Chapter 18 – The Unforgettable

The fallen star featured in Cadryn’s dreams in the following days, however he had not time, or energy, to investigate it. Vaast put the entire night shift on extra duty to assist Rof with the efforts to secure their home. Nights spent hunched in the dank, close corridors of tunnels looking for breaches, or straining against a rope as Felina flipped about like an oversized fish checking otherwise inaccessible approaches for signs of the undead . . . it was all grueling, exhausting work that left the Keepers drained and awake well past the sun’s insulting rise into the sky.

It was on just such a morning, covered in dust, sweat, and cobwebs, that Cadryn rounded the northern gate to find a strange sight: a middle-aged Provalian woman, ruddy of cheek and light in complexion. Her brown hair pulled back into a large bun, she was wearing a yellow sun dress which struggled to contain her ample bosom. Standing on tip-toes, she yelled up at the darkened Guard Post.

“Oh my sweetie, where are you? You better not be hiding from me again, my sweet, sweet love!”

Cadryn looked at the forest outside the gate, the low angle of the dawn through the trees told him no one was likely on duty just yet. Dragging his feet to avoid alarming her, he approached the stranger. “No one’s on duty yet, how can I help you?”

Settling back onto her heels, the woman stepped into the long beam of light coming through the other gate. An almost ethereal glow seemed to envelope her as she waved a hand in greeting, “Oh hello there young lad! My, what a mess you are, might you help me find my husband? He should be here somewhere,” she said in a rush, the words running like water from her lips.

Cadryn held up a hand to ward off any more, “I may, who is your husband?”

“Why, Vaast Von Rompa,” she beamed.

Cadryn blinked, rubbed his grit and sweat soaked brow, “The Captain?”

“Oh my, A Captain now? He was always so ambitious, it’s been a dreadfully long while since we’ve been together. My poor love, I’ve missed him so,” she gusted, then plucking a locket from between her breasts opened it, “and is he still as handsome as this?”

Cadryn approached her, equal parts wary and over the day, taking the locket, he was surprised to find it already cold from the air. Within the silver shell were a pair of portraits, one per side. The first, a dead match to the woman, the second was Captain Vaast, but he looked different. Lean and happy. Snapping it closed, he handed it back to her.

“He’s still pretty enough,” Cadryn said, “follow me, if you’d be so kind.”

The woman trailed him close, her steps bouncing lightly, as if she could scarcely keep on the ground with excitement. They were officially done for the day anyhow, and he needed to report to the Captain before turning in as it was . . . the man should be in his apartments. As they walked, Cadryn stole a glance back at the now oddly quiet wife of his Captain. She looked anxious, as if the coming reunion bore some deep peril.

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you,” Cadryn offered, stifling a yawn.

“I hope you’re right,” she replied quietly.

Entering the apartments, he found the door to the office open and knocked against the oak frame. When Vaast did not answer, Cadryn bothered to look up, found the desk empty. “Huh,” he sighed.

“Yvette,” the Captain said from off to his right as he stepped from the privy, “Is that you my love?”

“It is I,” she yelled, voice suddenly shrill and piercing. Cadryn watched the two rush into a desperate embrace. Parting, Vaast held her cheeks while tears welled in both their eyes.

“It’s been so long,” Vaast said, a sob rippling across his wide shoulders.

“I’m here now,” Yvette replied, kissing at his tears.

The report could wait, Cadryn thought slipping out the way he came.

The smell of bacon, ever powerful, lured Cadryn away from the baths and back to the kitchen at the toll house. He wouldn’t be able to sleep for long on an empty stomach after all. Shuffling inside, body heavy with the night’s work, he almost crashed into Deafening Silence.

“Watch it,” she said, dead arming him into the door, “Oh, Cadryn, you look like shit.”

“Hammered shit,” he squeaked out, sucking air into his emptied lungs as he pushed his way back up to standing. “No thanks to you, Sil.”

“Sorry. Rof likes to surprise me, something about ‘ambush drills’ I think he’s just likes watching me jump.”

“It is a pleasant sight,” Cadryn said, and juking her half-hearted swing, plodded over to the sad remnants of breakfast on the table. “Unlike this, you’ve left me only tasty smells.”

“I was waiting for Vaast’s report, where is he anyway?”

Shoving a cold fried egg into his mouth with a shred of toast Cadryn crossed the middle and index finger of his free hand overhead: the Imperial hand-sign for two targets locked in a grapple.

Silence snickered, “With bloody who?”

Cadryn swallowed hard, “his wife.”

The humor fell from Silence’s features like a poorly stacked plate in the wash basin, she shook her head from side to side, her braid slithering off her shoulder. “That’s not funny, Cadryn. The Captain lost his wife to a plague twenty years ago.”

“Then who, or what, did I bring up to him,” Cadryn uttered unsteadily.

“Sound the alarm,” she yelled, pulling her mace from its place on the wall and running up the stairs to the Redoubt.

Cadryn left a surprised, but quick acting, Sefton to tell the other Day Shift members what was happening and sprinted to follow Silence. Worn down as he was, he only made it to the main hall of the Redoubt before doubling over to expel his recent breakfast on the mosaic floor. Running feet behind him slowed to see if needed aid, it was Korbinian.

“Drink this,” he said, handing over a thin vial.

Cadryn did so without questioning. The burning in his muscles, lungs, and stomach faded as the elixir coated his insides.

“Better?”

“Aye,” he replied.

Handing back the vial and setting off for the winding staircase to the upper levels, he could hear the fight underway well before seeing it. An inhuman wailing reverberated down the hallway from the doors to the Captain’s apartment, shaking loose old dust from the ever burning sconces. The blue flames whipped about as if buffeted by an unfelt wind. A great crash, followed by a woman’s yell of pain, had them running hard for the doors.

The room beyond lay in ruins. Tables and chairs alike were shattered, creating a layer of obstacles to climb over to gain entry. On the opposite side of the room, leaning against the inside edge of Vaast’s office, was Silence. She motioned them to stay down with her mace, her other hand pressed to deep gash on her brow.

“It’s got him in the bedroom,” she yelled over the constant drone of the thing Cadryn had stupidly allowed into the Neeft.

“What is it?” Korbinian yelled back.

“Memory Phantasm!” Silence called immediately, whatever that was.

Korbinian seemed almost pleased by the response, began looking through the large padded satchel he always carried.

“What can I do,” Cadryn asked, feeling useless against this supernatural threat.

“Distract it while I get close,” Korbinian answered, but the keening of the creature made it hard to hear even that as the volume increased. The remains of plates and glasses on the stone floor began to dance, rattling amidst the larger debris of the dining room. Cadryn signaled his intent to Silence.

Nodding, she ducked around the corner of the doorjamb, attracting a trio of hurled books, one of which caught her in the stomach. Doubling over, she rolled back into the cover of the office.

Moving while the phantasm focused on that side of the room, Cadryn dove out into the dining area, rolling into the cover of the upturned table. Glancing over the top of it, he got his first look at what they were facing.

Gone was the homely vision of a young wife, in her place only an ethereal, gaunt imitation of the human form, clad in sagging robes the color of dead flesh. Far too tall, it hunched against the high ceiling, two empty pits for eyes above a drooping mouth emitting the endless wail that threatened to leave them all deaf. Siting on the foot of the bed, Captain Vaast’s motionless form slumped in one of the creatures long hands.

Cadryn’s cursed leg shivered and he felt the skin begin to wriggle in response to the threat. Somewhere in the oldest part of his mind a thought bloomed. Reaching down, he pulled up the pant cuff and, pinching the viscous tissue, felt a chunk pull free from the mass. Steeling himself, he split the chunk, and pressed it into his ears. The wail died, replaced only with the rapid hammering of his heart. Able to think again, Cadryn looked at his companions.

Korbinian, cradling a large flask full of a silvery solution, signaled he was ready.

Silence, having removed the chain of the Assemblage from her neck, and wrapped it around her off hand, began chanting an invocation of warding. A chaotic multicolored light poured off the chain, and she thrust the first around the corner.

Cadryn grabbed the wooden seat of a broken chair and, holding it like a shield before him, charged into the hallway to the bedroom. Ahead the phantasm had one hand blocking the light from Silence, the other remained clamped around the crown of Vaast’s head. Now closer, Cadryn saw the Captain’s eyes had rolled up into his head and his lips moved in hushed murmur. He seemed to be pleading.

The Memory Phantasm detected his approach and, releasing the Captain, lashed out with that too long arm, its fingers tearing into the wood of the chair. Cadryn was driven from his feet, his hip crunching painfully against the corner of the hallway. That attack would prove a fatal mistake. Now separated from its prey, Korbinian safely hurled the flask at the creature. It shattered, silvered oils splashing brilliantly within the rainbow hue of Silence’s ward. The low light of the room flashed over as one final howl of outrage burst from the dissolving creature.

The edge of the vapors released by the flask engulfed Cadryn’s face and the shadow stuff in his ears began to dissolve, running down his neck. A light tinkling moved down the hall near Cadryn’s head in the still air. Searching for it, he recognized the stone making the noise: it was from the memory alcoves.

Silence stopped it with her boot and, raising her mace high, brought it down in one powerful blow. Obliterating the gem in a grinding crunch.

“Is it done?” Korbinian asked, from where he had remained at the doors to the apartment.

“Aye,” Silence called. Leaving Cadryn on the ground, she moved to examine Captain Vaast. “He’s alive,” she said matter of fact, “but it drained him pretty good, he’ll be out for a while.”

Pushing up into a sitting position, Cadryn rubbed the rest of the goo from his ears before speaking. “So, does that happen often with people using the Sleeping Chambers? I only ask since I recently became a person using the Sleeping Chambers.”

“Relax,” Korbinian said, helping Cadryn to his feet. “That only happens if you keep reliving the same dream every night.”

“I thought my advice to sleep in a regular bed would help,” Silence said, pulling Vaast back onto the bed easily. She looked around the room, seeing that the Captain had set out all of his wife’s possessions on the shelves and tables. “I didn’t think he would do this . . . or be obsessed enough to take a stone from his alcove. Poor fool.”

Cadryn hadn’t even considered that you could remove a stone or why you would, but felt the need to know, “Does something worse happen from removing a stone than using it repeatedly?”

“Oh yes,” Korbinian said, his eyes suddenly sharp with a memory, “You can’t dream of anything else . . . and eventually, you stop dreaming at all.”

Cadryn, suddenly weary again as whatever energy the alchemist’s tonic granted faded, rubbed his bleary eyes. “Maybe dreams are overrated, given all this.”

“Oh they are,” Silence replied, tucking Vaast into bed, “but without them, you’d go insane.”