rdenning
Well-Known Member
HI there. Here is the first part of the Last Seal for your feedback and comment.
Synopsis:
Four mismatched Londoners brave the perils of the Great Fire of 1666 to prevent an even more terrible threat.
September 1666: a struggle between secret societies threatens to destroy London. The Liberati aim to release a powerful demon trapped under the city by their rivals the Praesidum.
Agents of the King are hot on the heels of four mismatched and unlikely heroes - Gabriel, the sole remaining member of the Praesidum; Freya, a young thief orphaned during the plagues; Tobias, a cynical physician and son of a murdered Praesidum member; and finally and most vitally, Tom a Westminster school boy.
Suspected of being foreign spies, the four must overcome their own problems - fear of failure, self interest, a desire for revenge and guilt over a parent's death - if they are to defeat the plans of the Liberati, protect the city and gain the means to destroy the demon.
Prologue
On the fifth day of July in the year of our Lord 1380 the warlock Stephen Blake released the Demon Dantalion from the Abyss. (From the Journal of Cornelius Silver)
Hours before dawn the short figure had stolen down Ludgate Hill to a small church that lay beneath the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. With his cloak wrapped tightly around him to keep out the early morning chill, he had slipped unnoticed between the gravestones and stopped at the side door of the church. He paused now to glance behind, dark eyes probing the shadows that lay along the road and around the indistinct bulk of nearby houses beyond. Satisfied he was alone, the door was opened with a judder and a creak as rusty hinges complained about unexpected use and he entered the gloomy interior, shutting the door behind him.
Once inside, he glanced around at the altar, the font and then towards the main doors and contemplated the scene. This was a place of worship: a hallowed sanctuary sacred to the people who lived nearby in the city and who came here to find peace, comfort and protection from evil.
“Nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es,” Blake recited solemnly and then stood in silence pondering the words for a moment. ‘For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me.’
Suddenly he laughed out loud and a sneer snaked across his face as he thought about what he now planned to do. The faithful who trusted in this holy place would soon run from the shadow of death and Blake himself would be the one to bring them fear. No - much more than fear, in a few hours he would bring them terror.
Six hours later Blake had prepared everything. Dried herbs burning in a bronze bowl laid upon the altar released noxious fumes which filled the church with smoke. He was standing in one of two chalk circles he had drawn on the flagstones. Holding an unrolled parchment in his right hand, he recited incantations that would summon the Demon into the other.
With each word he uttered the air seemed to burn and crackle about him. The intense heat singed his hair, turning its usual silver grey colour to a charred black, his skin first becoming scorched and then blistered - but he read on. The words he spoke were contrary to the laws of the universe and he felt as if the world was shuddering and shaking in protest as reality twisted, distorted and buckled around him – but he read on. His eardrums threatened to burst as they were assaulted by a cacophony of screeching - but still he did not stop. Just when he felt he could stand it no longer, he shouted the last few words and with a suddenness that shocked him there was utter silence as the spell tore a hole from our world into the Abyss: into the world of the Demons.
Blake had been raised since birth for this moment. He and his fathers had worshiped and studied the Demons for one reason, one purpose: to rule alongside them, just as his distant ancestors had done when Demons walked this earth beside man millennia before. Blake had longed for this day. He had imagined the pride he would feel at mastering the words of power. He had dreamt of the wealth he would earn as well as the domination he would gain over other men and had revelled in the thought. However, none of his dreams or longings had prepared him for the intensity of the fear he now felt.
For it was only now that Stephen Blake realised the terrible gamble he was taking. In a few moments he might be dead.
As he emerged into our reality, the giant form of Dantalion roared and glared at Blake. Towering fifteen feet above him Dantalion wore the form of a human - although Blake knew he could take many others. The Demon’s skin was a ruddy brown colour completely devoid of hair. The beast’s eyes, which now stared at him without compassion, were a bright red as if fire blazed within them. He wore britches and a leather breast plate both covering a powerful and muscular body. His limbs ended in appendages which were more like claws than feet or hands and which bore vicious talons as sharp and long as daggers. He carried no weapons, although Blake saw in his right hand a huge book rather like a large leather bound bible. The vast creature exuded an odour that made Blake’s eyes water: a mixture of decay and sulphur that was overwhelming and nauseating.
Dantalion took a step forward and - as his foot landed on the ancient and cracked flagstones - the whole church shook. One taloned claw reached out towards the warlock’s neck. With a cry, Blake stumbled backwards, tripped and fell onto his back and the beast took another stride and now stood like a colossus over the cowering figure. As he swung his claw back in readiness to slay Blake, the warlock raised one trembling arm to stay the blow and made a desperate plea for his life.
“Spare me, Master Dantalion!”
The Beast grunted and tilted his head quizzically.
“Lord of Demons, Great Duke of Hell, it was I that brought you here to rule this world,” Blake said quickly, “all I ask is that I may serve you.”
Dantalion studied the small man for a long moment, lips rolled back revealing dozens of razor sharp teeth, claws extended and muscles taunt in eager readiness to pounce at its prey.
Shaking in fear and feeling his heart thumping inside him, Blake waited to see if he would live or die. The moment dragged on as if the Demon was enjoying the tension.
The beast’s claw reached out and it placed one hand on Blake’s head and for a moment he caressed Blake almost tenderly. Then the fire within the demon’s eyes flared malevolently and Blake screamed when searing pains shot down through his skull, as if white hot needles had penetrated it. He squirmed as the agony continued unabated for an eternity until suddenly Dantalion released him and fixed the man with a baleful glare.
“I have searched your soul and it is black,” the Demon said at last, his voice rumbling like distant thunder, or the drums of an approaching army, full in equal measure of majestic glory and ever present threat of death.
“You are loyal to no one and serve only your own interests,” the Demon said in an ominous tone and Blake feared his death was close at hand.
“No master, I swear I will be loyal, I.....”
His protests were cut off as Dantalion hit Blake with the back of his hand, splitting his lip and flinging his head back hard against the flagstones.
“NEVER lie to me again!” Dantalion boomed and despite his agony, Blake realised that the demon was not going to kill him yet. The beast gave a slight nod of the head, showing it knew Blake’s thoughts.
“Yes, you may live...for now at least. My race know the value of black hearts and black souls. Men who care only for themselves make good allies against their own kind,” he said and took two steps away from Blake before turning back to him.
“Come, follow me now!” Dantalion ordered and strode off down the church nave and - without stopping - burst out through the front wall, smashing through stone and wood as if they were mere parchment.
Shaking still, Blake got up and wiped the sweat off his brow, swallowed hard and then ran to keep up with his master. Meanwhile, on Ludgate Street, the terror Blake had predicted had already begun.
The road outside the church, as it bisected the city walls, was crowded. Carts piled high with goods waited in line to enter the city and were passed by a Prior on foot leading his monks on pilgrimage to the Cathedral. Hawkers of food and drink clustered around the gate, offering refreshments out of carts to anyone with the coin to buy them, whilst cursing at the vagrants that begged for a few morsels. A pair of bored guardsmen leaning against their billhooks watched the scene and waited for their duty to end.
The first to die was a man selling oysters from a barrel. Dantalion simply took hold of him and casually tossed him over his shoulder. Screaming, the man smashed into the church tower and fell dead to the ground next to Blake. Then, the Demon lifted a foot the length of a man’s leg and stamped down onto the barrel, pulverising the oyster shells.
He took two strides towards a group of merchants gathered round a cart loaded high with cloth. They turned at the sound of the screaming oyster vendor and froze, terrified at the horror bearing down upon them. Dantalion pointed one talon at them, spoke a few arcane words and instantly a searing ray of heat burst forth and incinerated them all.
The guardsmen, hearing the screams, moved away from the gate, saw the Demon advancing on them and just stood in the middle of the road and staring at him in uncomprehending shock. To Blake it was as if Dantalion grew a little with each kill. Now taller than the houses that lined the street, the beast smashed both fists down on the roof of one, sending timber and lead tiles tumbling down onto a family that huddled against its wall. One of the guards recovered and charged the beast, his billhook aimed at the demon’s belly. The blade snapped on Dantalion’s hide and whilst the guard stared stupidly at the ruined weapon the Demon scooped him up in with one hand and simply bit off his head, dropping the bleeding corpse into the ruins of the house.
Dantalion roared and the crowds on Ludgate quailed at the sound and then - screaming in panic - they started to scatter, running any way they could to escape this nightmare. However, Dantalion possessed more than immense size and strength, and more than mastery of the arcane elements. His words held power: power that could seize men’s minds and influence, command and compel them.
“Stop!” he boomed and as one the people stopped running and turned to face him. Now, to Blake, it seemed that the Demon’s appearance had changed subtly. The fire left his eyes and his features softened, he seemed a fraction shorter and even his talons appeared to dwindle. The odour of death and decay was gone, and a sweet smell of spring blossoms drifted along the road. When he spoke again his tone had also altered and was full of charisma and seduction.
“I am Dantalion, and I am your Lord. You will love me and obey me; now bow before me!”
Then, prior and monks, merchants, vendors and guard bowed as one and Blake bowed as well. Dantalion turned to him. “Witness my Lieutenant: the first of my kingdom. From here we will conquer this nation and then the whole world. All will see me and love me, worship me and obey me!”
Blake nodded and smiled to himself. This was the secret his forefathers had guarded and passed on...the knowledge to free the Demon and through him to rule the world. It had taken generations to gather the ingredients needed for the spell, and still more to master the magicks needed, but now he did his ancestors honour in fulfilling their destiny.
Blake laughed and above him so did Dantalion, then they strode off together, through the gate and on towards St Paul’s, to wreak more havoc, the Demon once more huge and bestial in appearance.
It was there, on Ludgate Hill, that Blake first realised that something was wrong. Dantalion suddenly gave a roar of frustration and panic. Blake guessed what was happening and a moment later he felt it too. Nearby a powerful sorcerer was weaving the arcane elements, this time not to summon, but to banish Dantalion.
“Presidium filth!” Blake hissed as he spotted the man, wearing a monk’s habit and standing in the road ahead of them, a stone tablet held in one hand and the other outstretched towards Dantalion. Blake hastily began the counter invocation.
“No, I will not go back!” Dantalion shouted, lashing around in fury. One talon caught Blake and slashed down his side and with a scream of pain he fell dazed and bleeding to the ground.
Dantalion fought and struggled. He cursed and his hands spat forth flame and light, but these words were too old, the power they held too potent and less than an hour after being freed he fell tumbling into another prison.
Later, Blake opened his eyes and groaned. His side was a mass of pain, but that did not matter now; it was the hollow defeated feeling inside that was far worse. He had been so close to triumph: but he had failed. All the work of the generations before had provided him with the means to free the Demon and rule with him, but it had come to nothing. He dragged himself to his feet, one hand holding his bloody side, and glanced around. This street - one of the busiest in London - was empty and silent. The crowds, having fled in terror, had not returned - although the cause of that terror was long gone.
Blake considered repeating the summoning rite, but knew he could not. The components needed for the spell were vanishingly rare, and even if he had them the void was not where Dantalion was. Blake recalled now what had happened: that man standing up the hill incanting strange words and that slab of stone. Forty centuries before, when the Demons had attacked the first civilisations, the sorcerers of that ancient empire had learnt how to bind the monsters in the stone slabs they wrote their incantations on. It was one of these slabs that the foul Presidium had been carrying and had used today: that was where the Demon was trapped. He must find that man and release Dantalion again. Or, if he could not find him, he would pass on what he knew to others.
He winced in pain and clamped his hand to his side again. As he did so he saw a book in the middle of the street: the huge Tome of Dantalion. What secrets did it hold, and what powers could one gain from studying it? Eagerly he lifted it, and then dropped it again with a cry of pain. It was the size of an oak chest, and just as heavy. Nearby was an upturned hand cart whose owner had abandoned it in the street. Blake righted it and with a grunt heaved the book onto the back of it.
Blake pushed the cart down Creed lane towards Blackfriars and the river. He would get a boat across, travel on to some place to recover until he could study the book. It might take a lifetime: perhaps many lifetimes, but one day the knowledge in the Tome would reveal itself. He sneered at the overhanging timber houses, and wrinkled his nose at the stench and fumes of London town. One day Dantalion would be free, and Blake’s descendants would rule the world. In that day the city would burn and he would have his revenge: Blake smiled at the thought, and disappeared into the shadows.
**********
Chapter 1:
1st September 1666
Thwack!
The birch cane struck Ben’s thigh, sending a jolt of pain down his leg. He bit his tongue to avoid crying out and then, when no further blows came, opened his eyes and blinked to clear the tears the pain had brought.
He was standing in the yard outside his dormitory, his head bent forward in an attempt to avoid the terrifying and almost Medusa-like glare of the Headmaster. Next to Dr Busby, Ben’s own tutor Wilkinson was looking with frustration at the boy. Behind them the entirety of the teaching faculty loomed and further back still, Ben’s classmates watched the proceedings with a mixture of horror and excitement on their faces.
Ben returned his gaze to the form of Dr Busby who having now completed the punishment began his customary lecture.
“Boy, you will learn to be obedient and follow the rules!” Busby said, eyes glinting darkly and cheeks puffing as he spoke. “No pupil, and I mean no pupil, will abscond from any activities at this school, and certainly not my Saturday morning assembly or this afternoon’s debate. Do you understand?”
Ben’s legs were still throbbing with a burning pain. This was his penalty for being caught hiding in his room rather than being in the hall enduring two hours of his classmates reciting passages of Plato. Despite, or perhaps because of, the pain there was an edge of defiance in his voice as he replied.
“But Sir...,”
“Do not ‘but Sir’ me! Everyone has to attend the debate!” Busby roared and even the teachers winced at the noise.
“But Sir,” Ben tried again, “I know it all already,” he replied, “isn’t there anything more interesting I could do?”
That brought gasps of surprise and shock from pupils and teachers alike. Busby’s eyes flared in indignation. A pupil daring to make such a statement was unheard of. Ben knew this too and part of him wondered what was getting into him. He knew he was in deep trouble and yet another part of him did not care.
“More interesting? You come here to be educated, not entertained. Know it already do you? Oh do you indeed!” Busby said and smiled nastily at the assembled ranks of his teachers. Ben shivered, suspecting that expression could not bode well for him.
“Please educate us, young man, who wrote The Carmen Saeculare?”
“Horace, Sir,” Ben answered with a smug smile. Busby nodded.
“Very good and what are the opening words?” The Headmaster asked. Ben’s face dropped.
“Er...I don’t know Sir.”
“I see...well, let’s try another question. According to Plato, how old was the philosopher in the Apology of Socrates?”
Ben’s mouth moved, but he was unable to reply. He dared not look at the teachers, but he could feel them watching him, listening to and judging him and he could also feel his face beginning to burn in embarrassment under their gaze. A few sniggers at his discomfort reached him from the pupils. In front of him he saw Busby’s lip now curling in contempt.
“I thought you ‘knew it all already’ boy,” he said in a mocking voice.
Ben squirmed, desperately wishing he was somewhere else: he did not care where it was. There was no escape however and, showing no mercy, Busby asked another question.
“In The Iliad, who does Homer say is the father of Diomedes?”
Ben’s mind was blank. What was wrong with him? He should know all this.
“I don’t know Sir, I am sorry.”
There was total silence, punctuated by a gentle swishing sound as the Headmaster waved the birch cane back and forth through the air. Fearing it would be used on him again, Ben tensed in anticipation of the blow. Busby looked rather like a kettle into whose spout someone has pushed a cork before placing it on the fire: boiling hot and likely to explode at any moment. In the end though, Busby just spoke softly but in a tone that made Ben wish the Headmaster had just used the cane on him.
“Your behaviour and attitude is unacceptable for a boy at my school as is your impertinence and arrogance. You are confined to your room as of this moment. On Monday, I will see you again and decide whether to write to your uncle and to inform him of my intention to have you removed from this school forthwith on suspension. Whether I do or not is entirely in your hands. Do you understand?”
Anxious to escape from the attention of the Headmaster and the rest of the school, Ben nodded eagerly at that and with apparent sincerity, but he knew he was lying. He was already making plans for an expedition of his own for this same afternoon. With a final glare at Ben and with his robes billowing behind him, Busby marched away towards the refectory and his midday meal, followed by the other tutors hurrying along in his wake like a naval squadron in line behind their flagship. The pupils marched off as well, but not before several had met his gaze and sniggered at him. Finally, he was alone with Wilkinson who now studied the boy for a moment whilst he appeared to marshal his thoughts. At last he spoke.
“I don’t know what to do with you boy. The change in you since last year has been marked,” his tutor said, “you never used to be a poor student: quite the opposite was true in fact. I’d say you were by far the most intelligent and able pupil that had been to this school in many years. You can - and you and I both know you can - read and write Latin better than a Roman. You used to be able to quote all the writers of antiquity with effortless ease. Heavens, but there was even a point last year when you started correcting errors I had made!”
Ben said nothing. He felt angry and not only at his tutor, but at everything and everybody. The pain of the punishment was not the source of his dissatisfaction, although it hardly helped his mood, and he could feel the anger twisting inside him like a knot, but terrible as it felt it was better than the other feelings it had replaced: feelings he did not want to and could not deal with at present. The anger helped him cope so he just stood there in a cloud of misery, looking at the tutor with a glazed expression on his face, waiting for the discussion to end but not really caring what the outcome was.
“You are late handing in work. What you do hand in is poor and shows almost no sign of effort. You hardly pay attention in class and you are surly and bad tempered. You don’t seem to talk to your classmates any more, or join in with them in their activities. I know that your parents died and I sympathise with your loss, but you must know that many of the boys in the school lost some relation last year,” Wilkinson said, referring to the plague of ‘65, “they bear their loss bravely, and you must - although the circumstances are different.”
He waited for Ben to say something, but the boy remained silent and so he angrily pointed towards the dormitory.
“Get out of my sight,” he shouted and then stomped off in the direction Busby had gone, towards the teacher’s entrance to the dining hall. The boy stood alone and watched him depart.
In his heart Ben knew that Wilkinson was trying to help. The Ben of a year back would have responded enthusiastically and with grace, but that Ben seemed buried far away. It was with a sense of frustration that the boy endured each school day for every activity seemed pointless; every moment spent a waste of time he resented.
Suddenly he kicked the ground in fury and looked at the door to his rooms and then, shaking his head, turned away and walked towards the front gate of the school. He knew there would be trouble when he was found missing but he hardly cared. With a final furtive glance backwards, Ben sneaked out of the school and turned northwards towards the heart of London.
**********
Standing on Fleet Bridge, the Thief counted the miserable few coins yielded by the sale of a shirt and a pair of stockings stolen earlier off a washing line in Holborn. A fat looking merchant, passing by on a cart loaded with barrels of ale, glanced over and noted a splash of red hair and unwashed hands, scruffy britches riddled with holes, shoes whose soles flapped and gaped and a wide brimmed hat that shrouded most of the Thief’s face. His haughty sniff clearly dismissed the figure as a vagabond, beggar or a good for nothing lad best avoided. This was a common reaction and meant that few folk came close and that suited the Thief just fine. If a vagabond lad was the role to be played to keep living, then so be it.
Below the Thief, on the banks of the ditch running beneath the bridge, was the Rag Fair. The poorest came here each day to pay copper coins for a few pathetic clothes stolen in tenements or stripped off the dead, linen taken from the beds of plague victims and then washed in urine to try and cleanse the contagion, or wigs pulled off the heads of passing pedestrians on Cheapside by enterprising boys hanging out of first floor windows.
Children played at the water’s edge barely inches from the decaying body of a dog that floated down stream through the stinking filth that was the River Fleet. A brief gust of wind from the North brought more noxious smells towards the thief, this time from scores of huge brass and iron vats standing along the water’s edge perched on top of fires which each threw a dense cloud of smoke and fumes skyward. The vats produced a hundred wares: vinegar, glue, cured leather and soap or were used to bleach cloth or boil the fats off animal skins. Further up the river butchers smoked animal carcasses and the refuge from their and all the other trades were thrown into the river or littered its edge. The smell was unbelievable and the sight looked like a picture of hell but here, in rotten wooden huts overlooking the ditch, the poor just endured. The Thief’s nose wrinkled: time to move on perhaps.
The Thief drifted towards Newgate, through lanes lined with the tottering two and three story wooden houses that made up the city of London. The top floors leant out so far that, in some places, it was possible for folk in one house to shake hands with those living opposite. The streets below were often in permanent gloom, overshadowed by the buildings above and the permanent clouds of smoke that covered the city. A cry of warning rang out from above and the Thief deftly dodged the torrent of excrement from someone’s chamber pot tipped out of a high window. A lawyer walking down the lane, towards the Inns of Court, was not so lucky and let out a shout of outrage as his fine clothes were ruined. The Thief chuckled and moved on.
Just outside Newgate, country women were selling nosegays from the side of the road. The ale merchant had stopped his cart at Pie Corner to buy one and now held it close as he drove on through the gate. By the way he screwed up his face, the Thief guessed that it failed to disguise the fetid stench that escaped the jail built into the gatehouse, where the condemned and the accused alike had to endure rats, ‘gaol fever’ and the open sewer that ran through their cells.
“Have pity on us Sir, please Sir do you have any food, any coins?”croaked a voice from a barred window built into the jail at ground level, where a prisoner was holding a desperate hand out for anything passing Londoners might give him. Prisoners were not fed in the jail and survived by begging or buying food and on the charity of friends. Many died in that dank hole. The merchant turned his head away but the Thief went over and dropped one copper coin into the palm: enough perhaps for a meal.
“Bless you lad,” the prisoner said and the Thief nodded, not seeing it as charity or weakness but thinking that no one knew when they too may need help in that terrible place.
Passing through the city wall, the Thief entered the Shambles, where blood and offal from freshly butchered meat dripped onto the ground and ran off downhill. All round the market, hawkers sold candles, beer, mussels, honeyed nuts and cane rods for the punishing of children. Beggars, prostitutes and pick pockets plying their trade were all spotted and expertly avoided by the Thief. Some were moving stealthily and in disguise, deftly taking coin pouches off belts or food from baskets. Others drew attention to themselves by first having scratched and cut their own skin, or that of their children, before rubbing mud, or even the blood spilt by the butchers, over themselves to exaggerate their pitiful appearance. They then lay on the ground in the street crying for alms.
Concluding that this place was just a bit too occupied by those who shared a less than rigid adherence to the law - and as such, given the competition, opportunities for profit were probably limited - the Thief decided to move on. The objective was easy enough: to survive another day. To creep along looking for an opportunity: a dropped coin, an inviting money bag, or perhaps a valuable object left unguarded by a careless shopkeeper. Maybe a piece of fruit would find a place inside the Thief’s tunic along with a crust of bread. On a good day a bottle of beer might join it.
After the hell on earth that was the Fleet Ditch and the poor pickings at the Shambles the Thief decided to head for richer prospects, somewhere where one theft would pay for a week or two’s food. Yes, that was the plan: just one risk, one chance and then the easy life for a bit. Where to go though? Somewhere like, somewhere like...ah yes, just the place.
“Lambs to the slaughter!” The Thief muttered with a smile and slinked away, eastwards.
Synopsis:
Four mismatched Londoners brave the perils of the Great Fire of 1666 to prevent an even more terrible threat.
September 1666: a struggle between secret societies threatens to destroy London. The Liberati aim to release a powerful demon trapped under the city by their rivals the Praesidum.
Agents of the King are hot on the heels of four mismatched and unlikely heroes - Gabriel, the sole remaining member of the Praesidum; Freya, a young thief orphaned during the plagues; Tobias, a cynical physician and son of a murdered Praesidum member; and finally and most vitally, Tom a Westminster school boy.
Suspected of being foreign spies, the four must overcome their own problems - fear of failure, self interest, a desire for revenge and guilt over a parent's death - if they are to defeat the plans of the Liberati, protect the city and gain the means to destroy the demon.
Prologue
On the fifth day of July in the year of our Lord 1380 the warlock Stephen Blake released the Demon Dantalion from the Abyss. (From the Journal of Cornelius Silver)
Hours before dawn the short figure had stolen down Ludgate Hill to a small church that lay beneath the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. With his cloak wrapped tightly around him to keep out the early morning chill, he had slipped unnoticed between the gravestones and stopped at the side door of the church. He paused now to glance behind, dark eyes probing the shadows that lay along the road and around the indistinct bulk of nearby houses beyond. Satisfied he was alone, the door was opened with a judder and a creak as rusty hinges complained about unexpected use and he entered the gloomy interior, shutting the door behind him.
Once inside, he glanced around at the altar, the font and then towards the main doors and contemplated the scene. This was a place of worship: a hallowed sanctuary sacred to the people who lived nearby in the city and who came here to find peace, comfort and protection from evil.
“Nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es,” Blake recited solemnly and then stood in silence pondering the words for a moment. ‘For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me.’
Suddenly he laughed out loud and a sneer snaked across his face as he thought about what he now planned to do. The faithful who trusted in this holy place would soon run from the shadow of death and Blake himself would be the one to bring them fear. No - much more than fear, in a few hours he would bring them terror.
Six hours later Blake had prepared everything. Dried herbs burning in a bronze bowl laid upon the altar released noxious fumes which filled the church with smoke. He was standing in one of two chalk circles he had drawn on the flagstones. Holding an unrolled parchment in his right hand, he recited incantations that would summon the Demon into the other.
With each word he uttered the air seemed to burn and crackle about him. The intense heat singed his hair, turning its usual silver grey colour to a charred black, his skin first becoming scorched and then blistered - but he read on. The words he spoke were contrary to the laws of the universe and he felt as if the world was shuddering and shaking in protest as reality twisted, distorted and buckled around him – but he read on. His eardrums threatened to burst as they were assaulted by a cacophony of screeching - but still he did not stop. Just when he felt he could stand it no longer, he shouted the last few words and with a suddenness that shocked him there was utter silence as the spell tore a hole from our world into the Abyss: into the world of the Demons.
Blake had been raised since birth for this moment. He and his fathers had worshiped and studied the Demons for one reason, one purpose: to rule alongside them, just as his distant ancestors had done when Demons walked this earth beside man millennia before. Blake had longed for this day. He had imagined the pride he would feel at mastering the words of power. He had dreamt of the wealth he would earn as well as the domination he would gain over other men and had revelled in the thought. However, none of his dreams or longings had prepared him for the intensity of the fear he now felt.
For it was only now that Stephen Blake realised the terrible gamble he was taking. In a few moments he might be dead.
As he emerged into our reality, the giant form of Dantalion roared and glared at Blake. Towering fifteen feet above him Dantalion wore the form of a human - although Blake knew he could take many others. The Demon’s skin was a ruddy brown colour completely devoid of hair. The beast’s eyes, which now stared at him without compassion, were a bright red as if fire blazed within them. He wore britches and a leather breast plate both covering a powerful and muscular body. His limbs ended in appendages which were more like claws than feet or hands and which bore vicious talons as sharp and long as daggers. He carried no weapons, although Blake saw in his right hand a huge book rather like a large leather bound bible. The vast creature exuded an odour that made Blake’s eyes water: a mixture of decay and sulphur that was overwhelming and nauseating.
Dantalion took a step forward and - as his foot landed on the ancient and cracked flagstones - the whole church shook. One taloned claw reached out towards the warlock’s neck. With a cry, Blake stumbled backwards, tripped and fell onto his back and the beast took another stride and now stood like a colossus over the cowering figure. As he swung his claw back in readiness to slay Blake, the warlock raised one trembling arm to stay the blow and made a desperate plea for his life.
“Spare me, Master Dantalion!”
The Beast grunted and tilted his head quizzically.
“Lord of Demons, Great Duke of Hell, it was I that brought you here to rule this world,” Blake said quickly, “all I ask is that I may serve you.”
Dantalion studied the small man for a long moment, lips rolled back revealing dozens of razor sharp teeth, claws extended and muscles taunt in eager readiness to pounce at its prey.
Shaking in fear and feeling his heart thumping inside him, Blake waited to see if he would live or die. The moment dragged on as if the Demon was enjoying the tension.
The beast’s claw reached out and it placed one hand on Blake’s head and for a moment he caressed Blake almost tenderly. Then the fire within the demon’s eyes flared malevolently and Blake screamed when searing pains shot down through his skull, as if white hot needles had penetrated it. He squirmed as the agony continued unabated for an eternity until suddenly Dantalion released him and fixed the man with a baleful glare.
“I have searched your soul and it is black,” the Demon said at last, his voice rumbling like distant thunder, or the drums of an approaching army, full in equal measure of majestic glory and ever present threat of death.
“You are loyal to no one and serve only your own interests,” the Demon said in an ominous tone and Blake feared his death was close at hand.
“No master, I swear I will be loyal, I.....”
His protests were cut off as Dantalion hit Blake with the back of his hand, splitting his lip and flinging his head back hard against the flagstones.
“NEVER lie to me again!” Dantalion boomed and despite his agony, Blake realised that the demon was not going to kill him yet. The beast gave a slight nod of the head, showing it knew Blake’s thoughts.
“Yes, you may live...for now at least. My race know the value of black hearts and black souls. Men who care only for themselves make good allies against their own kind,” he said and took two steps away from Blake before turning back to him.
“Come, follow me now!” Dantalion ordered and strode off down the church nave and - without stopping - burst out through the front wall, smashing through stone and wood as if they were mere parchment.
Shaking still, Blake got up and wiped the sweat off his brow, swallowed hard and then ran to keep up with his master. Meanwhile, on Ludgate Street, the terror Blake had predicted had already begun.
The road outside the church, as it bisected the city walls, was crowded. Carts piled high with goods waited in line to enter the city and were passed by a Prior on foot leading his monks on pilgrimage to the Cathedral. Hawkers of food and drink clustered around the gate, offering refreshments out of carts to anyone with the coin to buy them, whilst cursing at the vagrants that begged for a few morsels. A pair of bored guardsmen leaning against their billhooks watched the scene and waited for their duty to end.
The first to die was a man selling oysters from a barrel. Dantalion simply took hold of him and casually tossed him over his shoulder. Screaming, the man smashed into the church tower and fell dead to the ground next to Blake. Then, the Demon lifted a foot the length of a man’s leg and stamped down onto the barrel, pulverising the oyster shells.
He took two strides towards a group of merchants gathered round a cart loaded high with cloth. They turned at the sound of the screaming oyster vendor and froze, terrified at the horror bearing down upon them. Dantalion pointed one talon at them, spoke a few arcane words and instantly a searing ray of heat burst forth and incinerated them all.
The guardsmen, hearing the screams, moved away from the gate, saw the Demon advancing on them and just stood in the middle of the road and staring at him in uncomprehending shock. To Blake it was as if Dantalion grew a little with each kill. Now taller than the houses that lined the street, the beast smashed both fists down on the roof of one, sending timber and lead tiles tumbling down onto a family that huddled against its wall. One of the guards recovered and charged the beast, his billhook aimed at the demon’s belly. The blade snapped on Dantalion’s hide and whilst the guard stared stupidly at the ruined weapon the Demon scooped him up in with one hand and simply bit off his head, dropping the bleeding corpse into the ruins of the house.
Dantalion roared and the crowds on Ludgate quailed at the sound and then - screaming in panic - they started to scatter, running any way they could to escape this nightmare. However, Dantalion possessed more than immense size and strength, and more than mastery of the arcane elements. His words held power: power that could seize men’s minds and influence, command and compel them.
“Stop!” he boomed and as one the people stopped running and turned to face him. Now, to Blake, it seemed that the Demon’s appearance had changed subtly. The fire left his eyes and his features softened, he seemed a fraction shorter and even his talons appeared to dwindle. The odour of death and decay was gone, and a sweet smell of spring blossoms drifted along the road. When he spoke again his tone had also altered and was full of charisma and seduction.
“I am Dantalion, and I am your Lord. You will love me and obey me; now bow before me!”
Then, prior and monks, merchants, vendors and guard bowed as one and Blake bowed as well. Dantalion turned to him. “Witness my Lieutenant: the first of my kingdom. From here we will conquer this nation and then the whole world. All will see me and love me, worship me and obey me!”
Blake nodded and smiled to himself. This was the secret his forefathers had guarded and passed on...the knowledge to free the Demon and through him to rule the world. It had taken generations to gather the ingredients needed for the spell, and still more to master the magicks needed, but now he did his ancestors honour in fulfilling their destiny.
Blake laughed and above him so did Dantalion, then they strode off together, through the gate and on towards St Paul’s, to wreak more havoc, the Demon once more huge and bestial in appearance.
It was there, on Ludgate Hill, that Blake first realised that something was wrong. Dantalion suddenly gave a roar of frustration and panic. Blake guessed what was happening and a moment later he felt it too. Nearby a powerful sorcerer was weaving the arcane elements, this time not to summon, but to banish Dantalion.
“Presidium filth!” Blake hissed as he spotted the man, wearing a monk’s habit and standing in the road ahead of them, a stone tablet held in one hand and the other outstretched towards Dantalion. Blake hastily began the counter invocation.
“No, I will not go back!” Dantalion shouted, lashing around in fury. One talon caught Blake and slashed down his side and with a scream of pain he fell dazed and bleeding to the ground.
Dantalion fought and struggled. He cursed and his hands spat forth flame and light, but these words were too old, the power they held too potent and less than an hour after being freed he fell tumbling into another prison.
Later, Blake opened his eyes and groaned. His side was a mass of pain, but that did not matter now; it was the hollow defeated feeling inside that was far worse. He had been so close to triumph: but he had failed. All the work of the generations before had provided him with the means to free the Demon and rule with him, but it had come to nothing. He dragged himself to his feet, one hand holding his bloody side, and glanced around. This street - one of the busiest in London - was empty and silent. The crowds, having fled in terror, had not returned - although the cause of that terror was long gone.
Blake considered repeating the summoning rite, but knew he could not. The components needed for the spell were vanishingly rare, and even if he had them the void was not where Dantalion was. Blake recalled now what had happened: that man standing up the hill incanting strange words and that slab of stone. Forty centuries before, when the Demons had attacked the first civilisations, the sorcerers of that ancient empire had learnt how to bind the monsters in the stone slabs they wrote their incantations on. It was one of these slabs that the foul Presidium had been carrying and had used today: that was where the Demon was trapped. He must find that man and release Dantalion again. Or, if he could not find him, he would pass on what he knew to others.
He winced in pain and clamped his hand to his side again. As he did so he saw a book in the middle of the street: the huge Tome of Dantalion. What secrets did it hold, and what powers could one gain from studying it? Eagerly he lifted it, and then dropped it again with a cry of pain. It was the size of an oak chest, and just as heavy. Nearby was an upturned hand cart whose owner had abandoned it in the street. Blake righted it and with a grunt heaved the book onto the back of it.
Blake pushed the cart down Creed lane towards Blackfriars and the river. He would get a boat across, travel on to some place to recover until he could study the book. It might take a lifetime: perhaps many lifetimes, but one day the knowledge in the Tome would reveal itself. He sneered at the overhanging timber houses, and wrinkled his nose at the stench and fumes of London town. One day Dantalion would be free, and Blake’s descendants would rule the world. In that day the city would burn and he would have his revenge: Blake smiled at the thought, and disappeared into the shadows.
**********
Chapter 1:
1st September 1666
Thwack!
The birch cane struck Ben’s thigh, sending a jolt of pain down his leg. He bit his tongue to avoid crying out and then, when no further blows came, opened his eyes and blinked to clear the tears the pain had brought.
He was standing in the yard outside his dormitory, his head bent forward in an attempt to avoid the terrifying and almost Medusa-like glare of the Headmaster. Next to Dr Busby, Ben’s own tutor Wilkinson was looking with frustration at the boy. Behind them the entirety of the teaching faculty loomed and further back still, Ben’s classmates watched the proceedings with a mixture of horror and excitement on their faces.
Ben returned his gaze to the form of Dr Busby who having now completed the punishment began his customary lecture.
“Boy, you will learn to be obedient and follow the rules!” Busby said, eyes glinting darkly and cheeks puffing as he spoke. “No pupil, and I mean no pupil, will abscond from any activities at this school, and certainly not my Saturday morning assembly or this afternoon’s debate. Do you understand?”
Ben’s legs were still throbbing with a burning pain. This was his penalty for being caught hiding in his room rather than being in the hall enduring two hours of his classmates reciting passages of Plato. Despite, or perhaps because of, the pain there was an edge of defiance in his voice as he replied.
“But Sir...,”
“Do not ‘but Sir’ me! Everyone has to attend the debate!” Busby roared and even the teachers winced at the noise.
“But Sir,” Ben tried again, “I know it all already,” he replied, “isn’t there anything more interesting I could do?”
That brought gasps of surprise and shock from pupils and teachers alike. Busby’s eyes flared in indignation. A pupil daring to make such a statement was unheard of. Ben knew this too and part of him wondered what was getting into him. He knew he was in deep trouble and yet another part of him did not care.
“More interesting? You come here to be educated, not entertained. Know it already do you? Oh do you indeed!” Busby said and smiled nastily at the assembled ranks of his teachers. Ben shivered, suspecting that expression could not bode well for him.
“Please educate us, young man, who wrote The Carmen Saeculare?”
“Horace, Sir,” Ben answered with a smug smile. Busby nodded.
“Very good and what are the opening words?” The Headmaster asked. Ben’s face dropped.
“Er...I don’t know Sir.”
“I see...well, let’s try another question. According to Plato, how old was the philosopher in the Apology of Socrates?”
Ben’s mouth moved, but he was unable to reply. He dared not look at the teachers, but he could feel them watching him, listening to and judging him and he could also feel his face beginning to burn in embarrassment under their gaze. A few sniggers at his discomfort reached him from the pupils. In front of him he saw Busby’s lip now curling in contempt.
“I thought you ‘knew it all already’ boy,” he said in a mocking voice.
Ben squirmed, desperately wishing he was somewhere else: he did not care where it was. There was no escape however and, showing no mercy, Busby asked another question.
“In The Iliad, who does Homer say is the father of Diomedes?”
Ben’s mind was blank. What was wrong with him? He should know all this.
“I don’t know Sir, I am sorry.”
There was total silence, punctuated by a gentle swishing sound as the Headmaster waved the birch cane back and forth through the air. Fearing it would be used on him again, Ben tensed in anticipation of the blow. Busby looked rather like a kettle into whose spout someone has pushed a cork before placing it on the fire: boiling hot and likely to explode at any moment. In the end though, Busby just spoke softly but in a tone that made Ben wish the Headmaster had just used the cane on him.
“Your behaviour and attitude is unacceptable for a boy at my school as is your impertinence and arrogance. You are confined to your room as of this moment. On Monday, I will see you again and decide whether to write to your uncle and to inform him of my intention to have you removed from this school forthwith on suspension. Whether I do or not is entirely in your hands. Do you understand?”
Anxious to escape from the attention of the Headmaster and the rest of the school, Ben nodded eagerly at that and with apparent sincerity, but he knew he was lying. He was already making plans for an expedition of his own for this same afternoon. With a final glare at Ben and with his robes billowing behind him, Busby marched away towards the refectory and his midday meal, followed by the other tutors hurrying along in his wake like a naval squadron in line behind their flagship. The pupils marched off as well, but not before several had met his gaze and sniggered at him. Finally, he was alone with Wilkinson who now studied the boy for a moment whilst he appeared to marshal his thoughts. At last he spoke.
“I don’t know what to do with you boy. The change in you since last year has been marked,” his tutor said, “you never used to be a poor student: quite the opposite was true in fact. I’d say you were by far the most intelligent and able pupil that had been to this school in many years. You can - and you and I both know you can - read and write Latin better than a Roman. You used to be able to quote all the writers of antiquity with effortless ease. Heavens, but there was even a point last year when you started correcting errors I had made!”
Ben said nothing. He felt angry and not only at his tutor, but at everything and everybody. The pain of the punishment was not the source of his dissatisfaction, although it hardly helped his mood, and he could feel the anger twisting inside him like a knot, but terrible as it felt it was better than the other feelings it had replaced: feelings he did not want to and could not deal with at present. The anger helped him cope so he just stood there in a cloud of misery, looking at the tutor with a glazed expression on his face, waiting for the discussion to end but not really caring what the outcome was.
“You are late handing in work. What you do hand in is poor and shows almost no sign of effort. You hardly pay attention in class and you are surly and bad tempered. You don’t seem to talk to your classmates any more, or join in with them in their activities. I know that your parents died and I sympathise with your loss, but you must know that many of the boys in the school lost some relation last year,” Wilkinson said, referring to the plague of ‘65, “they bear their loss bravely, and you must - although the circumstances are different.”
He waited for Ben to say something, but the boy remained silent and so he angrily pointed towards the dormitory.
“Get out of my sight,” he shouted and then stomped off in the direction Busby had gone, towards the teacher’s entrance to the dining hall. The boy stood alone and watched him depart.
In his heart Ben knew that Wilkinson was trying to help. The Ben of a year back would have responded enthusiastically and with grace, but that Ben seemed buried far away. It was with a sense of frustration that the boy endured each school day for every activity seemed pointless; every moment spent a waste of time he resented.
Suddenly he kicked the ground in fury and looked at the door to his rooms and then, shaking his head, turned away and walked towards the front gate of the school. He knew there would be trouble when he was found missing but he hardly cared. With a final furtive glance backwards, Ben sneaked out of the school and turned northwards towards the heart of London.
**********
Standing on Fleet Bridge, the Thief counted the miserable few coins yielded by the sale of a shirt and a pair of stockings stolen earlier off a washing line in Holborn. A fat looking merchant, passing by on a cart loaded with barrels of ale, glanced over and noted a splash of red hair and unwashed hands, scruffy britches riddled with holes, shoes whose soles flapped and gaped and a wide brimmed hat that shrouded most of the Thief’s face. His haughty sniff clearly dismissed the figure as a vagabond, beggar or a good for nothing lad best avoided. This was a common reaction and meant that few folk came close and that suited the Thief just fine. If a vagabond lad was the role to be played to keep living, then so be it.
Below the Thief, on the banks of the ditch running beneath the bridge, was the Rag Fair. The poorest came here each day to pay copper coins for a few pathetic clothes stolen in tenements or stripped off the dead, linen taken from the beds of plague victims and then washed in urine to try and cleanse the contagion, or wigs pulled off the heads of passing pedestrians on Cheapside by enterprising boys hanging out of first floor windows.
Children played at the water’s edge barely inches from the decaying body of a dog that floated down stream through the stinking filth that was the River Fleet. A brief gust of wind from the North brought more noxious smells towards the thief, this time from scores of huge brass and iron vats standing along the water’s edge perched on top of fires which each threw a dense cloud of smoke and fumes skyward. The vats produced a hundred wares: vinegar, glue, cured leather and soap or were used to bleach cloth or boil the fats off animal skins. Further up the river butchers smoked animal carcasses and the refuge from their and all the other trades were thrown into the river or littered its edge. The smell was unbelievable and the sight looked like a picture of hell but here, in rotten wooden huts overlooking the ditch, the poor just endured. The Thief’s nose wrinkled: time to move on perhaps.
The Thief drifted towards Newgate, through lanes lined with the tottering two and three story wooden houses that made up the city of London. The top floors leant out so far that, in some places, it was possible for folk in one house to shake hands with those living opposite. The streets below were often in permanent gloom, overshadowed by the buildings above and the permanent clouds of smoke that covered the city. A cry of warning rang out from above and the Thief deftly dodged the torrent of excrement from someone’s chamber pot tipped out of a high window. A lawyer walking down the lane, towards the Inns of Court, was not so lucky and let out a shout of outrage as his fine clothes were ruined. The Thief chuckled and moved on.
Just outside Newgate, country women were selling nosegays from the side of the road. The ale merchant had stopped his cart at Pie Corner to buy one and now held it close as he drove on through the gate. By the way he screwed up his face, the Thief guessed that it failed to disguise the fetid stench that escaped the jail built into the gatehouse, where the condemned and the accused alike had to endure rats, ‘gaol fever’ and the open sewer that ran through their cells.
“Have pity on us Sir, please Sir do you have any food, any coins?”croaked a voice from a barred window built into the jail at ground level, where a prisoner was holding a desperate hand out for anything passing Londoners might give him. Prisoners were not fed in the jail and survived by begging or buying food and on the charity of friends. Many died in that dank hole. The merchant turned his head away but the Thief went over and dropped one copper coin into the palm: enough perhaps for a meal.
“Bless you lad,” the prisoner said and the Thief nodded, not seeing it as charity or weakness but thinking that no one knew when they too may need help in that terrible place.
Passing through the city wall, the Thief entered the Shambles, where blood and offal from freshly butchered meat dripped onto the ground and ran off downhill. All round the market, hawkers sold candles, beer, mussels, honeyed nuts and cane rods for the punishing of children. Beggars, prostitutes and pick pockets plying their trade were all spotted and expertly avoided by the Thief. Some were moving stealthily and in disguise, deftly taking coin pouches off belts or food from baskets. Others drew attention to themselves by first having scratched and cut their own skin, or that of their children, before rubbing mud, or even the blood spilt by the butchers, over themselves to exaggerate their pitiful appearance. They then lay on the ground in the street crying for alms.
Concluding that this place was just a bit too occupied by those who shared a less than rigid adherence to the law - and as such, given the competition, opportunities for profit were probably limited - the Thief decided to move on. The objective was easy enough: to survive another day. To creep along looking for an opportunity: a dropped coin, an inviting money bag, or perhaps a valuable object left unguarded by a careless shopkeeper. Maybe a piece of fruit would find a place inside the Thief’s tunic along with a crust of bread. On a good day a bottle of beer might join it.
After the hell on earth that was the Fleet Ditch and the poor pickings at the Shambles the Thief decided to head for richer prospects, somewhere where one theft would pay for a week or two’s food. Yes, that was the plan: just one risk, one chance and then the easy life for a bit. Where to go though? Somewhere like, somewhere like...ah yes, just the place.
“Lambs to the slaughter!” The Thief muttered with a smile and slinked away, eastwards.
