Read this story what I wrote pls, The Antiquarian and the Devil's Dog
The week we spent cleaning out Great Grandad’s house was an eventful one. More exciting at least than the days previous spent in various offices gathering the correct permissions to enter the old place. In the oldest parts of the house damp rotted the old floorboards until they warped, collapsing under their own weight leaving perilous apertures eager to swallow clumsy steppers. Agencies were reluctant to hand over the keys without first checking everyone’s insurance ad nauseum.
The old stone stairs leading to the basement, chipped from a thousand previous descents, looked liable to break if one wasn’t selective with their boot placement. It’s funny, I thought, if you fell through one of those holes and ended up in the basement, you’d be avoiding the dangerous stairs; the lesser of two evils. Note to inform the insurance company of a possible loophole. Desperate to avoid litigation on our part, the agencies agreed that we could enter under supervision.
The world had changed since this place was last inhabited. When the door finally opened, stubborn in its frame after years of neglect, it seemed a room unstuck in time. Dust particles hung in the air and as they danced I wondered what secrets they were privy to, and whether they had been the component atoms of a larger host previously. Even her ghosts were bent and haggard with age, bones wilting in the oppressive dank. A hundred years ago the servants were so afraid of the myriad spectres said to inhabit the long halls and shadowed staircases that they had refused to enter certain rooms, but no such reports have been filed in nigh on seventy years. If those same ghosts existed now, they languished apathetically in the walls, stirring only occasionally to rattle the pipes or drag their boots. Curios and trinkets plundered at the height of Empire decorated every mantel in the house and although it went unsaid, everyone in the family was petrified of stumbling across something less than savoury. Just to be sure we cross referenced some of the dates in our literature and found the Nazi party came a little after Bryn’s time. Spared of that anxiety we set to looking, for what we weren’t sure. Something of value, some seemingly insignificant object that might illuminate this murky character.
Bryn, God rest him, was a renaissance man in the style of the natural philosophers of his age; a doctor, an artist, a war hero, an antiquarian and amateur archaeologist all rolled into one. Of course it would be remiss not to mention his more illicit interests like bootlegging alcohol and collecting occult manuscripts, but the more sordid of the two pastimes fell by the wayside when he raised his station in society, becoming an educated and respected member of a prominent archaeological interest group. Selous’ Sweat they called themselves, in tribute to the conservationist and African big-game hunter of the same name.
Selous some of these artefacts for mad stacks, I thought with a smirk.
Everything in the house had a double coating of dust. Doing our rounds and cataloguing the cabinets of curiosities meant that doors long undisturbed were opened, both literally and figuratively. Turning the handle of one particular door, I saw it led to an upstairs sitting room on a landing between two flights of stairs, one spiralling down towards the sitting room, although there was scarcely room to sit amidst the Grecian urns and Japanese decorative plates precariously hanging from the walls, and the other up towards the darkroom on the top floor. The sitting room was strangely devoid of clutter except for an enormous table. The rounded surface was a dark mahogany, polished until shining with a protective glass covering placed on top.
I wondered why a table, even one so fine as this, was given a room to itself above the other priceless artefacts in the catalogue, which included a Han dynasty vase, the glasses worn by W.B. Yeats in his twilight years and an enormous set of ornate mirrors purchased at auction when one of the grand manors in Kilkenny was forced to liquidate all non-holdings related assets following the collapse of the family after the war. The mirrors, according to the former owner Mrs. Fitzbannion, were the pride of their manor house. Mrs. Fitzbannion hung the mirrors in the centre of the main hall, ensuring all visitors knew the extent of their wealth. The frames were carved to represent natural wonders, a pinecone here, an antler there, and each coated in burnished gold leaf. Gold had faded to brass in the intervening years, as if the mirror losing its place of prominence in its household stole the last scion of lustre from it altogether, and I wondered had the mirror ever been so ostentatious as described.
Inspecting the table, I ran my finger along the protective glass panel and found no trace of dust. Doubly curious. Bryn was an adventurer and had no shortage of vigour in his old age, but he was still not one for dusting. Attributing his longevity and stamina to a liquid concoction that he called Lightning Wine, part alcoholic cocktail, part vegetable juice with a hint of soda water. In truth I had only agreed to help with this jumped-up Spring cleaning session in the hopes of finding a vat of the naughty sauce hidden in a secret panel, which I would ferry out under my coat and imbibe later on with the lads.
I knelt on my haunches to inspect the legs of the table, wondering if they might shed light on the mystery. Clean as a whistle below too. Ivory. That was it. The legs were made of ivory. Holy shit, was this stuff even legal anymore? I heard a story in school that at one time ivory was so coveted they had to remove the tusks from museum specimens to discourage robbers, low-hanging fruit and all that. My sister volunteered in the Natural History Museum in Dublin while studying zoology and recounted wondrous tales over dinner about their storage rooms in the inner-city; numerous thylacine specimens, gigantic Irish elk antlers and wooden storage crates full of elephant tusks, corridor after corridor of specimen jars like one imagines Noah’s Ark appeared at capacity. Into the table legs were carved detailed images of warriors armed with spears facing down ferocious lions. No doubt an artwork of such fine craftsmanship was either manufactured by British labourers merely basing their work on an existing tribal peace, or worse, plundered from a deposed native royalty, like that Malaysian ruby. Something else there too, a piece of paper placed under one of the legs to balance it. I pulled the parchment out slowly, like the highest-stakes game of Jenga you can imagine and saw that it was written in blue ink. Unmistakably the spider-like scrawl of Great Grandad Bryn; prone to eccentricity and hyperbole in his cups though. I doubt any of what was written should be taken as gospel, but damned if it doesn’t make for a spooky story. The following are the excerpts from what I assume was a field diary, kept as part of his funding agreement with the local museums. They would fund his expeditions and as long as he provided colourful commentary and witticisms enough to draw a crowd. They proudly patronised his occasional dalliances into the otherworldly in the spirit of derring-do! Bryn mentions early in the text that he keeps a formal and an informal diary, the latter only for his own perusal. If what I read is his own private correspondence, then why hide it?
I, Martin Bryn-Kolkiln, wish to commit to paper the strange events of Friday last, April 9th 1928. For the first time in some weeks I have had time enough to sit down and gather my thoughts, my rest of late being much disturbed by strange fancies and day-time delusions. My postprandial scribblings have long been a stable of my working week and no servant dares to stir past my quarters upon noticing the glow neath the door that signals its occupancy. Lately the notepad remains devoid of ink or flourish and I strain my ears to catch the scratching of a passing servant stepping a mite too hard on the creaky floorboard, hoping to catch some snippet of gossip in the scullery that might rouse my wrist to swiftness. In less fanciful terms I have been much beset by idleness and my usual studious nature replaced by bouts of idleness and procrastination. I do not fear that you will judge me too harshly for my slovenliness though once I recount my adventure in full.
I find the drone of chatter where people have gathered too distracting to complete any serious writing, even the purchase of army-grade ear plugs have not relieved the issue, much to my chagrin after spending a pound on three pairs of the things; like wine stoppers or sink plugs made of orange and purple rubber, orange for left, purple for right. These tooth-shaped kernels wouldn’t have looked out of place in an orthodontic institute. A little avatar waving during check ups to remind the boys that oral hygiene at the front was as important as at home, especially if you urchins want little Bonnie Bouncybreasts to embrace you upon returning. I found them to be of little use, not providing the extreme level of silence and concentration I require to fully immerse.
Having only recently returned from fieldwork overseas in the Mesopotamia where I witnessed many strange and exotic sights investigating the discovery of a buried idol neath the sands of the former fertile crescent. The enormous desert sun rising over the pillars of former Hittite settlements. The clearness of the sky above the dunes, a matte-painting of stars in every hue, twinkling blues that shone blinding for a moment then disappeared. White ones and yellow ones and even a fiery red one, which my manservant Fayzad informed me was Venus. The primary goal of my journey was to investigate a buried Marduk idol, the dark god and King of the immortals in the Babylonian pantheon. The curio was found in a sepulchre hidden beneath the site of an existing mosque destroyed by shelling in 1917. Of course this provided ample fuel for speculation about templar treasure and a host of other religious conspiracies but the effigy was a strange artefact to be sure.
I visited other sites of historical interest while in that neck of the woods; a Chaldean astrological site situated in a hollow nested between two steep bluffs of yellow rock, deep in the valley of a dried river basin. I also surveyed a site for a possible future expedition where my colleagues speculate a Phoenician horde may be entombed neath the sand. My preliminary assessment of the site found it in some disrepair so I should not think to patronise such a dig.
The journey from the train station in London towards Matfield in Kent where I am currently dwelling is punctuated with occasional wondrous natural vignettes in the form of wild horses cresting grassy knolls ‘gainst the backdrop of God’s own country, white blossoms on trees, ranks of saplings, small now but they would grow enormous when the vernal bloom came. It seemed almost a shame to ignore the vistas to my left, given how I had pined for them while away. In the trenches I saw men commit countless words to paper trying to capture the essence of what made a simple thing beautiful, and for many this was how they prevented hollowing. Not a literal hollowing, like the way the flesh gives way to pockets of nothingness when carved by machine gun bullets; hollow like the head of a broken doll. Hollow like the hull of a ghost ship.
I attempted to conduct my preliminary report of sites I’d visited but through my rubber stoppers I could make out the voice of an inebriated Scot over the usual din. To make matters worse another veteran was seated in the opposite carriage, alone. The poor creature must have been exposed to gas in some forgotten melee, of which he was perhaps the surviving witness. Across the British Isles there was a thousand such sad scenes. Beneath the sea and in dank caves where no sunlight can penetrate things can still grow, only in exciting new varieties to accommodate unfavourable conditions - glassy fish with transparent scales living near the mouths of sulphur craters learned to take sustenance from the black clouds, and so it was with the war too. Boys went away and still grew to manhood despite the regular trials and tribulations that mark this winding path from adolescence, but the end product was of an altogether different beat.
Pineapple gas by the sound of his consistent hacking cough, and each time he did so it knelled the end of my creative spells, but I bore no ill-will. I had been privy to some sadness in my time. Even now in my deepest sleeps I bolt upright, clammy, imagining that I have faltered a moment more and disappeared into that ochre venom.
I saw a boy killed once. Fourteen years old. His name was Charlie but everyone called him Twig, all limbs and tussled curls beneath his cap. He lied to the recruiting sergeants, charming them with his memorised rhetoric. One of Kitchener’s own Praetorian. The boy came down from Doncaster at the beginning of Kitchener’s volunteer push, part of a pals brigade with men from the local foundries. This motley crew called themselves the Flint Walrus in tribute to Treasure Island. Twig caught a sniper bullet to the head laying wire in a thicket outside Nare.
Upon returning I informed colleagues and close friends of my intent to convalesce, retiring to my chambers in solitude for a fortnight to document my trip, both for official record and in a more personal tone for my memoirs. It came as a reluctant surprise then when a letter arrived, delivered by hand, requesting my urgent presence at the servants graveyard on the grounds of the Powers Estate. The letter spoke of a strange discovery when work for a proposed pleasure garden began requiring the removal of several headstones. The author of the note, which was neither signed nor written in a hand I recognised, went on to state that he or she supposed that their discovery would be pertinent to my historical interest.
This mysterious invitation stoked the embers of my imagination ablaze. I was suddenly keen to reevaluate my proposed ‘mental wellbeing day’, instead thinking perhaps I took those days on the insistence of my wife, nothing more.
I set off that same balmy spring evening, taking only a light jacket and houndstooth peak cap by way of protection; no rain had been forecast. The rest of the note had described the process of the dig, which had already concluded so I would not require my field tools. The closing statement ran shivers of terror through my body. The scribe, although an amateur, was firm in his words and confident in his assessment that they had uninterred the skeleton of an enormous hellhound, three times larger that the most gargantuan canine of Siberia.
My mind was on fire with vivid images of shadowy hyenas howling, pooling stinking saliva in the sharp corners of its mouth. I wondered might their excavation have uncovered Black Shuck or some descendent; an enormous dog or wolf-like creature that stalked the leafy abbeys and quiet lanes of Suffolk in the early 15th century. The dog stood a keen seven feet in length, allowing for an inch either end, and weighed 200 pounds, around the average weight of a heavyweight pugilist. So bulky was the creature that the thudding sound of its footfalls would rouse the people from their sleep and into a panic. There are records in the abbey’s archive there that describe one such incident, another visit from the Black Shuck. He came in the night, a terrible formless thing, moving unseen like mist. The panicked citizenry had heard that same familiar padding and the warning bell had been sounded. An early-warning system was present in most larger townships since the Viking raids, sending the denizens of the town spilling towards the abbey. Room was made for all people to seek shelter in the house of God. The assembled clergymen did their best to bolt the door by placing large timbers across it in a x pattern but it took no time at all for the enormous beast to barge through, a hulking mass of muscle, rippled and bulging as if cast in alabaster. The archives do not mention how the beast was slain. The last word on the matter is not even a word but a sketch of a boulder by one Father Nestin Goodfaythe, showing where the beast is supposedly interred on hallowed ground, underneath a weeping willow near the west wall of the piper’s rest, a section of the cemetery reserved for the church musicians.
As a boy Eileen the wet nurse, a dumpy and severe custodian from Blessington in County Wicklow, would enthrall and horrify my brothers and I with stories of the dog-headed men who inhabited the mist prone Northern slopes and secluded islands of the south pacific. I recall one particularly horrifying tale concerning one such legion of canine-men living in the hills during Arthur’s reign; they would bound down from the treeline and attack the neighbouring townlands and holdfasts, snapping up ewes and even small children in their fierce jaws, wet with gleaming viscera. The men, if that, had the head of a canine - green eyes, a wet black snout like a button extending out from their face, small ears that curved inward like a pitbull. Arthur had dispatched a troupe of his finest knights after numerous reports that the raids had increased in frequency as the vernal equinox approached. I think it was Sir Galahad, noted for his bravery, dilligence and cunning with a blade, that beheaded the leader of the tribe. Galahad had positioned his knights on a bluff overlooking a mill, ensuring that animals had been left to pasture in a paddock purposefully left ajar. Although shaped like stocky men, the dog-headed tribe had neither the cunning nor craft necessary to defeat the combined brain-trust of the round table. When the dog-headed men ran from the treeline toward the open paddock and the helpless ewes within, Galahad and his knights perched above pushed a collection of large boulders over the lip of the bluff. The sun shone on their glistening silver plate mail and in that moment it seemed a second sun had risen.These sunlight sentinels stood from their subterfuge to watch the falling rocks, admiring a cunning plan brought to fruition. The dog-men driven by baser desires could scarcely crane their heads from the meal in front and must have only heard the smaller pebbles loosed by the rumbling reaching the foot of the mountain before it was too late. The largest of the ten boulders thrown was perfectly round like the head of a morning star, one half granite with the other hemisphere coated in moss and twinkling mika. If the folklore had any inkling of truth after so many successive generations of embellishments this boulder was the last remnant of a statue that had stood a thousand years ago, raised by the giants who ruled Albion then. The statue depicted one of their kings, bearded and stern on a carved throne, sceptre in his left hand, the right raised up as if swearing testimony. Who knows though, sources from the time mention neither the melee nor the antiquity. Giants are often added to existing historical accounts or fables to scare children from the left-hand path. A sketch from the time does exist though, which may point to the truth at the centre of the legend. Drawn by eminent medieval antiquarian Father Lamhsa O’Dhuiningh of Tipperary during his trip to the four corners of Eireann documenting mesolithic sites and areas of sufficient proximity to resources that might serve as a site for future plantations, the pencil drawing shows a hill leading down to a mill, and just barely peeping at the top the picture the rounded granite head of a statue can be seen just above the tips of the highest trees. Whether this confirms that men of enormous stature ruled here once or that men who are already decided on a notion can rarely be swayed and will almost always reach for the most circumstantial of evidence rather than admitting fault. There’s also a brief mention of these giants allying with an ancient Saxon King in the Mabinogion, a compendium of myths rooted in historical fact compiled in the 13th and 14th century. The two sides, once bitter rivals, put aside their differences to drain a large area of swampland where the brackish waters and greenish miasma that hung over the water like a cloud caused disease to humans, giants and their livestock. Perhaps these giants had hounds of equal size in this area millenia ago?
I cycled to the train station within half an hour and caught an evening train toward the site. Upon detramming it was only a short stroll past the hamlet to the foreboding stone fortress that was the Powers Estate. I am not shy to hard work but let me say this on the matter; I’d wager Isidore of Seville, eminent though he was in his then budding field of zoology, did not have his plans to relax scuppered at every turn. He probably shut his bestiary with a dull thud, removed his working sandals and held his feet aloft to rest, stating ‘Come Jackalope or Jackdaw Prince I’ll not stir from this velvet cocoon ‘til rested!’ I promised myself that if the invitation hadn’t arrived by letter I would have refused a man face-to-face, but lies to oneself are lies to God also and I whispered my apology into the inky night sky. The sky was flecked with silver dots like an enormous glowing wisp out of space had poked a hole in the fabric of our world, allowing a sliver of otherworldly pearlescence to shine through.
There was an ominous gathering of clouds just above the rounded domes of the main compound. There were smaller follys, fountains and hound master's lodgings on the grounds too but they paled in comparison to the oppressive majesty of the Grand Lodge. The design was an eclectic mix of Eastern and Western classical art styles, rounded arches and marble pillars dappled with grey and obsidian, gargoyles with contorted faces and forked tongues lolling out of their pursed half mouths and other misshapen oddities perched on the buttresses. French tapestries and Roman marbles on every landing, enormous paintings of the glorious hunt in gilded frames on every inch of spare wall, Pictish stones looted from the Scottish soil decorated the fish pond, inscribed with mysterious runes that no doubt held some arcane and eldritch knowledge.
Casement Power, younger brother of the late Lord Richard, inherited no property or bonds but was allowed an extremely modest annual allowance. He spent his days hunting but no hound could satiate his warrior spirit. He travelled to furthest Africa shooting the largest game. It was there he spoke with cannibal tribes and saw serpents of enormous size unfurl endlessly and slither away into the brown water. The tribes in the swamps of Zaire spoke of a living dinosaur inhabiting the marshes where the vegetation was dense and the jungle heat so volatile that no man could settle. He also had collected many curios and tribal artworks on his expeditions. The remnants of his conquests nailed to the walls as trophies; skulls of every size, strange tusked things, toothless sharks, an Ibex skull with three horns. Enormous mammoth tusks from Siberia carved with runes framed all the double doors, and crossed spears above every mirror.
The pride of the collection was a piece co-owned by the brothers; one of the Elgin Marbles. An incredible bust of a centaur in glorious pose, bow poised to fire, enormously muscled but not so as to be grotesque. The centaur did not appear a wild thing, and had a looked of melancholy wisdom about his furrowed brow.
Somewhere in the house, although I cannot recall where, the skeleton of the beast that hunted the denizens of Gevaudan. I do know for a fact that this grizzly exhibit does exist as it is listed on the manifesto of items in the portion of Stately Homes of England dedicated to the Powers plot. I cannot verify as to the validity of the article but I'd vouch that many a French peasant eats well selling a hundred such cryptozoological items. I shudder to think of the smallfolk who suffered under the beasts reign of terror. The beast was cunning and successfully avoided waves of eager bounty hunters looking to claim the sizeable reward. It would never attack a group as it is in nature. The ewe that strays from the flock makes light work for wolves and worse. Servant girls would be found dismembered and grossly mutilated only moments after leaving the security of the settlement. The flesh was not always consumed either. The beast was not hunting out necessity and instead fulfilling some sick perversion. Poisoned and drunk on the blood humankind. Could the hell hound I am to examine be a relation of this come to England, or worse, brought?
I have heard tales from reputable sources of large cats loose on the moors. Some escaped from circuses and private menageries, others former pets released by their owners after quadrupling in size. Perhaps these amateurs had merely uncovered the remains of an exotic pet. The grounds were no stranger to beasts from the dark continent; crimson parrots in enormous metal cages, striped fish that glowed when the moonlight fell on the pond, peacocks from India striding the grounds magnificently, ducks from Canada. Would it be completely out of question for a jungle cat to have made this castle its home? I think not.
On his extensive travels around China and Africa studying prehistoric art Richard Power collected priceless artworks and looted great tombs of their treasures years before the arrival of most Western antiquarians. His current horde included petroglyphs, gilded sarcophagi and even a mummified cat from a Witch's Bazaar outside Khartoum. If Richard Powers was alive today he would sit coiled atop his twinkling dubloons with plumes of smoke trailing from either nostril, content to wait for judgement day in the cavernous treasury rumoured to exist beneath the house. Now this ‘conspiracy’ is slightly more believable than the tales of vampirism and prostitutes found frozen, their last moments of panic etched on their disgusted countenance, bodies drained entirely of blood. That’s Maine Wood’s Bosch if you ask me, but a treasury filled with Egyptian secrets… That is more intriguing. An underground river flows out beneath the walls of the house into the Mighty Sa-hen-esh river, perpetually vomiting galloping white horses to dash against the rocks. One can easily imagine a boat snaking the bends by night, illuminated by a single lantern, a chest full of smuggled artefacts in tow. Now that I've written this all out, I see that this could also serve a convenient way to covertly bring a big cat into the grounds, all without alerting the law.
The East Wing of the house consisted of one long corridor lined with equally-spaced doors on either side in alternating colours. The pattern was blue left, red right, green left, gold right and so on for several meters. Suits of old plate mail were nailed to plinths in the spaces between each entrance, some with their visors up, revealing the shadowy nothingness within, their arms tight to the torso and bent at the elbow clutching tight on their halberds. Others had their visors down holding their shields near their torso with swords sheathed. Their heraldic crests were emblazoned there in majestic golds and silvers, with gold-leaf tassels dangling from the sides.
According to the rumours all of the suits with closed visors contained embalmed corpses; some of them acting as metalurgic mausoleums for deceased heirs. and others containing corpses looted from the Valley of Kings pre-Napoleonic rediscovery, and the only way to tell heir from ancient was by examining the crests. Some of which were said to be false artworks created specifically to be understood by members of a secret order, like Templars or Rosicrucians, only confined to worship of Ancient Egyptian deities. I don’t know whether any credence should be paid to the rumours but I can say with some authority that Rich Powers did have a penchant for symbolism and numerology. If there ever was some eccentric left in the Arab Sun too long, present company excluded, who would commission these wonderful artworks for such a convoluted purpose, it was him. The late custodian of the Baronage passed some seventy years ago but rumours of his interest in the occult abound still.
Many of the great houses had fallen to destitution in recent years as their custodians gathered dust on gilded thrones, having sent the best of their heirs to serve in France among the officer classes. Although the bulk of the BEF was made up of working class men, miners and teachers, the aristocratic classes were decimated. Such was the way of war. These men playing chess with the lives of the small folk would, to fulfill their end of whatever faustian pact could've caused such a prolonged and terrible slaughter, had to give up their own sons. Of course not all these elderly Lords were callous in sending their offspring to foreign soil, perchance to die. Many wrote letters to school chums and former colleagues now occupying lofty administrative positions requesting exclusion for their boys in exchange for kind press or monetary reward. All such offers were of course denied. What kind of message would that send to the powerful gentry of the country, who held much sway with the royals, that some men's sons may live and others still must away to Hades? I fear the recruiting offices would have been empty by that very evening and the recruiting sergeants left in a right awkward position, and forced to become creative with the methods their jingoistic crusade employed. Powers had lost three sons in the war, two at Mons during the terrible combat there, and another at Ypres. The angels had not seen fit to protect them. That dread sound of motorcycle tyres scraping on pebbles as it stirs to a halt, the clicking of medals on a uniform breast as the messenger spans the drive, the measured footfalls of a military gait approaching the door, closer now and the parent white-faced behind knowing what dread news awaits.
Again canines find a way to embroil themselves. Many parents report seeing ominous black dogs in the morning mist in the days and hours before the bad news arrives from overseas, and the black dog is a symbol of significance in the practice of reading tea-leaves, rather a Victorian fancy but it has its practitioners and defenders still. I believe Siegfried Sassoon’s mother employed the help of a medium in an attempt to communicate with her deceased son - the poor creature.
Folklore and farmyard chatter aside; the Powers had deep roots here. A Powers had lived on this land since at least 1640. Who knew what secrets those whispering old stones might yield to those inclined to hear.
Fortunately the Lord has a nephew, strong, sensible and of age. Lord Nigel Power, Earl of Sookford and 3rd Baron of Westian, current custodian of the Powers Estate was not an unkind man, scholarly and stoic like the Greek philosophers he admired and quoted in his cups, but always keen to share a nod and chat in passing. Not to give the impression that we are acquainted for I hardly know the man but to don my hat in passing, occasionally passing comment if the weather be fine or noteworthily tempestuous. Word around the fountain says that Lord Power intends to put his vast knowledge of the classical world to use in his retirement, wherein he hopes to compile in seven volumes a history of the Peloponnesian Wars in the Bronze Age Aegean Sea.
His deceased Uncle wished for the construction of a Pleasure Garden in his honour, following the sale of his assets. His advanced age will account for why they are currently constructing a most Victorian folly.
I wonder did Richard glean any smidge of happiness or any notion of the arcane knowledge he sought from his archives in the long evening of his life, waiting to meet his sons and commend their bravery in heaven. Perhaps it's true what is said about a man who lives to bury his children; he dies two deaths; the first when everything he was before fragments and scatters to dust and the second when he truly expires, a husk eagerly awaiting the trot of Mort’s destrier - foul Black knytmare!
You see even now as I write with shaking hand that my mind is infected - I am leaning toward gothic fancy! I hope this will give you an inkling then into my apprehension, for although I remain a skeptical-leaning agnostic with regard to the otherworldly, the ominous setting and eerie descriptions in the letter had transported me to an irrational world.
Already I was noting my own apprehension, every step measured, holding my breath unless absolutely necessary. The wintry grass crunched beneath my boots and I stood hypnotised almost, craning to see the lip of the battlements on the outer wall. A fortress fit for a martial family. Arrows, oil and boulders would have rained down from on high decimating the invaders attempting to mount their ladders. Flaming arrows igniting the siege towers forcing men to jump from a great height into the throng of spears and pikes below, often dashed on the points. A mighty gust suddenly swept past me violently, lifting my jacket tails and it carried a faint sound of distant battle, a prolonged scream, a snippet of intense roaring fire and the thwack of archers in tandem. I shivered and begged the spirits leave me and confine their unrest to the isolated places of the world.
Grim faeries nestled in the thickets of wildflowers, I imagined their spritely ceilidh neath the spotted mushroom caps, leaping from one swaying grass stalk to another, their intricate but infinitesimally small fiddles nestled in the crook of their necks. Foul puka in the form of red-eyed goats mocked me from behind boundary fences. My own breath steaming from my lips in plumes despite the warmth, as the dark fog that escaped the nostrils of Jörmungandr, his scaled belly pregnant with angry fire.
The last light faded as I approached the enormous wrought iron gates of the grounds, the rails jagged black spears rising from the capstones, decorated in the middle with a black bas relief.
I pushed open the gate and it dragged on its hinges, howling while it swung. The dread chorus was so shrill and how long it lasted - I almost had to place my fingers into my ears for relief! This fright rather knocked my senses. I stirred for a moment to gather myself. Every loose stone, dancing leaf and singing spring breeze now whispered portents. I shook my head and ignored whatever gnostic Delphian beckoned. If the third eye existed, and scientific fiction magazines wrote that it could be opened by stimulating the pineal gland with a kind of resonant electric current, mine was opened naturally then. I accepted the languid way the gate swung as a sign of reluctance to permit my entry. These old places did not lightly relinquish their secrets and it was well possible that some unseen malevolent force did not want me there that night. What happened next only exacerbated my fears.
I immediately made a sharp right turn upon entering the compound, moving from the long and winding gravel drive lined with golden cedars at every turn and down a snaking path trodden through the grass and mud, towards a glow some distance away that I assumed was the site. I scrambled through the darkness with my forearm raised to shield my eyes from sharp branches. I feared what I might see lurking in the shadows. My assumption was correct and I emerged from the copse at the servants graveyard.
The site had been cordoned off with rope and torches placed in the ground illuminating the site for my investigation. A small crowd gathered, huddled together for warmth near one of the beacons. A man turned, evidently the one who penned the letter and waved for me. There were fifteen or more grave markers in the small fenced square. Grass grew grey and sickly there. Scions of jagged rock tore through the topsoil giving the impression of a golem just beneath the firmament. This field must have been the only spot of that land that didn't get a healthy blossom, small surprise it was designated such a dark purpose. The owner had little use for land that didn't yield coin.
A terrible scream rang out. The banshee’s wail, the chorus of seven trumpets that toll for the opening of the seventh seal, the Howling of the Djinn! Hark! The dread screech of a terrible wyrm, phasing through realities in permanent agony.
A bright spark glowed brightly in the sky above the open grave and my eyes unaccustomed to the light shut tightly. I winced and turned then a strange thing occurred; I found myself back in the thicket where the branches like fingers had caressed me only a moment before, the light of the site up ahead in the distance. What vile trickery was this? I stared at my hands, barely able to discern their shape in the darkness. I raised them and cupped my face into my palms, needing to massage my crown and feel the bone and blood underneath, something tangible now that I was untethered from the real. I needed to be positive this was not a dream but it was so cold, so bitterly cold. A shivering frozen knife tracing down my spine. Was it possible to feel cold while not conscious? I did not think so, but then tis not possible to teleport or time travel or jump enormous distances like Spring Heeled Jack. I began to feel nauseous and keeled over holding my stomach, dry retching onto the damp grass.
The beacons in the distance began igniting and extinguishing in sequence, strobing and contorting casting long shadows and I fell to my knees with my head tucked to my chest, as a hedgehog in peril. The beacons all doused simultaneously and the wet grass underneath my head changed to something harder and slick, with many sharp points digging into my cheek. I dared a peek lifting one eyelid a fraction and found myself again outside the gates of the grounds. The dark contours of the bas relief were ominous now, the bulbous shapes of the carved images made my skin crawl. Small hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention causing itchiness around my collar. I pushed to my feet and brushed the rocks embedded in my palms off on the thighs of my trousers.
Yes, the beings that had at first seemed Grecian effigies of perfect men hunting now altered in the pale moonlight, one idle moonbeam shining directly on the relief as if a spotlight was held fast by an unseen cherub, perched on a cloud occasionally stirring from peaceful sleep to illuminate some slither of mystery. These hulking icons, although lacking perspective, seemed an altogether forbidden sight. I recoiled in horror but dared myself to investigate further.
Practically holding my eyes open I stooped closer, focusing on one particular figure. Let me first describe the image as a whole; a pitiful scene. By compare I can only cite passages from Revelations, and even they do not convey the full horror I beheld. Lacking the vocabulary to describe the ‘otherness’ of its shape Revelations must serve as an imaginative stimulus; the beings on the relief were contorted demons. Most had bodies and genitals like men but coated every inch with coarse black hair, spiny and spidery. Their eyes enormous round things like that of a fish, but where a fish emits vacancy and the black of their eyes reflects rather than radiates, these implied great wisdom. Enormous eyes omnipresent to witness all events in all of time, as Mathesula. I shudder to think. Where their mouths should have been was instead an enormous pair of jaws like that of the snapping crocodiles encountered in Egypt, a menace I am reluctantly familiar with, having seen men dragged underneath the murky water while bathing or labouring near the shore erupting in fountains of blood, never to surface.
The figure I was hypnotically drawn to inspecting had an enormous stinging tail protruding from the end of his tailbone, hanging low off the ground before looping up into the sky, the stinger slick with dripping venom poised at the shoulder to strike. He was the only one among his number armed with such a ferocious pestilent whip, which was clad in hard black plate no sword would dent, distinguishing him as a leader of sorts; if any rank exists within an anarchy of grotesques. Even as a fantasy this folly is something gratuitous altogether. The metal seemed slick, oozing oil even though no rain fell there that night and no hint of varnish in the air. Perhaps twas merely the combination of moonlight trickery and the all night reading sessions of yesteryear where I filled my mind with all manner of sidhes, dobhar chus and mushrooms out of space. The relief was a ballroom fancy and no more, a remnant of the freakshow era leftover, like how some houses still have their cabinets of curios. I was merely painting character to it instinctively, already having intimate knowledge of folklore and the structure of ancient myths. I must admit there have been times when I have been disposed towards the extraordinary and like to imagine a whole world of strangeness lies behind the fabric of our preconceptions but this is a private indulgence and I have not, to my own knowledge, allowed it to interfere with my work.
I pushed open the gate as a matter of promptness and again it swung slowly and screeched, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - like a vixens wail. Events were playing out exactly as they had only moments ago except now when I entered the dig site was on my left side, and much closer than before. I was sure I had turned right last time. Did the last time really happen? A trick of my own mind or by something darker. Some benevolent being drawn to mischief by boredom interfering with the lives of mortals. Perhaps twas some fancy I took outside, a moon dream. Lord knows I had heard enough tales of inebriated farmers trapped roaming around small paddocks for days unable to find an exit, while the faeries peered through the barbs of the hawthorn in hysterics. While we are in the realm of loons perhaps it was an angel giving me a vision of what is coming. Warding me away from the toothed darkness in the damp hole.
To steady my nerves I decided to voice the inner skeptic aloud. I spoke into night about how the gases and wisps in marshes were spirits to feudal farmers before wise men came and dispelled their ignorance with the torch of logic. Perhaps all I was experiencing now was merely some as of yet unexplained phenomena. An unseen chemical in the air released by the digging causing hallucinations, or a fever perhaps? I had been travelling recently. Any excuse that steered my mind from the abject terror I was exercising in the face of the unknown I was eager to embrace.
I proceeded to the site but there was no sliding mud to prevent my passage now; the thicket of thorns where I had stooped and seen the braziers in the distance nowhere to be found. If only I heeded my wife's warnings, ponderous fool.
There was still time to turn and head for home. The trains would not run again until morning so I might safely walk the tracks and upon reaching the station, fetch my bike and cycle the remainder of the journey. If I depart and keep a keen pace I would be abed before three. A course of Teddy Roosevelt’s ‘strenuous life’ to get the lungs singing and forget this whole mad venture. Whether the men disturbed the rest of a hellhound or just the bones of a dead doe, expanded over generations by the freezing and thawing of the soil, could just be left as exactly that, a question to ponder on Samhain, to tell over a crackling flame and scare the boy scouts.
How unprecedented that a man as stubborn as I would talk myself out of a venture that promised much mystery. Not to blow one's own trumpet but I am also not a man of soft disposition. I have no fear of death, I saw my share of it in the conflicts. When a man lives in the shadow of the reaper for so long a strange kinship is formed, and I enjoyed that shade as one would enjoy the shadow of an apple tree in the midday sun. I inhabited the abyss before, if only for a time. I knew fear that night. Some primordial doubt froze me where I stood, sending shockwaves through my body rousing every nerve and impulse I had screaming retreat, retreat! I willed my legs forward, take another few steps and you'll feel better, but I could not budge one inch. I must have looked a forlorn statue. A fitting garden ornament for such a strange place, amongst the cherubs and marble harpies.
I stood, taking stock of my surroundings. A very faint dust was visible in the air, a golden haze like spores or sparks from a foundry taken flight. This mist shifted in the air constantly reforming, though I felt no breeze. Whether the miasma was a result of occult activity or a sign from a benign celestial to warm me of impending spiritual disaster I do not know. I did know to follow my gut instincts. Whenever my gut rumbled and my rhythm changed unknowingly danger was never far. In the war I had honed this instinct. A sixth sense for spotting hidden mines and unexploded Mill’s bombs led my lads through cracked lunar landscapes shelled chalk white.
Turning, I sped out the gate, avoiding its siren song having left it ajar when I entered. I kept a blistering pace and soon the lane melted away behind me, my feet scarcely scraping the ground. Gravel gave way to wet grass and then the tracks opened up before me. An enormous corridor of steel teeth slicing the meadow in two. Due to the negligence of the maintenance crew the wild grasses growing trackside grew enormous. They lined the entire route casting ominous shadows and obscuring any assailants that might attack from the side. I slowed briefly ensuring my stride matched the distance between planks so as not to trip.
After a time I heard behind me the definite sound of paws plodding rhythmically. Four distinct footfalls increasing pace to match my own. I suddenly sprinted forward with such intensity that I near lost my balance but I pushed my arms out sideways and flapped like a terrorised bird and steadied. Paws clacked on the timbers of the track and something emitted a low and deep growl. I ran then, as fast as my legs would take me. Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead, past my eyes which I had shut most tightly and onto my lip. Tissues, coins and scraps of paper fell from my pockets but I continued propelled by some primal strength. It is natural for the hunters brain to seize control when the invisible eyes on the back of one's neck feel the predator's stare. The gnashing darkness felt an oppressive presence. In that moment I was sure no fevre dream had taken hold. What gave chase was a tangible evil, slipped through the curtains into our reality, or perhaps pulled. Mayhaps some naive servant read the words aloud from one of the many Egyptian execration texts dotted around the house in glass cabinets and dredged a being from another world. Even at that distance the fetid smell of rotten meat on its breath caused my nose to wrinkle.
I could feel intense heat too along my shoulder blades and beneath my collar. At first I thought twas the humid panting typical of a sprinting canine but it got warmer and warmer as the footfalls increased their pace until it was near unbearable. I reached my hand to my collar, placing the backside of my fingers, now substantially cooled from running in the wind, flat to my neck. This heat was surely the licking tongues of infernal Hades. I did not turn and I did not delay, keeping my pace well beyond my natural exhaustion threshold. The swiftness of the stag when the wolf is near. The swiftness of the salmon in the shadow of the bear.
I imagined behind me an enormous fissure in the rows of planks. Spindled fingers tipped with curled nails grabbing at my tails, skin red like a flayed man. Eyes of every size with no other human form attached. Green pupils slit like cats. Enormous black ones like an ink filled bubble swirled apocalyptic chaos beneath the gelatinous covering. If this rift rent the land as I imagined then this hound must be Cerberus - oh three headed guardian of Hades, who bid you give chase, I am not yet bound for your kingdom!
The beast thundered along behind me, faster now, growling and snapping its enormous rows of teeth, sharp as daggers and serrated for tearing strips of flesh from bone. Was I to be Dante?
At times the thing was so close I could feel drops of reeking saliva raining down where the beasts tongue had whipped at the empty space I occupied not a moment earlier. In truth I cannot recollect much further than this, I was gripped by an adrenal berserk and time held no meaning, new memories ceased forming, all non-critical faculties switched off. After an eternity I emerged into the light of the train station and dared to slow for the first time. It seemed the chase had not been so rabid these last moments. The spell which coated those bones in living flesh expired now that morning sun threatened her light.
The horizon was now red as iron ore. I turned gasping but no snapping cerberus or terrible extinct mastiff, like those the Romans had employed in Carthage, waited there. Just a dizzying corridor of shifting darkness stretching to infinity. No idle moon beam pierced the veil of night. In my relief I spared a laugh, noting aloud that this was likely a record time for this particular journey, surpassing even the no-stop trains that carried resources to the Hebrides and further overnight.
In spite of all that had happened I had to question then and there if a creature had ferociously pursued me at all or whether some friendly dog had trotted alongside me for a time, or whether my own footfalls speeding up subconsciously sent me into a panic. I was unsure. Should I be terrified, relieved, embarrassed or a combination of the three?
Next came the darkest revelation of all. I sat and dangling my legs over the lip of the train platform lit a cigarette. I inhaled deeply and held the breath, allowing the smoke to absorb my woes before exhaling. A draft on my back sent me shivering. No, more than a breeze, a sharp pain now. I dropped my cigarette onto the tracks and reached back, gingerly pawing with my index finger, if the phrasing can be pardoned. I recoiled in agony, even now my back throbs and smells fetid when the bandage is not changed and let steam under a basin of boiled water. Three enormous slashes, rifts of gnarled flesh raked across my skin. Dark pus oozes from the wound and I have worn a corset of gauze this last week. A paroxysm of pain sent me to spasming and I could take no more, fainting into a heap there on the platform.
I suppose it was near enough to morning then and some commuter or station man took notice and fetched a doctor, but in truth I have no memory of this. The doctors have informed me that it will be some time before my wound heals and it should require much observation to prevent tetanus. Yes, you read that right. Tetanus. The lacerations were proved to have been made by a dog using the latest scientific tests. The doctors, veterinarians and trappers consulted have so far been completely baffled by the breadth and width of the scrapes, reckoning a creature capable of such assaults to a man grown should require enormous size and strength, and belonged to no creature native to this country.
With this nightmare put to page I hope the oily tendrils of it are scraped from my mind. I must retire to chambers and steam the wound again, left overnight the sickly sweet smell of the warped and bubbled flesh becomes unbearable. The doctors and I hope I will be free to return to work by June. In the meantime I will stay active with my research and dispel any thoughts too fantastical. My spirit is largely shaken and I have not felt an anxiety like it since the weeks at the front. I cannot complain, having most of my wealth and still a sliver of health but Damn! Curse! Blast how I loathe sleeping on my front! How anyone finds solace in this pose is beyond me, I feel like a lizard basking on hot stones.
I leave you now to ponder what I saw that night, and I will do the same. Perhaps another time it will be revealed to me, in a dream or a whisper of the babbling brook, what is the given name of the darkness I encountered. Or suppose you think maybe the stories of jungle cats loose on the moors hold more than a nugget of truth; a jaguar or cheetah gave chase, stirring from its home in the neglected grasses along the tracks? Perhaps. I do not like to speculate. I leave you then and as stated at the beginning of my recant, I hope you will not judge my case too harshly, noting that I am not a man of ill repute or third-rate education. I am a simple antiquarian bottling the dust of the lost things. The truth is an amnesiacs labyrinth.
April 20th, M Bryn-Kolkiln
Michael Dempsey, April 2018
