‘… And who better to look after him,’ Dr Philenor continued, ‘than that most generous of benefactors, the man who has contributed so much money to our asylum in the past few weeks, the man who has built us a new wing, doubled our pension fund and written me a personal cheque for -’ he coughed, ‘- well, the amount is hardly relevant. I speak, of course, about the man who has waited patiently behind that curtain throughout our meeting -’ he pointed dramatically, ‘- in order once again to welcome an old friend to his bosom. I speak of course of -’ The curtain swept back.
‘George!’ Brimstone hissed, then stopped just short of the final attack order. He blinked, twice. The man behind the curtain was the last person he expected to see. Or wanted.
The man behind the curtain, smiling with his spell-encrusted teeth, was Jasper Chalkhill.
Seven
Chalkhill must have come up in the world. There was a stretch ouklo hovering beside the main entrance. Brimstone climbed in with a distinct feeling of trepidation. The trouble was, the last time they’d met, Brimstone had tried to sacrifice him to the Jormungand serpent. It had been a good sixteen years ago, admittedly, but surely Chalkhill couldn’t have forgotten? He decided not to bring it up for the moment, just in case, and asked instead, ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘I didn’t. But I knew you were mad and there are only a few facilities like this in the Realm. I had someone check them all.’
George was climbing into the ouklo as well, which gave Brimstone a feeling of confidence. ‘How did you persuade him to let me go?’
‘Philenor? I bribed him, of course.’ Chalkhill was looking a lot different from the last time Brimstone saw him. He’d lost weight, for one thing, and he was a much snappier dresser for another. He rapped on the ceiling of the ouklo with his Malacca cane and his coachman triggered the starter spell. The carriage rose smoothly and surprisingly quickly for a vehicle of its size and weight.
Brimstone glanced through the window. The Double Luck Mountain Lunatic Asylum was receding into the distance. From this height it was already apparent that its buildings and grounds had been carefully landscaped so that when viewed from above they spelled out the word Philenor. The good doctor clearly had a healthy ego. Brimstone turned away. Now was the time for the crucial question. He gave the hand signal that put George on high alert and asked, ‘What do you want from me, Jasper?’
In the old days, Chalkhill would have contrived to look hurt. He would have composed his features into a hurt expression. One of his hideous novelty spells would have flashed HURT across his forehead. He would have given a small, sad smile and spouted some nonsense about old friends and business colleagues. But the new, improved Chalkhill did none of these things. Instead he asked a question of his own.
‘Is it true about the cloud dancer?’
It was, but why did Chalkhill want to know? Brimstone stared at him suspiciously. He weighed the pros and cons of lying, without reaching much of a conclusion. The bottom line was that the cloud dancer business was on public record – or at least on record in the asylum he’d just left. If Chalkhill could bribe Philenor to let him go, he could certainly get a copy of his records. Cautiously, Brimstone said, ‘Yes.’
‘I understand Lord Hairstreak sent it after you?’
Brimstone shrugged. ‘Probably. It never told me.’
There was a brief flash of the Chalkhill he’d once known when the old perv licked his lips. ‘What happened? Exactly?’
It was really difficult to see where this was going, unless it was just Chalkhill taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. Which Brimstone could fully appreciate since he often did it himself. ‘What happened…’ he began.
What happened, as he remembered it, was that the creature had found him on the edge of the Buthner desert near the Mountains of Madness. Cloud dancers were blood-feeders whose natural home was on a different dimension of reality to this one. When they crossed over, it was difficult for them to maintain a physical form, but their immaterial existence on this realm was precisely what allowed them to probe faerie minds and mine their secrets. At the time, Brimstone had been harbouring a particularly poisonous secret – he’d managed to steal an angel – and had fought ferociously to keep it to himself.
Brimstone shuddered. He could remember the scene as if it were yesterday. A red sunset promised a fine day on the morrow. The angel was safely trapped and immobilised. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. Then, across the desert at the furthest edge of his vision, he noticed a movement like an approaching dust-devil or djinn. But as it drew closer, he saw it was neither and by the time he realised what he was dealing with, the thing was almost on top of him.
Some academics maintained that cloud dancers, as a species, were distantly related to vampires, but to Brimstone the creature looked far more like a ghoul. It was tall and thin and caped and fanged with the pallor and transparency of a ghost. Despite its fragility, it was capable of physical attack – dancers had been known to suck their victims dry of blood – but that was not the greatest danger. The greatest danger was that the thing could reach into your mind; which was exactly what this one did.
Most men would have crumbled at once. But Brimstone was a trained demonologist who’d spent nine years in Arcane School learning the mental techniques that allowed him to communicate with demons in the good old days before Queen Blue spoiled everything. The disciplines had toughened his mind to a degree that allowed him to withstand the initial attack.
With the creature thrown back, Brimstone created an imaginary sea-chest of thick oak with metal bandings and used it to store all thoughts and memories of the angel. Then he wrapped it in imaginary chains, fastened the chains with triple padlocks and swallowed the imaginary key. The cloud dancer recovered and threw itself against the chest. Brimstone concentrated so that the chest withstood the attack. The cloud dancer redoubled its efforts, but the chest remained sound. Brimstone allowed himself a little smile.
The little smile was probably a mistake, for it threw the cloud dancer into a paroxysm of fury. But now, instead of hurling itself futilely against the impregnable chest, it dived down Brimstone’s throat in search of the key. Brimstone mentally grabbed its feet and began to drag it back up again. The cloud dancer twisted, slid back up into his head and, in a fit of pique, began methodically to dismantle his brain.
‘It got a bit fuzzy after that,’ Brimstone concluded.
‘But it never found out about the angel?’
‘No, it never found that out.’
‘It just sent you barking mad?’
Brimstone snorted. ‘That’s what happens when you have a dismantled brain.’
Chalkhill was licking his lips again, but without the pervy light in his eye this time, which meant he was about to ask something important. ‘Is it true that when you’re attacked by a cloud dancer, it leaves you very sensitive?’
‘It usually leaves you dead.’
‘Yes, but when it doesn’t leave you dead. As in your case, Silas. If it doesn’t leave you dead, is it true it leaves you very sensitive?’
Brimstone leaned a casual elbow on the edge of the window. Chalkhill planned to kill him, of course, as did most of his former friends, but probably not quite yet. His questions, the way he held himself, the involuntary movements of his ears all suggested he was up to something – something for which he needed Brimstone’s help. Brimstone gave the hand signal that put George back on stand-by and said, ‘Oh yes, very sensitive.’ He leaned forward to stare into Chalkhill’s face. ‘Very sensitive indeed.’ He allowed himself to sink back into the buttoned leather seats of the ouklo interior. ‘Once they put your brain back together, that is.’