The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack: Anthology Part 57

It was still gruesomely dark when, not much over an hour later, a confused babel of voices sounded down the road. Another moment brought to view a frightened group of more than a dozen men, running, shouting, and even whimpering hysterically. Someone in the lead began sobbing out words, and the Arkham men started violently when those words developed a coherent form.

"Oh, my Gawd, my Gawd," the voice choked out. "It's a-goin' agin, an' this time by day! It's aout-it's aout an' a-movin' this very minute, an' only the Lord knows when it'll be on us all!"

The speaker panted into silence, but another took up his message.

"Nigh on a haour ago Zeb Whateley here heerd the 'phone a-ringin', an' it was Mis' Corey, George's wife, that lives daown by the junction. She says the hired boy Luther was aout drivin' in the caows from the storm arter the big bolt, when he see all the trees a-bendin' at the maouth o' the glen-opposite side ter this-an' smelt the same awful smell like he smelt when he faound the big tracks las' Monday mornin'. An' she says he says they was a swishin', lappin' saound, more nor what the bendin' trees an' bushes could make, an' all on a suddent the trees along the rud begun ter git pushed one side, an' they was a awful stompin' an' splashin' in the mud. But mind ye, Luther he didn't see nothin' at all, only just the bendin' trees an' underbrush.

"Then fur ahead where Bishop's Brook goes under the rud he heerd a awful creakin' an' strainin' on the bridge, an' says he could tell the saound o' wood a-startin' to crack an' split. An' all the whiles he never see a thing, only them trees an' bushes a-bendin'. An' when the swishin' saound got very fur off-on the rud towards Wizard Whateley's an' Sentinel Hill-Luther he had the guts ter step up whar he'd heerd it furst an' look at the graound. It was all mud an' water, an' the sky was dark, an' the rain was wipin' aout all tracks abaout as fast as could be; but beginnin' at the glen maouth, whar the trees had moved, they was still some o' them awful prints big as bar'ls like he seen Monday."

At this point the first excited speaker interrupted.

"But that ain't the trouble naow-that was only the start. Zeb here was callin' folks up an' everybody was a-listenin' in when a call from Seth Bishop's cut in. His haousekeeper Sally was carryin' on fit ter kill-she'd jest seed the trees a-bendin' beside the rud, an' says they was a kind o' mushy saound, like a elephant puffin' an' treadin', a-headin' fer the haouse. Then she up an' spoke suddent of a fearful smell, an' says her boy Cha'ncey was a-screamin' as haow it was jest like what he smelt up to the Whateley rewins Monday mornin'. An' the dogs was all barkin' an' whinin' awful.

"An' then she let aout a turrible yell, an' says the shed daown the rud had jest caved in like the storm hed blowed it over, only the wind wa'n't strong enough to dew that. Everybody was a-listenin', an' we could hear lots o' folks on the wire a-gaspin'. All to onct Sally she yelled agin, an' says the front yard picket fence hed just crumbled up, though they wa'n't no sign o' what done it. Then everybody on the line could hear Cha'ncey an' ol' Seth Bishop a-yellin' tew, an' Sally was shriekin' aout that suthin' heavy hed struck the haouse-not lightnin' nor nothin', but suthin' heavy agin the front, that kep' a-launchin' itself agin an' agin, though ye couldn't see nothin' aout the front winders. An' then...an' then..."

Lines of fright deepened on every face; and Armitage, shaken as he was, had barely poise enough to prompt the speaker.

"An' then...Sally she yelled aout, 'O help, the haouse is a-cavin' in'...an' on the wire we could hear a turrible crashin', an' a hull flock o' screamin'...jest like when Elmer Frye's place was took, only wuss...."

The man paused, and another of the crowd spoke.

"That's all-not a saound nor squeak over the 'phone arter that. Jest still-like. We that heerd it got aout Fords an' wagons an' raounded up as many able-bodied menfolks as we could git, at Corey's place, an' come up here ter see what yew thought best ter dew. Not but what I think it's the Lord's jedgment fer our iniquities, that no mortal kin ever set aside."

Armitage saw that the time for positive action had come, and spoke decisively to the faltering group of frightened rustics.

"We must follow it, boys." He made his voice as rea.s.suring as possible. "I believe there's a chance of putting it out of business. You men know that those Whateleys were wizards-well, this thing is a thing of wizardry, and must be put down by the same means. I've seen Wilbur Whateley's diary and read some of the strange old books he used to read; and I think I know the right kind of spell to recite to make the thing fade away. Of course, one can't be sure, but we can always take a chance. It's invisible-I knew it would be-but there's a powder in this long-distance sprayer that might make it shew up for a second. Later on we'll try it. It's a frightful thing to have alive, but it isn't as bad as what Wilbur would have let in if he'd lived longer. You'll never know what the world has escaped. Now we've only this one thing to fight, and it can't multiply. It can, though, do a lot of harm; so we mustn't hesitate to rid the community of it.

"We must follow it-and the way to begin is to go to the place that has just been wrecked. Let somebody lead the way-I don't know your roads very well, but I've an idea there might be a shorter cut across lots. How about it?"

The men shuffled about a moment, and then Earl Sawyer spoke softly, pointing with a grimy finger through the steadily lessening rain.

"I guess ye kin git to Seth Bishop's quickest by cuttin' acrost the lower medder here, wadin' the brook at the low place, an' climbin' through Carrier's mowin' and the timber-lot beyont. That comes aout on the upper rud mighty nigh Seth's-a leetle t'other side."

Armitage, with Rice and Morgan, started to walk in the direction indicated; and most of the natives followed slowly. The sky was growing lighter, and there were signs that the storm had worn itself away. When Armitage inadvertently took a wrong direction, Joe Osborn warned him and walked ahead to shew the right one. Courage and confidence were mounting; though the twilight of the almost perpendicular wooded hill which lay toward the end of their short cut, and among whose fantastic ancient trees they had to scramble as if up a ladder, put these qualities to a severe test.

At length they emerged on a muddy road to find the sun coming out. They were a little beyond the Seth Bishop place, but bent trees and hideously unmistakable tracks shewed what had pa.s.sed by. Only a few moments were consumed in surveying the ruins just around the bend. It was the Frye incident all over again, and nothing dead or living was found in either of the collapsed sh.e.l.ls which had been the Bishop house and barn. No one cared to remain there amidst the stench and tarry stickiness, but all turned instinctively to the line of horrible prints leading on toward the wrecked Whateley farmhouse and the altar-crowned slopes of Sentinel Hill.

As the men pa.s.sed the site of Wilbur Whateley's abode they shuddered visibly, and seemed again to mix hesitancy with their zeal. It was no joke tracking down something as big as a house that one could not see, but that had all the vicious malevolence of a daemon. Opposite the base of Sentinel Hill the tracks left the road, and there was a fresh bending and matting visible along the broad swath marking the monster's former route to and from the summit.

Armitage produced a pocket telescope of considerable power and scanned the steep green side of the hill. Then he handed the instrument to Morgan, whose sight was keener. After a moment of gazing Morgan cried out sharply, pa.s.sing the gla.s.s to Earl Sawyer and indicating a certain spot on the slope with his finger. Sawyer, as clumsy as most non-users of optical devices are, fumbled a while; but eventually focussed the lenses with Armitage's aid. When he did so his cry was less restrained than Morgan's had been.

"Gawd almighty, the gra.s.s an' bushes is a-movin'! It's a-goin' up-slow-like-creepin' up ter the top this minute, heaven only knows what fur!"

Then the germ of panic seemed to spread among the seekers. It was one thing to chase the nameless ent.i.ty, but quite another to find it. Spells might be all right-but suppose they weren't? Voices began questioning Armitage about what he knew of the thing, and no reply seemed quite to satisfy. Everyone seemed to feel himself in close proximity to phases of Nature and of being utterly forbidden, and wholly outside the sane experience of mankind.

X.

In the end the three men from Arkham-old, white-bearded Dr. Armitage, stocky, iron-grey Professor Rice, and lean, youngish Dr. Morgan-ascended the mountain alone. After much patient instruction regarding its focussing and use, they left the telescope with the frightened group that remained in the road; and as they climbed they were watched closely by those among whom the gla.s.s was pa.s.sed around. It was hard going, and Armitage had to be helped more than once. High above the toiling group the great swath trembled as its h.e.l.lish maker re-pa.s.sed with snail-like deliberateness. Then it was obvious that the pursuers were gaining.

Curtis Whateley-of the undecayed branch-was holding the telescope when the Arkham party detoured radically from the swath. He told the crowd that the men were evidently trying to get to a subordinate peak which overlooked the swath at a point considerably ahead of where the shrubbery was now bending. This, indeed, proved to be true; and the party were seen to gain the minor elevation only a short time after the invisible blasphemy had pa.s.sed it.

Then Wesley Corey, who had taken the gla.s.s, cried out that Armitage was adjusting the sprayer which Rice held, and that something must be about to happen. The crowd stirred uneasily, recalling that this sprayer was expected to give the unseen horror a moment of visibility. Two or three men shut their eyes, but Curtis Whateley s.n.a.t.c.hed back the telescope and strained his vision to the utmost. He saw that Rice, from the party's point of vantage above and behind the ent.i.ty, had an excellent chance of spreading the potent powder with marvellous effect.

Those without the telescope saw only an instant's flash of grey cloud-a cloud about the size of a moderately large building-near the top of the mountain. Curtis, who had held the instrument, dropped it with a piercing shriek into the ankle-deep mud of the road. He reeled, and would have crumpled to the ground had not two or three others seized and steadied him. All he could do was moan half-inaudibly, "Oh, oh, great Gawd...that...that..."

There was a pandemonium of questioning, and only Henry Wheeler thought to rescue the fallen telescope and wipe it clean of mud. Curtis was past all coherence, and even isolated replies were almost too much for him.

"Bigger'n a barn...all made o' squirmin' ropes...hull thing sort o' shaped like a hen's egg bigger'n anything, with dozens o' legs like hogsheads that haff shut up when they step...nothin' solid abaout it-all like jelly, an' made o' sep'rit wrigglin' ropes pushed clost together...great bulgin' eyes all over it...ten or twenty maouths or trunks a-stickin' aout all along the sides, big as stovepipes, an' all a-tossin' an' openin' an' shuttin'...all grey, with kinder blue or purple rings...an' Gawd in heaven-that haff face on top!..."

This final memory, whatever it was, proved too much for poor Curtis; and he collapsed completely before he could say more. Fred Farr and Will Hutchins carried him to the roadside and laid him on the damp gra.s.s. Henry Wheeler, trembling, turned the rescued telescope on the mountain to see what he might. Through the lenses were discernible three tiny figures, apparently running toward the summit as fast as the steep incline allowed. Only these-nothing more. Then everyone noticed a strangely unseasonable noise in the deep valley behind, and even in the underbrush of Sentinel Hill itself. It was the piping of unnumbered whippoorwills, and in their shrill chorus there seemed to lurk a note of tense and evil expectancy.

Earl Sawyer now took the telescope and reported the three figures as standing on the topmost ridge, virtually level with the altar-stone but at a considerable distance from it. One figure, he said, seemed to be raising its hands above its head at rhythmic intervals; and as Sawyer mentioned the circ.u.mstance the crowd seemed to hear a faint, half-musical sound from the distance, as if a loud chant were accompanying the gestures. The weird silhouette on that remote peak must have been a spectacle of infinite grotesqueness and impressiveness, but no observer was in a mood for aesthetic appreciation. "I guess he's sayin' the spell," whispered Wheeler as he s.n.a.t.c.hed back the telescope. The whippoorwills were piping wildly, and in a singularly curious irregular rhythm quite unlike that of the visible ritual.

Suddenly the sunshine seemed to lessen without the intervention of any discernible cloud. It was a very peculiar phenomenon, and was plainly marked by all. A rumbling sound seemed brewing beneath the hills, mixed strangely with a concordant rumbling which clearly came from the sky. Lightning flashed aloft, and the wondering crowd looked in vain for the portents of storm. The chanting of the men from Arkham now became unmistakable, and Wheeler saw through the gla.s.s that they were all raising their arms in the rhythmic incantation. From some farmhouse far away came the frantic barking of dogs.

The change in the quality of the daylight increased, and the crowd gazed about the horizon in wonder. A purplish darkness, born of nothing more than a spectral deepening of the sky's blue, pressed down upon the rumbling hills. Then the lightning flashed again, somewhat brighter than before, and the crowd fancied that it had shewed a certain mistiness around the altar-stone on the distant height. No one, however, had been using the telescope at that instant. The whippoorwills continued their irregular pulsation, and the men of Dunwich braced themselves tensely against some imponderable menace with which the atmosphere seemed surcharged.

Without warning came those deep, cracked, raucous vocal sounds which will never leave the memory of the stricken group who heard them. Not from any human throat were they born, for the organs of man can yield no such acoustic perversions. Rather would one have said they came from the pit itself, had not their source been so unmistakably the altar-stone on the peak. It is almost erroneous to call them sounds at all, since so much of their ghastly, infra-ba.s.s timbre spoke to dim seats of consciousness and terror far subtler than the ear; yet one must do so, since their form was indisputably though vaguely that of half-articulate words. They were loud-loud as the rumblings and the thunder above which they echoed-yet did they come from no visible being. And because imagination might suggest a conjectural source in the world of non-visible beings, the huddled crowd at the mountain's base huddled still closer, and winced as if in expectation of a blow.

"Ygnaiih...ygnaiih...thflthkh'ngha...Yog-Sothoth..." rang the hideous croaking out of s.p.a.ce. "Y'bthnk...h'ehye-n'grkdl'lh...."

The speaking impulse seemed to falter here, as if some frightful psychic struggle were going on. Henry Wheeler strained his eye at the telescope, but saw only the three grotesquely silhouetted human figures on the peak, all moving their arms furiously in strange gestures as their incantation drew near its culmination. From what black wells of Acherontic fear or feeling, from what unplumbed gulfs of extra-cosmic consciousness or obscure, long-latent heredity, were those half-articulate thunder-croakings drawn? Presently they began to gather renewed force and coherence as they grew in stark, utter, ultimate frenzy.

"Eh-ya-ya-ya-yahaah-e'yayayayaaaa...ngh'aaaaa...ngh'aaaa...h'yuh...h'yuh...HELP! HELP!...ff-ff-ff-FATHER! FATHER! YOG-SOTHOTH!..."

But that was all. The pallid group in the road, still reeling at the indisputably English syllables that had poured thickly and thunderously down from the frantic vacancy beside that shocking altar-stone, were never to hear such syllables again. Instead, they jumped violently at the terrific report which seemed to rend the hills; the deafening, cataclysmic peal whose source, be it inner earth or sky, no hearer was ever able to place. A single lightning-bolt shot from the purple zenith to the altar-stone, and a great tidal wave of viewless force and indescribable stench swept down from the hill to all the countryside. Trees, gra.s.s, and underbrush were whipped into a fury; and the frightened crowd at the mountain's base, weakened by the lethal foetor that seemed about to asphyxiate them, were almost hurled off their feet. Dogs howled from the distance, green gra.s.s and foliage wilted to a curious, sickly yellow-grey, and over field and forest were scattered the bodies of dead whippoorwills.

The stench left quickly, but the vegetation never came right again. To this day there is something queer and unholy about the growths on and around that fearsome hill. Curtis Whateley was only just regaining consciousness when the Arkham men came slowly down the mountain in the beams of a sunlight once more brilliant and untainted. They were grave and quiet, and seemed shaken by memories and reflections even more terrible than those which had reduced the group of natives to a state of cowed quivering. In reply to a jumble of questions they only shook their heads and reaffirmed one vital fact.

"The thing has gone forever," Armitage said. "It has been split up into what it was originally made of, and can never exist again. It was an impossibility in a normal world. Only the least fraction was really matter in any sense we know. It was like its father-and most of it has gone back to him in some vague realm or dimension outside our material universe; some vague abyss out of which only the most accursed rites of human blasphemy could ever have called him for a moment on the hills."

There was a brief silence, and in that pause the scattered senses of poor Curtis Whateley began to knit back into a sort of continuity; so that he put his hands to his head with a moan. Memory seemed to pick itself up where it had left off, and the horror of the sight that had prostrated him burst in upon him again.

"Oh, oh, my Gawd, that haff face-that haff face on top of it...that face with the red eyes an' crinkly albino hair, an' no chin, like the Whateleys... It was a octopus, centipede, spider kind o' thing, but they was a haff-shaped man's face on top of it, an' it looked like Wizard Whateley's, only it was yards an' yards acrost...."

He paused exhausted, as the whole group of natives stared in a bewilderment not quite crystallised into fresh terror. Only old Zebulon Whateley, who wanderingly remembered ancient things but who had been silent heretofore, spoke aloud.

"Fifteen year' gone," he rambled, "I heerd Ol' Whateley say as haow some day we'd hear a child o' Lavinny's a-callin' its father's name on the top o' Sentinel Hill...."

But Joe Osborn interrupted him to question the Arkham men anew.

"What was it anyhaow, an' haowever did young Wizard Whateley call it aout o' the air it come from?"

Armitage chose his words very carefully.

"It was-well, it was mostly a kind of force that doesn't belong in our part of s.p.a.ce; a kind of force that acts and grows and shapes itself by other laws than those of our sort of Nature. We have no business calling in such things from outside, and only very wicked people and very wicked cults ever try to. There was some of it in Wilbur Whateley himself-enough to make a devil and a precocious monster of him, and to make his pa.s.sing out a pretty terrible sight. I'm going to burn his accursed diary, and if you men are wise you'll dynamite that altar-stone up there, and pull down all the rings of standing stones on the other hills. Things like that brought down the beings those Whateleys were so fond of-the beings they were going to let in tangibly to wipe out the human race and drag the earth off to some nameless place for some nameless purpose.

"But as to this thing we've just sent back-the Whateleys raised it for a terrible part in the doings that were to come. It grew fast and big from the same reason that Wilbur grew fast and big-but it beat him because it had a greater share of the outsideness in it. You needn't ask how Wilbur called it out of the air. He didn't call it out. It was his twin brother, but it looked more like the father than he did."

THE DARK BOATMAN.

by John Glasby.

When I received a letter from my late uncle's solicitors informing me that, as the last of the family line, I had been left the old mansion overlooking the sea on the south coast of Cornwall, my first instinctive impulse was to ask them to advertise the place for immediate sale since I had no wish to cut myself off completely in such an isolated spot. I had visited my uncle on only one occasion in my lifetime, more than fifteen years before, and my memories of that visit were far from pleasant.

I was seventeen at the time and it had been late autumn with low cloud and an eternal mist sweeping in from the sea, making it impossible to see anything of the surrounding countryside. I had been a virtual prisoner within the ancient house for two whole weeks and my uncle, who lived the life of a recluse, shunning all contact with the few neighbours he had, was not a fit companion for a youth. He had spent all of the day and most of the night poring over musty old tomes in the library which, though well-stocked with volumes, held only queer literature concerning myths and histories of races no more recent than the ancient Greeks.

The mansion, itself, had a history almost as long. Parts of it dated back to the time of the second William and the more modern renovations were on the Gothic style with long, gloomy corridors and narrow pa.s.sages which intersected in such puzzling patterns that it was easy to lose one's way in the labyrinthine maze, which extended from one wing to the other.

Two things, however, conspired to force me to change my mind and move from my native Yorkshire to Cornwall. The first was my health, which had been deteriorating somewhat over the past four years and my doctor was of the considered opinion that the more salubrious nature of the Cornish weather would be more conducive to a return to better health than the windswept moors of Yorkshire. With summer approaching, the warmer climate would undoubtedly prove both beneficial and invigorating.

The second reason was a further letter, which arrived six days after the first. Like the other, it came from my uncle's solicitors, but inside was a second envelope with my name on it written in my uncle's spidery script in the India ink I remembered him using.

"My dear nephew," he wrote. "By the time you receive this I will have departed this earth and as you are my only heir, there are certain points I must bring to your notice concerning the family mansion at Tormouth. These may appear strange to one unaccustomed to our ways but I earnestly a.s.sure you they are not the product of a senile or deranged mind and must be followed implicitly. The duty of carrying them out now falls upon you and if it is of any consolation to you, as the only living Dexter, yours will be the final act in the tradition of the Dexters that has been carried on for more centuries than you would ever believe. You will find the key you seek in the concealed compartment of my desk. The opener is the left arabesque. But use it not until the time is right unless you call over Him who comes only at the appointed hour. And how shall you know the time? That is given by the clock in the upper room. I adjure you to watch it closely for no one knows the hour when the key must be used."

I read this strange letter several times, unable to make either head or tail of it. I was well aware I was the last in a long line of Dexters, that I could trace my lineage back, unbroken, for more than eighteen hundred years. But what was all this rigmarole about a key? A key to which lock? And as for keeping continuous watch on a certain clock, waiting for some particular preordained hour to strike-that made no sense to me at all. Nonetheless, the contents of the letter wetted my natural curiosity and I knew that, whatever happened, I had to move into that ancient manor if only to satisfy myself as to the real reason behind my uncle having written such a bizarre epistle.

I did not, however, intend to go alone; at least not until I had discovered all I could about the place and its curious secrets. I decided to ask a colleague of mine, Michael Ambrose, to accompany me. I knew him for a gifted antiquarian, well versed in ancient history and many of the old myths and religions. When I approached him, he accepted with alacrity for he had read a great deal about my family history and the strange stories that surrounded the mansion on the cliffs.

Accordingly, we both took the express to Penzance, arriving early in the evening on a glorious late spring day. My recollection of Tormouth was vague and p.r.o.ne to the inevitable inaccuracies a.s.sociated with a brief memory of more than fifteen years before. However, we soon discovered there was no public transport which would take us there even at that early hour of the evening. There was, we learned, a bus that went out to Tormouth the next morning although it might be possible to hire a car for our purpose.

Since we were both anxious to reach the mansion as quickly as possible we decided on the latter course and obtained directions to the nearest garage where we might obtain such transport.

The garage proprietor seemed willing to hire us a car, several of which were available. But his demeanour changed dramatically when we mentioned our destination. Now he became oddly reluctant, maintaining that Tormouth was a place with an evil reputation, one that stretched back for more years than he could remember. No one knew for certain just what it was about the place that instilled such weird notions into people's minds but it was a tangible thing best not ignored.

I forbore to tell him my name for I had the feeling that much of the outside animosity and superst.i.tious fear directed towards the village was primarily against my family and mention of the name Dexter might be more than enough to make him refuse point-blank to provide us with a car.

In the end, after much forcible argument, he agreed to let us have a decrepit vehicle, which, from its very appearance, did not look capable of taking us to our destination. However, since beggars could not be choosers we were forced to accept his offer with as much grace as we could muster.

Half an hour later, we left Penzance and took the road east, following the directions we had been given. Dusk had already settled over the countryside and we drove in silence for almost half an hour, entering terrain that grew more barren and wild with every pa.s.sing mile. Gripping the wheel, I peered intently through the dusty windscreen, searching for some sign of the signpost we had been told to watch out for. Several narrow tracks led off the road but none of these were signposted and were little more than rutted paths leading apparently nowhere across deserted moorland and low, rounded hills that brooded oppressively on the skyline.

Then Ambrose suddenly called my attention to something lying half-hidden in the ditch by the side of the road. I immediately stopped the car and we both got out to examine it. It was an ancient battered signpost which had once been pointed off to the left for there, less than five yards from where we stood, a track, somewhat wider than the others we had seen earlier, snaked towards the distant horizon. Ambrose went down on one knee and I heard his grunt of astonishment. The sign bore the legend Tormouth-5 miles in faded letters and I thought this was what he had seen.

Then I looked to where he was pointing and saw the wooden post had not fallen through decay due to long years of standing in all sorts of weather. It had been deliberately axed through the base. Whether local inhabitants had committed this act to erase all reference to Tormouth, or the villagers themselves had done it to preserve their isolation, we could not tell. But as we got back into the car we were both oddly disturbed by what we had found. Clearly, the garage proprietor had not exaggerated when he had spoken of the evil reputation Tormouth possessed.

We turned off the road with a growing sense of trepidation. Now the surrounding countryside grew more sinister and somber in its overall aspect. The car lurched and slid over numerous potholes and in places the thick, th.o.r.n.y branches slashed and tore at the vehicle on both sides.

At times, the overgrown bushes a.s.sumed grotesque shadows in the approaching darkness and I was forced to switch on the headlights in order to see the way for there were many twists and turns ahead and obstacles became more numerous so that avoiding action had to be taken quickly and decisively.

We had not been more than two miles along the track when the ma.s.s of dark, ominous cloud we had noticed earlier swept down on us and it began to rain. Had it been possible to turn I might have considered returning to Penzance and setting out again in the morning for driving had now become extremely difficult. But it was all I could do to keep the car on the road, which was now rapidly worsening because of the rain. The aged wipers did little to keep the windscreen clear and we were soon splashing through deepening puddles that stretched clear across the road.

Then we crested a high hill and down below us, just visible, was the sea and off to our right we made out a tiny cl.u.s.ter of dim lights, which told us we were approaching our destination. Now the smell of the sea was strong in our nostrils. Curiously, the state of the road improved. At some time, it had been surfaced and the reason for this improvement soon became evident. Less than half a mile further on, the ground on our right dropped away steeply towards the rocky beach.

In spite of the relatively new road surface I had to drive carefully now. The rough gravel was wet and slippery and one wrong move could send us crashing over the cliff onto the waiting rocks below. In addition, the headlights were not powerful enough to penetrate far into the teeming rain.

Finally, however, we headed down into the village and stopped halfway along the cobbled street. The place seemed utterly deserted. An air of abandonment lay over the low-roofed houses and crumbling stone jetty that thrust like a long tongue into the sea. The tide was out and a mile or so offsh.o.r.e I could just make out twin pinnacles of black rock which stood up from the ocean like two mighty guardians offering a safe entry into the tiny harbour.

Fortunately, I had no need to ask directions of any of the inhabitants. I well remembered the obvious dislike these folk had of my uncle and did not doubt this animosity would also be extended towards anyone of the hated name of Dexter. From what I could recall there were many in the village who had regarded him as some kind of wizard and although such a notion might have been laughed at by townsfolk, here such beliefs had always been strongly held.

I started the car again and drove slowly past the shuttered windows fronting the street. At the end of the village there was a narrow road, which led in a series of tortuous bends to the mansion, which we were soon able to pick out as a gaunt, black silhouette against the skyline.

The rain was still coming down in torrents as we drove through the tall metal gates and along the drive between huge oaks and elms, swinging around in front of the house.

No lights showed in any of the windows. Overhead, tall Gothic turrets and spires showed against the dark sky. I heard Ambrose gasp as he caught sight of it for the first time, looming before us in a great spectral ma.s.s of age-old stone.

I could guess at his feelings; I had felt them myself fifteen years before. As I have said earlier, my forebears had made various alterations to the original structure over the centuries resulting in an oddly clashing conglomeration of architectural styles that had certainly not enhanced the overall appearance in any way. Indeed, the only softening effect came from the thick layers of ivy along the walls, for time and weather had had the opposite effect; making the angular abutments and towers even harsher and starker in their general outline.

We left the car parked in front of the main door and hurriedly transferred our few belongings onto the porch where I selected the correct key from the bunch I had received from the solicitors and threw open the door. Inside, we found a couple of lamps for there was no electricity and in the yellow glow explored the nearer regions. The interior did not appear to have changed at all since my one and only previous visit. Apart from a thin layer of whitish dust, which covered everything, the place was just as my uncle had left it.

The wide hallway with the wide staircase leading off ground level at the far end and the huge oak table in the middle of the stone floor, chairs arranged round the walls, the broad open fireplace and the few pieces of bric-a-brac my uncle had collected over the years; all blended into a familiar scene which struck me with the force of a physical blow, bringing back recollections of my unforgettable experiences one and a half decades earlier.

An hour later, we had made ourselves reasonably comfortable. There were four bedrooms on the ground floor in the West Wing and Ambrose and I had chosen a couple of these for ourselves. There was clearly a lot to be done before the place was fit to be lived in but that would have to wait. Now that I had inherited the mansion and was master there I intended to see that changes were made. Structurally, the building was very sound but the interior was in urgent need of complete renovation and modernisation.

We were both tired now. After eating a brief meal of cold meat that we had brought with us, we retired to our rooms. But weary as I was, I found it difficult to sleep. There was something odd about the place, which I could not define. I was well aware that all old houses possess curious atmospheres which can be sensed strongly, particularly by those sensitive to such auras and there were also my own remembrances of this place, which I had never thought to visit again. But it was something more than this; as if my uncle had never left this house but some part of him still remained to ensure that I carried out those peculiar instructions he had outlined in his letter.

When, at length, I did fall into an uneasy doze it was to be a.s.sailed by troubled dreams in which I seemed to be standing in some great subterranean cavern where a vast, thunderous cataract plunged into a bottomless abyss and in the foreground, on a rocky ledge, stood my uncle pointing an admonishing finger at me and shouting words which I could not hear above the endless roar of the water falling into the terrifying chasm.

When I woke it was grey dawn and I was sweating profusely. I threw off the coverlet and dressed hurriedly, feeling an unaccustomed chill on my body. Ambrose was awake and had lit a fire in the hearth.

Over breakfast, Ambrose plied me with questions concerning my immediate plans. I had to confess that so far, I had given but scant thought to them, waiting to see what state the house was in before deciding what needed to be done and in what order things could reasonably be carried out. After some discussion, we decided to drive into Penzance that morning where I wished to visit my late uncle's solicitors and Ambrose would approach various architects with a view to one coming out to Tormouth to look over the place and draw up plans for its modernisation. Ambrose would also purchase provisions, sufficient to last us for some time for I doubted if we would be able to obtain any in the village.

The weather had turned fine and sunny once more as we drove through Tormouth and we were acutely aware of the sullen glances of the few people abroad on the street. But our spirits rose a little as we left the sea behind and progressed across the bare moorland. By the time we arrived in Penzance the sun was hot and there was not a cloud in the sky.

Leaving Ambrose, I searched out the offices of Poulton and Forsythe, the solicitors where I was shown into the office of Andrew Forsythe, a small, balding man in his late fifties who received me courteously and ushered me to a chair. Even though he had probably been expecting me to call sometime, it seemed my presence there made him distinctly uneasy.

"I trust you received the letter your uncle wrote just before he...died," he said, placing the tips of his fingers together and staring at me over the fleshy pyramid.

I a.s.sured him I had and mentioned the strange contents.

"I'm afraid I can't enlighten you on that subject. To be quite honest, I had very little to do with your uncle. He was, as you know, a man of, shall we say-peculiar, habits. He had no visitors I know of, staying quite alone in that house on the cliffs. I think I should also warn you that the inhabitants of the village will not take too kindly to your arrival. They're a clannish and highly superst.i.tious lot and unfortunately this is no recent thing."

I must have looked at him in surprise, for he went on hurriedly: "From the records which are still extant, the Dexters have lived there for nearly a thousand years and wild rumours concerning them have circulated throughout the surrounding countryside for almost as long as that."

"What sort of rumours?" I asked. Forsythe's expression had given me pause.

"Oh, the usual kind of thing one comes across in isolated communities such as this." Forsythe tried to appear offhand about the subject, but this was belied by the look of gravity on his face. "The family was suspected of sorcery during the Middle Ages but, curiously, no action seems to have been taken against them in spite of the infamous witchcraft trials, which took place elsewhere."

The news did not surprise me. My family had always kept itself to itself and it was inevitable that, in such circ.u.mstances, such suspicions should be levelled against them. When Forsythe made no move to embellish his remarks, I changed the subject.

"Now that I've taken over the house and property there are a number of changes I wish to make. I trust there are no legal reasons why I should not do so."

"None of which I am aware," he a.s.sured me. "Indeed, from what little I've seen of the house, it has always struck me that the lack of modern amenities is something which should be rectified as soon as possible."