Candle in the Attic Window(66)

There were tears on my face. I thought I might die down here. And the thought of exiting this mortal life gave me reason to go on: If I was cursed and doomed to die, I would at least see behind this temporal veil and look upon the unspeakable secrets of the Earth.

But which way?

A spark inside me whispered that I still had a purpose. I recalled de Beaujeu’s map and drew it forth.

The rough sketches began with the drawing of a triangular room with a doorway in each corner. I studied the lines, saw passages twist beneath one another, enter what seemed to be halls so vast that entire castles might fit inside without touching the walls.

Only two of the passages were sketched forth. The third had not been taken.

The third, I saw, was the one once blocked by a mass of bones and dead men that stood higher than my head.

I walked that way.

A new resolve took hold of me. In their apathy and humour, my masters had sent me into the grave. If I could, I would return. The Grand Master wanted a skull? I would find one for him, if possible, one that would reflect the horrors to which I had been witness; I would fling the skull at his feet and leave the Order forever. Let them hunt me down for breaking my vows. The Church wanted the secrets studied and carried forth by the Knights Templar? I would bring this map, my report, and any drawing or writings I could copy onto the paper. I would deliver my promises and then disappear with my knowledge, if they did not kill me first as a heretic. Either way, I could not see how I would exist anymore among men. Especially if any of these ancient beings still lived.

Oh, the madness! Again, I am ahead of myself.




I did not think about them living until I came to the place of the skulls.

It was as if the Grand Master knew the room existed. The chamber was octagonal, with dread corpses nailed to the walls in unholy admiration. At first, I saw skulls, but could not identify them as such. They were somewhat triangular, like the heads of a mantis – which insect always looked particularly demonic to me. Each skull was as black as the things hanging on the wall, shiny like metal where lines of light reflected my struggling torch. Each was stacked with the utmost care. These demon heads were treated with reverence.

My eyes rose to what seemed to me hanging decorations, at first. As my eyes studied and grew accustomed to the details above me, I thought I was seeing the hung carcasses of something like those winged monstrosities that fought the heavenly angels painted on the ancient Hebrew walls so far behind me. Could this be their slack remains?

What had the war been like? My belief that these creatures were cast down from Heaven fled, as I renewed the horrible image in my mind of the giant evil in the sea and the crowding worshipers on the beach.

The wings were staked, as I said, to the walls. Stretched as far as they could be, the wing of one beast touched the tip of another. And so it was, all around the eight-sided room, until they came together again.

I stared up at their heads hanging loosely over bodies of amassed tentacle that seemed to begin in the region of a mouth and ran to a nethermost point. It was then that I collaborated the images above me with the stacked heads along each wall around the room and knew that I had found my skull at last.

I reached. I grabbed.

In that instant, I spotted movement from the corner of one eye. My military training saved my life. I spun, dropped, yet not quickly enough, for a whipping tentacle lightly grazed the side of my face and sent my torch flying. I was on the ground, face down, the skull in one hand and the map in the other.

Also in that moment, a terrible screaming filled the room.

Almost as quickly as I hit the ground, I turned onto my back, drew my little Saracen sword, and looked up.

I tell you, I did not feel the pain.

It was only the screaming, and the distorted sight of those creatures on the wall, alive, writhing, flailing about, trying to reach my flesh, tacked to the wall and yet fighting to tear themselves free.

A great wetness like tears covered my mouth and nose.

Yet, I was more cognizant of their living alarm, horrified by any being that would permanently bond its own kind to walls and leave them positioned at the ready against thieves or invaders like myself. I could only imagine what their screams would draw into my presence.

The wetness ran to my mouth, and I tasted metal that wasn’t there.

I needed to leave.

My neck became covered in tears as I rose, slicing at tentacles thrashing to catch me.

From one doorway, one pit of Hell, I heard a hurried rustling that made me think of wet spiders the size of horses from the frozen north of Europe.

At last, I touched my face with the back of the hand I was using to carry the skull.

With a glance, I saw, in the light of the torch left on the ground, the blood there. I realized, when looking at the door from whence the unhallowed ruckus issued and looking at the creatures on the walls, and looking for an escape, that I could not discern distance accurately.

And the pain of my open eye socket was rising to the fore.

So.

What can I tell you next?

Did I go insane? Would it be a wonder if I somehow did not? I was half-blind, and even more blinded by a growing agony. I was surrounded and fighting off tentacles worse than any stinger that I feared as a child. I was lost in an ancient underground, with no way out, committed to missions that I was absolutely determined to complete. And ... they were coming.

I fled. I know that much.

I ran with the black skull pressed tightly to my bosom. I no longer used my one eye, for the torch was left in the room far behind me. My hands and fingers, like tentacles, saw horrible things. I heard terrible sounds from the mouths of beasts, sounds that could not be copied by the most skilled singers or creative actors of our race. They sought me. I ran.