There is a whisper in the darkness,
not a voice and not a howl.
It’s a dark nocturnal hissing
from the walls beneath the ground.
No one heard it but the little cat
who batted at the skirting,
but I could feel the dreadful noise
which wracked that fort at sunfall.
As the townsmen would not speak to me of the legends of this ruin,
I reached down without a friend to find the secrets of the place.
And with grim determination, the kitten trotting at my heel
I traveled to the bowels of my cursed ancestral home.
Beneath even the catacombs, dark and silent as a tomb,
I found yet another chamber, even more foreboding,
yet tempting, strangely tempting, this ancient pagan temple
upon which my fathers made their home.
Ancient bloodstains clothed the naked stone
which had served once for an alter,
and eldritch etchings made silent praise
to the dreaded Magna Mater.
But I had not come for history, no,
not for druidic cults of old,
but the subterrain sources of my torment,
those horrid, midnight rustlings in the walls.
So I employed a group of steadfast friends
to stand by me in my vigil,
and we waited for the night to fall,
to see the stonework quiver.
The unseen tide, it came again,
with unsurpassed vigor,
and though my comrades heard no thing
they saw the kitten hiss in rage as its quarry passed again.
The siege had passed, yet with light restored I knew now where to go,
and I marched up bravely to the throne
of my line’s unspoken evil.
The alter swung aside without a sound.
Into the dark cleft in the rough-hewn stone that now revealed itself,
The men I led and I in turn following the plucky cat,
who bounded down with the silent grace of any hunting beast,
tail a beacon and a warning for those who’d follow on.
The sight that came before us then would cause the strongest man to balk,
but the tiny kitten trotted on into the all-revealing dark.
For the high and vaulted cavern, as natural as hate,
was littered with a million human bones.
They were lying in an ancient pit,
a lake as dry as bone, contorted in their madness and some beastly, tortured rage.
And as my companion’s cries echoed through this deep unholy vault
a thousand horrid rats screamed and fled into the dark.
I saw my kitten take off after, and I and one friend followed,
through one dark and twisted passage from this fright.
But from here memory fails me,
and my mind goes wholly dark.
They say they found me crouching in some dark and wretched hole,
my fingers red with blood and the cat leaping for my throat.
At my feet, a human carcass, disfigured beyond all,
and I shrieked dark family secrets which I swear I never knew.
They’ve since taken me away from there, burned the castle to the ground,
but the fiery rites remind me of my ancestral place in Hell.
Oh, how dare they keep me trapped here, when each night the walls awake
to the constant phantom torment which scrabbles out of sight.
One day, I think, they’ll gnaw a ragged hole straight through the padding
and release me from the clutches of those I once called friends.
But for now, they simply whisper, in a beastly, nocturne chorus,
of the yet still darker terrors which are mine by right of birth.
Some day another altar will bear the goddess’ name,
for the rats’ ancient, deadly secrets are forever mine to tame.
The rats, the rats in the walls.
not a voice and not a howl.
It’s a dark nocturnal hissing
from the walls beneath the ground.
No one heard it but the little cat
who batted at the skirting,
but I could feel the dreadful noise
which wracked that fort at sunfall.
As the townsmen would not speak to me of the legends of this ruin,
I reached down without a friend to find the secrets of the place.
And with grim determination, the kitten trotting at my heel
I traveled to the bowels of my cursed ancestral home.
Beneath even the catacombs, dark and silent as a tomb,
I found yet another chamber, even more foreboding,
yet tempting, strangely tempting, this ancient pagan temple
upon which my fathers made their home.
Ancient bloodstains clothed the naked stone
which had served once for an alter,
and eldritch etchings made silent praise
to the dreaded Magna Mater.
But I had not come for history, no,
not for druidic cults of old,
but the subterrain sources of my torment,
those horrid, midnight rustlings in the walls.
So I employed a group of steadfast friends
to stand by me in my vigil,
and we waited for the night to fall,
to see the stonework quiver.
The unseen tide, it came again,
with unsurpassed vigor,
and though my comrades heard no thing
they saw the kitten hiss in rage as its quarry passed again.
The siege had passed, yet with light restored I knew now where to go,
and I marched up bravely to the throne
of my line’s unspoken evil.
The alter swung aside without a sound.
Into the dark cleft in the rough-hewn stone that now revealed itself,
The men I led and I in turn following the plucky cat,
who bounded down with the silent grace of any hunting beast,
tail a beacon and a warning for those who’d follow on.
The sight that came before us then would cause the strongest man to balk,
but the tiny kitten trotted on into the all-revealing dark.
For the high and vaulted cavern, as natural as hate,
was littered with a million human bones.
They were lying in an ancient pit,
a lake as dry as bone, contorted in their madness and some beastly, tortured rage.
And as my companion’s cries echoed through this deep unholy vault
a thousand horrid rats screamed and fled into the dark.
I saw my kitten take off after, and I and one friend followed,
through one dark and twisted passage from this fright.
But from here memory fails me,
and my mind goes wholly dark.
They say they found me crouching in some dark and wretched hole,
my fingers red with blood and the cat leaping for my throat.
At my feet, a human carcass, disfigured beyond all,
and I shrieked dark family secrets which I swear I never knew.
They’ve since taken me away from there, burned the castle to the ground,
but the fiery rites remind me of my ancestral place in Hell.
Oh, how dare they keep me trapped here, when each night the walls awake
to the constant phantom torment which scrabbles out of sight.
One day, I think, they’ll gnaw a ragged hole straight through the padding
and release me from the clutches of those I once called friends.
But for now, they simply whisper, in a beastly, nocturne chorus,
of the yet still darker terrors which are mine by right of birth.
Some day another altar will bear the goddess’ name,
for the rats’ ancient, deadly secrets are forever mine to tame.
The rats, the rats in the walls.
