The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  “One evening, some time after our friendship had become very real, I called on Baumoff, and found him in a state of tremendous indignation over some article of the Professor’s which attacked him brutally; using his theory of the Significance of the ‘Darkness’, as a target. Poor Baumoff! It was certainly a marvellously clever attack; the attack of a thoroughly trained, well-balanced Logician. But Baumoff was something more, he was Genius. It is a title few have any rights to, but it was his!

  “He talked to me about his theory, telling me that he wanted to show me a small experiment, presently, bearing out his opinions. In his talk, he told me several things that interested me extremely. Having first reminded me of the fundamental fact that light is conveyed to the eye through the means of that indefinable medium, named the Æther. He went a step further, and pointed out to me that, from an aspect which more approached the primary, Light was a vibration of the Æther, of a certain definite number of waves per second, which possessed the power of producing upon our retina the sensation which we term Light.

  “To this, I nodded; being, as of course is everyone, acquainted with so well-known a statement. From this, he took a quick, mental stride, and told me that an ineffably vague, but measurable, darkening of the atmosphere (greater or smaller according to the personality-force of the individual) was always evoked in the immediate vicinity of the human, during any period of great emotional stress.

  “Step by step, Baumoff showed me how his research had led him to the conclusion that this queer darkening (a million times too subtle to be apparent to the eye) could be produced only through something which had power to disturb or temporally interrupt or break up the Vibration of Light. In other words, there was, at any time of unusual emotional activity, some disturbance of the Æther in the immediate vicinity of the person suffering, which had some effect upon the Vibration of Light, interrupting it, and producing the aforementioned infinitely vague darkening.

  “‘Yes?’ I said, as he paused, and looked at me, as if expecting me to have arrived at a certain definite deduction through his remarks. ‘Go on.’

  “‘Well,’ he said, ‘don’t you see, the subtle darkening around the person suffering, is greater or less, according to the personality of the suffering human. Don’t you?’

  “‘Oh!’ I said, with a little gasp of astounded comprehension, ‘I see what you mean. You – you mean that if the agony of a person of ordinary personality can produce a faint disturbance of the Æther, with a consequent faint darkening, then the Agony of Christ, possessed of the Enormous Personality of the Christ, would produce a terrific disturbance of the Æther, and therefore, it might chance, of the Vibration of Light, and that this is the true explanation of the Darkness of the Cross; and that the fact of such an extraordinary and apparently unnatural and improbable Darkness having been recorded is not a thing to weaken the Marvel of Christ. But one more unutterably wonderful, infallible proof of His God-like power? Is that it? Is it? Tell me?’

  “Baumoff just rocked on his chair with delight, beating one fist into the palm of his other hand, and nodding all the time to my summary. How he loved to be understood; as the Searcher always craves to be understood.

  “‘And now,’ he said, ‘I’m going to show you something.’

  “He took a tiny, corked test-tube out of his waistcoat pocket, and emptied its contents (which consisted of a single, grey-white grain, about twice the size of an ordinary pin’s head) on to his dessert plate. He crushed it gently to powder with the ivory handle of a knife, then damped it gently, with a single minim of what I supposed to be water, and worked it up into a tiny patch of grey-white paste. He then took out his gold tooth-pick, and thrust it into the flame of a small chemist’s spirit lamp, which had been lit since dinner as a pipe-lighter. He held the gold tooth-pick in the flame, until the narrow, gold blade glowed whitehot.

  “‘Now look!’ he said, and touched the end of the tooth-pick against the infinitesmal patch upon the dessert plate. There came a swift little violet flash, and suddenly I found that I was staring at Baumoff through a sort of transparent darkness, which faded swiftly into a black opaqueness. I thought at first this must be the complementary effect of the flash upon the retina. But a minute passed, and we were still in that extraordinary darkness.

  “‘My Gracious! Man! What is it?’ I asked, at last.

  “His voice explained then, that he had produced, through the medium of chemistry, an exaggerated effect which simulated, to some extent, the disturbance in the Æther produced by waves thrown off by any person during an emotional crisis or agony. The waves, or vibrations, sent out by his experiment produced only a partial simulation of the effect he wished to show me – merely the temporary interruption of the Vibration of Light, with the resulting darkness in which we both now sat.

  “‘That stuff,’ said Baumoff, ‘would be a tremendous explosive, under certain conditions.’

  I heard him puffing at his pipe, as he spoke, but instead of the glow of the pipe shining out visible and red, there was only a faint glare that wavered and disappeared in the most extraordinary fashion.

  “‘My Goodness!’ I said, when’s this going away?’ And I stared across the room to where the big kerosene lamp showed only as a faintly glimmering patch in the gloom; a vague light that shivered and flashed oddly, as though I saw it through an immense gloomy depth of dark and disturbed water.

  “‘It’s all right,’ Baumoff’s voice said from out of the darkness. ‘It’s going now; in five minutes the disturbance will have quieted, and the waves of light will flow off evenly from the lamp in their normal fashion. But, while we’re waiting, isn’t it immense, eh?’

  “‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s wonderful; but it’s rather unearthly, you know’

  “‘Oh, but I’ve something much finer to show you,’ he said. ‘The real thing. Wait another minute. The darkness is going. See! You can see the light from the lamp now quite plainly. It looks as if it were submerged in a boil of waters, doesn’t it? that are growing clearer and clearer and quieter and quieter all the time.’

  “It was as he said; and we watched the lamp, silently, until all signs of the disturbance of the light-carrying medium had ceased. Then Baumoff faced me once more.

  “‘Now,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen the somewhat casual effects of just crude combustion of that stuff of mine. I’m going to show you the effects of combusting it in the human furnace, that is, in my own body; and then, you’ll see one of the great wonders of Christ’s death reproduced on a miniature scale.’

  “He went across to the mantelpiece, and returned with a small, 120 minim glass and another of the tiny, corked test-tubes, containing a single grey-white grain of his chemical substance. He uncorked the test-tube, and shook the grain of substance into the minim glass, and then, with a glass stirring-rod, crushed it up in the bottom of the glass, adding water, drop by drop as he did so, until there were sixty minims in the glass.

  “‘Now!’ he said, and lifting it, he drank the stuff. ‘We will give it thirty-five minutes,’ he continued; ‘then, as carbonization proceeds, you will find my pulse will increase, as also the respiration, and presently there will come the darkness again, in the subtlest, strangest fashion; but accompanied now by certain physical and psychic phenomena, which will be owing to the fact that the vibrations it will throw off, will be blent into what I might call the emotional-vibrations, which I shall give off in my distress. These will be enormously intensified, and you will possibly experience an extraordinarily interesting demonstration of the soundness of my more theoretical reasonings. I tested it by myself last week’ (He waved a bandaged finger at me), ‘and I read a paper to the Club on the results. They are very enthusiastic, and have promised their co-operation in the big demonstration I intend to give on next Good Friday – that’s seven weeks off, to-day’

  “He had ceased smoking; but continued to talk quietly in this fashion for the next thirty-five minutes. The Club to which he had referred was a peculiar association
of men, banded together under the presidentship of Baumoff himself, and having for their appellation the title of- so well as I can translate it – ‘The Believers And Provers Of Christ’. If I may say so, without any thought of irreverence, they were, many of them, men fanatically crazed to uphold the Christ. You will agree later, I think, that I have not used an incorrect term, in describing the bulk of the members of this extraordinary club, which was, in its way, well worthy of one of the religio-maniacal extrudences which have been forced into temporary being by certain of the more religiously-emotional minded of our cousins across the water.

  “Baumoff looked at the clock; then held out his wrist to me. ‘Take my pulse,’ he said, ‘it’s rising fast. Interesting data, you know.’

  “I nodded, and drew out my watch. I had noticed that his respirations were increasing; and I found his pulse running evenly and strongly at 105. Three minutes later, it had risen to 175, and his respirations to 41. In a further three minutes, I took his pulse again, and found it running at 203, but with the rhythm regular. His respirations were then 49. He had, as I knew, excellent lungs, and his heart was sound. His lungs, I may say, were of exceptional capacity, and there was at this stage no marked dyspnoea. Three minutes later I found the pulse to be 227, and the respiration 54.

  “‘You’ve plenty of red corpuscles, Baumoff!’ I said. ‘But I hope you’re not going to overdo things.’

  “He nodded at me, and smiled; but said nothing. Three minutes later, when I took the last pulse, it was 233, and the two sides of the heart were sending out unequal quantities of blood, with an irregular rhythm. The respiration had risen to 67 and was becoming shallow and ineffectual, and dyspnoea was becoming very marked. The small amount of arterial blood leaving the left side of the heart betrayed itself in the curious bluish and white tinge of the face.

  “‘Baumoff!’ I said, and began to remonstrate; but he checked me, with a queerly invincible gesture.

  “‘It’s all right!’ he said, breathlessly, with a little note of impatience. ‘I know what I’m doing all the time. You must remember I took the same degree as you in medicine.’

  “It was quite true. I remembered then that he had taken his MD in London; and this in addition to half a dozen other degrees in different branches of the sciences in his own country. And then, even as the memory reassured me that he was not acting in ignorance of the possible danger, he called out in a curious, breathless voice:

  “‘The Darkness! It’s beginning. Take note of every single thing. Don’t bother about me. I’m all right!’

  “I glanced swiftly round the room. It was as he had said. I perceived it now. There appeared to be an extraordinary quality of gloom growing in the atmosphere of the room. A kind of bluish gloom, vague, and scarcely, as yet, affecting the transparency of the atmosphere to light.

  “Suddenly, Baumoff did something that rather sickened me. He drew his wrist away from me, and reached out to a small metal box, such as one sterilizes a hypodermic in. He opened the box, and took out four rather curious looking drawing-pins, I might call them, only they had spikes of steel fully an inch long, whilst all around the rim of the heads (which were also of steel) there projected downward, parallel with the central spike, a number of shorter spikes, maybe an eighth of an inch long.

  “He kicked off his pumps; then stooped and slipped his socks off, and I saw that he was wearing a pair of linen inner-socks.

  “‘Antiseptic!’ he said, glancing at me. ‘Got my feet ready before you came. No use running unnecessary risks.’ He gasped as he spoke. Then he took one of the curious little steel spikes.

  “‘I’ve sterilized them,’ he said; and therewith, with deliberation, he pressed it in up to the head into his foot between the second and third branches of the dorsal artery.

  “‘For God’s sake, what are you doing!’ I said, half rising from my chair.

  “‘Sit down!’ he said, in a grim sort of voice. ‘I can’t have any interference. I want you simply to observe; keep note of everything. You ought to thank me for the chance, instead of worrying me, when you know I shall go my own way all the time.’

  “As he spoke, he had pressed in the second of the steel spikes up to the hilt in his left instep, taking the same precaution to avoid the arteries. Not a groan had come from him; only his face betrayed the effect of this additional distress.

  “‘My dear chap!’ he said, observing my upsetness. ‘Do be sensible. I know exactly what I’m doing. There simply must be distress, and the readiest way to reach that condition is through physical pain.’

  “His speech had becomes a series of spasmodic words, between gasps, and sweat lay in great clear drops upon his lip and forehead. He slipped off his belt and proceeded to buckle it round both the back of his chair and his waist; as if he expected to need some support from falling.

  “‘It’s wicked!’ I said. Baumoff made an attempt to shrug his heaving shoulders, that was, in its way, one of the most piteous things that I have seen, in its sudden laying bare of the agony that the man was making so little of.

  “He was now cleaning the palms of his hands with a little sponge, which he dipped from time to time in a cup of solution. I knew what he was going to do, and suddenly he jerked out, with a painful attempt to grin, an explanation of his bandaged finger. He had held his finger in the flame of the spirit lamp, during his previous experiment; but now, as he made clear in gaspingly uttered words, he wished to simulate as far as possible the actual conditions of the great scene that he had so much in mind. He made it so clear to me that we might expect to experience something very extraordinary, that I was conscious of a sense of almost superstitious nervousness.

  “‘I wish you wouldn’t, Baumoff!’ I said.

  “‘Don’t – be – silly!’ he managed to say. But the two latter words were more groans than words; for between each, he had thrust home right to the heads in the palms of his hands the two remaining steel spikes. He gripped his hands shut, with a sort of spasm of savage determination, and I saw the point of one of the spikes break through the back of his hand, between the extensor tendons of the second and third fingers. A drop of blood beaded the point of the spike. I looked at Baumoff’s face; and he looked back steadily at me.

  “‘No interference,’ he managed to ejaculate. ‘I’ve not gone through all this for nothing. I know – what – I’m doing. Look – it’s coming. Take note – everything!’

  “He relapsed into silence, except for his painful gasping. I realised that I must give way, and I stared round the room, with a peculiar commingling of an almost nervous discomfort and a stirring of very real and sober curiosity.

  “‘Oh,’ said Baumoff, after a moment’s silence, ‘something’s going to happen. I can tell. Oh, wait – till I – I have my – big demonstration. I’ll show that brute Hautch.”

  “I nodded; but I doubt that he saw me; for his eyes had a distinctly in-turned look, the iris was rather relaxed. I glanced away round the room again; there was a distinct occasional breaking up of the light-rays from the lamp, giving a coming-and-going effect.

  “The atmosphere of the room was also quite plainly darker – heavy, with an extraordinary sense of gloom. The bluish tint was unmistakably more in evidence; but there was, as yet, none of that opacity which we had experienced before, upon simple combustion, except for the occasional, vague coming-and-going of the lamp-light.

  “Baurnoff began to speak again, getting his words out between gasps. ‘Th’ – this dodge of mine gets the – pain into the – the – right place. Right association of – of ideas – emotions – for – best – results. You follow me? Parallelizing things – as – much as – possible. Fixing whole attention – on the – the death scene – ‘

  “He gasped painfully for a few moments. ‘We demonstrate truth of – of The Darkening; but – but there’s psychic effect to be – looked for, through – results of parallelization of – conditions. May have extraordinary simulation of – the actual thing. Keep note. Keep note.’ T
hen, suddenly, with a clear, spasmodic burst: ‘My God, Stafford, keep note of everything. Something’s going to happen. Something – wonderful – Promise not – to bother me. I know – what I’m doing.’

  “Baurnoff ceased speaking, with a gasp, and there was only the labour of his breathing in the quietness of the room. As I stared at him, halting from a dozen things I needed to say, I realized suddenly that I could no longer see him quite plainly; a sort of wavering in the atmosphere, between us, made him seem momentarily unreal. The whole room had darkened perceptibly in the last thirty seconds; and as I stared around, I realized that there was a constant invisible swirl in the fast-deepening, extraordinary blue gloom that seemed now to permeate everything. When I looked at the lamp, alternate flashings of light and blue – darkness followed each other with an amazing swiftness.

  “‘My God!’ I heard Baumoff whispering in the half-darkness, as if to himself, ‘how did Christ bear the nails!’

  “I stared across at him, with an infinite discomfort, and an irritated pity troubling me; but I knew it was no use to remonstrate now. I saw him vaguely distorted through the wavering tremble of the atmosphere. It was somewhat as if I looked at him through convolutions of heated air; only there were marvellous waves of blue-blackness making gaps in my sight. Once I saw his face clearly, full of an infinite pain, that was somehow, seemingly, more spiritual than physical, and dominating everything was an expression of enormous resolution and concentration, making the livid, sweat-damp, agonized face somehow heroic and splendid.

  “And then, drenching the room with waves and splashes of opaqueness, the vibration of his abnormally stimulated agony finally broke up the vibration of Light. My last, swift glance round, showed me, as it seemed, the invisible Æther boiling and eddying in a tremendous fashion; and, abruptly, the flame of the lamp was lost in an extraordinary swirling patch of light, that marked its position for several moments, shimmering and deadening, shimmering and deadening; until, abruptly, I saw neither that glimmering patch of light, nor anything else. I was suddenly lost in a black opaqueness of night, through which came the fierce, painful breathing of Baumoff.