Iron Chamber of Memory (20 page)

“The spell is breaking. Mr. Twokes, that stubborn old bluenose, turned out to be hard to charm. The lawyers are able to read and remember the will, clear up liens, get matters back in order. The power company turned everything back on at midnight on the dot. It is Saturday morning just now, before sunrise.”

“And the lightbulbs?”

“I suppose the Rose Crystal Chamber hid itself from the eyes of the workmen who came to strip the mansion during the months after Aunt Sibyl’s death, and before anyone remembered that I was the heir next in line. I assume Countess Margaret wanted the time to search the place.”

“Who? No, wait, I remember her: She is the one who introduced you to Laureline.”

“She is rather more than that. Countess Margaret is one of the coven of the Witches of England who preserve the island. She made you and Laureline forget your growing love for one another because it interfered with her plans.”

“But I thought she was Dame Hathaway’s friend?”

“I wager she snared Aunt Sybil during those long stays in London, convinced her no longer to return here at regular intervals and break any witchcraft clouding her thoughts. I need proof that Countess Margaret killed my family, but once I have it–” He lowered his eyes to the floor, teeth clenched, and left the threat unspoken. Henry, at that moment, lost any doubt that Mandrake was capable of murder.

“But there is no such thing as witches,” said Henry.

“No?” Mandrake looked up sharply. “If Morgan le Fay was not a witch, how did she contrive to shatter the Table Round?”

“That is just a story.”

“A story of history, yes. And Merlin?”

“He—just a legend, some Christian retelling of pagan tales of heroes and gods.”

“And are there truly no pagan gods? No power that answered when those sad and ancient people prayed and danced and sacrificed? Building Stonehenge and monoliths from here to Russia, cutting the throats of horses, raising mounds and digging tombs—that is a damn lot of effort to no purpose, isn’t it? You’d think they would have noticed before they did so much work that it never worked.”

Henry laughed. “Good lord, old man! I do believe you are serious!”

“Answer the question, please.”

“You mean, do I think pagan gods are real? Gods like Odin and Oberon and
Osiris
?”

“I was thinking more of Moloch and Asmodeus, but you may answer as you’d like.”

“Of course they are not real!”

“Then who or what did I foreswear and defy when I was baptized? When I swore off the devil and all his pomps, and vowed enmity to all the devil’s angels, who was I talking about? When the Christians overthrew the Roman Empire, they kept all the institutions of man intact. They fought only one foe, and overthrew only one enemy. Who did they fight, if not the pagan gods? The powers of the air, the prince of this world? When a third of the hosts of heaven followed Lucifer in his fall, who fell?”

Henry sighed. “I know you think demons are real…” he began in a condescending tone.

“If demons are not real, what did Our Lord drive into the herd of swine at Gadarene?” And, when Henry had no answer, Mandrake said, “You see the problem with your modern American education, where everything in the past is forgotten? The problem is that you forget the simple principles of logic as utilized by Aquinas or Aristotle. You cannot have it both ways. Either the supernatural order exists or it does not. Either there is another world alongside this one, invisible, haunted, filled with powers and terrors we cannot imagine, and wonders beyond all joy, light beyond light, or–”

“Or what?”

“Or the whole lot of it, from Christ to Krishna to Cuchulainn, is all a bunch of rot, and nearly everyone you have ever met is a damned fool for believing a word of it. And there is no life after this one, and no dreams come true, and we are born of nothing and come to nothing. That is the choice.”

Henry said, “Either stark, hopeless atheism, or I must believe in witches and spooks?”

“Yes.”

“No. Men can tell lies and make up stories about God and spirits as easily as any other topic. God could be real and magic fake. You know that! That trick you did at No Talent Night, when you pulled a dove out of your sleeve! There are reasonable positions between those two extremes, old man. Reasonable halfway opinions.”

“Out there, I grant you, in the outer world, there are reasonable halfway opinions,” said Mandrake with a solemn nod. “That is one reason why this chamber was built. Because those thoughts we think out there are fogged with the fumes of Lethe, the river of death, which Adam set free at his first act of rebellion. Mermaids sing death in their songs, and witches brew death in their cauldrons. Out there, a man can believe Christ is divine, but cast out no demons and performed no miracles. And so belief slowly ebbs, wisdom is lost, and men become shallow and vulnerable. Out there, it is reasonable not to believe in curses, and to believe our memories cannot be influenced by charmings. What about in here? What do you believe in here? Tell me, if you were a witch, and could fog the minds of men, surely the first thing you would fog out is the memory of the fog?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you could mesmerize others, the first false belief you would implant in your victims is that there is no such thing as mesmerism. No one can fight a foe he thinks does not exist. He cannot even arm himself. Come now! Your conclusion might be different if we held this conversation out there. But in here—why was this chamber built, if not as a protection from witchery?”

Henry said, “Do you know when and why this chamber was built?”

“Yes, but this is a history not anywhere written down, for what the men of Sark say, they do not write down.”

“Go on.”

“Queen Elizabeth I was one of the first to study diligently the art the Catholic Church had forbidden to mortals, and she formed the first of the Coven of White Witches protecting the Island of England. By her dark arts she raised a storm and scattered the Armada. Sir Francis Drake, the most famous of the English privateers, was given a looking glass in which he could summon winds and tempests.

And so it was that for many years we flourished and grew, until the empire on which the sun never set was protected by these uncouth, unseen means. The power of the White Coven was broken after World War Two; that is why Hitler put so much effort into studying the occult, why he collected rare items of mystical influence like the Spear of Destiny, and why the Soviets forced men like Lysenko and Rejdak to study parapsychology so diligently.

“So after the war, something spiritual was broken in the spine of Britain, and now the witches use their arts only to their selfish advantage, and so more and more of the mists of amnesia rise from elf-lakes and buried kingdoms below the hills, and sweep across the British Isles. The Irish barely remember they are Irish any more.”

“About the murder of your cousins—I heard folk in the village, three men or four, talking about it. They blame you.”

“I’d prefer you tell me this outside, so that I can remember it clearly.”

“But I dare not step outside.”

“Of course you can.”

“But you will forget you don’t love Laureline—and I will forget I do!”

Mandrake shook his head. “Everyone knows you love Laureline. I am the only one who does not see it, and even I suspect it.”

“But you and she—I saw you!”

“What? You think I am being very intimate and cozy with her? It is an act. My outward self does might not recall all that was blotted out of memory, but he is canny enough to play along and see which card is turned next. If I call off the marriage now, that gives the enemy too much time to plan. The next group to attack this house might not be one that can be easily driven off, like those rowdy boys we drove off the other night, or that nuclear scientist from a decade ago.”

“Even so, I dare not go out.”

Mandrake stood up. “You merely need to trust your true self. If your love for her is not strong enough to be heard in your heart even through the deception fogs of witchcraft and enchantment, it is not true love. And if it is true love, then you cannot be afraid. Come back out with me.”

“And what will happen?”

“There is a small, still, quiet voice in you that always speaks truth. Forgetfulness can numb that voice, but never smother it entirely. If you listen to that quiet voice deep inside you, you will win her.”

And so Henry walked out of the door with Mandrake, arm in arm, friends before they crossed the threshold and friends as they trotted up the stairs, both suddenly convinced and seeming to remember that Hal had been at the house all that week, studying diligently.

Hal sat on a hardbacked wooden chair in the office of the College’s Tutor for Graduates. Dr. Vodonoy sat behind a desk piled with books, folios, and manuals. The computer monitor was an old-fashioned square box that looked like someone’s grandfather’s black-and-white television, and it also had a stack of books piled on it. Between the stack to the left and the stack to the right, the florid and square face of Dr. Vodonoy could be seen, like a full moon rising between mountain peaks. He was a Fellow by Special Election in the Senior Tutor Department.

“Your adviser says you have missed two meetings in a row, to discuss your paper,” he said in a censorious tone. “By this late date, not only should you have turned in an abstract to your adviser, Mr. Pettyworth, but given him a list of your Literature review as well. The subject approved by the Committee was on the Substitutionary Atonement in The Matter of Britain. At the time, several members of the committee cast doubt on the appropriateness of the subject. A bit too, ah, theological, shall we say? More than one of them said to me privately that bringing religion into the Arthur myths was controversial, and may be seen as rather inappropriate, considering the backgrounds of Mr. al-Asiri and Dr. al-Wuhayshi. Even insensitive. A word to the wise should have been sufficient. But you insisted, so I went out on a limb for you and the topic was approved.”

Hal nodded, looked over the top of the man’s head to the window, and the sky outside. It was a fine blue day, with but few clouds as white as ewes, drifting lazily above the domes and spires of the campus buildings.

Dr. Vodonoy raised his voice. “And yet when asked what has been accomplished so far, you were able to tell your paper adviser only that you had read one or two books on amnesia cases, one on state-related memory, and the biography of the astrologer and mathematician John Dee!”

Hal was unconcerned. He said breezily, “The subject of memory retention techniques and memory loss is related to the thesis topic in several ways. In the story of Tristram and Iseult, for example–”

“Perhaps you had better use those
memory retention techniques
of which you speak so highly, Mr. Landfall, to remember what the date is! Most of the other candidates are polishing up their table of appendices by now! Have you even begun? Do you have even one word written on a piece of paper?”

Hal said, “Too much drafting and redrafting tends to take some of the spontaneity and zest out of academic writing, in my opinion…”

Dr. Vodonoy sat back. “You are going to perform several months’ worth of work in mere weeks? The examiners will tear you to bits like mad dogs. It will not be a pretty sight.”

Hal shrugged.

“If it were in my power, Mr. Landfall, I would expel you here and now. Unfortunately, there is no requirement that you meet with your adviser, nor keep him abreast of your progress. The only requirement is the paper, properly presented, on an approved topic, embodying original and significant research, and it must be your own work. Since it is perfectly clear to me that you have done no work at all, but either bought or intend to buy a dissertation written by another, I assure you that five minutes after you turn in your plagiarized fraud, I will have you before Dean Schubert, who is chairman of the Graduate Student Ethics Committee.”

Hal knew he should take the warning seriously, and do his best to placate the Senior Tutor, but there was no help for it. He simply laughed, unable to tamp down his buoyant feelings. “Don’t be such a worry-wart! You’ll give yourself pemphigus! I could write this paper in my sleep. Original work! The world has no idea of what I know about King Arthur. Did you not know how he fights his battles, over and over and over again, in dreams. Do you know how many stalwart warriors and chiefs he slew, when the banners of the Saxons streamed against him, and he alone recalled the Roman tactics, Roman honor? He was fighting for Christ against you pagans, you witches and enchanters! You have taken over the halls of Academia, and called up the blinding mists from the elf waters roaring darkly beneath the hollow hills!”

Dr. Vodonoy’s face grew dark. “You clearly are drunk, Mr. Landfall!”

“No, I–” Hal blinked. What had he just said?

“Again, drunkenness is not grounds for expulsion, but plagiarism will be. I am looking forward to blasting your hopes and dreams, but I must wait until the deadline falls like a guillotine blade. And, no, there will be no extension on account of illness, or drunkenness, or even insanity. Good day!”

Hal, a thin cigar in his mouth, one hand in his pocket, twirling his cane, and with the bright sun high overhead, strolled happily and unhurriedly back to his flat above the smokeshop in Blackbird Leys. Sure, it was the bad part of town, the haunt of ‘chavs’ and lowlifes. But Hal had never been harassed by them: even the toughest boy seemed for some reason to steer clear.

Why so light on his feet this day? He had found a way to visit Laurel every other day or so. It was only bit over two hours from Oxford to Weymouth by motorcar, and he had come across the brilliant idea of drawing out all his savings, and the money he had set aside for his remaining school expenses, in order to buy a yacht. It was a small boat, but fast, and able to cross the fifty-four nautical miles to Alderney in three and a half hours, and it was only ninety minutes more to Sark after that. This meant that every day he left at six o’clock in the morning, he could reach Laurel and enter the Rose Crystal Chamber before two o’clock, and if he departed before sunset from Sark, he could be back in bed in Oxford by midnight. Of course, this schedule would be thrown off by classwork or study, but he could skip those. And horrible distractions like the Graduate Tutor insisting on seeing him! The nerve of that man.