37 – Shrovak Gnyrath

“Terrible?” Ward gave Haley another look and saw the bloodshot nature of her eyes and the way her hands were gripping and twisting the lapels of her coat. He pulled the door open and stepped out of her way. “Come in.” She stepped through, and Ward closed the door. He motioned to the little table by the window. “Sit down. What’s going on?” He walked with her, and when she pulled out one of the two chairs, he took the other, placing his back to the chilly glass pane.

“Well, I started off the day with good intentions. I went to see the alchemist I told you about and picked up some bone-mending salve and a pain and healing tonic. I rubbed the salve on my wrist as I walked home, leaving plenty to help your captive with his arm. I remembered my father had some game traps in the shed out back, and they were attached to chains, so I thought I could use one of those to bind him.” She spoke quickly and appeared nervous, looking to the side a lot. “I’m explaining that because it’s why I didn’t stop by the market. I had what I needed, you see?”

“Yeah, sure. Did something happen with that guy?”

“When I returned, I went down to the cellar, and he was asleep, sitting on that barrel, his back to the post. He looked pitiful—wan and frail, his breathing fitful. So I rubbed the salve on his swollen, purple arm, which woke him. He thanked me as I finished with the cream and even more profusely when I gave him the pain tonic. He seemed much better, his face flushed again, a tremulous smile on his lips…” Haley stopped speaking, and Ward could see tears welling in her eyes. He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but then she started again, her words coming out in a rushed, hoarse whisper, “I hated him for that. How could he smile after he tried to kill you? Would my parents ever smile again?”

Ward reached toward Haley’s clasped, white-knuckled hands, but she pulled them away. “What happened?”

“I left to get the chains. When I came back, standing above the trapdoor, I heard a commotion below, and I knew he was trying to break free of his bonds. His arm wasn’t hurting anymore, you understand?” Ward nodded, frowning, and she continued. “I could have gone down and stopped him. I could have put the chains on him and been done with him, but I stood there, and I listened, and I knew a part of me wanted him to get free. Not so he could get away, but so I’d have an excuse to beat him.”

“Ah, Jesus…” Ward had a feeling he knew where the story was going.

“Yes. I know not whose name you invoke, but my deeds are worthy of exclamation. I crept down the stairs, chains in hand, waiting and watching, and when he broke free of the bonds and rushed toward the stairway, I lashed out, catching him by surprise with the first blow. Not once or twice, but a dozen times I thrashed him with those chains, and when I was finished, he was dead.” Haley sat there, unmoving, her face almost serene as tears streaked her cheeks.

Ward was a little dumbfounded. He wanted to exclaim—to react—but he didn’t know how he should. He felt responsible, and he supposed that was because he was. What possessed him to bring a guy connected to her parents' murder to her house? Not even a single day had passed! He grasped his head in his hands, trying to stimulate some blood flow. “It’s my fault, Haley.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Grace chimed in. “Probably something we should have seen coming.”

“You did nothing wrong. In fact, you were kind to the poor man…” Haley’s poise crumbled, and a sob escaped her.

“Uh-uh!” Ward reached for her hands again; this time, he was quicker than she, catching them between his. They were unusually cold; whatever magic usually kept them hot must have been spent, or she’d failed to gather it. They felt tiny and frail, and he wrapped his broad, warm palms over them. “That guy was a murderous thug. I won’t argue that what you did was right—it wasn’t. Still, you aren’t yourself right now. You’ve been through hell and suffered some horrible losses, all in the span of a couple of days. To you and me, your brother only died a few days ago. Yesterday, your parents were killed, and you had one of the guys connected to that murder in your cellar. That’s my fault! You hear me? Some people won’t understand, but I do.”

Haley had stopped trying to pull her hands away almost immediately, and now she hung her head, tears dripping on the wooden floor between them. “I feel like it was murder.”

“You wanted to beat him, right? You wanted to punish him. That was your intention when you swung that chain, yeah?”

“Yes. I went too far, though.”

“You lost yourself in your emotions. It’s not right, but it’s understandable. You feel guilty now because you’re not a murderer. Listen, I used to work in law enforcement. I’ve met bad people aplenty, and you’re not one. I don’t know how things work in this world, or more specifically, this city, but—”

“I think they’d hang me if they heard what I did.” Haley delivered the words flatly.

“Even with the circumstances?”

“I fear we’d both be in trouble for bringing that man to the cellar, and, if anyone saw what I did to him, they’d think it was murder. Vengeance.”

“Then nobody will know. I won’t see you hanged.”

“I—”

“Forget it. I could’ve killed him when he jumped me, just like I killed his pal. That’s the risk a man takes when he decides to start murdering for hire. It’s over. He got what was coming to him, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll deal with the body tonight. Your home has a big back garden. Are there shovels in the shed?”

“Yes.” She sobbed again, and this time, she leaned forward over their clasped hands, pressing her forehead against Ward’s outstretched arm. “I’m so tired, Ward. I should’ve slept last night.”

“Yeah, but that’s hard to do when an idiot brings a criminal to your house and locks him in your wine cellar.”

Grace cleared her throat and surprised Ward by stepping close to Haley, resting a hand on her back. It looked to him like she actually touched her, but Haley didn’t seem to feel it. “God, she’s wrecked.”

“Grace is worried about you,” Ward said softly. He stood up, still clasping Haley’s hands in his. “Come on, why don’t you lie down here a while? I’ve been trying to meditate on those words I found in the catacombs. I’ll be quiet.” Haley allowed him to pull her to her feet, and when she looked at him with eyes red and swollen with tears, he let go with one hand to reach up and brush some of them off her cheek. “Hush now. Come on. You’ll get through this.” He pulled her around the side of the bed, and when she climbed in without saying a word, resting her head on the thick, soft pillow, he folded the quilt from the other side of the bed over her. “See you when you wake.”

He'd turned away when her voice came to him, small and quiet, “What did she say?”

“Hmm?”

“Grace. What did she say about me?”

“She said you’re a good person, and you shouldn’t feel so rotten. She said you should sleep for a little while.”

“Liar,” Grace said. “I guess I agree, though.”

Ward watched Haley for a minute as she lay there, eyes closed. Her breathing, shallow and ragged at first, soon smoothed out, and he knew she was sleeping. “Ugh, what a mess.”

“It’ll haunt her. You better not bring her with you when you confront that Foyle character.”

“Try telling her that—”

“Something tells me she’ll be a little more willing to let you handle things. I think she got the murder out of her system.” Grace’s words were harsh, but Ward had to admit she was probably right. He thought about how he’d so quickly promised to help the girl hide the evidence of her crime. Would he have done something like that back on Earth? How had he grown so attached to Haley in such a short time? Was it their shared trauma of the catacombs? Was it the horrible losses he’d seen her suffer? Whatever the case, he felt no guilt about helping her avoid more trouble.

Ward returned to his position on the rug, picked up his copper spell sheet, and whispered, “I’ll try out some of these positions. Let me know if she wakes or something.”

“No worries.” Grace moved to sit on the foot of the bed, and, not for the first time, Ward wondered what it was like not to be able to touch anything but your host. He imagined Grace would’ve liked to comfort Haley. Her concern for the girl was a little out of character, and he wondered if it had something to do with Haley’s immediate acceptance of her or if maybe the young woman reminded Grace of someone.

Staring at the first form on the copper sheet, it took Ward a few minutes to push the thoughts of Haley’s confession out of his head. He found himself debating the subject in his mind again. He was a big believer in intentions and understanding circumstances. He knew Haley wasn’t a bad person, and he knew the guy she’d killed wasn’t a good person. That was enough for him, never mind the fact that the thug had tried to kill him. Ward wasn’t going to shed any tears, and he certainly wasn’t going to see Haley get in trouble for his own stupidity. He’d go there and deal with the evidence in the night; there was no sense in allowing the neighbors to see him fertilizing the garden.

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That settled, he turned to the copper sheet and looked at the first form. It seemed he was supposed to have one leg straight, one leg bent to the side, the arm opposite the straight leg should be bent at the elbow and held out from the side of his body, and his other arm should be atop his head. He set the card on the carpet and worked to position his body, and when he was sitting that way, feeling like an idiot, he closed his eyes. He began to feel uncomfortable after just a couple of minutes as he worked to find his stillness and his heartbeat.

Surprisingly, the awkwardness of the position seemed to fade from his conscious mind rather quickly, and he found his meditative state much more easily than before. The only explanation he could think of was that practice makes perfect. Once he’d found his heartbeat, though, he realized he’d messed up—he couldn’t think of the words, let alone meditate on them. He opened his eyes, losing much of his progress, and focused on the copper sheet, staring at the words. Softly, he whispered, “Shrovak gnyrath.” Mentally, he kept repeating them over and over so he wouldn’t forget them before he found his center.

With that weird mantra in his head, he also tried to focus on his breathing and put himself into that deep meditative state, searching for his heart. The words began to take on a strange, echoing, resonant quality in his mind, and he found himself mentally drifting along the peculiar curves and bumps of their sound. Amazingly, he felt his heartbeat in seconds, and with that steady, natural rhythm, he repeated the words, tracing their sounds and flow with his mind. He began to lose himself in them.

Ward had no idea how long he’d been at it when something strange occurred. He began to notice how the words and their echoing shapes and colors in his mind resonated with his body, flowing out into his oddly bent limbs. When he let his consciousness follow that strange flow of light and sound in his mind’s eye, he started to recognize how the flow reached a sort of bottleneck, and it clicked for him; he was supposed to move to the next form, allowing the flow to continue.

Ward opened his eyes and saw Grace staring at him intently, eyes narrowed. When he looked at her, she asked, “What happened? Something happened, right?”

“I think I’m getting it. I need to practice the forms a few times so I can do them while I’m meditating. I’m meant to go through them, one into another, not all separately.” The room seemed different, and Ward realized the light had changed. His window was east-facing, and the sun was no longer shining through it. “How long was I at it?”

“More than an hour, I’d say.”

“Whew, really?” Ward was whispering, and he shook his head bemused. “Felt like about fifteen minutes to me.” Grace didn’t reply, and when he looked at her, he saw she was looking toward the head of the bed. “She okay?”

“Sleeping peacefully. She whimpered earlier—I think it was a nightmare. She’s okay now.”

Ward nodded and then took about fifteen minutes to practice the different forms on the card, trying to memorize the feeling as he transitioned from one to another. Each form was close in position to the one before it, so he never had to move a leg or arm much, and it was interesting to see how the fifth form flowed into the first one just as easily as the earlier ones flowed into the next. In the end, it felt like he was performing a dance while sitting on the ground. He felt like an idiot, and if he had an audience other than Grace, he probably would have been too embarrassed to continue.

“I heard that,” Grace said.

“Huh?”

“I can hear, or well, yeah, feel your thoughts about being embarrassed. People who know anything aren’t going to think you’re weird; they’re going to think you’re a sorcerer. They’ll be afraid or respectful of you if they ever see you doing that. We’re not in Seattle anymore, Ward. Besides, it looks kind of cool.”

Ward grunted and offered her a quick smile; she had been pretty cool lately. “I appreciate the encouragement—”

Grace cut him off, “Don’t make it weird.”

Having memorized the various forms and their durations measured in heartbeats, Ward closed his eyes and mentally began to repeat the mantra of the words again. This time, as soon as he found his center, he progressed through the “dance,” moving from one form to the next and the next. The change was palpable; he felt the words echo through his mind and resonate with his body as his arms and legs continued to cycle their various positions. He felt a buildup of something like static electricity in his body, vibrating through his bones, tingling under his skin, and echoing in his mind. The words began to come to life within him.

When the spell was ready, he knew it, just as Maggie had promised. He could feel it solidify in his mind. The words, ethereal and shifting before, were now solid and bright. When he looked at them—when their sound echoed through his mind despite not voicing them—he had to shy away; they were bright, too bright to stare at. Though the sound wasn’t physical, it was rough and difficult to grasp; he winced at it.

Ward stopped his meditation and opened his eyes, and sure enough, he was still aware of the words in his head. They were there; the spell was ready, and he knew it would be until he released it by speaking the words aloud. Maggie had said he’d know if the spell was too much for him, that it would feel like touching a hot coal. It didn’t exactly feel like that; it was more like grasping a coffee mug that was too hot—difficult to hold, but not enough to really hurt him. “I…” His voice was hoarse, and his throat was dry. For the first time, he realized the light coming through the window was noticeably dimmer. He cleared his throat, licked his lips, and tried again. “I think I can cast this without killing myself.”

“You think? Don’t kill yourself because you aren’t sure…”

“I’m sure I won’t die, but I might hurt myself. I should get some of that healing tonic or whatever Haley was talking about.”

“Yes. Let’s be smart about this. I bet Fan has something she’d sell you. I can’t imagine someone would run an establishment like this without some medical supplies…Where are you going?”

Ward had already clambered to his feet, his limbs quite limber despite his extended time on the floor, thanks to him moving them about while he meditated. He turned back from the doorway. “Going to ask Fan for the tonic.”

“You know I can’t stay with Haley if you leave, right?”

“I’ll be fast. She won’t even know I left. Look at her; she’s out of it.” Ward wasn’t lying; Haley was dead to the world, her face buried in the pillow, the quilt tucked up under her chin, her mouth hanging open as she breathed deep, steady breaths. Ward nodded, confirming his opinion, and then stepped into the hallway. He found Fan where she always seemed to be, behind the bar, laughing and joking with some of her regulars.

When she saw Ward descending the stairs, she waved at him. “Finally up from your nap?” When she winked at him, it took a minute for him to realize she was making an innuendo—she’d sent Haley up to his room hours ago.

“I wasn’t napping. Meditating, and yeah, I know it seems strange, but I’m trying to learn a new spell. Haley’s been napping, though; she couldn’t sleep in her house last night.” Those words took the sly grin off Fan’s face as she remembered she was talking about a girl who’d just lost her family.

“Oh, right. That makes sense. Um, did you want me to send some food up to her?”

“Nah, we’ll come down in a bit, but I have another request. Do you have a healing tonic or anything like that? I’d like to buy one. You see, this spell I’m trying to learn might harm me, and I just want to be safe—”

“Harm you?” She spoke over him, eyes wide. “What about the inn? You won’t destroy my business, will you?”

At her words, Ward had a sudden realization about something he’d utterly failed to notice earlier. Now that he’d meditated on the words, processed them through the weird forms, and solidified them in his mind, he knew very well what they meant. Shrovak gnyrath—reveal secrets. He barked a short laugh and shook his head. “Good question, Fan, but no. This spell won’t destroy your inn. The only harm that might come to me is that they are words of power, and my body might not be ready for them.”

“I have a tonic, sure, but it’s not the best you can buy. It’s enough to stave off a brain bleed or heal cuts and bruises, though. I have it in case there’s a brawl…”

“Perfect. Costly?”

“Twenty-five glories, if I recall.” She began to root around under the counter, and Ward heard the sounds of bottles and glasses clinking against each other. While she looked for the tonic, he dug some glories out of the pocket of his new pants. He slid thirty glories onto the counter, then looked around.

“Fay back yet?”

Fan answered, her voice muffled as she grunted, still rummaging under the bar, “Oh, aye. She and Willard returned hours ago. She was dog-tired, though—said she and Willard had to lug a mattress out to the burn pit after they got done scrubbing…Aha!” She straightened up, holding a clear bottle with a fizzy yellow liquid inside, and stoppered with a cork. “Found it! Anyway, Fay’s napping.”

“Thanks, Fan.” Ward took the bottle and pushed his glories a little closer to her. She scooped them up and smiled.

“Don’t hurt yourself! Better to have that and not need it, wouldn’t you say?”

“Definitely.” Ward nodded to the rather inebriated fellow Fan had been speaking to, but he was red-faced, eyes droopy, staring into his cup of booze. Instead, he turned back to Fan. “See you in a bit for some food, okay? I’ll bring Haley.”

“I’ll be looking for you. I like your new clothes, by the way. You’re a different man in clothes that fit.” She winked and picked up a bar rag, moving to wipe up a puddle of spilled booze by another patron. Ward smiled, perhaps a little awkwardly, then hurried upstairs. When he reentered his room, he was relieved to see Haley still sound asleep.

As he closed the door, Grace ambushed him with a question, “Are you really going to try that spell right here? What will it do?”

“It’s meant to reveal secrets—”

“Seriously? What are the odds?”

“Huh?”

“You’re a detective, Ward. What are the odds your first spell is meant to, you know, detect things?”

“Now that you mention it, I’d have to agree. Pretty weird. I wonder if the catacombs are meant to be more than just random death puzzles and random prizes. Could the magic that controls them also discern something about the people within?” He sighed and looked out the window as he set the potion on the little round table. “Neither of us knows, but maybe we'll learn more if we do another challenge. Damn, it’s getting dark, and I didn’t do any of the errands I’d wanted.”

“This is more important! Come on, let’s see what kinds of secrets you can uncover about this room!”

Ward narrowed his eyes at her but had to admit she had a point. The words were there in his head, burning to be let out. It would be so easy just to say them and let them flow off his tongue, releasing the mana, turning it to his will, working real magic. “I’m not sure that’s how it works, but I sure want to try. I hope I’m not wrong about how dangerous it is.”

“You have the potion. Come on!” Grace’s eyes shone, flickering with fire in the dim light coming through the window.

“A devil’s telling me to do it. Any angels out there?”

“I could be an angel for all you know!” Grace sighed.

Ward looked around the quiet room; the only sound—other than Grace’s protestation—was Haley’s deep, steady breathing. “No? All right then.” He stared at the center of the room, taking as much of it into his view as possible, gathered his breath, and said, “Shrovak gnyrath.”