The Berserkers

by Roger Elwood

  Nay, so you think that there are in fact real werewolves, and other such creatures? Not so; no one must fall into the delusion that a man can really be changed into a beast, or a beast into a real man; for these are magic portents and praestigiae which have the form but not the reality of those things they appear to be. And should you have time for another glass of wine with me, I shall tell you a most fearful exemplum.

  I? Why, I am Francesco-Maria Guazzo, a friar—as my habit cannot have but assured you—of the brethren of St. Ambrose ad Nemus et St. Barnabas; an assessor in trials for witchcraft, including the notable trial of those who bewitched the Serene Duke John William at Cleves; and friend to the Bishop of Milan. I am no doubter, but one who reports only that of which he has certain knowledge, or the best authorities. Now, the wine—ah, St. Boniface bless you.

  I assure you, the Devil is more tricksy than the tales of werewolves allow him; and the French are much given to such tales. Sometimes, when a man is absent, asleep, or hidden somewhere in a secret place, the Devil himself assumes the body of a sleeping wolf formed from the air enveloping him, and does those actions which men think are perpetrated by the wretched absent witch who is asleep. For this, of course, the witch is not to be pardoned, for that he believes himself to have done those acts, and would have done so had he been able. Moreover, even more marvelous, the Devil sometimes…

  Yes, the exemplum. However, my glass…bless you. Well, then, I knew once a worthy peasant named Kun-rad, of Flanders, who was accustomed to pause on his way to market at Dixmuide at a certain tavern not far from the river, where he would tie up his boat, laden with his fells and other produce. And upon a certain day, as he was drinking there with his son Dietrich, a husky lad, he bethought him that the hostess was cheating him, and so watched her scoring up the beer which she brought them.

  And to be sure, the woman was marking up on the slate twice as much as the two drank. And at the end of that round, he called her and asked for the reckoning, and then refused to pay for aught but what they had drunk.

  Eh, but that provoked a fearful jarr, and all those also in the tavern sided with one or the other party, though to be sure they had no grounds but common fame on which to do so. And at the end, Kunrad threw upon the table what he knew he owed, and he and Dietrich shouldered them all aside, and quitted the place.

  But as they left, the woman called after them, “You will not go home today, you cheat, or my name is not Illemauzar,” which in fact was not the name by which she was commonly known; whereby Kunrad suspected something foul, but he went on, despising her threats.

  When he came to his boat, however, he could not budge it, not even with the help of the stalwart Dietrich, however much they tried; you would have thought it was nailed to the ground. As they strove in vain, three soldiers happened to pass that way, and the father called to them, saying, “Good friends, come and help me launch this boat from the bank, and I promise you a good drink for your reward.”

  At this offer the soldiers came and exerted themselves for a long time, right willingly, panting and sweating, but in vain.

  Then one of them said, “Let us take out these heavy bundles. Perhaps when the boat is empty we shall manage better.”

  So with much effort they dispersed the goods upon the ground above the bank. It makes one dry just to think of it…Bless you.

  Now, behold, when the boat was empty, they saw an immense lurid toad in the hold, looking at them with gleaming eyes. At so horrid a sight the soldier who had spoken drew his sword, and slit the creature’s throat with the point. He threw it into the river, where it floated belly upward as if dead; but the other soldiers slashed at it further. And suddenly, at the urging of Dietrich alone, the boat was launched.

  Very pleased to be out of his trouble, Kunrad left his son to reload and guard the boat and led the soldiers back to the inn for their beer. It was brought by a serving maid, and the peasant bethought himself to ask after the hostess who had tried to cheat him; whereupon the maid told him that she was upstairs, confined to her bed, severely ill.

  “What!” said Kunrad. “Do you think I am drunk,already? It is scarcely half an hour since I left her as well as you are, and full of malice, too. Where is the bedroom?”

  Notwithstanding any protests, Kunrad persisted, and they mounted the stairs, accompanied by the curious soldiers. There upon a bed indeed lay the hostess, dead from wounds and slashes.

  “How came she by these wounds?” Kunrad demanded.

  The maid, in a terror, swore that she did not know. She swore, moreover, that the woman had not set foot outside the house that whole day. The magistrate was sent for; but fortunately for the serving maid, the soldiers averred that the wounds on the corpse were those very wounds that they had dealt the toad—which, of course, was never found, the Devil having ways to dissolve his illusions.

  So it is to be seen that his transformations are subtle. He may surround such a witch with the aerial effigy of a beast, each part of which fits onto the corresponding part of the witch’s body. Be that effigy pierced, the enveloping air easily yields, and it is the true body rather than the effigy which is wounded. Or if the witch sleeps and acts not, then the Devil wounds her in that part of her absent body corresponding to the wound which he knows to have been received by the beast’s body. Or he may…

  Ah, yes, I too must resume my journey. Shall we travel together for our souls’ sake? There are many snares ahead. And a posset for the highway? Bless you.

  But before we go, let us observe the reckoning. I would not have you cheated…and I am writing a compendium for Milord of Milan of such instances. He is very generous to informers.

  As In a Vision Apprehended

  Barry N. Malzberg

  A group of devout Jews is nearly torn apart by

  demonic influence.

  Mottel was -possessed and through the fourth week the demon overwhelmed him so that he could do nothing but lie on his bed and moan of the vision, call for the Rabbi to help him. But the doctors having given up, the Rabbi had already come there on the morning of this day and could do nothing. It was a case, he suggested, for the darker sects; perhaps a mystic could help. There was said to be in the countryside…

  “I see,” Mottel had gasped to the Rabbi, “I see a vision of death and burning, such burning as we have never known before. I see men led off to be murdered for nothing but that they are of our people; I see their women and children being taken with them and murder committed as it never has been before in the history of the world; not by knife but by machine. I see millions in line to be slaughtered, some of them filled with knowledge but most of them dumb as cattle, innocent of their burden, and in the midst of these flames I see armies; armies such as there have never been, swooping and looting and pillaging their way through all the villages and over the oceans as well. Oh it is terrible, I tell you I cannot stand it anymore, I was not meant to see this, I was not meant to know such things, you must help me, Rabbi,” Mottel cried and lay back on his bed. But the possession was so fierce, of course, that by the early afternoon he had forgotten that the Rabbi had even come arid was begging, for his presence again. His relatives held a meeting in the parlor, then, when the Rabbi had left in despair, trying not to listen to the moans and screams coming from the back, trying to talk over the matter of Mottel’s possession reasonably, for they were all, even to the cousins, reasonable or so, at that time, did they think.

  “I will have nothing of witchcraft,” Mottel’s wife, Rachel, said. She was a tall woman with fierce eyes who could not stop the movement of her hands, but for twenty years she had served Mottel well and borne him three children and in his right mind he was devoted to her. “I say it is a dream, a passing fever, and he will be well again if we leave him alone. I want nothing of the soothsayers.”

  “The Rabbi himself says that it is a dybbuk,” her brother Jacob said quietly, and the other brothers agreed as did her oldest son Isaac, a boy of seventeen years who it was felt was likewise entitled
now to sit in upon the conference. “If it is indeed a dybbuk, a possession, and we do nothing,” Jacob said, “then we take upon ourselves not only the responsibility for this man but the damage which the demon may do all of us for it is well known that a dybbuk, once uncaged, can lodge in one soul or the other and we expose all of ourselves to risk.”

  “It is merely a sickness, it will pass as have all the others,” Rachel said desperately, and at that moment the screams and whimpers of the anguished man in the bedroom adjacent became so loud that all of them, Rebecca leading, raced into the bedroom where Mottel could be seen dimly in the shadows, rising from the bed and trying to balance himself against a wall. “Darkness such as we have never known,” Mottel cried, “the next century is filled with death, a legacy of death not only for the Jews but for all peoples of the world, and I tell you they must be warned, warned of the next century before it happens to us. I have seen it all clearly. Do you hear me?” he screamed, facing them, his beard matted with a week of neglect, the skin of his face pale and yet luminescent against this beard, “you have got to help me, you must assist me from this bed so that I can spread the warning, the warning of this terrible darkness, it is coming—” and reaching toward them in an ecstasy of rage, the sick man lost his balance and toppled gracelessly to the floor, still talking. Jacob and the others lifted him groaning to the bed where Mottel lay sobbing on his back for a moment and then put his palms against his eyes. “I see it,” Mottel said, “I see it, and I cannot stand it any more.”

  “All right, then,” Rebecca said quietly as they looked upon her. Although women had no true authority under the codes and the final decision was not hers to make, the others looked toward her, instinctively reaching toward one another as if to witness a judgment. “If you know of one of the mystics who will come, get him to come. He has been sick for weeks now, he cannot stand to suffer any longer.” And she left the room then, unable to look upon her husband, and who could blame her? Mottel had driven and repaired all of the carriages of the village, a strong, vigorous, righteous man not yet forty; now he lay before them like one dying of old age, spent and broken, images of bone protruding from his face. For possession consumes not only the soul as is well understood but the flesh itself; arcing its way through the flesh as it does to get to the souls of the righteous and wicked alike whose names, through all of the centuries of possession, are legion.

  In the countryside surrounding this village there lived a fallen Rabbi whose name was Felix and who had not been seen in the village by any but a few merchants for many years. There were rumors that Felix had once had a large and vital congregation which had fallen, one by one, upon paths of wickedness and Felix had cursed them at a Rosh Hashanah service and had told them that such as they were not only to be left out of the Book of Life but were indeed holding the sword against other names in their greed and spite. There were other rumors that no such thing had happened; Felix had never had a congregation but after years of wandering in search of truth had been jailed by the authorities as a threatening influence and released as the result of a purge only many years later, shattered in his faculties by the imprisonment. And there were stories as well that Felix was neither an itinerant nor a Rabbi at all but one who had merely, to create an air of mystery and protection around himself, created all of the rumors and actually was a purposeless man, little more than a beggar, who could not partake of the community. But it was to Felix that they came in search of a mystic for they knew of no one else who might even know of the lost texts of darkness, and this was a time of great persecution in the country of the village, during which many good and wise men who the authorities thought had forbidden knowledge or otherwise displeased them were jailed, some of the fortunate for exile, others for worse outcome. They told Felix, one by one and then confirming one another, of Mottel’s possession, and Felix, who was very old, heard them out quietly. “It is a case of possession; that is right,” he said when they were finished, “but I do not know if there is anything I can do.”

  “A dybbuk can be exorcised,” Jacob said. “We know of this; we know that the demon which enters can also be taken away but we know nothing of this—”

  “No one knows of possession,” Felix said. “It is a mystery so enormous that who knows more knows less. Nevertheless, I have heard of Mottel, even here in this isolated spot in which I live I have heard of him, his warmth and his goodness, and it is an evil thing that a man like this should be seized by a demon.”

  “Will you try to help him then?” Jacob said.

  “You do not understand,” Felix said gently, flicking some dust from the bare earth on which he was sitting, looking absently in a strange way down the far distance, his glance passing from their faces to the sky and then back to the earth, “you do not understand the means of possession or what it entails. A seizure is caused by a demon, but the motive of that demon, his means of entrance or his true purposes are not to be defined in the languages we speak. There are lesser texts which can give us some of the clues to this, but in the Torah itself there is not a word and even the Talmud speaks endlessly only of the ramifications of justice. The justice which we know does not address the demon and the penalties for mingling with these forces are terrible.” Felix stood, a large man even in his age, his body crooked to look down upon them. “I am an ignorant man,” he said, “a man of just enough learning of this matter to have fear and I want to tell you that we know nothing. Nothing whatsoever.”

  “You will not help us then,” the son, Isaac, said. “You will not help my father, even though the Rabbi himself says that there is nothing to be done and we must search for a mystic.”

  “You could see a doctor,” Felix said. “I am sure that in this countryside there is a doctor who could administer to him in such a way that the demon, all unaware, might be coaxed out. You do not know. You do not know what you ask.”

  “We have tried doctors,” Isaac said, “we have tried doctors who have sent us to the Rabbi and now the Rabbi has said that the cure is beyond him and you say it as well. Is my father then to die?” He looked at Felix in a level way and in his eyes Felix must have seen not only the son, Isaac, but the reflection or mirror of his father within those eyes and his body caved in further.

  “You do not know what you ask,” he said. “Possession is something beyond our means and the penalty for a false exorcism is more terrible than the demon itself. Once in Belgrade,” Felix said and then his voice broke and for a moment he could not go on, “once in Belgrade,” he said finally, “there wag a young woman, a girl really, who was taken in this manner and I volunteered my services because at that time I thought that the common mysteries could be solved and when I came to her and performed the rituals—” Again Felix was unable to continue; he raised his hand to his eyes finally and rubbed them for awhile, mechanically, like a man using a piece of linen to burnish copper. “All right,” he said, “I will try. I am a ruined man and my soul already a ghost; no demon will inhabit me for I would provide nothing. I will try,” he said, “I will try,” and before the old man could change his mind, so filled with dread and wonder were they, that they fell upon him and escorted him at once back to Mottel’s house where the cries of the patient could now be heard upon the open air, emerging from the chimney like thin strands of smoke. “Darkness, darkness,” the strands were saying, “all is darkness,” and Rebecca, as she saw them, came from the house in torment, racing toward them with her clothes disheveled.

  “He is worse,” she cried, “he will not stop screaming. He will not rest and I cannot hold him down in the bed. He says that he is going to the capital to deliver a message to the world before it is too late, that he will tell them to kill themselves before the next century can happen and I can do nothing, nothing with him!” and at that moment Mottel, too, dressed in strange clothes as if for an unknown ceremony, emerged from the house and stumbled toward them. His tallis was wrapped around him in disarray, his belt swung loosely, but in his left hand he carried the whip w
ith which he always went on journeys.

  “Get out of my way,” he said, looking neither to them nor the distance but as if directing his gaze to some strange, undiscovered part of himself, “get out of my way, all of you. It is too late. It is too late for any of this, I must go to the capital at once.” The fever, deeper within him, had turned his skin orange now and had mapped out strange lines upon his face. “I will tell them what lies in wait for the world,” he said, “and since the capital is full of men strong enough to have tormented me all my life, they will be able to deal with this. The century will turn soon, but it will not turn at all if strong men take measures. Get out of my way.”

  “Get out of his way,” Felix said quietly and they broke in front of Mottel; Mottel walked through them as if they were sand and quietly Felix followed at a couple of paces, motioning behind him that they were to be left alone. “I’m a Rabbi,” Felix said as Mottel stumbled past his cart, ignoring it, and onto the roadway, five hundred kilometers from the capital, “would you like to talk to me?”

  “I remember speaking to a Rabbi before. I think that I spoke to a Rabbi. It means nothing. I do not want your comforts, I want to deliver my message.”

  “I have no comforts,” Felix said, falling into stride beside the possessed man, adjusting his step so that the two of them shambled along in unison, “I have no prayers. I seek only to help you. What do you see?” “You know what I see!” Mottel shrieked, his voice becoming loud again, the demon flatting out his vowels and stretching the consonants so that Mottel talked like one mad. “I see death, darkness, machinery, disease, brutality and at the end of it murder: murder of three generations of our people, murder of millions of others, the engines of darkness closing in upon that century—” “But it is 1878,” Felix said, “twenty-two years at least before this next century? What can we know of it or it of us? What does it have to do with us?”