by John Burke
The creaking of the window-frame and the swaying of the curtains were ordinary, everyday things that tonight clutched at her heart. The thought of blowing out the candle was terrifying, yet no less terrifying were the monsters its uncertain flame conjured up.
Next door there was a comforting buzz of voices. Her mother and father, arguing in their same half-hearted, inevitable way. The words were indistinct, but Nora could follow the general trend without difficulty. Mrs. Morris was already in bed, ready for sleep, but her husband was tossing and turning, complaining of feeling wide-awake; after dozing in his chair all day, he became restless at night, and would twist and turn— “There’s an ol’ fidget he is,” Mrs. Morris would complain, and vow never to let him have any more naps during the day—and a steady little murmur of complaints would sound through the wall.
They, at any rate, were comforting in their adherence to routine.
Or, were they? Again, one could not be absolutely certain.
Nora, having nerved herself to the act of blowing out the candle, was brought up sharply by this sudden thought. Not for the first time today, it was as though the floor had been dissolved beneath her, leaving her to fall into depths she could not calculate.
Before she could hesitate further, she puffed, and the flame died to a little, red smouldering glow on the end of the wick. The smell of wax hung in the cold air for a minute as Nora felt her way across to the bed, and climbed in. At first the room was dark, then the shape of the window began to nudge its way through the blackness. The light was grey and indistinct, but as she lay and watched—wanting to look away, for she had a childish fear of what might happen at windows…whisking aside of curtains, unimaginable horrors—the grey was tinged with dull red. She dared not move. She saw, as though she had been standing by the window itself, the shape of the ruins, and at the same time the shape of a great bulk that was not a ruin. Her mother and father were silent. Further along, she thought she could hear a dull murmur of voices from Denis and Frank, but that might have been only the increasing moaning of the wind. And in any case, Denis and Frank were a long way away: too many steps for her to tread if anything should happen: she knew she would be trapped, her feet powerless as in nightmare, if anything really did happen. Besides, there was no telling whether Denis or Frank could be trusted. Someone in the house was a walking slave, a creature without will. Loneliness pressed in on her.…
* * * *
“I don’t like this business of slinking off to bed,” said Denis.
“I feel tired enough myself,” confessed Frank. “Even downright terror gives way after a while. I couldn’t have kept my eyes open much longer.”
“So long as that’s not the idea.”
“What do you mean?”
Denis yawned. “I’m not in much of a state myself, but I’m trying to keep going. If someone wants to lull us into a state of weariness—”
“That someone being Jonathan?”
“Yes. This may all be part of his plan. I don’t want to go off to sleep if that’s the idea. If Jonathan wants me to close my baby blue eyes, that’s one good reason for keeping them open.”
“All night?”
Denis groaned. “It’s a tough proposition,” he admitted.
“What about taking watches?”
“I’ve been thinking that.”
They studied one another cautiously. Slowly a reluctant smile broke across Frank’s face. He said: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I suppose I am.”
“We’re both in the same position. One of us may be Mr. Jonathan’s little offering to the gods. I know I’m not, but maybe you know you’re not, too. Since we can’t tell what’s in the other bloke’s mind, that helps neither of us. But there’s no reason to suppose that this—this poor, possessed being—is going to be harmful. We’ve got to start somewhere, and I’m working on the supposition that there’s no danger for any of us until dawn. We can’t sit here and suspect one another all night long. So the best thing to do is to decide how far we are prepared to trust one another. I think it’s worth taking the risk, and maintaining a watch. One of us sleeps two hours while the other stays awake and listens for anything that may be going on. If nothing happens, all well and good. If someone moves, wake up the other one, and we’ll see what’s going on.”
They were still surveying one another, trying to weigh up the odds. Denis said: “Obviously we’ve got to take a chance. I’m all for the watch idea.”
The tension between them relaxed a little. Perhaps this return to a system they both knew so well eased their minds. Or perhaps one of them.…
“No,” said Denis forcefully, “I’m damned if I’ll keep on thinking unpleasant thoughts. The two of us are sane and we’re all here—no bits missing. I thought I was finished with watches and guard mounting, but it looks as though old habits die hard.”
“Who’s first?” asked Frank.
Denis extended his palm, with a penny in it.
“Have a look that there aren’t two heads,” he invited.
“No, I think I can—”
“Have a look,” Denis insisted. “I don’t want to have you sitting there brooding while I’m asleep—or lying awake while I’m on watch.”
They both laughed. The coin spun. Frank said: “Heads.” It was tails. Frank got into bed after removing his shoes and loosening his collar. His eyes were getting heavier, but he was surprised to find that otherwise he was not sleepy. He felt mentally alert, and even when he was slowly succumbing to the advance of drowsiness he knew that it would not be a deep, embracing slumber; he would be able to wake at once when the time came. “Don’t forget,” he muttered to the shape sitting on the end of the bed. “Give me a shove as soon as anything moves. If anything happens, I want to see it happening. I don’t like things going on unless I’m fully conscious.”
“Get your head down and stop nattering,” said Denis. “I won’t forget you.”
* * * *
Nora unwillingly pulled back the curtain, driven by a nagging compulsion that she could not resist.
The sight that met her eyes was almost a disappointment. She had been prepared for horror—she had been drawn to it—but the jagged ruins were in no way terrifying. At least, not at first sight.…
She realised that their apparent stillness was deceptive. The faint red glow that clung to the walls like some shining fungus ebbed and flowed, surging up and then down again so that the ceiling of her room was bathed in rhythmic flushes of unhealthy colour. That was all there was to be seen. But as she continued to look, she sensed a movement behind the walls, in the centre where the arch stood. There was a ghostly palpitation, a movement like slow, exultant dancing. This was a night of rejoicing on the other side. “The other side”—she could not repress a shudder. What else could one call it?
She let the curtain slip back into place. This was all too fantastic to be thought over carefully. Even now she had only the vaguest idea of the danger with which they were threatened. She wished that it had been possible to have a long talk with Simon, so that she would know what to expect in the morning. This alternating swing of farce and terror left no clear impression on the mind. She recalled the horror of that strange world into which she and Frank had wandered, and knew that they had been afraid, but she could not say what had caused that fear. The shapes and the furtive movements were indistinct now. She could not recollect—and she certainly could not fit them into any clear conception of what the world would be like after tomorrow. This was a world of science and normality. Trains and black magic…electricity and witchcraft…power houses and bloodstained altars…? These things were mutually exclusive. It was foolish to believe that a chanting of spells before a heap of ruins could loose the hordes of prehistoric terror on a world that had outgrown such superstition. Impossible…but for the inescapable conviction of evil crouching outside the house, waiting for the morning. And to fight it, only Simon?
I could do with a drink of water, she thou
ght. Supper would have been a mockery, but a drink would have been welcome. A drink of water. The mere thought began to torment her. And if she went down for a drink, she might have a word with Simon. That was really what she needed: she did not believe that Simon, knowing as much as he obviously did, would succumb to Jonathan’s influence. Whoever was possessed by that venomous little creature, it was not Simon.
In which case, it was somebody else.…
Here she was facing the problem again, finding reasons for dismissing the possibility that anyone in the house could be the powerless creature who was to be the source of life energy for the returning gods.
There was no sound from the next room. Denis and Frank were silent. The oppression of death weighed on her; it was not only the cold that made her shiver. The need to talk to someone became imperative.
Mrs. Morris breathed heavily, at intervals breaking into a slight, spluttering snore. Her husband lay with his eyes open and looked steadfastly at the ceiling. Once he moved, and Mrs. Morris stirred uneasily in her sleep. “Mm?” she said from a great distance.
He made no reply.
Denis shook Frank. Frank’s eyes opened reluctantly and he opened his mouth to speak, but Denis put his hand quickly across it.
“Someone’s just walked past the door,” he said.
Frank blinked to signify that he was awake and had understood. He swung out of bed, and the two of them went cautiously across to the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Nora hesitated at the top of the stairs. The candle illuminated only a few steps, the remainder plunging away into abysmal gloom. She almost turned back.
Afraid of compromising yourself, Nora fach? The idea was laughable. On a night like this, ordinary considerations were swept aside by the necessity of combating her loneliness: it was essential that she should go down and talk to Simon. Until she had a chance of sorting out the muddle in her mind and of finding out what their chances were of resisting the onslaught of these malign forces stamping eagerly at the gateway, she could not possibly rest. Each moment had become more nerve-racking. Lying in bed, she had remembered a story, read long ago, about a room in which the ceiling came down—or was it the canopy of one of those old-fashioned four-poster beds?—to crush the occupant. She was trembling, falling in and then agitatedly scrambling out of that morass of half-sleep which is haunted by indefinable shapes, where every thought is swiftly translated into dream images, elusive but terrifying. The sound of another human voice…the thought of it was like the pangs of a thirst that must be quenched.
Nora drew her dressing gown tighter and went downstairs. There was a faint crack of light under the door at the end of the passage. As she approached, the door opened and Simon stood there, peering towards her. He was still fully dressed, and as he stood aside to let her enter, she saw that the blankets on the couch had not been disturbed.
“What’s the matter?” asked Simon in a low voice.
She closed the door, and replied in the same tone. “Jonathan sleeps in the room above; we mustn’t let the sound of our voices wake him up.”
“He won’t wake: for him this is a night of rest and preparation. His psychic energies need to be conserved, ready for their great trial tomorrow—or is it today?” He glanced at the inaccurate clock.
“Couldn’t we go up and overpower him? We could wake Frank and Denis—”
“Jonathan may be sleeping, but he’s by no means unprotected.” Simon sat on the edge of the couch and indicated that she should sit beside him. “Now, then—what brought you down here at this hour?”
Because the kitchen was warm and safe, she found that the things she had come to ask sounded foolish. She said: “Why aren’t you getting some rest yourself, ready for the morning?”
“Don’t change the subject. Did you come down to see me about something?”
There was an unfathomable look in his eyes. Behind the studious, remote Simon that she knew was somebody else, looking out at her through his eyes. This fleeting awareness, pricking at so many ready suspicions in her mind, made her move instinctively a few inches away.
“What is it?” Simon demanded.
He was turned towards her, and unexpectedly he put his hand on her arm. It was warm and compelling; she sensed an emotion that he had never shown before.
“Nora…when this is over, and we can talk reasonably—”
“But how is it going to finish?” she asked hurriedly, alarmed by his manner, and seizing the opportunity his words offered to bring up the subject that had brought her down here. “Do you know how it will all end—and if you do, couldn’t you tell us? I can’t get to sleep; I want to know what we’ve got to face in the morning. If you have any power to fight all these horrible things.… I mean, if you know, Simon, why can’t you say what’s going to happen?”
“Nothing’s certain,” said Simon evasively.
“You might fail?”
“Fail?”
He savoured the word as though it was one that had never before occurred to him. “Fail.…” But he did not answer, and she thought that he smiled. His hand still lay on her arm, and he was studying her face with a disturbing, keen appraisal that was new to her. She said: “Simon, please let’s have an end to this mystery.”
“I’ve been too much occupied lately,” he said, musing, “but soon it will all be over, and then things will be very different.”
She freed herself from his grasp.
“What chance have we,” she said slowly and deliberately, “of assistance from the White Adepts?”
It was the first thing she had said that really seemed to reach him. His eyes narrowed. “We don’t know that they exist,” he said. “What are they now? They were never a clique, as the Black Adepts were. When their work was over, what did they become? Their appearances when it seemed necessary to strike another blow at the powers of sorcery—who has ever explained them? They could hardly be called appearances: rather, a display of power, a sort of pyrotechnical exhibition. And how do we know what their characteristics may be today? It is my belief that the White Adepts are no longer a body of men; if they exist at all, it is as a spiritual force—an incredibly refined force, perhaps attenuated so much”—his lip curled—“that it now possesses no physical strength whatever. Evil becomes more and more active, and takes on more and more body as it flourishes; but the aim of all purer philosophies is non-existence, a bodiless Nirvana, a state where all but contemplation is forbidden. The White Adepts…I think they’ve been translated to another plane, where meditation alone is of value, and where no storms are permitted to disturb their ivory towers. Evil is an active force; good is passive.”
There was in his voice none of the comfort that Nora was seeking. That strangely mocking pessimism disturbed her. She said: “Simon—are you the one Jonathan chose last night?”
“Would I tell you if I were?”
Again she was rebuffed. Abruptly she rose, wanting to get away. He stood beside her.
“You’re not what we’d hoped—one of the White Adepts?” she asked, inviting the final disillusionment.
“I am not.”
Until he spoke, she had not realised how much she had been clinging to the comforting belief.
“And the help we need…? Tomorrow, when Jonathan starts—”
He took her by the shoulders, and again there was an unknown Simon looking out at her.
“Asceticism isn’t everything,” he burst out fiercely. “It’s been a long, hard struggle, but the time’s at hand when the training and the suffocating of all natural impulses will be at an end. Because I’ve been so deeply involved in books and the old lore for so long, don’t think I’ve been blind to you, Nora.”
“Simon—”
“If it will put your mind at rest”—his eyes were shining—“I’ll tell you now what will happen in the morning. You shall hear it all. You may not sleep…but at least there’ll be enough splendid thoughts and dreams to make lying awake a pleasure.” He laughed, then stood absolu
tely still. “What was that?”
Distinctly they heard the long rasping of a loose board on the landing at the head of the stairs. Simon was at once withdrawn into a world of his own, from which he emerged at last with an enigmatic sigh. “Your brother,” he said decisively.
“How do you know?”
“It was your brother, with his friend,” Simon said.
Nora opened the door and heard a slight scuffling noise.
“Everyone’s on the prowl,” said Simon ironically. She could tell at once that his excitement had died down, and that he would probably not tell her what had been on the tip of his tongue a moment ago.
She was right. He said: “You’d better go back to bed, or even in times of stress like these we’ll have a lot of gossip on top of our other troubles.” The thought seemed to amuse him.
Now, as she found herself walking automatically out into the passage, she had a dozen questions she wanted to ask.
“Simon, what happened to Frank and myself in the castle the other day? How was it that we could walk through into that world, and yet you say the creatures in there can’t get out until some sort of ritual has been gone through? We got in and out: why—”
“Until the Great Seal has been broken, no one may come out. The gateway is open, but there is no way through from the other side. Jonathan performed the ceremony that opened it, and then left it for the cosmic upheaval to settle down: around that arch is a state of terrific flux, through which you, by a freak of nature, were able to walk. The whole corner of the cosmos was stable for a short period, and you got in—and, by a stroke of luck, got out again, when you might well have been trapped. It’s hard to explain, but you were not physically in that world: it was only that the forces in that area were so strong that you saw it exactly as it is, your mind completely controlled by the reflection of the distant universe in which the old gods lie waiting. That doesn’t mean there was no danger—you might easily have succumbed to the powers of that world, and been consumed…bodily, or spiritually—I don’t really know. But I do know that, despite the fact that you could apparently go into that other world, none of the inhabitants can come out until the word is given. It’s always easier,” he added grimly, “for one in a state of grace to fall from it into hell than for one of the denizens of hell to climb up into the light.”
