Shadowmancer

by G. P. Taylor

  The man next to her shivered with excitement, obviously impressed. A single loud and defiant knock came again, much firmer than before. Everyone huddled more closely together.

  ‘We want to know what will happen to Parson Demurral. Will you tell us?’

  The knock came suddenly and even more powerfully than before making everyone, including Mrs Landas, jump with fright. Her voice went up an octave through real fear. This had never happened before. No real spirit had ever knocked.

  Mrs Landas spread out the cards in front of her and picked several at random from the pack. One by one she turned them over.

  ‘Here the place where he dwells, to speak of life in heaven or hell.’ She turned over the first card. It was a picture of a man dressed in the robes of a priest holding a golden cup and standing at an altar.

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘This is Demurral, the magician. The spirits always speak of him through this card. Let us see what stands in his way.’ She began to turn another card.

  ‘Here be all that comes against thee, sword or tempest, love or honour.’

  She turned the card. It was the picture of a tower being struck by lightning with a man falling from the battlements. Without speaking she turned more cards and placed them in a circle around the others. Every time she turned a card she muttered under her breath, looking even more worried.

  ‘What is it, Mary? Tell us what they say.’ The man next to her pulled at her shawl wanting an answer. She turned over the final card to reveal the picture of a gnarled skeleton surrounded by blood-red flames.

  Mrs Landas began to pray for the first time in her life. She choked back the tears that welled up in her. She started to tremble with fear hoping that what she saw in the cards would never come true.

  ‘What is it, Mary? You can’t sit there and not say anything, tell us.’

  She drew breath and spoke slowly.

  ‘The cards speak of a power coming to take this place. Many will be killed if it is not stopped. There will be a disaster, the land will fall into the sea and the devil himself will walk amongst us. Each one of you is in great danger.’

  ‘Only if you allow it to happen,’ a voice called from the darkness.

  Everyone turned and looked to see who had dared to speak and break the magic of the séance. Raphah was on the top bunk, his legs dangling down over the side.

  ‘Do you really believe in the power of those picture cards? There is a far greater law than the one that controls the roll of the dice or the turn of a card.’ He climbed down from the bunk and walked to the table. ‘Each one of you is taken in by what you hear. You’re quick to believe in spirits when it’s really someone banging on the side of the bed. None of you will turn to the one who can truly set you free.’

  ‘Who are you to talk about freedom? A lad who is a slave speaking to us about freedom – what do you know?’ said the man next to Mrs Landas.

  ‘What makes you any different from me? I am black and you are white. In so many ways we are the same, but you are captive to more things than I will ever be. I may have chains on my wrists but not even Demurral can capture the soul of the one who follows Riathamus.’

  The man was quick to reply. ‘You speak a lot for a slave. We know what life will be like for you – what’s left of it.’ They all laughed.

  ‘My soul is in the hands of the one who sent me here. He has a plan for my life, a plan to prosper and not to harm. A plan to give hope and a future. These cards speak lies to trap and ensnare you.’

  Raphah leant over the table and picked up the pack of cards. He knew that he had to speak the truth. Mrs Landas jumped up from her chair and tried to snatch them back.

  He held out the cards. ‘These are evil, and they will lead you into a place from which you will never escape. These are detestable to the one who sent me.’

  ‘Who are you calling evil? I bandage your wounds, make you food, welcome you into my home, let you sleep when you should be working, and you call me evil,’ she said angrily, almost spitting at him. ‘These cards are precious, they cost me more than a year’s wages. Get your dirty hands off them.’

  Mrs Landas grabbed at the cards but Raphah held them away from her. She felt shocked by what Raphah had said. In her world, Mrs Landas was always right and answered to no one but Demurral. She had never been challenged about anything like this before. In her own way Mrs Landas had always thought the cards were a drama and a ritual to entertain and make her feel important because she had knowledge that others would never possess. Now she had been told that the pictures were evil. She looked at the cards in his hand and didn’t know whether to snatch them back from him. Somehow they now seemed to be tarnished. She was reluctant even to touch them. A doubt had crept into her mind. They had lost their innocence, were no longer a parlour game taught to her by her mother. She was angry that she had been challenged and confronted by the truth in her own lodging house.

  There was something about Raphah that unnerved her and made her feel uncomfortable. He was so sure of himself, with an inner confidence. He had a visible purity, a cleanliness of the soul that shone through his eyes and brought hope into the dirt of her surroundings.

  ‘And just what is this “one” going to do?’ she snapped at Raphah. ‘Can he make our life any better, take us out of this place? Can he stop Demurral overworking us, underfeeding us and never paying us?’ Mrs Landas prodded a sharp pointed finger into his chest with each question. ‘Where is this “one” that you speak about? Can we see him?’

  ‘He’s behind you, Mrs Landas.’ He raised one eyebrow as he spoke. Mrs Landas jumped around to see what was there. ‘No, Mrs Landas, he is all around you. You can’t see him, but he knows the secrets of all your hearts.’

  ‘Who are you? Where are you from?’ said Mrs Landas, angry at his impertinence. Raphah looked at the staring faces gathered around him. It seemed that the whole room waited for him to reply.

  ‘That is not important. Tonight the one who sent me will show you something that will change your lives for ever.’ Raphah stepped towards her holding out the cards.

  ‘What if we don’t want to change?’

  ‘Then he will open your eyes so that you may see the dung heap in which your soul is sleeping.’ He prodded her in the shoulder with his finger. ‘Wake up. Rise from the dead. And let the light shine in your darkness.’

  The deaf boy pushed Raphah away from her. Raphah grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him into the lap of Mrs Landas.

  ‘Hold on to your son, Mrs Landas. You’re about to get him back.’ He then placed two firm hands upon the boy’s head. Before she could speak Raphah began to call out in a language she could not understand.

  ‘Abba-shekinah, El Shammah, soatzettay-isthi hugiez.’

  He spoke at the top of his voice. Everyone in the room stood back, unsure what he would do next, frightened by the force of the words.

  It was then that something strange and frightening began to happen. It felt as if the whole building was beginning to shake. The children dived under the table while the men looked at each other in complete disbelief. A loud creaking made everyone in the room turn to see the large wooden front door beginning to bend inwards. With a sudden crack it broke open, smashing against the wall. Streaks of silver and white lightning crashed in and arced across the room earthing against the walls and ceiling with a loud thud like the sound of a freshly charged musket firing. A fine gold mist quickly filled the room. Small round globes of rainbow light danced through the air above the heads of the frightened onlookers.

  Raphah, oblivious to the manifestations taking place around him repeated the words over and over again. The young deaf boy began to shake, every muscle and sinew of his body jerking with the power that swept through him. Mrs Landas leapt to her feet, pushing him from her as she fell to the floor, burying her face in her hands and begging for Raphah to stop what was happening.

  Everyone was now face-down on the floor, covering their eyes to protect them from the incredible brightn
ess of the golden light that filled every corner of the room. It was as if they were being forced to the ground, pressed into the floor by the weight of the glory. Each droplet of the mist appeared to weigh more than gold. No one could move: their limbs were as heavy as lead. As the golden mist swirled around the room they all rested in the peace that it brought. Every man, woman and child appeared to be in a deep sleep.

  It was the sudden screaming and jumping around of the deaf boy that broke the silence. He had never made a sound in his life but now he began to whoop and holler like a young dog. He shouted as loud as he could, then covered his ears to try and dampen the pain of the noise that he made.

  The sound of his infectious high-pitched laughter brought Mrs Landas out of her dreaming and from her hiding place under the table, where she had been wedged between two chairs. He jumped up and down and round and round, laughing and screaming as he heard his own voice for the first time. She looked at the boy and began to cry, holding her arms out to him and calling him by his name for the very first time.

  ‘John, come to me, come to me … Come to your mother.’

  She broke down in tears as she held out her arms towards him. John smiled as he tried to speak the word ‘mother’. He ran into her arms. Together they cried. John was sobbing with joy and Mrs Landas was sobbing with the delight that she was free to love him again.

  Whatever had happened in that moment she now knew that her love for her son would last for ever. For so many years Mrs Landas had felt as if she had a heart of stone, unable to love or to be loved. In those few short moments all that had been transformed. She had a heart of flesh and a feeling of great joy instead of constant despair.

  As quickly as it had appeared the golden mist vanished. The children came out from their hiding place under the table, and the men and women pulled themselves up from the floor. They all stared at Raphah, John and Mrs Landas standing together at the end of the table silhouetted by the blazing fire. No one dared to speak.

  ‘How did you know?’ Mrs Landas asked Raphah as she stroked John’s hair. ‘How did you know he was my son?’

  ‘It was in your eyes, Mary. They are the window of the soul. Not even the hate you have for this place could stop that seed of love showing through.’ He wiped away a tear as it slowly rolled across her cheek. ‘Here is the man that you have prayed for. He can hear you and soon will be able to speak to you. He will be your future.’

  Mrs Landas took the divining cards from him. ‘Somehow I don’t think I will ever want to use these again.’

  With that she threw the cards and the silk cover into the blazing fire. They scattered in the flames. One card leapt from the inferno thrust up by the hot fumes, rising in the thermal. Suddenly it fluttered and spun from the fire, falling face down on to the stone hearth as if picked from the flames by an unseen hand.

  Raphah bent over and picked up the card. He began to laugh as he held out the card for all to see.

  ‘Not even this magician will be able to escape his fate so easily next time.’ Raphah slowly crushed the divining card in the palm of his hand and threw it back into the flames.

  No one saw the small dark figure that crept into the room through the open door. It had the appearance of a small man with a long, white, poker-thin face and crooked sharp teeth that filled its large mouth. It looked like a shadow. In places its body was opaque, in other places quite transparent. The creature walked slowly from the doorway staring at Raphah as it took careful deliberate steps across the room.

  The man with a red neck scarf sat at the far end of the table. He was unsure about what he had just seen, and felt quite dazed by all he had experienced. With a quick shudder of the spine, the creature suddenly stepped into the man’s body. The man gave a gasp and closed his eyes, not knowing what was happening and unable to call out for help. He felt as if he was drowning as the creature smothered his soul. He could feel the creature inside his mind and could taste its dank, ghastly breath as it breathed through his mouth. He opened his eyes again, and this time it was the creature that looked out upon the world through them; it was now able to control every thought and action of the body it possessed. The man coughed and spluttered as the stench filled his lungs. The creature looked at Raphah and waited for the right moment to bring an end to his life. On the table was a carving knife. Using the man’s hand, the creature took the knife and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.

  Bell, Book and Candle

  JACOB Crane beat his clenched gloved fist against the black oak door of the Vicarage. It was midnight and in the nearby courtyard a large white cockerel crowed and shouted at the full moon that rose blood-red out of the sea.

  The pounding echoed through the empty hallway and corridors of the house until it finally reached the ears of Beadle, who was sprawled over the kitchen table half asleep. He was face-down in a thick slice of freshly buttered brown bread that he had been eating to dry up the several pints of warm beer that he had been quaffing all evening. Beadle enjoyed drinking, not through thirst but through the desire to feel the effects of the brew running through his veins and numbing out the pain of the world. Over the years he had become a skilled brewer. He made his own beer, mixing in the extra herbs that he gathered from his secret place at Boggle Beck. He would dry the leaves and sometimes the flowers and then mix them with the barley, wild hops, yeast, and a large dollop of honey.

  Tonight he realized that he had made two mistakes. One was to drink the beer while it was still fermenting. The other was that he had added too much valerian to the brew. All he knew was that he could hardly open his eyes as the effects of the valerian pulled them tightly shut, giving him the feeling that he would be trapped in his dreaming for ever with numb lips and arms that felt as if they were made of rolled carpet.

  Far more important was the belief he now had that the fermenting beer was about to make his stomach explode. As he lay drowsily, hearing the banging on the door somewhere in the distance, mouthfuls of half-digested ale gulped their way back into the world. Beadle gave a loud, retching belch that reverberated throughout the kitchen. He tried to raise his head from the table, realizing that somehow he would have to answer the banging at the door that was now becoming even louder and more insistent.

  As he did so he wiped the thick slice of bread over his forehead, believing it to be a soft moist facecloth. The flakes of bread stuck to his skin, but he was neither aware, nor could he really care how he looked. He could not get the thoughts of the beautiful white flowers of the valerian out of his mind. In his half-dream all he could see as he tried to rouse himself was the small plant that he had picked on a summer’s day, leaving a farthing coin pushed into the roots as payment to the Green Man, and had dried carefully by the kitchen range. He muttered under his breath.

  Beadle would drink little during the day, preferring the tea that he stole from his master. He always waited until at least six o’clock before he opened the tap on the large wooden barrel and filled his cup to overflowing, again and again.

  The beer allowed him to dream, to be someone that he could never be. It allowed him the freedom to think, or so he thought, although now he found that he needed more and more to gain the same blissful state as the year before. When he drank he felt liberated from the boredom of his servitude. In his mind he would become an important man, someone who was doing more with his life than run after the Vicar. In reality, however, his merriment had caused him to become more short-tempered and even more dissatisfied with himself and his life.

  Now the taste of the yeast and barley stuck to the roof of his mouth and through his dream the thumping at the door grew louder. He staggered from the kitchen and attempted to walk in a straight line along the hallway. The pounding grew even louder. He bounced from wall to wall as he almost rolled along the passageway holding on to each doorframe that he passed. The large gold raven that was set high above the front door stared down at him. In his drunkenness he was sure that the bird moved and twitched its feathers and opened one eye. H
e took hold of the large door handle and began to turn it. Suddenly and powerfully the door was forced open, almost pushing him to one side. The cold night air flooded into the house and in the candlelight the tall figure of Jacob Crane filled the doorway.

  ‘Where’s your master?’ Crane spoke as if he wanted an immediate answer. Beadle, still fuddled by the beer, stood with a blank expression on his face.

  ‘Master?’ He paused as if he didn’t know the answer. He looked at Crane as he swayed from side to side. ‘I think he’s in bed, or he could be out. Or he could be …’

  Crane bent down and stared at Beadle eye to eye, a hair’s breadth between them.

  ‘Fetch him. Now!’ Crane shouted into his face. Beadle tried to focus his eyes on the end of Jacob Crane’s long nose.

  The reply was one that Crane would never have expected. Beadle belched a long loud and fetid retort directly into his nostrils. The strong smell made him wince in disgust. Crane was direct in his reply. The gloved hand shot out and slapped Beadle across the face, sending him spinning across the hall and into a large wooden coat-stand that fell on top of him.

  ‘You pig,’ said Crane in cold disgust, as he stepped towards the prostrate figure of Beadle.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Crane, it’s the beer. I can’t seem to keep it down.’ Beadle belched again trying to prove that it had been an accident. ‘I can’t stop … It’s the ale … Sometimes it gets the better of me.’

  ‘Then I suggest that you don’t drink it.’ The voice came from the balcony at the top of the stairs. There stood Demurral, dressed in a black dressing gown and red nightcap. ‘Beadle, take Mr Crane into the study and I will be down shortly. Bring a tray of sherry.’

  Beadle got to his feet and looked blurrily for the door to the study. All the doors looked the same and somehow he could not recognize which was which. Crane saw the befuddlement on his face and opened the study door. He took the candle from the stand in the hallway and walked inside, leaving Beadle alone in the dark.