The Urn Page 10

  “The colonel has arranged a hunting expedition,” Lord William said, raising his glass to cheer his companion, Frank.

  I listened to this with eyes downcast, and decided finally to leave the room before the food arrived. I would find a way to arrange for meals in my cabin. In truth, the hostility from the hunters had me feeling uncomfortable to be so far from the master’s urn.

  “I’ll have the captain keep an eye on that one,” Lord William said, gesturing to me as I rose and made my way to the door. “Otherwise, we’ll find our cabins stripped of jewels and coin.”

  The hunters laughed as I left.

  26th November, 1893. I have decided to stay in my room to keep watch upon the urn and to avoid the British hunters. I cannot risk more confrontation with those men, so I will have to take my chances that the captain will see to my safety, and hope that being out of sight will keep me out of the hunters’ minds.

  As I do this, I must admit it to be a much better accommodation than that which I had aboard the Allison Jane. The room ran ten feet to the hull and at least 15 parallel to the keel. Being on the lowest deck and near the engine meant it could be noisy and often smelled of oil and burning coal, but it was grand by comparison.

  There was a single bed, a wardrobe, set of cupboards, and table and chair where I ate my simple breakfast and lunch of sausage and dried bread that I still had as rations in my pack.

  While I am forced below decks I use my time to update this secret journal and to contemplate what might await me at my destination for I knew little of Africa—south or otherwise.

  Until my time upon the Allison Jane I had never met a black man though I had heard of them. Several of that crew were of this African variety of man, though other than the color of their skin and subtleties in facial features, they were much like the other sailors.

  I had heard of African slavery also, but knew little more than that at one time the great empires had traded the people of Africa, and kept them as property.

  I considered asking one of the black crewmen who served aboard the Westerner what he knew of his homeland, but I abandoned the notion, remembering again my master’s warning to draw no attention to myself—and I could not be certain these sailors would be free to answer, and if they could, would they not simply attack my heritage as the others had?

  Of Africa herself, I had only heard that it was a vast jungle filled with terrifying and strange animals. By all accounts around the Szgany fires, most of the black people who had originally lived on the continent had long since been killed in war, or been enslaved by any one of the western European powers.

  We Szgany shared a history of violence and subjugation at the hands of more powerful nations, so I could understand the process that had been wreaked upon Africa and her people, though I did not sympathize. The Szgany had long ago learned to take hardship in stride, and we’d come to consider it a part of our tough natures to be ever struggling out from under a yoke that had been forced upon us.

  In the process we had become untamable and I wondered if there would be a black people in Africa, some family of men and women who like the Szgany had resisted the slave master’s whip, and who even now wandered the great jungle-continent unbowed as my own people traveled Europe.

  LATER - Of note, Captain Banks himself has come to my room and offered an apology for the behavior of the British hunters. I had asked one of his crew earlier in the day if I could have my meals delivered to my cabin, and that I would be happy to pay any extra fee that the service might require.

  The captain had already been planning to speak with me when he received my request. It seems that the old woman in the dining room had been upset by the hunters’ treatment of me in front of her grandchildren and had complained to the captain herself the night before.

  Captain Banks had looked grim after agreeing to have my food brought to my room. His full lips were twisted with irony as he mused.

  “The greatness of Europe.” He laughed. His English was fine, but he had a curious accent that I could not place. “Civilization!”

  The captain’s dark eyes had regarded me humorlessly as he said: “Those British hunters would not want Leopold’s ‘civilized’ jaws set about their throats. His ‘civilizing’ mission is a savage sport that ravages the African lands. He made it a bloody butcher shop, and so it remains.”

  I nodded, although the name of Leopold was unfamiliar to me.

  “Only slaves, ivory and rubber interest the ‘civilized’ world,” Banks had sneered. “Despite the fact that the price for these things is blood.”

  The captain hoped that the episode in the dining room would not be repeated, and said that he would speak to the hunters and vouch for my safety personally.

  Then he had sniffed at the air.

  “Smoke,” he declared, eyes searching the ceiling as his nose twitched. “But I smell a touch of rot.” He looked at me. “And peppermint.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I answered.

  “Let me know if you do,” Captain Banks said, shrugging.

  In the dim light from the porthole and my lamp, the captain’s brown skin and features had taken on an otherworldly glow that gave me comfort in their strength and natural beauty.

  I thanked him by wringing his sinewy hand with both of mine before he repeated that he would have my meals sent to my room at no extra charge, but that I must remember that I would always be welcome in the mess.

  Of course, I could not go back there. My mission was of too much importance to risk any violent incident that might endanger its outcome.

  27th November, 1893. It is near dawn and there has been some kind of trouble on the ship. Sailors awakened all the passengers to check on their safety. The night watch said he saw a man on the main deck near the bow, with the edge of his silhouette marked by a curious glow of lantern or flame.

  He would not respond to any hails as he opened a hatch and climbed below deck.

  As crewmen investigated the cabins overhead I heard the sick young hunter say, “You watch! It’s that Gypsy’s work. His kind always meddle in the devil’s business.”

  28th November, 1893. Nothing much more has been said of the mysterious man who was seen in the dead of night, but Captain Banks sent word to every passenger that moving about the open deck was not allowed after sundown unless permission was given by the captain himself, and the individual granted that liberty remained in the company of a crewmember.

  It was drizzling, the sky was filled with cloud, and the sea outside my porthole was gray and calm. I knew the British hunters would be about the ship, so I took some lunch in my room where I added to my chronicle and continued to contemplate the outcome of this voyage. I’d found the steamship to be a unique form of travel, and I could not help but think that its power would have appealed to my master also.

  Thinking of my master made me remember the pig’s blood. The remaining bottle was almost empty, and ready to go out the porthole and join the others at the bottom of the sea. So before I had to open my own veins, I would have to ask the ship’s cook if there were anything we could arrange.

  I was hesitant because I knew the request was unusual, and might provoke the ire or suspicion of the captain himself if he were to hear about it. I had enough blood for two days or three at most before I would have no recourse but to remedy the situation personally.

  To steer away from that uncomfortable notion, I directed my mind toward Africa.

  More interesting to me than the thoughts of the black kingdoms were the stories of fantastic and terrible creatures that lived in the endless jungle. Old ones from my camp carried the stories, and other well-traveled Szgany brought tales about man-eating river dragons as long as four men are tall, and of giant eagles that could pluck a child from a mother’s arms.

  And there were other tales of wild men covered with hair from head to toe who had sharp yellow fangs, and lived in the trees and would eat any man who ventured near.

  While those stories appealed to a childlike ent
husiasm in my heart, I realized they were born of superstition and nothing more, or so I consoled myself as I thought of setting foot upon this Dark Continent.

  Other notions also did I use to calm my imagination. I would be going to “South” Africa, and that land had been colonized by western powers for many years, with several European countries laying claim to it. Surely, in their struggle they had tamed any wilderness they’d first found there.

  I was to take the master’s remains to the port of Cape Town, and as this would be a very civilized part of South Africa, I doubted whether I’d see more than pet dogs and draft animals.

  LATER - I was awakened to the sound of the crew stampeding all over the ship, and was turned out to the main deck with the other passengers where we were questioned by Captain Banks. The engineer had reported seeing a bluish light in the engine room, and heard the sound of someone running up the stairs when he went in to investigate.

  I had been one of the first awakened by the disturbance, as these events were said to have occurred just outside my room; however, I was unable to provide any information for that reason since I was sleeping at the time the commotion started.

  The captain had repeated his order that none of the passengers was allowed to roam about the ship so late after dark without permission and unaccompanied, and he added that the engine room was off limits at all times.

  I was standing with the others on the deck when the sickly British hunter had spat on the boards and glared at me declaring: “It’s the gyp I tell you! Put him overboard or he’ll witch us all.”

  To this the captain had taken great offense, stepping close to the man and saying he had not asked for any suggestions from him. “I am in command of this vessel.”

  “I figure you’d need some help,” the young man had said insolently. “You being a kaffir.” And he stroked his own pale cheek with a finger. “Unless it’s why you’re in cahoots with a Gypsy.”

  The captain’s hands had curled into hard fists as he registered the insult. I am sure he had been just about to hit the young hunter when the one named Colonel Frank stepped in between.

  “That’s enough, Captain,” the man had growled threateningly. “He’s sick to delirium.”

  The captain snarled at the hunters, and ordered us all back to our rooms to sleep. As I had approached the stairs, I saw Colonel Frank and the sick man glaring at me.

  Myself, I wondered at this new haunting. Blue lights, I remembered—but noise?

  29th November, 1893. The sun had set on another long day. I continued to think of my master and had been sitting at the small table reading his book again. I wondered about the urn, and the process that was taking place within. It was clear to me that whatever was growing inside had the semblance of life.

  Wet and slithery sounds of movement continued to issue forth, though I could see less through the dense mesh of black vines or tendrils that had grown thicker within. If this creature had come or been birthed from the master’s remains, I wondered if that meant the master himself would reconstitute in this gory fashion?

  I was prepared to facilitate his resurrection, but had only considered this process would be performed upon a complete set of remains. Despite the master’s reference book, nothing had prepared me for this.

  At night, the noises came more frequently from within the urn, and at times I would hold my lamp over the vent and peer into its depths. It was difficult to observe anything, but I was sure that I had seen thin arm- and leg-like structures now jutting from the pale and glistening larval body, though just as quickly the shape would roll and disappear in a muddy slurry of clotted blood.

  The instructions in my master’s book had said enormous power would be required if his destruction were so complete, and in such cases the results could be unpredictable.

  Memory loss was certain after revivification of any kind, and the extent of this depended upon many things: the degree of damage inflicted upon him, his associations after reforming, and the realities of setting, time and place that awaited him in this revived state. His surroundings would directly inform his reclamation.

  But a pile of ash and dust? Dare I even dream that such a thing could again become my dear master?

  The book warned that the worst of these cases, as this surely must have been, might leave him “like a child in mind” that would need to re-learn how to survive and to remember his true character.

  His book said that a servant so tasked would be responsible for this re-education, to entice his true self back from death. The master’s history stretched back for many centuries and would require much time to be remembered.

  The instructions had cautioned that nothing was certain in the process, and again, peering into the urn, I wondered what kind of life would await him if he was to return as a ghastly creature, little more than a freakish reptile.

  This brought my thoughts around to his South African ally. The master had told me that he was a great and terrible lord of the southernmost part of the Dark Continent whose family had held power in the Cape Colony there for longer than records were kept. I did not know the master’s bond with him or how it had been forged.

  The instructions in the book reiterated the master’s own. I was to go to Cape Town and inquire of the port authorities about a man named Worling de Graaf.

  “Call yourself Count DeVille upon your arrival in Cape Town...my ally will come for you.”

  I remembered the master then, so handsome; his eyes had been burning as he tutored me. He must have perceived my unspoken question for he had raised a finger to silence me before I opened my mouth, saying: “Worling is a great lord in those lands, and he is of the kind.”

  He did not speak of many as being “of the kind,” so I could only guess at his meaning since I dared not confirm my suspicions by asking.

  Perhaps this Worling de Graaf’s influence was required to complete my master’s transformation. I could only pray for some guidance, for each glimpse into the urn only compounded its mystery.

  30th November, 1893. Morning, and the sky is bright. The air continues to warm as we journey south.

  The hall outside my room was quiet when I awoke and I felt no vibration through the deck plates. There had been times aboard when the ship’s engines were silenced, and for hours on end we plied the waters under sail alone. Then, the ship made no sound as it leapt across the waves ahead of the strong Atlantic wind.

  It felt like flying, and the quiet always caused my spirits to rise.

  After my breakfast of ham, eggs and toast, I had hoped to endear myself to the cook, and had brought my dirty dishes back to the galley but missed him there. Despondent, I retraced my steps to make the harrowing journey back along the length of the ship to my room.

  But, I paused by the bottom of the stairs that descended from the main deck when I overheard voices through the opening above me.

  “Saw it, he did,” one gruff voice had said in English. “Atop the foremast.”

  “I know Omar said ‘flames,’ but he’s addled from a life of drink,” another voice answered. “I says Elmo’s sparks is all.”

  “I says, it’s that Gypsy devil we have aboard,” the first voice warned. “You smelled what’s coming from the porthole and around his door?”

  “No! Cause I ain’t a snoop,” the second voice declared. “Nor have I time to be hanging my nose over the side of the ship.”

  “We was painting the rail, and a few of us fellas smelled it was like an open grave—by his door too. Nothing but trouble to come from this. The young Englishman says it too...” the first said, then added, ominously. “I tell you, we can’t stand for it.”

  I hurried back to my room and quickly checked on the urn before pouring a small portion of the remaining pig’s blood through the vent. Indeed, I must have grown used to the smell creeping past the metal dampers, for it seemed the open porthole had not removed all evidence of its internal actions.

  My attempt to stifle it with the peppermint-scented linen was not enou
gh. On a clear, still day, undoubtedly, the smell of the grave might have traced up the side of the ship or leaked out under my door. Was it leaving some scent upon my clothing, too?

  1st December, 1893. I have run out of pig’s blood and had to use my own. There was but one way to remedy this situation, but remedy it, I must—regardless of the trouble that was brewing. My hand was still throbbing where I had opened the flesh with my churi blade to allow some drops to fall through the vent and into the urn.

  I feared that some of the more exotic men in the crew had become suspicious of me. Perhaps the odor from the urn had brought this upon us and I had heard that dark-skinned men of the southern seas, as some of the crewmen were, are sensitive to the spiritual world, and were highly superstitious, and quick to judge, especially when such perceptions were shaded by the tenets of the Christian Church.

  I was preparing to return my luncheon dishes to the cook, thinking that if he were alone I might discuss my need for a supply of blood, when I discovered a crudely fashioned cross made of kindling wood and twine set before my door. A half-circle formed of fine white sand or ash, sea shells and a severed chicken’s foot had been drawn on the floor around it.

  Every time I had been away from my room previously, I had found it locked and its contents unmolested when I returned, but I now felt that would not long be the case if someone feared me enough to have performed a primitive rite before my very cabin door.

  It may be too late already, but I must take steps to see that these superstitions do not grow into something lethal and so I will try to speak to the captain.

  But when is it safe to leave my room?

  3rd December, 1893 A storm from the north had been chasing us since we found it waiting at sunrise. Outside my porthole the ocean was iron gray and only distinguishable from the sky by its wind-lashed surface that was torn by high waves and flecked with streaks of foam.