Come to Castlemoor (27 page)

I was at the edge of the cascade of shadows. I peered into it—dense blackness, moving, stirring, and there, against the wall, a tall form, eyes, teeth, breathing. I paused, staring. Nothing was there. Something moved—a tapestry rippling. I reached the door, pulled it open, and darted into the hall.

I had to lean against the wall for a moment to regroup my forces. One torch burned in a bracket at the end of the hall, and it gave enough light for me to see that I was on the right track. Down that hall, around a corner … yes, I knew the way now, but I was too weak to move on just yet. My shoulders still trembled, and I felt my cheeks wet with tears I hadn't known I had shed.

Nerves, I told myself. Of course there had been no one in the room. I had imagined it. Everyone had left Castle-moor except a few servants, and what could a servant possibly have been doing in the room, in the dark? I had come too far to let myself lose control now. I must go on. I must find Donald and get him away from this place. There was no time for nerves, no time to linger. I moved quickly down the hall.

I turned a corner and started down a small passage with wet brown concrete walls, torches burning at spaced intervals. I vaguely wondered why the torches should be burning if everyone were gone. Did they burn all the time? Perhaps. There must be some logical explanation. I turned another corner and started down the hall that would eventually lead me to the steps that went down to the dungeons. My footsteps echoed loudly.

Too loudly.

I stopped, glancing over my shoulder. The echoes lasted just a little too long, long enough for me to realize they weren't echoes at all. I listened. The sound stopped.

Someone was following me.

I stared at the end of the hall where I had turned the corner. A torch burned smokily there, washing the wall with flickering yellow light. There was a shadow on the wall, black, stamped clearly against the yellow, head and shoulders projected in profile. Someone was standing just out of sight around the corner, leaning forward. The shadow moved, magnified to gigantic proportions by the light as the figure moved closer. The torch spluttered, and the shadow disappeared. Others took its place, weird, gyrating wildly—a tree branch, a galloping horse, two dancers.

All right, I told myself. No more of that. I had given way before, summoning up vivid horrors, but I didn't intend to do it again. The shadow
had
been there, its shape resembling a man's head and torso, and the footsteps
had
echoed a little too long, but this was a long hall with walls of solid concrete, and no doubt the acoustics were peculiar. I moved on down the hall, paying no attention to the sound of footsteps that echoed around me. I glanced back once, quickly, and it seemed a figure darted into the obscurity of shadows, but I merely scolded myself and moved on.

I reached the great hole in the wall where the steps led down. I could smell mildew and decay, a horribly fetid odor that caused me to recoil. No torch burned nearby. The steps led down into a yawning pit of darkness. I hesitated, shuddering. I heard rustling, scurrying noises that rose up from the well. I stood stiffly at the top of the steps, trying to summon enough courage to start the descent. I urged myself to move, but something seemed to hold me back. I couldn't go down. I had lost control of my body and was unable to force myself to take that first step.

My skin prickled. Great gusts of clammy air swooshed up the steps and whistled against the walls and stroked my cheeks. There was an aura of forbidding evil, and voices unheard cried out, protested, warned me to stay back. I knew that if I once started that descent, I would never return. I would be swallowed up by that evil, destroyed. Nothing, nothing could induce me to go down. This was insanity. I should have taken my proof, gone for help, brought a whole fleet of men with me to investigate Castle-moor. I had come this far, but I couldn't go down into the dungeons alone, not for anything.…

Then I thought of Donald. I squared my shoulders, lit the oil lamp, and started down the rough stone steps.

The steps were wide and narrow, gradually curving down at an angle. I moved carefully, the lamplight revealing damp brown walls streaked with a moss-green fungus. In this confined area, my footsteps echoed even louder than ever, ringing like a battalion pounding on the rough stone. Down and down, closed, confined, a damp mossy tunnel, fetid-smelling and alive with scurrying sound—the aura of evil was thick, alive, surging around me. I clenched the lamp. I thought of Donald. I sensed something behind me. It was a curious sensation, instinctive, a feeling of vulnerability rather than anything definite. I looked over my shoulder, but I saw only darkness, yet I could not shake the feeling. I felt exposed, watched, followed.

Something rustled near my feet. I saw a large gray rat scuttling down the steps, making a weird squeaking noise that sounded like a scream in the strange echo chamber. Down and down I went, and I suddenly realized that I must have been in the dungeons at first, or at least a part of them, before I climbed the spiral staircase. The hall leading away from the south wall had slanted down sharply, and it seemed now that I had come down almost as many steps as I had climbed earlier.

I saw flickering light ahead. Descending the remaining steps, I came out into a large, cavernlike room with passages leading off from it in every direction. The floor and walls were concrete. Torches burned in black iron brackets. There were chains on one wall, rusty manacles attached. I stood in the middle of the room, puzzled. Donald was here, somewhere, but there were half a dozen passages, each leading in a different direction. I frowned. I wondered why the torches should be burning here. It was … It was almost as though someone had been expecting me.

I heard footsteps approaching from one of the passages. I stood very still. I seemed to have stopped breathing, and I had to restrain an urge to laugh, because this was not real. It wasn't happening. It wasn't happening to me. It was a nightmare, and as the footsteps grew louder I knew I would wake up and stretch and see the sun and no longer feel the dreadful evil that held me captive. I dropped the oil lamp. It shattered at my feet. I shook my head slowly.

Edward stepped into the room from one of the passages. He was smiling, and he wore a flowing white robe.

“Congratulations,” he said calmly. “You've done remarkably well. We never dreamed you'd actually find your way here. I was sure you'd get lost, that we'd have to come find you, bring you here.”

“You knew I was coming?”

“I knew you would come eventually. You see, I didn't underestimate you. I knew you were too intelligent, too inquisitive to accept things as they were. I knew you'd begin to piece things together and come to Castlemoor. More specifically, we saw you coming across the moors this afternoon. Fancy your knowing about the door in the south wall.”

“Nicola told me about it.”

“Ah,” he exclaimed. He nodded soberly.

“She—knows.”

“Of course. Her ‘fragile nerves' made it relatively easy to convince the others she was having a breakdown. Convenient that Burton finally took her away. Convenient for her. Otherwise, I'd have had to kill her.”

“But—”

“Surely you suspected me, Katherine?”

“No.”

“You suspected Burton?”

I nodded.

He chuckled. “No, my dear, he hasn't enough imagination for anything so grand. He's too sober, too sensible, too corrupt. This takes—purity, and purpose, a total dedication to ideals. Burton's too dense, too stupid to see what's been going on right under his nose. He'll be easy to deal with—when the time comes.”

“I—I can't believe this—”

“You're a fool,” he said. “It's a shame things worked out this way. I rather fancied you for a while there. I was almost willing to risk contamination.”

“Contamination?”

“There are only a few of us left,” he said solemnly, “a few with the pure, unsullied blood—direct descendants of Boadicea and all those Celtic ancestors who ruled this country before the invasions. Just a few of us, but we'll unite, we'll overcome, we'll overthrow—”

“You're insane,” I whispered.

“A typical reaction, that. The great visionaries were always laughed at, mocked, insulted. We'll overcome. We'll have our revenge. It'll take a long time, granted. I may not live to see it, but that day will come, and England will belong to its rightful owners.”

I was right. He was insane. I could see it clearly now. His handsome face looked pale and drawn, deep shadows under the radiant blue eyes that gleamed with a fanatic light. He seemed to be consumed with an inner flame that burned fiercely, and it had always been there. The heavy, masculine charm, the hearty manner, had concealed it before. I was afraid, and I was trembling, yet I was fascinated by the spectacle of the man who had a curious splendor in his flowing white robe. The ancient Celtic priests must have had that same golden-bronze hair, those same rough-hewn features illuminated by a fanatic glow as they wielded the sacrificial knife. I was horrified by the man, yet, at the same time, intrigued by the phenomenon. I backed away a step. He smiled, the wide pink lips stretching slowly, curling down at the corners. The vividly blue eyes sparkled with pleasure as he sensed my terror.

“Afraid?” he asked tenderly.

“You—you can't get away with this,” I stammered.

“Come, don't toss platitudes at me. Have some dignity. You're going to die, but your death will be an honor, a tribute to the only true gods. In ancient times, maidens vied for the privilege of such a death. You'll be a splendid gift.”

“You killed Jamie,” I said.

“Yes. The color of his hair determined it. Had he been a brunette, he would be alive today.”

“And Bertie.”

“Sheer necessity. He knew too much.”

“And—Donald—”

“That will come, in time.”

“The moon dance,” I said.

“You
are
well informed, Katherine.”

“He's here. My brother is here.”

“He's quite comfortable, actually. Well taken care of. He gave us a hard time once or twice, tried to escape, almost made it once.”

“Nicola saw him.”

“Yes. That was unfortunate. Another of her ‘delusions,' the one that finally convinced Burton he must send her away. Most fortunate for her.”

“Edward,” I whispered, “you can't really believe in this. You can't really … believe you'll succeed.”

He ignored the remark. “I liked Donald, truly. I tried to discourage him. I tried to persuade him to give the whole thing up, but he persisted. He made a grave error. He probed too deeply. He saw too much, suspected even more. He showed me the manuscript. I knew then that he would have to be punished.” He paused. “As do you,” he added.

He moved slowly toward me, the white cambric robe billowing, softly rustling. His wide mouth was still stretched in a smile, but the face was hard, a mask, the eyes like blue agate. For a moment I was too stunned to move, and then I turned quickly, intending to flee back up the staircase. Buck Crabbe moved casually down the last few steps, blocking my way. He had been in the room. He had been behind me along the hall and down the staircase. I had imagined none of it.

“What have we got here,” he said.

“No,” I whispered.

“A regular prize,” Buck said. “Nice, what?”

“Very nice,” Edward replied.

“Dandy,” Buck said. “Just dandy.”

He loomed there like a giant in doeskin trousers and leather jerkin, a terrifying mass of male strength. I stared at him in horror—tight bronze-blond curls clinging to skull, broad, bony face with long nose, wide mouth, and flat, expressionless eyes. He raised his large hands and flexed the long fingers, cupping them around air, grinning.

“I've been looking forward to this,” he said.

“Come, Buck,” Edward said quietly, reasonably. “We mustn't be selfish. She's a plum. Her death must be shared.”

“I'm gonna kill her now. I've been waitin' a long time—”

“I know what you want to do, Buck, and I'd like nothing better than to turn her over to you here and now and watch the—proceedings. It would be a satisfying experience, granted, but we must think of the others.”

“They needn't know about it.”

“Ah, but they'd find out. We're having a meeting tonight, as you very well know. She'll be our special guest. Her execution will be a formal one, on the stones, a treat for everyone. If I let you kill her now, the others would feel cheated.”

I stood very still, caught between the two of them, looking from one to the other—a madman in white cambric robe whose handsome face was transformed, and a giant bully with brutal face whose urge to kill had nothing to do with religious zeal. Edward was insane, but he really believed in his cult. It was real, sacred to him. Buck Crabbe believed in nothing, but the cult enabled him to indulge his innate sadistic instincts. I did not know which of them was worse. Both were warped, twisted by an evil that had removed everything decent and humane. They continued to talk as though I were an inanimate object they were appraising. Buck was sullen, eager to kill me now and be done with it. Edward was calm, patient, explaining why that was unfeasible.

They were perhaps eight yards apart, Edward standing in the middle of the room, Buck still in front of the staircase, and I was directly between them. The torches burned fiercely, flinging blue-orange shadows over the brown walls and filling the air with the odor of smoke and tar. The voices echoed, Edward's melodic, Buck's harsh. The sound whirled around the room and drifted away down the various dark passages. My eyes were fixed on the passage directly in front of me, some twenty feet from where I stood. If I moved quickly, I could reach it. I braced myself, my body taut as an arrow ready to leave the bow. The men continued to argue, ignoring me. I took a deep breath and flew toward the passage.