Shambleau and Others M
Page 21
And so again they crossed the fur-soft grass that bore down upon them in long ripples from every part of the meadow.
The Temple rose dim and unreal before them, and as they entered blue twilight folded them dreamily about. Smith turned by habit towards the gallery of the drinkers, but the girl laid upon his arm a hand that shook a little, and murmured.
‘Come this way.’
He followed in growing surprise down the hallway through the drifting mists and away from the gallery he knew so well. It seemed to him that the mist thickened as they advanced, and in the uncertain light he could never be sure that the walls did not waver as nebulously as the blurring air. He felt a curious impulse to step through their intangible barriers and out of the hall into – what?
Presently steps rose under his feet, almost imperceptibly and after a while the pressure on his arm drew him aside. They went in under a low, heavy arch of stone and entered the strangest room he had ever seen. It appeared to be seven-sided, as nearly as he could judge through the drifting mist, and curious, converging lines were graven deep in the floor.
It seemed to him that forces outside his comprehension were beating violently against the seven walls, circling like hurricanes through the dimness until the whole room was a maelstrom of invisible tumult.
When he lifted his eyes to the wall, he knew where he was. Blazoned on the dim stone, burning through the twilight like some other-dimenional fire, the scarlet pattern writhed across the wall.
The sight of it, somehow, set up a commotion in his brain, and it was with whirling head and stumbling feet that he answered to the pressure on his arm. Dimly he realized that he stood at the very centre of those strange, converging lines, feeling forces beyond reason coursing through him along paths outside any knowledge he possessed.
Then for one moment arms clasped his neck and a warm, fragrant body pressed against him, and a voice sobbed in his ear.
‘If you must leave me, then go back through the Door, beloved – life without you – more dreadful even than a death like this …’ A kiss that stung of blood clung to his lips for an instant; then the clasp loosened and he stood alone.
Through the twilight he saw her dimly outlined against the Word. And he thought, as she stood there, that it was as if the invisible currents beat bodily against her, so that she swayed and wavered before him, her outlines blurring and forming again as the forces from which he was so mystically protected buffeted her mercilessly.
And he saw knowledge dawning terribly upon her face, as the meaning of the Word seeped slowly into her mind. The sweet brown face twisted hideously, the blood-red lips writhed apart to shriek a Word – in a moment of clarity he actually saw her tongue twisting incredibly to form the syllables of the unspeakable thing never meant for human lips to frame. Her mouth opened into an impossible shape … she gasped in the blurry mist and shrieked aloud. …
4
Smith was walking along a twisting path so scarlet that he could not bear to look down, a path that wound and unwound and shook itself under his feet so that he stumbled at every step. He was groping through a blinding mist clouded with violet and green, and in his ears a dreadful whisper rang – the first syllable of an unutterable Word. … Whenever he neared the end of the path it shook itself under him and doubled back, and weariness like a drug was sinking into his brain, and the sleepy twilight colours of the mist lulled him,’ and—
‘He’s waking up!’ said an exultant voice in his ear.
Smith lifted heavy eyelids upon a room without walls – a room wherein multiple figures extending into infinity moved to and fro in countless hosts. …
‘Smith! N.W.! Wake up!’ urged that familiar voice from somewhere near.
He blinked. The myriad diminishing figures resolved themselves into the reflections of two men in a steel-walled room, bending over him. The friendly, anxious face of his partner, Yarol the Venusian, leaned above the bed.
‘By Pharol, N.W.,’ said the well-remembered, ribald voice, ‘you’ve been asleep for a week! We thought you’d never come out of it – must have been an awful brand of whisky!’
Smith managed a feeble grin – amazing how weak he felt – and turned an inquiring gaze upon the other figure.
‘I’m a doctor,’ said that individual, meeting the questing stare. ‘Your friend called me in three days ago and I’ve been working on you ever since. It must have been all of five or six days since you fell into this coma – have you any idea what caused it?’
Smith’s pale eyes roved the room. He did not find what he sought, and though his weak murmur answered the doctor’s question, the man was never to know it.
‘Shawl?’
‘I threw the damned thing away,’ confessed Yarol.
‘Stood it for three days and then gave up. That red pattern gave me the worst headache I’ve had since we found that case of black wine on the asteroid. Remember?’
‘Where—?’
‘Gave it to a space-rat checking out of Venus. Sorry. Did you really want it? I’ll buy you another.’
Smith did not answer. The weakness was rushing up about him in grey waves. He closed his eyes, hearing the echoes of that first dreadful syllable whispering through his head … whisper from a dream… Yarol heard him murmur softly:
‘And – I never even knew – her name. …’
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Also by C. L. Moore
Novels
Earth's Last Citadel (1943) (with Henry Kuttner)
The Mask of Circe (1948) (with Henry Kuttner)
Doomsday Morning (1957)
Collections
Beyond Earth's Gates (1949)
Judgment Night (1952)
Shambleau and Others (1953)
Northwest of Earth (1954)
No Boundaries (with Henry Kuttner (1955))
C L Moore (1911 – 1987)
Catherine Lucille Moore was born in Indianapolis in 1911. Prolonged illness when young meant she spent much of her time as a child reading the fantastic tales of the day, a background that no doubt spurred her on to become a writer of science fiction and fantasy herself. Moore made her first professional sale to Weird Tales while still in her early 20's: the planetary romance 'Shambleau', which introduced one of her best-known heroes Northwest Smith. She went on to produce a highly respected body of work, initially solo for Weird Tales and then, in collaboration with her husband, fellow SF writer Henry Kuttner, whom she married in 1940, for John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction. Moore was one of the first women to rise to prominence in the male-dominated world of early SF, and paved the way for others to follow in her footsteps. Moore ceased to write fiction after Kuttner's death in 1958, concentrating instead on writing for television. She died in April 1987 after a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © C.L. Moore 1953
All rights reserved.
The right of C.L. Moore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 11935 2
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
&nbs
p; No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor ttherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Table of Contents
Title Page
Gateway Introduction
Contents
Epilogue
BLACK GOD’S KISS
SHAMBLEAU
BLACK GOD’S SHADOW
BLACK THIRST
THE TREE OF LIFE
SCARLET DREAM
Website
Also by C.L. Moore
Author Bio
Copyright