4.02
Conquest’s place was the sort of place that looked like it was or had been a government building, fifty or a hundred years ago. A courthouse, a government office, or something. In my day to day, I might think it fit into that general category, but there was no sign, and I’d never have cause to try and figure it out.
White exterior, pillars framing the front door, and broad stone stairs.
I climbed out of the car that the practitioner with no name had brought, bringing the rolled up image. I couldn’t help but note the two men to either side of the double doors. Both stood, and they had a vague military bearing, with their clothes not really being a uniform, but still sort of playing into my impression of what a hitman or an ex-veteran might wear, if they couldn’t leave the work entirely behind. Boots, bulky jackets that hid guns, shaved heads. One wore a shapeless, dull sweater, the other had his coat open, showing a suit or vest with a row of shiny brass buttons.
They also gave off a hostile impression. The sense that they would attack me at any second, justified or not. More like the Others I’d seen prowling around the perimeter of Hillsglade House.
I couldn’t say for sure if they were Others or not.
The nameless practitioner gestured, and I led the way to the door. The men on either side looked at me, up and down, as I ascended the stairs.
“No weapons,” one said.
“Hm?”
“At your side. A blade?”
Ah. June.
“I promised the spirit I would keep her close and keep her warm. Is there room for compromise?”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” the nameless practitioner said.
“Yes sir.”
To me, he said, “You don’t touch her, unless you give us warning, or you’ll get shot.”
“Noted. Thank you,” I said. A part of me was a little surprised that he’d jumped so quickly to calling it a ‘her’, but I supposed that was a part of living in this world.
“Know that whatever you leave behind is lost, past that threshold.”
“That rule ends when I’ve left?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And if I decide I don’t like the rule?”
“You’ll displease everyone in attendance, the Lord included,” he said. “And your stay in Toronto will be a very short one.”
“Gotcha,” I said.
“You’ll want to use your Sight to watch your step.”
“My step?”
“Yes.”
I used my Sight as I opened the door, continued using it as I walked down the hallway. Had I been using my regular vision, I might have found something off with the surroundings. The furniture was old, everything was nice, but it didn’t really fit together. It looked nice, when I took any room or area all together, but when I looked at it in more detail, the short table and mirror by the front door had nothing in common with the furniture at the end of the hallway.
Viewed through the Sight, there was another oddity. Nothing was connected. No object had a strong tie to anything. Not to the room, not to any owner, not to events or ideas. They were isolated, stranded.
Ghosts, if I could even call them ghosts, lingered here and there. They were so faint I could look straight at them and I wouldn’t necessarily be able to make them out. Psychic echoes of people who had been slain or defeated, many bearing grievous wounds that stood out, tied to the pieces of furniture, the decorations, and the objects collected on walls. The tethers binding them were short enough that some were contorted, bent over tables, reaching for but unable to claim swords that rested on stands, clocks and candlesticks.
I got it, now. This wasn’t a house that had been lovingly, if eccentrically decorated. It was a large, sprawling trophy case. Every enemy the Lord had vanquished, he had taken something from them, a piece of their home and a piece of their selves.
“Up the stairs. Watch your step.”
I made my way up the step, avoiding one section of step that had badly splintered. I noted the hole in the surface. Something had penetrated the stair.
As I rounded the corner to continue up the staircase, I realized it was somewhat more involved than that.
The staircase existed in shambles. A staff had been thrust into someone’s open mouth, continuing into the join between two stairs, punching through tile, concrete and wood. The skull of the victim, jaw open, was still on the stairs. The flesh had long since rotted away, the remainder of the body carted off.
A colonial-era sword had bit so deep into the stone railing that it had stuck.
My foot nearly slid on the stairs as I ascended. I paused, picking it up, and I saw finger bones and shell casings.
I could smell the gun oil, a chalky, burnt smell that might have been the odor of old gunpowder. Blood.
As I crested the top of the stairs, I saw the walls on either side of me were in ruins. Open, snow-covered fields spread out to either side of the ruins, the clouds hanging low in the sky, to obscure my view. There were humps in the earth, that could have been shallow graves with the earth still heaped over them. The alternative was that they were bodies buried by only the shallowest covering of snow. Weapons of all sorts stood out from the plains like an eerie sort of grass. There were a surprising number of religious symbols among the weapons. Crosses planted in the earth.
It was dark, clearly night-time, but the sun hung directly over the long hallway in front of me, blood red and large enough to fill a quarter of the sky.
It was cold, and the sun afforded no more warmth than it did light. It did, however manage to leech the moisture from my mouth. It was both hot and cold at the same time, with one not taking away from the other.
“Huh,” I said.
“We’re in the fallow season within the Lord’s domain.”
I looked back at the nameless practitioner. The moon hung over his head, far smaller than the sun, but still imposing and somehow artificial in how big and imposing it was.