by Tanith Lee
But what had that been meanwhile—that glimpse he had had—something which passed across the slot thirty feet above; something white and vivid and—surely—alive—?
Arrested there, straining his neck, Brown was aware in that moment of a wild memory, the line of some poem, or of a song made from one, a piece by a well-known and respected poet and novelist—Thomas Hardy, was it?—Golden hair—open your window—Golden Hair—
Something shifted, some loose array of pebbles, or a rock, under the sole of one of Brown’s boots. Losing his balance, instinctively he grabbed for the side of the tower. But his hands missed their purchase, and met instead the warm waterfall of the creeper. How strong it was, yet exquisitely silky and soft, vibrant with its own aureate and glowing life-force. A delight to touch, to hold. And the perfume now, pouring over him, wonderful as some mysterious drug.
He sensed he could fall forward, and the creeper would respond. It would catch him and lull him, support and caress him; he need fear nothing. With a startled oath, Brown sprang backward. An icy sweat had burst from every pore of his body. The world rocked beneath him and all about. He was—quite terrified. What in God’s name had happened—?
“Damnation!” Brown exclaimed.
How absurd—the creeper—the creeper had attached itself to him, to his fingers, hands and arms—a rich swathe had folded itself against his chest, nestling there on his clothing, on the skin of his neck, stuck fast. For it was sticky. Sticky as some ghastly glue—
Struggling, writhing and floundering, he shouted and swore and tore at the encumbrance, trying exasperated, and next with all his strength, to pull free—how stupid, how silly. He was a fool—but how, how to release himself? The more he pulled and fought, the more it wrapped itself against, onto and around him—Now it had somehow got up into his hair, dislodging his hat, and it had wound about his throat—like an expensive muffler—and the scent, too sweet finally, cloying, sickening—he retched, and chokingly bellowed for help to some nonexistent fellow human, to the sky, and to the tower itself, to God—None and nothing replied.
• • •
Silence then. A hiatus. Brown had ceased to resist, since resistance seemed futile. Through his mind went a jumble of the words of the inn-host: “To go there—inadvisable. Even to look at it—unlucky.” So no one would come in this direction, and if they must, they would not look. Nor listen and heed, presumably, should they hear anyone calling or crying out for assistance—
In the name of Heaven, what was he to do?
Brown tried to collect himself together. The situation was fantastic, but had to be rectifiable. He was a grown man, not unstrong. True, he could not reach his pocket knife, the only cutting implement he possessed, aside from his teeth and nails—which would inevitably be inadequate. And the creeper had roped him round very securely. But there must be some way! Stay calm, and think.
Thoughts came, but they were no help. He saw himself instead held here for weeks, months, as he slowly died of hunger and thirst, or was poisoned by the stenchful sweetness.
So horrible was this, and so unusually sharply imagined, that for a moment he missed the other, newer sensation.
But then the faint quiver and tensing grew more adamant, and next there was a solid jerk that tipped him off his feet. Tangled in the weedy net he did not, of course, fall. Or rather, he seemed to be falling upward—
For several seconds, Brown did not grasp what went on. But soon enough reality flooded in. It would have been hard to ignore, indeed, as the ground dropped away, the hillside too, the forested valley, even the lower pines on the surrounding heights. The old stones rubbed slickly against him as he slid. The sky seemed to open, staring eyeless yet intent at his incongruous plight, while the creeper, muscular as the arms of a giant, dragged him without any effort up the stalk of the ancient tower.
• • •
Perhaps he lost consciousness for a minute. That was what had happened. He was only dimly aware of the rough tugging and squeezing that shoveled him in at the thin, hard window-slot. His knees and left shoulder were particularly bruised. But they were minor concerns, given the rest.
Spun up in the golden creeper-mass, coughing and retching still, the spasms uncontrollable if intermittent, Brown lay in a sort of knotted ball on a floor of bitterly cold stone. He was not able really to move, for the slightest motion, even the helpless oesophagal spasms, seemed to glue and mesh him more, and so confine him further.
The internal atmosphere was dark, though not lightless. The day poured through at the narrow slot and lit his golden chains heartlessly. Here and there patches of light also smudged the stony inner walls. They comprised a room he supposed, a guard-post, one assumed, centuries before. But now nothing was there, only himself, and the restraining weed.
Inadvertently almost, Brown thrust and rolled and kicked at his binding—or attempted to do so. It was, as earlier, to no avail—in fact, again, it made things somewhat worse.
Brown started to sob, but managed to subdue this. If he lost a grip on himself, he would have nothing left. Nothing at all.
Someone had hauled him up here. That much was self-evident. They had used the creeper, which must have been treated in some bizarre way, and had therefore become both lure and trap. Then they had dragged him in like any hapless fish on a line. Soon enough, no doubt, the villain—or villains—would return and hold him to account, maybe requiring a ransom. Brown groaned aloud, thinking of his two maiden aunts, neither wealthy, or the feckless uncle whom Brown had not seen for over fourteen years. But maybe there would be some other way. Or he might even escape, when once he was unbound.
Brown desperately longed then for his enemy to come back, to free him at least, if only partially, from the net. Presently he called out, in a stern although deliberately non-angry manner, firstly in English, then in the correct local vernacular.
No answer was proffered. There was no sound at all—aside, naturally, from the occasional brush of the breeze beyond the window-slit, the pulse of a bird’s wings.
Once he thought he heard a hunter’s dog bark two or three times, in the woods below. If only they would come this way—if only he might call again and be heard.
Brown composed himself on the hard, frigid floor, and in his cramped discomfort and bruised pain. He would have to be patient and stoical. Pragmatic.
The spasms had eased. The perfume reek seemed less. Conversely, he sensed the quietly dismal fetor of an enclosed and poorly ventilated place where beasts had died, and too many years stagnated.
He closed his eyes, for the constricted light dazzled, and the contrasting darkness was too full of cobwebs and shadows and shutness—except there, just beyond where his vision, his head being so constrained from movement, could reach—over there, in that wall, something that might be a very low doorway, a sort of arch . . . or maybe not.
• • •
Brown’s watch had stopped—some knock against the window embrasure. But the clock of the day had gone on, and now the evening arrived. The sky outside the tower was turning a soft, delicate mauve, with vague extinguishing tints of red toward what must be the west. It would be very dark soon. It would be night.
Had anyone come in to inspect their catch? He believed not, though somehow it seemed he had fallen either into a stifled doze, or else some kind of trance.
The choking and nausea had passed, but he could not now have moved, or struggled, even if the web containing him had permitted it. How curious, Brown mused, deep in his haphazardly self-controlled, near anesthetic misery, a web. For was not the creeper very like that, a web? Tempting and beautiful in its own way, but sticky, a snare, and the means to an ultimate capture. And storage.
Should he call out again? If anyone had entered the tower, and was below, they must definitely come up to see to him. There might be threats, or violence, but then, if they wanted him for ransom, at least for a while they woul
d try to keep him in one piece—or so he must hope. If he could talk to them, make promises—however rash or implausible—exhort them to see reason—He was not done for yet! He shouted, as loudly and calmly as he was able. And, after a minute, again.
And—yes. There was at last a faint yet quite distinct movement that he had heard, a little below and behind him. If only he could turn his head—Brown endeavored to, and his neck was spitefully wrenched. He gave out a quickly mastered yelp of physical hurt, protest, and frustration.
But the movement, the sound, was being repeated, over and over. Steps, he thought, soft, careful, rather shuffling steps, as of a person elderly, or somewhat infirm, climbing now up, toward this room.
Thank God, Brown thought. Thank God.
• • •
“Good evening,” said Brown, urbane yet cool, the proper tone, he had judged, in which to greet his lawless captor. The steps had taken a long time to reach him, and once during their progress he had called out again, but now having spoken, he lay bunched and dumb, tense in every fiber and nerve, awaiting a response—of any kind. Because he could not turn and see, Brown was visualizing myriad versions of the one who had so astonishingly made a prisoner of him. A bandit, or merely a peasant driven into crime, or some eccentric landowner, a savage child—but disabled, certainly, to assess those footfalls; nevertheless obviously dangerous and conceivably lunatic. Brown must proceed very prudently. Yet even as he speculated on and guessed at all this, he sensed the other behind him, not moving now, needing a pause to recover, maybe, from the climb, although there was no noise of labored breathing, or other token of distress. Perhaps some old wound had discommoded him, nothing recent, something to which he was accustomed. And now he only stood at the entry to the room, gloating. Or . . . unsure—could it be that? A robber regretting his act, or nervous that its victim, under his shackles, looked far from weak, or himself unable—
“What did you say?” asked Brown. His voice came out far too urgently, and frightened in tone. “I didn’t hear you,” he added firmly, now much too like a schoolmaster, he thought.
But the visitor had only made one small extra sound. Not a word, no, it had not been conversation. A type of whispering, wheezing, murmur.
“You’d better,” said Brown, “tell me straight out—”
And this was all he had time to say, before the one who had come in moved suddenly forward, and was against, and over, and on him.
Where he had had a glimpse of something gleaming and white high above, when he stood outside and below the tower, he had the impression now of a mask, pale as marble, yet glistening and streaming with an oily moisture that came from nowhere but itself. Nor was it any mask that resembled a human face. It was long and snouted and somehow blind—and yet—it could see—and there were huge long, slender needles—that might be teeth—and the large body was stretched out, horizontal, heavy, made of flesh but also hard and pale and gleaming-moist, and stinking, and there—hands—so many dead-white hands, each with just four fingers, and they flashed, flashed, and things tore at Brown, too fast to hurt, and then the hurt came, in long, openwork waves, and he screamed and thrashed in the ever-tightening ropes of the golden-yellow web, that was like hair, and would not give, or break, but Brown must give and Brown must break, and he gave and broke, and his screaming sank to a dull and mindless whining, and then to nothing at all, as the venomous fangs and the thirty-two claws of the creature the witch had raised from the womb on rampion and murder and darkness, began to prepare and present and devour its slow and thorough dinner. As already they had done, so many, countless times before.
Kiss Kiss
YOU SEE, I was only eleven when it began. I’m twenty-three years of age now. Just over twice that lifetime. But did I know more when I was younger? Was I more wise then than now?
The estate was small, and although my father was a prince, we were by no means rich. That is, we had fires in winter, and furs heaped on the beds. There was plenty of game in the forests for my father and his fifteen men to hunt and bring home as dinner. We had wine and beer. And in the spring the blossom was beautiful. And all summer there was the wheat, and afterward the fruit from the orchards. But I had holes in all but my best dress, as my mother did. One day, I would have to have something fine, because I would need to be married. I didn’t question this, the only use I was, being a girl: the princess. Sixteen was the normal age. My mother said I was pretty, and would do. It was all right. And on my eleventh birthday, he gave me, my father, this incredible present. Since we didn’t have so very much, seeing it, I knew, despite appearances, he must think I had a proper value. My mother gasped. I stood speechless. I really didn’t need him to say, “It’s gold. Gold over bronze. Be careful with it.”
I said nothing. My mother said, “But, dearest—”
He cut her short, as usual. “It can be part of her dowry. They’re popular in the city. They’re lucky, apparently. You may,” he said, “throw it up and catch it. Don’t roll it along. It would get scratched.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
I held the golden ball in utter awe. It was very heavy. It was, I think, for strong young lordlings to throw about. My slender wrists ached from its weight.
But I took it out through the neglected garden, and walked with it down the overgrown paths, to the lake among the pine trees where, in the worst winters, the wolves came, blue as smoke, and howled.
I’ve heard it said that sometimes when a man stands near the brink of a cliff, he may think, What if I step over? Just such an awful thought came to me as I stood by the lake, which was muddy and rushy in the summer evening. Suppose I let go the golden ball, and let it roll, scratching itself, over into the deeper water?
No sooner had I thought it, than a bird screeched in the trees of the forest on the lake’s far side. And I started, and the ball dropped from my tired hands.
It rolled, flush, through the grass, in through the reeds with their dry, brown-purple flowers. I ran after it all the way, calling to it, stupidly crying, No, no—
And then it slid over the water’s edge, straight in and down. Under the surface I saw it glimmer for one whole second, like a drowned sun. And then I saw it no more.
What could I do? I didn’t do anything. I stood staring after the lucky golden ball, lost in the brown mirror of water, sobbing.
My father hadn’t ever beaten me, at least, not with his hands. He had a hard tongue. I dreaded what he would say. I dreaded what I’d done. To be such a fool.
Gnats whined in the air. One stung me, and I scratched my neck, still crying. The scratching made a noise in my ear that suddenly said, “Little girl, little princess, why are you weeping?”
I stopped in amazement. Had I imagined it? The voice came again, “Can I help you, little princess?”
No one was there. Only the gnats furled over the dry flowers. At the edge of the water, in the shallows, something was stirring.
The sun was among the pines now, flashing. It caught the edges of the ripples in brassy rings. And two round eyes.
“Have you lost something precious?”
What was it? A frog . . . no, it was too big. The round eyes, colored like the duller flashes of the sun.
“Yes—I’ve lost—my golden ball.”
“I saw it go down. I know where it is.”
I thought, blankly, I’ve gone mad. It’s the fright. Like the girl last year when the wild horse ran through the wedding party. She went mad. She was locked away. They’ll lock me away.
I turned, to rush off up the sloping ground, toward my father’s disheveled towers.
The voice called again. “Here I am. Look. You’ll see, I’m well able to go after your precious ball.”
Then I stopped and I did look. And it came out of the water part of the way, and I saw it.
I gave a squeal.
It said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m gentle.”
It was like a frog. A sort of little, almost-man thing that was a frog. Scaled, a pale yet a dark green, with round, brownish glowing frog’s eyes. It had webbed fore-feet that might be hands. It held them up. They had no claws. And in its open mouth seemed nothing, but a long dark tongue.
I was terrified. It was a sprite, a lake-spirit, the sort the old women put out cakes for in the village, to stop their mischief.
It said, plaintively, “Don’t you want your golden ball, then?”
My first adult decision, perhaps, was between these two evils. My angry father, and the uncanny creature from the lake.
“I want the ball.”
“If I fetch it,” said the frog-demon, “I must have a favor in return.”
“What do you want?”
“To be yours.”
It was so unequivocal—and yet, as I found out soon enough, so subtle. “Mine? How?”
“To belong to you, princess.”
Was it pride or avarice, a desire for some power in my powerless existence? To have a spirit as my slave. No. I think I only knew I had to get back the ball. And because it hadn’t said to me, I must have your virtue, or, I must have your first-born child, as in the stories they do, I was just relieved to say, “All right. You can be mine. Please fetch it me!”