Page 78 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
“Thank you,” said Xanthe, and the hare vanished.
“Who was that?” asked Aurienne.
“The Head of the Hedgewitches.” Xanthe looked grave. “They’ve found a Druid survivor.”
15
Brackenbury Asylum
Osric
Much to his annoyance, Osric had been partnered with Leofric to scout out a potential location for the Fyren Order’s next HQ. Leofric showed up at Rosefell Hall the night of their meetup rather strangely attired.
“Why are you in a straitjacket?” asked Osric.
“We’ve been assigned an abandoned asylum.” Leofric spun in place, lost his balance, and then, because his arms were restrained, fell upon the ground. “I wanted to get in the mood.”
He followed Osric into the house and briefed him on the place. Leofric without the use of his arms was even more annoying than Leofric with. He clapped the soles of his feet together. He pointed his toes for emphasis. Osric irascibly stripped him of his straitjacket when he attempted to pour himself a drink with his stockinged foot.
The potential headquarters location was Brackenbury Asylum near Norwich, vacant for several decades and believed to be haunted. The screams of the Fyren Order’s occasional torture victims would thereforego ignored. There was a convenient graveyard, cells with restraints, and even a direct waystone, which Osric and Leofric made use of to get there.
They materialised at Brackenbury Asylum into a mild summer night. Since Fairhrim’s last healing, Osric’s torpraxia had receded to the point that he could once again feel the wind in his hair and the rubbing of his clothes against his skin. He appreciated it all, down to the blister forming at his left heel in his boots. He was becoming alive again.
Leofric had, fortunately, agreed to abandon his straitjacket for his Fyren cowl and cloak. The two of them shadow-walked towards the asylum in the dark. Well, Osric shadow-walked. Leofric, always accompanied by an air of irresponsibility and frolic, shadow-skipped. He chitchatted about recent jobs: a lord, a banker, the entire board of directors of a Slihtrock mine.
Brackenbury Asylum’s principal building, steep-roofed and ornamented by crumbling chimneys, was surrounded by walls topped with iron spikes. Osric was pleased; it satisfied his expectations when it came to abandoned asylums, with just the right amount of broken windows and rust.
An overgrown tree permitted Osric and Leofric to shadow-walk up and over the wall and enter the precinct.
The asylum smelled of decay. Dust motes drew out the atmosphere in the beams of moonlight that penetrated the grimy windows. Eerie memories of pain lingered: brown-black bloodstains were smeared upon skirting boards; patches of hair were caught at corners; nail marks scored walls.
Of the asylum’s four wings, three were empty, and quickly run through by Osric and Leofric. The fourth, at the back of the edifice, revealed an enormous dormitory, perhaps for the less violent patients not requiring individual cells.
Osric and Leofric held their tacn aloft as they navigated the shadows. They passed row upon row of beds heaped with mouldering blankets.
The silence in the other parts of the asylum had been echoing and empty; here, it was oppressive.
Osric realised, as they walked the length of the dormitory, and a sour smell permeated the air, that some of the beds were not empty. There were the bodies of children in them.
“Kids?” whispered Leofric in confusion, having made the same discovery on his side of the room.
“Fuck me,” said Osric.
“Language,” tutted Leofric. “Don’t set a bad example to the children.”
“Are they even alive?”
Osric held his tacn over child after motionless child. If they were not dead yet, they were near it. Some of them were strapped down to their mattresses. He had seen enough of the Haelan Order’s posters to recognise that these were Platt’s Pox victims. The scabbed-over eyes. The pus. Bloody grim. Bloodytragic. Osric found a great rarity—pity—swelling in his chest. These children didn’t deserve this.
“What is this?” whispered Leofric. “An orphanage? A hospital?”
The far end of the dormitory gave onto a corridor. Osric and Leofric flattened themselves into shadowy nooks at the approach of light and movement.
Nurses. Their uniforms were dirty and, instead of a nurse’s brisk step, they walked with lumbering purpose. One passed close enough for Osric to notice her eyes—glassy, staring straight ahead.
In the light of the lantern she bore, he spotted a film over her eyes. It gleamed mauve.
These nurses were not here of their own volition. They were being controlled by one of the Agannor. Only the most skilled of that Order could make the telltale mauve gleam completely disappear. Whichever one was here was quite competent—Osric had almost missed it.
