The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™, Vol. 4: Nictzin Dyalhis

by Nictzin Dyalhis

  “But I did not tell you that I played a fiddle—because I don’t,” I stated flatly. “That is a memento of an absurd ambition I once cherished, but which died a-borning. I tried to learn the thing, but the noises I extracted were so abominable that I quit before I’d fairly got started.”

  “You are teasing,” she retorted, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “But I am not to be put off thus easily. Tonight you will play, and I will dance—such a dance as you have never beheld even when you were Jarl Wulf.”

  “If I try to play that thing,” I assured her seriously, “you’ll have a time dancing to my discords, you gorgeous tease!”

  “We’ll see,” she nodded. “But even as my magic revealed to me the whereabouts of the ‘fidel,’ so my spirit tells me that you play splendidly.”

  “Your ‘magic’ may be all right, but your ‘spirit’ has certainly misinformed you,” I growled.

  “My spirit has never yet lied to me—nor has it done so this time.” Her tone was grave, yet therein was a lurking mockery; and I became a trifle provoked.

  “All right,” I assented grouchily. “Whenever you feel like hearing me ‘play,’ I’ll do it. And you’ll never want to listen to such noises again.”

  She went into her room laughing sweetly, and took the fiddle with her.

  After supper she said nothing about me playing that old fiddle, and I fatuously thought she’d let the matter drop. But about ten o’clock she went to her room without a word. She emerged after a bit, wearing naught but a sheer loose palest blue silk robe, held at the waist only by a tiny jeweled gold filigree clasp. Loose as the robe was, it clung lovingly to her every curve as if caressing the beauteous, statuesque body it could not and would not conceal.

  She was totally devoid of all ornament save that tiny brooch, and her wondrous fiery-gold hair was wholly unconfined, falling below her waist in a cascade of shimmering sunset hues, against which her rose-pearl body gleamed through the filmy gossamer-like robe.

  Again she sat and talked for a while. But along toward midnight she broke a short silence with:

  “I’ll be back in a minute. I wish to prepare for my dancing.”

  From her room she brought four antique bronze lamps and a strangely shaped urn of oil. She filled the lamps and placed one at each corner of the living-room, on the floor.

  Back into her room she went, and out again with an octagonal-shaped stone, flat on both sides, about an inch thick, and some four inches across. This she placed on the low taboret whereon I usually kept my nargilyeh. She propped up that slab of stone as if placing a mirror—which I decided it couldn’t very well be, as it did not even reflect light but seemed as dull as a slab of slate.

  As a final touch, she brought out that confounded old fiddle! And on her scarlet lips was a smile that a seraph might have envied, so innocent and devoid of guile it seemed.

  “What’s this?” I demanded—as if I didn’t know!

  “Your little ‘fidel’ with which you will make for your Heldra such rapturous music,” she smiled caressingly.

  “Um-m-m-m!” I grunted. “And what are those lamps for—and that ugly slab of black rock?”

  “That black slab is a ‘Hel-stone,’ having the property of reflecting whatever is directly before it, if illumined by those four lamps placed at certain angles; and later it will give off those same reflections—even as the stuff called luminous calcium sulfide absorbs light-rays until surcharged, and then emits them, when properly exposed. So, you see, we can preserve the picture of my dance.”

  “Heldra,” I demanded sharply, “are you up to some devilishness? All this looks amazingly like the stage-setting for witch-working!”

  “I have sung for you, on different nights,” she replied in gentlest reproach, “and have told old tales, and have attired myself again and again for your pleasure in beholding me. Have all these things ever bewitched you, or harmed anyone? How, then, can the fact of my dancing for my own satisfaction, before the mystic Hel-stone, do any harm?”

  * * * *

  As ever, she won. Her sapphire orbs did queer things to me whenever they looked into my own gray, faded old eyes—trusting me to understand and approve whatever she did, simply because she was she and I was I.

  “All right,” I said. “But you’re making a fool of me—insisting that I play this old fiddle. Well—I’ll teach you a lesson!” And I drew the bow over the strings with a most appalling wail.

  And with the unexpected swiftness of a steel trap closing on its victim, icy fingers locked about my wrist, and I knew very definitely that another and alien personality was guiding my arm and fingers! But there came likewise a swift certitude that if I behaved, no harm would ensue—to me, at least. So I let the thing have its way—and listened to such music as I had not believed could be played on any instrument devised by a mortal.

  I wish that I could describe that music, but I do not know the right words. I doubt if they have been invented. It was wild, barbaric, savage, but likewise it was alluring, seductive, stealing away all inhibitions—too much of it would have corrupted the angels in heaven. I was almost in a stupor, intoxicated, like a hasheesh-eater in a drugged dream, spellbound, unable to break from the thralldom holding my will, drowning in rapture well-nigh unbearable.

  Heldra suddenly blew out the big kerosene lamp standing on the table, leaving as sole illumination the rays from those four bronze lights standing in the corners.

  Her superb body moved gracefully, slowly at first, then faster, into the intricate figure and pattern of a dance that was old when the world was young.…

  With inward horror I knew the why and wherefore of that entire ceremonial; knew I’d been be-cozened and be-japed; yet knew, likewise, that it was too late for interference. I could not even speak. I could but watch, while some personality alien to my body played maddeningly on my fiddle, and the ‘niece’ I loved danced a dance deliberately planned to seduce a man who hated and feared the dancer—and for what devilish purpose I could well guess!

  I saw the light-rays converge on her alluring, statuesque body, saw them apparently pass through her and impinge on the surface of that black, sullen, octagonal Hel-stone, and be greedily swallowed up, until the dull, black surface glowed like a rare black Australian opal; and ever the dancing of the witch-girl grew more alluring, more seductive, more abandoned. And I knew why Heldra was thus shamefully—shamelessly, rather—conducting! She had read Michael Commnenus his character very accurately; knew that his soul had recognized her hatred for him, and feared her—and that her one chance to get him in her clutches lay in inflaming his senses…and she’d even told me the properties of that most damnable Hel-stone!

  Wilder and faster came the music, and swifter and still more alluring grew the rhythmic response as Heldra’s lovely body swayed and spun and swooped and postured; until ultimately her waving arms brought her fluttering hands, in the briefest of touches, into contact with the tiny brooch at her waist and the fnlmy robe was swept away in a single gesture that was faithfully recorded on the sullen surface of the Hel-stone.

  Instantly the dancer stopped as if petrified, her arms outstretched as in invitation, her regal head thrown back, showing the long smooth white column of her throat, her clear, half-closed, sapphire-blue eyes agleam with subtle challenge.…

  The uncanny music died in a single sighing, sobbing whisper, poison-sweet…the clutching, icy fingers were gone from my wrist…my first coherent thought was: Had that spell been directed at me, the old adage anent “old fools” would have been swiftly justified!

  And I knew that to all intents and purposes, Michael Commnenus was sunk!

  Just the same, I was furious. Heldra had gone too far, and I told her so, flatly. I pointed out in terms unmistakable that what she planned was murder, or worse; and that this was modern America wherein witchcraft had neither place nor sanction, and that I’d be no accessory to any such devilishness as she was contriving. Oh, I made myself and my meaning plain.

  And sh
e stood and looked at me with a most injured expression. She made me feel as if I’d wantonly struck a child across the face in the midst of its innocent diversions!

  “I don’t actually care if the devil flies off with Michael Commnenus,” I concluded wrathfully, “but I won’t have him murdered by you while you’re living here, posing as my niece! No doubt it’s quite possible for you to evade any legal consequences by disappearing, but what of me? As accessory, I’d be liable to life imprisonment, at the least!”

  Her face lightened as by magic, and her voice was genuinely regretful, and in her eyes was a light of sincere love. She came to me and wrapped her white arms about my neck, murmuring terms of affectionate consolation.

  “Poor dear Uncle John! Heldra was thoughtless—wicked me! And I might have involved you in serious trouble? I am ashamed! But the fate laid upon me by the Norns is heavy, and I may not evade it, even for you, whom I love. Tell me,” she demanded suddenly, “if I should destroy the vile earthworm without any suspicion attaching to you, or to me, would you love me as before, even knowing what I had done?”

  “No!” I fairly snarled the denial. I wanted it to be emphatic.

  She smiled serenely, and kissed me full on my lips.

  “I never thought to thank a mortal for lying to me, but now I do! Deep in your heart I can read your true feeling, and I am glad! But now”—and her tone took on a sadness most desolate—“I regret to say that on the morrow I leave you. The lovely garments you gave me, and the trunks containing them, I take with me, as you would not wish that I go empty-handed. Nor will I insult you,O Jarl Wulf, by talk of payment.

  “When I am gone, you will just casually mention that I have returned to my home, and the local gossips will not suspect aught untoward. And soon I shall be forgotten, and no one will suspect, or possibly connect you, or me, with what inevitably must happen to that spawn of the Commneni.

  “But of this be very sure: Somewhere, sometime, you and I shall be together again.…” Her voice broke, she kissed me fiercely on the lips, then tenderly on both cheeks, then lastly, with a queer reverence, on my furrowed old brow. Then she turned, went straight to her room, shut the doer, and I heard the click of the key as she locked herself in, for the first time during her stay in my house.…

  Next morning, as she’d planned, she departed on the first train cityward. I’d given her money enough for all her requirements—more, indeed, than she was willing to take at first, declaring that she intended selling some few of her jewels.

  And with her departure went all which made life worth living.…

  * * * *

  Heavily I dragged my reluctant feet back to the empty shell of a cottage which until then had been an earthly paradise to an old man—and the very first thing I laid eyes on was that accursed Hel-stone, lying on the living-room table.

  I picked it up, half minded to shatter it to fragments, but an idea seized me. I bore it down-cellar, where semi-darkness prevailed, and the Hel-stone glowed softly with its witch-light, showing me the loveliness of her who had departed from me. And I pressed the cold octagon to my lips, thankful that she’d left me the thing as a feeble substitute for her presence. Then I turned and went back upstairs, found an old ivory box of Chinese workmanship, and placed the Hel-stone therein, very carefully, as a thing priceless.

  I went to bed early that night. There was no reason to sit up. But I could not sleep. I lay there in my bed, cursing the entire line of Commneni, root, trunk and branch, from the first of that ilk whom history records to this latest scion, or “spawn,” as Heldra had termed him.

  Around midnight, being still wakeful, I arose, got the Hel-stone and sat in the darkness—and gradually became aware that I was not alone! Looking up, I saw her I’d lost standing in a witch-glow of phosphorescent light. I knew at once that it was not Heldra in person, but her “scin-loecca” or “shining double,” a “sending,” and that it was another of her witcheries.

  “But even this is welcome,” I thought. Then I felt her thought expressed through that phantasmal semblance of her own gorgeous self—and promptly strove, angrily, to resist her command. Much good it did me!

  Utterly helpless, yet fully cognizant of my actions, but oddly assured that about me was a cloak of invisibility—the “glamyr” of the ancient Alrunas—I dressed, took the Hel-stone, and passed out into the night.

  Straight to the cottage of Commnenus I went, pawed about under the door-step, and planted there the Hel-stone; then, still secure in the mystic glamor, I returned to my own abode.

  And no sooner had I seated myself in my chair for a smoke, than I realized fully the utter devilishness of that witch from out the wintry seas whom I had taken into my home and had sponsored as my “niece” in the eyes of the world.

  Right then I decided to go back and get that Hel-stone, and smash it—and couldn’t do it! I got sleepy so suddenly that I awoke to find that it was broad daylight, and nine-thirty a.m. And from then on, as regularly as twilight came, I could only stay awake so long as I kept my thoughts away from that accursed Hel-stone; wherefore I determined that the thing could stay where it was until it rotted, for all me!

  Then Commnenus came along the beach late one afternoon. He raised his hat in his Old World, courtly fashion, and tried to make some small talk. I grunted churlishly and ignored him. But finally he came out bluntly with:

  “Professor Craig, I know your opinion of me, and admit it is to some extent justifiable. I seem to have acquired the reputation of being a Don Juan. But I ask you to believe that I bitterly regret that—now! Yet, despite that reputation, I’d like to ask you a most natural question, if I may.”

  I nodded assent, unprepared for what was coming, yet somehow assured it would concern Heldra. Nor was I at all disappointed, for he fairly blurted out:

  “When do you expect Miss Helstrom to return, if at all?”

  I was flabbergasted! That is the only word adequate. I glared at him in a black fury. When I could catch my breath I demanded:

  “How did even you summon up the infernal gall to ask me that?”

  His reply finished flattening me out.

  “Because I love her! Wait”—he begged—“and hear me out, please! Even a criminal is allowed that courtesy.” Then as I nodded grudgingly, he resumed:

  “The first time I saw her, something deep within me shrank away from her with repulsion. Still, I admired her matchless beauty. But of late, since her departure, there is not a night I do not see her in my mind’s eye, and I know that I love her, and hope that she will return; hence my query.

  “I will be frank—I even hope that she noticed me and read my admiration without dislike. Perhaps two minds can reach each other—sometimes. For invariably I see her with head thrown back, her eyes half closed, and her arms held out as if calling me to come to her. And if I knew her whereabouts I’d most certainly go, nor would I be ‘trifling,’ where she is concerned. I want to win her, if possible, as my wife; and an emperor should be proud to call her that

  “Very romantic,” I sneered. “But, Mr. Woman-Chaser, I cut my eye-teeth a long while before you were born, and I’m not so easily taken in. The whereabouts of my niece are no concern of yours. So get away from me before I lose my temper, or I’ll not be answerable for my actions. Get!”

  He went! The expression of my face and the rage in my eyes must have warned him that I was in a killing humor. Well, I was. But likewise, I was sick with fear. What he’d just told me was sufficient to sicken me—the Hel-stone had gotten in its damnable work. My very soul was aghast as it envisioned the inevitable consequences.…

  * * * *

  An idea obsessed me, and I needed the shades of night to cloak my purpose.

  Aimlessly I wandered from room to room in my cottage, and finally drifted into the room which had been Heldra’s. Still aimlessly I pulled open drawer after drawer in the dresser, and in the lowest one I heard a faint metallic clink.

  The four antique bronze lamps were there. I shrewdly suspected
she had left them there as means of establishing contact with her, should need arise. I examined them, and found, as I’d hoped, that they were filled.

  Around ten o’clock I placed those lamps in the four corners of the living-room, and lighted them, precisely as I’d seen Heldra do. Then I tried my talents at making an invocation.

  “Heldra! Heldra! Heldra!” I called. “I, John Craig, who gave you shelter at your need, call to you now, wheresoever you be, to come to me at my need!”

  The four lights went out, yet not a breath of air stirred in the room. A faintly luminous glow, the witch-light, ensued; and there she stood, or rather, the scin-loecca, her shining double! But I knew that anything I might say to it would be the same as if she were there in the flesh.

  “Heldra,” I beseeched that witch-lighted simulacrum, “by the love you gave me, as Ragnar loved Jarl Wulf Red-

  Sword, I ask that you again enshroud me with the mantle of invisibility, the glamyr,’ and allow me to lift that accursed Hel-stone from where you compelled me to conceal it. Let me return it to you, at any place you may appoint, so that it can do no more harm.

  “Already that poor bewitched fool is madly in love with you, because the radiations of that enchanted stone have saturated him every time he put foot on the door-step beneath which I buried it!

  “Heldra, grant me this one kindness, and I will condone all sins you ever did in all your witch-life.”

  The shining wraith nodded slowly, unmistakably assenting to my request. As from a far distance I heard a faint whisper:

  “Since it is your desire, get the Hel-stone, and bear it yourself to the sea-cave at the foot of the great cliff guarding the north passage into the harbor. Once you have borne it there, its work, and yours, are done.

  “And I thank you for saying that you will condone all I have ever done, for the burden of the past is heavy, and your words have made it easier to bear.”

  The shining wraith vanished, and I went forth into the darkness. Straight to the house where I’d hidden the Hel-stone I betook myself, felt under the step, found what I sought, took it with an inward prayer of gratitude that because of Heldra’s “glamyr” I had not been caught at something questionable in appearance, and started up the beach.