Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute

The last time Cabal had been to the gunsmiths’ in town to buy more cartridges for it, the man behind the counter had told him that the pistol, a Webley .577 Boxer, was ‘guaranteed to stop a charging savage’, according to the literature. Cabal had replied he didn’t know about that, but it could stop a Deep One with its dander up and that was good enough for him. The man behind the counter had considered this, and then talked about the weather. It was, in short, a fierce and unfriendly gun, and its very appearance was usually enough to cause nervous shuffling among spectators. The three men, however, seemed no more put out by it than by Cabal’s slippers, and those hadn’t caused any obvious consternation either.

Cabal considered. He did not encourage visitors, he had no colleagues per se, he had no friends, few acquaintances, and his family were all either dead, or had disowned him – or were dead and had disowned him. Occasionally other necromancers turned up to try to steal his researches in much the same way that he tried to steal theirs, or assorted self-elected paragons of virtue arrived to slay him as if he were a dragon. He was not a dragon; he was a much better shot than most dragons and the paragons’ last sight was of the fierce and unfriendly Webley .577 Boxer and Cabal’s irked face sighting over the wide muzzle at them. The three men seemed to fit none of the categories. ‘Who are you?’ asked Cabal. ‘What do you want?’

One of the party, a short middle-aged man with receding hair, snowy mutton chops, and the open, sanguine air of a defrocked priest spoke up: ‘We wish to make you a proposal, Herr Cabal.’

‘A proposal?’ Cabal pushed his blue-glass spectacles back up his nose and regarded the trio suspiciously. ‘What sort of proposal?’

‘That,’ interrupted the tall man in the top hat, who looked like an undertaker, ‘is better discussed in private.’ He pursed lips that looked well used to it. ‘Our immediate concern is to reach your front door.’

‘My front . . . ? Oh!’ Cabal understood and laughed. He looked down. Just over the tile-ridged edge of the garden alongside the path was a faded circular for patios and conservatory extensions. There had probably been others, but they had blown away long since, this one staying only because it was trapped beneath a discarded human femur. The surface of the bone was pocked with tiny bite marks. He looked back up at the men, a sardonic smile on his face. ‘You’re concerned about the denizens of this little plot. Gentlemen! They are only pixies and fairies! You’re not afraid of them, are you?’

‘Yeah! We’re harmless!’ piped a tiny voice from beneath a hydrangea, until it was shushed by other tiny piping voices.

For his answer the tall man stepped back and read the notice on the gate out loud: ‘No circulars, hawkers or salesmen. Trespassers will be eaten. We are not afraid, sir. We are showing rational caution.’

‘Yes,’ conceded Cabal. ‘Put like that, I see your point. Very well.’ He spoke to the garden. ‘Let these men by.’ There was a muted chorus of dismay from the hidden watchers, but the three were allowed to walk up the path unmolested. By the time they reached the doorstep, Cabal had already gone inside.

He was waiting, seated, in his study when the three men caught up with him. They stood gravely clustered around the door, unable or unwilling to sit without their host’s invitation. Cabal was entirely unaware of a host’s duties, and contented himself by sitting with one leg crossed over the other and the pistol held idly in his lap. He looked at the men and they looked back at him for several uncomfortable moments. ‘Well?’ he said finally.

‘My card,’ said the funereal gentleman, producing one from his pocket and offering it. Cabal did not rise to take it, but suffered the man to advance, hand it over, and then withdraw in the manner of a priest delivering a votive sacrifice.

‘Mine also,’ added the third man, speaking for the first time. He had, to Cabal’s eye, the air of a recovering alcoholic who now ran a small printing company dedicated to the publication of religious tracts.¹ He, too, had mutton chops, but these were black and as lustrous as a dog’s coat. His eyes were quick and dark, and he wore the disreputable shortened form of a top hat known as a ‘Muller’.

‘Mine too!’ added the one with the appearance of a disgraced priest.

Cabal studied the cards casually. ‘So, you are Messrs Shadrach,’ he thumbed the card from the top of the small pile and allowed the funeral director’s card to flutter to the floor, ‘Corde,’ he dropped the former alcoholic’s, ‘and Bose.’

‘It’s pronounced Boh-see,’ said the unfrocked priest, although – disappointingly – it appeared from his card that he was actually a dealer in artworks.

‘You were never a priest, were you, Mr Bose?’ asked Cabal, just to be sure. Mr Bose shook his head and looked confused and that was that.

Mr Corde was – equally disappointingly – a solicitor and not a reformed alcoholic publisher of religious screeds, but Mr Shadrach really was a funeral director. This also disappointed Cabal, whose grave-robbing activities in search of research materials were often complicated by the eccentricities of those who carried out the burials. One doesn’t want to spend all night excavating down to a coffin only to discover that it is lead-lined, sealed with double-tapped screws, and proof against crowbars.

‘All very good, but none of which answers the question that I believe I implied when I said, “Well?” An art dealer, a solicitor, and a funeral director. What business have you with me, sirs? Indeed, what business have you with one another?’

‘We belong to a society, Herr Cabal. A very special society, dedicated to a noble but arcane purpose. It is this purpose that has brought us to your door.’

Cabal looked at them with a raised eyebrow. ‘Grundgutiger! You don’t all want to be necromancers, do you? It’s thankless work, gentlemen. I advise you strongly against it.’ Their blank expressions assured him that, no, this was not the purpose of their visit. ‘Well, what, then?’

‘Let us start from a hypothesis, Herr Cabal,’ said Mr Bose, with wheedling enthusiasm. ‘And let that hypothesis start from a question. Is the human creature as perfect in function as it might be?’

‘Meaningless,’ replied Cabal, ‘with no definition as to what that function might conceivably be. We are good communicators, passable runners, middling swimmers, and poor at flying.’

‘Just so. But even there, we are capable of communications of great subtlety over very long distances, we build locomotives that can outrun the fastest animal, steam launches that can give even dolphins a good run for their money, and aeroships that have formed our conquest of the skies. You see my point, of course. But do you take my greater meaning?’

‘Naturlich. You are suggesting that the function of the human creature, to use your