Mysteries of the Worm

by Robert Bloch

  Today, however, light came. It was heralded by a grating clang, as the iron door at the further end of the passageway swung open on its rusted hinges; swung open for the first time in thirty centuries. Through the opening came the strange illumination of a torch, and the sudden sound of voices.

  There was something indescribably eerie about the event. For three thousand years no light had shone in these black and buried vaults, for three thousand years no feet had disturbed the dusty carpet of their floors; for three thousand years no voice had sent its sound through the ancient air. The last light had come from a sacred torch in the hand of a priest of Bast; the last feet to violate the dust had been encased in Egyptian sandals; the last voice had spoken a prayer in the language of the Upper Nile.

  And now, an electric torch flooded the scene with sudden light; booted feet stamped noisily across the floor, and an English voice gave vent to fervent profanity.

  In the torchlight the bearer of the illumination was revealed. He was a tall, thin man, with a face as wrinkled as the papyrus parchment he clutched nervously in his left hand. His white hair, sunken eyes and yellowed skin gave him the aspect of an old man, but the smile upon his thin lips was full of the triumph of youth. Close behind him crowded another, a younger replica of the first. It was he who had sworn.

  “For the love of God, father—we’ve made it!”

  “Yes, my boy, so we have.”

  Look! There’s the statue, just as the map showed it!”

  The two men stepped softly in the dust-strewn passage and halted directly in front of the idol. Sir Ronald Barton, the bearer of the light, held it aloft to inspect the figure of the god more closely. Peter Barton stood at his side, eyes following his father’s gaze.

  For a long moment the invaders scrutinized the guardian of the tomb they had violated. It was a strange moment there in the underground burrow, a moment that spanned eternity as the old confronted the new.

  The two men gazed up at the eidolon in astonishment and awe. The colossal figure of the jackal-god dominated the dim passage, and its weathered form still held vestiges of imposing grandeur and inexplicable menace. The sudden influx of outer air from the opened door had swept the idol’s body free of dust, and the intruders scrutinized its gleaming form with a certain vague unease. Twelve feet tall was Anubis, a man-like figure with the dog-face of a jackal upon massive shoulders. The arms of the statue were held forth in an attitude of warning, as if endeavoring to repel the passage of outsiders. This was peculiar, for to all intents and purposes the guardian figure had nothing behind it but a narrow niche in the wall.

  There was an air of evil suggestion about the god, however; a hint of bestial humanity in its body which seemed to hide a secret, sentient life. The knowing smile on the carven countenance seemed cynically alive; the eyes, though stony, held a strange and disturbing awareness. It was as though the statue were alive; or, rather, as though it were merely a stone cloak that harbored life.

  The two explorers sensed this without speaking, and for a long minute they contemplated the Opener of the Way uneasily. Then, with a sudden start, the older man resumed his customary briskness of manner.

  “Well, son, let’s not stand here gawking at this thing all day! We have plenty to do yet—the biggest task remains. Have you looked at the map?”

  “Yes, father.” The younger man’s voice was not nearly as loud or as firm as Sir Ronald’s. He did not like the mephitic air of the stone passageway; he did not care for the stench that seemed to spawn in the shadows of the corners. He was acutely aware of the fact that he and his father were in a hidden tomb that had lain unopened for thirty creeping centuries. And he could not help but remember the curse.

  For there was a curse on the place; indeed, it was that which had led to its discovery.

  Sir Ronald had found it in the excavation of the Ninth Pyramid, the moldering papyrus parchment which held the key to a secret way. How he had smuggled it past the heads of the expedition nobody can say, but he had managed the task somehow.

  After all, he was not wholly to be blamed, though the theft of expeditionary trophies is a serious offense. But for twenty years Sir Ronald Barton had combed the deserts, uncovered sacred relics, deciphered hieroglyphics, and disinterred mummies, statues, ancient furniture, or precious stones. He had unearthed untold wealth and incredibly valuable manuscripts for his Government; yet he was still a poor man, and had never been rewarded by becoming head of an expedition of his own. Who can blame him if he took that one misstep which he knew would lead him to fame and fortune at last?

  Besides, he was getting old, and after a score of years in Egypt all archeologists are a little mad. There is something about the sullen sun overhead that paralyzes the brains of men as they ferret in the sand, digging in unhallowed ruins; something about the damp, dark stillness underground in temple faults that chills the soul. It is not good to look upon the old gods in the places where they still rule; for cat-headed Bubastis, serpented Set, and evil Amon-Ra frown down as sullen guardians in the purple pylons before the pyramids. Over all is an air of forbidden things long dead, and it creeps into the blood. Sir Ronald had dabbled in sorcery, a bit; so perhaps it affected him more strongly than the rest. At any rate, he stole the parchment.

  It had been penned by a priest of ancient Egypt, but the priest had not been a holy man. No man could write as he had written without violating his vows. It was a dreadful thing, that manuscript, steeped in sorcery and hideous with half-hinted horrors.

  The enchanter who had written it alluded to gods far older than those he worshipped. There was mention of the “Demon Messenger” and the “Black Temple”, coupled with the secret myth and legend-cycles of pre-Adamite days. For just as the Christian religion has its Black Mass, just as every sect has its hidden Devil-worship, the Egyptians knew their own darker gods.

  The names of these accursed ones were set forth, together with the orisons necessary for the invocation. Shocking and blasphemous statements abounded in the text; threats against the reigning religion, and terrible curses upon the people who upheld it. Perhaps that is why Sir Ronald found it buried with the mummy of the priest—its discoverers had not dared to destroy it, because of the doom which might befall them. They had their way of vengeance, though; because the mummy of the priest was found without arms, legs, or eyes, and these were not lost through decay.

  Sir Ronald, though he found the above-mentioned portions of the parchment intensely interest, was much more impressed by the last page. It was here that the sacrilegious one told of the tomb of his master, who rules the dark cult of the day. There were a map, a chart, and certain directions. These had not been written in Egyptian, but in the cuneiform chirography of Chaldea. Doubtless that is why the old avenging priests had not sought out the spot for themselves to destroy it. They were probably unfamiliar with the language unless they were kept away by fear of the curse.

  Peter Barton still remembered that night in Cairo when he and his father had first read it in translation. He recalled the avid gleam in Sir Ronald’s glittering eyes, the tremulous depth in his guttural voice.

  “And as the maps direct, there you shall find the tomb of the Master, who lies with his acolytes and all his treasure.”

  Sir Ronald’s voice nearly broke with excitement as he pronounced this last word.

  “And at the entrance upon the night that the Dog-Star is ascendant you must give up three jackals upon an altar as sacrifice, and with the blood bestrew the sands about the opening. Then the bats shall descend, that they may have feasting, and carry their glad tidings of blood to Father Set in the Underworld.

  “Superstitious rigmarole!” young Peter had exclaimed.

  “Don’t scoff, son,” Sir Ronald advised. “I could give you reasons for what it says above, and make you understand. But I am afraid that the truth would disturb you unnecessarily.”

  Peter had stayed silent while his father read on:

  “Upon descending into the outer passage you wil
l find the door, set with the symbol of the Master who waits within. Grasp the symbol by the seventh tongue in the seventh head, and with a knife remove it. Then shall the barrier give way, and the gate to the tomb be yours. Thirty and three are the steps along the inner passage, and there stands the statue of Anubis, Opener of the Way.”

  “Anubis! But isn’t he a regular Egyptian deity—a recognized one?” Peter broke in.

  His father answered from the manuscript itself:

  “For Lord Anubis holds the keys to Life and Death; he guards cryptic Karneter, and none shall pass the Veil without consent. Some there are who deem the Jackal-god to be a friend of those who rule, but he is not. Anubis stands in shadows, for he is the Keeper of Mysteries. In olden days for which there is no number it is written that Lord Anubis revealed himself to men, and he who then was Master fashioned the first image of the god in his true likeness. Such is the image that you will find at the end of the inner passageway—the first true image of the Opener of the Way.”

  “Astounding!” Peter had muttered. “Think what it means if this is true; imagine finding the original statue of the god!”

  His father merely smiled, a trifle wanly, Peter thought.

  “There are ways in which the first image differs from the test,” said the manuscript. “These ways are not good for men we know; so the first likeness was hidden by the Masters through the ages, and worshipped according to its demands. But now that our enemies—may their souls and vitals rot!—have dared profane the rites, the Master saw fit to hide the image and bury it with him when he died.”

  Sir Ronald’s voice quivered as he read the next few lines:

  “But Anubis does not stand at the head of the inner passage for this reason alone. He is truly called the Opener of the Way, and without his help none may pass to the tomb within.”

  Here the older man stopped completely for a long moment.

  “What’s the matter?” inquired Peter, impatiently. “I suppose there’s another silly ritual involving the statue of the god, eh?”

  His father did not answer, but read on to himself, silently. Peter noticed that Sir Ronald’s hands trembled as he held the parchment, and when the older man looked up at last, his face was very pale.

  “Yes, my boy,” he replied, huskily. “That’s what it is—another silly ritual. But no need to bother about it until we get to the place itself.”

  “You mean to go there—discover the spot?” asked the young man, eagerly.

  “I must go there.” Sir Ronald’s tone was constrained. He glanced again at the last portion of the parchment:

  “But beware, for those who do not believe shall die. Pass Lord Anubis though they may, still he shall know and not permit of their return unto the world of men. For the eidolon of Anubis is a very strange one indeed, and holds a secret soul.”

  The old archeologist blurted out these last words very quickly, and immediately folded up the parchment again. After that he had deliberately turned the talk to practical affairs, as if seeking to forget what he had read.

  The next weeks were spent in preparation for the trip to the south, and Sir Ronald seemed to avoid his son, except when it was necessary to converse with him on matters pertaining directly to the expeditionary affairs.

  But Peter had not forgotten. He wondered what it was his father had read silently; that secret ritual which would enable one to pass beyond the Opener of the Way. Why had his father blanched and trembled, then quickly changed the subject to saner things? Why had he guarded the parchment so closely? And just what was the nature of the “curse” the manuscript mentioned at the last?

  Peter pondered these questions a great deal, but he had gradually dispelled his stronger fears, because of the necessary preoccupation with technical details which the organizing of their expedition subsequently entailed. Not until he and his father were actually in the desert did his misgivings return, but then they plagued him mightily.

  There is an air of eon-spawned antiquity about the desert, a certain aura of the ancient which makes one feel that the trivial triumphs of man are as fleeting and quickly obscured as his foot-prints in the shifting sand. In such places there descends upon the soul a sphinx-like brooding, and somber soliloquies rise, unrepressed to rule the mind.

  Young Peter had been affected by the spell of the silent sands. He tried to remember some of the things his father had once told him concerning Egyptian sorcery, and the miraculous magic of the high priests. Legends of tombs and underground horrors took on a new reality here in the place of their birth. Peter Barton knew personally many men who had believed in the potency of curses, and some of them had died strangely. There was the Tut-Ankh-Ahmen affair, and the Paut temple scandal, and the terrible rumors concerning the end of that unsavory adventurer, Doctor Carnoti. At night, under the spying stars, he would recall these and similar tales, then shudder anew at the thought of what might lie before him.

  When Sir Ronald had made camp at the spot designated by the map, there had been new and more concrete terrors.

  That first night, Sir Ronald had gone off alone into the hills behind the tents. He bore with him a white goat, and a sharp knife. His son, following, had come upon the old man after the deed had been done, so that the sand had been given to drink. The goat’s blood shone horribly in the moonlight, and there was a red glare of corresponding violence in the slayer’s eyes. Peter had not made his presence known, for he did not deem it wise to interrupt his father while the old man was muttering those outlandish Egyptian phrases to a mocking moon.

  Indeed, Peter was more than a little afraid of Sir Ronald, else he would have attempted to dissuade him from continuing the expedition.

  But there was something in Sir Ronald’s manner which hinted at a mad, unthwartable determination. It was that which made Peter keep silent; that which held him from bluntly asking his father the true details about the parchment’s mysterious “curse”.

  The day after the peculiar incident in the midnight hills, Sir Ronald, after consulting certain zodiacal charts, announced that the digging would start. Carefully, eyes on the map, he measured his paces to an exact spot in the sands, and ordered the men to work. By sundown, a ten-foot shaft yawned like a great wound in the earth, and excited natives proclaimed the presence of a door beneath.

  — 2 —

  By this time Peter, whose nerves were near the breaking point, was too much afraid of his father to demur when ordered to descend to the floor of the excavation. Undoubtedly the elder man was in the grip of a severe aberration, but Peter, who really loved his father, thought it advisable not to provoke him by refusing to obey. He did not like the idea of going down into that chasm, for the seeping smell was distressingly repulsive. But the stench below was a thousand times more bearable than the sight of the dark door through which it had slithered.

  This evidently was the door to the outer passageway that the manuscript had mentioned. All at once Peter knew what was meant by the allusion to the “seventh tongue in the seventh head”, and wished that the meaning had remained forever obscured from his brain. For the door was set with a silver symbol, framed in the familiar ideography of Egyptological lore. This central symbol consisted of the heads of seven principal Egyptian gods—Osiris, Isis, Ra, Bast, Thoth, Set, and Anubis. But the horror lay in the fact that all seven heads protruded from a common body, and it was not the body of any god heretofore known in myth. It was not anthropomorphic, that figure; it held nothing that aped the human form. And Peter could recall no parallel in all the Egyptian cosmology or pantheon which could be remotely construed to resemble this utterly alien horror.

  The quixotic abhorrency it induced cannot be ascribed to anything which may be put into words. The sight of it seemed to send little tentacles of terror through Peter’s eyes, tiny tentacles that took root in his brain, to drain it dry of all feeling save fear. Part of this may have been due to the fact that the body appeared to be constantly changing; melting, that is, from one indescribable shape to another. W
hen viewed from a certain angles the form was that of a Medusa like mass of serpents; a second gaze revealed that the thing was a glistening array of vampiric flowers, with gelid, protoplasmic petals that seemed to weave in blob-like thirst for blood. A third scrutiny made it appear that the formless mass was nothing but a chaotic jumble of silver skulls. At another time it seemed to hold a certain hidden pattern of the cosmos—stars and planets so compressed as to hint at the enormity of all space beyond.

  What devilish craft could produce such a baffling nightmare composite Peter could not say, and he did not like to imagine that the thing was the pattern of any human artist. He fancied that there was some sinister implication of allegorical significance about the door, that the heads, set on the background of that baffling body, were somehow symbolic of a secret horror which rules behind all human gods. But the more he looked, the more his mind became absorbed in the intricate silvery maze of design. It was compelling, hypnotic; glimpsing it was like pondering upon the meaning of Life—pondering in that awful way that drives philosophers mad.

  From this beguilement, Peter was roughly awakened by his father’s voice. He had been very curt and abrupt all morning, but now his words were fraught with an unmistakable eagerness.

  “It’s the place all right—the door of the parchment! Now I know what Prinn must have meant in his chapter on the Saracenic rituals; the part where he spoke of the ‘symbols on the gate’. We must photograph this after we finish. I hope we can move it later, if the natives don’t object.”

  There was a hidden relish in his words which Peter disliked, and almost feared. He became suddenly aware of how little he really knew about his father and his secret studies of recent years; recalled reluctantly certain guarded tomes he had glimpsed in the library at Cairo. And last night, his father had been out there with the bats, like some mad old priest. Did he really believe such nonsense? Or did he know it was the truth?