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Lungbarrow - Chapter Fifteen
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Old Bones
No more time to lose. Too much lost already.
Glospin scrambled up the big stairs on all fours. His legs, cramped in the stove for so long, protested at every stride. Ideas flared in his mind. So much that he had pondered for so long. Hatred, like a wine laid down in the dark, six hundred and seventy-three years in the maturing. A blood-red flagon ready to be tapped.
One thought overarched the torrent of ideas. He must be first to tell Satthralope.
He reached the landing and saw the Drudge. It loomed over him, a patina of white dust across its polished wooden surface.
'Satthralope,' gasped Glospin. 'I have to see her. He's here. He's come back.'
The Drudge emitted a guttural creak of rage and lunged for him.
Glospin dodged and ran. A table reached out a leg and tripped him. An occasional cupboard swung its door into his path, catching him across the forehead. He tumbled to the floor, shaking his stunned head.
The Drudge's wooden hand lifted him like a doll and tucked him under one arm.
It knew already. It knew about the return of that dysgenic runagate.
'Why don't you catch him?' he shouted. 'He's here in the House. Why aren't
you doing anything?'
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The Drudge began to move.
'No!' Glospin yelled and started to kick. 'Not again. I'm not going back in the stove again!'
But instead of descending the stairs, the Drudge veered into a side passage. Glospin fell silent, realizing with a satisfied certainty that the servant was taking him, like a fawn-cat with captured shrew, to lay at the feet of its mistress.
'Must have been here all the time.'
Chris crouched by the corpse in the mushroom pen; crushing fungi underfoot; picking the sliding sluggish things off Arkhew's body; feeling sick.
'Can you lift the light higher please?' he said to Innocet, who was standing on the outside of the fence.
She raised her lamp, keeping a firm grip on the Doctor with her other hand.
She had not uttered a word since Glospin had run from the Hall. She led the way
and the Doctor had followed. Chris thought he had never seen the Doctor so
meekly submissive.
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In the flickering lamplight, Chris could make out the face of the little man who was so terrified of the dream they had shared. His thin features were half buried in mushroom compost and covered in a silvery tracery of slime trails.
'Yes, this is Arkhew,' he said, freezing his anger. 'All the time we were standing talking, he was lying in here.'
He caught the Doctor's sharp accusing glare and realized what he had given away.
'Is he ultimately dead?' said Innocet.
'Ultimately? Dead is dead, isn't it?'
'Not round here, it isn't,' said the Doctor.
'I don't think he's going to regenerate, if that's what you mean.'
The Doctor started to climb over the fence, but Innocet hauled him back by the scruff of his linen collar.
'You can't think I did this,' he protested.
'I think nothing,' she said, which sounded to Chris about as accusatory as
she could get.
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He watched them for a moment. The Doctor and Innocet were staring hard at each other. It was apparent that something was passing between them - not just a mutual understanding, but a possible exchange of telepathic information.
'It's him,' Glospin insisted. 'Wake up, Satthralope. You must wake up.'
The old Housekeeper stirred in her rocking chair. Her gluey eyelids shuddered and opened a crack.
Glospin tried to pull free of the hand chair in which he had been placed. The huge fingers that formed its back had closed around him like a vice. 'Wake up, Cousin. It's him. He's come back. The outcast.'
'What's that?' She was still drowsy. 'Who's there? Where are my Family?'
A Drudge moved in and pulled away the skein of web that covered her face. Taking a damp sponge from one of the wooden drawers in its cassock, it gently wiped her eyes. She made little infantile mewlings as the sponge dabbed at her face. Then she thrust the huge servant away.
'Glospin? Is that you?' Her voice cracked with lack of use. She squinted at the mirror.
'I'm here, Cousin,' he said from the chair beside her.
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Satthralope tried to turn, but the effort was too strenuous. 'Come to see me, have you?' She started to cackle with something that he might once have mistaken for affection. 'Or did the Drudges bring you, eh, you wicked one?'
'I came to warn you. Look in the mirror. It's him. The one who's name you forbade us to ever mention. He's come home at last.'
She clasped the ivory head of the walking stick that lay across her lap. Held it tight in her ancient translucent hands.
'Him?' she said.
'He has come back. And Arkhew's already dead.'
'No, no! No one's dead. Not without permission. It was a dream. We've been dreaming together.'
Her eyelids sank again.
'Wake up!' shouted Glospin. 'Arkhew's dead. Do something before we're all
murdered in our beds!'
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'Murder? I forbade that word! There was no murder!' Her hands clasped her walking stick. She rummaged among her skirts for her keys. 'We must listen to the House.' Her neck clicked as she turned towards her servant. 'Drudge. Drudge! Is it true?'
The hinged side mirrors on the dressing table swung forward, casting endless corridors of light into the central glass. Satthralope moaned and clasped the finger-arms of her chair. She began to tremble.
'There is a disturbance in the bones of the House,' she whispered. 'The fledershrews are gnawing at the rafters. There are beetles scuttling in the cellarage.' She gasped in pain. 'There is a wound gaping in the upper turrets! Someone has crossed the threshold uninvited! Who is it? Who's there?'
'It's him,' said Glospin. 'Listen. He's come back.'
'Him?' Satthralope gave a deep groan. Her looking glass reflected the passage leading to the funguretum It was occupied by two distant figures. One was Cousin Innocet, the other wore a pale hat that hid his face.
If nothing else, thought Glospin, at least the old crone will recognize a stranger in our midst.
'Drudges! Drudges!' yelled Satthralope.
The Drudge stepped up before her.
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'Why did you let me sleep so long, eh? What's the time? I want my Family round me. All of them. And bring me that one, that trespasser, whoever it is. Now!'
The Doctor's expression visibly withered on his face as he held Innocet's stare. 'No, I can't believe it.' His voice was exhausted. He lowered his eyes and added formally. 'I must thank you for telling me, Cousin.'
'Words alone were not enough,' Innocet said.
'The sooner Quences is woken, the better.'
The Doctor glanced down at Chris in the pen and missed a sudden look of fear on Innocet's face. Chris caught her expression and busied himself with his self-imposed role as Adjudicator. He pulled back the roughly woven material around Arkhew's neck. 'There's a lot of bruising on his throat. At a guess I'd say somebody strangled him.'
The Doctor smacked his hand on the fence. 'Yes, of course he's ultimately dead,' he said impatiently. 'Non regenerat. He's been murdered. Perhaps you can supply us with a list of suspects too, Chris.'
Innocet suddenly turned to look at the entrance. 'Come out of there quickly,'
she urged. 'Quickly.'
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As Chris scrambled over the fence, Innocet moved towards the funguretum doorway. The huge figure of a Drudge emerged from the shadows, towering even over her.
Its whole body swivelled to glare at Chris and the Doctor, but Innocet blocked its path, holding the lamp up to its implacable face. 'No,' she said firmly.
The Drudge tried to move past her. It pointed a hand at the intruders and gave a dry growl of anger like splintering timber.
'No,' repeated Innocet. 'These are my visitors. I invited them across the threshold. And by the laws of Housepitality, they are under my protection. You are to serve them as honoured guests.'
The Doctor dodged up behind Innocet pulling Chris with him. He raised his hat with a melodramatic flourish. 'Thank you very much for inviting us, Cousin Innocet. We hope our stay will be a pleasant one.' He dug an elbow in Chris's ribs.
'Um, yeah. Thanks,' said Chris.
Innocet bowed her head, making sure that the Drudge was watching the ritual.
Two tiny polished spheres were set into the finely carved face, reflecting
the room and its occupants in detail. Chris caught sight of his own image and
felt trapped.
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Sunlight dazzled on the leaves and on the river. He heard the clacking antlers of jousting neversuch beetles. He poked one beetle, almost a hand long, with a cut reed. It droned its flightless wings and snapped at the reed with its mandibles. He poked it again and watched it scuttle for cover.
There was a cry of despair behind him.
He turned and saw a young woman struggling dawn the sandy bank to the shore. It was Cousin Innocet. She looked about twenty years old. Her robe, absurdly heavy for such an expedition, had caught on a thorny root. It was riding up, showing off her underskirts.
She scolded him as he laughed. She tried to pull herself free, but the basket she carried tipped up and spilt berries all down the bank.
Her footing slipped and she slithered down after them, landing with a squelchy thump.
'We'll be late for supper,' she said, as she tried to flatten down her wayward skirts.
He saw that she was laughing as well.
Chris felt their arms support him. His mouth tasted of dust.
'My room,' he heard Innocet saying.
The Drudge swivelled on its base to watch them carry him away.
'I'm all right,' he muttered woozily.
'Lucky old you,' he thought he heard the Doctor say.