The Dark Gateway

by John Burke

  Jonathan stood up, holding the book that had been lying open on his knee.

  “Interesting,” he muttered, apparently referring to something he had read. “Would you mind if I went out for a stroll around the buildings?”

  Brennan tensed. Nora, with her new, unaccountable sensitivity, felt this at once. So this whim of Jonathan’s—for such it seemed on the surface—was a part of whatever was being planned.

  Her father said drowsily: “You could have come round the barn with me if you’d wanted a stroll, and done a bit of heaving on bolts, eh?” He snuffled spasmodically, and this time fell sound asleep.

  “You’ll get wet, out in that,” said Mrs. Morris indignantly. “Better wait until you can see instead of splashing about this time of night. No sense in it.”

  “I’ll be safe, I promise,” said Jonathan. “A little breath of night air—the raw wind of the great wild mountains, as it were.” He giggled excitedly. “Back in a minute—just steeping myself in the atmosphere, that’s all.”

  Brennan watched him go.

  Denis said scornfully: “Steeping himself in the atmosphere—that’s rich, if you like. Hope he gets well and truly steeped in it: soaked in it.” He picked up the book Jonathan had left on the chair. “‘The Gates of Fomoria’,” he quoted. “Where’s Fomoria?”

  “Under the sea,” said Frank.

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I read about it once, somewhere, a long time ago. It’s the home of an evil race who came before there were any human beings—all the usual stuff, you know. The Fomorians were old gods who ruled a bleak, horrible world, until the powers of light came to overthrow them. I can’t remember the details—I expect there’ll be plenty in this book”—he tapped the black, wrinkled cover with one long, brown finger—“but I believe there was a colossal struggle, spiritual and physical, and the Fomorians were flung out of this world. Under the ocean, or something.” He grinned apologetically. “I’m not well up in my folklore, I’m afraid.”

  “Better than we are,” said Denis. “It’s always the same: when I go to London and meet some pals, I have to show them—Londoners, mark you—where we can go to get a good meal.”

  “As if you ever ate anywhere else but a canteen!”

  “That’s enough, brother. Not anymore, anyway. We’re free now. And as I was about to say when I was so rudely interrupted, I never yet met a Welshman who knew any of his own fairy stories. I don’t myself: I used to like Hans Andersen.” He laughed immoderately, as though he had made a great joke.

  “This is not exclusively a Welsh story,” said Brennan in a timid voice. “It’s ancient. The earliest Gaelic name for the gods who overthrew the dark rulers of the earth was Tuatha de Danann. But that’s only symbolical, really.”

  He was silent again, unhappily withdrawn. Denis wagged his head. “How come that we get all this sort of talk? Last night Simon, today Jonathan—then you, Frank, and now you, Mr. Brennan. You make me feel bloomin’ ignorant.”

  “It’s the weather,” said his mother calmly.

  They marvelled at her.

  “It’s funny,” said Nora, finding that she had become interested in this topic of conversation, “that so many of those old stories resemble one another.” She was remembering things Simon had said: they had bored her at the time, but now she was quite eager to discuss them. Tonight, with the house wrapped in its baffling new cloak of mystery, they were reasonable, credible things—important things. She said: “All these tales of dark gods and white gods—”

  “The goodies and the baddies,” chuckled her brother, “like in a cowboy film.”

  “Like in anything at all,” said Nora. “The same two sides come up in every story and legend that I’ve ever heard. I remember we used to hear about them at school. There was one master—Mr. Hemingway, remember, Denis?—who left because they thought he was too advanced for the children. He used to tell us that all religions came from basic ideas, and that we ought to study the similarities and think them over before we made up our minds about any one of them. He hated Mr. Jones the Chapel.”

  She laughed. Frank smiled at the swift glint of her small, even, white teeth.

  He said: “It’s a pity they can’t let schoolmasters be more interesting. Passing on all the old myths—”

  “They’re not myths,” said Brennan excitedly, “they’re fact.”

  Another of Simon’s breed, thought Nora wearily. What series of coincidences brought them to this house? Coincidence…? A chill of apprehension again. She asked:

  “Did you know Mr. Jonathan before you met him here?”

  The question took Brennan unawares. He moistened his lips and made a gesture that was ludicrously reminiscent of Mrs. Morris reaching for her apron to wipe her hands nervously and unnecessarily.

  “No,” he said. “No, I never met him before. What makes you ask?”

  “I don’t know. It just occurred to me. You seem to be interested in the same things.”

  “Perhaps you met at some spook society convention?” said Denis facetiously. He, too, was curious.

  Brennan shook his head.

  “I wonder if Mr. Jonathan is all right, out there?” said Mrs. Morris. “Out in that snow—silly, he was, to go out like that. Denis—”

  “You don’t expect me to go out, do you, Mum?” complained her son. “Give him time. He’ll be back: people like that don’t get lost in the snow.”

  “No,” said Brennan in a low voice.

  Jonathan’s presence had been depressing; Brennan’s was even more so. The dejection in the droop of his shoulders had a damping effect on everyone in the room.

  He sat like predestined victim awaiting the hour of sacrifice. Without warning he began to speak, ruminating aloud: “You think you’ve got minds of your own, but you haven’t. Even across so many centuries, you come when they call. They tell you it’s time, and you don’t argue about it: you come. If I were to make a stand now and say I wouldn’t…well, you can never tell what might.…”

  He became aware of his surroundings and stopped abruptly. “My mind’s a bit hazy,” he said apologetically. “I’m half dreaming.”

  “Do you good to go to your bed, now,” said Mrs. Morris briskly. “Let’s see. We must work it out, else there will be a mix-up tonight. Frank, if you and Denis squeeze in together in Denis’s room—”

  “That’ll do me nicely, thank you,” said Frank, “and I’m sorry—”

  “Go on with you. Now, Mr. Brennan, we’ll have to see if you can’t be fitted in somehow with Mr. Jonathan, if he doesn’t mind.”

  Brennan’s lower lip quivered. Nora had the idea that he might easily burst into tears. He said:

  “I wouldn’t want to…to be any trouble. Maybe Mr. Jonathan—”

  “I don’t suppose he will mind. Ask him I will when he comes back.”

  “If you’d just let me sleep across a couple of chairs in front of the fire, or on the couch.…” Brennan appealed like an anguished dog for their help.

  Mrs. Morris, saying: “There’s not very comfortable you would be,” shrugged, smiled, and turned to the cupboard.

  The wind dropped.

  It was so sudden that they all sat in silence for a moment, wondering what was wrong. There had been no great force behind the wind for the last twenty minutes or so, but it had been sighing and hustling snowflakes about the house for most of the evening, and this cessation came as a surprise, producing a hush as portentous as that caused by a clock that has stopped ticking.

  Mr. Morris stirred in his sleep and emitted a disturbed snuffling noise. He did not actually wake up, but some part of his consciousness registered this unexpected change in the weather, and his face twitched unbelievingly.

  Denis got up and opened the door, half nervously, not knowing what to prepare for.

  “What a queer change!” said Frank.

  Denis stood at the door and looked out. The heaped snow was clear and quiet, undisturbed.

  “It’s going to fr
eeze, by the looks of it,” he said. “I can see the stars.”

  He closed the door again and came back to the fire. He was surprised, but not disturbed. Only Brennan, thought Nora, was disturbed, apart from herself, but it was hard to tell whether his nervousness was due to the surprising calm or to something that had been in his mind right from the time of his arrival here. For herself, she was profoundly uneasy: that hushing of the wind was no natural thing, and despite all attempts to reassure herself with the thought of the presence of her family, she felt that Jonathan had had a wicked hand in it.

  But that was absurd. No man could control the wind.

  What he had shown her from the passage window had been done by hypnotism—by this time she could just about persuade herself of this, though aware that it would not stand up to criticism—but no man could hypnotise the wind. The idea was fantastic.

  “I wonder where Mr. Jonathan is?” said Mrs. Morris.

  “Stop fidgeting, Mum. He’ll come in and tell us that he cast a spell on the wind, so that it would stop,” said Denis.

  It was not a particularly brilliant remark. Frank supplied a mild, polite smile, but Nora found the words too close to her own thoughts, and Brennan obviously agreed with her.

  Then they heard Jonathan coming. He must have walked softly through the snow until he came close to the path that Denis and his father had tried to keep clear up to the door. Jonathan’s feet crunched on the path, and rang the usual two different notes on the flagstone and the doorstep above it. He came in, brushing his coat with great, exultant, sweeping movements of his hands.

  “Gone off,” he said happily. “Here we are at peace again. Quiet, and calm air.… Delightful!”

  He looked at Brennan, his eyes twinkling.

  Denis said: “You didn’t get very wet, then?”

  “Only at first, and that didn’t take long. Soon over. Tranquillity after the blizzard—splendid, is it not?”

  Frank pushed his chair back. “I might have a shot at getting home now,” he said. “If it’s reasonably clear—”

  “I suggested you should leave earlier,” said Jonathan quietly. “You’ve left it a trifle late.”

  He was moving across the room towards the door into the passage. Denis made a movement towards him, then hesitated.

  Frank said: “I think I’ll try.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Denis.

  “Don’t be silly, old man: you’d only have to turn round and come back.”

  “Well, I’ll come part way.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “No sense in it,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “I’ll be all right,” said Frank.

  Jonathan went out, still smiling. As soon as he had gone, Brennan said, in a choked, urgent voice: “Take me with you. I want to come with you.”

  “But—”

  “Much better if you stay the night and be comfy until tomorrow,” said Mrs. Morris.

  “No. You go through the village, don’t you—that’s the way you go from here?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is,” said Frank, “but I really think that if Mrs. Morris doesn’t mind—”

  “You’ve got to take me,” said Brennan. “I’ve got to try to get there tonight. I must come with you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They stood by the door like two gallant explorers about to plunge out into the Arctic night. Frank said: “I feel as though I’m making my last farewell.”

  Denis wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “Our blessing goes with you,” he said brokenly. “If, despite all the odds, you win through—”

  “Hurry!” said Brennan, tugging at Frank’s sleeve. His fear took all the cheerfulness out of the situation. “Let’s go at once, before he comes down again.”

  “Well, I don’t see—”

  “Please let’s go,” said Brennan, “before it’s too late—before he brings the snow back.”

  Denis said to Frank, with an imperceptible nod of the head towards Brennan: “I’ll come as far as the village with you.”

  “I’ll…we’ll be all right,” said Frank, knowing that this was an offer of assistance with an apparent madman, but confident of his ability to handle the unhappy little man if occasion arose.

  They both took their leave of Mrs. Morris, Brennan apologising for the trouble he had caused, at the same time keeping an anguished gaze on the still, forbidding door into the passage. If the latch moved he would almost certainly faint. Frank struck him cheerfully on the shoulder and said: “Let’s be off.”

  There was going to be a hard frost. The snow was still light and powdery beneath their feet, but a little way from the surface it crackled like dry leaves. Above, the sky was glowing, and through rifts in the clouds, which were riding away higher than of late, one or two stars shone coldly. Frank was so certain of being able to get home without difficulty now that he began to whistle softly, and looked about with keen pleasure at the shrouded fences and banks.

  “Hush!” said Brennan. “Let’s go faster, and we’ll soon be in Llanmadoc.”

  What was wrong with the man? Frank remembered a corporal in a landing party who had been suddenly taken like this, reduced to a tense, fidgety wreck of a man merely because there was silence when they had all confidently expected machine-gun fire. But that had been war, when men’s nerves did funny things at unaccountable times, and this was merely a cold, agreeable night in a still, peaceful country. He turned to see how far they had come from the farmhouse, and saw the square of the kitchen window and a line of light that must have been the side window looking down the lane. All the other windows were dark smudges in the grey side of the house. And then, inexplicably, he felt that the windows, like eyes behind half-closed eyelids, were watching him. He shook off the sensation, blaming Brennan for it, and said loudly:

  “We needn’t rush it. Better to take things easy and not dive into any drifts. The land’s treacherous at times like these.”

  “I must get to the village,” said Brennan, floundering forward.

  “We’ll get there all right. If you try dashing through this stuff, you’ll soon get tired. You sound winded already.”

  They came to a slippery stile and climbed gingerly over. The slope fell away more steeply, and a long way below gleamed the lights of Llanmadoc.

  “There you are,” said Frank.

  Even as he spoke, he was aware of something wrong. The lights of the village were there, but in some way they were blurred and obscured.

  “Snow,” said Brennan.

  It was snowing between the village and the place where they stood. Instinctively Frank blinked as though facing into a snow-laden wind, and then realised that up here the air was still calm and clear.

  “That’s odd,” he said with a laugh. “It’s coming down into the valley, but we’re free of it up here. That’s unusual. It’ll probably reach us in a minute or two. Perhaps we ought to put a spurt on, after all. That tall hedge marks the road down to the village. Let’s get there and we’ll have a track to follow.”

  They stumbled across the field to the gaunt hedge, snow clustered on its bare twigs like some gross white blossom. There was a gap and another stile. Frank put his hand on the top and swung his leg over.

  He fell back as though he had come in contact with a brick wall.

  “What’s the matter?” said Brennan.

  “I don’t know. Funny.… Must have been off balance.”

  He tried again, more cautiously. The same thing happened—but it was not, as he had thought at first, like jumping into a brick wall: there was nothing hard and resistant, but just something that would not let him pass, something that resisted firmly but without blows, almost as a gale would force a cyclist to a standstill.

  And, he saw as he staggered back, the snow was falling a few inches from his face.

  “What’s the matter?” said Brennan again.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What is it? Something’s the matter. I knew it would be. I knew
we wouldn’t get away.”

  “Screwy,” said Frank, probing the air with one hand, and finding that no snow was falling upon his outstretched fingers. He might as well have been looking out of a window at a blizzard.

  “What is it?” demanded Brennan hysterically, pushing past and trying to get over the stile.

  He fell back, sitting down clumsily and gaping at the white flakes that swirled on the other side of the hedge. He said: “We’re cut off. He’s done it. I knew we wouldn’t get away. And now when he finds out.…”

  He sat where he was, rocking to and fro and moaning.

  “Get up, man,” said Frank. “Pull yourself together. We’ll just have to go back to the house for tonight or—no, damn it, I don’t see why we should give up. We can try lower down, on the track from the front of the house.”

  “It wouldn’t be any good.”

  “Can’t you get up instead of sitting there like that? You’ll get pneumonia.”

  Brennan continued to moan, saying to himself in a monotonous, singsong voice: “I didn’t understand…had no idea. It all sounded so fine, at the meetings. Didn’t know what evil felt like…never felt a place soaked in it before. Soaked in it.” The word fascinated him. “Soaked,” he said. “Soaked, sodden, saturated in evil, and I didn’t know it would be like this. If I hadn’t come…and now it’s too late. Wickedness, wickedness. It seemed all right when we talked—nothing more than a séance, in a way. But not now.”

  It made no sense to Frank. He put his arms under Brennan’s quivering shoulders and heaved the miserable fellow upright.

  “Do you want to get to the village?” he demanded.

  “It’s no use.”

  “Come down this way. It’s damned queer, this business—a freak of nature, I suppose—but it can’t be like that everywhere. Let’s go along the hedge and get on to the path.”

  “No use,” lamented Brennan. “The cunning swine: he’s done for us now—”

  “Get moving,” said Frank roughly.

  They plunged through the snow, raising little clouds like flour in the untroubled air. Soon their legs would be damp and the knees of their trousers would cling miserably, but before then Frank intended to be well on his way home. He kept the hedge on his left and then moved off at an angle that would bring them to the cart track and the lane. He knew the way fairly well; he had been over here a couple of times with Denis, and he knew the layout of the farm well enough to get his bearings, especially with the lights of the village below. He could not account for the fact that they were, after a few minutes, facing the farmhouse, a dark shape with the even darker and less substantial ruins of the castle behind, crowning the hazy slope.