The Kings of Eternity (9 page)

“Mysterious indeed,” Vaughan murmured. “Did you investigate the clearing by the light of day?”

Carnegie smiled. “I returned home - though I could hardly sleep for excitement. At first light next morning I set off again...” He paused, staring around the clearing as if recollecting what he had discovered that day.

“And?” Vaughan prompted. “What did you find?”

“At first, upon arriving here, I noticed nothing untoward. There was still a certain charge to the air, and the singed aroma persisted, but that was all. Or so I thought. Closer inspection revealed a number of dead animals: an owl, a few moles and voles - and a fox. They seemed in good condition: that is, not subject to the attack of other beasts. They lay upon the ground as if in sleep. I know that the discovery of dead animals in a wood is to be expected from time to time, but the fact that I had happened upon so many in the same area, where the night before a singular light had manifested itself, struck me as significant.”

“Did you by any chance recover the remains of these animals?” Vaughan asked.

“Of course - I returned with a sack and transported them up to a veterinary surgeon in Aylesbury. I explained that I had found them on my land, but of course refrained from recounting the exact circumstances surrounding their discovery, and requested that he attempt to find out what had caused their deaths.”

“And he did?” I asked.

Carnegie frowned. He was standing before us with his hands in the pockets of his ankle-length coat, his deerstalker pushed back on his head to reveal his sweat-soaked forehead. “He reported that he was mystified. The animals seemed to be in perfect health - at least, they were free from any disease which might have caused their deaths. I could see that he was intrigued: he questioned me about where and when I had discovered them, but I merely repeated my story about having found them on my land.”

“Stranger and stranger,” Vaughan said, abstracted. He was slowly filling his pipe with Old Holborn, tamping the tobacco down with his thumb.

“Like something from one of your books,” Carnegie smiled. “Now do you understand why I had to bring you here?”

I recalled the photographs he had shown us back at the Grange. “When did you set up the photographic equipment?” I asked.

“It didn’t immediately occur to me that I might make a photographic record of the phenomenon,” he said. “Every night for the next week I returned to the clearing and lay in wait. I was about to give up my nightly vigil - thinking that the light had been a unique event - when it occurred for a second time, or at least for a second time to my knowledge. It was midnight, around the same time that I’d noticed the light on the first occasion. I was on the very margin of the clearing, in a bed-roll I had brought along against the cold, when I heard a high whining sound in the air. I climbed to my feet, and at that second experienced an almighty explosion which knocked me to the ground and rendered me unconscious.”

“You were injured?” I exclaimed.

He shook his head. “When I awoke, it was daylight. Hours had elapsed. I examined myself, but seemed to be in one piece, though I did feel nauseous and dizzy. I examined the clearing, discovering a few dead animals, mice and a vole or two.”

Vaughan removed his pipe and used it to point at Carnegie. “The blast must have killed them,” he said. “And I venture that if you’d been any closer, it would have accounted for you, too.”

Carnegie nodded grimly. “I dare say you’re right. The same thought occurred to me at the time.”

I said, “So you decided to keep away from the clearing at midnight, and install the cameras instead?”

“I kept my distance from then on. I returned nightly, but nothing further occurred. Then it struck me that, perhaps, for some reason the light might keep to a regular rhythm. That is, it might appear a third time eight days after its second appearance, which was eight days after I first noticed it. Rather than risk life and limb again, I had the idea of setting up the cameras. I rigged up a device to take a photograph every few minutes, then retreated to the perimeter of the wood and pitched camp. Sure enough, the light manifested itself that night, eight days after the last occasion. I watched from a distance, afraid to venture any closer. The light lasted perhaps twenty minutes, after which I retrieved the cameras, and you have seen the resulting photographs.”

Carnegie stopped there, and we contemplated his words in the eerie silence of the clearing.

It was Vaughan who spoke first. “Corposants,” he declared. “Will-o’-the-wisps. Ball lightning. Something of that nature.”

“But,” I said, “then how do you account for the eight-day cycle, and the dead animals?”

Vaughan pulled on his pipe, industriously surrounding himself in a pungent fug of smoke which coiled, blue, in the sunlight. “No doubt natural phenomena, such as ball lightning, might account for small creatures,” he said. “But I am perplexed by the eight-day cycle. There must, by necessity, be a logical, scientific explanation for what occurred here. First, we need to exhaust the probabilities known to the rational, natural world. Only when we have discounted these can we move on to more bizarre hypotheses, which our understanding of science has yet to embrace.”

“There is a little more to add,” Carnegie went on. “A couple of days following the first incident, I wired Charles in Bombay with a brief account of the event. He was sufficiently intrigued to bring forward his annual leave, and should arrive here next week.”

We chatted for a while longer, over mugs of coffee laced with brandy, and then Carnegie suggested we make our way back to the Grange. He took us on a roundabout route, passing through Fairweather Cranley and Lower Cranley. The villages were tucked into a vale between forested hills, each a collection of some two dozen cottages, a church and a post office, as picturesque and silent as scenes from a Christmas card. We might have been the only beings on the road that day, judging by the unmarked fleece that covered the camber. The air of rural tranquillity contrasted with the feverish imaginings that swirled within my head.

As I walked, I thought back to what Carnegie had told us.

I made a rapid calculation, and then cleared my throat. “If the light does indeed manifest itself on an eight-day cycle,” I said, “and it first appeared, as far as you’re aware, twenty-four days ago... then it should be due to reappear tonight.”

The thought, as I spoke, filled me with a strange sense of anticipation together with, I admit, not a little apprehension.

Carnegie was smiling. “Why do you think I invited you down here yesterday?” he asked.

“Are you suggesting that we venture into the wood tonight?” I began.

Carnegie beamed. “If you’re game, my friends.”

“Well,” I said, hesitant. “Wouldn’t it be a bit rash to get too close...?”

“We could always set up camp a safe distance from the clearing itself,” Vaughan said. “We could take cameras along and erect them up in the clearing.”

“If the light does appear,” Carnegie said, “then it really would be too great an opportunity to miss.” He indicated a cutting in the hedge. “We can formulate a plan of action over dinner.”

We arrived at the Grange as the sun was setting light to a spinney on the far horizon and a gibbous moon was rising in the east, as insubstantial at this early hour as a paper doily; later, when we set off for Hopton Wood, it would cast an even stronger light to guide our way.

Over a dinner of jugged hare and baked potatoes, accompanied by two bottles of Carnegie’s excellent claret, we discussed the forthcoming expedition.

“It is essential that we take the cameras in order to have an objective record of what we might find,” Vaughan said. “Our subjective senses cannot be relied upon in times of stress, even if there are three of us to corroborate each other’s story.”

“I’ll pack supplies,” Carnegie said. “Coffee and brandy, as well as bed rolls. There is no need for us to go without.”

“How far from the actual clearing do you think we should place ourselves?” I asked. “Considering what happened to the animals...”

Vaughan turned to Carnegie. “How far away were you when the blast rendered you unconscious?”

“On the very edge of the clearing itself.”

“It’s very difficult to judge,” Vaughan said. “Perhaps it would be wise to put the solidity of a tree trunk between ourselves and the clearing, so that when - or rather if - the light appears, we will be afforded some measure of protection.”

I nodded. “That sounds like a sensible idea.”

Carnegie looked across the room at the grandfather clock. It was nine-thirty. “It’s high time we were setting out, gentlemen.”

While he filled three haversacks with provisions and bed rolls, Vaughan and I fetched cameras and tripods from the room next to my bed-chamber. Ten minutes later we pulled on our overcoats and left the Grange. We followed the tracks we had made earlier that day, which now showed as dark streaks leading uphill through the moonlit snow-field. Speaking for myself, I was more than a little light-headed from the wine I had consumed at dinner, and at the prospect of what might lie ahead. At one point, as we trekked up the incline, burdened down with cameras and tripods, I could not help but laugh out loud.

Beside me Vaughan said, “What amuses you, Jonathon?”

“It’s just occurred to me what we are doing,” I said. “If I’d told myself, a week ago, that I’d be toiling up a snow-covered hillside in order to photograph some mysterious light in an ancient forest... I don’t think I would have believed a word!”

“We might,” Carnegie declared portentously, “be on the verge of a momentous discovery.”

“Or then again,” Vaughan put in, “we might be embarking upon a proverbial wild goose chase.”

Panting, Carnegie enquired, “You don’t doubt that I did see something in the woods eight days ago?”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you saw something, Carnegie. But I rather think that that something might turn out to have a simple and rational explanation.”

Like this, with much good-humoured banter and speculation back and forth, we made our way towards the wood and, one hour later, reached the tree-line.

We paused to catch our breath and consume coffee fortified with brandy. By the light of a paraffin lamp, Carnegie consulted his fob watch. “Eleven-fifteen,” he said. “We ought to press on if we’re to reach the clearing by midnight.”

Carnegie led the way through the darkened wood. It was well that he had bethought himself to bring along the lamp, for the moon shone only intermittently through the cover of the trees. The orange flame flared up ahead, sending grotesque shadows dancing lively gavottes all about us. I brought up the rear, behind Vaughan’s substantial form, and I must admit to experiencing a spine-tingling frisson at the thought of the expanse of dark forest that lay in my wake.

We took the fork in the path, climbed uphill aways, and five minutes later gained the clearing.

It possessed a magical quality that it had lacked earlier in the day, for the pewter light of the full moon gilded its every detail like a stage set. I stood upon its perimeter, reluctant, now that the time had arrived, to set foot within its mysterious precincts. Carnegie had no such qualms. He looked at his watch and declared, “Ten minutes to midnight. We’d better look sharp.”

Together we set up the three cameras on their tripods, spaced equidistantly so as to form the points of a triangle, and Carnegie primed mechanical devices to activate the cameras at intervals.

As we went about the clearing, I paused to note the effect of the place upon my skin. Sure enough, the hairs on the back of my hands were bristling, and I was aware of a certain heat alien to the ambient coldness of the rest of the wood.

Not soon enough for me we had the cameras set up, and retreated from the clearing. Vaughan marched back along the path and paused perhaps five yards away.

“This looks as good a place as any.” He indicated a fallen tree trunk, which would provide some measure of cover. We positioned ourselves behind the mossy log and spread out the bed rolls, Carnegie breaking out the coffee and the brandy bottle. From where I sat, I had a clear view of the moon-lit clearing, the three cameras standing there like incongruous interlopers upon this sylvan scene.

From time to time Carnegie dragged his deerstalker from his balding head and mopped his brow, when not nervously consulting his fob watch. Vaughan proceeded to fill the bowl of his pipe and set the aromatic blend alight. Soon he was puffing away, as if ensconced in an armchair in the domestic comfort of his front parlour.

I, for my part, was overcome with an intense nervousness. It was all I could do to stop myself from cowering behind the log.

An eerie calm and silence pervaded. Our measured breathing provided the only sound. The minutes seemed to take an age to pass.

At last Carnegie broke the silence, startling me. “It’s ten past twelve,” he announced, peering at his watch.

“Perhaps,” Vaughan whispered, “last week’s was the final
son et lumière
?”

“I must admit,” I whispered in return, “that I cannot bring myself to feel much disappointment.”

“Are you sure that the light manifested itself at midnight precisely on the previous occasions?” Vaughan asked.

“To the best of my knowledge, a matter of minutes either way,” Carnegie said.

Another five minutes elapsed, and I experienced a perverse sense of anti-climax - contrasting with my earlier fear - that our vigil would come to nothing. I knew that, in the cold light of day, I would rue the fact that we had missed out on witnessing something extraordinary.

I glanced back at the clearing, and at that precise moment it happened.

The light exploded from nowhere - or, rather, it expanded from a point that seemed to hang in mid-air six feet above the clearing. One second all was stillness and moonlight, and the next a great coruscating membrane of lapis lazuli light filled my vision. In a fraction of a second it expanded into a vast oval perhaps twenty feet high and half as much across, and with it came a blast of heated air that singed my face. Carnegie shouted aloud as his deerstalker was snatched from his head and blown into the undergrowth. Vaughan gazed ahead in slack-jawed surprise, and I too gawped in wonderment at the thing in the clearing.