The Dark Stone Read online

  Meanwhile, the rabble in the corridor had picked themselves up and were climbing over each other to enter through the splintered door. “Get out!” barked the half-naked man before they’d crossed the threshold.

  Sam held his gaze. He looked older; more so than the time which had passed. A scar bisected his cheek and he was missing a tooth in his stubbled face, but undeniably, the person sitting in front of him was Joshua.

  All of a sudden part of his mind and his appearance were given back to him, as if the beast had taken a step back, and he filled with turmoil, trying to bring reason to his jumbled thoughts. He waited while the confused men at the door tried to figure out whether or not to obey their leader, knowing the creature still had power to smite them at will, if need be. Joshua reiterated his order and they slowly backed away, milling in the corridor beyond.

  “You too,” he said to the woman.

  “But…” she started. The look she gave him demanded answers.

  “I said out.” His voice held steady and controlled.

  Her red dress lay crumpled next to the bed and she snatched it up. When she pulled it over her head both men’s eyes flitted up and down her body, following the curves of her breasts and buttocks. She shot them both a look of fear and contempt before leaving the room.

  Sam turned his head to follow her as she left, before his eyes snapped back to Joshua, sitting up in bed, naked apart from a sheet covering his lower half.

  “Further,” shouted Joshua to all the people gathered in the corridor. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of privacy here. Me and my old friend have a lot of catching up to do.”

  46

  It was Joshua who first broke the stunned silence they shared. “What happened to you?”

  “I was going to ask the same thing,” replied Sam, his eyes darting about the room.

  “Well,” said Joshua. “Go and get yourself cleaned up and I’ll tell you.” He indicated towards a door to the side of the bed, which led into a small antechamber.

  Sam peered through to see that inside was a basin of water and sitting perched on a slender pedestal above it, was a small looking glass. Sam didn’t recognise the reflection staring back at him through blood coated chin and cheeks. Beneath, his skin was grey and taut while his eyes were sunken with pupils wide and black so they left no colour in them at all. Then, without passing through the doorway, he opened his mouth to see the grooves between his teeth were stained red and his gums had gone brown and flaky.

  While Sam studied himself in the mirror, Joshua pulled on some clothes, never taking his eyes off Sam. “Up to you,” he said upon realising Sam wasn’t going to wash. “Sit down,” he said while tying his bootlaces, nodding toward a chair near the window, which was covered by thick, maroon drapes. “It’s good to see you brother,” he said softly and without cheer, while fingering the hilt of his sword which lay next to him on the bed.

  Sam didn’t sit and continued to pace the room, eyeing his old friend as a snake eyes a rat. His mind had become a whirlpool but he tried not to show it and set his features like stone, waiting for Joshua to begin the conversation and struggling to keep his urge to kill in check.

  After more silence between them, he did. “I tried to find you, you know?” He shuffled uncomfortably on the bed. “When they took you, I followed. I wanted to find you, and rescue you.”

  “Rescue?” Sam hissed.

  “Yes. Rescue. I waited a day or two, on my own, but…” his words tailed off as if remembering something he’d rather not. “I hadn’t got far along the road when someone stepped out in front of me. Made me jump near out of my skin he did. Anyway, he shouted ‘It’s only a kid,’ and all of a sudden I was surrounded. They were more curious than anything. I think they’d planned on robbing me but didn’t think I’d have anything of value.” At that he allowed himself a small chuckle. “They didn’t think to check, else they’d have found all the coins stuffed in my pockets. I thought I was in for a long journey you see. Bandits they were, through and through. Well, I was just amazed to see anyone. It had been so long and then after the ones who took you, to see more, and so close to the city where we’d been alone, was just… You know?”

  Sam did know. He’d been through exactly the same emotions himself and remembered the hard time he’d had getting used to the idea. He nodded. “So what happened then?”

  “At first they didn’t believe me; that we’d been living alone. They thought we should be dead. And by rights, we probably should be. Anyway, I asked them to help.”

  “Help? How?”

  “To find you. They took a bit of convincing. Like an idiot I took out some of the gold and offered to pay. You should have seen their eyes light up. Nearly murdered me on the spot for it they did. I had to think fast and told them I had loads of it hidden away and if they helped me find you, I’d share it with them. They wanted to march me back to the stash right away but I gave them what was in my pockets as a sweetener. Looking back on it, I’m glad torture never crossed their minds.” At that he gave a rueful smile and shook his head.

  “So why hadn’t they gone into Riverford, looting for themselves?”

  “Scared. Didn’t want to catch the plague. They thought death was guaranteed if they even went near the city walls.”

  “Oh,” said Sam. “So they went with you?” pressing for him to continue, fully aware sunrise couldn’t be far away.

  “Yes. We started down the road but hadn’t got far before we came across one of the monks who took you, coming the other way.”

  “Brother Aaron,” whispered Sam to himself.

  “Who?”

  “Brother Aaron. He was one of those who saved me.”

  “Well I didn’t know his name. And I thought you’d been kidnapped. We saw him first, coming up the road on his cart. It was just getting to dusk and so we hid and waited. When he was close we jumped out at him.” He said it all matter of factly with a touch of bravado, although Sam noticed a nervous tic in corner of one eye. “We asked him where he was going and he told us to mind our own business. So Old Ken told him it was our road and that made it our business.”

  “Old Ken?” Sam asked.

  “He was sort of a leader you might say. Anyway, we dragged him down off his cart, and they pushed him around for a bit. I was standing to one side and Ken turned to me and said; ‘Is this one of ‘em?’ and I said yes because he was dressed the same.

  “Then they moved aside so I went to stand in front of him. ‘So what you going to do about it?’ Ken asked me, and if I’m honest, I was petrified. So I took out my sword. One of the others pulled off the chap’s hood while someone else held his arms. I put the point of my blade to his throat and he just looked at me, bug eyed and said, dead calm, ‘Are you Joshua?’

  “I was shocked he knew my name. I lowered the sword a bit; I think I was shaking. Some of the others were laughing at me. I knew I needed their respect, especially if I didn’t want them to kill me after they got their gold, and so I lifted my sword up high again and before giving myself chance to think about it, I tried to chop off his head.” Joshua paused for a moment, his stare was somewhere distant. “It just bled at first and the monk fell on the floor and so I stood over him and swung again, and again. It was like trying to chop down a tree. Eventually it came off though, and rolled away in the dirt. His eyes stayed open, I’ll never forget that. It was like he was looking at me, even though his head and body were separate, so I kicked it.”

  Sam coiled, ready to pounce but just managed to contain himself and although he was seething, the creature inside him let the conversation unfold, as if getting Joshua’s measure. Both young men looked at each other and Joshua knew the danger before him. “What was I to do?” he asked with a shrug of his shoulders. “I needed the men to respect me, I was only a boy.”

  “Brother Aaron was a good man,” hissed Sam.

  “And one who kidnapped my brother. You. And now he’s a dead man. I put his head on a spike to show anyone who’d try crossing me what wou
ld happen. The men looked at me differently after that.”

  “They accepted you as one of them did they?” spat Sam, his voice guttural and full of contempt.

  “Sort of,” said Joshua, fingering the scar running across his cheek.

  “And what happened then?” Sam demanded to know, wanting to hear every sordid detail. “And how did you get to… to this?” He waved a hand around the room.

  “Someone left the door open,” replied Joshua. “All we had to do was remove the, erm, previous tenants and make ourselves at home.”

  “I mean,” said Sam, becoming more agitated by the second, “How did you get to be a leader. If that’s what you’d call it?” All of a sudden he was overcome by fatigue and nausea. He felt weak but tried not to show it. Behind him, the curtains had become a shade lighter. Somewhere outside, a blackbird had started to sing.

  “Money; all that treasure we collected, I told you it’d come in useful.” He smiled, reminiscing. “At first they were nervous about going back into the city but I managed to convince them with the promise of gold. There was plenty enough to go around, even after we’d had our pick, and all the time I was planting ideas in their heads. Telling them they could live like kings. Who was to stop us?”

  Sam knew it was him who’d stop them. But he felt odd. Dizzy and tired. So tired it was becoming a struggle to even hold his head up straight. It was a battle to organise his thoughts, which kept dancing off out of reach.

  “Old Ken was the first, and the last, to complain. He’d been used to having things his own way for so long, you see. I remember, we were in the Coach and Horses, you know, that tavern me and you used to go in?” He paused for a while and a quizzical look came over him. “Of course you know. Anyway, he was drunk and got out his knife, demanding I take him to all the gold which he’d been promised and rubbishing my ideas, trying to tell the men I’d get ‘em all hanged and mouthing off about how he’d show me.

  “All the others were nodding and agreeing and I could see things were not going my way, so I had to make an example of him, and quickly, so I did. I took out my sword and he had the cheek to laugh. He said, ‘What you gonna' do with that boy?’ I wasn’t going to stand for that. It’s my city. And so I leapt at him, point first and got him right in the eye. I pushed hard and almost pinned him to the wall, if I’d been a bit stronger I would have. I met every slack jawed stare in the room while I held him there and twisted the blade. Only when I was sure they all understood I was serious, did I pull the sword out and let him fall.” He gave a small chuckle, “Bloody made my arm ache for days that did, but they learned.”

  Sam was impatient. He wanted to be back in the dark, safe from prying eyes and knew he needed to act quickly as dawn was fast approaching, but something held him back. Already his back was starting to feel hot as the sun lightened the curtain and he slumped into the chair by the window. But, he needed to know more about what had happened to Joshua. He needed to hear his guilt from his own lips. “Was it you?” he asked. “Who sent men to the monastery. Those filthy bastards.” The words didn’t come easily and he had to concentrate to force each one past his lips.

  “Yes it was,” came Joshua’s flat reply.

  Sam had heard what he needed to know. “They killed them all,” he said at the same time as trying to spring forward. However, his strength had deserted him and he only managed two faltering steps toward the bed.

  Joshua jumped up, sword in hand.

  To buy some time and to hide his weakness, Sam asked another question. “How did you know where to look. Or did you just go around sacking every holy place you came across in the hope of finding me?”

  Joshua looked to one side rather than at Sam when he answered. “I got lucky there. There was a band of monks came past here a few months ago. They told me where to find you.”

  “Willingly?” asked Sam. His voice had become faint, weak.

  “Not really, no. They took a bit of convincing.”

  With those words, Sam gathered all his strength to attempt another lunge forward, but his legs buckled and he crumpled to the floor. He gazed up at Joshua and only managed another pitiful groan before his vision faded to white. “Please?” The word escaped his lips as a hoarse whisper, before he began to twitch violently, wracked by convulsions. It was easy for Joshua to take a step back and look at his old friend, more with curiosity than with fear.

  47

  All of a sudden Sam ceased thrashing and his unseeing eyes shot open, glowing brightly with the same green luminosity as writing once had on the stone. Inky shadows swirled across the surface of his skin and his mouth opened wide. The scream which escaped him was shrill and long and with it a thick, foul vapour, darker than night, spewed forth from his mouth. For a brief moment it eddied about his head before gathering itself and arcing across the room in a long stream directly toward Joshua, where it parted to enter into his nostrils and ears.

  Sam felt it leave him, a wrench which was as physical as it was emotional. All of a sudden he felt so completely empty, as if a cavernous void had opened within him and he was left a hollow shell. He tried grasping out with his soul, willing the thing back to him, but it was hopeless.

  Joshua briefly staggered back before regaining his balance and adjusting the drapes to block out any stray shafts of dawn sunlight. A hint of green passed across his eyes and he retreated to the darkest corner of the room. Although he shifted uncomfortably, a smile curled his lips as understanding settled upon him.

  “Teresa,” he shouted.

  The woman who’d been sharing his bed appeared at the door in less than a second. She must have been waiting just outside. “Yes?” she said with a small glance towards Sam, squirming on the rug.

  “Fetch some rope will you?” He sounded almost casual.

  The next few minutes were the longest of Sam’s life, as he writhed on the floor with Joshua standing over him and pacing the room. Burning daylight became replaced by exhaustion and slowly, even as Joshua retreated further into the shadows, Sam’s vision was beginning to return. As if waking from a dream, he blinked and looked around before memories of his crimes flooded his consciousness. As his own senses were brought back to him, he became overwhelmed by sensations he didn’t realise he’d forgotten and hardly noticed Joshua was speaking.

  “Sorry,” he was saying. “I have no choice, you do know that, don’t you? I can’t lose the respect of my men; then where would I be?”

  Soon though, he heard Teresa returning along the corridor. “I’m so sorry,” Joshua said again as he took the rope and wrapped it tightly around Sam’s wrists and ankles, before looping the rope through both bindings and pulling Sam into a tight ball, with his hands and feet touching.

  “How?” whispered Sam. “It’s me.” He started to cry. “Help me?” He pleaded. Any strength he had once possessed deserted him so completely and utterly as he lay trussed on the floor. “It’s gone now, it’s me. I promise.”

  Joshua got on his knees and lowered his face to whisper in Sam’s ear. “I know,” he said before turning toward Teresa. “You can leave now.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Go, and don’t come back until the night after next.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Just, go,” he yelled loud enough for her to rapidly leave the room, almost colliding with the doorframe on the way out. “And make sure no one comes further than the end of the hall,” he shouted at her receding back. “Until the night after next.”

  Even as the words were leaving his mouth, he was striding into the small antechamber, slamming the door behind him. Sam was left alone, crying like a newborn, his thoughts a blur.

  As the sun rose higher, sending slivers of sunlight shining in narrow beams from gaps at the edge of the drapes, memories of violence came bubbling to the surface and the hollow inside him was filled with deep remorse and shame so profound he willed his heart to stop beating, but it didn’t. He thought of his family and of St Peter’s and although he grieved afr
esh, all his anger and hatred had gone. He tried to summon them; tried to hate to give him strength but the emotions which had been so strong within him couldn’t be invoked.

  For a while he lay in a half-swoon, basking in the weak winter warmth coming through the window, until the cramps started; first in his legs, then his shoulders, back and belly. At first he welcomed the pain as a distraction from the deep depression in his mind, but as the morning wore on, the cramps became unbearable. Raging thirst and hunger ravaged him; but it was not blood or meat he craved, rather he fantasised about water and bread. Occasionally he heard shuffling and muted voices from along the corridor, well out of sight of the splintered door, but Joshua’s loyal followers obeyed his wishes and no-one entered the room.

  All day he was alone with his sorrow and his pain. Sometimes he managed to doze for a few minutes and during these times he dreamed of lying in summer meadows with Elle by his side, and each time he awoke with a start, panicked and hurt.

  Shortly after sunset, a naked Joshua emerged from the antechamber. Already he looked paler then he had, his eyes set a little deeper and his face gaunt. Sam stared at him, recognising what he himself had, until recently, been. “I’m hungry,” said Joshua, rubbing his stomach. Sam felt a sudden yearning for the thing which had been in him and jealousy toward his friend for having all the power. He tried to speak but his throat was too dry and his lips gummy.

  “How rude of me,” said Joshua and leaned forward, slicing through all Sam’s bonds in one movement. Sam looked at his hands as they moved past his face; on the surface they appeared normal.