The A. Merritt Megapack

by Abraham Merritt

  Red light beat upon his eyes, brighter than the dim, rubrous haze through which he had gone so cautiously with Regor when they had left the lair, but of the same disturbing quality of darkness, shot through with crimson rust of light. All around him were the lizard-men, a hundred or more. He was being borne upon the heads of eight of the creatures, raised upon the pads of their forearms. Under that weird light their leathery skins were dull orange; the cockscombs of scarlet scales cresting their reptilian skulls were turned by it into a poisonous purple. They padded, hissing to each other, over the yellow sand.

  He was lying upon his back, and the effort of turning his head was painful. He stared up. He could see no roof above him, nothing but the rusted murk. Steadily the light grew less dim, though never losing its suggestion of inherent darkness. Suddenly the lizard-men set up a louder and prolonged hissing. From somewhere far ahead came an answering sibilation. Their pace grew more rapid.

  The red light abruptly lost much of its haziness. His bearers halted and lowered him to his feet. Hooked talons were thrust under his bonds and stripped them from him. Graydon stretched cramped arms and legs, and looked about him.

  A hundred feet in front was an immense screen of black stone. It was semicircular in shape, and curved like a shallow shell. Its base was all of another hundred feet between the ends of its arc; its entire surface was pierced and cut with delicate designs through which ran strange patterns, unknown symbols.

  Close to its center was a throne of jet, oddly familiar. With a prickling of his scalp he was suddenly aware that it was the exact duplicate of the sapphire throne of the Lord of Lords in the Temple. Screen and throne were upon a dais raised a few feet above the floor, and up to it ran a broad ramp. Between the throne and the head of the ramp was an immense bowl of the same ebon stone, its base imbedded in the rock. It was, he thought, like an oversized baptismal font, one designed for giants’ children. At the end of each wing of the curved screen was what, at that distance, seemed to be a low stone bench.

  Empty was the black throne, empty the dais—were they empty? He searched them with his eyes. Of course they were empty! Then whence came his feeling that from every inch of that raised place within the screen something—some one—was regarding him, measuring him, weighing him, reading him with a cold malignant amusement…something evil…something incredibly evil…like the force that had streamed out upon him from…from the Face in the abyss…

  He turned his back to the dais, with conscious effort. He faced a horde of the lizard-people. There were hundreds of them, grouped in orderly ranks, and at about the same distance away from him as the black throne. They stood silent, red eyes intent upon him. They were so close together that their scarlet crests seemed to form a huge, fantastically tufted carpet. Among them were lizard-women and children. He stared at them, small things like baby demons, little needled yellow fangs glistening between the pointed jaws, small eyes glittering upon him like goblin lanterns.

  He looked to right and left. The cavern was distinguishable in a circle perhaps half a mile in diameter. At that distance the clearer light in which he stood ended, bounded by the red rust murk. To his right, the smooth yellow sand stretched to the boundary of that murk.

  At his left was a garden! A garden of evil!

  There, a narrow stream ran over the floor of the cavern in curves and intricate loops. It was crimson, like a stream of sluggishly running blood. Upon its banks were great red lilies, tainted and splotched with venomous greens; orchid blooms of sullen purple veined with unclean scarlets; debauched roses; obscene thickets of what seemed to be shoots of young bamboo stained with verdigris; crouching trees from whose branches hung heart-shaped fruits of leprous white; patches of fleshy leafed plants from whose mauve centers protruded thick yellowish spikes shaped like hooded adders down whose sides slowly dripped glistening drops of some dreadful nectar.

  A little breeze eddied about him. It brought the mingled scents of that strange garden, and these were the very essence of it, distillation of its wickedness. They rocked him with blasphemous imaginings, steeped him with evil longings. The breeze lingered for a breath, seemed to laugh, then fled back to the garden and left him trembling.

  He feared that garden! Yes, the fear of it was as strong as the fear of the black throne. Why did he fear it so? Evil, unknown and undreamed evil, was in it. It was living evil—ah, that was it! Vital evil! A flood of evil life pulsed and ran through every bloom, every plant and tree…evil vitality…they drew it from that stream of blood…but, ah, how strong one who fed upon their life might grow…

  As that dark thought crept into Graydon’s mind, something deep within him seemed to awaken, to repulse it with cold contemptuous strength and to take stern control of his brain. His assurance and all his old courage returned to him. He faced the black throne fearlessly.

  He felt its invisible occupant thrust out at him, search for some loophole in his defense, withdraw as though puzzled, drive against him viciously, as if to break him down, and then withdrew again. Immediately, as in obedience to a command, the lizard-people surged forward, driving him toward the ramp. At its foot he hesitated, but a half dozen of the creatures padded from the ranks, closed round him, and pushed him upward. They pressed him to the stone bench at the right of the screen, and down upon it. As he tried to break from those who were holding his arms, he felt the others at his feet. Something circled his ankles; there were two sharp clicks. The lizard-men padded away from him.

  Graydon arose from the bench and looked down at his feet. There was a metal ring around each ankle, attached to thin chains running back under the bench. He wondered how long the chains were. He took a step, and another and another, and still the chains did not check him. He reached down and pulled one of them to him until it grew taut. Measuring it, he estimated that it was precisely long enough to enable him to mount to the seat of the black throne. Having thus verified an unpleasant suspicion. Graydon hastily returned to the stone bench.

  He heard a subdued hissing, the padding of many feet The lizard-folk were going. Close-packed, they poured away, a tawny flood of leathery waves crested with leaping tongues of scarlet None looked back at him. They reached the encircling murk and vanished within it.

  Graydon was alone, in the silence—alone with the evil garden and the throne of jet.

  Slowly the red radiance that fell upon the dais began to dim and thicken, as though a spray of black light were sifting through it.

  Denser it grew about the throne of jet, and upon the throne a deeper shadow formed. Shapeless, wavering at first, slowly it condensed, ceased wavering, took outline. Within the throne sat the shadow of a man. Faceless, featureless, cloudy hands gripping the arms of the throne, woven of the black atoms within the crepuscular rust—a man’s shadow!

  The faceless head leaned forward. It had no eyes, yet Graydon felt its eyes upon him. It had no lips, yet its lips began to whisper.

  He heard the voice of the Dark One! The whispering of the Shadow of Nimir, Lord of Evil!

  THE FACE IN THE ABYSS (1931) [Part 2]

  CHAPTER XV

  “Lend Me Your Body, Graydon!”

  The voice of the Shadow was sweet, liquid as a flute heard from a forest at dusk. It lulled his fears, relaxed his guard.

  “I know you, Graydon!” ran the whisper. “Know why you came to Yu-Atlanchi. Know how hopeless is your quest—without me. I brought you here, Graydon, commanding no harm to be done you. Else you would have been slain at the cavern. Do not fear me! You do not fear me, Graydon?”

  He felt an oddly pleasant lethargy creeping over him as he listened to the melodious whisper.

  “No,” he said, half-drowsily. “No, I do not fear you, Nimir.”

  “Ah,” the Shadow drew itself up from the throne, something of the lulling sweetness left his voice, something of menace took its place. “So you know me!”

  The spell upon Graydon loosened, his mind leaped to alertness. The Shadow saw it, and all the dulcet, soothing lure flow
ed back into its whisper.

  “But that is well! It is very well, Graydon. You have been told many lies about me, without doubt. You have seen these people of Yu-Atlanchi. They are in decadence. They rot. But had they in the olden days followed my counsel, they now would be a great people—strong, vital, rulers of the world. And the old wisdom would not have perished. It would have shaped a new and better world.

  “You have seen these people, Graydon, and I think you have weighed them. Do you believe they have reason to thank those who banished me and so condemned them to this end? I would not have abandoned them as did those other Lords, leaving them to a charlatan and a Snake-woman, who, not being human, therefore cannot understand the human need. I would have led them onward and upward to greater strength and greater wisdom. I would have placed them on the heights, Graydon, only the stars above them—not left them in the swamp, there to stagnate and decay. You believe me, Graydon?”

  Graydon considered. It was a little difficult to think with this pleasantly lazy feeling holding one; there was a curious exhilaration in it, too. But yes, yes—it was all true. It was clear, cold logic. He had thought the same thing himself, in a way. Certainly it was a damnable thing for those Lords, whoever they might have been, to have gone calmly off as though they had no responsibility for the people. Who was the charlatan? Why, the Lord of Fools, of course. And the Mother? Half a snake! Damned apt descriptions. He quite agreed.

  “Right, Nimir—you’re right!” he said, nodding solemnly.

  A ghost of perfume from the garden stole to him. He drank it greedily. Odd he had thought it evil! It wasn’t. He felt damned good, and the scent made him feel even better. What was evil, anyway? Only a point of view. Not a bad sort this Shadow. Quite logical—reasonable…

  “You are strong, Graydon,” the Shadow’s whisper was sweeter still. “Strong! You are stronger than any man of Yu-Atlanchi. Strong of body and strong of mind. You are like those of the Old Race whom I would have raised to the skies had it not been for trickery. It was not strength that defeated me, but the wiles of the Snake-woman who cares nothing for man—remember that, Graydon, the Snake who cares nothing for man! It was not to harm you but to test your strength that I just now wrestled with you. You were strong enough to resist me. I was glad of that, Graydon, for then I knew that at last I had found the man I need!”

  So he was the man Nimir needed, eh? Well, he was a good man, a hell of a good man. He had gotten this far without help from anybody, hadn’t he? No, wait a minute—somebody had helped him. Who was it? No matter—he was a good man. But somebody had helped him…somebody…

  The whisper of the Shadow broke smoothly into his groping thought.

  “I need you, Graydon! It is not yet too late to remake this world as it ought to be; not yet too late to right the wrong to humanity wreaked by the ancient treachery to me. But I must have a body to do it, Graydon. A strong body to hold me. Lend me your body, Graydon! It will be but for a time. And during that time you shall share it with me; you shall see as I see, enjoy as I shall enjoy, share my power and drink the wine of my victories. And when I have grown to my old strength, then, Graydon, I will leave you in full possession, and I will make it immortal—aye, deathless as long as the sun endures! Let me share your body, Graydon—strong Graydon!”

  Now the whispering ceased. Strong wine surged through Graydon’s veins, a rich, heady, reckless flood of life. He heard the blast of conquering trumpets! He was Genghis Khan, sweeping over kingdoms with his broom of Tartar horsemen; he was Attila lifted upon the shields of his roaring Huns; Macedonian Alexander trampling the world under his feet; Sennacherib holding all Asia like a goblet! He drank deep of power! He was drunk with power!

  Was drunk! Was drunk? Who dared say that he, Nicholas Graydon, Master of the World, could be drunk! Well, all right—he was drunk, then. That was another funny idea—who wanted to be master of the world if all you got out of it was a drunk? Anybody could get drunk—therefore anybody who was drunk was master of the world! That was a funny idea…logical…have to tell that logical Shadow that funny idea…

  He found himself wide awake and roaring with laughter. He stared stupidly about him, and no longer felt desire for laughter. For he was half-way to the throne of jet—and the Shadow was bending, bending over it, beckoning him, urging him on, and whispering—whispering—

  The spell that had held him, the lure that had played him, as a fish is played, half into the Shadow’s creel, dropped from him. Loathing for that cloudy shape on the black throne, loathing for himself, bitter anger, swept him as he staggered back to the stone bench and dropped upon it, face hidden in shaking hands.

  What had saved him? Not his consciousness, that thing he called himself. Something deep within his subconsciousness, something unalterably sane which had neutralized by ironic humor the poison his ears had been drinking. And now Graydon was afraid! So afraid that in sheer desperation he forced himself to lift his head and look straight at the Shadow.

  It was staring at him, faceless head resting upon one misty hand. He sensed within it that same perplexity as when at first, unseen, it had striven to beat down his defenses—sensed, too, an infernal rage. Abruptly both were cut off; in their place flowed to him a current of calmness, deep peace. He strove to resist it, recognizing it for the trap it was; but it would not be repulsed; it lapped round him like little waves, caressing him, soothing him.

  “Graydon!” came the whisper. “I am pleased with you, Graydon! But you are wrong to deny me. You are stronger than I thought, and that is why I am pleased with you. The body I share must be strong, very strong. Share your body with me, Graydon!”

  “No! No! By God, no!” groaned Graydon, hating himself for the desire he felt to rush to this shadowy thing and let it merge itself with him.

  “You are wrong! I will not harm you, Graydon. I do not want that strong body which is to be my home weakened. What is it you hope? Is it help from Huon? His days are few. Dorina has delivered him to Lantlu, even as she delivered you to me. Before the Feast of the Dream Makers his lair will be taken, and Huon and all left alive will feed the Xinli, or me—or pray that they had!”

  The whisper died, as though the Shadow had paused to watch the effect of this announcement. If it was to test the lethargy that steeped Graydon, it was satisfied; he made no motion, nor did his face change from its fixed, fascinated stare.

  “Lend me your body, Graydon! The Snake cannot help you. Whether you lend or not, soon shall I be incarnate. I would have your body rather than a weaker one—only to share, Graydon, only to share—and that but for a little while. Power, immortality, wisdom beyond all others! These shall be yours! Lend me your body, Graydon! You desire one woman? What is one woman to those you can possess! Look, Graydon, look—”

  Graydon’s dazed eyes followed the pointing cloudy hand. He saw the evil blooms of the garden dipping and nodding to each other as though alive. He heard a witch song, a luting choral woven with arpeggios of lutes and tinkling sistrums which was the garden-given voice. A gust swept up from it and embraced him. As he breathed its fragrance wild-fire touched his blood. The nodding flowers vanished, blood-red stream vanished; the corroding light of rusted black atoms became lucent. Close to his feet was a rippling, laughing little brook, beyond it a copse of beech and birch. And from the copse women came streaming women of wondrous beauty, white nymphs and brown; full-breasted Bacchantes; slender, virginal dryads. They held out to him desirous arms, their eyes promised him undreamed delights. They came to the verge of the rill, beckoning him, calling him to them with voices that fanned the fire in his blood to flaming ecstasy of desire.

  God—what women! That one with the coronal of bronze tresses might have been High Priestess of Tanith in the secret garden of her temple in old Carthage! And that one with the flood of golden hair might be white Aphrodite herself! Why, any one of them would make the fairest of houris in Mohammed’s Paradise look like a kitchen maid! Fiercer grew the fire in his veins—he leaped forward…
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  Stop! That girl who has stepped out from the others—who is she? She has midnight hair, and it covers her face. She’s weeping! Why is she weeping when all her sisters are singing and laughing? He once had known a girl whose hair was that same mist of midnight—who? No matter…whoever she had been, none who resembled her must weep! She herself must never weep…what was her name…Suarra!

  A wave of pity swept through him, quenching the witchfires in his blood.

  “Suarra!” he cried. “Suarra! You must not weep!” And with that cry he felt a tingling shock. The wave of beckoning women vanished. The girl of the misty hair vanished. Gone was laughing brook, and copse of birch and beech. The evil garden swayed before him. He stood more than half-way to the throne of jet. From it, the Shadow was leaning far out, quivering with eagerness, and whispering—whispering—

  “Lend me your body, Graydon! All these you shall have if you will but lend me your body! Lend me your body, Graydon!”

  “Curse you!” groaned Graydon, and then—“No, you devil! No!”

  The Shadow stood erect. The pulse of rage that drove from it struck him like a material blow. He reeled under it, stumbled back to the safety of his bench. The Shadow spoke, and gone was all sweetness from its tone; its whisper was malignant, cold with purpose.

  “You fool!” it said. “Now hear me. I shall have your body, Graydon! Deny me as you will, still shall I have it. Sleep, and I who do not sleep will enter it. Fight sleep, and when weariness saps that strength of yours, I will enter it. For a time you shall dwell within it with me, like a slave condemned, so tortured by what you see that again and again you will pray me to blot you out! And, because your body pleases me so, I will be merciful and give you this hope to dwell upon. After I am wearied of you, I will blot you out! Now, for the last time, will you submit to me? Lend me your body, share its tenancy with me, not as a slave but as master of all I have promised you?”