The Black Throne

VIII

We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we grow sick and dizzy.

Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge, there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror.

It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height. And this fall—this rushing annihilation—for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination—for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the most impetuously approach it.

The Imp of the Perverse, Edgar Allan Poe

And so we followed the long, secret tunnel through the catacombs, to its end against a blank stone wall.

We listened carefully, we listened long at this place, but we could hear nothing. We looked for light at the interstices between stones where the mortar had crumbled away, but we could see none.

So we attacked the wall with hammers and bar. The antique dust powdered our clothes, skin, and hair, got in our eyes and mouths; but soon we had made an opening large enough to admit a person into the lowest level of Prospero's stronghold.

On the other side, Peters, Emerson, and I emerged into a storeroom crowded with huge crates and bales whose contents we wasted no time trying to guess. Quickly, by the flickering torchlight, we piled back stones we had removed, closing the wall at our point of entry, leaving the tools just outside in the tunnel.

Of course we had no mortar, but in this dim corner the chance of any inspection seemed remote. To make that chance still smaller we managed to shift a large crate to a place where it shadowed any sign of our labors.

"What now, Eddie?" Peters asked.

"I say we go topside and try to blend in." I considered his borrowed motley. "We're entertainers. You're dressed for the part. I'm not."

"You juggle? Know any acrobat tricks?"

I shook my head.

"Afraid not."

"Then I guess you're an animal trainer. Emerson, c'mere." The ape leapt down from a crate and came to him. "You be takin' yer orders from Eddie, we go upstairs. Unnerstan'?"

Emerson shambled over and stared at me. I extended my right hand.

"Shake," I said.

The simian reached forward, seized my hand and pumped it.

"I'd guess," I said, "there'll be a pretty big crowd to run things—servants, cooks, whores, soldiers, entertainers. If they've only been in here a few days they can't all know each other yet. A couple of new faces among the entertainers shouldn't be likely to startle anyone. I'll take Emerson up and see how we blend. Why don't you wait an hour or so, then come up and try the same thing."

"I'd judge it ter be fairly late. May not be that many about."

"On the other hand, Prospero's a reveler. He may keep going till he drops every night. We'll just have to see. Keep an eye out for a place to sleep, too."

"Right," he said.

And so we located the stair and I mounted it, Emerson at my side. We came to several choices of ways. I opted for ground level and centrality. This brought me in due course to a courtyard resembling nothing so much as an enormous gypsy encampment. It was lit by torches and campfires, roped off into sections filled with tents and lean-tos, through which the babble of tongues and the sounds of fiddles and guitars carried; people were dancing, drinking, eating, children were crying, dogs wandered, and two men were fighting at the far end. There were buildings on every side of the courtyard, interconnecting, though the most massive seemed the one to the north. It was the most completely lit, and as my wanderings bore me in that direction I became aware that a goodly amount of the noise I heard was actually coming from within it.

No one challenged me, and even Emerson was not unique as a performing animal. There were two trained bears and a troupe of clever dogs.

Several circuits of the courtyard and whatever curiosity we might have roused soon gave way to indifference. I learned that some of the servants, entertainers, and miscellaneous staff had taken up residence in the complex at the south end of the yard. But on inspection these quarters proved small, damp, windowless and poorly ventilated, in the main, and I could see why so many were camping outside. I later learned that these had originally been the monks' cells. While I could appreciate their spiritual fortitude I required something closer to the mainstream of life here.

A bit later I encountered Peters in his motley, proceeding as I had. He agreed with my feelings on lodgings. We spent that night in the stables, and no one seemed to mind or even notice. Further exploration of these quarters showed us an out-of-the-way corner behind the stables where Emerson could be chained in such a fashion that he could easily free himself in an emergency. Peters and I settled upon a small loft, a seeming repository for unused harness, as our own lodging. I had grown accustomed to stables during my time with the cavalry, and my continuing presence in this one seemed oddly bracing.

Peters and I dined on bread and soup at the entertainers' communal table. Emerson took to foraging in the small hours and seemed able to satisfy his needs in this fashion—I suspect with fruit and vegetable leftovers from Prospero's feasts.

And the days wore on. We spent the better part of a week exploring and creating a map of the place. As for the nobles and their consorts, the wealthy merchants and theirs, we saw a few in the distance but we did not see Von Kempelen. Nor did we see Annie. And while I felt as if I knew Griswold from my nightmare vision in the pit, I might have passed Templeton and Goodfellow without recognizing them.

And January passed into February. I had been afraid to take any chances until we'd gained familiarity with our surroundings. Now we were near that point, and I was wondering as to our best course of action.

Events, however, preceded any action on my part. A few days later, Peters and I were returning to the stables from our breakfast, intending to practice an act we were working out—involving some miming on his part, some acrobatics by Emerson, and a bit of buffoonery by myself. We were hoping this would gain us access to an area of the abbey hitherto closed to us. As we approached, we heard a series of piteous shrieks and we hastened to learn its cause.

Its source seemed to lie at the center of a fairly large crowd in the area immediately before the stables.

The shrieking continued as we pressed forward, but I could not see what was going on.

"Hoist me onto your shoulders, Eddie," Peters said.

I complied. I squatted, he leapt up, I grasped his ankles, I stood. He was heavy, but he was nimble. He was only at a height for a few seconds before he jumped down. He uttered an oath as he did so.

"What is it?" I asked.

"They're floggin' a lad," he said. "Just a boy. Back's all laid open. Usin' a cat."

He elbowed the man to his right.

"Hey, mate," he asked. "What'd he do?"

The man said something in Spanish.

"Stole some grain meant for the prince's horses," Peters translated. "Prospero ordered the floggin'. He and some of his men are up front, watchin'."

The shrieks stopped. We waited for the crowd to thin, as I wanted a look at Prospero. People began to drift off, and Peters inquired of another which one was the prince.

Prospero was pointed out to us—a tall, handsome man, standing among his ministers and courtiers, chuckling with them as the boy was untied. He said something then to the man who had administered the beating—what, I'll never know, as my gaze drifted past him.

She was standing in a doorway to the building off to my left, hand raised to her mouth, eyes wide with horror and quickly narrowing to dam tears. Annie. She turned away without having seen me and retreated within. In an instant I was after her.

This building—to the west—connected the monastic quarters to the castellated citadel where Prospero and his entourage had their residence and revels. There was a main corridor on every level, sided by rooms larger than the cells though lacking the magnificence of those to the north or even the spaciousness of those to the east.

I sought with my gaze in both directions when I reached the corridor. I caught sight of her fleeing form turning—northward, to my right—where I knew a stair to be located.

"Annie!" I called, but she was already out of sight.

I rushed after, and when I reached the stair I mounted it two steps at a time.

North again, this time to my left, not so far ahead now, still hurrying.

"Annie!"

She slowed, looked back, halted, studied me in the light from the clerestories as I approached. Her brow unknitted itself and then she was smiling.

"Eddie!"

She looked just as I remembered her from the visions—hair a light chestnut, ghost-gray eyes—and then she was in my arms and weeping.

"I'm sorry," she said, "so sorry. I didn't mean it."

After a time, I asked, "What are you talking about?"

"This. All of it," she explained, gesturing. "Poe's sufferings. Yours. Mine. I'm sorry."

I shook my head.

"I still don't understand what you're saying."

"All my life," she told me, "I've tried to bring the three of us together—in one solid, real world. Not just my kingdom, by the sea. That's why we're here. Templeton was able to take my efforts and twist them some way. I still don't know how—"

"I do," I said. "That way is closed to him now. On the other hand, he apparently could use you directly—with drugs and mesmerism—as he did in Toledo."

"Toledo?"

"The pit, the pendulum. Ligeia said he used you to warp my senses—possibly even reality itself. I still don't know how much of what happened in that prison was real, how much hallucination."

"The pit and the pendulum!" she exclaimed. "You really lived through it? I thought it just a nightmare I'd had. I—"

"It's all right. It's over. It's done with now. You were tricked."

I wondered as I held her: I had never considered that our uncanny tripartite relationship might be based on unnatural efforts on her part. In truth, I had always seen Poe and myself somewhat as rivals for her affection. It had been a long time now, though, since I had borne my poor double anything but a species of fondness; I thought of him rather as my brother, and felt a fierce wish to help him defend himself against our common enemies. But that Annie might be the source of everything—

"He is forgetting us, you know," Annie told me, drawing away, producing a handkerchief from her sleeve, drying her eyes. "Not me so much, not yet at least. But already he has more than half forgotten you. And he doubts the existence of any other world than the one he's being forced to live in. He doesn't realize that he is now condemned to live in the wrong world."

"I've already seen evidence of this," I said, "and I'm sorry for him. But there seems little I can do about it at present. Whereas now I've finally found you, I can get you out of this madhouse, take you someplace peaceful. Perhaps then we can work out a way to help him."

"Not that simple," she said. "Not that simple. But tell me, who is this Ligeia you mentioned?"

I felt my face grow warm.

"Why, she works for Seabright Ellison," I said, "the man who set me on this trail. She seems a powerful mesmerist, possibly something more. Why do you ask?"

"Ligeia was my mother's name," she replied, "and it's such an uncommon name that it startled me, hearing it."

"Was she tall, dark-haired, more than a little attractive?" I asked.

"I don't really know," she said. "I was raised an orphan, like you, like Poe. I'd been left with relatives while my parents traveled abroad. When the relatives died in an accident I was taken in and raised by friends of theirs. They moved about. My parents never came for me. My step-parents told me my mother's name, but they had no likeness of her that I might see."

"What was your father's name?"

"I'm not sure."

"Was it Valdemar?"

"I—I don't know... . It could be. Yes, it might."

I caught hold of her hand.

"Come on," I said. "We can sort these things out later. Let's get out of this place, this country, this world if we have to. I've a secret means of leaving the abbey."

She walked with me, down the stairs, back along the lower corridor, out into the courtyard, where I found Peters and introduced them. Peters was no longer alone. He had with him now a dainty, dark-eyed midget girl he had just met, another of the entertainers. He introduced her to us as Trippetta. She was a dancer, and he explained that she was a Ree Indian from a village on the upper Missouri very near where he himself had been born, and possibly even distantly related.

I was loath to discuss our business before the diminutive lady no matter what her degree of consanguinity with my friend. Fortunately she was on her way to a rehearsal and bade us adieu moments later, though not before she and Peters had arranged to meet again later in the day.

"I don't know that you should have made that date," I said, after she had left. "I'm trying to persuade Annie to leave with us today."

We strolled through the courtyard as we spoke. The atmosphere was a bit more subdued than usual, and the sky had grown gray overhead.

"We cannot," Annie stated. "I hadn't a chance to explain earlier. But you see, it appears that Prince Prospero cannot match the offer Templeton and Goodfellow have made to Von Kempelen for his transmutation secret."

"You want to know something, Annie?" I said. "I don't really give a tinker's damn who finally amasses the most gold in the world. My only reason for making this journey was to get you out of here—and then to give Poe a hand, if we can. I am grateful to Seabright Ellison for his part in this, but he isn't going to starve to death if gold should suddenly be worth, say, half its present value. This morning's incident shows me just what a willful and capricious man Prospero is. I conclude that it is unsafe to be around him. And outside these walls the plague is doing its dance of death throughout the realm. The smartest thing we can do is to get out of this place right now and keep going till we're out of the kingdom."

She laid a hand on my arm.

"Perry, dear Perry," she said, "if only it were so easy. I care nothing about the gold either. Did you not know that gold is but the least part of alchemy? It is a game played for spiritual stakes as well. If Von Kempelen makes the deal with Templeton and Goodfellow, we will not be able to help Poe. Their involvement will result in his exile becoming permanent."

"I do not understand."

"It has to do with probabilities, and with key connections among individuals. Believe me, this is how it would turn out."

"You failed to mention Griswold," I said. "What of him?"

"He's gone back to America, I believe."

"What for?"

"I do not know."

We paced in silence for a time. Then, "Ligeia told me that Griswold may be something more than an alchemist or a mesmerist," I said. "She suggested he might be some sort of sorcerer."

"It's possible," she said. "Yes, that would explain many things. There is that about him which is unusual, and dark."

"Then I still say we should flee now," I said. "It does not seem to me that it matters so much whether Von Kempelen makes the deal with Templeton and Goodfellow here and now, as it does whether they actually get together with Griswold and perform whatever processes are involved. I say we flee now and foil them later, in America. Ellison could probably bankroll a private army for us back home, if that's what it takes."

She shook her head.

"We don't know why Griswold left," she said. "But there is no need that he be present for the process to occur. What if Templeton and Goodfellow come to terms with Von Kempelen here, and they decide actually to conduct the work here? If they succeed in transmuting any substantial amount of metal we will never see Poe again."

"They won't do it. Poe is still safe," I told her. "No one in his right mind would make gold while in the power of someone like Prospero. And don't tell me they'll do it in secret. Gold is heavy stuff. It would be ridiculous to manufacture it in a place like this, and then face all the perils of transporting it. Let them make their deal if they must. We'll stop them later."

"I am sorry," she said. "We cannot afford to take the chance. I would feel personally responsible if I left and it came about. If I stay I may well be able to stop it."

"If you're drugged? Mesmerized?"

"I'll be careful what I eat and drink. And I'm stronger than Templeton. They won't be able to use me again, as they did in the past."

"If you're no longer of use they may decide to dispose of you. These are ruthless men."

"No," she stated, "I'm certain they need me for something else. Later."

I recalled Ligeia's words about the sacrifice of her personality, and I shuddered. But there was nothing I could say on this count, since I didn't understand it and I'd no way to back it up with an explanation.

At that moment, I recalled killing a man. It was in the line of duty, under battle conditions. What difference does it really make whether you're wearing a uniform, or whether he is? Dead is dead. Why should the state have a monopoly on deciding who deserves it? It occurred to me that the simplest answer to our problem would be for me to kill Von Kempelen. Let the secret die with him. Annie would be safe, Poe would be safe, Ellison would be happy. I recalled the stout, popeyed man who had given us tea, who bade us good night and wished us good luck as we fled across the rooftop. He'd seemed decent enough and I could not bring myself to dislike him for the trouble he'd caused. Still, if letting him live meant that Annie would be destroyed, I guessed that I could steel myself to the task. I'd make it as painless as possible, of course. One quick saber thrust—

"Perry!"

Annie had halted and was staring at me, a look of dread upon her face.

"Please don't. Please don't do it," she said.

"What— What are you talking about?" I asked.

"I saw you with a bloody blade, standing above Von Kempelen," she said. "You must promise me that you will not kill him. Please! We must find another way."

I laughed.

"Please," she repeated.

"I just had a vision myself," I said, "of what it might be like living with someone like you. A man could never have an affair, or sneak off for a few pints with his friends."

She smiled.

"I only see things with a terrible urgency about them," she explained.

"Just what I said. Do you see my promise, too?"

She nodded.

"I'll have to find another way," I said.

"Thanks," she told me. "I'm sure you will."

We walked some more, and she took us into the north building, giving us the general layout of the place, showing us where Templeton's, Goodfellow's, and Von Kempelen's rooms were located, showing us the great dining hall with its enormous ebony clock making a dull thunder where it stood against the western wall. Annie told me that its chiming was so loud and so peculiar a thing that if a musical entertainment were in progress when it marked the hour, the musicians must perforce halt in their playing until it had completed its task. We saw her to her own room then, and I arranged to meet her again in the afternoon.

Later, I suggested to Peters that we kidnap her, spirit her out of there that very night, for her own good.

We could head back home then and hunt down Griswold.

"No, sir," he said. "She's another'n—like Ligeia. There's a ghostwind blowin' past 'er. She knows better'n you 'bout these things, an' I'll not be crossin' the likes of 'er."

"People like that aren't always right about everything, Peters."

"You've my last word on it, Eddie."

"All right," I said. "We'll wait and see what develops."

After that, I met with Annie every day and she was eventually able to point out Goodfellow—bluff, beefy, and smiling—and Templeton—tall, thin, possessed of eyes like pits under heavy brows. Peters and I went out of our way to avoid Von Kempelen, being uncertain where he stood in our regard. It was agreed among the three of us that we would interfere—physically, if necessary—should he attempt to create gold. The days fled quickly toward spring and he did nothing along these lines. Nor did he seem to have reached agreement of any sort with anyone, according to Annie. I wondered what kind of game he was playing, and how long he might tease someone like Prospero before he found himself in new quarters with a pit and pendulum of his own for company. I'd a feeling that something must break on this front before too long. Perhaps Templeton and Goodfellow might suffer accidents, leaving him with but the one customer and no way out. Or perhaps we were all waiting, for something—what?—that Griswold was checking into. I wondered whether Annie would object to my killing Griswold if I did it in a fair duel?

I wondered several times, in the days that followed, whether Peters might not have some secret command from Ellison, to follow Annie's orders rather than mine under certain circumstances. Though the issue never came up, I was curious whether he would actively oppose me should I attempt to take Annie away from that place against her will. I wouldn't try it, though. She was simply too persuasive and I too anxious to please her.

He seemed well on the way himself toward developing strong feelings toward the little dancer, Trippetta—another reason, I suppose, for him not to be too anxious to leave.

So we put more work into our act. We had rehearsed before simply to maintain the appearance of our announced roles. We had feared recognition, however, should we actually go onstage, since Von Kempelen knew us and there was always the possibility that Griswold or even Templeton had had some extra-physical means of summoning our likenesses for others to see. It did not seem worth taking chances. But the more we thought of it the more it seemed that masks or garish face-paint might not be out of order in a comic act.

Fortunately nothing like an organized schedule of performances existed. The prince or his steward called now and then, at any hour of the day or night, for one type of amusement or another. Also, many of the performers—musicians or jugglers usually—went freelancing among the crowd of guests, gathering scattered coins against the time when they should be free to leave the abbey and have a chance to spend them.

Peters was somewhat readier than I to take the stage, eager I suppose to do anything that would bring him into more frequent association with Trippetta. And so he actually accompanied a number of clowns and acrobats seeking to increase their number one evening, one of their members having suffered a broken leg during a particularly daring feat. I thought little of it, even on the following day when the troupe was sent for again. It was not until the prince began requesting solo performances of him that I grew concerned. As it turned out, I needn't have.

The motley costume concealed the inhumanly thick musculature of his arms and shoulders, and he displayed a talent I would never have expected for clowning. It was only a matter of days before he had become the prince's favorite jester.

Soon we were into March, and it became increasingly apparent—at least to me, in my garish garb, as I put Emerson through his paces—that Trippetta regarded Peters only as another of the freaks who appeared among the entertainers: amusing, but not to be taken seriously.

I'd even done a foolish and avuncular thing one day. Catching her aside following a performance, I did not exactly ask Trippetta her intentions toward Peters in so many words; but I had wanted to find where he stood in her regard, for having him smitten and mooning about as he was might well interfere with his ability to act and react quickly and with a clear head should the necessity arise.

She gave me her pert smile and curtsied.

"Yes, Sir Giant?" she responded to my salutation. "How may I serve?"

"Just a point of information, lovely miss," I said. "You must be aware of my friend Peters' attentions—"

"The jester? 'Twould be difficult not to, Sir Giant, for he is always there, whenever I turn—grinning like one demented, scraping, bowing, proffering a flower."

"He is very fond of you, Miss Trippetta. While your affairs are none of my affair, so to speak, friendship bids me exceed common civility and inquire as to your feelings on his regard. That is to say—"

"Do I feel that the fool is making a fool of himself?" she finished. "Fairly put, and the answer is yes, Sir Giant. I do not wish to hurt a countryman of his stature, but Prince Prospero himself has smiled upon me twice now and complimented my beauty. I have considerably higher hopes than an alliance with one who represents everything which caused me to flee the American Wilderness. I am, Sir Giant, a lady; and I feel my position in life may soon be elevated to reflect my tastes and talents."

"Thank you, Miss Trippetta," I acknowledged. "It is a refreshing thing to encounter in the midst of courtly circumlocution."

"You are welcome, Sir Giant," she said, granting me another curtsy. "And you might tell your friend that, having seen many, I deem him an extraordinary fool."

"I shall convey the compliment." I turned on my heel then and departed.

Later, when I summarized our conversation for Peters, removing my premeditation to make it seem more spontaneous, he only grinned his broadest demon's grin and applauded it as an example of her wit.

I realized then—perhaps had known all along—that talking was of no use, that he would break his heart over her one way or the other no matter what I said or how I said it.

I wished for Ligeia's counsel, or Valdemar's. But that would have to wait.

It was more than the place by which she walked to sing. Tonight she came to be alone, as more and more she did these troubled days. Barefoot, on the broad, brown expanse, she paced; and the sea boomed beside her and ebbed, the sky grown coppery mountains where cloud had been, echoes of that wave-clap out, out, out, returning sound for sea. Her contralto played against its lowering note as she turned and trod the emptied path of the whales, out through limp, damp weed, glass-slick stones of many colors, shells, skeletons, shipwrecks. It was among the bones of the sea, in a coral grove, that she found him—orange, red, green, and yellow still clinging to the dampness, like the distillation of all the rainbows arching centuries above. He looked away and dried his eyes when he felt that she was near.

Turning again, he regarded her.

"Lady," he said, "I am sorry."

"And I," she replied, "for I meant this as a place of joy."

"You are—"

"Annie, of course," she answered.

"But you're all grown!"

"So I am. Come here."

He did, and she held him.

"You'll be my mother, then?" he asked.

"Of course," she told him. "Anyone, Eddie. Anyone you need."

Abruptly, he wept again.

"I'd a dream," he said, "that I was grown, too. It hurt so... ."

"I know."

"I think that I will not go back. I believe that I shall dwell here forever."

"If you wish. It is always your home, wherever you may be."

After an hour or a year he drew away from her and turned.

"Do you hear it?" he asked.

The echo of the retreating sea still hung in the air about them, and she only nodded in reply.

"It calls to me."

"I know."

"I should go to it."

"No. You need not."

"Then I wish to. The rest is pain."

She caught up his hand.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I never meant the world should use you as it has. I had a dream. For us. It has been broken. You were caught, in a place of pain. I love you, Eddie. You are too pure a spirit for what the world has offered you."

"It has given me vision, Annie."

She looked away.

"Was it worth the price?" she asked.

He bowed and kissed her hand.

"Of course," he replied.

They listened to the echo of the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar. Then, "I must go now," he said.

"Bide a while."

"Then sing to me."

She sang, and singing made; the sea became the self that was her song. The tiger-shadows fell like bars about them.

"Thank you," he said, at length. "I love you, too, Annie. Always did, always will. I have to follow it now, though."

"No. You don't."

"Yes. I do. I know you can hold me, for this is your kingdom." His gaze fell upon their hands. "Please don't."

She studied the gray-eyed child's face, the light of forty years upon it, as if looking up from a coffin.

Then she opened her hand.

"Bon voyage, Eddie."

"Au revoir," he said; and, turning, he headed into the east, where the sea had gone and its voice thudded, warbled, then rose in pitch.

She turned the other way and walked back to the shore. The copper mountains turned to coal. The sky filled up and the lights came on. She sat on a cliff beneath their blaze and listened as the blood-warm tide came in.