Crybbe

Oh, come on…

He walked across the chamber to the box, and found he couldn't touch it.

There is no evil, only degrees of negativity.

Powys started to laugh, and then, quite deliberately, he bent down and switched off the lamp.

What is this about?

Well, he couldn't see the box any more, or the inside of the stone chamber; he could be anywhere, no visual images, no impressions coming in now.

Just me. And it. This is a real fairy hill, and I'm in the middle of it, and I've come here of my own free will and there's no Andy and no Jean and I'm scared. I've put out the light to induce a state of fear, and the nerve-ends are bristling with it and I'm ready.

I'm ready.

'Hereward?'

'Yes.'

'Thank God.'

'Why? Why are you thanking God?'

'Because I thought… I thought you weren't going to come back. Hereward, I'm so desperately sorry. I was only trying to get away. All I've ever wanted is to get away from here.'

'And you thought Guy Morrison would take you away?'

'No… yes… Oh God, I don't know what I thought, I was just so lonely and messed up. He – Guy – was passing through, he wasn't part of Crybbe, he was going somewhere and I was stuck fast. I was like someone just dashing outside and thumbing a lift. And he stopped. I'm sorry, that's all mixed up, I'm not very clear tonight, not very articulate.'

'Don't cry.'

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the picture, too, but you don't know what pictures can do.'

'Oh, I do.'

'I'm not talking about aesthetics.'

'I know.'

'Do you?'

'Pictures are doorways.'

'Yes.'

'Artists put elements of themselves into pictures, and also elements of other things. The man in that picture of Tessa's, he's her teacher, you know. He has a studio in the woods, and she's been going down there and he's been teaching her how to paint. And what to paint. How to make a picture into doorway.'

'How do you know that?'

'Because, in the picture, he's standing in a doorway, like The Light of the World, in reverse, because he's so dark. But darkness and light, it's all the same when you can't see, isn't it?'

'I don't…'

'I'm going through the doorway, Jocasta.'

'Hereward?'

'It really is the only way out of here, through the doorway. The only way out for me, anyway.'

'Hereward, I'm getting very scared.'

'There's no need to be scared. Come here, darling. There.'

'No. No, please.'

'There… there…'

'Aaaugh.'

'There.'

Hereward felt the woman go limp, and his hands fell away from her throat. He felt himself smiling into the dark as he walked away.

The lamp was alight, and the door was ajar. When he pushed, it swung open at once, and Hereward found himself in the comfortingly familiar setting of his own workshop next to The Gallery.

A candle glowed on the workbench, where he'd made frames. Do you know, in the early days, we used actually to make our own frames. ..

Fragments of frames were scattered over the bench and the floor; a corner section was still wedged in the wood-vice. He wouldn't need to make frames any more; that phase was over. Perhaps he'd employ someone to do it.

'Don't suppose you'd be interested in a job, would you?' he said to the shadow sitting on the bench, next to the candle.

The shadow stopped whittling at a piece of framing-wood with its Stanley knife and slipped to the floor.

Hereward saw it wasn't really a shadow; it was just black.

CHAPTER XVII

Laughter in the dark.

Laughter like ice-crystals forming in the air.

'Andy.'

Who did you think it was going to be, Joe? Did you think you were finally about to meet Sir Michael himself?

Andy, but he wasn't here.

He was mainly grey, shimmering to nearly white at his fingertips, the extremities of him.

Andy, but he wasn't there.

Powys heard the voice in his head. He spoke aloud, but heard the replies in his head.

He wasn't thinking about this too hard, analysis was useless. Couldn't play new games by old rules.

Don't touch him. He can't harm you.

BUT DON'T TOUCH HIM.

'The box. What's in the box, Andy?'

Why don't you open it, Joe? The lock's no big deal. Ornament as much as anything. Also it's very old. Pick up a stone. Break the lock.

'I don't think so.'

No? You're still very much full of shit, Joe, you know that? You go to all this trouble to get into here, and you won't face up to the final challenge. What's the problem? Not got the guts, Joe? Not got the bottle? Think about this… think hard… what's it been worth, if you don't open it?

'Maybe I will,' Powys said.

You'll find a couple of stones behind you, near where you left your lamp. One's narrow and thin, it used to be a spearhead. The other's chunky, like a hammer. You can slide the spearhead into the crack below the lid.

'But not here.'

The eyes were white, though. The eyes were alight, incandescent.

Andy, but he wasn't here.

'I'm not going to open it here. You can piss off, mate. I'm going to pick up the box, and I'm going to take it away.'

You don't want to do that, Joe. You might awaken the Guardian. You don't want that.

'No. You don't want that. But you can piss off.'

Powys felt a trickle of euphoria, bright and slippery as mercury and, very quickly, he covered it up. Smothered it with fear. Stay frightened. At all costs, stay frightened.

A rapid pattering on the close-packed earthern floor, and something warm against his leg.

'Arnie.'

Stay frightened. It might not be.

He bent down.

And the growling began.

He felt Arnold's fur stiffen and harden under his hand, and the growling went on, a hollow and penetrating sound that came from far back in the dog's throat, maybe further back than that. Maybe much further back. The growl was continuous and seemed to alter the vibration of the night.

'You're not growling at me, are you, Arnie?'

The grey thing hung in the air like an old raincoat, but he was fairly sure that Andy was not there any more.

Powys switched on the lamp and the grey thing vanished.

He walked over to the stone in the centre of the chamber and he picked up the wooden box.

Warm. Cosy. Just as before. The deep, Georgian windows, the Chinese firescreen, the Victorian lamp with the pale-blue shade burning perfumed oil.

'I wondered,' she said, 'if you would come back.'

'Hullo, Wendy,' Alex said.

She was dressed for bed.

And how.

Black nightdress, sort of shift-thing, filigree type of pattern, so you could see through it in all the right places. Alex couldn't take his eyes off her.

'Sit down,' Jean said.

'Wendy, there's something awfully funny happening out there, did you know?'

'Funny?'

'Well, I'd been down to the river and came back up the hill and when I got to near the top, just at the entrance to the square, it all went very dark. I mean, I know it's obviously dark without the electricity supply, but this really was extra dark, as if there was a thick fog. Lots of people about the square, I could hear them talking, but I couldn't see any of them.'

'Oh my.'

'And… hard to explain this, but it was as if there was a sort of screen between all these people and me. Now, I know what you're going to say – the only reason there's a screen between me and the rest of the world is because I've erected it myself – but it wasn't like that. Not at all. This was really well, physical, but not

… How do you explain it?

'I think you should come and sit down Alex and not get yourself get too worked up about this.'