“‘The Ministry thinks you might have discovered a new weapon. They were hoping to be able to take your cylinder and duplicate it. Just think what would be the outcome if they could take the terror, the nightmares, and induce them in our enemies. We would strike fear into their hearts even before a shot was fired. Think of it.’
“I did indeed think of it. It filled me with almost as much fear as the blackness itself. Even as I lay abed that night I could think of little else. And when sleep did finally come, it was filled with my worst nightmare, a creeping blackness inching ever closer, reaching -- always reaching.
“I woke covered in a cold clammy sweat to find that less than ten minutes had passed. But there would be no more sleep that night.
“In the morning I set to the task of deciphering the markings, for I now believed that they held the secret to halting the nightly assault on our senses.”
* * *
Carnacki stopped and set about refilling his pipe. I noticed that his movements were slow and deliberate, as if he needed to concentrate fully on the task. I saved him a journey and refilled his whisky glass.
In the lull, Jessop tried to apologize for his earlier gaffe, but Carnacki waved him away with a tired smile.
“I will be happy to hear your views on the latest recording techniques,” he said. “For they will be most useful in future investigations. But for now, let me finish this tale, for I find myself growing tired, and I would like to end tonight if I can.”
We all recharged our glasses for the last time and lit up our smokes to add to the growing fug in the parlour.
* * *
“For three more days Brown and I knocked our heads against the enigma that was the markings. I must have pored over his drawings a hundred times, and listened to the wax cylinder as many times again.
“The nights were the worst, filled with the screams of those who were able to sleep, and the constant grumbling of those who struggled to stay awake. I smoked twice as much as usual and each morning arose with a mouth tasting of ash and a pounding headache.
“On the fourth morning news started to filter in of disturbances in the night in surrounding towns. The effect was spreading.
“Orders came down from on high that the situation had to be dealt with immediately, but neither the Colonel or I had any idea how to comply with such a request. It was when the Colonel informed me that he intended to pack the mound with explosives and send it to hell where it belongs that I decided drastic action of a different kind was required.
“Carruthers came with me down to the mound, the pair of us lugging the phonographs and battery between us. This time the young man insisted on standing with me in the chamber as I switched on both recordings simultaneously. The sound of gunfire echoed and joined with the drumming. The chamber rang and echoed, a cacophonous din assaulting our ears. The shaking also came almost immediately, first through the soles of my feet then up my spine until my very skull rattled and hummed. My sight started to go soon after than, blackness creeping until I was once more totally blind.
“Every part of me screamed that I should run, but I stood my ground. I felt young Carruther’s cold hand in my palm. The drumming thudded through me, sending my stomach seething and roiling. The blackness thickened and again I felt something move.
“Still I stood my ground. The noise was almost unbearable.
“The thing kept moving in the darkness. It reached for me.
“And then it happened. The drumming in the room reached a new frenzy. Dust and rubble shook free from the ceiling.
“The blackness receded… slowly at first, then quicker as the drumming reached a crescendo.
“The cylinders played out. The drumbeats echoed in the chamber for a while then died away. The darkness slowly cleared. The first thing I saw was Carruther’s pale white face, his eyes staring wildly.
“Still hand in hand we stumbled outside where he voided the contents of his stomach in the grass. I almost felt like joining him, but my mind was working faster than my body.
“I had learned something. The darkness was much more than just a vibration artefact – it was a malevolent entity, intent on breaking through into our world. And the drumming did not bring the darkness.
“It kept the darkness at bay.
“By the time my meeting with the Colonel came round in the afternoon I had the beginnings of a thesis.
“Brown provided the missing link barely an hour before the meeting. He arrived at a run to where I sat in my tent preparing my presentation for the Colonel.
“‘It is not a language,’ he said, brandishing his drawings in front of my face in his left hand and the cylinder of the drumming recordings in his right. ‘It is a notation. Almost musical… but definitely rhythmic. Look.’
“He traced out a patch of his drawing with a finger, then drew my attention to an area of the cylinder. The marks on the wax corresponded almost exactly with the marks on the drawing.”
* * *
“I took both the drawings and the cylinder with me when I met the Colonel. He was still of a mind to pack the mound with munitions and be done with it, but to his credit he heard me out.
“‘I now believe I was in error to ascribe the situation to sympathetic vibrations,’ I began.
“That got me a raised eyebrow and a wry smile, but he was enough of a brick about it to allow me to continue.
“‘There is indeed an entity residing in the barrow.’
“That got me another raised eyebrow, but I ploughed on regardless.
“‘I believe the barrow to be a prison, and the low chamber to be a cage, of sorts. The entity is bound within this chamber by some kind of acoustic bonds, as delineated by the carvings on the walls. We have somehow loosened these bonds by firing the weapon atop the mound, the rhythm of the gun in some manner providing a key to the locks that bind the entity. It is obvious that we have given the being a way of partially escaping its cell, and it has taken the opportunity, visiting us nightly in our dreams, and testing the defences for a way to escape completely.’
“The Colonel stopped me in full flow.
“‘It may be obvious to you old man,’ he said. “But it’s dueced odd all around. Are you sure a bomb wouldn’t be efficacious?’
“‘I am sure,’ I said. “To do so would release the bonds completely, and the entity would be free. I suspect we would quickly see just how effective the hoped-for weapon would be. The whole country would be in uproar in days.’
“The colonel went white as a sheet.
“‘Can’t we just close up the mound and stop using the gun?’
“I shook my head.
“‘The key has already been turned in the lock.’
“‘Then what do you suggest?’
“I trusted my instincts.
“There is a solution I have attempted with some success in the past,” I said. “I have it among my things. With your permission, I would like to try destroying the entity completely.”
* * *
Carnacki stopped and stared into the fire.
“I have been considering how much of the detail of this case I should relate,” he said. “I have years of experience of dealing with such matters. But you chaps here have only experienced at second hand the awful powers of beings from the Outer Ring… for that is what I had on my hands down in that chamber. An entity so vast as to be almost incomprehensible, completely without interest in the acts of mere humans, yet with the capacity to destroy us all utterly should we allow it access to this plane. I do not wish to burden you, my friends, with thoughts so dark that they will invade your dreams.
“Yes, the entity was indeed from that same psychic circle as I told of in the tale of Wilton’s Hog. I believe it to be a similar kind of thing, something whose existence plagued the builders of the old stones and barrows out there on the Plain. Indeed I believe in some respects that the old stones are aligned in their fashion because of the Outer Ring, in an ancient attempt to control and divert the powers i
n much the same way as I do myself with more modern technology. You get my line of suggestion?”
I am afraid none of us sat in the parlour were quite able to follow his thinking.
Carnacki sighed and sat back in his chair.
“Maybe the means by which I reached a conclusion will make things clearer.”
* * *
“The next morning I started by inscribing the protective circles on the chamber floor. I began with the basic protections from the Sigsand MS.
“I began by drawing a circle of chalk, using a piece of string anchored to a centre point and taking care never to smudge the line as I navigated my way around the chamber. Beyond this I rubbed a broken garlic clove in a second circle around the first.
“When this was done, I took a small jar of purified water and went round the circle again just inside the line of chalk, leaving a wet trail that dried quickly behind me. Within this inner circle I made my pentacle using the signs of the Saaamaaa Ritual, and joined each Sign most carefully to the edges of the lines I had already made.
“In the points of the pentacle I placed five dry biscuits wrapped in linen, and in the valleys five vials of the purified water. Now I had my first protective barrier and with this first stage complete the centre of the chamber, now protected as it was by the most basic of spells, already felt more secure.
“I have told you enough tales by now for you not to need a description of my electric pentacle, for you know that it has saved me many times already, and proves most efficacious against many emanations and disturbances.
“I have made several improvements in recent months, and when I set the mechanism to overlay the drawn pentagram upon the floor and connected up the battery, the glare shone from the intertwining vacuum tubes. You may expect me to tell of the azure glow, but my improvements, coming as they have from long study on the ways of the Outer Circle, have led me to include other colours. The Sigsand manuscript puts it thus:-
Nor can he abide in the Deep if ye adventure against him armed with red purple. So be warned. Neither forget that in blue, which is God's colour in the Heavens, ye have safety.
“My interpretation of this, I must tell you, consists of seven glass vacuum circles -- the red on the outside of the pentacle, and the remainder lying inside it, in the order of orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
“Once I was sure that the vacuum valves were all operating correctly, I stood in the centre of the circles and readied the phonographs.
“Just before I started young Carruthers called from the entrance. He, stout lad, had offered to stand beside me once more, but I could not in all conscience expose him to such danger. I had him stand in the upper chamber. The Colonel, as a precaution, had already filled the side chambers with black powder. Carruthers was in charge of the detonator, to be used in the event of my abject failure.
“I called back to the lad, indicating that all was ready, then started up the recording of the gunfire. The effect was immediate. I felt it first through the soles of my feet, but soon my whole frame shook, vibrating in time with the rhythm. My head swam, and it seemed as if the very walls of the chamber melted and ran. The pentacle receded into a great distance until it was little more than a pinpoint of light in a blanket of darkness, and I was alone, in a vast cathedral of emptiness where nothing existed save the dark and the pounding beat.
Shapes moved in the dark, wispy shadows with no substance, shadows that capered and whirled as the drum grew ever more frenetic. I gave myself to it, lost in the dance, lost in the dark.
I know not how long I wandered, there in the space between. I forgot myself, forgot my duty, in blackness where only rhythm mattered. I believed I had been there for an age, but I was brought back directly to the pentacle when the cylinder on the phonograph played itself out. Only two minutes had passed.
“Thankfully I still stood in the centre of the pentacle. A giant drum beat around me, but now that the key, the gunfire, had been stopped, I felt no call to join in the blackness.
“Beyond the pentacle, despite the fact that the valves glowed brightly, the chamber was filled with darkness, shadows so deep that I could not see the carved walls. For the first time I could sense my adversary directly, probing at my defences, looking for a passage through. It was time to begin the expulsion.
“I replaced the cylinder in the phonograph with one that Brown and I had worked up. Our markings on the wax matched a passage of rhythm mentioned in the Sigsand MS as being used by certain tribesmen in removing malevolent spirits. I did not yet know whether it would work, but I had no option but to give it a try.
“I also attached my electric pentacle to the phonograph, such that the spectrum of would glow in time with any sound. I started the cylinder spinning more in hope than in any expectation of success.
“The phonograph sounded thin and tinny in comparison to the deep drumming that echoed in the chamber, but when the valves started to flash in time the drums seemed to falter and the darkness thinned enough that I could momentarily see the walls of the chamber. I almost let out a cry of victory, but I was premature.
“The blackness surged. Sparks flew from all the valves, the sudden light so bright I had to squeeze my eyes shut, and even then the afterimage stayed there for long seconds. The defences held, for a while. But I knew I only had mere minutes before the phonograph cylinder would play itself out, leaving me only with the electric pentacle between the entity and myself. From what I had seen, I knew that if I were to wait that long I would be a goner.
“I started to chant in time with the recordings, meaningless sounds in a voice made throaty with fear. But the new sound found some sympathy in the walls of the chamber itself, as if they had been hewn for this very purpose.
“A new beat grew, a bass drum in perfect time with my chanting.
“Once more the darkness threw itself forward against my defences.
“Several of the valves started to dim, and my voice faltered… just for a fraction of a second. The blackness swelled and pressed an attack stronger than any previously made. The valves flickered and dimmed. I raised my voice, putting more depth into the chant, aware that there were mere seconds left to me.
“In answer the whole chamber seemed to swell in song, my own voice echoed and amplified, as if recorded and re-recorded on a thousand phonographs simultaneously. Even as the valves failed completely the blackness shrunk and diminished. A valve popped and I was forced to blink. When I looked again it was just in time to see the blackness hover over the phonograph, like a black cape falling over the contraption.
“The cylinder played out with a last dying whirr. The blackness fell into the drum then was gone. The echoes faded and died and my chant died with them. I stood in a sudden silence.”
* * *
“I may have been standing there yet if the tremulous voice of young Carruthers had not inquired after my health in a loud voice that had more than a hint of fear in it. When I emerged from the lower chamber he almost set off the detonator in his fright, and I had to prise his hand gently from the handle lest he send us both to the place the Colonel intended for the barrow.
“The Colonel himself was disinclined to believe that the situation was controlled with no evidence to prove it, but that night the whole camp slept peacefully.
“The man from the Ministry arrived the next day and demanded from me that I show him how to use and control the blackness. I told him the truth. I did not know how.
“I did not however tell him of that last second in the chamber, and how the darkness had been absorbed into the cylinder.
“And no one but me has seen hide nor hair of that piece of wax.
“Until now.”
* * *
Carnacki reached down to the side of his chair and brought up a phonograph cylinder. He traced the grooves and scratches in the wax with his finger.
“What a marvellous thing modern technology is. This single cylinder has done the same job as a rock chamber that must have taken ma
ny years to hew from the ground.
He showed the cylinder to Jessop and smiled.
“I believe it to be safe, as long as I keep it far from the sound of the Hotchkiss Mark I. What say you Jessop? Would you like to hear what happens when you play this back on your equipment?”
Jessop went white and shook his head.
Later, after Carnacki had shown us out with his usual jaunty out you go, Jessop and I walked together along the embankment. He was quiet for a long time, but when he spoke, I knew exactly what he had been thinking.
“You know, I think they are right. I think the Gramophone is the way of the future.”
The Sisters of Mercy
“I have been pondering just how much, if any, of this story to tell you chaps,” Carnacki began after we were all settled in his parlour. “For this is no tale of far off places. This did not happen in Scotland, or on a remote firing range on Salisbury Plain. No, this incident was so close that two of you here present will undoubtedly have walked within a hundred yards of the spot this very night. If I tell you the story, you might never feel safe on the Embankment or its environs again.”
He said it with a smile, and, of course, after such a start, none of us were going to let him off the hook. He gave us time to fill our glasses and get smokes going, then he began.
* * *
“You will remember that last Sunday was a very foggy day,” he said. “A dim yellow glow hung over the river. I had taken a stroll across the bridge and along the south side before returning via Vauxhall Bridge to the north Embankment. The damp air meant that any feeling of well being I might have gained from the walk was lost in the almost overbearing fug and I was looking forward to sitting by the fire here in the parlour.
“Indeed, if it had not been for the fog itself, I would almost have been in sight of home when the figure loomed out of the gloom in front of me. I recoiled at first, fearing an attack before I realized my error. It was a short elderly gentleman, hair wild and eyes staring. He wore nothing more than a pair of white flannel pyjamas. They hung open to the waist, his ribcage showing a rack of bones through almost translucent skin. His feet were bare and filthy, caked with recently trodden mud.
Carnacki: Heaven and Hell Page 4
