The Bog (29 page)

As he said this, out of the corner of his eye he suddenly saw a glint of gold and he looked up to see a large metallic object moving sluggishly across the mantelpiece. It was a gold and jeweled maharaja sitting in a gold palanquin and carried aloft by four large and exquisitely crafted gold elephants. What intrigued him the most was that the thing appeared to be an automation. The maharaja slowly tilted his head back in silent laughter and the legs of the elephants lifted in graceful unison as the entire contraption moved slowly across the mantel. In the side of the thing was the face of a clock.

“It makes one complete crossing of the mantelpiece every hour,” Grenville offered, observing David’s interest in the object.

“Then what happens?”

“Then it turns around and starts back.”

Julia shifted restlessly and David turned and saw that she seemed almost angered at his rebuff. He judiciously decided to change the subject. He turned to Grenville.

“You said that you and Julia lived in Rome. When was that?”

“Before we came here.”

“Exactly how old are you?”

“I told you before, that does not matter, but since we are having a friendly conversation I will tell you. I number my years now in millennia. I was born in the year of the second Macedonian war.”

David felt as if the ground had been taken away from beneath him and he was falling through space.

“But that makes you over two thousand years old.”

“You do have a shrewd eye for detail,” Grenville said sarcastically. “But certainly that was clear to you once I told you Julia was responsible for the deaths of the bodies you uncovered in the bog.”

David blushed. He had known it, it was just that somehow it was only now more fully sinking in. He looked at Grenville, thunderstruck. He had been enthralled by the link the bog bodies had provided with the past, captivated by the notion that they were the earthly remains of a culture and a people long since dead. But if Grenville was as ancient as he said he was, he predated even Caesar. He might have known Hannibal, or been present at the writing of the Old Testament’s Book of Daniel.

“Where were you born?” David asked, and for the first time, before answering Grenville faltered.

“... here, of course. Or more precisely, in Avebury. But I was always of precocious intelligence and stricken by wanderlust. And so I traveled the world and learned the secrets of magic.”

David paused in thought, wondering why Grenville had hesitated before he replied, and then pressed on. “And how did you learn the ways of magic?”

“That is a question that I will not answer at this time.”

Again David paused and thought of another question. “Then how did you end up here, and how is it that you came to call yourself the Marquis de L’Isle?”

Grenville took another sip of his brandy. “We came here because of the bog. You see, it suits Julia’s heart to be in a marshy place, it comes the closest to what you might call her natural habitat. As for how I came to call myself the Marquis de L’Isle, the truth is I really am the Marquis de L’Isle. I was granted that rank in 1067 by William the Conqueror shortly after the Norman invasion. You see, it was William the Conqueror’s command to give all landowners noble title if they did not oppose him during his invasion. I oppose no one. I simply wait in my fortress for them to come to me. At that time the lake was much larger and not nearly as choked with peat as it is today, and this house was virtually on an island. It was thus by both geography and default that I became the Marquis de L’Isle.”

David thought about Grenville’s comment that the bog came closest to what Julia might call her natural habitat. He looked again at the strangely feminine creature on the sofa and at the fire that blazed so warmly just a foot away. He noticed that she had finished her brandy and the entire tray of small edibles, and he recalled Grenville’s reference to her voracity. He noticed also that she had inched as close as she could get to the fire and this surprised him, for even he, who was relatively far away from the blaze, felt uncomfortably warm.

“If the bog is her natural habitat and it is such a cold and clammy place, why does Julia also seem so fond of the fire?” he asked.

Strangely, Grenville again faltered before he answered. “Haven’t you ever known a turtle or a snake whose natural home is someplace damp and cold to also enjoy warming itself in the sun?”

David accepted the answer, amused that Julia did not seem at all offended at being likened to a snake, but he was also intrigued at Grenville’s hesitancy before answering. He could not be sure, but thought that Grenville was hiding something, that there was something else about the situation he deemed it dangerous for David to know.

David thought of another question. “In the bog, just before our fateful meeting the other day, we dug up the bodies of two ancient Romans, apparently a husband and wife. The man’s neck had been broken and he had been mauled by Julia, but the woman had committed suicide.”

“So?”

“So, why wasn’t she killed by Julia at the same time that the man was? Why, out of all of the bodies we’ve unearthed from the bog, is she the only exception, the only one who has died by her own hand?”

Julia sat up taking a sudden interest. “I had forgotten about them.”

“Because she took her own life before we could do anything,” Grenville intervened quickly. He took on a curiously wistful look. “The man was the Roman vice-prefect sent here to subjugate the valley. His name was Divitiacus, I believe... Lucius Divitiacus.” Grenville smiled. “For weeks he ignored me because he thought I was a coward hiding in my castle, and for weeks I allowed Julia to feed freely upon his men. Finally he came to me, terrified, and desperate to know what was going on. But he was too proud to submit.” Grenville paused. “I confess I was responsible for his neck breaking, but the woman, his wife... when she saw what had happened she pulled out a little knife and plunged it into her own abdomen. I suppose she thought she was sparing herself from the same fate as her husband.”

“But if you killed the man does that mean that Julia mauled him only after he was dead?”

Grenville nodded.

“Then why wasn’t the woman mauled as well?” Grenville looked at David sharply. “Because there wasn’t time to let Julia have her way with the woman’s body. You see, it was learned that another Roman garrison was on its way, a second one called in by Divitiacus for assistance. I wanted to dispose of the bodies as quickly as possible. A disappearance the garrison could chalk up as a mystery, but had they found the bodies it would have brought the whole of Roman forces in this section of England down upon us.” Grenville twirled his brandy around in its snifter once again.

“Now certainly my powers are such that I could have handled such an onslaught, but I saw no reason to open a hornet’s nest when it wasn’t necessary.”

Again the explanation made complete sense, but for some reason David could not shake the feeling that there was more to the situation than Grenville was letting on. Ever since they had uncovered the bodies of the Roman couple he had gotten the unnerving feeling that in them lay some key, some analog to the terrible predicament in which he and his family now found themselves. He went over Grenville’s account of the situation in his mind, searching for some toehold.

“After all these centuries you still remember the vice-prefect’s name? Certainly that seems strange. Is there some reason the incident is lodged in your memory?”

Grenville’s expression darkened. “You really are very obstinate, aren’t you?” He looked down into his drink. “I suppose I cannot fault you. Your questions are understandable, but there is a simple explanation. Look around you,” he directed “Look at all the books you see here.”

David did as he was bid, taking in the massive library that surrounded them. For the first time his eye noted the names of some of the volumes. He discerned not only titles by Plato and Aristotle, by Boethius and Avicenna, but works by Malthus and Darwin, by Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and even Freud. Even more intriguing than these, however, were the books with unrecognizable authors and more cryptic titles such as
The Heptameron
of Trimethius of Ancona,
The Black Book of the Hamadryads
, the
Grimorium Serpentis,
and the
Key of Al Dzabar.
As he continued to scrutinize the shelves he saw that there was no end to the expanse of subjects covered, and there were even ancient volumes, bound and clasped, inscribed with calligraphies so mysterious that even he did not recognize their tongue or historical origins.

“Name a title,” Grenville murmured. “And then name a page.”

David looked at him. “Why?”

“Just pick a title and name a page.”

David scanned the shelves and spotted a work by an obscure medieval philosopher. “The
Monologion
of Anselm of Canterbury,” he said “Page seventy-two.”

“Very well,” Grenville nodded as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “‘... certain attributes are comparative, that is, admit of degree,’” he quoted. “‘Goodness is such an attribute, for one thing may be as good as, better than, or less good than another,’” He stopped, smiling. “Now go look,” he directed.

David stood and retrieved the book. He opened it to page seventy-two and saw that the page began with the exact sentence that Grenville had recited.

“‘... when an attribute admits of degree, there is some element common throughout its variation...’” Grenville continued, but David had seen enough. He closed the book and replaced it in the shelf.

“Pick another,” Grenville invited.

David looked at him incredulously and shook his head. “I don’t need to,” he said, returning to his chair.

“You see, it is not so strange that I remember the vice-prefect’s name. I remember everything, every book that I’ve ever read, every face that I’ve ever seen, every footprint in the dust of these old halls, and every falling star. It was this anomalous mental capacity in part that enabled me to become as powerful as I am.”

“But I don’t understand. How can you know so much, have so much respect for knowledge, and still be so depraved?” David said.

At this remark Julia suddenly looked at him harshly. “Depraved? What do you mean, depraved?”

“Careful,” Grenville warned, looking in his direction. “Remember, you are not yet adept in the etiquette of demons.”

“Well?” Julia said.

David swallowed nervously, realizing that he seemed to have put himself on the spot. “I suppose I mean morally corrupt. Lost souls.”

It did not take him long to realize that he had said precisely the wrong thing. Julia instantly went rigid as she leaned forward and opened her mouth, but instead of a feminine voice, or even anything vaguely human, out came a deafening snarl, an unearthly roar filled with a cacophony of gravelly clicks and drumlike rattles.

And before David knew what was happening, Julia leaped up from the sofa, knocking the empty tray of delicacies out of her way as she charged forth, and with preternatural strength gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him up just inches from her face. Almost instantly the insistent perfume of the girl with green eyes faded and became mingled with the familiar fetor as there was a frothing sound, and as if a ghastly liquid were being squeezed through a cheesecloth, her flesh flowed and bubbled and she metamorphosed back into the demon. What had been her red lips now became the thin red lips of the thing, and what had been the fabric of her clothing quickly reorganized, and like the skin of a chameleon, became the scaly flesh of the creature. David trembled as he gazed into the now hideous face, and the demon’s breathing slits flared angrily as a wave of cold and malodorous breath flooded down across his nostrils and his lips.

“Julia!” Grenville cried. “I’m sure Professor Macauley meant no offense.”

The thing’s rage remained unabated. “But why is it always we who are the lost souls? We are the superior. We are more powerful. Why is it never they?”

“Perhaps we might find the answer to that if you would put him down.”

Julia still hesitated as she glared down at David. “Bah!” she said as she spat a little pool of bubbly black spittle down in front of the fireplace and then tossed David like a rag doll back into his chair.

“I’m leaving,” she ended as she lumbered angrily toward an open window on the opposite side of the room, and without looking back leaped into the darkness beyond. For several seconds David waited for the sound of her hitting the ground far below, but when none came he could only assume that she had transformed in midair into something that could fly.

He looked back at Grenville.

“Shall I answer your question now?” the old sorcerer offered.

David blinked in confusion, still trying to reassemble his thoughts.

“You had asked me how I could have so much respect for knowledge and still, in a word, be so evil.” As he said this Grenville kept his eyes trained on David with a gaze that seemed more filled with pity than with anger. “Don’t you see, that is just the point. We are all obsessed. Each of us is driven toward our own goals, our own ends. Some do not realize they are obsessed because their goals are so mundane—to eat, to sleep, to procreate. Only those of us whose goals are extraordinary are recognized as the driven ones, the drug addicts and the great artists, the saints and the fanatics. You and I are in this latter category. We are driven toward knowledge. The only difference between us is that you have allowed the distractions of the world to hold you back. But me, long ago I decided that I would let nothing stand in my way, no moral constriction. I have sated my thirst without regard to the encumbrances of the world, and that is why I have been able to come so far, to amass the vast reservoir of knowledge that I have. So you see, if you are truly dedicated, if you hold no goal higher than unraveling the secrets of the universe, you must let evil into your heart. It is the only way.”

David felt his flesh go cold as he gazed into the darkness that seethed in the old magician’s eyes. He saw perhaps a glimmer of Grenville’s reasoning, but every fiber of his body rebelled at what he had just heard.