Cabal.

“Sir?”

“They’re about to find out why intelligence is a survival trait. Now, what’s all the panic about?”

“There’s an army heading this way, sir! An army!”

Horst and Cabal exchanged glances. “We weren’t aware that anybody had declared a war,” said Horst.

“Oh, no, it isn’t that kind of army, sirs. It’s an army of lunatics!” In the distance, the bullish “Huzzah!”-ing of the men who’d gone to take the carnival train stopped abruptly.

“An army of lunatics. Fancy. There’s a football match on, then?”

“No, sir! It’s … the Maleficarian Army!”

If the official had been expecting a spectacular reaction, he was to be disappointed. Cabal rolled his eyes and Horst said, “Who?”

“Rufus Maleficarus,” said Cabal. “Who let him out?”

“I think he broke out, sir. With most of the inmates.”

In the darkness beyond the end of platform two, the screaming began. The official started, white-faced. “Nothing to worry about,” said Horst reassuringly. “Just those men meeting our security personnel. Johannes, who is this Rufus … thingy?”

“Maleficarus. Self-styled warlock and Great Beast. Actually, rather a—what’s the term?—wanker. Stole some esoteric tome from one of the great universities, after a lot of work managed to read it, after a lot more work managed to comprehend it. Which is, of course, the last thing you want to do. All that knowledge needed lots of space inside his head, so it heaved his sanity out of his ears. Casting himself as some sort of manifestation of pure evil on Earth, he made unwholesome sacrifices to his dark gods and demanded great power in return.”