“This is abominable, simply abominable! What type of club do they think this is? I feel I may take myself elsewhere.”
“What’s that, my dear Tredman?” I interjected.
“Oh, I asked the butler for a handful of cigars, to enjoy with a brandy. The pug had the audacity to inform me that their tobacco man was delayed in stocking up my favourite brand, the Havana brown import, the only one I ever smoke.”
“Do they not have others, Tredman?” I replied.
“Yes, they have others, the fellow offered me them. But they simply won’t do. They are pale imitations, rather like trying to smoke a finger of chalk. No, I won’t hear of it!”
“What do you propose, my good man? Smythe asked us to meet him here today, to share his latest news. His letter was terse, in the gravest tones. I wouldn’t miss his latest oration for anything,” I said.
“Well, I suppose I can go without the calming smoke of my chosen cigars for one evening.”
“That’s the ticket, Tredman,” I noted. “Stiff upper lip and all that. There’s Smythe now. Roger! Roger! Over here!” I called to him. “My dear Roger, is that you? I know it’s you, old man, for your friendly face is unmistakable. But, my God man, what happened to you? You look more like your father than yourself. Have you been sick, man?” I observed.
“Good Lord, old chap, you’ve never used a cane to get around before.” noted Tredman.
I watched as Roger shambled with a noticeable limp across to the ring of majestic armchairs that encircled the club’s fireplace. The club kept the hearth well-stocked with wood, this being a colder autumn than normal in His Majesty’s isles. He motioned for me and Tredman to seat ourselves, then looked about nervously, as if expecting unwelcome visitors. Roger slid his mortal frame into the centre-most chair, like a man testing out the last lifeboat, or sizing up a coffin. It was then I noticed that he was missing his pinky finger, where his left hand rested on his cane. Smythe motioned with his other hand to be quiet, as the rest of the members gathered round.
“Gentleman,” said Smythe hoarsely, “Where do I begin? What I'm about to tell you may well shock you. I warn you, leave me now, if you wish to retain your sanity and not get your name written up in the Almighty’s list of those destined to damnation. I am in daily consultation with a pre-eminent bishop, in fear for my immortal soul."
I immediately thought Smythe was employing the cheap tricks that a sideshow barker uses to get people into his tent. At any moment, I expected him to turn his head toward the heavens, and send a pillar of fire from his lips like a fire-eater. But no, the startling change in Smythe’s appearance lent gravity to his words.
“As you all know, my Uncle Cornelius died ten months ago, God rest his soul. It was sudden and without warning. A true gentleman and bachelor, he did not get his affairs in order with a solicitor, before his untimely demise. As my Uncle’s logical heir, I and my confidants rigorously searched his spacious manor for either documents pertaining to his last wishes, or records pointing toward which institutions held his considerable assets,” Smythe sighed. “But we found neither. His former solicitor from a civil matter, one Abraham Dowe, of Dowe, Dons, and McLartens, assumed the role of protective guardian of the estate, while further teams searched for Uncle Cornelius’s assets. A sense of urgency plagued me, as months rolled by without any results. Since I needed resolution over his death, Mr. Dowe suggested a radical idea. He told of a spiritualist of renown, one Nigel the Unknowable, whose séances with the long departed had led to the actual reclamation of unknown assets of those same dead ancestors,”
Smythe paused for a moment, accepting and sipping from a glass of brandy. “That someone in the dubious occupation of a ‘spiritualist’ could provide concrete leads was something it took time for me to accept. My thought was then, I dared not tell my friends, lest they brand me with the same shady soubriquet as Nigel. A fear of blackmail also troubled me. But I felt as a man possessed, harried by the desire to close my Uncle’s Estate. Dare I say, a spirit of greed darkened my every thought, a troubling motivation that was so distinct and apart from my normal constitution.”
Smythe leaned forward as he spoke. “I need to ask you now, not to breathe what you hear to another soul. Swear that if you spread gossip about me, that the Almighty strike you down. Swear to it, I beg you” Smythe asked.
“This is preposterous, invoking the Almighty over a simple
tale,” blustered Tredman.
The others in Smythe’s circle glared at Tredman, a man prone to petty jealousies. Tredman’s bravado immediately turned to hushed mutterings. The others, one by one, nodded their agreement to Smythe’s request.
“Thank you, gentleman, and to you, my dear Tredman,” Smythe replied. “Now, let me share the experiences that have left me a shell of my former self.”
Yes, Nigel the Unknowable came highly recommended by my solicitor. But Dowe’s opinion of the spiritualist had not prepared me for the regal and flamboyant nature of the man. Dare I say, that in my circles, such behaviours are shunned; they border on embarrassment. Of course, Nigel’s business address was not located in a London district where a respectable business would maintain its storefront.
There are two Londons. There have always been two Londons and, pray tell, there always shall be. From its beginning as Londinium under Roman occupation to today, while the veneer of the place is fluid, the backbone of London remains the same. Whether a Caesar wore his reigning laurels or one from the House of Hanover wears his ruling crown, London remains timeless and eternal. I was borne and bred as a citizen, a noble of upper London and its palatial environs. Nigel set up his Obelisk to Olympus in the second, lower London, where all manner of devilry, debauchery, and deceptions are practiced in the open, celebrated as delicacies on the palate of human experiences.
It was dark, the time near midnight. I dressed as a commoner and my carriage was a simple black affair without any marking of rank or relation to His Majesty. The driver was well-paid to keep his silence or face the swift removal of his tongue. The obelisk stood out from the ramshackle and rubbish that made up that district of Second London. With my sword cane in hand, and a sawed-off Brown Bess hidden under my shabby frock coat, I strode with one of my similarly armed agents, dressed as I was. Three knocks on the heavy door, a countersign exchanged, and the portal opened.
The place smelt of incense burnt on small altars positioned throughout the building. We passed by such a brazier near the hall’s foyer, sinister and glowing, its outlines like a companion of hell, a familiar to do Nigel’s occultic biddings. My companion and I crossed ourselves at the sight, as Nigel’s assistant led us deeper into the spiritualist’s lair. We gathered about a large table, large enough to seat a family. Black drapes covered the windows and black sheets hid everything else, so as not to distract a client from the ceremonies.
On the table sat the normal tricks of the trade - a gold bell, trumpet down, a large candle bedecked in Egyptian hieroglyphs, a large, skin-bound book, a small pewter pyre for burning exotic incense, a large crystal ball mounted on a tall amethyst pedestal, an obsidian scrying mirror, and a small, silver wand festooned with stylised stars and demonic faces. I silently hoped that this was my first and only session with the psychic counsellor. After the pre-agreed price was paid, the séance began.
Nigel’s associate, a tall, pallid man, discussed the mechanics of the ceremony before his master’s appearance. Nigel entered the room with a flourish of his black, sigil-bedecked cape. He wore a small turban, fastened with a dazzling obsidian clasp.
“Do you have a personal possession that your Uncle cherished?” Nigel asked with a gesture of his hands, each adorned with rings featuring gemstones worth a kings-ransom.
“Here’s his signet ring, worn by the male members of his side of the family for generations,” I said, handing him the onyx ring bearing the Smythe family crest, a chimera beneath a crown. Nigel’s associate snuffed out all candles save the large Egyptian one. The Spiritualist placed the palms of his hands face up, the right containing my Uncle’s ring, the left empty. He began muttering in an ancient tongue, a proto-Latin that predated the Vulgate, when Rome’s gods were flawed and feral. A gentleman made it a point to study such things, in the past, it helped discern who was a Romish Infidel and who was faithful to the Blessed Mother Church of England. God save the King!
Nigel reared back in his chair, his darkish eyes grew glassy, his Latin intonations became less self-pronounced, and more the frenzied utterances of a man possessed.
“No, NO!” yelled Nigel as he bolted upright.
Nigel’s associate sprang toward his Master, shouting what I gather was an exorcism. With a strike of his forearm, Nigel sent his associate flying against a wall; the man’s shouts dwindled to painful whimpers as he lay broken on the floor. My agent rose to confront Nigel, but I grabbed him and shoved him back into his seat.
“Not yet,” I said, thinking the performance might be a ruse, part of Nigel’s attempts to up the price. Nigel continued to chant in a frenzy of old Latin spells, while he raised his hands before his person as if to embrace someone. The Spiritualist’s turban flew off his head, as his long silver hair and necromancer’s cape rose around his person, as if he were a ghost taken to flight over a graveyard. Nigel’s head became a grinning skull, his ribs appeared stark and skeletal! I crossed myself in unison with my agent, our hands clasped tightly on our weapons. Was Nigel being flayed alive before us?
The scrying mirror flew from the table into Nigel’s grasping hands, the amazing sight of congealed flesh and blood appearing on its smooth face
“Almighty God, protect thy lambs!” my Agent swore.
I saw my Uncle alive as if I looking over his shoulder. The enigmatic signet ring glimmered on his left pinky finger. The light was diffuse, he was walking through a twilight world somewhere. Then he walked past something I immediately recognized, a particular tombstone marked with a skull and crossbones. An hourglass carved in the weathered granite sat above the memento mori. My Uncle was walking through Saint Gertrude’s graveyard in the dark hours, approaching the Smythe family crypt.
Suddenly, he began running, looking back over his shoulder. My Uncle stopped at the crypt, trying to unlock the barred door. I saw all this from the vantage point of a bird of prey. Then Uncle Cornelius looked up, his face full of abject terror. He screamed silently, repeatedly. The picture drew back, as the dark outlines of a bat-like, horn-headed thing, as tall and broad as the Crypt, overshadowed him. Something like feathery jungle vines snaked down from the heights toward my Uncle, the tomb now a place of terror.
My Uncle slid down against the gate, his face ashen and grey, his body immobile, his eyes glazed over in death. Simultaneously, Nigel dropped the scrying mirror and crumpled to the floor, his ghostly appearance replaced by that of a shattered man. He looked as though he’d been struck by lightning, his hands burnt black where he’d held the mirror. The mirror’s crash broke the spell that froze my agent and I in our chairs.
Swiftly retrieving my Uncle’s ring, we left Nigel’s Obelisk with all due haste, my agent promptly informing the Bow Street Runners of the incident, and of Nigel and his associate’s medical condition. Due to my involvement, George Ruthven agreed to keep the matter private, that the family may be spared any potential embarrassment. Strangely, my Uncle had officially died of a faint heart. That he might have died of fright seemed a conjecture arising from my own mortified imagination during the séance. Did I suffer from a case of mesmerism? No, my agent swore that he saw exactly what I did. So why wasn’t Uncle Cornelius’ body found at the Smythe family crypt, instead of in his bed, where he was said to have died in his sleep?
I gather that the occultic career of Nigel the Unknowable ended that night, his mind devoured by the psychic claws of an unknown shadow. He was, last I heard, a patient at the First Middlesex County Asylum, in Hanwell. His associate later died from the blows Nigel had delivered.
It took some time to recover from the episode, this being nothing I’d ever seen before. Fantastic, you might say, yet it all bore the marks of stark reality, literally getting inside the last memories of my dear Uncle. A practical man, I informed Mr. Dowe of my experience and the events that sent Nigel to the asylum. My description of the séance did not ruffle Abraham Dowe, he simply pawned Nigel’s lunacy off as the eccentric frailties of a sensitive psychic. He asked what I planned on doing next, a surprised as it was I who paid him for the practical advice of a neutral third party.
That he had referred me to Nigel hadn’t shaken my initial trust in him. In any case, I told him I needed time to gather my thoughts before considering my next move. I am not a simpleton, prone to follow the counsel of others without having my own mind on things, particularly given the new evidence about my Uncle’s death. And though it originated in what amounted to a psychic Punch and Judy Show I most assuredly took that evidence seriously. I did begin to wonder, though. Had Dowe’s agents moved my Uncle’s body to his bed, during their search of the Smythe crypt?
Something else stuck in my mind, the discovery of an occultic thread that led back to my Uncle. During my personal search through his private possessions, I had found a small, padlocked room beneath an innocuous staircase in an older wing of my Uncle’s manor. It contained a collection of bizarreries from his many trips to the more obscure corners of the British Empire. On the far wall hung gilded khopeshes, swords taken from the tombs of dynastic Egyptian pharaoh. There was an ancient ossuary, a limestone box once used in first-century Palestine, housing the revered bones of a noble descendant. It sat in a tiny alcove, surrounded by odd incense thuribles, empty of its calcified contents, the lid unceremoniously deposited on the floor. It bore the simple description, St. John. The bones of the Messiah’s nearest disciple, holy relics of the Romish church, were nowhere to be found.
There were gilded icons from another age, some seemingly older than man. A skeleton, no doubt that of a demon, stood in another corner, tall and broad, having four dangling arms, and two heads, with rhinoceros-like horns protruding from the misshapen skulls. The bones appeared clear and glittered in sparkling colours, like a faceted gemstone in my candlelight. There was a pyramid’s capstone, covered with Hieroglyphs. The remaining boxes in the room had the appearance of treasure chests. However, instead of being stuffed with jewelry and gemstone-encrusted scarabs, I found the mummified hands of six giants, all with six fingers and opposable thumbs. Strangely, all bore a signet ring like my Uncle’s, though greater in size.
Were these the remains of the fabled Nephilim, the occultic powers behind each Pharaoh’s throne? A weathered, vellum scroll, sat in another alcove, enscribed with the simple Latinised names of Jannes and Jambres. Otherworldly effigies occupied other niches in the wall. Among these eccentric and extraordinary items stood a statue of a winged devil, whose smallish shadow cast by my candle, fit the spectral outlines of the flying beast from my crypt vision. It was ugly and inhuman, vaguely anthropomorphic in its beastly outlines, having a shadow for a face, and obtuse horns ringing its head like a thorny crown. It had raptor-like taloned feet, talons among its wing pinions, and flowing tendrils like a sea delicacy’s tentacles.
When I lifted the fetish to examine it, a small Lapis tablet dislodged from its base, its surface saturated with cuneiform sigils and seals. A rusty key also dislodged with the tablet. I knew at once I had an official document of state or commerce from the golden age of the ancient empires that once ruled the world. And what of the key, where did it fit into the puzzle? I resolved to learn the significance of the tablet.
The thought came to me that King’s College had a language chair that may be able to unravel the tablet’s mystery. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, a renowned orientalist, was a visiting scholar there. Somewhat bewildered, I re-padlocked the room and left with the Lapis tablet in hand and the key in my pocket. I began to wonder if Uncle Cornelius had embarked on his own study of the occult, particularly the Egyptian wizard-priests Jannes, Jambres, and their servants, the Nephilim. Had my Uncle opened a door to the occultic forces that brought about his death? What of the remaining Smythe dynasty? Had a weird curse from the dusty past been laid upon us?
At the college, I was told that the best way to locate Sir Henry was to look for the largest retinue of students between the classes. There, he could be found. I had forgotten about the hustle and bustle of collegiate life. I finally found Sir Henry on a bench at Chetwynd Court, surprisingly free of his entourage. He barely looked at me, as I introduced myself. However, when I produced the Lapis tablet from a small satchel, his eyes widened like saucers. He whisked me off to his office, bubbling with a thousand questions along the way.
“Let me have a look at that Lapis parcel of yours, Mister, Mister-” asked Sir Henry, as he pulled out a large magnifying glass and began to examine the cuneiform tablet.
“My name is Smythe, Roger Smythe,” I said, tolerating the scholar’s inattention. His office was small, barely larger than a closet, stuffed with books floor to ceiling, and toppling stacks of paper.
“Oh, Smythe, you say? Did you know your name originated among early Pictish Clans? I served with a gentleman by that name in His Majesty’s Army. Might Harold Dustin Smythe be a relative of yours? He told me the full history of the name.” said Sir Henry as he eyed the tablet, before jotting down notes. I settled into the lone chair situated before Sir Henry’s desk. After half an hour of silence, the renowned orientalist looked up at me, his face aglow.
“My good fellow, do you know what you have here?” he finally asked, pointing at the tablet with his magnifying glass.
“I can’t say that I do, Sir Henry, that’s why I sought you out. Your reputation in my circles preceded you. I knew there was no better person to trust this family heirloom with than you.”
“This is the earliest inscription.” He continued to examine the piece. “Perhaps I should frame it this way. Besides its value as a historic relic, and a Lapis treasure… good God man!” Sir Henry exclaimed. “It’s, it’s-” Sir Henry went breathless. “It’s in early Cuneiform, an ancient script of the Sumerians, later adapted for international use as a language of commerce.” Sir Henry rattled off facts that, though interesting, left me in a fog.
“I see. But what has this to do with the Smythe family?” I asked, maintaining my polite posture.
“It’s a wedding contract, between one Scota, daughter of the Egyptian Pharoah Cingris, and one Ciniod Rianorix Smythe,” Sir Henry enthused. “They joined together in a pact of blood, swearing oaths to their pagan gods—specifically, Great God Anubis, God of the Underworld— that their love would never die. Heavens above, man! This is proof positive that the Egyptians visited and settled in the British Isles long before the Romans set foot on our soil. It confirms the contentions of the early Scottish chronicler, Walter Bower!”
Obviously excited by this discovery, Sir Henry told me he wanted to show the tablet to a wider circle of colleagues. I demurred for the moment, so he took wax impressions of the thing and made quick sketches. I bid my adieus to my noble friend, with a promise that he would see the Lapis tablet again.
Following this revelation, I decided it was time to explore the Smythe family crypt, for had not my Uncle died at its threshold? Perhaps the answer lay in its ancient, cobwebbed corners or among its interred corpses. I thought it better to go alone by night, and so prepared a satchel for what I may encounter ahead. The fact that Uncle Cornelius had delved into occult abysses weighed on my mind, let alone that other factor; the vision of his death at the claws of the wind-borne assailant. I had awakened many nights screaming from what I had seen in that hellish vision, so often, in fact, that my beloved took to sleeping in another wing of our manor.
I needed cabalistic weapons equal to the occultic bird of prey and whatever else my Uncle might have invoked. Besides my shortened Brown Bess, my sword cane, and a flintlock pistol, I carried on my person a canteen of holy water, blessed unknowingly by both an infidel padre of the Romish church, and a priest from the Mother Church of God-Fearing Englishman. I also carried an exorcist fetish bundle prescribed by a Latin translation of the heretical Picatrix, an ancient Arabian book of astrologic and occultic magics. A simple crucifix, my Uncle’s signet ring, the Lapis tablet, and the mystery key rounded out the pack. Shouldering these reminded me of my days in His Majesty’s Army.
I stuck to the shadows, and avoided open areas where the moon lit up wide swatches of land. The crypt was on family land, but shared with the commoners that served the estate. In time, I came to the tombstone marked with a skull, crossbones, and hourglass, the psychic marker that figured prominently in Nigel’s vision. An owl hooted as I arrived at the rough stone face of the crypt, its barred door tightly sealed, a mixture of silvers and shadows enshrouding its oblong exterior. No-one knew of my moonlight visit, save my most trusted agent, who I had instructed to organise a search party, should I fail to return.
I glanced back the way I’d come and around the exterior of the crypt, and saw no indication that anyone followed or lay in wait. I unlocked the crypt’s door, which rasped on rusty hinges, and entered, within. The place smelt of mould, dust, and rotting corpses—British embalming practices not being as precise as the Egyptian priests who prepared their Pharaohs for the afterlife. Perhaps portions of Uncle Cornelius’ lead-lined coffin had been broken. As an honour due the dead, I would answer that question later. I lit a lantern and turned it on the foyer that housed the caskets of the most recent tenants. The gilding on some had tarnished, but otherwise, everything looked to be in order. I decided to search the distant quarters of the Crypt, the one less travelled. I could not call to mind anyone having stepped foot there, at least in my lifetime, excepting, perhaps, my agents searching for my Uncle’s wealth.
Steeling myself for what lay ahead, I pressed on, entering into a forest of caskets with wood rotted. The lining of coffins with lead was a recent practice. Every sense was alert as I walked between rows of stacked coffins, differing in size, as many children and wives had died young down the centuries in the Smythe family line. My footsteps violated the sacred silence of the sepulchre. Names on coffins, if such inscriptions persisted, slowly dovetailed from King James spellings to the pointed Saxon minuscules of the eighth or ninth century, then to the Latin script used by the servants of Hadrian.
As I rounded a heap of tomb rubbish and disintegrating bones, I spied a low, faint circle of light peering out from a forgotten corner. I hid my lantern behind the teetering stack to confirm whether the spectral light ahead originated with my light. Certain that it didn’t, I put out the lantern torch and walked through the dark corridors toward the feeble light. It came forth from beneath a layer of dusty grave clothes, which hitherto hid the light.
Kicking them aside revealed a barred bronze lid, from whence the glow shone. A large, peculiar padlock sealed this egress to the underworld. Playing a hunch, I pulled out the odd key I found among my Uncle’s effects. I fumbled with the padlock in the dim light emitted from around the trapdoor’s seams. That the key fit was no surprise to me. Had my Uncle used this door to the abyss before? The padlock came apart after some effort. I laid it aside and attempted to lift the cover. Quite heavy for its size, I got it open three-quarters on its hinges, engaging helpful counterweights in the process, before it mechanically stopped.
Light spiraled upward through the aperture, blinding me for a moment. Below the rim, lay a circular vault and ladder. One side led off into a tunnel from my vantage point. I tested the ladder, a curiously aged wood and stone affair. Proving itself sound, I descended its rungs to the chamber’s floor, noting the litany of Romish and Runic warnings carved into the chamber’s walls. The source of the light? For some inexplicable reason, the walls of the chamber glowed. I relit my lantern, muttered a prayer, and crossed myself before proceeding further, following the tunnel that led immediately off the chamber. I had no idea that catacombs lay beneath our family crypt. Strong timbers of considerable size buttressed the sides and ceiling of the tunnel. That I was descending deeper into the earth, there was no doubt, for I was walking down a gradual incline.
I estimate an hour or so passed before I reached an antechamber, crowded with two large Egyptian sarcophagi, each laid on an opposing side of the room. These were inlaid with lapis lazuli, silver, turquoise, and gold. Both lids of the prodigious coffins had been removed and set aside. I immediately lowered my satchel and withdrew the tablet. Yes, an inscription on one sarcophagus matched one of the names of the tablet, indicated by Sir Henry to read, Scota, daughter of the Pharoah Cingris. I fell to my knees at the revelation. There were occultic implications, no doubt, for the once-sealed caskets were empty. I sat on the floor for a time. That is until I felt the cold barrel of a Brown Bess pressed against the back of my head.
“Here now,” said a fellow with a Welsh accent. “Hands up, sir, or you’re a dead man.”
I complied, slowly got to my feet and turned. There, in the torchlight, stood betrayer and solicitor Abraham Dowe, holding the Brown Bess on me, accompanied by two ruffians, paid muscle no doubt. They immediately stripped me of my weapons.
“So, look what you found, my dear Roger,” Dowe said eyeing one sarcophagus, then the other. You could see him counting crowns with his eyes.
“Either of these is already worth a King’s ransom,” Dowe muttered. “Where’s the rest of the treasure? Beyond this chamber, I bet? The Egyptians always liked to take it with them, wealth for the afterlife.” Dowe grinned.
“I don’t know, this is the first time I’ve ever been down here,” I said.
“Then we’ll see the Smythe clan's vast cache of lost wealth together, beyond the tunnel ahead. Move along.” My once-trusted agent, shoved the Brown Bess against my chest.
“What do you stand to gain in this?” I asked.
My agent smiled and replied, “Now that’s none of your business. Move along now.”
I was shoved forward roughly with the Brown Bess.
As we moved, the air ahead hung heavy with an impenetrable stratum of shadows and gloom. Would this track lead to my own premature grave? As I tumbled into the next chamber of shadows, I heard a collective gasp of astonishment from Dowe and his henchmen. The cavern felt enormous and was dimly lit. Spread around its vast circumference hovered hazy pillars of greenish flame, vaguely anthropomorphic in cast and stature. In their faint light, my eyes fell on a confusion of features. A great oily river bisected the cavern, a slow-moving Styx that flowed from one shoreline of this underworld to the Dantean beaches of another. I heard oily splashes across the cavern void, as unseen abominations played in its greasy depths.
“Bert, why don’t you do a walk-around with your torch, so we can better see where the treasure boxes lie,” ordered Dowe, impatient at the emptiness he saw. One of the ruffians emerged from behind us and began to wander, flaming brand in one hand and a flintlock pistol in the other, towards the glistening river. He walked forward into the dim light.
“Go on, Bert, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Dowe motioned to his lackey.
Bert stopped and looked at the foremost ring of odd stalagmites.
“Hello, hello, hello, this one’s got a funny shape, sort of like my Gertie back home.” said Bert, as he ran his finger along the pillar, then tasted it. “Hey, this here is a pillar of salt!” he exclaimed.
Pillar of salt, my focused mind observed. Now where before had I heard that?
Bert ranged out farther, his face and form fading in the distance. At one point, his light fell at the base of something large. It exposed black roots that spread over the cavern floor like a black walnut tree, only on an unheralded scale. The black bore of the tree disappeared into the dark heights of the cavern. What was a tree doing down here, so far below ground? I thought.
Bert held up his torch to see the extent of the tree’s growth.
“That’s no tree!” screamed Bert as he jumped back from the leering, multiplied faces. “It’s a blooming stack of teetering skulls held together with spider webs! I ain’t being paid enough coin for this job.”
“Move along Bert, you’ll have plenty of time for sightseeing once the job’s done,” Dowe yelled out. The remaining three of us moved forward into the abyss, following the henchman. Next, Bert came to the edge of the oily river. In the dim distance, there appeared a tall, immense door, hundreds of cubits high, grotesquely carved in motifs, glyphs, and sigils from across the ages and the known continents. Bert yelled from the near distance, “What do you suppose lies behind that door?”
Without warning, a falsetto scream pierced the darkness, a pistol blast echoed in the heights, and Bert’s torch fell.
“Bert? Where’d you get off to?” Dowe’s second lackey shouted across the expanse. The Brown Bess relaxed, no longer pointing at me. An intense foulness filled the air, as something reached down to grab the lackey’s face, forcing it to tilt upward. In the ruddy light, there hovered above us one then another, then another, levitating monstrosities, each bearing the canine head of Anubis, and the multiple arms of a menacing Shiva, each carrying a weighing scale or a glistening scythe. The bodies were a tattered folly of bandages that spread toward each man like a Kraken’s tentacles.
Firearms went off aimlessly, as Dowe and his lackeys screamed. One by one, each rose into the cavern heights, carried by putrid, constricting coils of bandages. One, two, then three bloodied skulls plopped to the floor around me. The decapitated head of Abraham Dowe stared blankly up at me, a rictus grin replacing his previous triumphant smile.
I fell to my knees, gathering up my fallen satchel, a torch, and my sword cane. I thrust the torch desperately upward, swatting away the descending strappings of another disciple of Anubis. I tried to retreat towards the tunnel while defending myself with fire, yet could not, for as I glanced behind myself, I saw a knot of those ghastly figures blocking the opening. Sensing my distraction, one of the things swatted away my torch, effortlessly hoisted me into the air, and pulled me towards its snapping, canine maul.
“The master has need of thee,” the thing barked hoarsely, its breath reeking of the carnal depths of hell.
I gagged at the stench. The dim contours of the cavern floor flew by below me as the thing carried me toward the enormous door beyond the oily river. I glimpsed odd, profane things mirrored in the slimy waters. I laughed nervously; my mind froze in fear over what I might soon face. I tried to extract my sword, but the thing held my cane at an angle where I could not withdraw it. Then the thing flew low to the cavern floor and tossed me sideways, as a common labourer might toss a sack of potatoes across a warehouse floor. Unhurt, but my senses jarred, I saw a small retinue of giants, a herald of Nephilim, gather around me, living models of the skeleton in my Uncle’s hall of horrors. One took me up like a beggar’s bundle, and carried me forward, as a deafening rasp of gears echoed in the cavern.
As I nervously sized up my newest gang of inhuman captors, they ogled me back, snarling. Some had two horned-heads while others only had one. I wondered if I were the main course in their next meal. Strangely, they produced a bizarre horde of ancient Egyptian instruments, as the knot of beasts ambled forward. Two played rattling sistrums, another played dissonant chords on a sambuke, and a third played slow blasts on a long-necked, silver trumpet festooned with occultic motifs.
Other beasts, demons, and loathsome monstrosities joined in the throng behind my entourage. From unknown portals to hell below, arose a litany of croaking, squealing, caterwauling, and wheezing voices that ascended from an untold horde of polyglotIc beasts, quasi-humans, living, amorphous heaps, animated demigods, and blasphemous chimeras. Beneath a myriad of countless torches, many marched proudly wearing sashes or belts of their feral conquests, sporting the skulls of nobles, warriors, and priests from the surface world. The cacophony of sounds was deafening as we neared the grand sigiled and glyphed door, lined with broken seals, some of which bore the unmistakable four-sided signum manus (or signature seal) of Charlemagne the Great. My mind reeled with my situation and its implications.
The chief Nephilim strode forward, lifting its four arms in adoration, all but one holding forth the headless corpses of my erstwhile companions. For some reason, one of its left hands was missing. Then, it dawned on me - one treasure box in my Uncle’s bizarrerie bore six severed left hands of these malformed giants. It barked out something in old Latin that I dare not repeat, or it will draw down swift vengeance like lightning from above. That the melancholic and Mephistophelean spirits of the world gathered before my unbelieving eyes, I have no doubt. They stood there before the grand door worshipping in the abyss for what seemed hours.
I cannot say how much time past, my sanity hanging from a thread, as it was. Yet, at one point, the huge edifice opened, the noise drowning out the roaring beasts that celebrated before it. An immense onyx obelisk appeared. Three heads of Anubis with fiery eyes, snarled atop it, smoke poured from their nostrils. To its base, flew the living effigy, the one I’d found in my Uncle’s lair. Here was the dark chimera whose shadowed presence had terrified my Uncle to death outside the crypt above.
To the side of the Black Obelisk, undulated a living gate, a protoplasmic portal to purgatory, transmutation, and beyond. It was enormous. Without head, limb, or other contrivance comparable to human outlines, its presence titillated my hominid senses, yet it made no sense, no rhythm, nor reason to my higher faculties. It mimicked in its immensity, a shoal of fish. A thousand spectral mauls all shifting in unison; budding, blossoming, and withering as one. Shards of inner lightning struck sporadically, revealing a flowing, confusing skeletal structure. That this was but the merest forepaw of a greater god-thing, was made plain by the odd flopping and flapping that resounded in the darkness behind it, beyond the door.
My heart almost burst at the sight.
Then, I noticed a seated gilded statue of Scota, daughter of the Egyptian Pharoah Cingris. In her face and eyes, oh her feral living eyes, I saw the countenance of the she-demon Lilith, the wife of Adam before Eve, crafty, cunning, a living curse on all mankind. Were her demonic devices somehow intertwined with the Smythe clan? The sight shuddered me to my core.
In a moment of lucidity, I thought; here was a centre of the universe. Perhaps the centre of the Smythe clan’s universe, surely part of its sorted history from near the beginning until now, but in the same instant, timeless and alien, wholly apart from the world of the clan. The well of the Smythes might dry up and whither, but this fountain would remain, seeking to devour all-comers, all those looking for eternal things beyond their temporary lives. They might spell an end to my world, but a beginning to another.
The foremost Nephilim grabbed me by the left arm and dragged me forward. We passed through a knot of the other giants, each holding one of their left arms into my sight, each limb missing an enormous hand. I felt it analogous to a military bride and groom, passing through a tunnel of the groom’s fellow officers, each brandishing their swords in a ceremonious blessing of the betrothed. Such was my jumble of thoughts. In absolute silence, the assembled throng of terror waited. The Nephilim that accosted me stopped and bowed before the seated statue of Scota.
“I am Ciniod Rianorix Smyth. ” the Nephilim croaked as the assembled celebrants howled. “I am first Father of the Smythe Clan” it went on, hushing the trumpeting mob with a swift signal of its right hands. “Before the assembled today, I offer you, Roger Smythe, the chance to live forever, co-reigning over all that you see, for eternity. And to own an Empire greater than the King of England, for he himself does obeisance in his private chambers to Scota, otherwise, his line would not rule the ancient Pictish Isles.” Ciniod said.
I lay in a heap at the monster’s feet, staring up in unbelief at its words. “And at what price?” I asked.
Ciniod grabbed my left arm exposing my Uncle Cornelius’s signet ring. The Chimeric throng roared in orgiastic abandonment at the sight of the ring.
“In life, you will become an agent of Scota, doing her will and working her wonders among the Sons of Man.” Ciniod said. “And in death, you become as I and the other eternal Five Fathers of the Smythe clan, part of Scota’s retinue of lovers. You must also pass through the ordeal of the gate to be deemed worthy.” he continued.
“And what of eternal life in heaven?” I asked, my ability to say no, waning.
“What of it?” snarled the Nephilim, as if it spat out a curse.
A single idea surfaced in my mind. “What if I say no?” I said.
“Infidel! Then you will die eternally, like all the others who spurned Scota’s love.” Ciniod roared, revealing in a mocking vision, my fate; I saw a forest of rough crosses, where thousands of naked men hung crucified, straining painfully against thousands of nails, moaning in their endless, collective agony. In a swift move, the Nephilim stuck my hand between its toothy jaws and snapped off my left pinky, signet ring and all. I howled in agony, falling to its feet. I struggled while bleeding, searching in my satchel for the one item. Yes, there it was…I lifted high the Lapis tablet and threw it into the monstrous mob that attended the Nephilim and their Masters.
An untold pandemonium ensued with each blasphemous celebrant vying for the talisman. In pain, I ran toward the oily river that divided the cavern, dodging the maddening crowd whose attention was drawn elsewhere. I reached its shore and flung myself into its cold, murky depths. I hoped to die a death, apart from the power of the Nephilim, who would crucify me in that second death.
“And that, gentlemen, is my story.” Smythe sighed as if a terrible weight were lifted off his shoulders.
“But, how did you live after jumping into that oily river?” Tredman blurted out.
“I don’t know. Divine providence, I gather, though I’m not sure at this juncture, which pantheon to thank,” Smythe replied.
“How incredibly preposterous! Do you really expect us to believe your story?” Tredman continued, in love with the sound of his own voice.
Smythe looked sternly around the circle. “I care not whether you believe me. It is my tale; I will stick by it. Yet…” Smythe said, becoming stoic.
“Yet what?” Tredman said.
“I am in constant fear for my life. It is apparent to me now, they want more than my pinky and signet ring. My Uncle’s Manor burnt to the ground, occult collection and all. My estate has been struck by bizarre misfortunes. In every shadow, I fear the forces of hell gather and will soon come for me. I dare not go out after dark. At all hours of the night, in whichever room I happen to reside, I’ve heard the scratching of a wild beast at the window and, occasionally, a shadow across the pane, perfectly like to the one that caused my Uncle’s death. I’m doomed, I tell you, doomed,” Smythe muttered.
“Gentlemen,” I said, tired of Tredman’s bombastic badgering, “let us refresh our drinks and adjoin to another room, where perhaps another Pickmanite will share his tales.”
I stayed by Smythe’s side as the others left. Shouldering Roger’s weakened frame, his cane in hand, we shuffled to a side room, a private space that afforded members some measure of seclusion, should such a state be desired.
A flickering street lamp, from beyond an opaque glass fronting a side alley, faintly illuminated our domicile. I lowered Roger into one of the three stuffed armchairs that dominated the spartan space. Members often used such apartments to sleep off their excesses. A knock came on the mahogany-panelled door, a butler peeked around the open portal, a lit candelabra swaying in hand.
“Is everything in order, sir? Do you require anything?” asked the valet.
“No, we are quite alright, my good man, thank you.” I replied.
The butler disappeared and the door quietly closed. Roger looked up at me with thanks in his tired eyes. I sat down facing him, my back to the alley window, pondering what I should say. Abruptly, the room darkened, as a play of strange shadows shifted with life on the wall opposite me. There came a low, cautious scratching at the opaque window, and a muffled, disembodied chatter, beyond a doubt in Old Latin. Roger came to life, his face filled with terror at the sounds and shadows.
“Mother of God, they found me! The window! THE WINDOW!”