“Charles,” I began softly. “What about the Scholomance?”
Charles looked at me as if I had gone mad. “The Scholomance?” he whispered. But then I saw him work it out in his mind, saw him consider the other options and realize there were none. “Daniel, what have we done?” he asked, looking up at me.
“I don’t know, Charles. But we are in it now. We might as well see it through.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. And then more surely: “Let’s go.”
We walked now, down to the corridor that led to the Scholomance. I allowed myself a moment to realize the storage room we had found ourselves in only a night before sat beside that door. It was clear to me where the shadows came from while we were locked inside.
We walked down the hallway to the winding staircase, and in no time at all we had reached the portal to the Scholomance. We pulled out our pistols once again and braced ourselves for combat. I slipped the key inside and threw the door open. We rushed into the corridor beyond, leaping into the high vaulted chamber of the Scholomance. As I had expected somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, it was empty.
Charles slumped against the outer wall, uttering the most pathetic sounding “no” I had ever heard. I stood in the middle. Somehow, I wasn’t concerned. Something was working in the back of my mind, something that had been there since the first moment I had entered this room.
“All is lost!” Charles wailed.
“Shh!” I spat violently. “Hush your whining, Charles.”
For a moment I regretted the tone, but then my mind went back to work, and Charles’s silence was a blessing. I looked around the chamber. I looked at the unholy etchings on the wall, at the indentations in the stone where unnamable books had once sat. My eyes scanned the room, finally resting on the massive mural of Lucifer on the far wall. Then, I saw it.
“Charles,” I said.
“What?” he asked tersely.
“Have you seen a crucifix? Anywhere? In this whole place?”
“No,” he responded, obviously surprised. “Why?”
“I see one now.”
He stood up and walked over to me. “What do you mean?”
I pointed, and his eyes followed. It was something that had stuck with me, subconsciously, an incongruity that made no sense but wasn’t so obvious as to invoke my conscious mind. There, in Lucifer’s left claw, was a cross.
“Why would you put a cross here, of all places?”
Charles simply shook his head. I walked up to the mural, running my hand over the wall. The cross was not painted; it was raised ever so slightly. I grasped it with my fingertips and, as I suspected, it began to turn. I spun it clockwise. And then, when it was fully inverted, it clicked into place. I heard a rumble beside me. The stone slab on which the image of Lucifer had been etched slid aside, revealing another winding staircase leading further down into the heart of the mountain. From somewhere far below, the faint sound of chanting could be heard. I looked at Charles and him at me. The fire was back in his eyes. Without a word, we began our descent.
This time we moved carefully, slowly, down the winding staircase. I found my eyes drawn to the walls. There, written in crimson, were words. Some I recognized, some I didn’t. Dark words they were, names of demons and whispered works some would say were written by their hands. I remember some of them: Saducismus Triumphatus, De Praestigiis Daemonum, Clavicula Salomonis. Apollyon, Semiazas, Moloch, Belial.
There were many more, but they have escaped my memory now. One step at a time we went, the sounds from below growing stronger as we descended. I would tell you what they said, but it was in a language I didn’t understand, an old language, an ancient tongue. Then the stairway turned sharply to the right, and the scene was unveiled before us.
* * *
I will describe the scene as I saw it, but even now I think it must have been something out of a dream, nay, a nightmare. The stairway opened into yet another cavern, this one larger than the one above. It lacked the other’s decoration, but there was something about it, the smell, the look, the feel, that was sinister, evil. It was ancient, eldritch. There was a gaping hole in its center, a deep pit that, judging from the darkness that seemed to emanate from it, ran on to the very center of the Earth. But it wasn’t the chamber that struck me the most. No, it was the semi-circle of women who surrounded that gaping maw.
It was, I suppose, the entire sisterhood. But you wouldn’t know it. They were locked in some sort of demonic ecstasy, swaying and jerking in time to the rhythm of their own chanting. They were led by Abbess Batory who stood before them, leading them as a conductor might an orchestra. And they were all, to a woman, naked, save for long black cloaks that hung from their shoulders.
But that was not the worst of it. Were it so! Anna and Lily were there as well. Both women were tied to thick stakes that had been driven into the ground before the pit, their eyes covered by blindfolds. At least their clothes had been left to them. The same could not be said for Vladimir, whose fate was so horrific I hesitate to describe it. He had been crucified, but the cross on which he had been nailed leaned over the mouth of the pit, held back from the plunge by a single thick rope tied to the rock behind it. Vladimir’s skin had been slashed, and the blood flowed in torrents from his body down into the void below him.
For minutes we stood there, shocked into silence at what we saw. The ritual continued before us. Finally, Charles pulled out his pistol and fired a shot. The roar of the gun rent the air, and the rhythmic chants screeched to a halt. All eyes were suddenly on us, all that is, except Abbess Batory’s. She stood, back turned to us, before slowly turning to face where we waited. She looked at us, her cold, dead stare boring a hole in me. Then, she smiled.
“Daniel!” Lily screamed.
“What in God’s name!” Charles yelled.
“God?” Batory said with a sinister grin. “There is no god here. Not yet.”
“Free them,” Charles commanded, leveling his pistol at Batory. “Free them now!”
Batory jerked her head to the right, and two of the women advanced. They did not release the girls, but they did remove their blindfolds.
“Look upon your lovers. Look upon them before they die.”
“I said to free them,” Charles spat.
“Ah, Lord Charles. So used to command. So used to getting exactly what you want. Not tonight, not tonight. Tonight is Walpurgis, and they are my guests. You may not have them.”
Charles cocked his pistol. At that moment, the sisters who had removed the blindfolds of the two women pulled sharp, curved blades from their cloaks, pressing them tightly against the girls’ throats. I shuddered as the point of one drew a drop of blood from Lily’s neck.
“No!” Charles screamed.
“It appears we’re at an impasse. But it is no matter. Stay, and witness the rebirth of he who walks in shadow.”
“You are insane,” Charles spat.
“No, my ignorant child. The insane live in a world that is not. We see the world as it will be. You will see it, too.”
“Free her!” he commanded, once again.
Batory merely smiled. “Certainly,” she said. “She is not needed. Vladimir will suffice. Place your weapon on the ground and come for her. Daniel, you do the same. Leave your weapon behind, and free the one you love. You have my word I will not harm you.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Alright,” Charles yelled to Batory, ignoring me. “Alright,” he repeated, as he knelt down to place his pistol on the ground.
“No!” I said, grabbing Charles by the arm. He turned and looked at me, his eyes determined, yet resigned, to whatever fate would come. “I must, Daniel,” he whispered pitifully. “I will either save her or I won’t. I’ll either live, or I won’t. But without her, there is no point in escaping.”
He was irrational, but at that moment, argument was useless. I released his arm. He nodded once to me, giving the best half-smile he could muster in that moment. And then he was gone, wa
lking gingerly around the pit in the center of the chamber. I reached down and grabbed the pistol he had left on the ground.
Batory watched Charles as he walked, but none of the other women moved. As he approached the pole to which Anna was tied, the woman who stood behind her removed the knife from her throat, stepping back into the group surrounding them.
Charles ran to her, ripping the bonds that held her to the stake, speaking to her as he did, but in words I could not hear. Then, she was free. I saw them embrace. For one golden moment, I felt the love between them. But then I saw one of Anna’s hands fall to her side. When it rose again it wasn’t empty. There was a flash of light as fire glinted off steel. Then it was gone as her hand fell again, this time with purpose.
I saw Charles jerk backward, saw the look of shock in his face, watched as Anna seemed to drag her hand along his back, and finally felt myself sicken as the blood poured from the gash she had carved to the stone floor below. Charles collapsed to the ground.
Batory’s cackle echoed throughout the chamber.
“Foolish,” she said, looking from Charles's writhing body to me. “We tried before, you know. A year ago today. We read the ancient rights, made the sacrifice as it was prescribed. But, you know, the storybooks are wrong. The darkness does not call for the blood of a virgin; it does not seek the life of an innocent. So when we sacrificed Father Kramer, our offering was rejected. No, the darkest magic calls for the darkest soul. But how to attain that? How to harvest one such as this?” she said, gesturing toward Vladimir who still moaned and bled from his perch above the pit.
“Do not mourn for him,” she said, seeing my eyes drawn to Vladimir’s dying body. “How many lives has he snuffed out? How many have given their blood so he could have his fortune? You will never know, but believe this — there are few souls as dark as his. Anna was our hunter,” she said turning to the girl, “and she did well to bag her quarry.”
“And what of us?” I asked. “Why are we here?”
Batory turned back to me and arched one eyebrow. “Well, Mr. Lincoln, I don’t know. Why are you here? We did nothing to draw you. You came of your own accord. Fate alone brought you.”
“What now?”
“Yes, what now,” she repeated, as she walked over to where Charles lay. “Your friend,” she almost moaned, “his was always to die. Too noble, this one. His breed is too single-minded, too unbending. Death was always his muse, and death has come for him. But you,” she said, looking up at me, “you, Daniel, are different. I sense in you a desire to seek the truth, whether it be in the light or the darkness.”
“What is the truth?” I asked, tightening my grip on my pistol as I spoke.
“The truth?” she asked. “The Christian age has ended. When John wrote Revelation, he did not see a vision of the end of the world. Not the physical one, at least. No, his was a story of rebirth. Long have they slept, Daniel, the ancient lords of this world. Too long. But their return is upon us. Accept that now, and stand with us. She can be yours, Daniel,” she said, pointing to Lily. “I can make it so. He can make it so.”
I stood there in silence as she spoke. There was something in her voice, something that drew me, despite all of my being crying out against her words.
“I was once like you,” she said. “Afraid, enslaved by those who came before. But when I arrived here, he came to me in my dreams. I saw this place, buried deep beneath the mountain. We found it. The workers, they ran. Their superstitions told them to fear this place. But I wasn’t afraid. No, I embraced it. Now I will bring him back. The lord of the Earth. Gog, Lucifer, Temeluchus, Vaspasian, Marluk, and a thousand other names in tongues long dead. When he is risen, he shall call forth the Great Old One, he who sleeps beneath the waves in the City of the Dead, the City of Darkness, until death itself passes away.
“He shall rise, and the shade will cover the Earth again, as it did in the old times, before the slave God split the darkness, speaking light into the night.”
“No,” I stuttered in reply, breaking from the web she wove around my mind. “No, this is all insane. You’ve gone mad and taken them with you. But I’ll have none of it. Release her!” I commanded, once again leveling my pistol at Batory. She began to laugh.
“Would you kill me then, Daniel? Would you kill us all?” As she spoke, the numberless other women in the room removed the same long, curved blades as Anna had held. There were too many of them, and if Batory gave the command, my fate would be sealed.
“What you do does not matter. The sacrifice is nearly complete.” She pulled the same long knife from inside her cloak and grabbed the rope holding Vladimir over the pit. With one swift slash she cut the rope from its mooring. Only her holding the top half kept the cross from plunging into the abyss below.
“When we are finished here, we will have immortality. And not a vain promise of such — a fantasy, a dream of another world. No, we will rule here. For all time.”
Now she turned from me and held her free hand up to the sky. From deep within her came guttural cries. Words I suppose, but of an old tongue, one I doubted had ever been spoken by the mouth of man. I looked from her to Lily. There was resignation in her face, sadness too, but strangely, no fear. She looked at me with a cold determination, a commanding look that said I was to do as she wished. She mouthed one word, “Run!”
I looked from her to where Charles lay. He was moving now. Then he looked up at me and winked. I cocked my head to the side, confused. But it was then I saw the long, slender stick he held — the dynamite from the night before.
Things moved quickly. Charles had a match in his hand. I knew several things at once. This was my only hope, and if the women saw what Charles was doing, all would be lost. I also knew there would be no saving Lily. But I determined in that moment if she would die, those responsible for her demise would taste death first.
“Batory!” I cried.
She looked down at me and smiled. I raised the pistol in my right hand, aimed at her chest, and fired. The sound of the gun echoed like cannon fire throughout the chamber. Then there was silence. Batory stood her ground, a look of shock spreading over her face as quickly as the circle of crimson grew across her chest.
The next few seconds were a blur. In the corner of my eye, I saw the flickering light of the now-lit dynamite. Charles had collapsed, apparently having given his last breath for the act. Batory fell to her knees, and her grip released on the rope she held, plunging cross and Vladimir into the darkness below. Almost in unison, the other women howled with unnatural might.
I leveled my pistol again, striking down the woman who stood closest to me — Anna. Then, I fired wildly, fired until the hammer of the pistol merely clicked against the empty chambers. I looked at Lily, one last time.
“Go!” she screamed.
I should have stayed, I should have tried to save her, even if any attempt was impossible. Instead I ran, as fast as my legs could carry me, up the spiraling steps, through the secret door. As it slammed behind me, there was a rumble from below, and then the whole Earth began to shake. I ran out of the Scholomance, up to the world above, while it seemed as though the entire mountain was collapsing behind me.
What happened next is shrouded in haze. I left that fortress behind, saddling one of the horses in the stable and riding it out of the gates and down the mountain. I have told you the things I saw that night inside that chamber. But the specters that floated down around me on that ride, the howling wolf that dogged my steps, the flying beast that soared against the Beltane moon, those things I will take to my grave.
I reached the village below after sunrise. Just beyond the edge of town, my horse fell dead beneath me. I suppose I was lucky he made it that far. I walked aimlessly down the main street, my mind no longer working. The innkeeper met me.
“You must not stay here tonight,” he said.
Bless that man. I might not be here without him. He put me on the first coach to Budapest with strict instructions I was to be placed on a train
to Venice as soon as I arrived. He paid for all of my accommodations, a cost I would reimburse him for generously in days gone by.
In three days, I arrived in Venice. There, Lawrence nursed me back to health. I credit him this — he never asked me what happened, never inquired as to what I saw. Two weeks later, he transported me to Rome, primarily so he could tell my father without falsehood my tour was complete.
In all those days that followed, though, I never slept through the night. Never completely. I would always awake, screaming for Lily, sobbing uncontrollably. Those terrors come less frequently now. But sometimes, when the night is right and the moon is full, I find myself transported back to that place. I hear that sound, that awful sound that robbed me of my mind and nearly cost me my sanity in the years afterward.
For I have neglected one part of my story. The pit must have been deep, and Vladimir’s fall long, but as I ran up the stairs, his body must have finally reached the bottom of that ungodly chasm. In the long second between when I reached the summit of those steps, but before the sound of Charles’ explosion filled the air, another roar split the night, the same roar that haunts my dreams.
An unearthly cry, an otherworldly thunder, the deep and impossible howl of a beast awakening in the heart of the abyss.
Part IV
Chapter
19
Carter Weston:
The bartender threw another log on the fire, and as he did, the already burning wood cracked and spat embers into the air. They burned for a moment, lived for only an instant, before vanishing into the night. The wind blew with its greatest intensity, and the snow fell in sheets. The heart of the storm was upon us, revealing that its earlier fury had been only a preview of things to come.
Daniel sat silently now, the blood having long ago left his face and hands. He had relived the ordeal in the telling, and to my eyes, it appeared it had taken all his strength to complete it.
“It is fortunate,” Captain Gray said, “that a man with your particular interests came upon us tonight. I would say,” he said, holding a thick cigar he had recently lit in the air, “it was fate. Do you believe in such things?” he asked.
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