TERROR'S UNDISCOVERED LANDS
In the fourteen stories here we find our share of ghosts and werewolves and vampires, of monsters, of people trapped in (and out of) time and space—but these things don't always take the expected form. Our writers still explore lands that have not yet been settled . . . Our writers know that terra incognita still may lie across a sea or in some uncharted forest; but they also know that it can be as close as the other end of town; or in the same house or building where you now sit reading. It can be locked in your own mind, and with a rusty corroded lock just waiting for a little pressure to make it snap open.
Today's writers are more familiar than the writers of Poe's time with the ways of reaching terra incognita, and they are eager for your company . . .
Copyright ©, 1976 By DAW BOOKS, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Michael Whelan.
DEDICATION
For Jerry Burge and Bill Crawford,
partners in sorcery.
First Printing, November 1976
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
PRINTED IN U.S.A
Wickerman eBooks
INTRODUCTION
The early teller of horror stories, in common with the originators of less horrific fantasy and science-fiction, made sure his stories took place far enough from his audience that they could never challenge his claims. As travel became easier and more common, it was necessary to place those claims even farther out of reach. But eventually no part of this planet was really inaccessible and writers had to resort to placing their stories in other times: the future for science-fiction, the past for fantasy.
Even Edgar Allen Poe resorted to setting some of his most frightening stories in the past, yet it was Poe who recognized that it was never really necessary to go any farther away than the nearest human mind to find the elements of true horror. Among the mazes of human thought and the frustrations and uncertainties of our own personalities he found a greater source of fright than was provided by all the ghosts and phantoms that ever haunted Europe. Almost a century later H.P. Lovecraft realized that a man like himself—a man who did not believe at all in the supernatural—could find the themes for the sort of horror story he wanted to write in the stuff of science-fiction: time travel, aliens from other worlds and times, travels among alternate universes, the control of one mind by another . . . or by something altogether alien.
These were revolutionary discoveries in their own time, but today's writers take them for granted. In the fourteen stories here we find our share of ghosts and werewolves and vampires, of monsters, of people trapped in (and out of) time and space—but these things don't always take the expected form. Our writers still explore lands that have not yet been settled, but they no longer do so merely to prevent their readers from questioning their observations. They take the reader with them as they go and they let the reader see the landmarks and terrain for himself. Our writers know that terra incognita still may lie across a sea or in some uncharted forest; but they also know that it can be as close as the other end of town; or in the same house or building where you now sit reading. It can be locked in your own mind, and with a rusty corroded lock just waiting for a little pressure to make it snap open.
Terra incognita can be right here, separated from you only by the flimsiest web of time and space, or by your own uncertain perceptions, or by the perversity of luck. It is a web that can drop away at any time and there you stand: a stranger, unfamiliar with the natives or the customs of the natives and uncertain—but quite suspicious—of their eating habits. Today's writers are more familiar than the writers of Poe's time with the ways of reaching terra incognita, and they are eager for your company.
So Brian Lumley follows one of our modern superhighways to discover his secret places and comes up with a story which evokes the cold feeling that lies knotted and only partially hidden behind the frustration known by any driver trapped in the insanity of rush-hour traffic. Fritz Leiber takes us for an elevator ride in the most famous of the world's tall buildings, where we find a country with a much less likable monster than King Kong. David Drake returns from a war half the world away to find a more frightening battleground right here. Ramsey Campbell, on excursion in his native Liverpool, shows us a Christmas gift that does not express the joys of the season. On the top floor of a most unpicturesque building Avram Davidson shows us a bookstore with a very strange price list. And R.A. Lafferty takes us to a more affluent part of town where we learn an unpleasant secret that is all too safe.
But you must not imagine that horror is limited to urban settings. Joseph Payne Brennan finds something nasty in a small New England village, and Arthur Byron Cover tells of a home town summer vacation that was not quite as relaxing as might have been hoped. C.L. Grant uncovers a very haunting sort of terror on a farm in winter and Frank Belknap Long takes us to a cottage that's much too close to the sea.
The past is not completely ignored. Hal Clement finds scientific vampirism in Roman times and the alert reader might discover that in some ways the past is not too different from today. Joe Pumilia finds that the past and present aren't different at all and there's something horrible loose and roaming in time. However, G.N. Gabbard goes straight to the traditional with a story of something grim and grisly in the Black Forest. To bring us up to date there's a bonus, a short article by E. Hoffman Price about the controversy recently stirred up by the publication of L. Sprague de Camp's biography of H.P. Lovecraft.
If all this sounds like something your travel agent might have arranged, then so be it. But be warned as well. This agent has tried to arrange a tour that only covers those less than savory places that just might not be as out-of-the-way as you would like.
—Gerald W. Page
FOREVER STAND THE STONES by Joe Pumilia
Perhaps nothing symbolizes the mysterious past better than Stonehenge; not even the pyramids or those fascinating carvings on Easter Island. The following story, never before published in America, starts with Stonehenge and the rites the Druids practiced there, then quickly moves on to other times, other horrors—and other symbols of horror. But then, you do realize the connection between Stonehenge, Dracula, and Jack the Ripper . . . don't you?
"I don't care whether it makes any sense or not. Walter Deacon was there. You have to believe me. He went with us on the Stonehenge tour in 1883 and I saw him vanish. He stepped into a strange shadow between two big stones, and then he wasn't there. They keep telling me there's no such person as Walter Deacon, that there never was. But I know he doesn't exist only in my dreams. Sometimes when I'm walking through London I'll come on a place where Walter and I would visit, and the memory of him will come to me, and I just know that Walter was a real person, that he doesn't just exist in my mind. That's why I came to you after all these years. It's been preying on my mind. Did he exist or didn't he? Why do I remember him so clearly when no one else does? Please help me, Doctor. My husband says that if I call him Walter again he'll have me put away. You must help me find the truth or I shall go mad."
—From the lost notebooks of Sigmund Freud.
The Case of Gertrude Zimmermann.
In the time of the Roman invaders who came from the ends of the Earth to plant the eagle standard in Britain, a conclave was called in the sacred precincts of Salisbury, where the great stones stood, changeless, majestic, awesome, as they had stood, long Ages before the Celts had come.
The wind upon Salisbury was suddenly still, and rushing clouds of mist gathered like birds of prey in the morn-blood sky. They were gathered there, Mogh Kymroch the mighty warrior chief, his Arch Druid, Korich the Invoker, and a host of lesser priests, to consult the dark powers upon the daw
n of the day of battle.
On this day the legions of Rome would find themselves pitted against fierce Celtic warriors, who battled naked, their only weapon—other than their iron ones—the knowledge that after death the soul joins a new body in Tir-na-nog, the afterworld.
"What will the omen be, Invoker?" asked Mogh anxiously.
"If the great Lord of the Portals comes to us," said the priest, "as he always comes when we invoke him upon this Appointed Day, then it will be a sign in our favor."
"But—what will he tell us?" the chieftain asked. "Has he instructions, or—?"
The Arch Druid raised a hand as gnarled as the root of the sacred oak.
"No, lord. He does not speak. It is enough that he shall appear to us. I shall read the omen in his eyes, and if we are permitted to glimpse the afterworld for but a brief moment, then his power is surely with us."
Wygiff, one of the younger priests, waited just outside the ring of stones, feeling the weight of the iron dagger in his hand.
When the time comes to slay the victim, he told himself, it will not be the girl I love, the girl I grew up with—it will not be Elwyn of the golden hair, no. Nor will I be Wygiff her lover—I will be the instrument of the gods, a priest of the Powers.
Wygiff had slain many victims, enemies mostly, upon the altar. A victim was slain at the time of sowing, and again at harvest, and at certain Appointed Days to propitiate the Powers. And now, before a great battle with the invaders, one of their fairest women would be sent into the afterlife to petition the gods.
Not a virgin—but the Arch Priest did not know that. Nor, Wygiff supposed, did it really matter, for as any fool could see, the ritual purity of the victim mattered nothing. The Lord of the Portals had often appeared on an Appointed Day with the sacrifice of a captive won in battle. Yet for this momentous occasion, Korich the Invoker had commanded that a virgin be slain—and has chosen Elwyn knowing full well that she was beloved of Wygiff, though how far that love had progressed he surely knew not.
Wygiff could not hate the old man overmuch, for he knew that Korich had long been preparing him to step into his office. If Wygiff performed his duties as ritual executioner without hesitation then the Arch Druid would know that his choice had been a good one.
Yet Wygiff knew that should Elwyn die as ordained, his life would be an empty one. How much better if he carried out his office for the glory of his people, then himself joined Elwyn in Tir-na-nog? He looked to the east where the sky was the color of near-molten iron. In moments the sun would rise. It was time.
The druid priests had gathered within the inner pentagram of towering sarsen stones, the five trilithons, five great stone doorways set within the outer colonnade with its continuous lintel. Doors without walls, the great trilithons upheld the weight of centuries of unrecorded time. All was silent, the silence of the moment before dawn when the insects had stopped whispering their ancient spells into the earth, and the birds had not yet begun their hymns to their father the sun.
Under the wrinkle-mounted eyes of the Invoker. Wygiff took his place at the altar. Through the entrance walkway, in the direction of the rising sun, Elwyn came, led by priests. She was not looking at Wygiff. Her eyes were closed, her breathing rapid. She was naked and white in the cold dawn, her body garlanded with mistletoe taken from the sacred oak. Wygiff desperately wanted to be transported beyond himself, as by the drink called vinum, which the Celts had captured from the Romans, and which was more potent than beer or mead.
The horrible pageant that was playing itself out before his eyes like a recurrent dream would not stop. The weight of the knife in his hand would not vanish. Elwyn would not look at him as she lay her naked body before him, not for love of him, but for love of her people and fear of her gods. She lay upon the crude stone altar, her four limbs and head forming a five-pointed figure corresponding to the five stone gateways.
His throat constricted as he tried to utter a comforting sound. He could not speak. Korich's nod was the signal to strike. Wygiff raised the knife, and his arm poised in the air. Mogh Kymroch looked on hopefully. What cared he that Wygiff's life would soon be a living hell of emptiness, as dreadful to contemplate as the dreary, foreboding afterworld in which the Romans believed? Mogh's responsibility lay with his warriors and the survival of the Celts in Britain, Wygiff's responsibility—
Again the Arch Druid nodded, stern and impatient. The next moment would reveal whether he had chosen an unworthy one for his successor.
Wygiff's sole thought was that his beloved should suffer no pain. Thus he struck deep, hard, and sure.
Strangely the victim uttered no cry, and in the eerie stillness that followed, the only sound was not of nature's uttering: the soft drip of blood from stone to earth, and the shadowy sound of blood trickling in rivulets along the ground.
The druids began to move in the shadows. Because it is horrible for men to slay a virgin and eat of her flesh, they were dressed in the skins of animals, and crouched as animals crouch. And in this moment before dawn, they were not men who waited among the great rough-hewn stones. They were foxes, stags, boars.
Bloody from their sacred task, the druids waited for the sun to rise from the underworld as it had done every day since time began. And as this day, the summer solstice, was one of the Appointed Days, the keepers of the stones had come, as their fathers had come before them, to mark the brief moment when the Lord of the Portals would come and give to his servants the brief glimpse of the afterlife that was the vindication of their lives and their beliefs.
Wygiff was now devoid of all feeling and emotion, and was possessed by a great emptiness into which madness began to creep, like a black thing from the dark marshes of forbidden thought. He crouched at the victim's head and his eyes gazed sightless on the first glowing arc of light that appeared upon the horizon.
Behind him something wondrous was happening. The others murmured and threw up their hands, and called to him to turn, to look. A zealous hand pushed him around, forced his ringing head to turn, and there he saw that which he knew he would see.
In the space between the uprights of the great stone doorway a light appeared. And atop the lintel stone a mist gathered, took shape, and became alive. Two burning orbs coalesced from the mist like stars being born in the center of creation, and swirls of phosphorescent mist became powerful arms.
It stretched out its great arms toward the sky in a gesture that might be joy or agony.
He had come. He had come again.
The watchers gazed raptly through the rough columns. The light there rivaled that of the sun, for sunlight it was. There at dawn on the still dark plain a ray of sunlight flowed between the columns from a point opposite the morning sun! The columns and lintel framed the vision of another world, a world whose sun was at midday.
Strange buildings and monuments came into view as the druids watched in awe. Should one of them have gone around to look through the doorway from the other side, he would see not his fellows kneeling with their backs to the sunrise, but another view of the city of the gods in the afterworld.
Strange, thought Wygiff, his head spinning, the memory of Elwyn deadened by a surfeit of overwhelming grief. Strange how each time we glimpse the afterlife it is different. No two times had it been the same. The men, the animals, the strange huts and temples—different each time.
Perhaps he then did what he did because of his grief, because he could not bear to live with the memory of Elwyn's death and his part in it. Because priests are men, and because thought and memory are immortal, undying things that tear at the weeping soul and give it no rest—because of this he stepped forth boldly, arms upraised. The others gasped at the blasphemy, but none dared rise to stay him.
"Oh, Master," said Wygiff in a voice tinged with madness, "I have served you for many cycles of the moon, and many dancings of the sun upon the marker stone. Surely the time approaches when I shall journey into the world beyond!"
The Lords of the Portals did not seem to notic
e. His flaming eyes saw all and nothing, and the moving of his polished limbs within their sheaths of vapor was terrible to behold.
"For generation upon generation we have served you," said Wygiff, a hint of fear in his voice. "Tell us, Master, what do you ask us? What may we give you?"
For the first time in the memory of those who served, the Lord of the Portals made answer:
I want nothing.
But the fire in Wygiff's eyes was still bright. "Then if your needs are not those of men," he said in a fanatical voice, "take this gift of my body—let me join my beloved Elwyn in the afterworld!"
His fellows gaped in astonishment as Wygiff rushed up to the trilithon and with an ecstatic cry leaped through, into the world beyond death. Cowering like the animals they pretended to be, the Celts watched awestruck as Wygiff cavorted upon the stone pavement of the city of the gods in the light of another sun. They watched him dance and run about, and they murmured ancient protections and performed ritual gestures against the unknown effects of this blasphemy, if such it was.
And at that moment the sun of the druids had come up over the world's edge and it sat upon the tip of the marker stone.
There was a strange unhuman wail of horror. It pricked their brains as a flint splinter pricked the flesh. The place of standing stones was suddenly cold, as though some dark sun had sucked away the warmth. The view between the columns was once more a view of the surrounding plain, and atop the lintel was only a tattered shred of mist that united with the air, and became invisible. The watchers crouched under animal pelts, as unmoving as the great sarsens, their mouths dry, their limbs clammy, their eyes as large and bright as summer moons.
O God help me please—I am Walter Deacon of London and this thing has got me, this thing in the stone! What do you want? I want to go home, to my wife Gertrude—let me go—
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