The man was horrifically scarred. Not from wounds, but from some kind of pox. There were cratered sores all over his face, torso and limbs.
An idea struck him. He went to the next tank in the row and opened it, as he had the first. Inside was another body in a similar state. This one had been tall and brown-skinned, like the last, and was afflicted with the same disfiguring ailment.
What happened here?
‘Crake!’ Frey snapped. He was standing with Ugrik at the bottom of the stairs at the far end of the chamber. ‘You can poke about to your heart’s content afterwards, alright?’
‘Yes, sorry, yes,’ he muttered. He shouldered his pack and retreated from the tanks. His mind was awhirl. He was so bowled over by the magnitude of their discoveries that he’d almost forgotten why they were here in the first place.
After they’d seen to the Cap’n’s little problem, Crake would come straight back here. He promised himself that. Sammies or no Sammies, he was going to have a damn good look around.
Ugrik led them up the curving stairway to one of the galleries that overlooked the chamber. They went through a door and further into the building, and then up another set of steps. The nature of the rooms changed. Crake had expected to see wards and theatres – things he associated with a hospital – but the upper level was laid out in a different style. He couldn’t imagine a place like this crowded with patients and medical staff. It seemed more like some kind of grand dwelling, though it was hard to tell with the majority of the furniture turned to dust and creepers invading through the windows.
‘You know, someone was looking after those bodies in the tanks,’ he said, as they slogged through the corridors under the weight of all the equipment he’d brought. ‘Those things didn’t dust thems; t dust elves.’
‘I heard you the first time,’ said Frey. ‘If they show up, we’ll shoot ’em. How’s that?’
‘About as diplomatic as I’ve come to expect,’ Crake said.
They passed several more doorways, but Crake barely paid attention. His mind was on the pox-covered corpses in the tanks.
A plague? Was that what happened to the Azryx? Was that why they disappeared? But who’s been caring for the patients all this time?
The corridor ended in a room which had a cavity in one wall that looked remarkably like a fireplace. Set into the pinkish, seashell-like surface above it was a large, teardrop-shaped piece of metal, thick with dust but perfectly intact. Frey came to a halt as he saw it. Except for its size, it was identical to the one on the inside of the lid of the relic case, with a stylised jackal at its centre.
‘There are marks underneath it,’ Crake observed. ‘Looks like someone’s wiped off the dust recently, too,’ he added with some alarm.
‘Aye,’ said Ugrik. ‘That was me, last time I was here. I was tryin’ to read it.’ He held up his hand to forestall the question on Crake’s lips. ‘I know Old Isilian. It ain’t far off.’
‘You can speak Old Isilian?’ Crake asked, impressed. He’d assumed, given his appearance, that Ugrik was something of a brute and a dunce. It was hard for him to equate the idea of scholarly excellence with a ring through the nose and blue ink all over the face.
‘I can read it,’ the Yort corrected. ‘Nobody can speak it. Ain’t been spoken for thousands of years.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. But Azryx writing is similar?’
‘Aye.’
Crake was back in a state of academic excitement again. ‘So it stands to reason that Old Isilian came from Azryx, and all the other languages after tha-’
‘What does it say?’ Frey interrupted impatiently. ‘The writing on the jackal thing?’ Frey eyed it uneasily, then added ‘Actually, you can tell me on the way. Let’s get moving.’
‘Couldn’t make out much of it,’ said Ugrik, as he led them into the next room. ‘I think it was the name o’ the feller who lived here. And two words. Warrior and scholar, or near enough that it makes no difference. I reckon that thing is a family coat of arms, or whatever the Azryx had. So I’m thinkin’ this warrior-scholar feller lived above the hospital, might have owned it or whatnot. Studied the. Studie patients, perhaps.’
‘An aristocrat who wasn’t a massive wimp?’ Frey exclaimed. ‘Bugger me.’
‘Ow!’ Crake said. ‘My feelings!’
‘Sorry. Forgot.’
Crake let it pass. When he thought about it, it was a fair comment anyway. ‘It might explain the jackal, anyway,’ he said. ‘The one that’s been after you, I mean.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, it’s kind of like a calling card. So you know who cursed you. The daemon takes the shape of the family’s coat of arms, with a few modifications based on whatever horrors it can dredge up from your psyche.’
Frey thought about that. ‘One thing I don’t get,’ he said. ‘Why have the damned thing turning up over and over again? Why not just have it kill me straight away and take the relic? That’s what I’d do.’
‘Because even the Azryx can’t conjure a daemon that powerful out of nothing,’ said Crake. He glanced at Ugrik, pleased for the chance to reassert intellectual superiority over the Yort. ‘It can only maintain itself in our reality for a limited time. But each time it’s appeared, it’s lasted for longer, hasn’t it? Given its nature, I suspect it draws energy from its victim’s fear. It’s been gathering strength. Tonight, it will be able to bring itself entirely into our reality, and it won’t go away till its job is done. Unless the relic is returned to the place it was stolen from.’
‘So it’s win-win for the owner,’ Frey said. ‘Either they frighten the thief into bringing the relic back, or the daemon eventually kills them and takes it back.’
‘Exactly,’ said Crake. ‘It’s really rather clever, actually.’
‘Yes,’ said Frey flatly. ‘Very clever.’
‘We do have one thing in our favour, though. Previously, the daemon only appeared to one person at a time. Nobody else could see or sense it. But when it’s fully manifested, it’ll be as real as you or I, and we’ll all be able to see it.’
‘Yeah, but can we kill it?’ Frey asked.
‘Not by conventional means, I’m afraid. It’s still a daemon. But at least you won’t have to face it alone.’
‘Reckon we won’t need to worry about that for much longer, anyway,’ said Ugrik. He shifted the relic to his left arm, pointed at a doorway wita doorwah his right and said ‘In there. That’s where I found it.’
Crake felt his heart lift, and he saw the same reaction on the Cap’n’s face. Could it be journey’s end at last? They hurried inside.
The room beyond was darker than the rest of the building. The illumination from the walls and floor was choked by thick vines that coiled in through a great gash on the far side. They’d consumed half the room in a dense tangle, and their furthest tendrils reached almost to the doorway. The full moon glared in through the gap.
‘That’s it,’ said Ugrik, pointing. ‘Took it from there.’
In the centre of the room was a narrow pillar of what looked like coral. It bulged and branched, reaching out arms here and there, forming shelves and nooks and cradles. Most held only dust, but some objects were still intact. A black orb was cupped in an alcove, and there were the remains of mechanical devices, and some ceramic things that might have been sculpture, or awards of some kind. The jackal crest was set proudly into the pillar, made of the same iron-like metal as the one they’d seen earlier. Everything fitted so snugly into its niche that it was hard not to conclude that the pillar had been moulded specifically to their shapes.
Reaching horizontally out at waist height were two delicate branches of coral, curling up at the end to form corners. Behind the arms, the coral of the pillar sloped backwards at an angle. It only took a glance to know what should go there.