That Which Should Not Be (11 page)

On the walls were symbols, runes, drawings: some older than others, some so ancient they had faded to mere outlines of the horrors they had once represented.  There were winged creatures, men with the heads of animals, paintings of dead bodies, tortured men and women, decapitated children and babes. 

And in the rear of the chamber was a great painting of a throne, seated in which was a familiar image.  It was a winged beast with the body and arms of a man and the legs and head of a goat.  Etched into his forehead was a pentagram and in his hand he held, perhaps most bizarrely of all, a cross.  Opened before him was a great book, one of arcane and tenebrous lore no doubt.  The golden letters seemed to shine in the dark twilight of that cavern, and I was glad the words they formed were of a language I did not understand, even if they were somehow oddly familiar.

“God, Lily . . .” I whispered.  She barely seemed to notice.  “Lily, we shouldn’t be here,” I said. 

“No, you shouldn’t,” a high, cold voice echoed from behind us.  We both turned.  Abbess Batory was standing in the doorway, holding a lantern.  I felt Lily move close beside me.  We stood there for a second, starting at the Abbess.  I felt Lily’s hand slip into my pocket, and when she removed it, my coat was heavier than it had been before. 

“Lily, leave us,” the Abbess commanded.  “I will deal with you later.”

“Yes, Abbess,” Lily said with a bow.  She exited then, never looking up from her feet as she went, never glancing back at me or the Abbess.  For her part, the Abbess never took her eyes off of me. I waited for the worst. 

“Well, Mr. Lincoln, it appears your corrupting influence has taken hold over the youngest of my charges.”

“Abbess Batory, I . . .”

She lifted her hand quickly to indicate no explanation was desired.  In any event, none would suffice. 

“She is a child, Mr. Lincoln.  And, doubly that, she is a child of God.  Thus, your corruption is doubly damned.  Of course, I should not expect a wanderer such as yourself to respect her commitment.”

“Is that so, Abbess?” I said, more boldly than perhaps I should.  “What of yourself, then?  What is your view on commitment?  Or is your sudden interest in Vladimir’s travels to the exclusion of the rest of us as innocent as you feign?”

For a moment she merely stared at me, a penetrating gaze of death she had apparently perfected over her years of command.  But then, surprisingly perhaps — or perhaps not — she smiled.  The smile was as steely cold as her icy, pale blue eyes. 

“There are,” she said, stepping down from the stairs and into the pit, “a multitude of commitments.  Some holy.  Some not.  I do not know if I approve of your Lord Charles, but he is no Vladimir.  And of Vladimir, I have no use.”

She now stood in the center of that ungodly pit, a symbol of holiness in a most unholy place. 

“Well, Mr. Lincoln, I suppose this is my fault,” she said, her demeanor softening.  “Your curiosity was bound to get the better of you eventually.  So I will answer your questions now, to the extent you have them.”

“I suppose I would start with the obvious.”

“Yes,” she said with a smile, “I suppose you would.”  She walked around the chamber looking with evident disgust at the paintings and engravings on the walls.  “Every place,” she said, turning to me, “has its superstitions, its secrets.  But in some places, those superstitions and secrets are true.  Such it is with this mountain.  This is an old place, Daniel.  Where you stand now was carved into this mountain long before the birth of Christ.  From it, evil has long emanated.  Do you know what this is?”

“A temple of some sort?” I said.

“That is partly true, but it is more than that.  The name of it is whispered amongst Christian men, and even those who serve the darkness do not speak it lightly.  It is the Scholomance.”

I knew nothing of the occult then, but even I had heard the dark tidings of that place.  The stories were so outrageous they couldn’t help but contain some kernel of truth.  A school of the blackest, foulest magic, taught by the Devil himself.  It was a focal point of evil, a den of sin and iniquity.  I shuddered to think I stood in that place at that moment and such an innocent as Lily had led me there.

“I see from your face you have heard of this place,” the Abbess said as she walked along the outer wall.  “Ten at a time they would admit, the scholars who would learn the Devil’s ways.  But only nine would leave.  That is the price of immortal knowledge.  One would be sacrificed to the dark lord of this chamber.”

She rubbed her hands along an indentation that had been carved into the far wall.  “They kept the books here, you know?” she said, almost wistfully.  “Ancient tomes, scrolls.  I wonder where they went.  Burned, I hope.  Burned away into dust, burned with their owners.  But probably not,” she said, whipping around to face me again.  “Do you know your Bible, Daniel?”

That question seemed to have become common.  “Better than some,” I said.  “Not as well as others.”

“Then I will quote it for you.  ‘And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the Earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.’  Gog and Magog,” she said.  I simply stood there, waiting for explanation.  “That all the Scriptures are truth cannot be denied, but not all truth is revealed in scripture.  Do you understand now?” she asked. 

I shook my head as I still did not. 

She sighed, leaning against the wall.  Then she said, “Revelations speaks of two great beasts, one to rule the Earth and one to rule the sea.”  She quoted again, “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the Earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.”  The ancients speak of these two beasts, as well.  That this is the Scholomance is truth, but what is also true is we stand today in the Temple of Gog.  Gog, the beast of the Earth, and Magog, the beast of the sea.  They worshiped him here, long before those words were written.  They awaited his return here, and Magog’s, as well.”

“Gog and Magog,” I repeated.

“Gog and Magog, though not always by that name,” she said, stepping close to me, so close I could feel her breath on my face and taste the fire of her words.  “Perhaps here, perhaps then, he went by another name.  They have a thousand names, yes?  Some are lost.  Some are still remembered.  They ruled this world in days gone by.  The darkness covered the Earth once, in the days before days, before God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and it was good.  They sleep now, or so some say.  Waiting to wake, waiting to retake the world that was theirs.” 

She stepped back.  “And we stand in their way, you and I and the builders of this fortress.  We didn’t know when we arrived, of course.  We found the corridor to this chamber blocked off.  It looked as though the roof was caved in, but it was too methodically done to be an accident.  And so we brought in dynamite and blasted our way through.  It was then we found this.  You can see now why we keep these corridors locked?”

“Yes, yes I can.”

“And now that I have told you these things, I will ask you again.  Please do not wander aimlessly through this castle.  You never know what you might stumble upon.  We should go now,” she said, turning her back and climbing up the stairs.  I followed her.  As I did, I put one hand into my coat and felt cold metal.  In the confusion, Lily had slipped the key into my pocket. 

Chapter

17

“The Scholomance?  Here?”

It was night.  Charles and I had only been locked in our rooms a few minutes when I began to relay the events of the day.  Charles had listened with growing interest, but when I mentioned the Scholomance, he could no longer remain quiet.

“And even better,” I said, pulling the key out of my pocket.  “We are free.”

“Excellent, Daniel!” Charles said, plucking the key out of my hand.  “How?”

“Lily,” I said, taking it back.  “And I’ll hold on to that.”

“Oh, Daniel, you devil,” he said with a wolfish grin.

“Stones and glass houses, my friend.  I propose,” I continued, “that once the Sisters take to their Midnight Mass, you and I do some exploring.”

*   *   *

The next two hours seemed to last two days.  Charles and I sat on our bed, trying to pass the time through conversation. 

“It’s April 29,” I said.

“And that is significant how?” Charles asked. 

“Vladimir thinks it is significant.  Tomorrow night is Walpurgis.”

“Ah, yes.  Vladimir is rather superstitious, don’t you think?”

“He claims he is not.”

“He claims he is not, but his thoughts betray him.”

There was no more time for talk when the shadows of the nightly procession once again began to pass beneath our doorway.

“Shh!” Charles commanded, as if I needed the warning.  We sat there in silence for several minutes, until long after the last shadow had disappeared down the hallway.  Finally Charles said, “Let’s go.”

I walked quietly over to the doorway, sliding the key into the lock.  At first the bolt resisted, and I began to wonder if the key would work.  But then, the familiar sound of metal on metal, followed by the thud of the bolt withdrawing.  I opened the door slowly, quietly, and looked into the corridor.  It was empty and silent.  The lit lanterns hanging from the wall cast shadows that danced down the hallway. 

“Come on,” I whispered.

We walked as quietly as possible down the corridor, though my heart thumped against my chest every time our shoes made a click-click-click sound against the stone floor. 

“The chapel is down the stairs and to the right.  We’ll take the left side.  Be very quiet,” I said, as we prepared to descend.  It was impossible to be silent, but I hoped the sounds of the Midnight Mass would mask any noise that we made.  But despite the ongoing service, not a sound emanated from the chapel.  We redoubled our efforts at stealth and crept across the open chamber, our most exposed and dangerous position, finally reaching the locked doorways along the other side. 

“Which one?”

“Does it matter?” I asked. 

We started at the end of the wall, determined to investigate all we could before retreating back to our room.  I slid the key into the lock. We stepped inside a hallway and let the heavy wooden door close lightly behind us. 

We were immersed in complete darkness.  I took the lantern I had brought from the room and opened the shutters on its sides.  We were standing in yet another long corridor.  Tools littered the floor.  Hammers, chisels, saws: all the necessities of a workman’s trade.  Half of the hallway had been refinished, but the rest looked as if it hadn’t been touched in a hundred years. 

“It’s as if they started working and then one day just dropped their tools and left.”

“Yes,” I said, a cold chill passing through me, “that’s exactly what it’s like.”

We walked down the hallway, past where the refurbishment had ended and opened some of the doors.  They were simply empty rooms, untouched by human hands.  We exited again into the main chamber.  We did so quietly, although it was as deserted as before.  The next door down revealed yet another corridor; the architectural plan of the castle was becoming obvious.  It was the same as the last.  Work had obviously been underway here, but it was never completed.  The tools here were discarded as well.

Three more corridors, the same result in each.  We opened the final door and slid inside.  There was no corridor here.  Instead, we were in what can best be described as a closet.  There were crates on the floor.  The lid of the one nearest us was off and sat askew on its top.  Charles walked over and lifted it, placing it gently on the ground.

“What is this?” he asked, reaching inside and pulling out what looked like a perfectly round, red candle.

“That,” I said as he stood up, “is dynamite.”

“Dynamite?” he replied, tossing the stick nonchalantly into the air.

“Don’t!” I almost yelled.  It was then we heard a sound from the outside.  I looked at Charles and he at me.  We threw ourselves against the wall, and I shuttered the lantern.  There was the sound of shuffling feet coming from just beyond where we stood. 

Suddenly the long shadows we had come to know were passing underneath our door.  Fortunately, none stopped.  We stayed there, in the dark, for another thirty minutes or more.  No sounds came from outside, and no more shadows were seen. 

“Well?” Charles finally asked. 

“Let’s go,” I replied. 

We opened the door and stepped outside.  Nothing.  We walked quickly across the open chamber and up the stairs.  In what must have been only moments, but what seemed like hours, we reached the door to our room.  I unlocked it, and we stepped inside.  The door closed and securely locked, I turned to Charles. 

“Exciting!” he said with a smile. 

“Yes,” I replied, but my mind was somewhere else.  I walked to the desk and thought for a second.  Something wasn’t right. 

“What?” Charles asked. 

“I’m not sure,” I replied.  “You know,” I said, turning back to face him, “we picked the far side of the chamber for a reason.  The sisters were all in Mass, right?”

“Yes,” Charles replied, not seeing my point. 

“And the chapel, such that it is, is across the way.”

“It is, though I will say I’ve never seen a more sparsely decorated chapel before in my life.  Not a cross or statue in that place.  It’s not much more than a big room.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, literally brushing his comment away with my hands.  “But the point is there shouldn’t have been any of the sisters anywhere near us.  All of their rooms are upstairs.  So if they were in the chapel, why would they be walking anywhere near that door?”

Now Charles understood.  He furrowed his brow and said, “And, if they weren’t in the chapel . . .”

“Then where were they?”

Somewhere in the mountains, a wolf howled.

*   *   *

We slept fitfully that night, and although I was tired, I woke well before any of the sisters came to bring us to breakfast.  I was surprised to see Charles sitting at the table across the room.  If he had slept at all, I couldn’t tell. 

“We can’t stay here, Daniel.  We can’t stay here any longer.”

“Charles, let’s be reasonable,” I said.  “The priest will be back soon, and when he does, they’ll clear the road, and we can go.”

“Wait?  For the priest to come back?  Do you think he will bring the workers back with him?  What happened to them, Daniel?”

“Look.  They found the Scholomance.  The people here are superstitious.  It’s no surprise they fled.”

“No, I think it’s more than that.  This place has a strange feel to it.  You and I both know that.  Vladimir has felt it, too.  I don’t trust the Abbess.  Everything is wrong here.  Where were they last night?  They weren’t in the chapel.  Where are the crosses?  The saints?  Stained glass?”

“Stained glass?” I said.  “Charles, it’s a fortress.  It’s a place of war.  One day it may have all those things.  But not yet.  As for last night, I can’t explain that either.  But let’s take a moment.  Where would we go?  We can’t cross the pass.”

“I don’t care about that anymore, Daniel.  There’s more.  I’ve been talking to Anna.”

“Oh, Charles, please don’t tell me you plan on taking her with us.”

“That’s exactly what I intend!” he said, looking up at me.  “I’ve come to know her, Daniel.  Vladimir is a cruel man, an evil man.  She’s afraid of him and with good reason.  I can’t just leave her behind.  Even if what you say is true, even if the Abbess is everything she says she is, one day that priest will return.  And when the road is clear, they will travel on to Czernowitz, and then she will be lost forever.”

I sat on the bed and Charles at the desk.  We didn’t speak for some time.  What could I say to that?  No matter how foolish I might think his relationship with Anna, it didn’t take her words to convince me Vladimir was a man to be feared.  So, though this was insanity, I could think of no other option but to help Charles all that I could.

“Fine, fine.  What do we do?”

“I’ve thought about that.  Tonight is Walpurgis Night.  I expect Vladimir will be more distracted than usual.  That will help us.  I say we wait until the Midnight Mass has begun.  Then we go to Anna’s room and get to the stables.  We take some horses and ride all night.  By the time anyone knows we are gone, we will be well on our way back to Budapest.  From there, we head back to Venice.  You go to America, and I to England.  If Vladimir finds me, if he even bothers to follow, at least it will be on my ground.”

In a hundred ways, it was an insane plan . . . but a sound one nonetheless.  There was the danger, of course, that we would be discovered in our escape.  However, given our success the night before, that was unlikely.  Once we had the horses, we would have only the wolves to fear.  And as long as we kept moving, I was fairly certain they would not dare to challenge us. 

“Alright,” I said finally.  “Alright, let’s do it.”

Now Charles smiled.  “Thank you, my friend, thank you.”

“I don’t know if it will work, Charles.  But we will do what we can.”

“There is another complication, isn’t there?”

“What is that?”

“Lily.”

Yes, Lily.  I had thought of her myself.  Could I take her?  Should I?  I wasn’t sure, but there was little time to think. 

“I will speak to her,” I said at last.  “If she wishes to come, I will take her.”

“Can you trust her?”

“Yes, she is trustworthy,” I said, although I was not convinced.  “She may not come with us, but neither will she reveal us.”

“Good,” he said.  “Then we ride at midnight.”

*   *   *

Breakfast came quickly that morning, pressed forward by the dread we both felt at revealing to the women who only recently came into our lives our plans for escape.  I wondered what Anna would say, and I was entirely unclear as to what Lily’s reply would be.  Were it not that she had already shown herself to be a rebel, I would have fully expected her to alert Abbess Batory to our plans. 

Things went as well as could be expected.  We arrived.  Lily was waiting.  Abbess Batory called for Vladimir.  He went.  We sprung into action. 

“Good morning, Daniel,” Lily said with a smile.  “Did you sleep well?”

“Lily,” I said sternly.  She heard in my voice that not all was well, and the smile faded from her face. 

“What is it, Daniel?  Whatever it is, you should tell me.”

“We are leaving tonight, Lily,” I said.  I saw her countenance fall and the blood drain from her face. 

“No,” she said, almost falling into tears.  “You can’t leave me.”  With that she grasped my hand.  I immediately looked around, but no one was watching.  I pulled my hand away, nonetheless. 

“Shh, it’s alright.  We want you to come with us.”

Now she was simply confused.  “What?  Me?”

“This is all coming out wrong,” I said.  “We must leave tonight.  Vladimir is an evil man, Lily, and we have to get Anna away.  She’s coming with us.  Your fate is in your own hands.  I'm not telling you to come.  But if you want to leave, we want you with us.”

For a moment, she paused.  It was so much for her young mind to process.  So much.  But I suppose it all came down to one question. 

“Daniel,” she said solemnly.  “Do you want me to come with you?”

I started to answer, but she put up her hand.  “Do
you
, Daniel, do you want me to come?”

I didn’t hesitate, lest she see in that hesitation the doubt I felt.  “Yes, Lily.  I want you to come with me.”

“Then, I will come.  When do we leave?”

“Tonight, after the Midnight Mass begins.  That’s our chance.  That’s when we go.”

“Alright Daniel, midnight it is.”

*   *   *

 The remainder of the day crawled by at a maddeningly slow pace.  Anna agreed as heartily to our proposal as Lily.  Now, it was merely a matter of waiting. 

“We cannot take our baggage,” Charles said, going over our plan yet again.  The sun had long sunk behind the mountain top, but midnight could not come soon enough.  “We’ll take my pistols.  One each.  I intend no confrontation with Vladimir.  But, if it comes, we will be prepared, and it will be his last.”