Dark Seed

by Simon West-Bulford

  “He’s either in the west wing or . . .” Beatrice trailed off.

  “Dead?” Elizabeth said.

  “No,” said Beatrice. “I was going to say about that other place downstairs from the kitchens. That door with the horrible smell near it.” She shuddered.

  “The wine cellar?” Breswick lifted his chin. “You think he’s hiding?”

  “Well, I think he left,” said Elizabeth. “Why else wouldn’t he have come to see us? There’s not a single soul in this place. I say he took his servants and fled.”

  Although I could imagine the panic of the residents, I did not subscribe to her theory. “That can’t be right,” I said. “He invited us. And his letter suggests he has a solution to all this. At the very least he must have found a way to keep these creatures at bay; otherwise, they surely would have broken in and killed us by now.”

  “Was there any indication on your invite how he achieved this?” Breswick said.

  “He was vague in his letter, but he did mention that he needed my help to save the village. He said he needed my intellect.”

  Breswick raised his eyebrows. “On mine he said he needed my courage.”

  “Really? Can I see?”

  Breswick pulled an envelope from his trouser pocket and handed it to me. I pulled the invitation out, unfolded it, and read it. The writing was comparable to that on my own invitation, having the same flavor of desperation, urgently requesting his presence at the mansion and seeking his unique quality of bravery. I turned the letter over. The same verse was written on Breswick’s that was on mine. I read it aloud.

  “‘Sing, lofty spirit, sing, for the love of liberty.

  Suffer the flesh to free thy soul and rise to heaven’s courts.

  For the way to salvation is seen with eyes of virtue.

  Thy strength must not waver nor thy heart sink.

  Let thy mind ponder the secrets of the flesh no longer,

  That thy bowels may divine the way.’

  This was written on mine too.”

  “What?” said Breswick, startled.

  “Yes, I don’t recognize it. Do you?”

  “Of course I recognize it. I’m the author. I thought he had written it to . . .” Breswick’s face screwed up in confusion. “I thought he had written it on my invite to reach me somehow. To convince me that I needed to come. I didn’t realize . . . Is it scribed on everyone’s invite? This makes no sense.”

  “It’s on mine,” said Beatrice.

  “And mine,” said Elizabeth.

  Stromany remained silent, staring at the floor.

  “Did he say why he invited you?” I asked the others.

  “He said he knew by reputation that I have a kind heart,” said Beatrice, “and that it would be needed if we should keep our humanity.”

  “And you, Elizabeth?” Breswick asked.

  “My beauty,” she said. “But what does it mean? What does that have to do with anything? It’s obviously a metaphor, isn’t it? Hargraven surely wants us to work together.”

  I nodded. “The way to salvation is seen with the eyes of virtue, strength, heart, mind, and . . .”

  “Bowels,” said Breswick, nodding in agreement.

  “Poppycock!” Beatrice said. “What has a man’s bowels got to do with anything?”

  Breswick hooked his thumbs in his pockets and briefly rose on tiptoe. “In ancient times, the bowels were thought of as the seat of human intuition and bravery. Elizabeth is correct. I wrote a metaphor. Hargraven said he needed my courage and discernment, but I suspect it is much more than that. In his darkest days before he cut off all communication with the village, he turned to me for spiritual help, and I think he is asking again.”

  Breswick took the invite back from me and studied it. “This verse was from a series of poetic fables I wrote called The Chrestomathia. I wrote them especially for him, you know. During the last few months, as he withdrew from the community, he had plunged himself into a feverish obsession with dark scripture. He told me he was looking for something. Some sort of purge or cleansing, he said. I used every persuasive method I could think of to dissuade him. I told him that if he did not repent, he would subject himself to powers of evil and corruption from which it would be difficult to return, but”—Breswick looked at me and smiled dolefully—“you remember how he was, Drenn? He would just gaze at me with that placid expression of his and tell me that it was out of his hands.

  “The Chrestomathia was my last effort to reach him. And I believe it worked for a time. He received those words with great enthusiasm and even expressed the desire to be freed from it all, but on the last night I visited him, he took a turn for the worst and spoke to me of the darkest of shadows, a vile presence from a distant place that had returned to consume him. The Nameless Beast, he called it.” He snapped his fingers repeatedly. “The Innomi . . . Innom . . .”

  I looked up, startled by the name Old Man Tarky had already warned me about. “The Innominatum?”

  “Yes. That was it.” Breswick stared into the middle distance and shuddered. “I saw the look in his eyes. The light had gone from them,” he whispered. “I have seen the spirit of lesser men wither and die in the trenches when the enormity of the enemy’s arsenal was brought to bear, and his look was the same. I don’t know what became of him throughout the months of his seclusion, but I think his letter to us must be his last desperate—”

  Elizabeth cut him off. “All this talk of Hargraven’s past is irrelevant. None of this answers the question of where our mysterious host is now.”

  Breswick let out a long sigh, still lost in the past. He observed her with concern and gathered himself, as if stuffing his memories back into an old dusty box that should never have been opened. “Do you think perhaps Beatrice is correct, then? Has he locked himself away, hoping to keep the demons out?”

  Nobody answered the question. Instead, an uncomfortable silence fell, and in that space, my thoughts indulged wild and unwholesome speculation about what the creatures may have done to our host. It occurred to me that everyone in the room had probably endured unspeakable violence and loss before reaching Hargraven Manor. This much had to be true of Breswick at least, for I saw him arrive with many others—possibly cherished members of his church congregation—yet only he had survived. My arrival was most likely a much needed, if temporary, distraction. Contemplative silence was not yet a welcome companion for any of us.

  “The simple solution,” I said eventually, as if there had been no break in our conversation, “is for us to search the unexplored areas and see if he is still here. I think we should check the west wing first. I can’t ever recall a time when it was locked—yes, he must have purposefully hidden himself away in one of the old classrooms. He used to keep all the keys for the school in the utility room by the kitchen. There should be spares.”

  Elizabeth went to the fireplace from which I had emerged earlier and flicked ash into it. “I ask again, why hasn’t he come to see us, if he invited us? He must know his guests have arrived.”

  Beatrice grimaced. “Could be he’s injured or unconscious.”

  “His letter to me did show signs of distress,” I said. “Whatever the truth is, something’s not right. Who was the first guest to arrive?” I looked at Stromany, who had remained silent through the whole conversation. “It was you, I presume, Mr. Stromany? Didn’t you see Hargraven?”

  He looked up, his expression guarded. “Yeah, I was the first to arrive, but I never saw no one.”

  Elizabeth smirked as she walked away from the fireplace. “Doesn’t that mean he did actually see someone?”

  “Then who let you in?” I asked Stromany.

  “Door was open.”

  Breswick shrugged. He looked at me with a frown when he spoke, but his words—dripping with skepticism—were directed at Stromany. “Really? You just . . . strolled in and made yourself at home, did you, George?”

  Stromany got out of his chair and, serving a glare to Breswick’s back, walked
toward the door. “Believe what ya like. Don’t bother me none,” he muttered.

  “Where are you going?” Beatrice asked.

  “To get him a drink. You said he’d be thirsty, didn’t ya? And besides, I need to have a piss. That all right with you, love? Or did you want to hold it for me?”

  Stromany left the room, and Beatrice appeared scolded for a moment, if slightly defiant.

  Elizabeth—with a coy smile—raised her eyebrows in acknowledgement of Stromany’s retort. She appeared to me a strange character: one moment vulnerable and squeamish, the next bold as brass, but this could simply have been the extreme stress of our besieged situation.

  “As mundane as it may sound,” Elizabeth said, “a lady has certain requirements too, if you take my meaning. I need to powder my nose.”

  “We should stay together,” Breswick said, his voice loud enough that Stromany would hear it outside the room too.

  Elizabeth’s eyebrows rose even farther. “You want to accompany me to the lavatory?”

  “I only meant that we need to be sure of our situation before we separate.”

  “Why?” I asked. “I don’t know where Hargraven is, but he’s managed to secure this place somehow. Those creatures, for whatever reason, don’t want to come near the building.”

  “True enough, but I have learned to trust my intuition, Drenn. I know you don’t subscribe to such things, but I do believe it is a gift from the Lord, and it has served me very well in the past.” He lowered his voice. “And I don’t trust Mr. Stromany—there is deceit in his eyes and voice. For all we know, he could have done something with Hargraven. The danger, I fear, is not just outside but in here with us.”

  Breswick could have been right. Stromany was the first to arrive, and he was too evasive for someone so sure of himself, though the reverend’s mistrust of the man seemed a little harsh; he could simply have been frightened.

  “Well, I need to excuse myself,” Elizabeth said. “If it makes you feel more comfortable, Beatrice can accompany me.”

  “Of course,” Breswick conceded, “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s perfectly fine.” She smiled sweetly and touched Breswick’s shoulder. “I understand. You need to take charge. We won’t be long.”

  “And we’ll keep an eye on George. I haven’t trusted him from the moment we arrived, either,” Beatrice said.

  The two ladies left the room, talking in careful whispers.

  Breswick took a seat beside me, slapped his hands on his knees, and shook his head slowly. “Nasty business, this. Eh, Drenn?” He sighed deeply and studied me.

  It was a plain enough statement, presented in the casual tones we men tend to adopt when overwhelming circumstances loom, but it felt also like an invitation to unleash every stifled woe that sat heavy in my heart. I think perhaps it was because I knew him and his profession that I struggled to respond in like manner, but I was able to restrain myself.

  “Do you have any idea what’s happening?” I asked. “Any at all?”

  Breswick huffed and gazed at the ceiling. “Survival, Drenn. Survival.”

  I stared at the inglenook. Blood and mingled soot from my unremembered struggle were smeared around an otherwise beautiful feature, and all I could do in my drugged state of mind was flitter from one question to another, knowing that I may never have the answers I wanted. Breswick had no better idea than I, but at least he had greater mastery of his emotions, or so it appeared. I had no doubt that his time serving in the war had given him the necessary mental callouses to resist the temptation of despair. No doubt his faith had helped him too, and something about this man’s kindly demeanor encouraged me to open up to him.

  “It’s not just survival,” I told him. “I’ve managed to stay alive somehow, but since all this began I have also done things of which I am . . . not proud. Remorseful, even.” I dared not meet his gaze, for I could not yet confess completely to my crimes. “I met a man today. He called himself Old Man Tarky. He was—”

  “Tarky? Goodness! White hair? Mad as a March hare?”

  “You met him too?” I said.

  “Why, yes, he was the gentlemen tasked with . . . Oh, but of course, we all must have met him. He was delivering Hargraven’s invitations. I do hope he’s still alive. Where did you last—?”

  “The thing of it is, Theo, as you so obviously saw, his mind had snapped. He must have seen some terrible things, and I daresay that stands for all of us, but how does one guard oneself from sharing his fate? I fear our spirits may be irreparably damaged by all of this, and I find myself wondering, is it good enough simply to survive when so much of yourself could be lost?”

  Breswick smiled flatly and took a moment to consider his response. “Did I ever tell you about young Private Guillemot?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Breswick puckered his lips in thought, then sighed and nodded. “A bright young man, that one. Fiercely devoted to sport, ran like the wind when he set his feet to the task. I used to watch him training most mornings while I was setting up the tables for communion. He was astounding. He’d get up before dawn, before all the other soldiers, and he’d run his circuits around the camp. I don’t know how long he used to run, but it didn’t matter how early I woke; he’d always be up before me, trudging through the mud. I even made the effort to train with him sometimes.” Breswick patted his belly. “You wouldn’t notice now, of course, and obviously I had no hope of keeping pace with him, but he would slow down, just so that he had some company on the track.

  “We got on very well, he and I. He was such a likeable human being and very tolerant of my evangelical advances. He was one of those chaps who seemed happy to invite you into his heart, you know? We had so many healthy discussions about our Lord—though I had to brush up on my French—but he always insisted that as long as he could keep running, he would never feel the need for anything else to satisfy his soul.” Breswick paused, savoring the memories. “But—as you can guess—one day it was his turn to go to the trenches, and what happened to that young man has always stayed with me.”

  I sighed and shook my head, expecting him to tell me the worst.

  “He didn’t lose his legs, Drenn, if that’s what you were thinking. It was mustard gas.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “I suppose you have heard what that does to a man?”

  I had. The stories were horrendous. Weeping sores, raw throats, and burnt lungs. The slow and agonizing death of heroes suffering their last days in reeking, rat-infested darkness.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “There’s no need. He lived. It wasn’t the man’s suffering that stayed with me; it was his spirit.” The reverend smiled philosophically. “I learned two very important truths that day. I learned that God was real, and I learned that the spirit of man is far more resilient than the body.

  “I was at his bedside when they brought him back. I stayed with him for three days on and off, fully expecting him to die, and I prayed as hard as any man could for him to be saved, yet deep in my soul”—he thumped his fingers hard against his chest—“right in the depth of my heart, I just couldn’t believe he would survive. A completely devout chaplain, yet, to my shame, I had no faith in the power of God to restore this person who had become so very important to me. I had seen too many die. ‘Why should he be any different?’ I asked myself, and I tortured myself over my unbelief. But I continued to pray—as chaplains do—and, well, the miracle happened. He survived.

  “And I’m talking about the man’s spirit, not just his body. His lungs had been severely impaired, of course—he lost one—but he was still the same likeable man with the same heart and resolve. He survived, Drenn. And if we get out of this alive, so will you if you want to. Your spirit is eternal, having the capacity to repair itself anew, not like this corruptible flesh on your bones. Do you understand?”

  I looked him in the eye. And even at that moment I felt the seeds of restoration and of hope. “Thank you, Reverend.”


  He huffed. “You’re welcome, but you still don’t know the whole story.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “You remember the Olympics?”

  “The seventh Olympiad? Of course.”

  “When you get the opportunity, check the records to see who received the gold medal for the five-thousand-meter race.”

  “No!”

  Breswick swelled with pride. “Yes. It was Joseph Guillemot.”

  Moon Box Segment Translation 9

  To feed the stirring brood

  The archaeological diary of Edward Cephas Hargraven

  9th September 1891

  Haynes is insistent we leave. I am insistent we stay. Indeed, we cannot leave now, not until we find out why the Kur’hukayians felt it necessary to hide an entire city by building their own on top of it. But that is only part of the mystery. It is a curious fact that whilst there is a complete absence of written communication in Kur’hukayia, the antechamber of the under-city is wall-to-wall with pictograms: a variety of symbols have been etched into the granite. It was in studying this obscure language form that Haynes first showed signs of agitation, and his reasons for abandoning our quest center around the very name of the place. The word Innominatum means “Nameless” and he maintains that the label is not assigned lightly.

  The City of the Nameless is not so called because its history and people are lost to us, as the theory suggests. He claims that the correct interpretation of the title is the City of the Nameless. The Nameless, he says, refers to a deity—a supreme intelligence that resides in the formation of language itself—a being that must never be summoned or, indeed, named. I do not yet understand most of what he tells me, and I am concerned about his sudden rash acceptance of the supernatural, but whilst he seems desperate to leave, he is also drawn feverishly to the mysterious language upon the walls, as if the very words themselves are imbued with a power all of their own that he is fighting to resist.