The Dark Gateway: A Novel of Horror. John Burke
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“We could play cards,” said Denis, but no one made any reply. His father settled down with the morning paper, which had been delivered very late that morning, and at which he had so far only glanced. After a few minutes he was sound asleep, occasionally grunting and twitching his fingers on the rustling pages.
Frank said: “A fire like this makes you lazy. I ought to be getting up and starting off.”
“But it’s early yet. Half-an-hour’s walk—”
“That’s under good conditions. I mustn’t leave it too late.”
Jonathan perked up.
“Don’t worry,” said Denis. “By the way, did I ever tell you…were you with us, or weren’t you, in Augusta, that time…?”
Jonathan’s petulant expression returned. It was the first thing Nora noticed as she came in, patting her hair into place, and it gave her a swift, unaccountable twinge of unease.
Chairs were scraped back to make room for her. Jonathan said: “Well—hm, perhaps if I could fetch in one of those books, to check up the…ah, the things I came down about.…”
“I’ll get you a light,” said Nora. She took the torch from behind the tea caddy on the mantelpiece.
“And while I’m up,” he said, rising twistedly to his feet, his shadow leaping tortuously away from the lamplight, “perhaps you could show me a window from which I can see the castle.”
“What on earth for?” said Denis.
“A passing whim, if you like. A place of many associations, the castle of Lyomoria—the Tellurian Gate.”
“Never heard it called that before.”
“Nor have I,” said Frank. “It’s been associated with Gwyn ap Nudd, and of course, like every Welsh castle, with King Arthur—”
“Older!” sneered Jonathan. “Much, much older.”
“I’ll show you the passage window,” Nora offered, “but you won’t see anything; it’s far too dark.”
As they left the room, she heard Frank saying: “I really must push along, or I’ll be needing a search party sent out after me.”
She held the torch out, conscious of Jonathan moving beside her, his feet catching in slightly uneven tiles in the passage that she avoided automatically. The window, when they reached it, was a dim grey frame for the deep blackness outside—a blackness spotted by clinging white flakes that were tossed by invisible hands towards the smeared glass.
“It’s up there,” said Nora, holding out the torch to their guest so that, having satisfied himself that there was nothing to be seen from the window under these conditions, he could proceed on his way to the parlour and select the book he wanted, “but you can’t see any of the castle tonight.”
He took the torch from her and it went out, leaving them in darkness. She felt certain that he had thumbed the switch back, and was reminded of Christmas parties when this sort of thing had happened. But this wasn’t Christmas, despite the world outside. He was close to her, and she was for the first time aware of a slight, bitter smell of ammonia that he exuded—rather like a neglected baby. She said: “The light—”
“We can see the castle now.”
“Surely not.”
Nora glanced towards the window, expecting at the most a dim shape on the crest of the hill.
“You see?” he said gleefully.
She saw. Like a blurred projection on a cinema screen—the spasmodic cinema in the village hall—stained and spotted by shifting snowflakes, was an incredibly coloured sky, throwing up into unnatural relief the hulking shape of the castle. It was utterly beyond comprehension that such a red, unholy light should have sprung so quickly into the heavy sky…and yet more unbelievable, she thought, suddenly understanding that this was a world akin to her dream world, only much worse, more unbelievable that the castle should be so large and complete. Complete: that was the monstrous impossibility! Where she should have seen a cluster of jagged stones, she was looking at a massive building that might have been a reconstruction of the castle as it once was.
“No,” she said, as though the denial would drive the vision away. “No, no—”
There was schoolboyish pride in Jonathan’s voice as he said: “I’ve shown you something you didn’t expect, haven’t I?”
She did not answer, not trusting her voice. The place was evil. Not the frightening way it had been shown to her, not even the grimness of those disproportionately massive towers and turrets convinced her of this, but a sense—an inner, compulsive assurance—affirmed that the whole edifice was alive with a foul life. There was something ghastly lurking behind the long, narrow slits in the towers; something perverted and gross that peered over the battlements…an invisible but undeniable movement, like a great heaving and jostling that would soon break open the walls like a chicken forcing its way out of its egg.…
“This is what once existed,” said Jonathan at her ear. “I knew I could bring it back like that. It proves I’m right. What existed once,” and he nudged her elbow with excitement, “will exist again.”
Nora took a frightened, desperate step towards the window in the hope that the vision would fade. It did not fade. The lurid red glow continued to dance behind the menacing pile. Hoarsely she said:
“There’s a fire somewhere.”
“Fire,” admitted Jonathan, “of a sort.”
“But the castle? It couldn’t be. What…how did you—”
“There is an old word for it,” he said. “The Celts call it glamourie. I have shown you a vision. That’s only one of my powers.”
The rasping, cocksure little voice was incongruous. It did not accord with that terrifying picture in the window-frame. But the vision was real enough, and somehow or other Jonathan had created it.
Nora wanted to move away. She did not know how long she would have been compelled to stand there had not the kitchen door opened, admitting a flood of light into the passage. The glow in the sky was quenched at once, and all she saw in the glass was the pale reflection of herself and Jonathan, and the inexorable snowflakes falling slantingly towards them.
Denis came out. “Come for Frank’s coat,” he said, as though it was necessary to apologise for having intruded on them. He slipped his friend’s coat from a hook in the passage wall, and turned away. Nora followed him into the kitchen, and heard her mother give a startled gasp.
“What’s the matter, girl?”
“You look as though you’d seen a ghost,” Denis said. “Was old Jonathan telling you some weird tales out there?”
Nora did not reply as sharply as she would normally have done. It was too much of a pleasure to be back in the kitchen, with the lamp hanging from the ceiling, its circle of light holding back darkness and the powers of evil.
“What is it?” asked Denis with an unusually solicitous note in his voice. “If that little squirt—”
“It was nothing to do with him,” Nora forced herself to say, unable to attempt any description of the truth. Already, thinking how insane it would sound to anyone else, she was beginning to doubt whether it had not been an hallucination.
Frank, with his coat on, made his farewells, looking at Nora for a long moment as she stood beneath the lamp, her hair like crimson against the unnatural pallor of her face. He said: “I don’t suppose I’ll see you all again until the weather has taken a turn for the better. I hope you manage all right.”
“Goodnight,” they said.
He opened the door, and half-closed his eyes.
“Strewth!” said Denis.
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