Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) Page 14

“What was the original name of the manor house?”

  “Krozak’el.” Seeing Holmes’ frown, he added: “Aye, it’s a word borrowed from the Picts, and they likely acquired it from a Paleolithic tribe they conquered. No one on the island even knew its meaning, and none cared when I changed it.”

  “Which is?”

  “Devil’s wind.”

  “Would it not be better translated as ‘Lord of the Wind’?”

  “I have known you a long time, Holmes, starting when you were just a pup first coming to the Reading Room,” Wilmarth said, shaking his head, “and yet you continue to amaze me. The man who writes those stories in the Strand does not understand the breadth and depth of your knowledge.”

  “Please don’t think harshly of Watson,” Holmes admonished. “He must fictionalize certain aspects of the cases when he submits them to his editor, not so much to protect the names of the people involved but to make them more believable—we have had many cases for which the world will never be prepared. The same, he has explained, applies to me as well, a matter of making me eccentric, but not too eccentric.”

  “Foolish man,” Wilmarth commented, but without any rancor. “As if the true scope of your knowledge, and ignorance, could be contained within a simple list.”

  “He is very good at what he does, perhaps a better writer than he is a doctor, though I would never mention that to him; I doubt I could write a fictionalization as well as he, but I might try my hand at it one day, after I have retired. He is, I might say, relatively selfless, as he dims his own light to make mine seem all the brighter. I think the two of you would get along well, but do take his war stories with a grain of salt.”

  They continued along the path. The mist thickened behind and to either side, but ahead a dark, brooding shape took form. The house was constructed from the same dark stone that comprised the boundary wall, each piece fitted together precisely. It was a two-story structure, a narrow central façade with two wings sprawling to either side. The low wall continued along both sides, arching around to the rear of the manor house.

  “Eight centuries at least,” Holmes remarked. “But there is also a certain timelessness to its lines.”

  Unseen waves roared on either side, but even the cliffs’ edges were lost in swirling mist. A mass of opaque vapor eddied behind the ancient house, rising to obscure the setting sun. Holmes looked back the way they had come, the track leading into oblivion. He prided himself on his ability to view any situation through a prism of emotionless logic, but even he had to admit that, at that moment, Spindrift House seemed the loneliest place on Earth.

  “Let’s get out this mist,” Wilmarth suggested. “At dusk, the winds rise. Very dangerous then.” He shuddered. “Come. A good meal, a cordial drink, and I’ll tell you why I asked you here.”

  The door opened as they approached, revealing a lean man with glossy black hair and a severely pointed Van Dyke.

  “The room is prepared, as you requested, Professor,” the man said. He looked to Holmes. “May I take your bag, Mr Holmes?”

  “Emerson?” Holmes asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the man replied, grinning. “Thank you, sir. Always nice to be remembered, sir.”

  “When I retired, Holmes, young Emerson applied to go with me,” Wilmarth explained. “The British Museum Reading Room lost an excellent porter and I gained a skilled researcher and assistant.”

  “And I can cook,” Emerson added.

  “I might have starved long ago without Emerson, for no local will come up here,” Wilmarth said. “I appreciate his sacrifice,”

  “Oh, ‘twern’t a sacrifice, not really,” Emerson defended. “I was never one for the bustle of London, and the Reading Room wasn’t the same as when I got on there as a lad. Seems now they’ll issue a card to anyone. Spent half my time shushing chattering patrons and cleaning up books and manuscripts after grubby-handed students. The next thing you know, they will start letting in undergraduates.”

  “Shocking,” Holmes murmured.

  “Indeed!” Emerson agreed. “Mannerly gents like you were always a rare breed, Mr Holmes, but now they’re all but extinct.”

  “Emerson exaggerates.”

  The younger man snorted. “Here, the work is easy, the research interesting. Life moves at a slower pace. Grant you, the islanders are a queer lot, but they pull a good pint at the pub and steal my pennies at darts, same as anyone else. Besides, I have an interest in chemistry, and the Professor lets me pursue it.”

  Wilmarth cleared his throat softly and glanced at the bag still in Holmes’ grip.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Emerson said, his face flushing. He took the bag. “If you’ll follow me, Mr Holmes, I’ll show you to your room and you can freshen up before dinner.”

  The afternoon meal was filled with polite conversation about shared acquaintances in a London that now seemed as far away as the moon. Both the Professor and Emerson were keen to talk about Holmes’ many cases, both the ones that had been published and the many more that would never see print, about which Holmes was as discreet as he was informative. After the meal ended, Wilmarth took Holmes into his study, leaving Emerson to clean up and prepare the house for the encroaching night.

  “Brandy?” Wilmarth offered.

  “Yes, thank you.” Holmes pulled out his pipe, then paused.

  “Oh, feel free,” Wilmarth urged. “If I remember correctly, your favorite smells rather like an old shoe on fire, but I don’t mind. The doctor has told me to stop smoking, but I can certainly enjoy another man’s vice.”

  The study was long and narrow. The side walls were comprised of shelves crammed with books. The entire southern wall was lined with tall panes of glass. The swirling mist through which they had come was now tinged with the fires of a failing day, deep purplish hues, and was drawing back from the house. At the same time, strong winds were rising, rattling the panes, howling through the night. Stars appeared overhead, but the lights of the village were still hidden by thick vapors.

  “The wind is quite strong at times,” Professor Wilmarth said, gazing absently out the windows. He realized he still held Holmes’ brandy, apologized, and gave it to him. “Distraction comes all too easily to me these days…the curse of age.”

  “I think not, Professor,” Holmes said, taking the drink. “What is it that you are afraid to discuss in front of Emerson?”

  Wilmarth gestured to a wingchair and sat in one opposite. “As you know, I came to this island to pursue my studies in obscure ancient writings about…well, for lack of a better word, the occult. It was a field that caused much friction over the years between me and the Museum. As I recall, it caused many tense moments between us when I argued against your solidly mechanistic worldview.”

  “I was, as you may recall, quite young and, as you mentioned from time to time, very full of myself,” Holmes replied with a fond smile of remembrance. “In a sense, nothing has changed since then, yet, as always happens in any man’s life, everything has changed. I still do not believe in magic as anything but a tool useful to thieves and charlatans for controlling the credible. Also, most proponents of the occult sciences are either mad or deluded.”

  “I’ve spent a lifetime studying the secrets of the Necronomicon and other forbidden tomes,” Wilmarth said, “and I do not disagree with anything you have said.”

  “Then we have both changed,” Holmes said. “My experiences since we first met have convinced me there is much more to the world than we can acquire with our senses, not due to any mystical reality but because of our own limitations. Energies undetectable by the eyes and ears of most people surge about us like the waves of an unknown and unsuspected sea. Few can perceive what occurs below the surface of that sea. Likewise, our history is occult in the sense that it is hidden. We believe man holds sway and that he has since ages of darkness, but that view is supported not by unassailable evidence but simply by the power of belief in our own superiority to nature. Is the Necronomicon a true record of our past, with i
ts array of embattled monster-gods subordinating humanity as cattle? There is no proof against it but our disbelief; in favor…there are, in lonely places of the world, isolated tribes whose lives still move to patterns created before memory, places where the foolish have aroused ancient forces of doom, and creatures which have survived the end of their worlds. When I try to understand the world around me, I do not subject it to beliefs and conventions, but to strict empirical tests of reality. After I have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains is the truth, even if it is a being that once called itself a god.”

  “Bravo, Holmes,” Wilmarth said softly, raising his glass. “I have never heard the Necronomicon and the minions of Cthulhu set forth in such logical terms. I hope to relay it with sufficient lucidity in my next epistle to my nephew, Albert.”

  “Is young Albert the same insufferable prodigy as he was when I met him in your office thirteen years ago?”

  Wilmarth sighed. “Alas, some things do not change. He is in his second year at Miskatonic University in Arkham. Insufferable, yet brilliant, he is pursuing studies in folklore, comparative religion, and linguistics. Unless he procures a position on his own after graduation, I intend to use my influence at the British Museum to help him.”

  Holmes nodded, gazing expectantly at Wilmarth.

  “I am reluctant to tell you why I asked you to come, even after your argument in favor of a world unknown to our senses and anathematic to our sensibilities,” Wilmarth said. “I hesitated before I mailed the letter, then wished I had not. It may turn out to be no more than an old man’s fears.”

  “I am here, and I shall be here at least a week, so you might as well put aside your reluctance and tell me,” Holmes said. He set his empty glass on a side table, leaned back in the chair, rested his chin upon his steepled fingertips, and puffed upon his pipe, sending noxious fumes swirling upward. “Tell me everything, from the beginning, leaving out nothing.”

  “The beginning,” Wilmarth mused, settling back, more at ease because of Holmes’ encouragement. “I suppose it started about five months ago, at least that was the first time I saw the creature, though at the time I did not think it was anything but a large and malformed bird. This house is the northernmost settled point of St John Island, though a full third of the island lies beyond. For the most part it is uninhabitable, a collection of jagged peaks, sheer cliffs and treacherous shoals. No one braves it now, either by boat or by rope, but there are many megalithic ruins out there, remnants of an unknown culture that worshiped creatures of sea and air.

  “As you might have surmised, this house is usually surrounded by mist, which has probably contributed to its ill repute among the islanders. When I took possession, it had been vacant for more than two years, and in all that time no one had approached it, not even wee boys to cast stones at the windows. Also, no local would come to work here, so I was lucky Emerson wanted to make a break with London and have a place where he could pursue his studies.”

  “Did the surviving Camshronack heir have the same problem?” Holmes asked.

  “Yes, but she had a woman who did for her, last of the old manor servants,” Wilmarth said. “The Camshronack family never had many servants, even when old Angus Camshronack, her father, ruled over what remained of the family estate. No one wanted to work here, but the lairds of the manor always held some kind of sway over the people. A little of that remains still—a hesitation to speak against or disrespect a Camshronack, a sort of deference born of fear—but none living can say why that is. I, however, am not a Camshronack, just the balmy old man from London foolish enough to take a house that should have been left to the elements.

  “As I said, the house is usually surrounded by mist. While the village is hardly ever seen, nor the cliffs east or west, the same is not true for the north. At twilight, the wind patterns change slightly, driving the mist away from the house, allowing a view of the stars and, often, the northern reaches of the island. It was on one of those nights that I first saw the creature.”

  Wilmarth paused and poured himself another brandy. His hand shook slightly as he brought the glass to his lips.

  “I first saw it against a moonlit cloud, nothing but a silhouette,” he continued. “It was larger than any bird I ever saw. Though it was difficult to estimate its true size at that distance, I thought it likely larger than even the condor of the South American Andes. It was seen and gone in a moment of time. I dismissed it as a trick of light and distance, an illusion of the upper airs, and there my conclusion would have remained had I not spied it again, just three days later. It was closer then and remained in sight longer, but, again, it was little more than a silhouette. From those sightings and the others that followed, I produced a drawing…to the best of my ability.”

  Wilmarth rose from his chair, crossed the room to a massive oak desk and returned with a sketch on parchment. He gave it to Holmes for examination, hesitated as if he felt a need to say more, then sat down in silence.

  Holmes gazed at the drawing. It was a crude representation, the product of a man unschooled in art but well trained as an observer of nature. It was an image that possessed power and presence, a primitive sort of energy. Holmes was certain it was exactly what Wilmarth had seen. The shape was generally anthropomorphic, yet at the same time nebulous, as if it were composed of congealed black mist, whipped at the edges by frigid swirls of wind. It possessed hugely disproportionate hands and feet, all with a sort of smoky webbing. Its eyes glowed like embers and its mouth was a ravenous maw. Its most distinctive feature, however, was a set of wings that swept outward with some of the characteristics found in bats, yet were leathery like the pterosaurs of ages lost, and also possessed something of the aquatic, as if it could soar through the depths of the sea as easily as it navigated the upper air, and beyond. The image struck a note of familiarity in Holmes.

  “No wonder you were so affected when you learned the name Captain Camshronack gave his steamer,” Holmes said. “I thought it significant only because it pointed to a connection between the man and the Cthulhu Cult. It is the being called Ithaqua, mentioned in the Necronomicon, and featured prominently in some of the other manuscripts under your purview at the British Museum.”

  Wilmarth sighed. “You do not know how relieved I am to hear you say that, Holmes, for I had begun to think I might be struck by the dementia that often accompanies age.” He leaned back and sighed again. “No, I delude myself. I asked you here because I feared for my sanity, hoped you might dispel my doubts, but I see now that you have done nothing of the sort. I feel it represents exactly what has plagued me these several months, but your verification that it is one of the gods of the Necronomicon, a minion of Cthulhu, does not give it reality. At most, it confirms there might be a place for me amongst the artists of Bedlam, alongside other lunatics who use line and shape to lend verisimilitude to their ravings, who paint fairies and chronicle nightmares.”

  “Do not agitate yourself so, Professor,” Holmes counseled. “I have seen the many faces of madness, and I do not consider you a madman. Although lunacy often adopts a mask of lucidity, it is a disguise that cannot deceive the truly analytical eye, which, most unfortunately, few alienists possess, thus bearers of the truth are often locked up while the delusional are left to walk among us, and at times even govern us.”

  “Oh, Holmes,” Wilmarth said wearily. “You have no idea how much your words soothe my troubled spirit. You have lifted a great burden from my mind, but your assurances now lead us to even more disturbing aspects, for this manifestation of Ithaqua does not end with mere sightings of the creature.” He paused. “There have been deaths.”

  Holmes nodded, thinking of the vague sense of terror he had observed in the aspects of the islanders, and of the way they had reacted to the sudden reappearance of the man who had called his ship after one of the ancient lords of the Necronomicon.

  III

  See the North Wind Rise

  “It began shortly after my first sighting of the creature in
the far north of the island,” Wilmarth began. “As you know, most of the islanders have small freeholds and pasturages where they raise a few head of goat or sheep, mostly for milk and cheese, but occasionally for butchering. After my second sighting—about a week after the first—Emerson brought back a tale from the village of a dead sheep found on one of the plots.”

  “How was it killed?” Holmes asked.

  “Emerson reported that it had been thoroughly savaged, as if by some great beast, but no part of it was missing,” Wilmarth replied. “As you might surmise, there are no natural predators on St John, discounting the ospreys and other birds of prey that dive for fish, or scavengers that sometimes swarm the fishing boats. A large raptor might conceivably bring down a full grown sheep, but it would not attack without feasting. This has happened several times over the past few months, always when I have observed the creature flying in the moonlight above the island, cavorting around the ancient rings of standing stones or near the places which have an old repute for being the temples and sacrificial sites of the island’s long-vanished aboriginal inhabitants.”

  “The loss of some goats and sheep, no matter how bizarre the circumstances or horrific the manner of death, would not account for the look of subdued terror I observed in the islanders,” Holmes said. “Nor can it be laid at the feet of the prodigal Camshronack. There have been human deaths, I presume?”

  Wilmarth nodded. “Two deaths. The first was Ned Copper, one of the fishermen. Ten weeks ago he was found in the high street at dawn, ravaged as if he had been torn apart, but there was nothing missing from the body. Despite the reluctance of the villagers to call on outsiders, they summoned the constable from the mainland, not that he did much good, either to explain the death or to soothe nerves. When Alfie Nevins, a baker, died three weeks later, no one bothered to send for the constable.

  “According to Emerson, Alfie stepped outside the pub, a few other lads right behind him. By the time the second fellow heading home was out the door, Alfie was nowhere to be seen. He was found the following morning, in one of the plots, body ravaged like Ned’s, and the sheep.” Wilmarth sighed. “He was a good chap, one of the first to take to me and Emerson when we arrived, the reason others forsook their island sensibilities and did not connect the ill repute of the manor to us. Some of the lads claimed to hear the sweep of enormous wings in the night, but they had been drinking heavily. Were we to go to the village now, mist rising and night falling, the streets would be empty except for the drunk and the foolish. No one wants to believe in the truth of what the men said, but no one has the courage to disbelieve. The oldest villagers now whisper of the times when the family that lived here dominated their daily lives, but no one dares speak of it openly.”