A SNEEK PEEK INSIDE...

 

CHAPTER ONE - Memories

 

Chapter One - Trident House

 

Item# 3767

Desc: A4 bound book containing the scientific notes of Doctor William Whitebeam. Entries dating 1868-1872. Title: The Journal of William Whitebeam.

Notes: Contains references to a cabinet claiming to cure the pagan curse of Arddhu Og through cellular regeneration. THIS ARTEFACT IS DEEMED DANGEROUS TO APOSTLE PRACTICE. NOT FOR GENERAL CONSUMPTION.

Addendum (April 1972): On loan to Beryl Blackthorne for 6 months for experiment #9145. Stored: Brimstone Manor library.

 

– Extract from Trident House Artefact Catalogue, last updated 1972.

 

The police car sped along the rain-soaked country lane in the darkness of a chilly autumnal evening. Sitting in the back, and handcuffed to the door, was Bill Blackthorne – eminent Victorian occult biologist, resurrected from the dead, now a teenage boy in the 1970’s – and Beryl Blackthorne, his ‘sort-of’ mother, who was taking Bill off to complete a very important job the Apostles had set him – to cure the Queen of England of a very strange form of madness. The police car was followed by a Black Mariah van that contained Bill’s best friend Arthur Small, the girl he loved, Ophelia, and Bill’s special invention, the cure for the madness, the Cabinet of Rebirth or Scrinium Regenerationis as it was known.

  They left the village of Underwood (its inhabitants now captured by the police and taken away to a mysterious place) and headed toward the ancient city of Middenmere. They got into the suburbs but before going into the city centre turned onto a dual carriageway and headed North. A few minutes later the car came off into a part of town called The Heath, a place that Bill had never been before. It was leafier, with broader streets and grander houses than the area around Conatus College. Gazing idly out of the window, Bill saw expensive-looking restaurants, antique shops, auction houses and a red-brick railway station.

  The car drove on and soon they were skirting the edge of a sprawling park called Hanging Heath. At that time of night, it appeared to be nothing but dark shadows, but Bill did see dim yellow lights illuminate plant-filled greenhouses, a lido and a tennis club. A couple of minutes later, on the other side of the road, they passed a collection of modernist glass buildings that made up Scientiam College – the University of Middenmere’s science department.

  Then they turned off the road and went through a set of tall gates and into the grounds of Trident House. This adjoined the park but was separated by a high brick wall mounted with razor wire. The house itself was a fairly large seventeenth-century building, floodlit, with an orangery and a domed cupola, that Bill thought rather beautiful, until he saw the heavy iron bars bolted across the windows and the many patrolling security guards, each with a huge Alsatian straining on a leash.

  “What is this place?” he said.

  “It’s your new home,” said Beryl.

  “But...”

  The car pulled up in a small car park, joining a row of other police cars. A uniformed officer opened the door, detached the handcuffs, and led Bill away towards the house – like a prisoner under arrest. Beryl appeared beside him.

  “But I live at Brimstone Manor,” said Bill.

  “Professor Nox was tasked with restoring your memory and that is what he has done. So now you are moving on. Brimstone Manor is my home, not yours. You were only a guest.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you have been transferred to Scientiam. If we are to utilise your unique skills, you are better placed here at the university’s centre of scientific research.”

  “Don’t I have a say in all this?”

  “Bill my darling, of course not. You pledged an oath when you joined the Apostles, must do as we say, on pain of death. You are a middle-aged Victorian scientist, a member of the Royal Society, albeit from 1872. You are not a pimply young boy any longer– despite appearances to the contrary. With your memories restored we could say you are all grown up, so must start working hard for us. Do try to convince the Apostles you have a reason to be here at all, some are not so sure. They do not wish you well. Think you should go back to the grave.”

Bill said nothing. He thought Beryl’s last comment was rather sinister.

  They went under the portico and into the house. Bill found himself standing in an elegant Georgian hallway with parquet floor and cream coloured walls that were filled with paintings of distinguished-looking gentlemen from days gone by.

  “Past presidents of the Royal Society,” said Beryl when she saw him studying the portraits. “You may recognise some of them.”

  He saw an oil painting of Sir George Biddell Airey, a bespectacled and large whiskered worthy, who was a friend and in charge during the time of his own Royal Society membership.

  Bill was led down a passageway, past several heavy wooden doors. One of these was open, Bill peered inside and saw an earnest young man in a tweed jacket pouring over a stack of leather-bound books that were spread out on a table. Behind him were many mysterious-looking objects made from brass, wood and glass, a pair of enormous bellows, tiny silver boxes, manacles. Several crossbows of various design were hanging on the far wall.

  “You seem to have many artefacts here,” said Bill.

  “We have a number of objects from the past – some are weapons, some scientific equipment and some that were deemed ‘magical’. We are attempting to rediscover how they once functioned. With your unique history, you may be able to help us.”

  Bill nodded but knew he had no intention of helping. The Apostles had him held as a virtual prisoner and had taken away Arthur and Ophelia to God only knows what fate.

  They stopped beside a lift and when the doors opened, they stepped inside. It shuddered and clanked – being very old – as it moved to an upper floor. They came out into a corridor with coving and maroon wallpaper.

  “Your room is just down the landing to the left,” said Beryl leading the way.

Bill followed, with the policeman close behind. They stopped outside one of the many doors. Beryl unlocked it and motioned for Bill to go inside. He shuffled reluctantly forward into a darkened room. Beryl switched on the light and he could see that his new ‘home’ was a large square room with faded floral wallpaper. There was a four-poster bed, a dark wardrobe, and an old writing desk in the corner. A bunch of wilted flowers sat inside the grate of the fireplace. There was a door to his left and he wondered where it led. The room had a musty smell to it, like nobody had been in here for a while. Bill noticed the tall windows were crossed with thick iron bars.

  “Your journal is on the writing desk. You must study it and make sure you have every step of the re-birthing process memorised. Tomorrow is a big day, and nothing must go wrong.”

Bill saw his journal and was pleased he’d got it back. He’d left it on the back seat of Inspector Ferret’s police car, which had crashed not far from Brimstone Manor. In the rush to escape Lord Percy and his coven of female followers he’d forgotten all about it.

  “I’m not doing anything,” said Bill defiantly, “until you answer a few questions.”

  “It’s late. I insist you go to bed. You'll find flannel pyjamas in the wardrobe.”

  “Where’s Arthur’s family?”

  “Why should you care? They are nothing but Devil's Bane.”

  “My friend's lost his family and he’s devastated. He needs to see them, to know they are still alive. I have a great attachment to them myself.” He thought of Mrs Small and the acts of kindness she’s shown him – and his frustration grew.

  Beryl knotted her brow. “I want no more questions.”

  “What have you done with Arthur and Ophelia? They’d better not be harmed.”

  “Your little friends are safe – for the moment. Now you must rest.”

  “You obviously need me to make that damned cabinet work. What if I made sure it didn’t? Tell me where my friends are, or I may just do that.”

  Beryl became very angry. Her red lips pursed tightly and her eyes glared with a fiery zeal. “If you do anything to jeopardise what we are doing here then you'll never see your friends again. Now you're going to be quiet!”

She nodded at the policeman, who stepped forward and shoved Bill hard. He staggered back and almost tripped. When he’d recovered his balance, he saw Beryl and the policeman leaving, slamming the door behind them. There was a clicking sound. He rushed over, tried the handle and found that the door was locked.

  Bill looked around the room in desperation, trying to see if there was a way of escape. He went over to windows and had a good look at the iron bars bolted to the outside frame. He tried to open a window, but it wouldn’t move. He peered outside, to see how high he was, but saw nothing but an expanse of darkness and drizzling rain. Giving up on the windows, he went into the adjoining room. It was a small bathroom with an old bathtub. It’s high and tiny window was also barred and much too small for a person to fit through. Knowing escape was impossible, he went back into the other room at sat down at the writing desk.

  He opened his journal, turned to the page containing the long and complex chemical formula required to make the mix that will go into Feeder Jar Two. He saw the part that he'd crossed out and replaced by a subtle variation, done when he was at Doctor van Devlin's house. This was the crucial correction required – Bill had gone into the cabinet using the original formula and had come out 30 years younger. Hopefully, this new version would work perfectly – it had done on Ophelia. He turned to a section at the back called ‘Day Notes’ and gazed at his final entries, recognising his own scrawled spidery handwriting and pondering the vast span of time that had passed since he’d written these entries.

  He scanned the words at the top of the page and recalled the night a century ago when they were written. His Cabinet of Rebirth – the Scrinium Regenerationis – was finally ready for use. Lord Percy Valentine, his dear friend and patron, and his wife Rowena were to go inside and be cured. But when the Apostles found out that their leader and his wife were cursed by the strange and evil contamination, and that the Good Doctor had invented a contraption to allegedly purge them of this Satanic malady, they took drastic actions.

  Lord Percy was murdered by a shotgun blast in his chest, but because he was infected by the madness something happened to his body, a mysterious process little understood by science. His skin grew dark and shrivelled, his torso and limbs shrunk down and transformed by some unknown force into a small, black, web-winged creature with horns and pointed shout. It was shrivelled up, like a dried old prune and quite dead. This dragon-ceare creature was placed in a stone cask and taken to be stored with all the others, in the crypt of Conatus Chapel, where God would watch over the remains and keep them from re-wakening.

Bill took a deep breath and read the final entries in his journal, slowly and deliberately...

​

Fri 9th May 1873 – 1am. The Apostles marched into my laboratory like an angry mob. They told me such abominations as my cabinet and the drug pumped into veins should not be allowed to exist. It’s God’s role to judge and save, not man’s. I was told to get out of Underwood and never come back. I left them with a heavy heart as they smashed up my laboratory, wrecked the Scrinium Regenerationis, the summation of my life’s work, and went to rescue a frightened and wretched Rowena. I stole her away from them, to the Unicorn pub in the village, where I scribble this entry by candlelight in my room. We plan to catch the first stage to Middenmere.

​

Fri 9th May 1873 – 11am. Disaster of the most heinous nature has stuck us! I’m afraid poor sweet Rowena was consumed by her madness last night. She came into my room and attacked me. Now I am as she is, enslaved to this wretched malady. She was most upset and confused but I told her to go back to bed. We can still journey to my house in Middenmere and get the Vita Dantis we require.

I waited for her early this morning in the snug, but she failed to appear. When I went up, I found that she was gone. I saw her journal on the table and I am afraid to say I stole a look inside. She recorded how she planned to go off into Briar Wood at dawn and kill herself in the old underground mausoleum. Poor sweet girl! I took her journal for safekeeping.

My plan is to wait for the next stagecoach. So here I wait in my room, feeling the strange urges of this most wretched form of madness begin to take hold...

​

Fri 9th May 1873 – midday.

The stage is outside, but the Apostles are in the pub, searching for Rowena. If I am found and my infection discovered, then I am surely to be murdered...

I will hide my precious journal, repository of my life’s work, and Rowena’s diary under the bed. The Apostles may have them destroyed and I can’t allow that. When I get to Hill House, I will send a servant back to retrieve them.

 

Bill read these words with great sadness, thinking about his two friends. Rowena had been a dear sweet girl and a faithful wife to Percy. She should have been saved from the madness, not killed by its terrible burden. Lord Percy was once a fine man, Lord of Brimstone Manor and squire of Underwood. How terrible to have seen him only hours ago, transformed by the madness and Bestia Marcam into a foul leather-skinned creature with ferocious yellow eyes, pointed teeth and curled horns. How he wished he could have convinced Percy to come with him to Brimstone Manor, step inside his newly rebuilt cabinet and fulfil his promise from all those years ago, but Percy's mind was now warped by Arddhu Og.

  Bill picked up a fountain pen and made a new entry...

 

Fri 9th Nov 1972 – 11:30pm.

I write these words, dear diary, after one hundred years of sleep, rebirth and recollection. My life’s work, the Cabinet of Rebirth, has been rebuilt and is almost ready to be used on the highest in the land. But this is not a happy day. I once believed that science was the noblest of pursuits; that humanity’s advance out of the cave was based purely on its merits. But now I see that science is nothing more than a tool to be wielded by vain and capricious man for his own self-serving nature. The scientist is nought but a pawn in a game of power and control, and naivety is all that makes him think his work has worth for its own merits. I will henceforth find a new goal in life, one that is free from the servitude of others.

 

Bill put down the pen and yawned. It was time to go to bed. He had a fearful day ahead – with no idea what the Apostles had planned for him... or his friends.

*

Early next morning Bill was woken up by the sound of shuffling in his room. He sat up in bed and saw Mordred, Beryl’s imperious Butler-cum-chauffeur, coming towards him with a breakfast tray in his hands.

  “Good morning sir, I hope you slept well.”

  “Hello Mordred, can't say I did. Listen, before Beryl arrives, I need to ask a question.”

  “Very good sir.”

  “You don’t happen know where Arthur is?”

  “A very impertinent question sir that I am not at liberty to answer.”

  The butler placed the tray on the bedclothes, over Bill’s lap. It contained a boiled egg with toast soldiers, tea in a silver pot with teacup, saucer and jug of milk. There was also a bible.

  Bill was very hungry and before he realised what he was doing he found himself tucking into the food with relish.

  “Today is a very important day.”

  Bill looked up when he heard these words and saw Beryl standing at the foot of the bed, with a policeman behind her. Bill noticed that there was a holstered gun at the policemen’s hip.

  “Where's Ophelia?” he said.

  “I said no more questions.”

  “She’s cured, you have no business holding her here.”

  “The cabinet was only to be used on the Queen, you knew this. Her Majesty is the only person deemed important enough to go inside. What happens to the girl is not important.”

  “She's very important – to me.”

  “But I must say your little uncontrolled experiment has proved useful. She's a most interesting specimen.”

  “Do not hurt her!”

  “Relax darling. We've been running tests, taking samples. Nothing that won’t heal.”

  “If she’s harmed then I’ll never operate that stupid cabinet! The Queen will be cursed forever!”

  Beryl’s face flushed. “Do not goad us or you will regret it. Like I say, the girl is of no importance to us, but you would find yourself most distressed if she was… altered.”

  Bill was about to express his outrage but knew it was pointless. He could see that Beryl was deadly serious and knew without a doubt that if he didn't cooperate then Ophelia would suffer terribly.

  “What about Arthur? You don’t need to test him so why don’t you let him go?”

  “We want to convert your best friend to our way of thinking, but he is not very cooperative, even using persuasive methods. The stupid boy thinks he owns you some sort of loyalty.”

  Bill was very angry but knew he couldn't do anything. As long as they were being held hostage, he knew he was trapped and had to do exactly what they wanted him to do. He picked up the teapot, poured tea into the china cup and noticed his hand was trembling badly.

  "I shall leave you now you understand the situation. Finish your breakfast and come down, but do not forget your journal. You are to help prepare the cabinet but will be asked questions. Today we are to be visited by our very special guest!"

  Beryl turned and walked out of the room. Mordred followed, leaving the policeman standing over him. Bill continued to eat his egg and drink his tea, occasionally glancing up at the policeman, whose glaring face made him feel very uncomfortable. As soon as breakfast was finished Bill went into the bathroom, changed out of his pyjamas and got dressed. He came back into the room and saw the policeman's beady eye fixed on him. He put on his thick black glasses, took his journal from the writing desk and allowed himself to be handcuffed again.

He was led out of the room, along a corridor and down a long wooden staircase that came out into a panelled hallway filled with many curiosities in display cabinets – stuffed bats, owls, thumb screws, wands and carved pentagrams on wooden ouija boards. Bill wondered what this place was and why it was filled with so many strange and arcane objects.

  He was escorted along another corridor and through a door into a spacious room with faded floral wallpaper and ornate white coving. There was a set of French windows at the far side, through which he could see a well-clipped lawn in front of a high wall topped with razor-wire. Despite his better judgement, Bill found the contents of the room very intriguing. There were a number of heavy wooden benches filled with laboratory equipment. Many jars of chemicals were lined up in racks and each one was carefully labelled. At the far side of the room stood his Scrinium Regenerationis – the Cabinet of Rebirth – and beside it was the two wooden crates that contained Feeder Jar One and Feeder Jar Two, now unpacked and standing on the floor. Bill also counted eight men and women in white lab coats working diligently amongst the equipment. It was like his laboratory at Brimstone Manor, but on a much larger scale.

  He saw an older man with an untidy beard who was pacing up and down with his hands behind his back. The man had wildly chaotic hair, a bow tie and tweed jacket and took occasional but very thoughtful puffs of his pipe. He noticed Bill, grunted his approval and came over to greet him.

  “Doctor William Whitebeam, truly a great honour,” he said, moving to shake Bill’s hand but noticing the handcuffs.      “Get these things off him at once,” he said to the policeman, “he’s our distinguished guest.”

  The policeman grumbled as he took off the handcuffs, then went off into a corner and sat on a chair.

  “I call myself Bill now, Bill Blackthorne.”

  “My name is Professor Pandora,” added the man with a grin, “and I am the lead occult archaeologist. I must say this is a very exciting time for us here at Trident House. We have many old and mysterious artefacts but none as complex or intriguing as your Cabinet of Rebirth. And certainly, no Victorian artefact, if you don’t mind me saying, that is an actual living person!”

  “Sir I'm not a specimen in a jar. Why am I here when you have more equipment and people than I ever did?”

“Around eighteen months ago, we were tasked with finding a cure. Your journal has been one of our artefacts for many years. We studied it with great interest, but our scientists couldn't understand the exact chemical mix required for Feeder Jar Two. We eventually decided that the only way to complete the project was to recruit the scientist who did the original work – you.”

“So that's why I was brought back?”

  “The man who so palpably failed to crack your journal is Doctor Duncan. And here he comes now.”

  A tall man with longish grey hair, centre-parted, came over and studied Bill with a beady eye. “Beryl told us you did some adjustments when you used it last on your friend Ophelia,” he said without introducing himself.

  “Is she okay?” said Bill.

  “As well as can be expected. She seems to have a normal metabolism.”

  “Can you take me to see her?”

  “Pay attention to what I am saying!” snapped the doctor. “‘More magnesium ions’ were your exact words. I need to know that exact quantity.” The man stopped talking and leant forward to listen to Bill's answer.

  Bill felt coerced and trapped and was very reluctant to cooperate. But he was also excited to see his work revived and that other scientists were taking an interest. If these people were told how his cabinet worked then maybe more would be built and everyone would be cured. Bill opened his journal, pointed to a page containing obtuse mathematic formulae and explained why there was an error in the calculation.  He pointed out the part he had scribbled out and its subtle correction written underneath. “A two per cent increase in magnesium ions would delay the reaction by just enough time for perfect transformation.”

  Doctor Duncan's eyes lit up and he smiled. “Of course! I see it now. We must get to work immediately. Feeder Jar Two’s mix must be prepared.”

  Bill was taken over to one of the tables and introduced to a frizzy-haired young scientist called Rich. The table was full of chemicals in jars and Bill began mixing these with Rich's help, taking great care with the more explosive ones. All the time Doctor Duncan watched over them, an imperious presence, taking careful notes. After a short while, Doctor Duncan was called away and Rich's face changed from one of serious concentration to a friendly interest in his lab partner.

  “I can't believe I'm meeting you at last,” he said. “William Whitebeam, the William Whitebeam.”

  Bill gave him an uncomprehending look.

  “I mean,” he continued, “we've been studying that journal of yours for months and it is some piece of work, like Leonardo's notebooks. I mean, some of those formulas! They veer off on some crazy tangents. How did you think it up?”

  “Well, I did have to make some mathematical leaps of faith.”

  “When we heard you were rebuilding your cabinet at Brimstone Manor, we were keen to get over there and see what you were doing. But Beryl forbade us, said she wanted you to do it all alone, unsullied by our input. So, all we did was get your supplies.”

  Bill could see that Rich was a young man who was very talkative and excitable. Maybe he could use this to get some information. “So that's how Mordred acquired all the raw materials?”

  “Yeah, he came to us. But that cabinet is so amazing. How the hell you managed to implement theoretical mathematics using clunky old brass pipes and gas, I'll never know. Imagine what you could do with modern technology.”

  Bill couldn't help but smile at Rich's boyish enthusiasm. “I don't have all the answers. Seeing someone come back from the dead, from a dried-up little dragon-ceare is still a mystery. It like magic really.”

  “I don't buy into the idea of magic at all. Here we are beating the madness with science. I don't go in for all that hokey-pokey unexplained stuff, all those books of incantations and mind control. Anyway, welcome to the team.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  “It's pretty cool. Our work is very hush-hush.”

  “Do you know the place well?”

  “Some parts, but it’s like a rabbit warren full of old junk.”

  Bill paused, wondering how best to phrase his next question. “Do you have any idea where they're holding my two friends?”

  Rich was rambling on and not really listening to Bill. “But I must admit I’m a bit puzzled by some of the things that go on. There's a small factory in one of the outbuildings where they make huge quantities of Vita Dantis. Not good stuff, more industrial if you like.  Every few days a van comes and ships it off.”

Vita Dantis is a clear liquid that when injected into the vein using something called a Hex Box, stops the lust to spill blood and silences the voice of Og. It can help people suffering from the curse to lead a normal life, help them to hide in the shadows of normal society, but over time this mysterious concoction of chemicals wracks the body with frailty, depression and arthritis.

  “Where does it go?”

  “To some secret place. Judging by the amount that's made, there must be hundreds of people there, maybe thousands. But I've seen the quality of that Vita Dantis and I'd hate to think what it's doing to those poor cursed wretches. Wherever this place is it must look like some massive freak show.”

Bill thought of Arthur's family. This must be where they’d been taken. He wondered if this young lad knew more.

Doctor Duncan appeared, and Rich immediately turned his attention back to the chemical jars. The Doctor pulled out his notebook and watched Bill and Rich with narrowed eyes, taking careful notes as his quizzed Bill on what he was doing.

  The day passed slowly, with Bill spending most of his time being questioned on the scientific methods described in his journal. Mordred brought in lunch on a waitress trolley, still in his grey butler uniform now but wearing a flowered pinafore. In the afternoon, Feeder Jar One and Feeder Jar Two were carefully connected to the Cabinet and its brass door was given a final polish by Mordred, until it gleamed brightly.

  Bill tried to ask Rich about the mysterious place he’d been talking about, but Rich was taken off to work somewhere else and Bill was forced to go through his formula one more time with Doctor Duncan, as final verification.

*

Outside and beyond the wall that surrounded Trident House stood a wide expanse of well-tended grass dotted with tennis courts, greenhouses, a lido and fountains. This was Hanging Heath park. The sun was going down and the darkening sky was filled with high clouds that glowed with a warm pink light. From out of the shadows there moved the strange figure of a young woman dressed all in white. She was riding a sleek black horse that galloped at a phenomenal pace. The purity of colour on her long dress was so intense that perception of its design was almost impossible. She was around twenty years old with flowing white hair and would have been pretty, but Bestia Marcam made her gimlet eyes red-rimmed and yellow and she’d grown a pair of curled horns on her forehead. He skin was leathery and white, threaded with tiny red veins, and a faint halo of light shone all around her. There was something ethereal and ghost-like about her, like she wasn’t really there.

  She got to the wall that surrounded Trident House and pulled on the reins, bringing the horse to quick a standstill. She jumped off and approached a thick wooden door in the wall. She grabbed the heavy metal doorknob in her delicate white hand and pushed with enormous strength. The door gave way with a loud crack as the lock was ripped away from the frame. She stepped through and into the grounds of Trident House.

  A security guard was over in a shed, busy smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper, but his Alsatian dog was outside and spotted the young woman in white straight away. It bounded towards her, growling viciously, showing pointed teeth. The girl looked at the dog and muttered a Dormientes incantation. The dog stopped running and collapsed onto the floor. Its tongue flopped out of its mouth and it began twitching its hind leg and whining, sounding like it was in some considerable pain.

  The glowing white figure stepped over the dog and quickly made her way towards a side entrance into Trident House. She went through the door and walked along a narrow corridor. The young scientist called Rich, who'd been working all day with Bill, turned a corner and without realising it walked straight into her. She was taller than he was, and he looked up into her pale face with some surprise. He had never suffered the madness, so couldn’t see the Bestia Marcam – her horns, halo or ferocious yellow eyes – he could see a pretty but somehow disturbing young woman’s features. Something about the intense way she stared filled him with gut-wrenching terror.

  “Who... Who are you?” he stammered.

  The girl’s eyes fluttered as she mumbled a strange curse under her breath. Before Rich knew what was happening, she’d wrapped her thin pale arms around him, pulled him close and kissed him so that her teeth sunk into his lips.   Blood trickled out and she licked it delicately. Rich fell to the floor unconscious. The figure stepped over him and continued down the corridor, without looking back.

  A minute later Rich woke up and felt stranger than he’d ever felt. He quickly realised that his mind was under the iron grip of some other, alien will. How could this be? It was a very scary feeling. He heard a whispering voice deep inside his head.

  Well aren't you a clever little fellow. You'll help me do what I a-comes here for.

  “Who's there?” he said, confused and scared.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, thought he was going insane. He'd just heard the sinister voice of Arddhu Og, now living deep inside his mind. This meant only one thing – that he'd be her slave forever.