The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy

It was not for nothing that Cheeta had sat at the end of his bed hour after hour, while he raved or whispered in his fever. Over and over again she heard the same names repeated; the same scenes enacted. She knew to the last inch whom he loathed and whom he loved. She knew almost as though it were a map before her eyes, the winding core of Gormenghast. She knew who had died. She knew who were still alive. She knew of those who had stood by Gormenghast. She knew of an Abdicator.

Let him have his surprise. His golden treat. His fantastic party for which no expense was enough. This will be a ‘Farewell’ never to be forgotten.

Cheeta had whispered … ‘It will burn like a torch in the night. The forest will recoil at the sound of it.’

At a weak moment, all in the heat of it, when his brain and senses contradicted one another, and a gap appeared in his armour, he had said, ‘Yes.’

‘Yes,’ that he would agree to it … the idea of going to an unknown district, blindfolded, for the sake of the secret.

And now he was aloft in the evening air, sailing he knew not where, to his Farewell party. Had his eyes been free of the silk scarf he would have seen that he was supported in mid-air by a beautiful white balloon like a giant whale, tinted in the light.

Above the balloon, high up in the sky, were flocks of aircraft of all colours, shapes and sizes.

Below him, flying in formation, were craft like golden darts, and far, far below these, he would have seen, in the north, a great tract of shimmering marshland reaching away to the horizon.

To the south in the forest land he would have caught sight of smoke from the bonfire which gave them their direction.

But he could see nothing of all this – nothing of the play of light upon the silky marshes nor how the shadows of the various aircraft cruised slowly over the tree-tops.

Nor could he see his companion. She sat there, a few feet out of his reach, very upright, tiny and supremely efficient, her hands on the controls.

The workmen were gone from the scene. They had toiled like slaves. Rough country had been cleared for the helicopters, and all types of aircraft to land. The heavy carts were filled with weary men.

The great crater of the Black House that had until recently yawned to the moon was now filled with something other than its mood. Its emptiness gone, it listened as though it had the power of hearing.

There had, in all conscience, been enough to hear. For the last week or more, the forest had echoed to the sound of hammering, sawing and the shouts of foresters.

Close enough to observe without being seen, yet far enough in danger’s name, the scores of small forest animals, squirrels, badgers, mice, shrews, weasels, foxes and birds of every feather, their tribal feuds forgotten, sat silent, their eyes following every movement, their ears pricked. Little knowing that between them they were forming a scattered circle of flesh and blood, they drew their breath into their lungs and stared at the shell of the Black House. The shell and the strange things that filled it.

As the hours passed, this living circumference grew in depth, until the time came when a day of silence settled down upon the district, and in this silence could be heard the breathing of the fauna like the sound of the sea.

Mystified by the silence (for the day had come for the workmen to leave, and the socialites had not yet arrived), they stared (these scores of eyes) at the Black House, which now presented to the world a face so unlikely that it was a long time before the animals and the birds broke silence.

NINETY-SEVEN

Casting their wicked shadows, two wild cats broke free at last from the trance that had descended upon the scores of spellbound creatures, and with almost unbelievable stealth crept forward cheek to cheek.

Watched by silent miscellaneous hordes, they slid their feline way from the listening forest and came at last to the northern wall of the Black House.

For a long time they stayed there, sitting upright, hidden by a wealth of ferns, only their heads showing. It seemed they ran on oil, those loveless heads, so fluidly they turned from side to side.

At last they jumped together as though from a mutual impulse, and found themselves on a broad moss-covered ledge. They had made this jump many times before but not until now had they looked down from their old vantage point upon so unbelievable a metamorphosis.

Everything was changed and yet nothing had changed. For a moment their eyes met. It was a glance of such exquisite subtlety that a shudder of chill pleasure ran down their spines.

The change was entire. Nothing was as it was before. There was a throne where once was a mound of green masonry. There were old crusty suits of armour hanging on the walls. There were lanterns and great carpets and tables knee-deep in hemlock. There was no end to the change.

And yet it was the same in so far as the mood swamped everything. A mood of unutterable desolation that no amount of change could alter.