Category: Books and Literature

In the middle of my shower this morning I suddenly realised that the Crone World sequence from Gav Thorpe’s Path of the Outcast (the third in his Path of the Eldar series) absolutely must have been influenced by M.R. James’ The Haunted Doll’s House.

The Haunted Doll’s House (written for the library of Queen Mary’s Doll’s House) concerns – unsurprisingly – a doll’s house that replays a ghostly vision of a murder and its consequences. You can read the whole thing here – which I strongly advise you to do as it’s one of my favourite of James’ works – but the important elements for our purposes are that a couple with two young children murder a frail old man in his bed before he can alter his will to cut them out…

It was time to look at that upper window. Through it was seen a four-post bed: a nurse or other servant in an arm-chair, evidently sound asleep; in the bed an old man lying: awake, and, one would say, anxious, from the way in which he shifted about and moved his fingers, beating tunes on the coverlet. Beyond the bed a door opened. Light was seen on the ceiling, and the lady came in: she set down her candle on a table, came to the fireside and roused the nurse. In her hand she had an old-fashioned wine bottle, ready uncorked. The nurse took it, poured some of the contents into a little silver saucepan, added some spice and sugar from casters on the table, and set it to warm on the fire. Meanwhile the old man in the bed beckoned feebly to the lady, who came to him, smiling, took his wrist as if to feel his pulse, and bit her lip as if in consternation. He looked at her anxiously, and then pointed to the window, and spoke. She nodded, and did as the man below had done; opened the casement and listened – perhaps rather ostentatiously: then drew in her head and shook it, looking at the old man, who seemed to sigh.

By this time the posset on the fire was steaming, and the nurse poured it into a small two-handled silver bowl and brought it to the bedside. The old man seemed disinclined for it and was waving it away, but the lady and the nurse together bent over him and evidently pressed it upon him. He must have yielded, for they supported him into a sitting position, and put it to his lips. He drank most of it, in several draughts, and they laid him down. The lady left the room, smiling good night to him, and took the bowl, the bottle and the silver saucepan with her. The nurse returned to the chair, and there was an interval of complete quiet.

Suddenly the old man started up in his bed – and he must have uttered some cry, for the nurse started out of her chair and made but one step of it to the bedside. He was a sad and terrible sight – flushed in the face, almost to blackness, the eyes glaring whitely, both hands clutching at his heart, foam at his lips. For a moment the nurse left him, ran to the door, flung it wide open, and, one supposes, screamed aloud for help, then darted back to the bed and seemed to try feverishly to soothe him – to lay him down – anything. But as the lady, her husband, and several servants, rushed into the room with horrified faces, the old man collapsed under the nurse’s hands and lay back, and his features, contorted with agony and rage, relaxed slowly into calm.

In Path of the Outcast the focus character – Aradryan – joins an expedition to an ancient, abandoned palace on a Crone World in the Eye of Terror. He soon finds himself beguiled by ghostly visions of the Eldar who once lived there…

Before he even realised what he was doing, Aradryan was beside the bed, stroking a hand across the silk-like covers. He did not need to sleep, he told himself as he turned and sat down on the edge of the bed. He would just sit here for a few moments, recharging his strength. He could see why such a place had been constructed; from the bed the sea seemed to come right up to the window, its wordless voice urging him to close his eyes and relax.

Aradryan most definitely did not sleep. He did not even close his eyes, and stayed sat on the edge of the bed staring out at the alien sea. Despite being very obviously awake, the ranger started to notice that things were becoming decidedly dream-like. For a start, his waystone was gleaming gold and hot to the touch when he lifted his fingers to it. On top of that, he was not alone on the bed. He did not dare turn around, but he could feel the presence of someone else behind him, their weight on the mattress.

Delicate music tinkled in the distance, soothing and quiet, echoing along the empty corridors and across abandoned rooms. Except the corridors and rooms were not empty and abandoned. The figures of eldar moved around the apartment, several of them gathering by the window in front of Aradryan, holding hands with each other as they looked out across the waves as darkness descended. They were a family, two small girls with their mother and father. The person behind Aradryan called out a series of names and the family turned with smiles, the children breaking free to run to the bed. One of them leapt onto the mattress, passing straight through Aradryan.

Bolting to his feet, Aradryan turned to look at the ghosts. The eldar from the portraits, eyes lined with greater age, lay beneath the covers, which were rucked back to reveal his thin shoulders and shallow chest.

The music had stopped, and the small girl who had leapt onto the bed was not smiling any more. Her tiny hands were at the old noble’s throat, and there were shouts and rings of metal from across the palace grounds. Old scores were being settled, the extended families dividing into factions, sectarian violence erupting between them to decide who should inherit the luxurious planet-manse.

[…]

Behind the aristocratic-looking eldar, the girl on the bed had finished strangling the old noble and was pulling the heavy rings from his fingers, while her sister had joined her and was using a knife to cut his hair, pulling free gemstones from the bindings thus freed.

So, in both stories we have a haunted building that produces visions of an old man being murdered in his bed by his heirs (including two children) over a disputed inheritance. Thorpe’s version is more shocking – which is only to be expected when dealing with pre-Fall Eldar who were downright horrid – but the story elements are exactly the same.

I am amazed it took me this long to notice the similarity, given my fondness for both the James story and the Crone World sequence. I guess if you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best!