The Strange Dark One

by W. H. Pugmire

  The child of Sesqua Valley stepped into the haunted realm and saw the shapeless forms that huddled here and there burning low mounds of incense. He walked through the purple radiance to the raised platform of the altar. The Dark One did not look at him. “Ah, child of elemental shadow, what have you come to offer me?”

  “I offer you nothing. I’m not some mortal with whom you can play. Why do you manifest yourself?”

  “I have been summoned, Cyrus. I do not leave empty-handed. The Beast is not among you?”

  “No, Simon’s in Prague.”

  The Dark One uttered laughter, deeply toned and unearthly. “He amuses me. I am sorry to have missed him. Come to me, child of shadow.”

  Cyrus shivered as he watched the hand move away from the pane of glass, the hand that was now offered to him; but he did not move. “I offer you no mortal veneration.”

  At this the figure turned and stared at him with haughty eyes set in a proud and beautiful facade which reminded Cyrus of a painting of an archangel that he had seen in Italy, the work of an unknown artist. The thing before him looked very young and self-assured. Its masculine attire was of black cloth that contained a deep red undertone of color. When it spoke, its mellow tones rippled through the air like liquid language. “Then I will snatch my due from some other source. But you are mistaken to think you have no mortal soul; for when your elemental stuff walks this plane in the guise of flesh and blood, you live within the law of earthly substance that is far removed from your realm of shadow and mist. That is the portion of you that I can claim at any time. Be cautious, Cyrus Lynchwood.” The Dark One moved down the platform and loomed before the lad. He offered the child his black hand once again. “While you walk this valley, you are a beast indeed. Do as beasts of earth must, child. Give the veneration of thy tongue.”

  The young creature felt it then, a thing he had never known before: the velvet kiss of fear. He watched how his hand trembled as it lifted from him and clasped that other hand.

  VI.

  April awakened to a gentle rapping at her chamber door. She was surprised to see her call answered by Adam Webster carrying a large tray of what smelled like breakfast food and watched silently as he placed the tray on a table and then found a bed tray that he placed over her blanketed legs.

  “There’s no clock in here,” she mumbled, looking around.

  “It’s early afternoon. You’ve slept soundly, but I think you must be famished, you’ve not eaten much since your arrival. I’ve taken the liberty to prepare you a late breakfast. I suppose you’ll want to be heading back home today. Perhaps this amount will suffice for the box of books, and if you agree I have the funds in my study.”

  She glanced at the figure that had been penned onto the slip of paper he placed before her. “That’s far more than I expected.”

  He shrugged. “The books are choice indeed, and their condition is excellent. Simon will be happy to have them. When were you planning on leaving the valley?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it. I’m enjoying being away from my little world in Wisconsin more than I thought I would. I’ve imposed on your generosity long enough, though, so I’ll find a room in town.”

  “Nonsense, it’s pleasant to have some company. I thought, perhaps, you would enjoy accompanying me to a small gathering of poets tonight. I think the crowd may appeal to what I perceive to be your Bohemian identity.” He smiled, and although his face was so very odd, his smile seemed genuine enough, and she accepted his invitation. She ate and dressed, and then decided to go for another walk, and found herself strolling once again to the ancient church and its display of esoteric art. She thought, perhaps, that she had dreamt of the place in the night, but the memory of those dreams was hazy and vague. She knew that at one point in her dream she had been gazing at the black window and been sucked into its subtly swirling vortex. The day was cooler and the sky overcast – rain was probably on its way, which she would welcome if it cooled the still-hot atmosphere of the valley. Although there was a fairly strong wind, its force did not dissipate the streams of vapor that rose from the small plateau on which the old church stood. April climbed the earthen steps that took her up that bit of raised land, to the ancient edifice, and she frowned in confusion, not understanding the movement of light that she watched as she peered into the rectangular opening.

  She entered the dark and lonely place and could not comprehend what she was seeing. Some vague figure stood on the altar behind the pane of black glass who seemed to hold a globe of purple illumination in its hands. The black light that emanated from the globe shone through the window and spilled pale illumination to the ceiling, a pattern of strangely colored light that whirled and writhed above her. She had never seen such alien combinations of color, and as she gazed at them she experienced sharp pain inside her head. It was as though she were looking up at some unfathomable cosmic force, some spinning horde of stars, and out of the abysses between those stars swept chilly currents of pain that pierced her eyes and split her brain. This sharp cold pain crept from her head to all her flesh, which shivered as with ague. It was then that the figure behind the black window stepped forth, through the darkness and light, to her. She looked at the swarthy skin, the young and slightly sinister face. As she gazed into his eyes her sense of nervous anxiety increased, and she began to shake violently. And then the stranger’s cool hands encased her arms, and she calmed. He stood before her, the dark man, like some weird sentient shadow, observing her face as if he knew her and was about to speak her name. She did not want this being to say her name. April opened her mouth and tried to speak, but found herself unable to utter sound. The globe of outré light that the fellow had held was gone, as were its effects above them. The dusky place was very still, very quiet, but there was a riot of whispering within her head. Her flesh was chilly, and she raised her hands so as to rub her arms, and in so doing realized that no one held her, that she stood alone within the nave. But surely she was dreaming, for the scene around her was one of distortion and ruin. The walls of the ancient church were cracked, with portions of the huge bricks missing. A horrid green hue spilled in through the night, like the light of a diseased moon. The ground on which she stood had been disrupted, so that she stumbled over raised portions of the ground as she crept toward the arched threshold. The black window swung slowly on the chains that held it, its surface suffused with a kind of dark purple phosphorescence within which lines of light that resembled lightning occasionally flickered. Although she could not detect the figure she had imagined, she seemed to feel its presence all around her, a sensation that so disturbed her that she fled from the building, into dark air. The storm had not yet erupted, but the sky above her was black with seething clouds of tempest.

  April turned again to gaze at the ancient church and saw no signs of the violent destruction that she had imagined inside, but the figure of the strange totem caught her attention. Something about the thing made her think of Grandfather and the stories he told her, late in life, about his experience at Rick’s Lake. She could not quite remember, but the more she studied the queer totem the more the diseased aura of the place got to her, and thus she turned and rushed down the grassy slope to the road that led her back to town. The sight of the Webster habitation actually gave her a feeling of relief. Webster himself was at his desk inside the shop, and he looked at her inquisitively as she stopped at the entrance to the shop as though she might speak to him; but then she pushed away from the door and found her way up the stairs and to her quiet room. She had left one of the room’s small windows open, and cold air now gushed into the chamber, chilling her. She closed the window as rain finally began to fall, the sound of which seemed to calm her. That she had need of calming perplexed her – she could not understand what she had experienced in the church, or the emotional aftermath of that occurrence. Something had touched her mind, some troubling thing that had traumatized her imagination.

  The world outside her windows darkened, and suddenly April
did not want to be alone. She changed into a dress and applied a modicum of make-up, and then went down the stairs to the main room of Webster’s bookshop, where Adam still sat at his desk, looking over some old books. “Are we still on for tonight?”

  “Yes. This is actually a good time to leave. It’s a small club where the artistic souls of the valley convene.”

  “Great. We can take my car, unless you want to drive.”

  “I do not drive, Miss Dorgan.”

  They exited the building and stepped into a light rainfall that felt, to her, refreshing. The stifling heat that had plagued the valley had dissipated, and the sweetness that April had originally detected in the air had returned. The odd man who sat beside her in the car remained silent, except to give some few directions, but her initial wariness of the fellow had eased; he was an isolated creature in a ridiculously small town and was probably not used to nor comfortable with a sudden intrusion such as she had thrown upon him. They entered the main part of what she guessed would have been their downtown section and parked in front of the place that he indicated. The antiquated buildings had been built close together and seemed like structures that had been raised many decades earlier, and the wooden sidewalks made her feel as though she had escaped into some pocket of old time. He vacated the car and then waited for her at the door of the club or whatever it was, and she nodded pleasantly at him as she walked past him into the establishment, which proved to look like so many other clubs she had known, with low lighting and many tables at which people whispered to each other over drinks. At one place in the club there was a small platform that served as performance stage, and looking at it gave her a momentary chill, for it reminded her of the altar in the sinister church; and with good reason, for a dark figure stood upon it, at whom many of the club’s denizens gazed with troubled faces. The tall lean man stood very still, with one hand on top of the head of the boy who sat crossed-legged before him. Cyrus did not look into the crowd as he raised a flute to his mouth, and the music that issued from that instrument was disquieting. It puzzled April how such a soft low sound could flow from such a small, slim piece of wood, a sound that reminded her of echoed wind heard within the eaves of some vast roof.

  The black man smiled as he peered into the crowd. Although his flesh was black as pitch, his features were not Negroid but reminded the woman of a replica she had once seen of an Egyptian Sphinx. She had read once that the Greek word had perhaps derived from the Egyptian “Shesepankh” and meant something like “living statue.” The man who gazed at them from the stage could easily have been such an entity, for there was something about his smooth young features that seemed mask-like and ersatz, a mockery of mortality. The chiseled mouth opened as the black man began to sing.

  “I’m gonna blow the dust of earth,

  Until it is dispersed.

  Blow that dust of earth.

  I’m gonna blow the glorious sun,

  Until that globe is gone.

  Blow the glorious sun.

  Oh, I will blow your mortal mind,

  Then leave you far behind,

  Deaf and dumb and blind.”

  April found the fellow’s mellow voice troubling – it didn’t sound quite real, having a quality that sounded almost like a recording. She did not like the way the man’s black hand moved through Cyrus’s hair, like some predatory thing, and she watched as Adam rose from his chair and went to the stage and removed the hand from the boy’s head. She thought she heard Adam mutter something like “You cannot claim him” to the black man and the lad was pulled from the stage and joined them at their table as Adam stepped to the bar and ordered drinks. The young man’s silver eyes wore an unfathomable expression as they watched the black man float from the stage and stalk toward them. The fellow stopped momentarily at their table and smiled down at her.

  “I am Khem. Delighted to meet you, Miss Dorgan. I was acquainted with your grandfather.” So saying, he held to her his ebony hand, which she clasped. The man’s skin was soft like silk. April watched as he turned her hand over and peered at her palm, then bent so as to kiss the flesh thereof. Releasing her, the dark man bowed to Adam and vacated the club. Once the fellow was gone, April realized that she had been holding her breath.

  “That was weird,” she said, blowing air out of her lungs. “He couldn’t have known Grandfather, he’s way too young. Who the hell is he?”

  “No one of importance, Miss Dorgan.” The drinks arrived and April sipped at hers without examining its contents. The potion was sweet and smooth as it slipped down her throat.

  “Call me April, Adam.” She looked around the room and laughed. “This is the most uptight horde of ‘Bohemians’ I’ve ever encountered. Why is everyone staring at us? God, this town is weird.” She looked at her hand, to the place that Khem had kissed. Cyrus leaned to her and studied her palm. “His were the softest lips I’ve even encountered. Did you smell his breath? It reminded me of the cassia Grandfather used when making his special brand of pudding.” She looked around the room again. “Isn’t anyone else going to recite?”

  “This is mostly a social establishment, Miss – April. I fear our avant-garde must seem rather tame to what you are used to.”

  The woman chuckled. “Oh, I’m from a small town, too, you know. We never get quite as wild as they do in big cities. We have a coven, and experiment with sexuality and narcotics. But I have always been a book person, and for me the Bohemian movement, if we call it that, is rooted to literature and art. Trilby is a book that I adore.” She snapped her fingers. “That’s what that guy reminds me of.” She turned to Cyrus. “The effect he seemed to have on you was rather ‘Svengali.’ Who the hell is he?” She noticed the quick look exchanged by the two males.

  “You visited Simon’s Cathedral of Art, I hear,” Adam replied. “A fascinating collection.”

  This reminded April of something that had been on her mind. “Adam, you said you visited my grandfather with this Simon fellow. Were you here when my grandfather visited Sesqua Valley?”

  “Probably, but if so the visit made no impression. Why?”

  “Remember when you showed me that entry in Grandfather’s journal about the strange totem? There’s one just in front of the church that resembles the thing Grandfather described. I seem to recall Grandfather being upset that the totem had gone missing from the region. Wouldn’t it be wild if the thing found its way to Sesqua Valley?” She tried to sound innocent and playful so as to conceal her troubled mind and growing sense of unease.

  “That would be amusing. I cannot now recall the thing, we have so many such totems and figures that have been created by our artistic denizens and planted in many places of the woodland. Some of them are quite fanciful. Will you have another drink, April?”

  “No more whiskey for me, thanks. It was whiskey, wasn’t it? But with something added to it? It packs a punch, I must say.” She laughed at herself and made a silly face. “I think a walk back to the bookstore will sober me up a bit. I haven’t walked so much in ages. I really like it. I feel so far away from everything here. It’s okay for me to leave my car parked there until the morning?”

  Cyrus rose. “Yes, that’s fine. Come on, I’ll walk you home. The rain has stopped, I think.”

  April stood and felt a moment’s dizziness. She had rarely been drunk, but whatever it was she had imbibed had had an effect. Her head was hot and her eyesight slightly out of focus as she touched the wound that had resulted from her fall in the church. She laughed at herself and then turned to smile at the others in the crowded room, all of whom were watching her. “Good night, my fellows,” she told them, holding up her empty glass and putting it to her mouth one last time. Cyrus took the glass from her and set it back on the table, and then he escorted her out of the building. The air had been freshened by the rain, which had now completely ceased. April peered into the sky and felt another wave of vertigo – for in the dark sky above them she thought she could detect spirals of illumination that reminded her of the
designs on the black window. But then the image melted and she could see starlight only.

  “How old are you, Cyrus?” she asked as they walked along the wooden sidewalk.

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “Hmm, seventeen or eighteen?” He smiled at her but did not answer. “You ever been in the big city?”

  “Oh, yes. It was interesting, but there’s no place like home.”

  “I don’t feel that, now. I like it here. It feels authentically different. I can’t quite explain it. The crowd I hang out with at home – they try so hard to be radical, but they’re all so very normal and bland. Their radical natures are things they’ve learned from the lives of others, which they try to duplicate; but they aren’t authentic, it’s all just cliche. Now, that crowd back there, they were different. I sensed something that I can’t pinpoint. You have it, too, some kind of secretive nature. Something alien. It’s there in your eyes.” She stopped and placed a hand against his face, which he took, kissing her palm.