Titus Crow [1] The Burrowers Beneath (12 page)

I was floating in a greyness, the colourless substance of the subconscious psyche, if you like, and these … impressions … kept coming to me. I knew it was the Cthonians

- their thoughts, their mental sendings, are so very alien

- but I couldn’t shut them out of my mind. They were telling me to stop interfering, to let sleeping dogs lie. What do you make of that?’

Before I could answer, even if I had an answer, he hurriedly continued:

‘Then I got these fear-impressions I mentioned, a nameless dread of some obscure, ill-defined possibility with which I was somehow involved. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think it was intended that I should read these fear-impressions. I’m a fraction more psychic than these horrors are used to, I suspect - a fact well in our favour. But overall it was, I don’t know, as if they were trying to bribe me! “Get out while you can, Titus Crow, and we’ll leave you alone,” sort of thing. “You don’t have our eggs any more and so we’re willing to lose interest in

you - provided you’ll leave us alone and not go meddling where you’re not wanted!”’

‘Then we’re on the right track, Titus,’ I broke in. ‘We’ve got them worried!’

He looked at me, more under control now, and slowly grinned. ‘It certainly seems so, de Marigny, but I wish to God I knew what it is they’re so worried about! Still, as you say, we must be on the right track. It’s good to know that, at least. I’d love to know, though, where Peaslee and the others fit in

-‘

‘What’s that, Titus?’ I asked. Again he had lost me.

‘I’m sorry, Henri, of course you can’t follow me,’ he quickly apologized. ‘You see, there were in these impressions references - don’t ask me to clarify - to Peaslee and certain others; like Bernard Jordan, the skipper of one of those seagoing drilling-rigs I was telling you about. He was a very lucky man, according to my cuttings. The lone survivor when his rig, Sea-Maid, went to the bottom off Hunterby Head. And there was mention of someone else, someone I’ve never even heard of before. Hmm,’ he mused, frowning. ‘Now who on earth is David Winters? Anyway, I had the feeling that the Cthonians were far more afraid of these other chaps than they could ever be of me! I was warned, in effect, to keep away from these other people. Rather astonishing, really.

After all, I’ve never met Professor Peaslee in the flesh, and I couldn’t even guess at where to begin looking for this Jordan chap. And as for David Winters, well…’

‘You were screaming, Titus,’ I told him, holding his shoulder. ‘You were shouting something or other which I couldn’t quite make out. Now what was all that about?’

‘Ah! That would have been my denial, Henri. Of course, I refused their ultimatum. I tried to throw spells at them, particularly the Vach-Viraj Incantation, to get them out of my mind. But it didn’t work. En masse, their minds were too strong for such simple devices. They overcame them easily.’

‘Ultimatum?’ I questioned. ‘There were … threats?’

‘Yes, and horrible threats,’ he grimly answered. ‘They told me - that they would “show me their powers”, in some sort of way or other, which was when you woke me up. Anyway, they’re not rid of me yet, not by a long shot, but we may have to move on from here. Three or four more days is about as much time as we can afford to stay, I should think, before moving on.’

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Well, frankly, I couldn’t move tonight at gunpoint. I’m dead on my feet. Let’s get some sleep, if they’ll let us, and make fresh plans tomorrow.’

For myself, I did get to sleep all right - I was quite ‘dead on my feet’ - but I can’t speak for Titus Crow. I know that I seemed in my slumbers to hear his voice, low and muttering, and that it seemed a very long time before the echoes of the Vach-Viraj Incantation and certain other runes of elder spheres faded in the caves of my subconscious.

Strangely, by noon the next day we were better settled in our minds, as if the knowledge that the Cthonians had found something to fear in us had lifted momentarily the bleak veil of strange dread, nervous tension and mental fatigue that had been hanging over us.

It had not been difficult to reason out just why it had taken Shudde-M’ell’s nightmare brothers so long to discover our hideaway. Up until the previous night, Crow had been using the Vach-Viraj Incantation and the Tik-koun Elixir nightly, when, at last, he had run out of the latter. Evidently the liquid which compounded that strange and potent brew (I was later to learn just what it was) had had much to do with keeping the Cthonian dream-sendings and

-searchings at bay, Plainly, this late

deficiency in our defences had been sufficient to allow them to find our subconscious minds and thus discover our location.

Later it was to become plain why the knowledge that our whereabouts was known to the Cthonians did not panic us; why Crow’s dream, rather than startling us into headlong flight, had served instead - after the initial shock - to calm us down.

As it was, we reasoned that if the burrowers did indeed intend to make an attack, well, they still had the water of the river to combat, and in any case they were unlikely to attempt anything in the daylight hours. The obvious trick, if the Cthonians could manage it, would be to lure us from Seafree of an evening after dark, an eventuality against which we made precautionary plans. At last light each evening, until we left the houseboat for good, we would simply lock the cabin-cum-sleeper door (equipped with a stout padlock on the inside), and, since I seemed more susceptible to the dream-sendings of the Cthonians, Crow would keep the key. It now seems amazing to me that once again we both failed to see a parallel which, obvious as it should have been, proved us both totally at fault in our reasoning; simply that Paul Wendy-Smith had been taken in daylight, or dusk at the very latest! However, our plan, faulty as it was, meant that we would have to deny ourselves the occasional evening trip to the Old Mill Inn.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that we two were alcoholics - though we might have had very good reasons to become such - but Crow did like his brandy of a night, and I am not averse to a noggin myself. We had already stocked up with provisions for a fortnight, and so decided we had best do the same regarding liquid refreshments. With this in mind we decided on lunch at the Old Mill Inn, when we would also purchase a bottle or two.

Our timing was perfect, for we had no sooner seated ourselves in the smoke-room when the ex-Guardsman proprietor came over to our table. We had of course met him before, but on this occasion he introduced himself properly and Crow reciprocated on our behalf.

‘Ah! So you are Mr Crow! Well, that saves me a walk down to the houseboat.’

‘Oh?’ Crow’s interest picked up. ‘Did you want to see me, then? Do sit down, Mr Selby. Will you join us in a drink?’

The huge proprietor thanked us, went over to the bar and poured himself a half-pint from a bottle, then returned with his glass and sat down. ‘Yes,’ he began, ‘I had a telephone call for you this morning - very garbled and hard to understand - from someone who was checking on your being here. Told me you’d be using the houseboat Seafree. I said I wasn’t sure of your names, but that there were two gentlemen on the houseboat.’

‘Did he say who he was?’ Puzzled as to who might know of our whereabouts, I got the question in before Crow. I could see that my friend was equally at a loss.

‘Yes, sir,’ he answered me. ‘I wrote his name down on a scrap of paper. Here we are.’ He dug into his waistcoat pocket. ‘Said he’d drop in on you this evening - if you were still here. The conversation was a bit confused, but I gathered he was calling from a booth somewhere nearby. Anything wrong, sir?’

Titus had taken the slip of paper and read it. His already tired face, at a stroke, had gone deathly white. His hands shook violently as he passed me the slip. I took it from him and smoothed it down on the tabletop.

I took a sip at my drink - and then choked on it as the meaning of what was scrawled on the paper finally drove home!

It was, as Selby had said, simply a name:

Amery Wendy-Smith!

Not from His Charnel Clay

(From de Marigny’s Notebooks)

All afternoon and until 10:30 that night - earlier on deck, later in the light of a paraffin-lamp in the cabin - Crow and I talked in awed whispers on the fantastic vistas opened by the totally unpredictable ‘message’ we had received at the inn.

It made no difference that all day long the sun had blazed roastingly down on the river from the glorious June sky, or that small river-craft had been purring upstream and down by the dozen while lovers walked on the green banks and waved to us at our mooring. For us the physical warmth of the sun had been chilled by the fearful knowledge of that horror which lurked deep beneath England’s unique green; and though the songs of the birds and the laughter of the couples had been loud enough, we had talked, as I have said, in hushed whispers.

For Crow had made no bones of his firm belief that Sir Amery was indeed dead, and that therefore this latest

… manifestation … was nothing less than another gambit of the Cthonians. Had there been a third player in our game - that is, someone who like Crow and myself knew of the dreadful activities of the burrowers beneath

- then we might have been able to lay the blame for this latest shock at that person’s feet; but there was no one.

In any case, the telephone call would have been a pretty gruesome leg-pull.

And of course Crow was absolutely right in his assertion. He had to be. The unknown caller could not possibly be Sir Amery Wendy-Smith; I knew that as soon as I was able to give the matter a little reasonable thought. Why, Sir Amery had been anything but a young man back in 1937. Now? He would be well on his way towards his centenary! Few men live so long, and fewer still manage to live and hide themselves away, for no apparent reason, for over a third of their century!

No, I was as sure as Titus Crow that this was simply another ruse of the Cthonians. How they had pulled it off was another matter. Crow had pondered the possibility (very briefly), that his closest neighbour, an ecclesiastical doctor who lived a hundred yards or so from Blowne House, might have been responsible for the stunning ‘message’; for apparently he had given the good reverend our forwarding address prior to leaving Blowne House. He had also asked this same gentleman to accept transferred telephone calls for him, which had been agreed, but had warned him to divulge our whereabouts only to bona fida persons. It seemed that the doctor had assisted him on a number of ticklish occasions before. But this time not even that worthy had known of Crow’s reason for rushing off to Henley, and he had probably never even heard of Sir Amery Wendy-Smith. In fact, no one knew of our reason for being at Henley - except, since last night, the Cthonians themselves!

And yet, what could the burrowers possibly hope to gain from so transparent a ploy? This was a question I had put to my friend, to which he had answered:

‘Well, Henri, I think we’d better ask “how” before we ask “why” - I like to see the whole picture whenever it’s possible. I’ve been giving it some thought, though, and it seems to me that our phantom telephone caller must be a person “under the influence” of the Cthonians. I imagine they must have such

- assistants, a point we’d best look out for in the future. We’ve been thinking in terms of horror and hideous death at the hands - the tentacles -of monstrous subterranean beings, but we can just as easily die from gunshot wounds! Now then, taking all that into account, we can ask ourselves why did the Cthonians use so transparent a ploy, as you had it, and I believe I know

the answer.’ For once I foresaw his conclusion: ‘I think I see what you’re getting at.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. We’ve both stated over the last few days that we think we’re pretty safe here on the houseboat, though you have had your doubts. Now, just suppose that They think so too; that They can’t touch us physically while we’re here. Why, the obvious solution would be to get us out of here, scare us into abandoning the boat and taking to dry

land!’

‘Right,’ he answered. ‘And this impossible telephone call serves as a second persuasion, to follow up the warning dream the Cthonians sent me last night.

Go on, de Marigny.’

‘Well, that’s it!’ I cried. ‘That’s all there is to it. Following your dream, this message - which we know must have its origin with the Cthonians - was simply to give their warning substance; to let us know that we’re far from safe here, and that our best bet is to -‘ ‘To get the hell out of it?’ ‘Yes.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘That we stay right where we are!’

‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘and that’s exactly what we’re going to do! It begins to look more and more to me as though we’re as safe here as we can be. As you say, this makes the second Cthonian attempt to get us away from the river - which is, I agree, a damn good reason for us to stay put! So, for the time being at least, we’ll stay. We have at least two weapons against them: the river and the Vach-Viraj Incantation.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘We should have more of the Tikkoun Elixir shortly, by the way, if the Reverend Harry Townley keeps his promise. Townley’s the neighbour I told you about. He said he’d send me on a supply; and he’s never let me down before.’

‘The Reverend Townley?’ I frowned. “The Tikkoun Elixir … ?’

The answer slotted itself neatly into place in my mind. ‘You mean that the elixir is -‘

‘Yes, of course,’ he answered, nodding his head, surprise showing on his face.

‘Hadn’t I mentioned it before?’ He tossed me the empty vial, the contents of which had been used so well. ‘Oh, yes! Holy Water, what else? We know already of Shudde-M’ell’s hatred of water, so naturally water which carries in addition a blessing - well, it’s potent against many a horror besides the Cthonians, believe me!’

‘And how about the Looped Cross?’ I asked, remembering the three forces potent against Nyoghtha as delineated in the Necronomicon. ‘Does the Crux Ansata indeed have similar powers?’

‘I believe so, yes, to a degree. I had meant to mention it to you earlier, last night when you were working on the star-stone theme. What do you have, Henri, if you break the loop at the top of the Crux Ansata?’