The Three Lights - chapter five

When the router died, I spent a bit of time adding more to this story. It's never going to go anywhere (from a publishing perspective), but it's providing a relaxing diversion for me to write. 

CHAPTER 1 is here

CHAPTER 2 is here 

CHAPTER 3 is here 

CHAPTER 4 is here (if you haven't already read them)

CHAPTER 5

 

As the induction class drew to a close, Catriona glanced round to see the other members of the group looked as stunned and bewildered as she felt. A rueful smiled played on the Principal’s lips as his kindly blue eyes took them all in. it was doubtless far from the first time that he had turned people’s worlds upside down. A painfully thin lad with a prominent Adam’s apple and bad acne set further along the bench, staring at the copious pile of notes he had taken and looking as if he might cry. The light from the three large stained glass windows cast hypnotic patterns across them all.

The Otherworld, which she had always taken as a bit of poetic whimsy in Celtic mythology, was as real as this world. It had its own inhabitants, animals, plants, continents, islands, and so forth. There were portals between the worlds and sometimes the inhabitants crossed over, occasionally deliberately but quite often by shear accident. The three elements, or duile as the professor had called them, were a source of power for those who knew how to channel them. Losing control would produce a potent but dangerously wild effect. The Sea had its flows, the Sky its slipstreams, and the Land was crisscrossed with what she had formerly called ley-lines, though Hildern used the term sarns.

People who grew up near the sarns – and the professor had made a rather cryptic remark that he was not only talking about humans – would become attuned to those energies. The Gorsedd sought out such people to help them hone their skills and aptitudes for the greater good. Left to their own devices, they were apt to become disturbed or dangerous. Or be pounced on by Fomorians (though he dodged a question about what the Fomorians did with such people when they were pounced on).

Following the massacre of druids by Romans on Ynys Mon, the survivors had sought refuge in Ireland, the Isle of Man, and far north among the Scotti and Picts. From such locations they had planned for their survival, for the survival of the tribes and the Land itself. Among other things, which the professor glossed over, three of them had laid the foundations of what would eventually become Gorsedd University. Their statues loomed over the reception desk in the room on the ground floor the druid Lukomaros, the bard Brantigernos, and the ovate Morigena.  

The stone doorway on to Sickle Crescent existed in the world that Catriona had considered, until an hour ago, to be the only one. The actual college buildings existed in the Otherworld, or rather a liminal space between the worlds.

Her mind awhirl with thoughts of gods and monsters and magic as the lecture ended, Catriona headed for the reception are at the base of the Tower where the three strange statues stood towering over all the people coming and going. One of the other new students had got there ahead of her and was stood staring up at the statues with a look of awe, echoing Catriona’s own feelings. She couldn’t remember his name and opted to stand quietly as she had initially intended and contemplated her future, so radically different now from everything she had been envisioning only a week ago. The wolf-headed figure had freaked her out the first time she clapped eyes on it, but now the look in the eyes struck her as oddly benevolent.

“Do you think the Archdruid Lukomaros was actually a werewolf like the old prof said? I keep expecting to wake up on a psych ward and find all this has been the world’s weirdest hallucination,” he did not turn away from staring at the statue as he spoke to her. Like all First Year’s he wore his own clothes rather than the robes that marked out the second- and third-year students. The black leather jacket was covered in several pounds of metal studs and spikes, matching the various piercings in his ears. Knotwork animal tattoos writher around his arms. It was probably a trick of the light, but at times they really did seem to be moving. His spiked hair was varying livid shades of green, matching his eyes. Catriona desperately tried to think of a way of eliciting his name without admitting that she had forgotten it already. Thankfully a passing student called out to him, asking if he was going to the pub later.

“What’s the Boar’s Head like, is it any good? I haven’t been yet,” she felt clumsy angling for so obvious an invite but Ben gave her a dazzling smile that seemed at odds with his fierce appearance and invited her to join him anyway. On the way over to the bar on Sickle Crescent, they talked about their lives before university. Ben hailed from a small village outside Dublin. Like Catriona’s own family, his would have found it impossible to finance a degree course and he wouldn’t have gone at all had it not been for the hefty grants. Catriona described the bittersweet party her mother had thrown to bid her only daughter farewell. Everyone in the Gulbain family has expected Ben more likely to end up in prison than in a university and had nearly drunk the pub dry in celebrating his sudden change of direction.

The Boar’s Head was a timber-framed building dating back four centuries, it smelled of woodsmoke and beeswax. The publican, a great bear of a man with a bushy black beard, served up pints of homebrew. Gwydion Gelert was deep in animated conversation with the young Greek lecturer, the tiny Dr Starr sat with a group of equally diminutive people chattering in a language neither of them could name, gaggles of students filled nearly every table that were dotted about in nooks and crannies, gabbling in exited tones. Ben’s friends called them over to join one of the noisier throngs. For the first time since she arrived in Cambridge, Catriona felt like a normal student.

 

The screams echoed across the college, causing windows to open as people peered out to see what was happening. As Catriona and Ben lurched through the portal they took in the sight of a distant shrieking figure standing besides a body laying prone in the grass.  By the time they got their wits about them and rushed across the green others were already standing round. The principal was dashing towards them, with Lady Hatton-Jones puffing along behind him, tweedy cape flapping in the breeze.

“Step back all of you!” the normally diffident voice became commanding and everyone stepped back, their faces pale. The student who had been screaming was now subsiding into sobs, held up by two others on either side. She babbled something incoherent about falling and gesticulated wildly towards the sky. Unless the body had fallen from a plane, Catriona could see nowhere that the man could have plummeted from. The Tower was too removed from where the body had landed to be the launching spot.

“Good God!” Catriona declared as another student moved aside far enough for her to realise that the body was headless. Lady Hatton-Jones took her by the shoulders and attempted to steer her away. “Isn’t that a waiter’s uniform he’s wearing? Like the Indian waiters at the feast last week?”

“You are quite correct, my dear, but really you should not be seeing such terrible things. I would like you to all return to your dormitories. We must contact the authorities” Professor Hildern ushered them away, though nobody actually moved but stood staring in mute horror.

The figure of Kai loomed silently up behind Catriona, making her jump. He drew in a deep breathe through his nose and announced to the lecturers that the corpse had been dead for just over a day. He added that there was a strong metallic smell emanating from the body. The Principal and Lady Hatton-Jones exchanged looks, before asking Kai if he would step across to the Kashi Kitchen and ask Mrs Annapurna to come over as a matter of urgency. Catriona turned and followed her friend out through the portal and onto Sickle Crescent.

“Can you really tell how long someone has been dead for?” she murmured as they emerged on to Sickle Crescent, hoping that the passing group of drunks wouldn’t hear her.

“Cynanthrope,” he shrugged as if that explained everything. He took another deep breath through his nose. “A few hours ago you washed with lemon soap, synthetic lemon not real. You washed your hair with some mango-scented shampoo, probably yesterday morning given how faded it is. There’s also a mild whiff of menthol cigarettes, probably secondary smoking, and a strong smell of coffee and something with raisins and almonds on your breath. I can also tell you all manner of things about people’s bodily fluids and state of health, but you might find that a bit…. “

“Gross?”

“Cynanthropes aren’t quite as easily grossed out by things like that as you immutables,” Catriona raised an eyebrow at the term and Kai explained it was simply a person who only had one shape and could not move between different forms. There were a few other terms, both neutral and insulting, that she would be picking up on in the coming weeks. “Most of my people make really good healers. We can smell what is ailing someone.”

The waiters were removing the curry-stained tablecloths and getting ready to close up when the two students entered and asked to see the owner. The men exchanged glances before turning as one to look at a curtained alcove. Mrs Annapurna emerged without a word being said, dressed is a deep brown sari with gold designs around the hems. She looked at them for some moments as they wondered how best to break the bad news.

“He is dead,” she stated simply, she and all the waiters lowered their heads and placed a hand over their hearts. The background music suddenly stopped, the silence harsh by contrast. It was broken by a few words rattled off. Catriona determined to find out which language Mrs Annapurna spoke, though it could wait till a more appropriate time. The tiny woman strode out of the restaurant, two waiters hot on her heels and the students following up uncertain as to what they should do.

 

“This portion of Adi’s spirit will not be released until the body is cremated,” Mrs Annapurna knelt by the corpse, holding its hand. Catriona doubted that either she or the Principal realised that their conversation could be overheard by students. “Whoever did this has incurred a terrible burden on themselves. Adi was returning from a delivering a message to Kalika, possibly he was murdered to intercept the response. There does not seem to be a letter on him. She will not forgive that lightly.”

The two eerily alike waiters stepped forward and laid a long sheet, which might have been a tablecloth, alongside the corpse and lifted it on to the sheet. With expert efficiency they stitched the sheet together. Ben commented to Catriona that the police would be furious if the body were moved before the forensics team arrived. Lady Hatton-Jones startled them both by telling them that the authorities had already arrived in the short period it had taken Catriona and Kai to fetch the restauranteur. She waved her staff in the direction of the tall blonde woman stood in conversation with Professor Hildern. A few minutes later the woman strode purposefully towards them and shook hands with a strong, callused grip.

“Eleanor Longbarrow, Captain of the East Anglian Fian. I understand you arrived not long after the upadhi landed?” she spoke with the kind of clipped, county tones more often heard at gymkhanas than at murder scenes. She looked tired and short on humour.

“The what?” they both asked at the same time. Mrs Annapurna looked up from her vigil by the corpse and explained that her loyal servant Adi had the power to split his essence between multiple bodies. Over the course of many years he had done this thirty-three times. Catriona realised why all the waiters looked so similar, they were basically the same person though at different ages. As each upadhi died, Adi’s presence on earth unravels a little as he gradually passes on to other dimensions.

Now they understood what they had been asked, Catriona and Ben confirmed that they had arrived just after the corpse landed, but quickly added that they had not seen anything remotely useful. The captain produced a gnarled ash staff from under her waxed jacket and asked the pair to grasp it. A bolt of energy made Catriona’s arm throb. From the look on Ben’s face, he was clearly experiencing the same thing.

“When you say landed, what do you mean?” Ben asked.

“The corpse fell from a great height, that’s why it’s so embedded in the grass. They’re clean,” Longbarrow barked, turning away from them. “Professor, I’ll be in touch in the morning. We’ll need to review the security arrangements again. I thought the measures we put in place after the summer’s incident, but evidently not. The head was ripped off, rather than cut. This has all the hallmarks of the Fomorians.”

Ben turned to head for bed and nearly fell over the tiny Dr Starr who glowered up at him. Mumbling an apology, Ben asked if they would have to give a statement to the real police, causing the gnome to arch an eyebrow and bite back a withering comment. The lad was clearly in shock and may not have seen much death. Crime in the Arcanum, he explained, was always dealt with by the Fian, much to the relief of the regular police who had more than enough to cope with. In a similar vein, they had their own version of the health service, the Lazaret, and their own governing body, the Aonach. Starr forbore from saying that politicians were much of a muchness, druid or otherwise. It hardly seemed a suitable time for venting his spleen.

Catriona squeezed Ben’s hand and asked him to walk her back to the dorm. They bid Dr Starr goodnight and walked the short distance in silence, both sunk in their own thoughts. Ben was not quite the stranger to death that the gnome had imagined, but he had never seen anyone decapitated before, Catriona could not decide if she had witnessed a murder or not. Can a man with thirty-two other bodies actually be said to have been killed, even if his thirty-third vessel had been so violently destroyed?