The Devil Rides Out (20 page)

‘Yes.' Tanith admitted. ‘Can you show me how I get on to the Devizes road?'

‘Come with me, my pretty. I am going that way myself,' said the old woman in a husky voice, which seemed to Tanith in some way vaguely familiar.

‘Thank you.' She turned and walked along the bridle-path that followed the embankment to the west, searching her mind as to where she could have heard that strange voice before.

‘Give me your hand, dearie. The way is rough for my old feet,' wheezed the woman; and Tanith willingly offered her arm. Then, as the old woman rested a claw upon it, a sudden memory of long ago flooded her mind.

It was of the days when, as a little girl living in the foothills of the Carpathians, she had made a friend of an old gypsy-woman who used to come to the village for the fair and local Saints' Days, with her band of Ziganes. It was from her that Tanith had first learned her strange powers of clairvoyance and second sight. Many a time she had scrambled down from the rocky mount upon which her home was set, to the gypsy encampment outside the village in order to gaze, with marvelling eyes, at old Mizka, who knew so many wonderful things and could tell of the past and of the future by gazing into a glass of water, or consulting her grimy pack of Tarot cards.

Tanith could still see those pasteboards which had such fascinating pictures upon them. The twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana, said by some to be copies of the original
Book of Thoth
, which contained all wisdom and was given to mankind by the ancient ibis-headed Egyptian god. For thousands of years such packs had been treasured and reproduced from one end of the world to the other and were treasured still, from the boudoirs of modern Paris to the tea-houses of Shanghai, wherever people came secretly in the quiet hours to learn, from those who could read them, the secrets of the future.

As she walked on half unconscious of her strange companion, Tanith recalled what she could. The
Juggler
with his table–meaning mental rectitude; the
High Priestess
like a female Pope–wisdom; the
Empress
–night and darkness; the
Emperor
–support and protection;
Justice
, a winged figure with sword and scales–the law; the
Devil
, batwinged, goatfaced, with a human head protruding from his belly–force and blindness; the
World
, a naked woman with goat and ram below–travel and possessions; the
Fool
, foretelling dementia, rapture and extravagance… the list went on.

Old Mizka had been a willing teacher, and Tanith, the child, an eager
pupil, for she had spent a lonely girlhood in that castle on the hill, separated by miles of jagged valleys difficult to traverse from other children of her own position, and debarred by custom from adopting the children of the villagers as her playmates. Long before her time she had learned all the secrets of life from the old gypsy, who talked for hours of lovers and marriage and lovers again, and potions to bring sleep to suspicious husbands, and philtres which could warm the heart of the coldest man towards a woman who desired his caresses.

‘Mizka,' Tanith whispered suddenly. ‘It is you–isn't it?'

‘Yes, dearie. Yes–old Mizka has come a long way tonight to set her pretty one upon the road.'

‘But how did you ever come to England?'

‘No matter, dearie. Don't trouble your golden head about that. Old Mizka started you upon the road, and she has been sent to guide your feet tonight.'

Tanith hung back for a second in sudden alarm, but the claw upon her arm urged her forward again, with gentle strength, as she protested.

‘But I don't want to go! Not … not to the …'

The old crone chuckled. ‘What foolishness is this? It is the road that you have taken all your life, ever since Mizka told you of it as a little girl. Tonight is the night that old Mizka has seen for so many years in her dreams–the night when you shall know all things, and be granted powers which come to few. How fortunate you are to have this opportunity when you are yet so young.'

At the old woman's silken words, a new feeling crept into Tanith's heart. She had been dwelling upon Rex's face as she crossed the Plain, and all the health-giving freshness of his clean modernity, but now she was drawn back into another world; the one of which she had thought so long, in which a very few chosen people could perform the seemingly impossible–bend others to their will–cause them to fall or rise–place unaccountable obstacles in their path at every turn, or smooth their way to a glorious success. That was more than riches, more than fame; the supreme pinnacle to which any man or woman could rise, and all her longing to reach those heights before she died came back to her. Rex was a pleasant, stupid child; De Richleau a meddlesome fool, who did not understand the danger of the things with which he was trying to interfere. Mocata was a Prince in power and knowledge. She should be unutterably grateful that he had considered her worthy of the honour which she was about to receive.

‘It is not far, dearie. Not so far as you have thought. The great Festival does not take place in the house at Chilbury. That was only a meeting place, and the Sabbat is to be held upon these downs only a few miles from here. Come with me, and you shall receive the knowledge and the power that you seek.'

A curtain of forgetfulness seemed to be falling over Tanith's mind–a feeling of intoxication, mental and physical, flooded through her. She felt her eyes closing … closing … as she muttered: ‘Yes. Knowledge and Power. Hurry, Mizka! Hurry, or we shall be too late.'

All her previous hesitations had now been blotted out, and although they were walking over coarse grass, it seemed to her that they trod a smooth and even way. Her mind was obsessed again with the sole thought of reaching the Sabbat in time.

‘That is my own beautiful one talking now,' crooned the old beldame in a
honeyed voice. ‘But have no fear, the night is young, and we shall reach the meeting-place of the Covens before the hour when our Master will appear.'

Tanith was holding herself stiffly as she walked. Her golden head thrown back, her eyes dilated to an enormous size, the muscles at the sides of her mouth twitched incessantly as the old woman's smooth babble flowed on.

They crossed the road, although Tanith was hardly conscious of it as, with Mizka beside her she felt a new strength surging through her, despite the long and tiring day. Then, as she mounted an earthy bank, a dark and furry presence brushed against her legs, and looking down she saw the golden eyes of a great black cat.

For a moment she was startled, but the old woman chuckled in the darkness. ‘It is only Nebiros,' she muttered. ‘You have played with him often as a child, dearie, and he is so pleased to see you now.'

The cat mewed with pleasure as Tanith stooped for a moment to stroke its furry back. Then they hastened on again.

For hours it seemed they tramped over the grassy tussocks, up gently-sloping hills and down again into lonesome valleys unbroken by trees or cottages or farmsteads, ever on to the secret place where the Satanists would be gathering now until old Mizka, walking at Tanith's left, suddenly pulled up and clutched at her arm with a bony hand.

‘Shut your eyes, dearie,' she hissed in a sharp whisper, ‘Shut your eyes. There is something here that it is not good for you to see. I will guide you.'

Tanith did as she was bid mechanically, and although she could no longer see the rough ground over which they were passing, she did not stumble. Yet she had a feeling that she was no longer alone with the old woman, but that a third person was now walking with them at her right hand. Then, a low voice, bell-like and clear, sounded in her ears.

‘Tanith, my darling. Look at me, I implore you.'

At the shock of hearing that well-loved voice, the curtain lifted for a moment and Tanith opened her eyes again. To her right, she saw the figure of her mother dressed in white as she had last seen her, before she had set out to some great party where she had died of a sudden heart attack. Round her neck hung a rope of pearls, and her head was adorned with a half-hoop of diamond stars. The figure shone by some strange unnatural light in the surrounding darkness, seeming as pure and translucent as carved crystal.

‘My dear one,' the voice went on, ‘my folly of encouraging your gift of second sight has led you into terrible peril. I beg you by all that is good and holy to draw back while there is yet time.'

Despite the urging hand which clawed upon her arm, Tanith stumbled for the first time in the long grass and, wrenching her arm away, stood still. In a flash of insight which seared through her drugged brain, she knew then that old Mizka was not a living being, but a Dark Angel sent to lead her to the Sabbat, and that her mother had come at this moment from the world beyond as an Angel of Light to draw her back again into the safety and protection of holy things.

Mizka was babbling and crowing upon her left, urging her onward with a terrible force and intensity. The words ‘power'–‘crowning your life'–‘mastery of all' came again and again in her rapid speech, and Tanith moved a few steps forward. But her mother's voice, imploring again, came clearly in her ears.

‘Tanith, my darling, I am only allowed to appear to you because of your great danger, and for the briefest space. I am called back already, but I beg you in the name of the love that we had for each other, not to go. There is a better influence in your life. Trust in it while there is still time, otherwise you will be dragged down into the pit and we shall never meet again.' Suddenly the voice changed, becoming cold and commanding. ‘Back, Mizka–back whence you came. I order you by the names of Isis, mother of Horus, Kwan-Yin, mother of Hau-Ki, and Mary, mother of Our Lord.'

The voice ceased on a thin wall as though, all unwillingly, the spirit had been drawn back while its abjuration to the demon was only half completed. With a wild cry and arms outstretched, Tanith dashed forward to the place where that nebulous, moon-white being had floated. But where the apparition of her mother had been a second before, only a little breeze ruffled the long grasses. A feeling of immense fatigue bowed her shoulders as she turned towards old Mizka and the cat. But they too had vanished.

She sank upon her knees and began to pray, feverishly at first and then less strongly, until her tongue tripped upon the words and at last she fell silent. Almost unconsciously she rose to her feet and found herself, the night wind playing gently in her hair, standing upon a hilltop gazing down into a shallow valley.

A new and terrible fear gripped at her heart, for she saw below her, by the strange unearthly light of a ring of blue candles, the Satanists gathering for their unholy ceremony, and knew that evil powers had led her feet by devious paths to the place of the Great Sabbat that she might participate after all.

She stood for a moment, the blood draining from her face, quick tremors of horror and apprehension running down her body. She wanted to turn and flee into the dark, protective shadows of the night, but she could not tear her eyes away from that terrible figure seated upon the rocky throne, before which the Satanists were making their obscene obeisance. Some terrible uncanny power kept her feet rooted to the spot, and although her mother's warning still rang in her ears, she could not drag her gaze away from that blasphemous mockery of God proceeding in a horrid silence a hundred yards down the slope from where she stood.

Time ceased to exist for Tanith, then. An unearthly chill seemed to creep up out of the valley, swirling and eddying about her legs as a cold current suddenly strikes a bather in a warm patch of sea. The chill crept upward to the level of her breasts, numbing her limbs and dulling her faculties until she could have cried out with the pain. She watched the gruesome banquet with loathing and repulsion, but as she saw those ghoul-like figures tilting the bottles to their mouths she was suddenly beset by an appalling desire to drink.

Although her limbs were cold, her mouth seemed parched; her throat swollen and burning. She was seized with an unutterable longing to rush forward, down the slope, and grab one of those bottles with which to slake her all-consuming thirst. Yet she remained rooted, held back by her higher consciousness; the vision of her mother no longer before her physical eyes, but clear in her mentality just as she had seen it, tall, slender and white-clad.

At the defamation of the Host, she was seized by a shuddering rigor in all
her limbs. She tried to shut her eyes but they remained fixed and staring while silent tears welled from them and gushed down her cheeks. She endeavoured to cross herself but her hand, numb with that awful cold, refused to do the bidding of her brain and remained hanging limp and frozen at her side. She endeavoured to pray, but her swollen tongue refused its office, and her mind seemed to have gone utterly blank so that she could not recall even the opening words of the Paternoster or Ave Maria. She knew with a sudden appalling clarity that having even been the witness of this blasphemous sacrilege was enough to damn her for all eternity, and that her own wish to attend this devilish saturnalia had been engendered only by a stark madness, caught like some terrible contagious disease from her association with these other unnatural beings who were the victims of a ghastly lunacy.

In vain she attempted to cast herself upon her knees, to struggle back from this horror, but she seemed to be caught in an invisible vice and could not lift her glance, for one single second, from that small lighted circle which stood out so clearly in the surrounding darkness of the mysterious valley.

She saw the Satanists strip off their dominoes and shuddered afresh–almost retching–as she watched them tumbling upon each other in the disgusting nudity of their ritual dance. Old Madame D'Urfé, huge-buttocked and swollen, prancing by some satanic power with all the vigour of a young girl who had only just reached maturity; the Babu, dark-skinned, fleshy, hideous; the American woman, scraggy, lean-flanked and hag-like with empty, hanging breasts; the Eurasian, waving the severed stump of his arm in the air as he gavotted beside the unwieldy figure of the Irish bard, whose paunch stood out like the grotesque belly of a Chinese god.