Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  A dagger hung at Raynor’s side; he unsheathed this and gripped it between his teeth.

  Without a word he dived into the lake, came up yards away, swimming strongly.

  And the water was cold—cold! Frigid beyond anything Raynor had ever known.

  The dreadful chill of it lanced deep into his bones, making them grind together with the sheer pain of the unearthly cold.

  Looking down, he found that the water was opaque. A uniform dull grayness made it seem as though he was floating on clouds. What mystery might lurk in these hidden depths he could not guess; but at least nothing rose to halt his progress.

  The lake was not wide; yet Raynor was curiously exhausted when at last he waded through shallows and on to dry land. Eblik was not far behind. Now, not far away, Ghiar’s citadel rose blackly cryptic before them.

  And at their feet were—the Black Flowers!

  The ground could not be seen, so thickly they grew. A living carpet of velvety darkness they covered the islet, weirdly beautiful, with stems and leaves and soft petals all of the same glossy black.

  Ever and anon a soft wind whispered past, and waves rippled across the jet sea.

  SAVE for the wind, it was utterly silent.

  The two men moved forward. The flowers brushed against their ankles, and a soft cloud of disturbed pollen hung like smoke in their wake. And ever the insidious perfume crept into their nostrils—stronger now, vaguely repellent, and redolent of unknown and forbidden things.

  His gaze riveted on the citadel, Raynor did not at first realize that he was making little progress. Then he glanced down quickly, or tried to. But his muscles seemed to respond with unwillingness, and it was with a genuine effort that he succeeded in looking down. The black flowers seemed to be swaying toward him; around his feet the smoky darkness hung.

  The dim haze fingered up, questing!

  Raynor tried to spring forward. His feet kicked up a great cloud of pollen, and it shrouded him like a pall.

  He was unconscious of the fact that he had halted and was swaying to and fro, slowly.

  Over his vision a dim curtain dropped.

  He seemed to fall very slowly.

  The black flowers leaned toward him hungrily. A velvet blossom brushed his cheek; another seemed to cup his mouth as though in dreadful simulacrum of a kiss. Raynor breathed the dark perfume of the flower’s heart . . .

  Of a sudden veils were lifted, and he saw unimaginable things. A blaze of sound and light and color swirled into being. Trumpets shrilled in his ears, and he heard the thunder of high walls crumbling to ruin. Confused visions of the past came to Raynor, and he lived again, dimly as in a dream, things he remembered and things he had forgotten.

  And always the strange, deadly perfume was strong in his nostrils; but he felt no urge to move. The soporific spell of the Lethean flowers held him bound in fetters of dark magic.

  It was pleasant to lie here, to rest, and to remember.

  Then a rough hand gripped Raynor’s arm; he was lifted, and immediately fell again heavily. From an immense distance came a harsh, despairing cry.

  The voice of Eblik!

  The sound pierced through the mists that shrouded Prince Raynor’s brain. The Nubian was in danger, had cried to his master for help. Realization of this gave the prince strength as he battled down the terrible urge to remain motionless, to sleep, and at last Raynor won. The effort left him sweating and exhausted, but abruptly the visions faded and were gone.

  Fie looked upon Ghiar’s citadel, and the haunted islet in the lake.

  With a sobbing curse he staggered upright. At his feet lay the unconscious Nubian, and Raynor lifted the black to his shoulders. Then, holding his breath, he plunged forward across the dark sea, even at that moment of mad turmoil feeling an odd sense of sadness at the thought of the jet, velvety beauty he crushed underfoot.

  A wind rippled the blooms; they seemed to sigh as in farewell.

  The Sign of the Black Flower was conquered!;

  CHAPTER IV

  The Sign of the Serpent

  NOW GHIAR’S citadel loomed above them. Grimly enigmatic it towered there featureless, with no gate or window breaking the dull monotony of its gloomy structure. Sick and dizzy, Raynor plunged on. And, quite suddenly, he realized that he had been wrong. A portal gaped in the high wall just before him.

  Had it previously escaped his searching gaze? Perhaps; it was more probable that a hidden door had slid silently aside to admit the interlopers. It was not a comforting thought, for it meant that eyes were invisibly watching Raynor—eyes of the warlock Ghiar.

  Nevertheless, the prince sprang over the threshold. Instantly the portal shut behind him. With little hope Raynor turned and attempted to reopen the door, but he failed.

  Even if he had succeeded, what then? His path lay into the heart of the citadel. And a dimly lighted passageway stretched slanting down before him. Smiling grimly, Raynor moved on, carrying the unconscious Eblik, who now, however, began to stir and twitch feebly.

  In a moment the giant Nubian had regained his senses. With one catlike movement he leaped free, the huge war-ax gripped in his hand. Then, seeing no enemy, he relaxed, grinning somewhat feebly at Raynor.

  “We’re in the citadel?” he asked. “Shaitan, there’s magic in those damned flowers. Sorcery of the pit!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Raynor said. “Ghiar may have ways of hearing us, and watching us too. But we can’t turn back now, and anyway I want to try my sword on Ghiar’s ugly neck.”

  “I’m curious to see if necromancy will armor him against this,” said Eblik, with a flash of white teeth, and the ax cleft the air in a deadly blow. The Nubian handled the heavy weapon as though it were light as a javelin.

  Warily the two continued along the corridor. The dim light came from no discernible source; it seemed to gleam faintly from the air all about them. The walls and roof and floor were of the same dark stone.

  The passage dipped, widened. The two men came out on a little ledge overhanging an abyss. At their feet was a gulf, dropping straight down to a milky, luminous shining far beneath. Nor was it water that lay at the pit’s bottom, though it was certainly liquid. It glowed with a wan, eerie light that reflected palely upon the black room arching above.

  Here the corridor broadened into a circular cavern. A bridge spanned the abyss. It arched from the ledge’s lip, straight and unbroken as Bifrost Bridge that Norsemen say reaches to Valhalla’s gate. It stretched to a black wall of rock and ended beneath an arched opening in the stone.

  “Our path lies there,” Raynor said grimly. “Pray to your Nubian gods, Eblik!”

  The prince stepped forward upon the perilous bridge.

  It was narrow, terribly so. Giddy vertigo clutched at the man’s brain, impelling him to look down. He fought against the dangerous impulse, kept his eyes steadily upon his goal. He felt Eblik’s hand grip his shoulder, heard the Nubian gasp:

  “It draws me! Guide me, Prince—I dare not keep my eyes open.”

  “Hold fast,” Raynor said between clenched teeth. Yet he looked down. He could not help it.

  Nausea clutched him. Far below, in the milky slime, dark bodies moved slowly, writhing and squirming in the dimness. What they were Raynor could not tell, but the creatures had a sickeningly human aspect, despite their ambiguous outlines. A blind deformed face stared up; a shocking muzzle gaped; but no sound came.

  The things squirmed and flopped their way through the pale liquid, and Raynor knew that his hasty glance down had been an error. He felt stronger than ever the weird compulsion that seemed to tug at him, drawing him, overbalancing him so that he swayed perilously on the giddy bridge.

  With a grinding effort he looked again at the bridge’s end. Through some secret reservoir of mind he drew strength and will. He stepped forward, slowly, carefully. But he could not banish the thought of the horrors that dwelt below.

  Yet at last the two men reached their goal. Sweating and gasping, they stepped to solid foot
ing. And before them the portal in the rock opened enigmatically.

  “God!” Eblik groaned. “Must we cross that hell-bridge on our return? If we do return.”

  But Raynor had crossed the threshold, and was standing silent before the Snake.

  He was in a small cave, high-roofed, dimly lit, and containing nothing but a crude throne of rock directly facing him. On the throne sat a thing that bore a vague resemblance to a man. Staring at it, Raynor was reminded of the creatures he had just seen in the abyss.

  Black and hideous and deformed it towered there, a pulpy shapeless thing of darkness, less human than a crudely chiseled idol. The head was worst of all. It was flattened, snakelike, with bulging dull eyes that stared blindly. The lower part of the face was elongated into a muzzle, and the creature was entirely covered with scales.

  It sat there motionless, and bound about its brow like a dreadful crown was a snake. Its flattened head was lifted as in the uraeus crown of the Pharaohs, and its wise, ancient gaze dwelt coldly upon Raynor.

  He had never seen anything as lovely and as horrible as this serpent.

  The scintillant colors in its body flickered, changed, fading as smoke fades from red to violet, emerald green, shining topaz, sun-yellow, all in an intricate design that also shifted and moved strangely. The blinding beauty of the snake struck through Raynor like a sword.

  Its eyes held him.

  Very horrible were those eyes, alien beyond all imagining. Their gaze was at first tender, almost caressing, like that of a well loved maiden. Strange magic reached out to grip the man.

  The eyes of the snake probed into his soul. He felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing but the flood of alien sorcery pouring into his mind from the incredibly ancient eyes of the serpent.

  He was unconscious of the fact that Eblik had halted behind him, motionless, paralyzed.

  And those passionless bright eyes were not evil—no! They were older than evil; beyond it, above it, as a god is above human motives and ideals.

  They spoke of a wisdom beyond earthly understanding.

  THEY erased all else from Raynor’s consciousness.

  The cords that bound him to this earth, the human ties, slipped away slowly. He had not lost his memories of warm hearths, of laughing, fire-lit faces, of sword-play and of the mad high excitement of war. He remembered these things, with a distant, diamond-sharp clarity; but they had lost their significance.

  They were unimportant.

  They would pass, and be enveloped in the shadow of the ultimate night, and, in the end, they would not matter.

  He remembered Eblik the Nubian, the pale proud face of Delphia rose up before him; but he felt no warmth of human kinship or understanding.

  All these things were slipping away from him, in a clear, cold wisdom that came from beyond the stars. He envisioned man as a bit of animate clay moving for a little while upon a ball of mud and stone and water that drifted through the void, through the darkness that would finally engulf it.

  So the Snake, that ancient one, gave to Raynor its vision. And the serpent uncoiled from the brow of the seated thing, and it slid down and glided across the stones to the prince, and it coiled about his body with a chill and merciless grip. The wise, flattened head lifted, till it was on a level with the man’s face. The eyes of the serpent reached into Raynor’s brain, into the secret fortress of his soul, and the prince stepped back one pace.

  Then another. Slowly, like an automaton, he moved back toward the abyss that gaped behind him. He passed Eblik without seeing the black. For nothing existed but the dark, alien gaze of the serpent, brooding and old—old beyond earth-life!

  The pit yawned behind him. Some stirring of human consciousness gave Raynor pause. He stopped, his sluggish thoughts feebly trying to rise free from the frigid ocean that held them motionless. Dimly he heard a cry from Eblik—muffled, faint, scarcely more than a despairing groan.

  And that cry again saved him. Raynor could not have saved himself, but he knew that the Nubian called to his master for aid. And the thought of that was a faint, hot flame that rose and waxed brighter and slowly burned away the chill darkness that darkened his mind.

  Slowly, slowly indeed, did the prince battle his way back to life. He swayed there upon the edge of the great gulf, while the serpent watched, and Eblik, after that one moan, was silent. And at last Raynor won.

  Tide of life surged through his blood. He uttered a hoarse shout, gripped the cold, muscular body of the serpent, dragged it from his body. He flung the snake from him into the abyss.

  A far sighing drifted up, unearthly, distant.

  With that the spell lifted. Raynor came back to consciousness, no longer bound by the dark fetters of primeval magic; he swayed and leaped away from the edge of the pit.

  He gave an inarticulate cry, somehow triumphant—exulting.

  For the Sign of the Serpent was vanquished!

  CHAPTER V

  The Sign of the Fish of Ea

  A MOVEMENT caught Raynor’s attention. The hideous image on the throne was moving slightly. Its misshapen black hand lifted; the muzzle gaped and shuddered. From the deformed mouth came a voice, deep as though it burst from the tongue of a corpse. Harsh, half-inarticulate, and muffled, it croaked: “Mercy! In your mercy, slay me!” The dull eyes looked upon Raynor. Shrinking a little in revulsion, the prince almost by instinct whipped out his sword. The monster slowly lifted its frightful head.

  “Slay me! Slay me!”

  “By all the gods,” Raynor whispered through white lips, “what manner of being are you?”

  “Once human, like you,” the harsh voice groaned. “Once I ruled this citadel. Once I was a greater sorcerer than Ghiar.”

  A black paw beat the throne’s side in agony. “Ghiar served me. I taught him the dark lore. And he turned to evil, and overthrew me, and prisoned me here. He set the Serpent to guard me. From my lips even now he learns wisdom. I serve him in ways I may not tell you. My soul roves between the stars to bring him knowledge.” Raynor forced himself to speak. “Know you aught of a girl, a captive of Ghiar’s?”

  “Aye! Aye! The warlock has need of a maiden once in a decade. Thus he renews his youth. Ghiar is old—death should have taken him centuries ago. But by the young blood of a maiden, and by her young soul, he drinks fresh vigor. He gains strength to work new evil. Follow this road, and you will find the girl.” Raynor made an impulsive gesture. But the horrible voice froze him in mid-stride.

  “Hold! You have conquered the Snake. Yet I am still captive, still in agony you cannot imagine. Give me release, I pray you! Slay me!”

  Raynor dared not look upon the hideous figure. “You seek death?”

  “I should have died centuries ago. Free me now, and I shall aid you when you need aid most. Slay me!”

  Raynor’s lips tightened in resolution. He stepped forward, lifted his sword. As the blade swept down the monster croaked:

  “Remember! The Sign of Tammuz is Lord of the Zodiac. It is the Master Sign.”

  Steel put a period to the words. The horror’s head leaped from its shoulders; a foul-smelling ichor spurted a foot into the air. The creature toppled to lie motionless on the stones.

  “Blood a’ Shaitan!” Raynor muttered shakily. “I think we’ve walked into hell itself.”

  “Those be true words,” said a low voice. “Once again you have saved us, master. But for what? Some worse doom, I think.”

  Eblik was rubbing his head, shivering. The prince gave a bark of laughter that held no mirth.

  “Well, our road is open before us. And a brave man goes to meet his doom, instead of waiting for it to creep up on him. Hold fast to your ax, Eblik.”

  Raynor skirted the throne and entered a passage that gaped in the wall behind it. Once more the way led downward. It was a monotonous journey between dull walls of black stone.

  What had the monster on the throne meant? “The Sign of Tammuz is Lord of the Zodiac.” The Master Sign that could not be drawn—the sign of which
the jet jewel in Ghiar’s amulet was the symbol.

  The passage turned and twisted, but always descended. They were far beneath ground level now, Raynor thought. His leg muscles were beginning to ache when at last the way was barred by a door of iron.

  It was, however, unfastened, and moved aside at Raynor’s cautious push.

  He looked into a great circular room. Wan green light illuminated it dimly. The floor was of mosaic, figured in a bizarre design that centered in the Signs of the Zodiac. A golden Archer and a blue Fish; a scarlet Serpent and a black Flower; the Basilisk, all in shining green; and the disc of the Mirror in dull steel-gray.

  In the exact center of the room was an immense jewel of jet set into the mosaic. A blindingly bright star-point glittered deep in the gem’s heart.

  It was frigidly cold. Looking up, Raynor realized why. The room was roofless. Its shaft probed up through the heart of the huge stone structure, a hollow tube that ended, far above, in a purple-black sky, shot with innumerable stars. The day had ended, and moonless night brooded over the warlock’s citadel.

  THE stars looked down upon the Signs of the Zodiac.

  The walls were hung with curtains of white samite. They parted now, and a slim figure entered. It was Delphia. She moved slowly, her gaze staring blindly before her, the coils of midnight hair clustering about the pale, keen face. Three paces she took, and halted.

  “Delphia!” Raynor called, and stepped forward. The girl did not move.

  She lifted her head, gazed up at the stars. There was a queer avidity in her face, a tenseness as though she waited eagerly for something. It was utterly silent—and cold, cold.

  Raynor gripped Delphia’s arm, shook her roughly.

  “Wake up!” he said urgently. “Are you under a spell?”

  “She has enchantment on her,” Eblik grunted, peering into the girl’s eyes. “Let me carry her, Prince. Once we’re out of this evil place she may awaken.”

  Raynor hesitated. Before he could speak a new voice came, softly mocking.