The Book of the Damned

by Tanith Lee

  This, and the stealthy movements of the Baron, had alerted me, but I gave no sign. I lay motionless, scarcely breathing, my eyes shut. Soon I heard the carriage door softly opened. Something eased itself out, and then the door was tenderly closed. A footstep on earth. One of the horses blew and stamped, and the carriage rolled and steadied. Nothing more.

  I opened my eyes. Beyond the windows the pine trees pressed on the carriage. Between hung the lucid avernal daylight of full moon.

  Von Aaron was gone. Not prompted by any natural urge -

  Sufficient space allowed, I lowered the window and looked out with care.

  The road had become little better than a track, packed earth littered with small shards, through the edges of which the roots of the trees had sometimes clawed. And there indeed was the coachman, box deserted, plodding in between the pine stems to relieve himself.

  Ahead, a second carriage stood across the road, blocking the way. It was like a phantom thing; it had no horses in the shafts, and no driver.

  I opened rny door and got out, the far side of the vehicle from von Aaron's coachman. I walked along the track in the moonday-night, past each pair of black horses, and then across the interval of track between the carriages.

  The vehicle which blocked the road had, within its body, a white coffin, whiter than the moon. It rested on the floor where one of the long seats had been removed to facilitate its presence. On the opposite seat lay a pair of pale kid gloves.

  I went beyond the carriage, walking now off the track, among the pines. The road dipped up and down, and just over the brow two men stood. I heard the voice of one of them, I hesitated, then stole on until I was some nine or ten metres away.

  "Well, you must send her back again. Take her yourself, since I tell you you will be going."

  "I think," von Aaron said, "she lacks documents. She could not cross the border."

  "Well then."

  "This is your last word."

  "As you are aware."

  Scarabin, tall and slender, a pillar of ice, black midnight of hair poured down his back. The other fawning, placating, angry and helpless. Before them both, the lands of night. The moon rode high, stopping for no one.

  "She was sleeping," said the Baron.

  "Perhaps."

  Von Aaron looked back apprehensively, directly at me, staring into my face, and did not see me at all.

  "Do you suppose? But where could she go?" Back again he looked at Scarabin. "I will put her out, if you tell me to do so, Anthony. She would be lost in this place. Let me come on with you, as it was arranged."

  "Who arranged it? You. Your constant expositions. Return to that City where you let her out, where you let her do as she wanted."

  "I? How could I prevent it - how can I answer you - what terms will you accept? It is^ou - '

  They were no longer speaking of me, but of another. Of Antonina.

  And Scarabin turned in that moment too, and thrust von Aaron from him.

  "I'm tired of listening to this. You have no say in any of it. You'll do as I tell you, nothing more. Now get away, get out of my sight."

  But, "There are the horses coming," said von Aaron importunately, pointing down the track ahead. Black movement from the black pines there. A fresh team of drays being brought for the foremost carriage, to replace others already taken. Some village hereabouts, or some other servitor of Scarabin's.

  "Anthony," said von Aaron now, "you may yet need me - '

  There was no strategy in overhearing any more. I turned and retraced my way through the skirts of the pine shadow, to Scarabin's carriage. I opened its door and entered it, and shut myself in. There was a vibrancy in the air of it, scentless, tuned and pitched. I put my hands on the lid of the white coffin. How secure? But I had broken one such box already.

  I drew up the lid with ease, it had not been secured at all.

  Within, in the dark bed of silk, a woman's outline was deeply imprinted. I had known there would be nothing else. I had known that Antonina was not here, not here. Instead, I stepped into the silk, and lay down in this shape of her, which fitted me. Then I drew the lid up and resettled it. This time, some jigsaw groove connected with another. It sealed itself above me.

  I placed the mesh purse under the folds of my skirt, and crossed my hands over my breast. I had not lain so eloquently or so neady before.

  How peaceful the dark was, out of the strident moon.

  In a short while I heard the horses come up, and that they were being backed into the shafts. A man vaulted to the box. Then, the door opened. He came into the carriage, he, Scarabin. I knew him, by his step, the susurrous of the coat he wore, the faint intake and expiry of his breathing. Now he sat, now took up the gloves and threw them down again. Now the beautiful voice called out its order to the driver.

  Hoofs trampled and wheels revolved. The carriage was angled and positioned and set northward on the road, and with only this prelude, exploded into a great and nearly maniacal speed. The floor bounced under me. I was stunned by it, by the intimacy of its noise and motion. Then a light gentle impact came above, the click of a boot-heel. Anthony Scarabin had put his feet up on the coffin.

  We came to the border.

  I was by now hypnotised in my shell. I heard, or felt, the carriage draw up. At the window, muffled voices courteously insisted that the passenger must descend. He did so. Out on the roadway, I heard a man say to him, "And the coffin. Regretfully, we must inspect it." In response I could ascertain only the notes of his voice, no words. But then the door was opened, and rough nervous hands came down on the lid of my shelter.

  I ceased at once to breathe; I had learnt this knack in the grave. As the lid sheared off, moonlight and shadow sprinkled me like cool water. A man drew in his own breath harshly, then let it go in a long sigh. I sensed, but did not see, that he crossed himself. Then the lid was awkwardly replaced, grating about until the grooves again engaged, and the dark, my coverlet, covered me.

  "Your papers are correct. My condolences. Your sister's death is a great misfortune. Ah, a sad loss, so young. She seems only sleeping."

  Scarabin re-entered the carriage. Orders were spoken on the road. The horses broke into their run. We raced across the northern border.

  He had carried the box from Paradys for show. He had therefore required papers which noted it. Finding such luggage empty the border's watchdogs might have torn the receptacle apart, but a vacant coffin was no crime, an eccentricity, like a silver bullet… But full, such a sad loss, the young sister, looking only as if she slept. He knew now he had company.

  Would he speak? Would he himself lift off the lid, and should I see that face look in at me, and those eyes?

  He might do anything.

  He had had melted down the silver of Antonina's wedding rings, that had made the ammunition for his duel with me before. He was inventive, and capable, and quite as fey as I.

  Nothing happened for a little while.

  Then he called again to the driver, and the carriage halted, the driver dropped down and was at the window.

  Scarabin said: 'You see this?"

  Together they raised it from the floor of the carriage, and I was borne a short distance, as it seemed, from the road.

  Cautiously, as I was swung with the coffin in their grasp, I raised both hands and pressed against the lid. I could not in any way shift it. Some trick of the grooved mechanism made the box accessible only from without.

  "Here. This will do," said Scarabin, above me.

  The coffin was lowered, and let go. A slight fall, yet it jolted every bone of my body. I repressed the urge to laugh at his malice.

  I made out their footsteps, retreating.

  Then, in another minute, from some way off, I heard the carriage start up and tear away. After that, came a great stillness.

  Having spontaneously evicted myself from the earth of a grave, the insoluble problem of the coffin bored me. I lay and did nothing, did not even think of it. I thought only of the carriage
bounding along the tracks and roads between the pines. How should I find it? How catch up?

  My mind flew after, never lost him. But I never could. Wherever he might go, my dearly beloved enemy, into whatever dim, invisible reach, I must come on him again at last, by design, or by accident. We could not be parted.

  I relaxed, I composed myself.

  What now?

  There was a scratching on the lid of slumber. As I wakened I knew better than to call encouragement. Perhaps some hopeful thief had found me. He would be frightened off if the corpse merrily greeted him. Or perhaps it was some bird at work, or a large insect taking its constitutional along the lacquer.

  Then the coffin-lid moved. Brightest daylight entered like a dagger. As I lifted my hands to assist, the lid was abruptly shovelled off and fell away. Against a blinding lace-work of leaves and sky, I saw the pagan beast-face of Satan himself, gazing in at me. A handsome black goat with a long Roman nose, and whorled medallions of horns.

  I sat up with a cry of elation, and he frisked away.

  I came from the coffin and stood in a young meadow. The spot was fringed by pines, but a wild orchard bloomed between, and here the goats were feeding. The tindery sweet scents of morning sun on clover, the wholesome stink of the herd, were here and there touched by the fermentation of fallen red apples lying in the grass. There was no sign or symptom of any road or track.

  I cast off the veiled hat into the coffin, and took up the mesh purse and spilled it over the silk. Like the field-lily, it seemed to me I had no need of items such as money, paper, or matches. So I buried the latter, for fear they might combust and set the land on fire, and left the rest. What a sight it made, the opened coffin on the grass, and the papers and the coins, and the hat. The silver bullet alone I placed in the bodice of my costume.

  Then I strayed away over the meadow, among the feeding goats, and picking up an apple, ate the red skin and the white flesh of it.

  Possibly I might come on a goatherd. I would say, Where is the road? And he or she, meeting the eyes of Anna or of Andre icspect-ively, would blush and hoarsely inform me there were no roads at all: this was Elysium.

  But I met no goatherd.

  Light and shade rained down and spangled everything. Then, on a slope beyond the orchard, I found a path after all, not wide enough for any carriage, yet I followed it. What did it matter if I lost my way? I should find it again. Help was always available. And he, like the moon in the sky of night, could not hide himself for very long.

  The day was an idyll. I think I never spent such a day. Perhaps I had, as Andre; some picnic or excursion into the hills above the City.

  I was all alone in a country that had no human things, only sunshine, trees and wild flowers, only the strands of streams and huge boulders clung with moss. Birds flashed and fluted. And though I saw animals playing and eating, never once did I discern a cot or hut, let alone a village, let alone the mirage of any distant metropolis.

  How quickly it came and went.

  Noon passed over like a wave, and afternoon, three waves, or more. The sun westered, the world slipped back towards the shadow.

  High among the pines, I came on a stone that might have been an altar. Beyond, the forest lessened. Far away, miles away, in a cup of distance, I saw an architectural structure, which I knew from some dream.

  Going down the escarpment I lost the view, but found a broad stream, not at all shallow. It wound away northwards, under the trees. Not quite a river, but by the stones, a small narrow boat with one long pole, lay tethered and waiting.

  Though not underground, the Hadean stream coiled through the trees, and night began to fill the hollows and put out the afterglow. Then a mist did rise, out of secret places in the banks; cold and fragrant. I stood in the boat and poled my way along. Often a fierce current drifted us downward with no labour on my side at all. Blackness came, and black willows swept to the stream. I poled my way through mourning-veils. The pines seemed more animal than floral. Did they move about when I had passed, with huge soft steps? The mist encircled my thighs, my waist, but rose no higher. And now I myself was Charon.

  Suppose this is not the way? Then I will find it at another hour.

  Is there time? All time and none.

  How wonderful it was, the sense of abandonment. All things gone but one focused goal. And that pristine and sure, whatever was or would be between. Liberty. Truth. To have two names, and neither, to be one being now, and there another, and perhaps no one, perhaps all. Here is the dark, and here am I, of the dark.

  I followed the graceful stream.

  It came at me suddenly, with an awesome shriek. I could not see what it was, but I raised the pole and swung the length of it between us. The merest collision resulted, but the pole shuddered and the boat pitched. Not quite letting go the pole, I fell to my knees.

  From the blackness, two albino eyes, a beak of burning wire. Wings. It flung itself at me again.

  Some nocturnal bird I had dismayed, or some guardian of transit.

  The feathers of its black wings guttered and ignited as it threw itself at me again and again. Now an eye seared. Now the beak stabbed for my throat or sight. A talon scored my hand. It dashed itself against me, to take the blood, and I let go the pole and seized its neck like a snake's, and broke it.

  I hurled the corpse into the stream, the night.

  Horror and hell were all around. I had no strength. I had fallen down into the boat and lost the guiding pole, also my only weapon.

  Fool, to abandon the reality and laws of the sensible world, to set out on this perilous course.

  Now I lay in the boat as in the coffin, less optimistic than then, and only the current drew me on.

  I cannot go to you armed then, in armour. When I approach with pride, with a book, a loaded pistol, these are of no avail.

  The stream ran fast now, and straight. We plunged out under the open sky. The moon had not risen, yet there it was, down among the trees. The boat sidled to the shore, and rocked there, refusing to continue.

  I was following the moon. A land moon, crossing the surface of the earth. She glimmered between the trees. I reasoned to begin with that this must be some man or woman, at last, and carrying a lantern.

  The village, to which the moon led me, was deserted. It lay outside a palisade of trees, all up an incline, like fallen stones. As I came out into its grass-grown lanes, among the toppled chimneys, I saw for the first that what flitted along before me was the figure of a girl. She passed through the houses in a way that gave me to suppose she was not solid, not flesh.

  Where the derelict village ended, the land opened to a sheet of black mirror, a tarn of water. The girl, a quarter of a mile away from me now, seemed to glide out on to it, bobbing there like a candle-flame, but when I too reached the brink, there was a massive causeway, with huge paving-blocks, well able to accommodate a carriage.

  After the causeway and the tarn, appeared the structure I had seen at sunset.

  It was a ruin, of course. In the darkness the impression was of solitary standing walls, perforated by round glassless spoke-framed windows, like colossal wheels, similar to those found in ancient churches. Higher than the highest, a tower broke the sky. It was out of all proportion to the landscape, or so it seemed, too tall, like a funnel spun of black night, yet it also was cleft at the top, blasted wide as if by the hand of God.

  The glimmer of the ghost-girl went up the shore and in among the ruin like a moth attracted to warmth or light. There was light. I made it out as I drew closer.

  In a wall against the tower, a featureless door had been cut, and the ground rose up to it in a flight of steps. Above this door a window like a spiderweb held a sonorous living glow.

  The ghost, if she was, had disappeared. No carriage, and no horses, were in evidence. Only the lit window. The tower leaned and the wind of night sighed through its great axed cranium, the alleys of shattered corridors, the window-wheels, as through the fingers of the pines.

 
; I climbed the sunken, uneven steps, and touched the door, which opened.

  It was a priest's chamber, perhaps the ruin was indeed that of some religious building. The light came from a pale and leaping fire, and from candles in silver stanchions. There were a few pillars, with a soft, grey-velvet texture, a long table of darkest mahogany, pulled close to the fire, with some objects on it of glass that caught the flames and reflected them down into the wood. Three silver crucifixes of various heights stood on the sculpted mantelpiece above the hearth, and above these, hung a sword in black chains. This was all the room seemed to contain.

  I shut the outer door, and advanced across bare flagstones. As I passed the table, a crystal apple on it turned to red amber, then to insubstantial pearl, as the flames brimmed and drained it.

  In the farther wall there was an inner doorway, with a dark curtain thrust to one side. Beyond, through the echo-chamber of the great barrel-vault of tower, a sound was tenuously beginning. Was it music I heard, or only some deception, a whining in the coals of the fire, my own blood singing, silence itself?

  No, the eerie sound came full upon me now, sweeping down the arteries of stone into the small mouth of the doorway.

  High in the tower, Antonina played her piano, as in the rented house at Paradys. She played the carriage-ride, the savage headlong race across the plains of darkness, the rough track, and the race of the pines overhead - she played the slowness of the Hades stream, the languor of relentless willnessness, obsession and dim night…

  Close by, the ghost-girl clung to a pillar. The firelight came and went in her, as in the apple of glass. Did I recall her from some occult tampering in the house of Philippe, some seance? Was she a girl, or a crone? She looked familiar, and not so. She throbbed, the whole length of her, to the pulses of the piano. I said to her: 'What are you doing here? Your time is over." And she faded to nothing. She was gone.

  The piano crashed like thunder. It ascended and rushed down the scale, searching new peaks and abysses of cold brilliance, power and menace. It was not Antonina who played.

  Presently the torrent stopped. I turned from the door and retreated to the far side of the hearth. It was a retreat, but not unstrategic. I had remembered a stance Philippe's mother had been wont to take, her back straight, her head slightly raised, her hands clasped together at her waist above the fall of her gown. I assumed it, and when I heard his step, on the stairway, on the flags of the room, did not turn to face him.