The Croning

by Laird Barron

  Soon, the Count descended the grand staircase flanked by his sober, iron-haired daughters Yvonne and Irina, both of whom resembled in a familial way the woman hanging around the temple. Count Mock was a doddering shell of a man, quite elderly and bald; his chin receded and his eyes were filmed like a snake, and he drooled.

  All three dressed in black.

  The dour servants bustled in with platters of stringy roast beef and potatoes and a cheap thin wine. Irina fed her father by hand and dabbed his slack mouth with a napkin. Yvonne conversed on behalf of the Count and asked the Peddler many questions regarding his stock, most especially whether he’d brought the flatland tobacco her father loved. Neither woman expressed the slightest whit of interest about events in the kingdom or the wider world.

  Neither directly addressed the Spy, as befitting his lowly status as a servant to the Peddler, however they studied him on the sly throughout dinner. For his part, the Spy kept quiet except to mumble superlatives regarding the overdone meat and stony potatoes. Through the course of casual discussion, he learned the Mocks commanded the vanguard that pacified the local barbarians a hundred and fifty years back and were awarded title to the region when the dust cleared. Apparently nothing of interest had occurred since those glory days.

  Nobody mentioned anything about dwarves and the Spy didn’t judge a good opportunity to work the subject into dinner conversation. Particularly since on occasion the Count’s dullard countenance animated and he stared directly at the Spy and yelled, “Run for your lives! Run!” This followed by a bout of gasping and coughing, then a relapse into vacuous silence.

  During a dessert of blood pudding and dates, Yvonne said to the Peddler, “It is meet that you arrive on this eve of eves, good Peddler. We’ve watched the calendar and the fogs of the season in anticipation of this moment, your fourth visit to our humble estate.”

  The Spy, wary as a fox near a kennel of wolfhounds, ate and drank modest quantities, and later, when deposited in his chamber for the evening (instead of the stables, as a courtesy to the Peddler), immediately searched the premises for dangers undreamt of by ordinary guests. In the span of minutes he uncovered a loose block beneath the bed that doubtless concealed a spring or spikes, and peepholes drilled in the ugly tapestry near the wardrobe. He estimated himself well and truly in a perilous circumstance and was comforted solely by the fact he hadn’t spotted evidence of castle guards and the servants didn’t handle themselves as trained fighting men.

  The hour grew late and the halls quieted. He crept forth with the dog at his heel. Man and beast prowled those dim passages and winding, drafty stairwells, peeking into rooms and antechambers, in quest of what the Spy wasn’t sure. The words of the sisters to the Peddler regarding their anticipation of their arrival haunted the Spy, as did the terrified demeanor of the Count during his interludes of lucidity. Clearly the noble sanctioned the pagan temple, else it would’ve been put to the torch and razed; and clearly the temple was connected to the Dwarf. For all the talk of caves and mountains, all roads to that sawed-off blackmailer led through this castle.

  He and the dog descended from shadow to shadow down, down into the cellars. He encountered no guards along the way although the normal coombs for storage of wine and other goods roughened and became damp and showed evidence of having served as a dungeon He sneaked past a series of empty cells and a dusty room equipped with rack and iron maiden and dissecting table, then through a low arch scarcely wider than his shoulders and more downward curving stairs. The subbasement was correspondingly wetter and dimmer than the rest of the gloomy fortress, lighted by infrequent torches and dingy lanterns in recessed niches. Water dripped and small streams ran from cracks in the foundation and made the eroded stone steps treacherous. Bats squeaked and flapped, agitated.

  Somewhere ahead came the low sonorous cadence of chanting.

  The Spy had the queer and unwelcome sensation of sleepwalking, or trudging through a vivid dream that was rapidly becoming a festering nightmare.

  Did they say it was beef at supper? You fool! The voice hissed from the deep black near his left-hand side and he almost went for a tumble down the steps such was his surprise. He squinted and found no evidence of a lurker, nor were any more whispers forthcoming and he soon wondered if his nerves were betraying him. Meanwhile he reached a landing and traversed a narrow tunnel. His path drew ever nearer the chanting and the hairs on his neck prickled. The words were similar to Latin, yet another language entirely. Though the chant was incomprehensible it conjured images in his mind of noisome maggot nests and a river composed of wriggling worms and gore, of himself and the woman from the temple coupling in a hellish cavern as a toothless maw of a colossus descended and engulfed them.

  He cursed and bit his tongue until it bled, and kept moving.

  The tunnel let into a small box canyon on the opposite side of the mountain. The area was illuminated by a bonfire near a dolmen of great, great antiquity. The dolmen, four vertical henges of prodigious girth surmounted by another flat rock, was graven with runes similar to the many barbarian megaliths and cairns upon the moor. A boulder lay to one side of the dolmen entrance and this stone was fitted with manacles and chains.

  The beautiful woman from the temple languished naked, manacled at wrist and ankle. She serenely gazed toward the bonfire and its attendant figures in black cowls. There were thirteen hooded and robed figures and the Spy suspected that these were the servants of the estate gathered to participate in a blood sacrifice.

  He and his hound observed this spectacle from a ledge perhaps fifty yards distant. He pinched himself, glumly hoping to wake from this awful dream, and surely it must be a dream for no confluence of malign events could logically occur in a sane universe.

  Any shred of naïve assumption that the universe was in anywise sane dissolved, along with much of his own sanity, when Yvonne and Irina threw back their hoods and produced jagged daggers. Irina sliced the bound woman open from hairline to hip in a prolonged sawing motion. Blood spurted from the wound. The attendants chanted and the woman screamed and her screams escalated into a lunatic laughter that gathered strength and echoed like thunder from the canyon walls.

  Summoned by the laughter, the chanting, the copious flow of blood gleaming dark as honey in the bonfire blaze, the Dwarf, garbed in a cassock, hopped and skipped forth from the dolmen. He tore away the cassock and his liver-gray flesh hung loosely upon his squat frame as if it were a hastily donned and ill-fitting costume. He leaped forward with violent alacrity and seized the woman in chains and wrenched at her. The Spy felt nauseated, convinced that the little man was actually peeling her alive.

  Then the Limbless Ones squirmed from the darkness to join the fun. At the sight of them the Spy’s perceptions bent and buckled inward and smote him senseless. He shrieked and ran back through the tunnel.

  5.

  He made it to the Peddler’s quarters, his body bruised from many falls on the slippery stairs. The Peddler had been sleeping soundly and reacted in a groggy manner that suggested he’d consumed drugs. He’d eaten and drunk far more than the Spy himself had dared.

  The Spy slapped and chivvied and threatened the confused man and drove him from the castle sans mules, supplies, or payment for the tobacco he’d handed the Count and daughters. They fled across the forsaken landscape. Eventually the Peddler shook free of his stupor and joined in casting fearful backward glances for signs of pursuit.

  Upon reaching the outskirts of the village they composed themselves and repaired to the Spy’s quarters at the inn. Safely ensconced, they shared a flask of wine the Spy had previously stashed in a cupboard and were soon three sheets to the wind.

  Darkness engulfed the village. The men, shaking with cold and nerves, huddled around a candle. The Spy, numb from the horrors he’d witnessed and the knowledge he’d failed his sweet sister, grasped the Peddler’s shoulder and confessed why he’d journeyed to the valley.

  The Peddler finally said in a besotted slur, “Wait, wait. Not
a traveling soldier or sell sword? The Queen’s own spy… Are you by chance the son of a miller?”

  Having difficulty lifting his head or speaking in complete sentences, the Spy grunted that this was indeed the case.

  “By the gods,” the Peddler said, his eyes as large and round as tea saucers. He told a story then of how once, as a young, green trader upon his first visit to the valley he’d gotten lost in the mountains during a thunderstorm and taken shelter in a cave. The Dwarf was drawn to the cheery blaze of the Peddler’s fire and the two spent a long evening smoking from the Dwarf’s hookah and swapping tales as the wind howled and lightning cracked the sky. The Dwarf claimed to be a hermit who subsisted by trapping and gathering herbs and that he dwelt in several caves and huts scattered throughout the area.

  An exceedingly odd thing disquieted the Peddler. Perhaps his senses were distorted by whatever powerful herb was percolating in the hookah barrel; nonetheless, he’d received a fright when at one point it appeared the Dwarf’s face was melting. Right before the Peddler collapsed unconscious, the Dwarf lifted the man’s chin with a razor-sharp fingernail and told him to relay a message to the son of the miller when they met one day. The message was, There are frightful things, Groom. Time is a ring. My name won’t save you or your sister. We who crawl in the dark love you.

  The Peddler paused, lost in memory. His eyes cleared and he said, “I was alone come dawn. The storm yet raged, so I hunkered in that cave for three days and three nights. There was another chamber farther in back. I realized the Dwarf had dwelt there long ago by the rotted bedding and clothes, a few mugs and tarnished bits of silverware. The rest was dust, cobwebs, and bat shit. Or so I thought until I found a bundle of clay tablets beneath a loose stone. These comprised essays and a journal by a self-styled naturalist who’d been driven from his community. The charges against him included child murder and witchcraft and trafficking in black magic, all of which he adamantly denied in his notes. The people feared him because of his small stature, his misshapen bones, and claimed he was son to a warlock. I couldn’t follow his words completely, for the language is difficult and the account had been carved before our grandfathers were even born. The gist of his latter entries was that he made friends with visitors from another kingdom or tribe who visited him from their own caves that lay deeper in the mountain. These men knew wickedness as a potter knows a wheel and over time they corrupted the Dwarf, swayed him to their cause. You say the Queen struck a bargain with this fiend and seeks his identity? That makes sense as a True Name is a token of power. Well, I beheld it all those years ago. His signature was engraved in the old tongue in the clay. I will not say it, for it must be one of the many names of the Prince of Darkness.” He brought forth quill and parchment and scrawled with a shaking hand the name he’d seen written on the tablets.

  “What a strange, ugly name,” the Spy said, so drunk that two of everything shimmered in his blurry vision. He stared at what the Peddler had written and thought with grim amusement that in some ways the name made perfect sense, a cunning play on the Dwarf’s stunted growth and the fact his flesh was rumpled as a bad coat. A demon jester. How droll.

  “He is a strange, ugly little man,” the Peddler said. “Although, I trow the Dwarf perished and what now walks the earth in his skin is something altogether different.”

  “If the worst should befall me, promise that you’ll bear the Dwarf’s name to the Queen. In the morning I shall depart via the West Road for the capital. You must take the low roads. One of us may survive to bear witness.”

  “Of course,” said the Peddler. “God save the Queen.”

  “God save the Queen. But which god?”

  The candled guttered and died.

  The Spy lay helplessly against the warm bulk of the dog. The dog snored. The Peddler snored. A door creaked, then floorboards. There was a steady, thick dripping, the sound of bare feet squelching. The blackness reeked of copper and the Spy’s heart beat too fast.

  She said into the Spy’s ear, “We meet again. Yes, time is a squirming, hungry ring that wriggles and worms across reality. It eats everything, lover.”

  He tried to speak, to cry out a warning. Too late.

  In the chill gray light of dawn, the Peddler roused and discovered that he and the dog were alone in the room. There were a few bloody footprints. No other trace of the Spy, however. So, the Peddler hurriedly departed that cursed village and took the mournful dog with him. He traveled day and night, pushing himself past exhaustion in order to beat the appointed date. By miracles of perseverance and providence he barged into the Queen’s court and delivered the message mere hours before the deadline. Afterward, he vanished from his guests’ quarters despite the presence of a contingent of armed guards, and was never seen again.

  Subsequent legends of the Queen’s fateful showdown with the Dwarf notwithstanding, the creature’s prophecy was quite accurate: knowing his name didn’t save the Queen or anyone else.

  CHAPTER TWO

  One Time in Old Mexico…

  (1958)

  1.

  The first time Donald Miller almost died was during a visit to Mexico, but later he didn’t remember anything of the event, except in dreams that dissolved moments after waking. His body remembered, though. His blood remembered, and the black sap of his subconscious.

  He and his wife Michelle took a spring vacation to Mexico City. Her umpteenth visit and his first. A well-connected colleague of Michelle’s, one Louis Plimpton who had conducted a significant measure of research in the country, pulled strings and managed to get them into a suite at an international hotel. A gorgeous elevated view of the garden district, silk sheets, plush towels, fresh fruit, expensive coffee, complimentary brandies and margaritas. Walking through the mahogany double doors, Don took in the slate tiles, marble statuary, and gold-chased accents and raised a brow at his wife who merely smiled and advised him against looking the gift horse in the mouth.

  Every morning began with a multi-course continental breakfast followed by guided tours of historic neighborhoods, lunches at sidewalk restaurants, then dinner and a show at the hotel nightclub, which imported Vegas talent to croon the tourists into buying a few more rounds. The days were breathless, the nights languid. They made frequent love with resurgent abandon—tied one another up with silk scarves, wore blindfolds and joked about paying a maid to join the merriment. They drank too much and for once didn’t talk of their careers or how after seven years of marriage that it might be time to start a family, or anything to do with responsibility or sobriety. That part of the trip went off like a second honeymoon and lasted for a week. Among the best weeks of young Don’s life.

  One morning as the couple lay entwined and still drunk from the previous evening’s excesses, Michelle received a call from, as Don barely managed to discern, Bjorn Trent, a professor at the University of Mexico, about a dig occurring at nearby ruins, south of the city proper. Something to do with work? Or was it more claptrap regarding the missing tribe she’d become increasingly devoted to the past couple of years? Although he wasn’t entirely sure if she meant missing like the Mayans, or misplaced by anthropologists who hadn’t quite nailed down seasonal migratory patterns.

  While he shared her love of the cryptic and arcane, the intensity of Michelle’s research worried him. Junk science was a keen way to get relegated to the lunatic fringe of the community. Tough enough she was a woman in a man’s world…

  Answers were not forthcoming. She slammed the phone, kissed Don goodbye, throwing on her clothes as she dashed from the suite. He did not see or hear from her again for two days and two nights. This incident was to change many things between them, most especially the power dynamic all couples share, although the full effects wouldn’t be experienced until many, many years later. Good things were worth waiting for, weren’t they?

  Late into the first afternoon, real worry for her safety began to gnaw him. Don played the customary role of the concerned spouse—he rang the university and received
short shrift from one ill-tempered secretary or intern after another, none of them the slightest bit interested in Don’s plight, none of them knowledgeable of any professor by the name of Bjorn Trent. Thus he languished in loosened tie and shirtsleeves on the edge of the bed, phone cradled against his ear, an endless chain of cigarettes smoldering between his fingers as the sun fell and the suite darkened and grew black but for the occasional flare of his cigarette cherry and the reflected glow of the cityscape that softly swirled on the bedroom wall.

  The weather turned nasty and dawn came through the gray underbellies of rainclouds and fired them crimson. The air tasted of creosote and burnt tar. Don slouched to a corner bistro in his slept-in-clothes and drank bitter coffee and sucked on a bitterer wedge of grapefruit and contemplated alerting the consulate, hesitating only because this wasn’t entirely out of Michelle’s character. She’d pulled similar, albeit less dramatic, stunts in the past, charging off to have beers with an old chum, or visit a remote site without notice or a how-do-you-do for poor worrywart Don. When the moment seized her, she could be impetuous as the wind, and just as indifferent to his feelings.

  And so he lingered at the café, sucking his grapefruit and watching the rain, caught somewhere between sullen resentment of being tossed aside for this Bjorn fellow and dread that something terrible had happened—an accident, a run-in with the soldiers or the police, that she might be lying semi-conscious in a squalid hospital bed or trapped in a country prison and desperately awaiting rescue. He fumed and fretted by turns. A pigeon strutted up and shit upon Don’s shoe.

  Eventually he paid his tab and hailed a taxi to the university, determined to conduct the investigation in person. Perhaps the unhelpful secretaries and grumbling interns would be of sweeter disposition when confronted with the red-eyed and bewhiskered countenance of a frantic husband.