An Extract from Talisker

Chapter One

The last thing Malcolm MacLeod remembers is dying. Actually it hadn't hurt that much, just a brief searing light and then and even briefer moment of peace before nothingness claimed his soul for millennia. Now, the darkness takes form once more, awareness rushes in on cold grasping fingers, awareness of who and what he now is. 'Why have you s-summoned me?' He has forgotten the sound of his own voice, thin, nasal, quite unpleasant to the ear; he pauses, unsure if he is stuttering because he is nervous or if he has always sounded that way.

Within the darkness and shadow the figure he has spoken to moves, and a greasy orange light flares, washing the walls of the space with reluctant brightness. Malcolm steps forward, his hand dropping automatically to the hilt of his sword, and the fgure steps back involuntarily. There is a sickly sweet smell in the chamber - the reek of the grave - and he realises fleetingly that it emanates not from the creature before him but from his own ghostly form. He stops. 'Ah know you.' He shakes his head, looking confused. 'But how's it possible? If Ah'd met onything like you, Ah'd remember.'

Thebeing appears uncomfortable for a moment, as though his recognition is some veiled accusation. It steps back again and sits down on a thin metal-framed seat. 'Sit down, shade.' The voice is female, as are the contour of the form beneath the voluminous grey robes she wears. Her features have a soft golden colour upon which the light of the torch dances and moves, reflecting in eyes darker than the deepest shadows of the room.

Obediently, Malcolm folds his legs beneath him and feels little surprise that he can simply hover int he space before her.

She sits back in her chair. 'What do yuo remember?' she asks.

It seems a strange question. 'Remember? No' much,' Malcolm says briefly. The creature relaxes slightly. 'Ah remember... Ah remember who Ah am. Ah remember this place...' He nods towards the dark outlines of the vicious steel hooks that hand in long regular rows from the ceiling. 'It used tae be the butcher's shop. We're in the close, aren't we? mary King's Close?'

She nods.

'Ah - Ah - died here.' Malcolm's voice trembles slightly at the memory and he glances down at his wounds, shaking his head as though he would deny his own statement. 'So why?' he demands again. He stares at the creature, a dark piercing stare, but then he relents, and smiles grimly to encourage some explanation.

'I need your help.' she says quietly.

'Oh, aye?' he replies. 'And whit's in it fer-'

'Malcolm. It concerns your last descendent.'

He starts. 'My last...' he echoes. It seems as though the creature has found the power to reach out and slap his ghostly form. The news takes him unexpectedly hard and he frowns. 'My last... Ah'm one of eight boys, y'know.'

The creature smiles for the first time, her sympathy for his lost lineage apparent in her features. 'I am sorry Malcolm. I will tell you what I can, and then, if you agree, perhaps I can introduce you to the last of your line.'

***

Outside. A bleak dawn wraps the city in its grey blanket. Edinburgh wakens at it's own pace; a leviathan, its ancient weary soul reluctant to shrug off the calm of the night. The hills surrounding the city leave it only exposed to the sea and it is the elements of the sea which characterize its weather. Fingers of damp mist linger in the closes and alleyways of the old town leaving the sandstone buildings slick and wet, waiting for the warming touch of the sunlight which will not arrive until midmorning. Gulls' calls are the first noise to break the morning quiet; their harsh cries echo like a scream in the face of the new day. Sounds trickle in like a salt wave encroaching around the buildings, as though they are simply larger pebbles and the city, a natural extension of the shore. Perhaps it is. The city is very old. The light which steals slowly across its craggy face will not illuminate its secrets. As ever, in this time between the darkness and the light, the city has an air of waiting. A silence which hangs above it, above the wave of sound. Silence and waiting.

***

He was a free man.

As he walked toward the red wooden gates the idea appalled him. If it was what he really wanted, why did the impulse to run back seem so real, so immediate? What lay beyond the red finality that had the power to frighten grown men as though they were simple children? He'd always wondered. He'd watched his contemporaries walk this same walk, some laughing, some tearful and some seemingly indifferent. And yet, when they reached the black shadow of the portal, as he had now, they all did it. They paused. They stopped and stared ahead for long moments. Those who would be watching would shout encouragement as though the man would turn back otherwise. Talisker had always wondered what they felt, what the look on their faces was at this moment. Some would turn back toward the grey brick walls and wave, others simply squared their shoulders as though bracing themselves; but they all paused.

And now he knew. The look on their faces was fear, because when those gates opened, a different world lay beyond. A world of changes. Nothing could be the same as when they left, people, places, shops, nothing. The fear was sudden and unexpected, and the realization that this moment, only this moment, was the real execution of their punishment, was overwhelming. It was time they had lost, simply time. The days, hours, minutes and seconds of their lives. Talisker had lost fifteen years.

In fact, the great red gates did not swing open. He was prepared for this but he still felt cheated as the smaller door which was inset lower down was unlocked by a warder. Even these last few moments they stole were not allowed to be remarkable. As the small door swung backward, a square of light appeared, a square of reality. Talisker knew it was no lighter on the other side of the door than it was in the yard where he stood, yet the light seemed blinding as new, unused, unbreathed minutes and seconds spilled across the threshold. He stared at the bright rectangle until the warder coughed sarcastically.

'Ur you goan then? Or dae I have tae push ye out?'