The Devil's Piper

by Sarah Rayne

  They were through the gate and ahead of them was an ancient stone arch with cloisters beyond, and as they crossed to the bell tower and Ciaran unlocked the door, Isarel glanced upwards. Bells and cats and looking glasses! They all have an eerie inverted life. I wouldn’t like to be in that bell tower now. And then he realised that they would not be up there, they would be somewhere far more frightening.

  They would be beneath it. They were going down into the ancient foundations: into the stone crypt that Simon of Cremona had constructed a thousand years ago for the immortal thing he had trapped and brought to Ireland.

  Ahasuerus would be with them as he had been with Simon last time. Only this time he would be outside the tomb.

  As they entered the crypt, Ciaran saw that the tomb was exactly as he and the others had left it. The stone slab rested on the sarcophagus’ edge, and there was still the aching desolation. He moved quickly, setting down hastily lit candles, feeling a shiver of dank coldness pass over his skin as the tiny flames burned up.

  He felt as if he had passed through several worlds and several years since he had come down here with Father Abbot and Cuthbert. Four hours, had it been? Five? I’m trusting Isarel West very fully, he thought, suddenly. He’s Jude’s grandson and he knew the music. He glanced at Isarel again, and thought: I suppose it’s all right. Well, it will have to be, because I can’t think what else to do. And Mother of God, how do I get Ahasuerus back into the tomb? He moved across the stone floor until he was standing with his back to the gaping tomb, facing the stair.

  They could hear the dragging footsteps above them now, and then a pause as Ahasuerus stopped at the head of the stair. Ciaran’s heart was pounding and he could feel sweat trickling between his shoulder blades. He glanced at Isarel and saw that his face was white and set, but that he still held the shofar to his lips.

  Ahasuerus was on the stair. He’s just out of sight, thought Ciaran, his eyes aching with the effort of watching the dark stairway. He’s just beyond those shadows, and in another minute he’ll be here, he’ll be in the crypt and then I shall have to force him back into the tomb. Panic gripped him. I can’t do it! he thought. And then: but I must! I took the vow! God help me to keep it! He’s dragging himself down the stair now. And several layers beneath his fear, he was aware of a thrill of something quite different; he was thinking that after all the legends had all been true, the myths and the old stories. There is a piece of music with magical qualities, thought Ciaran, and there is an immortal creature bound by it, and I’m hearing the music and I’m seeing the creature.

  Isarel was behind the tomb, facing the stair. His features were lit from below by the candles, and the flickering glow showed up the hollows and the angles of his thin face and scooped out black pits where his eyes were. A prickle of atavistic fear brushed Ciaran’s skin. Just for a moment it might have been Jude himself standing there: the dark charismatic Judas, stepped down from one of the old black-and-white photographs or scratchy newsreels. Playing the demonic music, sending it spinning and shivering through the crypt, soaking into the stones, licking the groyned arches above them, running in and out of the cracked flags at their feet.

  And then Ahasuerus’s shadow fell on to the stair wall: exaggerated out of all proportion in the flickering candlelight, toweringly tall but hunched-over and filled with such menace that both men felt a lurch of fresh fear. Harsh ragged breathing filled the enclosed space.

  Twisting down the dark stair came the robed hooded figure they had glimpsed at Mallow. There was the glint of eyes deep in the hood, and Ahasuerus stood watching them for a moment before moving slowly and unwillingly across the stone floor. Ciaran thought it was as if Ahasuerus was being drawn to the tomb by silver cords and with the thought he could almost see them: thin glistening strands, sticky cobweb strings pulling him back to the grave . . .

  He thought: of course he’s fighting it. He’ll fight it with every shred of strength he has and he’ll fight me as well, and how can I blame him for it? It’s why he fought Daniel earlier, not because he’s a killer – all the legends say he was never a killer – but he’ll fight to stay out of the tomb. This is much worse than I feared. He touched the crucifix about his neck for reassurance and began to edge along the wall, forcing Ahasuerus to yield ground. Could he back him up to the tomb? Could it be as easy? But it was the only thing he could think of. The candles flickered wildly as the two men moved, and there was a sharp acrid tang as the nearest one guttered. But you did not need much light to send someone into the darkness of the tomb for ever.

  Ciaran had not dared to take his eyes from Ahasuerus but he sensed that Isarel was tiring – unfamiliar music, he thought. He’s struggling to maintain it.

  Isarel was indeed struggling. The music itself was not so very difficult, but playing it unceasingly on the seldom-used shofar was beginning to take its toll. His mind was spinning between fear and panic but beneath it he was conscious of a dark stirring, and of something brushing his mind, exactly as it had done when he played Jude’s piano at Mallow.

  He had seen, as Ciaran had seen, that Ahasuerus was unable to resist the music, and he guessed that Ciaran was simply walking forward and forcing Ahasuerus back. I believe he’s going to do it, thought Isarel, his heart thumping with anticipation and fear. And then he remembered that Ciaran had no idea of what would send Ahasuerus back into his strange living death. Would it be sufficient simply to push him into the tomb and drag across the stone lid?

  Ahasuerus was turning his head from side to side as if seeking a means of escape and Isarel felt another tug of pity. At any minute Ciaran will bound forward, he thought. He’ll leap across the floor and he’ll push him back and down.

  Down and down into hell, and say I sent thee thither . . .

  Ahasuerus was backing away, shaking his head as if pleading dumbly with his captors and several times he looked round, as if scanning the shadows for a way out. His hands were no longer folded in the sleeves of his gown, and Isarel saw him hold them out in a gesture of entreaty.

  Let me go free . . .

  The shadowy crypt was beginning to blur and waver, and the candles were dissolving into discs of incandescence. Like looking at something through water. Isarel blinked and dragged his mind to focus on the music. At any minute Ciaran would spring, and when he does I must be there with him, thought Isarel. I must be at his side to help him, bang! no delay.

  But even though he was so tightly keyed up mentally and physically, when Ciaran did move, it took him by surprise.

  Ciaran lunged forward – like a rugger tackle! thought Isarel startled – and sent Ahasuerus toppling backwards.

  A howl rent the air as Ahasuerus went down into the tomb, his hands flailing. The long sleeves of the robe fell back, and Isarel felt as if something had slammed into the base of his throat.

  Where Ahasuerus’s hands should have been, were distorted lumps of flesh, fingerless travesties, the rudimentary thumbs bearing narrow thick nails that tapered to points, so that the terrible hands had the semblance of pincers, nippers.

  The hand with no heart in it, the claw, the paw, the flipper, the fin . . . The greedy clutch with the heat of sin . . . Rubente dextera . . . With his red hands . . . Only there are no hands, thought Isarel, sickened, only lobster-claws . . . Ciaran said something about a monk’s eyes being gouged out . . .

  Ahasuerus was howling, great tearing screams of furious anger and hatred that swooped and spun and echoed all about the crypt, filling it with harsh agony. He was scrabbling at the sides of the deep stone trough, and Isarel dropped the shofar and moved swiftly to the tomb’s foot.

  The slab was heavier than he had expected and it was awkward. Ciaran had thrust one hand deep into the tomb, pushing Ahasuerus in and forcing him down, and Isarel saw the terrible pitiful hands blindly clawing out. One of the thick ugly nails tore into Ciaran’s wrist, and Ciaran flinched and let out an oath and then leaned over again, blood running down between his fingers.

  Ahasuerus was fighting
Ciaran like a demon, like the devil he had once been thought to be, but the tomb was deep and he had fallen backwards straight into the inner coffin. There was a moment when the claw-hands scraped at the tomb’s sides, clawing frantically for purchase, and then Ciaran had snatched up the coffin lid and forced it into place, and he and Isarel were dragging at the immense stone slab. There was the harsh rasp of stone against stone, and then a dull clanging that reverberated through the crypt.

  The muffled clang as the sepulchre re-sealed was so final, so symbolic – a door shutting out the world and the light for ever! – that it tore unbearably at Isarel’s already-raw nerves, and he leaned over the tomb gasping, wiping the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. The agony and the pity of it washed over him in cold shuddering waves.

  Ciaran’s face was ashen and his lips were set in a grim line, and although both his hands were bleeding from the deep clawed wounds, they were perfectly steady. He set the small silver crucifix at the head of the stone tomb and made the sign of the cross over it. Isarel heard him murmur a prayer and turned away, picking up the shofar, not embarrassed exactly, but feeling excluded.

  After a moment, he said, ‘Will that do it? Will it keep him there?’

  ‘Truly I have no idea.’ Ciaran glanced at Isarel. ‘The inner lid was hammered down with nails before,’ he said.

  ‘And even then he broke out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do we snuff the candles?’

  Ciaran hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes. Yes, no light’s needed down here any more.’

  As they quenched the candles, one by one, the shadows seemed to start forward, and leap across the ancient tomb.

  Ciaran said suddenly, ‘If I had any sense, I suppose I’d leave them to burn and hope they’d set fire to the whole place.’ He sent Isarel a sideways glance. ‘It would put paid to Ahasuerus once and for all,’ he said.

  Isarel said, ‘Did you see his face?’

  Ciaran paused, and then said, ‘No. Did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why did you ask?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Isarel, slowly. ‘I think I was wondering what he was like – to begin with, I mean. I wondered what turned him into that dreadful thing you forced into the coffin.’ He frowned, and with a return to his customary off-hand manner, said, ‘Of course I still don’t believe any of it.’

  ‘Of course not. Neither do I,’ said Ciaran politely.

  ‘Are your hands much hurt?’

  ‘Nothing some sticking plaster won’t put right.’

  They went out of the bell tower into the cool, sweet night air, and Ciaran stopped to turn the key in the immense iron lock.

  Neither of them heard the faint scratching sounds that came from the creature trapped in the soundless darkness of the tomb.

  Chapter Ten

  Kate thought Brother Ciaran had not been aware that she had been watching as he entered the bell tower with the other two monks, and he had certainly not been aware that she had followed him to Mallow House.

  She had not precisely lied to Ciaran at their meeting, but she had certainly left the essential bits out. Such as the fact that she had already been watching the Abbey for three nights. Probably she was guilty of what Ciaran would have called a sin of omission. Kate felt her lips curve in a reluctant half-grin, because it might be rather interesting to listen to Ciaran on the subject of sin, sometime. If he’s a true celibate, I’m the Archbishop of Canterbury, thought Kate. How on earth did someone like that end up in a monastery? Well, it’s nothing to do with me.

  On each of the three nights, the Abbey had subsided into its quiet, innocent darkness, and Kate had gained nothing other than a feeling of cold and desolation, and a sneaking suspicion that she might be chasing a will-o’-the-wisp after all. She had no clear idea of what she was watching for: some kind of medieval tomb-ritual at midnight? – now that’s really bizarre, Kate!

  But tonight the Abbey had not been shrouded in darkness. Tonight lights had burned very late indeed, and Kate, trying to remember the Abbey’s layout, thought they came from Father Abbot’s study. Something’s happening, she thought.

  She climbed over the lych gate, and as she went under the stone arch leading to the inner courtyard, she heard soft footsteps and a murmur of voices. She dodged back into the shadows and as she did so, three robed and cowled figures, each carrying a lit candle, crossed the courtyard and went towards the bell tower on the farthest side. Two were older monks and there was the faint glint of a pectoral cross from the taller, but the third was unmistakably Ciaran himself. Her whole being sprang to attention. The midnight tomb-ritual after all? Should she go after them? No, it was too dangerous: she would wait to see what happened next.

  When they came back out so quickly, she was relieved she had not followed, but when Ciaran came out of Father Abbot’s study a short time later, she went after him, keeping at a distance but keeping him in sight. He went through under the stone arch and through the lych gate towards Mallow House and Kate hesitated, because trespassing on the grounds of an ordinary private house seemed somehow much worse than trespassing on monastery land. And late as it was, there might be a perfectly innocent explanation for all this. Vague notions of deathbed confessions went through her mind. Did monks administer the Last Rites? But there had been that curious little procession into the bell tower.

  But when Isarel started to play the Bluthner, Kate forgot about trespassing, and even forgot about being caught. The music poured through the dark tangled gardens, and lashed against her senses like a huge icy torrent. This is it! This is the music! So I was right all along – the music is somehow tied up with the Abbey! For a moment her mind refused to function, and then she crept up to the sketchily curtained window with the flickering candlelight beyond. This is the ancient music of the legends, thought Kate, feeling it cascade into her mind. This is the evil, beautiful beckoning that slices into people’s souls and topples them into madness and suicide. I’ve found it and now I can—Oh God, Ciaran’s coming out! He’s coming out but the music’s still continuing. And there’s someone with him.

  She ducked into the shadow of the thickthorn hedge, her heart racing. She could not see the face of the man with Ciaran, but he was moving swiftly and with a kind of angry impatience, and Kate had the impression that he was a few years younger than Ciaran, perhaps about her own age. She leaned forward, trying to see the instrument he was using; a large flute or a recorder, was it? The music ebbed and flowed, and Kate experienced a surge of emotion that was half fear, but half triumph, because this was the thing she had spent the last three years chasing.

  It was then she saw the limping shape following the two men.

  Ciaran went purposefully towards the Abbey, going through the stone arch again and across the quadrangle to the bell tower.

  They’re going in, thought Kate. They’re going in to the Abbey, and that creature’s following them. No, I’m wrong, it’s following the music. This is the Pied Piper re-played, of course, and I’m not believing any of it. But it’s the kind of thing I came here to see and now I am seeing it I’ve got to admit it’s pretty potent stuff. I wonder who Ciaran’s companion is? I’ve got this far – what do I do now? Follow them into the tower, you fool.

  Her body was ahead of her mind, and she was already crossing the quadrangle, seeing that the door was ajar, seeing that she could step inside quite easily. As she approached, she could still hear the music very faintly. As if it was calling to her to come in. Kate hesitated. Alice down the rabbit hole? Or Red Riding Hood into grandmother’s cottage? Either way, here I go.

  It was cold and dim in the tower and there was the mustiness of extreme age. Kate felt the darkness and the music reaching for her, as if it was enticing her inside. Lift the latch, my dear, and turn the key and step into the nightmare. Whatever else this was, it definitely wasn’t Alice following the White Rabbit.

  Inside the tower door was the tiniest of tiny, bare halls, no more than six feet square,
and on her right was a shallow set of stairs, obviously leading up into the belfry. But directly ahead of the door a stair wound downwards, and a thin flickering light seeped up from it. Kate could hear the music coming upwards, very faintly. Then the musician, whoever he was, was still playing. She advanced cautiously, but almost at once froze, the breath catching in her throat in terror. Going down the stair, casting an immense grotesque shadow on the wall, was the hooded creature that had followed the music, so dreadfully deformed-looking and sinister that Kate felt horrified repulsion wash over her. Certainly not Alice. More like Nosferatu.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Could she hide in the bell tower itself and come down to investigate after Ciaran and the other man had gone? Yes, she could.

  She was setting foot on the first step when without warning the music shut off, and from beyond the dark stair came a low agonised groan, and then a dreadful, shrieking cry of agony. Kate felt the back of her neck prickling. Something terrible was happening. Her instinctive response was to run towards the cries but she hesitated, because she had no idea of who was on whose side. And then hard on the heels of the scream came an echoing clang, a huge reverberating noise that spun and shivered within the narrow tower. There was a low warning thrum from the bells far above her. The sound’s disturbed them, thought Kate, glancing towards the belfry stair.

  Ciaran and the other man were coming back up, talking in low voices, saying something about snuffing the candles, and Kate crouched into the curve of the tower stair, trying to hear. Ciaran’s voice was soft but it was unmistakable. Nice. The other man sounded English rather than Irish. She found herself praying they would not search the tower.

  I’ll go down after they’ve left, she thought. I don’t really believe any of the ancient legend, I’m only here to disprove it. But I’ll just find out what that creature was and what they did with it, and then I’ll be satisfied. I’ll eliminate the impossible and then I’ll concentrate on the improbable. Of course you will, Holmes, my dear fellow.