Chapter Four
How long he slept, he had no idea, what time it was, he had no idea, what was happening outside, he had no idea? Because inside this cell it was permanently night, there were no chinks of light, no moonlight coming thought the bars, because there were no bars, and the silence was absolute.
He walked forward, his hands in front of him and encountered a solid wall, turned and walked the opposite way, his hands outstretched and quickly encountered another solid wall. And decided to explore with his hands. He felt his way around the cell, feeling the different textures of the stones. And stopped because his limbs were aching, his back was paining, and the tiredness was overwhelming, he felt his way back towards the bed and flopped down. Sleep was instantaneous.
He awoke to complete blackness, but did not feel refreshed, on the contrary, he felt even more exhausted, he only wanted to sleep. And sleep he did, and it was a peaceful sleep, without dreams, without disturbance, nothing whatsoever. It was like he was in a void, and when he awoke he still could not see anything, not the walls, not the ceiling, not even his hands. He knew he must use his other senses, and listened, and listened, nothing, not even a breeze. He sniffed, nothing but the smell of damp. Then he realised he was thirsty and stooped onto his hands and began crawling, trying to find a jug or pitcher of water. He crawled around for a long time, from corner to corner, along the walls, underneath the rough sawn wooden bed, and found no jug, no water.
‘WATER, I NEED WATER,’ he shouted, but no answer came, and he continued shouting for what seemed a long time, and stopped, his throat hurting, his tongue dry as sun bleached bones.
Tiredness overcame him again, his body was aching more than ever, exhaustion made him find the bed, he climbed up and collapsed, and was unconscious immediately.
After a while he no longer tried to explore his cell, but stayed on the bed, his body seemed to be shutting down, he no longer felt thirsty, no longer felt any hunger, nor any desire to do anything except sleep.
Then the dreams began, strange, weird dreams where different creatures visited and offered him advice and encouragement, but he liked it best when Esme came in his dreams, when she spoke to him and touched his face. When she reassured him, told him not to worry, and always left with a kiss, a kiss that gave him strength. Bearbert came in his dreams, seemingly to talk absolute rubbish in a language that made no sense whatsoever, blowing pipe smoke into his face. And Worlyn, humming and erring, not remembering what he was talking about a second earlier. Eunicons bowed, Kentauri looked haughtily and told him not to worry, yellow birds sang sweetly, deers came and licked his hand and face, and he knew his body was rotting, wasting away, and at times he thought he had died, and this was the afterlife.
He was awoken by the noise, a sort of scraping, and a very small chink of light, shinning up from the floor, even though it was faint, seemed to blind him. He tried to turn away but could not even lift his head, nor try to see what it was.
The scraping became louder and more jarring, as if sharp fingernails were being scraped over china plates. Then he heard a crack, a bang, a crunch, more scraping, another bang, stone hitting stone, a loud crack, more light.
‘Elijah,’ a voice crackled like old dusty paper.
He didn’t have the strength to answer.
‘Elijah.’
Painfully, he managed to lift his head, and what he saw shocked him; but it was a dream, not real, part of his imagination, it was a rotting corpse. The nightmares had begun. He could even smell the stench from the decaying flesh. Oh this was a good one.
‘Elijah. ELIJAH.’
‘What?’ he had to chuckle, a corpse coming out of the floor, more torture from Bagarnack.
The corpse climbed out of the hole, and another decaying head appeared, this one with fat, white maggots, falling out of a sunken eye socket. That too climbed out and stood next to the first, then another head appeared, but this was different, mummy like, preserved, but shrunken, its skin stretched tight over its bones.
‘You are to come with us,’ said another strange figure in a black robe, who had just risen from the hole. He spoke in a male voice, kindly, yet with hardly any emotion, maybe none, and the tiniest of echoes followed his voice. His face was hidden inside his hood. He appeared fresh, not rotting, and gleaming white bony hands came out of the sleeves of his robes. The same could be said for the cloaked figure’s feet, white bone, protruding from the bottom of the robe. This was Death himself, Elijah thought, the great Death, taking him to the afterlife.
Elijah chuckled again; oh this was a brilliant dream, three corpses and Death wanting him to go with them into the ground, into the netherworld. He found his voice, it was croaky and weak, ‘You’ll have to carry me, I cannot walk,’ he said lightly, playing the dream game.
The corpses moved towards him, rotting, decaying hands outstretched and picked him up. A feeling of panic surged through his body; he could feel their hands, could feel their repulsive touch as they lifted him off the rotten straw bed and carried him towards the hole. This was not a dream. This was really happening. Was this death? Was this the way people died? Carried into the ground by cadavers.
The black-cloaked figure was at the front, leading the way. Elijah was lowered into the hole and more skeleton hands grabbed hold of him, more bony fingers dug deep into his flesh. The stench was overpowering.
Then everything moved so fast, he was travelling along a dirt encrusted tunnel, he could hear the corpses’ bare feet, bare bones, smacking on the hard ground, some of them carried lamps, it appeared even the dead needed light. Some of the corpses banged their heads upon thick roots and jagged rocks that protruded from the ceiling, bits of flesh and bone fell onto him. None spoke, none even breathed; the corpses didn’t need air.
They seemed to travel for ages, sometimes the tunnel dipped down, sometimes up, but mostly it was level.
So this was death, Elijah thought, it wasn’t that bad, except for the stink, which was ever present and changing, different stenches that attacked his sense of smell. Perhaps this was part of death.
‘Where’re we going?’ he asked.
None answered, but they slowed and stooped, closed in on him as they squeezed through a smaller hole of solid rock, then continued running along a larger tunnel.
Then stopped as they came to a dead end.
Elijah forced himself to look up. It was solid rock, as black as night, absorbing the light from their feeble lamps.
The skeleton wearing the black robe stepped forward, pressed his bony finger onto the rock and began tracing a complicated pattern repeatedly.
The other corpses continued to hold Elijah, but once again he was overcame with tiredness, but managed to keep his eyes open, forcing himself to stay awake.
The black robed skeleton was still tracing his finger in the same pattern, and Elijah could not stop himself from falling into unconsciousness.
How long he was out he couldn’t tell, because when he awoke the skeleton was still tracing his finger over the rock. Suddenly a large, heavily studded, wooden door appeared, with a large black wrought iron circular handle. The skeleton grasped and turned it; the door opened and light flooded into the darkened tunnel.
The corpses carried him through, and he heard a familiar voice saying, ‘On the bed, careful now, he’s weak.’ And the corpses’ hands became gentle, placing him, with a lightness of touch they had not shown before, on the gloriously soft bed, and a large fur skin was thrown over him.
The skeleton was speaking, ‘Tell Bearbert not to call us again, we’ve fulfilled our obligation, we’ve a right to eternal peace.’
And he heard the familiar voice again, ‘Thank you my friends, I’m sorry that I had to tell Bearbert your names, and that he called you back to do this task, but it was an emergency, and you did say I could rely upon you. I know how much it has affected you all, but this relates to all the living ones, and you all know how much some of the gods favour them.’
Elijah heard noises of movement, he could see
figures in his peripheral vision ducking back into the tunnel, and everything went black as he lapsed into unconsciousness again. How long he was out he had no idea, but when he regained consciousness, something hot and wet was licking his face. Muppy, he kissed and kissed and kissed her, then after a while, when he focused his eyes, when he looked around, he saw a long white beard, plaited with miniature roses, a head and face covered with tattoos, white teeth that seemed too big for the mouth. Worlyn was leaning over him, showing concern, smoothing his pillows and fur skin. The pipe-smoking, foul-smelling, bat-god Bearbert, and, and, his heart could not believe it, he leaned up to see better, a fantastic figure of such beauty that Elijah gasped. Esme, Esme. How he had dreamed of her. He reached out, wanting to touch her, wanting her to speak to him, but she vanished, and his strength failed him and he collapsed back onto the bed, only for Muppy to resume her licking.
‘You’re awake Elijah, good, it’s taken us a long time to free you.’
A long time? ‘How long?’ his voice sounded very weak, as though it made no sound at all.
‘Three years.’
‘Three years?’ That was impossible. ‘No, I’ve only been down there for a couple of days.’
‘No Elijah, the charms Bagarnack placed on you put you in a state of suspended animation. However, such is your nature that the charms didn’t work properly, you had periods when you were awake. It took us a long time to work out the nature of the charms, and some of them were really complicated. An even longer time to dig the tunnel. Luckily Bearbert transformed himself into a rotrobber and heard Bagarnack say that no living thing would be allowed to enter that cell. It was Bearbert that attacked you and begun that fight, that made Bagarnack alter his plans, and that’s why Bearbert had to call upon my departed friends, my dead comrades had to dig for thousands and thousands of steps to rescue you. That’s why it took so long. But now, you’re free, and the charms should have no effect upon you here. But you still need to rest.’
He heard Bearbert speak, but couldn’t understand.
‘Ah yes,’ answered Worlyn, ‘tomorrow you must bathe in the waterfall, and drink its waters with added herbs. Now drink this.’ He brought a goblet up to Elijah’s lips, and he took a great gulp, but it tasted foul and made him vomit. The contents dribbled down his chin onto his chest. ‘Yes, we expected that. Sleep, close your eyes,’ and he placed two fingers on Elijah’s eyelids, and sleep was instantaneous.