Chapter Forty-Nine | Akhetaten
To Cainhurst it was through the charcoal and bone ash of Hemwicks rotting corpse. Standing beside an obelisk within that husk of a village she had waved her invitation - as Arianna had instructed - to soon see a carriage drawn by steeds with barren ribs and maggots festering in the deep sunken sockets of their eyes.
Catherine paid no heed to the necromantic march that drew her through the mountains, up, up, into a land of jagged rock and pearlescent snowcaps whittled by the neverending breath of frigid wind. They curled towards the sky like the teeth of a magnificent beast, Fenrir birthed of the earth itself with his twisted maw aimed to gnaw at the face of the moon.
In some way it reminded her of the thestral tethered carriage meant to beckon her each year to and from Hogwarts, only that the beasts shackled to this one were far deeper in the throes of death. Bound indefinitely, a servitude forced upon them to carry nobility and serf alike to their crypt upon the mountaintop.
And Cainhurst, even in death, was resplendent.
A large gate had granted her entry to the castle grounds, leading towards a drawbridge caked in powder that ended in two grand doors unguarded by portcullis or spear. The doors were embedded in fearsome walls that ran the length of the grounds, presumably, curling over the face of the mountain with no hitch or tremble upon uneven ground.
She had taken her time weathering those steps. Enjoying the sharp scent of snow and the way the breeze bit at the few slivers of skin that peeked out between armour and mask. The crunch of the snow underfoot reminded her of better days, and the far away odor of blood and fear that still clung to this place kept her mind from wandering a road of nostalgia.
Upon entering through the great doors, their hinges rocking smooth and without peep nor protest, she came face to face with a courtyard that rolled with gentle hills of which were cut through by a frozen creek, the castle looming far overhead and sprawling across the mountainside - making Yharnam's maddening architecture look even more clumsy - and somehow all the more impressive in the very same breath.
It was massive, gothic, decked in spires and sharp balustrades each of which - were it not for their obvious disrepair - could be considered a work of art in and of themselves. Gargoyles roosted across the parapets, hunched and wicked, standing over stained glass windows of such intricacy that even the most impressive cathedrals back home, when compared, would seem all but childish imitations in the face of such horrid majesty.
To her, it looked as though Notre Dame had been planted atop a mountain and then built into a fortress, before being converted into an abattoir and back again.
The memories she had wrested from the Cainhurst Crow's heart could not do such a thing justice.
Such a view would be perfect, if not marred by the strange beasts lurching across the grounds with great red bellies swollen with blood dragging behind them, or if the quietly babbling creek that shore a path across those hills were running with water, instead of a steady stream of crimson.
Of all the beasts Catherine had seen of Yharnam, these were the most twisted, yet most human. Pushed so far as to be nearly unrecognizable but somehow, still, their faces remained.
They walked on all fours, spine long and hunched with tight ribbons of graying flesh that clung tight to every dip and curve of the bone. A belly, bloated and sloshing red swayed to and fro with every step, scraping up the dirt below. Thick hairs sprouted here and there along their backs, or on spindly elbows and shoulders, upon knuckles wrapped snug with thin, pale skin that ended with wicked black claws that shone in the moonlight. But their faces, framed with greasy, limp strips of long white hair, were still human - bar the deep wrinkles and mosquito like tongue that danced before them as if a wiry, blood-red snake, glistening with poison.
They were beyond sluggish, having gorged for far too long and on far too much, but even then Catherine earned herself a few marks and scrapes for her efforts, dousing the pristine white earth with their blood and the deep pools that jostled their bloated guts. It was a torrent of the stuff, slicing them open like a water balloon so that it all spilled out in churning waves that steamed as they melted the snow beneath.
It wasn't the giant, lumbering ticks that managed to nick her, but great lampreys that leapt out of the blood and attempted to attach themselves to any open spot of flesh they could find. Catherine responded with utmost prejudice, a torrent of bluish flame scattering their ashes in the harsh winter wind.
Not to mention, she herself was feeling sluggish after tearing through the memories of the impostor, a woman of the Choir who went by the name of Beatrice.
She had come to Iosefka's clinic looking for a place to master her craft, the Choir in the habit of keeping tabs of everything that happened in their fair city, particularly a clinic so known for its philanthropy.
Beatrice was no higher up. No researcher of great renown. She was mad, even by their standards, and had gone to Iosefka's clinic without any mention of her plans nor purpose, armed with ritual goods stolen from their stores and whatever books she could drag along, convinced of her success and the glory she would bring to the Church.
And Catherine had learned of the Choir's purpose. To Ascend. Every step they took, every murder in their darkened halls, all for the purpose of attaining godhood.
A nobody she was, but Beatrice had succeeded where the Choir could not, making contact with something to gain that blackened fetter inside her belly. Not to mention, even someone so inconsequential as her - an amoeba slinking across a typewriter which just so happened to birth an epic - had heard tales of a young man who graced the city of Yharnam so many decades ago.
Hand in hand Tom had worked with the Church. Using them for his own purposes Catherine imagined, and they the same. Those wards atop the workshop tower, a place even Beatrice had not been granted entry to, moulded by his hands. The ones that barred entry to Byrgenwerth, coded for the Choir and churchmen to pass freely, his as well.
Tom had embraced the Church during his tenure here in Yharnam and it left Catherine that much more interested in uncovering what he had done in Cainhurst, helping to lead the charge alongside the Executioners that had laid this place to waste.
Even now she could see remnants of the battle. Rubble along her path covered deep with snow, or heavy scores carved across the castle walls. Cainhurst was scarred from head to toe, but each and every scar told a tale and this one made even Catherine tremble with anger.
It was enough to see the corpse pits of Hemwick but at least those had some form of twisted purpose. In Cainhurst skeletons still hung from the battlements, crushed only for the sake of death, and as she finally walked into the castle her heart leapt at the sheer magnitude - the unrepentant horror of the magic that had stricken this place.
Magnificent though the foyer to this place was, a grand staircase leading up and curling to run a second floor along the sides of the room, ceiling peaked and carved with utmost precision, it was plagued by the creeping stench of death that still clung to every nook and cranny.
Her nose wrinkled as she glanced over the strange, ghoulish servants that kneeled here and there, scrubbing uselessly against marble tile that, while it was no longer stained with blood, could never be cleansed of the suffering that had cast a curse over the entire castle. Suffering so immense that she could taste it on the air, see the flicker of ghosts fading through the walls or wailing in the corners, their hands bound together and their bodies pulped, slashed, or carved by the madmen who had come upon their home with zeal.
And then one of those ghosts stabbed her.
Catherine flinched away as the spectre drove a dagger into her side, shrieking like a banshee and making her tempted to clap her hands over her ears. On reflex, she blew open the ghosts chest with a blasting curse and was surprised to find the thing doubling over before scattering into ashes, ashes of which disappeared as they fluttered to the ground.
Not ghosts? Ghosts that could touch?
She didn't rightly know, but her concern spiked as she wondered if it was Tom's magic that left these people immaterial, yet somehow still able to take their vengeance against any wanderers.
With tentative steps Catherine began to make her way up the stairs, listening intently for any movement or quiet sobbing that might alert her to the ghosts traveling about the castle.
She never thought they could be utterly silent.
So accustomed to scent and sound to give her warning, she didn't have even a bare moment to react as a blade pushed through the back of her skull, turning her brains to mince and slicing through her spine before she could so much as blink.
Catherine knew she'd died, properly - not that strange grip she now had on her link to the Dream - as she found herself standing in that very place.
"Shit."
A noise of surprise met her ears, and Catherine looked up to see Melodie stomping over to her. Her neck nearly cracked as she tilted her head up to meet Melodie's gaze, the woman patting her shoulders and looking over Catherine with an inquisitive eye.
"I keep seeing you," she stated, just barely tinged with curiosity. "Flickering in and out, right here."
"Hello to you too."
Her eyes widened. "Oh! Oh dear, my apologies, it's good-"
"It's fine, it's fine." She placed her hand on Melodie's, still resting next to her neck. "I'm just having a laugh."
Of course, Melodie frowned. "How can one own a laugh?"
"Ah, well- it was a joke. I was joking with you. It's good to see you too."
"A joke?" Melodie's hand withdrew to tap a finger at her chin. "No one has ever told me a joke before."
"We'll have to remedy that."
With a wave of her hand Melodie motioned for Catherine to follow her, so she did. The two wandered over to that little alcove that she liked to rest at and where Catherine would sometimes find her sleeping, sitting down on the grass and resting their heads on a tombstone.
"Could you tell me a joke?" she asked after a few, quiet moments.
"I…" Catherine faltered, now wearing a frown herself. "Don't think I know any jokes."
"None?"
"None."
"Whyever not?"
"I don't… I never really had the time for them. I'm not the one ever telling jokes. I've heard them sometimes, but…" she trailed off, feeling very lost all of a sudden. "It's all fighting up in here, now," she said, tapping the side of her head.
"You returned home. Has it served you well, getting away from here?"
Her mouth opened and closed a few times, before Catherine shook her head. "No. Not particularly. I ended- well, split up with who I was seeing. My girlfriend. I'm not safe to be around anymore, and if I ever hurt her, or Ron… I can't bear to think about it." Catherine's jaw clenched. "I was so cruel to them, but I had to be. Now I don't know if I'll ever be able to see them again."
"Do you want to?"
"Yes, and no. Mostly no. My world… it's so different from this one. After being here, after seeing everything, I… I don't think I'll ever be able to readjust. I think it'll be a hermit's life for me, if I don't end up- well," she exhaled softly, chest crumpling into something soft and misshapen. "Some things are better left unsaid."
Drumming her fingers on her knee, Catherine cast her gaze to the cloudy sky and the pillars that rose up through it. "How did we even end up talking about this?"
"I believe we were discussing jokes, Catherine."
Melodie stated that with such conviction that Catherine found herself laughing quietly in spite of her sudden melancholy. This drew Melodie's brow and lips into a confused scowl, pinched and garnering another soft giggle out of her.
"Sorry, I'm a bit… bit manic lately."
"You have nothing to apologize for," Melodie said as she reached down and fiddled with Catherine's hat, before pulling her hands away, looking surprised at her own actions.
"What?"
"I find it my turn to apologize. I was struck by a sudden urge- inexplicable," she murmured, staring at her hand so intently that she might as well bore a hole through it with her eyes alone.
It wasn't as if Catherine was a stranger to random urges, spending her whole life jumping in headfirst to whatever struck her fancy or seemed important at the time. She wouldn't have otherwise found herself in that corridor on the third floor in her first year, or leaping into the pipes beneath the school the next.
"Sudden and strange urges are what makes humanity. Our entire history is people flying by the seat of their pants and either making something of it or failing miserably. What was it?"
"Please, think nothing of it. I'd rather not say," came Melodie's hurried words, hands waving slowly as if to stave her off.
"I won't judge. You're my friend, Melodie. I think right now you might be my only one."
Because Dumbledore wasn't a friend. He was a comrade, a mentor. Sirius was family in his own strange way but it was far from friendship, more of an odd leash wrapped around their hearts - two terribly lonely souls scrabbling at the only remnant of a life they could no longer remember, or in Catherine's case, had never known.
"Truly?"
"Truly."
Visible relief washed over Melodie, fingers closing into a gentle fist, raised with them facing Catherine, perched as she struggled with her words.
"I…"
Catherine nodded slowly, letting out a soft hum of reassurance.
"I wished to braid your hair."
The words came out in a squeak, embarrassed, and Catherine still found herself surprised to see how well and truly human Melodie was. Somehow, she always found a way to shock her, and Catherine didn't know if it was some part of her locked away, or if she was the first person to ever sit down and simply talk with the woman.
How long had she been here in this place removed from even the flow of time? How long had she been trapped alongside Gehrman as his resentment grew into hatred and in turn, spite? How long had the Moon loomed overhead like the blade of a guillotine, Melodie's very existence tied to this torturous, tranquil plane?
"Sure."
She took off her hat and lowered her mask, turning her back to Melodie and humming softly as she pondered some more.
Still, now, Catherine could see wicked things lurking in the shadows, just barely out of sight. The constant jitter and clicking from all she had sundered fading in and out as their whispers carried on a deadened wind. But here, in the Dream - or in the Chapel away from Adella and that bitter old man who rarely strayed from his little corner, instead surrounded by the comfort of Emilie and Arianna - Catherine felt just the barest flicker of serenity. A sliver of sunlight peeking through the clouds above to settle on her shoulder and remind her of what warmth is, and that even in this unhallowed place it was not bereft of those tiny, quiet moments that made the world still.
So she took it for what it was, knowing that once she'd returned to the waking world yet more horrors would be visited upon her, but that right now all she craved was a taste of simplicity.
Gently, she felt warm porcelain - soft porcelain - card through her ragged locks, slowly pulling them back into some semblance of form instead of the usual mop she wore.
Meticulous, Melodie separated the jagged shocks of hair and started tying them together, Catherine closing her eyes against a tug here, the pad of a finger there, as her hair (was it getting long? Did it still grow?) was first braided along the sides of her head so that it stuck close as if shaved.
You've changed her, Kos spoke, her whispered words slowly filtering in through the pleasant haze that clouded Catherine's mind.
How? She asked.
You've taught her what it is to be human. To think and feel and bear all that tired weight of existence. Her eyes are now opened, and never again will she not see.
Catherines brow pinched. You make it sound like…
Rom. But no stark light of godhood. Instead the faintly flickering candle of Man. You did the same for me, hearing the echoing cries of an orphan babe through the thin veil of death. Even bodiless, that mark upon your forehead drew me in. I remembered my tidings with humanity, a village by the sea and their offerings of shells and effigies burnt in my name.
Worship. A strange beast.
Did it make them more powerful? Strength of a name and the power of thought carried through the consciousness of the universe. Or was it simply their own form of hubris, and were an ant to bring her thin dolls made of aphid spit and straw would Catherine too welcome their meek and wondrous gaze?
Did it help?
Kos was quiet, ponderous.
Yes.
And again that urge took her to snatch that swollen eye from her breast pocket and go searching for the Nightmare. To offer Kos true rest.
But the fingers working through her hair and the sudden song that bubbled from Melodie's throat in low hums and errant whistles took her back to false memories of summer days never experienced by her unless in a long-forgotten dream.
Catherine had never known a good summer. Maybe a few weeks escape from her relatives but even then the anger they brought hung overhead like a storm cloud. Locked away between her first and second years, the fear of yet another unknown searching for her before the third, the World Cup, Dementors…
She didn't much care for summer.
But the ideal of it and the love others held for that warmth and the long-shining sun of a bright day still evoked some sense of whimsy in her regardless of her own feelings.
Leaning back into Melodie's touch, Catherine tried not to think too hard about the gloom that sat over her head.
She wasn't very good at that.
"Please, relax. I know you're worried," came Melodie's quiet voice. "You're safe here."
Eyes wandering, she found them locked at the visage of the Moon. "Are you sure?"
"I… will keep you safe. You've done the same for me."
"Oh." Catherine squirmed, feeling very suddenly uncomfortable. "Thanks."
After a moment's pause, Melodie continued her ministrations. "Would you like to talk about something?"
With pursed lips, Catherine shrugged. "Tell me about yourself. You've been… learning. What's it like?"
"Very strange, I must say. I never understood the anger or terror that you Hunters felt going about the city, or accomplishing your task as a Dreamer. But now… now I feel as though I may burst with all of these new emotions. It's wondrous and exciting, but I fear it as well." Hands shifting, Melodie moved to the right side of Catherine's head, drawing back the hair there and slowly weaving it together. "I have much to thank you for and I believe I shall 'til the end of my days. A whole world opened up to me and… and how tumultuous it is to have my eyes drawn wide."
"Are you happier for it?"
"Undoubtedly," Melodie spoke, with fire and conviction, not those soft wandering tones she normally held. "You've given me mind, feeling. I only hope that I may one day do the same."
"Don't. Please." She turned, meeting Melodie's gaze. "Too many have already had their lives ruined by me. I can't destroy any more."
"Your friends?"
"Among others. It's- it's complicated." Waving her off, Catherine stood. "I need to get back." Her shoulders shrunk, and she sighed. "Thank you, again."
Melodie looked down at her, face blank. "Of course. Please, take care of yourself."
"Do my best," she lied, stepping over to the tombstone. "Don't let Gehrman give you any trouble."
That earned her a smile. "I won't. Goodbye, Catherine."
-::-
Killing ghosts was new to her. They did not make a noise until the moment they appeared, shape flickering like smoke as their mouths drew open to let out unholy shrieks, pain and terror and proclamations of demons buzzing in the air.
Did they still have minds? Were they echoes like that of the dead that were now contained within the ichor of her veins? Or were these damned souls only a shallow reflection of the people they once were, but a vestige of living, breathing wonder?
Catherine killed them regardless, or banished them. Either way, as long as they were stabbed, burned, crushed, or otherwise dashed to pieces they no longer posed a problem - and some odd sixth sense tickled at the back of her mind as she wandered the castle looking for any remnants of the nobility that still remained.
All she'd found were some sets of the same armour Archibald had worn, that same helmet along with the silver plated cuirass and gauntlets that were missing from his garb, instead wearing the feathered cloak of the Crows. Her search drew her through painting littered corridors and a library so large she could stack the entirety of Privet Drive along the breadth and height of it and still find room for more. Within were shuttered chests abandoned by this place's slaughtered denizens that contained a strange pistol that reeked of blood, alongside a dress and trousers of such finery that she thought even the Malfoys would look on them with jealousy.
But those were simply fossils. Marks of the past and etchings of a history incapable of voicing what put them in the dirt in the first place.
So she climbed higher and higher, swapping her gloves and boots for the silvered gauntlets and greaves that the Knights of this place must have once worn - the weight of them comfortable, and a smaller amount of comfort left by the silently shifting metal and wicked points they curled into. The armour was designed to intimidate, the fingers of the gauntlets tipped with shining claws and the greaves curling into tight, pointed toes.
They were protective but above all else useful. Armour made not just to stave off blows but to turn her body itself into a weapon if she lost her hammer or wand, kicks and punches turning into the strike of a dagger.
Pragmatism was something learned in her travels, and Catherine had found herself without a weapon too many times not to take the opportunity to turn even her fingers into something that could tear through the thick hide of beasts far larger than her. Gods that not even her massive strength could hope to carve without the aid of a bit of pointed metal.
Her explorations led her outside and in, walking battlements far above the courtyard and libraries that held living gargoyles, men and women twisted by the blood into hunkered forms of grayish flesh, thick fangs poking out over their bottom lip and spraying froth as they screeched and beat their wings, trying to tear her throat out.
They still bled that same, deep, dark red.
Catherine thanked her fraying nerves that heights had never been a true bother to her as she skirted the edges of crumbling parapets and walked snowy shingles to navigate the strange, wandering paths of the castle rooftop. It seemed that it led her ever upward, towards the longest stretch of a flat roof from where she could see a faintly glowing red and what looked to be the massive form of a man, ten feet tall and cloaked in gold that shimmered even in the crimson moonlight.
She could ask him questions if he still retained his mind, and bleed him for them otherwise.
It took navigating the treacherous reaches of the castle to continue her path, slipping and falling on more than one occasion to splatter on the ground far, far below, the snow hiding layers of ice that not even a sticking charm could offer purchase on, or spikes conjured on the bottom of her boots. It would crack beneath her weight, sheets of ice sliding and taking her with it as she tried to grab onto the shingles, clawed fingers tearing useless furrows through the tar-caked clay and leaving a permanent reminder of her failure behind.
Eventually, she found herself standing a few dozen feet away from the man, larger than life and bearing a gilded crown atop his head. He sat in a plain chair made of even more plain wood, a great scythe held in one hand while red smoke emanated from its blade, occasionally twisting into the shape of a skull and letting out a faint shriek as it dissipated.
The magic of it curdled her blood, and Catherine knew that scythe to be the work of Tom, as well as the leather gloves that capped his fingers and wrists, emitting the same ochre smoke in such fury and density that she knew it to be bound to innumerable souls. Their horror, their pain and suffering echoed off the gloves in waves, beating against her chest like the drumming of a heart and sending shocks of cold down her spine.
Slowly, the man stood, all but mummified and wrapped in gold. His face was a husk, dessicated flesh clinging tight to every bone, teeth bared not by lips but a lack thereof, the skin of his cheeks frayed and eye sockets empty.
"Martyr Logarius," Catherine whispered. "That's you, isn't it?"
He did not reply. Could not.
Wrapped in gold though he was, the curse that lay over him was almost miraculously evil. A living inferi trapped atop an icy rooftop, forced to defend it until nothing remained but bone, dragging on only through the indefinite magic that sustained it.
The Truth spoke it to her, and she could see the threads that lay deep in his very soul, drinking of the wrought misery contained within his scythe and gloves. Those souls, tempered and all bottled up were the fire that kept him moving, breathing, screaming silently against an ailing mind.
Willem, at least, had been lost a long time ago. This man it seemed had no lips, no mouth, no eyes, no ears - and yet, every fibre of his being shuddered against the prison he found himself shackled to.
It was the least he deserved, after Catherine had seen and felt the slaughter here. Blood still staining the walls, bones pushed into the corners by the geists that still wandered the halls with mop and rag. Little bones, children's bones, bones that could very well have been Arianna's if not for her lucky escape.
But why a guard, she wondered.
Tom had cursed the man, the martyr, the insipid zealot. Whether out of curiosity, spite, or simple amusement, he had cursed him to this hellish unexistence.
And then she looked at the crown, and shine it did. Magic so bright, so imperfect, sinking feelers into the mind of the one who wore it to reveal… reveal what?
"Excited?" she continued, staring up at the man as his grip tightened on the haft of the scythe, the bottom of it clacking loudly as he took a few steps forward, using it as a walking stick. "You finally get to die today."
Oh, Catherine couldn't wait to tell Alfred about this.