Brechalon

  "Don't get cheeky," said Zeah. "I had to hire four new ones this week."

  "Well, it's not as if these men didn't deserve to get shot," said Mrs. Colbshallow. "Imagine trying to rob someone in broad daylight. We need more police, that's what we need."

  "I'm going to be a copper in a few years," said Saba, walking in from the front hallway and sitting down.

  "No you aren't," his mother informed him. "I would be forever worrying. It's far too dangerous for any child of mine."

  Saba didn't reply to his mother or point out that he was the only child of hers. He just scooped up large mounds of fried eggs, white pudding, and sausages. Mrs. Colbshallow went back to commenting on the news, particularly how information of the coming eclipse did not belong in the weather section. With Saba's addition there were eleven people eating breakfast in the servant's hall at that moment, a good portion of the staff having already eaten and started on their morning duties, and those few who had the overnight shift had mostly already gone to bed. Marna, one of the last of the latter group came in from the side hallway, looking like she could fall asleep on her feet at any moment.

  "Yuah, Master Terrence wants to see you," she said.

  "I'm not interested."

  "I'm just the messenger."

  Yuah turned to look at Marna, and saw Terrence standing in the hallway several paces behind her.

  "I'm not his valet." With careful precision, she lifted her chin into the air and turned back to the table. "I'm the dressing maid."

  A minute later, under the guise of reaching for a scone, she cast a sideways look at the spot where he had been standing to find that he was now gone.

  * * * * *

  Karl Drury was a shadow of his former self-literally. As far as anyone knew, he still made his rounds through the fortress of Schwarztogrube, he still hurled insults at almost everyone, and he still stuffed his ugly face in the mess hall. If he beat some of the prisoners less than he used to or abused the boys less than he used to, who was going to complain about that? The only one who seemed bothered by Drury these days was Nils Chapman. He began to shake every time Drury entered the room and he refused to look at him. But Chapman knew what nobody else did. That was not really Karl Drury. The real Karl Drury was dead. He had dropped the sadistic guard's body into the ocean himself. Of course Nils Chapman was a shadow of his former self too-figuratively. His eyes had gone dull and his skin was pale. He didn't sleep anymore and he could hardly eat.

  "One thousand nine hundred eighty-three days," he muttered to himself over and over again, from his spot, curled up in a ball in the corner of the cell.

  "Don't worry, Pet." Zurfina reached down and stroked his hair. "It's almost over. This time tomorrow we'll both be gone."

  Chapman grabbed hold of her leg and held it close as he kept his eyes pressed tightly shut. He couldn't bear to see the walls, all four of which were covered in ghastly markings of smeared blood, and all four of which pulsed and throbbed sickeningly.

  Chapter Eight: Day One Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty-Four

  "What do you have there?" asked Zeah.

  "It's magic glass," replied Saba, holding up a small square of very dark but very shiny material.

  "This conversation sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale. Did you trade your magic beans to get this magic glass?"

  "Don't be silly Mr. Korlann. I didn't have any magic beans and this cost me 75 P."

  "Good heavens. Why would you pay 75 pfennigs for that?"

  "For the eclipse."

  "Eclipse?"

  "Sure. There's an eclipse today. Almost a full one. If we were in the channel it would be full. It would get dark in the middle of the day."

  "Oh yes, yes. It was in the paper. I imagine it will be spectacular enough right here in Brech City. But what is the glass for?"

  "Haven't you ever heard that you shouldn't stare at an eclipse because you'll go blind?"

  "Of course."

  "I can't tell you how much that has worried me since I found that out," said Saba. "I'm always afraid that I might accidentally look at the sun and it would be just my luck that there was an eclipse going on right then and I would go blind."

  "Well, first off, there's nothing special about an eclipse that is worse on your eyes. Stare at the sun anytime, eclipse or no, and you risk damage to your?"

  "Anyway," the boy interrupted. "I got this glass so I can watch the eclipse. You can stare at it all day through this and not get blinded. Can't see a bloody thing through it now though." He tried to look at the head butler through the small pane held to his right eye.

  "Let's hope it really works," said Zeah skeptically. "I trust you bought it from a reputable dealer."

  "Sure. I got it at the potion shop on Avenue Phoenix. They're selling loads of them. If it doesn't work, they'll be hip deep in angry blind people."

  * * * * *

  "It's almost time now, Pet," said Zurfina looking at the sun, through the tiny window high up on the wall.

  Nils Chapman was crawling on his knees next to her. Shaking and twitching uncontrollably, he no longer had the ability to stand on his own. This didn't bother him because he no longer had the ability to think on his own either. He crawled along on all fours drooling like a dog to the center of the cell.

  Zurfina peeled off the filthy rags that had been her only clothing since she had been brought to this hellhole one thousand nine hundred eighty-four days before. She tossed them aside and sat down cross-legged in the center of the cell. Chapman pressed against her, but she pushed him away. Closing her eyes, she began to chant.

  "Uuthanum, uuthanum, uuthanum, uuthanum." She repeated the word over and over again. Twenty times. A hundred times. Slowly the room became darker and darker. She continued to chant. The eclipse was at his height.

  Chapman screamed. Zurfina opened her eyes and smiled. The four walls were walls no more. They were shining, rippling, silvery surfaces like the surface of frighteningly cold and deep water. Sounds could be heard from the other side-freakish, awful piping noises that tugged at one's sanity. Then the surface directly in front of her bubbled and churned, touched by something on the other side of that boundary between the cell and the abyss beyond.

  "Yes!" Zurfina screamed. Then she began reciting a new set of words. "Uuathanum eetarri. Uuthanum eetarri. Uuthanum blechtore. Uuthanum blechtore. Uuthanum maiius."

  * * * * *

  "So can you see the eclipse?"

  "Sure. It's ace," said Saba, standing in the courtyard. Then he turned and saw who was speaking and flinched.

  "Would you like to take a look, Miss?" he asked, offering Iolanthe the magic glass pane.

  Taking the almost opaque square, she held it up to her eye and pointed her face toward the sky.

  "Interesting. It looks like a halo."

  "Yeah. Yeah, it does look like a halo, um? Miss."

  "It doesn't feel like a halo, though, does it?"

  "Miss?"

  "Look at it again," she said, handing back the magic glass. "This time, tell me what you feel."

  The boy looked again and suddenly shuddered. When he looked back at her, his face was accusing. She had made him aware of something he hadn't noticed before. There was something evil about the eclipse, and though he had looked forward to the event since he had first heard about it from his mother, now all he wanted was the return of the sun in its full glory.

  * * * * *

  The thing on the other side of the membrane between two worlds tested it once again, and a moment later it burst through. It was long, thick tentacle, necrotic grey and covered with suction cups. It searched along the stone floor of the cell, tentatively at first. Then it touched the sorceress sitting naked and chanting and suddenly it shook and thrashed throughout the chamber.

  "No!" shouted Nils Chapman and he jumped in front of Zurfina. The tentacle found him and wrapped around his waist.

  "No!" he cried again, and
then it yanked him so violently that the snapping of his neck was clearly audible, as it pulled him beyond the shimmering veil.

  Suddenly the room was filled with a hundred tentacles, touching every inch of the cell, caressing the woman like a demonic lover. She slowly rose to her feet, the tips of the alien appendages touching every inch of her skin.

  "Uuathanum eetarri blechtore maiius uusteros vadia jonai corakathum nit."

  A black fog poured into the cell from all four walls. It filled up the tiny chamber and sprayed through the openings in the door, creeping down the corridors of the prison and into every room and every cell, every nook and every alcove.

  * * * * *

  "How is it?"

  "It was ace," replied Saba. "Now I just want the sun to come back."

  "Don't be like that." Yuah stepped down the stairs from the back door and put an arm around the boy's shoulders. "Let me take a look."

  Saba held the square of magic glass up and Yuah pressed her eye to it, leaning back to find the sun. "There. The sun's starting to move out from behind the moon. In a few minutes everything will be just like it was before."

  "Good."

  "You shouldn't let Miss D ruin your fun. She's a right bitch, you know."

  "No, she's not."

  "She is."

  "Well, it's not her fault."

  "What do you mean?" asked Yuah.

  "Nothing. Here. Do you want this?" Saba pushed the magic glass into her hands and started up the stairs into the house.

  * * * * *

  Zurfina smiled as the dead grey tentacles caressed her.

  "Now I will leave and now I will lay my vengeance on this stony prison and this little kingdom and this world!" She raised her arms and began her final incantation. "Uuthanum?"

  At that moment a thin streak of light entered from the small window high up on the wall. It was so tiny that it might have gone totally unnoticed, had it not stuck the first and largest of the grey arms moving around the cell. But the tiny sliver of sunlight burned through the tentacle like a hot ember through a slice of bread. The great tentacle jerked and thrashed about the room and the other appendages did too, one of them striking the woman and throwing her halfway across the floor. More sunlight entered through the window and all of the unearthly, unholy members were yanked back through the portals that shimmered where the walls of the cell had once been.

  "No! No, I'm not finished!" screamed Zurfina.

  * * * * *

  Yuah stood in the courtyard, idly staring up at the eclipse through the magic glass, and totally unaware that she was being watched from a window on the third floor. Terrence watched her, appraising her in a way that he didn't bother appraising other women. There was no doubt that she was beautiful. She wore no makeup, had her hair pulled back into a bun wrapped by a maid's cap, and she wore a simple servant's dress with minimal bustle and almost no color. And yet she was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen. There was no doubt about that. Iolanthe was thought to be a great beauty and with her flawless skin and those striking aquamarine eyes, she was something special. Yuah's chocolate brown eyes had a tenderness and an innocence in them though that one would never find in his sister's, and Yuah's features were perfect. She could have been one of those women that the great sculptors of old used as a model. She was just the right height and she was well proportioned. So what if she was a bit skinny.

  Yuah was almost perfect. But Terrence didn't want an almost perfect woman. He had thrown away any chance at a wife and a family and a home. That was not going to be his future. His future was far away, in another time and another place, on a great field of purple flowers with a woman who was frighteningly perfect. He turned away from the window and climbed back into bed, pulling the box filled with small blue vials from beneath the pillow.

  * * * * *

  A large square of sunlight filled the center of the cell floor, and sprawled naked in the center of that square, was Zurfina. She lifted her head up just enough to look around and then she slammed it back against the stone floor. Then she lifted it up and slammed it back down again: once, twice, three times, till there was a bloody spot on the floor and a bloody contusion on her forehead. The walls of the cell had all returned to their original stone texture. Not even the arcane bloody scrawling remained.

  Schwarztogrube really was proof against magic. She had summoned the most ancient magic in the universe, a feat only possible because of the eclipse, and had used it to release the dead demon-gods that waited beyond the edge of sanity. But even they had not been able to completely pierce the veil. All of that magic was still not enough. Without the power of the eclipse, it was not enough, and the eclipse had not lasted long enough. And it would be a long time before the next full eclipse over Schwarztogrube.

  "Eight thousand four hundred thirty-seven days!" Zurfina wailed. "Kafira's bloody twat!"

  She looked up at the ceiling as if she could see the sky beyond it and dared the Zaeri-Kafirite God and his crucified daughter to strike her dead. Could even his magic penetrate this magic-proof hell? Prove it!

  * * * * *

  "Is it over?" asked Senta.

  "Yup." Maro stood up from the pinhole camera that he had made to watch the eclipse, in actuality nothing but a small pasteboard box with a hole cut in the side. Shining in through the tiny hole, the image of the sun had been visible on the back side, and as the moon had moved across the sun, the small white orb in the box had been covered and then uncovered.

  "That was pretty ace, wasn't it?"

  "I guess so," said Senta. "I wish we could have watched the real thing."

  "You'd be blinded."

  "Yeah. I'm glad you were able to make it with only eight fingers."

  Maro nodded and looked at the three remaining fingers on his right hand.

  "Maybe someday you'll be really rich and you can pay a wizard to regrow your fingers for you," offered Senta.

  "Maybe I'll get so used to having eight fingers I won't want my other ones back. I bet pretty soon I'll be able to do my eight times as good as you can do your tens."

  "What's seven times eight?"

  "Fifty-six."

  "Is that right?"

  "Yup."

  "Wow." Senta looked impressed and she was. "What are we doing now?"

  "I don't know what you're doing, but I'm going to play Mirsannan cricket at the park. You can't go because you're a girl."

  "Then I'm going to the toy store and buy a doll."

  "You don't have enough money to buy a doll."

  "Uh-huh. For pretend."

  "Yeah, alright."

  "You know when you said my mom didn't want me?"

  "Yeah."

  "I don't understand it."

  "What?"

  "Well, look at me. I'm just cute."

  * * * * *

  "Eight thousand four hundred thirty-seven days," Zurfina told herself. "I'll be old. Well, I'll be older."

  The sorceress was already far older than she appeared. Thanks to magic used long ago, her body was much younger than it should have been. But it was aging now. Here in this place where magic had no hold, it was aging. In eight thousand four hundred thirty-seven days, she would most surely begin to look old-not as old as her true age, but old. Too old. She would have no youth, just as now she had no magic. She couldn't wait eight thousand four hundred thirty-seven days. She had to get out. But she couldn't use magic. What could she use? What did she have?

  She had her youth? for now. She had her beauty? for now. She had this body, this body that men wanted? for now. She had to use what she had.

  Chapter Nine: One Month Later

  "I wish you didn't have to leave," said Iolanthe, as she brushed a stray piece of lint from her brother's blue uniform.

  "The army needs me."

  "I know you will do the family proud, and while you are away, you may leave everything in my capable hands."

  "Yes, I kno
w."

  "And as always, come back with your shield?"

  "Or on it," he finished for her.

  "Indeed."

  "Could you do one other thing for me, sister?"

  "Of course."

  He pulled an envelope from his tunic and held it toward her.

  "Would you give this to Yuah after I've gone?"

  She stared at it for a moment before taking the envelope.

  "Of course," she said.

  Terrence kissed her on the cheek and left the room. Iolanthe stepped over to the window and watched as his luggage was loaded onto the back of the steam carriage. Terrence walked out the front door, down the steps and climbed into the passenger side of the vehicle, while Merriman climbed into the driver's side. Iolanthe watched as the car made its way down the street and around the corner. Terrence never looked back.

  Walking to her desk, she used her silver letter opener to slice through the envelope, and then pulled out the single sheet of paper inside. She put away the opener and read through the message as she walked the length of her boudoir. She shook her head and then tossed the letter and the envelope in the fireplace, watching as it burned brightly and then turned to ash.

  "Yuah," she called.

  A moment later the dressing maid arrived.

  "Yes, Miss?"

  "I'll have my white and yellow day dress."

  "Yes, Miss."

  "My brother has gone." Iolanthe watched her dressing maid's back stiffen.

  "Yes, Miss?"

  "Did he stop to say goodbye?"

  "No, Miss."

  "Pity. No doubt he forgot."

  * * * * *

  Zeah carried the mail from the morning post into the servant's hall and sat down with a sigh.

  "Well, he's off to the train station."

  "Maybe Miss D will be less distracted now," offered Saba.

  "If anything, I think she could use with a bit more distraction," said Barrymore.

  "Barrymore, you have a letter," said Zeah, handing the younger man an envelope. "And you have another letter from Mrs. Godwin, Mrs. C."

  "Bless her heart," said Mrs. Colbshallow, opening her mail. "You know she's gone half wobbly in that great big house by herself."