Whether this attempt could meet with any success I had no idea. I had once read that hypnotists could use their art to unlock and draw out anxieties, fears and memories buried deep in the subconscious minds of their subjects. Whether this process could be employed with madmen I did not know. It seemed doubtful, but then, we were not men. Our minds were powerful and preterhuman as our bodies. William’s mind had endured through centuries. His conscious thoughts were lost. But his unconscious. If anything remained there, behind the tangle of insanity, could it be reached? Now that I had induced this trance, opening the depths of his mind to me, I believed it might be possible.
I spoke to him softly.
“Hear me, William. William LePerrowne. Hear me and answer me.” There was no response. I went on, my voice becoming stronger. “Understand me. Reach out to me. You will cast back into your mind. You will find form and memory there. Obliterate the present. Remember long ago. Remember Helena. And the time when your human life ended. Send your thoughts back to when the change occurred in you. Hear me. And obey me. Now answer.”
He lay without moving. The faintest breath was all that stirred in him. I repeated my instructions several times, each time more insistent, and was about to do so again, when at last he gave a long sigh, and frowned as he tossed his head from side to side. I grew rigid, at once lost for words, then I gathered my senses and restated all I had already said.
“If you hear,” I urged, “if you understand, answer me. Speak.”
“I am sick!”
I jolted back, startled as the voice broke deep and sonorous, utterly absurd as it came from that frail, withered body; like the voices of Chinese mandarins or Indian chiefs raised from the lips of housewife mediums. Or reminiscent of that ancient revenants’ tale of necromancers revivifying a corpse to speak secrets of the dead.
“I am near to death,” the voice continued after a few moments. I listened in a state of excitement and wonder. “The physician has been with his leeches and his foul smelling potions, but I am beyond his skills. I have been ill so … so very long. I do not wish to die … God help me I fear death … and yet … the thought of release from this pain … from this horrible pain … aah!” He paused again, then his voice dropped to a rasping whisper, as if to impart some great secret. “Last night … last night I did see her. Helena! She has been dead these three years and yet I know I did see her. I beheld her once before … soon after she died, and yet all said it was brain sick ness caused by my grief and fever. But … I swear … last night I do swear I saw her. She came to my chamber and awoke me. The servant who attended me slept. She laid her hands on me to cool and ease the heat. She held me … so cold … she spoke. She said … she said I must die … but that I should not be afraid for in death I should be with her. I believe in truth it was her spirit I saw. That she comes to carry me into death. And now I fear it less.”
“Enough, now,” I told him gently, stammering slightly. There was nothing to be gained from hearing the rest of this. I must take him further forward. The hold I had gained over his mind was, I feared, a tenuous one, suspended like the sword of Damocles by a thread that might snap at any moment. I must learn all I could as quickly as possible. “Go forward now, to that time when you and Helena parted. Tell me why you parted. Tell me what happened between you.”
He was quiet for a few moments, but then he went on.
“I have left Helena. I have left her … I can no longer exist as she would wish. I cannot forever deny my needs as she does. My nature is too strong and eternity … eternity is too great an adversary. Helena seeks through restraint and contemplation to find peace with herself; a constant evolvement of thought and perception to guard her mind against the passing of ages, and the degeneracy and mental decay to which our species becomes susceptible. But so blind and vague are these efforts. The loneliness and frustration they bring become wearisome as decay itself. And as destructive. I can no longer seek for understanding inside myself, where I am no more convinced it is to be found. But” – again his voice fell and grew so faint that I drew closer to him – “there is among revenants a persistent legend. Helena related it to me once. No doubt she heard it from that one who was her initiator.” His breathing grew sharp for a moment. “It is professed by some that there exists one … one who first sought and discovered this power of endless life. The first of revenants. The Master-Revenant. And we are all his progeny.”
“What?” I sat upright with a start. “No! That is only a myth. A fable for unholy children.”
William went on, paying no heed to my interruption.
“Many things are said of this Master. It is claimed by some that he was never wholly of mortal birth, but that he was conceived of a witch through her copulation with a powerful devil. But I doubt this is any more than base superstition. Yet it is said … it is said that he still lives, this perpetrator of our kind, somewhere on earth. I am determined to learn the truth of this, to seek him out. Helena says she will not accompany me. She says I am a fool. She treats the matter with greatest scorn and claims to believe none of it. But she cannot know. And this is not her true reason. Her reason is that she fears what she might find. And that she may learn what she truly is. I am myself not insensible to these fears, and yet … to see him. To learn from our progenitor from what we are come … the genesis of our kind … the reason for our existence. The mysteries of life and death. This is purpose indeed. Purpose far beyond the feeble strivings of Helena.”
My mind was spinning in my efforts to absorb all this. It seemed like utter madness, and yet I must reflect that there was no real reason why William’s astounding belief could not be true. If indeed there had been a first one of our kind, there was no reason why he should not still exist. Somewhere.
“And so,” I said, keeping that same flat tone, quelling my urgency only with greatest difficulty, “you set off on this search. This quest. What did you discover? Did you ever learn the whereabouts of the Master? Remember!”
There was a long silence, then in desperation I urged and coaxed him some more. When at last he spoke his voice was different, tired and lacking its former strength and resolve.
“I … I have journeyed far and sought long … long … long time. Aaah! I have sometimes sought out other revenants, scattered far apart, living usually in pairs or small groups. Their numbers seem few in spite of our longevity. But they are always secretive and never easy to find, and they will often attack intruders of their own kind. Of the Master I have followed countless vague rumours and false trails, but withal I have learned little of real value; only details which further my conviction that his existence is a reality. It is said that he came first from the East. He journeyed with his followers into eastern Europe, where for long ages he remained. But as certain men in these lands learned of his cult and suspected his presence he departed, travelling on, settling at last in a land in the West. But I know not whereabouts. I know not.” A long pause. “I … I grow weary. I fear I must search forever. And that … that is how long I have.”
Now he gave a deep sigh and fell silent again. There was much I might have asked him, but I dared not risk the slightest digression. I must press the subject of the Master while the chance remained. But before I could say anything more he spoke out, his voice charged suddenly with power and excitement.
“I believe my search is near over. That at last the knowledge I have so long sought is close to my possession. I have encountered a revenant. He is old and infinitely strange, though he has the face of a young man. He is unlike any I have known before. Something about him … but it is beyond anything I am able to define. His two children guarded him, in the ruined tower which was his lair, and flew screaming at me, yet they were young and I fought them and scattered them. I showed them my strength. Then I burst in upon him and demanded knowledge. He did not seek to fight me, though he did not fear me. But he has the knowledge I seek. How he gained it he will not say. He speaks of these things only obscurely, and I sense they bring him pai
n. There is, I believe, a part of him that wishes to make the journey with me, but something else that lacks resolve. I must win what I would have by persistence.” There was a brief pause, and then: “He has relented. He has told me where the Master will be found. He will accompany me there, he says, and make at last his own pilgrimage to the oracle of revenants. At last!” A cry of triumph. “The end is in my sight!”
“And where?” I broke in, incapable of restraining myself any longer. “Where is he to be found? Repeat to me what this revenant told you.”
“In Ireland,” he said. “A place in Ireland.” And then he launched into a long and frantic babble of strange sounding names and places that meant nothing to me, but that I tried desperately to fix in my mind that I might remember them later.
Then a voice behind me said:
“I know these places.”
I turned. Niall stood wide eyed at the door. In the passageway behind him was Elizabeth. I had no idea how long they had been there. I had been too firmly preoccupied with William.
“They are all not far from my home,” Niall went on, walking forward, kneeling beside me and staring at William.
William went on, as if reliving at immense speed the final stage of his great odyssey, and Niall listened intently. He talked of villages with obscure sounding names, of hills and paths and of certain landmarks. Then he spoke of an ancient cairn of stones, and of a great cavern.
“Do you understand this?” I said at last to Niall. “Does it mean anything? Do these places exist? Could you find them?”
He looked up at me, grim faced, then he nodded.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know these places. Ever since I was a boy.”
He was about to say more but I motioned for silence.
“And finally,” I said to William. “What did you find? What of the Master? Did you see him? Did you prove his existence? What did you learn? Tell me now.”
“I … I …” at once his tone changed again. He grew frantic, and uttered nothing but choking, incoherent sounds.
“Enough!” Niall whispered to me. “Let him rest.”
“I dare not!” I hissed back at him. “We will lose him.” I grasped at William’s bony shoulders now, pinning him to the bed and shouting: “Speak! Remember!”
He was screaming now, his sunken eyes rolling in terror, struggling with amazing strength, clawing at me with shrivelled fingers.
And then he was quiet. He sank back. His body appeared to shrink and collapse beneath me, as if his bones at once dissolved into water. His eyes glared while his breath rose quick and harsh.
“Too late!” I said, and released my grip on him, burning at once with anger and frustration.
We said nothing for several moments, each collecting our thoughts, then Niall spoke.
“What do you make of all that? Do you think it could be true?”
“Of course!” I replied. “It is clear that William went to this place in Ireland. Whether he found what he sought there, whether it truly exists, we cannot know. But something, some terrible accident must have befallen him there. He must have escaped it with the last of his strength, made his way for a short distance until he could go no further. And then, driven just by instinct perhaps, he made an accomplice of you, Niall, to help him and bring him back here, his old home, and to Helena, seeking in his madness to obliterate his horror and pain, and the memory of what had happened to him. Seeking sanctuary in the past. I cannot say that I have never done it myself.”
“Accident. What kind of accident?” Elizabeth spoke now from the doorway.
“How should I know?” I said. “But what would happen to us if we were to drown? Or to burn? To suffer any of a hundred things no normal creature could survive.” I pointed to William. “Is this the effect it might have? This slow bizarre battle. Life and death struggling for dominance.”
We fell silent again, until at last I said:
“There is one way to find out. These and other things. We must go to Ireland.”
“You want to go there?” Niall said. “Even after what happened to William?”
I looked at him in surprise. It had not for a moment occurred to me that I should not pursue this chance for discovery, regardless of all possible danger or disappointment.
“I know this,” I said. “That I have been as a dead thing these many years. But that tonight in this room I have felt alive again. Do you see what this means? Several nights ago, Niall, you came to me and asked me to tell you what you have become, and why. But I could give you nothing save my bitterness and fury. All my life I have tried without success to understand these things. To overcome the endless conflicts that rage in me. Until at last nothing has meaning. Nothing. And all I know is that if it is even possible that he exists – this Master-Revenant – and there is any chance to find him and learn what we are, and what we may hope to be, then I must grasp at it. Because, do you see, it is my only hope. It is all that remains for me.”
“And so,” said Elizabeth, moving before me and scowling, “you want to chase off on the word of a raving mad-thing to find some fount of wisdom that probably doesn’t exist. You fool. You’re even madder than he is. If you ask me congenital idiocy runs through your whole family. And then what if he does exist, this Master? Aren’t you afraid of what you might find? Like dear sweet Helena was?”
I turned from her. Indeed I was afraid. Even as she spoke I felt the fear within me. But that was nothing. I refused to accept that my fears must be true, and would not abandon this new hope that expiation of some sort might be possible in my own mind.
“My decision is fixed,” I answered abruptly. “I will go.”
“Then so will I!” Elizabeth said, “if only to laugh at you when you discover the knowledge that there is no knowledge to find. That there is neither good nor evil and pretensions to either are false. That we simply exist and we are all jungle animals. But … if there is anything to be learned. Death!” She looked over at William and her voice became harsh. “I must learn about death!”
I would not have chosen for Elizabeth to accompany me, but I saw now that for her own reasons she was intent upon doing so. And for all her levity and disdain I believed that she was secretly intrigued.
I glanced at Niall. He seemed still uneasy.
“You will help us to find this place, then?” I said.
“If you want,” he replied, “I’ll help you.” But then he shook his head slowly and said: “But we have a problem.”
“Problem?”
“William.” He nodded to the wheezing form on the bed. “What do we do with him? We can’t take him with us.”
“No. And we cannot leave him here.” I turned away with a rush of fury. I had in my excitement forgotten William. I felt an urge to say “Kill him, it will be a merciful act”. But instead I pulled the bed curtains about him and said: “You are right. He is a problem. We must consider it.”
The next evening when I woke I was no nearer to a solution. The matter seemed impossible. I went to the master bedroom where William still lay. Niall was already there. He had pulled one of the bed curtains open slightly, and stood staring down. As I entered he looked up at me, then beckoned me over, pointing towards the bed. I looked, then recoiled slightly from the awful stench, uttering a gasp of mixed revulsion and wonder. All that remained was a brown shapeless mass of putrescence. And for several minutes we stood silent, the two of us, in awe and something approaching reverence at the sight of this centuries old life that had finally ended. Truly ended.
“Last night,” Niall said eventually. “It was too much for him. But then, it would have happened anyway, in the end. He couldn’t have lived.”
Presently we wrapped up the remains in the worn bed-covers and pulled them into an old clothes trunk. Then we carried the trunk downstairs. Elizabeth stood watching us in the hall below. She frowned but said nothing. I could tell that the sight unnerved her.
We went out into the garden, across the back lawns to the old tomb. There w
e placed the remains finally in the lead coffin where they were first laid to rest nearly three centuries before.
As we walked back to the house we said nothing. There was but one thought which ran through my mind. That the obstacle had been removed, almost miraculously it seemed. That the journey could begin.
XIV
We set off the next evening, making our journey to the Welsh port of Holyhead, where we booked a late passage to Dun Laoghaire aboard a huge ferry boat. Along the way we must stop and take our rest in a hotel room, explaining that we had travelled all night and wished to sleep uninterrupted through the day – always dangerous with the chance that we might for some reason be discovered in our sleep, yet the risk was inescapable.
The Revenants Page 17