Prologue Pin’s Journal How I have come to hate this place of evil, this city of nightmares. Urbs Umida they call it, Dank City, and well it deserves its name. It has taken everything that was precious to me. But I shall leave one day, soon, when I know the truth. I shall pass through those gates and it would please me greatly to not look back. Imagine, never again to inhale the stink of rot and decay, never again to see despairing eyes in the shadows, and never again to hear the name Deodonatus Snoad or to read the lies from his poisonous quill. Fiends, but this place is cold. Winter marches on, the last day of February today. Ah, I can write no more, my fingers are numb. I want to sleep, to wrap myself in darkness. Sometimes I think that maybe this is the dream and that soon I will open my eyes and everything will be the way it was. But then, when such small hope has dared to surface in my heart, I smell the river and I know that her stench is very real. Chapter One Strange Company A corpse on the cusp of putrefaction could hardly be considered the most entertaining company on a winter’s evening but Pin Carpue didn’t do what he did for the conversation. He did it for the money. Tonight, however, things were different. If the body he was watching – her name, when alive, was Sybil – had revived and tried to engage him in some sort of discourse he couldn’t have replied even if he had wanted to. For Pin had just succumbed to a soporific drug. Hardly able to move, certainly unable to speak, he lay in a semi-comatose haze on a bench in the corner of the dark room. The last thing his soggy brain recalled was leaving his lodgings. As for his immediate whereabouts, it was a mystery. With a supreme effort Pin finally managed to open his heavy eyes. He stared into the gloom but it was difficult to make any sense of his surroundings when he had double vision. His thoughts were like clouds floating in the sky, shapeless and gently moving. Overall, he decided, this feeling, this woozy buzzing between his ears, was not wholly unpleasant. Somewhere in the room soft voices were whispering and, if Pin had allowed them, they would have lulled him back to sleep. But another part of him was conscious enough to know that he wanted to stay awake. For any other boy it most certainly would have been beyond his capabilities to keep his eyes open under such difficult circumstances, but Pin was used to staying awake until the early hours. It was part of the job. The job of watching corpses. He also had a powerful ally in his pocket, a glass phial, full to the brim with the waters of the River Foedus. It was a distasteful job, gathering her noxious liquid, but now he was silently thankful that he had filled it earlier. If he could only reach it! His fingers, usually nimble, were like soft rubber and he fumbled just trying to lift the flap of his coat pocket. Eventually he managed to grasp the phial and bring it out. He rested before he engaged in the next struggle, removing the stopper. His hand couldn’t do it, so, with a tremendous effort, he raised the bottle to his mouth, though his arm felt as if it was moving through deep water, and pulled the cork out with his teeth. He took a long, deep sniff and immediately his eyes began to smart and the inside of his nose stung sharply as if he had bitten down on a mustard seed. ‘Fiends,’ he exclaimed in his head and blinked. But the brew had the desired effect and a second sniff brought him slowly back to his senses. Thus slightly revived, though quite exhausted, Pin focused his mind on his situation. Now he remembered where he was. This was the Cella Moribundi, the waiting room for the dead, in Mr Gaufridus’s basement. For some reason he had been drugged by those people, the three shadows that were moving around at the table in the centre of the room. He did not think to try to escape, his deadened limbs would not have allowed it. Besides, he had a feeling that they were not interested in him but in the body lying on the table.
Pin’s Journal
How I have come to hate this place of evil, this city of nightmares. Urbs Umida they call it, Dank City, and well it deserves its name. It has taken everything that was precious to me. But I shall leave one day, soon, when I know the truth. I shall pass through those gates and it would please me greatly to not look back. Imagine, never again to inhale the stink of rot and decay, never again to see despairing eyes in the shadows, and never again to hear the name Deodonatus Snoad or to read the lies from his poisonous quill.
Fiends, but this place is cold. Winter marches on, the last day of February today. Ah, I can write no more, my fingers are numb. I want to sleep, to wrap myself in darkness. Sometimes I think that maybe this is the dream and that soon I will open my eyes and everything will be the way it was. But then, when such small hope has dared to surface in my heart, I smell the river and I know that her stench is very real.
Chapter One
Strange Company
A corpse on the cusp of putrefaction could hardly be considered the most entertaining company on a winter’s evening but Pin Carpue didn’t do what he did for the conversation.
He did it for the money. Tonight, however, things were different. If the body he was watching – her name, when alive, was Sybil – had revived and tried to engage him in some sort of discourse he couldn’t have replied even if he had wanted to.
For Pin had just succumbed to a soporific drug.
Hardly able to move, certainly unable to speak, he lay in a semi-comatose haze on a bench in the corner of the dark room. The last thing his soggy brain recalled was leaving his lodgings. As for his immediate whereabouts, it was a mystery.
With a supreme effort Pin finally managed to open his heavy eyes. He stared into the gloom but it was difficult to make any sense of his surroundings when he had double vision. His thoughts were like clouds floating in the sky, shapeless and gently moving. Overall, he decided, this feeling, this woozy buzzing between his ears, was not wholly unpleasant.
Somewhere in the room soft voices were whispering and, if Pin had allowed them, they would have lulled him back to sleep. But another part of him was conscious enough to know that he wanted to stay awake. For any other boy it most certainly would have been beyond his capabilities to keep his eyes open under such difficult circumstances, but Pin was used to staying awake until the early hours. It was part of the job.
The job of watching corpses.
He also had a powerful ally in his pocket, a glass phial, full to the brim with the waters of the River Foedus. It was a distasteful job, gathering her noxious liquid, but now he was silently thankful that he had filled it earlier. If he could only reach it! His fingers, usually nimble, were like soft rubber and he fumbled just trying to lift the flap of his coat pocket. Eventually he managed to grasp the phial and bring it out. He rested before he engaged in the next struggle, removing the stopper. His hand couldn’t do it, so, with a tremendous effort, he raised the bottle to his mouth, though his arm felt as if it was moving through deep water, and pulled the cork out with his teeth. He took a long, deep sniff and immediately his eyes began to smart and the inside of his nose stung sharply as if he had bitten down on a mustard seed.
‘Fiends,’ he exclaimed in his head and blinked. But the brew had the desired effect and a second sniff brought him slowly back to his senses. Thus slightly revived, though quite exhausted, Pin focused his mind on his situation.
Now he remembered where he was. This was the Cella Moribundi, the waiting room for the dead, in Mr Gaufridus’s basement. For some reason he had been drugged by those people, the three shadows that were moving around at the table in the centre of the room. He did not think to try to escape, his deadened limbs would not have allowed it. Besides, he had a feeling that they were not interested in him but in the body lying on the table.