The Last Hieroglyph

by Clark Ashton Smith

  Again a wind breathed in the room, touching not the astrologer, but fluttering the ragged raiment of Mouzda, who crouched near to his master, as if appealing for protection. And the mute became shrunken and shrivelled, turning at the last to a thing light and thin as the black, tattered wing-shard of a beetle, which the air bore aloft. And Nushain saw that the hieroglyph of a one-eyed negro was inscribed following that of the dog; but, aside from this, there was no sign of Mouzda.

  Now, perceiving clearly the doom that was designed for him, Nushain would have fled from the presence of Vergama. He turned from the outspread volume and ran toward the chamber door, his worn, tawdry robes of an astrologer flapping about his thin shanks. But softly in his ear, as he went, there sounded the voice of Vergama:

  “Vainly do men seek to resist or evade that destiny which turns them to ciphers in the end. In my book, O Nushain, there is room even for a bad astrologer.”

  Once more the weird sighing arose, and a cold air played upon Nushain as he ran; and he paused midway in the vast room as if a wall had arrested him. Gently the air breathed on his lean, gaunt figure, and it lifted his greying locks and beard, and it plucked softly at the roll of papyrus which he still held in his hand. To his dim eyes, the room seemed to reel and swell, expanding infinitely. Borne upward, around and around, in a swift vertiginous swirling, he beheld the seated shape as it loomed ever higher above him in cosmic vastness. Then the god was lost in light; and Nushain was a weightless and exile thing, the withered skeleton of a lost leaf, rising and falling on the bright whirlwind.

  In the book of Vergama, at the end of the last column of the right-hand page, there stood the hieroglyph of a gaunt astrologer, carrying a furled nativity.

  Vergama leaned forward from his chair, and turned the page.

  NECROMANCY IN NAAT

  Dead longing, sundered evermore from pain:

  How dim and sweet the shadow-hearted love,

  The happiness that perished lovers prove

  In Naat, far beyond the sable main.

  —Song of the Galley-Slaves.

  Yadar, prince of a nomad people in the half-desert region known as Zyra, had followed throughout many kingdoms a clue that was often more elusive than broken gossamer. For thirteen moons he had sought Dalili, his betrothed, whom the slave traders of Sha-Karag, swift and cunning as desert falcons, had reft from the tribal encampment with nine other maidens while Yadar and his men were hunting the black gazelles of Zyra. Fierce was the grief of Yadar, and fiercer still his wrath, when he came back at eve to the ravaged tents. He had sworn then a great oath to find Dalili, whether in slave-mart or brothel or harem, whether dead or living, whether tomorrow or after the lapse of grey years.

  The tracks of the slavers’ camels ran plainly toward the iron gates of Sha-Karag, lying many leagues away in the west. Because of similar raidings, the nomads had long been at war with the people of that infamous market-place where women were the chief merchandise. Knowing that the high-walled city was impregnable to assault by his little band of followers, Yadar disguised himself as a rug-merchant; and accompanied by four of his men in like attire, with certain hoarded heirlooms of the tribe for a stock-in-trade, he appeared before the shut gates and was admitted without challenge by the guards. Listening discreetly to the gossip of the bazaars, he learned that the raiders had not remained in Sha-Karag; but, after selling most of their captives to local dealers, they had gone on without delay toward the great empires of the sunset, taking with them Dalili and her fairest companions. It was said that they hoped to sell Dalili to some opulent king or emperor who would pay a city’s ransom for the wild, rare beauty of the outland princess.

  Weary and perilous was the quest to which Yadar and his followers now dedicated themselves. Still disguised as rug-merchants, they joined a caravan that was departing on the route taken by the slavers. From realm to realm they followed a doubtful trail, sometimes led astray by vain rumors.

  In Tinarath, hearing that a nomad girl of strange loveliness had lately been purchased by the king, they entered the palace harem on a night of storm, slaying the griffon-like monsters who warded its balconies, and braving the hideous pitfalls that had been set for intruders in the inner halls. They found the girl, who was not Dalili but another of the maidens reaved from Yadar’s people; and swiftly, amid the bewildered hubbub of the awakening palace, they carried her away into the darkness and storm. She knew little of the fate of Dalili, saying that the princess had been parted from her in Tinarath and had gone with the slave-traders toward Zul-Bha-Sair: for the king of Tinarath had refused to pay the vast sum demanded for Dalili.

  Now, when they were safely beyond the borders of Tinarath, Yadar sent the girl back toward Zyra with one of his tribesmen; and he and the others resumed their search and were brought near to death amid the springless dunes of the waste lying between Tinarath and Zul-Bha-Sair. And in Zul-Bha-Sair, Yadar learned that Dalili had been offered to the king who, caring not for a sun-dark beauty, had declined to buy her; and, after that, the princess and her captors had gone northward to an undeclared destination. But, before the nomads could follow, Yadar’s companions were seized by a strange fever and died swiftly; and their bodies, according to custom, were claimed by the priesthood of a great temple-dwelling ghoul who was worshipped in that city. So Yadar went on alone, and after much random wandering, he came to Oroth, a western sea-port of the land of Xylac.

  There, for the first time in several moons, he heard a rumor that might concern Dalili: for the people of Oroth were still gossiping about the departure of a rich galley bearing a lovely outland girl who had been bought by the emperor of Xylac and sent to the ruler of the far southern kingdom of Yoros as a gift concluding a treaty between these realms.

  Yadar, who had almost yielded to despair, was now hopeful of finding his beloved: since, by the description the people had given, he thought that the girl was indeed none other than Dalili. Nothing remained of the precious weavings of the tribe which he had brought with him to sell as merchandise; but, through the sale of his camels, he procured money with which to engage his passage on a ship that was about to sail for Yoros.

  The ship was a small merchant galley, laden with grain and wine, that was wont to coast up and down, hugging closely the winding western shores of the continent Zothique and venturing never beyond eyeshot of land. On a clear blue summer day it departed from Oroth with all auguries for a safe and tranquil voyage. But on the third morn after leaving port, a tremendous wind blew suddenly from the low-lying sandy shore they were then skirting; and with it, blotting the heavens and sea, there came a blackness as of night thickened with clouds. The sails and oars could win no headway against the gale, and the vessel was swept far out to sea, going with the blind tempest.

  After two days, the wind fell from its ravening fury and was soon no more than a vague whisper; and the skies cleared, leaving a bright azure vault from horizon to horizon. But nowhere was there any land visible, only a waste of waters that still roared and tossed turbulently without wind, pouring ever westward in a cataracting tide that was too swift and strong for the galley to stem. And the galley was borne on irresistibly by that strange current, even as by the hurricane.

  Yadar, who was the sole passenger, marvelled much at this thing; and he was struck by the pale terror on the faces of the captain and crew. And, looking again at the sea, he remarked a singular darkening of its waters, which assumed from moment to moment a hue as of old blood commingled with more and more of blackness: though above it the sun shone untarnished. So he made inquiry of the captain, a greybeard from Yoros, named Agor, who had sailed the ocean for forty summers; and the captain answered, with many seafaring oaths:

  “This I had apprehended when the storm bore us westwardly: for know now that we have fallen into the grip of that terrible ocean-stream which is called by mariners the Black River. Evermore the stream surges and swiftens toward the fabled place of the sun’s outermost setting, till it pours at last from the world’s rim
. Between us now and that final verge, there is no land, saving the evil land of Naat, which is called also the Isle of Necromancers. And I know not which were the worse fate, to be wrecked on that infamous isle or hurled into space with the waters falling eternally from earth’s edge. From either place there is no return for living men such as we. And from the Isle of Naat none go forth except the ill sorcerers who people it, and the dead who are raised up and controlled by their sorcery. In magical ships that breast the full current of the Black River, the sorcerers sail at will to other strands; and beneath their necromancy, to fulfill their wicked errands, the dead men swim without pause for many days and nights whithersoever the masters may send them.”

  Yadar, who knew little of sorcerers and necromancy, was somewhat incredulous concerning the matters whereof the captain spoke. But he saw that the blackening waters streamed always more wildly and torrentially toward the skyline, as if pouring adown some submarine slope of earth that steepened to the final rim; and verily there was small hope that the galley could regain its southward course. And he was troubled chiefly by the thought that he should never reach the kingdom of Yoros, where he had dreamt to find Dalili.

  All that day the vessel was borne on without respite by the dark seas racing weirdly beneath an airless and immaculate heaven. It followed the silent orange sunset into a night filled with large, unquivering stars; and at length it was overtaken by the stilly flying amber morn. But still there was no abating of the waters; and neither land nor cloud was discernible in the vastness about the galley.

  Yadar held little converse with Agor and the crew, after questioning them vainly as to the reason of the ocean’s blackness, which was a thing that no man understood. Despair was upon him; but, standing at the bulwark, he watched the sky and wave with an alertness born of his nomad life. Toward middle afternoon he descried far-off a strange vessel, rigged with funereal purple sails, that drove steadily on an eastering course against the mighty current. At this, he cried out in wonder, calling the captain’s attention to the vessel; and the captain, with a muttering of outlandish oaths, told him that it was a ship belonging to the necromancers of Naat, whose malign magic was more cogent than the tide of the Black River.

  Soon the purple sails were lost to vision; but a little later, Yadar perceived certain objects, queerly resembling human heads, that passed in the high-billowing water to the galley’s leeward, as if swimming easily toward Zothique on the route of that necromantic ship. Deeming that no mortal living men could swim thus, and remembering that which the captain had told him concerning the dead swimmers who went forth from Naat, Yadar shivered a little with such trepidation as a brave man may feel in the presence of preternatural things; and he did not speak of the matter. And seemingly the head-like objects were not noticed by any of his companions.

  Still the galley drove on, its oarsmen sitting idle at the oars, and the captain standing listless beside the untended helm.

  Now, as the sun declined above that tumultuous ebon ocean, it seemed that a great bank of thunder-cloud arose from the west, long and low-lying at first, but surging rapidly skyward with mountainous domes and craggy battlements. Ever higher it loomed, revealing the menace as of piled cliffs and somber awful sea-capes; but its form changed not in the manner of clouds; and Yadar, watching it closely, knew it at last for an island bulking far aloft in the long-rayed sunset. From it, a chill effluence of evil came like a sighing breath; and a shadow was thrown for leagues, darkening still more the sable waters, as if with the fall of untimely night; and in the shadow, the foam-crests flashing upon hidden reefs were white as the bared teeth of Death. And Yadar needed not the shrill, frightened cries of his companions to tell him that this was the terrible Isle of Naat.

  Direly the current swiftened, raging, as it raced onward for battle with the rock-fanged shore; and the voices of the mariners, praying loudly to their gods, were drowned by its clamor. Yadar, standing in the prow, gave only a silent prayer to the dim, fatal deity of his tribe; and his eyes searched the towering isle like those of a sea-flown hawk, seeing the bare horrific crags, and the spaces of sullen forest creeping seaward between the crags, and the white mounting of breakers on a shadowy strand. And he discerned, on the lofty downs behind the shore, the furtive scattered roofs of houses pale amid cypress-trees that clotted the gloom with funereal umbrage.

  Shrouded, and ominous of bale was the island’s aspect, and the heart of Yadar sank like a plummet in unsunned seas. As the galley drew nearer to land, he thought that he beheld people moving darkly, visible in the lapsing of surges on a low beach, and then hidden once more by foam and spindrift. Ere he saw them a second time, the galley was hurled with thunderous crashing and grinding on a reef covered by the torrent waters. The whole forepart of its prow and bottom were broken in, and being lifted from the reef by a great comber, it filled instantly and sank. And of those who had sailed from Oroth in the vessel, Yadar alone leapt free ere its foundering; but, since he was little skilled as a swimmer, he was drawn under quickly and was like to have drowned in the maelstroms of that evil sea.

  His senses left him, and in his brain, like a lost sun returned from yesteryear, he beheld the face of Dalili; and with Dalili, in a bright phantasmagoria, there came the happy days that had been ere his bereavement. The visions passed, and he awoke struggling, with the bitterness of the sea in his mouth, and its loudness in his ears, and its rushing darkness all about him. And, as his senses quickened, he became aware of a form that swam close behind him, and arms that supported him amid the waters.

  He lifted his head in the twilight, and saw dimly the pale neck and half-averted face of his rescuer, and the long black hair that floated from wave to wave. Touching the body at his side, he knew it for that of a woman. Mazed and wildered though he was by the sea’s buffeting, a sense of something familiar stirred within him; and he thought that he had known, somewhere, at some former time, a girl with like hair and similar curving of cheek; but he could not remember clearly. And, trying to remember, he touched the woman again, and felt in his fingers a strange coldness from her naked body. At this, he wondered a little, but forgot his wonder in the wildness of that sea through which he was borne by the swimmer.

  Miraculous was the woman’s strength and skill, for she rode easily the dreadful mounting and falling of the surges. Yadar, floating as in a cradle upon her arm, beheld the nearing shore from the billows’ summits; and hardly it seemed that any swimmer, however able, could win alive through the ponderous cataracting of that surf on the stony strand. Dizzily, at the last, they were hurled upward, as if the surf would fling them against the highmost crag; but, as if checked by some enchantment, the wave fell with a slow, lazy undulation; and Yadar and his rescuer, released by its ebbing, lay unhurt on a shelfy beach.

  Uttering no word, nor turning to look at Yadar, the woman rose swiftly to her feet; and, beckoning the nomad prince to follow, she moved away in the deathly blue dusk that had fallen upon Naat. Yadar, arising and following the woman, heard a strange and eerie chanting of voices above the sea’s tumult, and saw a fire that burned weirdly, with the colors of driftwood, at some distance before him in the dusk. Straightly, toward the fire and the voices, the woman walked in the fashion of a somnambulist, and Yadar, with eyes grown used to that doubtful twilight, saw that the fire blazed in the mouth of a low-sunken cleft between crags that overloomed the beach; and behind the fire, like tall, evilly posturing shadows, there stood the dark-clad figures of those who chanted.

  Now memory returned to him of that which the galley’s captain had said regarding the people of Naat and their necromantic practices; and with the memory came misgiving. For the very sound of that chanting, albeit in an unknown language, seemed to suspend the heartward flowing of his veins, and to set the tomb’s chillness in his marrow. And though he was little learned in such matters, the thought came to him that the words uttered were of sorcerous import and power.

  Going forward, the woman bowed low before the chanters, in suc
h fashion as a slave, and stood waiting submissively. The men, who were three in number, continued their incantation without pausing, and they seemed not to perceive the presence of Yadar as he entered the firelight. Gaunt as starved herons they were, and great of stature, with a common likeness, as of brothers; and sharply ridged were their faces, where shadows inhabited their hollow cheeks, and their sunk eyes were visible only by red sparks reflected within them from the blaze. And their eyes, as they chanted, seemed to glare afar on the darkling sea and on things hidden by dusk and distance. And Yadar, coming before them, was aware of swift horror and repugnance that made his gorge rise as if he had encountered, in a place given wholly to death, the powerful evil ripeness of corruption.

  High leaped the fire as he neared it, with a writhing of tongues that were like blue and green serpents coiling amid serpents of yellow. And the light flickered brightly on the face and breasts of that woman who had saved him from the Black River; and Yadar, beholding her clearly, knew why she had stirred within him a dim remembrance: for she was none other than his lost love, Dalili!

  Forgetting the presence of the dark chanters, and the ill renown of that isle to which the seas had brought him, he sprang forward to clasp his beloved, crying out her name in an agony of rapture. But she answered not his cry, and responded to his embrace only with a faint trembling. And Yadar, sorely perplexed and dismayed, was aware of the deathly coldness that crept into his fingers and smote through his very raiment from her flesh. Mortally pale and languid were the lips that he kissed, and it seemed that no breath emerged between them, nor was there any rising and falling of the wan bosom against his. In the wide, beautiful eyes that she turned to him, he found only a drowsy voidness, and such recognition as a sleeper gives when but half awakened, relapsing quickly into slumber thereafter.