Sacrament

CHAPTER X

The polished grass had gone from beneath Will's feet. The clouded sky had vanished overhead. He had entered a large room, the walls of which looked to be made of caked earth, which glistened faintly as though still damp. Apparently his theorizing with Frannie about the abstract or metaphysical nature of the Domus Mundi had been wide of the mark. It was a tangible reality, at least as far as his now-calmed senses could tell: the walls, the darkness, the warm stagnant air, which filled his head with a stew of foetid scents. Things were rotting here, some of them going to a sickening sweetness, some of them to a bitter smell that stung his sinuses. He didn't have to look far for the source of at least some portion of this stench. All manner of detritus had been dumped around the chamber, some of it in a drift against the wall to his left that was fully seven or eight feet tall. He wandered over to inspect the rubbish a little more closely, wondering as he did so where the light in the room was coming from. There were no windows; but there were, he saw, hairline cracks in the walls from which the luminescence was seeping. It was not, he thought, daylight. It was warmer, yet not quite so warm as fire or candlelight.

Examining the contents of the rubbish heaped against the wall, another mystery. Though most of the drift was simply a clotted mass of incoherent forms, like the scourings of an enormous drain, there were several tree branches amongst the garbled mass. Was this stuff that had been washed up against the cliff, he wondered, which Rukenau had for some reason hauled up into the house? They certainly weren't native species; the island had no trees. Nor were these small branches. The largest of the boughs was as thick as Will's thigh.

Turning his back on the filth he made his way across the room to an archway that led on to an adjacent chamber. The scene here was just as dispiriting. The same earth walls and floor; a ceiling too high to be properly made out, but surely raised of the same channless stuff. If indeed this house was built to hold up a mirror to the world's condition, Will thought, then the planet was in a foul state indeed.

That idea ignited a suspicion in him. Suppose the substance of his conversation with Frannie had after all been correct, and this stinking place was a mirror the Domus Mundi was holding up to his own psyche?

If he'd learned anything in the weeks since emerging from his coma it was that his mind and the reality it perceived were not in a fixed relationship. They were like volatile lovers in the midst of a heated affair, each constantly reassessing the state of their passion in the light of what they believed the other was feeling. So here he was in a place so canny it could render itself invisible to the casual eye. It took no great leap of faith to believe that such a place could have even more sophisticated ways to defend itself; and what more certain way to traumatize trespassers than to confront them with the murk of their own minds?

He pondered how best to put this thesis to the test; how to pierce the buttery rot that surrounded him and find the force that lay beyond it, if indeed there was a force to be found. While he plotted, he surveyed more closely the contents of the room in which he was standing. There were, he saw, a few pieces of domestic junk amongst the incoherent filth. Over in one corner were the remnants of a chair; and closest to them an overturned table, in the centre of which a fire had been made. He wandered over to it, curious as to what clues it might offer up. A meal had been had here. There was a partially eaten fish lying in the ashes; and beside it a scattering of fruit; a couple of apples, an orange and a still succulent mango, which had been roughly torn apart and partially devoured. Assuming this was all his mind's invention, were these perverse mementoes of Drew's love-feast?

He went down on his haunches to examine the evidence, picking up the largest portion of the mango and sniffing it. The juice was sticky, the smell sweetly fragrant. If it was an illusion, then it was a damn good one. He tossed the fruit back amongst the ashes and stood up, surveying the room for other objects to scrutinize. He was overlooking the obvious he realized: the walls themselves. He strode across the room and examined the earth. It was, as he'd suspected, moist in places, almost as though it were suppurating. He touched one of the wetter places and his fingers came away dirty. He touched it again, pressing his fingers into the muck. They slid in maybe half an inch, and might have gone in deeper, but his hand was suddenly arrested by a tingling sensation that passed up through his wrist and into his forearm. He withdrew his hand, aware on the instant where he'd felt this before. It was the same order of sensation as had cursed through his sinews when he'd been with Rosa in Donnelly's house, and later, when he'd confronted Steep. This bright matter was the essential stuff of all three: Rosa, Jacob and Domus Mundi.

Once again, he longed to luxuriate in the feeling; but he had no time for such indulgences. He had to keep to his purpose. He stepped away from the wall and perused it. Where his fingers had pierced the soil a tempting luminescence was spilling out. This isn't something my mind's inventing, he thought to himself, his certainty as sudden as it was absolute. The earth and the light it concealed, the fish and the fruit lying on the ashes, all of it was real. Charged with new confidence, he crossed to the nearest door (the room had three) and entered a narrow but immensely tall passageway, which was so clogged with rubbish in one direction that it was impassable. He headed in the other direction for maybe twenty yards, thinking as he went that either the House occupied the entire summit of Kenavara to the limit of the cliffs, or else it was somehow constructed in defiance of physical laws and contained an immensity belied by its perimeters. He was about to turn into another chamber when he heard the sound of somebody sobbing further down the passageway. Following the sound, he passed through a small antechamber into the largest room he had yet discovered; and the most littered. There were heaps of rubbish everywhere, much of it, as before, unrecognizable. But there was also evidence of somebody having tried to make some order of the chaos. A table, with a chair set close by; a pitiful nest of twigs and leaves made in one of the corners, with what looked to be a garment rolled up for a pillow.

He didn't have to look very far to find the man whose dwelling this was; the fellow was kneeling across the room from the door through which Will had entered. There was an elaborate arrangement of rubbish on the ground in front of him, which he was studying as he sobbed, his hands to his face.

Will got halfway across the room before the man looked up. As soon as he did he was on his feet, his hands dropping from his face, which was filthy, but for the places where his tears had run. It was hard to judge his age when he was in such a pitiful condition, but Will guessed him to be less than thirty. His bespectacled features were gaunt, his clogged beard and moustache in severe need of trimming, his greasy hair the same. His clothes were in as beleaguered a state as the rest of him; his threadbare shirt and jeans glued to his malnourished body with filth. He looked at Will with a mingling of fear and disbelief.

'Where did you come from?' he said. By his accent there was a welleducated Englishman under all the dirt.

'I came from ... out there,' Will told him.

'When?'

'Just a few minutes ago.'

The man got to his feet, and approached Will. 'Which way did you come?' he said. Then, lowering his voice, 'Could you find your way back?'

'Yes, of course,' Will replied.

'Oh God, oh God...' the man started to say, his breathing getting faster '... this isn't some trick, is it?'

'Why would I trick you?'

'To make me leave her.' He narrowed his eyes, studying Will with some suspicion. 'You want to have her for yourself ?'

' Who?'

'Diane! My wife!' His suspicion was plainly deepening into certainty. 'Oh that's it, isn't it? This is Rukenau's idea of a bloody joke, trying to tempt me away. Why's he so cruel? I've done everything he asked me, haven't I? Everything. Why can't he just let us go?' His pleas hardened into assertions. 'I'm not going anywhere without her, do you hear me? I refuse! I'll rot here if I have to. She's my wife, and I'm not leaving-'

'I get the picture,' Will said.

'I mean it-'

'I told you: I understand.'

-and if he wants to make me-'

'Will you shut up a minute?'

The man stopped his protests, and blinked at Will from behind his spectacles, his head cocked a little, like a bird.

'I just wandered in here three minutes ago. I swear. Now, can we talk sensibly?'

The man looked a little embarrassed at his outburst. 'So the place caught you too,' he said softly.

'No,' Will said. 'I wasn't caught. I came in of my own free will.'

'Why would you do that?'

'To find Rukenau.'

'You came looking for Rukenau?' the man replied, as though this were tantamount to insanity.

'Yes. Do you know where he is?'

'Maybe,' the man said testily.

Will approached him. 'What's your name?'

'Theodore.'

'Do folks call you Theodore?'

'No. They call me Ted.'

'Can I call you Ted, too? Is that all right?'

'Yes. I suppose so.'

'That's a good start. I'm Will. Or Bill. Or Billy. Anything but William. I hate William.'

'I ... hate Theodore.'

'I'm glad we've cleared that up. Now, Ted, I need you to trust me. In fact, we have to trust one another, because we're both in the same mess, aren't we?' Ted nodded. 'So. Why don't you just tell me about-' he was going to say Rukenau, but he changed his mind at the last minute and instead said -your wife.'

'Diane?'

'Yes, Diane. She's here somewhere, you said?' Again, the downcast eyes and the nervous nod. 'But you don't know where.'

'I know ... vaguely.. .' he said.

Will lowered his voice. 'Has Rukenau got her?'

'No.'

'Well, help me out here,' Will pleaded. 'Where is she?'

Ted's mouth grew tight, and his eyes narrowed behind his smudged spectacles. Again, that birdlike glance up at Will. Then he seemed to decide that he would speak; and out it all came. 'We didn't mean to come in here. We were just out walking, you know; on the cliffs. I liked to birdwatch before I got married and I persuaded Diane to come along with me. We weren't doing anything we shouldn't. We were just walking, watching the birds.'

'You don't live on the island.'

'No, we were on holiday, going from island to island. A sort of second honeymoon.'

'How long have you been in here?'

'I'm not exactly sure. I think we came in on the twenty-first.'

'Of October?'

'No. June.'

'And you haven't stepped outside since?'

'Once I found the door, purely by chance. But how could I leave, with Diane still here? I couldn't do that.'

'So is there anybody else here?'

His voice dropped to a whisper. 'Oh yes. There's him-'

'Rukenau?'

'And there's others too. People who came in like Diane and me, that he's never let out. I hear them, now and then. One of them sings hymns. I've been trying to make a map-' he said, casting a glance down at the arrangement of rubbish on the ground. The twigs and pebbles and little heaps of soil were apparently his attempt to recreate the House in miniature.

'Tell me what's where,' Will said, going down on his haunches beside the map. He felt like a convict plotting an escape with a crazed felon, an impression that was only strengthened by the gleam of pride on Ted's face as he crouched on the other side of the model and proceeded to explain it.

'We're here,' he said, pointing to a spot in the maze. 'I've made this my base of operations. This little white stone over here is the man who sings the hymns. As I said, I've never seen him, because he just runs away when I go near.'

'And what's this?' Will asked, directing Ted's attention to a large space which was criss-crossed with lengths of thread.

'That's Rukenau's room.'

'So we're not that far?' Will said, looking round at the door that he guessed would lead him to Rukenau.

'You don't want to go there,' Ted said to him. 'I swear.'

Will got to his feet. 'You don't have to come with me,' he said.

'But I need you to help me find Diane.'

'If you know where she is, why haven't you fetched her yourself?'

'Because the place she's gone ... it's too much for me...' He looked embarrassed to be admitting this. 'I get ... overwhelmed.'

'By what?'

'The feelings. The light. The things that come into my head. Even Rukenau can't stand it.'

Now Will was curious. If he was understanding Ted's ramblings correctly, there was still a part of this House that delivered on the description that he'd heard Jacob make of it all those years ago. It's glorious, he'd said to Simeon. If we were together, we could go deep, deep inside. We could see the seed of the seed, I swear.

That was where Ted's wife was, presumably. Deep, deep inside, where the weak-hearted couldn't go without paying the price of trespass.

'Let me speak to Rukenau first,' Will said. 'Then we'll go and find her. That's a promise.'

Ted's eyes suddenly flooded with tears, and he came as close to a spontaneous expression of thanks as a sober Englishman ever gets: he grasped Will's hand and shook it. 'I should give you a weapon,' he said. 'I don't have much - just a few sharpened sticks - but they're better than nothing.'

'What do we need weapons for?'

'There's plenty of animals in this place. You'll hear them through the walls.'

'I'll take my chances.'

'Are you sure?'

'Absolutely sure. Thank you.'

'As you like,' Ted said. He went to the little cache of sticks that lay beside his bed. 'I'll bring two, for when you change your mind,' he said. Then he led the way out of his little sanctum. The adjacent room was substantially darker, and it took Will a moment to orient himself.

'Slow down,' he told Ted, who had already negotiated his way across the murky ground to the archway on the far side. In his effort to catch up with the man, he stumbled against something underfoot, and fell forward in the darkness. The rubbish he landed on was barbed; it raked his face and flank, tearing his trousers and piercing his leg. He let out a cry of pain, which turned into a scream of curses as he flailed about. Ted came to his aid, and was in the process of disentangling him when a deep grinding sound brought his efforts to a halt.

'Oh Lord, no,' the man breathed.

Will looked up. Light was now spilling into the room, warmer than the luminescence from the walls, its source a doorway that was opening across the chamber. It was twice the height of a man, and a foot or more thick, its immensity moved by a system of ropes and weights. There was

a fire burning in the room beyond, perhaps several; and forms moving in the air, wreathed in smoke. And from the heart of the smoke, a languid enquiry: 'Do you have something for me, Theodore?'

It was plain by the expression on Ted's face that he wanted to flee. But it was equally plain that he was too cowed or traumatized to do so.

'Come to me,' the speaker said. 'Both of you. And put your sticks down, Theodore.'

Ted shook his head in despair, and tossing down the weapons he was carrying, made his way towards the door with the reluctance of a dog in fear of a beating.

Will got to his feet, and quickly assessed the damage he'd done himself. There was nothing significant; just a few scrapes. Ted was already at the door, his head bowed. Will wasn't so reverent. Head raised, eyes eager, he made his way across the antechamber and by-passing Ted at the threshold made his way into the presence of Gerard Rukenau.