The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [63]
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But it was taking a wrong turning again and finding herself at the bottom of the stairs which led up to the first floor of the newly built addition to the castle which brought her to a standstill. She was seized by the sudden thought: If Max is going to go by the chimes of midnight, then maybe I can stop him myself. I can stop the clock!
The only light in the darkness of the courtyard was the flickering yellow square of window in the comer. The wind from the sea was soughing through the colonnaded cloisters like the sighing of a thousand lost souls lamenting an eternity of suffering.
The Doctor’s black robe flapped around his ankles as he made his way, head down against the thrust of the wind, to the workshop wall. He took a cautious look through the window.
Maximilian was standing at his bench, compounding his potion – his elixir vitae – with the mortar and pestle. By his side, a chased silver goblet awaited the final brew. The ghostly friar was nowhere to be seen; but then, the Doctor’s view of the room was limited.
At the back of the bench an hourglass was counting the grains of time to midnight; there was much less than a quarter of the sand left to fall. On the hearth of the alchemical furnace behind, the retort now contained a 222
blood-red viscous fluid, bubbling like a volcano from Hell, and was dripping a golden drop at a time into a bowl of strangely carved chalcedony.
As Vilmius worked, he was reading from the manuscript which the Doctor had seen earlier. His voice, a low rumble, could just be heard through the thick walls, mouthing the Latin words in a gruff parody of Gregorian plainsong. At intervals, before he added another ingredient from the array of vials and flasks before him, he raised the mortar in offering, as though it were a chalice, to the blank stone wall before him.
As midnight approached his movements quickened and his words came faster, until they merged into an unintelligible clatter of syllables, coming through the wall in waves of sound, louder and louder until, with an almost palpable shock, they stopped dead, with only the shushing of the wind to mock the sudden stillness.
In silence he took the carved bowl from beneath the retort. In silence he poured a carefully judged measure of the golden liquid into the mortar, stirred it thoroughly and in silence transferred the final mixture to the waiting goblet.
Holding the vessel on high, he chanted in measured tones, in a loud sonorous voice, four words only: ‘Eba! Eba!
Kapash Calb!’
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On the wall before him a golden glow appeared, flickering like St Elmo’s fire round the edges of the stones which formed the wall; and outside the window, the watcher in black was gripping his arms to his body so tight that his knuckles gleamed whitely in the darkness, as if he were holding back an impulsive child who struggled to escape.
To reach the clock chamber, high in the tower, Sarah had to traverse the gallery of the family rooms on the first floor where the Barone and Baronessa had their private apartments.
Here was the luxury she had seen when she was visiting from N-Space. As in the room where she had seen the Barone and his wife, tapestries and eastern rugs covered the walls and all the windows had glass in them, in small panes held in lead. Paintings of every sort of subject – religious themes, classical myths, family portraits – some of them that she recognized as still hanging on Mario’s walls – in ornate frames more opulent than the pictures they held hung in rows as if they were in an exhibition.
As she ran down towards the next stairway, she heard voices ahead, raised in anger. To her horror, they were coming from an open door which she had no option but to pass if she were going to gain her objective. She stopped and inched her way towards the opening.
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‘I shall hear no more! As I owe a duty