Flower of Scotland (6 page)

The last two things he heard before he heard no more was a light boyish giggle and a distant voice calling his name. The last thing he saw before darkness took him was a boy, a small blonde healthy boy, stepping out of a pair of overalls which were too big for him.

He was left, in the silence, in the dark, and all he knew how to do was to point the stick.

Long years have weathered the walls of the tiny church and a gnarled rowan pokes its branches through what was once the roof. Tall, lichen encrusted gravestones thrust up from a cemetery that has become more of an overgrown meadow and the whole place has an air of dissolution and despair.

But when I first saw it, almost fifty years ago, the graves were well tended and the roof, although battered, still sat flush in its place. I hope that the pages which follow may shed some light on the reason for such a fall from grace.

My companion - I shall call him Johnson - was drawn there in search of a doctor. James McIntyre was his goal - a medical man who had spent much of his life in Edinburgh. James had been a renaissance man, not only a healer, but a philosopher, a mathematician and a chemist.

More importantly for our purposes, he was also Johnson's great grandfather. Thus far in our travels we had visited five graveyards in the area, all to no avail. This was our last chance. We knew that McIntyre had lived in this vicinity at the latter end of his life, but had no idea where he might be buried. If we didn't find him then Johnson's search for his forefather

I would not relish the end of our journeys. Johnson had proved to be an excellent companion, both witty and erudite with a gentle manner that made our journeys seem short and pleasant.

Nothing seemed to bother him. He was as excited as a schoolboy as we pushed our way through the old rusted gate, and he was still smiling almost an hour later although our search had so far proved fruitless.

I saw his pale hands tremble each time he moved the grass aside on another gravestone, and with each new disappointment there was only the merest of furrows on his brow.

As for myself, I had already given up hope and was turning back towards the gate when a voice hailed us from within the small battered church.

At first I took him for a youth, but as he moved into the light I could see that it was age that had withered him. The backs of his hands were infested with liver spots and his teeth were so yellow as to be almost brown. He was bent forward and was only able to walk with the aid of a stout cane, but his handshake was firm and his eyes were clear and unclouded.

He bade us 'Good morning' and enquired if he could help us. When Johnson mentioned our search his eyes suddenly showed fear, but then I could see that he had made a decision as he invited us into the small quiet church.

Little light penetrated the gloom as we were led through to a tiny room at the back of the church, and silence seemed to be the order of the day as the old minister pulled a heavy sea-chest away from the wall.

"This was left in trust to my father. I must tell you that it seems to have belonged to the man you are seeking. It was to be left here until a descendant came to claim it. It would seem sir, that you are that man."

His left hand burrowed deep into his vestments and emerged with a large key which he handed to Johnson before turning away.

"If you need anything, you need only call," he said.

He left us alone in the room, and it was all Johnson could do to contain his excitement.

"It's here. It's really here. And it is just as father described it."

He had never given me a reason for his almost irrational desire to find his ancestor, but I had a feeling that I was about to find out.

A deep chill settled on my soul, a blackness that could not be shaken. I longed for sunlight and the sound of the sea, but Johnson, in his desire, was already kneeling on the floor beside the chest.

It was a simply wrought thing, its boards warped and cracked with age but the key fit securely in the lock which turned easily with only the slightest pressure.

The chest creaked and groaned as we lifted the lid to reveal a closely packed collection of notebooks - leather bound and yellowed with age. I opened several, and they were all covered in the same, crabbed, handwriting, volume after volume of chemical formulae and mathematical equations. I counted thirty of them before we unearthed the rest of the contents.

There were two loose manuscripts, the first, in a fine stylish script, seemed to be a letter to Dr McIntyre and the second, in the same hand as the first, either a much longer letter or a tale of some length. I was unable to see the front page as Johnson immediately snatched the bundle of papers away and hid them deep in his coat. He would have done the same with the letter if he had not been stopped by the sight of something glinting at the bottom of the chest.

By moving the last of the journals aside he uncovered a small glass vessel, the sort a medical man might use to carry potions to the ailing. And inside the vessel, the most vile sickly fluid that glowed a lambent green in the dim light. Johnson's eyes reflected that gleam and, for the first time in our acquaintance, I saw something which I did not like - a cold malice of thought.

He unscrewed the top of the jar, breaking the seal in the process and, before I could stop him, he tipped the noxious contents down his throat.I dashed the vessel from his lips with a cry but the look he gave me was so full of rage that I stepped back. He reached towards me but his hands began to tremble, a convulsion racking his body. He fell backwards, his head striking the floor with a dull thud, and white flecks of foam flew from his lips.

I went to the door and called for the old minister. I had barely turned back to the room when I was struck hard from behind and blackness threatened to creep in at the edges of my sight. I only caught a glimpse of Johnson as he pushed me aside, but he was no longer the upright figure that I had come to know. His back was bent, his knuckles reached almost to the ground and, although the light was dim, the thick black hairs on the back of his hands could be clearly seen.

As he disappeared from view I made to follow but the blow I had taken had enfeebled me and I could only manage several slow steps before the blackness finally took me. As I fell to the hard floor it seemed that I heard a scream, a long howl as of a wild creature in pain.

I was awakened by the rough hand of a policeman, and it was many long hours before they believed my story. But there was no blood on my hands or my clothes, and whatever had killed the old minister had inflicted such wounds as to strike his head from his body.

In the end they were forced to give me my freedom. I believe the letter may have had something to do with it - the letter I still had in my hand when the police found me.

My Dear Doctor

Please pardon this intrusion into your privacy.

Several years ago I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance in Edinburgh, and I was most impressed with your theories concerning the descent of man and the awakening of the primitive aspects of our natures.

As you may know, I have been having some success as a humble scribe, and I have taken the liberty of incorporating part of your theory into my current work.

It will only be a penny dreadful, but I am proud of it nonetheless.

I have enclosed my original draft of the story for your perusal. Of course, if you disagree with the content, or if I have misrepresented you in some way, then the work will go no further.

I await your reply

Yours in good faith

Robert Louis Stevenson

He would call it "Soundscapes of the City", and it would make him his fortune, of that Rickman was certain.

How could it fail?

All it had taken was a reconfigured dream machine. Courtesy of Dreamsoft Productions, a particularly skilled burglar, and the latest software from MYTH OS, Rickman’s visions of bringing his music to the world were now that much closer to reality.

As they swam, his creations sang, orchestrated overtures to the dark beauty of the night.

It had been a long hard journey to this point. During those first few days everything was sharp and jagged, harsh mechanical discordances that, while they had a certain musical quality, were not what he needed… not if he was going to take the world by storm. The plasma had roiled and torn, refusing to take a permanent shape and Rickman despaired of what the city was telling him. Everything was ugly, mean-spirited. The music of the city spoke only of despair and apathy and his dreams didn’t make a dent when he overlaid them.

Then he had his epiphany.

Aptly, it came to him in a dream.

It starts with thin whistling, like a simple peasant’s flute played at a far distance. At first all is black. The flute stops, and the first star flares in the darkness. And with it comes the first chord, a deep A-minor that sets the darkness spinning. The blackness resolves itself into spinning masses of gas that coalesce and thicken great clouds of matter reaching critical mass and exploding into a symphony. Stars wheel overhead in a great dance, the music of the spheres cavorting in his head.

Rickman jumped from his bed and pointed his antenna upwards to the sky.

Almost immediately he got results.

The plasma formed a sphere, a ball of silver held in the holographic array. At first it just hung there in space, giving out a deep bass hum that rattled his teeth and set all the glassware in the apartment ringing.

Things changed quickly when he overlaid his dreams.

Shapes formed in the plasma, concretions that slid and slithered, rainbow light shimmering over their surface like oil on water. They sang as they swam, and Rickman soon found that by moving the antennae he was able to get the plasma to merge or to multiply, each collision or split giving off a new chord, the plasma taking on solid form.

But it still wasn’t right.

The really good stuff only really started to happen this very night. He played back his previous recordings while keeping the antenna pointed skywards.

The plasma roiled.

The sounds became louder, more insistent, especially when he pointed at a certain patch of sky.

Soon he had a repeating beat going, with a modulated chorus above it that rose in intensity, and rose again as the plasma started to pulse.

He set his recorders going and started experimenting, feeding the recordings back to the plasma through his one thousand watt speakers, merging the sounds the compositions from his dreams.

Within the hour the globe of plasma was responding to his dream overlays. When he played the recordings back at full volume the plasma swelled. The music grew, the chords overlaying each other in an orchestrated dance.

Rickman was so excited that he didn’t notice that the walls of his apartment beat in time to the music.

Nor did he spot that when he turned his back, the plasma ball grew, stretching like an inflating balloon. Cobalt blue colours flashed and it surged.

The cops arrived ten minutes later in response to a neighbour’s complaints about the noise.

When they burst in the door a plasma ball of rainbow colours rose to dance in the air in front of them, a swirling aura of gold and purple and black.

The sound started.

It was low at first, almost inaudible, but it rose to a crescendo until their ears were buffeted with raucous, mocking, piping; a cacophony of high fluting that crashed discordantly over them.

Then the smell hit them, the foetid, unmistakable odour of death that caught at the back of the throat and threatened to send their guts into spasm.

The cops ran.

Within the protoplasm things moved, detached bones flowing, scraps of clothing fused with unidentifiable pieces of flesh. The surface boiled in numerous small lesions that bubbled and split like pieces of over-ripe fruit.

She was less than two yards from him, arms outstretched, pleading. He began to move towards her when she stopped and was jerked backwards like a marionette. Her mouth opened wide into a scream and she fell forward, her right hand hitting the down button even as he stretched out vainly.

The door began to close and, no matter how much he strained at it, he was unable to stop it from shutting completely and he could do nothing but watch the events in the hallway beyond through the small window.

The plasma had caught her by the ankle. Oily colours flowed across her body, the protoplasm gripping her tight.

She struggled hard to no avail.

Their eyes met, just once. Her mouth opened as if she was trying to speak, and that was when the swirling blob engulfed her head and the noises from her throat ceased to sound human.

The protoplasm surged again, and suddenly the window of the cab was coated with slime.