by David Wood
They were all wearing nightclothes, apart from two that were completely naked. And they were getting closer.
They didn’t even give him time to scream.
The head of the serpent swelled and grew, six, eight, then ten feet across, its fangs great swords of razor sharp steel, its eyes like twin pools of fire.
The floor shifted under Brian’s feet as the coils unfurled and the length of the wyrm rose up from the mosaic, its scales shining in a myriad of rainbow colors.
A red tongue protruded from between the teeth, and kept coming, its forked end flicking at the air as if tasting for prey.
My Master is here, the voice in his head said. Kneel before the great one.
But Brian could only stand and stare, transfixed by those eyes.
“Kneel,” the voice hissed in his ears, and he felt the warm vibration begin in the air around him. The voice deep inside him was stronger still, advocating flight, reminding him of what it was to fear.
“No,” he shouted, and began to back away from the serpent.
“Kneel,” the creature said, more insistent this time, and was answered by a voice in the doorway.
“Not this one Shoa. This one resists you, the same way that I did.”
A black clad figure walked into the room. He was tall, over six feet, with a mane of jet-black hair that reached down almost six inches past his collar. His eyes looked black in the moonlight and his step was confident and assured as he strode into the center of the mosaic, ignoring the serpent that lay in coils all around him.
“Donald Allan?” the white vampire said. “I should have given you the final death when I had the chance.”
The newcomer didn’t reply, but raised a hand, and where his fingers passed a burning flame appeared, upwards, then downwards and through a series of fast passes until a complicated pentagram of fire burned in the air above the serpent’s head. He made a final flourish and the pentagram exploded in gold brilliance. Brian blinked, and when he looked again, he was alone in the room with the stranger.
He had expected the unnatural brilliance to be gone along with the serpent, but he could still see every tile in the mosaic that now lay inert on the floor, and blue ice still had hold of his veins.
The stranger turned towards him, and Brian saw that his eyes were not black...they were deep blue, almost purple, and their gaze seemed to pierce him.
“You have a choice,” the stranger said. “You can follow Shoa, who even now is looking for a place to sleep, or you can come with me. I can’t promise you anything, but you will have your own free will...and I might be able to shed some light on what happened to you tonight.”
Brian tried to speak, but it was as if his throat muscles had become one, tight cord. Instead he put out a hand and grasped the stranger by the upper arm. He looked deep into the stranger’s eyes and nodded, just once.
“Good. Come on then. We need to get out of here...Shoa is stronger than I thought he would be, and I’m not best prepared.”
Brian was once more led by the hand, out of the room and out into the grounds of the house.
The noise was so loud that Brian fell to his knees, his hands covering his ears trying to blot out the sound.
Every tree sang, a chorus of bass chords that drummed loud in the night counterpointed by the high tenor of the grass on the verges and the sweet soprano fluting from the flowers and shrubs in the borders. The whole night seemed alive in sound, like several orchestras all playing at once, all performing different concertos.
The stranger was still standing over him, and when Brian looked up he saw that the man was smiling down at him.
“I’d forgotten how it is in the beginning,” he said, “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to get used to it. Come on. It’s getting early, and the sun will be up soon.”
He leaned down and took Brian by the hand, lifting him off the ground as if he was a doll.
The night was as clearly lit as a summer’s day, each star blazing like a searchlight and Brian found that if he concentrated he could hear them buzzing, a whine that sang like the high notes on a guitar.
And in it all he sensed an order, a code of harmonics and chords that held the universe together.
He looked at the stranger, and got another laugh in return.
“Time enough for questions later...it’ll take some time for you to assimilate it all. In the meantime, we’ve really got to go.”
He led Brian down the drive.
“Is that your car outside the gates?” he asked, and again Brian nodded.
“We’ll take mine if you don’t mind...I don’t think you’re in a fit state to drive.”
When they got to the gates Brian saw a car parked next to his; a sleek, black Jaguar that looked like it had just come out of a garage.
“If I’m going to be looking after you, I suppose you’d better know who I am,” the stranger said. He held out a hand for Brian to shake.
“I’m Donald Allan, and I’m just like you.”
Brian tried to speak, and this time a hoarse croak was all he could manage.
“It takes a while,” the other man said, “But I think you’ll manage it. In the meantime, we have more pressing matters to consider.”
He looked at the sky and grimaced.
“The night’s nearly finished. We’ll have to go to your house...we won’t make it to mine. Do you have a room without windows?”
Brian nodded.
His brain wasn’t functioning properly. He couldn’t make connections between ideas, couldn’t plan his next actions. For the moment he felt content to be led by the other man.
“You’ll have to show me where to go,” the stranger said with a smile. “This area has changed a bit since I last passed through.”
Brian got into the passenger seat, sinking deep into the black leather. He looked around to get his bearings then pointed in the direction of the town.
While the stranger drove he spoke, at the same time his story ran in pictures into Brian’s mind, as if he watched a movie inside his head.
“The snow was whipping around my face like biting flies and the wind whistled like a banshee in my ears. I have never been so happy to see a lump of rock in my life.
Dunnotar Castle sits on a rocky outcrop, jutting out into the sea like the prow of a giant boat. The stone buildings rise almost seamlessly out of the cliffs and it is hard to see where nature stops and man’s work begins. It is even harder to see when the wind is screaming and the snow is falling in an endless white sheet.
On that night only a single light led me across the causeway, and a single guard took my horse and showed me to the Great Hall.
“Donald, Lord Allan of Strathallan.”
A doorman announced my presence in the room, and ten heads turned as I strode across the expanse of floor, trying not to seem too eager as I made my way to the fire and got my hands as close to the flames as I dared.
Nine months in the desert had made me particularly aware of just how cold my homeland was, and on a night like this, with six inches of snow and a howling gale, I wished I had never returned. But then I would have missed my triumph.
The feeling was just coming back to my hands as I turned away from the roaring embers and faced the room. A flagon of mulled wine was thrust at me from my right.
“Here. Get this inside, o’ ye.”
Jamie, Tenth Earl of Dunnotar and Defender of the Crown’s regalia was a big man, six feet tall, broad of shoulder, with flaming red hair and a beard in which you could have hidden a family of mice.
His face flickered redly in the flames and when the candlelight glinted in his eyes he looked like the devil himself. But then he laughed, and the spell was broken.
“Your sojourn amongst the barbarians has enfeebled ye...eh man?”
A huge meaty palm slapped me on the back, almost making me spill my wine as he laughed again.
“Never mind. Come and meet the gentry...we’ve got some women here that’ll bring the color back to
your cheeks.”
I managed to avoid another slap on the back as I followed him across the room. I hadn’t expected a social gathering...I had expected to get straight to the business...but Jamie obviously had his own games to play. I would just have to wait until the main player arrived.
Making polite conversation had never been a favorite pastime of mine, and I’m afraid that I bored the fine ladies of the court, but my mind was forever wandering back to the desert, back to that sepulchre where my long quest had reached its end.
I was standing alone by the fireplace, trying vainly to warm the chill in my bones, when the doorman made the announcement I had been waiting for.
“Robert, Lord of Arran, High Steward of Ayrshire, Grand Master of the Kilwinning Chapter.”
With a build up like that you might have expected a formidable figure, but the man who came in looked like he was struggling to live up to his moniker. His dress was fine enough...all wolf’s fur and soft leather, but the body inside had been racked by too much illness...he could no longer stand straight, his back hunched in a twisted curve. His hair hung across his scalp in a lank wave and his beard was as fine as duck down. Only his eyes seemed truly alive as he came across the room and took my hand.
“Donald,” he said, and there was genuine warmth in his voice. “I knew you would return.
Do you have it?”
“I have it,” I said.
He did a jig of excitement, the reflected firelight dancing in his eyes, then clasped me around the shoulders. I had to stoop to allow him the embrace.
“May I see it?” He whispered, his voice so low that I had to strain to hear, but before I could reply he had already pushed himself away. “No. It must stay hidden until the right time.”
I suddenly realized just how long I had been away. There was a spread of gray in Robert’s hair, a gray that had not been there when I left, nearly three years before.
“So, Donald...do ye have tales to tell, wonders to relate? I’ll wager those barbarian beauties taught you a new trick or two.” Jamie bellowed, coming up beside me and pushing another full goblet of mulled wine into my right hand.
“Can you not see it?” Robert said, still barely above a whisper. “It shows in his eyes...he is not the boy we sent away these three years ago. Aye...he has tales to tell...and not all of them fit for polite company I’m bound.”
“But come with me Donald,” he said, taking me away from the fire. “You can tell me some of your story at least.”
I was reluctant to leave the warmth, but the mulled wine was doing the job, heating me from within, and Robert had a right to hear...he was the one who had sent me on my way all those years ago.
I didn’t bore him with details of the journey itself. It had been slow, it was mainly dull, and that wasn’t what he wanted to hear anyway.
“It was where the Knights of Malta said it would be,” I said, and the act of saying it sent my mind back, so that although I was talking to Robert, I was almost dreaming of the events in that distant land, in that dark and forbidding tomb.
We had been at the site for nearly six months, with little company but the sand and the heat and the flies. The temple had long ago been covered by sand...buried by the wrath of Allah according to the locals I had employed to aid me. With diligence and much back breaking work we had slowly uncovered its splendor, its massive columns and the fine mosaics of its floor, the dry dead ruins of a glorious past.
Finding the entrance to the catacomb had been harder, but I had the drawing which Robert had given me and, one evening, just as the stars were bursting into the sky, I found myself standing in front of a black hole leading down into the earth.
I didn’t want to go in. I’ve never been one for scurrying around in holes...that was more Robert’s style...but if the promised treasure was within, I was going to have to go and get it. Too much depended on me for it to be thrown away on a sudden chill and a sense of foreboding.
The natives refused to go with me. I was left alone with only a single, smoking oil lamp as I put my foot over the threshold.
The flickering lamp sent shadows dancing over the walls like scampering, capering devils and my feet disturbed small clouds of dust to float, wraith-like in the air before me. Rough-hewn steps led me down to where the darkness was thicker and the silence fell over me like a shroud as I descended.
The rough stone tombs sat silent in the darkness, undisturbed for centuries, the carved recumbent figures buried alongside their finery. There were ancient swords, beautifully crafted edges of Spanish steel, there was armor glinting silver-red in the lamp light, there were faded robes, their red crosses still bright in the darkness of the tomb.
But I touched none of them. What I was looking for, if the Knights were to be believed, was yet further inside, at the heart of their ancient stronghold.
I found it several minutes later...the thick drapes hiding the shadowy recess in the wall. For a second my heart leaped to my throat as the drapes rippled, but it was only the flickering of my lamp. Nevertheless my fingers trembled as a pulled the drapes aside.
It was exactly where they said it would be, exactly where they left it all those centuries ago.
As I moved towards the altar a chill wind ran through the chamber, causing the drapes to shuffle and whisper across the dry stone floor.
The shadows seemed to dance faster across the walls and my lamp sputtered and flared before finally settling to a steady flame. But it didn’t seem to be giving out much light as before.
I took what I had come for and left, hastily, grateful to get back out into the cool night.
“So the temple was there,” Robert said, talking to himself. “Just where they said it would be.” He looked up at me, and there were tears in his eyes.
He looked like he wanted to say more but he turned away from me, ashamed of his tears. I was about to reach out for him when a huge hand grasped me by the shoulder. I turned to see Jamie’s wide-eyed, slack-mouthed grin...he had drunk too much, but that was part of what made him Jamie...I would have expected no less from him. In his left hand he was holding my saddlebags.
“So, laddie,” he said to Robert, “Are you satisfied? Are you going to have your wee show?”
Robert merely nodded. “Aye. It is time,” he said. “Come with me.”
I was confused. “What is this all about?” I asked Jamie as we followed Robert’s bent figure.
He wouldn’t answer at first and I had to ask him again before he deigned to reply.
“Robert has found a use for yon thing you brought back,” he said. “He is going to call up the Bruce. We will have our champion again.”
He wouldn’t say any more as led me further from the fire, away towards the door. I had one last look back as we left the room, but the rest of the occupants seemed to be pointedly ignoring us, trying too hard not to note our passing.
The snow hit me full in the face as the door closed behind me, and the wind howled its rage in my ears. Far below the waves beat hungrily at the cliffs, flecks of white spume being flung high to mingle with the white, dancing flakes of the storm.
“A fine night for it.” Jamie bellowed in my ear, even his great voice being torn away by the wind. I was unable to reply...I was having enough trouble fighting the wind to bother with speech. We followed Robert through the grounds of the castle to the chapel at the east end, high above the sucking sea below.
A great oak door, some four inches thick, swung shut behind us as we entered, shutting out all sounds of the storm and leaving us alone in thick, quiet darkness. Robert struck a light and at first all I could see was his face, lit from underneath by the candle, its light throwing the upper half of his face into deep, black shadow.
It was only when my eyes became accustomed to the darkness that I realized what was about to occur.
The windows of the chapel had been covered in thick, green velvet drapes, and all the wooden seats had been removed from the room, leaving only empty boards on the floor before the a
ltar.
On the floor, a circle within a circle had been drawn, circles surrounded by dense Hebrew script. A five-pointed star was inscribed inside the inner circle, and a candle was placed at each point of the star.
Jamie handed me the saddlebag.
“It is time, laddie. Let’s see what your quest has brought us.”
I opened the bag and suddenly felt a chill that had nothing to do with the howling storm outside.
I took out the leather-covered package and unfolded it, taking a small pleasure in the gasps that escaped from the other two.
The ashes lay in a small pile no more than an inch high...red burned ash that could have been from almost anything. What couldn’t be misinterpreted were the teeth...just two of them, as white and gleaming as those of a child, as sharp and pointed as those of a great shark.
Robert took the bag from my hands softly, almost reverentially.
“The old books were right. And if I’ve read them right these few ashes have the power to return the dead. Rejoice my friends, for tonight we will have the Bruce with us.”
He produced a gold goblet from under his robes, its surface gleaming redly in the candlelight, and poured the ashes into it before stepping into the circle.
“Remember,” he said to both of us. “You must not enter the circle until the conjuration is complete.”
Jamie and I nodded in unison...it was not the first summoning we had attended, but I had the feeling it would be the most memorable.
Robert raised the goblet above his head and began to chant as the air above us thickened and soured.
I won’t try to reproduce the words...they were barbarous and strange, the like of which I had never heard. There was a great swirling in the air, a red mist that foamed and bubbled, lit by its own inner fire.
“The knife,” Robert said, and Jamie drew his dagger, throwing it underhand into the circle where Robert caught it with a deftness and skill he had never previously possessed. He placed the goblet on the floor in the middle of the circle and held his arm out over it.
Without saying anything else he slashed down hard at his flesh, blood welling immediately.
