The Hounds

by Pil Lee

8 August, 1780

To His Eminence, Cardinal St Alban, SJ.

Your Grace

I have been assured that my hosts have done me the small mercy of conveying this letter to you. How that can be when they have no corporeal form I cannot surmise, but regardless I hold the hope around me like a blanket, thin and draughty though it may be.

It has been five days now since the siege began and I am growing weak with hunger. The wraiths that live here have no need of earthly sustenance, so there are no foodstuffs inside the keep. They have a little spring in the tiny courtyard which at least slakes my thirst, but I am becoming more and more afraid to creep out to it.

Of course the wraiths come and go with no trouble. The beasts prowling outside have no interest in their meatless bodies. The wraiths are happy to protect me because they feed on my sanctity, and the beasts wait patiently for me to try to escape. So there is a little something for everyone, provided by one lonely and desperate priest.

Though I am not as lonely as I could be.

When I first fled through the gates of this stronghold, the stone rooms appeared dusty and deserted. My lungs were burning from the long dash across the hilltop, always just a heaving gasp ahead of the jaws of the hounds, and I sank shivering into a corner for an age before I calmed. Only gradually did I become aware of small rustlings, which at first I took for vermin, until those papery sounds resolved themselves into words.

Your Grace, it was Latin! Here in this heathen wasteland. I struggled to my feet, half in fear and half in hope. Making my way from room to room I searched in vain for the occupants. But as I moved through the endless passages, the voices came closer and closer to my ear, almost deafening me with their shouts, whilst all around me there were empty halls.

And what did they shout? Why, it was the liturgy. I could discern many different voices chanting their versicles, but over and over again in a chaotic jumble. Loath as I was to block out those sacred words, I pressed my hands hard against my skull before my eardrums could burst from the din. I bowed my head and whispered for mercy, the tiniest sound only, and to my astonishment my plea was answered.

Where before had been cacophany now was utter silence.

I raised my head and stared around me. “Show yourselves’” I commanded, though my voice was but a croak.

A susurration, like the rustle of rich fabrics, approached me and I could tell that I was surrounded, though there was no-one to be seen. A voice spoke just in front of my face. “A priest.”

I sensed it was a question and nodded warily. “My name is Canis,” I said. “I am a Jesuit.”

There was a moment’s silence, then the whisper embraced me. “Quero reperio Dei in omnis quenda.”

I was stunned. Who in this Romanian wilderness would know of the Jesuit creed?

“Yes,” I said. “I am here to seek and find God in all things.”

The disembodied voice spoke again. “Do you find God in us, oh Jesuit?”

“Who are you?” I asked.

Another answered from behind me. “We did not save them. We are the damned.”

And instantly the clamour of all the voices at once assaulted my ears again. “We are the damned, we are the damned,” they wailed.

I held out my hands for quiet and the room stilled.

I knelt before them as in the confessional and heard the swishing as if a room of people knelt with me. “Tell me,” I entreated, “Why are you damned?”

“We were an abbey once,” the first voice said. “We were priests too, of a kind.”

“An abbey?” I was bewildered. “But I saw no cross. I have seen no trappings of the faith.”

“It was all taken from us,” he said. “The night we failed, our crosses disappeared, our altars melted, our bodies vanished.”

“You mean you have not died?” I asked. “You are still alive, but unable to be seen?”

“Oh, we died,” came the harsh reply. “We didn’t vanish in a moment. We vanished a little bit at a time. First our hands disappeared, and the pain was the pain of axes hewing through our wrists. Then it was our legs, with the pain of hammer and anvil smashing our bones. Then our faces went, as if razors stripped them away a layer at a time. And finally our torsos burnt, roasted and charred, ashes to ashes. And through all of this our minds could not escape – they were given no release. They are held to this mortal coil still. And will be for all eternity.”

I knelt on the cold flagstones, aghast, and remembered the fearsome monsters that had chased me to this bitter refuge. “Was it the hounds?” I asked. “Do they have some hideous power?” I shuddered at my narrow escape.

“No,” he replied. “It was God.”

I drew back in revulsion. “God is merciful and compassionate,” I cried. “He would not do that to anyone.”

“But we turned them away,” he said. “The villagers came to us for succour in their need, but we were proud and greedy and would not let their peasant dirt sully our hallowed house. We would not let them in. We forsook them.”

And as if it was a ritual, the room echoed with the other voices raised together.
“We forsook them.”

“What happened to them?” I asked. “How long ago was this.”

“It was before you were born, young Jesuit. And what happened to them you can see if you venture outside the gates. The hounds caught them, every one of them, and took them for themselves. Now they are hounds too. And for every innocent soul that was denied him, God has taken our souls from us in payment.”

I shook my head in denial. “Whatever, or whoever, did this terrible thing to you, it was not God. He does not punish his flock on earth.”

“Whatever you may think, Jesuit, this is the story of our downfall. And the hounds of which I spoke are outside the abbey now, waiting for you.”

I clambered to my feet. “How can I escape?” I begged. “What help can you give me to get away?”

“We are incorporeal,” came the reply. “It has helped our suffering to be able to confess, and for that I thank you on all our behalfs. But there is nothing we can do for you.”

I heard the murmur of rustling fabric moving away from me down the passageway and ran after the sound. It surrounded me again and I spoke into its midst. “How could God do this to his own sons?”

There was a pause then the voice of the Abbot spoke softly into my ear. “But your God is not our God,” he said. “This was not a Christian abbey, my friend. And our beasts are hungry.”