Empire of Fear

by Brian Stableford

  Noell wondered whether there had ever been a man here before who could look at this rite with eyes unclouded by the mysteries of masks and words. Had anyone ever seen it as it really was, with eyes not bewildered by Shigidi, with a mind which found idols transparent? It suddenly struck him what poor fools these were who danced in their masks and would soon begin to cut with their savage knives in cruel and stupid celebration. And was the sabbat of the Gaulish vampires any different, in essence? Would there not be masks and idols there, in equal profusion, and cruelties to answer the demands of Shigidi?

  Why, he thought, these men might really rule the world, if only they had ever paused to consider coldly the elements of what they do, if only they had ever experimented with the means which they use, to separate out the vital from the irrelevant. They achieve their end in a ridiculous, perverted fashion, without knowing what it is they do, or how they do it. And it is the same with the vampires Attila made, who are likewise blinded by their own ignorance and superstition!

  Now it fell to a number of the Egungun to grind and mix the contents of the bowls, and they did so with stout pestles, the rhythm of their movements quite taken over by the rhythm of the continuing chant, while Noell watched, grateful that he was secure in his waking self, and that the season of his dreams had been brought to such an absolute end.

  He glanced sideways at Ngadze, and saw the Ibau man sweating despite the cold, in the grip of a fever of anxiety: a man in the company of his gods, appropriately cowed. He looked then at Quintus, and saw that the monk was sweating too, albeit more lightly, and that his eyes too had become a little glazed. Shigidi had not conquered Quintus, but Quintus was not entirely free of the magic spell of nightmare-vision.

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  Noell had lost all track of time, but it seemed to him that nearly an hour had passed, with the ceremony proceeding first at one tempo, then at another, but always with the fundamental rhythm of the drums beneath it. The gods moved aside from their preparatory rituals, and the first of the candidates stepped forward to a shaped wooden block, which had been brought to stand before the stone dais. Although Noell had guessed what was to happen, his throat constricted and his gorge rose when he saw one of those who played the part of the risen dead produce a dull-bladed knife.

  Ngadze clearly had not worked out in thought what was to happen, for he gasped very audibly when he saw the first of the candidates place his penis – already circumcised after the rough fashion of his people – upon the saddle of the block, ready for semi-castration. As the blade of the knife was drawn along the penis, to slit it open like a pea-pod, Ngadze let slip a little scream. Noell, glancing sideways, saw that even Quintus had buried his head in his hands, unable to look, while Kantibh, somewhat to his surprise, was staring avidly, apparently unable to tear his jealous gaze away.

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  The gush of blood which spouted from the wound was neatly intercepted by another of the ceremony’s officiators, caught in one of the two great bowls which had been prepared to receive it. Noell bit his lower lip in anxiety as he watched the flowing blood collected, wondering whether many men might bleed to death before their dreadful initiation was complete. But three others of the risen dead were ready with another gourd, and as the first was carried away they came quickly into place to take some moist mixture from within it, caking it upon the wounded member with some liberality, pressing it into and around the long slit. The blood-flow ceased, and the naked man moved back from the block, having made no sound, nor shown by any expression in his face what an ordeal he had undergone.

  The second man stepped forward, and suffered the same incision. Again the gushing blood was taken into the collecting bowl, the opened member being left to bleed for nearly a minute before the gourd was brought forwards again, and its poultice applied. Again, the blood-flow was stanched, and the man was able to step back, no less in control of himself than when he had entered the arena.

  But this is not a means of healing, Noell reminded himself. It is a means to stop healing, for when this man becomes a vampire, most of the wounds he has recently received will heal. He is unmanned for all eternity, by the design of these petty gods and foolish wise men.

  He watched this part of the ceremony repeated twice more, and now he was no longer sickened by the flow of blood, though he wondered why they caught it so carefully in that greater bowl. He had lost track, somehow, of the number of the bowls and gourds which were upon and around the dais, and what had been done to each one to prepare it for its role in the affair, but he believed that the mixture of substances which the gods had made – and to which the invisible Olorun might be assumed to have added his heart – had not yet played its part. He turned again, briefly, to look back at the sea of faces, ecstatically turned to the heavens, chanting relentlessly with a rhythm which was now gradually but perceptibly speeding up.

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  The drugged and mutilated men, surely brought to the threshold of death by age and loss of blood, were poised now between the life they had finished and the life which was to begin. They stood in line, waiting, while the gods moved past and around them, speaking now in murmurous tones. Their winding procession distracted Noell’s attention from the Egungun, but they were about to step back into the principal role, and now they had new vessels in their arms, which surely were the ones into which the gods had poured their offerings. The blood which had been taken from the candidates was poured liberally into them. Again there was mixing and stirring, but Noell could only imagine what a loathsome mess was thus produced.

  But then came the knives again, and the risen dead came back to taunt the living, drawing long wounds across the breasts and heads of the would-be elemi, who did not flinch. Then, the mixture of blood and the offerings of the gods was pressed upon the bleeding breasts, and poured upon their heads, much as the ointment from the gourds had been plastered on the stumps of the severed pricks. But Noell knew, as he watched, that this was no ointment, to heal or to save from healing. This was the elixir of life itself, nurtured in blood and set now upon bleeding wounds, which it must invade in order to make these men immortal.

  Like the silver death! he thought.

  All the elemi in the amphitheatre were standing now, gathering into a great procession which spiralled around and around the space beneath the sky. The procession moved forward as the vampires of Adamawara came in single file to take their own part in this ceremony of initiation, this terrible season of blood whose sacrifice was the price of eternal life. The black vampires, their polished skin shining in the firelight, moved between the fires and between the silent figures of their gods, past the motionless Egungun, in a smoothly-flowing river of life whose measured passage must have been practised a thousand times and more.

  The voices never ceased their chant.

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  The procession seemed to go on forever, and yet it moved with uncanny smoothness, each member striding as though impelled by a machine along a pre-planned path, with no collisions or interruptions, no pauses or hesitations. The chant had now changed its timbre as well as its tempo. Noell could see that Kantibh, though he uttered no sound, was mouthing the phrases, completely lost in the rhythm. But Ngadze had recoiled, and had turned his face away.

  ‘For the love of God!’ murmured Quintus, in distress. His voice was too low for anyone else but Noell to hear.

  ‘Dost thou mean the God which fathered Christ?’ asked Noell, and would have added: Or the gods which Shigidi serves so well, but thought more kindly of it.

  The ceremony was not finished yet, and Noell held his position patiently while the great procession wound on and on to its inevitable end.

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!
>
  The four candidates still stood side by side, waiting. Their jaws still moved as they chewed whatever narcotic pulp had been given them, and their split members dangled raggedly beneath them, smeared and caulked after the fashion of amputated limbs cauterized with molten pitch. Their heads and bodies were covered in gore, and in that blood were the agents which would give them eternal life, if death did not come to claim them first.

  Many must die, thought Noell. This is not an easy road to take, for men as old as these.

  When they had first come into this place, Noell’s mind had been filled with memories of Guazzo’s description of the vampire sabbat. He had half-expected to see some ritual of serial buggery, after the manner of the pillory escapades in London’s Tower. Now, he realised that it probably would not matter overmuch which orifice of the body or laceration of the flesh received the brew contained in the devil’s cauldron. He could not guess how necessary to the elixir the blood might be, nor whether any of the unseen powders and pulps which had been put into the bowl when the rite began made any contribution at all, but he was convinced that he knew one element of it, and that he had known it for a long time. He had no doubt at all that Edmund Cordery had guessed, and guessed true, what kind of heart or ejaculate it was which Olorun or Satan gave to his chosen people. Noell was sure that he knew what had happened here, and what was the hidden core of the secret concealed in all this mummery.

  I think that I might now begin to make an elixir of life, he thought, and by experiment bring it to perfection. But where might I look for the heart of it? What elemi would ever give to me a measure of that semen which he must labour so very long to produce, and leak with such awful difficulty?

  The thought that he did know, and that he had seen this ceremony with penetrating gaze, made him feel that he had won such a triumph as his father must have envied him.

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  He watched the candidates spit out the stuff which they were chewing, and saw them slowly fall to the ground, where the Egungun wrapped them up in coloured mats, and carried them, one by one, into the shadows. Noell knew that they had fallen into a deep sleep, from which they would awaken elemi, or not at all.

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  A-a-a-a … da-a-a-a … ma!

  It came to him with a slight shock of revelation that the vampires of Adamawara could not have known what a silly thing they did when they brought him to see this ceremony. They had intended to show him a great display of godly power and magical extravagance, to demonstrate what an awesome, solemn and horrible thing it was to contemplate becoming a vampire, so that he would be thoroughly deluded. In much the same way, those credulous witnesses to the sabbats held by Attila’s kin, whose tales had been reported by the Gregorians, must have seen something which seemed to them terrible and unnatural, and had found only anguish instead of knowledge. But he, who had sat upon the knee of Francis Bacon, and carried in his flesh and spirit alike the heritage of Edmund Cordery, had seen neither gods nor devils, nor any superhuman magic, nor anything at all to humble the soul of a common man with fear and dread. He had seen only opportunity – the birth of a confident understanding which made him feel that he was no longer a bondsman in the empire of fear, but a free citizen of the republic of enlightenment.

  He knew then what treasure had been in Adamawara, waiting to be discovered, and he believed that he had found it, though he could not yet imagine how he might attempt to carry it away with him.

  NINE

  Returned to the place of the aitigu, Noell and Quintus quit the houses where they had been lodged, and took over for their own purposes another dwelling at the southern edge of the town. Ngadze came with them, and when they had it ready they brought the sick Langoisse, and Leilah to look after him. The elemi with whom they worked made no objection to this, but tried to smooth the way for them by offering four Mkumkwe servants, whose attachment to the household Noell was reluctantly persuaded to accept. He asked Kantibh whether they might instead have Ntikima to help them, but the Persian said that Ntikima was in Iletigu. Kantibh deflected further questions by telling them that the house which they had chosen had been the home of other Christians fourteen hundred years before: those Syrians following Frumentius who had tried to carry news of Christ’s sojourn on the earth into the very heart of Africa.

  Noell took more trouble now to pursue his own researches. By patient exploration he discovered the way from the place of the aitigu to the lifeless forest, and went there to collect parts of the strange trees, samples of soil, and specimens of the few insects and worms to be found there. He compared these things with what he knew of the living things in the Kwarra delta, and with samples which he collected inside the crater. He tried hard to make sense of it all, but enlightenment evaded him and he grew gradually frustrated by his inability to understand why the forest was so antipathetic to the living things which existed in profusion elsewhere.

  He returned, on occasion, to Berenike’s house, and sometimes she came to seek him out, but he knew that their love affair – if thus it might be called – was really over. There seemed to be little pleasure for either of them in their couplings, which became much less frequent as time went by.

  In the meantime, Quintus began to learn the use of the elemi’s medicines – or such, at least, as they were willing to teach him in return for the Gaulish lore which he imparted to them. Noell watched his friend grow visibly weaker and more tired as the days passed, and was sorry for him. It was not the physical debility of the man which seemed most unfortunate, but the decline in his sharpness of mind. He remained, in Noell’s eyes, the wisest of men, yet he seemed to have absorbed as if by infection something of the ways of his inquisitors. He was often to be heard murmuring lists, as though trying to fix them in a memory reluctant to hold them, and often cursed the fact that there was neither paper nor ink to be had in Adamawara. Quintus also spent much time in prayer, renewing a habit which he had allowed to weaken in recent years. It seemed that some argument which he conducted with his maker, once settled by truce, was now made urgent again. Noell could not guess why this was so, and did not like to ask.

  Langoisse, who had no interest in learning the lore of Adamawara, nor in Noell’s patient collecting, lost himself in tedium, and in doing so gave way a little more to the sickness which was devouring his spirit. Periodically, he seemed to realise that he had become his own enemy, and would rouse himself to the business of planning for the future, romancing freely of quests to come, sailing the reconstructed Stingray across the western ocean in search of Atlantis, or taking her up the Thames to bombard the Tower of London and begin the over-throw of the Norman tyranny. All too often these excitements would run away with him, and end with curious bouts of intoxication. In the grip of such light-headedness he would often shout at the frightened servants, cursing them for the inadequacy of their understanding, and abuse poor Leilah if she tried to keep him calm.

  At other times, the pirate became morose and morbid, bewailing the absence of meat and – in heartfelt fashion – the weakness and foul taste of the millet beer which was Adamawara’s only means of inducing drunkenness. He seemed to forget that his eagerness had played a part in launching the expedition, and began to blame Noell and Quintus for bringing him to such an evil place to die. Leilah stayed close to Langoisse through all these moods, and he drew her, it seemed, much closer to him than before, as though she must now take the place of the lost Turk.

  Leilah’s attitude to Noell remained politely distant. Her behaviour towards him was studied, when in the past it had always been spontaneous. He did not think it entirely fair of her. Had she not been Langoisse’s mistress through all the time he had known her? What complaint could she legitimately offer now merely because he had had a mistress of his own? But she did not see things the same way and though she would not name his association with Berenike a betrayal, it was plain that she felt it to be so, in her heart. Noell was con
fused enough in his own thoughts to wonder whether she was right. Unlike Edmund Cordery, who had used his affair with Carmilla Bourdillon to political advantage, he had given himself to a vampire in answer to desire – a desire which was not even returned, in any sincere fashion. Berenike had long since banished herself from the world of ordinary emotion and desire, and was more like an automaton than a thinking person.

  Berenike was the one subject which Noell would never discuss with Quintus. He always felt, though Quintus never said so, that he had suffered much in the monk’s estimation in becoming the vampire’s lover. He imagined that Quintus must secretly despise him for it, or at least despair of his weakness. Why he felt this, he was not entirely sure. Quintus had never asked him to become a monk, or suggested that it was a vocation to which he was fitted. But Quintus was so unassailable in his own celibacy as to set a most intimidating example, and there was no denying that Quintus had made a powerful imprint upon the form and voice of Noell’s conscience. Noell had always felt that in making Leilah his friend instead of his lover he had been true to an important aspect of Quintus’s ideals, and now he had alienated himself from that approval.

  The impossibility of discussing Berenike, however, meant that Noell could not confide to Quintus certain ideas about vampires in general which he extrapolated from his growing understanding of his lover. He began to wonder whether her condition provided an insight into the state of being of the elemi.

  Noell knew, of course, that it was dangerous to assume that living for millennia would have the same effect on all who did so. Kantibh, who was only a little younger than Berenike, took such an active role in the affairs of Adamawara that he rarely seemed to be lost in a trance, living entirely by habit. Aiyeda, who must be nearly as old as the mysterious Ekeji Orisha, was equally capable of interesting himself in the daily flow of events, and had his wits very much about him. But the elders who lived in Iletigu, under the direction of those supposedly next to the gods, were not involved in such projects as the preparation of candidates and the learning of new things. If hearsay was to be credited, they spent their time in meditation and ritual, and in giving forth pronunciations as to what must be done in the world, and what must become of the world.