TAKEN FROM THE RIGHT AND ORDRLY NOTEBOOK OF SADFAEL THE MONK
I have been through much of late. I know I have already said this countless times and in no way do I wish to complain, but it is an unavoidable fact that my tale has taken yet another mind-boggling turn and I find myself once again feeling dazed and completely at a loss.
This latest turn of events began shortly after I had driven the evil once and for all from the house of the Reverend Pinball. I am still as baffled as I was at the time as to quite why this provoked the reaction it did in my otherwise gracious host. The devil must have had an even greater hold upon my friend than I realized, because instead of being as pleased as I was – as one presumes he should have been, the Infernal Prince of the Stygian depths having been banished from this world at last! - he gave no indication of it at all.
Quite the opposite in fact: he stood stunned and speechless - as admittedly did I, breathing heavily - but then he glared at me in a most unhappy manner and muttered some choice, angry words which I did not understand, before stomping off with his speaking device which he refers to as his mobile, or ‘telle-y-fone’. In a most unbecoming manner, he slammed the door quite forcefully behind him!
Puzzling, I am sure you will agree. But where was I?
Oh yes. Later on that evening, with Gawdley having said not two words to me all day, three rather stern looking clergymen turned up at the door and informed me that I was to go with them to Canterbury!
I find it embarrassing in the extreme that the very first thought which entered my head at this juncture was that maybe I was to be given some sort of award. What arrogance! Where does this vanity come from I wonder and how is it able to constantly force its way into my mind, despite my better efforts to maintain my humility and shield myself from such unworthy thoughts? Needless to say I was utterly wrong in my supposition.
Tut tut Sadfael. Perhaps I should find a good, thick thorny branch and thrash these unwelcome frailties from my system.
As I was shown to the carriage they had brought, bright vermilion in colour, I was pleased to see that the effects of my exorcism from that morning were now showing visibly for the good on the face of Gawdley. He stood at the Lych gate and waved us off with the largest smile upon his face I have ever seen. A weight had definitely been lifted from his shoulders. Ahh, finally!
It is times like these when your faith is reaffirmed and you know that what you are doing is right and proper. No words of appreciation are necessary. The warm feeling you are left with inside is thanks enough.
With my three new companions I travelled mostly in silence. Personally, I could not have uttered a word even if I had desired to do so, as I was enraptured completely by the speed with which we appeared to be travelling and also by the sights we saw along the way. As for my escorts - they were sombre men with serious faces and I was able to ascertain quite quickly that they were disinclined to make any sort of small talk.
From the very moment that Canterbury Cathedral hove into sight I knew straightaways that this was truly the seat of God. It was of course the first time mine humble eyes have been blessed by seeing it, though I had heard much from the Abbott back in my own time, but it exceeded even my heady expectations! Although we arrived in the dead of night, the streets were illuminated so brightly it appeared that the grounds of the Cathedral and surrounding area were lit by the glow from a thousand amber haloes
I suppose it is to be expected is it not? This is, after all, the holiest piece of earth outside of Bethlehem itself.
Walking through the Cathedral proper I was filled with an awed reverence, but we did not stop for a minute. Instead I was rushed along whenever I paused to stare at the wonders surrounding me and found myself herded through a series of anti-chambers and another few elaborately carved portals before one of my escorts pushed upon a wooden panel in the wall. I heard a click and the panel slid open! A secret passage!
I was led down this dimly lit corridor, from where we entered what appeared to be a tiny, tiny room although its precise dimensions were difficult to assess on account of all the walls being made completely of mirrored glass. A hundred Sadfaels stretched away in every direction, and my reticent companions did the same. It was so disorienting I was forced to clamp my eyes tight shut, but not before I saw the doors sliding closed of their own volition! As if that were not enough for my already overwrought senses, suddenly I felt the whole room was moving!
Ridiculous though it sounds, ’tis true.
“By St. Malcolm’s thumbs!” I yelled out and gripped the sides for support. I quickly brought a prayer upon my lips, but I must confess to stumbling over the words in my panic.
I had intended to keep my eyes firmly closed, but as nothing further untoward happened I did peek out at the other three with one eye after a moment had passed, only to see them seemingly unperturbed about the fact that we were descending into the very bowels of the earth!
Without warning we stopped. The doors opened once again with the aid of a hand unseen and yet more passageways were traversed by our silent quartet. With nothing to support any contrary arguments, I had to assume that I was inside a massive, subterranean labyrinth of geometric caves, carved deliberately as is the sett of a family of badgers. Only these had been formed by the hand of man, directly beneath the Cathedral itself!
After several minutes we came across a small room where two jovial and very young nuns, surely no older than seventeen years of age, were sat behind a desk. They spoke softly to the men I was with, looking at me from time to time with kind eyes. I did not try to understand what they were talking about, nor what they were doing, as one of them kept tapping repeatedly on some kind of... board? Plank? I know not what it could have been, being about two feet in length, beige in colour, with many lumps and bumps that became indented when pressed upon.
I tensed with alarm though as I noticed more of the box-like objects which had housed the Satanic personage back in the vicarage, but thankfully there was no sign of the devil.
“Is there something wrong Father?” one of the nuns asked.
“You honour me unduly Sister,” I replied as courteously as I was able, though I had not removed my stare from the box. “I am no Father, Sister, but a humble Brother. Brother Sadfael from St. Malcolm’s, that is all.”
The nuns gasped and looked at each other. One put a hand to her mouth, but it did not stop her from stifling the laugh it had been sent to prevent.
“So you are brother Sadfael,” the other one spoke.
“Indeed, verily I am,” I confirmed which set them to giggling again like foolish schoolgirls are wont to do when sharing some secret joke, or perhaps the fancy of a man…
The first of them brought her tittering under control after a few short moments. “You seem tense though brother. Is there something wrong?” she repeated her initial question.
“It’s… it’s those things!” I pointed a damning finger at the boxes atop their desk. “Beware sisters! Does the devil not reside within? Beware I say!”
“No, no Sadfael, it’s alright,” she soothed me. “Come,” she beckoned with a delicate hand, “come and look.”
Seeing their young faces, pure and unafraid, I moved toward her, albeit with a slight amount of trepidation still – well, after the things I have seen…
I was soon able to laugh my nervousness away however. When I think about it now I realise how preposterous it was to think that even Lucifer, darkest of foes, would be able to penetrate as much as a single toe this far into the heart of the church. I relaxed a little and took a closer look at the glass frontages, with the young nuns smiling in encouragement.
There were no diabolic moving images as there had always been in the Reverend Pinball’s box back in Bramfield. Instead there was a radiance, a white light emanating somehow from within, bright yet static. I dared to reach out and trace what I thought to be engravings, but the glass was as smooth as a morning lake. Amazingly the engraving was inside, beneath the surface of the glass, and ran line upon line o
f text – that same uniform script I had seen in my letter from Slush. So to all his other fine attributes must be added that he is an extremely prolific author - there were thousands of words of text!
“It’s just a computer brother, see?” the nun assured me with a voice filled with compassion. I nodded although I did not understand.
Two of the men who had brought me thus far left by whence we came at this juncture, but the other of my escorts disappeared through another door while I was bade to sit by the still giggling nuns. After a few short minutes this man reappeared and I was taken into a small room where once again I met Geoffrey Slush, together with one of his colleagues, one Doctor Franklin Bwop, a man who had the look of a great and serious urgency in his eyes.
“Brother Sadfael I believe,” the man called Doctor clasped my hand and shook it. “I get to meet you at last.”
“Hail and well met Brother Doctor,” I replied.
Slush and this Bwop fellow exchanged glances and then Slush coughed in an almost embarrassed fashion before halloing me.
“Sadfael, ‘Doctor’ is his title, not his name. He is the man who has overseen the analysis of those items we dug up from the Bramfield Parish grounds. You left Father Pinball in good health I trust?”
“He couldn’t be better Geoffrey.” This informality came unbidden to my lips. It was a surprise to me that I could be so bold, yet if I had broken any protocol by addressing him thus, both men were too polite to tell me so. “When I left he saw me off with such an abundance of happiness as I have rarely seen,” I said and it warmed my heart to remember.
“Yes... From what he told me I can believe it,” and then he coughed again. “Sadfael, I will be straight to the point with you – we wish for your assistance once again.” I was humbled and though a sense of fear rose immediately in my gullet, I bowed my head.
“I live only to serve the will of God.”
Again I saw the two esteemed men share a glance, and then Brother Bwop spoke. “Sadfael, we have constructed a device - a holy relic if you like – which we are sure will enable you to complete your Holy mission.”
“Then the devil is still not banished?” I cried out in alarm.
“Sadly no,” said Franklin and then Geoffrey took over.
“We know now that the foe you have been chasing is not Satan himself, but one of his… arch-demons instead. Still terribly monstrous and evil-”
“Of that you speak most truly!”
“Yes. Anyway, this arch-demon, as you know only too well brother, has garnered the ability to travel through time at will; on a whim even.” I crossed myself. “The machine that Franklin here has built here in the Cathedral laboratories will be able to detect-”
“Using divine omnipotence,” explained Brother Bwop.
“Yes, very good Franklin,” Geoffrey smiled. “What was I saying? This device has the ability to pick up on exactly where and when this arch-fiend transports himself through time and space and will transport you there to confront him.”
They went on, the two of them to explain many of the principles of what this device was designed to do and also the intricacies of how it worked. I understood nothing and of all the phrases bandied about the room there were one or two which stuck in my mind. For some reason I remember them distinctly, even now. Reverse Engineering was one and the Bi-polarisation of DNA molecules on a quantum level, the other.
What any of these convoluted prosaics actually meant I do not think I would understand, even if the Good Lord Himself were to come down and explain them to me face to face, such was their tangled complexity. Messrs Bwop and Slush must have enjoyed a diet very rich in fish in their formative years to have developed brains that can understand all of this, for it sounded to me – as I believe it would have done to most people – like utter gibberish.
The overall principle of their plan did hit home in the end though. Having detected the demon’s next movements, their device will ‘lock on’ to the signal and instantaneously transport me - for it is only I who can complete this Holiest of tasks - to the exact location in both time and space where this spawn of Satan has materialised himself. And there, with the element of surprise on my side, I can best this monster once and for all!
I say it is a task only I can complete, but a little helping hand from my God would not go amiss...
***