But even as we took a forward step, we were paralyzed by stealthy sounds ahead of us.
“The corridors are alive with them!” whispered Conrad. “Quick–the other way! This corridor follows the line of the hill and must run to the door in Smuggler’s Point.”
Until I die I will remember that flight down that black silent corridor, with the horror that slunk at our heels. I momentarily expected some demon-fanged spectre to leap upon our backs, or rise up out of the blackness ahead of us. Then Conrad, shining his dimming light ahead, gave a gasping sob of relief.
“The door at last! My God, what’s this?”
Even as his light had shown a heavy iron-bound door, with a heavy key in the massive lock, he had stumbled over something that lay crumpled on the floor. His light showed a twisted human shape, its blasted head lying in a pool of blood. The features were unrecognizable, but we knew the gaunt, lank shape, still clad in the grave-clothes. The real Death had overtaken Jonas Kiles at last.
“That cry as we passed the Point tonight!” whispered Conrad. “It was his death-scream! He had returned to the tunnels after showing himself to his brother–and horror came upon him in the dark!”
Suddenly, as we stood above the corpse, we heard again that damnable sliding scrambling noise in the darkness. In a frenzy we leaped at the door–tore at the key–hurled open the door. With a sob of relief we staggered into the moon-lit night. For an instant the door swung open behind us, then as we turned to look, a savage gust of wind crashed it shut.
But before it closed, a ghastly picture leaped out at us, half lighted by the straggling moon-beams: the sprawling, mutilated corpse, and above it a grey, shambling monstrosity–a flaming-eyed dog-headed horror such as madmen see in black nightmares. Then the slamming door blotted out the sight, and as we fled across the slope in the shifting moon-light, I heard Conrad babbling, “Spawn of the black pits of madness and eternal night! Crawling obscenities seething in the slime of the earth’s unguessed deeps–the ultimate horror of retrogression–the nadir of human degeneration–good God, their ancestors were men!
The pits below the fifteenth tier, into what hells of blasphemous black horror do they sink, and by what demoniac hordes are they peopled? God protect the sons of men from the Dwellers–the Dwellers under the tomb!”
An Open Window
Behind the Veil what gulfs of Time and Space?
What blinking mowing Shapes to blast the sight?
I shrink before a vague colossal Face
Born in the mad immensities of Night.
The House of Arabu
To the house whence no one issues,
To the road from whence there is no return,
To the house whose inhabitants are deprived of light,
The place where dust is their nourishment, their food clay,
They have no light, dwelling in dense darkness,
And they are clothed, like birds, in a garment of feathers,
Where, over gate and bolt, dust is scattered.
–Babylonian legend of Ishtar
“Has he seen a night-spirit, is he listening to the whispers of them who dwell in darkness?”
Strange words to be murmured in the feast-hall of Naram-ninub, amid the strain of lutes, the patter of fountains, and the tinkle of women’s laughter. The great hall attested the wealth of its owner, not only by its vast dimensions, but by the richness of its adornment. The glazed surface of the walls offered a bewildering variegation of colors–blue, red, and orange enamels set off by squares of hammered gold.
The air was heavy with incense, mingled with the fragrance of exotic blossoms from the gardens without.
The feasters, silk-robed nobles of Nippur, lounged on satin cushions, drinking wine poured from alabaster vessels, and caressing the painted and bejeweled playthings which Naram-ninub’s wealth had brought from all parts of the East.
There were scores of these; their white limbs twinkled as they danced, or shone like ivory among the cushions where they sprawled. A jeweled tiara caught in a burnished mass of night-black hair, a gem-crusted armlet of massive gold, earrings of carven jade–these were their only garments. Their fragrance was dizzying. Shameless in their dancing, feasting and lovemaking, their light laughter filled the hall in waves of silvery sound.
On a broad cushion-piled dais reclined the giver of the feast, sensuously stroking the glossy locks of a lithe Arabian who had stretched herself on her supple belly beside him. His appearance of sybaritic languor was belied by the vital sparkling of his dark eyes as he surveyed his guests. He was thick-bodied, with a short blue-black beard: a Semite–one of the many drifting yearly into Shumir.
With one exception his guests were Shumirians, shaven of chin and head. Their bodies were padded with rich living, their features smooth and placid. The exception among them stood out in startling contrast.
Taller than they, he had none of their soft sleekness. He was made with the economy of relentless Nature. His physique was of the primitive, not of the civilized athlete. He was an incarnation of Power, raw, hard, wolfish–in the sinewy limbs, the corded neck, the great arch of the breast, the broad hard shoulders. Beneath his tousled golden mane his eyes were like blue ice. His strongly chiselled features reflected the wildness his frame suggested. There was about him nothing of the measured leisure of the other guests, but a ruthless directness in his every action. Whereas they sipped, he drank in great gulps.
They nibbled at tid-bits, but he seized whole joints in his fingers and tore at the meat with his teeth. Yet his brow was shadowed, his expression moody. His magnetic eyes were introspective. Wherefore Prince Ibi-Engur lisped again in Naram-ninub’s ear: “Has the lord Pyrrhas heard the whispering of night-things?”
Naram-ninub eyed his friend in some worriment. “Come, my lord,” said he, “you are strangely distraught.
Has any here done aught to offend you?”
Pyrrhas roused himself as from some gloomy meditation and shook his head. “Not so, friend; if I seem distracted it is because of a shadow that lies over my own mind.” His accent was barbarous, but the timbre of his voice was strong and vibrant.
The others glanced at him in interest. He was Eannatum’s general of mercenaries, an Argive whose saga was epic.
“Is it a woman, lord Pyrrhas?” asked Prince Enakalli with a laugh. Pyrrhas fixed him with his gloomy stare and the prince felt a cold wind blowing on his spine.
“Aye, a woman,” muttered the Argive. “One who haunts my dreams and floats like a shadow between me and the moon. In my dreams I feel her teeth in my neck, and I wake to hear the flutter of wings and the cry of an owl.”
A silence fell over the group on the dais. Only in the great hall below rose the babble of mirth and conversation and the tinkling of lutes, and a girl laughed loudly, with a curious note in her laughter.
“A curse is upon him,” whispered the Arabian girl. Naram-ninub silenced her with a gesture, and was about to speak, when Ibi-Engur lisped: “My lord Pyrrhas, this has an uncanny touch, like the vengeance of a god. Have you done aught to offend a deity?”
Naram-ninub bit his lip in annoyance. It was well known that in his recent campaign against Erech, the Argive had cut down a priest of Anu in his shrine. Pyrrhas’ maned head jerked up and he glared at Ibi-Engur as if undecided whether to attribute the remark to malice or lack of tact. The prince began to pale, but the slim Arabian rose to her knees and caught at Naram-ninub’s arm.
“Look at Belibna!” She pointed at the girl who had laughed so wildly an instant before.
Her companions were drawing away from this girl apprehensively. She did not speak to them, or seem to see them. She tossed her jeweled head and her shrill laughter rang through the feast-hall. Her slim body swayed back and forth, her bracelets clanged and jangled together as she tossed up her white arms. Her dark eyes gleamed with a wild light, her red lips curled with her unnatural mirth.
“The hand of Arabu is on her,” whispered the Arabian uneasily.
“Belibna!” Naram-ninub called sharply. His only answer was another burst of wild laughter, and the girl cried stridently: “To the home of darkness, the dwelling of Irhalla; to the road whence there is no return; oh, Apsu, bitter is thy wine!” Her voice snapped in a terrible scream, and bounding from among her cushions, she leaped up on the dais, a dagger in her hand. Courtesans and guests shrieked and scrambled madly out of her way. But it was at Pyrrhas the girl rushed, her beautiful face a mask of fury. The Argive caught her wrist, and the abnormal strength of madness was futile against the barbarian’s iron thews. He tossed her from him, and down the cushion-strewn steps, where she lay in a crumpled heap, her own dagger driven into her heart as she fell.
The hum of conversation, which had ceased suddenly, rose again as the guards dragged away the body, and the painted dancers came back to their cushions. But Pyrrhas turned and taking his wide crimson cloak from a slave, threw it about his shoulders.
“Stay, my friend,” urged Naram-ninub. “Let us not allow this small matter to interfere with our revels.
Madness is common enough.”
Pyrrhas shook his head irritably. “Nay, I’m weary of swilling and gorging. I’ll go to my own house.”
“Then the feasting is at an end,” declared the Semite, rising and clapping his hands. “My own litter shall bear you to the house the king has given you–nay, I forgot you scorn to ride on other men’s backs. Then I shall myself escort you home. My lords, will you accompany us?”
“Walk, like common men?” stuttered Prince Ur-ilishu. “By Enlil, I will come. It will be a rare novelty. But I must have a slave to bear the train of my robe, lest it trail in the dust of the street. Come, friends, let us see the lord Pyrrhas home, by Ishtar!”
“A strange man,” Ibi-Engur lisped to Libit-ishbi, as the party emerged from the spacious palace, and descended the broad tiled stair, guarded by bronze lions. “He walks the streets, unattended, like a very tradesman.”
“Be careful,” murmured the other. “He is quick to anger, and he stands high in the favor of Eannatum.”
“Yet even the favored of the king had best beware of offending the god Anu,” replied Ibi-Engur in an equally guarded voice.
The party were proceeding leisurely down the broad white street, gaped at by the common folk who bobbed their shaven heads as they passed. The sun was not long up, but the people of Nippur were well astir. There was much coming and going between the booths where the merchants spread their wares: a shifting panorama, woven of craftsmen, tradesmen, slaves, harlots, and soldiers in copper helmets. There went a merchant from his warehouse, a staid figure in sober woolen robe and white mantle; there hurried a slave in a linen tunic; there minced a painted hoyden whose short slit skirt displayed her sleek flank at every step. Above them the blue of the sky whitened with the heat of the mounting sun. The glazed surfaces of the buildings shimmered. They were flat-roofed, some of them three or four stories high.
Nippur was a city of sun-dried brick, but its facings of enamel made it a riot of bright color.
Somewhere a priest was chanting: “Oh, Babbar, righteousness lifteth up to thee its head–”
Pyrrhas swore under his breath. They were passing the great temple of Enlil, towering up three hundred feet in the changeless blue sky.
“The towers stand against the sky like part of it,” he swore, raking back a damp lock from his forehead.
“The sky is enameled, and this is a world made by man.”
“Nay, friend,” demurred Naram-ninub. “Ea built the world from the body of Tiamat.”
“I say men built Shumir!” exclaimed Pyrrhas, the wine he had drunk shadowing his eyes. “A flat land–a very banquet-board of a land–with rivers and cities painted upon it, and a sky of blue enamel over it. By Ymir, I was born in a land the gods built! There are great blue mountains, with valleys lying like long shadows between, and snow peaks glittering in the sun. Rivers rush foaming down the cliffs in everlasting tumult, and the broad leaves of the trees shake in the strong winds.”
“I, too, was born in a broad land, Pyrrhas,” answered the Semite. “By night the desert lies white and awful beneath the moon, and by day it stretches in brown infinity beneath the sun. But it is in the swarming cities of men, these hives of bronze and gold and enamel and humanity, that wealth and glory lie.”
Pyrrhas was about to speak, when a loud wailing attracted his attention. Down the street came a procession, bearing a carven and painted litter on which lay a figure hidden by flowers. Behind came a train of young women, their scanty garments rent, their black hair flowing wildly. They beat their naked bosoms and cried: “Ailanu! Thammuz is dead!” The throng in the street took up the shout. The litter passed, swaying on the shoulders of the bearers; among the high-piled flowers shone the painted eyes of a carven image. The cry of the worshippers echoed down the street, dwindling in the distance.
Pyrrhas shrugged his mighty shoulders. “Soon they will be leaping and dancing and shouting, ‘Adonis is living!’, and the wenches who howl so bitterly now will give themselves to men in the streets for exultation. How many gods are there, in the devil’s name?”
Naram-ninub pointed to the great zikkurat of Enlil, brooding over all like the brutish dream of a mad god.
“See ye the seven tiers: the lower black, the next of red enamel, the third blue, the fourth orange, the fifth yellow, while the sixth is faced with silver, and the seventh with pure gold which flames in the sunlight?
Each stage in the temple symbolizes a deity: the sun, the moon, and the five planets Enlil and his tribe have set in the skies for their emblems. But Enlil is greater than all, and Nippur is his favored city.”
“Greater than Anu?” muttered Pyrrhas, remembering a flaming shrine and a dying priest that gasped an awful threat.
“Which is the greatest leg of a tripod?” parried Naram-ninub.
Pyrrhas opened his mouth to reply, then recoiled with a curse, his sword flashing out. Under his very feet a serpent reared up, its forked tongue flickering like a jet of red lightning.
“What is it, friend?” Naram-ninub and the princes stared at him in surprise.
“What is it?” He swore. “Don’t you see that snake under your very feet? Stand aside and give me a clean swing at it–”
His voice broke off and his eyes clouded with doubt.
“It’s gone,” he muttered.
“I saw nothing,” said Naram-ninub, and the others shook their heads, exchanging wondering glances.
The Argive passed his hand across his eyes, shaking his head.
“Perhaps it’s the wine,” he muttered. “Yet there was an adder, I swear by the heart of Ymir. I am accursed.”
The others drew away from him, glancing at him strangely.
There had always been a restlessness in the soul of Pyrrhas the Argive, to haunt his dreams and drive him out on his long wanderings. It had brought him from the blue mountains of his race, southward into the fertile valleys and sea-fringing plains where rose the huts of the Mycenaeans; thence into the isle of Crete, where, in a rude town of rough stone and wood, a swart fishing people bartered with the ships of Egypt; by those ships he had gone into Egypt, where men toiled beneath the lash to rear the first pyramids, and where, in the ranks of the white-skinned mercenaries, the Shardana, he learned the arts of war. But his wanderlust drove him again across the sea, to a mud-walled trading village on the coast of Asia, called Troy, whence he drifted southward into the pillage and carnage of Palestine where the original dwellers in the land were trampled under by the barbaric Canaanites out of the East. So by devious ways he came at last to the plains of Shumir, where city fought city, and the priests of a myriad rival gods intrigued and plotted, as they had done since the dawn of Time, and as they did for centuries after, until the rise of an obscure frontier town called Babylon exalted its city-god Merodach above all others as Bel-Marduk, the conqueror of Tiamat.
The bare outline of the saga of Pyrrhas the Argive is weak and paltry; it can not
catch the echoes of the thundering pageantry that rioted through that saga: the feasts, revels, wars, the crash and splintering of ships and the onset of chariots. Let it suffice to say that the honor of kings was given to the Argive, and that in all Mesopotamia there was no man so feared as this golden-haired barbarian whose war-skill and fury broke the hosts of Erech on the field, and the yoke of Erech from the neck of Nippur.
From a mountain hut to a palace of jade and ivory Pyrrhas’ saga had led him. Yet the dim half-animal dreams that had filled his slumber when he lay as a youth on a heap of wolfskins in his shaggy-headed father’s hut were nothing so strange and monstrous as the dreams that haunted him on the silken couch in the palace of turquoise-towered Nippur.
It was from these dreams that Pyrrhas woke suddenly. No lamp burned in his chamber and the moon was not yet up, but the starlight filtered dimly through the casement. And in this radiance something moved and took form. There was the vague outline of a lithe form, the gleam of an eye. Suddenly the night beat down oppressively hot and still. Pyrrhas heard the pound of his own blood through his veins.
Why fear a woman lurking in his chamber? But no woman’s form was ever so pantherishly supple; no woman’s eyes ever burned so in the darkness. With a gasping snarl he leaped from his couch and his sword hissed as it cut the air–but only the air. Something like a mocking laugh reached his ears, but the figure was gone.
A girl entered hastily with a lamp.
“Amytis! I saw her! It was no dream, this time! She laughed at me from the window!”
Amytis trembled as she set the lamp on an ebony table. She was a sleek sensuous creature, with long-lashed, heavy-lidded eyes, passionate lips, and a wealth of lustrous black curly locks. As she stood there naked the voluptuousness of her figure would have stirred the most jaded debauchee. A gift from Eannatum, she hated Pyrrhas, and he knew it, but found an angry gratification in possessing her. But now her hatred was drowned in her terror.
The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard Page 44
