The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack: Anthology Part 27

But I remained unconvinced for nothing could shake my conclusion that out there, only forty miles from where we lay at anchor, was that Cyclopean city of gray stone, Yuth, built by artificially bred creatures that had come from the very rim of the solar system when the Earth was young, bearing a hideous, amorphous thing with them which they had worshipped as a G.o.d. Tsathoggua, one of that incredibly ancient race which had been flung down from the ethereal abysses onto the cooling magma of newly-formed planets.

That night, as I stood on deck, leaning against the rail and looking towards the north, I thought I saw vague, flickering lights on the distant horizon and a pallid gleam of glittering radiance, barely visible, which rose from the ocean towards the clear heavens. I drew the attention of one of the crew to it, but he maintained it was simply the glow of phosph.o.r.escence, which one often saw at sea.

The following day, a sudden squall blew up with the wind gusting from the northwest and the sea became too choppy for any underwater exploration to be attempted. Driving sheets of rain forced us to remain undercover and I spent much of my time with Brown in the small cabin, which had been fitted out as a darkroom. Here, we enlarged a number of the frames from the films, blowing them up as far as possible to bring out minute details of the grotesque spires. Two of these were of particular significance, for to me they clearly showed that no force of blind nature could have shaped such regular features.

There were also disturbing markings on one of the towers, less shattered and eroded than the others; markings which were oddly arranged in wide spirals which began at the top and descended into the unguessable depths of unplumbed blackness below. With the aid of a magnifying gla.s.s I was able to pick out curves and symbols, mostly incomplete, which tended to form such unnatural and terrifying patterns that I almost cried out aloud at the discovery and made Brown verify them.

When we showed them to Dorman he was forced to agree that, in spite of his initial scepticism, there was something pertaining to this region of monolithic spires, which warranted further investigation although he still refused to commit himself to my way of thinking.

By the next day, the wind had abated and the skies had cleared and with a calm, unruffled sea, it was agreed that a second descent of the bathysphere would be made. By now, my imagination had reached fever pitch and when the decision was made for Dorman and myself to make the descent, I was beset by odd, irrational fears in the face of Dorman's determination to proceed to the bottom of the deep trough which lay forty miles distant.

My sense of fearful expectancy as I climbed inside the bathysphere some two hours later can scarcely be described on paper for I knew that soon we would be touching a world that had been untrodden for close on thirty thousand years. Since we would be going deeper than before we made our preparations with undue care, checking and rechecking all of the apparatus. This time, we each carried a pair of powerful binoculars in order to make out more detail in that black world wherein slumbered the unknown secrets of an alien, elder race.

The first part of our descent was uneventful. There were two wide portholes facing in opposite directions and Dorman sat in front of one while I peered through the other, my gaze constantly fixed on what lay below us, taking little notice of the marine life which cl.u.s.tered abundantly all around us. As we went deeper, however, the number of fish I saw diminished rapidly until, when I judged we were below the level of the island shelf, they were curiously conspicuous by their complete absence.

Dorman had switched on the searchlights and I stared through the porthole, watching for the first indication of the vast gray stone city. And then I saw them for the second time, rising out of the slime of the ocean, clawing upward for hundreds of feet; row upon seemingly endless row of fantastically symmetrical columns; the nearer one blindingly clear in the harsh actinic light, with countless others stretching away into the black immensity. Dorman must have had some rational theory at the forefront of his mind. Yet, even so, he uttered a sudden exclamation of awed surprise and disbelief at what he saw.

For several seconds, he seemed stunned. Then he pulled himself together and gave rapid instructions for the bathysphere to be lowered very slowly. We were some fifty yards from the nearest spire but there seemed no doubt these buildings widened out towards the base and we did not wish to run the risk of striking one on our way down. We felt the unmistakable tug on the steel vessel almost at once as our rate of descent slowed appreciably.

The effect of that monstrous labyrinth which stretched away from us into inconceivable distances was indescribable for it was apparent at once that whatever stood on this undersea plateau had never been fashioned by nature, even in her wildest and most capricious moments. And it was equally obvious that whatever hands had erected these edifices had been far from human.

As we progressed downward, we saw there were other ruins, smaller than the towers, yet equally alien. Squat, flat-topped buildings with openings in them that were roughly semicircular in outline. If they were doors, as I had immediately a.s.sumed, I shuddered at the thought of the shape and size their occupants must have possessed.

After what seemed aeons, but could only have been a few minutes, the bathysphere came to rest on the ma.s.sive stone slabs of an enormous swathe, extending so far into the darkness on either side that we could not see its furthermost limits. Above us, the tops of the lofty towers were likewise lost. Now we were able to discern the prodigious size of these archaic stone piles. The cavernous openings gaped in a menacing and sinister fashion and I had the unshakable feeling that, at any moment, something monstrous would come wriggling out of them, huge beyond all our comprehension, intent upon our destruction.

I remember yelling at Dorman, "Now do you believe me?"

I saw him nod his head in stupefied acquiescence. "It's utterly fantastic. I'd never have believed it possible."

"It must be twenty or thirty thousand years old," I said. "There's no geological evidence for any inundation of this region later than that."

Many of the ruins were, of course, almost completely flattened by whatever t.i.tanic catastrophe had overtaken the city in that past age. But by switching off the interior lights, we were able to use the binoculars, sweeping the entire viewable scene with their enhanced vision.

There was no doubt now that the gray stonework was incised with the outlines of maddening cryptographs that made no sense to our purely terrestrial senses. Monstrous and suggestive of extraneous dimensions, they leered at us across a distance of a hundred feet and thousands of years as if mocking our futile efforts to unravel their secrets.

Many were representative of pre-human species neither of us could recognize but here were pictures of creatures familiar to us; terrestrial animals and marine life belonging to that bygone age.

How many miles in every direction the city stretched, it was impossible to estimate. Inwardly, I knew that our discovery totally verified everything that had been written in that book I had picked up and the letters that had belonged to Jethro Haworth. In spite of my sense of awe and bewilderment, I wondered what the old recluse's reactions would have been if he had been there with Dorman and I at that moment; sitting there in a tiny vessel which seemed miniscule and fragile in the face of the boundless metropolis which loomed all around us.

It was Dorman who drew my attention to a curious phenomenon in the distance. Far beyond the furthermost point the beam from the searchlight could reach, there appeared to be a faint glow, a curious reddish point of radiance that waxed and waned in a strangely hypnotic manner that was both surprising and frightening. Leaving my seat, I crouched down beside him in the cramped s.p.a.ce. It was possible it had been there all the time but was so faint as to be invisible until we had switched off the lights in the bathysphere. Almost simultaneously, we trained our binoculars on it. For a moment, I could make out nothing but a vague blur, but as I adjusted the focus, it suddenly sprang into breathtaking clarity.

We had previously believed this sunken city to be absolutely silent and dead. How could it have been otherwise when it had been destroyed long before man had evolved into a thinking, rational animal?

Yet all reason deserted me as I saw, through the lenses of the binoculars, the dark outlines of the great building with a single wide entrance through which poured that crimson effulgence that clearly had its ghastly origin somewhere far below the level of the ocean floor. We might have put it down to some volcanic activity still going on beneath the sea but for the obvious fact there was no indication whatsoever of any bubbling and seething of steam in the vicinity. The water was just as undisturbed there as it was in our immediate vicinity.

It was impossible for us to put forward any logical explanation for the phenomenon. Dorman's first instinctive reaction was to call up the ship to move us closer to the building but a single glance was enough to tell us there were far too many obstacles between it and us for that to be a feasible proposition. Reluctantly, he finally decided to return to the surface. We had been down for more than two hours and it soon became apparent that if we wished to examine this curious spectacle more closely we would have to resort to the more dangerous procedure of descending in diving suits which would allow us more freedom of movement.

Once back on board the vessel, we communicated our findings to the other members of the team amid an atmosphere of mounting excitement and puzzlement. That we had made an outstanding discovery was beyond doubt, and before leaving the spot we dropped a marker buoy over the side to ensure our return to the same spot.

That evening we gathered in Dorman's cabin to discuss and plan our next moves. Brown and Conlon were of the opinion that news of our discovery should be telegraphed at once to the university, reporting a major archaeological find which went far beyond any others made in this area, but Dorman insisted on maintaining radio silence until further confirmatory evidence had been acquired.

We now knew the depth of water we would have to descend and since this was well within the safety limits of the diving suits we had on board, it was agreed that, the weather permitting, three of us should go down to explore the area around that enigmatic edifice we had sighted and, if possible, determine the cause of the peculiar radiance emanating from within it.

That night, I found it difficult to sleep. The nearness of things that properly belonged to an era far in the past, affected me strongly, intruding into my thoughts, forming odd and bizarre images in my mind. When I finally did fall into a restless doze I dreamed of the long-dead city under the sea. But before my dreaming gaze it now stood unbroken and untarnished by time on dry land and there was no ocean in sight. On an incredibly ancient plateau, wreathed in clouds of steam and noxious vapors, the Cyclopean buildings stretched away in all directions as far as the eye could see, and high into the lowering clouds where the topmost spires were lost to sight.

There was something terribly unhuman about the geometry of its ma.s.sive gray stone walls, and the mind-wrenching alienness of its angles and intermeshing structures went against all reason, all known laws of mathematics, logic and architecture. I knew, by some weird instinct, I was seeing it as it had been perhaps several million years ago when it had been newly built by that race from the stars.

That it was a scene from all those aeons ago was evident from the trees in the foreground, which were huge cycads with monstrous ferns forming a thickly-tangled undergrowth around them. Fortunately for my sanity, the swirling columns of mist shrouded much of the city from full view. But where the vapors thinned occasionally I caught a glimpse of that central temple with its single entrance from the ruins of which that garish light had flared only a few waking hours before.

Yet there were now visible even more shocking exaggerations of nature than the city itself; those hideous and, if the Book of K'yog was to be believe, artificially, created abominations that had built it. I saw them as vague shapes in the vast avenues and squares, saw them clinging limpet-like to the sides of the buildings or oozing jelly-like from grotesque apertures and doorways. What insane blasphemy had bred those things I could not conceive, but the mere sight of them woke me, yelling incoherently, from my dream.

I was sitting upright in my bunk, clutching nervously at the covers, when Brown burst into my cabin, roused by my unearthly scream. Shuddering, I told him it had been nothing but a nightmare, probably brought on by what I had seen the previous day. He looked unconvinced but eventually accepted my explanation and left, obviously puzzled by my irrational behavior. I remained awake for the rest of the night, waiting huddled on the bunk, for the first light of dawn. Whether those abominable creatures were just images conjured up by my overwrought mind, or I had somehow seen things as they had actually been millions of years before, I could not tell. But the nightmare had been so clear in all its detail that I found it difficult to believe it had been only a fantasy born out of my mind.

If I had only recognized it for the premonition it was, I might well have opted out of going down with Dorman and Brown and I could, perhaps, sleep peacefully at nights, instead of being plagued and a.s.sailed by recurrent dreams which now haunt my sleeping hours.

Our preparations for our third descent were even more thorough than the first two for in that depth of water there were far more dangers a.s.sociated with even the most modern diving equipment than going down in the bathysphere. We spotted the marker buoy a little after ten o'clock and the vessel came to a stop close beside it under a cloudless blue sky with scarcely any wind. The suits were all equipped with powerful underwater lamps, thereby leaving our hands free.

Half an hour later, we were ready. Cramped as conditions had been inside the bathysphere, inside the suits it was far worse. They did, however, possess one distinct advantage; on the ocean floor they would give us much greater freedom of movement. Then I was in the water and going down at what seemed a dangerous rate of descent. I could see no sign of my two companions. All around me was a dark-purple world, which rapidly shaded into absolute blackness, pierced only by the light of my lamp, which, although not as powerful as those on the bathysphere, was still able to pierce the gloom for a distance of several yards.

As I descended, I directed my whole attention downward for I had no desire to become impaled upon one of those rearing pinnacles which dotted the vast plain below me in such prodigious profusion.

After what seemed an age, but could have been only a few minutes, I saw something huge looming up out of the stygian darkness a little to my left. Almost before I was aware of it, I was moving down the side of one of those nightmare towers. The effect of seeing it so close at hand was indescribable, for it was only then I realized its true dimensions. G.o.d alone knew, or perhaps could ever know, the full extent of this long-dead metropolis.

Once I stood on the ma.s.sive pavings of the central swathe, the horror of my dream returned a hundredfold. For now I had no normal ideals to fall back on to enable me to fully maintain a hold on my toppling emotions. Had I remained alone in that darkness of uncountable years I might have tugged frantically on the rope connecting me to the surface, demanding to be pulled back up to sanity and the mundane surroundings of the ship. But a few seconds later, I saw another shambling figure, a second beam of light stabbing the gloom ahead of me.

Going forward, I recognized Brown's features behind the transparent face-piece of the helmet and pointing along the avenue, I urged him onward, keeping a safe distance between us in order that our lines might not become entangled. Our progress was not as rapid, nor as easy, as I had antic.i.p.ated. Now, for the first time, I was able to see the full extent of the devastation that had struck the city all those thousands of years earlier. The great stones that made up the avenue had been twisted and buckled upward so they lay at crazy angles with gaping holes between them. We were forced to pick our way forward with extreme care, working our way around the individual stones, gingerly clambering over others, knowing that the slightest tear in our suits would doom us to almost instant death.

Curiously, although the light had not been in sight earlier, my sense of direction was not ill-founded. Working our way against the surging currents, often bent almost double as if against a gale, we soon sighted the dull-red glow which Dorman and I had witnessed before. I made to call Brown's attention to it, but he had already seen it and behind the transparent mask I saw his awestruck face staring at me questioningly. I nodded and pointed again, motioning him onward.

It was impossible to take in more than a miniscule part of the complete structure, which, curiously, seemed to have suffered far less from the cataclysmic destruction of the other buildings we had seen.

As we approached it, we noticed two things that filled us with a sense of shock and apprehension. Above the solitary portal, cut deep into the gray stone, we were just able to make out a vast, cryptic sign. Had it not been for the diffuse red glow, we might have missed it altogether. The second thing we saw was the diminutive figure already inside the ma.s.sive building, moving steadily towards a gaping chasm deep within, from which poured the singular radiance.

That it was Dorman, we did not doubt. Yet why had he gone on ahead without waiting for us, we could not guess. Perhaps he wished to convince himself there was some natural explanation for the phenomenon or, as I later came to believe, there was some outside compulsion which made him go forward against his will. Whatever the reason, I was suddenly so overcome by the feel of evil which radiated from that spot that I grasped Brown's arm as he made to follow and pulled him back.

The fact that we survived and made it back to the surface is proof enough that my instincts were right. Sheer luck and providence alone could not have saved us if we had gone any further into that blasphemous temple built by those long-dead alien creatures for the primeval ent.i.ty they had brought with them from the dark planet on the rim of the solar system when the Earth was young.

Outlined against that h.e.l.lish glare we saw Dorman reach the lip of the abyssal shaft that plummeted into unguessable deeps beneath the accursed city of Yuth, for such I now know it to be.

The old books from which occasional fragments come down to us over the ages speak wisdom to those who have eyes and ears to understand their message of warning. The spells and sigils, which bind the grotesque and undying survivors of that war fought among the stars and in universes alien to our own untold millions of years ago, do indeed weaken in their potency with the pa.s.sage of aeons.

What happened next was born of horror and thankfully Brown and I witnessed only the smallest part of it. As it was, Brown was gibbering inarticulately to himself when we were eventually taken on board the waiting ship and I am left with such wild nightmares I scarcely dare close my eyes at night. Neither Brown nor I returned to the university. Brown, because his mind snapped altogether under the impact of what we both saw; and I, because I now know there are places and things on this Earth where eldritch, elder horrors still lurk, biding their time until the stars and spheres are right and they may once again walk the lands and undersea regions where Man believes himself to be supreme.

There are certain matters, which, for the peace of mankind, should not be revealed and, furthermore, it is extremely doubtful if our story would have been believed. We explained Dorman's death and the odd seismic disturbance which accompanied it as due to a small-scale volcanic eruption on the seabed and, in general, this was accepted by the scientific community and public at large. What really occurred was far different.

As I have said, Brown and I caught sight of Dorman's figure, bulky and ungainly in the heavy diving suit, silhouetted against that crimson coruscation. We saw him pause as he reached the edge, his body bent forward as he peered down into whatever depths lay beyond.

For what seemed an age, we stood there irresolutely, my grip on Brown's arm still tight as I strove to hold him back. Then, without warning, the ocean floor shuddered and heaved beneath our feet, hurling us both off balance. Brown clutched desperately at me for support. He was mouthing something behind his face-piece but I could not hear the words. The ma.s.sive walls that had withstood endless years of cataclysm and decay cracked and huge lumps of masonry fell from the roof, crashing onto the buckling floor.

Only vaguely were we aware that for some unaccountable reason, the glare was fading, but for several moments we were too busy trying to keep our feet, so we paid little heed to it. Then, realizing that the entire structure was coming down about us, we somehow turned and fled; but only after throwing a quick glance in Dorman's direction to see if he, too, were attempting to escape the devastation. It was that glance which drove Brown over the bounds of sanity and left me as I am now, afraid of shadows and dark, lonely places.

It was no fiery force of nature that caused the unholy glow inside that infamous temple, nor the upheaval that almost cost us our lives. There was a shadow cast upon the scarlet glare, dimming it even as we watched. Even that ill-defined, leaping shadow was bad enough, but the reality which followed it, the lumbering, amorphous bulk that heaved itself from the depths below accursed Yuth and for one soul-searing moment came out into the open, was a million times worse.

The lost Book of K'yog, the merest fragments of which had been copied by some unknown hand thousands of years later, had not lied. Tsathoggua had not died when his ageless city had been destroyed, together with all of his worshippers. The great glaring eye that stared at us across a hundred yards of gray stone held an evil malevolence that was infinitely more mind-destroying than anything of Earth.

Even in retrospect, it is not possible to convey in words the nature of that monstrosity which squeezed its vast bulk through the gaping abyss. It held a hint of noxious plasticity, of writhing tentacles that changed their number and shape. But more than anything, I had the impression of gigantic size, that huge as that part of it looked where it almost completely blocked the opening, there was an infinitely greater bulk mercifully hidden from us.

Perhaps it was, as one or two of Brown's doctors have suggested, nothing more than an hallucination, something conjured from one of our minds and telepathically communicated to the other in that moment of supreme horror.

Inwardly, I would like to believe this is the truth and that vast sunken city of gray stone has been utterly dead and untenanted for thousands of years.

But I know there was nothing imaginary or hallucinatory about the black, coiling tentacle that seized Dorman around the waist and bore him, kicking and struggling frantically into the gaping, beaked maw which appeared as if from nowhere beneath that single glaring red eye.

THE HOLINESS OF AZeDARAC.

by Clark Ashton Smith.

"By the Ram with a Thousand Ewes! By the Tail of Dagon and the Horns of Derceto!" said Azedarac, as he fingered the tiny, pot-bellied vial of vermilion liquid on the table before him. "Something will have to be done with this pestilential Brother Ambrose. I have now learned that he was sent to Ximes by the Archbishop of Averoigne for no other purpose than to gather proof of my subterraneous connection with Azazel and the Old Ones. He has spied upon my evocations in the vaults, he has heard the hidden formulae and beheld the veritable manifestation of Lilit, and even of Iog-Sotot and Sodagui, those demons who are more ancient than the world; and this very morning, an hour agone, he has mounted his white a.s.s for the return journey to Vyones. There are two ways-or, in a sense, there is one way-in which I can avoid the bother and inconvenience of a trial for sorcery: the contents of this vial must be administered to Ambrose before he has reached his journey's end-or, failing this, I myself shall be compelled to make use of a similar medicament."

Jehan Mauvaissoir looked at the vial and then at Azedarac. He was not at all horrified, nor even surprised, by the non-episcopal oaths and the somewhat uncanonical statements which he had just heard from the Bishop of Ximes. He had known the Bishop too long and too intimately, and had rendered him too many services of an unconventional nature, to be surprised at anything. In fact, he had known Azedarac long before the sorcerer had ever dreamt of becoming a prelate, in a phase of his existence that was wholly unsuspected by the people of Ximes; and Azedarac had not troubled to keep many secrets from Jehan at any time.

"I understand," said Jehan. "You can depend upon it that the contents of the vial will be administered. Brother Ambrose will hardly travel post-haste on that ambling white a.s.s; and he will not reach Vyones before tomorrow noon. There is abundant time to overtake him. Of course, he knows me-at least, he knows Jehan Mauvaissoir.... But that can be easily remedied."

Azedarac smiled confidently. "I leave the affair-and the vial-in your hands, Jehan. Of course, no matter what the eventuation, with all the Satanic and pre-Satanic facilities at my disposal, I should be in no great danger from these addle-pated bigots. However, I am very comfortably situated here in Ximes; and the lot of a Christian Bishop who lives in the odor of incense and piety, and maintains in a meanwhile a private understanding with the Adversary, is certainly preferable to the mischancy life of a hedge-sorcerer. I do not care to be annoyed or disturbed, or ousted from my sinecure, if such can be avoided.

"May Moloch devour that sanctimonious little milksop of an Ambrose," he went on. "I must be growing old and dull, not to have suspected him before this. It was the horrorstricken and averted look he has been wearing lately that made me think he had peered through the keyhole on the subterranean rites. Then, when I heard he was leaving, I wisely thought to review my library; and I have found that the Book of Eibon, which contains the oldest incantations, and the secret, man-forgotten lore of Iog-Sotot and Sodagui, is now missing. As you know, I had replaced the former binding of aboriginal, sub-human skin with the sheep-leather of a Christian missal and had surrounded the volume with rows of legitimate prayer-books. Ambrose is carrying it away under his robe as proof conclusive that I am addicted to the Black Arts. No one in Averoigne will be able to read the immemorial Hyperborean script; but the dragon's-blood illuminations and drawings will be enough to d.a.m.n me."

Master and servant regarded each other for an interval of significant silence. Jehan eyed with profound respect the haughty stature, the grimly lined lineaments, the grizzled tonsure, the odd, ruddy, crescent scar on the pallid brow of Azedarac, and the sultry points of orange-yellow fire that seemed to burn deep down in the chill and liquid ebon of his eyes. Azedarac, in his turn, considered with confidence the vulpine features and discreet, inexpressive air of Jehan, who might have been-and could be, if necessary-anything from a mercer to a cleric.

"It is regrettable," resumed Azedarac, "that any question of my holiness and devotional probity should have been raised among the clergy of Averoigne. But I suppose it was inevitable sooner or later-even though the chief difference between myself and many other ecclesiastics is that I serve the Devil wittingly and of my own free will, while they do the same in sanctimonious blindness.... However, we must do what we can to delay the evil hour of public scandal, and eviction from our neatly feathered nest. Ambrose alone could prove anything to my detriment at present; and you, Jehan, will remove Ambrose to a realm wherein his monkish tattlings will be of small consequence. After that, I shall be doubly vigilant. The next emissary from Vyones, I a.s.sure you, will find nothing to report but saintliness and bead-telling."

II.

The thoughts of Brother Ambrose were sorely troubled and at variance with the tranquil beauty of the sylvan scene as he rode onward through the forest of Averoigne between Ximes and Vyones. Horror was nesting in his heart like a knot of malignant vipers; and the evil Book of Eibon, that primordial manual of sorcery, seemed to burn beneath his robe like a huge, hot, Satanic sigil pressed against his bosom. Not for the first time, there occurred to him the wish that Clement, the Archbishop, had delegated someone else to investigate the Erebean turpitude of Azedarac. Sojourning for a month in the Bishop's household, Ambrose had learned too much for the peace of mind of any pious cleric and had seen things that were like a secret blot of shame and terror on the white page of his memory. To find that a Christian prelate could serve the powers of nethermost perdition, could entertain in privity the foulnesses that are older than Asmodai, was abysmally disturbing to his devout soul; and ever since then he had seemed to smell corruption everywhere, and had felt on every side the serpentine encroachment of the dark Adversary.

As he rode on among the somber pines and verdant beeches, he wished also that he were mounted on something swifter than the gentle, milk-white a.s.s appointed for his use by the Archbishop. He was dogged by the shadowy intimation of leering gargoyle faces, of invisible cloven feet, that followed him behind the thronging trees and along the umbrageous meanderings of the road. In the oblique rays, the elongated webs of shadow wrought by the dying afternoon, the forest seemed to attend with bated breath the noisome and furtive pa.s.sing of innominable things. Nevertheless, Ambrose had met no one for miles; and he had seen neither bird nor beast nor viper in the summer woods.

His thoughts returned with fearful insistence to Azedarac, who appeared to him as a tall, prodigious Antichrist, uprearing his sable vans and giant figure from out the flaming mire of Abaddon, Again he saw the vaults beneath the Bishop's mansion, wherein he had peered one night on a scene of infernal terror and loathliness, had beheld the Bishop swathed in the gorgeous, coiling fumes of unholy censers that mingled in midair with the sulfurous and bituminous vapors of the Pit; and through the vapors had seen the lasciviously swaying limbs, the bellying and dissolving features of foul enormous ent.i.ties.... Recalling them, again he trembled at the pre-Adamite lubriciousness of Lilit, again he shuddered at the trans-galactic horror of the demon Sodagui, and the ultra-dimensional hideousness of that being known as Iog-Sotot to the sorcerers of Averoigne.

How balefully potent and subversive, he thought, were these immemorial devils, who had placed their servant Azedarac in the very bosom of the Church, in a position of high and holy trust. For nine years the evil prelate had held an unchallenged and unsuspected tenure, had befouled the bishopric of Ximes with infidelities that were worse than those of the Paynims. Then, somehow, through anonymous channels, a rumour had reached Clement-a warning whisper that not even the Archbishop had dared to voice aloud; and Ambrose, a young Benedictine monk, the nephew of Clement, had been dispatched to examine privily the festering foulness that threatened the integrity of the Church. Only at that time did anyone recall how little was actually known regarding the antecedents of Azedarac; how tenuous were his claims to ecclesiastical preferment, or even to mere priestship; how veiled and doubtful were the steps by which he had attained his office. It was then realized that a formidable wizardry had been at work.

Uneasily, Ambrose wondered if Azedarac had already discovered the removal of the Book of Eibon from among the missals contaminated by its blasphemous presence. Even more uneasily, he wondered what Azedarac would do in that event, and how long it would take him to connect the absence of the volume with his visitor's departure.

At this point, the meditations of Ambrose were interrupted by the hard clatter of galloping hoofs that approached from behind. The emergence of a centaur from the oldest wood of paganism could scarcely have startled him to a keener panic; and he peered apprehensively over his shoulder at the nearing horseman. This person, mounted on a fine black steed with opulent trappings, was a bushy-bearded of obvious consequence; for his gay garments were those of a n.o.ble or a courtier. He overtook Ambrose and pa.s.sed on with a polite nod, seeming to be wholly intent on his own affairs. The monk was immensely rea.s.sured, though vaguely troubled for some moments by a feeling that he had seen elsewhere, under circ.u.mstances which he was unable to recall, the narrow eyes and sharp profile that contrasted so oddly with the bluff beard of the horseman. However, he was comfortably sure that he had never seen the man in Ximes. The rider soon vanished beyond a leafy turn of the arboreal highway. Ambrose returned to the pious horror and apprehensiveness of his former soliloquy.

As he went on, it seemed to him that the sun had gone down with untimely and appalling swiftness. Though the heavens above were innocent of cloud, and the low-lying air was free from vapors, the woods were embrowned by an inexplicable gloom that gathered visibly on all sides. In this gloom, the trunks of the trees were strangely distorted, and the low ma.s.ses of foliage a.s.sumed unnatural and disquieting forms. It appeared to Ambrose that the silence around him was a fragile film through which the raucous rumble and mutter of diabolic voices might break at any moment, even as the foul and sunken driftage that rises anon above the surface of a smoothly flowing river.

With much relief, he remembered that he was not far from a wayside tavern known as the Inn of Bonne Jouissance. Here, since his journey to Vyones was little more than half completed, he resolved to tarry for the night.

A minute more, and he saw the lights of the inn. Before their benign and golden radiance, the equivocal forest shadows that attended him seemed to halt and retire, and he gained the haven of the tavern courtyard with the feeling of one who has barely escaped from an army of goblin-perils.

Committing his mount to the care of a stable-servant, Ambrose entered the main room of the inn. Here he was greeted with the deference due to his cloth by the stout and unctuous taverner; and, being a.s.sured that the best accommodations of the place were at his disposal, he seated himself at one of several tables where other guests had already gathered to await the evening meal.

Among them, Ambrose recognized the bluff-bearded horseman who had overtaken him in the woods an hour agone. This person was sitting alone and a little apart. The other guests, a couple of traveling mercers, a notary, and two soldiers, acknowledged the presence of the monk with all due civility; but the horseman arose from his table and, coming over to Ambrose, began immediately to make overtures that were more than those of common courtesy.

"Will you not dine with me, sir monk?" he invited, in a gruff but ingratiating voice that was perplexingly familiar to Ambrose and yet, like the wolfish profile, was irrecognizable at the time.

"I am the Sieur des emaux, from Touraine, at your service," the man went on. "It would seem that we are traveling the same road-possibly to the same destination. Mine is the cathedral city of Vyones. And yours?"

Though he was vaguely perturbed and even a little suspicious, Ambrose found himself unable to decline the invitation. In reply to the last question, he admitted that he also was on his way to Vyones. He did not altogether like the Sieur des emaux, whose slitted eyes gave back the candlelight of the inn with a covert glitter and whose manner was somewhat effusive, not to say fulsome. But there seemed to be no ostensible reason for refusing a courtesy that was doubtless well-meant and genuine. He accompanied his host to their separate table.

"You belong to the Benedictine order, I observe," said the Sieur des emaux, eyeing the monk with an odd smile that was tinged with furtive irony. "It is an order that I have always admired greatly-a most n.o.ble and worthy brotherhood. May I not inquire your name?"

Ambrose gave the requested information with a curious reluctance.

"Well, then, Brother Ambrose," said the Sieur des emaux, "I suggest that we drink to your health and the prosperity of your order in the red wine of Averoigne while we are waiting for supper to be served. Wine is always welcome following a long journey and is no less beneficial before a good meal than after."

Ambrose mumbled an unwilling a.s.sent. He could not have told why, but the personality of the man was more and more distasteful to him. He seemed to detect a sinister undertone in the purring voice, to surprise an evil meaning in the low-lidded glance. And all the while his brain was tantalized by intimations of a forgotten memory. Had he seen his interlocutor in Ximes? Was the self-styled Sieur des emaux a henchman of Azedarac in disguise?

Wine was now ordered by his host, who left the table to confer with the innkeeper for this purpose, and even insisted on paying a visit to the cellar, that he might select a suitable viatage in person. Noting the obeisance paid to the man by the people of the tavern, who addressed him by name, Ambrose felt a certain measure of rea.s.surance. When the taverner, followed by the Sieur des emaux, returned with two earthen pitchers of wine, he had well-nigh succeeded in dismissing his vague doubts and vaguer fears. Two large goblets were now placed on the table, and the Sieur des emaux filled them immediately from one of the pitchers. It seemed to Ambrose that the first of the goblets already contained a small amount of some sanguine fluid before the wine was poured into it, but he could not have sworn to this in the dim light and thought that he must have been mistaken.

"Here are two matchless vintages," said the Sieur des emaux, indicating the pitchers. "Both are so excellent that I was unable to choose between them; but you, Brother Ambrose, are perhaps capable of deciding their merits with a finer palate than mine."

He pushed one of the filled goblets toward Ambrose. "This is the wine of La Frenaie," he said. "Drink, it will verily transport you from the world by virtue of the mighty fire that slumbers in its heart."

Ambrose took the proffered goblet and raised it to his lips. The Sieur des emaux was bending forward above his own wine to inhale its bouquet; and something in his posture was terrifyingly familiar to Ambrose. In a chill flash of horror, his memory told him that the thin, pointed features behind the square beard were dubiously similar to those of Jehan Mauvaissoir, whom he had often seen in the household of Azedarac, and who, as he had reason to believe, was implicated in the Bishop's sorceries. He wondered why he had not placed the resemblance before, and what wizardry had drugged his powers of recollection. Even now he was not sure; but the mere suspicion terrified him as if some deadly serpent had reared its head across the table.

"Drink, Brother Ambrose," urged the Sieur des emaux, draining his own goblet. "To your welfare and that of all good Benedictines."

Ambrose hesitated. The cold, hypnotic eyes of his interlocutor were upon him, and he was powerless to refuse, in spite of all his apprehensions. Shuddering slightly, with the sense of some irresistible compulsion, and feeling that he might drop dead from the virulent working of a sudden poison, he emptied his goblet.

An instant more, and he felt that his worst fears had been justified. The wine burned like the liquid flames of Phlegeton in his throat and on his lips; it seemed to fill his veins with a hot, infernal quicksilver. Then, all at once, an unbearable cold had inundated his being; an icy whirlwind wrapped him round with coils of roaring air, the chair melted beneath him, and he was falling through endless, glacial gulfs. The walls of the inn had flown like receding vapors; the lights went out like stars in the black mist of a marish; and the face of the Sieur des emaux faded with them on the swirling shadows, even as a bubble that breaks on the milling of midnight waters.

III.

It was with some difficulty that Ambrose a.s.sured himself that he was not dead. He had seemed to fall eternally through a gray night that was peopled with ever-changing forms, with blurred, unstable ma.s.ses that dissolved to other ma.s.ses before they could a.s.sume definitude. For a moment, he thought there were walls about him once more; and then he was plunging from terrace to terrace of a world of phantom trees. At whiles, he thought also that there were human faces; but all was doubtful and evanescent, all was drifting smoke and surging shadow.

Abruptly, with no sense of transition or impact, he found that he was no longer falling. The vague phantasmagoria around him had returned to an actual scene-but a scene in which there was no trace of the Inn of Bonne Jouissance or the Sieur des emaux.

Ambrose peered about with incredulous eyes on a situation that was truly unbelievable. He was sitting in broad daylight on a large square block of roughly hewn granite. Around him, at a little distance, beyond the open s.p.a.ce of a gra.s.sy glade, were the lofty pines and spreading beeches of an elder forest, whose boughs were already touched by the gold of the declining sun. Immediately before him, several men were standing.

These men appeared to regard Ambrose with a profound and almost religious amazement. They were bearded and savage of aspect, with white robes of a fashion he had never before seen. Their hair was long and matted, like tangles of black snakes, and their eyes burned with a frenetic fire. Each of them bore in his right hand a rude knife of sharply chiseled stone.