The Black Throne

VII

After the pneumonia had had its way with Elizabeth Poe and her head lay still upon the soiled pillow, long black hair framing her childish face, great, gray eyes finally closed, the tiny actress was dressed in her tawdry finery, the best of her paste jewels hung upon her.

They laid her to state in the milliner's attic, where the other members of Mr. Placide's company, along with Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Allan, Mrs. Mackenzie, and their husbands—who had taken upon themselves the arrangements for the funeral—might come by and pay their respects.

Her resting place was to be close to the wall in St. John's Churchyard. There had been some protest from members of the vestry that an actress should be buried in consecrated ground, but Mr. Allan and Mr.

Mackenzie, both members of the congregation, had prevailed. As it was, her grave was to remain unmarked for over a century.

And the gray-eyed boy who had been a pet of the company wondered... . How often had he seen his mother die and lie there like this, till it was time to come forward and take her bows? It was taking longer than usual this time. When would she come back to hold him?

It was a brisk December day in 1811. He was almost three years old. As Mrs. Allan's hired hack bore him away, along the cobbled streets of Richmond, he became aware at some point that his baby sister Rosalie was gone, also.

He was taken to the three-story Georgian brick house at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Tobacco Alley which was now to be his home. She did not come back for him. It was taking very long.

We came after considerable travel to the quiet duchy of Aragon. No signs of war here, as back in Spain proper. Some of Prospero's subjects spoke French, others Spanish, and still others English. The peace here was of a deathlike sort. If there had been foreign armies in this land recently, they had fled months ago. This domain was devastated not by war, but by disease. Traveling, we first heard rumors and then saw terrible evidence—funeral processions, chanting monks, deserted villages—of the presence of the Red Death, a variant of pneumonic plague.

We had entered a new year while working our way around a war zone. Valdemar, again, was invaluable in this respect. Another matter on which he'd advised us concerned Prince Prospero and his present situation. The prince had apparently removed himself from all human commerce only a few days before our arrival. Nor was it a simple sequestration. Rather, careless of what happened to the majority of his people, he had called to his side a thousand friends and companions. Determined to escape the Red Death, they—with a suitable staff of servants and a company or two of soldiers—had barricaded themselves inside one of his castellated abbeys where, well supplied with all manner of provisions, they expected to wait out the epidemic.

All of which would be pretty much academic, save that Prospero was apparently one of the men Von Kempelen had approached on the matter so near to everyone's heart. And Von Kempelen had elected to enter the refuge with the prince.

Because of the involvement of Annie, Valdemar could not be certain, but he felt it likely that Templeton, Goodfellow, and Griswold had also taken sanctuary with Prospero.

"Find me the place," I insisted.

"It is outside Tarragona," Valdemar explained, gesturing now. "To the northwest. A little village called Santa Creus."

And so we headed east.

The following week our coach rattled into Santa Creus. It was an eerie feeling, for the town was mainly deserted. We rolled about its streets for a time that afternoon, viewing at last what had to be the abbey, in the distance—an enormous building with soldiers on the walls and at every point which might possess a gate. I told our driver to head for it.

When our approach was noted several shots were fired in our direction, and orders to halt were shouted in Spanish, French, and English. We complied.

I stepped down from the coach. I took one step in the direction of the abbey.

"Halt!" a guard repeated.

"Certainly. I'd appreciate speaking English."

"What do you want, English?" one called back.

"I'm looking for some people I believe may have gone inside a few days ago."

"If that is the case there is no way to reach them," he said.

"It's very important." I flipped a gold coin into the air and caught it.

"We're billeted just inside the wall," he said. "Even we can't go any farther. The inner doors are welded shut."

"What about messages then? Is there no way to get a message inside?"

"No," he answered. "No way."

"All right," I said. "I understand. In that case, I'd like some information."

"Don't have any," he said. "You'd better be moving along."

"Wait! I'll pay you for it," I offered.

He laughed.

"Wouldn't touch your gold," he said. "Might be tainted with the Death."

I assumed my best parade ground voice then, "Soldier, was there a German named Von Kempelen? And four Americans—three men and a woman?"

He straightened visibly, his shoulders moving back.

"Sir, I do not know," he replied. "There were so many."

"Thank you, soldier. I take it nobody's doing business in town?"

"No, sir. And if I were you I'd not stop there. I'd head for the border and beat the horses till they fell.

Then I'd start running."

"Thanks." I turned away. I entered the coach.

"What now?" Ligeia asked me.

"We ride away," I replied. "We stop as soon as we're out of sight of the place. Then we have a talk with Valdemar. Annie may or may not be inside, but it's not her I want to ask about."

We parked near a skeletal olive grove. The others helped get down the coffin, and then took a walk when I explained that Ligeia and I were about to open it—save for Grip, who stood upon my left shoulder and observed.

Valdemar's eyes came open immediately when I raised the lid, without any preliminary mesmerism. The daylight did not seem to be bothering him either. Ligeia gave me a strange look and passed her hands above him then. Even before she had finished, he spoke: "What place is this?" he asked. It was not at all like him to initiate conversation.

"This is Santa Creus, near Tarragona, in Aragon," she answered.

"What is there that is special about it?"

"The Red Death has apparently taken a massive toll here," she said.

"Ah!" he said. "Those lucky, lucky dead! How fine! How fortunate! Gladly would I trade caskets with any of them. To sleep! Perchance never to dream!"

I cleared my throat.

"I hate to keep bothering you with the mundane and earthly," I said, "but there's no one else I can ask."

"I understand your mortal predicament," he replied. "Ask."

"There is a huge abbey near here. We just visited the place," I explained. "There seems to be no way in.

It is guarded. The doors are even welded shut. But I believe that Von Kempelen is inside, and possibly Annie, Templeton, Goodfellow, and Griswold. It occurs to me that large ancient buildings often possessed secret entrances. Can you tell whether this is the case here? I want badly to get inside."

His eyes rolled back suddenly, showing only the whites once more. His hands fell into place across his breast. There was a long pause before he spoke, then, "There is a secret passage from the abbey to the city," came his sepulchral tones. "A tunnel. It has been out of use for so long that I cannot see where life may pass. It has been changed. Perhaps sealed. The town has changed above it."

Again, silence.

Finally, "Could you be more specific?" I inquired.

"No," he replied. "But Von Kempelen is within, and there is that ambiguous quality I have learned to associate with Annie. She may well be there, also."

"Could it also be as it was in Toledo? Confusion at the crossing of her path?"

"Yes."

"Still, I have no choice."

He said nothing.

"The tunnel is the only secret way in?" I asked.

"The only one that I see. Let me rest."

I executed the dismissing gesture myself, without thinking. His eyes closed and the lid slammed. At this, Grip did his champagne uncorking sound.

In a little while we were loaded again and on our way into town.

We parked in a mews near the plaza, and I hung my saber from my belt. The afternoon was running on toward evening. Peters and I thought to explore quickly, obtain a general notion of the place's layout and perhaps gain an impression of the likeliest area for the tunnel's terminus. Ligeia was to wait with the coachman during our excursion.

And so we hiked about, Emerson flitting from building to building and through an occasional treetop, pacing us. The town was very quiet. Storefronts were boarded over. We saw no one, heard no voices.

"Does it bother you that the plague has passed this way, and something of its essence may still linger?" I asked Peters.

His grin remained constant.

"When yer time's up, yer time's up," he said. "An' if it ain't, it ain't."

"I'm not quite that fatalistic about it," I said, "but I've a feeling I'd have learned from Valdemar if this were too risky a sojourn."

"More likely Ligeia'd've said something."

"What do you mean?"

"She's more'n a fancy hand-waver to put folks asleep," he said. "Told you that back aboard ship."

"You mean she's a witch? A sorceress?"

"I 'spect," he replied softly.

We passed through an area where there had been some burning, where blackened, half-fallen, windowless shells lay amid puddles and weeds. The odor of stagnant water came to my nostrils, along with assorted smells of decay. Emerson perforce descended to ground level here and shambled beside us for a time.

At length we passed out of this section of town and came into a rundown area crossed by rutted roadways. As we followed it Emerson vanished again. It became obvious to us that all of these buildings had been broken into. In consideration of the cost of moving things—as well as the time of additional exposure involved in transport—the merchants had counted on the simple security of boards and nails for protecting their goods. Some inhabitants of this place had not fled, it would seem, and had engaged in a bit of looting.

Walking a bit farther we had almost passed a great decaying hulk of a building when we heard a sound of laughter from within. It was not the cheerful laughter of good fellowship, but rather a barking, fiendish sound. Still... . I exchanged glances with Peters and he nodded.

We approached the structure's front and Peters gave to the door such a kick that it flew inward and banged against the wall. I might have preferred stealth, but Peters—then, as always—seemed absolutely without fear. He appeared to possess an extreme confidence in his own physical ability to extract himself from any situation.

The laughter died immediately. Entering, we discovered the place to be an undertaker's establishment.

Some excellent-seeming caskets were on display—all ebony and silver—and I regretted Valdemar's not being along to see them. Casting about quickly, however, we saw no sign of life. Then Peters pointed to an open trap door in the floor, in a corner to our right. I loosened my saber in its scabbard and we approached.

We looked down into a long range of wine-cellars whence the sound of a bursting bottle occasionally emerged. At the room's center was a table which held an enormous tub. Various flasks, bottles, and jugs were scattered about it. A human skeleton depended from a rafter above it, affixed there to a rig-bolt by means of a stout cord tied about one leg. The other leg jutted grotesquely, and occasional drafts and reactions of the rope caused it to jounce and twirl. There were a number of individuals seated about the table on casket trestles, and some of them seemed to be drinking from very white bowls which were strongly reminiscent of portions of skulls.

I could see the individual at the head of the table—a gaunt, near-emaciated man possessed of an enormously elongated skull, his skin jaundiced to an extreme yellow hue. He was staring back at me.

Across from this man sat two women—one enormously obese, in perfect complement to his leanness; the other petite, delicate, well-formed, pale, save for flaming cheeks, with a drooping nose which depended beyond her lower lip. I judged the latter lady tuburcular, and she was seized by a coughing spell just as the thought passed through my mind. A dour-looking, puffy old man sat to the left of the large lady, arms folded, one bandaged leg up upon the table.

There were two more men present, and though the angle of my view did not let me see them well, I could tell that one had enormous ears and bandaged jaws, and the other appeared to be somewhat paralyzed—reclined at an unusual angle, almost deathly still. Most of them wore garments fashioned of shrouds.

I saluted the man who regarded me.

"Good evening," I said.

The man banged the white, scepter-like implement he held upon the tabletop, causing the bottles and skull-bowls to jiggle. The proximity of one turning above him caused me to realize it a thigh bone.

"My friends, we have guests," he announced.

All heads turned in our direction, save for that of the paralyzed man. He just turned his eyes.

"You're welcome to come below and join us, good sir," the host invited.

Out of his line of sight, I signaled to Peters to remain in reserve.

"All right," I said, and I lowered myself onto the steep stair and descended it.

"And who might we have the honor of entertaining?" he asked.

"My name is Edgar Allan Perry," I replied.

"And I am King, these my pestly court. You are welcome to join us in our drinking and making merry in the face of imminent dissolution. Would you care for a skull of grog?"

"Not just now, thanks," I replied. "I am looking for a tunnel, one which runs to the abbey."

Their laughter returned.

"Why would you want to go there? The company is far far better here."

"I do not doubt your conviviality, but I am looking for an ancient tunnel. It may be somewhere hereabout."

"Nay, you'd best dig your own," said the man with the wrapped leg. "Start here. We'll fill it in after you."

The ladies tittered. The paralyzed man rolled his eyes. My host banged his bone and swilled a few drops of wine.

"Silence!" he roared. Then, using the bone as a cane, he levered himself to his feet. He lurched toward me and raised the bone, pointing it. Disconcerted, I saw that he held it as an expert swordsman might his blade. "You will be so good as to drain an entire skull of grog," he announced, locating one with his left hand and dipping it into their vat, "upon which you will be welcomed into our company and allowed to tunnel where you will. Otherwise you will be baptized in it by total immersion, till the cock crows."

He extended the dripping skull toward me and I drew my saber.

"An unkindly act," he observed, and he gestured to his opposite number. The fat lady began to sing.

Peters must simply have jumped into the opening. His feet struck the stair about halfway down and he leaped, catching hold of the skeleton upon which he swung. The singing ceased and shrieks arose. King Pest's minions must have been taken aback by one whose appearance was every bit as outre as their own and far, far more sinister. Peters let go and landed upon the table.

"Up the ladder, laddie!" he called. "'Tis time to drown all sorrows."

King Pest backed quickly away from me and turned toward Peters, pointing the bone. Peters moved forward and caught hold of the big vat. It must have been ponderous in the extreme, filled with liquid as it was. But he raised it, threw me a wink, and began to tip it. I swarmed up the stair as the gurgling began, mixed with screams.

A moment later I heard the rattle of the skeleton, a thud on a tread, and a chuckle. Peters emerged from the opening and kicked the trapdoor shut. A moment later he was raising a heavy coffin which he deposited upon it.

Emerson suddenly came into the shop, the light of a new-risen moon at his back, and commenced gesturing to Peters.

"I think we'd better be gettin' back," Peters said then to me. "We've done all the good we can here."

We followed our shaggy companion into the night.

Mews by moonlight: Lovely lady seated on a coffin, a few of our belongings piled nearby, nightbird perched atop them.

"Ligeia," I said, "what's become of the coach?"

"I heard the driver unloading it," she replied, "and when I got out to see what he was about he leaped back to his seat, snatched up the reins and rode off. He feared the Red Death."

"He took the time to say that?"

"He'd said it earlier, right after you left to explore. He said he thought you mad. He suggested the two of us depart."

"We passit a barrow back a ways, Eddie," Peters remarked. "P'raps I should fetch it."

"Good thought. Yes, do that," I answered.

Which is how we came to be wheeling a cart bearing our worldly and otherworldly possessions up and down the streets of Santa Creus when two men staggered across our path heading to the northeast, one of them clad in jester's motley.

I was about to hail them when I felt Peters' hand upon my arm.

"They're tipsy," he said.

"So?"

"Recall the ones in the cellar."

"These may well be part of some more normal group of survivors."

"Let's follow them then, rather than approach them."

"I'd prefer that, too," Ligeia said.

So we settled into a pace which kept us a decent distance behind the men, overhearing bits of their conversation on occasion. They reeled a bit as they went, though they sobered somewhat farther along and straightened their gait. I gathered that the one in jester's garb was named Fortunato. The other was called Montresor.

The latter looked back once or twice, but I could not tell whether he saw us following.

As other snatches of dialogue drifted our way I gathered they were talking, with considerable erudition, of wine. At least, their discussion seemed full of specialized knowledge.

They slowed as they neared a large, rambling, antique mansion, set among gloomy trees apart from other buildings. From their comments, I gathered it to be Montresor's house, despite his momentary difficulty in unlocking the door.

There came a knocking from inside Valdemar's box. Ligeia placed her hand upon its lid, possibly doing something mesmeric, as—after a time—she announced, "This is the place. We must get inside somehow, for the tunnel entrance is near."

So we kept going, right up to the front door. Shortly, I was knocking on it. Peters and I had to pound long and hard before Montresor answered. When he did he looked surprised, annoyed and vaguely alarmed in quick succession, and then simultaneously.

I suppose the general appearance of our group was not reassuring.

"Mr. Montresor?" I said, hoping hard that he knew some English.

He studied my face for several long seconds, then nodded.

"Yes. What is it?" he asked.

"It concerns the delivery of this case of Chateau-Margaux, of the antelope brand, violet seal," I explained.

His gaze shifted to the large case, where it was instantly taken prisoner. His wariness and annoyance faded. He licked his lips.

"I do not understand," he said. "I did not order this. Are you selling it? Is it a gift? Are you messengers?"

"You might say we are messengers," I told him. "Though in this city, at this time, ordinary messengers are hard to come by."

"True," he said, nodding. "And what sort might you be?"

"We are," I told him, "all that is left of a troupe of entertainers. We were sent for by Prince Prospero, but we were not able to reach the abbey before its gates were sealed. The soldiers refused to admit us, and they also refused to inquire of the prince himself whether he wanted us admitted.

"And so," I continued, "we have been reduced to trying to trade this crate of fine wine for food and a secure place to stay. It was originally intended for Prospero, but those who brought it here abandoned it and fled, for fear of the Red Death."

"Of course," he muttered, opening the door wider, still staring at the case. "Won't you bring it inside?"

At this, we all moved forward simultaneously. Eyes widening, he raised a hand. "No," he said. "The ape and the bird must remain outside."

"They can't be left unattended," I said.

"Then let the lady keep them company while you transport the crate," he suggested. "I cannot offer you assistance with it, as my servants are also fled.

"But a certain matter of great moment compels me to remain," he added, almost under his breath.

Fortunato suddenly lurched into view behind him, still wearing his jester's cap and bells. He took a swig from a small glass flask with a broken, jagged neck, then tried focussing his gaze in our direction.

"What's keeping you?" he asked. "I want to go at that pipe of Montal— Montin—"

"Amontillado!" Grip shrieked, and the man stumbled back, a look of terror suddenly upon his face.

"The Devil!" he cried, continuing to back away.

"No," I answered Montresor. "We don't bring it in unless all of us come with it."

"An ass! Luchesi's an ass! You know that, Montresor?" Fortunato suddenly exclaimed. "An ignoramus!

Couldn't tell sherry from vinegar—"

The man in motley broke into a suspicious coughing fit.

"Nothing," he said quickly then, his English more heavily accented than Montresor's. "It is not the plague. I will not die of a cough."

"No," said Montresor, eyeing him thoughtfully. "I think we may safely say that you will not."

Montresor turned away from him then and stood back from the door. He gestured.

"Come in—all of you—then. This way. We must convey it below."

We entered and he secured the door. Peters and I followed him. Ligeia, Emerson, and Grip followed us.

Fortunato stumped and staggered along even farther to the rear, alternately cursing, singing, and muttering about Luchesi's stupidity. Just your typical Friday night in a plague-ridden city.

Montresor led us down a curving stone stair to his vast cellar. Oddly, pitch-soaked torches and large candles blazed in numerous niches and holders. It seemed an unusual extravagance in such a sequestered portion of the house.

At last Peters and I reached the bottom and deposited the box, at Montresor's direction, in a subterranean passage which seemed to lead off into a species of catacomb. I was particularly anxious to go farther, for it seemed likely that the tunnel we sought must have its beginning somewhere nearby.

There were skulls and other human bones visible in the nitre-encrusted walls, and the shadows flitted like dark fingers across them. Cobwebs hung like fishing nets at every irregularity, and the rustling sounds of retreating vermin brought to mind the ordeal in Toledo which still troubled my slumbers.

Montresor saw the direction of my gaze and smiled.

"This place was once the burial ground for the abbey," he said, with a gesture to the grisly remains.

"That was back in the days before Prince Prospero's father had driven out the monks and taken the property for himself."

We transported the crate to a position near the wall which he had indicated, and there we set it down.

"There is some connection to this abbey, then?" I asked.

He did not reply, but—to my surprise—turned away. I had half-expected him to pry open the crate at once, to gloat over his acquisition. Instead, he took a few paces away from us, and I could see that his attention was on Fortunato. Fortunato had seated himself on a bony ledge, and I now noted that he was studying Ligeia's tall and slender figure, her curling raven hair, with an expression most simply described as lust.

Montresor muttered something about drink which the son of an actress might well recognize, " 'Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance ... makes him stand to, and not stand to ... and, giving him the lie, leaves him.' "

I did not applaud, however, as he did an about-face, as I was shifting my attention to Ligeia who was ignoring the drunken jester entirely.

Our host drew nearer, touched my arm lightly and steered me a few paces off to the side.

"Are you, my good fellow, still seeking entrance to the abbey?" he asked.

I bowed. That the gesture had in it more of mockery than of humility seemed only in character, no doubt.

"It is our profoundest wish, sir," I replied.

"Then let me show you. There is indeed a tunnel," he said. "It is sealed at the abbey end, walled up there in my father's time, or perhaps my grandfather's. The current prince himself does not know of this passage."

"Sealed!" I said. "Then how are we to get through?"

"It is simple enough," he explained. "I will give you tools—hammers, a prying bar. Stout fellows such as yourselves will have no difficulty getting through that thin wall at the far end of the passage. You will then find yourselves in the remotest corner of one of the abbey's storerooms. But—and this is important—you will seal up that wall again, as soon as you have broken out. And then you must hide your tools, put them down one of the many wells within the abbey's cellars. Otherwise the prince may discover the tunnel—know that someone has just come in, bringing possible contagion—and hunt you down, and—"

Montresor broke off here, and with a swift movement of his foot flattened and smeared a scurrying beetle on the stone floor. For a moment, we considered the result in thoughtful silence.

"The prince," he concluded, "fears one thing only. And that is the Red Death."

And so we agreed to Montresor's plan. The only problem was Valdemar. He would have to be left behind. I could hardly speak openly of this difficulty with my companions while Montresor was within earshot. But Ligeia perceived the difficulty at once. With a dramatic flourish of her cloak she turned to me suddenly.

"Edgar, I have given this more thought," she announced, a quaver to her words, a quiver to her lip. "I cannot accompany you. I fear to enter the stronghold of a prince whose cruelty is legendary. You must go on without me."

Was there once, or was there still, I suddenly wondered, some special tie between these two—Ligeia and Valdemar—which did not depend upon mesmerism? Odd thought. I was uncertain where it had come from or why it seemed possibly appropriate.

Montresor stared at her as if he were about to argue. But we were a formidable group, obviously strong and somewhat reckless. He elected to remain silent.

A snore reached us from Fortunato's direction. He had passed out, slumped on his stone ledge.

Peters eyed him, then advanced and took his cap and bells and tried them on. The sleeper stirred but did not wake as Peters stripped him of his motley jacket, too. Montresor watched but said nothing.

Peters and I took up the torch and tools. Then—Emerson following—we entered the dark tunnel. I had been surprised, in the alcove where we had obtained the tools, to catch a glimpse of a tub holding a quantity of freshly mixed mortar.

The passage was low, crooked, overgrown with spiderwebs. Plainly, it had not been used in many years.

We had not gone far before a bend in the passage took us out of sight of the two watching figures, Ligeia and Montresor, and the slumped form of Fortunato in his white linen. A hundred paces and I knew Ligeia was on the stair, Grip upon her shoulder, on her way to a distant bedroom, leaving the others to their own devices. I could almost hear Grip repeating his wine-drinkers' joke.

He paced the decks of an ancient vessel, knees shaky, joints aching. Occasionally, he groped among his navigational instruments of tarnished brass and greening bronze. Mumbling to himself, he would go topside to take readings, polar mists drifting above the waters, ice floes sliding by. His ancient crew lurched about him and strange birds called from overhead. At times it seemed that someone attempted to address him in words mumbled and low, catching at his sleeve, pursuing him on his rounds. But always, when he turned, the figure would flit away, fade. The words never came quite clear. He would return to his cabin then, to rummage and reflect... .

Poe awoke in a cold sweat, hands trembling. There had been so many dreams, some of them utterly terrible—such as that of the pit and the pendulum—and while this lacked the horror of that one or the grotesqueries of the encounter with King Pest and his court, it bore an intolerable element of loss and abandonment. He massaged his damp temples.

... As if he had sailed beyond human ken, he reflected, past all normal commerce of thought and feeling. And yet must he go on, against the winds and the tides of change and becoming. Lost, lost.