Fever has sent me spiraling into the past, I smell the ancient dust in Lessingham's parlor, and now the newsprint, upon which I saw his name for the first time, rises out of that same fog I thought I escaped. -- But no! His is the nightmare, and I'm sure of it! He possesses what each man longs to take of his own accord. Yes, his is the nightmare.
I was young and building a name for myself as an art dealer. No family of my own to restrict my travels, I was eager to find a rarity, something no one looked for or expected to exist, something ancient. The normal studios and art shows wouldn't do. I learned the names of those who sold what they did not own and reaped what they did not sow.
A man named Daha led me to Lessingham. Daha had collected a map of sorts, a trail of clippings, stolen manifests, and ill-got receipts that led, he said, to this Lessingham and the astonishing pieces in his possession. He twisted in his seat and pulled at his cigarette when I asked him why he did not go himself; his answer, spoken through dusky light, was simply another question: "Do you want to see what he owns?" I looked away, unwilling to acknowledge that Daha might be setting a trap.
"And you are able to set up a meeting?" I asked. Daha wanted favors in return, which I was foolish to promise. My desire had grown to an unbearable magnitude; now, my swollen finger swells further, and my head burns and swims with illness -- then it swam with visions of a secret wealth.
In a week's time, a package came from Daha with instructions and a token I was to show as proof of my identity: a ring of tarnished gold that slid on easily -- if only I had found the inscription then! But no, I am certain the letters appeared later when I stood on the banks of Wastwater, and the glinting sun illuminated my hand and warned of doom.
Daha's slanted handwriting warned that I was to leave a second letter, which was sealed within the first, unopened until the night I arrived at the inn with rooms reserved for me. I would not allow my shaking hand even to touch it for fear I would rip it open. My next trouble was waiting; no question of my guide's or my host's motives entered my mind -- their impurity would be burned away by the weight of my find: a fleeting thought shoved away.
London, Leeds, and then on to a valley the name of which I'd heard for the first time on the lips of Daha. The car I'd hired finally stopped in front of a low-lying inn, the lavender sunset glowing on its multitude of windows. Behind me, I soon found, rose the peak called Gable and its three siblings. It was a strain for my eyes to see, and yet my gaze remained until the sky showed red. Inside, where a fire popped and deep chairs stood empty, I remarked to the innkeeper that I hadn't noticed the mountains on our drive.
"Already playing you tricks," he said, avoiding my eyes.
"I'm sorry?"
"Clouds, eh? They come and crown the beauties, don't they?" These were reasonable words, but his laugh unsettled me. He began down the nearest hallway and said over his shoulder, "The night comes quicklike -- your bed is made." He opened the door to my room, and he said no more of the mountains. "The Lotus Room, sir."
Soon, I sat alone in the quiet of my new surroundings. Embers winked at me from the hearth at my feet, and I turned the sealed letter from Lessingham over and over in my hands. Now that he intended for me to open it -- as I had been instructed -- a hesitation came over me. But only for a moment.
I had expected paranoia, as is normal for such collectors, but Lessingham's further instructions were the stuff of madness. There comes a night of fog. Wait for it. And you must find yourself looking into the glacial-lake when the night, robed in rolling fog, comes to cloak you. Wear the ring.
That was all.
I'd worn the ring since I'd first seen it, not because I liked its look or feel, but because I loathed the thought of losing it. And now that thought overshadowed the lunacy of Lessingham's way. Even the problem of knowing what night and where along the lake to stand was swallowed by the idea that the innkeeper would surely try to steal the ring that night.
And so I did not sleep. Neither that night nor the following. I took my meals in my room, walked the old viking paths alone, always with my eyes on the peaks, always along Wastwater lake, always avoiding others. Soon, I knew both Wasdale Head and the Nether Wasdale, I stood in the sun and the wind as the river Irt splashed out a lively song I could not enjoy -- sad remembrance! -- and I discovered the words buried in my ring. A rare moment found me with it on my palm, afternoon heat upon my back, the lake still as ice. The years now gone have only further etched into my memory the words that will ever live under my skin:
worm ouroboros - soroboruo mrow.
God forgive me for the swift movement that came next! I put the ring back on my finger, never to remove it.
Ask me not how many more nights opened to me their stars for me to scorn them; I am cursed and do not know. The memory of the night of fog that finally came -- or was it the night that followed my discovery of the ring's inscription? It is not the fever, I assure you, but the fog; still it clouds my mind! -- it comes like a dream, and I remember: I found myself staring into the Wastwater, already obeying Lessingham's first instruction.
A voice. Yes! It comes to me now -- even now! I turned and followed the sound of my name as it floated to me sweetly. Panic came over me; sound of lonely woman, sound of lake, sound of Irt -- they were everywhere around me. It must have been hours that I was lost and walking circles. I'd seen the same willow a handful of times, and now the fog was so dense the branches seemed to drip as a woman's head of hair might drip after bathing. I allowed them to dance over the palm of my hand, a strange calm settling upon my shoulders. ...Lost also in my reverie, I didn't hear the crunch of car tires approaching, and the voice of a man quite close caused me to scream.
"I beg your pardon." He stood on the other side of a black sedan, his hat in his hand, a slight embarrassment hidden beneath his otherwise placid face.
I assured him all was well.
"You are looking for Lessingham Manor?" He paused respectfully and gestured with his hand. "There is no other purpose for wandering here beside the river."
"I am to be a guest there," I said, clearing my throat as I approached the car. "This fog -- " I began, but did not finish.
"Yes," he said. "It is treacherous."
His answer sent a chill into the bones of my hands, into the finger where the ring lay, and yet I climbed inside my only escape from the night -- such was my growing mania. The next moment, let the reader understand -- it was the next moment -- this driver stood by my door, waiting for me to exit the car. It was no lapse of my mind, no blackout. Time and space had bent, and here we were, in front of the manor.
"Mr. Lessingham awaits."
I exited the car. My thoughts followed a tight, closed circle: I am lost, I am watched. And back again. At the threshold of the door, the knob in my hand, I almost turned to ask a question of my driver, for I had not heard the car. Almost, but I did not let myself, for I knew it was no longer there -- and I could not bear it. If I saw it to be true, I feared I would lose what consciousness I still had.
The Lessingham house felt larger than it looked from without -- the fog, I am sure now, played a part in this effect. The hallways were lit with candlelight, and farther in my eyes looked upon artwork both beautiful and alien. Paintings of gardens full of lotus flowers and willows, sculptures cut from whole amethysts and set with a metal I could not identify, moving pieces that creaked and moaned in such a way as to make the mind want music.
"These are not what you came to see." Lessingham spoke from a doorway at my left side. He carried a globe in his upturned palm, and it gave a meager light that cast his face in a constant, moving contrast with the candlelight. "No, you want more than these. Come."
He turned with a rustle of his long gown and led me to a still darker chamber. My fear and confusion melted into a cauldron of an ancient desire -- the bane of which all mankind heats with lust from smoldering hearts. Scenes from kingdoms I did not recognize were painted on the walls we walked past, palaces, gardens, all traversed by one theme: the serpent, the worm, crawled through them all.
"Here," Lessingham spoke as he entered a massive room, one over-large for the light he carried so that its ceiling remained hidden to us. "Tell me I am wrong in this: You are here, you sought me out because of One Desire, am I right? It rose up before you knew my name -- but, alas! when Daha spoke it, this, this longing, it grew." And he laughed.
I tried to see the wall beyond him, for my eyes ached to see it, but he walked around me and continued. "I don't require much." His voice came from behind me now. "No, not for what I'm offering."
My mouth moved without thought. "What do you offer?"
"Perpetual wealth."
And then I saw it: Mostly in darkness set off by lighter darkness, I saw, cast in what I knew was gold mined from the depths of hell, a dragon's mouth devouring its own tail -- and though I did not see the whole, I knew the circle it flew.
"Give me your hand." Still darker the room became, and fog from the night outside rose from the unseen floor. I was able, however, to see the knife Lessingham held -- and, mercy of all mercies, I saw his hand had only four fingers! "I am older than your imagination can know, and with one word you will return my ring -- oh, do not shrink from me now! Did you believe such life -- such wealth! -- would come at nothing from you?"
I knew he meant to cut away my finger and the ring with it. I knew it from the moment I saw his hand. How I escaped I still can not tell. Perhaps I have not escaped, for here, on my bed, my fever spikes and I see his eyes and I hear his shrill scream.
The river Irt. That small outlet of the Wastwater with its murmured song that began -- when? An age before Man? And yet the sound called to me, with some mercy unknown, even as Lessingham raised his knife.
"No!" It was a plea for help, and my bedroom, now, is filled with my anguished cry. Had I placed my hand in the cold water? The days I'd waited for the night of fog -- had I let Irt's waters flow over my ringed finger? Somehow, my escape was intermingled with the river, with its clear and clearing effects -- I'd seen Lessingham, and his everlasting life, for what it was.
I woke beside the river Irt, the skin upon my finger already grown over the ring. Another mercy from beyond. It will be buried with me, no other to tempt, its nightmare none other than Lessingham's.
***
I was young and building a name for myself as an art dealer. No family of my own to restrict my travels, I was eager to find a rarity, something no one looked for or expected to exist, something ancient. The normal studios and art shows wouldn't do. I learned the names of those who sold what they did not own and reaped what they did not sow.
A man named Daha led me to Lessingham. Daha had collected a map of sorts, a trail of clippings, stolen manifests, and ill-got receipts that led, he said, to this Lessingham and the astonishing pieces in his possession. He twisted in his seat and pulled at his cigarette when I asked him why he did not go himself; his answer, spoken through dusky light, was simply another question: "Do you want to see what he owns?" I looked away, unwilling to acknowledge that Daha might be setting a trap.
"And you are able to set up a meeting?" I asked. Daha wanted favors in return, which I was foolish to promise. My desire had grown to an unbearable magnitude; now, my swollen finger swells further, and my head burns and swims with illness -- then it swam with visions of a secret wealth.
***
In a week's time, a package came from Daha with instructions and a token I was to show as proof of my identity: a ring of tarnished gold that slid on easily -- if only I had found the inscription then! But no, I am certain the letters appeared later when I stood on the banks of Wastwater, and the glinting sun illuminated my hand and warned of doom.
Daha's slanted handwriting warned that I was to leave a second letter, which was sealed within the first, unopened until the night I arrived at the inn with rooms reserved for me. I would not allow my shaking hand even to touch it for fear I would rip it open. My next trouble was waiting; no question of my guide's or my host's motives entered my mind -- their impurity would be burned away by the weight of my find: a fleeting thought shoved away.
***
London, Leeds, and then on to a valley the name of which I'd heard for the first time on the lips of Daha. The car I'd hired finally stopped in front of a low-lying inn, the lavender sunset glowing on its multitude of windows. Behind me, I soon found, rose the peak called Gable and its three siblings. It was a strain for my eyes to see, and yet my gaze remained until the sky showed red. Inside, where a fire popped and deep chairs stood empty, I remarked to the innkeeper that I hadn't noticed the mountains on our drive.
"Already playing you tricks," he said, avoiding my eyes.
"I'm sorry?"
"Clouds, eh? They come and crown the beauties, don't they?" These were reasonable words, but his laugh unsettled me. He began down the nearest hallway and said over his shoulder, "The night comes quicklike -- your bed is made." He opened the door to my room, and he said no more of the mountains. "The Lotus Room, sir."
Soon, I sat alone in the quiet of my new surroundings. Embers winked at me from the hearth at my feet, and I turned the sealed letter from Lessingham over and over in my hands. Now that he intended for me to open it -- as I had been instructed -- a hesitation came over me. But only for a moment.
I had expected paranoia, as is normal for such collectors, but Lessingham's further instructions were the stuff of madness. There comes a night of fog. Wait for it. And you must find yourself looking into the glacial-lake when the night, robed in rolling fog, comes to cloak you. Wear the ring.
That was all.
I'd worn the ring since I'd first seen it, not because I liked its look or feel, but because I loathed the thought of losing it. And now that thought overshadowed the lunacy of Lessingham's way. Even the problem of knowing what night and where along the lake to stand was swallowed by the idea that the innkeeper would surely try to steal the ring that night.
And so I did not sleep. Neither that night nor the following. I took my meals in my room, walked the old viking paths alone, always with my eyes on the peaks, always along Wastwater lake, always avoiding others. Soon, I knew both Wasdale Head and the Nether Wasdale, I stood in the sun and the wind as the river Irt splashed out a lively song I could not enjoy -- sad remembrance! -- and I discovered the words buried in my ring. A rare moment found me with it on my palm, afternoon heat upon my back, the lake still as ice. The years now gone have only further etched into my memory the words that will ever live under my skin:
worm ouroboros - soroboruo mrow.
God forgive me for the swift movement that came next! I put the ring back on my finger, never to remove it.
***
Ask me not how many more nights opened to me their stars for me to scorn them; I am cursed and do not know. The memory of the night of fog that finally came -- or was it the night that followed my discovery of the ring's inscription? It is not the fever, I assure you, but the fog; still it clouds my mind! -- it comes like a dream, and I remember: I found myself staring into the Wastwater, already obeying Lessingham's first instruction.
A voice. Yes! It comes to me now -- even now! I turned and followed the sound of my name as it floated to me sweetly. Panic came over me; sound of lonely woman, sound of lake, sound of Irt -- they were everywhere around me. It must have been hours that I was lost and walking circles. I'd seen the same willow a handful of times, and now the fog was so dense the branches seemed to drip as a woman's head of hair might drip after bathing. I allowed them to dance over the palm of my hand, a strange calm settling upon my shoulders. ...Lost also in my reverie, I didn't hear the crunch of car tires approaching, and the voice of a man quite close caused me to scream.
"I beg your pardon." He stood on the other side of a black sedan, his hat in his hand, a slight embarrassment hidden beneath his otherwise placid face.
I assured him all was well.
"You are looking for Lessingham Manor?" He paused respectfully and gestured with his hand. "There is no other purpose for wandering here beside the river."
"I am to be a guest there," I said, clearing my throat as I approached the car. "This fog -- " I began, but did not finish.
"Yes," he said. "It is treacherous."
His answer sent a chill into the bones of my hands, into the finger where the ring lay, and yet I climbed inside my only escape from the night -- such was my growing mania. The next moment, let the reader understand -- it was the next moment -- this driver stood by my door, waiting for me to exit the car. It was no lapse of my mind, no blackout. Time and space had bent, and here we were, in front of the manor.
"Mr. Lessingham awaits."
I exited the car. My thoughts followed a tight, closed circle: I am lost, I am watched. And back again. At the threshold of the door, the knob in my hand, I almost turned to ask a question of my driver, for I had not heard the car. Almost, but I did not let myself, for I knew it was no longer there -- and I could not bear it. If I saw it to be true, I feared I would lose what consciousness I still had.
The Lessingham house felt larger than it looked from without -- the fog, I am sure now, played a part in this effect. The hallways were lit with candlelight, and farther in my eyes looked upon artwork both beautiful and alien. Paintings of gardens full of lotus flowers and willows, sculptures cut from whole amethysts and set with a metal I could not identify, moving pieces that creaked and moaned in such a way as to make the mind want music.
"These are not what you came to see." Lessingham spoke from a doorway at my left side. He carried a globe in his upturned palm, and it gave a meager light that cast his face in a constant, moving contrast with the candlelight. "No, you want more than these. Come."
He turned with a rustle of his long gown and led me to a still darker chamber. My fear and confusion melted into a cauldron of an ancient desire -- the bane of which all mankind heats with lust from smoldering hearts. Scenes from kingdoms I did not recognize were painted on the walls we walked past, palaces, gardens, all traversed by one theme: the serpent, the worm, crawled through them all.
"Here," Lessingham spoke as he entered a massive room, one over-large for the light he carried so that its ceiling remained hidden to us. "Tell me I am wrong in this: You are here, you sought me out because of One Desire, am I right? It rose up before you knew my name -- but, alas! when Daha spoke it, this, this longing, it grew." And he laughed.
I tried to see the wall beyond him, for my eyes ached to see it, but he walked around me and continued. "I don't require much." His voice came from behind me now. "No, not for what I'm offering."
My mouth moved without thought. "What do you offer?"
"Perpetual wealth."
And then I saw it: Mostly in darkness set off by lighter darkness, I saw, cast in what I knew was gold mined from the depths of hell, a dragon's mouth devouring its own tail -- and though I did not see the whole, I knew the circle it flew.
"Give me your hand." Still darker the room became, and fog from the night outside rose from the unseen floor. I was able, however, to see the knife Lessingham held -- and, mercy of all mercies, I saw his hand had only four fingers! "I am older than your imagination can know, and with one word you will return my ring -- oh, do not shrink from me now! Did you believe such life -- such wealth! -- would come at nothing from you?"
I knew he meant to cut away my finger and the ring with it. I knew it from the moment I saw his hand. How I escaped I still can not tell. Perhaps I have not escaped, for here, on my bed, my fever spikes and I see his eyes and I hear his shrill scream.
The river Irt. That small outlet of the Wastwater with its murmured song that began -- when? An age before Man? And yet the sound called to me, with some mercy unknown, even as Lessingham raised his knife.
"No!" It was a plea for help, and my bedroom, now, is filled with my anguished cry. Had I placed my hand in the cold water? The days I'd waited for the night of fog -- had I let Irt's waters flow over my ringed finger? Somehow, my escape was intermingled with the river, with its clear and clearing effects -- I'd seen Lessingham, and his everlasting life, for what it was.
I woke beside the river Irt, the skin upon my finger already grown over the ring. Another mercy from beyond. It will be buried with me, no other to tempt, its nightmare none other than Lessingham's.
Comments
Post a Comment