Dark Ages. John Pritchard
didn’t recognize those words – nor many of the others. Some were too obscure to be deciphered. The outer ring was full of weird scribbling, with gothic crosses used like punctuation. He made out the word Agla, which he’d noticed in the text. Leafing back, he found it was a Hebrew acronym, often used in medieval magic.
Ata Gibor Leolam Adonai. Thou art mighty for ever, O Lord.
Returning to the chart, he started checking constellations – tracking down his favourite ones like close friends in a crowd. The detailing was exquisite. Most of the stars bore their Arabic names, evocative and strange. Sheratan and Sadalsud; Aldèbaran; Al Nath. Antares, at the Scorpion’s heart, was inked with murky red.
The stars of the Plough had their own peculiar rhythm: from Dubhe and Merak, pointers to the Pole, to Benetnasch, the last star in the tail. He knew those well, and mouthed them one by one.
His finger traced the patterns: following the lines from star to star. Boötes, the great Herdsmen, had been dubbed leofric here; the crooked kite of Auriga was ealdred. The Great Dog – Canis Major – had dominicain beside it. He guessed that these were magic words – the constellations being used as symbols. Or sigils, or whatever they were called.
Dubhe. Merak. Phecda …
Suddenly he realized it was getting hard to see. The desk lamp was beginning to go out. He looked up quickly – startled by a sense of someone with him in the room. Nobody was there, of course; but the lamp continued dying. Its yellow light turned reddish as the power was sucked out, to disappear like blood into the dark. The filament remained, a burning thread – then that faded, too. Darkness swallowed up the desk.
He saw the stars were glowing.
The first thing that he felt was awe: they had a spectral beauty. Charted with luminous paint, he thought … then realized this was just a photograph. And the pinpoints were too bright for that – bright enough to shed a cold light of their own. Then the stars went out: became black holes. He felt the sight being sucked out of his eyes. The last faint tinge of bluish light was swallowed by the book.
Martin sat there, stupefied – and suddenly the universe burst open all around him. It felt as if his thinking mind had risen from his body, straight up through the ceiling and the roof. The rectory just vanished, and the stars were everywhere: ones that hadn’t risen yet, and some he wouldn’t see until next spring. His nostrils were filled with the night’s distinctive smell – a fresh aroma, strangely sweet, and dark inside his head.
Then he tumbled back to earth. The starlight followed, piercing the study – as if the house was riddled full of worm-holes. Something brighter than the sun came blazing through each one. The sight lasted a fraction of a second. Then darkness; and he realized he was blind. Panicking, he clawed his face, his eyes. He couldn’t see.
He could still feel empty countryside; the vaulted sky above. The night was somehow with him in the room.
Reaching out, he found and grasped the book. Visions came unbidden to his disbelieving mind. Far horizons opened in his head.
He saw a landscape torn apart by war: trampled roads, and gutted towns, and fields of mud and bodies. It made him think of Bosnia, in all its eastern bleakness. But then he noticed medieval details; the corpses lashed to wheels on top of poles. They stood in silhouette against a strangely glowing sky. The night was lit, as if by fires just over the horizon. The colours were stupendous; majestic clouds reflected in the pools of stagnant mud.
With a sudden plunge of vertigo, he realized what they were. Nebulae in deepest space: the wombs of dust and gas that formed the stars. Towering above the earth, and drifting on the wind.
Voices rose around him in a babble: snatches of speech from many mouths, like samplings on a record. The language was unearthly and corrupted – but then he caught a snatch of words he recognized.
‘He hath made me dwell in darkness like those long dead …’
A different smell engulfed him, and he gagged and almost retched. Like mushroom-mouldy earth and shit, stuffed deep into his nose. The dreadful stench had other flavours too: of mildewed cloth, and rotting wood, and reams of musty paper. The smell of age, and all it had corrupted.
‘My soul waits for the Lord,’ said a sonorous voice, ‘more than watchmen wait for morning …’
The landscape was changing, like decomposing tissue seen in time-lapse. The nebulae were different, too. He glimpsed the dark, contorted Horse’s Head.
‘… but my face shall not be seen.’
He turned around inside his skull, but couldn’t find the speaker. Instead there was just a field of crosses. Shapes were walking past him now, and weaving through the markers. He watched them go – powerless to follow, even if he’d wanted to.
‘… but my face shall not be seen,’ the grim voice said.
The figures kept on trudging past, towards the haunting flares along the skyline; but one of them looked back over his shoulder. His face was gaunt, like something starved. His eyes bored into Martin’s.
Terror leaped up, like a flame – but the phantom didn’t pause. The shadow-army carried him away. His pale face faded in the burning gloom. And Martin was still rooted by that glance of accusation.
‘… watchmen wait for morning …’
He was still inside his body. His hands felt warm and slimy on the book. Blood, he realized, horrified. The visions melted, folding into blackness. He sensed the study closing up, encasing him in silence. It was colder than an empty grate in winter.
A scuttling movement crossed the room. The sound a rat might make – but much too loud. Martin yelped with fright, and drew his legs up. He remembered the picture on the wall: the one that used to give Lyn nightmares. It felt like he’d been swallowed up inside it.
But there was just that one swift movement; nothing more. Huddled on the chair, he hugged his knees and started shaking. His eyes were useless: dead as failed lightbulbs.
‘I’m not blind,’ he kept murmuring. ‘It’s something in my head.’
Oh Jesus, let me see the stars again.
His skin was bathed in sweat, like icy water. Slowly, as the hours passed, he felt it start to dry. And all the while he listened to the house. Now and again it creaked somewhere, and all his nerves caught fire. But nothing came towards him through the void.
He didn’t dare to trust that first pale glimmering of light. He blinked, and screwed his eyes tight shut – then opened them again. A gluey smudge was growing in the darkness. Slowly it congealed, becoming furniture and shelves. The room took shape around him, still muted in the greyish light of dawn.
It was deserted.
Martin sat there stiffly for a few minutes more; then carefully prised his knotted limbs apart. His muscles cramped in protest, and his bladder started aching. Ignoring it, he clambered up and leaned against the desk.
The air smelt as it always had: a subtle, bookish, papery aroma. He sniffed, but found no trace of fouler odours. His hands were clean and dry: no trace of blood. The desktop showed its weathered grain. The paper was unstained.
The house felt hushed and empty. He listened, breathing shallowly, then ventured to the door. The living room was spun with twilight cobwebs. The stairwell door to Lyn’s room hung ajar.
Attic, he thought, and gazed at it: unwilling to go up. After a pause, he went back to the study. The star-chart was unfurled across the desk. He felt a pang of stomach cramp, but crossed the room towards it.
A photo of a drawing – that was all it bloody was. But panic kept on simmering inside him. The evidence had disappeared; the memory remained. Staring at the chart, he felt a groundswell of revulsion. For a moment he hesitated; then took one comer between finger and thumb, and folded it again. Then closed