Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute

A pause. Then, ‘Does it matter?’

‘It might.’

Another pause. ‘I forget. It all seems a long time ago when I walked in the light, and ate burned meat . . .’ There was a liquid throaty growl from the other ghouls, a sound Cabal knew to denote disgust. From a race that routinely ate gamey human cadavers, it wasn’t a sound that received much use. ‘. . . and vegetables.’ The liquid throaty growl sounded again, louder this time. Cabal noted that the Ghoulish language certainly maintained a higher level of incipient threat than human languages. It was hard to imagine sixty people managing to be so menacing while chorusing, ‘Eew . . .’

Cabal did not believe for an instant that the ghoul had truly forgotten its human identity, but they were inclined towards a wanton abstruseness. When one is a burrow-dwelling anthropophagist, one must seek entertainment wherever one can, so the ghouls had raised the sport of being mysterious to a level worthy of admittance to the Olympic Games. Not that they would ever actually turn up: they would just send some cryptic clues to the opening ceremony hinting that they might. Thus, this ghoul was almost certainly hiding its identity for some reason. That was comforting, as it implied that since the ghoul had a long-term plan for Cabal, it would not spoil it by eating him. At least, not by eating him prematurely. It was a toxic sort of guarantee but, for a man in Cabal’s profession, it was much better than he was used to.

As the ghoul did not wish to discuss its personal history at this juncture, Cabal decided that it was permissible to skip the pleasantries and get on to the real reason for his visit. ‘There is one who lives here . . . who I believe lives here.’

‘You speak of the witch,’ said the ghoul, barely before Cabal had finished. ‘Yes, she is here.’

Cabal was too shrewd to be elated by this statement: the ghoul had specifically not said that she lived there, only that she was there. It might mean nothing, or it might mean everything. ‘She lives here?’ he said, with some emphasis.

‘She lives,’ said the ghoul, and Cabal thought he had heard a note of amusement. Ah, he thought. So teasing people as to whether somebody’s alive or dead is what passes for humour in ghoul circles. Then the ghoul said, ‘You must speak with her. It is your destiny.’

Cabal’s hackles rose slightly. In his experience, people who talked in terms of destiny were those without sufficient reason to be doing what they were doing. Not so very long ago he had suffered the misfortune of being in conversation with a military man intent on starting a war with his country’s neighbours. He had spoken in terms of destiny, too, because, if that had been forbidden him, he would have had to admit that his motives were little better than rape, pillage and seizing the land of others. Calling it ‘destiny’ made it seem so much more noble. So it has always been, and so it will always be.

As if understanding his reserve, the ghoul said, ‘If you prefer, it would be wise to speak with her.’

‘Just to be clear,’ said Cabal, ‘do you mean wise purely as in pertaining to wisdom, or was it just an implied threat, with a flavour of or else about it?’

There was another pause. Cabal thought he heard the ghoul sigh. ‘Which will induce you to speak to the witch, Johannes Cabal?’

Cabal thought about it for a moment. ‘Under the circumstances, either.’

‘Then it hardly matters, does it?’ The ghoul was beginning to sound angry now. ‘You are just as contrary as your reputation suggests.’

‘What reputation?’ asked Cabal, slightly taken aback. It counts for something when ghouls consider one infra dig.

‘Go beyond the jade pagoda and look for the firelight. You will go unmolested by my people, but go quickly.’

The glowing eyes vanished quickly in scatterings of pairs. In moments the sense of being observed lifted from Cabal and he knew the ghouls were gone.

Breathing a sigh that might have been of exasperation or might have been of relief, Cabal looked around until he found a pagoda a few yards into the clutter of tombs. It stood some six yards tall, and was decorated with great slabs of jade. One lay by the pagoda’s base, along with the tools that a foolish thief had used to remove it. It seemed that they had found to their cost that this particular part of the necropolis had no need for night-watchmen. Cabal walked slowly around it – pausing en route for a moment when something that he suspected was part of the thief crunched under his foot – and finally reached the rear of the structure.

The firelight was easily visible from there, flickering by a Grecian temple that had been built by students of Socrates, according to logical paradoxes rendered in architectural form. Given this provenance, it was no surprise that it had long since fallen over. Amid the tumbled columns, a figure sat upon a large bust of Socrates at his most disgruntled. She wore a black cloak that made her outline difficult to discern against the encroaching shadows, made deeper around her by the inconstant light from the fire. As Cabal approached, he saw she was wearing her cloak’s hood over her brow and eyes. He could see the pale skin and red lips of a young woman but little else.

‘Pardon me, madam,’ he said, in the uncertain tones of a store detective running in a dowager duchess, ‘are you, and I hesitate to use the term, a witch?’

She smiled, and while it was a pleasing smile in purely aesthetic terms, there was something knowing about it that he did not like. It reminded him of the peasant girl with the lamb’s smile, not in appearance so much as in import. ‘What were you expecting, Johannes Cabal?’ she said. ‘Somebody uglier? Wartier?’ That smile again. ‘Sluttier?’

‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Do I know you?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘No. We have never met, although . . . although you may know me by reputation.’

Cabal grimaced. ‘It’s all reputations around here.’

‘Not around here. Back there,’ and he knew she was speaking of the waking world. ‘You need a clue. Very well. Do you recall the last little book of Darius?’

‘The Opusculus V? What of it?’ Realisation was sudden. ‘You? I . . .’ He somehow rallied his dignity in the face of astonishment. ‘Madam, I was very much under the impression that you were dead.’