As the others gathered about I glanced around, studying each of them in turn. Two were young women of exquisite beauty. One a striking blonde with great blue eyes, and the other was darker even than Helena. Their loveliness seemed flawless, and I gazed from one to the other spellbound. Their companion was a youth, who looked to be no more than thirteen or fourteen, and he too possessed remarkable beauty: as fair as the blonde girl, with the same huge violet eyes – “the boy with a bright face and yellow hair” – in fact they might easily have been brother and sister. The youth walked towards me, studying me intently, his mouth fixed in a grin, his white teeth gleaming. He nodded to me, so that his great mane of hair fell down onto his face, and his expression told me that he recognised me from the previous night. His eyes unsettled me. They were deep and clever. There was nothing young or childlike about them. It was some time before it occurred to me that he was probably a very great deal older than myself.
“Here then is my family,” said the first revenant, gesturing about her, “or at least part of it.” And she went to the two females, standing between them, clasping them lovingly about their tiny waists, kissing their marble-like cheeks in turn: soft, lingering kisses. A faint smile of satisfaction showed on her face as she looked first at Helena, and then at me. “Observe them,” she said. “Admire them. Is it not the greatest of gifts to seek out such beauty? Such perfection. To discover it. And then to immortalise it.”
The two girls began to laugh: soft, harmonious laughter. And the woman-revenant walked over to me, but her eyes were on Helena.
“But who is your companion, Helena? Will you not introduce us?”
“Of course. His name is John.”
“John,” she said, grasping my hand tightly, holding it to her breast as she bowed her handsome head gracefully. “You are most welcome here. I am Hermione.” She looked up at Helena and the others. “Now! Let us go inside the house.”
She led us along a winding pathway through the trees and shrubs, around onto the stone steps up to the house.
“You must forgive us our furtive welcome,” she said, turning at the door to Helena and I. “But the others saw you first and informed me of your presence. It was only when I came out and recognised you, Helena, that it was safe for us to show ourselves. You understand that we must be careful to avoid the attention and intrusion of curious locals.”
We entered the house. It seemed just as derelict inside as out. Cobwebs and thick layers of dust covered everything. Furnishings were sparse. All paint and paper had long since peeled from the walls. There were no carpets, just bare floorboards. However, we were led by Hermione down a narrow, rickety flight of stairs and through a door, then several paces along a dingy passageway, until we came to another doorway covered by a drawn curtain. Reaching out, Hermione pulled the curtain open. Before us lay the cellar, which was square and very large, and to my astonishment as lavishly arrayed as a palace. Fine rugs, paintings and tapestries adorned the floor and walls. There were many beautifully preserved pieces of ancient furniture and strange and exotic ornaments. The whole place carried an opulence with a silent, timeless air of mystery that made it seem not unlike some esoteric temple of the orient. In the centre were a group of large, luxurious satin covered couches, like Roman banqueting couches, on which we all reclined.
I had no idea what to expect now, but nevertheless what happened was a surprise. We all simply sat there in silence. Something in me wanted to speak out, to ask questions, to discover more about these beautiful, fascinating creatures; but somehow the words would not come. I had always experienced a similar awkwardness when trying to ask Helena questions. With my powerful senses and feelings, which I could not yet properly understand or control, it was difficult trying to express anything adequately in words. Even now it is far from easy. But as I sat there with these others I felt that my thoughts were in some way shared, and in the silence my mind was suddenly filled with the most strange and abstruse ideas and images. I cannot really define or describe them, but for brief, fleeting moments it seemed my concepts of communication were changed: that speech and physical contact were almost unnecessary. That in some ways we might be closer without them. It was as I tried to make some sense of this that Hermione clapped her hands and called out to her “family”:
“Some entertainment, my loves. Some entertainment for the pleasure of our guests.”
The two beautiful girls rose at once and crossed the cellar to a large, ornate bookcase. They took out several leather bound books and in turns proceeded to read out some of the most imaginative and disturbing literature ever produced by man: pieces by Dante, Milton, Coleridge, Byron and Poe; and a then lesser known writer whose works nevertheless seemed to me even more dark and disquieting than all the others: William Blake. But the dark girl began by quoting a traditional invocation to the ancient and dreadful deity Hecate: in legend the mother of lamias, queen of darkness, goddess of dark magic, death, and the shedding of blood, “who wanders amidst tombs in the night and thirsts for the blood and fear of mortal men”. Yet this was spoken without seriousness or reverence, not as any kind of prayer but only as another reading.
All the while I simply sat and listened, absorbed wholly by the physical splendour of the readers, and their soft, dramatic, whispering voices that flowed past me, carrying me away to strange nether worlds of fantasy and imagery, reciting powerful passages from the “Inferno”, “Paradise Lost”, “The Ancient Mariner”, “The Giaour”, and others.
“The minds of men,” remarked Hermione at some point in the midst of these readings with a low laugh. “The darkest force of the earth. So much beauty. Such nameless dread. Such total confusion interspersed with shafts of such terrible clarity. Imaginings so dark as to be beyond the knowledge of any revenant. No black power can rival the thoughts of man. And why? Because man must live always in the path of advancing Death. We cannot know, cannot recall what it is to be pursued and hunted by Death. To feel our bodies infected by Him. To fear the dark unknown He brings. To sense His coming, brought nearer, ever nearer, with every heart-beat of life.”
While the blonde girl read from Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, another revenant entered silently. A dark haired man, very tall, and he too seemed young and handsome. He waited, standing in the shadows until the reading was finished, then he went at once to Helena, his long legs carrying him across the wide cellar in a few quick strides. He took both her hands in his and kissed them again and again, staring hard into her eyes for several moments, then he released her and turned to look at me.
“This is John!” Helena spoke to him for the first time.
He came over and sat on the couch beside me, staring at me, his eyes dark and piercing.
“Greetings to you, John,” he said, leaning close to me, and his voice carried an accent similar to Hermione’s – German, I thought, but I could not be sure. He continued: “I am Maximillian, and I hope we shall come to know each other well.” And as he said this he turned to give Helena a wide grin. Then he gestured to the fair haired youth, who sprawled lan guidly on the next couch.
“Music, Karl,” he said. “Play for us. Sing for us.”
The boy smiled, rose slowly, gracefully, and went over to where a lyre stood in a glass case nearby. He took up the instrument, then came to stand before us.
I cannot properly describe how he played. It was harsh, discordant and tuneless. Yet its melody was the most terrifyingly beautiful I believed I had ever heard. It conveyed stark desolation, a strangeness that seemed hardly real, yet profoundly unnerving. But for all this it utterly engrossed me, stirring in me a great and weird depth of feeling. And when he sang! His high pitched, echoing and totally inhuman voice rose and fell in irregular crescendos, chanting uneven verses slightly out of time with the music, which made the whole effect even more unsettling.
The verses related the story of a man, a magician of great knowledge and power who lived many centuries ago, and who learned the deepest secrets of life and
death through commerce with unearthly forces. But at last this man fell into the hands of his enemies, who condemned and murdered him for his consorting with forbidden arts, then took his body and hung it on a gibbet. Yet by divination and discourse with spirits of prophecy, the magician had learned his fate; and thus it was that his followers came by dead of night, bearing his body away to a nearby tomb, where all lay prepared in accordance with their master’s commands.
Now the followers assembled about the corpse, laying it upon a sepulchre to perform the dread rite of necromancy, calling the spirit of their master from death, back into his mortal shell, that he might speak to them. Slowly, as the invocations were said, so the corpse was seen to stir amidst a sudden rushing of wind. Its eyes were opened, and the voice of the magician was raised from unmoving lips. The corpse let out a groan, then cried:
“I thirst! I feel that which was my body. It is wasted and dry. Give me blood to quench this thirst. Blood to strengthen the ritual of calling. Blood that I may find strength to speak.”
It was known to all the followers that the power and energy discharged into the air by the shedding of blood would revitalize the manifestation of their master’s spirit, and it was agreed between them that they should each give of their own bodies the offering required. So as their incantations rose, the first of them stepped from the protection of his magical circle and cut with sacrificial knife into the palm of his hand, pressing the flow of blood into the mouth of the corpse. Each follower did the same, until the voice of the magician rose up clearly.
The voice commended the followers for their faithfulness, then related how the magician had found his spirit consigned to the underworld to encounter Death, ruler of all earthly things, in the form of a vast and terrible monster with ravenous jaws. Now Death took him in its horrible maw and bore him away into the depths of a giant abyss; past towering ranges of black mountains belching smoke and fire, through Cyclopean structures of timeless stone, until the magician was abandoned in what he knew to be Death’s deepest realm. Even within the Stygian gloom he could glimpse strangely as a vision within his mind swarms of hellish spirits filled with endless malignity; insubstantial creatures which crouched and gibbered upon thrones of skulls above a great river of blood, from which the hands of the damned reached out in hopeless anguish.
The spirits cried out now, gloating in monstrous anticipation, as they took the magician and hurled him before a shadowy presence. This was the same familiar spirit whom the magician had, in his mortal life, summoned often into bondage upon the earth, to serve his hunger for knowledge and power. Now their roles were reversed, for the magician found himself held in subjugation before the dark spirit; and as once the spirit had been compelled to grant the magician knowledge of the lands of the dead, so now was the magician commanded to answer the spirit’s questions upon the world of the living.
Now the corpse of the magician fell silent.
“Master,” the foremost among his followers said, “what knowledge did the spirit seek?”
“I grow weak,” the corpse said. “I must go back into darkness. But return you tomorrow at midnight and repeat the ritual. Summon me again, and give further offerings of your blood, that in exchange I might speak more of these things.”
So the next night they returned as their master bade them. The corpse was once again imbued with life, with the voice of the magician, who demanded offering of their blood; and the shrivelled and decaying body stirred, and this time raised its hands to hold their wrists and drink from each one, feebly pressing their wounds to its dry lips. Once more, the magician began to speak with revived strength.
“The dark spirit sought knowledge of human life,” said the corpse. “Of what it is to breathe, and touch and feel. To know sorrow and joy and love. For the angels of Hell are charged to confine and bring suffering upon damned souls. This they are charged to do by God.”
“What is the manner of suffering in Hell?” asked the magician’s apprentice.
“Memories of flesh!” the voice within the corpse cried. “Phantom pains of sorrow and regret, which are the absence of happiness and hope. Agonies which persist while the flesh is gone. For in Hell there is only pain, but those spirits which are Hell’s wardens are granted one privilege: to feel nothing. Eternally nothing. They are immune to all pain, but devoid of all feelings. And they despise human souls for their memories of flesh.”
So their discourse continued into the night, delving into many dark mysteries, the magician’s spirit serving as a conduit into Hell itself, until at last it bade them once more to return again the following night.
The followers were now aware that their strength was becoming drained, yet such was the temptation of the knowledge the magician’s spirit imparted that they could not refuse him.
The third night they carried out the ritual again, and this time the corpse sat upright upon its slab, embracing each of the followers in turn as it clung to their bodies and drank deeply of their blood. Until at last the followers themselves seemed each as wasted and pale as the corpse had been, and matters between them were reversed, for the body of the magician was restored to new life, its wounds healed, while it glowed with vigour and strength.
Then the revenant stood up before them and spoke, while its voice seemed strangely powerful and resonant, for it possessed at once a strong echo which was unlike the voice of the magician himself, but seemed like two voices that spoke as one.
“Now,” it said, “we shall know eternal life and eternal flesh. We shall belong to neither death nor life, and shall carry the retributions of Hell into the world of men. You too, our disciples, may elude Death evermore, if you will give us always offerings of blood.”
The followers lay now in exhaustion, and said that they had no more blood to give, or they would surely die.
“In death there will be life!” the revenant replied. “Go into the world of men! Find offering there – eternal blood sacrifice in our honour – that our pact may be sealed.”
Thus was born the first of revenants – the Master-Revenant – and his children.
This story alarmed me deeply, with its dark and sinister allusions, for it seemed to me that every wild legend was based upon some initial truth. But then Maximillian leaned close to me, smiling, and said:
“An amusing tale. You see. Even we have our myths and fables. Even we.”
I nodded, but felt the need to question him further, when the boy Karl struck at his lyre again, and sang out louder than before.
“Wanderers in the realms of time,
Travellers in infinity,
Souls which may forever thrive,
And fear not man, nor God, nor Death.
“We are as Olympians
That feed on nectar,
Warm sweet draught of death,
Dark wine of immortality.
“O Tyrant Death! That everywhere
Asserts His harsh despotic sway,
We know Him well, His chosen few,
And yet He knows us not.
“He knows us not for we alone
May live beyond His cold embrace,
Yet time and time we take Him
As a lover in our arms.
“Death our slave,
We alone have conquered Thee,
Have brought Thee to subjection,
May touch Thee with impunity.
“We are the masters,
Haunters of the night,
Rulers of the tomb,
We are the Lords of Death.”
More verses followed. I cannot remember them, only the effect they had on me as the singing and playing became more frantic and intense, more harsh upon my ear and soul. I was infected by a growing sense of upheaval and conflict inside: part of me was distressed by this bizarre cacophany, yet part of me greatly excited: yet through my confusion I saw no reason why I should feel anything in particular. I glanced once over at Helena, who looked back at me, apparently unmoved by the performance. And all the while I felt th
e dark eyes of Maximillian upon me, though for some reason I could not bring myself to look back at him. And when the final piping cadenza of “We are the Lords of Death” came, I felt a sense of relief, but then also of renewed discomfort.
“Now!” said Maximillian at last, looking all about him as he stood, his smile gradually broadening as his eyes came to rest on Helena. “All is ready.”
Everyone rose, and the two girls came to me, smiling and laughing, placing their hands on my shoulders, guiding me up the cellar stairs, following Maximillian and Hermione.
“What now? Where are we going?” I asked one of them. Her smile widened and her pupils dilated, but she said nothing.
We continued climbing to the upper reaches of the house, and stopped at last outside an attic door. Maximillian turned and gazed at me intently for a moment, then he moved forward, pushing the door slightly ajar and glancing through. He turned back again.
“Go!” he said softly. “You may begin.” His manner was solemn. He possessed none of the sudden excitement that seemed to have infected his companions.
The revenants stepped forward as one, their eyes upon the door. Maximillian pushed it wider open, then stood aside. I followed the others curiously, straining to see past them into the room. Inside were a human couple, sitting on chairs by an empty table; a young man and woman wearing poor, ragged clothes, with thin, haggard faces. Couples like this, hungry and penniless, were to be found all over London then, and could easily be enticed with promises of food, shelter or employment.
Slowly the revenants filed one by one into the room, and stood in a row before the wretched couple, staring upon them, silent and still. At last Maximillian followed them, leaving me alone on the threshold. For it was only now I realised that Helena was gone. But for the moment I was too intent on seeing what was happening inside the room to try and find out where she might be.
The Revenants Page 8
