by Неизвестный
They came to a small cove. Dee instructed Whateley to gather material for a small fire and then to take care to stand so that the smoke was blowing away from him. Dee poured same mixture in the fire and said barbarous words. Then he switched to English: “Swimming across the black spaces, you brought images of what you desired to remanifest as—images that we may use to dream you into the world when the stars are right. We know that you are formless and dead. We know the Law of the Dead: That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die. Let us dream of you, O Dread Lord of the watery abyss. We will dance and slay when you return. With our visions and our voices, hasten we the stars themselves in the living sky.”
Dee again chanted barbarous names. He shrugged at the end of his recitation to prove his point that magic seldom produces visible results, but a huge booming sound came from the sea. A similar echo came from the sky. Then a flash of greenish-white light flared in the seawater, as though an ocean lightning bolt had flashed in a storm for mermaids. A cold north wind blew and extinguished the fire. The star briefly took on the same greenish hue, and something landed with a thud where the fire had been.
Both men stood stock-still, too frightened to even breathe.
Then Lemuel Whateley said, “I am satisfied that your translation is faithful and skillful.”
Dee lit a lantern. In the ashes of the small fire Whateley had made was an idol of a malignant squid-dragon, suggesting at once ape and kraken and gargoyle. It was carved from a greenish stone, shot through with veins of red. Dee watched carefully, thinking for a moment that the red veins pulsed with a life of their own. When he was convinced it was a statue—although carved by what mad artist or demon, he could not guess—he lifted it up. It seemed cold and wet, and he found himself remembering nightmares from his childhood when plague was in his house. He tried to estimate the weight of the idol, yet it seemed both heavy and light, and cold and hot to the touch. He felt as if the idol were looking at him—no, as if the sea were looking at him. As though a fabulous formless darkness was looking at him—an abyss that would soon look through him and judge the world of men by values and thoughts that he could not even guess. He handed the vile thing to Whateley.
“I should burn the translation. Even this is too much.”
“You won’t. You would have before the new star, but a new age is coming—one that loves knowledge. The world you dreamed of. Let us hasten back to my coach and return to your home. I fancy a brandy to take the chill off of my bones.”
They walked over the dunes and found their way to the coach. The horse neighed and whimpered until Whateley covered the idol. The trip back to Manchester was silent. Dee was crying a bit, Whateley lost in dreams of unearthly power.
Huge clouds had formed over the city. Big bolts of lightning in every conceivable hue were flashing about, as if Zeus himself had gone mad. The storm intensified as the coach came upon Dee’s home. The roof was afire and Katherine outside naked save for a muddy bed sheet. The fellows of the college were forming a bucket brigade.
“See that the book is unharmed!” said Whateley.
“I will see that my daughter is unharmed before I look to your devil’s book.”
Whateley said, “I will come back on April thirtieth and collect what is mine. See to your home, old man. The presence of the book has upset something.” Whateley had a strange smile, as though he had uttered a jest. Dee jumped from the coach, amazingly spry for a seventy-eight-year-old man. Katherine was incoherent. Dee guessed that she had been asleep when the lightning had hit the roof.
When the fire had been extinguished, Dee took in the home. Other than her bedroom on the second story, nothing was greatly harmed. The book lay open to a call he had been translating. His copy sheet was gone. He gave his bed to his daughter and asked the fellows to bring him some blankets that he might fashion a pallet for himself. Twice in the night, Katherine woke up screaming. Dee burned with slow anger toward Lemuel Whateley. He felt the trader’s greed and dreams of unworldly power had wrought Katherine’s condition. “Collect what is mine”—indeed. But in two days roofers appeared, and with sure and steady carpentry they repaired the damage. A day later, a well-known London physician came and examined the still-incoherent Katherine and prescribed her a tea of chamomile, blue lotus, and red poppy. She slept soundly and regained her wits but would not speak of the night. Dee had resolved to do nothing more on the book and to return all unspent money to Whateley, but to his surprise it was Katherine who pleaded Whateley’s case. With the money, they could return to Mortlake. Dee’s humiliating career as college warden could be ended, and perhaps he could even create his lexicon. Dee had been headstrong through both of his marriages, but now his will seemed to fade. He meekly listened to his daughter and threw himself into finishing the book. At least he would get that over with.
The air had grown as warm as summer when the Feast of St. Walburga rolled around. Most people kept the old names for days, despite England’s Protestant ways. There were some who still lit bonfires on this night to keep hobgoblins at bay. The moon was nearly new, and its paltry light gave the thin clouds an unhealthy greenish hue the night Whateley returned. He wore a silk shirt in a black-and-white diamond pattern and breeches striped green, gold, and purple. His cape was likewise striped, and his black hat sported an ostrich feather. His dark-brown eyes twinkled with merriment.
Dee, on the other hand, had grown still thinner. His eyes were rheumy, and he developed a slight palsy. He walked with a staff and hummed to himself like a bumblebee. Dee actually bowed to Whateley and showed him his seat.
“It is so good to see you, Dr. Dee. I have brought you a gift. Newly from the printer, as they say. It promises to be the best book of 1605.”
He handed him Francis Bacon’s new book, Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Humane.
“You see, Dr. Dee, it is a new age, as I foretold.”
“I am afraid, Mr. Whateley, a disaster has struck. My maid seeking papers to start a fire during the strange cold days of March burned my translation and the Greek original as kindling,” said Dee, as though reciting a script. His daughter rolled her eyes.
“Dr. Dee, you may understand the most obtuse problems of geometry and navigation, you may excel at knowledge of things magical, but you simply have no grasp of the power of money. I have had your house watched since the night you called the idol from the place of otherness. You hired two scribes to make two copies each of your translation. You think to make a profit of your work. Well, you shall. I will take only one of the copies and not have my lawyers ruin you and turn you over to King James for nigromancy.”
Dee looked at Katherine. Her plot had not worked even for a moment.
Whateley continued, “But fear not, Dr. Dee. I bring you another ten pounds—and I dare say that will give you the seed money to return to your home at Mortlake. I will even help you find buyers for your purloined copies, for I see that you will be needing money.” Then he laughed.
Dee looked helpless. This was good news, but he felt as if some joke were being played upon him. When Katherine left the room, he felt alone and vulnerable.
“I don’t know how to thank you, “Dee began.
“I have had the house watched. I know that you have tried other operations. One night, my spies saw a great cloud form over your home and then a smaller cloud detached itself from the main mass and whilst glowing green and purple fell to the roof of your house, after which singing and sounds of viols were heard. On another night, strange noises were heard from the earth itself and a foul stench filled the neighborhood. You have been a busy man, Dr. Dee. I am surprised that you pursued the Devil’s book.”
“There is neither devil nor god,” said Dee.
“Then thou hast beheld Leviathan.”
“I translated all of your book. The hymns to Cthulhu, Yog Sothoth, Mlock , Daoloth. The history of the races before and after men. The place where the earth shall be moved to. The geometry an
d the mathematics—these, more than the monsters, I wish were out of my head. The geometry, the geometry. Sometimes I am seized with the feeling that I am falling from a great height. At other times, crossing a room seems an endless march of days. Tell me you are not doing this for simple wealth and power.”
“Oh no, good sir. I too look for wonders. I too need to know secrets beyond those of mortal men. Did you translate the section on prolonging life?”
“Aye and the words for calling back the dead, human or otherwise.”
Katherine reappeared with a fair copy of her father’s translation and the Greek book.
She asked Whateley, “What are your plans now? King James plans on burning every warlock and witch on the British Isles. Prague is no longer a safe haven.”
“An astute observation. I can see that you are looking to the future. I plan to travel to the new world. Surely the open spaces of America will give room for experiments. There are some sites built long ago for the same purposes I have. The book contained some useful maps.”
“Which my father corrected using the methods of his Dutch friend Mercator.”
Whatley glanced inside. “It looks likely that parts of New England will become a Mecca for us.”
Dee’s palsy had been growing worse during this brief exchange, but with a strong effort of will, he made his face still. “Then it is done. You will be out of our lives, with your gold and your knowledge that eats the mind like an acid.”
“I doubt that you will say farewell to the knowledge in this book,” said Whateley excitedly leafing through the fair copy. “I will have this bound and printed on the morrow. May Day shall stand a new era to human knowledge.”
“Inhuman knowledge, if my pound-wise daughter had not forbidden me I would be sending all the copies from out my roof.”
“Your daughter is wiser than you. Of course, given her condition and your infirmity, she needs must be,” said Whateley.
“What are you saying, sir?” asked Dee.
“Look at her. I suspect it must be four months.”
Katherine looked down. “Three months, sir. The babe grows hurriedly.”
Dee turned on Whateley. “You have left my daughter with child? I shall…” His rage choked him and the palsy returned as his fair face flushed purple.
“I have not touched your daughter. Nor has any man.”
There was a moment of silence.
Then Dee saw it all. “The night of Candlemass—the storm, the strange lights.”
He turned to his daughter. “The call that was missing. The call to Yog Sothoth that I had re-Englished the next day. Why?”
“Father, soon you will be dead. I am too old to find a husband. Besides, who will have the daughter of a man accused of sorcery by the king and archbishop? I wanted a child—someone to have in my old age. Why not a king?”
Whateley laughed again. Then he raised both arms after the manner of the Egyptians. “Hail Katherine, full of grace. The Lord is with thee!” He laughed again. He bowed and doffed his hat to Dr. Dee. “Fear not. The White People shall send a midwife when it is time. Repair to Mortlake and lay in stores. I would not have you eaten out of house and home. Or perhaps you will send for a cunning woman and end your hope for heirs.”
Lemuel Whateley turned and left. He did not close the door behind him. As his coach rolled off into the dark, Dr. Dee stared at the now-too-apparent bump on his slender daughter’s frame. His palsy grew so bad that he could not speak. He wondered—was he staring at the end of his world or the end of the world?
A strange bird cried in the night, high and far away.
(A nod to Richard Tierney)
Russia, Late Seventeenth Century AD:
Of Queens and Pawns
Lois H. Gresh
His finger, there. Was it a trick of the light, or did his hand tremble as it set his queen by my pawn? A poor move. Rare for him. “Great Lord, Tsar, and Grand Duke Alexis Mikhailovich, of all Great and Little and White Russia,” I murmur, my head bowed, my eyes focused on the chessboard. “Are you sure?”
“You may look up, old friend. Tonight, my mind wanders. Perhaps another time?”
My head inclines further. I pause before answering, for every answer must be weighed. Candles flicker against the bejeweled walls. Flashes of color wink in the haze of the tsar’s heavy incense, a smoke of spice to cleanse the soul. My vodka cup is empty; his cup remains full. My fish plate is empty; he has tasted nothing but a crust of black bread.
My tsar, our sovereign the father, my best friend since childhood—I worship him like no other. I—Artemon Matveev, chief minister of all Russia—I am the only one he allows into his private quarters in the Kremlin. I lift my eyes and so soft are his—so gentle and caring, not even a glint of weakness or insanity. Unlike so many before him, Tsar Alexis is healthy in body, mind, and soul. “I’ll see myself out,” I say, repeating his lengthy title, for even the omission of one word is an act of treason.
He remains seated on his silver chair behind the chess table. As I rise, the incense rushes to my head—thick black balls pushing behind my eyes—and I pause for fear that I will pass out. Before me, he is a godlike vision resplendent in emeralds, pearls, and black sable, his crown sparkling in candlelight, so high and stretching toward the ceiling in the shape of a pyramid, tipped with a golden cross and braided with diamonds.
I am but a lowly worm. I bow, then leave him in a cloud of ambrosia. Behind me, his footsteps enter his private chapel, where I know he will pray for hours. The door to his chambers whisks shut and a trail of incense sweeps into the hall and at first all is silent and calm, but then …
The incense—a thick cloud now—coils, and I feel it, smell it. Choking me. Killing. It must be fear, or I must be drugged or tired or sick. What I see cannot be: a serpent of spice twining round me like rope, a tongue flicking, coated in scum, fetid skin braided with diamonds, same as the tsar’s crown. The hall whines. It forms a funnel with the serpent’s tail at the far end, where the tsaritsa sleeps, and the serpent’s eyes, oh those eyes—enantiomorphic diamonds cut into a thousand facets, wall sconces torching each surface, shooting fire and burning me from the left and right. The wall wobbles—gelatin, knobs of caviar, solar halos on ice—and the tapestries, emblazoned with the heads of the tsars, wrap around my shoulders. And now—teeth chattering, flesh shivering—I clutch the wall, the cool marble, struggling against the rope of the serpent and the weight of the tsars.
Madness. Pawn takes queen.
Madness. King lets pawn take queen.
Madness.
From the tsar’s inner chambers, his baritone chant cuts through the serpent’s hiss. I don’t understand his prayers. “H’ee-l’geb f’ai throdog uaaah, Yog-Sothoth.” This is not a Russian I know. I’ve always assumed it to be the language of the ancient tsars, stretching all the way back from our time in the late 1600s to Rurik, the first prince of Novgorod.
This serpent, this thing that bulges and pulses, that now fills the hall with its bulk, squeezing its way down the funnel—what is it? Do I imagine it? Perhaps it’s the incense and I’m hallucinating. Perhaps the fish was bad. Perhaps I drank too much. Perhaps, perhaps, and perhaps …
And I hear in baritone, “Haruu’yajeb bgdzow’throdog uaaah, Yog-Sothoth” and more and more of it, and every time the voice booms, the thing twists and hisses and its flesh splits as if sliced by knife. Its hold on me loosens, the floor trembles, the tapestries unfurl and slam back upon the walls in clouds of dust, and I retch and sink to my knees.
And the thing, whatever it is, this thing conjured from madness, it slinks.
It slithers into the tsaritsa’s private chambers.
I am a lowly worm. I lay in my own vomit upon the floor. I whimper. I shiver from my own sweat. My holy sword, bestowed upon me by the tsar himself, remains flaccid and impotent at my side. If this isn’t treason, I don’t know what is.
Tsaritsa Maria Miloslavskaya—she who gave the tsar thirteen children, no son healthy enough fo
r the throne—now moans and cries out in ecstasy. The baritone continues, a garbled mixture of ancient Russian syllables, strings of consonants that cannot be uttered by any human voice. And she, panting in the throes of orgasm, harmonizes with the tsar, her own chants ringing like bells over the tsar’s baritone.
I must be insane, for none of this is possible.
Abruptly, the tsar’s prayers cease. His wife whimpers, sighs with contentment. The walls solidify. The monstrosity with the diamond-faceted eyes darts into the hall then dissipates, and the last thing I see is its tail. The last thing I feel is a flick of slime. Cold. Terrible cold.
I slink away in shame and return to my rich home and beautiful wife, Mary. She’s asleep, as is our ward, Nataly Naryshkina. I bathe in a golden tub. The water is cold but not as cold as the flick of the creature’s tail.
I say nothing to the tsar. I say nothing to the others in the court. I’m not ready to die, much less as a traitor. It takes six months for me to recover, for a whisper to no longer make me sweat and quake, and I remain conflicted, for the tsar is my lord, the tsaritsa his holy wife. We play our nightly games of chess, and for six months, his moves are poor. Pawn takes queen. Bishops die. The king topples. I fear for my life, should I continue to beat him at this, his favorite game and only pastime.
After six more months, I’m certain that I must have been ill that night—that nothing was as it seemed. My sword is fine and firm at my side, and surely that is proof enough that I was hallucinating and bear no guilt. If I say anything to the tsar, the only effects will be my death and utter ruin to both Mary and Nataly.
But then one night as we sit over the vodka, the fish, and the black bread, his king takes my queen, and his eyes, no longer soft and brown, flickers with that insanity known to his forbearers. My chair lurches back. The room shrinks. The hearth fire scalds my cheeks. The vodka roars through my veins. And I’m cold, terribly cold.