Chapter 124

Lime, Custard, Bones

There is also the Adventurers’ Guild - they might also have some leads on cursed places, or ancient ruins. I joined when I first arrived in Fairhaven, before Janvier’s devastation, many moons ago but have not been back since. After a little bit of digging I manage to locate my old guild badge. Rachel still has ties with the guild, and tells me it is in the same building.

After disguising myself as an exceptionally skinny witch I set off, broomstick in one hand, and axe slung through my belt. I sing a little as I walk, eyeing my subjects and my city from under the broad brimmed, slightly floppy conical black hat. Fairhaven needs more gardens, and more parks. If I can get the economy going properly I will appoint a Royal Gardener to my council, as a reward for all that horrible paperwork.

The Adventurers’ Guild is much as I remember it- half bar, half office, and filled to the brim with a motley assortment of ruffians. I flash my badge to the doorman who admits me with a yawn. With my veil, hat and gloves I look quite human, if a little mysterious. People probably think I have a skin condition.

I examine the noticeboard with interest.

There are the usual assortment of quests and odd jobs available - a gryphon terrorising a village in Denoon and someone’s elderly grandfather who needs escorting to a wedding along a road filled with thieves and brigands. I could do that one, actually, and make a start on those earlobes. There is also a job posted by a herbalist who requires a rare flower that grows only in abandoned ruins on the peak of some godforsaken mountains far to the north. That would be promising, but for the fact that I seek ‘a dark place where nothing grows’.

In the end I take the flyer for the grandfather quest, and then go in search of the necromancer’s bookshop. To my intense disappointment it no longer seems to exist. Or rather there is a bookshop in Custard Lane, but it is a bright, cheery place that seems to do a roaring trade in romantic and erotic fiction. The shopkeeper stares at me blankly when I quiz her. I leave, frustrated and annoyed, clutching a discrete package of books.

The necromancer’s shop must have been destroyed in Janvier’s war, along with so many other livelihoods.

Feeling a little despondent I make my way back to my old townhouse in Lime Street. Under this house is an ancient lich’s lair, more recently used by Phylas as a necromancy clubhouse. It was also the place where I opened the portal to Downing and saved a large portion of Fairhaven from Janvier’s greedy ice cold fingers. The three storey building started life as ‘Miss Penelope’s Lodgings for Self-Supporting Moral Maidens of Good Social Standing’, transitioned to ‘Miss Maud’s House’, shortly before largely destroyed by Janvier and his ice dragon. There is now a sign declaring it ‘Queen Maud’s Safe House for Independent Youths.’

I vaguely remember issuing some orders to that effect.

The walls have been repaired. The walnut door has a fresh coat of black paint, and a garland of flowers and tiny animal skulls hangs invitingly on the door. A few candle stubbs flicker on either side of the stone stairway leading up. Almost, it looks like a little altar. Someone has left a post of flowers, and a drop spindle.

Looking at that black painted doorway I realise I am not up for a formal visit, despite my curiosity at how my charity project is rolling along. I retreat into the shadows, casting a wary eye over the facade.From within I can hear the boisterous laughter of young people. Through an upstairs window I can see two young women sewing, while on the first floor two more seem to be engaged in a fairly vicious axe fight.

The young people seem happy and taken care of. No one seems to be oppressed, although the two with the axes might be in danger of losing a digit or two. However, they seem old enough to understand the risks.

After some dithering, I climb on my broom and enter the house through an attic window.

It takes a large amount of stealth and not a little luck, but at last I make it down to the cellar unseen. The entrance to the old cathedral has long since been repaired, and it takes me a while to find the new one. Hidden at the bottom of a pantry is a new trap door with a rather impressive lock. I break it with a grunt, and descend into the pitch darkness below. (I will send a note about the broken lock, but so help me I am not finding the mistress of the house to ask for a key).

The stone stairs are much as I remember them, and the remains of my last stand, rubble and bodies, have long since cleared away. Now there is nothing but quiet, all enveloping darkness, and somewhere, the quiet drip of water. This is the Whisperer’s domain through and through.

Deep underground I find Phylas’ bone cathedral. Cold and dank, the enormous vaulted chamber still reeks faintly of chemicals and lingering aftereffects of stale magic. Excitement quickens in my bones. Will I meet my mysterious allies here? I fasten on my silver bells, just in case, and their tinkling chases away the whispers in rolling waves.

I set off to explore. Magnificent as ever, arches and pillars of bones line the walls. Grisly chandeliers float above me as I walk past the skull lined altar. There is nothing growing. Is this the place? My step quickens. There is no one here, alive or dead. Well, apart from the original occupant. Harmless as a piece of old furniture, the soulless skeleton of the ancient lich king still rests on his broken throne, presiding over the vast nothingness of the chambers. I salute him in passing, then double back to ask if he has seen anything interesting lately. He does not reply.

I cast my eye about the detritus of the abandoned space. Surely this is a more fitting tribute to the Whisperer than a cathedral filled with cultists and sacrifices? Nothingness is what he craves afterall. Nothingness and destruction.

Turning away, something furry bumps around my ankles and I let out an embarrassingly high pitched squeal. A rat? A ghost? What would dare nudge the ankle bones of a lich? A rumbling purr fills the darkness, and I relax.

“Hello Jenkins,” I say. “Have you come to adventure with me?”

My black wisp-cat winds his way through my legs once again, threatening to trip me with his affection. Pleased that I have noticed him he proceeds to bounce around the dusty cathedral, in that weight defying way he seems to have in this form, clearly enjoying himself.

“Well good,” I murmur. “Help me look for-” I pause, considering. “-anything unusual, or interesting.”

Jenkins comes to a stop in front of the old lich king’s skeleton, one paw raised quizzically.

“Oh, I’ve seen him,” I say. “But thank you. Anything else unusual.”

I spend the next hour poking about, picking through various broken bottles and tapping bones and finding absolutely nothing of interest. Jenkins conducts his own experiments, sniffing and poking his nose into every corner. A while later I turn and see him staring avidly into a corner, as is the way of cats. Actually… Perhaps he is looking at something I can’t see?

I root around in my bag looking for my eyepatch and my dandelion eyeball. Maybe there are fairies that I cannot see? Alas, that would mean living things, although my hope has begun to wane. I push the eyeball into my empty eye socket. Being skeletal has its advantages, the eyeball pops right in.

Straightening, there is that strange moment of distortion. At first everything looks exactly the same, but then why did I think it was different. I glance at Wisp-Jenkins. Now I can see what occupies his attention so avidly, his rear wiggle, and ready to pounce. Then in a corner, squeezed between a square jawed skull and a long thigh bone, some of the bones take flight. Not bones, tiny winged skeletons.

I move closer, fascinated. The bone fairies are just that - inches high humanoid skeleton with fine webbed wings made of vascular tissue. They are as fine as lace, I’m surprised they keep the tiny creatures airborne.

They flutter away at my approach, and Jenkins turns to scold me.

“Sorry, sorry,” I mutter.

Do they count as living or dead? I steal a soul to check, and it streaks into me like a tiny star. Living then, and tasting of bone broth and dust. But the note said ‘dark place where nothing grows’ so fairies are fine. Whatever the semantics, I do not think this is the right place. Perhaps it is because I am not properly clad in silver. Three little bells do not count as ‘clad in silver’. Maybe I should come back, once my new dress and armour are ready? But there is clearly nothing here of any interest. Unless… the rest of the little bone fairies have fled, fluttering squealing and shrieking into the wall, pushing themselves into a crack. Is there something there? Or just a hole in the bones?

“Jenkins?” I say. “Is there anything here? A room? Or a passage?”

I know there are passages down here, Dunwiddy used one to lead the people underground in safety. That route was caved in during the war, however, leaving only a mess or rock and rubble. Jenkins drifts over, and sticks his ghostly paw into the crack, swiping at the fairies. Then he turns away and comes to a stop next to a goat’s skull that protrudes from the wall in the centre of a decorative bone spiral. He pats it meaningfully.

“The skull?” I say, and hurry over.

I poke at it, and suddenly it clicks loose. The darkness shifts and groans, and a pillar sinks backwards next to the crevice, revealing a stone corridor. A secret chamber! But all I find within are a rotting old wardrobe, a desk and a broken old bed. Phylas’ old living quarters? Perhaps. There are some notes written in a spidery hand, lists of names that mean nothing to me, and some old vats that stink of embalming fluid.

I do find some rather nice gemstones, which I pocket. There is a nest of some other types of bone fairies, these ones with round faces, pointy teeth and legs that splay out like spiders, but that is all. I search fruitlessly. Jenkins gives up on me and goes to sleep curled on the old lich king’s bony lap. Or if he is not sleeping he is doing a jolly fine impression. After another hour or two I am ready to admit defeat. How incredibly disappointing and annoying.

“Jenkins,” I say, mournfully. “I don’t think I’m ever going to find this place. A dark place where nothing grows? Where could it be?”

Wisp-Jenkins cocks his head on one side, and leaps off the skeletons lap, arching his back in a stretch. He pads over, chirrups, and butts my knee with his head. Ears up, his tail swishes from side to side. I know that look. It is the same look he gives me when he has dismembered something particularly exciting and wants me to admire it in the back garden.

“What is it, Jenkins?”

He gambols around my legs weaving back and forth, and then jumps into the air, his paws landing on nothing. Then he looks at me, expectantly. Clearly he is trying to tell me something, but I have no idea what. Inspiration seems to strike him. Jenkins does a succession of aerial tippy taps and then disappears with a whoosh.

“What?” I repeat, grumpily to the empty air.

Wisp- Jenkins pops back into being a moment later.

He regards me closely.

“I’m looking!” I say.

Satisfied, he vomits something onto my lap.

Sand.

I lean closer. Not just any sand. Miniscule tiny skulls, exquisite and perfect, grinning up at me. Sand from the Whisperer’s desert. The words click in my brain. A dark place where nothing grows.

“Oh,” I say, a little dumbstruck. “Oh. Thank you, my love.”