Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute (4 page)

Parkin was talking football in the pub when Mr Jeffries, whose home overlooked the dusty and rarely travelled road that ran by Cabal’s house, entered, approached the sergeant directly, spoke quietly and calmly in his ear, and left again.

Parkin frowned and looked at the calendar hung behind the bar. Beneath a gaudy McGill painting of an exasperated judge and a smirking divorce case co-respondent (‘You are prevaricating, sir. Did you or did you not sleep with this
woman?’ ‘Not a wink, my lord!’), the date caused him some mild consternation.

He buttoned up his uniform tunic, put on his helmet, said, ‘Duty calls,’ to the landlord, slung the last inch of his pint down his throat, and went out to face the dreadful Herr Cabal.

Cabal was unsurprised to see Sergeant Parkin waiting by the pump, trough and rarely used well on the village green, his arms crossed, his expression vexed. He walked directly to the policeman, aware that every busybody in the place was watching them. It did not help Cabal to undermine Parkin’s authority, so he exhibited enough deference to maintain the sergeant’s standing, and just enough coldness to remind the onlookers just who they were dealing with here.

‘Funny time of the month for you to be out of your bailiwick, isn’t it, Mr Cabal?’ said Parkin, loudly enough to be heard by the watchers. Then, more quietly, he added, ‘Bugger me, chum, a word of warning would have been nice.’

‘Of course, Parkin,’ replied Cabal, also quietly. ‘I should have sent a member of my extensive household to tell you. The under-butler, perhaps, or a footman, or possibly one of the many grooms.’

Parkin, who knew that Cabal was the only inhabitant of his house, or at least the only living human inhabitant, grunted, and let the point go. ‘All right, so you’re here now. What is it you’re after? You only had your groceries last week. You haven’t run out, have you?’

‘No. I have had visitors. I believe they are staying at the tavern. I wish to speak to them.’

‘What?’ Parkin shot a glance at the Old House at Home. ‘The undertaker, the unfrocked priest and the bloke who looks like an alky? I knew all that codswallop about butterfly
hunting was bollocks, but I didn’t know they were anything to do with you. I don’t recall you having any visitors before, Cabal.’

‘I have visitors, just not often, and they don’t normally stop here.’ Cabal was aware of hostile eyes upon him, and of the delicate
status quo
of the relationship between the villagers and himself seesawing dangerously. ‘Is this a problem, Sergeant?’

‘If you go blundering into the pub, yes. That’s sacred ground, Cabal. Don’t ever go in there. That’s somewhere safe where they can whine about you to their hearts’ content, safe knowing you’ll never show your face in the place. Going in would be . . . provocative. No, I’ve got a better plan.’

The villagers watched the doughty Sergeant Parkin and the vile Johannes Cabal negotiate quietly until, with dangerous anger showing clearly in his body language, the necromancer turned and strode back out of the village in a cold fury. Parkin stood, arms crossed and haughty, and watched Cabal go until he was past the post office. Then, duty done and the village once more safe, he strolled back to the pub to be bought a pint on the house, a suitable reward for a conquering hero. While the landlord pulled the pint, Parkin made his way into the snug and there found Messrs Shadrach, Corde and Bose eating lunch and muttering to one another in conspiratorial tones until Parkin’s entrance plunged them into an embarrassed silence.

‘Afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said jovially. ‘If you wouldn’t mind eating up smartish, like, packing your bags, and pissing off out of it, the parish would be grateful.’

There was a shocked silence. Shadrach made as if to say something, but Parkin leaned down and said, close enough to
Shadrach’s face that he was momentarily overcome by pipe tobacco and beer fumes, ‘It’s not a request, sir. It’s
not
a request.’ Then, dropping easily to a penetrating whisper, he added, ‘You gentlemen have an appointment,’ and quickly pressed a folded piece of paper into Shadrach’s hand. ‘I wouldn’t be late if I were you, squire.’ Parkin rose, shot them a cynical salute, and went off to claim his beer.

They found Cabal sitting on a fence by the road a mile out of the village, shying stones at a crow. He didn’t appear to be working very hard to hit it, which was just as well since the crow was remarkably good at dodging, and indeed seemed to regard having lumps of rock cast at its head as a show of affection on Cabal’s part. ‘Kronk!’ it cawed joyfully, as a lump of flint the size of a baby’s fist hissed by the tip of its beak.

‘You received my communication, I see,’ said Cabal, as they approached. He climbed down and went to meet them. As he did so, the crow belatedly realised the game was over and flew up to land on Cabal’s left shoulder. He shot it a glance from the corner of his eye that it chose to ignore.

‘You have a crow for a pet, Mr Cabal?’ asked Corde.

‘Hardly that. More a fellow traveller. You want my decision?’ The three men nodded, more or less gravely. ‘I agree to your proposition. I shall guide you into and through the Dreamlands. I emphasise that the knowledge on the Dreamlands I bring to this enterprise is based upon the writings of others, and can only be considered as reliable as they are.’

‘Of course,’ said Shadrach.

‘So, if we get lost, I do not wish to hear a single solitary word that the failing is mine. If I do, I shall feed the complainant to the nearest gug.’

‘What is a
gug
?’

‘Exactly my point. I know, and you do not. My knowledge of the Dreamlands may be flawed, but it is still magnitudes greater than yours. With that caveat, do you remain committed to this undertaking?’

‘We do,’ they chorused, a little shakily.

‘You
are
sure?’ said Cabal, smiling slightly at their quavering voices. He fed the crow an aged macadamia he had found in his jacket pocket. ‘I ask merely because I have a sense that the Phobic Animus is here with us now, for some reason.’

Not trusting themselves to speak, the three men nodded their assent.

‘Good. Well, now. I assume you have easy access to your institutional funds, as I shall be spending a lot of them immediately. Equipment is by the bye: the Dreamlands will provide what we need, at least to begin with. We shall need to travel, however.’

‘Travel, Mr Cabal?’ said Bose. ‘But surely the Dreamlands are coterminous with all space and time? We can enter them as easily from here as from Timbuktu.’

‘I do not recall suggesting Timbuktu,’ said Cabal. ‘Yes, you are right, but simply standing beside a boundary does not allow you to move through that boundary. A high wall allows no access, not until you find the door. I cast lots before I came out today, and I have found a place where the veil between this world and the Dreamlands is suitably fine that the Silver Key will make short work of it. That is where the Gate of the Silver Key lies, gentlemen, and we should make haste before it decides to relocate to the heart of the Sahara, or the depths of the Antarctic, or – gods forfend – Wolverhampton.’

‘And where does it lie now, Mr Cabal?’

‘Somewhere beneath the sagging gambrel rooftops and behind the crumbling Georgian balustrades of Arkham, in the state of Massachusetts. Arkham, that lies upon the darkly muttering Miskatonic. I have not been there since . . .’ He paused, remembering, and that faint ironic smile twitched across his mouth. ‘Since for ever. Witch-cursed, legend-haunted Arkham. Ah, how I’ve missed it. Oh, and the university library has a copy of
Enquêtes interdites
. I must remember to steal it, time permitting. That is for later, however. Can your organisation foot the bill for our travel and accommodation?’

‘It can, Mr Cabal,’ said Shadrach, with encouraging firmness. ‘Ever since its creation some thirty years ago, the Institute has been saving its resources for this great endeavour. We shall have all we need, and more.’

‘Good, good,’ said Cabal, distractedly shooing the crow from his shoulder.

‘We will alert the treasurer of the Fear Institute by telegram immediately, and . . .’

He paused: Cabal was holding one index finger up in a gesture of enquiry. ‘The Fear Institute?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it named after a Mr Fear?’

‘No.’

Cabal laughed, a dry, cynical noise that stirred and died in his throat. ‘There is nothing mealy-mouthed about you, is there, gentlemen? Good. I approve.

‘To the Fear Institute, then, I offer my services.’

IN WHICH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ARE VISITED, THOUGH BRIEFLY

Neither were the claims of Shadrach, Corde and Bose unfounded. Money was requested, and money was forthcoming. They travelled by train to a major port, and there took passage across the Atlantic. Corde suggested they travel by aeroship, but Johannes Cabal made a face, said that air travel was very overrated and that he would prefer to go by surface ship. Thus, forty-eight hours after their first meeting with Cabal, the party was steaming across the ocean, due for arrival at New York in eight days.

‘From there, we take the New Haven railroad service to Boston, and thence . . .’ Bose consulted the back and front of a train timetable for some moments, dropping it to the table in the lounge in favour of another before going back to the first ‘. . . and thence a short trip, also by train, to Arkham
station, which is in, ah . . .’ he read the fine print carefully ‘. . . Arkham.’

Shadrach and Corde nodded sagely at this intelligence. Cabal, for his part, had left his cabin only out of boredom, and was now considering this a folly. The journey so far had been low in incident and high in planning. While a staunch proponent of at least some preparation, Cabal had long since learned the utility and frequent necessity of extemporisation. Once one went beyond that, however, one effectively hobbled oneself, leaving oneself vulnerable and liable to one becoming zero, and one wouldn’t like that. Contingency plans were all well and good, but they were going into a very
incognita
sort of
terra
; it all seemed like just so much wasted effort.

When Cabal made a comment along those lines, however, Shadrach said, ‘We must expect the unexpected,’ before laying out his scheme to deal with pirates riding stilt-legged elephants to the others. It was a good plan, as it happened, but then, so had been the plans to deal with giant platypuses and killer begonias. Cabal wondered if they were simply going through the dictionary and evolving procedures to deal with every noun they came across. He hardly cared, having belatedly realised that the more planning they did, the less he had to talk to them.

He also realised, and this he kept to himself, that the Animus travelled with them. These men were afraid, so they planned for the silliest eventualities simply because it kept them occupied. They denied themselves pause for reflection, because fear breeds in the quiet moments.

Cabal also had a small fear: that eight days of their nonsense would drive him insane. He was regretting having been quite so efficient in his preparation that it left him few distractions.
He had copies of two very rough maps and a notebook filled with the distilled wisdom of any number of laudanum-enhanced poets with respect to useful knowledge of the Dreamlands. It was a very thin notebook.

He was flicking through it when the others finally agreed on a plan in case of attack by soft furnishings, and Corde asked, ‘What was that creature you were speaking of the other day, Cabal? The gog, was it?’

‘Gug,’ replied Cabal, without looking up. ‘It’s called a gug.’

‘Well, I was just thinking, gentlemen,’ said Corde, addressing Shadrach and Bose, ‘that we should also plan for known threats in the Dreamlands. After all, it is that sort of information that Mr Cabal has at his fingertips.’ The others agreed, with much humming and stroking of chins, that addressing real threats might be a good idea. Having secured their agreement, Corde turned back to Cabal. ‘So, what can you tell us about this
gug
fellow, then?’

Cabal merely flicked through his notebook until he came to a sketch, and passed it over to them. He was gratified by their sudden pallor and widened eyes.

‘Yes,’ said Shadrach, finally. ‘Well . . . that looks . . . manageable.’ And the three of them started muttering about deadfalls and bear pits.

Cabal made a mental note that ‘manageable’ could apparently be applied as a euphemism for a furry monstrosity with too many forearms, a vertical slit for a mouth, poor dental hygiene and an uncritical worship of dark gods so debauched that even other dark gods would blank them at dark-god parties. He also decided not to burden them with the knowledge that ‘gug’ was the name of a race and not an individual, or to point out that the sketch bore no scale and so
their assumption that a gug stood only at about man-sized was profoundly optimistic. He would wait until they had finalised their plan before politely enquiring how the gug would react on finding itself shin deep in their trap or, indeed, how any of its many friends might.