Chapter 102

An Eye For An Eye

A dozen plate-sized hands grab me tenderly but firmly, and tow me into the room. I do not resist. The grimoire can easily tear a normal human limb from limb, and while I have never tested my own inhuman strength against it, this is an event I would rather defer until it is absolutely necessary. Not least because I am not completely sure I would win.

For now the grimoire treats me as… hmm, a confidant? A caretaker? A guardian? Honestly I am not sure, but our interactions are generally benign, if a little drama filled. And they are mutually beneficial. I bring the grimoire ‘presents’ and it gives me information. Sometimes the presents it demands are a little exotic, but I am usually able to bargain it down to something sensible. If you can call anything about the situation sensible.

The monster inside is now immense, filling the study within with little space left for a slender lich to squeeze. It has grown considerably since I first raised it. Should I be proud? Or alarmed that what is supposedly a wraith is able to grow?

“Maud, Maud, Maud!” shriek a dozen mouths. “What have you brought me?”

From within there is a clink of a tarnished silver chain but the sight of it is lost beneath the sea of thick, tree-trunk sized limbs. I have yet to catch a glimpse of the grimoire’s actual body. At this point I assume it is tiny, like a mad spider sprouting enormous monstrous crooked limbs. Each palm houses in its centre, either an eyeball or a mouth. Currently there are at least two dozen eyes, of various hues and sizes, peering at me, each widened in excitement.

“What is my present? Give it to me! Is it your head? I’ve always wanted to play with your head!”

“No,” I say. “No! Something else. Something I’m sure you will like-”

“A chicken!” screams the grimoire. All of the meaty hands slap the walls, and the castle shakes a little in protest. “Ten chickens! Twenty whole chickens just for me! Or a cake! A cake that’s shaped like a tree! A little tree with little leaves made of gold and laced with spun sugar! Or your heart, where is your heart, Maud? Give it to me! I will keep it safe, I promise!”

“I told you before,” I say, a little irritably. “I no longer have a heart. And no, it's better than a chicken-”

Two dozen different coloured eyes stretch out in wonder. A dozen mouths drop open.

“Better than a chicken?” the grimoire whispers reverently. “What is it? Oooooh is it your cat? I like Jenkins, he is so fluffy and soft and black give me Jenkins right now-”

“No!” I snap.

The mouths droop, turning down at the corners. The eyes fill instantly with unshed tears. I make an effort to modulate my voice.

“I will show you in a minute. I want to know-” I hesitate, afraid to vocalise my need to this unpredictable creature. “I want to know… if you have any knowledge of a dead god?”

“I will be a god!” announces the grimoire, “when I am properly grown up!”

I blink at it. The mouths beam at me. The closest one has lips that remind me of the old necromancer’s. I hope it is lying.

“So you don’t know anything?” I say, “About a god that died? A goddess?”

“I am dead,” says the grimoire unhelpfully. “So are you. Where’s my present, Maud?”

“Alright,” I say, holding up the silver box. “But first we have to make a very serious bargain.”

The grimoire’s eyes shine like stars.

“I’m listening.”

“If I give this to you, you have to promise to tell me everything you learn from it?”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

I know the grimoire dislikes giving away information, and enjoys the process of bartering, but I also know it is insatiably curious and has poor impulse control. Right now it cannot take its eyes off the box.

“Okay, give it to me! Give it to me! Right now!”

“We have a deal? You will tell me everything you learn?”

The grimoire is positively vibrating with excitement but I want to drive home the point.

“Yes!”

“Good.”

The grimoire crowds me, curious eyes hovering around my shoulders. I barely have space to carefully untie the bindings keeping the silver box closed. I manage, with some difficulty, and the grimoire gasps as I lever out the Acolyte’s book.

The enormous single eyeball on the Acolytes’ grimoire flickers open, stretching so far that I can see the luminous sliver veins threaded through the iris as I hold it up.

“This is-”

The grimoire does not wait for me to finish the sentence but grabs the tome with six meaty hands, tugging the grimoire towards it with vicious enthusiasm.

“My sister!” it screams. “My sister! Sister dearest! It is so good to see you! I thought I had lost you forever-”

“Your sister?” I ask in confusion.

The grimoire extends sausage like finger and thumb with delicate precision, ripping the silver eye free from the leather binding with a stomach turning squelch. The leather covers shudder. The enormous silver eyeball is still moving, the pupil wobbling, the back dripping nerve endings and muscle and stringy sinew.

The grimoire cradles the eyeball gently, its own eyes surrounding it like petals from a particularly ghoulish flower. Its voice lowers to a sepulcral whisper, as it brings the silver eyeball intimately close: “It is so very nice to see you.”

Teeth bite down, needle sharp, piercing the squishy jelly of the silver orb.

Viscous liquid spurts over sharp fangs, dribbling over fleshy palms. A maw appears in one palm, stretching wider, wider, wider, the teeth like fine needles.

Without further ado the grimoire stuffs the rest of the book into itself in one smooth motion.

The restless limbs hand still, as if turned to stone.

There is silence.

Just like that the Blind Queen’s grimoire is gone. There is only my grimoire, its usually patched and brown skin flushing bright red, its myriad eyes wide and satisfied.

A belch like a hurricane blasts through the study. I rouse myself from my shocked stupor, not entirely sure what I have just witnessed.

“Well?” I say. “Will you tell me what you have learnt from… er… your sister?”

The limbs retract into themselves, bunching in so they appear small. Well, as small as a monster the size of a small barn can appear.

“I don’t feel so good,” the grimoire says, in a single, tiny voice. “I want to go home.”

“Isn’t Dunbarra Keep home?” I ask, curiously.

“Nooooooooo,” it wails. “I want to go home! Take me home, Maud!”

It slaps the walls in agitation, its many eyes start to bulge.

The mouths swallow, the skin runs sickly pale, and mottled patches of silver skitter over each enormous arm, and around each massive finger. Flowing lines of script in an elegant hand run riot across its flesh, moving like the ripple of an incoming tide. Or the front edge of a tsunami. I back up against the door, grasping blindly for the knob.

Just as I find it, the grimoire makes a small noise, like a hiccup. I stare up at it in alarm, wondering if it is about to be sick.

The grimoire explodes, bursting into flakes of ashen mist.

I start forward with a cry, but then it reappears. Flickering, rinsed in a silver wash, the limbs blink in and out of existence, before solidifying with a whoosh of rancid air.

The arms sag.

“That was exciting,” the grimoire says, quietly. It pats itself down, palms caressing each other tenderly, as if to make sure everything is where it should be.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

The grimoire turns to me, suddenly focused.

“Yes,” it says, in formal tones. “I am fine, Maud. Do you truly wish to know all I have learned? The telling of it will take some time.”

“Yes!” I say eagerly, and rummage in my bag for ink and parchment. “Yes! Please tell me everything!”

“Very well,” says the grimoire. “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin.” A dozen throats clear themselves in a flurry of fussy little coughs. I arrange myself cross legged on the floor and look up unexpectedly. “This grimoire belongs to High Justice Abigail Blackburn, Most Favoured of the Blind Queen, On her Sufferance, Praise the Thorns. It is written in bumps, Maud. They did not have eyes to see. I now know how to read bumps. It is moderately interesting. Anyway. Page one. Immoveable Chains ‘Immotus’ Speak clearly, let your voice be a clarion call for justice! Bind evil with the strength of your conviction and the breadth of your suffering! Page two. ‘Fortis est veritas!’ Truth is strong! The truth and only the truth matters, seek it with impunity, let nothing stand in your way, be blind to all that would distract you!”

There follows various spells and bindings. I write them all down eagerly. What use they will be to me I know not, I think it is highly unlikely that the Blind Queen will answer an incantation uttered from a lich’s lips.

Several pages later there is a chapter detailing the creation of Acolytes, and the Blind Queen’s holy water.

“Oh I know about this!” I say. “They make their holy water out of their eyes, when they become Acolytes!”

“Partially true,” says the grimoire, steepling several of its fingers. “The disciples pluck out one eye for the potion. The other they give to their goddess.”

“Oh,” I say, “Why is that? So she can see?”

“The Blind Queen takes one eye as tribute,” it continues. “But not for herself, no. It is a good bedtime story. Shall I tell it?”

“Please do,” I say.

“Long, long ago, the Blind Queen was known by another name.” The grimoire takes on a sing-song voice, as if it has told this story many times before. I sit up, paying close attention. “She had two eyes, as vivid as galaxies. She was as beautiful as a constellation, and as hopeful as the morning stars that crowned her brow. The world was new, and she walked through the dawn of time in a gown spun from morning mist and heaven's silk, bestowing her favour on a grateful humanity. Wherever she went people dreamed, and prospered. Good fortune followed in her wake.

But the world was changing.

Doors were opened. Humanity was growing sly and cunning, and the reach of the stars was dimming.

One day a stranger won her unblemished heart.

The princess of the heavens was dazzled. His smile was glittering grains of gold. His wings softest night. He saw what others could not, and when he saw her, her heart became full.

She had never wanted anything more and so she courted him with jewels and sweet words.

So enamoured was the princess of the heavens that she was overcome with madness. Tearing out her own eyes, she gifted them to him on a silver platter, for he had once admired them. But he was undeserving of such devotion. Anxiously she waited, in darkness and pain. He declared them not pretty enough for his collection.

Heartbroken, she proclaimed herself done with foolish, frivolous things. Done with love. The maiden remade herself, as icy and terrible as a cloudless winter night. Blindly she struck, scorn lending her strength, striking down her love with the might of heaven, she struck again and again, until his twisted remains were scattered to the four corners of the earth.

Alone, she wept.

When the fit of her rage passed, sorrow filled her, empty and bleak. Her sight was gone. Her heart was stone, but the weight of remorse consumed her. No longer blinded by the shallow beauty of existence she bound her ravaged face in a blindfold fashioned of crude sackcloth so that the endless torment would remind her of her folly.

To repent, she would spend her life in service, seeking retribution. For herself, for her love, for the blind fools yet to sin. Freshly imbibed with purpose she declared herself a beacon of justice, and set out into the world once more.”

“She sounds like a peach,” I say, thoughtfully. “And that’s all very well, but why does she demand the Acolyte’s eyes?”

The grimoire shrugs, a rippling motion of undulating limbs. “It says it is symbolic of their mortal folly.” It hiccups. “Sorry,” it says. “I think I have a tummy ache.”