Clay (15 page)

People will read this and scoff; they will call it the wild scrawling of a madman on the crumbling lip of the grave. They will laugh. But it will be a nervous, sickly laughter that doesn’t ring true. For in the end, when they have correlated the things I have told with the accepted facts, they will know that I am right. Claude Ashur will go on. For, strangely enough, insane as he is, I think perhaps he has captured the vagrant dream of every man —the only true immortality; the immortality of the mind that will not be imprisoned in one fleshy tomb, but will find others, and, somehow, forever escape the ravages of disease, the oblivion of the grave.

It is ironic and cruel that such a man should have made the discovery. But it is more than just that. It is dangerous. Net to me; not to Gratia and the others who have fought with Claude and lost. Nothing can touch us now. But Claude Ashur can touch you. Perhaps, even now, he is near you; perhaps he speaks with the lips of a lover, or watches through the eyes of an old and trusted friend, smiling that ancient, enigmatic smile. Laugh, if you will, but remember:

The will of Claude Ashur is possessed of a strength that goes beyond flesh and blood. One by one, it has met and vanquished every obstacle in his path. Before it, even Death has bowed a humbled head. And what it could not conquer, it has destroyed. If you doubt such power, you have only to think of me. It was that unholy strength of will that usurped my clean, healthy body, and left me entombed in this swollen, putrescent mass of flesh that has been rotting these twenty years with leprosy.

"An idea made this pde criminal pale. Adequate was he for the deed when be did it, but the idea of it, he could not endure when it was done.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

*

I CONFESS, in the beginning the case of Simon Conrad did not strike me as singular. On my first visit to the Castle von Zengerstein, I had no suspicion of the secret that lay hidden in the vaults of that Gothic pile that towered on a craggy hill-crest at the Black Forest’s edge. I found Luther Markheim, master of Zengerstein, nothing more than a mountainous relic of the decadent line that spawned him; he and his companion, one Doctor Victor Rupert, were mildly concerned over the fate of Simon Conrad, but they feared they could be of little assistance since they had never even seen, the gentleman in question. It was all very commonplace. No hint of the festering evil of Zengerstein seeped through the veneer of ordinariness.

But, events have taken a strange turn. The Conrad affair is no longer simply a missing persons case; it is a crime whose, hideous memory still lurks in the mirror of the tarn that separates the Castle from the deserted village of Zengerstein. Perhaps, when you have come to know the facts of the case, you will say that I, Ludwig Koch, Inspector of Police of the town of Donaueschingen, some twenty kilometres to the north, should have guessed at the macabre truth. But, I am a simple man. My dealings in the world of crime had been with petty theft and trespassing. Never before had I been drawn into such a web of malignity as shrouded the house of Luther Markheim. I had heard men whisper, on a winter’s night in the hofbrau, of an evil that lingers in shadow, beyond the understanding of normal minds; once, in a visit to Baden, I had seen the Teufels Kanzel - on the brink of the Schwarzwald, Where, legend has it, the Devil preached to his disciples; to me, it seemed only an altar of scorched stone. The supernatural has always been beyond my ken. But, of late, I have undergone a change. Having witnessed the horror of Zengerstein, only an idiot could remain an unbeliever.

The entire truth of the affair has never before been disclosed. For years, it has lain in the police archives, at Donaueschingen, buried in the rotting pages of the manuscript of Luther Markheim. Qnly recently it was decided that in view of work being done by one Sigmund Freud in a new field called psychiatry, it would be advisable to release the story of Zengerstein that these doctors might benefit by study of the quirks of a criminal mind in action. To outward appearances, the manuscript does not seem extraordinary; it was written in ink by a precise hand the story is told with scientific clarity; and, except one turned to the last scrawled lines, except one examined the brownish stains on the final pages and knew them to be the marks of dried blood, one would never guess that these words were written by a man who had been blind for nearly a decade.

THE MARKHEIM MANUSCRIPT

There is so little time. Now, in the night, here in my bedchamber, I should feel safe. I should know that there can be no truth in the unholy phantasms that have come to haunt my every, waking moment. The doors are locked. Nothing could penetrate those, ponderous panels. Nothing human. Yet, at every whimper of the wind in the grate, I start; the howling of the wolfhounds gnaws at my nerves. Rain sobs against the casement, lashed by the winds sweeping up from the River Murg. And throughout the stormy night, Koch and his deputies continue to wander the Black Forest, their lanterns bobbing like cat’s-eyes in outer darkness. Still they search for Simon Conrad. Soon, perhaps, they shall return to Zengerstein to question me again. But, it is not Koch I fear. It is that thing no barred portal can ward off; that bloated livid face that floats somewhere in the well of the mirror by the bed; dark beings stir in the pit beyond that glass and every moment, the scabrous visage grows nearer, the blind eyes burn more fiercely. Soon, it will rise from the crypts beneath the castle. I know. There is no escape. Soon, the time will have run out. And then, the slash of the scalpel, the pale face pressed close to mine —and death. The same death that monster brought to Simon Conrad short weeks ago.

It is incredible that things have come to this impasse. Every step of my plan was laid with such care. And, now, at the final moment, the whole structure crumbles beneath me. There can be but one answer. Somewhere, I have made a mistake; some thread of the web has tangled and snapped. Perhaps, if I retrace every step, there may yet be time for reparation. I must be exceedingly careful. I must not slip again. This is my last chance.

*

IT BEGAN nine years ago, in Freiburg, in the winter of 189— I was a different man, then. I was not a ponderous object of pity with a scarred face and sightless eyes; people then did not avoid me and turn to their friends to whisper that a "has-been” always depressed them. In December of 189- I was one of the most successful men in the city of the Hapsburgs. Mine was a place of honor at the banquet-tables of the Freiherren. My huge, bulk then was the impressive figure of a man in the prime of life, well-dressed, imposing, a monument to the scientific genius it embodied; women marvelled at my delicate, sensitive hands —the hands of Herr Doktor Luther Markheim, one of the greatest surgeons in Germany. I was chief of staff at the Spital Hapsburg; the universities of Vienna had honored me with degrees for my work in surgical research. Countless students came to me, inspired, to study the art of the knife; it was among them that I discovered Victor Rupert.

He was not an idiot. An idiot could never have gained my, confidence as he did. From the outset, it was obvious that his was the most promising talent in my select, class at the Freiburg Universitat. His hands were slim and steady; he used the scalpel with the dexterity of a miniature-painter. No. There was nothing idiotic about Victor Rupert. But, he was a weakling and a fool. The only son of a burger who had made a fortune in ale and bestowed on himself a Baron’s coronet, from his boyhood, Victor was a coddled child; on the death of his parents he came into a considerable estate, and continued where his mother and father left off— he coddled himself. Small, dark-skinned, with huge eyes, he affected florid waistcoats and the softest boots that money could buy. His time was divided between the hofbrau barmaids, and the ladies of the chorus at the Theater Strauss.

The evening invariably ended with some passing companions carrying Victor, dead drunk, to his quarters in the Freiburgstrasse, and departing with whatever money they could steal. A fool; a weakling whose brain had lost control of the flesh. I thought I could change him; I thought, in time, I could make him a useful member of the profession. I should have known better. I should have cast him back into drunken oblivion where he belonged. I should have destroyed him, before he destroyed me.

I dare not dwell upon the details of the accident; for me, every moment of remembering is agony relived. The stench of chemical gas in the laboratory, the horrified look of realization on the face of the student named Lund, the roar of the explosion and hellfire eating into my flesh, slicing across my eyes, Lund’s screams slowly dwindling, and at last, merciful darkness. You may find the known facts of the case in the files of any newspaper in Freiburg; they tell me the Zeitung Leute bore the headline:

PROMINANT SURGEON BLINDED,

STUDENT KILLED,

IN UNIVERSITY BLAST

It was, called a freak accident; the truth never reached the public; no one ever knew that an hour before, I had seen Rupert conducting an experiment in that laboratory; no one ever guessed that the "accident” was caused by the negligence of a fool whose mind was still fogged by the burgundy he had swilled the night before.

Rupert was terrified. Exactly how, I have never learned —possibly by bribing the orderly— he gained my bedside before the authorities had questioned me. He clutched my sleeve; abject terror whined in every breath he drew.

"Before God, Herr Doktor, I’ll do whatever you ask! I’ll work for you, devote my life to serving you; give you all the money I have in this world. But, I beg of you...!” A sob broke his words. "On my knees, I beg you, do not tell them it was I...”

Anger seethed in the new, obscene darkness of my brain. My throat felt tight. I freed my arm of his quivering grasp.

“Snivelling swine!” I hissed. "Why? Tell me one reason why I should remain silent!” Laughter tore through my facial bandages. "The priceless fool! He destroys my sight; he ruins the career of a genius! And, then, he asks my protection!” The laugh shattered on a furious sob. My fingers closed over his wrist the bones felt thin and brittle; I twisted. “Why?. Tell me, Victor; Why?”

I felt his body wince; he whimpered.

“Nein, Herr Doktor! You must understand! They would imprison me! Throw me into a cell; leave me to rot! I... I could not endure it; I am a sensitive man…”

“Indeed!”

“Lieber Gott, have mercy, mein herr!” The clammy wrist writhed in my grip. “I promise you! Whatever I have is yours; my money, my life! You must listen, to me!”

And, in the end, I did.

Do not misunderstand. I did not forgive Rupert. How can you forgive the inane court-jester who has destroyed the Castle? No, I listened to Rupert because it was to my advantage to listen. Already, I had tasted the first bitter consequences of my blindness; a voice by my bed when they thought I was still unconscious: "Well, that finishes the great Markheim. A pity. But, he was getting on in years.... Perhaps it is as well to go out before your talent deteriorates....” This from a medical idiot unfit to be my laboratory assistant! Pity, old acquaintances uneasy in my blind fumbling presence, slow decay surrounded by mocking memories of what I once had been; that was the prospect of life should I remain in Freiburg. I had lived well; now, with only the pittance granted by the Spital Hapsburg, I should be buried alive in some dank areaway, three flights up, forgotten, alone. I knew I could not stand it; I knew I must escape. Victor Rupert offered the way out. His money would allow me to live comfortably and in seclusion; to hide the ruined tomb of genius that was my body in the solitude of the Castle von Zengerstein.

*

THE Baronial title of Zengerstein was no tinsel honor bought by some grubby burger suddenly grown rich. As early as 1407 the coronet was bestowed upon one General Lothar von Zengerstein of the Army of Ferdinand, by the Emperor himself; the title carried with it certain lands, some miles south of Donaueschingen, bordering the Black Forest, and dominated by an ancient, brooding Schloss; under the guiding hand of Lothar, a shrewd business man when not campaigning, the estate and the village that sprang up in the Castle’s, shadow, rapidly became one of the most prosperous in the Lower Schwarzwald region. There was food and comfort for all; the bauer who paid allegiance to Lothar were content. The house of Zengerstein bore sons; like their fathers, they followed the military life; Zengersteinschloss rang with the laughter of late revelry and wine. Such was the state of affairs when my grandfather, Bruno, Ninth Baron von Zengerstein, became head of the house.

Bruno was the father of two sons and a daughter, Lizavetta; Lizavetta von Zengerstein was my mother. My earliest recollections center about the mammoth halls of the Castle, where I was taken to live when my father, Paul Markheim, a medical student in Vienna, died of consumption shortly after my birth. I recall the towering figures of my grandfather and uncles grouped about the Teutonic hearth, drinking schnapps and laughing boisterously over the success of some past campaign, on the battlefield, or in the kitchen of the Inn with the new barmaid. I was in a private school in Berlin when the Franco-Prussian war broke out; vague stirrings of it reached my sheltered world. Baron Bruno and his son’s were among the first to reach the front; the younger son was killed by a musket-ball that shattered his brain; Karl, the eldest, died of typhoid in an obscure village in the Midi. Baron von Zengerstein returned a broken man.

The death of his sons destroyed all hope for fulfillment of his one desire; there would never be an heir to carry on the name of Zengerstein. He was an old man, his powers wasted in a profligate youth, and now, he entombed himself in the Castle to brood away the final hours of the last of the Zengersteins. Unwholesome legends surround the last days of Bruno von Zengerstein; it is said that in his mad desire to perpetuate his line, he consorted with the powers of darkness; the shelves of his private library were cluttered with volumes of forbidden lore; more than one village girl was terrorized by the cloaked figure that roamed the region of the Castle tarn during the night hours. The bauer grew uneasy; after sundown, they clung to their hearthfires behind locked cottage-doors. One by one, families packed their belonging's and moved on, away from the Schwarzwald, where, if legend does not lie, the souls of Bruno’s unborn heirs bayed like hounds to the baleful moon. The village was empty thatched cottagerooves caved in and rats burrowed in the ruins. Zengersteinschloss fell into disrepair; the priceless tapestries decayed; cobwebs coated the stone walls; cold grates bore charred relics of sacrifices made by the Baron von Zengerstein. The peasants who found his body and buried it in the Castle crypt, say that the contorted dead face could only have been that of a madman. My mother was living, at that time, in Berlin; she did not go home for the last rites of the Baron. The strange stories frightened her; once, she expressed the desire never to see Zengerstein again; her wish was granted. When she returned to the Castle, she lay in the sightless dark of her coffin. At the age of twenty-nine, I became legal heir to the Baronial lands of Zengerstein.