The Last Spellbound House: A Steampunk Dark Fantasy Thriller Read online

  Pyke was unsure what to make of this. Jenna’s shock must be deep: few outside the Antiquities Guild were willing to consort with an Oddity, and even fewer would trust one to be within arm’s reach.

  Then again, there were always exceptions. The entrepreneur who had first made use of Pyke had been unafraid, guessing the young man was human and not one of those beings of magic which only seemed to be. To the daring man’s credit, it had turned out he was right about Pyke. This was fortunate for him: had he been mistaken, the consequences might have been dire indeed. Those who survived their first encounters with creatures from beyond the Kingdom’s borders were soon hunted down, for the mercy of the Fiend Hunters could not be bought even with pleas of ignorance, and the Church of the Phoenix did not suffer any heretic who associated himself with a fiend to live.

  Pyke had only the dimmest recollection of that first partnership: he remembered the face but not the name of the genial but ruthlessly practical man. The entrepreneur had found Pyke wandering through the streets of Independence City. Pyke had been wearing tattered clothing, clutching the Serpent’s Tongue in his fist, lost and disoriented with no memory of anything before that moment. Learning that Pyke could identify the Tongue’s uses despite remembering nothing else, the fellow had fed him, clothed him in finery, taken the Relic ‘for safekeeping,’ and put Pyke up in an opulently decorated apartment over a shop in the market district. Out of the store-front below, the trafficker had run a brisk Relic-identification business, naming and titling the young man “Pyke, the Masterful Appraiser.”

  Pyke hadn’t objected to being so used, though he was paid only pocket change for his efforts. He’d had no reason, after all, to disbelieve his benefactor’s assurances that he would have been easy pickings for life-harvesters and other criminal syndicates, had they come upon him first. A glorified indenture had seemed an acceptable compromise, at least for long enough to get his bearings.

  As far as Pyke knew, awakening in the streets at the estimated age of twenty was the extent of his past: he had no memory of any childhood or youth. In the ten cycles since then, Pyke had been unable to find evidence of an Oddity or Relic which held the power to erase memory. His origins seemed lost completely to whatever force had taken his memories and gifted him instead with his Oddment.

 

  Then why do I have the near certainty the two are linked?

 

  Maybe. I might be feeling so certain because I’ve learned something new. Whenever I draw power through the Serpent’s Tongue, I remember things… but the memories don’t seem to unfold properly until they’re prompted.

 

  Mostly true. There was that one time I realized I know how to play most musical instruments. I only found out when I picked up a lute after my first time using the Tongue. That qualifies as a benefit in my books.

 

  Spoilsport. Who knows what memories it brought back this time?

  Pyke pulled an oiled leather satchel from his pack and, unclasping the buckle on the front, pulled forth a worn book. The journal was the size of his hand, bound with soft brown leather. He opened it to its earliest page, and began to scan through for anything which might prompt a newly discovered memory. The entries began with the appraisal job.

  Pyke’s partnership with his first benefactor had lasted five months: long enough for Pyke to get a handle on how his Oddment worked and how it situated him in the culture of Independence City. All such quirks were unique, but Pyke’s was also extremely useful, unlike some of the others he came across in those early days. During his first outings from the apartment, he had sought out other Oddities, aiming to learn more about himself. He met a woman who was cursed with jet-black eyeballs and the dubious gift of growing dizzy whenever she faced any direction but North. While speaking with the clerks at a tailor’s shop, he learned the proprietor’s son was known for his Oddment of secreting a viscous red dye through his skin from head to toe every time he grew angry. That shop boasted the most vibrantly coloured red clothing in the city, it was said.

  Pyke was lucky by some standards. His Oddment was no minor trick or mildly entertaining novelty, and it wasn’t easily replaced by a compass or an herbalist. It made Pyke sought after by a very specific category of clients, because for whatever reason, he, or more particularly his Voice, could explain without fail the nature and function of any Relic.

  The comforts of the luxurious apartment given to him by his benefactor had held no appeal for Pyke, nor had the sizeable stock of fine wines, liquors and illicit drugs the man had left for his use. No doubt the entrepreneur had hoped to render him dependent on a steady supply of such intoxicants, and Pyke had secretly destroyed an ever-increasing quantity of these to make his captor believe he was compliant.

  Once his would-be taskmaster had grown complacent, though, Pyke had executed his escape, stealing the Serpent’s Tongue back from the safe in the man’s apartments. Bypassing the locked downstairs doors by dropping from the window in the dead of night, Pyke had travelled to a much less prestigious section of the market district. There, he had signed on as an apprentice to a cheap jeweller, paying a pittance to sleep in a hammock in the storeroom and keeping the rest of his wages for his own purposes. He had turned his attentions to investigating the culture of people who were avaricious or desperate enough to trade in Relics—

  “Why would you give up a lifestyle like that?” Jenna asked, startling Pyke out of his recollections. The young woman was peering over Pyke’s shoulder, apparently reading along. “A soft bed, plenty of food, and all the entertainment you could ask for… people have killed for less. Why leave?”

  Pyke turned to regard her, allowing his bemusement to show in his expression. “I could ask why you’re reading my journal in much the same tone. But it’s simple: comfort never drew me like learning did.” The fact the girl could read was more surprising than anything: literacy was not a common skill this far north.

 

  “I’m sorry, adventurers’ journals are just so interesting,” Jenna murmured. “Turn the page!”

  Pyke blinked. He still wasn’t bothered: privacy had never been a priority of his. However, he was taken aback. Being the object of somebody else’s curiosity was a new and interesting experience.

  “As you wish.”

  The following dozen pages detailed Pyke’s journey through a form of self-discovery. He had moved from job to job in the cities at the heart of the Phoenix Kingdom, learning as he went that, while he had little interest in other human beings, understanding the systems and explanations behind the way the world worked held a deep fascination for him. While Pyke himself remembered nothing of his youth, his Voice had knowledge of languages old and new, as well as esoteric facts ranging from why a hawk could glide (the shape of its wings created a pressure differential) to how the cycle of days and nights functioned in the Phoenix Kingdom (the Sun was a comet with a dying star at its centre, captured long ago and made to circle the known lands.)

  There were gaps in the Voice’s knowledge, though. Pyke had spent cycles working out the inner machinations of things like where the water in the Kingdom’s streams came from, and how his own vocal cords functioned.

  Then the Antiquities Guild had—

  “That’s what the gear-and-lens symbol
on your cloak means!”

  “Yes,” Pyke agreed patiently. “And few enjoy the company of an Antiquarian enough to stick around for long, so I’d prefer you tell me what you know now, before you come to your senses and run away.”

  “What’s the Un-Guild— uh, sorry, I mean the Antiquities Guild— what do they want with the Last Spellbound House?” Jenna seemed impervious to Pyke’s attempt to steer the subject toward his own questions.

  “I’d hoped you could tell me. I don’t relish the prospect of walking into an unknown place with no clue what it is or who lives there.”

  “Oh.” Jenna considered this. “Well, I can try. It’s called the Last Spellbound House because there’s still magic inside. And I do mean real magic, not the superstition of frightened folks. The Founders who run it, they discovered decades ago that no one in the House can lift a hand against another. For some reason, it’s just not possible.”

  “A physical restraint?” Pyke’s tone was unintentionally sharp. “Or an imposed mental block?”

  “Huh? Oh, you mean what’s it feel like?” Jenna asked by way of clarification, then kept speaking without waiting for Pyke to respond. “Everyone who works there has tried it... such an odd sensation! It’s as though you can’t really go further than the idea of striking someone. You think about it, you decide to do it… and then you just don’t.”

  “And this affects the entire building? How large an area?”

  “Oh, biggest house you’ve ever seen— wait. You’re from the capital city, so maybe you’ve seen bigger. Umm, four storeys, every one of them twice the size of the town hall down in Void’s Rim.”

  “Four storeys, you say. Roof edges shaped like a triangle? Dark colours and old furniture made of hardwood?”

  “You got it! Know something I don’t, Antiquarian?” A tremulous attempt at a smile made its way onto Jenna’s face.

  “Only that it makes sense until it doesn’t,” Pyke muttered. “Everything, right down to the architecture and the Working operating via psychological disconnect, points to the Dead. But why would one of the Dead impose a restriction on violence? It seems backwards for a being immune to conventional weaponry.”

  “The Dead?” Jenna gulped. “Is that as bad as it sounds?”

  “Well, the term isn’t quite accurate, but among laypeople it’s clear enough.” Pyke kept his tone matter-of-fact, so as not to frighten Jenna off. “The Dead are an extinct race of powerful magic-wielders. The Kingdom’s mythology doesn’t have anything to liken them to, but they were best described as animating intelligences which stole or constructed bodies to inhabit. Long ago, before their disappearance, they consumed the lives of mortals to maintain the link between their bodies and their— Jenna?”

  The girl had risen to her feet abruptly, prompting Pyke to cut his explanation short. The fog was beginning to thin as the strengthening wind swept it southward, revealing the silhouettes of the gnarled trees at the sides of the Old Road. The effect was not unsimilar to the shapes of otherworldly beasts slouching menacingly from the mists.

  “I… I don’t want to stay here any longer.” Jenna’s voice was choked with anxiety. “I’m scared.”

  “It’s best we move on, then,” Pyke thought aloud, standing as well. “I’d rather no one else take this road and find us sitting among the bodies.”

  Jenna looked about as though seeing the Road around her for the first time, and her shoulders rose as she took in the corpses of her horse’s victim and of Dagan, whose body was withered and deathly pale as though all the blood were gone from it. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “I can’t… I can’t!” She turned as though to run south along the Road.

  Pyke reached out and caught her elbow. “Wait.”

  She struggled, and he repeated, “Wait, Jenna. You’re acting out of panic. Think.”

  As abruptly as she’d run, Jenna froze. Her stare at Pyke was vacant, as though her ability to comprehend his words had fled.

  “You were headed for your work, to the north, weren’t you? Maybe we should head that way,” Pyke suggested, trying on the gentlest tone of voice he was able to affect. “And while we walk, you can… take your mind off things, by telling me more about the Last Spellbound House.”

  “Um… umm…” Jenna stammered, but she followed Pyke as he led her northward into the fog.

 

  I wish I were proud of it. I’m ill-equipped to deal with people at their most vulnerable, Pyke thought back. She deserves better at a time like this.

 

  No! Or rather… I wouldn’t even know what to look for, but I doubt it, Pyke retorted. I don’t particularly understand people or seek out their company, remember?

 

  Pyke suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. This was one of the times he was certain his Voice, ever incisive and practical on the surface, indulged in irony at his expense. It was uncanny: the Voice never strayed from offering observations and inferences about the world except to analyze Pyke equally clinically… usually in ways which made him question his own thoughts and actions.

  Worse, Pyke’s own defensive reaction bothered him. For the umpteenth time, Pyke wondered what the true nature of his Voice was, and why it should find his thoughts worthy of inspection. Was it really no more than a facet of his Oddment?

  No reply was forthcoming. The Voice’s own origin was perhaps the only serious matter it had yet to comment on.

  Time enough to figure you out another day, Pyke decided wearily. I have a witness to interrogate.

 

  Why do I doubt that?

  Chapter 3

  The Last Spellbound House emerged from the thinning fog all at once, looming large over the ruins of a stone fence which traced out the faint suggestion of grounds. The rectangular plot, which began only a few paces from the edge of the Old Road on its western side, consisted of a desolate wasteland pocked with ice-filled craters and strewn with patches of shattered stone. A beaten trail traced a winding path between the slabs of damaged rock. The edges of the holes in the ground and of the broken stone decorations were worn with the passage of time, but the shapes of the debris still suggested statues, plinths, and platforms, all of them sundered long ago by some forgotten violence.

  Despite Jenna’s hopes that her mare, Rione, would turn up somewhere along the way, it had been an uneventful trek without any horse sightings. The walk had consisted mostly of Pyke listening, nodding, and hoping he looked suitably compassionate while Jenna sobbed and rambled about her day-to-day woes. He gathered she was the primary provider for her parents’ large family, given the failure of their crops in last cycle’s drought.

  In the absence of any clear idea of how to help the young woman feel better, Pyke had gently steered the conversation to the subject of his mission, and had learned at least a few tidbits of information he hoped would keep him from running afoul of hidden dangers.

  I’m no good at subtlety, he griped. It’s easier when the witness resists. Then I can at least be forceful.

 

  At some point during the walk, after crying herself into exhaustion, Jenna had taken hold of Pyke’s arm and had seemed unwilling to let go, despite his attempts to surreptitiously pry her free. Eventually he had relented, reasoning that after her ordeal with the bandits, she must need any form of comfort she could get, even if it were from a stranger. That hadn’t stopped his Voice from commenting repeatedly on her friendly behaviour.

 

  Pyke hid his responding scowl beneath his hood. Can you stop observing that in particular?

  es are your eyes, Curious One. Only when your gaze rests on another subject shall I be able to comply.>

  With annoyance, Pyke realized the Voice was, of course, correct: as he’d been thinking, his gaze had wandered to the top of Jenna’s head where she was leaning against him. He snapped his attention back to the distant silhouette of the Last Spellbound House.

  As the vast stone edifice grew closer and clearer amid the fog, Pyke observed that Jenna’s information about the House’s appearance had been accurate. Four storeys rose atop one another. Three matching rows of windows with real glass panes ran along the uppermost two storeys and the ground level. Near the peak of the House, a circular attic window on the mansion’s east façade marked the tapering of the structure to its highest point. The roof was a broad triangle whose upper edge formed a peak running east to west, with eaves hanging over the fourth-storey windows and lining the rest of the House on either side. A symmetrical series of four wide stone chimneys were the only features to break the straight lines of the roof’s slope.

 

  That constitutes two to four centuries of dilapidation? The place is practically new. Pyke’s heart pounded. Estimate how likely that would be without magic.

 

  Manse. That word rings a bell. A dwelling with magical properties, fed by a store of power at its centre.

 

  Pyke whistled under his breath, excitement tingling like a static charge in his chest and arms. His mind whirled with speculation about the old knowledge and powerful Relics which could be hidden here. This is the only place I’ve ever heard of with magic still functioning a hundred cycles after the fall of the Ancients. No wonder the Antiquities Guild is keeping this quiet. Imagine what could be done if that stored power could be extracted?