CARNACKI: The New Adventures (18 page)

“‘
Mr. Lampton, I believe you are acquainted at least with the general outline of my work. You must grasp the principles upon which it is founded, else you should dismiss me as courting superstition far surpassing any that might arise from the unintended implications of Father Ailes’s theology.’

“‘
That is so, Mr. Carnacki, and that is the reason I requested your presence. Recent events have indeed made me desperate, though not nearly so desperate as to return to the simple belief of childhood.’

“At this I could not help but notice a pronounced e
xpression upon Father Ailes’s face. But Lampton was still speaking.

“‘
And I am ready to seek help from unfamiliar quarters. You have penetrated and practised a science known to few men. William is correct at least in this point: What has befallen me cannot be the product of simple coincidence. Things have come too fast, too thick, and too strange for me not to suspect there must be some distinct cause. And so I am hoping your methods may disclose a scientific diagnosis and a scientific solution. I cannot regain the good things I have lost, but I do hope to avoid losing even more. If some Force is targeting me, it has already struck down my precious children. Even one of their children, a young man quite dear to me. And there are more grandchildren. And friends.’ Here he nodded towards Fa
ther Ailes, who did not seem moved by his friend’s concern. I supposed the priest deemed me a charlatan and a rival. In fact, from his orthodox viewpoint, he most likely feared that Dr. Lampton’s reliance upon me should increase the chances of further heavenly reprisals. We should see.”

2.

“Though Dr. Lampton planned to return, as soon as he was able, to lodge with his family, he was not yet given permission by his physicians to leave their wards. Thus I had to haul my considerable apparatus into an operating theatre put at our disposal by the hospital authorities. Lampton’s bed was wheeled in, and I commenced setting up my equipment. As you fellows know, it is my habit to begin any investigation with a painstaking scrutiny of the site of a reported ab-normal occurrence. My goal is to discern chemical or other forensic evidence that falls well beneath the threshold of casual, or even of normally conscientious observation. That was moot in this case. There had been no single manifestation of any malign entity, nor any miraculous-seeming epiphany. It was the concatenation of otherwise worldly tragic events that had suggested that more than ordinary factors were at play here. You remember how it was roughly the same with the Case of the Suicide Plague.

“But I did bring with me the appropriate chalks, ve
ssels, and electrical instruments of my own design. I need not try to describe the odd looks given me, they thought surreptitiously, by the hospital personnel who observed my preparations. I only hoped they would not be sizing me for a straitjacket! Father Ailes was also in attendance, and his expression was no friendlier. I proceeded, first, to measure and then to trace the coloured chalk circle around the perimeter of the roller bed occupied by the sedated Dr. Lampton. I rather wished the doctors might have sedated Father Ailes as well, as I could not shake off an uneasy feeling about him, which I told myself was merely the jaundiced disapproval of the conventional clergy at someone poaching on their accustomed preserve.

“There were several more concentric circles that needed to be drawn, each in a separate hue. Then I drew a series of triangles along the circumference of each ci
rcle, connecting them, the triangles seeming to mesh like the fangs in the closed mouth of a beast. Then came the kabbalistic symbols, one on every other triangle, quite a number of them as you can imagine. I must have appeared to my observers the veritable jungle witch-doctor, but with a chuckle I continued my work, knowing that it is the ignorant who cannot tell the difference between science and superstition, and that in many instances, what is called the one would be better classed with the other.

“Finally I assemb
led the florescent tubes of my electric pentacle. Ah, if only the wizards and exorcists of the Middle Ages had known how to command electricity! Of course, some of them did, as you will understand, Arkright. But on with my story.”

I must confess that I chose this point to interrupt Carnacki’s narrative, hoping he would not be annoyed at my applying the brakes just as he was picking up steam.

“If you don’t mind my asking, old man, what led you to believe that some particular entity was behind the scenes, and that you could conjure it up, or imprison it, or whatever you planned?” Carnacki thanked me for the opportunity to clarify a detail he had taken for granted.

“In truth, Dodgson, I ha
d not yet reached so definite a hypothesis. It was merely the process of elimination. I knew not what I was facing, but if it were possible to trap the mysterious culprit, it seemed logical to try it sooner rather than later. If this should prove a false lead, then I could go back to the drawing board, eh?

“I switched on the lambent blue glow of the pentacle and called for the room lights to be shut off. At this point I announced that I should require complete silence and stillness. If any thought himself incapable of that, and here I gave a glance to Father Ailes, he should exit now. I suppose
it would have been wiser to ask everyone to leave, but I felt I
owed it to the curious doctors gathered there to allow them to witness a demonstration of unfamiliar techniques and so encourage the wider adoption of these methods. And, where Father Ailes was concerned, I admit I felt I had something to prove. That was a bit of vanity, and I shouldn’t have indulged myself. I should have remembered that such a lapse can bore a dangerous hole in the dike. But I beckoned him into the circle. If I was not going to send him away, I was obliged to see to his safety insofar as I might.

“Once chatter had resolved itself into respectful s
ilence, I paused to enter the needful state of mind and then began to pace carefully around the circumference of the innermost circle, and thus around the bed, the priest stepping out of my way. As I did so, I chanted the syllables of the Voola Ritual from an old Gnostic text. I believe you are acquainted with it, Jessup; it is called
The Procession of the Archons
. It was with some trepidation that I did so. I admit I was firing blind, on the insecure basis of a suspicion, perhaps merely a hunch, as to what we were dealing with. I circumambulated and incanted thus for the better part of two hours, during which the various doctors slipped out quietly one by one, as of course they had rounds to make and patients to look in on. The only observer left was the priest, who showed remarkable patience for a spectacle for which he could have had very limited tolerance.

“In retrospect, I wish I might have beheld Father Ailes’s face when the room began very suddenly to change. The walls, already shrouded in darkness, seemed to my eyes to pull back to a great distance till they appeared to have vanished. Everywhere a dull red-violet aurora prevailed. I had at last concluded the chant, in Coptic if you wish to know, and in the silence a far-off sound, like an echo, began to make itself heard. There were words, this time in Hebrew, which I am sure the priest understood, once he could hear them clearly, as well as I could. The strange and mighty voice was nonetheless not easy to make out over the growing rumble of thunder.

“As the Voice approached more closely, it became possible to understand more accurately what it was saying. Finally, just without the barriers I had erected, what looked like a fire sprang up, though it did not
spread, and something in its translucency, as well as the lack of any discernible heat, suggested it was a mirage of some sort. From the brilliant, cold flames came the declaration:
‘Put off thy shoes—bow down and worship Me!’

“At this, the fire was abruptly snuffed out, exti
nguished by the descent, from nowhere, of the swirling cone of a cyclone. Of this, one could hear the sound of a whipping wind, but there was no force, no cold, to be felt. It was plainly a manifestation of something present in another realm parallel to our own, now rendering itself visible as through a window. Does that make sense to you?

“I do not mind telling you that I stood there agape. One does not grow accustomed to the appearance of the Outside, no matter how many times one has been priv
ileged, or cursed, to behold it. In that moment, I knew the panic of Moses who hid his eyes in fear, of Isaiah who exclaimed, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone!’ I had no thought anymore for Father Ailes, though momentarily he would make himself known. But for this moment I shuddered with numinous terror. It was not that I feared that harm or injury might come to me, not even in view of what this Entity had wrought upon Sidney Lampton. It was simply the uncanny Otherness, somehow akin to exposure to the airlessness of outer space. There was an urgency of apprehension, a panicked feeling of wrongness, as if either I or that Entity did not belong here, could not belong in this space. My hair stood up from my scalp as a numbing chill advanced swiftly up my stiffened spine and over my head like a clamping vice. I don’t know if I am making myself understood at all. Perhaps some of you have had certain dreams in which you felt something of this, I do not know.

“At any rate, this is when Father Ailes
re-entered my blasted awareness; for I heard, as if from a far distance, thanks to the pressure of my pulses in my ears, the voice of the priest. He was, as can be imagined, quite overcome, but surprisingly not nearly as abashed as I would have expected. I caught some of his words, addressed to That which seethed and spun in a vortex just outside the barrier: ‘I had heard of Thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees Thee, and I repent in dust and ashes!’

“Now something was taking form just above the s
upine body of the sleeping Lampton, stretched out upon his bed. It was something very bright, and within the circle heat could be felt, intense heat. All was a blur, but there was some sort of projection or protuberance, vaguely suggesting a lightning bolt or perhaps a sword. As I squinted against the radiance, trying to make out what was lowering itself to striking range of the oblivious Lampton, I reflected that, if he were to die now, he might welcome it as a merciful culmination, an end to his crushing grief. But that was by no means for me to decide, so I tried to regather my wits and protect him.

“Father Ailes was speaking, rather screaming, again: ‘Let them that hate Thee flee
before Thee!’ And then I realised. The priest had done more than pray that Sidney Lampton might return to the fold of the faithful. In some manner not so different from my own, he had already summoned this Being and managed to set it upon the man he deemed a heretic.

“In his rapture and rage, Ailes forgot himself. He lunged out of our protective circle to kneel before his Master, only to find that it was none too particular as to whom it smote. I saw his clothes, then his flesh, then his bones, ripped apart like a haystack in a natural cyclone, till even his blood and gore scattered into a fine mist and disappeared. I did not relish sharing his fate, but I knew I should not have to. I retrieved another passage from the Co
ptic text I had memorised. I suppose now that I shall never forget it.”

Here Carnacki uttered what sounded like gibberish to me, as I have never studied that old Egyptian la
nguage. I do, however, remember hearing what he soon explained was a name, “Saklas.” The gist of the thing went something like this: “Saklas, the Blind, who vauntest thyself above all that is named in the heavens, we know thee and we know thy devices. Cease now thy pretences and get behind us, for we, having knowledge, are mightier than thou!” Carnacki continued.

“The questing sword poised at the throat of Sidney Lampton seemed to waver, then to wink out. The c
yclone vanished with greater speed than it had arrived. I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against Lampton’s bed, which of course rolled backwards under my added weight; so I sprang back up and steadied him, momentarily forgetting that neither he nor I any longer required the immunity of the chalk circles or the glowing tubes. Then the doors to the operating theatre swung open, emitting a crowd of physicians and nurses who had gathered outside when they heard the stormy sounds and the cries within. Luckily for them and for the health of their souls, they had remembered to heed my warnings and did not venture inside until now. I could tell that they were afraid to question me, fearing to hear my answers. They did not even ask what had become of Father Ailes. In the chaos, they might have simply forgotten about him or supposed that he had fled. I am afraid I did not enlighten the priest’s superiors or his parish, as I knew no explanation I might offer could possibly satisfy. Better to leave it a mystery. Believers are by now accustomed to them.

“
As to how Father Ailes came by the knowledge to summon the Entity and to send it upon poor Lampton, we will now never know, since he took the secret with him. But if I have been able to ferret out secrets, so can others.”

But there was one major question I was not about to let go unanswered.

“Carnacki, you cannot be meaning to tell us that you captured God Almighty in your trap and then exorcised him! That is too much even for you!”

He laughed and replied, “It was one of those I call the Monstrosities Outside. It is
, of course, very ancient and very powerful. But it is only one of those entities that circle like vultures at the rim of the reality we imagine, or like black, unknown planets beyond the circumference of our conventional solar system. They ever seek entry to our world, which is utterly alien to them but which, by the same token, lures them to a fulfilment that their own realm can never provide. Some few of the ancient adepts understood this and called the thing
Saklas,
the Blind One, deluded by its own deceptions whereby it, from of old, secured the worship and the service of ignorant mankind. But it claimed other Names better known to you. Shall I speak them?”