by Hughes, Rhys
Finishing the last bottle, we recovered our senses. We debated what action to take. “Evacuate now,” said Delves. “Set up a temporary camp on Yandro. Then we can descend and rebuild.”
I shook my head. “I have a smarter plan. It seems to me we can save ourselves the trouble of evacuation and resettlement. There is a subject I have been turning over in my mind recently: ghosts. Do you accept that Lladloh has a soul?”
I saw that the Reverend was willing to consider the heretical idea. “Though it is broken with depressing regularity, Lladloh persists through the centuries. The stones might not be the same but the essence of the village is unchanged. What does this suggest but that the spirit of Lladloh is indestructible?”
Delves adjusted his dog-collar. “An interesting thesis. I don’t see how it helps the town or its citizens.”
“But if we could materialise its spirit, we wouldn’t have to worry about future catastrophes. If we make Lladloh’s ghost solid, the village will be secure for eternity! All that is required is some holy ritual to bind the urban spectre to the earthly plane!”
“Such a ritual does not exist in the pagan Church.”
“What about exorcism, which is designed to banish phantoms? What if the chants of this service are reversed?”
Delves stroked his chin. “Yes, it’s possible. Why not? To catch the spirit of the community and solidify it means conducting the rite at its hub—the lounge of the nameless tavern. At this moment, it’s impossible to separate the essence and the corporality. Lladloh isn’t yet dead. The anti-exorcism must take place at the exact instant of dissolution, when the village’s ghost detaches itself from the houses and civic buildings! And there’s another major problem.”
“What is it?” My heart was pounding like a mortar, mashing anxiety into my bloodstream. My ears were pestles.
“The words of the backwards exorcism. They’ll have to be pronounced correctly first time. How in Beer’or’s name will I be able to do that? I don’t even know how they’ll sound!”
I snapped my fingers. “There’s no need for a live performance. Why not record the normal exorcism on a wax disc and then play it in reverse on a gramophone? Titian Grundy’s wife is a beekeeper; she can provide us with the wax. The mayor is in possession of a gramophone. I netted it a decade ago; he took a fancy to it.”
“Come, we’d better ask him if he’ll lend it to us. This is a risky operation, Giovanni. If anything goes wrong, I’ll hold you responsible. The survivors will need a scapegoat.”
I nodded numbly and we made our way to the mortuary chapel. The new Dennistoun Hommunculus, in accordance with tradition, lived in the same garret as the first. At the top of the chapel, under the leaking slates, he held gloomy court among spare tombstones and tambourines. The actual cemetery, of which the chapel itself is a grim memorial, is ringed by a wall shaped like a donkey’s tear. This is another example of mutation; I have forcefully proved, by dint of extensive research, that the original boundary resembled the sorrow of a pig.
As we approached the chapel’s entrance, we met Kingdom Noisette on his way out. The engineer was in a boisterous mood; he clapped his hairy palms and chortled. “Ee oop! I’ve just had an audience with ’is lowness. Planning permission ’as been granted for my scheme.”
I was aghast. “But we only have six days! How will you erect useful sea-defences in that time? I won’t help you.”
“Oh, no? But you’ll have to, laddie. The mayor’s issued orders. All citizens have to report to me for work tomorrow morning. Shall I say how I’m going to speed up my project? We’re not going to build a wall; every householder is going to extend his or her dwelling, on both sides, until it meets up with that o’ their neighbours! Filling in the gaps, I am! It will make a watertight spiral round Lladloh; then we’ll seal the opening and cheat the melting iceberg!”
Without waiting to hear the rest of his triumphant rhetoric, Delves and I rushed up the chapel steps to the garret. We made obeisance before the greasy-fringed demagogue who lay on his filthy bed, composing horrid verse. I felt sorry for the mayor: he was a talented poet and the effort involved in deliberately writing doggerel had taken its toll on his poor health. He was far more sprightly than he ought to be; indeed, the fever which he had to wear with the medallion and ermine robe seemed in danger of slipping off. Clutched between his bony knees through the thin sheets was a curious item: a miniature pyramid.
His lips moved awkwardly. “I’m working on an ode to this device. It appeared from nowhere above my bed; I reckon it’s a time machine. Wasn’t anything inside. Completely empty.”
I winced. His mind had obviously snapped; we knew that senility had been sucking on his desiccated lobes for some time. Stepping closer, I outlined my request. He gazed at me with blank eyes, scratching his nose with his harpy quill. “Gramophone? Oh that! Take it by all means.” With a casual wave, he returned to his travesty.
The instrument stood in a corner. With the Reverend’s help, and the aid of my belt, we strapped it to my back. Descending from the garret, I hobbled back to my restaurant, holding up my trousers with my thumbs. In the kitchen I placed down the gramophone and wound it tight while Delves sought out Titian Grundy, the local constable. His wife supplied us with enough beeswax to record the complete oeuvre of Cobalt Hugh, our busker. Using a meat-tenderiser, I hammered out a selection of golden discs. The Reverend took a book of services from a fold in his vestments and, under my cat’s sheltering sneer, recited the spell.
Eventually, we had an excellent recording of the ritual. I reversed the polarity of the gramophone’s spring and we listened to the ritual in reverse, the Reverend’s chants swooping backwards like bats unable to turn in a narrow tunnel. Gingerly, I touched the walls of my restaurant, smarting as Delves loosed a mocking guffaw.
“Nothing will happen until the point of Lladloh’s death. Its spirit is still firmly locked away in its bricks!”
“Then there is nothing more we can do. We must wait for the correct hour. But I can hardly bear the suspense!”
“I’m sure Kingdom Noisette’s project will help to take our thoughts off things. I just can’t believe that water will destroy Lladloh. In the previous calamities not a single citizen has drowned!” He squinted. “How on earth do I know that? Most odd!”
I cleared my throat. The Reverend’s erudition on the topic had much to do with last week’s macaroni cheese...
Needless to say, his words about the diverting effects of the grand project were proved correct. I do not intend to make a fuss about what occurred over the next five days. The scheme blistered my mind as well as my hands; the Reverend and I spared no pains in sharing our knowledge of the hour of Lladloh’s doom. It was to no avail. The engineer didn’t doubt our forecast, but believed he could finish the undertaking before the week was out. His poor judgment was backed by the mayor, who never descended from his garret to view our plight.
Active rebellion was out of the question. Dennistoun Homunculus had issued a direct command—to ignore it would be to risk being sacrificed to one of the local members of the pagan pantheon. Such martyrdoms often involve plummets from great heights: offenders are cast over the side of the stone bridge on the edge of town; or defenestrated from the eyeless windows of the nameless tavern’s upper floor; or hurled into the smoking crater of Yandro, home of Cthulhu’s uncle.
The sea-defences proceeded slowly. Like I said, Lladloh is full of detached houses. Ramparts were extended from each building so that they inched closer to their colleagues. Halfway through the task, I made an observation. Previously there had been enough space for a falling house to crumple to dust without grazing a neighbour. This was no longer true. The range of tumblings now overlapped: the buildings resembled dominoes placed upright, waiting for a finger to push over the first and initiate a chain-reaction. I informed Delves of my anxieties. He simply wiped his forehead with his trowel and shrugged.
“No matter. The project must be abandoned. We should convene at the tavern.�
�� He consulted the clock I had provided him with, calling to the others: “One hour to go! Down tools and follow me!”
Kingdom Noisette flapped between the departing labourers. “Good for nothings! Indolent fools! If you’d put your backs into it, the job would be finished! Now we’ll all be gargling!”
Olaf, always sensitive to the engineer’s needs, had lovingly sealed the cracks in the tavern. Also, on his own initiative, he had installed a periscope which protruded from the roof and offered excellent views of the town from the comfort of the lounge. We filed into the establishment and took our places at the bar, feet resting on the brass rail, symbolic glasses of mead raised to our lips. The Reverend wound up the gramophone and waited for the correct moment to engage the motor. Minutes passed as unevenly as pints. Sitting in state before the hearth, the mayor doffed his tricorne hat and wept dramatically. I considered clutching Elizabeth Morgan for comfort; I wisely desisted.
Scanning the horizon with his periscope, Olaf muttered: “Can’t see anything. Are ye sure Ragnarok’s today?”
“Absolutely.” The Reverend’s hand trembled over the gramophone. The timing was crucial—the inverse exorcism had to commence as soon as the village’s phantom gingerly poked its ectoplasm out of the cobbles. After an agony of waiting, the clock struck the hour. I closed my eyes. Delves still did not unleash the chant; a concerned muttering grew. I opened my lids. Outside, the village was silent. The crowd shuffled impatiently; I saw they were succumbing to boredom. Iolo Machen twiddled his crook; D.F. Lewis wrote his nine-thousandth short story in a puddle of beer; Medardo performed assorted ballet antics.
Keen to disperse the communal frustration, I volunteered to venture out, to gauge the state of affairs. The door was opened as narrowly as possible; I squeezed through. I wandered the plaza, searching for proof of looming doom. I walked to Cobweb Cottage, the edge of town. The sea was as peaceful as an exhumed grave.
While I rested in the obtuse shadow of the edifice, the breathless figure of the Reverend bounded over to me.
“Giovanni!” he gasped. “We must return at once. The clock you gave me! Where did you get it? It’s fast!”
Suddenly I understood my mistake. As I have mentioned, the clocks I caught were often broken; some were in perfect working order. Even these were inaccurate. Such timepieces still ran on Greenwich Mean Time. But Greenwich had not existed for a dozen centuries. Hours were now reckoned using Lladloh Nasty Time—a more brutal method.
When I told the Reverend that the clock had come from the ocean, he plucked at my elbow. “Hurry!”
I lost my balance and slumped against Cobweb Cottage. At once, with a horrid moan, the entire structure toppled. I knew what this meant—we were in the vicinity of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The building crashed against its neighbour and this also tumbled; an irreversible process. As Lladloh was arranged in a spiral, each house formed part of the domino matrix. Right at the end of the helix, the nameless tavern waited like a thumb ready to be pulped by a hammer.
There was one chance of survival: if we reached the gramophone and started the anti-exorcism before the last house crushed the life out of the tavern, we could exile the dying body of Lladloh and replace it with the solidified community spirit...
As I ran, I became aware that the houses were falling with a hush. Fate had placed a finger to its lips, perhaps in respect for the dismal irony. The collapse was accelerating, hastening toward a finale. We had a big advantage in being able to take the shortest route to the tavern, while the apocalypse was condemned to a roundabout approach. Around us, the noose tightened—the outskirts looped closer. I watched the chapel vanish; my restaurant; the lingerie shops. This scene felt unreal; like a camel’s dream of smoothness.
At last, we dashed into the tavern and the Reverend threw himself onto the gramophone. The motor was engaged and the chant flooded through the lounge. All else was static. When it was over, Delves wore a smile, the smuggest of his career. “Benediction!”
I stood. Something was not quite right. No light shone through the windows; an oppressive weight seemed to surround the tavern. In answer to my questioning frown, Delves opened the door. He was confronted by a solid stone wall. Turning, he matched my look with one of equal horror. We knew what had happened; a grotesque side-effect of our operations. I swallowed dryly as Olaf took his axe from under the counter and smashed the windows, revealing a similar expanse of impassible stone. The blond giant cursed: “Longships and runes!”
Stricken, I made the announcement. “Burghers of Lladloh! We’ve been more successful than I bargained for. We’ve solidified not only the soul of the present village but all of those which preceded it. As buildings were never erected in the same place, this simultaneous materialisation has surrounded us with a myriad variants of Lladloh. Only the tavern has always occupied a single location. Were it not for this happy fact, we’d now be embedded in living rock!”
Kingdom Noisette howled and grappled with the periscope. “It’s all true! I can see thousands o’ houses, meshed together at strange angles, without a gap between ’em! We’re trapped!” He fell before me. “I’ve got plans! We’ll drill through the walls!”
I pouted. “There are 665 taverns superimposed on ours. I consider it unlikely we’ll be able to break out.”
A triumphant voice interrupted me. It belonged to the mayor; he was perched on the apex of his small pyramid, long legs sliding on the glass sides, waving his tricorne hat in one hand. “Doesn’t bother me. I’ve got my time-machine. Mouse and hattock away!”
With a minor thunderclap, he disappeared. I arched an eyebrow. It remained arched for the rest of the day—I was determined to anticipate any more impossibilities. Sighing, I made an appeal: “Has anyone got any bright ideas? Wan ones will suffice.”
Padgett Weggs raised a hand. “Yn siwr! Psychological damage, that’s the problem! Stuck like colliers in a gold-pit. Pendrwm! Ought to occupy our fears. Play games, a bit of sport.”
I snorted. Weggs’ therapy was particularly inappropriate now. Olaf, on the other lobe, took up the request and amplified it: “There’s a book of rules on my shelf. Ancient game called ‘Cricket’. Read it in my spare time. Will ye join me for a few overs?”
Arms akimbo, I derided the suggestion. “Most foolish. No equip- ment is available for such a pastime.”
“Oh no?” Delves winked treacherously...
The sacred relics of Lladloh are no longer stored behind the bar in the village’s nameless tavern. The ear of a monstrous rabbit made a fine bat; a volume of poems penned by a legendary bard doubled up as a superb wicket; the stopper of a pickle-jar was the ideal substitute for a ball. Nervously, I stood at the crease, awaiting another of the Reverend’s sly googlies. With an athletic grace which amazed me as much as my fielders, I hit the ball over the counter for a six.
It struck a pistol left behind by a highwayman. Primed, the pistol discharged a lead ball at O’Casey’s glass of stout. The glass shattered. A fountain of Guinness erupted into the air, raining on our heads. Play was called off; the pitch was abandoned. Under chairs, we waited for the storm to subside. It never did. O’Casey’s glass has no bottom. Soon we were forced to climb onto the chairs, as the stout level rose higher and higher. The tavern was hermetically sealed by a plethora of congealed urban ghosts; we floundered in the surging brew.
“It seems we’re going to drown after all,” Delves remarked. “Though not in the way we’d anticipated!”
I swam over to the Reverend and belaboured him with my bat. I was not ready to accept my own responsibility. The undertow of Guinness pulled me away from his side. The stout had reached the windows; Olaf tried to stem the source with his beard; his chin was soon waterlogged and he fell aside, exhausted. Surprisingly, it was Kingdom Noisette who preserved the most sobriety. Balanced on a raft made from an hat stand, he called above our tumultuous voices:
“My underground tunnel! I knew ’twould be useful one o’ these days. Dive down and open the hatch, laddies!”
Elizabeth Morgan, the strongest swimmer, disappeared under the dark waters. A moment later there was a horrible sucking sound. The maelström was as unavoidable as an aunt’s kiss. The stout’s head was utterly pure, oppressively white. Round and round we whirled; I was surely delirious, for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of our several descents toward the foam below. Then, with no opportunity to make observations on which objects, whether spherical or cylindrical in shape, were absorbed at the greater rate, I vanished down a hole and was swept along a conduit at frightful speed.
At the end of the tunnel, I regained my feet, mounted a flight of steps and emerged in the pharmacy. When we were all inside, we closed the hatch and searched for an exit from the building. The pressure of eternal stout was immense; no door could hold it back. We had to leave the village and flee into the hills. Even there, we would be swamped within a generation. But this pharmacy only led to another; our ritual had turned Lladloh into a convoluted maze, a labyrinth more complex than any conceived by Minoan ingenuity. The ghosts of inanimate objects may not be malevolent; but they are certainly tricky.
We still wander the endless rooms, the surge of Guinness forever in our ears. It is essential to keep moving; the weak are left behind. Only Olaf is happy: he is able to loot the homes of his neighbours as we pass through them—they have plenty to spare. Each time we broach an earlier version of my restaurant, I prepare meals for the company. I no longer spice my creations with references to the past. Now I bake future hopes into my dishes. My belief is that ghost villages suffer apocalypses too. If true, it’s just a question of hanging on until the ectoplasmic walls tumble in some phantasmagoric cataclysm and we are able to emerge like worms from a stitched dog’s tongue.
The Sickness of Satan
The sickness began with the leaflet which was pushed under my front door on a damp Thursday morning. It was one of those glossy propa- ganda sheets used to announce the opening of a new restaurant. I detest unwanted mail and was on the point of compressing it into a sphere and kicking it into the nearest wicker bin when my nose was distracted by the peculiar smell of the paper. I raised it to my nostrils and inhaled. My mind swam under the onslaught of a myriad exotic aromas and I cried out in alarm. It was necessary for me to sit on the floor.