The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

remember?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘I am questioning you in secrecy, father.’

‘Yes.’

‘I must go there today.’

‘No!’

‘Yes. But who will guide me?’

There was a long silence.

‘Do you mean to have the party there?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh no … no …’

‘Oh yes. But how to find him. Who was he? The man who led the expedition long ago? Is he alive?’

‘He is an old man now.’

‘Where does he live? There is no time to waste. The party is close upon us. Oh hurry father. Hurry!’

‘He lives,’ said the scientist, ‘where the Two Rivers join.’

Cheeta left him at once, and he was glad, for Cheeta was the only thing he feared.

Little did he know that someone more to be feared was making his way, all unknowing, in the direction of the factory. A figure with a wild light in his eyes, a five day growth on his chin, and a nose like a rudder.

NINETY

It was not long before Cheeta ran the old man to ground, and a tough old bird he proved to be. She asked him at once whether he remembered the expedition, and in particular the unhealthy night that the party spent at the Black House.

‘Yes, yes. Of course I do. What about it eh?’

‘You must take me there. At once,’ said Cheeta, recoiling inwardly, for his age was palpable.

‘Why should I?’ he said.

‘You will be paid … well paid. We’ll go by helicopter.’

‘What’s that?’ said the septuagenarian.

‘We’ll fly,’ said Cheeta, ‘and find it from above.’

‘Ah,’ said the old man.

‘The Black House … you understand?’ said Cheeta.

‘Yes, I heard you. The Black House. South-sou’east. Follow the knee-deep river. Aha! Then west into the territory of the wild dogs. How much?’ he said, and he shook his dirty grey hair.

‘Come now,’ said Cheeta. ‘We’ll talk of that later.’

But it was not enough for the dirty old man, the one-time explorer. He asked a hundred questions; sometimes of the airborne flight, or of the machine, but for the most part of the financial side which seemed to be his chief interest.

Finally everything was settled and within two hours they were on their way, skimming the tree-tops.

Beneath them was little to be seen but great seas of foliage.

NINETY-ONE

Titus, drowsy in the arms of a village girl, a rosy, golden thing, opened one eye as they lay together on the banks of a loquacious river, for he had heard through the ripples another sound. At first he could see nothing, but lifting his head he was surprised to see a yellow aircraft passing behind the leaves of the overhanging trees. Close as it was, Titus was yet unable to see who was piloting the machine, and as for the village maiden, she neither knew nor cared.

NINETY-TWO

The weather was perfect, and the helicopter floated without the least hindrance over the tree-tops. For a long while there was silence aboard, but at last Cheeta, the pilot, turned to look at her companion. There was something foul in the way his dirtiness was being carried aloft, through the pure air. What made it worse was the way he stared at her.

‘If you keep looking at me,’ she said, ‘we may miss the landmarks. What should we be looking for now?’

‘Your legs,’ said the old man. ‘They’d go down very nice, with onion sauce.’ He leered at her, and then all at once cried out in a hoarse voice, ‘The shallow river! Alter her course to south’d.’

Three long cobalt-blue mountains had hoisted themselves above the horizon and what with the sunlight bathing the foliage below them, and dancing down the river, it was a scene so tranquil that the sudden chill that rose, as though on an updraught from below, was horrible in its unexpectedness. It seemed that the cold in the air was directed against them, and at the same moment, on looking down as though to see the cause of the cold, Cheeta cried out involuntarily …

‘The Black House! Look! Look! There below us.’

Hovering as they descended; descending as they hovered, the ill-matched pair were now no more than weather-cock high above the ruin … for so it was … though known (time out of mind), as the Black House.

Very little of the roof was left, and none of the inner walls, but Cheeta, gazing down, recalled immediately the vast interior of the building.

It had an atmosphere about it that was unutterably mournful; a quality that could not be wholly accounted for by the fact that the place was mouldering horribly; that the floor was soft with moss; or that the walls were lost in ferns. There was something more than this that gave the Black House its air of deadly darkness; a darkness that