Kenneth Oppel - Such Wicked Intent

“This is as far as we went,” Elizabeth says, looking at the branching of the passageway.

A cool pulse of knowledge travels through my temple. “I know the way,” I tell her, already walking on ahead.

“Wait,” says Henry. “Do we have time for this?”

I fish about in my pocket and pull out the spirit clock. “Not even half a revolution. Catch!” I toss the clock at Henry. “You can be the timekeeper, Henry, since I can tell you don’t trust me.”

“What if we get lost down here?” he demands, catching me firmly by the sleeve.

In all the time I’ve known him, I don’t think he’s ever tried to restrain me, and I don’t like it. I jerk my arm free.

“I said I know the way.”

“Your butterfly will guide us, I suppose,” he says. “And what if it decides to fly away; what then?”

I search about on the floor, staring hard, until I find an ancient piece of charcoal. I snatch it up and slash an X on the wall.

“There. We have our turning marked.”

“The house changes,” says Elizabeth. “We’ve both seen it happen.”

“Not these caves,” I say with utter certainty. “They’ve been the same since time began. There’s nothing to change.”

I start walking again. Thrice more the passageway branches, and I mark each one. The wall paintings become less frequent, and I’m scarcely aware of them, drawn deeper by supernatural instinct.

“There’s only a quarter revolution of the clock left,” Henry says behind me.

“Victor,” Konrad says, “you’re going too far. You’ll have trouble getting back to your bodies in time.”

“Almost there,” I say. And I’m right, for the passage abruptly opens out into a high-domed cavern.

“Good Lord,” Henry exhales.

I am staring up at it too, a crude but vast image drawn in bold black lines. It stands tall on two legs, has a head, and an outstretched arm from which emanates jagged lines that convey immense power.

“Is it a man?” Konrad asks from behind us.

“What else could it be?” says Elizabeth.

“How odd, though,” remarks Henry, “that the animal pictures are so realistic but this one is… so primitive.”

As I stare at it, I think of the painting in the Bellerive church-Jesus standing over Lazarus.

“Look here!” I cry, for underneath the image is a vast text of strange lines and dots and shapes. “This is the book! A book in stone.”

From far away a noise unlike any I’ve ever heard comes wafting into the cavern-a quick, fevered series of gasps, and then a slow moan that dissipates like the last vapor of breath.

“ That is the sound!” Konrad cries. His sword is suddenly drawn, his eyes fixed on a passageway that slants downward so steeply that it is more like a chute. “It came from down there!”

“What in God’s name was it?” Henry says.

“Something forgotten by God,” Elizabeth whispers. “It sounds like a soul in torment.”

“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?” I say with a snort. “A portal to hell just below our house?”

Henry forces out a nervous chuckle. “Yes, that might be a bit ambitious, even for the Frankensteins.”

Only silence wells up from the steep passageway now. I walk closer. Unlike the others, I feel no fear, no presence of evil. I taste only power. I want to see what’s down there.

But my gaze, as if gently directed by forces beyond me, turns back to the writing on the cave wall.

“Whatever’s down there is a long way away, and no concern to us,” I say. “This text is what we came for.”

“Be quick about it, please,” says Henry, his eyes still fixed on the passageway.

As I near the wall, the butterfly lifts from my temple and settles on my hand, and I put my fingers to the symbols. Behind my eyes I feel a great pressure building, words and images and ideas assembling themselves, and then in a blinding torrent I see A body lying on the earth, its flesh corrupted. I see the legs of many living men encircling the body, standing over it. I hear their rough voices joining in a chant. Some kind of scythe comes down and severs the foot at the ankle. I feel my stomach rise. I see things in little bursts of light. Blades dividing the body again and again, and then Pain blooms through my head, and with a cry I pull back my hand.

“Victor!” I hear Konrad call out behind me. “Are you all right?”

“It comes so hard and fast…” I wince, pushing through the pain. “It’s like pictures in my head.”

“Stop this!” Elizabeth implores me.

“No. There’s more.”

I thrust my hand against the wall, and suddenly it’s as though it is welded there, and I see A severed foot cast into a long damp hole like a grave. Someone kneels beside it and carefully unties an animal bladder. From the opening scuttles something darker than shadow. At first I think it’s a beetle, but the shape is more fluid, altogether more disturbing. The human steps back as the shadow leaps onto the severed foot, burrowing hungrily into the rotted flesh I stagger back once more, retching.

Henry has his hand on my shoulder. “Victor, you need to-”

“No!”

“Our time’s running out!” he shouts at me, holding out the clock. I squint at it in disbelief, for the leg has nearly made a full revolution. Surely not so much time has passed. I hold it to my ear.

Tick… Tick… tick…

I don’t understand. It has slipped back into its normal tempo, but I don’t have the energy or concentration to grapple with it right now. I need all my faculties to complete the stone translation.

“I must finish,” I gasp. “I’m almost done!” I put my fingers to the wall, and A pair of human hands reaches into the damp hole and covers the severed foot swiftly and completely with mud, and adds still more, patting it into a rounded shape, little bumps that can be only arms, legs, a head. A stick makes two pricks for eyes.

“Victor, what do you see?” Elizabeth demands, but I block her out and return to the searing image before my mind’s eye.

Light sweeps over the little mud man, as though the sun were racing through the sky, and then darkness, soon chased away by the light. I am dizzy watching, time speeded up. The little mud man trembles and begins to grow, the torso elongating, gaining definition, and muddy features appearing on the face.

Animals draw close, sniff, and cringe back. A feral cat’s hackles rise; rats squeal and turn away. Nothing will go close to it, inert and defenseless as it is.

Faster and faster the creature grows, looking more human by the second. His skin is no longer muddy but the color and texture of proper flesh. And then, stretched on the ground is a man, the very same man I first saw dead and decaying-but now whole, reborn.

His eyes open.

I fall back from the wall as if pushed, and land hard on the ground.

“Victor, are you all right?” Elizabeth is asking. She reaches toward me but then stops, as though remembering what happened when our flesh last touched.

“What did you see?” she asks.

“Our time’s very nearly up!” says Henry urgently, extending his hand to me. Gratefully I take it, and he hauls me swiftly to my feet. I touch my head, which throbs like an overworked muscle.

“Go!” says Konrad. “Don’t wait for me!”

From the steep passage comes another distant moan, and I turn once more in its direction, drawn.

“ Now, Victor!” Elizabeth says, and I take the lead back toward the entrance. I smile, suddenly giddy. I feel as though I’m bounding through a dream. I gallop past stags and bulls, ibexes and horses. I smirk at the crouching tiger.

“Slow down,” Elizabeth tells me sharply. “We’re leaving Konrad too far behind.”

Heedless of my supernatural speed I turn to see my twin in the distance and can’t help laughing, for I remember all our childhood races where he outstripped me, and now he cannot even hope to keep up with me.