by Tanith Lee
The next solid memory I have is of standing outside the nursery, upset it had altered, and not to find my dolls – although, as I have said, I did find them later somewhere else, and could not hold them any more. As I stood there, a young lady came along the corridor, in a dark blue costume, which shocked me slightly because it showed, quite clearly, her ankles, as only a young girl child showed hers. I particularly noted it, I think, since I myself had only just attained grown-up clothing. I have grown accustomed, obviously, to such hemlines by now. Even those of the later ‘modern’ women in the pictures, even Elizabeth’s, which are only just below the knee; she has assured me that, when younger, she wore skirts even shorter!
Nevertheless, the young woman in blue stopped instantly and stared at me. “Are you here?” she asked. I said to her, “Yes, this is my home.” And then she reached out, and her hand passed through my shoulder, and both of us sighed, knowing, even I, the reason. (This meeting is strange too, because it transpires Laurel died after I did. But then I might have lingered in that other place of light and unmemorised memories, and only come back here years after. I sense there was no true time there, in that place, no time as we know it here, alive, or dead. I could have returned at any moment. I am glad I did not do so while Miss Archer was still in residence.)
I pray for Laurel every evening, just after the sun sets. Awake during day or night, there seems no point in praying later, or by a bedside prior to unnecessary sleep. I pray for Elizabeth, too, and since he arrived, for the old man from the library. I never pray for the warrior from the 1300’s. I can see him nowadays, of course, and I am shy of him, and he makes no proper sense to me when he speaks, although I wish him no ill, poor thing. Do I also pray for myself? I do not. My prayers for myself seem always to have been pointless.
Nor, naturally, do I ever bother to pray for them – those others who sometimes invade our grounds. They are Monsters. One does not pray for a monster, only to be rid of it, yet that too seems useless. So many people must have prayed for that, and it has never worked.
There is some frightening joke I came to hear, in ‘modern’ times, that God had died. Perhaps He has.
Before the Tvie apparatus failed, as did the lamps Elizabeth and the old gentleman could somehow persuade to come on, I had already seen appalling images of the creatures, which we are to call Zom-bees.
If I had been only somewhat younger, and, of course, alive, I should have suffered horrible nightmares of them. I always hope they will go away as suddenly as they come, and leave no trace. But if one tide of them draws out, another high Zom-bee sea replaces it. In addition, now some of them do not go at all, but loiter around the grounds, occasionally stumbling and crashing against the doors and lower windows. So far only in two places did they gain access, and this, thank Providence, only in a part of the house none of us much visit; besides, it is becoming derelict. Nor did these Zom-bees linger indoors. They appear to prefer the open spaces, even if the weather is inclement. Yet, they do not make choices, surely, being entirely mindless. Every and anything they do, even should it appear to be, momentarily, evolved from a strategy, is merely accidental, a coincidence without meaning. They did not even eat the fruit they tore from the trees in the autumn. What they desire to eat is human flesh, or so the visions on the Tvie boxes showed us. There are no living humans here among us. And we have, as Elizabeth stresses, nothing to be alarmed at. Yet all of us, I think, are apprehensive.
The knight bears it worst, I believe. He will, as Laurel has said, be used to meeting wicked violence with correction, and now, obviously enough, he cannot. But then, he will sit and watch Elizabeth for hours on end, or follow her about, a lean, noble and loyal dog, in chainmail, walking upright, and the wind not blowing nor the rain damping his long pale hair. He says very little. And when he speaks we do not understand him. Or, I do not. But then. I understand none of it.
The sun has gone. Everything is shadows. It is time for me to pray.
5
The Warrior
Then will I to tell of that I see in the efore,
in my day of life, as when I am he that efore I am,
as at this hour I am that now I am, and he another –
for I am smoke and air,
that am then the hot clay of created living Mann.
In the first I am of no wurth,
and by two twelvemonth she that give me life does her go with death.
Amid churls and sad to nine years I am, likn the worm, knows no thing.
Crawler in dirts, so I.
Then he is by. He that is my Lord.
On that hour is he aged, so I am to think, of ten years and six.
On horse big as an house is he riden.
Blac the hors, and he is of blac hair
and eyen of him are dark,
and likn the paur fol I gape, but he sees me
and I think he say, but in a sort of words I am not full to grasp, Him, then, paur him.
And they takn me up but I am not cry, I am in lesson by then to cry makn no altering.
But too I am sworn to him in that hour, heartsure. And gottn by him I am makn new.
In whiles I am growen and learnd even somewhat to scan words across a booke.
But most I am learnd to feight.
And so do I, for to be his man, to be among his husmen and guarde of him, a cnight.
As of then I am that you see me, and, when at war, a heaum on my head and scield by, and bladed sweord to hand.
One fine surcot for a feast, and one for battail.
The castel my haome, I that never efore has awhiht save mud or cauld or to be beatn with stick.
Averus, he I am is happy.
For elevn of years then I, and I then of twenty twelve- months, and he of seven and twenty such.
And I of his men, and feight by him, both in some smallr disputins and once, when my Lord is called to aid busyness of the King’s own.
But my Lord is as my Father, or my brother.
Or he is, tho I must not say it, as my God.
For I have never seen the Christ, nor do the Christ ever touch me or talk to me, or sling his arm about me, nor give me his hand to kiss, nor speak so well of me after some blood feightn.
Nor does the Lord Jesu keep me in life, in food and shelterd, in despite of that the priest may say, so far as I may grasp it.
But my Lord Hroldar does so, and all and much and more.
Wyvmann I have too, girls to lay by me.
Sweet are all, but one very much.
But her babe that is mine come from her stilled. From which then she do not stay byen me. Such passes.
And he say to me then, Letn go, she.
But he gift her so she do not sofre more.
But we of his men, in peace days, we drinkn with him, and singen and meyri.
Like a sweord, a banner, he.
To follow him is to live.
I will not speak long of this.
There come about a querel betwn a neyhbour of powr and my Lord.
To castel then come these dogs.
It happen that efore, in the springn months when fever rise, fever takes me too. I was a great whiles sick
but by the hour the asseg begin I am myself hale again, and go to stand with my Lord on the rampart.
The foe many,but our stones strong. The grey time of the year too draws in, the cauld and dark.
They will weakn and slink onway.
But rather than such, one in our walls betrays my Lord Hroldar,
and by nightdark they in steal, our enemi.
A while that has not time we feytn. We are red from heel to heafd in flame and blood.
I by my Lord and one comes to murdr him
so I afore my Lord, and I strike true but aswill I takn the enemi blow.
Cloven I am and down I fall. But my lord lives through my act.
After then I hear a bell that rings, but then I go a whiles in shadow.
And when again I am in this place, others are here I never
kno, nor myself they never see.
So it is I bide alone here, and would be no otherwhere.
My Lord Hroldar, though gone by my return, have then his life throu me, as I at first had gotn my tru life of him.
Averus, there is juste in this. I mak no querel.
The Enemi
There is the other enemi now at our gate.
They are uncumly and fuwl, nor menn, neither wyvmenn.
Things from out the old tales these.
I nevr see much and many creaturs but such as this never til this time.
Yet of the alterons of the castel, its ruiner and loss,
and the build then risn of the house,
such to me as ifn I clomb and stand aloft the wurld and gapen in at God-His jest.
Yet they that Eliseth names Sub-umbris
of Hell, they.
I would slay them everyone, but may not.
I am air now, and smoke.
When first I or my wraeth, that is all that is remained of me, see Eliseth,
I am takn one breath again of life.
As with my Lord, so she.
From her, my third life is.
Gottn of her, not wyvmon, nor Lord,
Never my modter, as never have I such a one save for unremembern.
My Cwene, Eliseth. My hlady. Forgivn mae I be, but will I not deny.
PART TWO
1
The Scholar
It was at Murchester, I recall, that some old duffer who, out of the kindness of his arrogant heart, (and fee aside) gave us a lecture on Keats – said lecture not in fact bad in itself – referred to that “plebeian phrase” which “enthuses” that someone or other is a “diamond”. The old fascist proceeded, (nor did this either have much to do with the poet Keats), to instruct us that “among the ignorant, that inferior stone, the zircon, may be mistaken for a diamond,” by such “morons” as did not “know diamonds very well.” He was rewarded with a tepid scatter of laughter, none of it offered by me.
I have a reason for recounting this daft and spiky little memory, but I’ll come to that.
When once we lost the visions of the TV and mental visions of the radio, (the world wide web was already gone, the first to fall in fact), along presently with the lights – a universal power outage, (as by then the more recent world was wont to call a power-cut or failure), our imaginations took over. We understood too that civilisation, at least inside the British Islands, had collapsed. Not much of a surprise, under the circumstances. And we were already, naturally, seeing on a regular basis the Zombie Hordes at our very doors, as it were, if in small numbers.
Elizabeth gives them names, the ones who hang around now, while they do. What was it? Ugg and Jug – oh, and Cog and Bog. There are a couple more names I mislay. About ten or thirteen of the things congregate here presently, I surmise, if rather irregularly. They are of either gender, though males seem to predominate.
There was one evening I recall when El and I were trying to see if we couldn’t make the lights come on any way by sheer telekinetic impulse: we could not; it seems there has to be some electric power capability available to start with, or no dice. But as we were giving up, there came a sharp rapping on the French doors. It was one of the ‘modern’ rooms, (added circa 1960), equipped in the recent past with central heating and so on. Now in the pitch black and chill – neither of which any more affected us – she and I beheld a towering Zombie pressed against the glass. Was it aware of us? We thought not. We were not live flesh – meat. Some people can’t see ghosts, as we all realise, and some can, or they can see certain ghosts, for some perhaps explicable but often unexplained reason. This can work in reverse for ghosts as well. They (we) don’t always see living humans. Coral vows she has never seen a non-deceased human since her death. Laurel admits to having seen few, a then-living Elizabeth in her teenage years being one of these. For our Knight, I’m not sure either way. Probably Elizabeth knows his take on things, for she’s normally the only one he truly communicates with, or who can half-way understand his manner of talking. However, apparently, all of our party can see the Zombies. Why is that? Because they are dead even if still somewhat animate?
Elizabeth and I, without exchanging a word, went forward to the glass doors. We could obviously pass straight through them. But we did not. We stayed our side of the window, and the Zombie stayed his, (it was indeed the remnant of a man, very tall and big-bodied, with a bald head and staring greenish eyes). He continued to knock.
Then finally the Zombie drew back, and raised his bulky fist to shatter the glass.
Mindlessly both El and I sprang away – though to us, of course, it could hardly matter. But something too checked the Zombie. It gave a strange swimmy squinty leer into the room, and turning suddenly, blundered off again. When it was about twenty paces away along the drive, it started a kind of ululating yodel. Now and then they do make sounds, presumably if their vocal chords are still intact. Sometimes they even breathe, or approximate hoarse breathing sounds, although one assumes their hearts no longer beat, and oxygen is as superfluous to them as to ourselves.
When the creature had blundered from our view, Elizabeth said, “A lot of them are almost intact, aren’t they. I sometimes wonder what it must feel like – or do they feel anything?”
“Residually, one supposes, perhaps their bodies do, or with some of them that happens.”
“I wonder if their memories remain, or any fragments of thought. Why else,” she mused, “did it knock on the window?”
“Learned reflex, possibly. A merely physical reaction. No longer cognitive.”
Then Coral appeared, asking anxiously if the “vile bee-thing” had gone.
Laurel was absent, as sometimes she is, leading her own lonely unlife elsewhere. The Knight was away, almost certainly making his nostalgic nightly patrol about the ruinous castle towers.
Tonight, just past midnight, which is usually when one can find all of us in the main body of the house, I mean to gather them together. I have had an idea. I have had it for about seven days and nights now, and have mulled it over. Part of me has even considered undertaking an experiment on behalf of this idea, privately and alone. But we five are a sort of club, aren’t we? A Co-Operative. Which suggests to me I would be wrong to go ahead before at least outlining my thought to the rest.
We met in the ‘new’ sitting room, which was part of the most modern extras, a largish grey and red space, with small tables and big armchairs – on which, of course, we hardly ever ‘sit’, preferring to perch on the floor. Elizabeth has observed we manage not to sink through the ground outside, or the floors indoors, or the treads of the staircases, and says that we accomplish this by some unconscious effort of will provided us, perhaps, by a sense of pure logic, and that to sit on the floor is therefore less tiresome than to use the furniture. (We find, generally, even when we do make an extra effort and position our etheric selves on, say, a chair, once we take an interest in another matter, even in each other, we tend either to sink in – or, more ludicrous, float upward). (Irritating.) A TV stands against a crimson wall, a huge model from 2017, with a screen as wide, so it looks to me, as that old thing known as Cinemascope. But dead, now, a black blank.
I asked for everybody’s attention, I’m afraid no doubt exactly as I was used to doing whenever I gave a talk at Murchester. A slight disquiet in me at broaching my idea had made me over-formal.
They listened politely, that is, the two girls did. The Knight listened only as if it were his duty to do so, standing rather than sitting just behind Elizabeth, her guard, her servant, her pale shadow. But Elizabeth, perhaps predictably, stared at me throughout, and when I stopped speaking, having said, I thought, what had occurred to me, in the clearest and most precise way I could, it was Elizabeth who broke out in a sort of astounded anger.
“Are you mad? Have you gone mad? Do ghosts go mad? How for Christ’s sake can you suggest such a bloody disgusting stupid fucking madness?”
We, she and
I, are the only two who did or still do swear or blaspheme. The girls, when we do it, used to look away, uncomfortable, (Laurel), or then look back, curious, (Coral), but that faded long ago. The warrior Knight seems not to notice particularly. Well, he was a soldier, he’ll have heard plenty worse. Or else our modern usage fails to register with him.
“It isn’t necessarily madness, El,” I quietly said.
“It’s crazy and disgusting. You’re mad.” Elizabeth let out her non-necessary breath in a fierce sigh. (How like them we are, are we not, the Zombies, in so many remaining ways?) “Why,” she said, “did you dream that up?”
“It simply came to me. It seemed, once I’d thought of it, an obvious method.”
She sprang to her feet and began to pace about, a restless lioness, pausing only once, to pass her hand reassuringly just above the top of the Knight’s shoulder, saying only to him: “It’s all right, I’m fine. Just annoyed.”
I said, “Only think, Elizabeth, we’d be able to touch things again. People again. God knows, we might even start to breathe again. To eat and drink. Sleep.” I hesitated and lowered my eyes. “To kiss.”
Coral too jumped up. She ran as if to Elizabeth, stopping midway and bursting into tears – those ghost tears that, despite what El avers, are dry, visible only in their sounds and gestures.
“She wants to hold her dolls,” said Laurel, sadly.
“Perhaps, if we were able to do what I suggest we might try, she could hold them. Perhaps she would even be able to grow a little older, grow into womanhood.”
Elizabeth rounded on me again, agitated and nearly smoking with rage. “Be quiet, old man. You don’t know everything!”
“Who does?”
Then I noted El’s Knight had lifted his head and was staring at me.
He spoke. I couldn’t understand a word of the short sentence. But El turned sharply and stared in turn at him. “What?”