Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters [35]
‘K-O-N––’
My elbows ached. I watched the animated chunk of wood with horrid fascination as it bobbed and dipped around the ‘N’ card, scraping back and forth in painful little jerks. I realized that I was mentally describing its actions with words I would have used for a living creature. It seemed to be alive, to be directed by a guiding intelligence.
After an uncanny suggestion of struggle, the planchette slid slowly towards the ‘no’ card. ‘No’ – then ‘no’ again – then it gave a violent heave – upwards, against six sets of fingertips. It fell over and lay still. I felt as if something had died.
‘What the hell,’ George began.
‘Hush,’ said Miss Burton solemnly. ‘There is conflict – a hostile entity . . .’
The candle needed trimming. The room was noticeably darker. The other faces were dim white blurs. I rubbed my elbows, and wondered how much practise it would take to manipulate a planchette unobtrusively. It could be done. It had been done, in thousands of fake séances. Maybe it didn’t require practise. I mused, ignorantly, on the eccentricities of the subconscious.
‘This is a very strange thing,’ Schmidt began, and then gasped. ‘Look – the young countess!’
Irma had fallen back in her chair, arms dangling at her sides. I could hear her breathing in low, deep sighs. It was a horrible sound.
Blankenhagen got to his feet.
‘Don’t touch her!’ Miss Burton’s voice stopped the doctor as he reached for Irma’s wrist. ‘She is in trance. If you try to waken her, it could be disastrous. Let me handle this. Irma – can you hear me?’
There was no answer. The doctor looked from Miss Burton to the unconscious girl. Miss Burton took a deep breath and said distinctly, ‘Who are you?’
For a few seconds there was only silence. Then, from the sleeping girl’s mouth, came a voice speaking a strange garble of words. It sounded like German, but it was a form of the language I had never heard. Or . . . had I? It sounded vaguely familiar.
Then, for the first time, my hair literally bristled. I had heard the language before, when a visiting professor of Germanic literature read some of the Meistergesang of the sixteenth century in their original form. Irma was speaking Frühneuhochdeutsch – the earliest form of modern German, the language used by Martin Luther and his contemporaries.
Miss Burton scribbled like a maniac, taking the speech down in phonetic symbols. Her cold-blooded competence was repulsive.
The voice – I couldn’t think of it as Irma’s – stopped.
‘Why have you come?’ Miss Burton asked. This time, prepared, I caught some of the answer. I didn’t like what I heard. Tony understood, too; his breath caught angrily, and he pushed his chair back.
‘This has gone far enough,’ he began, and was cut short by the scream that ripped from Irma’s throat. The next words were horribly clear.
‘Das Feuer! Das Feuer!’ She shrieked, and slid sideways out of her chair.
Blankenhagen caught her before she hit the floor.
That broke up the séance. Miss Burton moved about lighting candles. Her eyes glittered. Blankenhagen knelt by Irma, and the rest of us huddled in a group near the door.
‘What did it mean?’ George hissed. ‘That last word?’
‘Fire,’ said Tony uneasily. ‘Fire.’
‘What fire?’ George demanded. ‘Is she trying to tell us the Schloss is going to burn?’
‘How should I know?’
Miss Burton came back to the table.
‘Did anyone recognize the language?’ she asked briskly.
I gave her a hostile, unbelieving stare, which didn’t disturb her in the slightest, and turned to Blankenhagen.
‘How is Irma?’
‘She recovers,’ the doctor said shortly.
‘She will feel no ill effects, except for great weariness,’ Miss Burton said complacently. ‘I have seen deep trance before. My dear Elfrida, how fortunate. You told me the girl was susceptible, but I had no idea!’
The countess hadn’t moved from her chair. She didn’t look at Irma.
‘Now, the language,’ Miss Burton went on. ‘A form of German, I believe. Professor Lawrence?’
‘Not now!’ Tony said angrily.