What do you think you’re a-doing, yonwretched wench? You are my lowly subject and I demand to be heard!
Professor Jareth’s heart convulsedwith fear. It was the voice, the dreaded voice in her head! With tremblinghand, she struggled to stick the needle into a vein in her forearm. She wassure she knew that the voice belonged to a God, one of bile, blood and vitriol.It was with her, breathing down her neck, coming to take her…
Lying back, she closed her eyes andlet the liquid seep slowly into her bloodstream. She lay for twenty minutes,hardly daring to breath, waiting for the sound of that dreaded whispered voiceto return. But she heard nothing. Aches and pains subsided and she began tofeel like she was getting back to her old self.
An image of a bearded, handsome youngman appeared in her mind. She knew she was remembering a very special night,ten years ago, when she was a pretty, fresh-faced young girl, a student atConatus. He was Professor of Ancient History and his name was Simon Drew. Theywere in his rooms, drinking wine and laughing. A vague smile played on theProfessor’s lips.
But then her spirits crashed as sheremembered the truly terrible thing she’d done to him, only a few days afterthat happy night. How she so desperately missed her dear sweet Simon! Howdearly she still loved him! How she wished she could turn back the clock andsomehow stop herself from doing what she’d done. She hadn’t seen him for tenyears but thought about him every day. She couldn’t go on with the misery ofher lonely life any longer. She longed to see him, to beg his forgiveness andbe with him again.
The Professor was brought out of herreverie by a soft knocking at the door. She pulled the needle carefully out ofher vein and put the metal contraption and the ebony box into the cupboard andlocked it. She was feeling much better. Her depression had lifted, there was lessof a pallor on her sunken cheeks and she could stand up straight. But herjoints were still sore and she knew she’d have to get that dreaded machine outlater in the day and have the rest of the fix. She’s taken some but had no ideaif it was enough, enough to keep the voice away.
The Professor opened the door and sawLilith and Ophelia.
Lilith looked pretty pleased withherself.
“We’ve found him,” she said. “It’stime.”
“Are you sure?” said the Professor.“We have to be sure. It’s required to be unsullied by sex.”
“If he isn’t a virgin then I’m amonkey’s uncle.”
“Excellent. Then we’ll go and get whatyou require.”
The girls followed Professor Jarethdown the stairs and out into the main quadrangle. Lilith was very excited. Theway into the dark world was finally opening up for her. They left the college,went down the long drive and out through the gates into the street. This was along journey for the Professor, who walked slowly with a stick. She waswheezing badly and they had to wait a while until she got her breath back.
They crossed the road and entered alarge neo-gothic building topped with turrets – the university library. Itsmany reading rooms were filled floor to ceiling with books. They walked acrossthe marble floor, past a maze of dusty cabinets and bookcases. Eventually theystopped beside an archway cut into the far wall behind a stone column. Throughthe opening were a few steps leading down to a door of thick black wood.
“This is it,” said the Professor in arasping voice. When she was sure nobody was watching, she took a brass key fromher jacket pocket and showed it to the girls. “I stole this from ProfessorNox’s room. Don’t tell anyone.”
They went down the steps and unlockedthe door. It led into a dark corridor. The Professor locked the door behindthem and switched on the light. It was dank and musty, as though nobody hadbeen in there for a very long time. They followed the corridor through anarchway and into a reading room, with three of its walls lined with very oldbooks. A dusty table and chairs and a carved wooden chest stood in the corner.
Ophelia was amazed by what she saw.There were hundreds of books, all dedicated to Dark Paganism. She looked at thenearest shelf and scanned some of the titles: ‘Appeasing ye Voice’, ‘TheEncyclopaedia of Dark Pagan Lore’, ‘Cursed in Childhood: A PsychologicalStudy’, ‘Theories of Transmogrification’.
The history of Dark Paganism wassomething she was keen to know more about. The odd little book the professorhad given them, revealing the Cult of Arddhu Og’s secrets, was extremely rare.It had been pored over every night by herself and Lilith. How much more wasthere to discover in here! The girls wanted to know all, to become witches ofthe highest order, to catapult themselves out of the ordinary mundane world andinto a cool netherworld of dark paganistic magic.
“This is amazing,” she said. “How didthe university get all this stuff?”
“In the 1930’s it used to have thelargest collection in Europe,” said the Professor, “but when the ban for thistype of literature came about most of it was destroyed by government decree,all except the contents of this room. The chancellor at the time, ProfessorMaximus Brady, didn’t really believe in book burning and ideological bans,‘smacks too much of Hitler and those damn Fascists’ he is quoted as saying.Didn’t stay chancellor for much longer after that, but he did pass on thesecret of this room to certain individuals.”
The Professor considered what she’dlearnt from reading some of these books. Dark Paganism was still practised insecret before Victorian times, with different cults each dedicated to their ownGods and Goddesses – the Cult of Gowin Bag, the Dryad of Death Cult and theworship of the triple Goddesses: White Maiden, Red Mother and Black Crone. Butin the early part of the twentieth century it had all but been eradicatedthrough many midnight arrests, the gruesome execution of prisoners and theremoval of literature dedicated to such matters. The people in the grip of
