Dark Ages - John Pritchard

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Horse’s Head.

      ‘… but my face shall not be seen.’

      He turned around inside his skull, but couldn’t find the speaker. Instead there was just a field of crosses. Shapes were walking past him now, and weaving through the markers. He watched them go – powerless to follow, even if he’d wanted to.

      ‘… but my face shall not be seen,’ the grim voice said.

      The figures kept on trudging past, towards the haunting flares along the skyline; but one of them looked back over his shoulder. His face was gaunt, like something starved. His eyes bored into Martin’s.

      Terror leaped up, like a flame – but the phantom didn’t pause. The shadow-army carried him away. His pale face faded in the burning gloom. And Martin was still rooted by that glance of accusation.

      ‘… watchmen wait for morning …’

      He was still inside his body. His hands felt warm and slimy on the book. Blood, he realized, horrified. The visions melted, folding into blackness. He sensed the study closing up, encasing him in silence. It was colder than an empty grate in winter.

      A scuttling movement crossed the room. The sound a rat might make – but much too loud. Martin yelped with fright, and drew his legs up. He remembered the picture on the wall: the one that used to give Lyn nightmares. It felt like he’d been swallowed up inside it.

      But there was just that one swift movement; nothing more. Huddled on the chair, he hugged his knees and started shaking. His eyes were useless: dead as failed lightbulbs.

      ‘I’m not blind,’ he kept murmuring. ‘It’s something in my head.’

       Oh Jesus, let me see the stars again.

      His skin was bathed in sweat, like icy water. Slowly, as the hours passed, he felt it start to dry. And all the while he listened to the house. Now and again it creaked somewhere, and all his nerves caught fire. But nothing came towards him through the void.

      He didn’t dare to trust that first pale glimmering of light. He blinked, and screwed his eyes tight shut – then opened them again. A gluey smudge was growing in the darkness. Slowly it congealed, becoming furniture and shelves. The room took shape around him, still muted in the greyish light of dawn.

      It was deserted.

      Martin sat there stiffly for a few minutes more; then carefully prised his knotted limbs apart. His muscles cramped in protest, and his bladder started aching. Ignoring it, he clambered up and leaned against the desk.

      The air smelt as it always had: a subtle, bookish, papery aroma. He sniffed, but found no trace of fouler odours. His hands were clean and dry: no trace of blood. The desktop showed its weathered grain. The paper was unstained.

      The house felt hushed and empty. He listened, breathing shallowly, then ventured to the door. The living room was spun with twilight cobwebs. The stairwell door to Lyn’s room hung ajar.

      Attic, he thought, and gazed at it: unwilling to go up. After a pause, he went back to the study. The star-chart was unfurled across the desk. He felt a pang of stomach cramp, but crossed the room towards it.

      A photo of a drawing – that was all it bloody was. But panic kept on simmering inside him. The evidence had disappeared; the memory remained. Staring at the chart, he felt a groundswell of revulsion. For a moment he hesitated; then took one comer between finger and thumb, and folded it again. Then closed the book and crushed it. Heart spasming, he carried the volume back, and shoved it into place upon its shelf.

      Even Lyn had been a stranger after that.

      Her bright and newsy letters home seemed suddenly banal. He’d looked forward to her phone-calls once, but now their Sunday chats were full of small talk. Before, he’d been so envious – watching her leave home to make her fortune. Now her student life was insignificant to him: completely overshadowed by the wonders that he’d seen. Now he was the experienced one, and she was just an innocent abroad.

      He’d wanted to share it, but he couldn’t find the words. Perhaps he’d been afraid that she would laugh it off and tease him. More likely, he was scared that she’d believe. His turn to feel protective now. He couldn’t drag her into this, and cloud her sunny sky.

      The shadow didn’t go away. It lingered in the comers of his heart, like winter mould. The brightest sunlight couldn’t clean it out. Gradually the fungus spread: through dank and stifled places, deep inside. Everything was different now. Things like grades and college didn’t matter any more.

      Something science doesn’t understand. The laws in which he’d put his trust were teetering – about to tumble down. He had to find the real ones, and see the Universe come back together. Above all else, he had to know the truth.

      But how could he explain all that to Claire?

      He sat down with his cereal now; she stood up with a see-saw huffiness. As she passed, he tried to stroke her thigh. She slapped him off.

      ‘Fuck off, Martin. Let me be, all right?’ Biting her lip, she went back to the bedroom.

      Chastened, Martin watched her go; then started on his breakfast. The cornflakes tasted sodden, like wet cardboard in his mouth.

       Predicator

      1

      Through the toughened day-room glass, the grounds looked insubstantial: receding in the mist and fading light. The afternoon was gloomy; the buzzing glare of strip-lights served to darken it still further. A thick haze had engulfed the fields and wood.

      Here inside, the air seemed just as dense.

      The man they knew as John was at the window – gazing out into the murk, as if entranced. There were other people in here too; but to Claire it seemed as if the man in white had brewed this up himself. He was drawing on a cigarette, detached and calm as ever; the smoke hung all about him like a wreath. The fags were second nature now: he smoked them almost absently – mechanical as an iron lung. The ash flared with the slow pulse of a lighthouse. A dozen chain-smoked butts were in the ashtray on the table, the last of them still adding to the grey haze in the room.

      The air was acrid in Claire’s throat; she didn’t need to fake a cough. A couple of the others turned to look. But John kept his eyes on the ghostly world outside.

      ‘All right now, John …’

      The ash glowed fiery orange; died again. John loosed a last grey breath of smoke, and slowly turned his head. She felt an apprehensive prickle touch her neck.

      A fierce face: she’d thought so from the start. The bones of a handsome man were there; the dark eyes of a wise one. But the unkempt hair and scrubby beard gave him a wild appearance. Both hair and beard were grizzled, though he looked to be mid-thirties; his skin was tanned and toughened, deeply lined. A scowl sat best upon that face – anchored firmly in the glower of the eyes.

      ‘They’re ready for you now,’ Claire told him firmly. She stood aside, inviting him to come.

      And John the smoker nodded, glancing down. Focusing once more on the word he’d scratched, in the paint beside the window. Spider letters, thumbnail-etched. No one else had noticed, and he knew it. But now he had it captured. He would not forget again.

      More than just a word, of course; a Name. It had come again last night, still fresh, from out of desert places in his mind. The rest would surely follow in its tracks.

      Murzim. The Announcer.

      A faint smile twitched his mouth like a galvanized muscle: briefly alive, then lifeless as before. Straightening up, he walked towards the keeper of the door.

      ‘Thank you for seeing

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