“You have not been here all this time, I hope,” I said.
“No, no,” she replied, shaking her head emphatically. “Why, you have been gone more than five weeks! But always someone has watched over you, waiting for your awakening. It has been done by command of the Hierophant of the Order.”
“Help me up,” I said, for I felt unable to rise by my own unaided efforts.
I got to my feet and stood swaying unsteadily. In fact, had not the girl placed her arm about me and supported me I should probably have fallen. But after a bit, as the circulation improved, I grew stronger.
“I’m all right now,” I said.
“I’m so glad,” she repeated, her eyes shining joyously. “I—I—prayed—for—you,” she whispered diffidently.
I stared! She! Prayed—for me! I who—! Then comprehension dawned in my arrogant mind! After all, within her limits, she, too, served! Very gently I bent and kissed her on her smooth brow.
“Thank you, Little Sister,” I said humbly.
Then I left the Black Shrine, and, a few minutes later, dressed for the street, I passed out of the Temple building.
AFTERWORD
I retired from business. I have money enough and more than I shall ever use. I made a will, leaving everything to that kindly little maid who also serves. No one else had ever manifested any regard for me. Yet—she had “prayed”.
A week ago I awoke from out a sound slumber. The room was so black that there might as well have been no room. There came a soft gleam of radiance! Clearly against the blackness, I saw the Silver One herself. A question passed from my mind to hers.
“Not yet,” came her gentle, pitying reply. “It is another than I who will come—even as he said.”
“Tell me,” I implored. “May I write these matters out for the dwellers of earth to read?”
“You may—if it be your wish,” she consented.
“When shall I—” I recommenced, but she shook her head in negation, and I did not finish that query. She smiled and was gone! But I lay awake awhile, staring into the darkness; and as I stared, a vision formed.
I saw a small, barren-looking planet, as yet scarcely cooled, whereon dwarfish, distorted creatures, low in the scale of evolution, yet strangely aspiring; strove ever with a race of giants, malignant, brutish, stolid, stupid.
But what it was they strove for; or what part I was to take in their affairs—I saw not then, nor do I know as yet.
Only, I wait. Wait, that I may once again serve—
And, somehow, I do not think my waiting will be very long!
THE RED WITCH
Originally published in Weird Tales, April 1932.
Is there a past, a present, and a future; or are they in reality all the same state, being merely differing phases of the same eternal “Now”?
Are our lives and deaths and the interludes between them naught but illusion; and are we ever the same beings, yet capable, even though we do not recognize the fact, of experiencing two or more states of consciousness of personal identity—I mean, under certain exceptional conditions?
Times there are when my recent terrific experience impels me to adopt that hypothesis. How else may I explain the events wherein I played so strange a part—together with another who is far dearer to me than aught else in the universe?
Am I Randall Crone, a scientist connected with a great public museum, or am I Ran Kron, a youthful warrior of a savage tribe in the eon-old Ice Age? Is my wife, Rhoda—the gently nurtured, highly cultured Rhoda Day—the modern product of this Twentieth Century; or is she Red Dawn, the flaming-haired daughter of a red-headed witch-priestess of a devil-worshipping tribe of skin-clad Anthropophagi in that same remote Ice Age?
What is true, and what false? By what strange laws are we governed, we mortals, that we can see neither ahead nor backward, and are only aware of a limited “Here”?
My brain reels as I seek to solve the mystery—and to what account? Truly has a great poet said:
Of all my seeking, this is all my gain—
No agony of any mortal brain
Shall wrest the secret of the life of man,
The search has taught me that the search is vain!
* * * *
I first saw her in the museum where I was on duty, and hard-headed scientist that I prided myself on being, I admit that my heart did a flip-flop, and I knew I beheld the one woman for whom I’d ever truly care. But that is a mild word for the love I felt. Love, I say; and I mean just that. In the holy emotion that possessed me there was no faintest throb of passion, no taint of desire. Beautiful? Yes, the most superbly beautiful woman on earth, I thought then, and still do think, and will continue so to think long after wrinkles and gray hair and decrepitude shall cause others to say “Old Hag”, should that ever come to pass.
For soul has spoken to soul, and we twain know that we belong to each other; and though menaced as we were by the frightful ghost of the implacable savage chieftain, Athak the Terrible, yet we have overcome his menace, and no longer has he the power to afflict and harass our love and happiness through his eon-old malicious hatred.
Yet while he still had the power, he surely availed himself of it, measure full and running over; as my beloved knew from her early childhood up to the time we were married; and as I myself had several samples of, after that event; although, thanks to some benignant power, Athak’s final attack was his undoing. But I am in danger of anticipating and must set down my account in a more logical sequence.
As I have said: I loved Rhoda Day from the first; and later I learned from her own lips that her feelings toward me were identical. At the time we neither of us knew why, but eventually we found out. Yet when I asked her to be my wife she burst into tears, sobbing: “Oh, Randall, if only I could say ’Yes’; but—but—I—dare not!”
“Don’t you care for me?”
“More than for life itself…”
“Then why not—surely there must be some reason?”
“Oh, Randall, a terrible one…
“Tell me,” I urged. But I coaxed for over an hour, holding her close in my arms, her head with its coronal of red-gold hair resting on my shoulder, her soft cheek against mine, before she finally gasped out her fears in broken phrases.
I’ll not attempt to render her exact words. It simply can not be done. We both were in the grip of one of life’s greatest emotions, or to be precise, a whole storm of emotions; and at such times I do not think that memory reproduces exactly. But in substance, thus the matter stood:
From a child, she’d been cognizant that, no matter where she was, or what she did, always there seemed to be another present, invisible, but very real nevertheless. A very terrible presence, too, inspiring her with loathing and dread, although it did not seem antagonistic to her welfare or her life. Rather it seemed to gloat over her with an air of proprietorship which she found indescribably horrifying.
Times there were when the presence exercised a very real power to protect her; as for example—when in her eleventh year she had a nerve-shaking experience with an ill-natured brute of a dog that snarled and menaced her with bared fangs. She knew, irrefutably, that the beast would have sprung in another moment, and stood paralyzed with terror, unable to cry out for help.
She sensed a storm of ferocious wrath sweep past her, enveloping the dog; and—unbelievable as it appears—that dog died! Yet on its body was evident no mark of violence. Apparently the brute died in a paroxysm of terror. But even after that episode, for a long while she had no idea as to what the Presence was.
As she grew older, she noted more frequently that that same power, or force, or influence, was exerting itself in her behalf to guard her—sometimes too zealously—a something too fiercely possessive, and capable of emitting a wave of such malignant hostility that she was for the most part devoid of the friends such as a young girl usually has.
And as she ripened into the first flush of young womanhood, drawn by her beauty there was no lack of young men who sou
ght to do her homage and court her with their attentions—but none of them ever sought long. Doubtless, the air of hostility they felt about her, enshrouding her like a garment, they attributed to her; believing her to be of a disagreeable, if not an actually repellent personality; instead of realizing that it was an alien nature, emanating from a source outside herself, and certainly quite apart from her desires.
At that same period she became aware that the Presence was even more strongly possessive in its attitude; and, worse, again and again it made her sense its proximity even in the sanctum of her own room. But up until the day we were assured of each other’s feelings she had not seen the thing—whatever it was. That night, however, after retiring, she awoke with the hideous feeling of being not alone—awoke to see the two eyes staring down at her; eyes aflame with wrath; eyes set in a vague, nebulous blur that might or might not have borne the semblance of a human face.
Of course she was frightened. Any one would be, under the same circumstances. She was so frightened that, try as she would to call out and arouse the household, she could emit no sound louder than a moan, barely audible to herself. She could not even move a muscle; could only lie still in an agony of apprehension, staring wildly up into the blazing orbs not a yard above her face.
* * * *
Oddly enough, the apparition contented itself with glaring at her, striving to impress something on her mind, indelibly. All the impression conveyed, however, was that in some manner she had angered the “Thing”, although how, or why, she could not comprehend.
But as we met more frequently, and our minds as well as our hearts became more filled with each other, the unholy visitant, appearing nightly, became more and more enraged. It was easier to see, assuming density of form and features with its rapidly growing wrath. After such visits she felt as if she had been beaten, physically, with a thick stick, wielded by a strong hand and arm.
Always it strove to impress upon her consciousness a very definite command, but always it failed to make its will register. Yet with each visit it became more visible until it was easily seen to be a huge man, long-armed and thick-legged, inclining more to the blond type than to the swarthy; skin-clad, carrying a huge knotted club, and a great stone-bladed knife stuck through a narrow leather thong tied about his middle.
“He—he—looks so—savage,” she shuddered.
I stared down at the lovely, tear-bedewed face, my mind in a queer jumble of commingled amazement and fear. Those wondrous blue eyes looked straight back into mine, reading my unspoken thought.
“Randall, my beloved,” she said gravely, mastering her emotions with a superb manifestation of will-power, “it all sounds crazy enough, I know; but please do not think your Rhoda is crazy. She isn’t! I know what I’ve been subjected to ever since I was old enough to remember anything.”
Ashamed of my momentary suspicion, I hastened to make the only amends within my power.
“If you’re crazy, then I’ll go crazy, too,” I stated seriously. “How soon will you marry me? You love me, and I love you. That being the case, to whom but me should you turn for sympathy, understanding, and protection; insofar as lies within my power to give them…why, Rhoda, what’s a husband good for, if not to stand between his woman and the whole world, and the Powers of Hell, too, for that matter, if she needs his aid? Once married, we can be together at the very times when your danger is the greatest. I don’t know what I can do, if anything; but I’ll guarantee that whatever this skin-clad giant is up to, he’ll have me to dispose of before he harms you. I want you, and you need me, and that brings us back where we were—how soon do we get married?” “Randall! Randall! Stop urging me, or you’ll sweep me off my feet! I can not and will not let you become involved—’’
“Try keeping me out,” I defied, my whole being aflame with loving sympathy and pity. Suddenly over me swept an unalterable certitude—that I was already involved, fully as much as was she. Nay, more: I felt that I always had been; only until then I had not known it. But in that one moment I knew that my fate and Rhoda’s were one and the same; and that whatever this being was which menaced, it was likewise a menace to me, and would be so forevermore, unless in some manner as yet unguessed by me I could put an end to its unholy machinations. So I told her of my sudden conviction, and when I’d concluded, I saw stark worship replace the fear-haunted expression in her eyes.
“Randall”—her voice was vibrant with all the love a good woman feels in her soul and can not express with mere words—“you’d dare that awful being, risk your life, perhaps your very soul for—me?”
“Risk my life, perhaps my soul, for you, Rhoda? Mine would be but a pitifully weak love if I hesitated to do so. I most certainly am going to do that very thing, if need be. Your troubles henceforth are my troubles too, so that’s that! Now let’s drop all this cross-purpose talk and talk sense for a while. I’ve already asked you to marry me, and now I’m saying it differently—we two are going to get married right now, at once, immediately, today! Get me? You’ve got absolutely nothing to say about it. I’m Boss, with a big ‘B’! And how do you like that?”
“Oh, I—I—give up,” she faltered. “Only you will simply have to wait at least a week. We’ve simply got to conform somewhat to the standard conventions and tell a few people; otherwise tongues are sure to wag, unfavorably.”
I was too well pleased to argue. After all, that day or a week later, mattered but little. The monster had not slain her up till then, and had had plenty of time in which to have done so, had such been his purpose. So I let it go as she stipulated, with one amendment.
“If that ‘What-you-may-call-it’ reappears in your room, you tell him my name and address; try and make him comprehend me, then tell him to come and annoy me for a change and let you take a rest. I’ve an idea that I can cope with him…”
* * * *
That night things did happen! Rhoda told me later what her experience was that night. Unpleasant, very, but fortunately brief; and in a way it was merely the preliminary to what I went through immediately afterward.
She had no sooner retired than the Thing appeared, seemingly more tangible than ever before. It made no attempt to actually molest her, but was obviously in a towering rage. It did everything but rave aloud. It stamped about the room, gnashing its teeth in a perfect frenzy; frowning and grimacing intimidatingly; shaking a huge fist in her face; pantomiming strangling her with its enormous hands; and plainly conveying through sheer force of wrath, that she’d gone to the ultimate limit of its patience. Above all, it made her understand that it was jealous! Which gave her her cue. It speaks well for her brave spirit that she faced the ugly apparition with a smile of contempt, jeered at it, and demanded in a whisper:
“If you’re jealous of Randall Crone, why don’t you go and try to bully him, instead of acting like a coward by tormenting me all the time?”
To make a good job of it, she exerted all her will to picture me and my abode so clearly that he could catch her thought-images. And after a bit she succeeded; for a look of comprehension and hatred came over the savage features, and a second afterward the apparition vanished from her room.
I’d been reading and at the same time hoping that the Thing would pay me a visit that night. I had no idea as to how to cope with it. I do not claim to be a great hero, but had the Devil himself threatened Rhoda’s peace of mind, though he came to me with horns, barbed tail, talons all sharpened, cloven hoofs, flaming eyes, breathing sulfur fumes, and with his white-hot pitchfork raised to strike, still I would have fought him to the best of my ability and trusted to luck to defeat him somehow. But I didn’t intend to be caught asleep and off guard if I could help myself. Hence I sat and read.
And it came!
The same huge, savage Warrior that Rhoda had so graphically described. And the instant it assumed visibility, I knew that I was in for a most unpleasant time. The utter malignity of its expression proclaimed that here was a being to whom the very ideas of mercy, reason, or even caution
, were completely unknown.
It had the power of rendering itself visible, but could not make itself audible, although had it spoken, I’d been none the wiser, for I could not have understood whatever uncouth language might have been its native tribal tongue. But it certainly could and did make its thoughts register on my brain. He—for there’s no need to longer call the Thing “it”—warned me very emphatically that he owned that red-headed woman; had owned her since the world was young, and always would own her till long after the world died of old age; and that if I wanted to remain all in one piece I’d best never go near her again. All this was punctuated by flourishing an enormous knotted—spectral—club which he wielded in one huge fist.
I never did like being bullied!
And the more that infernal savage phantom raved, the less I liked it. A slow anger began to burn within me. I had my own ideas about his asserted ownership of Rhoda. I wasn’t conceited enough to think that I owned her, but I was quite sure that he didn’t! While as to me staying away from her simply because he bade me do so—
I came to my feet, “seeing red” literally, and hurled myself at him with all my inhibitions inherited from my civilized ancestry wholly in abeyance. I was fully as much a savage as ever he had been! My entire being was filled with but one desire—to get my hands, aye, my teeth even, to working on him; to batter, to rend, to tear, kick, bite, gouge, and strangle until he was—
Something seemed to burst within my skull; a terrific blaze of scarlet light which blinded me for a bit—in my ears was a roaring like to the four winds of the world colliding simultaneously—a queer rushing sensation as if I were hurtling through the boundless abyss of space—
I regained consciousness…
* * * *
I was in a village of some fifty-odd stone huts. Low round buildings they were, wherefrom smoke rose lazily into the air through holes in the high-pitched peak-roofs. It was late in the day, for the long shadows stretched almost eastward. Skin-clad men and women moved about the huts. White of skin they were, the majority light-haired, with blue or gray eyes. The women for the most part were short, broad, stocky of build; none of them really bad-looking, yet none really comely, let alone any of them having even a remote approach to beauty. Their faces were too stolid, and their voices were too harsh to render any of them attractive.
The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™, Vol. 4: Nictzin Dyalhis Page 13