Dark Legion

by John Glasby

  A searing pain across his forehead told him where the thorns had scratched deep into his flesh. His head rolled loosely to one side and the breath came harsh in his throat, gasping through his tightly clenched teeth.

  Dimly, he was aware of the tall, almost skeletal figure that loomed over him, the other’s face bent forward until it almost touched his, a face that gleamed in the moonlight, the white hair like a halo around the head. The eyes, he noticed, were dark and piercing, were now filled with a look of concern.

  ‘Are you all right, Amberley?’ Clivedon Park was yelling the words at him.

  For a moment, resentment welled up inside him, then subsided quickly as he staggered to his feet, the other’s arm helping him up. Another arm came round to support him about the waist and turning his head stupidly, he saw the vicar peering up at him, a look of horror and fear on his broad, chubby features.

  ‘I think I’m all right.’ Somehow, he managed to get the words past his trembling lips. ‘What happened? How did I get here?’ He realised he was shivering convulsively, violently.

  His fingers touched something cold and metallic against his chest and he stared down in surprise. The silver crucifix had been tossed around his neck and now hung down in front of his shirt, gleaming brightly in the moonlight. So that was it!

  ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you too much,’ said Park harshly. ‘But in the circumstances there was nothing else I could do. Another few moments and it might have been too late.’

  ‘We shouted when we saw you, but you didn’t seem to hear us,’ explained the vicar. ‘You were like a man in a trance.’

  ‘That’s exactly what he was,’ boomed Clivedon Park. Taking Terence’s arm, he led him back along the road towards the village. ‘Why in God’s name did you take off that crucifix?’

  ‘I — I don’t remember doing it.’ He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. ‘I guess I must have done it automatically when I got in.’

  ‘It was a damnfool thing to do,’ muttered the other. ‘Still, you probably didn’t realise the full implications it could have. You’ll know better the next time.’

  As they reached the end of the lane, Terence turned to look back to the northern horizon. The glow that he had seen on top of Cranston’s Hill was no longer there. Maybe he had only imagined it, after all. He shuddered in his wet clothing.

  ‘Tell me,’ he mumbled weakly, ‘did it really happen? There seemed to be a peculiar vibration in the air and then something got hold of me, forcing me to leave the house.’

  ‘Yes, it happened all right. This wasn’t a dream. Now, at least, we know something of what we’re fighting here. We were watching from the window of the rectory and fortunately, the vicar spotted you moving along the lane. It’s as well that he did, otherwise there is not a thing we could possibly have done for you if they had got you out to that accursed place yonder.’

  Terence allowed the others to lead him back to the house. There was still a light showing in the hall. Closing the door behind him, the vicar went into the living room, poked the dying fire briskly until it blazed up again, then piled further logs on to it, holding his hands out to it as the sparks danced up the chimney.

  ‘I think we should remain here for the night,’ said Park grimly. ‘There is always the possibility that they may try again. We may have won a skirmish, but this isn’t the whole battle. That is still to come.’

  Sinking into a chair, Terence lay back. The pain in his forehead had now subsided to a dull ache. Putting up a hand he touched the long scratch gingerly with his fingers. The blood was beginning to congeal on the wound.

  ‘I’ve never had any experience like that before in my life,’ he muttered.

  Clivedon Park drained his glass, set it down on the nearby table. ‘One of the faculties often attributed to witches and warlocks in the Middle Ages, was the power to call their victim across great distances. It still happens in Africa. They call it talking to the bones out there, I believe.’

  ‘It just doesn’t seem possible.’

  ‘I assure you that it is. We’re dealing with dark and powerful forces here. But already the pattern is becoming clearer. The village was virtually empty. There was no sign of life and I think I know why. They were all up there on Cranston’s Hill!’

  Chapter Seven – The Shadow Over Tormount

  Terence Amberley stared at Park in stunned disbelief. Then he turned to look at the chubby face of the vicar, who nodded in answer to his unspoken question.

  ‘I half-suspected it some time ago,’ he said harshly. ‘While your brother was still alive, there were nights like this. I used to stand at my window and look out over the village. Not a single light showing anywhere, except maybe over at the Cowdreys.’

  Terence felt a small sense of relief at this. The idea that Anne might be mixed up in this terrible evil was almost more than he had dared face. Now, at least, it seemed that this was not the case. Besides, he told himself fiercely, she would scarcely have gone down into those frightful vaults beneath the old manor if she was in league with them.

  At length, he found his voice. ‘But why do they do it? Surely there has to be a reason why people like this, so normal and pleasant during the daytime, change at night.’

  ‘It’s an old story,’ began Clivedon Park softly. ‘Go back through the ancient records and you will find periods when the village was seized by this strange form of madness. In those days they were content to call it witchcraft — black magic — and today, is there a better name we can give to it? You saw how easily this power could affect your mind, force you to do things against your will. Only the power of the crucifix prevented you from joining them up yonder. They have no such protection.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Now that we are here, perhaps you could show me this room upstairs.’ There was no mirth in his thin-lipped smile as he added: ‘If they do try again tonight, that is where the danger will come.’

  As they reached the top of the stairs, Park laid a hand on his arm and motioned him to silence. For perhaps two minutes they stood there, listening for any sign that there was anything out of the ordinary up there. Park gave a brief nod of satisfaction. ‘Let us go on,’ he whispered softly.

  Slowly and carefully Terence turned the handle and opened the door. Halting on the threshold, he stepped to one side as Park went in ahead of him. There was a brief pause, then the scrape of a match and a moment later a flare of yellow light as the other found and lit the tall candle just inside the doorway.

  Dreading what he might see, he went in with the vicar close on his heels. But the room was empty. There was none of that terrible chill which he had noticed on the last occasion and this gave him a sense of relief. At least, if that coldness was associated with the evil when it came, they might have a little warning, time to get out.

  The stain on the floor, where the liquid he had spilled had dried in the dust, was clearly visible. Park stood close to the weird design and looked about him carefully. The expression on his face and the tense posture of his tall, thin body reminded Terence of a hunting dog at bay, searching out some prey.

  Terence had the unshakable feeling that eyes were watching them from the dark corners where the dancing yellow glow from the flickering candle did not seem able to penetrate.

  He turned his glance back to the strange symbols drawn on the floor at his feet, aware that the vicar was doing likewise.

  The longer he looked, the more the scene fascinated him, and he somehow sensed a potent source of evil residing in the mathematical suggestion of the strange designs. The pointed star and the circles all hinted of some remote time, of half-forgotten secrets from unguessed at abysses of centuries and the monotonous repetition of the figures was sinister in the extreme. He found himself thinking too of those strange images he had seen in vague outline on the walls of the vaults deep below the foundations of the old manor, every contour of which seemed overflowing with the ultimate quintessence of unknown and potent evil.

  He jumped visibly as Park spoke again. ‘Yo
ur brother must have delved far more deeply into these things if he was the one who drew these designs. He must have been crazy to think he could control the forces he released.’

  ‘I’m still wondering why he should have done such a thing,’ put in the Reverend Ventnor. ‘Surely no one in their right mind would call up things such as this.’

  ‘I’m not passing judgment on him,’ grumbled Park in his rumbling voice. ‘I’m merely trying to find the most logical explanation. People go in for black magic for a variety of reasons. Some are simply looking for some form of excitement, others have prayed to God for some wish near to their heart and when it has not been granted to them, they inevitably turn to the devil. Some do it out of sheer curiosity and yet more because they are searching for power and believe that this way they may obtain it. Too often, the power they seek turns on them and destroys them utterly.’

  ‘I only wish I could help you as far as Malcolm was concerned, but we were never very close and during the last few years we lost contact with each other. I heard from him occasionally, but he never mentioned any of this.’ Terence waved an arm expressively to embrace the clashing colours on the floor of the room.

  Clivedon Park smiled wryly. ‘It is hardly the sort of thing one would confide to another,’ he remarked.

  He moved over to the far corner of the room, began poking around on a narrow shelf which Terence had not noticed before, a low shelf set close against the wall.

  ‘Take a look at these,’ Park said after a moment. He motioned them forward.

  There were several books reposing on the shelf, many looking as if they were on the point of crumbling into dust.

  Some were bound in what seemed to be shiny leather, the pages curling and yellow-stained, the cryptic writing virtually indecipherable in places.

  ‘Priceless,’ murmured Park; ‘Utterly priceless. How on earth he managed to get hold of these I’ll never know. Good God, some of these books have been considered lost for centuries and this one here —’ he picked one out held it up to the light — ‘has been considered merely a myth by many seekers in the occult. I can see now where he got the knowledge to draw those symbols on the floor and the incantations necessary to raise these terrible powers.’

  ‘I think I know where he may have found them,’ Terence spoke almost without thinking, driven by some deep conviction within himself. ‘In the vaults beneath the old manor. I went there the other day.’

  The Reverend Ventnor looked round in sudden surprise. ‘Vaults! Under the manor? This is the first I’ve heard of them.’

  ‘Anne Cowdrey was with me at the time. We went along to see Lady Parrish, to ask about the manor. I thought that perhaps there was something there, which would give me a clue about the work Malcolm was doing, before he died. She told us that the present building dates back only a couple of hundred years or so, that the old manor was situated some distance away. Anne remembered playing there when she was a girl, down in the vaults under the ruins.’

  ‘And you went down there?’ said Park with a trace of excitement. ‘Tell me, were there any signs that the place had been used as a family vault at one time?’

  ‘If you mean were there any coffins there, then the answer is yes. Obviously it was the burial place of the de Grinley family. They’re ranged along the walls of the first vault.’

  ‘The first vault,’ repeated Park. ‘Now this is extremely interesting. Was there anything else?’

  ‘Only one thing. At the bottom of the steps, there’s an even larger underground chamber, completely empty as far as we could tell in the darkness, except for a large stone altar in the very centre. I think it must be the —’

  ‘The Altar of Belial. Taken from the middle of the Standing Stones,’ interrupted Park breathlessly. ‘So that’s where it went. The most obvious place in the whole village and therefore the last place anyone would think of looking.’

  ‘I think that Malcolm went looking there and I think he probably found it, and it’s my guess that he also found those books down there — unless they were among the other records locked away in the church vestry, Vicar.’

  Ventnor shook his head decisively. ‘I’ve never seen them before,’ he confirmed. ‘You must be right.’

  Terence’s eyes rested on the books for some long seconds and there was a nagging, growing uneasiness in his mind,

  Park said suddenly: ‘I think we must go along and take a look at this subterranean chamber, Amberley. But not tonight, of course. Maybe you could take us sometime tomorrow?’ The bushy brows lifted in twin, wide arches over the keen, blue eyes. ‘I have a hunch,’ he added dryly, ‘I hope it’s wrong, but I have a very nasty feeling it may prove to be right.’

  *

  In spite of his firm intention not to sleep that night, Terence dozed off in the high chair, with a blanket wrapped around his legs, the effect of the whisky negating any wakefulness there may have been in his mind. When he woke, he was cold and stiff and outside, the world was yawning greyly as the first flush of dawn showed over the distant hills.

  Park was still awake, seated in one of the other chairs near the fire which he had obviously kept built up all night. He was poring over the pages of one of the books that he had brought back with him from that room upstairs. Ventnor however, was fast asleep, his head lolling over the edge of the chair opposite, his mouth open, his snoring the only sound in the room apart from the faint crackling of the blazing logs in the hearth.

  Getting up, Terence stretched himself. Every bone in his body ached and the sleep had not refreshed him. He felt curiously drained of life and energy and his head ached badly. Gradually, his memory came back as he put a hand to his throbbing forehead; he winced as his fingers touched the long, bloody scratch there. Last night had been no dream.

  ‘Feeling any better after your sleep?’ inquired Park, looking up. He laid the book down on the nearby table. ‘I thought it best to let you sleep on, after what you went through last night. Besides, we have a lot to do today, or had you forgotten?’

  ‘About the vaults?’ Terence shook his aching head. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. And I’m afraid that if anything I feel worse.’

  ‘You’ll be all right once you get some food into you. Where’s your kitchen? I’ll make us something to eat.’ He held up his right hand as Terence made to protest. ‘No, I’m really quite a good cook. Even my housekeeper would accede to that. Just you sit down and take things easy. And I’d wash that cut on your head if I were you and get some disinfectant on it. Some of these thorn scratches can be quite nasty if you neglect them.’

  Terence could think of no answer to that and while the other busied himself in the kitchen, he washed and shaved, feeling a little better. The cut on his forehead had bled a lot, but it looked worse than it actually was. By the time he had finished, the other had returned.

  ‘Better give our friend a shake or he’s liable to sleep all day,’ said Park, nodding towards the inert figure of the vicar.

  Ventnor came awake instantly at Terence’s touch on his shoulder, starting up sharply. Then he relaxed a little as he stared about him. ‘I’ve cooked us some breakfast,’ Clivedon Park told him. ‘Better eat it while it’s hot.’

  The meal was eaten in silence, each man engrossed in his own private thoughts. By the time it was over, the sun had come up and it promised to be a fine, bright day with the wind blowing from the south,

  Half an hour later, they left the house, walked briskly along the lane and into the village. Pausing in the middle of the main street, Terence found himself seeing things through new eyes. On the surface, nothing was changed. Everyone was going about their daily work as though they did not have a single care in the world. As he watched them, listened to their cheery greeting to the vicar and himself, he found it impossible to believe that Park could have been right in his supposition that these common, ordinary people had left the village the previous night and had gone up to the top of Cranston’s Hill for some diabolical purpose.

  He found himself
watching their faces closely, particularly their eyes. It was said that one could tell a man’s thoughts by the expression in his eyes. There was the impression that they did give him a curiously furtive look whenever they thought he was not watching them.

  ‘I must go to the rectory and let my housekeeper know that I’m quite safe,’ said Ventnor. ‘She will be wondering what on earth has happened to me when she comes in and finds that my bed has not been slept in.’

  As the other had prophesied, they found the housekeeper, a little woman in her late fifties, was extremely agitated. She was clearly relieved to see the vicar safe and sound as they entered.

  ‘So there you are, Reverend,’ she said hurriedly, She spoke with the nervous eagerness of one who is eager to please. ‘I called you when I let myself in half an hour ago, and when there was no answer and I saw that your bed was still made up, I was just on the point of going along to Sergeant Willingham to see if he knew anything about your whereabouts.’

  ‘Now there’s absolutely nothing to be worried about, Mrs. Weston,’ soothed the other gently. ‘I’m quite all right as you can see. I went over to visit Mister Amberley last evening rather late and decided to stay the night. I’m afraid we got to talking and it was well past one o’clock before I realised what the time was.’

  ‘Have you had your breakfast? It won’t take me five minutes to get it ready for you and —’

  ‘There’s no need to do that, Mrs. Weston. I had something to eat. Besides, I have to go out again very shortly. Some extremely important business has come up. I shall probably be out most of the morning.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ The woman nodded, paused for a moment and then bustled away into the back of the house.

  ‘A kindly soul,’ murmured the vicar, ‘but sometimes she can be a little too concerned about my welfare.’

  ‘I was thinking that perhaps we should pay a call on Lady Parrish first of all,’ Clivedon Park said. ‘I presume that the manor is still her property.’