“What is this?” asked Madden.
“Just shut up and come with us.” The man gestured with the gun. “And don’t try anything stupid. It’s loaded.”
At gunpoint, Madden, bleeding, bootless, and bare-chested, was led from the attic room down a long corridor and down a large flight of steps into the main entrance hall of the manor. From a side room he could hear loud talking and a moment or so later, Slythe and three others stepped into view. Slythe was dressed in a black, sable robe with red trimmings whilst the others were all in white.
“Slythe, you son of a bitch,” Madden snarled.
“Professor Madden,” replied Slythe, casually. “I’m so pleased you could join us.”
“What is this? Devil-worship? Paganism?”
Slythe smiled slyly. “Nothing like that. We’re all part of an Order that goes much further back. One that believes in the chthonic deities of the Earth. For all your knowledge of ancient sites, you remain ignorant of the true connection, don’t you? There are things aeon-long buried within the ground that still slumber, waiting for the time when the stars are right and the proper words are chanted so that they can rise once more. Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day and one of great significance to our Order. And, in a few short hours the sun will set and, well, you’ll see.” His smile widened.
“You’re mad. You’re all insane. You should be locked up.”
Slythe merely shrugged his shoulders. “If you say so.” With a nod of his head, he gestured to one of his men. “Get him ready.”
Madden was forced into another room where he was tied to a chair. A man then began to paint red and blue symbols on his bare chest, hands, and face. His socks were removed and the bizarre artwork spread to his feet. This was crazy, absolutely unreal, he tried to tell himself. It wasn’t happening and yet he knew it was. His head suddenly ached and there were subtle probings in his mind, as if something cold and chill and evil had crept into his brain and was squatting there, tensing every muscle and fibre of his body, willing them to do what it wished. He opened his mouth to scream, but only weird laughter bubbled out. He fought back, desperately, trying to rid himself of whatever it was in his mind.
He was convinced that he was now being ritually prepared in order to be sacrificed, to appease whatever powers presided over this weird, pre-Druidic religion that Slythe and his disciples believed in. Oh God, what were they going to do with him? His mind screamed at him, and terror seeped through him in a surging wave, leaving his body exhausted, his spirit spent. How long was this dreadful preparation going to take, and how long did he have before these fiends dragged him, kicking and screaming, to their altar?
“Why are you doing this? Let me go.”
The painter never said a word, instead, methodically and intricately, carrying on his task. It took the best part of twenty minutes, but eventually it came to an end. Another man then unfastened his bonds.
“All right, move it.”
The ever-present gun waved before Madden’s eyes, compelling him to get to his feet and follow orders. He was forced out into the hall where two more white-robed men waited by the open doors.
Outside it was getting dark, the sun low down.
Gulping down a lump in his throat, Madden staggered forward. Fear was now a tangible knot in his chest, tightening into a black web of panic. His mind kept screaming at him to try to flee from this place. To run while there was still time. Because if he didn’t—
A sudden thought came into his head. Yes, they were armed, but would they risk shooting him if he was going to be sacrificed? Surely that was a risk they wouldn’t take and yet it was a risk he felt he had to take—the hope that they wouldn’t put a bullet in his back.
They were now outside. There were four of them, including one with a gun. All of them were in their white, ankle-length robes. He could see many parked cars, all expensive-looking vehicles. This diabolical cult of weirdos were obviously rich as well as mad.
If he was going to make a break for it, he would have to go now.
With a savage cry, he turned and swung his right fist into the face of the man on his left. With some satisfaction he felt the nose burst. He then sped off, his bare feet smacking painfully on the stretch of gravel. Jumping and screaming, he got to the lawn where he picked up his pace, dreading that report from the gun, which would bring everything to an end.
The gunshot never came but a host of threatening yells screamed from behind him. Throwing a quick look over his shoulder he could see his pursuers, their movements thankfully impeded by the long robes they wore.
Madden ran as fast as he had ever run in his life away from the house, away from the madness.
Some hundred yards ahead he could see a row of high hedge.
Behind him, he heard a car engine start up. He looked back once more and his heart sank to see a car bearing down on him, its driver wild-eyed, an insane grin on his face.
He ran on and on, his lungs afire, his heart thumping like a jungle drum. He reached the hedge line and dived, painfully, into the undergrowth. Brambles clawed at his flesh as he fiercely tore his way deeper into the thicket. Nettles stung his feet.
A car door slammed shut. Voices cried out.
It was getting dark and cold. Shadows lengthened.
Savagely, he clawed and crawled deeper into the thicket. Pain was a raw, screaming thing in his brain. He fell into a weed-covered ditch, his body now spattered with blood and dirt. There were thorns embedded in his back. His skin itched and tingled.
“I see him! He’s over here,” a voice rang out.
Madden’s heart sank. His tormentors were closing in, and he was sure that this time they didn’t mean him to slip through their fingers. Then there were more shouts and hooded figures crowded around. He staggered to his feet. Resistance was futile. They had him. His escape attempt had been desperate and short-lived.
* * * * * * *
Mumbling madly, Madden was lashed to the megalith with lengths of rope, his chest pinned against the cold stone, his arms spread wide as though embracing it. His face was pushed into the central hole and then secured, holding him completely immobile. His vision was now tunnelled, his sight limited to the aperture before him. His skin crawled.
The copse of trees and the thick undergrowth he, Walker, and Slythe had battled their way through over two weeks ago had now been completely cleared so that the stone stood alone, isolated. From his perverse vantage point, Madden was blinded by the dying rays of the sun as it set, directly before his eyes. It was sinking slowly on the distant horizon and he knew that this stone had been located specifically on a celestial alignment.
The hooded men, thirty or more, gathered in a semi-circle before him. They were chanting quietly.
Slythe broke from their ranks and strode over towards him, a large, strange-looking book in his right hand.
“Why? Why me?” Madden pleaded.
“Why?” Slythe pondered the question for a moment. “I’ve many reasons.” He checked his watch and looked out at the setting sun.
“Tell me.”
Slythe turned to face him. “For over twenty years you’ve plundered the treasures of countless barrows and grave chambers. You’ve brought teams of grubby, ignorant imbeciles stomping and destroying many of the ancient monuments. You butcher our holy sites in the pathetic name of science without consideration or veneration, forming erroneous and insulting hypotheses whilst cowering behind your mask of responsibility. You claim you are restoring our heritage, but you are not the custodian of the past. I am!”
Madden spat his contempt. He was completely helpless—at the mercy of this psychotic, egotistical, and merciless man.
Slythe raised the book. “Within this, our holy tome, is the translation to the words on the stone. In dreams I was informed of the stone’s importance and its location. I was informed to find one such as you and to make a clearing in which to gather the faithful. As you can see, I have a considerable following. And our numbers will swell un
til we cast down the Christian defiler.”
The winter solstice sun was now just a sliver of crimson in the darkness.
Slythe began reading from the book—although the words, if indeed they were words, were alien: hideous grunts and bestial snorts and utterings. The blasphemous sounds slurped and spluttered, filling Madden’s tortured mind with obscene images.
And then the sun disappeared and the true madness took a firm hold on him, raging at his mind in one violent burst. Reality broke as the world darkened. A nebulous maelstrom exploded before him and raging fire swept forth. Screaming, Madden saw Slythe falter in his chanting, the look of triumph changing to fear. The fire flowed over and around Madden but did not burn him. Instead, the conflagration raced towards the gathered men.
Through the hole, Madden saw Slythe and his followers consumed and reduced to burning skeletons before his eyes, their blackened bones suspended in mid-air for a moment before collapsing to the ground.
Madden’s scream died away as energy flowed into him from the stone, healing his wounds, purging the remains of the drug and even, though he did not know it, returning his grey hair to the light brown colour of his youth. For the stone had once more fulfilled its purpose of prolonging the life and health of its priest at the cost of its willing devotees. This fundamental misunderstanding of the magic involved had resulted in Slythe and his followers paying the ultimate price for their ignorance.
Madden’s bonds fell away and he gazed, unbelievingly, at the charred remains around him. He felt better than he had for the past twenty years, the coldness of the December dusk invigorating him. He placed his hands on the stone as the megalith blazed power into its newest priest.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As penance for past deeds, Edmund Glasby grew up in Morecambe and studied Egyptian Archaeology at University College London and Archaeology and Anthropology at Oxford. Morecambe, which has more than its share of the strange and unsavoury, provided him with a better education. After turning his back on academia, he now writes in the genres of dark fantasy and supernatural thriller, having been brought up on horror; his father was John Glasby, the prolific supernatural writer.
In 2010, his first novel was Disciple of a Dark God, a far-ranging dark fantasy epic. As editor, he was the compiler of The Thing in the Mist: Selected Stories of John S. Glasby, a recent memorial tribute volume to his father. The Dyrysgol Horror was his first collection of supernatural stories as a Borgo Press original, and further collections are in preparation.
When he is not writing, he is the captain of a local archery club, and he has won a trophy or two both at local and European level with the English longbow he made.
The Chaos of Chung-Fu Page 13
