'You might drive down to Berkeley and take a walk round there,' he advised. 'Plenty of survivals from earlier times there - only I wouldn't stay too long, because of the mists. We'll probably have one tonight, and they're really bad - I certainly wouldn't want to drive in a mist like we get.'
'I had thought,' I said tentatively, 'of going along to Severnford to try and find this castle where a warlock's familiar was supposed to have been sealed up. I wonder if you know where it is? It was owned by someone named Morley - Sir Gilbert Morby, who was apparently in league with the devil, or something of the sort.'
He seemed rather shocked, and looked strangely disturbed by my mentioning the place. 'Listen, Parry,' he said, 'I think I may have heard of this Morley - there's a horrible tale which connects him with the disappearance of new-born babies around here in the 1700s - but I'd rather not say anything more about him. When you've lived down here a bit, and seen them all locking their doors on certain nights and putting signs in the earth beneath the windows because the devil's supposed to walk on those nights - and when you've heard things flying over the houses when everyone's locked in, and there's nothing there - then you won't be interested in tracking down things like that. We've got a home help who believes in such things, and she always makes the signs for our house - so I suppose that's why it always flies over. But I wouldn't go searching out places that have been polluted by witchcraft, even protected as I may be.'
'Good God, Scott,' I rebuked - laughing, but rather disturbed by the way he had changed since coming to live in the country, 'surely you don't believe that these star signs they make around here can have any effect, for good or for evil? Well, if you're so set on preserving my neck, I'll just have to ask one of the villagers - I don't suppose they'll have such a misplaced protective instinct as you seem to have.'
Scott remained unconvinced. 'You know I used to be as sceptical as you are now,' he reminded me. 'Can't you realize that it must have been something drastic that changed my outlook? For God's sake believe me - don't go looking for something to convince you!'
'I repeat,' I said, annoyed that my intended pleasant afternoon should provoke an argument, 'I'll just have to ask one of the villagers.'
'All right, all right,' Scott interrupted, irritated. "There is a castle on the outskirts of Severn ford, supposed to have belonged to Morley, where he kept some sort of monster. Apparently he left it locked away one day and never returned to let it out again - got carried off by an elemental he called up, I believe. It's still waiting, so they say, for some imbecile to come along looking for trouble and let it out again.'
Not missing the last remark's significance, I asked, 'How do I get to the castle from Severnford?'
'Oh, look, Parry, isn't that enough?' he said, frowning. 'You know the legend of the castle's true, so why go any further?'
'I know the story that the castle exists is true,' I pointed out, 'but I don't know if the underground room exists. Still, I suppose the people at Severnford would know . . .'
'If you have to go and sell yourself to the devil,' Scott finally said, 'the castle is on the other side of Severnford from the river, on a rise - a small hill, I suppose you'd call it - not far from Cotton Row. But look, Parry, I don't know why you're going to this place at all. You may not believe in this thing, but the villagers wouldn't go near that castle, and neither would I. That being is supposed to have some unbelievable attributes - if you just glance at its eye, you have to offer yourself to it -not that I believe all this literally, but I'm sure there's something in the castle that haunts it horribly.'
It was quite obvious that he sincerely believed all he was saying, which only strengthened my resolve to visit the castle and make a thorough search. After the end of our argument, the conversation became somewhat strained, and before dinner was served we were both reading books. As soon as I had finished dinner, I collected a flashlight from my room, and, after making other preparations for the journey, drove off in the direction of Severnford.
After a short drive along the A38 and the Berkeley Road, I found that I would have to pass through Severnford itself and double back if the car were to be parked near the castle. As I was driving through Severnford I noticed, over the church porch, a stone carving depicting an angel holding a large star-shaped object in front of a cowering toad-like gargoyle. Curious, I braked the car and walked along the moss-covered path between two blackened pillars to speak to the vicar. He was pleased to see a stranger in his church, but became wary when I told him why I had approached him.
'Could you tell me,' I asked, 'the meaning of that peculiar group of carvings over your porch - the one depicting the toad-monster and the angel?'
He seemed slightly worried by my question. 'Obviously the triumph of good over evil,' he suggested.
'But why is the angel holding a star? Surely a cross would be more appropriate.'
The vicar nodded. 'That disturbs me, too,' he confessed, 'because it seems to be a concession to the superstitions round here. They say it was originally not part of the church, but was brought here by one of the early parish priests, who never revealed where he found it. They say that the star is the same one they have to use on All Hallows' Eve, and that the angel isn't an angel at all, but a - being - from some other world. And as for the toad - they say it represents the so-called Berkeley Toad, which is still waiting to be released! I've tried to take the thing off the porch, but they won't have it -threaten not to attend church at all if I remove it! Was there ever a priest in my position?'
I left the church, feeling rather unsettled. I did not like the reference to the carving's not being part of the church, for this would surely mean that the legend was more widespread than I had thought. But, of course, the relief was part of the building, and it was only a distortion of the legend that spoke of its once being separate. I did not look back at the carven scene as the car moved away, nor at the vicar who had left the building and was staring up at the top of the porch.
Turning off Mill Lane, I cruised down Cotton Row. The castle came into view as I turned the corner and left behind me a row of untenanted cottages. It was set on the crest of the hill, three walls still standing, though the roof had long ago collapsed. A lone tower stood like a charred finger against the pale sky, and I momentarily wondered if this were the tower around whose window bats had clustered so long ago. Then the car stopped and I withdrew the key, slammed the door and began to climb the slope.
The grass was covered with droplets of water, and the horizon was very vague from the oncoming mist. The moistness of the ground made progress uphill difficult, but after a few yards a series of stone stairs led to the castle, which I ascended. The stairs were covered with greenish moss, and in scattered places I seemed to detect faint marks, so indistinct that I could not determine their shape, but only have the feeling that there was something vaguely wrong about them. What could have made them, I had no idea; for the absence of life near the castle was extremely noticeable, the only moving object being an occasional bloated bird which flapped up out of the ruins, startled by my entry into the castle.
There was surprisingly little left of the castle. Most of the floor was covered with the debris of the fallen roof, and what could be seen under the fragments of stone gave no indication of the location of any secret room. As a possibility struck me, I climbed the stairway which led into the tower and examined the surface at the bottom of the circular staircase; but the steps were mere slabs of stone. The thought of the tower suggested another idea -perhaps the legend lied when it spoke of the monster's prison as being underground? But the door of the upper tower room swung open easily enough, revealing a narrow, empty chamber. My heart gave an unpleasant lurch when, moving further in to survey the entire room, I saw, in place of a bed under the window, a coffin. With some trepidation, I moved closer and peered into the coffin - and I think I must have given a sigh of relief when I saw that the coffin, whose bottom was spread with earth, was empty. It must have been some bizarre kind of buri
al vault, even though it was certainly unortho-doxly situated. But I could not help remembering that clouds of bats used to collect at the window of some tower in this castle, and there seemed to be a subconscious connection which I could not quite place.
Leaving the tower room rather quickly, I descended the stairs and examined the ground on all sides of the castle. Nothing but rubble met my gaze, though once I did see an odd sign scratched on a slab of rock. Unless the door to the secret room lay under the remains of the collapsed roof, it presumably did not exist at all; and after ten minutes of dragging the fragments of stone to other positions, the only effects of which were to tear my fingernails and cover me with dust, I realized that there was no way of discovering whether the door did, in fact, lie beneath the debris. At any rate, I could return to the house and point out to Scott that no malevolent entity had dragged me off to its lair; and, as far as I was able, I had proved that there was no evidence of a hidden room at the castle.
I started back down the stone stairs which led to the road, looking out across the gently curving green fields, now fast becoming vague through the approaching mist. Suddenly I tripped and fell down one step. I put my hand on the step above me to help me rise - and almost toppled into a yawning pit. I was tottering on the brink of an open trapdoor, the step forming the door and the stone which I had kicked out of place forming the lock. A stone ladder thrust into the darkness below, leading down to the unseen floor of a room of indeterminate extent.
Drawing out my flashlight, I switched it on. The room now revealed was completely bare, except for a small black cube of some metal at the foot of the ladder. Square in shape, the room measured approximately 20' x 20', the walls being of a dull grey stone, which was covered with pits out of which grew the fronds of pallid ferns. There was absolutely no evidence of any sort of animal life in the room, nor, indeed, that an animal of any kind had ever inhabited it - except, perhaps, for a peculiar odour, like a mixture of the scents of reptiles and decay, which rose chokingly for a minute from the newly-opened aperture.
There appeared to be nothing to interest me in the entire room, barring the small black cube which lay in the centre of the floor. First ensuring that the ladder would bear my weight, I descended it and reached the cube. Kneeling beside it on the pock-marked grey floor, I examined the piece of black metal. When scratched with a penknife it revealed a strange violet lustre which suggested that it was merely covered with a black coating. Inscribed hieroglyphics had been incised upon its upper surface, one of which I recognized from the Necronomicon, where it was given as a protection against demons. Rolling it over, I saw that the underside of the cube was carved with one of those star-shaped symbols which were so prevalent in the village. This cube would make an excellent piece of evidence to show that I actually had visited the supposedly haunted castle. I picked it up, finding it surprisingly heavy - about the weight of a piece of lead the same size - and held it in my hand.
And in doing so, I released the abomination which sent me leaping up the creaking ladder and racing madly down the hill, on to Cotton Row and into my car. Fumbling at the ignition key which I had inserted upside down, I looked back to see an obscene reaching member protruding from the gulf against the fast-misting sky. Finally the key slipped into its socket, and I drove away from the nightmare I had seen with a violence that brought a scream from the gears. The landscape flashed by at a nerve-wrenching pace, each shadow in the dim headlights seeming a hurtling demon, until the car swung into the driveway at Scott's house, barely stopping before smashing into the garage doors.
The front door opened hurriedly at my violent entry. Scott hastened out of the rectangle of light from the hall lamp. By that time I was half-faint from the hideous sight in the pit and the frantic journey after it, so that he had to support me as I reeled into the hallway. Once in the living-room and fortified with a long drink of brandy, I began to recount the events of that afternoon. Before I had reached the terrors of the castle he was leaning forward with a disturbed air, and he uttered a groan of horror when I spoke of the coffin in the tower room. When I described the horrible revelation which had burst upon me in the underground room, his eyes dilated with terror.
'But that's monstrous!' he gasped. 'You mean to say -the legend spoke of Byatis growing with every victim -and it must have taken Morley at the last - but that what you say could be possible -'
'I saw it long enough before I realized what it was to take in all the details,' I told him. 'Now I can only wait until tomorrow, when I can get some explosives and destroy the thing.'
'Parry, you don't mean you're going to the castle again,' he demanded incredulously. 'My God, after all you've seen, surely you must have enough evidence without going back to that place for more!'
'You've only heard about all the horrors I saw,' I reminded him. 'I saw them so that if I don't wipe them out now they're going to haunt me with knowledge that one day that toad-creature may smash out of its prison. I'm not going back there for pleasure this time, but for a real purpose. We know it can't escape yet - but if it's left it might manage to lure victims to it again, and get back its strength. I don't have to look at its eye for what I'm going to do. I know nobody around here would go near -even the cottages nearby are empty - but suppose someone else like me hears of the legend and decides to follow it up? This time the door will be open, you know.'
The next morning I had to drive for some miles before discovering that there was nowhere I could buy explosives. I finally bought several tins of petrol and hoped that the inflammable liquid would destroy the alien monster. Calling in at Scott's house for my luggage - I was returning to London after finishing my task at the castle, for I did not want to be connected when the local police made their inquiries - I was accosted by the home help, who pressed upon me a curiously-figured star-shaped stone, which, she said, would keep off the power of Byatis while I used the petrol. Thanking her, I took my leave of Scott and went out to the car, which I turned out into the roadway. On looking back, I saw both Scott and the woman watching me anxiously from the living-room window.
The petrol cans on the back seat jangled together abominably, unnerving me as I tried to think of my best plan of action at the castle. I drove in the opposite direction on this journey, for I did not want to pass through Severnford; for one thing, I wanted to reach the castle as soon as possible and end the abnormality which scratched at my mind, and, besides, I disliked passing that carving of the toad-horror over the church porch again. The journey was shorter, and I soon was lifting the petrol cans on to the grass at the side of the road.
Lifting the cans near the gaping pit under the lifted stone slab took a great deal of labour and no little time. Placing my cigarette lighter at the edge of the stairway, I prised the caps off the petrol cans. I had taken them around the pit to the next higher step, and now I dipped a piece of plywood from Scott's garage into the petrol in one tin and placed it on the step above. Then, lighting the wood with my cigarette lighter, I hurriedly kicked the tins over the edge of the gulf and dropped the blazing wood in after them.
I think I was only just in time, for as I pushed the open cans into the pit a huge black object rose over the edge, drawing back as the petrol and wood hit it, as a snail retracts its eye organs at a touch of salt. Then came a protracted hissing sound from below, coupled with a terrible bass roaring, which rose in intensity and pitch before changing to a repulsive bubbling. I did not dare to look down into what must be seething in fluid agony at the bottom of the pit, but what rose above the trapdoor was dreadful enough. Thin greenish spirals of gas whirled out of the aperture and collected in a thick cloud about fifty feet above. Perhaps it was merely the effect of some anaesthetic quality of the gas which augmented my imagination, but the cloud seemed to congeal at one point of its ascent into a great swollen toad-like shape, which flapped away on vast bat-wings towards the west.
That was my last sight of the castle and its morbidly distorted surroundings. I did not look back as I descen
ded the stone stairs, nor did I glance away from the road ahead until I had left the glistening of the Severn far above the horizon. Not until the London traffic was pressing around me did I think of the monster as behind me, and even now I cannot stop thinking of what I saw after I lifted the metal cube from the floor of the castle room.
As I had picked up the cube from the floor a strange stirring had begun beneath my feet. Looking down, I saw that the join of floor and wall on one side of the room was ascending the stone, and I managed to clutch a stone rung just before the floor slid away altogether, revealing itself to be a balanced door into a yet vaster room below. Climbing until I was halfway up the hanging ladder, I peered warily into the complete darkness below. No sound came from the blackness, and as yet there was no movement; not until I attempted to get a firmer grip on the ladder and, in so doing, dropped the metal block with a moist thud on something in that blackness, did anything occur.
A slithering sound began below me, mixed with a rubbery suction, and as I watched in paralytic terror a black object slid from underneath the edge of a wall and began to expand upward, slapping itself blindly against the sides of the smaller room. It resembled a gigantic snake more than anything else, but it was eyeless, and had no other facial features. And I was confused by the connections this colossal abnormality could have with Byatis. Was this the haven of some other entity from another sphere, or had Morley called up other demons from beyond forbidden gates?
Then I understood, and gave one shriek of horror-fraught realization as I plunged out of the room of malignancy. I heard the thing dash itself flabbily against its prison walls, but I knew the ghastly reason why it could not escape. I looked back once. The obscene black member was reaching frantically around the edge of the pit, searching for the prey it had sensed in its lair a moment before, and at this I laughed in lunatic glee, for I knew that the thing would search mindlessly until it found that it could reach nothing. 'It had grown too vast for the cellar room,' Sangster had written - but had not mentioned just what growth had taken place with each living sacrifice . . .
The Collected Short Fiction Page 11