“Is this familiar?” Carter asked, halting to inspect the chamber.
The lawyer looked around. “Perhaps. I’m not certain.”
“Do you remember, in our dream, when Brittle was murdered? The Thin Man brought us into a room behind one of the bookcases.”
“You’re right! Could this be the same?”
Carter bent down and examined the canister. What do you make of this?”
“It looks like the materials to construct a bomb. Here is a timer. I’ve seen such in the courtroom, though none quite like this. It isn’t armed; I’m certain of that.”
“Could one like it have caused the explosion in the library? If so, who set it? The Thin Man?”
“If he did, it raises many questions. He threatened to oppose you before, if you remained in the house. Why would he help us? And if not him, then who?”
“We will leave it for now; the matter of the basement is more urgent.”
They hurried on, up a rickety flight of stair, the way they had gone in their dream, but this time, instead of leading to Carter’s bedroom, it wound back to the wooden stairs where the men had begun, completing the circle of the ground floor.
The thunder, which had been a soft rumbling above their heads, died away into silence as they descended into what could only be the basement. The musty odor of damp stone and earth rose to meet them; the walls and ceiling gave way to mortar and brick. Beetles and slugs patrolled along the granite steps. Carter pushed through the cobwebs and warily studied the holes in the brick, gaping like vipers’ dens. The close proximity of the walls, which had been tolerable before, seemed to enfold him, as if the weight of the whole house lay upon his breast, and he suddenly found he could hardly breathe.
“Are you all right?” Hope asked softly.
Carter gasped for air and fought the sweeping panic. He nodded and went on, not certain if he was “all right” at all, trying not to consider how much the walls resembled the sides of a well, and he descending to its bottom.
A pinpoint light, shining like a tiny star, marked another spy-hole. Carter looked in, expecting to find nothing, and at first all appeared indistinct, but when his eyes adjusted, he found the Bobby already arrived, accompanied by his two servants, standing before a gray door beside a dusty stair, beneath a sallow light. In his hand, he held the Master Keys. Had there been a way, Carter would have smashed through the wall, attacked the monster, and seized the bronze ring, but he could do nothing except watch.
The Bobby brushed the dust off the front of the door, exposing cryptic runes carved across its face. With a soft, ugly chuckle, he said, “This is the one, the Door of Endless Dark. None have opened it before. We will see if I have the strength.”
He searched the ring and selected an ebony key, one Carter remembered well, for its head was carved into the shape of a skull, with hollow, foreboding eyes; as a child he had found it both exciting and disturbing. The Bobby seemed to grapple with it as he dragged it to the lock, as if it resisted him with human strength. Clutching it with both hands, groaning from his efforts, he twisted the handle with his thumb, and the lock opened with a loud click.
“All together,” he rasped. “We must pull it wide.”
All three anarchists grasped the heavy knob. Their first pull opened it the tiniest of cracks. A single sliver of blackness slowly oozed out from between door and frame. The room was dim, filled with shadows, but this substance was not the absence of light, rather the presence of Dark itself, the emptiness before the making of the worlds and the weaving of the first suns, a Dark of the abandoned soul, and of despair. Already it covered the door frame, and as if in doing so, caused it to cease to exist.
“Make haste,” the Bobby commanded. “Open it wide!”
Carter suddenly knew it was imperative the door be opened no farther. “Scream,” he hissed to Hope. “Wail like a banshee at the top of your lungs. At the count of three.”
Together, the two men bellowed, and then ceased abruptly at Carter’s command. In answer, one of the anarchists turned and fired a pistol, even as Carter pushed Hope down. The bullet struck the stone, but did not penetrate, and Carter raised his own firearm to the spy-hole, which was only large enough to fit the barrel. He pulled the trigger, hoping it would not backfire. Looking quickly, he saw the portly anarchist clutching his shoulder—a fortuitous strike from an unaimed gun.
“Away!” the Bobby cried. “They have found us. Away!” He bolted up the stair, leaving the other man to help his wounded comrade.
“We must return to my room,” Carter said. “We have to reach the basement and shut that door.”
They made a furious dash back up the steps, and by the time they reached Carter’s bedroom, both men were panting, but they continued into the corridor and down the stair, calling for Captain Glis.
It took time to locate the captain, and even longer to make their way into the kitchen and through the narrow door leading to the basement. With Glis and Enoch in the lead, and a dozen men behind, they rushed down the stair. The light had gone out, but they carried several lamps. Halfway down, Glis abruptly halted, and all strained to see.
The Dark had risen halfway up the stair, covering the floor with a vast nothingness that did not reflect the lamplight, like a starless night sky. Carter reached down and dropped a coin into it, where it sank without a splash, as if passing out of existence.
“We can’t cross to reach the Darkness Door, and the liquid is rising,”Glis said.
“Will the door above contain it?” Hope asked.
“The High House is unlike any other, so perhaps it will,” Enoch said. “Or maybe the Dark will squeeze out between the cracks into other parts of the house. Brittle once told me the basement goes under everything, even Naleewuath and distant Capaz.”
“The Bobby spoke of another door, in the attic, that he called the Entropy Door,” Carter said.
“I’ve heard of it,” Enoch said. “This must surely be the Door of Endless Dark. The Entropy Door allows the heat of the universe to escape; the Dark Door lets the Darkness enter. Either will bring the house to ruin, and Creation with it. It’s said that someday both doors will be opened wide, and then all will end.”
“I will seal the basement and place guards beside it,” Glis said. “Is the Entropy Door safe?”
“From what the Bobby said, it has its own guardian, one they will not easily pass,” Carter said.
“We best retreat. It continues to rise,” Glis said.
They returned to the kitchen, where the captain shut and bolted the door. “It’s the best we can do,” he said.
For an hour they kept watch, and when it seemed the Dark could not pass the door, Carter glanced at his pocket watch and found it was quarter past two. “Captain, I am bone-weary, though I slept half the day away. If you promise to keep me notified, I want to turn in. Mr. Hope, would you see I am awakened early tomorrow? We have to deal with a traitor.”
* * *
“Why have I been summoned?” Lady Murmur demanded as she sat in the wicker chair in the drawing room, Duskin standing by her side. Carter thought his half brother had not slept well that night; dark circles lay under his eyes, and his face was so pale he looked ill.
It was early morning; the remainder of the night had passed untroubled; the cellar doors had contained the Dark for a time. Despite his weariness, Carter had slept little, and had risen with the gray, cloudy dawn, nervous but prepared for the coming confrontation. Mr. Hope, Chant, Enoch, and Captain Glis were seated around the room, restless, uncertain what would occur.
“Lady Murmur, I will waste no words,” Carter said. “Last night, through means I will not reveal, I discovered you have collaborated with the anarchists. It was by your invitation that they entered the Inner Chambers of the house.”
Her face flushed, and Duskin looked as if he had been struck, but she managed a slim smile. “That is nonsense! Why would I do such a thing?”
Carter felt old resentments rising within him, but he ke
pt his voice level. “For the same reason you invited the Bobby in the first time, when he nearly drowned me in the well—for power, for greed, for all the things my father abhorred. Denial is useless; Mr. Hope and I heard it from your own lips.”
“You have spied upon me, then!” she cried. “And in doing so you have erred! A chance comment—”
“A full confession, you mean,” Hope said.
Murmur looked from face to face, suddenly sly as a wounded wolf. Her eyes fastened on Enoch. “You have lived here longest,” she said. “Will you believe this boy, who gave the Master Keys away?”
It was more than Carter could bear. “And if you hadn’t lied about me, I would have gone to Naleewuath with my father and not been tempted to take them!” His face grew hot, but he quickly mastered himself. “I will accept responsibility for my actions, and hold you responsible for yours. I can do nothing to punish you legally, but as Steward of the house, in the interest of Evenmere, I can banish you from its doors. The will stated Duskin was to dwell here; it made no mention of you. I find no guilt in him, at any rate. Is there anything you would offer, to redress the ills you have caused? If so you may find me merciful, if only for your son’s sake.”
Her face changed then; that which she had hidden behind the corners of her eyes slipped out—the malice, the envy, the hatred of a small, wicked mind.” I married your father! I was his queen, and he gave me nothing! The servants and the hired help sit in our drawing room like rats upon new cheese, and you treat them like old friends!”
She halted, containing herself, and a low smile spread across her face. “Very well,” she said, almost sweetly. “If you choose to send me into the rain, I will depart the house. I will go to my allies, who will soon possess Evenmere anyway. Come along, Duskin.”
As he took her hand to help her up, Duskin gave Lady Murmur a sad, pitying look, one Carter thought no man should have for his mother.
“You don’t have to go with her,” Carter said.
“No,” Duskin replied, his eyes down. “I don’t, but I won’t allow her to go to them alone. I’m sorry we damaged Father’s house. I’m sorry for … everything.”
With Captain Glis on one side of her, and Chant on the other, with Carter, Enoch, and Hope leading the way, they marched to the front door. Beyond the statue of the monk, beyond the hedgerow, beneath the lamppost, stood the Bobby, a light rain running down his helmet. Carter opened the door, and perhaps for his father’s sake, handed Murmur a white parasol. She glared at it a moment, then took and flung it back to him, where it bounced harmlessly on the floor. But Duskin, a trace of gratitude in his eyes, retrieved it and held it over her as they made their way out the door to where the anarchist stood. Her dress was white, and she moved with elegance down the walk.
Carter closed the door and quietly locked it, feeling triumph and grief, together as one.
The Path To The Towers
A blast of thunder shook the house and the air crackled with power as Carter spoke the Word of Secret Ways, and it was difficult to know which was the stronger, the force of nature or the spoken Word. The windows rattled; the pictures trembled, and to Carter, wielding that mighty utterance, shaken by its use, it seemed both were the same kind of power, harnessed but never mastered.
He stood beside a door tucked away in a corner of the second floor, the gateway to the Towers that the anarchists had locked. But upon his speaking the Word of Secret Ways, the portrait-length painting upon the west wall, depicting an eerie house and the sinister figures from Machen’s The Three Impostors, began to glow with a faint blue light, giving the characters a spectral appearance.
By the time Enoch, Chant, and Hope peered cautiously around the corner, they found him sitting on a stool, his eyes closed.
“Are you all right?” Hope asked. “You shook the rafters with that one.”
“I shook myself. It made me weak in the knees. I don’t know why it was so strong this time. Perhaps I’m learning to use the power. I’m fine. Just give me a moment.”
“I see no hidden doorways,” Chant said, turning in a slow circle to survey the corridor. “I saw the different thing you did, but always you yourself you hid.”
“Only the one who uses the Word can see its work,” Carter said. “Help me up and I’ll show you.”
With Chant’s aid, he went to the portrait and felt along its back edge, where he quickly discovered a latching mechanism. With the clamp released the gilded frame slid to the side on silent rollers, revealing a square opening, tall enough for a man, draped with the silver webs of spiders.
“Where shall we adventure, today that we’re afloat, Wary of the weather and steering by a star? Shall it be to Africa, a’steering of the boat, To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?” Chant quoted wistfully, peering into the dark passage.
“I really wish you would let a few of Glis’s men accompany you,” Hope said. “Or some of the servants.”
“No. Enoch and I have discussed it. Glis intends to retake the library and get a messenger to the White Circle; thereafter he will liberate the path to the Towers, hopefully in time to provide us a safe escort home. He will need every man, and ours is not a military expedition. We have to go swiftly and in stealth. They may guard the Towers if they think we can reach them, but they can’t yet enter there; it is a place of tremendous power they can’t master. Only Enoch and I will go.”
“It seems vaguely wrong,” Hope said. “But I do have something to give you, an article Chant helped me find.”
He handed Carter a thin scroll, with sculpted rosewood handles. “It looks small,” Hope said, “but it will surprise you.”
The material was soft as damask, dyed with blues, greens, and yellows, still brilliant for all its obvious age.
“A map!” Carter said.
“Let me show you,” Hope said. “We are here. It won’t show the secret ways, but it reveals the main passage to the Towers. I’ve even found Naleewuath and Arkalen.”
“Thank you,” Carter said. “This will be useful. I only wish I were going to Arkalen now; I desperately need to find my father’s sword and cloak. Sufficient for today is today’s troubles, I suppose, but I must reach there soon.”
As he put on his pack, Carter glanced out the window at the morning; water stood in pools upon the muddy ground; the gray clouds left all subdued, drained of light and life, the kind of day he normally thought good for curling up with a book. But the constant dreariness had sunk into his soul and he would have given much for a real ray of sunshine.
Far below, the tiny figure of the Bobby stood beneath the lamppost, like a wooden soldier in the rain, and Carter shivered suddenly, wondering what had happened to Murmur and Duskin.
Enoch gave him a lamp and a wink. Carter already had his pistol in his coat and a short dagger about his belt, and if he had possessed the Lightning Sword, he might even have felt eager, instead of only half-equipped. Still, he returned the tall man’s grin. They shook hands with Hope and Chant, and the Lamp-lighter said, “Godspeed, Master. I can but trust that good shall fall, At last—far off—at last to all, And every winter change to spring.”
They stepped into the shadows of the secret passage and murmured a final farewell as Hope slid the painting back into its place, caging them in darkness, save for the tender light of Enoch’s lamp. The floorboard slats, which were layered with dust, creaked beneath their steps; spiderwebs thick as twine caught their arms and hair. The plaster had crumbled in parts, leaving piles against the border and bare boards upon the walls.
“Sneaking like rats,” Enoch said softly. “To a place where I have always walked proudly. Will this teach me humility? Maybe so. Humility is a good thing. Tell me it is, so I don’t pound the walls in frustration.”
Carter glanced at his friend, but saw only humor in his eyes. “It’s a very good thing. At least, so Father always said.”
“He was a wise man, your father. Wise and foolish as are we all. I miss him. Do you think you will like the Towers?”
Carter chuckled. “I hadn’t considered it. As a child, I always thought of you climbing a long stair with the stars in-between; I never imagined your arrival.”
“A tower to heaven? My descendants tried it. They were unsuccessful. The Towers are nothing like that.”
“Why did you never allow me to accompany you?”
Enoch stepped over a bit of debris on the floor. “Your father wouldn’t permit it. He was cautious, as fathers sometimes are. He feared something might happen to you. It lies outside the Inner Chambers, where the anarchists sometimes go.”
“Did they ever attack you?”
Enoch drew his greatcoat aside, revealing a long, silver scabbard, heavy with runes, inlaid with topaz and lapis lazuli, with ivory and pearls adorning the guards of the gleaming hilt of the wide sword. “Those who did, did not again.”
Carter fell silent, amazed at the innocence of youth, that had perceived a dangerous journey only as a forbidden holiday, and a grim warrior as a laughing uncle.
The bare corridor continued only a brief time before ending at the base of a wide stair, which ascended to a gallery leading to the left, its end lost in the darkness. The steps were gray marble, and monks were carved upon the balusters, their mouths wide as if in song, their faces all turned toward the top of the stair. The wall beside the steps had been papered long before, and the material puckered and sagged from accumulated moisture. A faded painting of a ship on a restless sea hung at the bottom of the stair and Carter reported the presence of another hidden doorway beside it, marked by a blue, luminous rectangle.
Enoch paused a moment in thought, looking at the staircase.
“Does it feel right? No. It must go up, yes, but see how it leads back east? It can’t reach the Towers unless it crosses upon itself.”
They climbed to the gallery, which terminated before ornate double doors opening into a long, straight corridor. Enoch shook his head. “Who knows which way a passage may turn? But this leads the wrong direction. Should we try the secret way?”
The High House Page 13
