The Curse of Salamander Street by G.P. Taylor Read Free Book Online

it will not stay forever.’
    ‘What was it?’ Beadle asked.
    ‘A Diakka – a creature created through magic, sent by an old friend to haunt me.’ Raphah smiled.
    ‘The oak staff – was it transformed by magic?’
    ‘No,’ Raphah said. ‘By a power that we can all know.’ He sat next to Beadle and held his hand. Together they looked outacross the vale towards the lights of the castle and the sea beyond.
    ‘Will Demurral follow?’ Raphah asked.
    ‘He will,’ Beadle said. ‘He will not be content until we are all dead.’
    ‘Then we find Thomas and Kate and live or die together.’
    ‘The Magenta will be in Rotherhithe by the morning,’ Beadle said, as if he knew the lad’s thoughts. ‘It’ll take us four days if we travel fast enough. We could get to London before Demurral.’
    ‘ Us? ’ Raphah asked.
    ‘Best we travel together, lad. Can’t have you coming to any harm.’ Beadle laughed. ‘After all, that golden statue you carried must be worth a pretty penny.’
    ‘The Keruvim?’ Raphah asked.
    ‘The golden creature that Demurral had.’
    ‘It’s lost,’ Raphah said as Beadle began to dream by his side. ‘Dropped from the ship and given to the depths. It was my task to return the Keruvim to my homeland. Now it is gone – but I will wait for a sign. There is a power, Beadle, that speaks through the rising of the sun and the dew upon a blade of grass. Soon it will reveal what I am to do. One thing is certain: as long as Demurral has breath he will seek us all. His desire is to see me dead and my spirit captured to be used as trinkets of divination. I know it will not be long before I see him again.’

The Great Chain of Being
    T HE morning breeze carried the chimes of St Martin’s clock down the Thames. The water to the east of London Bridge was crowded with ships of every size. It was as if every vessel in the known world had sought sanctuary as close to the broken and battered tower of St Paul’s as they could berth. From the bridge of the Magenta , Jacob Crane peered into the growing dawn through a long, brass telescope. He rested his arms upon the side of the ship as he bent his knee and strained his back to direct the heavy lens back and forth along the quayside.
    He had not slept but had paced the deck as he had watched the Lupercal burn her way towards Woolwich. The ship had turned on the tide as smoke and fog had twisted together and then, when the blazing magazine had exploded, it had quickly sunk. As the first light of dawn had come upon him, he had tried to rid his mind of the thought that somehow the disease from the ship had survived the pyre and was somewhere in the world of waking men. Crane cast his eye to the entrance of Billingsgate Dock and shouted for the Magenta to be turned to starboard and eased slowly into its awaiting, stinking birth.
    The whole of London appeared to crowd the quayside. Beggars, barons and mountebanks jostled and tugged as cutpurses snatched moneybags and fob chains and ran into the throng of the morning market. The barking of mad dogs echoed through Darkhouse Lane and on to Lyon Quay as the Militia fired musket shot after musket shot, in the way they had done every morning since the coming of the comet, in a vain attempt to quell the madness that gripped every dog in the city. Packs of these discarded creatures had stalked the graveyards, digging into the ground and dragging bits of corpses through streets. So crammed were the burial grounds and so shoddily had the bodies been interred that many were just given a loose covering of earth. In the panic to leave the city when the comet had come many of the dead had just been left in the street. These became a veritable feast for the howling gangs of dishevelled and mis-matched dogs that ran with each other.
    Looking up at the Customs House, Crane envied the row upon row of silent white statues on the marble façade. Their blank white eyes now stared down upon the mob. There at the height was