Lord of the Hollow Dark

by Russell Kirk

  Nor had he succeeded in raising Lord Balgrummo for the marriage of Death and Life. That was Gerontion’s fault, but Gerontion would pay a pretty price for his negligence, wandering forever in the Weem, after the fashion of the Third Laird, hopelessly knocking. Nevertheless, a spirit had been raised who was strange to him, the essence called Coriolan; and he had destroyed Coriolan’s form, if not his essence. One never could be quite certain what creatures lurking between the cracks of time, so to speak, might emerge when one opened the gates of Dis. Surely he had raised that Coriolan, through Gerontion; that essence had not been sent, for who could send it?

  Yet perfect success could not be expected for the first grand experiment of this sort. He had accomplished much; on the second undertaking, he would wipe out all imperfections. Already there awaited his next “retreat,” to be held in California, twice as many disciples and acolytes as he had gathered here at Balgrummo Lodging.

  To extirpate organic life, especially human life, which never should have been created; to condemn human essences to perpetual torment of their own making in a tiny capsule of Time; to assure the triumph of the Lord of This World, Time the Devourer, Conquering Death-this was the assigned labor of Apollinax, and what had been done at Balgrummo Lodging he would accomplish at many other auspicious spots, for the greater glory of the Lord of This World. He would invert all symbols of truth, annihilate all resistance, entomb all souls-all in the cause of pure spirit, for the flesh is corruption, all flesh being grass. Apollinax knew himself for a high priest of the Lord of This World, deserving well of his master. Strip the garment from the flesh, strip the flesh from the bone, strip the bone from the soul, strip the soul from the spirit; then the freed spirit is wedded to the Lord of This World, for all eternity.

  It remained only to tidy up, effacing evidence of his “retreat” here. Already the Weem was sealed, and his human scraps interred within. Those disciples and acolytes had gone like lambs to their slaughter; he had washed himself in the blood of the lamb.

  With that sudden inexplicable dissolving of Coriolan’s corpse, it had been necessary to conclude the night’s ritual: lingering might have been dangerous for himself, and of course the disciples and the acolytes had been shaken. That Coriolan episode had nearly unnerved him—he bore a cut on his cheek from Coriolan’s knife-and after that violent disturbance, not even the intended sexual congress could be accomplished.

  So he had dismissed the disciples and the acolytes into the labyrinth. “My brothers and my sisters, go seek the victims who fled!” he had told his twenty-four silly sheep. Chanting, they had reeled off into the depths. Some would fall into pits; some would die within the hour from their heavy doses of kalanzi; the rest would sink into coma, never to wake in this world. For all eternity, their essences would straggle about the Weem-the true Weem of Spirit, the real counterpart of this unreal earthly Weem. They would experience forever the crucifixion of Grishkin, sick of their own atrocities, sick of themselves, suffering the final ineluctable disease of spirit.

  Off they had gone to their Timeless Moment of Hell, naked, masked with the image-faces of their own vices: Volupine, de Bailhache, Equitone, Hakagawa, von Kulp, all the rest. Already he was forgetting their pseudonyms and their real names, for they had been extinguished. Theirs was no mere evanescent physical death. By five o’clock in the morning, every one of them should be going round the prickly pear in cactus land, round and round and round, world without end. He had liberated them from the flesh, to enjoy “desiccation of the world of sense, evacuation of the world of fancy, inoperancy of the world of spirit.”

  And with them he had dispatched Grishkin, to rejoice them forever with her contortions upon the cross. What a fleshly ornament of torment! How charmingly she had writhed there, perfect as an erotic symbol of ecstasy! Of course he had tired of her long, long ago, useful though sometimes she had been. What he had not been able to endure was her love: woman’s devotion was a chief impediment to the Lord of This World. She had said often that she’d endure anything for Apollinax’s sake: well, he had put her to the test. And now she never could bear witness against him, a risk one ran when one’s fancy flitted. The world was full of Grishkins; already he must choose among five or six candidates he had in mind to replace her in his arrangements.

  Yes, he had locked the bronze door of the Weem upon the disciples and the acolytes and what was left of Grishkin, patting the muzzle of the old bronze Kronos on that door as he departed. He had gone above stairs into the Lodging; had bandaged the cut that Coriolan had given him; and then had walked outside, in the darkness, up to the pond.

  He had obtained from Gerontion the necessary information about the sluices of the monks’ pond; indeed, he had gone to the trouble of making Gerontion show him on the spot, yesterday morning, just how to operate the sluice that controlled the flow of water into the monks’ drain. So, after a little fumbling, he had been able to open that sluice and send the water rushing through the underground lade into the medieval sewer.

  The drain was filling at this moment; it would be quite full by dawn; so all escape from the Weem, or all entrance to it, would be cut off, perhaps for another four centuries. He had found it unnecessary to build up again the wall which had concealed that tunnel out of the drain: he was no mason, and the black water of the sewer was enough to keep people in and out. Even should the bronze door of the Weem be forced from within, which was unlikely, nobody trapped beneath this house would be able to regain the Lodging. Tomorrow he would cement back into place the flagstones in the medieval necessarium which hid the drain. Why, the Lodging might be occupied by any tenants the Balgrummo Trust could find for it, and the new occupants never would guess that beneath them lay the husks of the thirty-two essences that he had imprisoned in the Weem, out of light, out of Time.

  At his leisure, he could destroy all evidences left behind by the participants in the “retreat”—burn their clothes and luggage and trinkets, or sink them in the Fettinch Moss. His long lease of the Lodging insured him privacy for such little tasks. The gates were locked at the pend, and would remain locked until his final departure, a few days from now. Meanwhile, he could enjoy a profound satisfaction in lingering here while Gerontion and his people expired in the darkness far below. It would have been gratifying to witness their despair; but the fancy would suffice, in this propinquity.

  Gerontion puzzled him; it was rather a pity to lose so talented a servant, but the old creature could not have been trusted. Apollinax had secured already the formula for kalanzi, and was in touch with another supplier in Kalidu. He never had encountered a more formidable adversary than Gerontion. How delightful it would have been to have crucified him alongside Grishkin!

  Long before meeting Gerontion face to face, he had known that the Archvicar was master of some Tantra; but while at the Lodging, until the last day, Gerontion had disappointed him so far as magical talents went, and he nearly had taken the Archvicar for a charlatan. Yet at the final test, how accomplished the Archvicar had proved himself! The cleverness with which he had deceived his Master right until Marina’s escape; the amazing physical vigor which the decrepit Archvicar had summoned suddenly, as if he had drunk of the Fountain of Youth; and, most impressive of all, the conjuring up of that vagrant spirit Coriolan, to be his familiar, his formidable knife-wielding agent! Had he been able to keep Gerontion alive, he might have learned how to evoke such useful dead things, from whatever abyss. But it had been necessary to eliminate the treacherous Archvicar before he could scratch to do more mischief.

  Apollinax-now he would bestow a new name upon himself—had covered his track most carefully. He could transfer himself to California without the least peril of detection. The pseudonym “Apollinax” was unknown to his Californian votaries. All the disciples and acolytes here at the Lodging had been induced and commanded to cover their own tracks, for the sake of their own skins; presumably no one would know that they had been at this “retreat” under their assumed names. Some of them, like M
arina, were lonely folk with no close connections to seek after them; this had been especially true of the acolytes, recruited principally from strange sects in which their identity already had been submerged.

  Nobody had loved the disciples, and so little inquiry would be made after them on that account. Some of the disciples had possessed wealth, a most substantial inducement to the heirs to obtain positive evidence of their decease. But he had prevailed upon most of the disciples with money to transfer their assets to the Church of the Divine Mystery-his branch thereof-which he directed through subordinates under another alias; so that motive was much diminished. No, the police would not find him out.

  On balance, then, this exercise at Balgrummo Lodging had gone well enough. On to grander successes! His own essence, pure spirit, was bent on destroying the world of flesh. Yet it was necessary to preserve carefully the envelope in which his spirit was encompassed-that envelope, that husk, so long passionately desired and sought, but so despised once possessed. A shabby garment for the grandeur of Kronos! Yet it must be cherished until mankind was undone.

  He gloated again on that huge cartoon which was the inversion of the Agony. How masterfully represented, those instruments of torture fixed in the flesh of Mother and Child, those naked and contorted forms! Why, even the actual tormenting of Grishkin had not been so passion-rousing as this cartoon! He would like to take it with him when he departed, which might be awkward, still... He had thought of setting fire to Balgrummo Lodging at that departure, but he could not have waited to enjoy the holocaust without risk of bringing himself under observation; besides, access to the Weem might have been discovered among the ruins. One cannot enjoy every pleasure simultaneously—a principal fault of this flawed world of flesh which its idiot architect had committed at the Creation. He would have saved nothing but that cartoon from a conflagration; it is pleasant to see old things perish.

  Now it was the hour for a sound solitary sleep, removed at last from Grishkin, after this week of arduous dissimulation and magic-working. He had been bruised badly by both Gerontion and his familiar Coriolan, for the first time physically assaulted in this body which must be preserved at all costs; but he had paid them out. He rose to leave the chapel.

  Then, to his complete astonishment, Apollinax heard footfalls.

  Someone had entered the desolate chapel. By the light of the guttering candles, Apollinax could not make out this visitant. Who could have passed through the pend, or out of the Weem? This coming was something preternatural. He was so astounded that he did not feel alarm.

  At first, as the shape drew nearer, he thought it was Gerontion. Down he must go again! But the figure seemed to grow in height, bulk, vigor, expanding before his eyes. Now he saw the face distinctly.

  This was Lord Balgrummo, the Weem’s Minotaur, returned to the ruined scene of his Trouble.

  Apollinax was filled with exultation. However tardily, his summons had been obeyed! The thing had come at last to do him reverence.

  He had experimented before in necromancy, but such successes as he had enjoyed had been evokings of flimsy, fluttering, mistlike shades, impotent, cringing, insubstantial. This revenant before him was solid and imposing, as material-seeming as Coriolan had been, but more awesome. This thing should serve him.

  “Bridegroom, you come late to your Bride,” Apollinax began. “She has been entombed.”

  The figure strode up quite close to him. Apollinax had expected the image of a man more than ninety years old, tottering, “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” But this being looked immensely strong, virtue-filled. From some source, energy had poured into him. He was almost overwhelming in his presence. This was Balgrummo as he had been in his prime, at the time of his Trouble, “Ozyman-dias.”

  The thing was dressed in black. It said nothing.

  “You have kept me waiting, Balgrummo,” Apollinax told him. “Kneel before me, and adore me. I am Kronos, Lord of Time.”

  The thing did not kneel.

  “I am Master here,” Apollinax declared, with his little smile of mystical power. “Abase yourself!”

  The specter regarded him sardonically. There came into Apollinax’s mind some recollection of a picture thief who had been found dead in this very room, with no wound on his body.

  The revenant’s lips did not move, but a voice came to Apollinax’s consciousness-a voice speaking inwardly, with terrible assurance.

  “There can be but one Master in Balgrummo Lodging,” it said. Then Apollinax noticed that in Balgrummo’s right hand, which hung by his side, was a kind of double-bitted ax, its hilt adorned with jewels.

  “I am not of this world,” Apollinax said. “Bow down.”

  “You are a man,” said Balgrummo.

  “I have summoned you to serve me,” Apollinax insisted. “You come at my call.”

  “I heard my son call to me,” said Balgrummo, through that inward voice.

  Apollinax did not understand what he meant. “I am pure spirit acting through this envelope,” Apollinax told him. “The quick and the dead obey me. Hear this: just now I have imprisoned more than thirty human essences in a single agonizing moment of time, forever. Must I teach you obedience, you dead thing?”

  “You are foul,” said Lord Balgrummo, through the voice which spoke to Apollinax’s mind only.

  The figure lifted up the ax, the labrys. Balgrummo’s face was arrogant, eager, almost mindless. Apollinax’s eyes could not command this being.

  Apollinax knew that he had turned livid. “Don’t,” he heard himself squealing, “don’t strike!”

  “Blood shed in this house calls for more blood,” Balgrummo’s voice said.

  The labrys came gleaming down. Apollinax heard himself screaming, begging, shrieking as Grishkin had shrieked. The pain wrapped about him like a shroud; the ax flashed up and returned again, chopping.

  The mortal body, so long coveted, so despised when possessed, began to fall in pieces. And Apollinax, in his agony of dissolution, felt himself swept into the great gulf of Time. In his ears there rang the chuckle of the Lord of This World.

  20

  Roses and Bones

  Sweeney’s pick broke through the seam, into some chamber beyond. He couldn’t have kept at the work much longer, his back aching almost insufferably. Beside him, little Brasidas had labored like a giant. “‘Back-breaking labor!’ You can say that again!” Yet Sweeney had been reluctant to take the rest breaks that Arcane had thrust upon him during this long struggle toward the upper world; after all, his own life depended upon those swinging picks.

  It must be nearly noon outside. Would they ever make their way to the light? None of them could endure this confinement, let alone the fatigue.

  Arcane’s invincible spirits had brought them so far as this: his humor in adversity, and his shrewdness at finding their way through the contrived corridors. If at last they were stopped by some overwhelming obstacle, Sweeney supposed that Arcane would accept death with a jest, self-mocking.

  Arcane had brought them, weak and hungry though they were, through the cunning passages of the upper labyrinth, until they had arrived at the place where the whole way had been blocked by an explosion in 1578. There he had permitted them to rest, and to sleep if they might, a full three hours. Having roused them, he had nodded at the grim rubble-face revealed by his carbide lamp, sealing the old pilgrims’ way; “Beyond this, everything has collapsed for perhaps a hundred yards,” Arcane had told them. “I suspect that our Bohemian alchemist lies under the debris, hoist by his own petard. No one has walked that way since 1500, and probably few before that.”

  Yet, as Arcane had predicted, they had found to their left a roughly-hewn passage through a coal seam into old, old mine workings. This was Balgrummo’s dangerous detour, excavated with immense labor over many years. Passing through the way Balgrummo had made, they had come into the entries, or miners’ tunnels, of the sixteenth century, it appeared. After many twists and turns, these half-choked entries had e
nded at a wall of coal. Through that coal barrier Sweeney and Brasidas had broken just now, after hours of fierce hacking.

  “We’ve made it!” Sweeney shouted. Arcane hurried up from the dry space in the entry where he had been resting with the women. He would have been wielding a pick himself, Sweeney knew, if there had been room enough for him at the coal face; with surprising endurance, Arcane had spelled Sweeney and Brasidas earlier, and more than once.

  Marina and Grizel Fergusson and Melchiora all were trembling with excitement. “But just where are we now?” Marina asked.

  “High up the Den,” Arcane told them. “If Balgrummo’s calculations are so close as they have been so far, I know precisely where we stand. We’re about to make a hole big enough for us to crawl into the last portion of the upper labyrinth. After that, we should be only a few yards from daylight. Sweeney, you’ve earned your lieutenant’s commission in the Volunteers. Come back and sit down, you women, reserving what energies are left to you, and I’ll tell you how Balgrummo brought us this close to salvation.”

  The docile Michael was being fed again, Marina veiling him with a fold of her torn and filthy wedding gown. All six of them were tattered and begrimed, but now strong in expectation.

  “In 1780,” Arcane was saying, “the fifth Lord Balgrummo was informed that some of his miners near the top of the Den, taking coal from thick reopened seams that for some reason had not been thoroughly worked in earlier times, had broken by chance into an ancient passage. Though much experienced underground, these men were afraid to penetrate far into the twisting way they had discovered. Two of them swore that they had heard inexplicable knockings farther down. In those days, folktales of the Weem were told to every child, at an early age, in this parish.

  “The fifth Lord Balgrummo, an old and infirm man, at once directed that the entry leading into the Weem be broken down and sealed. He is said to have muttered, on delivering his instructions to his steward, “... lest they emerge.” Ever since the succession of the Fourth Laird, in 1579, the Inchburn family had been wary of the Weem, forbidding discussion of it within Balgrummo Lodging. The prudential motives of the Fourth Laird no longer moved the Inchburns, of course: warlocks were not burnt in 1780, although witches still had been put to death in Scotland early in that century. Yet family custom had become immutable, or at least prescriptive. The entry was destroyed by gunpowder. This entry in which we sit is not that tunnel.