"Almar Gothurdle and the Silver Bane: Chapter 4" by Jermaine Leroy Joseph

4:

Almar had heard the patter of footsteps while he had stepped from the bath, grabbing a towel hurriedly. The slamming of a door masked his cursing, the sound of more footsteps had made him dash out of the dark bathroom and into the room that acted as the bedroom. Guido had been right. Almar had been in the bathroom, but had fallen asleep in the bath. Guido’s dash to the door had woken him, making him leap from the tub, causing the candle to go out. In the dark, he had tried to wrap the towel about his frame, while grasping his rifle with the other hand, but had failed for several minutes. By the time Almar had performed all he had to do inside the room, Guido had left.
Limping, Almar had come into the room, wondering why there were no windows, wishing he had magic with which to light the chamber. Tying the towel about him, making sure it was secure Almar went about the room like a blind man, unsure where the candles actually were. After an almost interminable time he had all the candles lit. But, as is sometimes the case, Almar had just woken. His eyes failed to see intricate image on the door. Nor did he see the handprint on the headboard of his bed. He had seen that Guido had gone, chuckled to himself, and dried himself off before dressing. It was a day to wear all black, he felt. But he could not find his black shirt. He settled instead for a blue tunic. It was the only other dark clothing he had.
Next, he had sat down on his bed, wondering why it was so ruffled. He was a person meticulous in his mannerisms. He never left the bed looking that unkempt unless he was in a hurry, which he was not in today. Still wondering, Almar had taken apart his rifle and begun to clean it. He had only just started to dissemble his weapon when he noticed the handprint finally with the sudden clarity of one startled awake. And the floor began to tremble.
Now here we must describe Almar Gothurdle, since it is likely probable that the image you have of him is that of a limping man that is sometimes almost as barmy as a crazy innkeeper, a man that is intelligent yet possesses no skills that could possibly aid him in dire situations. A man that would rather relax than be outside, keeping busy. Quite possibly as the type of man that likes ice tea from cups and saucers, and biscuits on the side; possibly digestives. Which is wrong, of course, although not always. Almar Gothurdle was possessed of many gifts. He was also a brilliant shot with the rifle.
Upon the ground shaking, he did not look at the floor, or the bathroom, where the candle had suddenly come alive with flame. His eyes latched onto the door to the chamber, saw the image on the door and narrowed. His hands brought up the rifle in a fluid motion that belied all that Almar seemed to represent. And as the ghoul of Carmine Trac burst free from its hiding place, all silver lines and fog like aura, all hatred and malice, Almar fired a single silver round, silver to hurt silver.
The ghoul drifted to one side almost instantaneously, leaving only a hundred after images to mark its passage to the other side of the room. As it appeared, Almar fired another round, watching as the startled creature shifted again, taking the round through its shoulder. Silver ink sprayed out onto the bathroom door, and the creature howled in rage before falling into the floor and vanishing with a final baleful look. For a moment, Almar remained where he was and as he was, his rifle to his shoulder, ready to fire. When he was certain the ghoul had gone, he lowered the gun slowly, still holding it tight. He had seen such a face before, he thought, but far from here. Hell, this was Calm Spire, the most insignificant place in life.
“But not to the dead.” He muttered. Standing slowly, he walked to his pack, taking free ten rounds that he tucked away into his overcoat. Then, without a backward glance, he left the room, aware that the image had gone. He did not even bother to wipe the stain away.
He found the innkeeper seated in his usual mangled armchair. The man watched him with heavily lidded eyes. Down the corridor, the Distraught Wife peeked from her door, obviously wondering what had happened.
“I dropped urn in the bathtub, Miss Lorvine Burns, nothing at all to worry about, nothing at all.” He saw the woman sigh visibly, her round features seeming to roil like storm clouds. Then the door shut. Mumbling unintelligibly, Almar turned to the innkeeper and went to ask him whether Calm Spire had ever had a murder before. Instead, when he reached the fat man, he saw that the man dribbled, deep in sleep. A map was on his desk, a pencil almost blunt, and a willow wick candle. Lifting the candle to him, he leaned over the desk. Turning the map around, he gasped.
Calm Spire was a village with at least forty houses, one inn, and one smithy which also made and sold guns. The houses were clustered together all about the smithy and the inn. On the fringes of the east side of the village was an old mill. The town well was in the wild just before the tower. But the map did not reveal this. What the map revealed in grey and black, and blue was a city. The blue lines, showing the houses and buildings, were stark against the roads and streets and side lanes drawn in black. The grey, obviously pencil markings, circled a small sector of the city; the innkeeper had written in his messy hand that this was Calm Spire village. Almar stared at the map a moment, saw that there had been a library in the wild that had also been circled as part of the village along with a crypt and a thing marked as a windmill, and rolled up the cracking, near ancient parchment, stuffing it unceremoniously inside his overcoat beside the rounds. It made a strange bulge in his overcoat that he did not admire. “A library, a crypt and a windmill…?” Almar shook his head. He would find out.
It was as he went to move the map to his inside left pocket, putting the candle in his right hand that he looked again at the innkeeper. The man sat there, dribbling, his heavily lidded eyes wide open as he slumped in the dilapidated seat. He could have been sleeping for all Almar knew, but it looked as though the man had had a stroke.
Looking at the stain that hid his door, Almar shivered suddenly and not from the cold. He leaned down, placing the candle where the map had been, watching as the light danced in the glazed eyes the innkeeper. He was dead.
“Mr. Green…” He could see it now. The man trying to give him a clue, but being caught. The final sly act of a man who had tried his hardest to seem anything but. Yet, another image came to him. What if the man had been working with the ghoul, this Silver Bane? What if the man had failed to do something, like get whatever had been hidden inside the cart? “Mr. Green… what were you doing?” Almar closed the man’s eyes. It was only right.
As he walked away he took a final look at the fat face framed by dying candlelight. He saw the drool now and nodded. It was liquid silver.
As he passed the door of the Distraught Wife, her husband came out and nodded to him companionably. “Going somewhere with that, Almar?” He said in a friendly manner. “Not good weather for it good man.” Almar smiled at that, halting in his quick, long legged stride.
“Hunting, of course Greg. Fancy coming with me?” He saw the man shake his head, knowing what exactly he was going to hunt. “Well let us hope that I have good hunting.”
“All the best, Almar.” Almar waved in farewell, surprised and baffled. As he turned away he heard Miss Drake’s door shut. He could not remember her name. Shrugging, he walked past her door and noticed that the handle had turned silver. He was wondering whether he should look into it and then thought better of it. He left the building with a scowl, rifle slung over his shoulder. He wanted to look at the map, but was afraid of taking it out. Certain that if the ghoul knew that he had such a thing, a map that could help him solve all the mysteries of Calm Spire and bring about the murderer’s doom, then the ghoul would come for him, stopping at nothing to see him to his own end. With a grin, glad he was not limping yet and that the weather was fair enough, Almar turned to his right and began walking. Then, as he neared the end of the cobbled road, he looked to his left thinking that he heard voices near where the first murder had happened.
By the time Guido and Gabriella had come to find Almar and the map, he and his rifle were already deep into the stunted trees and tall grass before Carmine Trac.
For the most part, the road that led into the wild gave Almar very little trouble. The paving slowly faded, becoming overgrown with weeds and the yellow grass called Spider’s Shrub. He walked with his head held high, glad for the cold air and the open road. Ahead, he could already see the small wood of stunted trees that would appear after the hilly road began to dip towards the tower. Above dark clouds still gathered like some magician’s trick. How many clouds does it take to make a thunderstorm? None, Almar thought. It just takes one strange village and a crazy creature bent on destruction. The sudden answer made him laugh. He began to whistle as he lost the trail occasionally. The cobbled pathway out of the village had slowly faded away. The trail that he followed now crooked left and right, with weeds trying to trip him all the while.
Still, it was a pleasant journey. One that made him feel free of the troubles in life, free from recognition and the strange situations he always found himself in. People had a strange fixation with him, he knew. They just couldn’t stop falling dead at his feet… or near his feet. For that matter, even someone else’s feet, as long as he was nearby.
Of a sudden, he realised that he had stopped walking, having been so deep in thought that he ad forgotten where he was. With a start, Almar cast his gaze about him shrewdly, wonderingly. The path had long since been traversed, and the grass had long since faded. All that remained in sight was a field of Spider’s Shrubs and huge misshaped trees, bent in on themselves as though trying to rid an itch in their roots, their branches drooping in the winds almost theatrically. Blotting out the faint light stood a mill, gargantuan in size. Although it crouched in the distance, its blades creaking loudly like nails on metal, Almar immediately lifted an arm to shield himself from some unseen blow. There was a sense of malevolence from the mill that made him so scared he considered going back to Calm Spire, seeking Guido. Any measure of protection was better than none.
Hefting his rifle, Almar shrugged and wrapped his moss coated coat about him. It was getting cold. Wasn’t there a tale that ghosts made the air freezing? He wanted to laugh, and breathed instead. He did chuckle when his breath didn’t mist before him. No ghosts yet then. Taking a deep breath he made his way through the Spider’s Shrub, careful not to touch those with thorns jutting unruly from their stems. Those could kill sometimes, or render you paralyzed. Some did no more than itch. He had no wish to find out which could happen to him. He’d seen what spiders did.
The ground rose steadily as he trod on cautiously, making sure he kept his thick overcoat between him and the plants about him, ducking under the stunted, mutated trees. He passed one mound of the Spider’s Shrub, gathered together over some bones. Praying as he walked on, Almar tried not to look back. That had been a warning. Oh yes, as sure as day. Checking to see if his rifle was loaded, Almar set the butt of the gun to his shoulder and topped the shallow rise, looking down upon the sunken library. What chimneys had been on the roof of the old building had long since fallen into ruin, crumbling in on themselves to block the way. He had thought of sliding down one of them; he saw seven in total. The library must have been huge. It surely looked to be almost as big as the inn and its neighbouring shops. Feeling slightly excited, Almar swiftly ran down the slope, rifle darting this way and that. As he neared the building the ground became rock strewn, even the weeds failing to keep a grip on the land. With all the grace and skill of a hunter, Almar forgot the warming twinge in his leg that warned of the limp coming upon him, and rolled behind a wedge shaped slab of stone, listening hard. It was the remains of the eighth chimney. He thought he had seen another patch of rubble in the shade of the library’s roof.
Silence; no life came here, maybe not even the dead if they truly walked. Although, after his morning, he couldn’t really discredit that the dead walked. But this was not what bothered him most. It was the silence. It the still of the library’s presence all was in a coma of quiet that he had not thought possible. Never in his life had he believed he could hear his breathing so clearly, so loudly. Or his heartbeat thrumming in his chest, beating like thunder so that he thought it was the marching drum that led the dead to war on the living, over the River Styx. Why was it so silent? Grimacing at the pain that lanced suddenly in his right leg, Almar looked at the sky and shuddered.
An eagle wheeled in the sky, downward and down, coming towards the library. In midair the great bird screeched and winged away into the distance as though it had hit a wall, knocked on the door of this silence and been denied. Whatever had done this to the land likely resided in the depths of the sunken library. Perhaps even the Silver Bane itself, and an end to this whole farce. Cocking his rifle, loading the round into the chamber, Almar stood, shouldered his weapon and dashed off, his goal clear. There was a gap just above the ground, long since dust coated. The soil here had turned almost to sand. Nothing lived in this sunken bowl for long.
Limping now, he reached the side of the old window, seeing the glass shards that still poked like jagged teeth from the metal sills. It was an ancient building indeed, with metal sills and clear glass; work of the old.
ONE…
He could die here he knew. The library could sink further into the sands of the wild while he searched inside. He could come face to face with something that silver rounds did nothing for. He could fall into a chasm that had once been stairs and break into pieces.
TWO…
Time had slowed surely. Was that howling he heard deep inside? Did he hear a voice calling for him personally, asking him to come and join the silent halls of the dead? Peering inside, Almar saw a small room decorated with a rotted desk already fallen apart, and wallpaper that had lost any colour before he had even been dreamed of. The age could be smelt. It was an almost tangible thing. Dust motes floated in the scarce light, disturbed by his breath at the window. How long, he wondered, since someone had come here? Did anyone, bar the innkeeper of course, know of what lay in the wild? It was not a question to be dismissed out of hand. Well, he counted, and time allowed him a measure of clarity that made him feel fear, and know that this was good. This was dangerous business he knew, just like eating chips with no vinegar. Like…
THREE!
Spinning from his concealment, Almar leapt into the room with a twist. Glass tore at his coat, holding him high for an instant. Frowning, rifle in hand, he squirmed and chuckled. Dangling from the window’s teeth, Almar looked about and sighed. Well it could be…
He hit the ground with a grunt and groan, the throbbing needles in his legs trading places with a new pain in his ribs. Looking upward, Almar saw that the way back would take some work. It stood some few feet above him, a rectangle of light in the darkness. Well, Almar turned, still smarting, one hand holding his ribs. At least I’m alive and the rifle isn’t broken. He removed his hand from his body and drew the torch from the left pocket of his overcoat, careful of the map. Why didn’t I leave it behind? Slapping it twice on the broken desk, Almar thought on how it seemed darker than he had thought. He had the feeling that he was not in Calm Spire; at least not in his time, not his world. This was the silent world, where the soundless roamed like ghosts of ghouls. “Well, let us hope some noise scares them all.” He muttered, looking again at the window ruefully. “I made enough noise falling, I guess. That was unexpected, to say the least.” The torch flickered on as he pressed the power button, glad that he had kept this artefact from the ancient times. Shinning the thin beam about, he hurriedly found the door and made his way to it. At its foot was a silver puddle.
This time, at least, he knew he was going the right way about it.
The door opened with a faint squeal, protesting at its use after so long. The air seemed to shiver at the intruding sounds. Leaving the door open, Almar entered the corridor and picked a direction almost offhand. Right, he decided and turned, looking about with the torch shinning like a third eye. The ceiling had been plastered once, but now cracks raced down the marked roofs, like greyhounds at the track. The walls, once painted green he could see now, were peeling still, even as he watched. Like a snake shedding skin the wall dripped paint and paper in silent refuse. Almar shuddered and drew his attention back to the stone floors. Although marked with age, and obviously falling into disuse too, it made a more comfortable sight than the rest of the corridor. And, of course, there were the silver marks, dotting the floor in a strange waltzing pattern. If ghosts had ever left footprints, Almar believed he stared at them right now.
A sudden sound behind him made him turn sharply. In the quiet any slight noise, any movement sounded loud enough to draw attention, yet this had been really loud. A mewling meant to make him turn aside from his observations. He swung the torchlight up and about, slowly, seeming in no hurry despite the fact that his hands gave an involuntary shake, a small tremble. He turned around as though in water and cast the beam down the length of the corridor as it ran left, the direction he had shunned and he cried in terror.
The horror that staggered towards him made gurgled sounds from deep inside its ruined chest, dead eyes rolling, unseeing inside its head like skittles, bulging out like balloons. Grey, pallid skin peeled from bone like the paint on the wall, seeming to melt away rather than drip or fall. Arms stretched out in a crippled embrace, bent inwards, twisted so horribly that Almar’s cry muted to a whimper of shock. Wearing the blue uniform of a worker – a janitor, Almar believed vaguely, without realising – the thing jerked in a nightmare’s tango, head cocked to one side as though listening to the maggots worming in the dead flesh of its bare shoulder.
It stumbled towards him, and Almar saw finally that it was himself that stalked him in the dark, twisting and gyrating on dead legs to rend and to grab, to grapple and embrace. The smell of death was overpowering, and he stumbled back, into the door, his rifle knocking loudly… and the head snapped upright, the glazed, pearly eyes seeming to see beyond the grave and all sight. The mewling came again, louder, and thin fleshless lips pulled back in a thing surely meant to be a welcoming grin. A grin that said he could stay but never leave.
Finally Almar moved, raising the gun so swiftly that none would have guessed at the problems hounding his bones and blood. Twisting to face the horror, he raised the rifle, sighted and saw that three more unspeakable horrors approached behind the one wearing his features. Each one wore a face like madness, and each one had unseeing eyes that seemed as milky marbles jolting crazily in sockets. One bore the likeness of the innkeeper, Almar noticed quickly. A line of stitches ran a horrific line down the middle of his grey head, closing a purple corkscrewing gash. Its tongue was lolling out, almost to the thing’s waist.
Three shots made the first fall, the thunderous applause of each round leaving and striking home in the first Mimic’s – as he thought of them strangely – chest echoing in the silence, breaking the cold hold that the library had. The final round hit the horror’s head, and then he was running through the dark, the thin beam of light swinging wildly upon the collapsing destruction that was the corridor. He came to a crossroads, looked for the silver marks and found them, heading left. Without thinking he ran in that direction, hearing the sound of hurried, frenzied pursuit and the shrill mewling that accompanied the closing shadows. He ran, unaware of the limp that slowed him down. Ran until his chest hurt; and he was lucky that it did.
Pausing suddenly, leaning against the wall, Almar panted and held his already bruised ribs. Running hurt, breathing hurt, thinking actually hurt: he had a headache. And yet they followed; the unspeakable, nameless horrors that he called Mimics. He could hear the shuffled step of their brown boots, covered in broken plaster and dust. He could smell their approach, and hear the ruffle of their blue janitor’s uniforms as they stumbled towards him, able to see in the dark better than he, even with the blindness which was death. Gulping, Almar looked behind him and nodded. It was a door.
A door with a silver hand print. There was a magic at work here, Almar knew looking at the print... and it was dead.