by Robin Jarvis
"Save me!" the warlock screeched, his nostrils filled with the stench of rotting weed that beat from the apparition.
The witches wailed and struck at the bloated monster with their knives but Rowena's new form ignored their puny stings and with a braying rumble the pale underside of her deformed body flowed over her husband's frame and enveloped him just as it had Susannah O'Donnell.
"NOOOO!" Nathaniel clamoured as the acid began eating through his clothes. "Hillian!"
Horrified and flailing their arms against the quivering flesh of the monster in abject terror, the coven called to their beloved as the grey frills of glistening skin crept up to his chest.
The warlock's screams were terrible to hear. Into the vast bulk of the wobbling creature he slowly dissolved and a vile sucking squelch boiled up from the greedy innards as Rowena consumed him.
Hillian threw herself at the ulcerated hide, plunging her dagger deep into the putrescent jelly. But it was all in vain and the stab wounds healed as soon as she ripped the blade out.
"Lord!" she howled as the pale devouring fronds reached Nathaniel's neck.
But her anguished face contorted in despair as she saw the ghastly oozing mouth reach up and smother the man's head.
"Damn you, Roselyn!" he squealed as the liquefying juices swallowed him. "Daaaammnn yoooooouuuuuuu!"
Within the massive, rippling body, his final tormented curse echoed and then was silenced.
A frightening calm settled over the Abbey grounds, disturbed only by the constant noise of the rain and the rapacious squidging sounds of Rowena's virulent digestion.
"No!" Hillian bawled, tearing at her hair. "Nathaniel! Nathaniel!"
But the warlock had vanished—every trace of him had been utterly consumed, and emitting a satiated, belching grunt, the loathsome apparition wriggled and dragged itself over the ground towards the pool.
Into the dark water Rowena Cooper retreated. Her one terrible ambition had finally been attained and now she had to pay the price. Imprisoned in this horrendous shape forever but contented at last, she sank beneath the splashing surface and disappeared in a rush of bubbles.
Upon the muddy bank, the remaining members of the coven screamed hysterically. All their plans, all their hopes had suddenly been dashed. Their magnificent high priest had been eaten alive and their minds recoiled from the evil memory. A dreadful madness seized them and they threw themselves on the ground devoid of reason. Now their lives were without purpose and they screeched until their throats bled.
Within the ruined Abbey a tall figure moved in the deep darkness. From the shadows it stepped and moved over the excavated graves towards the raving uproar until it was standing at Hillian's side.
The witch was rocking backward and forward and though her mouth gaped open, her screams had dried into a cracked, droning monotone.
Oblivious to everything except her overwhelming grief, she had not seen the stranger approach and when a hand was placed lightly upon her jerking head she was not aware of it.
"Peace be on you," the newcomer said with infinite grace and kindness. "The time of your servitude is at an end."
At once the beads about Hillian's neck broke and were scattered in the mud. The woman fell forward and her ranting terror subsided as the figure blessed her.
"No longer shall you be a slave to the memory of that evil man," the warm voice gently told her. "You are released."
Hillian gasped and she gazed around her as though shaken from sleep. "He... he is dead!" she exclaimed.
The stranger left her and went over to where Caroline was weeping desolately. A second necklace snapped and the fiddle player collapsed in exhaustion.
Touching her scratched and wounded face, Hillian watched as her deliverer released each of the women in turn.
"Thank you," she sobbed.
Sister Frances smiled benignly and in a patient, inspiring voice addressed them all.
"Hear me now," she pronounced nobly. "Cast away your fears, for Nathaniel Crozier will never return. Henceforth rejoice and never more be troubled by the horrors of the past. Blessed are you, for the freedom of choice is returned unto you. Each one present has suffered much in the service of that black villain, but wounds can heal and if you are indeed repentant then your sins shall be forgiven."
The women listened to her dumbly and her stirring words brought them hope.
"What will we do?" Gilly Neugent asked. "Where are we to go? We lived only for him."
"Then you must begin again," the nun replied, "or pick up the threads of your old lives. Each of you has free will—shape your own destiny and let no other steer you. You have wandered too long in the darkness—come now into the light."
Uncertainly, the women rose to their feet. "Will you help us?" they begged her. "It's been so long, we don't know how to begin."
"You must help one another," Sister Frances answered. "Instead of striving for supremacy and indulging in petty squabbles, you must lend support and have generous hearts."
Bowing her head to them, the nun turned, but her attention was held by a livid light that glimmered out at sea.
"What is it?" Hillian muttered as the thunder blared over the cliffs and the rain hammered down more fiercely than ever.
"The end is near," Sister Frances said quietly. "The Lord of the Frozen Wastes himself is coming!"
***
Upon the shore, Miss Boston stared grimly into the tempest as a sickly green glow rose in the distance and beneath the waves the sound of a great bell began to toll.
"The Deep One!" she cried. "Is it he?"
Stroking her dead daughter's hair, Meta gazed at the pulsing horizon and nodded gravely. "All is lost for him now!" she shouted above the gale. "His designs are in ruin and soon his secret treason will be known to his brothers. He has nothing left to lose—for they will surely destroy him."
The sea churned and wrathful waves charged towards Whitby as the Lord of the Frozen Wastes rose from the fathomless regions. Leaving his icy realm, the waters boiled as torrents of black foam exploded to the surface and fountains of poison shot into the lightning-ripped sky.
Jennet peered out from under the old lady's cloak, staring in terror at the awesome tumult, and she realised that the evil power of the waking world was coming to wreak his vengeance upon them.
"Ben!" she cried. "I must be with Ben!"
The girl fled back to the concrete ledge and Miss Boston hurried after her.
Alone with Pear, Meta waited for the end to come.
Leaning into the ravaging wind, Jennet and Aunt Alice battled their way to where the fisherfolk defied the screaming storm and watched the calamitous rising of the mighty Lord of the Deep.
Beside the black boat, Tarr glared at the riotous seas, whose fearsome waves reached far into the crackling heavens while the lightning speared deep into the tortured waters.
Amidst the squall, and oblivious to the terror that encircled her, Nelda cried out and clutched Ben's hand despairingly. The boy flinched as the aufwader crushed his fingers, and when he stared at her he stifled a scream.
Nelda's skin was bubbling; huge blisters filled with salt water were swelling over her face and hands and Ben cried to Tarr in dismay.
Her grandfather looked down at her and wailed. "She's dyin'!"
A deafening thunderclap split the night and the jagged forks of blinding light smote the seething surface of the sea as the Lord of the Frozen Wastes reared up from the deep.
Into the shrieking blizzard the crown of his gargantuan head lifted, and, like the vast outline of a colossal mountain, his dark presence left the lashing tides.
About the immense brows a coronet of green stars blazed and the repellent countenance that was revealed beneath their lurid glare made the crowd on the shore recoil and call out in dread.
Through the insane waters, the unbounded god rumbled towards Whitby.
"Ben!" Jennet shouted as she flung her arms around him. "Oh Ben!"
Looking up into the towerin
g vileness that stretched into the yowling night, Miss Boston spread her tweed cloak about the children like a pair of protective wings and spoke to them hurriedly.
"My dears," she declared, "I've failed you—we cannot escape from the fiend that approaches. At least here, at the end of all things we are united."
From the black cloud that roared in the waters, a forest of tentacles came thrashing—like an army of gigantic snakes. Spreading before the immeasurable enemy the monstrous coils broke from the waves and reached through the sky.
Braving the spectral vision, Miss Boston stuck out her chins and stared upwards as the terrible shadow of the writhing demon fell over her and the children. A darkness deeper than the brumal night descended over the shore and the fisherfolk squealed in fear and panic, clinging to the boat as the sea charged towards them.
Blind to the chaos around him, Tarr sobbed over his granddaughter as the brine-filled blisters that covered her body began to weep and the hand that he held withered horribly.
"Nelda!" he bawled. "Nelda!"
Into the stone of the East Pier the first of the squid-like limbs tore and huge chunks were dragged down into the frothing water. The small lighthouse was thrown down and it toppled with a thundering crash as the tentacles smashed and drove into the solid foundations as though they were built of sand.
"Ben!" Nelda gargled, her voice choked with salt water. "Where are you? Stay by me, please!"
At Miss Boston's side, the boy looked wildly into the boat, then at the horror that reared from the sea.
A strange expression spread over his face and he suddenly pulled himself free of the old lady's arms.
"Benjamin!" she called as he ran towards the town. "Comeback!"
"Ben!" Jennet shrieked. "Don't leave us!"
But the boy raced under the high quivering footbridge, made perilous by the shuddering violence of the Lord of the Frozen Wastes. As he fled over the sands and past Meta's huddled figure, the lofty narrow way buckled and with a splitting roar the footbridge dropped on to the rocks below—flinging clouds of concrete dust and twisted metal into the air. The noise boomed over the cliffs, but charging into the streets, Ben did not even glance back.
Jennet and Miss Boston peered in anguish through the swirling debris.
"Ben!" Jennet cried. "I've got to go after him!"
"No, child," Aunt Alice restrained her, "it's too dangerous—there's still rubble falling. He's gone, there's nothing you can do now."
The shore trembled as the full wrath of the Deep One was vented upon the harbour. Between the wreckage of the East Pier and the West, a host of writhing limbs sailed and with unparallelled fury they fell upon the fishing boats, dashing their timbers against the quayside.
Down came the harbour walls and death screams filled the night as the inhabitants of Whitby were shaken from their beds and buildings slid into the river.
From his supreme height, with the storm clouds gathered about his vast star-crowned head, the Lord of the Frozen Wastes surveyed the terrible scene with malevolent pleasure. A petrifying cackle blasted from his cavernous mouth as his gigantic lidless eyes fell upon the pinnacles of the Abbey perched on top of the cliff.
Into the sheer walls of shale his winding limbs pounded, and the rock thundered down as the twisting malice tore into the Abbey plain.
The stately ruins quailed as the Deep One grappled with its ancient columns, then with an idle flick of the serpent-like coils the broken stones of the holy place tumbled down the crumbling cliff.
Mercilessly he let out an exulting laugh. The sight gratified his malignant mind but there was still one act of vengeance before he could be truly triumphant.
Far below, cringing in his swamping shadow, he espied the minuscule figures gathered around the black boat and his ghastly mirth shook the coast.
***
Inside Miss Boston's cottage, Ben tore from his bedroom and leaped down the stairs. Under his arm the boy clutched a large bulky object wrapped up in his old duffle coat, and with his heart beating madly he flew through the hallway then out into the courtyard.
With a rattle of crumbling mortar the lintel of the front door gave an ominous crack and as he sped out of the alleyway, Aunt Alice's home collapsed.
Into Church Street Ben ran, dodging falling masonry and hopping over trenches that gaped in the cobbled ground. The East Cliff was unrecognisable; heaps of debris had replaced the quaint shops, burst water mains gushed tall fountains over yawning pits and the first of many fires was already burning in the wreckage, broken gas pipes shooting rivers of dripping flame into the decimated night.
Through the devastation the boy carefully picked his way, forcing himself not to hear the desperate cries calling from beneath the rubble, and he scrambled down on to the sands.
In a mad dash, he headed back along the beach while behind him, the town of Whitby was swept into the swollen river.
Yet upon the shore, Miss Boston, Jennet and the fisherfolk stared up at their doom.
As a great black mountain, the Lord of the Frozen Wastes loured in the hell-torn sky. The massive discs of his shining eyes pierced the battering rain and his branching hair whipped amongst the swirling clouds thundering through the blighted heaven. Around him his monstrous limbs reared in awful majesty. Not since the dawn of the unhappy world had a member of the Triad been unveiled in all his full black glory.
The faces of the insects that grovelled on the rocky shore, besieged by destruction, were graven with terror. For this one moment of revenge, the Deep One had spared them from the cataclysmic upheavals and he savoured their raving fear.
"Now!" he bellowed hideously. "Go screaming into the abyss! For the hour has come for all of you."
Like an immense tidal wave, his vastness obliterated the sky and the tempest of his wrath plummeted through the gales.
In the deepening dark, Miss Boston squeezed Jennet tightly while at their side Tarr kissed Nelda's shrivelling hand.
Through the curling mists that had risen from the steaming sea, the Lord of the Frozen Wastes fell and the torrent of his anger stampeded before him, blasting from his evil, plunging countenance—tearing at those gathered beneath.
Fighting through the screaming storm, Ben clambered over the ruins of the footbridge and even as the mighty god of the waters avalanched from above, he cast aside his old coat and held aloft the thing he had taken from the cottage.
There in his grasp, swinging madly in the charging gale, was the Penny Hedge.
The flimsy fence of twigs and sticks that Ben had stolen and kept hidden beneath his bed these many months, tugged and pulled at his hands but he gritted his teeth and gripped it firmly.
In the black, freezing shadow of the Lord of the Deep, the boy glared up at the plummeting nightmare and a fierce snarl twisted his young face.
With his hair streaming in the shrieking wind and his drenched clothes flapping wildly about him, Ben threw back his head and in a loud, clear voice he yelled.
"OUT ON YE! OUT ON YE! OUT ON YE!"
Suddenly the Horngarth crackled and with a burst of fiery sparks the woven twigs became blinding white flames.
Up into the gaping maw the dazzling light shone, illuminating the grotesque contours of the infernal face and, as the age-old power to withstand one more tide beat out from the Penny Hedge, the Lord of the Frozen Wastes let out a deafening scream.
Thunder exploded around his massive head and a ferocious hail tore about his thrashing limbs as the sea was whipped into a demonic frenzy. But upon the Deep One's wrathful brow, the crown of stars dimmed and their baleful glow was lost in the searing brightness that flowed from the framework of sticks that the boy held over his head.
The ancient force of the magical barrier fell furiously about the evil member of the Triad. Chains of enchantment ripped at his titanic form, binding and holding him, until the terrifying apparition could no longer move, caught in a net of primeval magic.
With the Horngarth belting out the ensnaring spells of defen
ce and challenge above his head, Ben glowered up at the motionless cliff of darkness and the boy bawled at the top of his voice, defying the Lord of the Frozen Wastes and crying down his destiny.
"Begone from the waking world!" the boy shrieked. "The powers of the Deep have no dominion here. The time of the gods is past!"
By the black boat, Miss Boston and Jennet peered fearfully over to where Ben ranted and they shuddered in disbelief.
The boy's voice was changing, it had become deeper than his own and was filled with arrogance. A hard bitterness crept into the severe words that tumbled from his lips as he shouted his scorn and Jennet shook her head incredulously.
"Gone are your temples!" Ben yelled with haughty derision. "Forgotten is your memory—slink back to your empty desolation for no more does the world need you. Humankind commands here now! It is Man who rules; he has succeeded your position and surpassed you in might! Return into the void of neglected memory and be a whisper on the wind!"
As he shouted these proud, insolent words a shadow crept over the child. Despite the blinding glory that blistered from the Penny Hedge, his face darkened and then, as Miss Boston and Jennet watched in horror, the boy grew.
His bones stretched and his features shimmered as Ben journeyed into his own future until standing beneath the Lord of the Deep was a swaggering, middle-aged man whose face was cruel and full of conceit.
"Ben," Jennet breathed, "what's happened to him?"
Miss Boston mumbled sorrowfully, "That", she replied, "is what your brother will become."
"Without us you are nothing!" the braggart continued. "I am Lord above the waters! Leave this place—crawl into your noisome holes and be glad that Laurenson is merciful!"
Jennet stared at the vain, boastful man. "It's horrible!" she wept.
"That is why the Deep Ones fear him," Miss Boston muttered. "Look at that ruthless face. There is nothing that brazen villain would not do! There is no compassion in his eyes—great heavens, what have I nurtured?"
"But he isn't like that!" Jennet sobbed. "You know he isn't. He's just a boy!"