“The dialect is very old.” He began to translate the runes aloud, “The soul… of the… three… shall become… one… and the Saldroth… shall have… dominion of the earth.” His expression darkened as his gaze rose from the runes as he uttered those final fateful words.
“What does that mean?” enquired my brother in a fearful whisper.
Straka stared at the tome without answering. “Captain, a word in private.” With a nod, Norris joined Straka as they headed towards the annexe. We watched the men intently, Straka bending his face close to Norris, about to speak, only to suddenly pull away, gaze darting in panicked jerks. He spun suddenly, tumbling backwards as though faced with Gugalanna himself, baying as though at an unseen assailant before scrabbling to his feet and racing from the room amidst a torrent of terrified babbling that halted abruptly with a macabre cry that resonated against the stone walls.
We raced after him, halting at the bottom of the circular stairs we’d ascended earlier and squinting into shadows that harboured a slumped form. Approaching with readied guns the blackness relented with each step, slowly revealing Straka, his features shrivelled, skin misshapen and flaccid and two large fang marks on his face, the resultant gore streaking his chest.
“Straka! Straka!” bellowed Hall, who was already fumbling for his med kit. Corporal Smith pulled Straka’s body into the room’s half-light, the moonbeams shining like spotlights through the fractured walls and revealing skin that rippled like jelly over the doctor’s bones; as though Straka’s innards had been liquefied by some internal chemical reaction.
“What was he saying about spiders earlier?” Smith enquired as his fingers traced the circular wounds on Straka’s face.
“Still think this is some Nazi experiment?” Came Coombs’ challenge to Penn, whose silence was ample reply.
“Some of those creatures must still be alive in here!” growled Norris as the men scanned for movements in the shadows. “Fan out, I want them found, I want them dead. Now!” For the ensuing minutes the soldiers searched, working in pairs through the tower as they hunted Saldroth, but none could be found.
“We still have a job to do,” barked Norris as the men reconvened at the Chapel. This is what we’ve trained for!”
“If we stay here, these things’ll pick us off like they did the Nazis,” stammered Hall, his eyes darting from one wall to the next.
“At ease Private!” barked Smith.
“Do you hear that Captain?” gasped Hall, suddenly petrified as though he’d spied Medusa.
We all listened but heard nothing.
“Hear what?” hissed Penn.
“There it is again!” Hall was beginning to hyperventilate.
“You’re just imagining it, you daft bastard!”
“Pull yourself together, man,” shouted Norris amidst a cacophony of voices as the squad’s discipline began to erode. “There!” shrieked Hall, pointing at the wall opposite. “Scratching! From in there! It’s coming from… everywhere!” he yelled, then in one fluid motion perfected by years of repetitious training, opened fire, machine gun chattering indiscriminately.
Bullets thudded into the ancient walls sending shards of granite splintering in random arcs. I dived for Ondrej, knocking him to the floor and protecting him with my body as a sliver of stone bit into my temple. “Rats! In the bloody walls, shoot ‘em, lads, shoot ‘em! They’re coming for us!” screamed Hall as I hauled Ondrej towards the sanctuary of the stairs, but he resisted, instead turning to watch Hall’s antics just as a stray bullet hammered through Coombs’ temple, sending him crashing to the floor like meat on a butcher’s slab.
“Cease fire! Bellowed Norris as a torrent of bullets cut into the wall inches above his head.
“Cease fire!” screamed the others but Hall would not relent until his magazine clicked empty. Then, throwing his machine gun at the wall he screamed “Here they come! Run lads!” as he charged towards a nearby opening in the stonework. Smith accelerated after him, grabbing Coombs’ ankle as the private defenestrated himself. “Get out of here, Corporal, they’ll have us all!” bellowed Coombs as Smith’s grip failed and the dangling man plummeted.
* * *
We sat stunned in what seemed like an endless silence, each man battling to reconcile what he’d witnessed. “I’ve fought in many wars but I’ve never seen anything like this.” Smith’s voice was deep and dire. “We have to bury this place.”
Norris nodded and slowly we willed ourselves upright as the captain issued his orders. “Penn. Smith. I want you on the east side of the castle. I want dynamite on each major column of the foundations. Set the timers for thirty minutes from my mark, then get clear. Synchronising watches in three, two, one, mark.” The men adjusted their time pieces, then Penn and Smith raced out of the chapel as Norris jabbed a thumb in our direction. “You two, with me.”
Drained by the earlier tumult Ondrej had once again slumped into semi-consciousness and so draping his arms around us, we hauled him down the winding descent into the catacombs that housed Čierna Brána’s western foundations. Darkness closed its grip with every step and the stench of centuries-old damp rose from its stone innards. Finally, we reached a narrow passageway, tracing its meandering path to a gargantuan cave hewn over centuries by rivulets of water cutting patient paths through slabs of limestone. Before us we saw the towered triple pillars that held the castle’s western battlements aloft.
I set Ondrej down while Norris busied himself placing explosives on the columns.
“We’ll have at least twenty minutes to get to safety. Should be plenty of time,” came Norris’ assurance as he extracted the first batch of dynamite from his backpack. Ondrej sat up, eyes struggling to focus. “We should leave now,” he pleaded. Indeed, every part of me yearned to flee, but I knew I could never return home in the knowledge I’d abandoned my new-found friends.
“Hurry Captain,” I urged, but Norris wasn’t listening, suddenly distracted by something protruding from his backpack that lay partly shaded in a lip of shadow. “Shhh!” he hissed as he stalked towards the bag, his expression betraying a sense of victory as though discovering something previously hidden.
“Captain?” Norris hushed me again as his hand reached towards his holstered pistol. I strained to see what he was looking at; a protrusion from the backpack my eyes could not quite give shape to, forcing me to shift my position to attain a better view.
“Thought you could hide in there, did you?” Norris gloated with unaccustomed bravado as he cocked the pistol’s hammer. “Stay clear, lads, I’ve got this little Saldroth blighter!” He began to squeeze the trigger just as I acquired a clear line of sight at the pack; draw string pulled open and brimming with dynamite. “Captain! Stop, it’s..!” The sound of thunder drowned my words as Norris’ pistol shot rang out; a prelude to a deafening crack that heralded a tsunami of cascading stone from above and then only darkness.
I do not know how long I lay unconscious, but I awoke some time later choking on dust, my head railing from several brutal blows. Above, fragments of light filtered through the fractured floor, illuminating the two remaining columns that protested under their newly acquired burden.
Ondrej lay beside me, staring at the crimson stains spattered across the rubble. “Did you see his body explode?” he coughed weakly, a thin smile colouring his ashen face as he teetered once more on the brink of unconsciousness. I sat up, shocked. Had Ondrej’s ordeal changed him so severely that he could now revel in death? It was then that it struck me. Whether through fear or unconscious denial I had missed a truth that had been gazing at me since we entered the chapel; Ondrej’s nervousness at the mention of von Asberg’s name; his keenness to witness the demise of the soldiers; his sudden weakness after every death, the altars, the rituals ‘The soul of the three will become one and the Saldroth shall have dominion of the earth’. I yearned for my suspicions to be wrong, to gather Ondrej up and carry him to the sanctuary of home, leaving this place behind forever. But I had to discover th
e truth. Cradling Ondrej’s head in my arm I whispered in his ear. “Let’s go home, mother has not slept since you disappeared.” Silence hung in the air for a moment before he replied weakly.
“Yes. She must be sick with worry.”
To this day I do not know whether he sensed the leadenness that overcame me or the speed with which my heart hammered at the discovery that the boy I held was not my brother, but merely the physical vessel that once harboured his soul, but now channelled a newfound malevolence. As his echoing response receded into the blackness I saw for the first time a façade that had hitherto eluded me; the fawn-like innocence of my sibling absent from the mischievous calculating eyes that stared at me now.
A talon of fear pierced my resolve to run as dark chimerical shapes began manifesting before me, coalescing into demonic forms slavering with rapacious intent. For a moment I thought I would yield to madness, and had it not been for the sudden frenzied screams and clacking of machine-gun fire from somewhere within the castle, I venture I would not be committing these words to paper now.
But as the echo of bullets rang through the great hallway I somehow tore myself from Ondrej and rose, muzzy headed and weak, stumbling with desperate strides towards the still open passageway we’d navigated earlier. I saw him trying to rise, then falling, still weakened, and then I ran, through winding corridors and spiral stairs, drawing strength from the sound of distant gunfire and from the hope that Penn and Smith could still be rescued before Ondrej regained his strength.
* * *
Castle Čierna Brána had saved its most grotesque horror for last. Save for the dark piercing eyes, Corporal Smith’s mutilated body was unrecognisable as it sat in a pool of crimson that had seeped from hundreds of lacerations cut into every appendage. I retched again but my stomach had nothing left to expel, leaving me heaving dry convulsions on the floor.
Fear drove me now and I knew what had to be done. Scanning for signs of Penn, I stumbled on an unseen obstacle and fell amidst a mass of limbs severed from a torso, and lifting my head I met Penn’s horrified stare, captured at the very moment of decapitation. Scrabbling upright I discovered three sets of explosives planted on the main columns that held the western foundations aloft, but whatever had flayed Smith and dismembered Penn had done so before they could set the timers. In a blur of adrenaline, I set the countdown to two minutes. The timers began to tick.
“Two minutes, are you sure that will give you enough time to escape, brother?” Ondrej’s voice rose from the darkness like a ghoul from the netherworld, his tone cruel and laden with a sarcasm. He sauntered towards me with feline confidence until we stood facing each other.
“Your mother. She’s dead, isn’t she, boy?” came his cruel challenge.
I nodded before finally gathering the courage to speak. “You’re von Asberg aren’t you?” my retort rang from my lips with a boldness I did not feel.
“Bingo, as your British friends would say. Although that is perhaps not strictly the truth of the matter. You see binding with the soul of a Saldroth is not a simple matter, as your Milos the Brave found to his great detriment six hundred years ago. Yes, the mind of a child is the only one receptive enough to bind with this entity but a boy’s brain is also too weak to withstand such a union, and madness ensues. Which is where I come in.” He flashed a fleeting grin.
“Once I had discovered the ritual, all I required was a Black Gate to open a portal to the world of the Saldroth and a steady supply of children to experiment on; Tribeč provided me with both. It took many weeks for us to perfect the ritual but last night we at last found the formula to link our world to their dimension. The clerics, the dead ones you saw in the chapel, were convinced I would die like the Saldroth after I had infected the mind of a man, but I always knew I could withstand it. Mine is the mind of a superior race after all.” He paused dramatically before continuing, all the while the detonators continued their countdown. “With each death my strength renews more quickly. I’ve had such a jolly time watching your friends look for the Saldroth while all the while I carried the creatures’ powers inside me, picking them off one by one, playing on their deepest innermost fears. You will never truly know a man until you’ve gazed upon his nightmares.”
He sauntered to one of the explosives. “You are privileged, boy, an eye witness to history being made. One day when the armies of our enemies have fallen to my will and the Führer has his victory, they will write stories of this day. You, however, will be little more than a footnote.” With that he flicked the switch on the nearest detonator, halting its rhythmic hands as they reached the minute marker.
I knew I only had one chance to save myself. Von Asberg was already approaching the second explosive. Perhaps there was a chance that somewhere within this fiend my brother’s soul still existed, subdued within the subconscious in some internal purgatory. If he still lived, I had to find a way to draw him out. “On the way to the castle tonight, I passed your rabbit’s grave.” My words echoed through the room. Von Asberg paused momentarily, teetered briefly before regaining his composure.
“Save your pathetic stories for the afterlife, boy,” scoffed von Asberg as he defused the second explosive and reached for the final detonator. “Your brother is no longer alive to hear them.” As his index finger extended towards the switch, I spoke once more, “I whispered a prayer.”
Von Asberg’s hand froze. He grunted with effort, but his arm remained still. Then he lurched sideways as though caught by an invisible blow to the head, his arms suddenly caught in spasms of some strange delirium before his head impacted against the stone pillar and he began to scream, clawing at his face until channels of blood flowed down his cheeks. And then, for the briefest moment I saw Ondrej, a fleeting innocence that flashed in the boy’s eyes. “Run brother, don’t let the truth die with us. I cannot hold out for long.”
“I’ll never forget you, brother,” I replied, battling the tears that pooled against my eyelids. A weak, fleeting smile brightened his face then the expression morphed once more to von Asberg’s sneer. I smashed a fist into the face of my brother’s usurper, sending him toppling down a steep escarpment and splashing into a puddle below.
And then I sprinted, not knowing what time remained before the dynamite unleashed its fury and praying its force would be sufficient to bury the castle, the general and the horrors within. As I reached the top of the stairs, dark images began assailing me once more, demonic figures that lashed with claws, talons, teeth and tails, one clipping my heel and sending me sprawling on my back, robbing my lungs of breath. As I gasped, a dark miasma of a storm formed above me, drawing back to reveal an army of Saldroth mustered at the periphery of a black chasm roiling with cerulean energy and a voice grating like crashing mountains that bellowed, “Kumpala, somorg fun plakera dom, Saldrothi kum ti da!”
I dragged myself up again, staggering with stupefied strides towards the way out as the floor sagged behind me as though concussed by Mjölnir itself, and gargantuan stones cascaded all around. The floor gave way as I stumbled into the light of morning, throwing myself down the slope on which the castle had stood for centuries but which now swallowed the stone walls as they sank into their hilltop grave.
* * *
The nurses told me I’d been in a coma for two months, found by chance by a superstitious shepherd. Each night I would wake baying of dark terrors, and at dawn sink into a malaise I could not escape. Within days of awakening, two British men arrived dressed in trench coats and bowler hats and claiming to be from the same clandestine department as Straka and his men and began probing me for every detail of what had transpired, and uttering dire warnings lest I ever repeat my confession again.
I never divulged the truth to another living soul, but the curiosity that it engendered set me on a most unexpected journey. After leaving hospital I sold father’s farm and dedicated my life to searching for the truth behind the mysteries I’d witnessed: travelling, learning, always questioning. But not in the furthest reaches of the e
arth, nor in the depths of the oceans or the vastness of the skies, not in the works of Socrates, Einstein, Aristotle or Milton, not in the holy text of Christendom, Islam or the Hebrews, nor the Kalachakra Tantra, not in Theravada or the mystical secrets of the pharaohs, not at Zorats Karer or Stonehenge could I find the answers I sought.
And so I leave this record, the one true account of what transpired that night in Tribeč so that others may continue my quest to discover the truth behind the unknown secrets beyond our frail world, so young, so ignorant, so blind to the terrors that live at the periphery of this infinitesimal realm, terrors known only to men who would hide the truth from us all.
IN THE SHADOWS OF THE 603RD
By Richard Dansky
CAPTAIN Rifkin was holding a tank over his head when the jeep rolled up, which made saluting awkward. Carefully, he put the inflatable armour down in line with the dozens of others he and his men had carefully constructed, then wiped his hands surreptitiously on his pants leg. Some of the paint had felt a little wet, and if he was going to be shaking hands with the brass, it wouldn’t do to turn their fingers green.
The brass, he saw, had already gotten out of their vehicle and started walking over. One he recognized, the second he didn’t, and that sent a current of worry slithering down his spine.
“Captain,” said the gangly, moon-faced man in the lead, “I thought I told you no more of that crap. One picture gets out and the Krauts figure out half the tanks they think they’re up against are grade school art projects.”
“Colonel Harasty, sir.” Rifkin snapped off a quick and largely paint-free salute. “With all due respect, these are professional art projects.” He liked Harasty; the colonel might not have a sense of humour, but he understood how to put Rifkin and his men to good use. And after spending most of the war on the sidelines, that was all they wanted.
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