Johannes Cabal the Detective (40 page)

“The bridge was a rope affair, obviously not meant for carts or horses or other beasts. Even to a man, the crossing of sixty feet or so across the ferocious drop would have been a little daunting. Anything, however,
anything
was better than staying on the same side of the river as Umtak Ktharl, and I quickly crossed, the bridge swinging and twisting beneath my feet as I firmly gripped the rails and ran like a tightrope walker with the Devil on his coattails.

“This was a double hope for me. Perhaps Umtak Ktharl would not be able to cross the bridge, what with his weakness for running water. Perhaps, like a vampire, he wouldn’t be able to pass over it. Second, even if he could, it would be my delight and my privilege to cut the guy ropes loose when he and, I hoped, Cabal were halfway across. I enjoyed the prospect of the pair of them tumbling into the angry white waters below. I fear I may even have been laughing a little hysterically by the time I reached the far side.

“Barely had I attained a hiding place by the mooring posts when Umtak Ktharl swept majestically into view and, without even a pause, moved onto the bridge. It would seem that my first hope was to be confounded. The sight of Cabal staggering exhaustedly up to the mooring posts on the other side and leaning on them while he wheezed unhappily reminded me of the second. I reached into my pocket for my clasp knife with murder in my heart. My hand found nothing but an old receipt and the stub of a pencil. The knife wasn’t there.

“I almost cried out loud with frustration. Of course, it wasn’t. Those damnable and damned bandits had stolen it from my ‘corpse’ back when they’d also relieved me of all my other belongings and my horse.

“I looked behind me; the path rose in a sharp zigzag up a very steep forested slope. I couldn’t hope to get far. My reserves were gone and the jig was up, but I was damned if I was going to go down without a fight. Anger making my thinking clear, I unlimbered my rifle from my shoulder and took careful aim at the approaching sorcerer. I breathed gently and, just as my breath was on its cusp, squeezed the trigger.

“My first shot caught him square in the chest, but made him pause only momentarily, as if he’d forgotten something and then decided it was not important.

“The second bullet struck him in the face; I think I had some vague thought of puncturing one of those eyes in the hope they were where his power lay. That is how desperate I had become. I heard the bullet ricochet off him as if it had struck rock. He shook his head, as if bothered by an insect, and advanced.

“I was down to my last bullet and all hope had run out. Umtak Ktharl was clearly utterly invulnerable to mundane weapons. On the other hand, I doubted the same could be said of that turncoat Cabal; I decided to let him have the last shot.

“I was grateful that the bandit whose rifle it had been had shown more concern with the maintenance of his weapon than with his personal hygiene. Every shot I had so far fired had gone exactly where I placed it. Despite the bandit’s peripatetic lifestyle, the barrel was well maintained, the action was reliable, and the sights were perfect. I trusted them implicitly as I placed foresight ’twixt back leaf and centred the whole upon Cabal. I aimed at his head with the expectation of the bullet’s trajectory taking it into either his throat or his upper chest. Either would be satisfactory. He was still wheezing pathetically, his whole frame heaving with the effort of drawing breath, as he stood half slumped against the mooring post. Then I paused. There was something peculiar here, something odd in the way he was moving. I lowered my sights and was delighted and ashamed by what I saw. His body wasn’t heaving with exhaustion at all but with exertion … exertion as he sawed fiercely through the guy supporting one side of the bridge with a small pocketknife. The whole thing had truly been a ruse; Cabal had been looking for such an opportunity, and had now taken it with both hands.

“Without a further second’s hesitation, I brought my rifle back up to the target and fired.

“It wasn’t a clean shot, I’m embarrassed to admit; I can only plead unfamiliarity with the weapon at that range. But still, it clipped the second guy rope nicely, severing a good half of its strands. Cabal almost dropped his knife with surprise, but saw what I had tried to do and waved at me. He redoubled his efforts, and the rope he was working on parted with a woody snap. The bridge leaned crazily to that side and Umtak Ktharl showed more emotion than I’d seen up to now; he actually seemed quite angry. The weight of the bridge was too much for the rope I’d damaged and, with a musical twang, that gave way, too. Now anchored only on my side of the gorge, it fell and swung to smash against the cliff wall. Bits of wood and debris rained into the stream to be instantly carried away.

“Umtak Ktharl, however, was not amongst them. With a countenance of utter fury, he hung in the air in the middle of the gorge, defying both gravity and our fondest hopes.

“I was at my wits’ end and had been for some time. Cabal was not, and that is something we should all be grateful for. He reached into his breast pocket and threw something at that remorseless monster. ‘Umtak Ktharl!’ he shouted, as whatever it was glittered and shone in its arc. ‘Catch!’

“I like to think it was Ktharl’s utter arrogance, his total belief in his invulnerability, that proved his downfall. He should have done almost anything except catch what had been thrown to him. I think Cabal, in his brief acquaintanceship with Umtak Ktharl, had seen it in his character and played upon it. What is it they say comes before a fall?

“At any rate, Umtak Ktharl caught it. The object had barely been in his hand a moment when it flashed an angry cobalt blue that illuminated the warlock so strongly I had the absurd impression that I could see his bones within him. With rising hope, I realised what it was. A tiny thing … nothing at all in the usual way of things.

“A small phial, two-thirds full of holy water.

“The water must have boiled in its tube, because it broke with the distinctive
plink
of fracturing glass I remembered so well from my dawdlings in chemistry as a boy. It must have been like a tube of acid shattering in his hand. Not enough to kill him or even hurt him, but more than enough to engage his full attention, to break his concentration and really, at that point, that was all that was necessary. The holy water flared and steamed like St. Elmo’s fire where it splashed upon him, he made some small, pathetic effort to beat the supernatural flames from his hand and arm, and then he was falling. It took only a moment to plummet the distance, and he was gone, lost in the frothing waters.

“Cabal and I ran downstream, eager to make sure that he didn’t make the bank. This time I’m sure I was laughing, laughing with sheer relief. There would be a tomorrow. It wasn’t the end of everything.

“I saw Umtak Ktharl first. Just the hint of an arm waving in the turbulent water of an eddy pool. Pinned against a rock underwater, once again having his sins washed away constantly.

“‘He’s finished!’ I shouted with delight across the roar of the river.

“‘He’s no such thing,’ Cabal shouted back. ‘He could get washed free, the water level could drop in high summer, somebody might find him, anything could happen. He’s contained for the moment, but he isn’t finished by a long chalk.’ He started walking back upstream. ‘I need to think.’

“I could barely get a word out of him for the next couple of hours as we trudged along, each on our respective side of the gorge. Then the river started to rise and the gorge to become shallow and, finally, we found another bridge, a properly metalled road bridge this time and joined our paths. It was clear that we were leaving the wild lands, and towards nightfall we reached—quite unexpectedly but very welcome, all the same—a customs post. We were on the border between Senza and Mirkarvia, actually on the Senzan side; I had crossed the border days earlier while delirious. We must have looked very disreputable as we approached the building, and a couple of officers came out to greet us. We went inside and were glad of their offer of a pot of coffee while they questioned us. About the only thing the bandits had left me with were my papers, and these the commanding officer took and studied closely.

“Satisfied, he turned to Cabal and asked to see his passport. Cabal sighed and shrugged. ‘I’m afraid my papers were lost in my escape.’ Then he looked the officer in the eye and said, ‘My name, however, is Gerhard Meissner. I was formerly a docket clerk, first class, in the Mirkarvian Department of Administrative Coordination. I am claiming political asylum.’ I looked at him oddly until he sent me a warning glance that made me compose and comport myself more neutrally.

“The customs officer looked at him oddly and started flicking through the sheets on his clipboard. He found what he was looking for and nodded. ‘Of course, Herr Meissner, you have been expected.’

“Cabal’s face was a picture. He looked utterly blank for a moment. Then he pulled himself together. ‘I am? That is to say, excellent. I must admit, I was worried about the loss of my documents.’

“‘Inconsequential, signor. The Minister of the Interior will need to speak to you, of course. You must be interviewed.’

“‘Of course,’ replied Cabal, but I could see his confusion.

“They organised a horse and trap for us and we rode in silence for the few miles to the nearest town, Sadile. The only time Cabal—I assume his real name
was
Cabal—spoke was to point out the watercourse running parallel to the road. ‘If that ever dries up,’ he said, ‘we’re all in a lot of trouble.’

A
nd that’s your story, Enright?” asked Chiltern in the silence.

“That’s my story,” replied Enright. “At least, it’s most of my story. There is a small coda. Two unusual things happened that first night in Sadile. At about two in the morning, the whole town was woken by an explosion. A distant thing it was, several miles away, but the rumble travelled through the earth and tumbled people out of their beds and tiles from the rooftops. Those who had been awake at that hour said there was a strange flash in the sky to the south, which turned to an angry cobalt glow hanging over the forest and took minutes to fade.”

“Oh!” said Tompkinson excitedly. “I know what that was.” He pondered for a moment and then shook his head. “No. No, I don’t. Carry on.”

“And the second thing?” asked Munroe.

“Well, I only found out about that the next morning. Cabal was gone, vanished into the shadows. He obviously had a few secrets he didn’t want the authorities to learn. Nobody was much concerned about his absconding nearly as much as about the outrage that had been committed the night before.

“The archbishop of Parila was visiting the parish. Shortly after midnight, a mysterious stranger had dragged him out of bed at gunpoint. The poor archbishop was forced into his robes and driven down to a small river that runs by the town. There his assailant had put a gun to his head and told him to bless the river and to keep blessing it until he was told to stop. The archbishop, quite reasonably under the circumstances, blessed the river waters for all he was worth. At about two o’clock, there was the blue flash in the sky, reflecting upwards from some sort of explosion in the forest. The archbishop’s assailant seemed very pleased, said something about being able to sleep now, and left him there. The archbishop’s description of the stranger sounded awfully like Cabal.”

There was a respectful silence, broken by Tompkinson saying, “No, I don’t understand.”

“‘I’ll explain it to you next week,” said Munroe. “I’m tired now, though, so I’ll take my leave of you, gentlemen. Good night, Enright. Thank you for that fascinating story.”

They broke up, and started to make their varied ways home. In the cloakroom, Kay bumped into Enright putting on his overcoat. As they made their way across the foyer to the exit and the city night, Kay asked him, “Johannes Cabal. Did you ever find out who he was?”

“I made enquiries when I got home,” he replied. “Turned out he’s a little infamous in some circles.”

“A spy?”

Enright smiled and leaned towards me confidentially. “A
necromancer
,” he whispered. He seemed to find Kay’s expression of shocked outrage still more amusing. “Look at the bright side, Kay. I’m very glad he turned out to be a necromancer rather than, say, a docket clerk, even a first-class one. So should you. A lot of use he would have been then. Good night!”