Downtime - Marc Platt [21]
She reached out to touch his hand. ‘But I can hear his voice in my thoughts. He called me and I travelled all this way.’
‘No,’ insisted the abbot. ‘Demons and hungry ghosts steal many shapes. Please turn away, Victoria.’
‘ Why do you delay? Release me! ’
Her father’s voice seemed to be coming from somewhere below. She noticed a shadowed alcove set into the side wall of the Sanctum. There was another arch inside the alcove from which a green glow had started to filter.
‘I know he’s here.’ She started to move towards the alcove, but the abbot’s staff swung up to block her way.
‘A second time I ask, what do you seek?’
‘What have you done to him?’ she demanded. She pushed against the staff, but he held her firmly, forcing her back.
‘ I am alone in the darkness, ’ the voice groaned despairingly.
‘Do not disturb it,’ warned the lama. ‘It is not your father. It is delusion!’
The staff pinned her to the wall.
‘ Victoria! ’
‘Let me through!’ she shouted.
‘I cannot!’
It was more than she could bear. ‘What are you hiding here? Who is it then?’
‘For the third time I ask, what do you seek?
‘I want the truth!’ she cried in despair.
There were long moments as her plaint echoed away through the cold arches of Det-sen.
At last, the Abbot Thonmi turned wearily away from her.
His will and spirit were finally broken.
‘You were expected,’ he said quietly. ‘My task is ended. I cannot prevent your journey into the dark.’ He ceremonially raised his ornate staff towards her. ‘Perhaps Truth may light your way.’
Victoria stared in disbelief at the frail and blind old man.
‘Take it!’ he insisted.
Bewildered, she took the staff from his outstretched hands and watched as he started to grope his way out of the open Sanctum door.
There was a low moan from the depths.
‘Are you there?’ she called and approached the alcove.
Cold air was welling up from below carrying a dank reek of decay. The walls glimmered with a putrid green.
‘ I’ve been alone so long. Like you, Victoria. But together... ’
‘I’m coming,’ she whispered and started down the crumbling steps.
She went down step by step, clinging to the damp wall, using the staff for support. She called out again but there was no reply. The cold air devoured sound, sense and hope. She reached the foot of the stairs and the glimmering light revealed some sort of private chapel. There were faded paintings on the walls, dancing monsters in once-gaudy robes. She shivered with the cold. There was a groan from the far end of the dark chamber.
‘ Victoria? Are you there? ’
‘Yes. I’m here.’ She could just make out an archway with something strung across its portal like a cobweb.
‘ Release me. ’ The pitiful voice came from beyond the arch.
‘I heard you. I’ve come all this way.’ She went closer and saw that the web was composed of coloured threads, all intermeshed and stretched across the opening. It was a Tibetan spirit trap, built to contain evil and malevolent demons.
Filaments of waving gossamer had caught on the strings.
Inside the trap, something shuffled in the shadows.
‘ I said, release me! I can endure the darkness no longer! ’
She tried to see through the mesh, but could make out only a dark, hunched figure in the gloom. ‘I don’t know. How can I be sure? They said you were dead. But in the dreams...’
‘ Victoria. ’ His voice was suddenly calm with authority. It was familiar. Something she could not doubt.
‘Father,’ she said. The sense of relief and recognition went beyond the circumstance. From her heart she said, ‘Yes, of course I’ll help you.’
Inside the trap, a bony hand was reaching out to her. She raised the abbot’s ceremonial staff and thrust it into the web.
A roar of green flame.
Victoria stumbled back, shielding her face. Burning threads were falling all around her. She heard the tap-tap-tap of a stick and the rasping of breath. A figure was shuffling against the light, emerging from the archway. Victoria fell to the floor staring up in disbelief.
This wasn’t her father at all. It was delusion. Its ancient features were wasted and