The older man could only shake his head.
ERIK GUSTAU WAS only twenty-three years of age. Tall, blond, handsome as all the Gustaus were, he was a young man in his physical prime. And yet now there was this air of total dejection about him. A great light had gone out of his life; out of his eyes, too, which had once been bright and piercing blue. Now they were dull, disinterested, only very rarely given to smiling. What good the money his grandfather had willed him, when the one he had built his world around was no more? Shoulders which had been strong and square drooped a little, and a walk once bounding and full of life seemed now the measured tread of an old man . . .
II
And now, with the tiny phial of greenish powder in his pocket, Erik Gustau made his way across the heart of London from his uncle’s Woolwich address, and as he went he almost forgot the reason for his visit. Ever uppermost in his mind there loomed his lost love’s face, and again and again he would find himself cursing the name of that incurable disease whose insidious tentacles had taken her from him and into an early tomb.
He knew of course that his uncle had only set him the task in hand to free him from the dreadful lassitude which sorrow had seemed to stamp into him; he knew also that there were greater talents to whom the task would have been better entrusted. Nevertheless he had decided to undertake its completion, if only to satisfy the other’s curiosity and let the older man believe that in his way he had helped him recover from his bereavement.
Thus when he returned to the beautiful home he had readied for his lost love, and to the anxious servants who waited there, he set to work at once and brewed up a gallon of Mylakhrion’s wine, applying himself diligently to the notes his uncle had prepared for him and adhering as best he could to the incredibly ancient formula or recipe. And so, some seven weeks later, the wine came into being . . .
IT CAME WITH a warning from Benson, Erik’s gentleman’s gentleman, who awakened him one morning from miserable, repetitious dreams with the ominous statement that something had “exploded” in the cellar! He at once remembered the wine, stored away in bottles for almost two months, and clad only in dressing-gown and slippers rushed downstairs.
In the cellar he found seven of his eight carefully labelled bottles shattered, their heady contents hurled to oblivion, and the eighth with its cork still bounding about the floor while a red fountain splashed the whitewashed ceiling. When at last he managed to ram the cork home again in the neck of the bottle, all that remained of a gallon of Mylakhrion’s wine was an amount somewhat greater than a large glassful. This sole remaining bottle he carefully wiped down and reverently carried with him to his study on the ground floor.
There, sitting in an easy chair with the bottle on an occasional table before him, he dimly remembered something of his uncle’s warning not to drink it, and something else of the tale accompanying it: of a time lost to man in the mists of predawn, where the first great civilisations of man were raised in a primal continent. And with the morning sun striking through his window and setting the wine to glowing a dull red, it suddenly seemed to him that he could smell the warm winds of that time-lost land and taste the salt of the mighty Unknown Ocean which washed its golden strand.
But then he shook his head. No, it was only the fumes from the escaped wine in the cellar that he could smell; his imagination had done the rest. Still, the red-glowing stuff looked remarkably palatable through the clear glass of the bottle. Almost unconsciously he removed the cork, poured a small glass half full, and set it upon the table close to the window. As he did so a heady fragrance rose from the bottle and seemed to hang round his head in an almost tangible cloud.
Now the sun caught the rim of the fine wineglass and set it a-sparkle, and mirrored through the wine Erik could see his garden, all umber-tinted and reversed by the wine and the curve of the glass. Reversed as he wished he might reverse his life—or end it altogether.
Almost without noticing it, he took the glass in his hand, raised it to his lips, and sipped a half-mouthful, washing his palate and allowing that nectar of primal origins first to cool, then to sear his astonished throat! Unsteadily he replaced the glass by the window, half-rose to his feet, and fell back in his chair as a wave of dizziness passed over him. And again his eyes went to the glass.
Ah! But this time he saw no umber garden reflected in its bowl. Instead he saw—or read, or heard, it really does not matter—the beginnings of a strange story from a world far distant and lost in the dim mists of time . . .
III
There had been a time when the sheer cliffs of Shildakor were a mile high, utterly impregnable and cursed by the long-dead wizard for whom they were named, so that no man might ever climb them. But that had been more than five hundred years ago in Theem’hdra’s youth, when the Primal Land knew a strange era of half-barbaric civilisation and of sorcery, and when Bhur-Esh was a mighty city-state between the Unknown Ocean and Shildakor’s sheltering cliffs.
Now those cliffs were great rounded nodding heads of pumice and volcanic rock, riddled with caves which stared blindly out over the Unknown Ocean, where the unruly waves were calmed even to this day by the olden, stony promontories whose twin arms once guarded the bay of Bhur-Esh. For spells and enchantments grow old even as continents and worlds, and Nature’s own forces are at times more powerful than the builded walls of men or the mumbled runes of wizards.
Out in the Unknown Ocean, Ashtah the volcano isle still rumbled; but never so loudly as on that day, when rising up from the deeps, it had hurled molten death into the Vale of Bhur-Esh, forming a great roaring ramp between boiling sea and cliffs and removing forever the city and its rulers and the farmers who tended their beasts and crops outside the city’s walls and beneath the sheer and mighty Ghost Cliffs. All of them gone, all but a handful of survivors, swept away by rivers of rock from Earth’s heart; a proud people no more but a paragraph written upon a single scorched page of a planet’s history. And in this Bhur-Esh was little different from other cities and civilisations which would follow down the aeons, though geologic ages would pass before Atlantis and Mu, and a handful of years more before Pompeii . . .
But after a time, when wind and weather began to work their ways—when the lava slopes grew green again and the great fishes came back to the warm seas, and when Ashtah settled down quietly to smoke and smoulder far out in the Unknown Ocean beyond the bay—then the descendants of the holocaust’s survivors returned and made their homes in the lava caves, and they built stout doors and windows to guard against the inclement seasons. They floored their dwellings with planks cut from trees felled atop the now gentle cliffs, and the skins of animals were the rugs on their floors. They built garden walls, and brick chimneys for their fires, and fishing boats to go out in the bay for food; and as the years passed so the people prospered and grew in number. They became skilled at hollowing out or discovering new dwellings in the lava, and used the debris of their work as soil; and their terraces went down from the cliffs to the sea, laden with trellis-grown grapes rich and red from the fertile pumice.
So the people of New Bhur-Esh flourished, and where the former city and citizens had been utterly self-contained and -sufficient, they traded their wines with the wild, dark-haired Northmen and the merchants of Thandopolis, who came in their dragonships and merchantmen; and all in all they were a happy people, even living in the constant shade of Ashtah, which sometimes rumbled mightily or vented great columns of smoke into the clear blue skies of Theem’hdra. Aye, even in the shade of the volcano—and of the greater evil it housed—they did their best to be happy.
As for that greater evil: it was a shadow fallen on New Bhur-Esh out of the East, the necromantic shadow of a black sorcerer from the coastal forests beyond the nameless river. For even as the population of the lava valley grew and prospered, so rumours came from the East of a Yhemni Magus whose ebon skin was never so black as his heart, which was so steeped in sin as to be putrid.
Hurled forth from outraged Grypha of the Hrossaks, s
purned by the inhabitants of the jungle-hidden cities of his native coastal forests, driven from beneath the walls of Thinhla under threat of death by fire, the necromancer Arborass sought new lodgings—and rumour had it that he sought them in New Bhur-Esh. Now when they heard this whispered abroad, the elders of the valley tribe (for they were considered and thought of themselves as a tribe as opposed to a nation) came together in meeting to decide what was to be done about this Arborass, and this was their decision:
Just as Grypha and the Black Cities and Thinhla had turned him and his acolytes back from their borders, so must they; for it was of old renown that if ever a wizard made unopposed camp within a town, then that town was doomed by its own slothfulness, and must soon dance to the wizard’s tune. Thus when the black, skull-prowed ship of Arborass sailed out of the West to cleave the calm waters of the bay with night-black oars, and when the necromancer himself stood up in the prow and gazed upon the valley’s strand, he saw only the sharp weapons and fires of them that waited on his landing, and the sharper eyes of wise men who would not suffer a wizard to set foot upon their land.
And the necromancer Arborass swelled up in his rage, and his head was a great black shaven skull with eyes of fire, which towered above a billowing cloak of black velvet embroidered with silver runes. He stood in the prow of his devil’s boat and raised his taloned arms as if to administer a great curse—then calmed himself and said:
“So, I am threatened with knives and fires, who have come these long sea-miles only to be your friend and protector. So be it . . . but before ten days are done, and before the setting of the tenth sun, you shall welcome me ashore. Even with open arms shall I be welcomed. Aye, and my weary rowers also, who tire of the sea’s toil.” And as the oars dipped and turned his ship seaward once more, so the people of New Bhur-Esh saw the necromancer’s jest—for his rowers were sere mummies whose semblance of life was a blasphemy commanded by the necromancer himself!
IV
Now among them that gathered on the beach and saw this thing, and watched Arborass rowed out to sea once more by his mummied crew, was a lad of some thirteen years called Ayrish: which meant foundling. Learning the fisherman’s trade, Ayrish lived with the poorest family of the cave-dwellers, for they had found him on their doorstep as a babe and had grudgingly taken him in. What were his origins no man could say, but it was thought a village girl had been his mother, and that in her shame she had lain him on a doorstep to be found.
Ayrish was big for his age and handsome, but ever he wore the marks of much toiling and the black bruises of beatings. The master of his house was a drunkard and bully; his three true sons were older than Ayrish, sullen and full of spite; so that in a word, his lot was not a happy one. Nevertheless he worked harder than the others for his keep and grew stronger each day, and without a mother’s care waxed supple of limb and hard of will. And the three he called brothers, though they were not his brothers and dealt sorely with him, were a little afraid of him; for where they were dull and ran to idle fatness, the wit of Ayrish was sharp and his muscles firm, so that they thought one day he might turn on them.
Now, watching the necromancer Arborass rowing out to sea, and seeing that his course lay straight for the volcano isle Ashtah, Ayrish spoke up, saying: “You should have killed him, you men!”
“What do you know, boy?” an Elder at once rounded on him. “And who are you, a motherless chick not long hatched, to talk of killing? Arborass is a necromancer and wizard; aye, and a hard one to kill, be sure!”
“Nevertheless, you should have tried,” answered the lad, undaunted. “The rumours say he is a fire-wizard. He commands the fires that rage.”
Now another Elder grabbed Ayrish and shook him. “Boy, we did not let him land, you saw that. Why then should we fear him? And what fires may he command out on the bosom of the sea?”
All of them laughed then, and none louder than the louts Ayrish called brothers, until he said: “And what of Ashtah? Is not the volcano a raging fire, however much he seems to sleep? And what if Arborass wakes him? See, the wizard steers a steady course!” And all of them saw that the lad was right.
“He would not dare return,” the Elders blustered. Ayrish, struggling free of them, said nothing. But to himself he said, We shall see, in ten more days!
THREE NIGHTS AND two days passed with never sight nor sound of Arborass and his magics; but on the third day, at noon, a mighty column of steam shot up from Ashtah and formed a leaden blanket in the sky. All through the afternoon the boiling continued, and an early, unseasonal night settled over New Bhur-Esh, and lightnings flashed and rumbled in the grey, rolling sky.
In the morning the Elders said that was that, and they brushed their hands together to dismiss Arborass, for surely he was boiled alive. But the next evening, at dusk, a great voice was heard echoing over the sea, and the ground trembled and shook, and rings of smoke went up from Ashtah as from some strange and sinister engine. On this occasion no one spoke of Arborass, for the great voice that had thundered was his, but magnified a thousand times.
In the afternoon of the eighth day a chanting was heard, rolling in on a breeze off the sea, and the voices were of those long dead, which had the reedy quality of flutes. And when the chanting was done, there came once more a great booming of laughter; and all the people of the lava valley knew that indeed Arborass lived and worked strange wonders.
On the ninth day Ashtah hurled a mighty cluster of lava-bombs aloft, which hissed down into the sea between the volcano and the bay, causing clouds of steam and waves which washed up fishes roasted in their thousands. This was early in the morning; but midway to noon a second eruption rained glowing rocks within the bay itself. At noon a third peppered the shallowest waters of the bay and sank a number of anchored craft; and three hours later a fourth devastated the beach. And the people of New Bhur-Esh saw that this regular vomiting of the volcano had clear design, for always the fires fell closer and closer to the vines and gardens and yards of the boat-builders; aye, and closer to their homes in the face of the old cliffs. And the stench of sulphur was everywhere, and the people cowered in their cavern houses.
Now, as the afternoon passed in troubled silence and night grew on, when it seemed that Ashtah’s fearful game was at an end, there sounded again over the sea the chanting of Arborass’ mummy acolytes, and the necromancer’s mad laughter; so that all of the people feared what the morning would bring. For the next morning would be the tenth, when Arborass had prophesied his return . . .
V
The strange visions receded in Erik Gustau’s mind like a frost steamed away by the morning sun, and his astonishment at finding himself awake and seated in his chair close to the window of his study knew no ends; for the thing had been so real that he had thought to find himself in his bed and dreaming. Especially since the boy Ayrish (had that been his name?) had seemed so very familiar to him. But then, tasting a lingering fragrance in his mouth and seeing the small wineglass glowing in the sunlight, he remembered; and filled with an almost mesmeric amazement, he tilted the glass tremblingly to his lips once more . . .
TEN YEARS WERE passed away now, since the coming of Arborass the necromancer and wizard to New Bhur-Esh, and Ayrish was grown to a young man. None remembered the youth’s remark, uttered on that day when the wizard was turned away from the strand and his tomb-looted rowers bore him out to sea—that the men of the lava valley should have killed Arborass—but all remembered the tenth day and the wizard’s return.
All the night before the ground had shivered while Ashtah rumbled, and the dawn was a scarlet thing splashed by the sun on volcanic clouds, and the beach afloat with rotting fish and squids. Mist lapped thick and scummy on the dawn ocean like curdled milk, through which—on oars which plied with a soundless and soulless mechanism—Arborass’ black ship, sails furled up, came gliding in to beach with a hiss of crushed gravel.
All the Elders were there together with the men of the valley tribe, holding a line as the wizard stood up i
n the skull-carved prow. “And would you resist me?” he asked in a soft voice as fires smoked behind his baleful eyes. “And who then says me nay? Which is the spokesman, and what message has he for me?”
At this the wisest and oldest of all the Elders came slowly forward, frail in his years but with a strength of mind and will which all knew and respected. “Turn back, Arborass,” he warned in quavery voice. “We valley people would have naught of fire-wizards and necromancers. Aye, and if you step down from your ship, then be certain we shall kill you!”
And Arborass turned his back on the shore and them that stood there, raising his arms on high and calling on Ashtah which smoked in the sea. “Oh, do you hear this mischief, Ashtah?” his voice rolled on the undulant mist. “And what is your answer, Mighty One, to this threat against your true and faithful priest and servant?”
At that the volcano roared and hurled aloft a ball of fiery rock, which sped across the sky and rushed down upon the strand. All the Elders and men cowered back, except the old one whose age—and whose horror—bound him to the spot as were he chained there. And the rock fell on him and drove him into the sand and shingle of the beach, hissing and steaming and filled with the stench of roasted flesh. Aghast, the men were frozen for long seconds and held their eyes averted; and when they would have rushed upon the wizard in his ship, Arborass faced them once more and eyed them through heavy-lidded orbs. And in a very low voice he spoke again to the volcano, but every man of them heard his whispered words:
“Ashtah,” he said. “O Mighty One, hear me. If I am harmed by these sinners who own you not—if a single stone be hurled or spear cast, if a tiny bruise or cut be made in me—then crush them to a man, and all that is theirs with them, and level this valley with the hot outpourings of thy inmost being! Do you hear me, Ashtah?” And the ground rumbled and shook until all of them that stood there were hurled down upon the wave-washed sands.
The House of Cthulhu: Tales of the Primal Land Vol. 1 Page 19
