Time of the Beast (25 page)

‘Back on the island,’ Cadroc said as he turned to face us, ‘my demon did not flee through pain or fear, but because I commanded it. We have lived together in the depths of these marshes, and you saw back in the hut that he has been lonely – so lonely – as he awaited my return, so that together we might once more be complete
.
’ He threw back his head and gave a long sigh. ‘Is he not magnificent? Are we not perfect?’ At once his eyes flashed at Cynewulf, and then at me, and he gave a frown. ‘I fear now we cannot let you live. You have seen that my dark angel is of living flesh, and you must not survive with this knowledge. Understand that he is sent into this world as a terrible redeemer, so men might be given faith – as it was given to me. I will pursue him and our battle will rage, and he will flee at my command to demonstrate the power of the Cross over the things of darkness. And none will ever suspect that we are truly one – the right and the left hand of God!’

As he spoke Cadroc’s voice sank to a low growl from deep in his throat, his tone oddly flat and monotonous, as if he were intoning a Church ritual. Yet insanity burned like a cold flame within him. I realised now that the very sight of the monster had changed him entirely into another man from the one I had known. Two different men in one? Or one man with a damaged and divided soul?

‘I must inform you,’ he said to Cynewulf, who looked to be in the grip of a strange fascination as he stared back, ‘that after our battle with those demons in Elmet, when we returned to seal the cave mouth, we found there, miraculously preserved among the fallen stones, a devil-child. Dark spirit transmuted and incarnated into corrupt flesh. My father brought him back with us to our hall and chained him in a dungeon, feeding him with raw meat and beating him to arouse his innate savagery, as he became an exhibit to thrill and excite the wonder of our guests. But soon his novelty faded, and his existence was almost forgotten – except by me. Because I was certain that God had given us this prodigy for a purpose. The devil-child sank into apathy in his loneliness and confinement, and would only gaze with blank, mindless eyes into the darkness of his cell. But I was his deliverance. It was I who conceived the plan to instruct and restore him, using the Cross itself as my symbol of control and chastisement. For I knew that only the power of Christ could give domination over a monster with a demonic soul. I recall the day when he looked into my eyes, and I saw there for the first time the stirrings of consciousness and reason. After that his gaze began to draw me into its depths, and slowly I grew almost lost there as our minds and wills fought for ascendency. It was at first a fearful thing to enter into this realm of darkness. But I knew that I would conquer it with God at my side. I knew in the end mastery would be mine. And meanwhile my dark angel grew to possess a size and strength far beyond that of any human child. Your story I confess made me question the truth of his infernal nature. But at last I understand exactly what he is – the child of an unholy mating between man and demon. You must see, Lord Cynewulf, that he is your own kinsman – on his human side.

‘But then came the invasion of my land by the pagan armies of King Penda. My father fell in battle, and I was forced to flee, leaving behind my country, my position and estate, and all that was rightfully mine. I was made
powerless.
I swore eternal revenge against the heathens who had dispossessed me. Yet I also saw that God had given me power and placed into my hands the perfect instrument of His retribution. My own dark angel – my shadow –
my other self!
So together we came into exile, into the remoteness of these Fens, and we learned to survive here. Now, as he grew, I began to instruct him in the art of combat – with weapons taken from my father’s armoury, relics from the time of the Romans – so that our bodies might become as closely assimilated as our minds. And so we came to be one – more powerful and terrible than any man could be.’

‘Brother Cadroc!’ I said sharply, attempting to reach the man he had been, even while I feared that man was now swept away and irrevocably lost. ‘Remember that you left this exile, to re-enter the world of men and become a monk…’

‘Yes!’ he said, as his voice seemed to falter and his face grew perturbed. ‘I began to suffer doubts. There arose in me a voice that questioned if my plan was indeed God’s will, or truly an impulse inspired by the Devil. I began to fear that by slow degrees… the darkness had gained control of me! In my uncertainty, I fled to a monastery and received the tonsure, vowing that I would remain inside while I searched my soul for the truth. But always at night I would feel him outside, his presence awaiting me in the dark, calling to me with the voice of my other self until, alone and abandoned, he began our mission to bring terror and vengeance to the unbelievers. He was crying out to me!’ Now Cadroc threw back his head to unleash a dreadful roar, a blood curdling sound which rose from the visceral depths of his being as if to block out and still the warring chaos in his soul, until it seemed that the enraged spirit of the beast itself had come to inhabit and possess him. His voice grew so hoarse and growling it seemed barely human as he went on. ‘But now I have come back to look once more into the face of the abyss, and at last I am convinced that it was the whisper of doubt in me which was the true voice of the Devil!’

He looked to me, and said: ‘Let not your heart be troubled. My dark angel will bring death only to the pagans. Did he not spare your life? The servants of Christ he will not harm.’

It was now I saw in his raving lunacy a dreadful reflection of myself – that I had followed not the truth but only the madness. It came as a stark revelation. But I feared it was a lesson I would not live to profit by, and in despair I yelled out at him:

‘The darkness has taken you utterly. You have raised up a false idol in your own image. A twisted embodiment of all your hatred. That monster is what you have come to worship. That thing of the Devil!’

‘Ah!’ He gave a chilling smile. ‘But the Devil has his purpose, ordained by God. How might the Church prosper without him? How else might filthy heathen savages be controlled except by fear? But why do I debate with you? An outcast monk who doubts his faith. Your death will be pleasing to God’s eyes.’

Now Cynewulf spoke, while he stared at Cadroc with a terrible realisation.

‘My enemy is inside you!’ he said. ‘When my twin died… the true demon… the blind spirit of rage and vengeance in me… it passed into you!’

Suddenly he unleashed a roar of wild anger and charged at Cadroc, his sword raised ready to strike. Cadroc did not move, but only looked on coldly as the beast – his dreadful familiar spirit – sprang forward, aberrant and terrible as it burst out from the rushes and gave an awesome shriek of maniacal fury, its club meeting Cynewulf’s blade. Again their weapons clashed together, Cynewulf gripping the hilt of his sword with both hands. But while he matched his opponent’s blows, it was clear he could not equal its sheer strength, and its brute force was unstoppable as it drove Cynewulf back, their two giant shapes moving away into the depths of the marshes. I stumbled after them, desperate to see what was happening, but fearful that this was a battle Cynewulf could not win as I looked upon the malformed horror of the beast’s face and heard the throaty grunting of its breath as it rained down sweeping blows. Cynewulf could only fall back and struggle to maintain his weakening defence while his adversary sought to pound him into exhausted submission. Cadroc was moving behind me now, holding his torch aloft to shed an eerie light through the drifting mist, his sword held ready for when he should choose to move upon me for the kill. As I stumbled before him I felt my feet sink ever further down into the soft mud, but Cadroc’s advance would not allow me to stop or turn back, yet drove me relentlessly onward into the deepening mire.

But now came the end of Cynewulf’s armed resistance, as I saw the beast land a final crashing blow, and Cynewulf’s sword was wrenched from his grip and sent spinning away into the dark. Yet even before the beast could swing its arm back, Cynewulf sprang forward to clamp his hands about its wrist, hurling his full weight and strength against its vast frame as he strained with every sinew to keep its fearful weapon from him. The monster stood, solid and immovable, as the iron grip of its great hand closed around Cynewulf’s throat. But then, as they grappled, I saw the beast’s injured leg suddenly buckle, and they staggered backwards, locked together as they fell, plunging downward into a deep mud pool. The beast sank beneath Cynewulf’s weight and was at once entirely submerged, while Cynewulf sank to his chest before he reached out to halt himself by grabbing at a tussock of thick grass that grew at the pool’s edge. But as I gazed below him into the pit of inky blackness, I saw the mud around him begin to shift and stir, and somehow I knew what must come next. Then in a moment it burst up, that mud-soaked horror, screeching out as it broke through the bog’s surface, its hands clinging to Cynewulf, climbing forward as it used his body to gain purchase, struggling against him and pushing him deeper down into the mire as it clawed and scrambled its way upward, and I knew that within moments it would fight its way free from the clutch of the morass.

At once the glimmer of torchlight grew brighter, and I looked around to see Cadroc move behind me, looking on with satisfaction as he saw the beast begin to rise up from out of the bog. Then he turned his eyes to me.

‘Nowhere left to run,’ he told me coldly. I stood upon the edge of the bog, and could retreat no further. So I came about to face him, holding up Aelfric’s knife to point it at him. He glanced at it as he raised his sword, and his eyes met mine as his face filled with a look of scorn. And as I stared back at him my heart burned suddenly with pure anger and defiance.

Then I did something he could not have expected. I cried ‘
Cynewulf!
’ and looked out to see that by now only the old warrior’s face was still visible above the bog’s surface as I threw the knife so that it slid and skittered across the mud, and as it came to rest I saw a grimy hand reach up to grasp it. Then with a bellow Cynewulf was striking out at the struggling thing above him, driving the knife’s blade again and again into the body of the beast as he let go of his hold upon the bank to clasp his arm around it and drag it down. The air was filled with its terrible shrieks of pain and Cynewulf’s rising roars of triumph. Within moments, they began to sink, and as they fought, they were gone, the mud rising to smother their faces and fill their gaping mouths as they were swallowed together into the devouring darkness – the last two scions of their cursed blood.

As the echoes of their cries died away, a deep silence fell. Then Cadroc began to rave and howl with demented grief and fury, and his eyes were fixed on me with venomous hate. He came at me raging, and I tripped backwards until the earth beneath me was gone, then I was submerged deep within the soft mud. As it closed around me, I helplessly watched Cadroc advance, his eyes blazing and his legs sinking into the swampy ground as he strove to reach me, and I saw that he must either kill me himself or drive me to my death farther out in the bog. But at the end I knew my life had been well spent. So I tore my arm free and pointed a finger at him as I cried out:

‘A man may be what he chooses to be. But that miserable creature had no choice. You chose for it – and see what you chose! God sees you and knows you. And I curse you. May the flames of Hell take you!’

He thrust out his torch and drew back his blade to strike. Yet even as he did so there arose from the mud a great bubbling and gurgling, then the bog gave an obscene belch, and I felt it suck me downward as there came from out of its unsettled depths a reeking miasma, a great stench of rotting matter which filled the air and rippled visibly like a haze within the mist. It was so suffocating and foul that I could not breathe it in, and my head spun and sank down as my sight grew dim. And in a moment, the air around Cadroc simply burst into flame, his torch igniting into a howling blaze that was like the fires of Hell roaring up from out of the earth – or like the rising of a furious giant phantom of the marsh
.
Cadroc was stuck screaming in its midst, his flesh burning and shrivelling, his eyes blinded, his robe alight. I turned my face away as I felt the raging heat scorch my skin, and as it subsided I looked back to see the blaze was shrinking into ripples of blue flame that streaked and danced across the surface of the bog.

Now Cadroc toppled forward onto the mud, lying facedown before me, and I began to move steadily, grasping at him to pull myself forward and crawl over him, using his body in an effort to free myself from the deadly grip of the mire. I felt him stir weakly beneath me, and I was half free when he began to thrash and struggle, and started to sink into the depths. I was being pulled with him into the endless dark as I kicked out and lunged forward, grabbing desperately at the half solid earth and clumps of grass in front with slipping scrabbling fingers, even as I felt frantic hands claw at me from beneath to pull me down. Cadroc’s body twisted as his head rose out of the swamp beside me, and I looked around into the grisly ruin of his face, blackened by mud and flame, his hair burned away and his skin hanging in blistered lumps as his withered eyes still seemed to glare at me with insane hatred. I smashed out with my fist, striking at him desperately to drive him down as he gripped me with frenzied strength to drag me with him. Exhaustion and hopelessness were overcoming me as I sank into the mud, and its blackness entombed me and felt finally inescapable as it held me suspended, beyond the power to struggle further as my strength failed and I surrendered myself to that graveyard of lost souls where lonely things of rage, despair and madness lay newly buried.

But now I grew dimly aware that somewhere far above me my fingers had clutched at something firm, and it felt like another hand had grasped mine to draw me upward. In a moment my body was stirring back into life, slipping free from the weakening grip of the horror that clung to me below, moving up through the suffocating darkness with new determination as my head burst back into the night air, my lungs gulping as I fought tortuously to drag myself onto firmer ground.