Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute - Jonathan Howard

He cleared his throat, and began with a creditable attempt at meeping: ‘I bear you no ill-will. I only seek counsel with one who lives in this place. My name is—’

‘I have told you once before,’ said a ghoulish voice from the shadows, and it spoke in English. ‘I know who you are, Johannes Cabal.’

‘Ah,’ said Cabal, his concern at the reappearance of the ghoul who had spoken to him in Arkham at least slightly offset by his relief that he could speak a more civilised tongue. ‘Guten Abend. We meet again, it seems. You still have me at a disadvantage, though.’

‘Only one, Herr Cabal? You are surrounded by sixty of my brethren. Your disadvantages multiply.’

‘I have made provision for that,’ lied Cabal. ‘No, I am more interested in who you are.’

‘Who I am is what I am, and I am a ghoul. That is all there is to me, and I am content in that.’

‘Obviously I am delighted that you have found satisfaction in your current employment, but you hide in semantics. As you wish, then. Who were you?’

A pause. Then, ‘Does it matter?’

‘It might.’

Another pause. ‘I forget. It all seems a long time ago when I walked in the light, and ate burned meat . . .’ There was a liquid throaty growl from the other ghouls, a sound Cabal knew to denote disgust. From a race that routinely ate gamey human cadavers, it wasn’t a sound that received much use. ‘. . . and vegetables.’ The liquid throaty growl sounded again, louder this time. Cabal noted that the Ghoulish language certainly maintained a higher level of incipient threat than human languages. It was hard to imagine sixty people managing to be so menacing while chorusing, ‘Eew . . .’

Cabal did not believe for an instant that the ghoul had truly forgotten its human identity, but they were inclined towards a wanton abstruseness. When one is a burrow-dwelling anthropophagist, one must seek entertainment wherever one can, so the ghouls had raised the sport of being mysterious to a level worthy of admittance to the Olympic Games. Not that they would ever actually turn up: they would just send some cryptic clues to the opening ceremony hinting that they might. Thus, this ghoul was almost certainly hiding its identity for some reason. That was comforting, as it implied that since the ghoul had a long-term plan for Cabal, it would not spoil it by eating him. At least, not by eating him prematurely. It was a toxic sort of guarantee but, for a man in Cabal’s profession, it was much better than he was used to.

As the ghoul did not wish to discuss its personal history at this juncture, Cabal decided that it was permissible to skip the pleasantries and get on to the real reason for his visit. ‘There is one who lives here . . . who I believe lives here.’

‘You speak of the witch,’ said the ghoul, barely before Cabal had finished. ‘Yes, she is here.’

Cabal was too shrewd to be elated by this statement: the ghoul had specifically not said that she lived there, only that she was there. It might mean nothing, or it might mean everything. ‘She lives here?’ he said, with some emphasis.

‘She lives,’ said the ghoul, and Cabal thought he had heard a note of amusement. Ah, he thought. So teasing people as to whether somebody’s alive or dead is what passes for humour in ghoul circles. Then the ghoul said, ‘You must speak with her. It is your destiny.’

Cabal’s hackles rose slightly. In his experience, people who talked in terms of destiny were those without sufficient reason to be doing what they were doing. Not so very long ago he had suffered the misfortune of being in conversation with a military man intent on starting a war with his country’s neighbours. He had spoken in terms of destiny, too, because, if that had been forbidden him, he would have had to admit that his motives were little better than rape, pillage and seizing the land of others. Calling it ‘destiny’ made it seem so much more noble. So it has always been, and so it will always be.

As if understanding his reserve, the ghoul said, ‘If you prefer, it would be wise to speak with her.’

‘Just to be clear,’ said Cabal, ‘do you mean wise purely as in pertaining to wisdom, or was it just an implied threat, with a flavour of or else about it?’

There was another pause. Cabal thought he heard the ghoul sigh. ‘Which will induce you to speak to the witch, Johannes Cabal?’

Cabal thought about it for a moment. ‘Under the circumstances, either.’

‘Then it hardly matters, does it?’ The ghoul was beginning to sound angry now. ‘You are just as contrary as your reputation suggests.’

‘What reputation?’ asked Cabal, slightly taken aback. It counts for something when ghouls consider one infra dig.

‘Go beyond the jade pagoda and look for the firelight. You will go unmolested by my people, but go quickly.’

The glowing eyes vanished quickly in scatterings of pairs. In moments the sense of being observed lifted from Cabal and he knew the ghouls were gone.

Breathing a sigh that might have been of exasperation or might have been of relief, Cabal looked around until he found a pagoda a few yards into the clutter of tombs. It stood some six yards tall, and was decorated with great slabs of jade. One lay by the pagoda’s base, along with the tools that a foolish thief had used to remove it. It seemed that they had found to their cost that this particular part of the necropolis had no need for night-watchmen. Cabal walked slowly around it – pausing en route for a moment when something that he suspected was part of the thief crunched under his foot – and finally reached the rear of the structure.

The firelight was easily visible from there, flickering by a Grecian temple that had been built by students of Socrates, according to logical paradoxes rendered in architectural form. Given this provenance, it was no surprise that it had long since fallen over. Amid the tumbled columns, a figure sat upon a large bust of Socrates at his most disgruntled. She wore a black cloak that made her outline difficult to discern against the encroaching shadows, made deeper around her by the inconstant light from the fire. As Cabal approached, he saw she was wearing her cloak’s hood over her brow and eyes. He could see the pale skin and red lips of a young woman but little else.

‘Pardon me, madam,’ he said, in the uncertain tones of a store detective running in a dowager duchess, ‘are you, and I hesitate to use the term, a witch?’

She smiled, and while it was a pleasing smile in purely aesthetic terms, there was something knowing about it that he did not like. It reminded him of the peasant girl with the lamb’s smile, not in appearance so much as in import. ‘What were you expecting, Johannes Cabal?’ she said. ‘Somebody uglier? Wartier?’ That smile again. ‘Sluttier?’

‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘Do I know you?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘No. We have never met, although . . . although you may know me by reputation.’

Cabal grimaced. ‘It’s all reputations around here.’

‘Not around here. Back there,’ and he knew she was speaking of the waking world. ‘You need a clue. Very well. Do you recall the last little book of Darius?’

‘The Opusculus V? What of it?’ Realisation was sudden. ‘You? I . . .’ He somehow rallied his dignity in the face of astonishment. ‘Madam, I was very much under the impression that you were dead.’

‘Death is a very relative term here, sweetie.’

Cabal was briefly unsure whether to be more rocked by the discovery that he was talking to a woman whom he knew beyond all reasonable doubt was dead, or being called ‘sweetie.’ He decided ‘sweetie’ could wait.

‘Miss Smith? That is you, then?’

‘Smith . . . That is a name I haven’t heard in a very long time. Here, I am simply the witch of the old cemetery, and it suffices.’

‘I heard that you killed yourself when they came for you.’

‘Then you heard the ramblings of ignorant minds. I was not dead, only sleeping. The Opusculus V contained a formula for a certain narcotic that allowed dream travel here, into the Dreamlands, even for somebody unskilled in focused dreaming. I was in a coma, as they would have discovered if they had had a doctor with them.’

‘Yes,’ said Cabal, gravely. ‘Torch-bearing mobs tend to be very weak on bringing along medical personnel.’

‘The first I knew that something was wrong was when the ritual of return failed, and I realised that it was because I had no body to return to. Tell me, Johannes, what did they do to me?’

‘Outside, they had hanged you in effigy. So . . .’

‘There was a rope handy. How cowardly. And what became of my body?’

‘They realised belatedly that they were in a lot of trouble, buried you in a shallow grave, and disappeared back to their homes to carry on the charade of being decent people.’

She cocked her head slightly, and Cabal had the unnerving feeling that she could see him perfectly well, despite the lowered cowl. ‘And how is it that you know all this detail, hmm, Johannes?’

‘You know full well that I wanted the Opusculus V for myself. I have the first four volumes, but they are of limited use without the fifth.’

‘Let me guess. You ransacked my rooms after the coast was clear? But . . . you did not find it.’

‘Because it was not there,’ said Cabal, finally feeling better about his searching skills.

‘And when you could not find it, you cut your losses by taking my body for experimental material.’ Cabal blanched. The witch laughed with delight and pointed at him. ‘Ha! Just an educated guess, Johannes. It’s what I’d have done in your position.’ She paused. ‘Oh, God. You’ve seen me naked.’

‘You made a very beautiful corpse,’ said Cabal, making an ill-judged attempt at gallantry.

She smiled at his discomfort, but it was not a cruel smile. ‘So here we are.’ Then the smile slipped away and she said, in the steady, forceful voice of an oracle, ‘Johannes Cabal, you are in terrible danger. You should never have accepted the commission of the Fear Institute. You should never have come to the Dreamlands. Now it is too late to avoid. You must face the coming dangers. You are a scientist, and the very idea of destiny is anathema to you, but there is more than one sort of destiny. Yours is not predetermined, but it is a narrow path. You must cleave to this path, for if you step from it you will fall.’

Cabal listened, impressed despite himself. ‘And how will I know this path?’

‘Your own will shall guide you. You must search for the Phobic Animus, and you must find it. You must do so with urgency and determination, never permitting distractions, never losing your way.’

‘But there will be false leads, wasted time. How can I be sure that I am staying on the path?’

‘To err is human, Johannes. Mistakes do not matter as long as they are honest, as long as you never, ever hesitate or give up. Do you understand me?’

Cabal was thinking hard. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?’

‘Because this is the Dreamlands, and we all have a role to play here. You are the hero on the quest, and I am the wise woman who gives you counsel.’ She laughed, breaking character. ‘Neither of us is ideal for our job, but you just have to do what you can.’

‘Then why don’t you just tell me where the Phobic Animus is, Miss Smith?’

‘Oh, lots of reasons. First, that would make this a really short quest. “Oh, here’s the Holy Grail. It was down the back of the sofa the whole time.” Second, I honestly don’t know where it is. “Wise” isn’t the same as “omniscient”, you know. Third, one of your little pals is going to turn up at your meeting tomorrow with a strong lead. You should follow it.’

Cabal frowned suspiciously. ‘I thought you said that you’re not omniscient.’

‘I’m not. I’m just very well informed.’

‘And this is the extent of your power? Scientia potentia est? You have a spy network, and ghouls for bodyguards.’ He sighed. ‘You have no power to divine the future. So all that dramatic soothsaying was just that? Drama?’

‘I am doing a great deal for you, Cabal, even if you don’t realise it yet. As for power, the Dreamlands are different.’ Her voice had become dangerously calm. ‘A few weeks ago, a thief came here to steal jade from the pagoda. I like the pagoda, and told him to leave or face the consequences. He didn’t leave.’

‘So you set the ghouls on him. Yes, yes, I stood on his skull.’

‘How big a fool do you think that thief was? He came in broad daylight.’ Cabal furrowed his brow in surprise. The sun would drain the life from a ghoul. ‘No. It wasn’t the ghouls that made his eyes boil in his head or his roasting flesh peel from his bones.’ She lifted her face a little and, as she did so, the cowl fell back far enough for him to glimpse her eyes. Then he knew that she was telling him no more than the truth. ‘Not that the ghouls thanked me for doing their job,’ she concluded. ‘They hate cooked meat.

‘You should go now, Johannes. There’s nothing more that I can tell you.’

Cabal coughed awkwardly. ‘Thank you.’

She shook her head slowly. ‘No. Don’t thank me. I’m sending you into the worst trial of your life, and the only consolation is that the alternative is infinitely worse. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t like this. You’ve attracted attention of the wrong sort now, and there’s no going back.’

Cabal nodded grimly. ‘Nyarlothotep.’

‘Don’t say that name here,’ she snapped. ‘I may have power, but I’m a long way short of bullet-proof and I don’t need that sort of trouble.’ Then she laughed, surprising Cabal. ‘You know, I never have got into the hang of thee and thou and prithee and all that sort of stuff. “Bullet-proof.” I guess I’m just too modern for this place.’ She sobered a little and regarded Cabal through shadowed eyes. ‘But you’re right. You’ve caught on about him already, eh? You always were a clever one. The best rival a girl could hope for. I was so pleased with myself for nicking the Opusculus V before you. I knew you had the other four. You must have been so pissed off with me.’

‘Mildly,’ said Cabal, with extravagant understatement.

‘I’m sure. Look, you remember that town? On the high street, there’s a branch of Winwicks Bank with a safety deposit facility. You want box number 313. I can’t give you the key, but I doubt that will slow you down. A gift from me, Johannes. I hope you live to enjoy it.’

On the way out, Cabal happened upon two men doing a poor job of hiding bags of tools behind their backs. They looked at him, then back along the way he had come with some consternation. ‘’Scuse us,’ said one, ‘but have you just come from the old cemetery?’

‘Yes,’ said Cabal, casually resting his hand on his sword hilt in a not especially casual way.