And Afterward, the Dark

by Basil Copper

  This sort of thing had been going on for several months when Farlow began to take me into his confidence. He was always a thin, finely strung sort of man and his experiences of the past weeks had put deep shadows under his eyes and his physical frame looked frailer than at any time I remembered. It took several evenings of half-coherent, hedging talk before he really broached the subject, but once he had got fairly started his thoughts came tumbling out like water released from a floodgate.

  His greatest fear was that I should suppose his sanity to be in question, but after I had listened to him for several evenings and questioned him keenly about certain points, I was able to reassure him on this. If ever a man was sane in the true sense of the word, it was Farlow. He had told me about the first half dozen or so dreams, which had taken him to a point higher up the beach. It was warm and comfortable there, in the hot sand, and as the dreams or visions or whatever you like to call them, now began with him already ashore and dry, there were no unpleasant physical effects on awakening, for which he was thankful.

  So far as he could make out, for he did not always check by the clock, the duration of each dream was firmly stamped in his mind as being about three hours, but the actual time in this world amounted to ten minutes. He saw no particular significance in this, but he made the curious remark that if the dream had commenced with him far at sea, and several miles from land, and he could not have swum to shore in the three hours allowed, he would have drowned. I did not see how he could possibly argue that and I felt it was time to turn his thoughts away from such morbid directions. But though I spoke warmly and, as I thought, sensibly on the point, he brushed my valid objections aside with a sigh. He just felt convinced that it would be so, he said, and nothing I could say would turn him aside from this.

  I asked him then if he thought that there would have been a drowned corpse in the bed when he came back to this world, and he answered quite simply in the affirmative. This impelled me to question him further; it was implicit in his argument that his physical self was absent from his bed during the course of the dreams, and I offered to keep watch in his room if that would help. This he would not have at any price; he gave no reason, but looked at me curiously and it was my own personal view that he feared that any intervention by another person, however well meant, might endanger him and prevent him from "getting back."

  I did not press the matter, for I saw how serious the situation had become. The next evening I visited Farlow he seemed calmer and more rational. He had had a quiet night and he proceeded to bring me up to date on his reasoning. The dreams now began with him lying, fully conscious, far up the beach, well rested and quite dry in the heat of the sun. The sand stretched for mile after mile and he seemed to know in his heart that he was in the East and in an ancient time. The mist was clearing as the sun rose, the waves moved languidly in the sunlight, and far off to the east the spires of some city at the edge of the shore were revealing themselves.

  All through his series of visions Farlow, even in his dream state, had no notion of who he was, how he had come to be in the sea, or what he was doing on the shore. He was invariably attired in the blouse and dark pantaloons, and always woke with a dry skin and dressed in pyjamas. The fear of the dream had not yet begun, and so far as he could estimate the pattern of three hours dream and ten minutes real time continued.

  The dreams averaged about one a week—though there were occasions when there were two—and were always progressive. They usually occurred when Farlow was more than ordinarily tired, which gave him the notion that the barriers of everyday were broken down at those times. His doctor friend had been unable to help. It was in these circumstances that he resolved to bring something back with him from the dream-world of the shore, if it were physically possible. I was sitting in Farlow's study after dinner late one evening when he told me this. I could see that it had cost him a great effort to speak of it.

  "And were you successful?" I asked, forcing the words out. Farlow's eyes were dark caverns of sombre knowledge as he nodded slowly. Abruptly he got up and went over to his desk. He unlocked one of the drawers, drew out something wrapped in white cloth, and put it down on the table in front of me.

  "Have a look at this," he said. "You need not be alarmed. It isn't anything unpleasant."

  I must confess my hand was a little unsteady as I unwrapped the cloth. Perhaps I was disappointed or it may have been a curious look on my face, but Farlow relaxed and smiled grimly. What I had before me was a piece of reddish-coloured rock, about six inches long and three wide, weighing perhaps a couple of pounds. I looked at it stupefied.

  "You don't mean to say that you actually brought this back from your dream?" I said. Nothing could have been more banal than my sentence but I was even more surprised when Farlow agreed.

  "Yes,'' he said simply. "That is exactly what I do mean.''

  I couldn't think of anything to say that was neither idiotic nor a reflection on Farlow's sanity, so I turned the piece of rock over in my hand and added,"Have you had someone look at this?"

  Farlow nodded again. "Smithers. One of the best geologists we've got. He was quite excited. He was damned puzzled too. He places it at the time of Christ. What upset him was the fact that there had been no weathering since.''

  Farlow and I exchanged a long glance. Then I held up my whisky glass for the stiff peg he started to pour me. There was nothing to say.

  I was unavoidably called away on business soon after Farlow's incredible revelation and though I kept in touch by letter, it was more than three weeks before I saw him again. Brief as the interval had been there was an indefinable difference in his face; a subtle fear lurking at the back of his eyes which I did not like. It took a day or two to regain the old intimacy and it was not until several nights later that he started to bring me up to date. There had been more dreams, of course; that much he had already hinted on my return.

  They had been progressive, I knew, though he had not gone into detail, but now they had taken a more sinister turn. He had been sitting halfway up the beach, fully recovered from his ordeal in the sea. His memory in the dream recalled this fact, but nothing beyond it. He still did not know his identity or the location of the shore. It was lighter now and the mist was almost gone. The turrets and spires of the distant city winked and shimmered through the grey wisps of morning haze and he felt a lightening of the heart.

  Over several sittings Farlow took me through a whole series of dreams, in which the pattern gradually became darker until eventually horror tinged the atmosphere. How he first heard, Farlow did not remember, but over a period which lasted about ten days, he absorbed the fact that the city was called Emilion. He was dreaming almost every night now and each time the dream began with him sitting on the beach, with the sky brighter, the mists thinning away, the fair face of the city more clearly revealed.

  The brightness and beauty of Emilion was something beyond this world, said Farlow; it gladdened the heart and filled his whole being with joy. And as he daily gained in strength in the dream, he started to run on the beach and splash in and out of the warm water, as he gazed at the distant city, which rose spire on golden spire out of a sea of rosy mist.

  The only thing to compare with it in this world, said Farlow, was Mont St. Michel on a bright spring morning with the sun gilding the tops of the wavelets; but lovely as that was by earthly standards, it was a poor thing compared with the unearthly beauty of the dream.

  "Multiply Mont St. Michel a hundredfold and there you have Emilion," Farlow told me simply, the firelight coming and going on his dark, tired face.

  Even during the daytime waking hours, the name of Emilion had filled his soul with quiet contentment and he had spent much of his spare time brooding over old maps and atlases, particularly those of mediaeval times, but without success. Emilion as a city seemed to belong to the land of make-believe. Then one night, about a week before my return, the dream had begun to change. The banners and turrets and spires of Emilion were seen across a vast s
tretch of foaming strand, more than a mile wide, which was stained all pink and gold with the light of the rising sun, as the shallow waves broke across it. There was a woman in the city, whom Farlow loved, I gathered.

  He himself was only vaguely aware of this, but gradually through the whole astonishing series of dreams, the fact had permeated his heart. He did not know her name; only that he loved; that the girl was there; and that to Emilion he must find his way. And yet, as is the way with dreams, even of the vivid kind which Farlow was experiencing, the thing could not be rushed. He could not simply proceed to the city as one would in normal life. In timeless, slow-motion sequences, the dream proceeded from night to night. Each time Farlow would be but a few feet nearer the edge of the vast foaming foreshore which separated him from the city. And then one night there came a subtle change in the picture.

  For as he gazed across at the turrets of Emilion, he became aware of a faint white swathe, like a hazy touch of gauze along the base of the picture. It swirled across the sand, beneath the city walls, more than a mile and a half away. It was stationary, yet seemed to move with incredible speed and Farlow was conscious of a faint unease. A breath of cold wind seemed to disperse the last folds of mist still hanging over the surface of the sea, and a strange fear gnawed at his heart. He stopped walking towards the city and gazed at the faint patch of white that blurred the far distance. And then he awoke to nameless dread and an icy dew on his forehead.

  He feared sleep the following night but it overtook him just the same; he was on the shore looking across the far strand and there, in the distance, was the strange misty cloud that moved with such tremendous speed. And it seemed to him that it had come a little nearer. The cold wind blew on Farlow and he felt the deep-rooted fear there is no allaying. And once again he awoke. Several times more he dreamed and each time it was the same; every night the city of Emilion shone across the foaming water but the patch of white had spread and begun to reveal itself in detail.

  And the wind blew with a cold breath and it seemed to Farlow that it made a whispering murmur in the sky. And what it said with such insidious clamour in his ear was: "The Janissaries of Emilion! '' And Farlow woke with a shrieking cry.

  "What do you make of it?" Farlow asked me for the fourth time.

  I lit a cigarette with a hand which was none too steady.

  "The Janissaries were a sort of mameluke, weren't they?" I said at last.

  Farlow nodded. He reached down a thick tome from one of his shelves.

  "I wasted no time in looking them up," he said. He read from the reference work in front of him. According to this the Janissaries were a body of Turkish infantry in olden times, forming the personal bodyguard of the Sultan of Turkey. They had been abolished in 1826. The reference book also gave them as: Personal instrument of tyranny. Turkish soldier.

  I tried to look wiser than I felt as Farlow finished reading.

  "How does this tie in with the period being two thousand years ago? Or the East?" I asked quickly, before Farlow could speak.

  "The Janissaries were a terribly ancient force which existed under many names," Farlow replied quietly. "They were mounted at an earlier period. And they operated outside Turkey. In the East particularly. And you must remember that Turkey was an Oriental Empire. It was only since Ataturk...."

  "Very well," I interrupted him. "You surely can't take this latest phase seriously."

  Farlow held up his hand to stop me from saying anything further. One look at his face was enough for me to see that he was deadly serious.

  "You have not heard me out," he said patiently. "There have been more dreams since those of which I have just told you."

  Put briefly, Farlow's dream self had stood upon the shore and as the vision progressed from day to day had seen the white cloud grow, until it had blossomed into something which resembled a dark mass of many points, topped with a hazy, billowing mist. On the last occasion on which he had dreamed, he had seen little spurts of foam as the mass entered the surf on the far side of the gulf which separated it from him. And the great fear which had paralyzed him seemed to fix on his heart like a stone and the freezing wind which followed had again whispered: "The Janissaries of Emilion! "

  And like a man who escapes from a nightmare to find himself still within it, the wretched Farlow had screamed awake to find his day but the prelude to the fears of the following night. I tried to comfort my friend as best I could, though it was scant encouragement my presence was able to give. I was of the opinion that a priest or psychiatrist might do more good; but who could accompany him within this dark dream and stand at his side in strong support against the nightmare which menaced him? It was an insidious, sombre battle being waged nightly within the man's mind and I feared the end as I heard his next words.

  He sat quietly at the table and said to me in even tones, "I have thought it out carefully. In the last dream, only two nights ago, I was able to distinguish clearly for the first time the nature of the threat. I shall never reach the city. Crossing the water to reach me are a body of horsemen, clad in white robes, moving at a tremendous speed. Even at the slow rate at which the dream progresses the end cannot be long delayed. A few weeks at most."

  I sought to reassure him with some platitude but the words died in my throat.

  "They are the Janissaries of Emilion!" Farlow called out in a strangled voice. "I can begin to distinguish the cruel Oriental faces. I have become a man on whom they had revenge in the ancient times."

  "But what can a dream do to harm you?" I burst out impatiently, in spite of myself.

  "Fool!" Farlow almost shrieked. "They will kill me! When they catch me I shall die.''

  I was silent before this outburst. Farlow had turned away and stood looking unseeingly at the bookcase.

  I reached for my hat. "In my opinion, you need good medical advice, my friend, and at once," I said. "If I might recommend...."

  "Good-evening," said Farlow in dead, measured tones.

  I went out and quietly closed the door behind me. That night even I doubted Farlow's sanity.

  In this extreme crisis, and with Farlow's sanity and even life at stake, I sought out Dr. Sondquist. In as subtle a manner as I could I laid something of the case before him. To my relief Dr. Sondquist treated the matter as being within the normal bounds of psychiatric practice. He had an impressive-sounding line of Jungian and Adlerian quotations, and his crisp, incisive manner convinced me that here was a man who could recall Farlow from the dark shoreline to which his mind had wandered, if anyone could.

  To my relief, my next interview with Farlow passed off much better than I had expected. My friend seemed to have forgotten his outburst of the previous day. Though he was pale and distraught, he had lost something of the terrible atmosphere of nerves at cracking point which had previously surrounded him. We spoke quietly and calmly. I gathered that his sleep had been dreamless for once. The upshot of our conversation was that Farlow agreed to go and see Dr. Sondquist. A week later, after much careful heart-searching, he entered Greenmansion for the rest and observation to which I have already referred.

  I thus necessarily lost something of the close contact which we had formerly enjoyed, though I was able to visit Farlow twice a week in the earlier stages and Dr. Sondquist kept me fully informed of his patient's progress. The end of the story I had to piece together for myself from Farlow's own conversation, from a diary he left which the Superintendent allowed me to examine, and from my last terrible conversation with Sondquist.

  When I first saw Farlow after his entry into Greenmansion I was disturbed to note that he appeared even more fine-drawn and gaunt than before. But the white-painted walls of the sanatorium and the air of quiet efficiency and bustle which radiated from the nursing and medical staff had had a beneficial effect, I should have said.

  Without preamble he plunged at once into the details of his latest visions, as though they were more than he could bear to contemplate alone, which was, after all, no more than the truth. He h
ad dreamed twice more, he said; it was the same and yet not the same. The Janissaries, for so he had identified them, were much nearer. He was still rooted to the shore, but the white-cloaked riders were now splashing through the shallows about halfway across the foaming stretch of water which barred his way to the city of Emilion.

  He could see that they carried some sort of banner which bore the green crescent, and the short, heavy-bladed swords they waved, glinted in the bright sunshine of mid-morning. Their turbanned heads bobbed rhythmically as they rode and their black horses, bunched closely together, clove the white, frothing water with their steel-shod hooves. But what gave Farlow such a terrible sense of impending doom was the cruelty of the faces beneath the turbans of the Janissaries of Emilion. Their bearded jaws, the narrow, blazing eyes, and the red, thin lips which parted to reveal the shining, sharp-pointed white teeth looked so rapacious and sadistic that his dream self was near to fainting with fear.

  In the last dream of the previous night they were so close that he could hear the guttural cries they uttered and see the details of the elaborate bits on the bridles of the horses. The riders wore boots of soft leather, and the metal spurs they used dug deeply into the flanks of the plunging horses. And again the cold wind swept across the blue sky, bringing with it the great chilling despair, and for the twentieth or thirtieth time Farlow awoke to nightmare.

  I gave my unfortunate friend what comfort I could and took my leave. Unfortunately, Sondquist was away that day so I could not have the conversation with him which might have made some difference to the outcome of the business, though I was rapidly coming to the same conclusion that had plunged Farlow into such profound melancholy; namely, that the outcome of the dream could not be halted, but what that outcome was, none of us, least of all Farlow, fortunately, could have foreseen.