At last we left Holyhead and I stood on deck upon a bleak winter night, gazing at the harbour lights until they shrank away and were lost, then out into the dark sea. After a while Niall came and stood beside me. From the start I had sensed about him something that was strange and uneasy, though he had never spoken of it, and all along I had been too preoccupied to pay it much attention. I did not touch on it directly now, but I asked him questions about that place which was our destination.
“It is a bad place,” he answered at once. “Up in the hills, several miles from my village. No one ever goes up there. My grandma came from one of the villages near to it. She told me stories about it when I was young. She said that it had always been known as the home of faeries, phantoms and devils. The place of the dead. And of the dearg-dul.”
He glanced at me and I nodded. Actually I had never heard of the dearg-dul, but from the tone of his voice I could guess. Each country and race of men finds its own name for such as we.
“The dearg-dul!” he went on softly. “My God, I used to laugh at those stories. But there was nothing unusual in them. Weird, remote places and strange old superstitious tales. They’re all pretty common in my country. But once, when I was a kid, I went up into those hills with a couple of friends. We did it for a dare, really. But I can tell you, we didn’t stay there long.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing needed to happen. It was just that place. It had a feeling like I can’t tell you, even in the daytime. Brooding. Quiet as death. Frightening. The most God-forsaken place I’ve ever been. When I was up there … well, all those stories … they just didn’t seem stupid any more. I could believe everything I’d ever been told about it. It wasn’t just me. We all felt it. None of us spoke a word all the time we were there. It was like … like we were afraid of awakening something. I was pleased as hell to get away. And even now … even now I don’t like the thought of going back up there.”
His hand rose swiftly. I believe he was about to cross himself, but then his hand wavered and fell back to his side, a look of stupefaction on his face. Something in his mind was yet unable to break free of its human bonds, to accept finally that he had become something he had once disbelieved in, but yet still feared.
“These things you tell me,” I said. “Perhaps, if anything, they should encourage us.”
He stared at me for a moment, then smiled faintly and nodded. I could see that he was not convinced. And certainly neither was I.
There was a delay disembarking when we reached Ireland. Some trouble on board the ship. It was whispered on deck that one of the passengers had gone missing. The crossing had been somewhat rough, and it was supposed he had somehow gone overboard. His distraught wife was being cared for below. Elizabeth was flushed and smiling when she found me.
We made our way to Dublin where our rooms had been prearranged, and the next evening began our journey across country. For the next two nights we pushed west, in trains and hired cars, as the countryside grew more wild, more silent and ominous: the woods more dense, the hills taller and grander. And darker. And as I passed through it all, pressed deeper into it, it came to seem right to me that this Master-Revenant – if he existed here or indeed existed at all should exist here. If, as so many believe, there are other worlds and strange dimensions that border and sometimes intrude on our own, then they did so here as they did in my own native Cornwall – in this mystical and legend-haunted land of prehistoric tombs, remote megaliths and ivy covered stone ruins. There was ancient power and mystery here that possessed me and rendered me silent and thoughtful. The awesome sense that I was lost, but yet somehow found. I might have become absorbed in my surroundings to the exclusion of everything else had it not been for my pressing and obsessive sense of purpose.
On the third night we arrived at Niall’s home, a cottage on the outskirts of a remote village: a dwelling which had already begun to take on the appearance of a place abandoned. For the last hour before dawn I paced back and forth in a near frenzy of anxiety and restlessness, until at last sheer exhaustion overcame me.
What could be found in such a place as this? I asked myself. Knowledge and direction, or simply greater horror? I thought of William. Had he ever reached this place? If so, what had he discovered? Had it anything to do with his condition when he came to me? With his death? Something so terrible, so shocking that even his ancient and blood-soaked mind could not support it. But these thoughts were no use to me now. I must put them from my mind. Yet every feeling of fury and despair which the discovery of William’s unnatural existence had raised in me seemed at once overwhelming as I sank into sleep.
Early the next evening we set out on foot. In the cover of darkness we went swiftly, leaving the main roads, following Niall through fields and woods, gazing always up at the bleak hills which towered beyond the trees ahead. In silence we approached our gloomy destination, and I felt more powerfully than ever a fierce ambivalence. As we climbed the smaller hills toward the looming peaks beyond, every sense of anticipation was turning to feelings of apprehension, and even aversion. I could not really account for this, and in my excited state I resigned all attempts to try. But I came slowly to understand what Niall had told me about this place. There was something here: an oppressiveness that came to grow stronger as we went. There came upon me a strong imagining that even without Niall’s guidance I might have found my way here: as some migratory creatures must seek their place of birth, and also often death, caught up in a whirlpool of sheer instinct, pulled to its centre by a wild force that makes a fleeting blur of every other thing. And surrounding me was an almost primeval barreness and stillness that suggested we were intruders, and that to speak in the slightest whisper would be to disrupt a silence that had reigned always unchallenged. Even Elizabeth seemed at once subdued by it, as she had seemed ever more subdued since our arrival in this country.
This remoteness was not in itself disturbing to me: indeed it rather intrigued me. But still, when I looked behind me at the twinkling lights of lonely cottages and hamlets far below, and the larger brighter patterns of villages and towns still more distant, I – even I – began to know a powerful sense of isolation, and of strange uncertainty.
A half-moon broke from the clouds as we scrambled over the great rocks scattered atop one of the higher hills and gazed down into a precipitous valley. On top of a small hill on the other side was a pile of ragged boulders, that seemed as some ancient tribute to a long forgotten deity; like a crude, crumbling pyramid that stood near to final collapse.
“The cairn!” Niall said solemnly, pointing towards it, his hand trembling slightly. Then he added: “It was always a custom in this country to pile stones on the grave of a witch or sorcerer. To stop them from rising again.”
I grew angry. The stones were surely in fact nothing more than a huge and haphazard natural structure. Niall’s superstitious ramblings were becoming tiresome, and a little odd. I drew close to him and whispered:
“You need not come with us further. If you are not ready. Just help us find the cavern.”
We began our descent, grasping at the rocks that jutted from the hillside to steady us as we flung ourselves forward. When we reached the hill beneath the cairn we began to circle about it, staring at the huge slabs of stone that formed the base itself. And as we searched about them I could not help but observe grimly how desolate this place was: how scorched and shrivelled and lifeless, like some remote desert region, harsh and alien in this green fertile country. As if ruined then abandoned by nature herself. Then Elizabeth spoke.
“There is nothing here!” She turned on me. “I told you this was madness. You should have listened to me. Even if there was a Master of our kind, how could he exist here? Why would he exist here? Why would anything exist here?”
“We are here!” I said firmly. “We cannot give up now. Keep looking.”
She made to answer me, but then gave a start and gasped, her eyes wide with shock. For ther
e came at once a sound: an eerie banshee wail echoing throughout those unearthly hills. Whether it came from near or far, whether it was some bird or animal, I did not know. But it was the first sound of any kind I had heard since venturing into these hills, and it served to increase my frantic sense of energy. But more: it served to show me the true depths of Elizabeth’s fear.
The silence fell again, and seemed deeper and more stifling than ever as I continued to clamber over the rocks, and the sparse mosses which were all that grew about them. Although now there came over me a strange sensation. A humming in my ears with a dizziness which increased as I searched. I do not know what led me now beyond the cairn, only that these sensations grew as I went until I stood looking down at a small crevice between two vast stones nearby. It was barely big enough to squeeze through, looked as if it could lead to nothing, and yet without hesitation I moved forward to see that beyond it the ground fell sharply and the crevice formed into a passageway just large enough to admit a man. I can hardly describe my feelings as I discovered this. I was numb, and my brain swam as the humming in my ears grew with such sudden intensity that my whole head became filled with it. Yet through my excitement I felt so great a thrill of nameless fear and foreboding that I stood, swaying and trembling for long moments before taking one unsteady step forward then calling to the others in a low hoarse voice I barely recognised as my own. Elizabeth came quickly. She was alone.
“Niall?” I said.
“Gone.” She shrugged. “He just disappeared.”
“Yes.” I muttered. “It is not yet his time. He will need every belief and illusion slowly shattered first. But he will come back. He will understand finally that there is nowhere else to go.”
And this was true. My own fear bit like ice into my heart, but it was nothing. Gazing down I knew there was no other path left on earth for me to take.
Elizabeth stared at me. Her gathering terror was in some way wholly clear to me, while she fought to conceal it.
“There is nothing down there,” she said, pointing to the ground. “It is just a crack in the rock. It leads nowhere.”
“You feel it,” I said, staring at her steadily. “You feel it as I do. All around us.”
“I feel nothing!” she spat at me, her teeth clenched.
“Come then,” I said. “If nothing is there, there is nothing to fear.”
She tore her eyes from mine, looking down. And I saw now that part of me was mocking her, taking some satisfaction from her fear, from finding at last this weakness in her. Yet there was no courage here on my part. Only the same fear and dread, pushing me forward as it held her back.
Moving down now between the rocks, I pushed through the narrow fissure and went forward slowly, Elizabeth close behind me, as the passageway beyond rapidly widened. I had brought a pocket torch and drew it now from my coat, for the darkness at once became absolute. After a short distance we emerged into what seemed like a vast chamber. And ahead within the narrow beam of the torch, where light and darkness merged into the pale and spectral semblance of vision, I saw amidst the weird bubbling formations of coloured rock what was a structure of several great stones that lay in the shape of a crude and ancient altar.
As I walked I began to realise that my steps became unsteady. Everything about seemed distant and unreal as my head buzzed now with relentless fury. Elizabeth spoke behind me, though her voice seemed very far away.
“I am going back!” she said. “I will not stumble about in this miserable pit. We are blind here! We may get lost. Have you thought of that? These passages could stretch for miles. We must turn back.” Her voice broke finally in her terror. “I do not like this place!”
Her voice faded and was lost in the confusion of my senses. I staggered forward, stumbling against the cavern wall for support, for my body seemed weak and unco-ordinated. By gradual stages the humming in my brain had changed, become broken and irregular, no longer monotonous and constant. It came to sound like a strange diffuse mumbling whose words drifted just beyond my reach and understanding. It horrified me, this strange and brooding place. My senses seemed barely my own any longer, but reached out beyond me as if to touch some monstrous level of perception that circled and closed upon me from the gloom all around. What it might reveal I hardly dared contemplate. My every instinct urged me to Elizabeth’s counsel, to run and distance myself, as a sense of panic and breathless claustrophobia came upon me. Yet I stood rooted, petrified as the twisted walls of stone that circled me like primal giants, reaching out to be swallowed up in the nebulous vastness of the cavern. I felt tiny, helpless and alone. As if I stood on the brink of eternity itself – black, empty and endless – waiting to engulf and leave me lost and drifting forever within it.
Though all about me was still and silent there was now a fearful certainty that I had found the place I sought. The heart of the labyrinth whose twisted paths I had wandered since the beginning. The end of the dark quest of a century and more. This unhallowed underground place that spoke to my every understanding of something imminent and infernal. And finally I did not want to see whatever might exist here. The thought of it brought me horror beyond imagining. There was nothing to be found here that might offer knowledge or hope. Only the very core of the evil I knew too well. And finally I feared to face it.
At once I started, staring hard into the blackness, and dread twisted through my nerves as I sensed now that something infinitely stealthy moved out there. Then from behind me there came a voice.
“Father! It is done. The one I went seeking, the matriarch, the founder of the tribe, is lost into darkness. But I bring two who are of her line. They are old and strong. They will serve.”
I turned in alarm to see Niall, standing high atop a great stone near to the mouth of the passageway by which we had entered, and yet I might barely have known him, for his old mask of fearfulness and uncertainty was gone; instead his face burned with twisted fervour, his eyes with maniacal brightness. Elizabeth gave a cry of shock beside me as I turned back, for now far ahead, beyond the stone altar, a flame sprang up and filled the cavern with yellow light. A burning torch was held aloft and carried forward by a figure clad in stained, decaying robes of crimson which looked to be the tattered remnants of some ancient, priestly vestments.
But the creature itself! Tall and powerfully made, his features and form, though entirely of human proportion, were yet so alarmingly inhuman that he might never have passed for a living man. The face, crowned with wild, profuse black hair, was so motionless and unyielding that it might have been a thing carved from stone. But for the flesh! The flesh seemed soft and hideously swollen, replete with a mottled, vibrant redness that rippled beneath the skin, and imbued it with its only suggestion of living tissue. This was a creature utterly bloated and bursting with blood. The blood of many mortal men.
As he drew nearer I saw at last that his lips did move, almost indiscernibly, and that he appeared to intone something in whispers too faint to be understood. Yet I was at once aware that his intonations rose and fell in perfect accord with that monstrous humming which raged now within my head. I stood frozen, in thrall, beyond thought as this terrible figure came to stand at the stone altar, regarding me for a moment, then turning to prop his flaming torch upright in a cleft in the rocks. Now he raised both arms high above his head as if in some gesture of supplication, so that the loose sleeves of his robe dropped to uncover his forearms. Then he brought them down, both arms, to cross them together on his breast. And then drawing them slowly apart. As he did so, I watched in astonishment, for I observed his long fingernails seek and tear into the flesh of his own forearms, down to the very wrists, and the blood burst out, gushing and pouring through his opened fingers as he outstretched both arms toward the ground before him.
It was now that I saw them. They crawled from out of the lurking shadows, too many for me to judge their number. A horde of the undead, for I can call them nothing else. Each one a revenant, but all in varying stages of physical and ment
al degeneration: each a blighted thing such as William had been. And the Priest-Revenant seemed to smile upon them now, as one by one they crept forward on hands and knees; a ragged, decaying, stenching pack of drooling idiot-things that made small frantic noises as they struggled to gulp at the fountains of spurting blood, or fell down to lap at it where it formed into glistening pools in the rock, or fought to grab up small spattered stones and lick them dry.
How long I stood, incapable of thought or motion, observing these things I cannot say. I was roused finally from my paralysis by Elizabeth, who clasped my arm desperately and screamed:
“Run, you fool, run now!”
And she was gone, hurtling away as I stood rooted to the spot and spoke after her with words that were barely yet formed in my mind.
“We cannot run from this. There is nowhere to run. This is what we are!”
A blurred figure sprang down upon Elizabeth as she ran, knocking her to the ground, sprawling and shrieking. Niall was grabbing her, holding her fast as she fought and clawed at him. Without thought I was upon him, gripping his shoulders, wrenching him backward as Elizabeth tore at his face. But then I was grabbed from behind, and struck a blow of such massive force that it flung me far across the cavern, slamming me into the wall, and my senses were lost as I crashed to the ground. For fleeting moments I was dimly aware of the Priest-Revenant, his face looming before me, and I recognised within the glaring eyes all his ancient power and madness, filling my head so that I lay half-conscious, to witness what followed as a distant nightmare.
Elizabeth was fighting with the Priest and his acolyte Niall as they dragged her to the great altar and flung her upon it; and the Priest raised his wrist to tear open again the wound there, pressing the flow of his blood down over Elizabeth’s mouth, forcing her to drink while she shuddered, then grew still. In the same moment Niall took her arm, biting down into her own wrist. And so they lay, motionless and locked together in the wavering torchlight. Then rapidly that unnatural ruddiness in the face of the Priest was dwindling away, so that finally he began to resemble something that might once have been human; and as the blood flooded into the limp body of Elizabeth, so it was drained relentlessly onward into the crouching figure of Niall.
The Revenants Page 18