The Bog

by Talbot, Michael

  “You’re right,” he said. “I am up against something unbelievable. Something very evil and very dangerous and I do need your help. But I don’t have time to tell you about it now.” He looked at his watch. “We have to leave immediately and I will tell you about it on the way.”

  Looking baffled, Brad nodded.

  “This way,” David directed. He recalled that he had left the car keys in the kitchen and he figured that they might as well exit through the back door.

  They walked down the hall and through the kitchen, and it was just as they were leaving that it happened. The pot roast that David had fixed for himself earlier was still sitting on the counter, and as he opened the back door he turned and saw the younger man grab a quick bite and pop it in his mouth.

  Brad smiled when he saw that David was watching him, and wiped his hand on his trousers before following.

  At first his action did not register in David as abnormal. David was so excited at the idea of having someone help him once he was in Grenville’s house that he didn’t even pay attention to the danger alarm going off inside him. But then, as they exited into the darkness, he recalled that Brad was a vegetarian, and unless his life-style had changed radically, he would never have deigned to take a bite of meat.

  David stopped and looked at the younger man standing just inches away from him in the moonlight, and with a chill he realized.

  It was her.

  Ur-Zababa had said that it was only a matter of time before Grenville sent her to find out what was going on. With her shape-shifting abilities Julia had molded herself to look like Brad so that she could gain David’s confidence and determine what he was up to.

  “So you have a plan?” the younger man asked innocently.

  David froze, reading new meaning into the inquiry, and then he remembered that he had also heard a car. He looked out into the driveway and saw what appeared to be Brad’s rusted Volkswagen sitting beside his own car in the moonlight. Had he been wrong? Was it really Brad’s car, or was it only an apparition, an artifact of magic conjured up by Grenville to further convince him of his graduate student’s authenticity? He looked again at the younger man. His every feature, even his mannerisms were all perfect.

  David’s heart was pounding, and he realized that if it was Julia, the last thing that he wanted to do was alert her to the fact that he was on to her. “Yes, I have a plan,” he said. “But we have to get into the car, and I will tell you about it on the way.”

  “Where are we going?” his companion asked.

  “I will tell you that on the way also,” David returned, trying to buy more time as he figured out what he was going to do.

  As they approached the car their feet crunched softly in the gravel and David was struck by the surreal nature of the dilemma facing him. If he was wrong, if the person walking beside him really was Brad, then enlisting his assistance might be his only hope of surviving the evening alive. But if he was right, if the figure beside him was something far more sinister and untoward, then his slightest slip or miscalculation might bring the full of his adversary’s true ferocity down upon him.

  David’s flesh tingled as they both got into the car.

  He started the engine and pulled out of the driveway before he spoke again. “I’ve got to warn you, you’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.”

  “Try me,” his companion countered.

  As rapidly and succinctly as possible, David told the figure next to him the bare bones of everything that had happened up to and including the coming of Ur-Zababa’s power. He reasoned that if the person sitting next to him really was Julia he had to make it sound good, had to fill in the gaps between everything that she and Grenville had already suspected, to gain her trust. On occasion as he spoke, Brad in turn appeared to express rather convincing signs of doubt and disbelief, but he also, David thought, seemed to stiffen at the mention of Ur-Zababa’s name.

  “Okay,” Brad offered when David paused. “This is all very hard to believe, but I trust you, Professor Macauley. If you say it’s so I’ll believe you, but what is the plan?”

  David froze, his throat tightening when he realized the final reckoning was at hand.

  “Do you remember that time when we were in Germany together, in Wiesbaden?”

  “Yes, why?” Brad returned.

  “Because we made a pact there. We promised that if one of us was in trouble the other would always help him out. I just wanted to make sure, before I told you the plan, that you still were willing to uphold your end of the promise.”

  “Yes, of course I am,” Brad replied. “Now, what is the plan?”

  David drew in his breath before he continued. At least now he knew. He and Brad had never been in Wiesbaden together. They had never made such a promise to one another. The creature beside him was, indeed, Julia.

  His companion shifted impatiently.

  “The plan is this,” David said, hoping that he had not aroused his adversary’s suspicion with his pause. “Ur-Zababa is waiting for me at Nobby Fork. He has challenged Grenville to meet him there and Grenville has accepted. What Grenville does not know is that Ur-Zababa has a secret weapon, something that will drain Grenville of all his power so that Ur-Zababa can then take possession of the jewel.” David looked at his watch. “I was supposed to go there in case he needed my assistance, but perhaps you could go instead, and I will be able to go to Wythen Hall and see if I can obtain the release of Katy and Melanie.”

  “I had better go to Wythen Hall too,” the figure beside him said.

  “Why?”

  “Because if Grenville is still there you might need my help.”

  “He won’t be there,” David argued. “He’s already on his way to meet Ur-Zababa.”

  “And you say Ur-Zababa has a secret weapon, something that Grenville does not know about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I had better go to Nobby Fork.” His companion looked out the car window. “Stop here.”

  “Why?” David said, stopping the car.

  “Because I know a shortcut through the bog. I can be at Nobby Fork on foot in five or ten minutes.”

  David watched as the younger man got out of the car. He knew that Julia really wanted to intercept Grenville and warn him about his impending doom. “What is the secret weapon?” he asked.

  “A magic circle,” David replied, hoping that his response would sound credible to the demon. “If Grenville steps inside it he will be drained of all his power.” His adversary seemed to accept the information. “You &o on to Wythen Hall,” he said. “I’ll meet you later.” David nodded and anxiously pulled off into the night. He could scarcely believe that it had worked. Had Julia actually believed it? She seemed to have. He looked again at his watch. He had five minutes to make it to Wythen Hall if he was going to keep on schedule, and hopefully Julia would be occupied for at least fifteen minutes or so before she realized that she had been duped. He hit the gas.

  As the old manor house came into sight David’s apprehension increased, and he remembered what had happened to Luther Blundell when he had attempted a similarly uninvited approach. He looked out over the grounds and hoped that somewhere out there Ur-Zababa was this very moment casting the spell that would put Grenville and his household into a deep sleep. He hoped also that Julia had not gotten wise to his ruse, for he knew that if she returned unexpectedly he would not fare nearly so well when forced to tangle with her a second time. At length, he reached the end of the drive and stopped the car. He took the keys out of the ignition and got out.

  As he approached the house he was gripped once again with the fear that something had gone wrong, that even now Grenville was watching his approach. He recalled that Ur-Zababa had said if that were the case he would have to rely on his wits, and he looked up anxiously at the windows, searching for some hint of movement, but still he saw none. He reached the door.

  For a moment he half considered knocking, reasoning that if someone answered he could arg
ue at least that he was merely paying a visit to beg for the release of his wife and child. But then he remembered that it always took the butler several minutes to respond, and he did not want to risk wasting precious time. Summoning all of his courage, he pushed against the ancient wood and the door opened.

  He stepped in and then stopped. Inside, the house was dimly lit and deathly silent, but he knew that this meant nothing. It had always been a house with the quietness of a tomb about it. It occurred to him that if Grenville had become wise to their plans, and had cast a spell to counteract Ur-Zababa’s own, it would be just like him to remain in hiding anyway, and to allow David to labor under false hope for as long as possible before pouncing and revealing that it had all been a trap. With this fear in mind David listened for a moment longer, searching for the slightest creak or rustle of clothing, but the only sensation that greeted him were all the smells that he had noticed on previous visits, the mustiness and faded richness of the woods, and the faint, cool redolence of the stone.

  Still detecting no hint of movement, he started up the stairs. He deduced that the most likely place for Grenville to keep Katy and Melanie would be the upstairs bedrooms, and that was where he decided to begin his search. Cautiously, he turned the handle of the first door he came to, and discovered that it was not a bedroom at all, but a linen closet. He moved on to the next.

  The next three rooms he looked into were, indeed, bedrooms, but all were empty and looked as if they had been empty for quite some time, with everything neatly in place, and dusty, and even faint traceries of cobwebs hanging in their corners.

  It was as he was about to round the corner at the end of the hall that he froze and flattened himself against the wall. Just around the corner he could see a person sitting. From his outfit it appeared to be one of the liveried footmen, but he could see only his shoes and trousers, and he could not tell if he was unconscious or not. Slowly, he inched forward, spying more and more of the person, until at last his slumped head came into sight. He appeared to be in a deep slumber. More than that, in a wall sconce beyond was a torch, and to his astonishment he saw that the flame itself no longer even flickered, but was motionless, as if it had been frozen in a frame of film. It appeared that Ur-Zababa’s spell was very much in effect.

  Realizing that he no longer had to be quiet David took off running, madly flinging doors open, and no longer even bothering to close them. Most of the rooms he came to were bedrooms, but one was an upstairs parlor and actually had a servant in it lying slumped on the carpet, where only moments before he had been engaged in polishing a candelabrum. David looked at his watch and was horrified to see that four minutes had gone by and he still had not found any trace of Katy or Melanie. He ran up to the third floor.

  To his great relief he found Melanie in the next room he came to and was surprised to see that the room itself was quite grand, with inlaid floor, a fantastically painted ceiling, gilt cornices, and a huge Elizabethan bed canopied in Chinese silk. Melanie, as he had half expected, was lying on the bed, deep in her enchanted sleep, her hands and feet firmly bound to the bedposts to keep her from harming herself. Wasting no further time, he ran over to her and cut her tethers with the knife that Ur-Zababa had given him. Then he lifted her limp body up into his arms and quickly carried her downstairs.

  Running as fast as he could with his load without risking a fall, he placed her in the car and looked at his watch. Seven minutes had now passed; he had only three left. He ran back inside and up to the third floor.

  In the room next to Melanie’s he found Katy lying curled up on a sofa where she had apparently been crying, and he quickly carried her downstairs. Because she was lighter he was able to run faster with her in his arms than he had been able to with Melanie, but still, as he slid her onto the car seat he noticed that he had only a little over a minute left.

  Giving it every ounce of strength he had, he tore back into the house. He prayed that Ur-Zababa had been right about Grenville being in his study as he scaled the steps two and three at a time. By the time he reached the doorway to the tower room his heart was beating so rapidly that he feared he had pushed himself too hard, but he knew he could not pause. He opened the door and went in. As he did so, for a fraction of a second he was swept with the fear that if Grenville had cast a counter spell, he might have arranged only to protect himself. But to David’s great relief he saw the old sorcerer sitting in a chair before the fireplace, his head draped limply backward and apparently in a deep stupor. As further evidence that Ur-Zababa’s magic had permeated even their adversary’s inner sanctum, the fire in the fireplace, like the torch near the footman, was eerily motionless, frozen in midflicker, and an unearthly pall of silence hung over the room as if time itself had been temporarily suspended in Wythen Hall.

  David knew that he had only a few seconds left and he did not even pause to glance at his watch, but strode quickly across the room and stopped directly in front of the old magician. Once again Grenville wore the dressing robe of gold and black brocade fringed in Russian sable that he had worn during David’s last visit, and clearly visible around his neck was the glint of a gold chain. Tingling with anticipation, David reached down and lifted the chain up until the large ruby that he had first seen in his near-plummet to his death, came falling out. For the first time he noticed that magically embedded in its depths was a thin sheet of gold leaf on which was delicately inscribed a small but dense passage in cuneiform. Carefully he lifted the chain up over Grenville’s head and for the briefest of moments dangled the ruby before him, when suddenly he was terror-stricken to see a soft play of light dancing over his arm. He did not have to ponder the matter for long to know what it meant. The fire behind him had once again begun to burn normally. And then suddenly, before he had time to even consider what to do next, Grenville’s hand bolted out like a serpent striking and latched around his wrist with an almost crushing grip. In a panic David tried to pull away, but could not, as Grenville’s head tilted forward, his eyes began to glow like blast furnaces, and he let out a guttural scream of rage.

  Not knowing what else to do, with his free hand David flung the ruby away, and it rattled across the floor. Seeing where it landed, Grenville returned his incendiary gaze to David and in a burst of outrage flexed his fingers and sent David crashing across the room and into a set of bookcases. As David struggled to right himself he saw that Grenville was quickly rushing over to retrieve the ruby, and he leaped up. No longer thinking of himself or the consequences, he lunged forward and hit the old sorcerer full in the back, bringing him crashing down into one of the study tables. Again Grenville turned, his eyes still glowing like hot embers, as he shot a fist-size fireball at David, and then another. David dodged the first one, but the second grazed his hip, sizzling like a match head gone awry as it passed, and he screamed out with pain. As the fireball continued on, it zoomed across the room and sailed into one of the wall tapestries, setting it on fire.

  “No!” Grenville cried, reaching out once again to grab the ruby, and again David lunged forth bringing his entire body smashing down on the old sorcerer’s arm and stopping it in midreach. Grenville screamed again, but before he could do anything David picked up the ruby and threw it with all of his might out the window. It crashed through the glass and fell down into the darkness beyond.

  Instantly Grenville yanked his arm out from under David and stood up, and David also stood. He glared at David with such rage and venom that a veritable wave of energy seemed to roll off of him like a hot wind, and at the same time the glowing embers of his eyes collapsed even farther into their sockets until the inside of his skull appeared to be nothing more than a swirling inferno, and mirrored eerily the growing fire on the tapestry behind him.

  “You are a fool!” he rasped. “You could have had it all!”

  “You would never have shared your knowledge with me,” David shot back.

  “You are wrong,” the old sorcerer returned. “I liked you. Had you played the game differently I w
ould have considered making you my apprentice. But not now. Now you die.”

  Reaching up into the air he suddenly plucked a sword from the nothingness and brought it crashing down. Somehow David managed to jump out of its way and narrowly missed being cleaved in the shoulder. As soon as he had made his move Grenville brought the sword slicing through the air once again, and this time as David rushed to get out of its way he tripped over one of the chairs and went crashing onto the floor. No sooner had he fallen than Grenville was upon him, pinning him down with the point of the sword leveled against his chest. He pulled the sword up, readying for the plunge, and as he did so David looked up into his eyes, the eyes of the person about to become his executioner, and was stunned to perceive the same strange emptiness, the same soulless ferocity that he had first seen in Lugalzaggesi’s eyes. In that moment of crystalline awareness that comes perhaps only when a man is facing death, he realized that that was the source of Grenville’s ruthlessness. His cruelty was not a product of his complexity or intelligence, but an ancient remnant, a look into the barbarity of the distant past.

  He brought the sword plunging downward, and David screamed, certain that his death was imminent. But at the very moment that the sword was about to penetrate his flesh, it exploded and vanished in a cloud of glittery sparkles. For a few seconds Grenville looked down, dumbfounded, at his empty hands, and David too looked around, wondering what had happened. At first he discerned nothing, but then out of the corner of his eye a shadow moved and he turned his head in the direction of the movement and saw.

  Standing in the doorway was Ur-Zababa.

  Grenville too looked in the direction of the intruder, and at first he blinked perplexedly, not understanding. But then a look of terrible recognition came over his face. “You!” he shrilled.