s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

body. He had to place his total reliance upon himself, his faith, and Pierre
de Lancre.
He lay on that pile of blankets where he had copulated with Madeleine. They
were still damp; he prayed that the wetness was from his own spilled seed and
not the cold semen of the risen dead, the veritable spawn of evil. So much was
against him that he had to disregard it all. Never before had he ignored so
many precautions, taken such a multitude of risks when departing for the
astral plane. A universe of hiding places lay ahead of him, a billion secret
refuges for one who sought to escape him. His task was an impossibility, but
he still had to try and he had no guarantee of returning.
He tried to relax. It wasn't easy. The darkness outside the pentagram was
alive, forces that gathered like swarming bees scenting honey in a closed
hive; they just had to find the way in. Shouting, screaming, Quentin's voice
loudest amongst them; but Sabat ignored them, for if they broke through his
defences there was no way he could stop them.
His breathing became rhythmical. He told himself that he was not Mark. Nor
Quentin. He had become Pierre de Lancre the witchfinder called from the dark
past to inhabit a willing body and to live again. He felt tired, a pleasant
drifting sensation mat left those screaming demons from the dark beyond
behind.
Floating in a night sky; a million stars and he could have gone to any he
chose. Time came and went but Sabat had to go back, retrace the centuries.
Floating through a dark starless void and he knew he was on the right trail.
Somewhere ahead he made out a faint grey light. Dawn... not a new day but an
old one. Very old.
He could even smell the rotting vegetation of a place where decay had its own
stranglehold and time had stood still. Waiting for those who dared to return.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SABAT GOT the feeling that he had been to this place before and accepted it
unquestioningly, for he was Pierre de Lancre and he must follow where the
witchfinder led. As Sabat he could have hunted in vain for eternity; as de
Lancre he stood a chance of finding that which he sought reasonably quickly.
A land that was old and would remain so until the end of time. Again it was
vaguely recognisable. Labourd perhaps. It did not really matter for this was
the second astral plane.
He changed form, a small bat flitting insignificantly through the night sky, a
creature that was commonplace enough, weaving and jinking against a silvery
moon. Below him was a wooded landscape, interspersed with muddy cart-tracks.
The whole countryside slept, peasant hovels with no lights showing. Rural
desolation.
He flew on, mile after mile, letting his instinct take over, complete faith in
Pierre de Lancre, not knowing what he was searching for but trusting in the
witchfinder. And then at last he saw the chateau on the hillside and found
himself homing in on it.
Once it had housed aristocracy, now it was a shambling shell of its former
edifice. Creeping ivy had taken over to the detriment of the stonework, three
of the four turrets already having crumbled. The extensive grounds stretched
up to the surrounding forest, a mass of thick vegetation that had spread with
neglect, a pond of some kind, thick with algae. The casual observer might have
sensed an atmosphere of dereliction and emptiness but not Sabat. As he
alighted on an upper windowsill he sensed the presence of others, a feeling of
hopelessness that wafted from within on the smell of decay.
He passed inside, changed his form to that of a hornet, buzzed his way down a
long panelled corridor thick with dust but noted the trails of footprints to
and fro on the floor, a regular thoroughfare. He followed the footmarks down a
flight of stone steps that were only too familiar. The dungeons of Armageddon
where he had spoken to that traitor only a short time ago! But this was not
Armageddon; this was but a parody that existed in the past, in a world where
time was unknown.
Now he could hear voices, a weeping and wailing like the sound of the wind in
a far off tunnel, but there was no wind because the torches which lit this
passageway burned evenly without so much as a flicker of a flame. So cold, and
damp too, condensation trickling down the stone walls.
The noise was louder now and as he rounded a bend he saw the huge dungeon, too
big for the torches on the walls to illuminate fully, merely keeping the
shadows at bay. A stench of putrefaction greeted him as he flew up and settled
on a sagging overhead beam; the smell of rotting bodies!
His first feeling was one of revulsion. Amongst the living prisoners chained
to the walls he saw corpses in varying degrees of decomposition; skeletons
that had not been removed, bodies only recently dead with rats gnawing at the
flesh with a horrible squelching, grinding sound. Sabat winced, transferred
his attention to the living prisoners.
Men and women of all ages; children too. All in threadbare clothing that the
dampness of this underground place was rotting on their bodies. They had long
given up shouting and screaming at the rats, accepted the presence of vermin,
only crying out when sharp rodent teeth bore at living flesh.
These people cried their hopelessness openly, their pain-twisted faces shiny
with tears. They prayed for death but it did not come, for this was their
fate, their hell. But who were the gaolers in these halls of degradation?
Sabat took to the wing again, an erratic course that eventually brought him to
the furthermost wall, a distance of at least fifty yards, and even then there
was yet another dungeon where humanity was at its lowest ebb. The dead were
the only fortunate ones. A child was screaming frantically to join its mother
on the opposite wall, a pathetic naked figure who sagged in her manacles, her
head fallen on to her breasts. Yesterday she had whispered hoarse words of
encouragement to her offspring but today she was silent. Because she was dead
and the rats had already begun to eat her.
Bowls of stinking food that was rotten before it was prepared were stacked by
the entrance. Sabat wondered who came to feed these wretches, what kind of
gaoler could tolerate these conditions. Even the vermin preferred the corpses [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]