Selected Stories Read online

  Biography

  Eddy (or Eddie) C. Bertin (1944-) lives in Flanders and is a leading Belgian SF and horror writer. He has published over 500 stories, over fifty in English, some Lovecraftian horror, some science fiction. He started writing at age thirteen, in Dutch, and published twenty-five books for adults between 1970 and 1986 in the Netherlands; he then switched to writing for children and young adults, and has published sixteen more books since 1986. He has in the past published poetry, translations, and 140 issues of his own SF Guide over eighteen years. He has written an SF future history trilogy that has not been published in English.

  Most European countries have at least a few long-time science fiction writers, who have been producing fiction for decades. They are not always highly regarded internationally, but they have kept the international SF movement alive for its own sake for decades, in spite of the waves of literary fashion. Often they travel to meet other SF people at their own expense in other countries, and publish small press magazines to keep their own culture informed. Bertin is a distinguished representative of these men from the 1960s and the present.

  Contents

  Darkness, My Name Is (1976)

  My Beautiful Darkling (1979)

  I Wonder What He Wanted… (1970)

  A Taste of Rain and Darkness (1970)

  A Pentagram for Cenaide (1975)

  Something Ending (1973)

  The Taste of Your Love (1971)

  The Way Back Home (1979)

  My Eyes, They Burn! (1972)

  The Whispering Thing (1969)

  The Man Who Collected Eyes (1970)

  The Ashley Premiere (1970)

  (Version 4.0)

  ***

  Darkness, My Name Is

  Irgendwo, aufeinem einsamen Platz

  Wo Sie niemals hleiben wollten

  Irgendwann, in diesen leeren Raum

  Werden Sie einen Weg finden

  Das Pfad im Dunkeln.

  —from the rewritten version of Von denen Verdammten, oder: Eine Ver- band-lung iiber die unheimlichen Kulten der Alien by Edith Brendall, 1907, based on the original and suppressed, untitled book by Kazaj Heinz Vogel.

  Prologue: Liyuhh

  Please be so kind to forgive my boldness; I know it’s very unusual to walk up to a nice-looking young woman and simply start talking to her, without any kind of introduction. There’s no need to be frightened, of course, nothing could happen to you here in this crowded little restaurant in the heart of Hamburg. I won’t tell you my name yet, because that hardly matters, and there’s no need to tell me your name because that doesn’t matter either at the moment. But I’m glad you accepted my invitation for a drink, even if that was only the result of feminine curiosity. Be assured that I will satisfy your curiosity. You see, I asked you here to show you a book and some pictures. Oh no, please stay! It isn’t what you think, it really isn’t! Do I look like an exhibitionist trying to sell obscene photographs, or like someone trying to interest you in a world’s encyclopedia? So please remain, bitte sehr, Fräulein, and take these five photographs. They’re only pictures of five statuettes.

  You recognize them, I see. Maybe you don’t understand yet why or how, because you probably have never seen them in reality, maybe even have never heard of them, and yet you know you know them. Das stimmt, nicht wahr? These five images are called the Vaeyen They appear also in this book here. It is only a xerox copy, an almost unknown old German translation titled Liyuhh, and in it are sketches of five statuettes, there called Feiaden, and no doubt you’ll agree that they are identical. You know what they are, my dear, there’s no need to hide it now, and you also know what they are used for. Be assured, I’m no enemy, but I had to be sure that you were indeed what I thought you were. I felt the affinity between us as soon as I spotted you in that warehouse, and walked up to you. You must have known too then, else you wouldn’t have followed me. Now please listen to the story I must tell you first, so that you may understand everything. Do not interrupt me; I am sure that the story will answer all questions you may have in your mind. So listen...

  I. Cyäegha

  Where the dark is blacker than black and a color of its own, where nothing is something, and the dark is yet clearer than light, It was. It had always been there; It thought at those times when It was able to think at all, those short periods of consciousness between eternally seeming periods of what could only be sleep or nonexistence, and maybe It died each time and was reborn, if It could die at all, which It didn’t know either. Then It tried to think of Itself, and It knew that It had a name, which was Cyäegha, which told It nothing about Itself except that It did exist. It just was, it couldn’t be touched in Its somewhere place which was nowhere, but neither could It touch other things.

  It could be called evil, if evil would have had a rational meaning to Its existence, which it hadn’t. Rather Cyäegha was something beyond the man-made laws of good and evil, a natural force, or a natural happening like a wood-fire or a tornado, or a storm, or just plain death, something to which no artificial laws apply.

  Sometimes during those scarce moments when It was allowed to think, or maybe allowed Itself to think, because It didn’t know if the sleep-death periods were or weren’t created by Itself, It tried to remember more than Its name. Then there came sights of millennia of blue ice and then of fire-spitting volcanoes, warts on the face of the Earth, and it all seemed so utterly stupid and unimportant to Cyäegha that it revolted It, so It went back to death and slumber. Time had no real meaning either, it was just something which went by unnoticed, utterly unimportant to something such as Cyäegha, trapped in Its maybe self-made prison and only by Its mind in contact with the outer reality. And at those times when It was awake, fully awake, It hated, as only something can hate which is beyond good or evil. Its whole consciousness became that hate, because that was the only thing It could do. It saw with eyes that were not eyes, and It heard with ears that were not ears, and It thought with Its whole being because It didn’t possess such primitive organs as brains either. Silently It hated.

  Through the aeons some of Its alien dreams touched men and drove them gibbering mad. Some were more strongly protected and just felt the outer touches of Its dreams, and tried to interpret them consciously in essays, or used them unconsciously in weird stories. Some authors wrote them down as stories, knowing that the world would never accept such an utterly alien reality. Of course they too were considered as insane, as those who really had been driven mad by Its dreams. None had the knowledge and the possibilities to search for other clues. Because Its name had already been written down long ago, or other names which they thought were Its, carved on limestone tablets; and Its shape had been painted on the walls of subterranean caves, still waiting to be opened. But Its shape was not real and constantly changed, and later they wrote about It with trembling fingers on ancient scrolls, and still later on parchments, and all were burned when they were discovered. And when some dared to print Its name, the writers and printers were burned together with their books. But some always survived, some always stayed sane or at least partly, and interpreted Its dreams. Some prayed to It, offering It still warm, beating hearts torn out of the bleeding chests of sacrificial victims, and still others cursed It in many languages, but It couldn’t care less. It didn’t hate them more or less for what they did. It hated them all with Its whole being.

  And sometimes Cyäegha dreamed too, dreamed of the others, just like Itself, and yet so different, as ancient as Itself and as hidden as Itself, by aeons of nameless terror. And It wondered where they were.

  In hiding, or chained, as Itself? Waiting... always waiting.

  Hating... always hating.

  II. Freihausgarten

  Herbert Ramon watched the train
leave. Slowly moving, it crept snail-like along its rust-eaten rails, groaning as an old tired animal The locomotive seemed as ancient as the small station where he had stepped from the train. There was a last sniffling note, a tired cough, before the wheels finally disappeared from Herbert’s sight, the last sign of whatever passed for civilization in this place in the Frankische Jura Mountains.

  A pity, he thought, that the train couldn’t transport him straight into Freihausgarten, the village which was his final destination. But Freihausgarten lay at the end of a small valley, encircled by mountains that opened only at the place where the station was, and when they had put the railway here it had been more practical to let the rails continue past the valley. The village wasn’t that remote; nothing was really undiscovered in this era of airplanes and international tourism. Freihausgarten could be found on some of the more detailed maps of this part of Germany, but it hadn’t really been touched by civilization because it was just too unimportant to bother with, and too difficult to reach to make it “an undiscovered sunny spot for your holidays” in the advertisements of the travel agencies.

  Herbert stood alone on the platform, covered with dust and sweating under the hot, burning sun. Slowly he fished a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped the sweat out of his eyes and from his neck. He looked in vain for a porter, and finally bent down cursing, picking up his two heavy traveling bags himself. He carried them outside the station. There was no gate at the end of the platform, and no one asked for his ticket. There was an old man, probably the station chief, sitting on a rocking chair that had known better times.

  “Guten Tag" Herbert said, but the man didn’t answer his greeting. He continued to move slowly backward and forward like an eternally swinging pendulum, pretending not to notice Herbert, though his eyes followed him. Outside the station there were no taxis. Well, yes, there was one, though Herbert had his doubts if this thing could still qualify for the title of “taxi.”

  The car possessed the same characteristic as the station: old age. There was no glass in the windows, and dust was driven straight into Herbert’s face during the fortunately short drive to Freihaus- garten. The dust seemed to be everywhere, on his clothes and face, in his eyes and mouth and nostrils. The car was shaking uncomfortably and irregularly, and Herbert didn’t know if it were due to the car's condition or to the bad road, or probably to a combination of both; and words weren’t invented yet to describe the sounds the engine made. After only about twenty minutes, however, Herbert was delivered, still in one piece, on the doorsteps of the only hotel Freihausgarten seemed to possess. The village was nothing to fall in love with at first sight: a seemingly completely irrational conglomeration of old houses, disturbed in their growth by one long, stoneless street.

  Saying that he disliked the hotel was another understatement. The place was shabby and ancient, completely in order with the general appearance of the village. Part of the hotel’s roof was slightly tilted forward toward the entrance, giving the impression that the whole roof was ready to come down and bury the unfortunate visitor. Looking up, Herbert noticed that there was only one other story, and two of its windows were broken. They had been covered with old weather-stained newspapers, mostly flapping loose now.

  He had a short, unsettling impression of deja vu, as if he had already seen all this before, or else had expected it to be this way. He shrugged the uncomfortable feeling off.

  The wood of the walls was dry, and crumbled as he touched it, leaving a dark stain on his fingers. The whole building spoke of age and careless decay, but there was no other choice.

  Well, so much for the tourist attraction of Freihausgarten, Herbert thought, but then, I didn’t come here on vacation.

  He paid the driver and went inside, carrying his two bags. There was no one at the registration desk, which was as old and covered with dust as the rest of the shabby room. The keys on the wall behind told him immediately that he would be the only guest. There was no bell to ring for attention either. Herbert put down his bags and banged his fist on the desk.

  “Bien, bien, I’m coming, all right!” a voice barked from somewhere above. “Be with you in a moment!” Shortly afterward the hotel keeper came down the staircase. He was not so very big but rather bulky with a tendency to obesity. His face was red and wrinkled, and his short-cut hair was already thinning. He wrinkled his nose with seeming distaste, taking in Herbert’s typical "city" appearance and his luggage. “I was upstairs,” he grumbled; “no need to make a noise fit to raise the dead, nicht wahr? With what can I help you?”

  “Sorry if I disturbed you at your work,” Herbert said with calculated sarcasm, “but I’d like a room.”

  “You didn’t disturb me,” the man said, seemingly unmindful of the sarcasm; “was just cleaning up a few things. Rooms enough, no one here at the moment in this bloody nest, no one comes, no one goes. How long will you be staying?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Herbert said. “Maybe a few days, maybe a couple of weeks. It depends.”

  “Hmph. What you're going to do in this nest for so long? Well sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, it’s none of my business, parbleu. Come along, I’ll show you the room.”

  He bent and picked up Herbert’s bags, carrying them up the staircase as if they weighed nothing. There were four rooms upstairs, and the hotel keeper kicked open the first door with his foot, and carried the bags inside.

  “Suits you?” the keeper asked. “Ca va?"

  Herbert looked around. The room had a window opening on the side of the hotel. He went over to it, and pushed away the curtains. The harsh sun fell straight inside, spitting in his eyes. The burning sun rays made a light show out of a million dust particles sluggishly moving in the static air.

  The room held an old table, an armoire of unknown origin, a few chairs, and a bed without a mattress or sheets.

  “I’ll bring up the bed stuff in a minute,” the keeper said. “Be back immediately.” Without waiting for an answer he went down, and soon reappeared. He started making up the bed, finishing his work by putting a typical German down blanket on it which Herbert was sure he would not need in this climate. “Sorry for the appearance,” the keeper said, “but I almost never get guests here.”

  “The room suits me as it is,” Herbert said. “I don’t need much, I’ll be mostly outside anyway. Just need a place to sleep and to store my things.” Looking out of the window again, he pointed and said, “Isn’t that the Dark Hill, over there?”

  The keeper snorted. “Yes, that’s Dunkelhügel, the Dark Hill. You've been here before?”

  “No, I haven’t,” Herbert said, but didn’t bother to explain his knowledge.

  "You like the free nature stuff.” The keeper made another try. "Real city man, aren’t you, oui?"

  Herbert smiled, but without mirth. “In a way, yes,” he said. “I’m a writer. Got lots of trouble, stomach, nerves, and things like that. The doctor said I work too hard, and advised me to get some change of air. So I decided to retire for some time, to some forgotten small town, and take a well earned rest. I’ll probably do some work in the evenings when it is cooler, but mostly I’ll just take long walks and loaf. My time is my own anyway.”

  “Forgotten town, quite well chosen,” the keeper said. “Hot as hell here in summer, and cold as the South Pole in winter. Nothing ever changes in Freihausgarten; you couldn’t have picked a better spot to do nothing. You’re not German, are you?”

  “No,” Herbert replied. “I’ve been living in Germany for some years now, but I’m an American.”

  "Thought so; you can’t hide that accent, no matter how fluently you speak German.”

  "That makes two of us, then. You’re French, aren’t you?”

  “Moi? Oui, and proud of it. I came here on impulse, bought this stupid place without having seen it except in some pictures. Thought I could make a nice living here, and now I’m stuck here for at least another couple of years before I can sell this damn place and move out. Well, I manage to keep
myself alive, but that’s about it.”

  “Where are all the people of the village? I didn’t see anyone.” “They’re all on the fields, or inside. Much too hot now; they’ll come out in the evening when it’s cooler.”

  “How are they? The villagers, I mean.”

  “Boring. I don’t mingle much with them, and they leave me alone too. Bloody parvenus, arrogant stock. Think they’re better than anyone not German. They say hello and good night, and that about wraps up my usual conversation. There’s a cafe a bit farther up the street, and if you care to meet some of them, you can go there in the evening hours. You’ll find them almost all there, sipping their Bier und Schnaps—I still wonder how they can drink it together, beer and brandy. You’re a writer... well, you’ll get your share of local color. And don’t let it bother you when they look at you as if you were something apporte par le chat—sorry, how do you say it? Like something the cat has brought in from the wet, yes?”

  “Strange that there’s no real business in this village. One would think that an unspoiled piece of nature like this would draw the tourists and travel agencies.”

  “Nothing here to do business with. No minerals, nothing worth exporting. Even the fields give only enough to keep them alive. And tourists, you say? You’ll understand after you’ve talked with some of them. Don’t expect to find the eager-to-please, warmhearted beer-drinking jolly type of friendly German here. Ice blocks, that’s what they are, all of them, devoid of human warmth, human feelings. They don’t want any contact with the outside world; they’ve probably been living like this for centuries and will be only too pleased to keep it that way. They work, eat, drink, and sleep, and I suppose they make love to their wives now and then, as some children are born here, but not many, just enough to keep the status quo with the old and dying. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still made love like in the sixteenth century, wearing a long nightshirt with a hole cut at the fitting place. Bloody ignorant farmers, and I’m stuck here for another few years. Mon dieu! I would like to start screaming every time I think of it.”