Stories From a Lost Anthology

by Rhys Hughes

  My task was to incubate the eggs. Deprived of my constant attention Thisbe grew bored, trying to amuse herself by flying further afield. The desert animals were grateful for her absence. Anaemic hyenas crowded the dunes, sniggering with relief. Sometimes I did not see her from dusk to dawn. I adjusted myself on the cushions and sighed. Beneath me the eggs pulsated with horrible life.

  “What would you do if we were discovered?” she asked me, after one jaunt. I shrugged my shoulders. I had been haunted by this prospect for centuries. A team of explorers might easily chance upon our abode. If nomads could find their way here, why not the pale men with their picks and shovels? I would make a fine exhibit in the British Museum. It was fortunate our desert had no fossil fuels to exploit, no military value. Yet it was a cruel question. She could fly away whenever danger loomed, unless I locked her cage.

  When the eggs finally hatched, three boys and three girls, Thisbe and I drank a mordant toast of ancient red. We decided on suitable names for them: Edgar, Vernon, Poppy, Bram, Carmilla and Desmond. We kept them in a wooden chest in the attic and took it in turns striking them with a stick. We did not want to spoil them. Like all baby vampires they were quick to learn the rudiments of speech. Thisbe talked to them in German. I used Hungarian and Sanskrit.

  They called me mummy. They called her daednu.

  After the mock-Christening, I took Thisbe aside and questioned her about her escapades. “What’s out there that is so fascinating?” I asked. She was reluctant to tell; this suggested she had discovered something of interest. Finally, she gave in. “For the past nine weeks, a group of explorers have been making their way towards the pyramid. They are led by a nomad who knows you are short on silver. He has sold your secret. They’ll be here within a day or two.”

  I was shattered by this news. I decided to defend my home with all the strength of my shrivelled limbs. The treachery of the nomad saddened me. But I wished to be a presentable villain, an elegant adversary, so I wasted no time in brooding. I cleaned the pyramid from top to bottom, setting the traps as I worked my way down.

  When I had finished, the dust of dynasties had been swept up and given to the winds. All that remained was to clean my grubby bandages, return to my sarcophagus and await the siege. I unwrapped the bindings and coiled them into the washing machine. Adding soap powder, I shut the door and started the device. I watched as the contents tumbled in a sea of foam. On spin-cycle the screams began.

  Somehow, one of the children had climbed into the machine. Peering closely into the whirling drum, I glimpsed a tiny face with milk fangs. It was Desmond, who was always falling asleep in strange places. As soon as the machine shuddered to a halt, I opened the door and retrieved him. I saw at once that he had changed.

  I called for Thisbe at the top of my voice. She was by my side in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Desmond. His wings have turned green. He’s become a daednu! It must be something to do with rotation. You mentioned the Ferris wheel and the lightning. The combination of centrifugal force and electricity seems to reverse the polarity of vampires. I wonder if this holds true for all supernatural beings?”

  Thisbe was delighted. At long last she was able to hold one of her offspring without detonating. If it was possible for Desmond, it should also be possible for his brothers and sisters. There was no reason why we could not become a normal family.

  There were, however, problems of an ethical nature. We had hoped to release the children into the vampire community. We wanted the best for them. I had set the residue of my heart on seeing them enter the medical profession. If we now span them all into daednus, we would be condemning them to an unlife of exile.

  This dilemma required much thought, but time was limited. Tomorrow the explorers would be knocking on our capstone. While Thisbe retired to her cage to mull the issues, I frantically searched through my spellbook for a way to delay them. In the musty papyrus, I found a seismic answer, an incantation of tectonic splendour.

  The resulting earthquake, big enough to swallow expeditions whole, was much more powerful than I had bargained for. Possibly I overdid the chants. The pyramid twisted on its axis, snapping at the base. Mortar of long ages was ground to nothing. The crack extended along all four walls of my chamber. My home was suddenly detached from the ground, separated at its widest point, a loose wonder.

  Thisbe made a reconnaissance flight of the epicentre, one day’s journey from our position. The explorers had vanished. In many ways it was an unsatisfying vengeance, but our purpose had been served. I told Thisbe: “We are safe again.”

  She shook her dark head, holding me to her grave-scented bosom. I nestled like a maggot in her cleavage. “Such an unnatural shock will intrigue geologists. We have destroyed one set of researchers only to encourage another. Before long someone will find us. The world is too small, there is no more room for our kind.”

  This time I was too tired to argue. With a broken home and a host of dependents, I had been eroded away to nothing. I felt as drained as if my veins were full again and Thisbe was drinking me dry. I wanted to escape to some silent and mindless void. As I pounded my crumbling brow with my fist, the idea came.

  I nudged Thisbe and we raced up to her attic. On the way, I paused to collect Desmond and one other. It was vital to hold them apart. At the top of the building, beneath the cage, I suspended Desmond and his sister over the two ventilation shafts.

  “The pyramid is no longer fixed to the ground. With enough thrust we can launch it out of the desert. The shafts converge at the base. If I drop Desmond down one and Poppy down the other, they will meet at the bottom. My room will act like a combustion chamber. The force might even be powerful enough to enable us to escape Earth’s gravity. We’ll be free of interference forever!”

  Thisbe frowned. She wrestled with her conscience. Could she allow her children to be used as rocket-fuel? I reminded her of our potential to make more. Provided we kept one breeding pair for emergencies, there was nothing to stop us reaching the stars. The washing machine would ensure enough daednus to keep us going indefinitely. Food and wine was no problem, we were well stocked. Besides, being supernatural, we did not need to eat. Nor would vacuum bother us. “Algol is pleasant at this time of aeon,” I joked.

  With a slight inclination of her head, Thisbe gave me permission to drop Desmond and Poppy down the shafts. There was a long minute in which nothing was audible save the hiss of falling offspring. I held my musty breath. Then the inconceivable happened. The details of the explosion cannot really be imagined. But again I shall be content with offering a key word: blagharghtakm!

  My knowledge of physics was never very good. We were squashed flat, pyramid and occupants. Being immortal, it did not matter. At least we were rushing through the atmosphere, into space. The cosmos is one big coffin. So we began to feel at home.

  We like it up here, cold and mute. We slide like shadows across the inner surface of our compressed vessel. My dreams about steering to the stars have also been squashed. We have gone into orbit around the moon. And yet, strangely enough, the washing machine survived the blast. I am tempted to enter it myself and change my own polarity. Too long have I been a mummy. Now I want to be an anti.

  The Lover And The Grave

  “Only where there are graves are there resurrections.”

  Nietzsche

  In the most beautiful of walled cities, carved in stone above the main gate, there is a tableau depicting the story of Athanasius. Much of the relief has worn away and much of the rest is obscured by ivy and other climbing plants, but it is still possible to fill the gaps with a kind word and a silver coin. The gate-keeper, too old to stomach any but the most expensive wine, will accept curiosity and money in equal measure. He had the story from his father, who was also a gate-keeper. Perhaps he is the last man alive who knows the tale.

  My own reasons for visiting the walled city were prosaic enough. A physician by trade, I was eager to obtain medical books for my private library
. The books to be found there surpass in quality even those of the Capital. A succession of plagues has sharpened the skills of their doctors to the point where any disease now claims very few. I wanted to acquire some of that wisdom for use in my own town. I desired a reputation as a healer of mystical prowess. As I was unattached to any Guild, plagues were my lifeblood. I would be tempted to describe myself as freelance, save that my lance is never free. Each boil is a groat.

  The half-hidden relief attracted my attention as soon as I arrived and it being very early morning—with little traffic entering or leaving the city—I was able to buy some of the gate-keeper’s time. He tugged at his shrivelled beard, weighed the coin in his palm with a sly look and rolled his eyes up to the carving, chuckling softly all the while. “Very well,” said he at last, “I will tell you the tale, though it takes but a single arched eyebrow to shatter it. Express no doubts, raise no points. Imagine it is depicted in glass rather than stone. I cannot vouch for its truth any more than you would want me to. But to mock may summon guards who will hurl you from the walls.

  “Listen then. Know that Athanasius was a lover who lived in this city some centuries past. As lovers go, he was neither brighter nor duller than any other member of his fraternity. Poets create, minstrels adapt, gardeners tend. But lovers merely steal from them and call their ill-gotten gains emotion. So we had Athanasius with the ode, the song, the rose, weaving his way between the houses of his myriad mistresses. He was a paramour without precedent, more prolific by far than his nearest rival. He had a boundless energy, a disregard for anything that did not taste sweet, whether lips or wine. He had long dark hair that curled to his shoulders. Also he was fleet of foot, a quality useful in a man who must often flee husbands across rooftops.

  “His latest mistress was the wife of a Judge who sat in one of the highest courts and settled cases like dust—slowly but with a horrible inevitability. She was no longer young, and had found the candle a more effective veil than rouge. Climbing nimbly to her window, Athanasius was with her, rose between teeth, ode and song behind on tongue. She accepted these offerings, her fingers entwined with his; together they explored a new path across the plateau of passion. He began to taste her body when the candle was tall; it had burnt to a stub by the time he had fully satisfied her. They slept in each other’s arms, but in the middle of the night he was awakened by a plaintive song. Making his way from bed to balcony, he gazed across the street into a walled garden. A girl was sitting on the edge of a broken fountain, combing her long hair.

  “From that moment Athanasius was consumed with a genuine passion, a novel experience for him. He found he could not shake lose her image from his scented dreams. Love for him had always been a sort of game, a duel in which the contest and the prize were one and the same. But now he was losing control. From then on he visited the Judge’s wife simply to rise in the cool darkness and behold that mysterious girl. He learned that her name was Melissa and that she was the sole daughter of a rich merchant; a jealous man who kept her confined within her room during the day. Only after sunset was she allowed to roam the garden. Athanasius decided that she would be his, whatever the cost. So he prepared himself for the greatest challenge in his career. Disguised as a merchant, he gained admittance to the house, on the pretext of discussing business with her father.

  “After sharing a jug of wine with him, he pleaded a call of nature and was directed to the appropriate place. But he used those few minutes of free time to seek her out in her room. For a man such as Athanasius, much can be done in the space of a few minutes. He charmed her into sighs and returned to his host before anything appeared amiss. This was the procedure he adopted for a whole week. By the seventh day, he was ready to make his proposal and she was ready to accept it. That night, he visited his former mistress for the last time, exhausted her to the point where he could be assured her sleep would be deep, and stole some of her clothes. Then he climbed down from her window, crossed the street, clambered up the wall of the merchant’s garden and lowered a rope for Melissa. He pulled her up and, disguised as the Judge’s wife, she made good her escape with him.

  “He took her to his own dwelling, a garret in a crumbling house in the artists’ quarter. It was a filthy abode but—as the proverb says—when there is love even a ditch will seem like heaven. They were truly happy for weeks on end. But love does not fill bellies. Neglecting his other mistresses, he deprived himself of his one source of income. He was unfit for any other work; and she was unfit for any sort of work at all. His friends, poets and painters, lent him what they could, but this charity quickly ran dry. So Athanasius and Melissa began to starve together. Thus did he first recognise the real weakness of flesh. He took himself to the market and attempted to steal food; but the owners of the stalls were watchful. All that he was able to snatch was a large knife from the ironmonger’s display—a polished blade of fine steel. This he was unable to sell, despite its quality.

  “Turning to his beloved, with tears rolling down his cheek, he told her that she would have to return to her father and beg his forgiveness. As for him, he would be forced to continue with his old ways, courting rich ladies who were bored with their husbands. But Melissa quietly shook her head, placed her finger over his lips and said, ‘Athanasius, my love, there is another answer. Though it be our undoing, never will I be parted from you. Let us be undone then, and invite Death to witness our vow.’ And Athanasius, the lover, understood at once what she meant. He trembled, he turned pale, his breathing came but shallow; yet she merely repeated her earlier promise. ‘Never will I be parted from you,’ she cried, and he was finally reconciled to her solution.

  “It was at that time that another plague descended upon the city, a blight that froze men and women in their tracks and seemingly turned them to stone in a matter of hours. The marshes beyond the gates were always throwing up new diseases and this one was no more terrible than any other. The more superstitious inhabitants claimed that the marshes were cursed and that all the plagues were of supernatural origin. Such nonsense carried little weight in a city where the doctors were skilled. They guessed that this latest pestilence was carried by mosquitoes and arranged for braziers of smoking coals to be placed all along the city walls. This effectively discouraged the insects from leaving the marshes at night and consequently the death toll inflicted by the hideous affliction remained low.

  “Unable to consider taking his own life with knife or noose, it was a very dour Athanasius who slipped out of the city one evening, wrapped tightly in robes and armed only with a green-glass jar. He succeeded in capturing a single mosquito and re-entering the city—the gate-keeper in those days was an incompetent fellow. He returned to his attic, and placed the jar down on the little table which—apart from the bed—was the only piece of furniture in the room. Then he turned to Melissa with a deep sigh and said, ‘I am ready,’ to which she replied, ‘Do not fear, my love. We shall be always together now.’ He took her around the waist and kissed her deeply on her pale lips. Soon they would be yet paler, he realised. She responded to his embrace and he bore her down onto the bed. Before fixing his amorous attentions onto the rest of her lithe form, he removed the stopper from the jar.

  “The next morning, one of their friends found them frozen together and unmoving. A solitary mosquito, bloated with blood, was resting on one of the damp walls. The friend—whose name was Jerome—removed his shoe and smeared the creature in a long crimson arc. Athanasius and Melissa had made the ultimate romantic gesture; dying together in that most intimate of embraces. Jerome summoned a physician, who confirmed his diagnosis, and then called a gathering of all of the dead lover’s friends. They stood around in the room arguing about what to do next; some were for simply letting the municipal authorities take care of the matter. But Jerome knew that this would lead to an attempt to separate the bodies before committing them to burial. So he insisted they reached yet deeper into their own threadbare pockets to pay for a special coffin and a private funeral. He somehow fel
t obliged to inhume the couple exactly as they were.

  “A few days later, the coffin in question was lowered into the soil of an overgrown cemetery and the motley collection of poets and painters bade farewell to Athanasius and Melissa. As artists they had been deeply moved by the manner in which the two had chosen to end their lives. It was, after all, the sort of thing that legends are made of; later that afternoon, people who had known neither of them were already citing the pair as prime examples of the power of love. In the wine-shops of the artist’s quarter there was talk of little else. The professional lover and the girl who charmed him into giving up his old ways were seen as symbols of the victory of human dignity over adversity. Only the sourest minds, chiefly those belonging to landlords and tax-inspectors, dared point out that the tale might just as easily show Athanasius’ reluctance to lead a normal existence or accept any form of responsibility.

  “The months passed and the interest generated by the story began to die down. The plague disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived; colder weather from the far north was regarded as having played a part in its demise. On one particularly frosty night, the sexton of the overgrown cemetery was making his rounds—a necessity because of the many medical students in the city too poor to buy corpses from legal sources—when he was startled by a muffled knocking coming from the ground in front of him. His first impulse was simply to flee; his second was to contact his superiors and have them deal with the unexpected occurrence. His third, a synthesis of the two, served him well enough: he returned with a priest, an armed guard and a strong spade, the latter to help him expose the peculiar knocking for what it really was.

  “The grave was that of Athanasius and Melissa, with its oversized coffin, and when the lid was removed, it was the lover himself who was revealed as the source of the sound; weak and desperate, he had been striking the side of the box with his fist. He was prised free from his carnal embrace and carried away by the armed guard, while Melissa was hastily reburied on her own. The sexton was praised for his alertness and promptly promoted to the position of gate-keeper, an honour that was generally passed down from father to son. In due course, he became the first in a long line of gate-keepers that has continued to the present holder of the title, an old fellow who sells the tale to buy fine wine. Nothing more need be said about this; the subsequent fate of Athanasius will prove much more diverting.