A Brotherhood of Crows.
Chapter 14

For the first time in many years, Gorcrow felt afraid.

His fingers shook visibly as he keyed the message into his communicator (Get down here now!) and his breathing was ragged, and very loud, amplified by his mask. As he set the communicator down, he fell forward slightly, catching himself with outstretched hands on the edge of the table. He counted his breaths, replaceing himself falling back on an old technique for managing anxiety that he had not needed since he’d been a small boy, long before he’d been a Crow.

It had been sudden and unexpected; deep within the twisting, ornate corridors of the Rookery, Gorcrow had worked by the pale, yellow glow of gas lamps. His laboratory was compact but functional, and centred around an operating table. Over this, he had hunched, his hands moving between various vials and beakers as he blended, mixed and stirred the contents of a large erlenmeyer flask.

The gentle clink of glass on glass was interrupted by the soft sound of approaching footsteps. Gorcrow straightened up, and glanced over his shoulder. “Brother Vraath.” he said.

“Brother Gorcrow,” Vraath had slipped out of the shadowy flight of stairs that led down to the lab, and drew level with Gorcrow. “I trust I am not disturbing you?”

“Not at all, Brother. Though I admit I am surprised to see you. I understood the Council of Ravens was debating who should succeed Brother Garth?”

“Indeed,” Vraath interlaced his fingers behind his back, and began to inspect the surroundings. Gorcrow had watched as his eye moved over the esoteric collection; one wall had been given over to mechanical objects - steel exoskeletons that might slot over limbs, their structure punctuated by retracting claws; above those a series of cages that might encapture a human head. “The Council remains in session, but the substance of the matter has been agreed upon.” he glanced, sidelong at Gorcrow. The dim lighting gave the stretched out skin of his mask a gaunt, horrifying air, but at the same time there was something of a laconic smile to it. “You know me well enough to know how much the business of the Council drags on, and bores me.”

“And so you came to see me? I’m honored, Brother,” Gorcrow crossed his arms and watched the other Crow slowly circling him. “It has been a long time since we spoke privately.”

“It has,” Vraath turned his attention to the operating table, casting his gaze over the vials and beakers. “Ha,” he laughed softly, “Dimenhydrinate...mescaline...phencyclidine...how our methods diverged, Brother.”

“You were a good mentor to me,” Gorcrow said, slowly, “But as you know, I have my own ways. Do you not approve?”

Vraath clicked his tongue beneath his mask. “Come now, Brother, it is not my place to approve or disapprove. You were always a quicker learner, and it was only natural that your work - and your interests - outpaced my own. If your work serves the Brotherhood, then I shall not pass judgement.”

The “if” hung heavily in the air between them. Gorcrow moistened his lips beneath his mask. “What have you come to tell me, Brother?”

“Tell you? Nothing as such, but merely offer some advice,” Vraath rested his hands on the operating table, and watched Gorcrow beadily. “Do you know the story of Brother Abelard?”

“That name is not familiar to me, Brother,” replied Gorcrow, frowning.

“He was perhaps, before your time. An old Crow, very old, perhaps as old as Wrath. Like you, he was a creator - a scientist. When I was your age, he was respected in these halls, an innovator, a visionary. Like you, he was a fast learner, some would say impatient. His clashed regularly with the Council. And, like you, he commanded much respect among the younger Crows, myself included.”

Gorcrow snorted dismissively, “You flatter me, Brother.”

“I do not,” said Vraath, and there something steely in his tone. “You have the respect of many of our Fledglings...word of your performance at the Council of Ravens has spread among our ranks...I hear whispers that there are some even consider themselves your disciples...the Sons of Gorcrow, they call themselves…”

An uncomfortable feeling was growing inside Gorcrow. It was impossible to truly read another Crow’s feelings when all that was visible were the eyes, but he hoped that his gaze was far calmer than he felt. “What happened to Brother Abelard?”

“Abelard, like you, differed with the Council on the aims of the Brotherhood. Yet, while you see a solution in these…”Vraath waved towards the shelf of mechanical limbs, “concoctions of flesh and steel, Abelard believed it was possible for Brothers to tap into pure Chaos with the mind alone. He believed that we were simply blind, unable to truly see the power we so desperately craved. He believed that we did not possess the right eyes. He believed that if only we could see, if only we had eyes, we might behold the world of the Pale Citizens themselves.”

“He tried to commune with the Long Friends?”

“Perhaps. Abelard withdrew from the Brotherhood at large to his research, and perhaps, at this point, from sanity itself. He carried out experiments, taking his own advice literally. He would try to create beings with eyes, eyes everywhere, truly believing that if we simply had enough eyes, we might see. He would snatch the dregs of society from the streets, tear out their eyes and give them new ones, the eyes of crows and dogs, trying to create a hybrid creature that might have true insight. He also believed - like you - that he could access a realm of infinite Chaos, and that if he could only see clearly, overcome his human blindness, our Brotherhood would become more powerful than God himself.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He was sloppy. He kidnapped too many people. Some of his failed experiments escaped, and survived long enough to be seen by the public. Had we not had suitable influence in the media, our order might have been exposed. The Council of Ravens had to act. Abelard...well, he fled into the catacombs. A team of Brothers pursued him, and were found, weeks later. He had taken their eyes. Perhaps he is still down there.”

Gorcrow wasn’t surprised. Many Crows did go mad, for one reason or another, and beneath the Rookery ran a vast labyrinth of tunnels and passages which, rumour had it, stretched for miles beneath the city of London. The idea of old Crows stumbling blindly and madly in the pitch darkness unnerved him to no end. “I suppose,” Gorcrow said, “That the moral of this story is that I should be cautious, to avoid Brother Abelard’s fate?”

Vraath hadn’t replied for moment, but hung his head as if in thought. “...I remember the day you arrived, Brother. I have known you for ten years. I tutored you, watched you grow, watched you move beyond me, as so many others have. But of all those, Grocrow, you have been dear to me. And yet I know nothing of you. I do not know your name. I do not know your face, or what your life is like outside the Brotherhood.”

“To do so would be blasphemy,” replied Gorcrow.

“Yes, blasphemy,” repeated Vraath. “To know another Crows name, to see another Crows face...or to share your mask with another Brother.”

It took every ounce of Gorcrow’s self control to avoid starting visibly. “Are you accusing me of something, Brother?” he had said, carefully.

Vraath held his gaze, unflinching. “Not at all, Brother. I merely comment that you have a remarkable ability to be in many places at once. I see that a shuttle departed this morning, bound to intercept the airship Cerberus. You were it’s only passenger. A journey such as that might have taken six, maybe eight hours before you returned. Yet here you are, hard at work in your lab. And judging by the concoctions before you, I would say you had been here since dawn.”

He knows. “To let another Brother wear my mask is a crime punishable by death,” said Gorcrow, the beak of his mask punctuating every syllable with a dry click.

“Indeed, Gorcrow,” Vraath’s gaze unnerved him. “But perhaps this is not the case. Perhaps...aha...you are simply so fast in your work you can accomplish something others cannot. An admirable skill, certainly.” He took his hands off the edge of the operating table, and let them fall to his sides, vanishing beneath the knee length poncho, giving him a shapeless form. “But I digress. The moral of Brother Abelard’s story is, as you say, one of caution. What you are aiming to do is ambitious, but also dangerous. If you have been honest with the Brotherhood. If. You must be careful.”

“I appreciate your warning,” replied Gorcrow, stiffly, “But I know what I am doing.”

“I have no doubt,” Vraath said, dryly, “My fear is that no one else does.”

Now he was gone and Gorcrow was finally, finally starting to calm down. Of all the Crows who might see through him, Vraath was the most likely. His scrupulous pedantry knew no bounds, and while Zacken was more concerned with maintaining power over the Council of Ravens, Vraath interested himself with the minutiae of every experiment. What if Vraath spoke to Zacken? Or called a Crow moot and publicly accused him? He would need to move quickly, need to act fast in order to stay on schedule - and stay safe.

There came the sound of running feet and a young Brother burst into the lab, breathless and stumbling. His mask was that of an Anglerfish - a wide, gaping mouth, lined with rows of wickedly sharp teeth - made from real ivory, and mad bulging eyes. Layers of silver gave the shimmering impression of scales, and protruding from the forehead was a long line, at the end of which a small flame burned.

It was, Gorcrow thought, a god awful mask.

“Brother Gorcrow!” the Brother gasped, wheezing from his run, “ I’m sorry, I came as soon as I -”

“Did you get what I asked, Brother Wolfgang?” snapped Gorcrow. In the presence of a lesser Crow - practically a fledgling, - Gorcrow felt his confidence growing again. He drew himself up to his full height. He was a good head and shoulders taller than Wolfgang.

“Yes, of course, of course…” Wolfgang fumbled to put away his communicator. “I have a dozen Clockwork Hearts ready for field work, as you requested. Brother Luther is ready to lead them into combat.”

“Does he understand his task?”

“Of course, Brother. He knows what needs to be done.”

“And do you understand your task?”

“Perfectly, Brother,” Wolfgang nodded enthusiastically, the lure on his mask shaking violently. “My transport leaves within the hour,”

“Very well,” Gorcrow strode across the lab, and returned to the operating table, carrying a heavy wooden crate. He set it down with a dull thud. “Are you willing to commit yourself to this, Brother?”

“Of course,” said Wolfgang, a little nervously. “You know you have my loyalty. I would die for the Brotherhood. All things die -”

“- All things rot,” Gorcrow finished the mantra dismissively. “Then if this is true, you need to take this with you. You will know when you need to use it. You may open it.”

Gorcrow stepped back, and gestured to the crate. Brother Wolfgang hesitated, his mask shifting from side to side warily, that absurd lure jiggling as he did so. Eventually, he moved forward, and opened the crate.

Gorcrow heard his sharp intake of breath. “Brother Gorcrow...this is blasphemy!”

“No, Brother. This is necessary.”

*

Her name was Johanna, though Zularna was slightly ashamed to say that she hadn’t learned that until the morning after the night they’d met at CC Blooms. After the second night, about a week later, she’d learned that Johanna was a part time social work student, who spent most of her time when she wasn’t out in Edinburgh’s queer bars volunteering at Access Point in Leith. That has provoked something of a rant about the suffering of Edinburgh’s homeless community; about the unavailability of social housing and the “fucking stupidity” of the Commonwealth’s attempts to treat homeless as a moral, rather than social, problem, and thus many street sleepers now were expected to have church membership and show repentance if they wanted a bed for the night. The passion with which she’d spoken stirred something in Zularna, more so than with what she’d assume would be a friend with benefits.

In a weird way, it was that passion that meant that, more often that not, Zularna would wake up to replace Johanna’s back pressed against her front. Always the big spoon, she thought, Tall girl problems.

“It sounds like you’re gonna do it,” Johanna said. They were sitting up in bed, sipping tea - or at least Johanna was. Zularna’s had gone cold as she’d began to follow the rabbit hole of her own thoughts - and watching the Edinburgh rain come down hard on Zularna’s rooflight.

“Hmm?” Zularna continued to watch the rain raindrops fall, smearing the sky behind it like an impressionist’s brushstroke.

“I said ‘it sounds like you’re going to do it’” repeated Johanna. She gave Zularna a gentle punch on the arm - careful, Zularna noted, to avoid the bruises left by the creature in Waverly. “You wouldn’t have told me about it unless you were considering it.”

No, thought Zularna, I wouldn’t. Her relationship with Johanna -

(Was it that? A relationship? They’d never talked about it. Never called one another girlfriend, not just publically - that was hard enough to do these days, thanks to the Ministry of Theological Justice - but also in private, because Johanna maintained she wasn’t looking for something serious, despite her actions suggesting otherwise, and Zularna couldn’t do the relationship thing because that...that required something Zularna was missing.)

-Involved a lot of talking, but more on Jo’s side than hers. Johanna had clicked, early on, that Zularna didn’t answer many questions, so Johanna had stopped asking. She’d asked about the bruises, sure, and had nodded to Zularna’s half hearted explanation with a nod and a sadness in her eyes. Partly, this wasn’t a problem, because Johanna was one of nature’s best talkers, and could happily monologue about everything and anything, and Zularna let her because it meant that she had less to say.

But she, Zularna, has mentioned it. In abbreviated form, leaving out names, a few key details, especially the fact that she’d gone had lunch that day with someone who’d saved her life from a mechanical monster.

But mentioned it she had.

“I guess,” she said, and sipping her tea, immediately wrinkling her nose at its tepidity.

“So…?”

“So, I’m going to make another cup of tea. Want one?”

Zularna hop out of the bed and padded over to her kitchenette. She’d gotten about halfway there when a pillow lightly bounced off the small of her back.

“Harsh,”

“Christ, Zu, can we ever have a conversation that isn’t one sided?”

Oh. She has noticed. “I didn’t have much else to say. Sure you don’t want another?”

“You’re avoiding the question?”

“No, I’m making tea.”

Zularna watched the kettle boil. She also noted the silence. For Zularna to go quiet in the middle of a conversation was normal. For Johanna, it meant trouble. She busied herself with pouring the tea into a fresh cup, adding a splash of soya milk, and stirring it, far too many times, because if she kept stirring and watching the colours of the liquid flow into into one another lazily, then..

Then this would go on being a one sided conversation.

Zularna cupped her tea in her hands, and returned to the bed. Johanna sat, with the bedsheets half wrapped around her lower body, a loose low defensive wall. She didn’t look up as Zularna sat down next to her, instead tapping viciously at the holo-screen of her phone, as if she were trying to stab it to death with her fingers. Zularna watched her quietly for a moment; took in the hair - long and raven black, shining onyx, hair of which Zularna was jealously because she’d never been able to grow hers out - the skinny, short body - dwarfed by one of Zularna’s much larger old t shirts - and the silent clamour of anger and frustration written across her face.

Sighing, Zularna reached out and lightly stroked the back of one of Johanna’s furiously typing hands.

“Jo?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You always are,”

Zularna hesitated. “Ask away.”

Johanna stopped typing. “...what?”

“Ask away. I’m an open book. What do you want to know?”

Johanna regarded her suspiciously for a moment, and then set her phone down. “I’m just worried about you.”

Zularna raised an eyebrow. “You’re worried?”

“I don’t get it. You tell me about this meeting you have, but you won’t tell me who it’s with, or what he wants you to do...like…” Johanna trailed off, and flailed her arms, as if hoping to shepard words from the air around her into her mouth. “You have trust issues. You never go out with friends. You keep yourself away from the world. You barely tell me anything. Now you want to go an do some job for a weird guy, what, because he bought you lunch?”

Well, didn’t ‘buy’ as such. “It’s a bit more complex than that -”

“Yeah,” Johanna looked at her sadly, “And I’m worried it’ll be dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Zularna repeated.

Johanna locked her gaze, and while her eyes were still sad, there was steel in that sadness. “It always is, with you, isn’t it?”

Zularna leaned back and sipped her tea. A sudden burst of nausea bloomed in her stomach, and her skin rippled as if with fever. In her mind, panic mounted up and rode a merry path, trailing a series of sharp statements in his wake like a Pied Piper. She knows, doesn’t she. She knows about the men you’ve killed. She knows that the bruises aren’t from sports. She knows about the locker in Waverly, or about the crossbow and axe hidden in a fake compartment under the bed less than a foot from her body. You could almost take that, if you had some warning.

But what if she knows even more?She knows about seeing the past and she knows about your past and so she must know that you don’t have trust issues, really, no what you have is a whole lot of shit packed into not a long life and that there is something deeply, deeply wrong with you, because she knows the trail of destruction you’ve left in your wake. And she knows about the bodies you didn’t intend to leave behind…

In the cacophony of her thoughts, Zularna didn’t notice Johanna’s hand move, until it was against her cheek, the fingers tracing the line of her jaw.

“You ok?” Johanna whispered.

“...yeah,” Zularna said, after a while. The tension in her mind was starting to dissolving at Johanna’s touch. Panic hopped off his ride and hitched it up, and returned to his ever present loiter. “Jo?”

“Yeah?”

“If it was dangerous, would you stop me?”

Johanna smiled, faintly. “I’d try.”

Zularna grinned despite herself. She raised an arm, and let Johanna curl up next to her, the latter’s head resting on her chest. Johanna nuzzled against her, and for a few moments there was silence, and softness and panic sat and fumed, while the rain continued to slam, ineffectively into the rooflight.

Johanna stirred, and plucked, from the bedside table, the business card Zularna had dropped there.

“Why ‘Sleepwalker’?”

“I guess,” said Zularna, as she reached for her phone, and pushed in Elijah’s number, “I’ll replace out…”