“‘I believe their sound was more powerful than they imagined, carrying the waves to great depths, where they hit something—something that was not a submarine—something down there that took note … and came up to investigate.’
“‘Are you saying that the fog is somehow alive?’
“‘Maybe not life as we consider it to be, but we both know there are strange things on the fringes of everyday life—and the sea has many secrets we have yet to uncover.’
“‘On that matter, we can certainly agree,’ Gault replied, and downed his port quickly. ‘Is there anything about what they think it might be?’
“I shook my head. ‘There is no mention of the fog at all. The last entry is of them making contact with something out toward the Scilly Isles and of them going to investigate—after that, there is nothing.’
“‘So we are on our own in this?’
“‘It would seem so.’
“‘And what can be done?’
“‘That is something I need to think on further,’ I replied, and pushed the port aside.
“A clear head was needed. I sat on the deck smoking as darkness fell around us and the wrecks faded into little more than darker shadows against the skyline beyond.”
c
“Unfortunately I was not given sufficient time to come up with an appropriate plan of action. Gault spotted it first—a misty glow rising slowly from the direction of the wrecks and rising, almost gracefully, high above them. By the time we got the anchors raised and started to steam away it was already obvious that the fog was heading in our direction; not only that, it was gaining on us, and dashed fast.
“‘If you have any good ideas, now might be the time to put them into action, Carnacki,’ Gault said rather dryly.
“I had the deckhands help me lug my protections box into the center of the main deck and started to draw my circles. Gault looked on with a cynical eye, but said nothing, apart from keeping up a running commentary on just how close the fog was becoming.
“By the time I got the pentacle hooked up to the generator it was almost on us. I called for the three sailors to join me in the circle, and switched the valves on at almost the same instant as the fog fell on us like a damp blanket.
“The fog swirled and rolled thickly around us, and we drew back into a tighter circle inside the pentacle. The deck beyond my protections buckled, flowed and hardened where the fog passed. But none of us were in the least affected, and I started to hope that the worst might be over, that my protections might keep us safe, for a time at least.
“I even relaxed enough to remember the pack of cigarettes in my pocket, and for a few seconds I was the most popular man on deck as I passed smokes around. Normally Gault would have joined me, but he was now completely intent on the fog, and the damage it was doing to the Galloway Lass. I went over and stood at his side.
“‘What’s the plan?’ I asked.
“He didn’t reply at first, then took my smoke from me, took a lungful, and handed it back. ‘I’m considering our next move,’ he said. ‘We might have to make a run for the lifeboat.’
“‘After what it did to your men in the other vessels? Is that wise?’
“‘We may not have a choice,’ Gault said. ‘Or do you intend that we stand here for eternity waiting for conditions to change in our favor?’
“‘This fog will clear,’ one of the hands behind me said. ‘Fog always does, eventually.’
“‘Not this one,’ I said softly. ‘But I have been considering its behavior as it swirls around us here. It seems to be almost purposefully avoiding the blue range of the spectrum. I believe I might be able to effectively freeze the fog in place around us by careful deployment of color—and that might allow us a clear passage to the lifeboat.’
“‘And I for one will not stand around here just waiting to die,’ Gault replied. ‘If there is a chance, we must take it.’
c
“I spent the next twenty minutes fiddling with the valves and eyeing the swirling fog, trying to ascertain any pattern in its movements. Gault had passed orders to the other two men to be ready to make for the boat on his order. The crewmen grew increasingly restless, especially as the deck just outside our protected circle was now contorted and buckled into a nightmare landscape of peaks and troughs, spires and deep dark holes. That dashed fog seemed to have taken on a new purpose—it was eating the bally boat out from under us.
“‘It’s now or never, Carnacki,’ Gault said.
“At almost the same instant the deck bucked beneath us.
“‘It has penetrated the hull below water level,’ Gault said. ‘Whatever you’re going to do, best do it now. She’s sinking.’
“‘On my mark, run,’ I said. I switched the blue valve to maximum, its glare almost blinding me. The air filled with a resonant hum and whine. The fog swirled up and away from us leaving a clear area around the pentacle and circles.
“The hum grew to a drone that rose in pitch, ever higher, to a high whine that grated at the ears. The fog stopped swirling and hung like a blanket above our heads. It started to sing, as if in answer to the screams of my valves, a deep drone that was almost peaceful, almost welcoming. I might have stood there listening forever had Gault not grabbed my arm.
“‘Run!’ he shouted.
“None of us needed a second telling. We ran, picking our way though the ruin of the deck, trying to not look at the fog just above us.
“The whine from the pentacle went up another notch, pressure bringing a sharp ache in my ears. The deck bucked beneath us again and the ship listed sharply to starboard. One of the crewmen fell into a hole and went screaming down into a black deep—and soon went silent. The other tumbled into a metal spike that impaled him through the chest, stopping his heart in an instant.
“Gault and I did not stop. We rushed headlong for the port side, hoping against hope that the rowboat there was still seaworthy. The deck was now at such a slope that it became almost a matter of climbing to reach the hanging lifeboat, but it was with enormous relief that we found the boat still there, showing no signs of having been affected by the ravages of the fog. We clambered into it as best as we were able.
“Gault undid the ropes and my stomach leapt into my throat as we fell through mist to land with a bone-crashing splash in the sea.
“We had only just righted ourselves when the ship above us listed sharply again, the prow rising as the rear sank. The whine from the pentacle cut off, as if someone had pulled a plug. The static fog once again started to seethe and roil in the air above the sinking vessel. And it was now spreading, sending out tendrils across the deck … and down the sides of the hull.
“‘Row, you bugger!’ Gault shouted. ‘Row, as your life depends on it!’
“I took to the oars just as a tendril of fog, almost luminescent, stretched ever closer to our lifeboat. We could see it all too clearly. Our doom was coming straight for us. Beyond that, the ship was sinking fast, the prow raised high in the air, the fog curling and writhing, buckling the hull and tearing the vessel apart even as it went under, hissing and groaning like a dying beast.
“‘Row!’ Gault shouted again. I put my back into it, but the fog crept ever closer. Gault stood up, as if ready to leap overboard.
“‘If it wants anyone else, let it take me,’ he said.
“The sinking ship gave out one last creaking wail, then with a hiss of steam it went under. The fog swirled and fomented above the spot. The tendrils retracted, falling back into a globular cloud that descended and sank with the ship, a last glimpse of luminescence showing in the night for several seconds before descending far, far into the depths, until it was finally too dim to see.
“We drifted in a clear, calm bay under a blanket of cold night stars.”
c
“We sat there adrift for quite some time, staring into the black deep, but nothing came back up—not even a hint of wreckage. The night stayed dark and quiet, and finally Gault and I came to an agreement that it w
as over.
“Whether we were right in our conclusion, only time will tell, but as we took turns rowing back to the shore we talked of rebuilding—of a new vessel for him, and a new box of defenses for me.
“I stayed in the area just long enough to attend a memorial service for those lost. Gault and I parted company on the steps of the harbor inn, each of us changed in our own way, but also somehow closer than we had ever been; brothers in arms, if you like, having faced down such an ordeal and survived. I have no doubt I shall hear from him again.”
c
His tale done, Carnacki finished off his drink and stood. That was our signal to begin our preparations for leaving.
As ever, Arkwright had questions, but on this occasion Carnacki had no answers.
“I cannot tell you what that fog was. In essence, I believe that just as the Outer Darkness extends over us to infinity, so too might the great oceans extend into unfathomable depths—and who knows what might lie there, sleeping, until we wake it up? Now, out you go.”
And out I went, into thick fog. I scurried through it and went quickly home, feeling its presence at every step.
Thankfully, for the sake of my sanity if nothing else, it did not sing.
The Chislehurst Connection
I arrived rather earlier than I had anticipated that Wednesday evening just after Christmas, for traffic was light despite—or possibly because of—the persistent drizzle. I was damp and somewhat miserable by the time I knocked on Carnacki’s door in Chelsea, but as ever his welcome was so full of good cheer that my spirits could not help but rise.
A fine supper of honeyed ham, roast potatoes and sprouts further lifted my mood, and I was quite content and replete by the time we settled in the parlor for the anticipated tale.
Carnacki did not keep us waiting.
c
“As it is the holiday season, I have a special treat for you this evening,” he began. “For some time now I have been teasing you with rumors and snippets of my workings at the Chislehurst caves. I can now bring that whole tale to its conclusion—several years after it first began for me.
“It started with a chance encounter—or at least, I thought it was chance at the time. It was the Friday before Christmas three years ago, around six in the evening. I was sitting in my library meditating on a most obscure section of the Sigsand MS when I heard a distant chorus of singing. I went to the front door and opened it to find a dozen or more youths, red of cheek and lusty of voice, giving me a spirited, if somewhat off-key rendition of ‘Good King Wenceslas.’ When they were done, I gave them a penny apiece and they went on their way, but one lad hung back. It was obvious that he had something to say to me, but he kept silent until his fellow singers were out of earshot before speaking.
“‘Am I right in thinking that you are Mr. Carnacki?’ he said. He had a soft, well-spoken voice that told of a good upbringing, and his clothes were clean and neatly tailored. From the cut of his jib I did not believe him to be a ruffian trying to extort more money from me, so I gave him the time of day and heard him out.
“‘I have a story for you, sir. I hear tell it is something you will, if not believe, at least take into consideration. If truth be told, we have been roundly scoffed at by everyone else to whom we have told it, and you are our last chance at helping us come to some kind of an understanding.’
“You chaps know me well enough by now to realize that I could not in all conscience leave the lad on the doorstep without hearing him out—not after that opening gambit. I invited him inside. I could not very well offer him liquor or a smoke—although he looked of an age where he might take either—but settled for a fresh pot of tea and some hard biscuits in the library as I waited to hear out his tale. It took him a while, as I’m afraid I had a lot of questions, and he jumped around somewhat in the telling, so I will summarize it for you as best as I am able.
“He and a group of his fellow students—from Dulwich College, so you would think they might know better—had taken it into their heads on the previous Friday to have an end-of-term party in the old Roman mine workings in Chislehurst. They took some girls, some smokes and some liquor down into the caves—I am sure it was all fairly harmless in the main, youthful high jinks that all of us here no doubt can remember from our own less-mature days. It was all going swimmingly—until they started singing some carols. At first everything was still all rather jolly. Then they started up ‘Here Is Joy for Every Age,’ which, I am sure you know, stems from the far earlier Latin text Ecce, nouvum gaudium. And as they sang, something responded.
“The lad was as white as a sheet as he recounted the tale. ‘It came out of the walls, Mr. Carnacki, sir. Howling and shrieking and like a storm blown around and through us. I am not normally the sort to take a funk, but we ran, all of us, screaming and wailing, and some of the girls—and not a few of the chaps—were quite hysterical by the time we reached the open air under the stars. There’s no amount of money in the world will persuade me to return. But someone has to be told—I cannot in good faith allow anyone else to go down there and suffer that abject terror.’
“And with that, it seemed, his tale was told. Indeed, the lad—David Crowther was his name—seemed most grateful that I had deigned to listen, and that I did not scoff or question his sanity. He left a much happier chap than he had been on arrival, and I gave him my promise that I would consider his story.
“Not having anything planned that weekend, I made a trip down to Kent by train the very next morning to investigate.”
c
“I had heard of the workings, of course, but I had never given them much thought, there being no folklore attached to them, at least as far as I knew. A kindly chap in the post office gave me directions to an entrance that was accessible without trespassing on private property, and just before lunchtime I found myself in a copse of trees behind the Black Bull Inn.
“This latest adventure also gave me an opportunity to test the efficacy of my new tungsten-filament flashlight. I had taken note of Arkwright’s voluble praise of them the autumn before. You chaps might remember how we teased him mercilessly on the topic for weeks afterward—but he intrigued me enough that I placed an order from the company in New York, and I must say it made the going down into darkness a dashed sight easier.
“I had to clear aside some gorse, but mere minutes after my arrival I was descending a set of rough-hewn steps, down into the caves themselves. At first I found no evidence that anyone had been there in long years, although I was so enamoured of the washes of brilliant light from my new torch and the brightness it brought everywhere I pointed it that I was thinking of little else.
“The whole cave system reeks of a remarkable sense of age, of eons long past, and in traversing those tunnels, it was not hard to imagine the long stretch of men going back into antiquity who had worked these passages. I also had to be mindful of my surroundings for another reason—it would have been dashed easy to lose oneself in that maze of corridors, and I resolved, should I have to return, to bring chalk and string on my next visit.
“Indeed, I was becoming increasingly worried on that very score when I found the first signs of young Crowther and his friends’ antics. Empty bottles lay scattered across the floor at the entrance to one of the larger chambers, along with the remnants of partially smoked cigarettes and a rather battered hat that looked like many feet had trampled it into the dusty rock underfoot. I had found their party site.
“This new chamber did indeed seem different from the others, but I could not quite put my finger on it—there was a resonant quality to the atmosphere, as if the whole area was humming and singing just below—or above—the range of normal hearing. I felt it in my belly and my jaw, though—the faintest vibration, like a weak electric current.
“I stood in the center of the room and turned full circle, washing the light across the walls. Alongside the obvious marks of working by axe, chisel and hammer, my practiced eye caught something else—writings, scratching and etchi
ngs, all lain over and around each other, ages of work from the vaguely modern to the primitive. Something had drawn people to this spot for centuries—millennia, even—and I was now most intrigued.
“I shifted my footing slightly in order to see a particular piece of writing more clearly—and the echo rang and magnified around me, a myriad whispers, as if a mighty throng were gathered there with me. I decided on an experiment. I raised my voice and sang, lightly at first, then with more gusto, the carol mentioned by the Crowther lad.
“‘Here is joy for every age, every generation,
“‘Prince and peasant, chief and sage, every tongue and nation.’
The whole chamber rang with the sound, which was given back to me, louder and distorted such that it almost seemed like a scream. The walls seemed to soften and flow, and the noise rose higher, then higher still, until it was almost painful. I immediately stopped singing, but the sound kept getting louder, the walls humming, the floor vibrating my very teeth starting to rattle.
“Even then, I might have been able to withstand it, had my torchlight not begun to fade and dim. I had no bally intention of standing in the dark with those walls screaming at me. Discretion is truly the better part of valor, so I beat my retreat, rather rapidly if truth be told.
“The flashlight firmed and flared to full brightness as soon as I was out of that chamber, but the echoing sound still reverberated around behind me, and I was not about to return without more protection.”
c
“I resolved to return to that cave at the earliest possible opportunity—but unfortunately events conspired against me in the weeks to come. That was the year of the affair of the emerald ring at Christmas—you will remember how ill I was for a time after that. Then I was off on an adventure in Scotland for several weeks, and the next time I gave the matter any further thought at all, it was already late spring heading into summer.
Carnacki: The Watcher at the Gate Page 19
