Frank Tuttle - Hold The Dark

“I cannot assist. Nor have I hindered. How dare you stand on holy ground and threaten a Hand of the Holy.”

“I haven’t threatened anyone.” I put on my hat and stepped through the door. “I’m just looking for combs, and a small lead box. Thank you for your time, Father Foon. Good day.”

I left. He was staring at the door when I closed it behind me.

Scurrying footsteps and closing doors preceded me all the way to the street. I stepped out into the light, squinted up at the faraway sun and let it chase a chill away.

“Shall we go?” said Halbert, from the curb. He knew the plan for the day, knew we’d be heading to four more Church mainholds, and a few other places besides.

I tipped my hat and climbed aboard.

Four more church mainholds.

My visit to Clathis might as well have been a replay of Wherthmore, aside from the pawing and fawning I was subjected to after only a single mention of Encorla Hisvin’s name. I was led from office to office and treated to denial after denial by every mask in the structure. I gather Hisvin had made some offhand comment critical of Clathis some years ago and the reverberations of terror had yet to die down.

Enrolt proved a much more resilient bastion of faith. I was actually made to wait, cooling my newly shoed heels while I was peeped at, discussed and finally ushered into a dusty alcove. I watched mice play beneath the tattered crimson curtains until I tired of waiting and marched myself right past a startled pair of white-masked priests and into the biggest office I could find.

I slammed the heavy door behind me.

That woke him up, at last.

“Encorla Hisvin isn’t pleased,” I said, by way of greeting and introductions. “When Encorla starts asking for names, shall I give him yours?”

The priest-who by the size of the mask he groped for may have been The Priest-gobbled and blanched.

I pulled back his company chair, spun it around and sat.

“My name is Markhat,” I said, holding up my hand for silence. “I work for Encorla Hisvin. I’ve been here for an hour getting the run-around about this.”

I held out the silver comb.

“How dare you-”

“I don’t dare, Father, but Hisvin does. Want to call the Corpsemaster on his manners?”

The name sunk in. All the way in.

The priest reached out, took the comb.

I laid out the whole spiel, crates and lead boxes and sunken barges and all.

And got not a hint of guilt for my troubles.

What I did get was the usual parade of denials and badly concealed indignation. And another denial that the comb had been Cleansed, though Father Gillop was less than impressed by Father Foon’s estimate of a Cleansing’s longevity.

“It might last ten years, perhaps fifteen. But no more.”

Which did nothing to help me at all. Convinced I’d sowed as much terror as I could at Enrolt, I bade the red-faced Father Gillop a heartfelt farewell and ambled happily outside.

Halbert was there, brushing his ponies. But before he saw me, the street began to clear, Watchmen’s whistles rose above the din of street noise and I heard the first of the screams.

I turned.

Charging down the street was a monstrous black carriage.

No horses. Just a carriage.

People dived and ran. Dogs barked, but dared not nip at the wheels. Along both sides of the street, horses reared, cabmen cursed and grabbed and dodged.

Crows wheeled and swung above the carriage. Something like a cloud rode above it, around it.

Though there were no horses, a driver perched atop the thing. His grin was too white and too wide. As it drew nearer I understood the source of the screams, because the driver was a corpse, had been for too many days of sun. As I watched, a crow darted down, alighted on his shoulder, and tore away a scrap of grey flesh from the side of his skull.

I heard, but did not see, Halbert leap aboard my cab and take his beloved ponies away.

I knew. Encorla’s black horseless carriage, driven by the remains of whoever had displeased him last, was the stuff of legend. So while all those around me fled, I stood rooted, while everyone from street whores to supposedly blind Oltish jugglers jabbed priests in the gut and dashed nimbly around them into the dubious safety of the church.

The carriage neared, rattling and rushing. The cloud that enveloped it buzzed, and by the time the smell hit I knew the cloud was a seething mass of blue-belly flies.

It rolled to a stop before me. The dead driver turned his rotted face toward me, clacked his lipless teeth in a silent caricature of speech and bade me enter his carriage with a gesture from a skeletal hand.

The door opened. A blinding mass of blue-belly flies poured out.

“Do join me, goodman Markhat,” said a woman’s voice. I could see nothing within the shadows of the cab. The voice was bubbly and thick.

The stench was overwhelming.

“I must insist,” she said. “Do not darken my mood by refusing.”

I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut-whether out of terror or against the flies I still do not know-and clambered into Hisvin’s black carriage.

Wet laughter greeted me.

“You may open your eyes, goodman,” said the voice. “I picked my prettiest helper, just for you.”

I steeled myself and opened my eyes.

The flies were gone, every one, and most of the stench, else I simply couldn’t have breathed.

Not locked in a cab with a corpse.

And corpse she was. She’d been beautiful, once. She’d had red long hair, big green eyes and the kind of body the Velvet would charge double for.

But all that was gone. Her face was bloated and dark, her green eyes filmy and leaking, her lips a parody, her tongue a swollen black worm that wiggled sluggishly over teeth going dry and yellow.

She laid a blue-black hand on my shoulder. The nails were peeling away.

It is estimated that Encorla Hisvin personally slaughtered eighty thousand or so Trolls during the last three months of the War. Hisvin was a rarity among sorcerers, in that rather than just swooping in and pointing spells at the enemy, Encorla had camped with and moved with the troops.

We’d called him the Corpsemaster. No one ever saw Hisvin himself. Just a small black tent that always drew flies. Hisvin wore dead bodies when he was out and about. The War had provided plenty of those, so many that he was reputed to change them out every morning during the height of the fighting. Rumors flew as to why, but speculating on the motives of sorcerers is like combing ogres-it serves no good purpose, and is likely to end in tragedy if the ogre notices.

One thing was certain. The Corpsemaster’s wrath was a thing to be feared. Hell, the mere attention of the Corpsemaster was something to be feared, and I’d conjured him up with nothing less than his name.

“Don’t you like her, finder?” said Encorla. “Why, men were always in pursuit of her. She was the daughter of a Duke, renowned the Kingdom over for her beauty, and her wit.”

The corpse leaned forward, and her voice dropped to a slurred but conspiratorial whisper. Black blood leaked from her nostrils as she leaned.

“It was her wit, frankly, that resulted in her present state,” said Encorla, through the corpse. “Oh, she was amusing, at first-but her wit quickly fell flat, and soon I fear she failed to amuse. Failed horribly, some might say.” The dead woman sighed a long wet sigh. “But happily, she may yet be of service, for some brief time.”

The carriage thumped, tilted and beneath it a scream sounded and was cut short. The dead woman giggled.

“I was flattered by your assertion that my name alone would flush these miscreants from hiding, goodman,” she said. I could hear fluids bubbling deep in her chest, see a thick dark liquid beginning to push past her lips. “Naturally, I decided I simply had to meet such an imaginative fellow. My name, as you have guessed, is Encorla Hisvin-how do you do?”