You step backwards. Very slowly, trying to remain quiet. The noise is louder now. A hollow, rattling gurgle. The thing is near you. Its fearful stench is in your very lungs. You mustn’t cough. You mustn’t cough.
Another step back. The torch illuminates the darkness.
Oh, Christ - what if I see it? What if I can’t help but see it? What if I’m not heading towards the stairs at all? What’s out there? What strange creature was etched onto the frescos of Yog-Shoggoth? What fiends were those in the eyes of the dying Malay?
And you begin to hear it, sing-song, in the pit of your mind.
The good host knows when his guests come to dine.
He will come out in his carriage to meet them.
Most marvellous halls! O, sweetest of wine!
But his golden house is dark, and poisons are sweet.
Your heel touches the lowest step. You stumble. And the candle slips from your sweaty grasp and clatters down against the stone.
A scream, higher-pitched than human sound. A howl of emptiness. And, much later, as you relive this horrid moment in your dreams, turning it over, trying to find some explanation, you will swear that as you turn and run, driven by pure terror, back up the steps, something soft and dreadful brushes against the back of your leg.
On. On, up the sightless staircase, watching the window of faint yellow light grow larger, the shrieks or an echo of the shrieks repeating itself, over and over, in your feverish consciousness-
The good host knows when his guests come to dine.
He will come out in his carriage to meet them.
Most marvellous halls! O, sweetest of wine!
But his golden house is dark, and poisons are sweet.
*
You stumble out, into the cruciform study, and with all your strength you heave the wooden panelling back across and lean against it just as the other door smacks back into the wall.
James, clad in his dressing-gown, with a candlestick clasped in front of him, steps forward into the room. He looks almost dazed, his eyes staring down at you, unseeing.
“James…” you manage to whisper, “James, my God…something down there...the crawling chaos…”
And immediately your friend’s features contort into fury. He raises the candlestick, and for a moment it seems as if he intends to strike down at you with it.
Then he seems to regain control. Crouching at your side, he cries,
“Stephen…Stephen, my poor fellow, why did you leave your room? You’re feverish; you need to be in bed, you need to go back to bed.”
“James…” you croak, “…it was screaming…under the house…it heard me…”
He shakes his head.
“That was you screaming,” he says, with intense sympathy. “We all heard it from downstairs…poor man, you’re delirious, you’re hallucinating. Salman, give me a hand, we’ll put him back to bed. I think Miss Kline has some sleeping pills…”
Salman, grinning, steps out of the darkness of the study threshold. His firm hand grasps at your shoulder, and lifts you up.
*
You’re put back to bed. A hand presses a small white tablet to your lips. You take it into your mouth. The same hand forces you to drink a little water.
You close your eyes, and hear them locking the door from the outside. You count to ten, and then spit the pill out.
You whisper to yourself, over and over,
The good host knows when his guests come to dine.
He will come out in his carriage to meet them.
Most marvellous halls! O, sweetest of wine!
But his golden house is dark, and poisons are sweet.
*
It must be the afternoon by the time you wake. Wrapping yourself in your dressing-gown, you try the door handle. It’s unlocked.
You step out, deliberately turning away from the darkness of the corridor that leads to the study that leads to – no, you must not think about that. A shiver passes through your body. Your dreams, you seem to remember, were dark.
“Was it only a dream?” you ask yourself, aloud. “Did I imagine it? Dammit, am I going insane?”
*
As you step down the spiral staircase, Jezebel runs to you, taking your arm and leading you the rest of the way.
“Professor Buch,” she says, beseechingly, “you’re meant to be resting, sir. You’re not well.”
You croak,
“No…you’re very kind, Miss Kline, but…I really am feeling much better. I’m quite all right now, I think.”
The entire company gathered at the drawing room table stares at you. Between Whipple and James stands a rather desiccated-looking old fellow, stooped and with a few remaining curly white hairs, in a black suit.
“I’m quite all right,” you repeat. “I…my God, James, I must have been delirious last night. I was a fool to get out of bed like that. It’s…it’s all been very hard on me. But the rest's done me some good.”
James smiles at you.
“That’s quite all right,” he says. “You should have stayed in Arkham, Stephen. Perhaps…well, perhaps we’ll see about buying a couple of guides and a carriage to take you back there.”
Whipple gives you a curious look.
“Right,” James continues, clapping his hands. “Miss Kline, why don’t you help Stephen down onto the chaise-longue – and then, my dear, would you mind going into the kitchens and asking them to bring him up a late breakfast? He needs to get some food in him…maybe we’ll even see about getting that local doctor up here. Sorry, Mr. Armstrong…let’s finish signing, shall we?”
The old man gives you a wary smile, and then nods.
“Yes,” he says, turning back towards the table. “Now…this is…er, no, apologies, that’s Mr Jermyn’s old will…ah! This is the deed signed by the mayor. And may I say, Professor Hurley,” he adds, “that I am personally, er, delighted that Jermyn House and its manor lands have passed to such an, um, esteemed gentleman.”
“Thank you, sir,” James tells him, shortly. “Whipple, would you mind being my witness?”
You slip up off the chaise-longue, as quietly as you can, and approach. Arthur Jermyn’s old will is lying on the surface of the table, a little apart from the three men.
You reach it, and have time to read,
I, Arthur Jermyn, being of sound mind and body, do declare-
before James cries,
“Dammit, Stephen, will you lie down?”
and Whipple, catching gently hold of you, leads you back to the chaise-longue. But you’ve seen all you needed to see.
Arthur Jermyn’s will was written in a different hand to the scrap of his diary you found in the study. A similar hand, of course, but a forgery – you’ve seen and discredited enough falsified ‘historical documents’ in your time. The slope of the letters is all wrong. ‘Arthur Jermyn’ is written too carefully, the pen halting and then taking up the task again, as if the man paused to take note of the style he was supposed to be imitating.
So perhaps the landowner never left this house to the town of Dynhill after all...
Some quite complicated choices here. First of all…do you want to confide in someone? And how much do you want to tell them? Just about the will, or about what lurks beneath the study, or even about James’ behaviour? (Remember, they may already believe you’re delirious, even insane - and babbling about monsters might alienate them for good. On the other hand, they may suspect something is wrong themselves).
A: Whipple.
B: Jezebel.
C: Father Harry.
D: Doctor Smith.
And secondly…where do you go from here? It’s pretty open. Today the rest of your companions will be setting out to begin excavating in the ruins. You could insist upon accompanying them, or you could follow them in secret. You could visit the town’s post office and try to get a telegram out to the outside world, maybe an authority back in Arkham. You could (though it might drive your sanity away for good) try to return to the study and the horror within. Where to, Codex?