AS HE followed his two older brothers down the path and out the front gate, Murmur kept his cloak wrapped tightly around himself. When the demon trio was heading down the street, the little demon's eyes, peeping out from beneath his pulled-low cap, roved ceaselessly about. He was looking for danger. It was too early to be out, much too early. As for the snow covering the ground with a thick blanket of white?
'It is so light!' he squeaked fearfully, trotting quickly to keep up. 'My eyes, how they water and sting! We ought not to be out in these conditions. The snow, it loves the angels and they loves it!'
'Shut your trap, Murmur!' screeched Beball, who did not slow down.
'But the horrid yellow disk, it shines and glints! The snow loves it and it loves the snow!'
'Look here, runt,' screeched Behemoth, 'that is enough from you!'
'But the light- '
'Shut it!'
Beball trotted even faster. 'I can't wait to get to work on that student!' His beady red eyes gleamed with excitement.
'Me neither,' cackled Behemoth, keeping pace with him.
The demon three were now passing down a lane leading towards the park. The laughter and joyous shrieks of children echoed on the still, bright air. As the trio reached the park, little Murmur saw children everywhere, playing, running, talking, laughing. Cringing and jittering, he reluctantly hastened after Beball and Behemoth as they headed across the snowy park.
Passing two mothers seated on a bench watching their frolicking offspring, Beball and Behemoth suddenly slid to a stop.
My Jane is so much prettier than her Alice, one of the mothers was thinking.
'Yes,' whispered Beball. 'Her child is an ugly little thing.'
'And your Jane is so much cleverer!' added Behemoth, leaning in close.
'That Mrs Peters really ought to acknowledge the fact,' whispered Beball.
'Rather than being so proud of her Alice when clearly there is nothing to warrant it,' Behemoth chipped in nastily.
'Go on, set that Mrs Peters straight,' urged Beball.
Mrs Crocket turned to her neighbour and opened her mouth.
But Murmur did not hear what she said. His attention had been taken by something else. Something he had been afraid of from the moment he stepped out. It was the fair Sophia. Rosy-cheeked and laughing, she stood not twenty paces from Murmur, hastily fashioning the fluffy snow into snowballs to return the hail raining down on her. The attacker was-surely not! The little demon shielded his stinging eyes from the sun. Yes, it was the lovesick poet!
Letting out a fearful squeak, the little demon ducked behind the snowman standing near him. Then he peeped furtively around the snowman's head. On Sophia's side was a tall, dark-haired young lady, and on the poet's two girls, one about fifteen and the other twelve. The youngest girl was distinguishing herself greatly in the snowball fight. Her balls came flying thick and fast, and very soon the two young ladies were laughingly holding their mitten-clad hands up in surrender.
'Ida, you will have us buried if you go on!' laughed Sophia, dropping down onto the sledge parked behind her.
'Not without him to help!' cried the youngest girl, throwing her last snowball at the poet. 'He was playing soft and only throwing his snowballs low so they would not hit you and Caroline on the head!'
'As a gentleman should, Pirate Captain Ida.'
'Miss Sophia, I hope your cheeks are red from the cold and not from the hit of my sister's snowballs?' said the poet, sitting down beside her.
She turned a wide smile upon him. 'Thank you, Johan, but you need fear not. I am merely warm from the running.'
He blushed. 'Such is the roughness of my little sister's play even the boys complain about her!'
'You are so blessed to have three such kind and delightful girls as your sisters,' said the fair Sophia, smiling a charming smile as she watched them playing together in the snow.
'Yes, although they do sometimes plague me rather.'
Sophia laughed softly. 'Ida was terribly provoking, asking for a full report as you sat up in the tall maple tree trying to fix that swing. You poor boy, having to describe your neighbour to your sister while both can hear you!'
'That was not the first time I had wished the wall lower,' he replied a little bashfully.
'I have wished it often too.'
'It was mighty decent of your uncle, letting you come out to play with us.'
'I think it was little Ida, pleading with him to let me come from behind the tall brick wall! He is an anxious man, but I think between your sweet, kind face and your sister's charming impudence, he was assured.'
He shifted a little closer. 'I'm still confounded if I know how you got that note up there,' he whispered, colouring at what he felt was a slightly impertinent question.
She smiled secretively, more to herself than to him. 'It was a dear little friend who helped me, to whom I shall forever be grateful. Without his aid, we might never have met.'
After glancing about to see that no one was observing, he squeezed her hand imploringly. 'Who was it, Miss Sophia? Do tell me!'
Her smile deepened. 'It was him,' she replied, pointing at the little demon.
Murmur let out a shriek as she looked directly at him with her clear blue eyes.
'A snowman!' exclaimed the young poet, laughing. 'You tease me! I know it was not he that left the note.'
The fair Sophia just smiled.
'Beball, Behemoth!' shrieked little Murmur, tugging franticly at their coats. 'We are leaving, we are leaving!'
The two had finished drawing out the petty envy and meanness of Mrs Crocket and were about to move on anyway, so let their little brother pull them along.
'What is all this sudden hurry?' screeched Beball. 'I thought you wanted to stay home!'
'Yes, what is this about?' hissed Behemoth, who was beginning to get annoyed at being hustled along.
'It's-it's because I can't wait to get stuck into that foolish student!'
The older two greeted this with a suspicious grunt, but they were not about to waste any more time questioning their little brother's sudden rush of enthusiasm. It was enough that he was no longer whining and whinging.
When the demon trio reached the university, twilight was beginning to descend. Comforted by the deepening shadows, little Murmur jittered slightly less. Had he not always wanted to venture abroad with his big brothers? Now his wish had come true, now he would learn their evil secrets?
Entering a student tenement building by a narrow side door, the demons eagerly trotted along the hallways and then mounted a pokey little staircase. When they reached the top, Behemoth and Beball stopped at the first door.
'This is it,' cackled Behemoth, 'this is the den of the foolish student?'
'Heh heh heh,' sniggered Beball, laying a sinewy hand upon the door handle.
Then the demon three slipped inside.
Nothing exists, nothing is real? I feel as though I am falling. Would that I had something to hold onto, something to put ground beneath my feet!
The little demon looked at the place this despairing thought had come from. A young man sat leaning his elbow on the table in front of him, rubbing his forehead as though it ached and staring down with eyes that contained a hint of madness. He was tall and thin, with hollow cheeks and pale, clammy skin. His hair was wild and dishevelled, and even though it was cold in the small room, he was dressed only in a shirt and trousers. A glass, an empty wine bottle and a guttering candle set on the table, the candle being the only light in the room.
When there is no ultimate truth, there is no hope, no worthwhile work, no purpose, no reality? he mused, almost sobbing.
'We did well, brother, well!' Beball chortled to Behemoth.
Behemoth rubbed his hands gleefully together and looked on with shining red eyes. 'Heh heh heh?'
The student began to shake and shiver. I feel so afraid and alone? Even when I am surrounded by people I feel so alone that I might as well be on a desert island. For how can I
be certain they are truly real, not merely things that I see??
Beball went and sat down in the chair across the table from the student, while Behemoth perched upon the table's edge.
Life has no point or purpose, continued the fear-filled, despairing young man. It is merely a cruel joke?Oh, why do I think it a joke? That is not rational! It could only be a joke if some god existed, and only a fool would think anything but matter real!
'Heh heh heh,' chortled Behemoth, nodding with satisfaction. 'Such fools, they are, such fools?'
There is no beauty, no goodness-why do I even think thus! For what is beauty? Merely what society tells us we ought to like. There is no beauty or ugliness, merely things. As for goodness, that is just a foolish notion imposed upon us by churchmen who wish to control us!
'Quite right, quite right?' whispered Behemoth, his beady little eyes glowing excitedly.
'Finally your thoughts are achieving clarity,' murmured Beball, eyeing the student intently.
The student nodded to himself. Yes, now I see it clearly? Perhaps, if I threw all these foolish notions away and thought no more of truths and beauties and goodness, I will be free of this torment. He that decrees such values null and void is not tormented!
With his eyes shining with new hope, the student banged his fist down upon the table. The little demon, who watched from a dark corner, started so violently that he jumped clean off the ground. This earned him two furious and disgusted demon glares.
But why do I only feel more afraid? thought the student, looking fearfully about and hugging himself tightly. Terror and despair, they afflict me more powerfully than ever! The gloomy darkness, it seems filled with thoughts and terrors that swarm about me, that do assault my mind and steal my peace!
Cowering and trembling, he searched the darkness with wild eyes. Madness, surely it has come upon me?I am losing my mind-'What thing is that moving in the shadows!' he suddenly cried, staring with terror at the dark corner the little demon lurked in.
But just as suddenly, his eyes dropped. Oh, but it is only my fevered brain?
'That's right,' hissed Beball, 'it is merely your brain misfiring. There is no spirit, only matter.'
The little demon had shrunk further into his dark corner. Unfortunately, the student was not much of a one for cleaning. The corner was very dark, but it was very dusty too. The dust tickled little Murmur's nose. He wriggled it and sniffed. It was no use. A great sneeze escaped him.
'What is that?' cried the wild-eyed student. Perhaps there really is some spectre there!
Hisses of rage were coming from Beball and Behemoth. Then a knock sounded upon the door.
'Yes?' called the student.
'It's Emerson,' replied a calm, steady voice outside.
The student was up in a second, hurrying to open the door. 'Emerson, dear chap!' he cried, stepping aside to let his caller enter.
'Good evening, Rhett,' said a tall, lean gentleman. 'How is my godson? Keeping warm on this cold day?'
The student reached out to take his visitor's top hat and scarf. 'I am well, Emerson. But how good it is to see you!'
'You don't look well, my boy.' Smoothing his white hair, the tall visitor turned his piercing grey eyes upon his host from down a long aquiline nose. 'Has that Professor Dorking been filling your head with nonsense again, eh?'
The student coloured a little as he pulled an armchair out for his guest. 'Emerson, he is a very learned man! There is no need to go around shafting the chap just because you don't agree with his theories.'
'I think little of the man not because I disagree with his theories but because he talks rot and nonsense-dangerous rot and nonsense.'
'It really was a surprise, this snow. The first fall of the year!' The student smiled hopefully, eager to change the subject.
'You have been reading Kant and those other philosophers of his ilk, have you not?'
Now seated in the other armchair by the cold hearth, the student nodded uncomfortably. 'Yes, and mighty clever fellows they are!'
Emerson's alert but kindly eyes still studied his godson's face closely. 'You are in the grip of metaphysical terror, aren't you?'
Picking nervously at his fingers, the student remained silent.
'I can see it in you, my boy. You look pale and unhealthy. Your mind is disquiet and your heart filled with fear.'
The young man nodded reluctantly. 'I must admit, I have been feeling a little off-colour lately?'
'It is demons, boy, demons. They swarm about the head of men like Dorking and between the pages of their books, and anyone who reads or hears them cannot help but hear the demon whispers.'
'Nonsense!' cried the student.
But Beball and Behemoth were beginning to look decidedly worried.
'This whole thing is derailing!' hissed Beball.
'Emerson, the great sunlight! He's been listening to those angels again in his sleep,' growled Behemoth.
The guest remained calm, his eyes still resting on his godson with love. 'You yourself have attracted a little demon following of your own.'
'I say stuff and nonsense!'
The tall godfather nodded his head towards Murmur's corner. 'You see him lurking there in the shadows, don't you?'
'By God, you see it too! I thought it was merely my fevered brain, I thought I was going mad!'
'There are two others sitting at the table behind you. I cannot see them clearly, but I hear their voices.'
The student turned his wild and hollow eyes slowly over to the table. 'God, maybe you are right! I did feel something was there?'
'These imps have doubtless been visiting you regularly to work on you with the poisonous lies they go around whispering into human ears. Next time one of the evil rogues comes calling, tell him to go to Hell. They don't like it when you reply back-do they!' he added loudly at Murmur.
The little demon's hairy hocks knocked loudly together and his teeth chattered. It was all he could do to prevent himself gibbering aloud.
The tall visitor handed the student a book. 'Rhett, my boy, read this. It tells you all about these demons. Its author is a great man. He is wise beyond all other mortal men in matters of demonology.'
The student took the book and opened its pages. And as he did so, Beball and Behemoth uttered a shriek of rage and clattered for the door. Murmur was quick to follow them. In a moment the door was hauled open and slammed shut, very nearly on Murmur's tail.
'You fool!' the older demons screeched, fuming and steaming down at their little brother.
He backed up against the hallway wall. 'What was I meant to do? I did my best to keep in the shadows!'
'You could have not sneezed, you weak-nose!' shrieked Beball.
'But that man knew you and Behemoth were there too.'
The passageway was beginning to fill with smoke and steam. 'But he could not see us!'
'What does that matter? He knew all about you and your workings.'
'It matters because?because-Behemoth, you tell him!'
Behemoth's sharp face emerged from the smog. 'Rabbit-tail, it matters because the foolish student did not know we were there. If he had not heard you, he might not have believed that angel-eyed Emerson about us demons!'
Hanging his head, little Murmur fiddled remorsefully with the end of his tail. 'I'm sorry, brothers. I never have been much good at evil, and now I have spoiled all your work?'
'What!' shrieked Beball and Behemoth together. 'A demon has no business being sorry and humble! Start being proud and obnoxious or we'll make you!'
'Alright!' hissed little Murmur.
He was beginning to regret ever having gone out with Beball and Behemoth. They had been right; he could not keep up and he was cramping their style. He sighed.
'What are we going to do now, Behemoth?' screeched Beball, kicking the wall.
'What about paying that science student down in the basement laboratory a visit?'
'A science student?? Yes indeed, that might be worthwhile?heh heh
heh?' The fiendish glow was returning to Beball's eyes.
The biggest demon snuffled his nose. 'A science student is low-hanging fruit ripe for the plucking, ripe for the plucking!'
'Indeed?there is no fairer game than a scientist?heh heh heh?'
The demon three were soon clip-clopping quickly back down the stairs. Beball and Behemoth's beady red eyes glowed with excitement and anticipation.
Murmur smelt the laboratory before he saw it. Smoke and steam from all manner of foul, sulphurous chemicals snaked curling tendrils up the basement stairs, and once the little demon was at their foot, the acrid fumes engulfed him completely.
'Ah, just smell that foul stink!' said Behemoth, taking in a great breath and savouring it.
'Delicious,' agreed Beball, breathing deeply of it.
Behemoth pushed open a door, from under which a strange, lurid yellow light glowed forth. When little Murmur stepped inside, he found himself in a large room with a bare stone floor and white-painted brick walls and ceiling. Upon the steel benches standing in rows were pots, vials, bottles, decanters and hoses, some boiling, some steaming, some smoking, some fizzing, the liquids within them.
'Magnificent!' cried a voice within the thick of the luridly yellow smog filling the room. 'Now will you give up your secrets to me, little frog?now will your secret of life be revealed?'
The devilish trio advanced into the stinking haze. Squinting at a large clear decanter through thick glasses was a tall, skinny young man with short-cropped hair standing on its ends. His slightly bloodshot eyes glowed with excitement and his hand shook a little as it held up the glass. In the glass, floating in a bright yellow liquid, was a dead frog. But it was not like any frog Murmur had ever seen before. It was bright blue.
As the little demon gawped, the scientist put the glass vial into a wire holder that suspended it above a flame. The liquid began to boil and steam and fizz and spit, and the vapour to rise up into the tube the scientist had attached to the bottle's top.
'I shall soon have the very essence of life decanted into this bottle,' muttered the wildly grinning science student. 'Then I will be able to use it to bring anything to life; then I will be as God!'
'Heh heh heh?' chuckled Beball, rubbing his hands gleefully together, 'heh heh heh?'
Behemoth leaned in close to the scientist-though not too close, for the scientist had very red, puffy, angry skin which even this demon found a little distasteful. 'You are a genius,' he whispered, 'and soon every man will be saying so. Soon the country's foremost science prize will have your name inscribed upon it?'
'And that doubting Thomas, Professor Wagner, will give you the respect and reverence due to you. He will finally see your astonishing genius,' added Beball.
Meanwhile, Murmur was busy gawping at the massive, twisting apparatus boiling and bubbling before him. He had never seen anything like it before. It was terrible and magnificent.
Then he looked down at his pitchfork. That red mark still was upon it. No matter how hard he had tried rubbing, the blood left by the fair Sophia when she pricked her finger would not come off. It had turned into a pure, shining ruby that glittered against the pitchfork's dull black iron. It was another shameful blot on little Murmur's record.
He rubbed his pitchfork's ruby tip with the corner of his cloak. It only shone more. He had not expected it would work, so he let out just a slight sigh. Then, looking at a boiling, bubbling fizzing cauldron on the bench in front of him, a thought occurred to him. Did not humans use chemicals to clean things? Chemicals, it seemed, were corrosive. That boiling neon green slop certainly looked toxic?
The little demon rubbed his none-hooked nose thoughtfully. Yes, if anything might erase the glittering ruby, surely it was that? He rubbed his nose a bit more. Surely it would do no harm to just try it? After all, what was the worst that could happen? Nothing?
He slowly reached out his little pitchfork-clutching hand and experimentally dipped his pitchfork's prongs into the toxic soup. Nothing happened. The little demon looked left, he looked right, he looked ahead. Nobody was watching. Beball and Behemoth were intently whispering into the scientist's ear, and the listening scientist was enraptured by the prospect of his eminent international renown.
After a final furtive look, the little demon plunged his pitchfork into the boiling, raging pot and stirred it vigorously about. At first nothing happened. But just as the little demon was lifting his pitchfork out, the cauldron suddenly erupted. Its vitriolic contents spewed over its sides, raging and boiling and spitting. Then, just as suddenly, they vaporised into a puff of green smoke.
Blinking hard, little Murmur held his pitchfork's prongs up to examine. The ruby was gone.
'Very clever, Murmur, very clever we are indeed?' he chuckled quietly to himself, feeling very self-satisfied.
But he had not given any thought to where the ruby had gone. Dissolved by the lurid liquid, it flooded through the great interconnected web of pipes, pots and bottles. The laboratory exploded.
The little demon was thrown clean out the doors by the force of the blast. Blinking hard and rubbing his eyes, the stunned demon stared as he lay sprawled in the corridor. The laboratory's doors had been blown off, and within there was nothing but a tangled, twisted, shattered mass of smoking debris.
With his hair and eyebrows burnt, his face black and his clothes hanging from him in tattered ribbons, the scientist staggered out. 'Seven years work, gone?all gone?' he mumbled dumbly, staring at the wreckage with scarcely believing eyes. 'Gone, all gone!' He fell to the floor and began banging his head against the ground.
Then Beball and Behemoth staggered out. Beball's pitchfork had more twists than a corkscrew in it, and the prongs of Behemoth's were entirely absent. The clothes of both demons hung off them in ribbons. Murmur also noticed that Behemoth's left horn was half the length it had formerly been. He resolved at once not to be the one to tell Behemoth that his horn was broken.
'Murmur, w-what did you do?' demanded Behemoth, wobbling from side to side and staring dumbly into space.
'Nothing!' squeaked the little demon. 'I did nothing-why does everybody always think it's my fault when something goes wrong!'
'The reason, Murmur,' slurred Behemoth, 'is this: because it always is.'
'I don't like it here!' squeaked the little demon, scrambling to his hooves. 'I'm going home!'
And with that he shot down the corridor, up the stairs, and all the way back home, where he scurried upstairs and dived behind the old dresser in the attic.