In the Realm of all that is Black

[ILLYRIAN]

Going into the Black


Leaving the hole in the ground that was Sunnydale on the bus for school-children for those who had fought in the battle, they traveled to a place some several hours before they stopped at a gas station. The intention there was to top up the bus, and themselves.

As Giles said they had no idea where or how far they needed to go. “Is there a house not to far from here where we could have a rest?” he asked. The owner of the gas station nodded his head, he said of a big old house that had its design based like an English stately manor.

“Go straight along the road then take the first turn left then it is four miles along the road.” The gas station owner directed Giles towards the stations telephone and gave him a business card. “Give them a ring to let them know you are on the way else they will padlock the gate.”

Giles looked to him as if to wonder why they should close the gate. The gas station owner looked to Giles, “They do not stop at the house, they live a quiet existence in the town a few miles further from the junction.”

Arriving at the house Giles was shocked by its size it looks like a classic Gothic building, he got out of the bus and went into the house. The hall is truly massive, a woman wandered towards Giles, “We spoke on the phone,

my husband and I run the house though I don’t expect you will have discovered the layout of the whole house. If you want to we can investigate it tomorrow. We need to lock the gates at night to stop any locals from trying to get in.”

Faith laughed at what they were told, “I thought you locked the gates so no other occupiers of the house could escape.” The woman caretaker asked Faith to repeat herself, “I take it you have little knowledge of ghosts,

if you had more you would know better than to say the ghosts of the house could never leave the house if I padlocked the gates.” Faith looked to Giles, “The caretaker is right, the ghost might be held to the house in which case it could not leave.

Should the ghost not be bound not to leave the house then putting a padlock on a Wrought Iron gate would not stop a ghost, for arguments sake a ghost could escape the house in any of the other directions,” said Giles.

“Has anyone found out how many ghosts and are and of what belief they are?” asked Willow. The caretaker looked at the watch on her wrist. “There is a meal already prepared on the kitchen table, it just needs heating.

You can use either the gas cooker or the microwave oven. Also here is the phone number to ring if you have an emergency,” said the caretaker. Buffy watched the caretaker drive her car to the gates, she locks the padlock then leaves for the night.

Stood in the doorway Buffy, Faith and Giles wondered why the caretaker had stopped to lock the gates. “It does seem a bit stupid unless the padlock has some mystical elements either that or it is the joining of the gates that are mystical,” stated Giles.

Going back through the hall Rhonda said a few of them had started to make the evenings meal Giles looked about he told Faith he didn’t remember seeing Woods about. They went out to the bus and found Woods was still sat in a seat,

together they moved his body from the bus into a wheel barrow then to the gardeners work area where it wouldn’t get seen. The members of and the friends of those members in the Scooby club had a relatively quiet night,

apart from the noises that echoed through the house. Buffy said the sounds were nothing to concern themselves about though Willow took great delight in telling Kennedy about the spirits that could cause people so much fear just by mention of a few words.

Willow told everyone to look at the mural in the hall and read what was written on the bottom of the frame. The featured person of the painting was a forty three year old man named Mordred who had managed to upset a very powerful witch a few days after the sitting.

The witch threw Mordred down into a hole in the depths of the basement. What the witch didn’t know was the hole contained the remnants of a devil worshippers body, a cause for evil to live in the house. Once though it had been the pleasing home of a coven of freedom loving witches,

though one of them told the magistrates about the witches of a coven of devil worshippers. The black witch discovered that friends of the local magistrate had laid a curse on her. That many of the town’s spiritual leaders of the churches

from the various denominations had passed a message to a distant Warlock who was renowned for his evil intentions. Any mention of a person who was a Warlock was often enough to scare those with historical knowledge of witchcraft,

after the meal had been presented and eaten they gathered to watch the programs on the television. Willow was a bit bored and searched the library for a book to read. She had read the book titles along two shelves,

then looking to Giles if there was an explanation of how a lights in one of the front rooms of the castle, in the painting above the fireplace had just been turned on, Giles looked at the painting and grunted.

“I cannot say for certain what the reason for that is, but the reasons I have heard are, a warlock is trapped in a room of the painting,” said Giles. Willow began to accept his reason then asked how a Warlock could have been trapped in the painting.

“A witch may have seduced him to venture into the room. A picture of the Warlocks mate might have been displayed at the window of a room, then when the Warlock entered the room the trap was sprung and the room set on fire although why the room is seemingly on fire now is beyond me,” said Giles.

To Be Continued

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Following Into the Realm of the Burnt Window

The group wandered through the entrance hall then up the stairs at the end of the hall. Going to the top it was Rona who first noticed that there was a passage behind them even though they had just walked up a flight of stairs. Turning to the left there was a passage, Faith looked to Willow who had begun to fixate her gaze on the ornate wrought ironwork on the wall.

Rona asked Willow what language it was, she didn’t recognize it. Willow smiled to Rona, “That depends on what languages you think it might be?” Rona looked at the ironwork, “I thought it was some type of Latin,” said Rona. Willow looked at how it was etched on the plastered wall in between each door, “It is of a Northern Germanic descent,” said Willow.

“So can you tell me what it means?” asked Rona. Willow pointed along the corridor from where they were at the top of the stairs.” “When I’ve seen the end,” said Willow. Giles led them along the passage all the while Faith and Willow looked at the wrought iron etchings, Rona began to read aloud what the etchings meant. She deciphered that the meaning began to describe the reason for the rooftop chapel.

The initial plans for the construction of the chapel was taken from the church at Lindisfarne. When the plans for the main building were that of a normal house that was multiplied six times then doubled in height so that the battlements and the chapel could be built on top. Willow found that Kennedy’s knowledge of large English stately homes could be beneficial.

Kennedy told Willow why buildings like castles or manor houses had originally been built with dungeons initially created instead of wine cellars. Continuing to search throughout the basement they found that manacles had been fixed to the walls. Kennedy lifted several small flagstones and found parts of many skeletons littered in the ground under the flagstones.

Kennedy told her friends that those workers who the owners had begun to dislike were imprisoned in the lower bounds of the house. Broken construction tools were found littered amongst the bones in an area that showed where skeletons showed that people had also been manacled to the floor.

Feeling her being was becoming distraught she left the dungeons to go up into one of the rooms that lead from the entrance hall was the library, in a wooden section next to the fireplace was a ledger. It listed the number of people who had been employed in the building the house though no mention could be found about the date the house was finished or when the people who did the work had gone.

Giles and Buffy offered Willow the help she needed to lead a group into the library, as Willow went into the room with Buffy she noticed Buffy move a carving on the stone wall above the mantle over fireplace. As two sections of the bookshelf opened inwards, not knowing what they would see they were surprised to see nothing.

Willow beckoned Buffy to her side, it had just occurred to her about the room that appeared to be alight. Willow pointed into the abyss behind the bookshelf, “Was that where the being was?” Buffy had no answer for her. Giles interrupted them and asked Willow to go with Faith and Rona with half of the group up to the next floor and the attic.

Faith was almost as inquisitive Rona and Willow as to what lay beyond the next passages. They didn’t have long to wait as Dawn almost ran along the passages, at the passages end Willow enquired about the mirror the size of the wall. She asked if there was a space between this wall and the mirror at the top of the stairs?

“It would make sense, considering the rooms between this passage and the one we started from. Rona faced the mirror and concentrated on what the reflection was, after half an hour she called the others to be beside her, when they were she several of them step back. “If you look at the floor by my foot your see the carpets pattern.

Faith and Willow tried to see what Rona meant without much success. The pattern on the carpet was of a windmill, it showed the circular stairway. “So which way do we go?” asked Rona. Dawn looked to her as puzzled as she was. “Giles asked us to go to the attic not the basement, so I think I should press my foot at the base of the windmill.”

Faith looked at the top of the windmill. “Like you say Rona, pressing your foot at the base might infer we wish to go up the windmill,” said Faith. As Rona pressed a portion of the carpet at the bottom step of the windmill a panel in the wall opened next to the mirror, going into the opening Faith saw a spiral staircase then looking up saw darkness.

Faith decided to start going up, as she put a foot on the fifth step the shaft above them lit up, Rona said there was a doorway about ten foot above Faith stepped up and an trap door at the top of the spiral staircase appeared. It was agreed that they would go into the passage, Dawn led the way into the first room, she could see out over the front.

At the end of the passage they turned to the back of the house in front of them were a flight of step that took them up a floor. Which at the end of the passage led them into the attic though the ceiling was level in the central part of the attic. Faith and Willow investigated what was above the flat of the ceiling, it was expected yet they were surprised.

The chapel’s windows allowed cool air to flow onto the pews, Willow pondered why the pictures on the chapels windows all seemed to be of animals that lived in the earth. Dawn gathered several of the group. They went back to the spiral staircase then went up but entered the floor below the chapel; in each room were picture of burrowing animals.

Back together as a group they went down to the library where Giles was unable to take his gaze from what was in a book he was reading. The book spoke of a room that was a magnet for Warlocks, that the room would be engulfed with flames to kill the Warlock, though the room itself was never consumed or damaged by the ravages of the flames.

Willow, Faith, Dawn and Buffy searched for the manuscripts that held the secrets of the room.


To Be Continued

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Flowing From the Realm of the Great Beyond

Buffy chose a book from the shelf titled Ravaged by Flames, she looked at Giles who faced Willow. According to the detailed blurb on the back cover of the book it depicted the manner a warlock could be trapped within a room. It stated the only way a warlock could escape the prison, an incantation that was a recital by a witch as she held the metallic artifact on the altar.

As soon as the recital of the incantation had been effectively spoken the stone wall behind the fireplace started to slide open and a way was presented to search for an answer why the Warlock had been imprisoned in one of the front rooms. Dawn asked Giles who of the four of them should go into the realm of the dead to speak to the Angelic Slayer of Death.

Giles thought who of them would bring what into the messaging with the slayer of Death she who the slayers of the living knew as a friend. Willow could understand the magical lamentations from the zone of the dead while Dawn would be able to furnish the living with an understanding of what was.

“I think the three of you should go with Buffy Dawn, of course may you find the truth of what the Angelic Slayer of Death does in all reality mean.” Giles spoke loudly to the fireplace, “My friends Faith, Dawn, Willow and Buffy wish to understand why the Warlock is held within your walls and want to understand the all,” said Giles.

The central part of the fireplace opened, Giles asked that the girls enter the fireplace. Not knowing where they were or which way they were going as the passages were covered in sheets of cloud that seemed to front them whichever way they went. As they reached the downward flight of the staircase the air in front of them cleared.

After seeing into the rooms Willow recognised the sight that was out-side the painting, she told those with her that they were getting near to the room where the Warlock and the fire was seen. Buffy asked Willow what she would do to stop the Warlock. Willow shook her head, “I really am not sure,” replied Willow.

She heard a voice over her left shoulder telling her to listen, carefully Willow questioned who it was that was speaking to her. “I am two, though I speak to you as the Angelic I can also appear as Slayer.” Willow wondered what she meant could it be that she was one of two people. “What?” asked Willow.

“If you do me a favour I’ll do you a favour,” said Angelic. Willow was curious turning quickly Willow was stunned that no one was there. “What are you looking for?” asked Dawn. “The Angelic one of Slayer was here though I did not realise that she was two before,” said Willow. Faith held Buffy by the elbow, “Can you feel that?”

Buffy slowly nodded in agreement with Faith, “It is as though I felt the Warlock’s spirit leave this place,” she looked in amazement to Faith. Faith faced Willow, “I don’t understand.” She watched as Willow wandered away from them until she walked opened a secret panel in the wall. Willow saw a ghostly figure in white appear at the end of the passage.

“Who are you?” asked Willow. “I am the one known as Slayer.” Willow heard a voice behind her, “I am the one known as Angelic. As behind you I am in front of you.” Willow began to understand that the Angelic and the Slayer were two elements of the same person, she walked from the secret panel and smiled to Dawn.


THE END

My thanks to the author whose work I based the final part on, Oscar Wilde for his tale The Canterville Ghost, the Patrick Stewart and Neve Campbell version.

And

Also for the life and death of Lady Margaret Pomeroy who was imprisoned in the dungeons of Berry Pomeroy castle near Totnes, South Devon, UK. Her sister who had imprisoned her stopped feeding her. The story is that the spirit of Lady Margaret had been seen in the garden of the castle then after her death both her ghost and her doppelganger could be seen and sometimes next to the other of her.

I know that for a fact as I have been there. I used to live 3.5 miles from there and was married in the Collaton St. Mary Church, 2 miles from the castle.