The Bog

by Talbot, Michael

  But before he could react further, Ur-Zababa had rolled his hands out one after the other and sent what looked like several large soap bubbles of electrical energy zooming across the room. They hit Grenville with explosive force, knocking him off his feet, and David quickly crawled out of the way.

  “The ruby?” Ur-Zababa cried. “Where is it?”

  “I threw it out the window.”

  Seeing that Grenville would not be down for long, Ur-Zababa motioned for David to follow. “Then we must make haste to find it!”

  He ran out of the room with David right behind. On the way down the stairs they collided with the butler, and the old servant made a feeble attempt to stop them, but they pushed him out of the way.

  “We must hurry,” Ur-Zababa warned. “We have only a few seconds before Grenville will be after us again.” Saying this, he opened the front door and they ran outside. They headed toward the left of the house, and were just about to round the corner where he had thrown the ruby when another figure appeared suddenly out of the mist.

  It was Julia.

  She had once again assumed her feminine form, and as David looked at her whatever hope he had possessed of getting away alive quickly vanished. He recalled that Ur-Zababa had warned there was only a slim chance that his powers would be a match for Grenville’s, but Ur-Zababa had stated clearly that they would definitely be no match for Julia’s.

  No sooner had they collided with her than Grenville appeared at the door behind them. He seemed only a shadow of his former self. His face appeared even more gaunt than normal, and his eyes no longer glowed. He was breathing heavily and his legs were trembling as if it were taking every ounce of his energy for him to even stand up. It appeared that his powers were just about gone.

  David looked back at Julia and noticed that she was staring at her former master, her eyes wide with alarm. He wondered how she would react. Ur-Zababa had said that without the ruby Grenville would be as subject to Julia’s wrath as they were, but what did that mean she would do next? Did it mean that they still had hope?

  She continued to eye Grenville up and down, her consternation growing as she apparently discerned what had happened to him. He kept his stare riveted on her, his gaze beseeching and still smoldering with rage.

  “Get them,” he said finally. “Especially the boy. It is Ur-Zababa.”

  David returned his attention to Julia and saw that she was now staring at his little companion malevolently. And then, without warning, she opened her mouth and emitted a searing scream of rage as she lunged for them. He managed to jump out of the way, but she caught Ur-Zababa by the feet, her teeth gnashing as her mouth transformed into something inhuman. Flailing frantically, Ur-Zababa managed to pull away and ran a short distance farther into the moonlit clearing. For a second or two David watched in horror as Julia went after him, after the empty shell of what had once been his son, but then he realized he was wasting precious seconds. He looked at Grenville and saw that his attention was glued to the confrontation taking shape before them, his gaze transfixed and dripping with venom.

  Taking advantage of the distraction, David turned and ran to where the ruby should have fallen. He dropped to his knees, moving his hands in wide arcs through the wet grass. In the clearing among the twisted trees he saw Ur-Zababa unleash a fireball, feeble and sputtering, but Julia, now totally metamorphosed into the demon, grabbed it and squelched it with a sizzle and a puff of steam. Exerting what appeared to be one of the last flickers of his power, Ur-Zababa caused a javelin to materialize in midflight, and it sliced through the air and penetrated Julia’s chest with a hideous susurration. Undaunted, Julia emitted her laugh of clicks and throaty rattles as she pulled the spear out, and the wound bubbled and frothed and quickly healed itself. She broke the javelin in half and tossed it to the ground.

  His best efforts foiled, Ur-Zababa started to slowly pace backward as Julia moved in for the kill. She lunged again, grabbing for him with one of her massive hands, and he managed to avoid her by only a fraction of an inch. His small size seemed to provide him with a slight advantage, but David knew that it was a losing proposition. Julia was merely basking in the final moments.

  David’s search became even more frenzied as Julia grabbed for Ur-Zababa again, giggling froggily. Madly, he moved his hands through the wet grass as Ur-Zababa tried desperately to circle around to Julia’s side, but she skillfully reined him in, like a cat toying with a mouse. She began to drool as the clicking in her throat became even deeper, and David realized that she was salivating, readying for the final strike. He knew that he had only seconds to go.

  Suddenly, as Julia was just about to make her move, his hand hit something solid in the grass. He had found the jewel.

  Without thinking he stood up instantly and screamed, “I’ve got it!”

  Distracted by his outburst, Ur-Zababa looked in David’s direction, and the moment he had turned his gaze away from Julia she swung out and hit him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious.

  David looked aghast at his fallen companion, and then at the jewel in his hand as all eyes were upon him. He felt a sinking feeling. Without Ur-Zababa and his knowledge of Eblaite, possession of the ruby meant nothing.

  “Why don’t you give it to me,” Grenville murmured weakly from beside him. “It will do you no good.”

  David looked down at the ruby and then back at his opponent. “Never,” he returned.

  In spite of the fact that he was on the verge of collapsing, Grenville snorted with amusement.

  “Very well,” he said. And then, looking truculently at David, he reached out his hand, and drawing on some last glimmer of power caused the ruby to fly out of David’s grasp and across the lawn and into his own hands. As soon as it touched his fingers a shudder passed through him, and his power slowly started to return.

  At the same moment, Melanie and Katy, who had been watching the entire spectacle from the car, ran over to David’s side.

  “Why didn’t you drive away?” he snapped.

  “You didn’t leave us the keys. And besides, I couldn’t leave you.”

  He looked at his wife, sadly searching her gaze as he realized how much he loved her. He looked at Ur-Zababa lying unconscious on the ground, and then at Grenville, the ruby securely in his hand and Julia once again doting at his side.

  “Forgive me,” he said, as he grabbed Melanie by the shoulders and pushed her down to the ground in front of him. Then, pulling the dagger Ur-Zababa had prepared for him, he held it up against her throat.

  “David, what—”

  “Shut up!” he demanded, his eyes filling with tears. Katy looked on, petrified.

  For the first time Grenville also looked concerned. “What do you hope to accomplish by doing that?” he asked.

  “You know what it will accomplish,” David returned.

  Melanie made a move to get away, but he held her tightly. She looked at him with disbelief.

  “And what makes you think that I will not get the dagger away from you as simply as I just gained possession of the jewel?”

  David looked down at the row of mystic symbols on the dagger. “Because Ur-Zababa anticipated that move. He consecrated the knife so that you would be powerless to stop what I have to do.”

  Grenville’s eyes opened even wider as he tried to affect an air of unconcern. “Come now, Professor Macauley, I’m sure we can work something out. If you refrain from doing anything rash I will spare your life and the life of your children.”

  “What about my wife?”

  “I’m afraid that even if you allowed her to live she would not ultimately survive the process that has taken over her body.”

  David shook his head. “Then I might as well end her life now.”

  “Daddy, no!” Katy screamed and David pushed her away.

  Becoming even more agitated, Grenville took a step forward. “Very well,” he said, his gaze darkening. “If you spare your wife’s life, if you turn her over to me, I will share my po
wer with you. I will teach you all that I know.”

  David’s first response was to say no, to shout out that he could never be party to the unleashing of another Julia, an even more unfathomably powerful Julia, but to his great surprise something deep within him was once again ineluctably drawn to Grenville’s offer. It was as if every drive, every intellectual curiosity that he had ever experienced suddenly came to the fore, clamoring for its due. He thought of the library of Lagash and all of the other lost libraries of the world that would be available to him if he had Grenville’s power. He thought of all of the puzzles of the past that he would be able to solve— how the pyramids had been built, how Joan of Arc really died, and what had caused the Mayan civilization to vanish. And he thought of the multitude of other unknown vistas that would be opened up to him, the limitless worlds that he would become privy to, the laws of physics that he would rewrite. And for a moment he almost gave in. But then he looked into Grenville’s eyes, and although he did not know precisely what the word meant, he knew that if he went along with Grenville’s plans, he would be damned.

  “I cannot do it,” he said, trembling, as he raised the knife into the air. “I cannot allow the child that she carries to come into this world.”

  By this time Melanie was in a state of shock and no longer resisted. Summoning every ounce of courage that he possessed David readied for the plunge. He looked at the knife one last time and was just about to bring it down when Julia suddenly turned to Grenville.

  “What child?” she asked, bewildered.

  David froze as he looked at the expression on Julia’s face. Was it possible that she did not know? And then, in a flash, the pieces came together and he understood. Julia was unaware that Melanie was carrying her progeny. Given that such a birth could occur only once every two thousand years, she was perhaps even unaware that she had the ability to impregnate. That was why Grenville had not allowed her to maul the Roman woman. He had not wanted her to discover that the Roman woman was pregnant, that he was planning on replacing her. It was even why in their current conversation he had so meticulously avoided any specific reference to Melanie’s pregnancy, referring to her condition as simply the process that has taken over her body.

  David suddenly wondered why Grenville had kept such information from Julia, but judging from the look of fear spreading across Grenville’s face, he thought he understood that also. His heart pounded as he tried one last desperate ploy.

  “Julia,” he called out. “Do you realize that you are dying?”

  And then, from the look of hurt and betrayal she gave Grenville, he knew that he had been right. How had Grenville put it? We are all obsessed. At some point in the distant past she might have been only a ferocious spirit kept at bay, and the ruby might have been the only thing binding her allegiance to Grenville. But she had been with him for over four thousand years. She had grown used to him, and in her own curious way perhaps even loved him. That was why she had not turned on him even when he had not had the ruby. It was also why Grenville had taken such pains not to tell her that Melanie was pregnant. He knew that she would not take kindly to her being replaced.

  “It’s true,” David said, driving the last nail into the coffin. “The night of the dinner, the night that you seduced my wife, Grenville performed a magical operation that enabled you to get her pregnant. He did it because he no longer wants you around. You are weak and you are dying, and even now he has planned it so that my wife is carrying your successor.”

  As Julia continued to stare at Grenville, the look of guilty terror that filled his face told her that what David was telling her was the truth. Without warning she reached out and knocked the ruby from Grenville’s hand.

  “Replacing me!” she shrieked, and before Grenville could react she gripped him by the arm and pulled him violently toward her.

  “Please, Julia,” he stammered. “Let me explain!”

  “Replacing me!” she keened mindlessly as her nostrils flared. And then, letting out an insensate roar of anger, she was upon him like a panther, biting deep into his neck and shoulder.

  Grenville screamed as blood spurted down over his brocade robe, and for a moment David was frozen by the sight. But then, seeing the ruby lying in the grass only a few feet away, he retrieved it and ran over to Ur-Zababa’s side.

  As David lifted the little head into his arms, Grenville screamed again and there was a terrible crunch as Julia crushed one of his arms.

  Furiously David patted Ur-Zababa in the face and felt a wave of joy when his eyelids fluttered and he began to come to. By this time Grenville’s screaming had begun to wane and he emitted one last nerve-shattering cry as Julia crushed his rib cage with her massive hands and then tossed his lifeless body to the ground.

  She turned toward David, clearly intent on continuing her revenge, when she saw the ruby in Ur-Zababa’s hand.

  “The time has come,” Ur-Zababa said. “Ib ba ikbal ma.”

  Julia looked suddenly horrified.

  “Ib shal malaku,” he continued. “Nig mala eem shi-bura. Nig mala eem shi.” He held the ruby aloft in his fist. “Now you return to your own world.”

  He made a gesture with his free hand in the air in front of him and suddenly a dark cloud formed behind Julia. It expanded quickly, dense and churning like a thundercloud, as a brilliant lavender light began to flash within its depths. For a moment Julia looked as if she were about to run, but suddenly a fissure formed from top to bottom in the cloud and a tremendous roar of wind enveloped her. As the fissure continued to open, David could see that beyond was a landscape more fantastic, more unspeakably foreign than any he had ever previously beheld. For as far as the eye could see, against a deep indigo sky, was a vast expanse of dark and jagged mountains, twisted escarpments and grotesque rock formations, all barren and wracked by a cacophony of strange sounds, great groanings and howlings, and a shimmering sound, as of the buzzing of a thousand flies, only more metallic, like the clashing of cymbals, or the shaking of many thin sheets of aluminum.

  With a final gesture of his hand, Ur-Zababa caused the wind to reach hurricane proportions, and it whipped up around Julia in a swirl of dirt and debris, sucking her back through the fissure. And then, with a clap of thunder, the hole between the worlds vanished, and the lawn became silent save for the crackle of the fire now engulfing the house behind them, and the cries of the servants as they fled into the night.

  THIRTEEN

  That night, when they arrived back at the cottage, David was filled with foreboding to find that Brad’s rusted Volkswagen, apparently not a product of Grenville’s magic, was still in the driveway, and the next day he found Brad’s body where Julia had left it, only a hundred feet from the house. It seemed that in the end he really had come to offer his assistance, only Julia had intercepted him and had adopted his plan with the same facility with which she had temporarily adopted his appearance.

  About a week later Dr. Grosley performed an abortion on Melanie, and although they told him they had wanted the pregnancy terminated out of purely personal reasons, after the operation David discerned in Dr. Grosley’s deeply unsettled expression that the fetus must have already possessed at least some of the disconcerting features of its father. In spite of this they deemed it prudent to tell Dr. Grosley nothing.

  As for telling their story to anyone, even if David had possessed the inclination to brave the scorn and ridicule that would follow such a disclosure, any enthusiasm that he might have possessed for such a venture was further diminished by two important discoveries.

  The first was that although the malevolent aura that hung over Fenchurch St. Jude had clearly dissipated, its inhabitants, out of deeply ingrained fear and lifelong habit, still obstinately refused to betray Grenville’s secret in any way.

  The second was even more dismaying to David. In the unlikely event that he did decide to tell his tale to anyone, he knew that his ace in the hole, the one piece of physical evidence that he possessed, would be the demon fetus pres
erved in the Roman woman’s body. However, when he visited the excavation site on the day following Melanie’s abortion, to his great distress he discovered that because he had cut into the body of the Roman woman before he had sufficiently preserved her, the fetus had begun to decompose, and was now little more than an amorphous mass.

  It was ten days after their final encounter with Grenville, as he stood surveying the valley for the last time with Katy and Melanie sitting in the car a short distance away, that he received what he at first thought was the final blow. He had submitted his discovery of the bog bodies for publication, but had turned over what work was left to one of his colleagues, and Ur-Zababa stood at his side as he looked somberly at the excavations for the last time.

  “David,” Ur-Zababa said, interrupting his reverie.

  He looked at the little figure beside him.

  “You shouldn’t feel badly,” Ur-Zababa continued. “What you did was necessary and good, and you have every right to be very pleased with yourself.”

  “But what about you?” David asked.

  “What about me?”

  David swallowed. “Well, I’m afraid I’ve become quite fond of you. Are you going to keep my son’s body, or are you going to leave it, and if so, what happens then?”

  Ur-Zababa smiled softly. “I’m afraid I’m going to leave it. I must return to the place where I belong.”

  David’s gaze dropped.

  “But you mustn’t be sad,” Ur-Zababa cautioned. “Everything has a beginning and an end. That’s why flowers die and leaves fall off the trees.”

  David looked up at him again as he recalled that they were the words that he had said to Tuck, but still he did not understand the real meaning of what he had just been told.

  Ur-Zababa became silent for a moment as if he were listening to a voice somewhere deep inside his head. “Yes,” he said quietly and almost to himself. “I think your father knows that you have moxie.”