Chapter Text
At the end of Inkheart, in the crypt below Capricorn's church
It is this place. The confinement and the darkness gnaws at his wits. Perhaps there is also a question of guilt, because Basta himself has most certainly left people to these damp cells- hopeless creatures. Some of them were dead by the time they arrived here, his handiwork or the next man’s, and some…
Well, prisoners descending the stairs to the church crypt are not coming up alive. That is the order of things in Capricorn’s village.
Maybe he deserves being here, after letting Dirtfinger trick him. It had only been a series of small missteps, but then fate thrives in small missteps. Now Basta is alone behind the cell bars, and Flatnose sure didn't seem too eager to lend a hand. None of the other blackjackets stops by. This slip of judgement might have been Basta's last.
He begins to suspect something and it spreads like poison in his stomach: His master has left him to rot. Twenty years of service out the window.
Who had he been before Capricorn? That is a thought the henchman has masterfully avoided throughout the years. A past is superfluous when serving the mighty. Besides, Capricorn has made him so much more than his filthy origin. He has been something. A tool is also something.
Between the cold stone cellar walls, there is just silence, and the silence conspires to make his thoughts move in unnatural paths. Who has he been? Wasn't there a Basta before this? Before Capricorn. His Capricorn.
Out of habit he reaches into his pocket to finger his knife, but of course, it isn't there anymore. His last piece of integrity. Dustfinger even has his fucking knife.
Now Basta knows.
The tide has turned on him. It swallowed him whole the moment he entered the damn crypt. He just hadn’t know about it.
Time inches along. There are no windows down here and so Basta lives in uncertainty of the turn of the stars and the sun. Neither is there a light.
At some point he thinks he hears something other than mice in the dark. Water? Running water... A stream. A stream slowly making its way across the bare earthen floor. But it cannot be, it has to come from his fragmenting mind. He covers his ears with his hands, but the noise cuts through the flesh.
There had been a stream by his childhood home. It has been black with ash, and sluggish. To touch it would leave a black residue that would seep into every crack in the skin. It had been like a mark. Nobody had ever wanted anything to do with a charcoal burner's son. Why is he remembering that now? He tries to forget. Still the image clings to his memory. The stream, thick with waste.
Hours, maybe even days later, Flatnose appears. Basta doesn’t even raise his neck to look at him.
“Boss don’t want you up again,” is all Flatnose says.
There it is. Over. Easy as twisting a pigeon’s neck. Quick as that his former colleague leaves him to himself again.
The darkness is a living thing moving around him. His mind fades in and out of reality. There is nothing in the world beside him than the darkness and the walls. If there are anyone in the church above, Basta sure doesn't hear it. The stone walls form a tomb and he is sealed inside of it. He is already buried, already dead in the earth. Sometimes his own breath scares him.
Wait! Is something there? He could have sworn someone was peering over his shoulder. A specter’s face, hollowed with grief. No eyes…
In his hurry to flee, he trips over his own feet. He stumbles away till he hits a wall. When he looks back there is nothing to see but black, and still he is sure there is someone close by.
For all he knows there could be a ghost right beside him. Right now it might be stretching out a skeletal hand towards him. Coming to think of it, isn’t there a draft here, as from another person’s movement? Basta clutches his rabbit paw necklace.
“God damned it! Flatnose! Cockerell! Anyone?!”
He runs to the cell- bars and starts to bang on them. The rough metal leaves rusted dust on his palms, yet it refuses to yield.
“Flatnose? Cockerell? Magpie? Get down here! Get down here now!”
Eyes. There are eyes in the darkness. He is sure of it now. Everybody knows crypts belonged to the departed and he can sense their stares across the blackness, silent, judging. Their condemnation is personal. How many people had Basta disposed of in his service? He couldn’t tell. Over the years they had begun to blur. Men. Women. Children. Is he sorry for that now, when he is about to die himself? No more sorry than a hammer at the end of its service perhaps.
Time passes.
His master doesn’t want him anymore. Maybe he should just end it already? It may save a little dignity. But how? Beating his head against the wall will do it, but that would be a slow way to go, and painful.
As the hours go, it becomes obvious that he just can’t. So the quiet it is then. Basta and his thoughts.
“Boss don’t want you up again."
He shudders. His throat is splintering from lack of water and his head thumps with every pulse. How long has he been down here?
“Boss don’t want you up again."
He doesn't want to, but he's so weak now, that he imagines his master's disdain upon hearing the news of his idiocy. A displeased Capricorn upon his throne. Capricorn's resentment is ice cold and too much to bear. Basta remembers every failure he has ever done. His mind gets stuck on them, like a wheel turning over a shit infested street in Argenta.
The eyes in the darkness are watching too. Something whispers his birth name and the syllables are filthy with melancholy. His mother said his name like that, in an age so long ago the memory is like an almost forgotten dream. Basta can't stand the thought of her, because close by is the memory of his father. Basta has long ago replaced the wounds of his former life with slashing metal and bloody knuckles. But now when his life is at its end...
He begins to pace about. That is when there is a crack. It comes from below his feet.
A finger?
He crouches down to investigate.
The tips of his fingers meet shards of something smooth and ice cold. Iron? No. He slides it an inch across the ground. As he goes to slide it back his fingers trail sharp edges where the material has split. The edges carves a nice little cut in his skin. From the cut his blood drips warm and thick unto the floor. Oddly enough it centres him again.
What is likewise odd, is that the cut felt strangely like a bite, like a wounded animal lashing out. At the same time it is intimate.
Then this has to be...
“Of course. Of course you are here too."
A glass wedding ring, now in pieces. He almost forget how terrified he is. And he remembers.
A few years after Silvertongue read Capricorn, Basta, and Dustfinger into the new world
How many times had Capricorn told him that this new world was better than their old one? And now he was scraping mould of the walls while the constant hum from the enchanted carriages was sneaking in through the cracked window. The infernal noise never ceased, just like the lights never did. How the hell did people live like this? Basta swore again and almost threw the scraper across Capricorn’s bedroom. Still he gathered himself, swore more profoundly instead, and got up on his feet.
The living room was empty, but the rain machine- the shower- was on. Truth be told he was a little surprised the thing worked, seeing as the alcoholic (exterminated) that used to own the place had let everything decay. It was becoming tiresome with the peeling wallpapers and the smell of sweat that clung to everything inside the flat. He stepped out into the back alley for a smoke. He didn’t have any company there beside a rat scuttling by a dumpster. Evidently the rat was doing better than him, if the fat body was anything to judge by. Basta made a half hearted kick after it, but it hardly cared. So that was it, huh? Not even the vermin was afraid of him here.
Basta let out the longest sigh he could muster. That was as far as he allowed his feelings to run. Capricorn had a way to notice whenever he thought about the old world and he issued punishments to fit the crime. Wasn’t worth it to miss anything, but shoving it down with smoke did put Basta in a pissy mood.
Just then, a man walked up to him.
Basta knew the man was bad news right away. Maybe it was the straight back attitude. He was a head shorter than the blackjacket (and truth be told, Basta wasn't the tallest of fellows), but unlike Basta, he carried his height easily. Sand coloured hair almost to his shoulders, the top bleached blonde by the sun. Bet the ladies loved that. It didn’t help that he had blue eyes as well. The irises were rimmed with green.
Basta tossed the still hot end of his smoke away with an annoyed frown.
“I’m looking for Capricorn?”
Basta squinted at him, but the stranger didn’t take the hint. The little man stretched out a hand. Presented himself with a name that was so opulent and full of sounds, Basta forgot it as soon as it had left the man’s mouth. He was about to ask what the stranger wanted when the master himself appeared in his mock courtyard.
“There you are! I am so happy that you could make it.” His voice was oddly soft; dangerous. He stopped a good two feet away from them, and weighed the stranger with calculated eyes hid behind a thin curtain of politeness. He then showed him into the flat.
What was this? Basta tried to catch Capricorn’s attention, but evidently there were plans above his pay grade. As he skulked inside the flat again as the last of them all, he muttered a little curse. Extra low, so his master wouldn’t hear.
The atmosphere inside the flat was stange and Capricorn's mimic show of hospitality did not help in the slightest. His compliments to the guest closely balanced between praise and mockery.
“Áhpilius! What a delightful name. It runs as smooth as honey against the tongue. It’s a name fit for an emperor.”
The stranger, whose sun tanned neck and content attitude more matched those of a field worker, shifted uncomfortably. His whole demeanour had been so irksome, Basta hadn't really accounted the man's clothes. The trousers looked to be made of rough and rather thick material, unseemly for any city habitant. It closely resembled something a peasant would have used. But the true offender was his grey knitted sweater, which displayed a white criss crossy pattern across the chest and upper arms. Basta found it heinous and not in a good way.
"My name means ocean, in fact," Áhpilus said. "Áhpi is the big ocean. But people mostly call me Ábe, which is the short form.”
He cut off abruptly, as if he had been forced to explain himself when he would rather not. For the first time it seemed he questioned his presence there, and the quiet uncertainty only served to hightlight a sort of girlishness in his young features. He did have a pretty face, Basta supposed, if you could get over the everything else.
Unlike his face though, his voice wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t soothing. It fell squarely, like the bricks masons used to make houses and the quality of it was also rough, imperfect and crumbling at the edges. He's doable enough though, Basta thought darkly.
Doable enough, maybe even very well.
Slowly Ábe’s function began to dawn on Basta. He was suddenly ice cold.
The image of Silvertongue flickered before him. Silvertongue was the bastard who had read them into this land of smog and concrete and wires. He was the reason they had to live in a shithole flat and knife low-lives to get by. Silvertongue had looked innocent enough, and that just went to show, didn’t it. There was no trusting conjurers and magic men. Basta had reckoned they had left that stinking affair behind them. Surely Capricorn knew not to trust snakes of that sort? Apparently not.
“How charming,” Capricorn replied deadeyed. “It shall be a pleasure to witness you perform. Go ahead, show us your worth.”
Ábe looked from Capricorn to Basta. He shifted his weight.
“Here?” he asked.
Capricorn’s patience thinned.
“No, please- out in the stables. Yes, of course here, you dimwit.”
The disrespect caught in Ábe’s eyes and he blinked perplexed.
“You are aware of the… I can’t control who or what goes in the process.”
When he didn’t get a response, he added gravely: “Could be one of you. For all I know.”
The reminder was unnecessary. Capricorn smiled, but it was a smile devoid of feeling.
“Please.”
Looking back, it was easy to mark the reading as the moment of no return. Maybe Áhpilius could have left before and everything could have been different. Maybe none of the later unfoldings would have happened. Maybe they could have continued to live, Basta and Capricorn.
But Áhpilius could no more help himself than Basta when he entered that crypt and by reading was Áhpilius sentencing his own death undesignedly. It was haunting to recollect. Maybe it hurt a little as well, although Basta would never admit to that.
Áhpilus begun to read. He had a considerably different tone than Silvertongue. Silvertongue had been so...wondrous. From the start the warmth in his voice had seeped through to Basta's stale heart and made him feel. It was despicable really.
Áhpilius- on the other hand- began choked. The book he read from was not in a language Basta had ever heard. Its flow was almost offensive at first in its harsh rhythm. What is this even, Basta thought condescendingly. Sorcerers were bad, but the only thing worse than them was a con.
Even so, the longer Áhpilius read, the stronger his footing grew. And with it the air in the room began to shift. By the time Basta noticed it was already filling the living room like thick miasma. The line between Áhpilius' voice and the book, and the real world shook and bled.
Basta shivered and wanted to leave, but the voice kept him staying.
Threading the edges of the mind and reality were phantom images, shimmering. Sea mist drifted over the floor and nipped at his shoes. Soon he could feel the sea as well - heavy dark green and enormous in soul. It seemed almost within reach. But it was a hostile and loving thing, not a sea Basta had ever known. It longed for company, for men to lie down into its sunless depth in the fjords and be a feast for crabs and fish with no colours.
Sliding through white- capped waves was a rowboat. Pineboards and tarcovered, painted green across the upper length. Every few seconds the bow pierced through an incoming wave and sent sea water splashing on the two people onboard. Basta thought he could feel driplets land on his skin too. Ice cold.
A young servant girl rowed the boat. An old man watched from the back. His limbs were thin and his joints yellow, and in his clawlike fingers he held a chest. Nessekonge was his title and soon his legacy would be eaten by moths.
The sky darkened. Áhpilius' voice was everywhere and it shook the landscape.
Coming to accompany him was a melody from the shore. It raised in volume until Basta's ears were ringing and he thought the ear drums were gonna burst. It's the shore itself, the shore is singing, he realised with horror. Up from the lungs of the earth came a song ancient as stone, it rose and fall like the outline of a mountain ridge.
Gos doložiid gonagasat, e- o – leo, e- o -le, fatnasiid dat eai guoska, eana vierisin, e-leo- leo- le.
A piece of land appeared affront of the boat. Its rocks were black and bare and deadly in the choppy sea. Then there was a cavern, dripping and dark. The girl from the boat ventured in alone.
A bad feeling crept up Basta's spine and he wanted her to turn around. He still could not understand the words Áhpilus was saying, but to his horror, Basta knew:
this cavern was a graveyard. Its stones had served as a burial sites for unnamed ages. The dead still lay here, under cracked blocks and in the mouths of small, almost inaccessible side tunnels. Yet the girl continued. She placed the chest on top of the mossridden graves.
A desecration.
Just then, a singling began. Confused, Basta snapped out of what seemed like a nightmare, yet reality was no less bizarre. From air air above him, coins fell. They pinged into the floor with a wondrous melody.
Capricorn's face was turned upward and his entire body was pitch black with greed. For once he was laughing. He stretched out his arms to bless the cursed coins. He was radiant, like a dark sun. Could anyone other than his master have stood there? Basta looked at him with awe, and felt himself small and insignificant. Fear still had a fingery grip on his heart. With his innards still thundering with unease, he slowly let out a hand to touch, to feel the coins pouring down. He felt them hit his skin and still it didn't feel real. His head was splitting. How did anyone disrupt reality like this?
With a shudder, he turned towards the third and last person in the room. Áhpilius stood outside of the downpour. He had already closed the book and now held it like a burden at his side. He was viewing Capricorn with eyes marked with growing doubt.
The only light came in from the orange streetlights outside. Basta counted the last coins and tossed them into a bag. Capricorn was looking out the window with a cup of wine in his hand. His lips were curled into a satisfied smirk. Nothing had been lost under the reading, not from them at least. Capriorn counted that as a success.
He and Basta them hadn't exchanged a word since Ábe had left some hours prior.
"The fellow," he began. His intrusion made Capricorn wrinkle his nose. He didn’t turn to look Basta in the eye.
"What exactly did you tell him he would get from this job?"
Capricorn answered unbothered. "Whatever he needed to hear."