As the gaslight burned lower, Elinor’s warehouse prison sank slowly into an eerie gloom, and a faint stench of corruption wafted from the culvert beyond the packing cases.
She had lost track of the hours. Her watch had been smashed when the cat-headed man, Timur, had knocked the candlestick from her hand, and she had no idea what time it was. But Timur had said that the Burning Altar ritual would start one hour before midnight on Sunday. Was it Sunday yet? Was it even Saturday?
The room was very quiet and although the gas jets were still flickering, a sickly green and purple twilight was creeping in. Elinor began to feel light-headed with fear and hunger, and several times she sank into a half-stupor in which the shadowy prison became alive with prowling nightmare beings, and reality and fantasy became indistinguishable. Once or twice a faint scrabbling beneath the trap door jerked her to full awareness, and she half started to her feet. Timur returning? No, too light and quick. Rats? If a rat gets in here I’ll die of fright, thought Elinor, and then immediately: no, of course I won’t, I’ll be too busy worrying about Timur.
Grendel had prowled restlessly around his corner for a time, the chains slithering gratingly across the concrete floor, and then had seated himself cross-legged on the floor, apparently falling into some dark absorption of his own. From time to time Elinor glanced covertly at him, but as the hours slid away she began to be less frightened. She had no idea whether this was because she had reached saturation point for horrors, or whether it was simply familiarity, or even whether she was catching a little of Grendel’s own madness. This last began to seem entirely possible.
She had thought she was prepared for Timur’s return, but when footsteps suddenly echoed along the tunnels, scalding fear rushed in again. There was the scrape of the trap door lifting and he was there, stepping up into the warehouse, a second man following him. As they lowered the flap Elinor huddled as far back in her shadowy corner as possible, praying to escape notice.
Neither of the men were wearing the cat heads, but she was fairly certain that the taller one was Timur. The build was right and the walk. They both looked to be twenty-eight or -nine and they were markedly alike: pale-skinned and with black straight hair and dark eyes and slanting cheekbones. Brothers? Whatever they were they went straight to Grendel, ignoring Elinor completely.
Grendel had curled into a small defensive huddle, his arms about his bent knees, his head down. The men exchanged glances, and then Timur bent down so that he was on a level with Grendel.
‘Only a few more hours now, Grendel,’ he said. ‘Only a few hours before you join us in the ritual.’
Grendel raised his head at last and stared at Timur. ‘The Burning Altar—’
‘Yes. The way to Touaris,’ said Timur. ‘The thing you have been waiting for.’
‘The thing we have been preparing you for,’ said the second man.
Grendel lowered his head again, half covering it with his arms like a child frightened of the dark or of a blow. In a muffled voice so low that Elinor had to strain to catch it, he said, ‘But not when I am me! It’s only when he comes— He’s the one who enjoys it!’
Elinor felt as if she had been plunged neck-deep into black icy water. Schizophrenia. Wasn’t it? Yes, surely the classic symptom was to refer to the alter ego as a separate individual.
‘There is no he,’ said Timur, and a note of cold implacability entered his voice. ‘There is only you.’ He exchanged a glance with the other man and Elinor saw his expression. They’ve miscalculated, she thought suddenly. Whatever they want of Grendel, he’s jibbing. Because he’s crossed the line back into sanity? And if he has, will it help me?
Timur turned back to Grendel. ‘Remember all the things Iwane and I promised you, Grendel?’ he said, and now his tone was that of someone taking infinite patience with a recalcitrant child. ‘All the things waiting for you in Tashkara?’
‘Your people waiting for you,’ said Iwane.
‘You have to lead them, Grendel. And the feasts – you will preside over the feasts at the Burning Altar.’
‘You enjoy the feasts,’ said Iwane. ‘We showed you about the feasts. We taught you to enjoy them.’
‘I did enjoy them—’ But it was the half-ashamed admission of a child confessing a misdemeanour.
Iwane stood up and jerked his head towards the dead boy in the velvet jacket, and Elinor saw Timur smile and nod.
‘Do we force him?’ said Iwane softly.
‘Only if we have to. But,’ said Timur, in a low voice, ‘we won’t have to.’
Grendel had lifted his head and as his eyes fell on the body he flinched visibly. ‘Don’t make me do it again,’ he said in a whisper, and pity spiked across Elinor’s mind.
He’s mad, of course. But he knows he’s mad. She found herself wanting to bound across the room, knock the two men aside and comfort the poor mad creature who was so like Lewis that it hurt.
‘You must do it,’ said Timur. ‘Just as you have done it before. You must be ready for the initiation at the Altar.’
‘But when I am me,’ whispered Grendel, ‘I know how bad it is—’ But the red glint was already waking in his eyes, and his tongue came out to lick his lips.
‘But it’s exciting,’ said Timur very softly. ‘Remember how exciting it is? Grendel, look at me. Remember the dancers? Remember the ceremonial cat-mask dance of the Bubasti?’
‘The cat dance—’ Grendel was staring at the body, half propped against the wall. His eyes narrowed and slanted, and the face that was so eerily Lewis’s seemed to grow momentarily thinner. Excitement, raw and fierce, blazed up in his eyes. But he’s fighting it, thought Elinor, in appalled fascination. I can feel him fighting it.
‘Do it,’ said Timur in a half-whisper. ‘Do it, Grendel. Feel the flesh open under the knife, taste the rich soft taste—’
‘There is nothing like it in the whole world,’ said Iwane.
‘There is nothing like it in the whole world,’ repeated Grendel obediently.
‘It’s the way to Touaris, Grendel – it’s the way to lead her people.’
‘Yes, I remember now. I remember that it paints the blood pictures for me. In my head.’
‘Then do it,’ whispered Timur. ‘Paint the blood pictures. But paint them slowly. Take all the time you want.’
‘The blood pictures.’ His eyes were blurred and inward-looking now, but when he looked up again, for a disconcerting moment, shrewd cold sanity showed. ‘It’s for Touaris,’ said Grendel, staring at Timur. ‘I shall lead her people. You promised.’
‘I promised.’ Timur reached out and took Grendel’s hand, bringing him gently to his feet. But he’s wary all the same, thought Elinor. He’s braced for Grendel to do something unexpected. ‘I promised and you shall have it,’ said Timur. ‘But first there is this. You must be worthy, you know.’
‘I must be worthy.’ There it was again, the heart-breaking humility.
Taking Grendel’s hand, Timur led him forward to the prone body, moving with deliberate slowness as if fearing that an abrupt movement might shatter the dark spell he was throwing about Grendel. He bent down and pulled back the dead boy’s cheap velvet jacket and then tore aside the thin shirt. The poor dead flesh was pale and flaccid, but here and there it was mottled with livid bruises where the blood had coagulated after death.
Grendel crouched down, his eyes on the boy, and after what seemed to be a very long time, he reached out, his hands crooked into claws. He raked both hands down the boy’s chest, his fingernails gouging deep wounds and tearing away ribbons of skin.
Timur and Iwane smiled at one another over his head, and Grendel sat back, regarding his victim. Shreds of flesh clung to his fingers and there was a faint slick of not-quite-colourless fluid.
To Elinor’s horror he lifted both hands to his mouth, licking them like an animal cleaning its paws. She shuddered, and then thought: but at least the boy was dead. Should that make me feel better? Is this what they’ll do to me tomorrow night? But it won’t hurt, my dear, because you’ll be dead before we start . . . Oh God, am I back in the nightmare? If I’m not, I think I’m keeping hold of sanity, but it’s getting to be a near thing.
Timur said in a low urgent voice, ‘More, Grendel. Go on. You know what you have to do,’ and Iwane said, ‘The pictures, Grendel. The blood pictures. Make them come in your head.’
Grendel bent over the boy, burying his face in the gaping wound. There was a wet sucking sound, and then he lifted his head and looked up at the two men. His mouth and face were smeared with the leaking body-juices of the corpse, and his lips stretched in a crazed smile.
‘Like this?’ he cried. ‘Like this?’ and Elinor shuddered, because at last it was the dreadful gloating voice of the dark demented creature. ‘This is what you want, isn’t it?’ cried Grendel. ‘The dark hunger of Tashkara! The feast of the flesh and the juice and the marrow of humans!’
Shreds of skin clung to his teeth and dribbles of glutinous fluid ran over his chin and it was impossible to escape the image of a feral; feeding beast, its jowls gore-soaked, looking up from its grisly banquet. Grendel held Timur’s eyes and said, in a greed-laden whisper that sent prickles of revulsion scudding across Elinor’s skin, ‘I have the pictures. I have the cataracts of blood and the fields of bloodied bones, all pouring through my mind. I see them all. I feel them all. Bones squelching between my hands . . .’ He held out his hands, opening and closing them. ‘And blood dripping down my throat . . .’ He drew in a deep breath, and then fixed his eyes on Timur. In a voice filled with thick purring menace, he said, ‘And now give me the knife.’
Elinor had thought that nothing could possibly be worse than what had already happened, but when Grendel began to slice into the poor torn corpse with Timur’s thin-bladed knife, she had to swallow very hard indeed to stop herself from being sick. There was an expression of intense concentration on Grendel’s face, and although he was breathing harshly and droplets of sweat clung to his hair, the mad exultation had vanished and he appeared to be wholly absorbed in what he was doing. But when he finally held up a lump of flaccid flesh, his eyes were glittering with triumph, and he looked to the two men as if waiting for approval.
‘It is very well done indeed,’ said Timur. ‘And now say it, Grendel. Say it as I taught you.’
Grendel said, ‘I am the seed of the lost tribe who came out of the land of Egypt and into the land of freedom. I am the son of the Divine One of the Bubasti, who feast at the Burning Altar, and they shall take me for their leader, they shall forsake all false gods and fall down and worship me—’ He broke off, bending over the repulsive lump of flesh, cradling it in his cupped hands, crooning over it.
Elinor thought she was not especially religious, but Grendel’s glib obedient catechism of that travesty of biblical lore stung. I am the son of the Divine One of the Bubasti, who feast at the Burning Altar . . . Timur had sold him some kind of divine Messiah tale.
‘Again, very good. And now you must eat.’
‘Yes, I must eat,’ said Grendel. He cupped the slab of flesh protectively, and crawled into the corner, half crouching, half kneeling.
Timur nodded to Iwane, who went across to the trap door and lifting the flap, went back down into the tunnels.
Timur watched him go and then turned to look at Elinor.
As his eyes met hers the gas jets sank lower, stirring the swelling shadows into eerie life and creating movement where no movement actually existed. It began to seem as if the whole cavern were alive with creeping shadows.
Timur’s eyes were glittering with cold cruel lust, and there was a dreadful moment when Elinor felt his mind brush hers with sexual hunger. Oh God, he’s going to rape me. I’m going to lose my virginity at last, but I’m going to lose it in this nightmare place with rotting bodies stuffed into a drain and a chained madman eating raw flesh within yards of us . . .
She said, as coldly and as disdainfully as she could manage, ‘Has your jackal gone out to get more victims?’ Her voice was cracked and dry because of not having spoken for so long, but it sounded fairly contemptuous.
‘He’s not a jackal, Miss Craven, but he has certainly gone out to find sacrifices. I see you understand something of what we are doing.’
‘I understand that you’re deliberately feeding Grendel’s madness,’ said Elinor. ‘And that you’re keeping me prisoner. You do know that I’ll have been missed by now? And that people will be searching for me?’ This all came out much angrier and much braver than she had dared hope.
‘No one will search for you,’ said Timur. ‘Lewis Chance is in Bath, and the centre is closed. And if anyone should start asking difficult questions – that meddlesome Raffael, or your pretty niece – we shall deal with them, as we have always done.’
Elinor stared at him in mute horror. Ginevra. Then she is here! But he knows she’s here! And Raffael was meddling somehow! But her mind was unable to grapple with this, and after a moment, she said, ‘What does – “deal with them” – mean?’
‘If they try to find you or stop us they will die on the Burning Altar. As you will die tomorrow night,’ said Timur. ‘It was a pity you pried, Miss Craven, because we seldom use females in our sacrifices. But sometimes it is necessary, and unfortunately you saw too much. I’m sorry about it, but we can’t risk letting you live. You will not die the sacrificial death, but that of a spy.’
‘Is there a difference?’
‘To die as a sacrifice to Touaris is honourable,’ said Timur. ‘To die as a spy is not.’
His voice held faint amusement and Elinor felt reality begin to blur again. Only I don’t think I’m in reality; I think I must have slid back into the nightmare. Please let me have slid back into the nightmare. I’m going to die the dishonourable death of a spy.
The room tilted and whirled about her, and she fought to stay conscious, and then heard her voice say coldly, ‘You’ll be caught, of course. You really won’t get away with this.’ God, how conventional I’m sounding! But it’s better than grovelling and pleading for mercy. Or is it?
Timur said, ‘We shan’t be caught. After tomorrow night my people and I will leave England and Grendel will go with us. You – assuming your body is identifiable – will probably be written off as one more of Grendel’s victims. We shall leave a few clues pointing to that, of course, and people will say, How very sad: but Lewis Chance was a great fool to think he could control that boy. And there will certainly be people to vouch for Grendel’s mental state.’
As Timur spoke Elinor caught, on the rim of her vision, a slight movement, and realised that Grendel had turned his head to listen.
‘The Burning Altar,’ Timur was saying, ‘is one of the oldest rituals in the world.’
By a supreme effort Elinor managed not to look in Grendel’s direction. She kept her eyes fixed on Timur and pushed down the monstrous images his words were conjuring up, and said, ‘I still don’t understand what you’re doing to Grendel. Or why you need him.’
‘You don’t need to understand. But I will tell you that our task has been made harder than we expected because Grendel is not quite as mad as we thought him. There are periods of almost complete normality.’
‘Which doesn’t suit your purpose,’ said Elinor venomously. And look at me, Timur, look at me and keep looking, because Grendel’s standing up, and he’s listening very intently to what you’re saying. And oh God, don’t let me lose consciousness again!
‘It does not suit it at all,’ said Timur. ‘We want Grendel very mad indeed, and we believe that tomorrow night will tip him once and for all into real insanity.’
‘He seems helplessly insane to me,’ said Elinor coldly. ‘But perhaps our standards are different.’ Anger flared in Timur’s eyes, and despite her fear Elinor felt a spurt of triumph.
Timur said, ‘As you saw just now, Grendel craves the taste of human flesh, but part of him is still desperately struggling for—’
‘Normality? If you want Grendel for some kind of figurehead you must be a very strange crowd,’ said Elinor. But keep talking, Timur, keep boasting about your mad plans, you horrible vain thing, keep your attention on me, because it’s going to be your undoing . . . Only don’t look round, because Grendel’s creeping towards you . . .
Timur said, ‘The madder Grendel is, the easier it will be for us to put him on the ancient throne of Touaris.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Mad, really mad, he will be easy to control. He thinks he will rule, but he will not, of course.’
‘Who will?’ This had to be the most fantastic conversation anyone had ever had. Ancient thrones and mad pretenders controlled by evil eminences grises. I’m in something out of Dumas or Anthony Hope, thought Elinor, The Prisoner of Zenda or The Man in the Iron Mask. Timur’s probably as mad as Grendel, if the truth’s known – no, that would mean I’m down here with two madmen, and I won’t think it.
‘The League of which I am leader will rule. Of course.’
‘League?’
‘The League of Tamerlane.’
‘I’ve never heard of it,’ said Elinor contemptuously.
‘It is named for a leader of Tashkara who ruled a hundred years ago, and was known as Tamerlane the Avenger. And it consists of a group of activists who will sweep away the old superstitions and the narrow minds of Tashkara,’ said Timur. ‘And make a new enlightened people under a new leader.’
For a moment his tone was the unmistakable one of the fanatic pledging a better world, and Elinor stared at him and felt a sudden sensuous pull. A Redeemer, a Golden Race, a New Age . . . And then the fleeting evocative images vanished, and she remembered all those people vainly awaiting Redeemers who never came, and all those promises made by fanatics that turned out to be hollow. And Golden Races were only born out of the death agonies of slaughtered millions, and the only New Age that had dawned in the West this century was of half-gypsy travellers, most of whom worshipped nothing better than rock music and drugs . . .
‘Grendel will serve the League’s purpose – and therefore my own – very well,’ said Timur. He made a brief dismissive gesture in the direction of Grendel’s corner, and Grendel froze into immobility at once. ‘You have seen what he is,’ said Timur, looking down at Elinor with amusement and cruelty in his expression. ‘You see how near to the surface is the hunger. He can barely control it.’
‘He’s sick,’ said Elinor bitterly. ‘His mind’s sick and you’re deliberately making it sicker. You’re forcing him down into madness.’ And little though you know it, Timur, you’re condemning yourself with every word now.
‘Believe me, Elinor,’ said Timur softly, ‘Grendel needs very little forcing.’
Grendel was inching forward again. He had scooped up his chains in both hands, and he was paying them out as he went. But the steel linkage gave the chains a horrid life of their own and Elinor was excruciatingly aware that at any second there might be a telltale chink of sound. He’s a madman creeping up on another madman and if he fails, either of them or both of them will almost certainly kill me and they might do any number of appalling things to me first. Don’t think about it. Concentrate on keeping Timur talking. Grendel’s only got about another dozen more steps. What will he do? Strangle Timur with the chains? Knock him out? But supposing the chains aren’t long enough? Oh God, what then?
There was no time even to think this, because Grendel moved then, bounding forward, his lips drawn back in a snarl, the teeth gleaming wetly. Like a huge cat, thought Elinor, flinching as far back as her own chains would allow. There was a brief vivid glimpse of a face scarcely human and then Grendel had sprung on to Timur’s back and looped the chains around his neck, jerking them tight. Timur gave an anguished grunt and his eyes bulged, and with his other hand, Grendel brought the bunched chains – looped, steel knuckle-dusters – smashing down on his skull over and over again. There was a sickening crunch of bone splintering, and there was an appalling moment when Timur was still struggling to get free, flailing at the air. He half broke away, and stumbled a few feet, but he was almost blinded and barely conscious. Grendel pounced again, dealing a final crashing blow, and Timur crumpled to the floor.
Grendel stared down at him, the bunched chains still held in his hands. ‘You promised me the throne of Touaris, Timur,’ he said. ‘You promised. But you were going to cheat – I heard you say it.’ He looked about him, scanning the dim warehouse, and Elinor pressed as far back into the shadows as she could. But when Grendel looked at her there was a vivid flash of sanity: a brief glimpse of a mind that was perfectly logical and perfectly normal. He has periods of almost complete normality, Timur had said. Yes, but how long do they last?
But when Grendel said, ‘We must search his pockets for keys to the padlocks,’ his voice was perfectly logical and normal, and when he said, ‘And we must do it quickly!’ it was almost Lewis’s voice and Lewis’s quick impatience. ‘Iwane might come back at any minute!’ said Grendel, and plunged his hands into Timur’s pockets. Elinor waited, scarcely daring to breathe, and after a moment Grendel straightened up, frowning. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘He was too wily to have kept them on him and brought them down here.’
‘The trap door’s not locked,’ volunteered Elinor, forcing herself to speak in an ordinary voice. ‘But we can’t reach it. We can’t escape that way.’
‘No.’ Grendel looked about him, and his eyes shone suddenly. ‘But there is another way that we can escape,’ he said softly. ‘In a few hours Timur’s people will assemble for the ritual of the Burning Altar.’ He looked down at Timur. ‘If they believe me to be Timur, they will do what I tell them. And that means—’
‘What—’
‘I must become Timur,’ said Grendel. His eyes met Elinor’s, and he lifted the glinting knife.