Wormwood

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘It would be considered,’ said Thaddeus. ‘I could convince them to save your life.’

  ‘Are you truly captive?’ she asked as she got closer to the doorway.

  ‘A captive guest, bound by a party trick, but still a friend and one who knows your future,’ Thaddeus said gently, tilting his head to one side and smiling, knowing that his harsh words had wounded her heart. ‘It would be safer for you to stay here. Let the angel go and we can have that meal I promised you. In fact I was going to ask if you would consider coming to work for me and becoming a bibblewick, London’s greatest purveyor of fine books.’ Thaddeus spoke proudly, raising his eyebrows and beaming a smile as he twitched his thin nose like a large rabbit.

  Agetta let go of the angel’s hand and smiled back at him. Her eyes searched his face for the slightest trace of a lie. Thaddeus held the smile long after its worth had gone as he waited for her to reply.

  ‘I’ll go with the angel,’ Agetta said, and she walked backwards to the doorway. ‘I want nothing to do with these people. Life is more than what I shall eat and the fine clothes of the ladies in Fleet Street.’ She stopped and thought for a second. ‘I think your shop is beyond me, I would never make a bookseller.’

  Agetta turned and looked at Tegatus. He plucked two of the largest candles from the chandelier and gestured towards the open door, and silently they left the chamber and stepped into the darkness of the tunnel.

  ‘Wait, I will come with you,’ Thaddeus shouted as he slipped the bindings from his hands and ran after them. ‘I can’t stay here. I am a prisoner to more than Morbus Gallicus.’

  Agetta and the angel ran through the tunnel, the sound of the Thames getting closer with each footstep. Thaddeus fumbled on in the darkness, trying to maintain pace with their flickering shadows, keeping close to the echoing footsteps and sound of splashing feet. Tegatus held tightly to Agetta’s hand as he pulled her along. They whispered to each other, hoping Thaddeus would not overhear their words.

  ‘If we escape the tunnel we can return to the bookshop and take the Nemorensis,’ Tegatus said as he pushed through the deepening water. ‘It has to be returned to heaven or destroyed. I cannot leave it in his hands, there is something I cannot trust in your friend.’

  Agetta didn’t reply, but she found herself agreeing with the angel. She had thought so much of the friendship, dreamt of what it could be, but now she realised that there was more to Thaddeus than he would have her know.

  ‘Wait for me,’ he said faintly in the distance. ‘You have the light and I walk in darkness.’

  They ignored his words and strode through the flow. Agetta looked up and in the light from the candle she saw a large white rat perched on a flat stone that stuck out from the wall. It looked at her through its one black eye, twitching its whiskers, shaking water from its fur. From high above them in the streets they could hear the ever-growing panic as people abandoned their lives and fled the capital. Cartwheels rumbled over cobbles and the shouts of the poor dug beneath the clay and echoed through the labyrinth of tunnels linking every part of the city.

  ‘How much further?’ Agetta asked as she waded through the knee-high water.

  ‘Until we find the way out,’ the angel replied, losing his patience. ‘Soon we will reach the river and from there we can find the bridge.’

  ‘I know the way,’ Thaddeus shouted from far behind. ‘Wait and I will take you there.’

  They pressed on. Tegatus stopped and listened to the distant rumbling, not sure if he could hear the sound of footsteps far behind Thaddeus.

  ‘He’d better come with us,’ he said to Agetta. ‘At least then we will know if he plans any mischief.’

  Thaddeus walked as quickly as he could to catch up with them. ‘We could always go back, Agetta, I could talk to them …’ His deeply furrowed face was outlined in the candlelight as they stood at the crossroads of two tunnels.

  ‘We go on,’ said the angel, pointing ahead to where the tunnel dropped sharply towards the river. ‘You can stay here if you want but the girl doesn’t want any part of your scheming.’

  The dull shouts of the rampage above them echoed harshly along the tunnel, the sound coming at them from all directions. Agetta felt a long cold shiver shoot up her spine, making every hair on the back of her head jump like a jackrabbit. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked as they walked on in the waning light.

  ‘Another sky-quake or something even more terrible,’ said Thaddeus miserably, taking her by the arm. ‘We should turn back, it will be safer for us.’

  ‘For you but not for me,’ said Tegatus, and he pulled Agetta away from him. ‘We go on, but you can stay. I sense that you don’t really want to come with us. So why don’t you stay? Why don’t you stay and play with that fat dog you seem to be so friendly with – Rumskin, wasn’t it?’ He rubbed the claw marks on his face, then pushed Thaddeus in the chest. ‘He’s not here to look after you, is he?’ the angel asked. ‘Nice to have a friend to look after you, a demonic lap dog to pant over you, Mister Thaddeus.’

  ‘What do you mean, Tegatus?’ Agetta asked.

  ‘Ask him – ask him what is really going on. If he can tell the truth you may get a surprise.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Agetta, he just wants to set you and me apart. Angels don’t know the ways of men. They are born to interfere, born to fall from grace at the slightest sniff of the barmaid’s apron … What got you, then? Was it the Absinthium or the Geneva or was it something more subtle than that?’ Thaddeus asked as he stroked the side of the angel’s face.

  ‘This is where we part company,’ the angel said, and he grabbed Thaddeus by the throat and lifted him out of the water, kicking and scrabbling to be set free.

  ‘Are you going to use magic?’ Agetta asked as the angel sat Thaddeus on the rat-infested shelf that ran the length of the tunnel.

  ‘No, something far more powerful than that,’ he exclaimed. He punched Thaddeus twice in the face with his fist and dropped him to the cold wet stone. Rats crawled all over the unconscious Thaddeus, and Tegatus saw the look of surprise on Agetta’s face. ‘He is one of them, it was all a trick. Thaddeus was the bait in the trap and you are the one they are really after.’

  ‘They said they were going to transform you.’

  ‘And they would – it is part of my future. When an angel falls, when it takes on the things of the world and desires to be human, that is what happens. We delude ourselves that it is so far in the future that it is of no consequence, we try with all our heart to taste human life, but once we take that step, like every addiction the pit becomes our home and the body we then inhabit is an expression of our vice.’

  ‘So will you change anyway?’ Agetta asked as they quickly walked on, leaving Thaddeus to sleep with the rats.

  ‘In the chamber, when the creature took hold of me, I saw what I would become. In an instant I could see how I had given my life over to the desires of my heart and forgotten my purpose. I was trapped by the Queen of Darkness, not because of her power, but because I wanted to be. I had tasted the fruit and saw it was good.’

  ‘In the shop, I hated you, wanted you to die or to go away …’

  ‘That wasn’t you but the book – it has power to alter your mind and from that you have no protection.’ Tegatus stopped and looked at her face, holding the candle above their heads and letting the light flicker on the low roof of the tunnel. ‘I’m going back to the shop. I will take the Nemorensis and destroy it. I would take it to heaven, but I have no idea how to get back. My mind has been so long on earthly things that I have even forgotten how to fly.’ The angel laughed. ‘But then I have no feathers so even in that –’ He stopped. Far behind came a cry that he knew well. The wail of a beast ricocheted through the tunnel as Rumskin called out to them in long, loud howls.

  Tegatus gave a look to Agetta that shouted for her to run. Together they sped through the tunnel, splashing through the water and almost snuffing out their candles. The angel protected the light with his han
d as he ran, and the flame cast shadows in the shape of long black claws that seemed to crawl over the roof. Far in the distance was the small light of the entrance. With each step it got closer, and with each step so did the sound of Rumskin.

  Agetta reached the door first. It was smaller than her, the height of an infant. She managed to squeeze through into the bright morning light. Tegatus pushed himself into the opening, the frantic splashing getting closer by the second. ‘Quickly, pull me through,’ he shouted to Agetta as she threw the candle into the river below them. Agetta pulled and pulled on his coat, trying to prise him from the tunnel entrance. But Tegatus was stuck, trapped by his size, wedged in the doorframe. ‘You’ll have to go on alone,’ he shouted. ‘At least they won’t get by me, unless they eat their way through.’

  Agetta grabbed him by the head and put her foot against the wall and pulled as hard as she could. ‘Now push,’ she shouted, and suddenly he popped like a cork and fell on to the towpath. Agetta quickly pulled the door behind him.

  All around people were running, and on the quayside came the sound of shouting and crying as the blentish filled their barrows and carts, piling them high with chattels. The chaos could be felt like a cold wind that blew through the streets. Everywhere was shouting and screaming as the panic inflamed people’s minds and the desire to survive stripped each of their dignity. For what seemed like an eternity, Agetta stared at the scene. In the distance the dome of St Paul’s looked like a giant fractured egg, its roof smashed through and wisps of thick smoke billowing from the wound. On the river the boatmen rowed furiously for the south bank, dragging the flotsam that hung to their vessels to escape the fury that had fallen from the sky.

  ‘We have to get to the bookshop, quickly,’ Tegatus said, pulling Agetta back from her dreaming.

  At that moment Rumskin hit the door to the tunnel. His grotesque head burst through the wood and stared at Agetta, snarling and spitting blood. Tegatus grabbed a small barrel and threw it at the creature, which recoiled back into the darkness.

  ‘It won’t follow,’ Tegatus said as he began to run. ‘It’s daylight, and he won’t risk the sun. Once taken by darkness the radiance becomes a place of pain. It will be tonight when he will try to track us down.’

  Agetta didn’t feel reassured. An overwhelming sensation of dread filled her body, making her feet turn to lead and her stomach twist and turn with every fearful thought. As she ran behind the angel, trying to keep pace amongst the madness, all she could think of was the destruction that had come to the city and the terrifying change to her life. There came a painful feeling of guilt and despair. It sharply reminded her of the dissatisfaction she had with her life. It poked fun at her thoughts for a better way, a higher ideal. This was the result, it whispered. Agetta had desired something more – the riches of Yerzinia, the life of a lady. Now her wishes to be lifted from her mundane life were being answered. Now this terror was the payment for her dreaming, a reminder that everything she touched would wither and die.

  As they ran, her thoughts blocked out the sights of the dead, crushed in the human stampede. They reminded her of what Yerzinia had said, and she knew that she had to find her, to tell her of all that had happened and accept all that she offered. The vision of the alley came to her mind: Yerzinia dressed in her long black coat, the fine carriage with its silky black horses. She would find her again, and tonight she would take the Nemorensis as a gift, a token of service and friendship.

  Along the road towards London Bridge there was no space to run as the mass of people moved like a slow, dirty river, funnelled and crushed together through the pillars of the gate and on to the stones of the bridge. Agetta held tightly to the back of the angel’s coat as they struggled to move through the seething bodies that carried them along like a summer flood against their will. At the far side of the bridge she could see the entrance to the bookshop, where the sign squeaked and called as it swung in the fresh breeze.

  Tegatus pushed his way closer to the door of the shop as unseen hands dipped into and out of his every pocket, dismayed by their emptiness. Agetta held tightly to him, staring at the sea of faces, the feeling of floating became overwhelming as she was pulled like a bobbing cork closer and closer to the bookshop. She looked up. For the first time she realised that the roof of the building was like a peculiar castle with high ramparts and tiny arrow-slits for the upstairs windows. Set high on the battlements were the familiar faces of the Diakka cast in stone, gargoyles protecting from an unseen enemy. High above was the comet, shimmering in the bright morning sun, the upper heavens glowing silver with the fragments of the exploded sky-stones.

  Her hand was torn from the angel as she moved further away from him in the surge. ‘Tegatus!’ she shouted, and she began to drown in the crush, slowly sinking down, to be trodden underfoot by the frantic throng. Tegatus turned and saw her hand reaching up as gradually she became submerged beneath the crowd. Quickly he reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her towards him against the human flow. She screamed in pain as her arm stretched with the weight of the people. An old man with a long stick and grey beard lifted her from the ground and pushed her higher as the angel tugged her towards him. Agetta saw the man stumble, and their eyes met as he was sucked into the seething mass, the crowd slowly engulfing him inch by inch beneath them, unaware of who or what he was. His screams went unnoticed in the cries of the throng.

  Tegatus held on to the shop door, using it as a safe anchor, and with his other hand he dragged Agetta towards him. She fell into his arms, safe in the solitude of the doorway, an island set against the tide.

  They stepped inside the bookshop and bolted the door against the tide of people, locking out the noise and chaos. Row upon row of dark volumes breathed complete silence and the knowledge of ages.

  There was a scurrying of tiny feet against the wall, and in the corner of the shop by the old fireplace a darkening of light began to shade against the stones. A small creature began to form, slowly taking shape, drawn together bit by bit as dust fell on dust. First two bright eyes, then the shape of an ear, a mouth and a small button nose – all were wrapped in a sheath of matted blonde hair as an urchin materialised before them.

  ‘You must go,’ said the child in a whining voice. ‘It is not safe for you here.’

  23: Le Grand Dénouement

  ‘I met a man the other day who would not believe in angels,’ Blake said, staring out over the Thames as it pushed relentlessly to the sea. ‘He said there was no such thing. It was the day before the sky-quake, and the comet.’ He paused and looked ruefully at Abram. ‘If only he could be here now and see what I see.’ Blake replied as he looked at an upturned boat that swirled and turned, sucked towards London Bridge, its passengers floating like basking otters face-down in the water. ‘My imagination has been stretched to breaking, and now I will never be surprised by anything. My eyes cannot deceive me for my mind is shattered and I feel my life will never be the same again. Tell me one thing – why all this?’

  ‘You have read the Nemorensis, you are the master of the Cabala – tell me, O wise one.’

  ‘I thought I knew, thought I could predict what was to come, but since I had the book I was a changed man, obsessed with my calculations, distracted to know the truth.’

  ‘Scientist, Cabalist, always looking for the answer and never just accepting,’ the angel replied. ‘I am always amazed, every time you reach out for illumination you fervently grasp some old belief. Look at you – you’re a scientist, a man who has lived his life in fact, and you search for truth in some whimsy. The more you discover, the more you bury your head in the ways of the past.’

  ‘The more I discovered, the more I concealed myself in magic,’ Blake replied. ‘It was as if I was running away from the modern world to some better place in the past. I have always been afraid to live in the here and now. I have found myself either looking to the future or living in a world of what could have been. There is too much to face in the present moment, it’s demands a
re greater than I could ever bear.’

  ‘It is a calumny on life to live like that,’ Abram said almost whispering. ‘Each breath is a sacrement of the present moment, it is precious and unique and has to be savoured. Living in the past has to be savoured. Living in the past leads to bitterness, wanting to be in the future is a waste of life. You cannot afford to squander one second, it may be your last … And all you could think of was the pages of the book and what you would discover?’

  ‘It began to be everything,’ Blake replied, as if at last he was being understood.

  ‘That is the Nemorensis. It finds your weakness and makes it grow. Those who desire knowledge will be led astray with its power. Those who seek power will be made drunk with its influence, and those who are bitter will be shrivelled like the praecoquum. It will call out to you from its hiding-place, it will want you to discover it again. The Nemorensis needs the adoration of its slaves, for that is what you are. It will shout its presence and drag you from the ends of the world and all I have to do is follow you and then it will be mine again.’

  ‘Again?’ Blake asked, surprised by what he heard.

  ‘I was its keeper. I stole it from the one who wrote it. The book started life as the history of our family, then its creator began to fill it with desires that leapt from her heart. Filled the book with talk of our master lying to us, cheating us out of our inheritance. She said we were equal to him, that we were not his creation but just the same. Dust from dust, ash from ash.’ He stopped speaking, hoping that Blake would grasp the consequences of his words.

  ‘Hezrin was such a fine angel, so beautiful, and in that came her deceit.’ The angel looked up to the sky and the comet that hovered high above them. ‘She has called this comet from space. As her power has grown, so has her greed. She wants to be the queen of two kingdoms – earth, then heaven – and she will rule them with her brother Pyratheon. The one good thing about the book is that it will predict what she will do next. With it we will know how to defeat her. And there is something that she needs to do. Every thousand years she has to be transformed. Once we come to live on earth and the pull of the world controls our spirit, an angel will soon be changed into a snarling demon. She is near her time again; she will have to take on another identity. The only way of doing this is by stealing the body of the person she is to become. It has to be their birthing-day and it has to fall on the full moon. Tomorrow is such a moon and somewhere very near is the one who is to have their very life stolen from them.’