Isarel’s first notes on the shofar were hesitant, and after a moment he lowered the instrument and half closed his eyes, reaching for the cadences of Jude’s music. I can do it, he thought. I believe I can do it. When he lifted the shofar to his lips for the second time, he did so with authority.
And this time it was there; between one breathspace and the next, it was there. Like hitting a nerve. Dead in the gold.
The Devil’s Piper, the magical beckoning that Jude had discovered, that some long-ago member of the Amati dynasty had used to summon a creature he had believed to be a demon.
The Black Chant.
On the rim of his vision, Isarel saw Ahasuerus’s shadow tense, and he thought: in another minute I shall see him. Panic churned and his heart began to race. In another minute he’ll be before us: the sinister figure of all those stories. The doomed creature chained to the world forever, bound to answer the music . . . I don’t believe any of it, said Isarel’s mind fiercely.
No? Then why are you playing Jude’s music?
Ciaran moved then, flinging the door back against the wall, and standing in the dark hall was the robed, hunched-over figure of a man, his face hidden by the deep hood. Every nightmare, every imagined horror, thought Isarel, struggling for calm. The silent intruder who steals into your house, so stealthy that you never hear him until you round a corner and there he is in front of you.
I don’t believe any of this, said his mind, again. I don’t believe I’m taking part in this charade. This silver-tongued Irish monk is probably a con-man and that’s his accomplice. Once I’m out of the house they’ll ransack it, or they’ll take possession: lock and bar the doors and windows, and claim squatters’ rights. Why would anyone want to squat in Mallow for God’s sake?
Ciaran was pulling open the outer door and the moonlight was sliding bars of cold brilliance on the scarred oak. We’re moon-mad, thought Isarel. Moonstruck lunacy, that’s what this is.
But of their own volition Isarel’s hands were lifting the shofar again, and the music was spinning. Music that walked the thin line between evil and good, and between seduction and allure.
As they went into the night, Isarel looked back and saw the huddled figure come lurching out of the shadows after them. Ahasuerus walked awkwardly, almost cowering inside the enveloping robe as if fearful that it might be snatched from him. He dragged one foot as he came, and Isarel suddenly found this limping gait unbearably painful.
But he walked purposefully on, through the roughish track that wound between the sparse trees and down the narrow path that led towards the Abbey. There was a vague memory of the English solicitors talking about shared boundaries and the resolving of responsibilities for upkeep. Then this must still be Mallow’s land, and the Abbey must be only on the other side of a wall or a fence. Would they go down on to the highroad and in at the gates? For a mad moment, he visualised them all climbing over a wall, amicably helping one another. Mind you don’t trip over your robe, Ahasuerus. Just hold the shofar for a minute, would you, while I vault across. And now down here and let’s put you back in the tomb.
Ciaran was walking ahead of them, and a tiny part of Isarel’s mind was aware of a spurt of too-shrill amusement that he should be entering an Irish Catholic monastery in this way, and that he should be entering such a place at all.
With the playing of the music, memory had yielded other things now, and the haunting words that Jude had put to part of the Piper music were singing through his brain.
‘I know a charm that will call up the spirits of the gloaming . . .
That will soothe pain with sound, and agony with air;
I know a charm that will remove the veils from the communing shades . . .
That will stay the poor unhousell’d souls from roaming . . .
And tempt the wild woodland magic from the glades.
But it will do no good unless you believe it . . .’
It was plagiarism at its most obvious and its most defiant, of course: Jude had unrepentantly plundered Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest, and Clemence Dane’s Will Shakespeare and probably Maeterlinck and Spenser as well if you went deeply enough. And then he had rolled the stolen threads up into one brilliant coruscating sphere. The sphere was hollow and the hybrid phrases were counterfeit, but it did not stop any of it from raking at Isarel’s senses half a century after Jude had written it.
The Abbey was ahead now – some kind of gate in the wall was there? – and Isarel quickened his steps. Would the doors be open? Yes, fool, the door is always open for those who ask . . . No, that’s something else. Is this the low door in the wall that the philosophers and the dreamers and the poets wrote about? I believe I’m slightly light-headed. Hallucinating with tiredness. The drive across Ireland. The whiskey and wine. God yes, the wine. Delirium tremens at last, that’s what this is. Seeing things that aren’t there, manipulating charms I don’t believe in.
Luring the unhousell’d soul back to the tomb.
It was impossible to forget Jude’s words and it was impossible to avoid the analogies. I’m the Pied Piper, thought Isarel, the Black Man of Saxony . . . The doomed Erik in Phantom, luring his lady – what was her name? – down to the sewers beneath the Paris Opera House. Shall we get the scene where the mask’s ripped aside?
A dim light burned at the Abbey’s heart and Isarel saw it with thankfulness. Almost there. Over the water-jump, down the straight and home. Is he following? Oh God, yes of course he is.
He risked one quick look over his shoulder – and that’ll probably turn me into a pillar of salt! – and saw that Ahasuerus was certainly following. He looked like a creature made up of the twisting shadows: Isarel could almost believe that the shadows had reared up to trail after him, but whatever else was happening, Ahasuerus was following the music. Because even if I don’t believe in the charm, he does, thought Isarel. It’s the belief that counts, remember? and the poor sod believes. Is that what this is about? He hasn’t lain in the Abbey cellars for a thousand years at all, and he hasn’t risen from the grave either.
But he might think he has. And Ciaran might think it as well. What if they’re a couple of escaped psychopaths? What if it isn’t an Abbey but a lunatic asylum? What would happen if I threw down the shofar and ran like hell down to the village? I won’t do it, of course. But I don’t know why I won’t do it. And there’s the music, that’s real enough. Jude, what have you bequeathed to me, you bastard?
They were through the gate and ahead of them was an ancient stone arch with cloisters beyond, and as they crossed to the bell tower and Ciaran unlocked the door, Isarel glanced upwards. Bells and cats and looking glasses! They all have an eerie inverted life. I wouldn’t like to be in that bell tower now. And then he realised that they would not be up there, they would be somewhere far more frightening.
They would be beneath it. They were going down into the ancient foundations: into the stone crypt that Simon of Cremona had constructed a thousand years ago for the immortal thing he had trapped and brought to Ireland.
Ahasuerus would be with them as he had been with Simon last time. Only this time he would be outside the tomb.
As they entered the crypt, Ciaran saw that the tomb was exactly as he and the others had left it. The stone slab rested on the sarcophagus’ edge, and there was still the aching desolation. He moved quickly, setting down hastily lit candles, feeling a shiver of dank coldness pass over his skin as the tiny flames burned up.
He felt as if he had passed through several worlds and several years since he had come down here with Father Abbot and Cuthbert. Four hours, had it been? Five? I’m trusting Isarel West very fully, he thought, suddenly. He’s Jude’s grandson and he knew the music. He glanced at Isarel again, and thought: I suppose it’s all right. Well, it will have to be, because I can’t think what else to do. And Mother of God, how do I get Ahasuerus back into the tomb? He moved across the stone floor until he was standing with his back to the gaping tomb, facing the stair.
They could hear the dragging footsteps above them now, and then a pause as Ahasuerus stopped at the head of the stair. Ciaran’s heart was pounding and he could feel sweat trickling between his shoulder blades. He glanced at Isarel and saw that his face was white and set, but that he still held the shofar to his lips.
Ahasuerus was on the stair. He’s just out of sight, thought Ciaran, his eyes aching with the effort of watching the dark stairway. He’s just beyond those shadows, and in another minute he’ll be here, he’ll be in the crypt and then I shall have to force him back into the tomb. Panic gripped him. I can’t do it! he thought. And then: but I must! I took the vow! God help me to keep it! He’s dragging himself down the stair now. And several layers beneath his fear, he was aware of a thrill of something quite different; he was thinking that after all the legends had all been true, the myths and the old stories. There is a piece of music with magical qualities, thought Ciaran, and there is an immortal creature bound by it, and I’m hearing the music and I’m seeing the creature.
Isarel was behind the tomb, facing the stair. His features were lit from below by the candles, and the flickering glow showed up the hollows and the angles of his thin face and scooped out black pits where his eyes were. A prickle of atavistic fear brushed Ciaran’s skin. Just for a moment it might have been Jude himself standing there: the dark charismatic Judas, stepped down from one of the old black-and-white photographs or scratchy newsreels. Playing the demonic music, sending it spinning and shivering through the crypt, soaking into the stones, licking the groyned arches above them, running in and out of the cracked flags at their feet.
And then Ahasuerus’s shadow fell on to the stair wall: exaggerated out of all proportion in the flickering candlelight, toweringly tall but hunched-over and filled with such menace that both men felt a lurch of fresh fear. Harsh ragged breathing filled the enclosed space.
Twisting down the dark stair came the robed hooded figure they had glimpsed at Mallow. There was the glint of eyes deep in the hood, and Ahasuerus stood watching them for a moment before moving slowly and unwillingly across the stone floor. Ciaran thought it was as if Ahasuerus was being drawn to the tomb by silver cords and with the thought he could almost see them: thin glistening strands, sticky cobweb strings pulling him back to the grave . . .
He thought: of course he’s fighting it. He’ll fight it with every shred of strength he has and he’ll fight me as well, and how can I blame him for it? It’s why he fought Daniel earlier, not because he’s a killer – all the legends say he was never a killer – but he’ll fight to stay out of the tomb. This is much worse than I feared. He touched the crucifix about his neck for reassurance and began to edge along the wall, forcing Ahasuerus to yield ground. Could he back him up to the tomb? Could it be as easy? But it was the only thing he could think of. The candles flickered wildly as the two men moved, and there was a sharp acrid tang as the nearest one guttered. But you did not need much light to send someone into the darkness of the tomb for ever.
Ciaran had not dared to take his eyes from Ahasuerus but he sensed that Isarel was tiring – unfamiliar music, he thought. He’s struggling to maintain it.
Isarel was indeed struggling. The music itself was not so very difficult, but playing it unceasingly on the seldom-used shofar was beginning to take its toll. His mind was spinning between fear and panic but beneath it he was conscious of a dark stirring, and of something brushing his mind, exactly as it had done when he played Jude’s piano at Mallow.
He had seen, as Ciaran had seen, that Ahasuerus was unable to resist the music, and he guessed that Ciaran was simply walking forward and forcing Ahasuerus back. I believe he’s going to do it, thought Isarel, his heart thumping with anticipation and fear. And then he remembered that Ciaran had no idea of what would send Ahasuerus back into his strange living death. Would it be sufficient simply to push him into the tomb and drag across the stone lid?
Ahasuerus was turning his head from side to side as if seeking a means of escape and Isarel felt another tug of pity. At any minute Ciaran will bound forward, he thought. He’ll leap across the floor and he’ll push him back and down.
Down and down into hell, and say I sent thee thither . . .
Ahasuerus was backing away, shaking his head as if pleading dumbly with his captors and several times he looked round, as if scanning the shadows for a way out. His hands were no longer folded in the sleeves of his gown, and Isarel saw him hold them out in a gesture of entreaty.
Let me go free . . .
The shadowy crypt was beginning to blur and waver, and the candles were dissolving into discs of incandescence. Like looking at something through water. Isarel blinked and dragged his mind to focus on the music. At any minute Ciaran would spring, and when he does I must be there with him, thought Isarel. I must be at his side to help him, bang! no delay.
But even though he was so tightly keyed up mentally and physically, when Ciaran did move, it took him by surprise.
Ciaran lunged forward – like a rugger tackle! thought Isarel startled – and sent Ahasuerus toppling backwards.
A howl rent the air as Ahasuerus went down into the tomb, his hands flailing. The long sleeves of the robe fell back, and Isarel felt as if something had slammed into the base of his throat.
Where Ahasuerus’s hands should have been, were distorted lumps of flesh, fingerless travesties, the rudimentary thumbs bearing narrow thick nails that tapered to points, so that the terrible hands had the semblance of pincers, nippers.
The hand with no heart in it, the claw, the paw, the flipper, the fin . . . The greedy clutch with the heat of sin . . . Rubente dextera . . . With his red hands . . . Only there are no hands, thought Isarel, sickened, only lobster-claws . . . Ciaran said something about a monk’s eyes being gouged out . . .
Ahasuerus was howling, great tearing screams of furious anger and hatred that swooped and spun and echoed all about the crypt, filling it with harsh agony. He was scrabbling at the sides of the deep stone trough, and Isarel dropped the shofar and moved swiftly to the tomb’s foot.
The slab was heavier than he had expected and it was awkward. Ciaran had thrust one hand deep into the tomb, pushing Ahasuerus in and forcing him down, and Isarel saw the terrible pitiful hands blindly clawing out. One of the thick ugly nails tore into Ciaran’s wrist, and Ciaran flinched and let out an oath and then leaned over again, blood running down between his fingers.
Ahasuerus was fighting Ciaran like a demon, like the devil he had once been thought to be, but the tomb was deep and he had fallen backwards straight into the inner coffin. There was a moment when the claw-hands scraped at the tomb’s sides, clawing frantically for purchase, and then Ciaran had snatched up the coffin lid and forced it into place, and he and Isarel were dragging at the immense stone slab. There was the harsh rasp of stone against stone, and then a dull clanging that reverberated through the crypt.
The muffled clang as the sepulchre re-sealed was so final, so symbolic – a door shutting out the world and the light for ever! – that it tore unbearably at Isarel’s already-raw nerves, and he leaned over the tomb gasping, wiping the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. The agony and the pity of it washed over him in cold shuddering waves.
Ciaran’s face was ashen and his lips were set in a grim line, and although both his hands were bleeding from the deep clawed wounds, they were perfectly steady. He set the small silver crucifix at the head of the stone tomb and made the sign of the cross over it. Isarel heard him murmur a prayer and turned away, picking up the shofar, not embarrassed exactly, but feeling excluded.
After a moment, he said, ‘Will that do it? Will it keep him there?’
‘Truly I have no idea.’ Ciaran glanced at Isarel. ‘The inner lid was hammered down with nails before,’ he said.
‘And even then he broke out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do we snuff the candles?’
Ciaran hesitated, and then said, ‘Yes. Yes, no light’s needed down here any more.’
As they quenched the candles, one by one, the shadows seemed to start forward, and leap across the ancient tomb.
Ciaran said suddenly, ‘If I had any sense, I suppose I’d leave them to burn and hope they’d set fire to the whole place.’ He sent Isarel a sideways glance. ‘It would put paid to Ahasuerus once and for all,’ he said.
Isarel said, ‘Did you see his face?’
Ciaran paused, and then said, ‘No. Did you?’
‘No.’
‘Why did you ask?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Isarel, slowly. ‘I think I was wondering what he was like – to begin with, I mean. I wondered what turned him into that dreadful thing you forced into the coffin.’ He frowned, and with a return to his customary off-hand manner, said, ‘Of course I still don’t believe any of it.’
‘Of course not. Neither do I,’ said Ciaran politely.
‘Are your hands much hurt?’
‘Nothing some sticking plaster won’t put right.’
They went out of the bell tower into the cool, sweet night air, and Ciaran stopped to turn the key in the immense iron lock.
Neither of them heard the faint scratching sounds that came from the creature trapped in the soundless darkness of the tomb.