* * *
Palmer could not remember the last time he had ran so hard, so fast, in all his times of combat.
But this time was different. He knew it was suicide, knew what he would unleash would matter naught if the blasphemy in the crypt had received her fill of souls and was free to walk the earth with her unholy children.
It is a gesture, nothing more. Yet what else can I do? Mayhap the occupiers will swap tales with the men who besieged their fortress if they reach their dotage; mayhap they will see each other as fellow Englishmen and brothers once more.
Who could ask for more? Nay, what less could be demanded? We have battled a force beyond the stars, from Hell itself, and if that does not unite men, nothing will. And then, we are truly – and deservedly – damned.
He leaped into the dead wood with jubilation. No longer did he feel the trepidation with which he and his Parliamentarian comrades had entered the unholy forest an evening and a lifetime ago; no longer did he feel the sense of ages past and lives spent, forgotten, as he jumped over the deadfall and slipped through the mulch and rotten leaf litter.
I am not afraid! Adrenaline surged through him, a fire and energy that made him feel alive, a direct defiance to the forces of death and decay that had ruled the forest for so long. Tendrils hissed and snapped at him, fissure-like maws moaned and cursed as he passed.
The moon spun above him. He did not know if he was in the centre of the wood; he did not know how powerful the blast would be. It matters not.
The woods had indeed thinned. Gone was the silver gleam of moonlight on dead wood; gone was the oppressive crowding and bunching of oaks that surely could not have grown and matured in such confinement; gone was the obscuration of the heavens. A brilliant, moonlit night with a bursting of stars painted the sky when he looked up.
The stars are right. Oh, you are not wrong there, Shadrach! The stars are right indeed!
Perhaps he should have chosen a thicker set of trees. He must be in the centre of the woods, yet it felt empty. The guardian or guiding soul – or spirit, or daemon – had departed.
‘Tis an empty gesture, then? Nay, not so! He sat in a clearing that he knew had not been there before – fancied he saw something of Overy’s features in the nearest trunk – and settled to light the tinder.
Another roar of cannon, closer this time. Palmer wondered how long it would be until Boughton and Smythe sent patrols in.
Yet they assaulted the wood with cannon, even before daylight. They attacked before dawn, a full day before the promised ordnance would be supplied!
He stood, his tinder forgotten. Realisation was a cold, wet blanket thrown over him; his energy was sapped and he could no longer breathe.
And now, an explosion that could not have been delivered by cannon. The light came from behind, throwing the remainder of the dead wood into stark relief: white, skeletal trunks with distorted limbs that surely belonged to men sentenced to hang. Then the hot blast of air that threw him to the ground, sucked the air from his lungs as leaf mulch and fragments of twigs and branches raked his hair. Then the thunder of stone falling to the ground, the splash of masonry blocks falling into the sea.
And all the while, a maelstrom in the sky that roared with the voices of man, daemon, and god.
But which God? Palmer thought, his torn snapsack lying in a ditch, his tinder box forgotten. Which God?
Even the air burned. Palmer turned, tried to take a breath, and felt his lungs were roasted; but what he saw stopped the very action of breathing.
The monastery had succumbed to the destruction wrought upon it. The buttresses, the roof of the nave, the walls supporting the ribbed vaulting – all had collapsed, flattened, become lifeless, like the ancient grave markers in the garden.
But the old lighthouse: that remained, proud and true.
And burning. Fire, fierce and hellish, from the tower itself, and skeins of flame, tunnels of fire coursing through the ancient stonework. Flames did not leap and dance from the tower; rather, they had the flat, contained manner of…
…the fire that possessed the beast in the nave…
…a coloured woodcut of an inferno. Palmer stared in horrified, numb amazement, saw something expelled from the nearest window with a thunderous blast of air and shattered glass accompanying their descent…
…falling into the clutching tendrils of the Young. And yet, those tendrils no longer clutched, no longer writhed. They were motionless, frozen; immobile.
And Palmer realised what had fallen through it. A man on fire, a blazing, human inferno that surely could not survive such a conflagration – let alone a fall.
Palmer glanced behind him. The heart of the dead wood was long gone, but so too had the unholy force that powered it. He stared at the Young that had advanced across the causeway and the moat, saw that they too were still.
The invading cannon were silent. Ah yes; now he sends his troops in!
Captain James Palmer laughed. The mirth did not sound like his own laughter, rising in pitch until it was a high-pitched screech, hyperventilating until he could no longer see clearly and everything was an illusion, unreal.
From the face of Lieutenant Sanders, with a concerned, fatherly look about him, to the cold, cynical grimaces of Colonels Boughton and Smythe.
To the impossible figure that stood from the burning, motionless wreckage of the Young in the churchyard, his body aflame and melting before Palmer’s eyes. Walking towards him, a man immune to the fire that should surely devastate any mortal.
The cold, hard smile and the right hand brandishing the hybrid-weapon, its Damascus steel a streak of diabolic hellfire in the holocaust, told him the man who rode with the Devil had been delivered by the angels.
Now Captain James Palmer began to scream.
EPILOGUE: When the Hurly-Burly’s Done…
“And the battle’s lost…and won.”
“Yet let’s be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn’d upside down.”
English ballad, Thomason Tracts
The fire continued long past midday. From the abandoned inn, Captain James Palmer stared dumbly at the conflagration that swept the woods, the inferno ordered by Sanders to remove all trace of the creatures within.
He watched the flames rear to the grey, sullen sky, illuminating the low cloud with scarlet and orange. Hell on earth – or mayhap, a promise of what was to come.
He fancied he could hear the screams of trapped souls as their wooden prisons finally released them, but that may have been the wind and the roar of the hungry fire.
A fire that paled into insignificance compared to the unearthly inferno that devoured the abbey. The ancient lighthouse remained standing, proof its original structure was constructed along different lines to that of the fallen monastery.
And mayhap a different purpose. Was it truly a lighthouse? Or were the beacons lit for other, darker purposes?
None could be as dark as what I witnessed last night, he thought, toying with the wrapped splints of his left hand. The ache of the broken fingers was a dull, constant throb, the pain of his missing thumb still sharp and agonising. A phantom injury, but Palmer did not mind. It was real, tangible.
Behind him, he heard Sanders cough. He did not turn, kept his eyes fixed on the devastation through the cracked window.
“You are well, Palmer?” There was guilt in the lieutenant’s tone. The question had been asked more times than Palmer could remember.
“Yes, sir. As well as can be expected.” His own tone was bitter, and Sanders flinched at the hurt and betrayal. “Expected… did you seriously expect us to survive, sir?”
“I did not know what lay in store for you, Captain Palmer. Boughton and Smythe knew more than they let on. I was led to believe Fairlight was host to nothing more than a regrouping of the King’s men. Not the blasphemy we witnessed.”
Palmer turned and stared at his commanding officer. He saw him with new eyes; saw the struggle between duty and conscience.
> But duty won. It always did, with older men. If that is the price of command, I’ll have none of it. “The colonels knew all too well! They also knew about Shadrach, did they not? They knew of his strange heritage, his weaponry…knew the shadow over Fairlight could only be banished by him.
“And we were ordered to accompany him, to support him…and die. Then the taint of the ‘Cursed Company’ would be gone.” He snorted. “Are we that much of an embarrassment, sir?”
Sanders sighed. “I do not think that was the plan. But you were…expendable.”
“And you must be pleased Lewis is dead…gone.” He turned back to the window, trying to see if any trace of the beast in the ruins remained. Smoke obscured his view; a fresh fire had been lit. “Smythe wasn’t, though. Remember the look on his face when the beasts stopped moving? Did you not think that odd? The first thing he asked me is ‘Where is the idol?’ He knew, sir. They had their own agenda, and now they failed; they seek to cover it up by burning all trace of their failure…our success.”
Sanders stared at his feet. “I do not suppose we will ever know the true story.”
“Not if you do not ask. I will ask them when I see them. They owe me that. God, they owe Lewis, Morton and Overy that at least.”
“They owe a far greater debt,” a familiar voice said, accompanied by the slam of the taproom door. Palmer turned, saw Sanders jump to his feet at the arrival.
Shadrach was clad in clothes purloined from the baggage train, yet he still looked the same man Palmer had met on that sortie after the battle of Haverton. Even the cloak and wide-brimmed hat looked identical.
There was no trace of the fire that cloaked him during his fall from the tower. A fall that would have killed a man before the flames consumed the flesh. No wonder Sanders looked like he had seen a ghost.
Shadrach glared at the lieutenant. “I take it your commanding officers have taken their leave?”
“Y-yes,” Sanders said. “There is urgent business in the west, and they have ridden to Taunton. They –”
“Get out.” Shadrach held the door open, a contemptuous jerk of his head over his shoulder indicating Sanders should leave immediately. “I would speak to Captain Palmer alone.”
Sanders hastened to obey. He stood, donned his hat. The peacock feather caught in the jamb as he scurried past Shadrach, tearing free. Shadrach slammed the door and savagely pulled the feather to pieces.
Palmer cautiously took a place at the table. He extended his hand, bid Shadrach to sit. Shadrach smiled faintly and took a seat opposite.
“You are not a’feared, Captain? To sit with a man who came back from the dead?”
Palmer shook his head. “After what I witnessed – and fought against – nothing will frighten me. Mayhap I imagined your fall…your burning.”
Shadrach stroked his chin with a gloved finger. The same scars as before were present, etched even more deeply, but his skin was untouched by flame. “Aye. Maybe. Kendall’s men remember little of last night, but they say how bravely you fought. You are to be congratulated, Captain Palmer. You learned the art of leadership at last.”
Palmer grimaced. “And how useless it is. I heard Smythe and Boughton offered them the opportunity of joining the ranks of the Parliament. They took it gladly, and will kill their fellow countrymen once more…this time, they will fight former comrades. For what? What is it all for, Shadrach? We defeated an opponent that should have united men, forged bonds of comradeship against a true enemy. Now they will forget that moment.”
“You sound disillusioned.”
“I am done with it.” Palmer’s voice rose, trembling with anger. “We are naught but pawns, fighting a war with no true enemy, to be sacrificed when military commanders deem necessary for their own ends. I will return to London, make peace with my father.”
Shadrach smiled broadly. “You will return to your apprenticeship and studies, then? Abandon military life, just when you are beginning to shine?”
Palmer frowned. “What is your meaning, Shadrach?”
Shadrach stood, and peered through the window. “The real war has just begun, Palmer. Fairlight is merely the start. Now the settlement is truly cursed; the portal I created with the ritual may be closed, but I guarantee things will have slipped through. It is the price you pay when you summon the Great Old Ones.”
“You have lost me, sir. What exactly did you do in the tower? Did you kill Kendall, or did the fire take him? And what is this ritual? And Great Old Ones? Of whom do you speak?”
“I see I have much to teach you. Far more than you can learn from your books. Remember I said the stars are right?”
Palmer nodded. “I still do not understand that. What did you mean?”
“Our real enemy comes not from this plane. The stars have performed a fatal dance, and the constellations indicate the time is right for the true enemy of mankind to take command of this Earth.” He turned and faced Palmer, and the young captain was shocked at the weariness and despair in the man’s brilliant blue gaze. “We are all besieged, Captain Palmer. We are now at war with entities beyond the curtain of night that hunger to possess this planet. What you saw – what you helped defeat – is merely one of many. The enemy is Legion.”
“Satan has many guises.”
“Not Satan, Captain. Worse than Satan.”
Palmer shuddered. “And where will the fight continue?”
Shadrach grinned. Now there was a dark gleam in his eye, a hunger. “I know not. But as you correctly surmised, Smythe and Boughton have much to answer for; they knew full well what had taken the monastery. I suspect they thought they could use me to control the Goat’s Young, to command an army of darkness. I will remind them of their folly…and prevent further meddling from them.”
Palmer nodded. Where is the idol? The frustration, the disappointment on the colonel’s face when he saw the ruins of the monastery and the inanimate forms of the tree-beasts. It made sense now.
“Sanders said they are riding to Taunton. A dangerous road; who knows what they may meet?” A cold satisfaction settled in Palmer’s stomach. Now was the chance to make those who played with his life pay with theirs.
“Do you fight for the King or the Parliament, Captain?”
Palmer stood and placed a hand on Shadrach’s holster. He withdrew the hybrid-weapon. The glyphs in the Damascus steel darkened as smoke drifted through the cracked window, but now they comforted him.
In a manner, they spoke to him. Shadrach had much to teach him, and proficiency in the use of this awesome weapon would, he knew, be the first of many lessons.
“Neither, Shadrach. Neither the King nor the Parliament.” A sudden grin. “Neither the Cross nor the Prophet. Like you, I fight for mankind.”
The smoke thickened as they took their leave. Darkness settled over the village of Fairlight, temporarily hiding the ruins of the monastery and the holocaust of the dead wood.
Only the dark tower of the lighthouse remained visible, and with it, the memory of a light, a beacon that summoned the faithful to prayer; shone and answered the very stars themselves.
And above, the stars hid behind the mask of daylight, biding their time.
THE SERPENT’S EGG – Jonathan Green
“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.”
John Keats
I
They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Well, it wasn’t like that for me.
It might be true for some, but when I died, all I saw was the aching void: hungry stars going supernova at the whim of dark gods; the death of galaxies; the black, soul-sucking horror of oblivion.
That is what I saw and that vision – a vision of the end of all things – will haunt my every waking and sleeping hour until death comes again for me.
II
I don’t know what it was that drew me to that place, in the autumn of 2012. I suppose you could argue it was the Writers’ Block, needing a break from the hubbub and busyness of London, hoping that a
change of scene might kick-start the creative juices again.
Then there was the familial connection. Admittedly, that was back in my great-grandparents’ time, my grand-father being the first to move south with his family after the war, and I’d never visited the area myself. I’m not sure that’s the real reason, however.
And then there was the legend of the Worm. To think of that story again, even now so many months after the events of that dark autumn, chills me to the core and makes gooseflesh rise on my arms, when once it had provoked such excitement and curiosity in me. And that story was certainly one reason that took me there.
It had always fascinated me, ever since I first heard my grandfather sing it to me. But now I wonder if some strand of that story was already there, in the very fibre of my being; a part of my personal story passed down from my great-grandfather and his forebears before him. Is the old notion that someone’s connection to the land - strengthened by time and blood ties - means that something within the land – or something dwelling deep beneath it – can somehow become bonded with them really such a foolish one?
The idea had been coiled at the back of my mind for some time – years, probably – to write a story based upon the legend, or at least inspired by it. Nothing like Stoker’s Lair of the White Worm, and certainly nothing like Ken Russell’s abomination of a movie. More like a historical horror story, told from the point of view of the so-called hero of the tale, Sir John Lambton, Knight of Rhodes. Something with a bit of grit, like the bastard offspring of Bernard Cornwell and James Herbert.
Ironically, after all that happened there in County Durham in the autumn of 2012, I find myself doing the complete opposite.
This is no historical horror. This really happened – or at least, it seemed a real enough experience at the time – and it happened to me.
Dreaming In Darkness Page 23