The Sprouts of Wrath

39

In the near distance the Memorial Library clock chimed twelve, midnight.

In the study of Professor Slocombe, Jim Pooley pulled back the Persian carpet to expose the bare oak floorboards. “What now?” he asked.

“And now we begin,” said Professor Slocombe. The sage was dressed in a white seamless robe which reached to his naked feet. About his neck hung a small leather satchel, in his right hand, a length of chalk. He stood in the centre of the room and bowed to the four cardinal points. “And now about me I scribe the circle, confining good within good, constraining evil with evil.” He knelt and swung about, transcribing a perfect white chalk circle. “Step within, Jim, you would fare badly without.”

Pooley skipped into the circle, whisky decanter and glass at the ready. “This all looks extremely serious, Professor.”

The sage eyed Pooley’s weaponry. “A clear head is required,” he said.

“Dutch courage,” Jim declared. “I do not share your fearlessness.”

“I would tell you that you have nothing to fear except fear itself, but it would be an untruth.”

In each corner of the room stood a brass censer supported upon a wrought iron stand. The Professor gestured to each in turn and each obligingly sprang into flame. Within minutes the air was heavy with the smell of incense. The old man stooped and laboured about the floor with his chalk, scribing pentagrams, cabalistic symbols, the names of power. Adonai, Balberith, Tetragrammaton, and all the rest. Aleph, the number which is always one and those others which correspond to the elements and the seven most powerful planets.

Pooley tossed Scotch down his throat and considered his reflection in the large concave mirror which the Professor had erected upon his desk. It didn’t look all that promising.

“And now, Jim,” said the old man, rising to his feet, “you will do all that I tell you without question and upon the instant. I have no need to impress upon you the importance of this.”

“None whatever,” said Jim.

“Good, then we shall begin.” The Professor placed his hands across his chest and joined Pooley in the circle. “The invocation was formulated by the magician John Dee. Distilled from Enochian, Goetic, Gnostic and Tantric sources. The potency of the words lies to some extent in their unfathomability, causing, as they do, an elevation of the magician’s mind which unseals his consciousness allowing the release of the ‘Ka’. Do you follow me?”

“Yes, indubitably.”

“ZODACARE, EGA, OD ZODOMERANU! ODO KIKALE QAA! ZODORJE, LAPE ZODIREPO NOCO MADA, HOATHATE IAIDA!”

Pooley shivered and turned up his shirt-collar, the room was becoming impossibly cold. The fire was dying in the grate and the Professor was swaying upon his heels, staring into space.

“ZODACARE, EGA, OD ZODOMERANU! ODO KIKALE QAA! ZODORJE, LAPE ZODIREPO NOCO MADA, HOATHATE IAIDA!”

Pooley’s thumbs were now definitely on the prickle.

“He resists us,” said the Professor. “That is to be expected, but we shall have him.” He returned once more to his invocation, repeating it again and again, each time with greater force. The words seemed to grow from his lips and fly as living things into the ether of space, where they spread and expanded, became charged, alive.

The air trembled and wavered, became soupy. It was difficult to draw breath, the incense hung, a heavy impenetrable cloud. Pooley felt as if he was drowning, he clawed at his throat, “Air,” he gasped.

The Professor stooped, drew up his hands, formed the cone of power. Fresh air returned. “He is coming … he approaches.” The room began to tremble, to vibrate, books toppled from the shelves, ornaments keeled over. One of the censers crashed to the floor, spilling smouldering incense in every direction, though none fell into the sacred circle. “He comes.” Above the mantelpiece, the plaster of the wall was beginning to crack and bulge. A priceless painting snapped from its hook and broke in the fireplace beneath. The wall-lights buckled and shattered. The wall lurched forward. Pooley ducked for cover.

“Do not leave the circle,” the Professor commanded. “On the pain of your life, remain,” Pooley froze, one foot hovering in the air.

The wall contorted, warped, stretched. A face appeared, formed in the plasterwork. A great grinning face, the face of Kaleton. Jim Pooley was a born-again Christian.

Unrestrained by its plastic sheathing and artificial optics, the face leered down from the wall. It was the face of a tribal god, a pagan deity. The mouth opened and a black tongue lolled out, dripping foul saliva, the lashless eyelids opened to reveal dull white orbs. “You!” The voice was that of a chorus, a thousand voices yet only one. “You dare to summon me here?”

“I summon you by a single name and a single image, you are constrained and ordered to obey me.”

The mouth spread into a vast grin and gales of hideous mocking laughter broke from it. Pooley covered his nose and crossed his legs, such things as this were not good for his constitution.

“By the names of power which are those of the elements,” the Professor made the signs with his arms, “by SET, by SHU, by AURAMOTH, by THOUM-AESH-NEITH, so I constrain you, that you will answer my questions.” The mouth closed, the eyes blinked shut, showing only ghastly whites. “Spawn of darkness,” cried Professor Slocombe, “what order of demon are you?”

“Demon?” The eyes flashed fire, black teeth showed in the lipless mouth. “I am no demon, I am anything other than that!”

“Then what? Angel, perhaps? I think not.”

“You know who I am, you know what I am!” Professor Slocombe spun about, suddenly distracted. Pooley glanced over his shoulder and felt very sick indeed. Two creatures were approaching from behind, tall and naked, their skin a lustreless black. The bodies were lithe and muscular, their heads featureless ebony spheres. Professor Slocombe uttered a single unpronounceable word. Blue flame leapt from his fingertips, struck the creatures, dissolved them into nothingness.

“Enough of this foolishness.” The Professor turned once more to confront the face, but it had vanished. “How tiresome,” said the old man to his wet-trousered companion. “This is going to take a lot longer than I might have hoped. We shall have to begin again.”

A convoy of police vehicles moved up the Kew Road towards the gasometer. In the lead car sat Inspectre Hovis, dressed in battle fatigues, his face boot-blacked. Across his knees lay a sub-machine gun.

Constable Meek crouched across the wheel. “Are you sure we’re going about this the right way?” he asked.

“Onward, Meek,” said the Inspectre. “You might well earn yourself a promotion tonight, lad. Off the beat and into the cars, you’d like that, eh?”

“Well, sir …” Meek wrinkled his boyish nose.

“Well, sir, what?”

“Him, sir. How can we trust him?” The constable nodded over his shoulder towards the back seat where Rune perched, his fat legs tortured into a full lotus, his eyes closed in meditation.

“I know a spell,” said the Logos of the Aeon, “which can transpose the organ of smell with that of reproduction to great comic effect. Would you care for me to demonstrate upon you?”

“No I wouldn’t.” Meek crossed himself with his gear-changing hand.

“Pull up here, constable.” Inspectre Hovis studied his map. “I am expecting the arrival of a bulldozer.”

“Bulldozer!” spluttered Rune. “By Crom!”

Hovis consulted his watch and took up a walkie-talkie. “To your positions, men, and radio blackout until you hear from me.”

In the Professor’s study the sage mopped the sweat from his brow and seated himself in the circle.

“What now?” asked Jim, taking the opportunity to refill his glass.

“We begin again. The process is tedious, I regret, but there is nothing for it.”

“He seems to be causing a terrible amount of damage, if you don’t mind me saying.”

The Professor nodded in sombre agreement. “This time we will see to it that he materializes in a more manageable form.” He leafed through his book of spells. “Ah yes, a formula used by the magicians of Atlantis for hypnotizing captives and transforming them into cattle during times of famine.”

“You are going to turn him into a cow?”

“Hardly, Jim, the image of a man will be quite enough. Now I want you to do something for me. Take this phial.” He handed Jim a silver flask engraved with runic symbols and capped by a cork stopper. “No, do not open it now, only when I give you the word and then as quickly as you can. Understand?”

Pooley nodded. “If my brain holds out, which I doubt.”

“Stout fellow, Jim. Then we begin again.”

The bulldozer rumbled towards the police convoy. Some surprise attack this is going to be, thought Constable Meek. Hovis leapt from the car, loudhailer in one hand and sub-machine gun in the other.

Jungle John, itinerant local builder and now a big name in the demolition game, nudged his hirsute brother who sat as ever at his side, munching sandwiches and swigging beer. “Look at this, Dave. It’s Sergeant Rock and his Howling Commandos.”

Hairy Dave peered down at the approaching detective. “He’s got a bleeding machine gun,” he observed.

“All right, men!” Hovis cried up at them through his loudhailer. “Timing is everything, have that fence down!”

“That’s gas board property,” said John. “We can’t do that.”

Hovis cocked his gun. “Now!” he commanded.

John looked at his brother. “He’s a bloody loon.”

Dave sank low in his seat. “Have the fence down and let’s get off home.”

“As you please.” John jiggled the joy-stick, revved the engine, spun the tracks and trundled towards the high wire fence which encircled the grounds of the gasometer. “Tally ho!” he cried.

The Professor raised his arms. “By the names of power, by Yetzirah, by Briah, by Atziluth, by Assiah. RAPHAEL GABRIEL MICHAEL AURIEL in the form so prescribed I summon you.”

There was a cry of pain, a terrible groaning, as of one in the exquisite agonies of death. The human form of Kaleton became focused in one of the fireside chairs. He swayed, his gloved hands upon his deformed knees. “You injure me greatly,” he gasped, turning his twisted visage towards his tormentor.

“I will injure you further if you do not answer my questions.”

Pooley stared at the creature. If this was the man, the thing that had killed his friend, then better the Professor slay it now than waste time with questions.

“Your thirst for knowledge is likely to be your undoing. Such inquisitiveness will …”

“Answer my questions,” the Professor commanded, “or I will stretch your neck.”

Kaleton’s breath rasped and rattled in his throat, his chest rose unevenly. “Have you no mercy?” he croaked.

“And why should I? You have none.”

“But mine is the true cause,” whispered Kaleton. “I bear the pain of centuries. My retribution is just.”

“Explain yourself.”

Kaleton rose to face the Professor. “You still do not know who I am? You with your books and your learning. Surely you have long expected me.”

Pooley glanced at the Professor. The old man looked frail beyond imagination. The confrontation was draining every last ounce of his energy. “Expected you? What do you mean?”

“And I thought you a man of understanding, if the word is not anathema to man.”

“Speak now, or I reverse your skin.”

“That’s the stuff,” urged Pooley.

Kaleton raised his head and glared at his enemies. His body quivered. “I am the one and the many,” he declared, “I am the history of the planet. A planet raped, looted and despoiled by mankind. Your race have pillaged and destroyed. Poisoned the atmosphere, polluted the rivers and the seas. Razed the grasslands. Now is the time of the coming, the time of retribution. Who am I, Professor? I am the ‘Spiritus Mundus’, I am the World Soul, I am the spirit of the earth made flesh!”

“No,” said the Professor, “no, you lie!”

“Why should I lie? Mankind is now done. You are powerless to resist, powerless to intercede in a plan which has taken centuries to form. Above you a dark star fills the heavens, two feet upon the water and three upon the land. The prophecies fulfil. The time of the reckoning, the time of the great gathering.”

The Professor was noticeably trembling. “Why, why do you do this?”

Kaleton laughed. It was not the tinkling of fairy bells. “Why? Man’s history has been brief, but the destruction, the wanton waste, the needless horrors … the planet will stand no more. The world turns back upon you. A new beginning, Professor, a free world. A world free of men.”

“Madness! How can you think to accomplish this?”

“You have aided in your own destruction. Down the centuries you have built great temples, great cathedrals, seats of learning, but each to a divine formula. My formula. It is all in the stones, the power lies in the stones. From the Henge to the stadium, the power is with us, with me. At the signal the great old buildings will live, the stadium will become charged with power, it will walk, it will reap.”

The Professor’s eyes glittered. “Signal, what signal?”

“You will feel it when it comes. A great shot will ring out across the universe. The earth will tremble, the stadium will live, the great old buildings will live, they will rise and crush you, clean you from the face, sweep you away, like the insects that you are. We will smash you down!” Kaleton raised his crooked hands high above his head. “Smash you down!”

“Smash it down!” Hovis shouted as the bulldozer strained against the wire fence. The tracks slewed upon the pavement, tearing up the flagstones, unable to grip.

Jungle John hunched low over the controls. “This is bloody funny,” he said through gritted teeth. “Something is holding us back.”

“Give it revs!” shouted Hairy Dave. “Give it revs!”

“I’m doing it, for Chrissakes! What’s going on here?”

Hugo Rune placed a hand upon the Inspectre’s shoulder, “You won’t get in this way, I’m telling you.”

“Leave the fence to me,” said Hovis, shrugging off the podgy fingers. “I’ll get us into the compound, you open the gasometer.”

“Please yourself then.”

The bulldozer struck the fence once more and this time a charge of electricity crackled through the vehicle, scrambling the ignition system and setting the driver’s crowning glory ablaze. The erstwhile demolition team leapt from the cab, howling and fanning at themselves. The bulldozer began to turn in circles, its digger rising and falling.

Meek wound down his window. “Back up!” he shouted towards the goggle-eyed policemen in the convoy behind. His words were of course lost in the noise of the screaming engine. The bulldozer struck the bonnet of the lead car. Meek threw himself out of the vehicle as it upended to fall upon the car behind. Hovis leapt up and down shouting through his loudhailer and brandishing his gun. Meek watched in horror as the bulldozer minced the line of police cars into unrecognizable scrap. Rune turned upon his heel and strode off up the road whistling a tune of his own making.

“Now, Jim!” cried Professor Slocombe. Jim fumbled with the phial and dropped it beyond the reach of the circle.

“Your little diversion has come to nothing. Goodbye, Professor!” cried the Soul of the World.

Jim flung himself towards the silver bottle. As he left the circle, darkness closed about him, the world came to an end.

Pooley clambered to his feet, brushing away the strands of long coarse grass which clung to his clothing. The land about him was flat endless tundra, relieved only by the occasional gnarled black tree. Somewhere nearby a river ran, but Jim was unable to see it. Shielding his eyes against the curious magenta glare of the sky, he sought a habitation, a hostelry perhaps? There was nothing. But then there was something.

Borne upon a wind, so light as to scarcely stir the grass, he heard the faint sounds of chanting. And then the jingling of bells, the rattle of harnessing, the tread of the heavy horses. The creak of the wagon wheels. A procession wound towards him, those at the van swung censers, and intoned the chant. Their garments were of rough brown cloth, soiled through much hard travel, their feet unshod, their faces grave. These men and women were exhausted, they had travelled many miles without rest, they stumbled, staggered, but they marched on.

Pooley watched them sadly as they passed. The heads of the great horses were down, their flanks ran wet. The wagon wheels turned in faulty circles, their unequal spokes wrought with the signs of a former zodiac. And Jim watched those who rode the high-sided wagons, the witch-faced women with their bearded chins and tattooed brows. And he glimpsed the treasures which they guarded. Sprawling upon the cushions of hay were infants, swollen and grotesque, the size of oxen. The children of the great folk. The last of their line. They gurgled and croaked, their naked skins grey, their eyes without lustre. Now behind them, in the far distance, the thunder rolled and broke. The sky seethed angrily and muttered threats.

Pooley heard the cry, in a language he knew not, yet understood. “Onward, onward to the Iron Tower. Onward to the sanctuary.”

The witch-women drove hard upon the faltering horses and those that maintained the endless chant marched on upon wooden legs. And Jim limped after them across the plain and now the wind grew and howled and drove him onward. And there upon the horizon he saw the tower, stark and black, a distant needle piercing the sky. And the cry went up from the marchers and the women drove ever harder upon the dying horses. “Onward, onward, King Bran is coming.”

And from the heart of the dark and rolling clouds, lightning broke and scoured the land, and the thunder was now the hooves of an approaching army. “Make haste to the sanctuary.”

And of a sudden the tower filled the sky, and a drawbridge fell like the hand of benediction. The marchers broke into a run. A horse floundered and dropped dead in the shafts of the lead wagon. Men and women tore it away, rolled the body aside, dragged and heaved at the wagon, swarmed towards the drawbridge. “Make haste, make haste.”

Jim limped after them. A wagon overturned, spilling its ghastly load. The witch-women deserted it, ran screaming. The horsemen thundered nearer. The horsemen of King Bran. And Jim ran, as though the devil was at his heels. And now two called out to him, called through the crashing elements, the terror, the lightning and the pounding hooves of the approaching warriors. A man and a woman, braced against the driving winds, crying through the maelstrom, “Hurry, Jim, this way!” — Pooley shielded his eyes. “John,” he gasped, “Jennifer, I’m coming.”

Then hands grasped him, pulled him back, back from the drawbridge, the threshold of the sanctuary. “Stop, do not enter, you must not enter.”

“Take the bottle,” cried Paul Geronimo, “uncork the bottle!”

“Do it now!” his brother urged. “Only you can!”

Jim’s brain reeled, torn with doubt, indecision and fear.

Paul thrust the silver bottle into his hand. “For the Professor, do it now, open the bottle!”

Pooley stared towards Omally; he was stepping back into the iron tower. Only one wagon had entered, the others were abandoned, people screamed, fled, the winds tore. The horsemen of King Bran bore down upon him. The drawbridge began to rise. Pooley ripped the stopper from the bottle.