I Loaded the Occult Panel

Richard went up to the second floor. The door to the room where he had received his great-grandfather’s remains was open this time.

Gerard sat behind the heavy oak desk, its surface strewn with documents.

”You must have seen the thing on the gatepost.”

Richard nodded.

Gerard set down the document he was holding and pointed to the chair opposite him.

”Sit.”

Richard sat down.

Gerard took something out of the locked tin cabinet on his desk.

It was a charcoal sketch.

It showed the profile of a young woman, her hair loosely gathered at the back of her head.It wasn’t a particularly good drawing. The lines hesitated in several places, and the bridge of the nose had been traced over twice.

The eyes, however, were drawn with great care, the outer corners tilting up slightly.

Richard looked at the charcoal portrait.

”Who drew this?”

The technique was rough; it didn’t look like the work of a professional portrait painter.

”I did,” Gerard said.

”I sat across from her and drew while she did her needlework. I sketched for an entire afternoon, and she never even noticed.”

”When I finished and showed it to her, she snatched the paper away and said it didn’t look like her at all—that the nose was too big.”

The corners of the old man’s mouth twitched, but quickly flattened out again.

”This is the only portrait of your grandmother in the house.”

”Your mother got her cooking from her. I can still remember the taste of her roast goose to this day.”

Richard held the edges of the paper, not daring to grip it too tightly.

”She passed away early. Your mother was only nine at the time, and your aunt was barely three.”

Richard gently placed the sketch back on the desk.

On the back of the paper was a very faint line of pencil—a casually jotted date from the day the portrait was drawn. The graphite had long since smudged.

”When she was young, she was followed by a black dog for an entire night.”

The study fell quiet.

”At the time...” Gerard paused. ”I was already married to her.”

”The black dog following her for a night meant her name was entered into that book.”

Richard remembered the saga fragment Corbin had mentioned. The Wild Hunt kept a Hunting Register that recorded the names of the chosen.

”Then what happened to her...”

”I used the Rite of the Counter-Hunt to snatch her back.”

Gerard moved his fingers away from the sketch.

”The Rite of the Counter-Hunt?”

”I can’t tell you the specifics of the ritual.” Gerard shook his head. ”It’s something only a madman would do.”

”What was the price?”

Richard asked softly.

Dealing with what lay behind the veil always came with a price.

Gerard looked at him.

”I used a Runic Blood Pact to forge an agreement.”

”The terms of the agreement were...” The old man spoke, pausing after every word: ”The debt passes to the descendants; the hunting period will be recalculated.”

”But Grandmother... still passed away in the end?” Richard’s throat felt a little dry.

”The Rite of the Counter-Hunt could snatch her back and postpone the debt, but it couldn’t change her fate.”

”She left Margaret and Isabella behind, and then she was gone.”

”So the Ashford family... is both sensitive to what lies behind the veil and naturally resistant to it.”

Gerard spoke slowly.

”The sensitivity is because their blood was seen. The resistance is because my counter-hunt left traces of rebellion in our blood.”

”This is the old debt of the Ashford family.”

The bite mark on the gatepost surfaced in Richard’s mind.

His grandfather had said it was an invitation. The debt passes to the descendants; the hunting period will be recalculated.

Richard placed the sketch back in front of Gerard.

”Grandfather, you... keep this safe.”

Gerard pushed the paper back toward Richard.

”You take it.”

”I remember what she looks like. I don’t need this paper.”

”You never met her. From now on... there has to be someone in the family who remembers her.”

Richard accepted the sketch.

Over the next few days, Gerard took him to meet his network of contacts.

He went to Old Phillips’ private residence, where the two Major Adepts drank tea in the study for an entire afternoon.

Richard sat to the side, listening to them chat about idle matters from the past. Neither of them brought up the black dog.

He went to see several branch presidents of the Civilian Guild.

There were hidden ones, herbalists, and an old craftsman who specialized in seal maintenance.

There was an old lady so plump she could barely fit in her chair. She pinched Richard’s palm and studied its lines for a long time without speaking, simply nodding.

Gerard introduced him to each of them, saying, ”This is my grandson, Richard Williams. Please look after him in the future.”

He even sent word to Flower Moon Street.

Madam Marie was still in a period of seclusion, but she made an exception and accepted a letter. Richard didn’t know what was written in it.

Gerard cleared up the family’s accounts, seal documents, trust arrangements, wills...

Isabella’s branch and Margaret’s branch—the trusts on both sides were completely sorted out.

Although his eldest daughter had married an ordinary person, Gerard left her share intact without deducting a single cent.

”This portion is for Evelyn to use in the future.”

Gerard pointed to a document and told Richard.

”She wants to attend the Culinary College, and she’ll need money if she wants to open a shop. This money was routed through an inconspicuous channel. Just consider it a token of my affection for my granddaughter.”

”Grandfather...”

”You need to know everything about the accounts.” Gerard ignored his hesitation to speak.

”Someone has to support this family in the future. Vincent and the others are Hunters; they can’t manage the accounts.”

He wrote his will and had the butler witness it.

Richard stood to the side, watching his grandfather sign the document.

The old man’s hand was steady—stroke by stroke—steadier than Richard had ever seen it.

After signing, Gerard put the pen down.

”Finally, I’m going to teach you a set of Hunter sign language.”

Gerard took Richard to the backyard.

”This set of sign language is used on hunting grounds where making a sound is impossible.”

Gerard demonstrated them to him one by one: making a fist, opening his hand, spreading his index and middle fingers into a scissor shape, turning his palm sideways...

”Some things on the hunting grounds can hear sounds, so Hunters talk to each other with their hands.”

Stop. Retreat. Something is on your left. I’ll cover you... Richard learned them one by one, memorizing each gesture.

[Erudition] copied the angle and force of each gesture directly into his brain.

When they reached the last one, Gerard stopped.

The old man made a diagonal downward pressing gesture.

”This means: the wind is on your side.”

”The wind?”

”Whoever holds the upwind position on the hunting ground seizes the initiative.”

Gerard made the gesture again.

”Hunters only use this gesture in one specific situation.”

”Which one?”

Gerard looked at him.

”When yielding the hunting ground to another.”

Richard stood in the wind, looking at his grandfather’s hand pressing diagonally downward.

The night wind ruffled the old man’s gray hair.

”Grandfather,” Richard finally spoke.

”Why are you teaching me... this gesture?”

Gerard lowered his hand, and the wind paused for a moment.

”Because one day, you will need to yield the hunting ground to someone else.”

He smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes smoothing out.

”And one day, someone will yield the hunting ground to you.”

Richard lowered his head.

He looked at his own hand and slowly mirrored the diagonal downward gesture.

Gerard watched his gesture, neither saying it was right nor wrong.

He simply reached out and, just like the day Richard had first visited, patted him heavily on the shoulder.

That night, Richard had the clearest dream he’d had since enrolling in school.

The dream was devoid of color.

There was only a vast wilderness. No roads, no light, only wind.

The wind came from all directions and swept back out in all directions.

There was also the sound of hooves approaching from the horizon—a dense, fragmented drumming like tens of thousands of horses trampling over hard permafrost.

The sound of hooves drew closer. His grandfather stood in the center of the wilderness.

It was his grandfather in his youth, not the old man with slackened cheekbones and sunken eye sockets that Richard knew.

It was the Hunter from the photograph, with a straight back and a saber hanging at his waist.

He was fighting against something—something without form.

It was a swath of blackness pressing down from the sky; it was the increasingly loud hum in the wind.

This thing could not be fought, could not be escaped.

It simply arrived, like a tide surging onto a mudflat, like night overwhelming the day.

His grandfather rose to resist.

He drew his hunting knife, and as he slashed downward, a rift tore open in the blackness.

The torn rift sealed shut in the blink of an eye.

He slashed again. It tore, then sealed once more. He didn’t retreat a single step!

The blackness surged from beneath his feet to entangle his ankles, and he slashed it open.

It curled over from behind to shroud his shoulders, and he slashed it open.

It pressed down from above his head, and he looked up, raising the knife overhead to slash it open!

Richard watched in the dream, unable to speak.

His grandfather slashed it open once, twice, a hundred times, a thousand times... The blackness always resealed.

His grandfather’s movements slowed down.

The hum in the wind grew louder and louder.

Richard suddenly heard it clearly. Mixed into the hum were the cries of wild geese.

A flock of wild geese passed through the sky in a line, mournful yet orderly.

His grandfather raised his knife for the last time.

This time, he couldn’t bring it down.

From the moment he raised the knife, the blackness washed over his arm, his shoulder, his chest... and finally over his face.

With a clatter, the hunting knife fell to the ground.

His grandfather was defeated.