She whispered: “Alain, beloved—better for you and better for me if you had not obeyed my summons. Was it because of that shadow I was forced to send your friend…or had you other reasons?”
That steadied me. I thought: Witch, you are not so clever.
I said, as though reluctantly: “There was another reason, Dahut.”
She asked: “And that?”
“You,” I said.
She bent toward me, took my chin in one soft hand and held my face close to hers: “You mean that—Alain de Carnac?”
I said: “I may not love you as the Lord of Carnac did. But I am tempted to try.”
She leaned back at that, laughing—little rippling waves of laughter, careless and cruel.
“You woo me strangely, Alain. Yet I like it—for I know that what you say is truth. What do you truly think of me, Alain?”
I said: “I think of you as a garden that was planned under the red Heart of the Dragon ten thousand years before the Great Pyramid was built and its rays fell upon the altar of its most secret shrine…a strange garden, Dahut, half of the sea…with trees whose leaves chant instead of whisper…with flowers that may be evil and may not be, but certainly are not wholly of earth…whose birds sing strange songs…whose breath is more of ocean than of land…difficult garden to enter…more difficult to find its heart…most difficult, once entered, to find escape.”
I said: “I think of you as a garden that was planned.”
She bent to me, eyes wide and glowing; kissed me: “You think that of me! And it is true…and the Lord of Carnac never saw me so truly…you remember more than he—”
She fastened my wrists, her breast against mine: “The red-haired girl—I forget her name—is she not a garden, too?”
Helen!
I said, indifferently: “A garden of earth. Fragrant and sweet. But no difficulty there about finding your way out.”
She dropped my wrists, and sat for a time silent; then said, abruptly:
“Let us go up to deck.”
I followed her, uneasily. Something had gone amiss, something I had said or had not said about Helen. But what the devil it could have been, I did not know. I looked at my watch. It was after four. There was a fog, but the yacht seemed not to mind it; instead of diminishing, it seemed to me that the speed had increased. As we sat on the deck chairs, I mentioned this to the Demoiselle. She said, absently: “It is nothing. There can be no danger.”
I said: “The speed seems rather dangerous.”
She answered: “We must be at Ys by seven.”
I echoed, stupidly: “Ys?”
She said: “Ys. It is so we have named our home.”
She sank back into silence. I watched the fog. It was an odd fog. It did not swirl past us as fog normally does. It seemed to go with us, to accommodate its pace to ours.
To move with us.
The wide-eyed, vacant-faced sailors padded past. I began to have a nightmarish sort of feeling that I was on a ship of ghosts, a modern Flying Dutchman, cut off from the rest of the world and sped on by unseen, unheard, unfelt winds. Or being pushed along by some gigantic swimmer whose hand was clasped about the stern of this boat…and whose breath was the fog that shrouded us. I glanced at the Demoiselle. Her eyes were shut, and she seemed to be fast asleep. I closed my own eyes.
When I opened them, the yacht had stopped. There was no sign of fog. We lay in a little harbor between two rocky headlands. Dahut was shaking me by the shoulders. I was outlandishly sleepy. The sea air, I drowsily thought. We dropped into a tender, and landed at a dock. We climbed up steps, interminably, it seemed to me. A few yards from the top of the steps was a long rambling old stone house. It was dark, and I could see nothing beyond it but the banks of trees, half-stripped by autumn of their leaves.
We went into the house, met by servants, wide-pupiled, impassive, as those who manned the Brittis. I was taken to my room, and a valet began to unpack my bags. In the same torpor, I dressed for dinner. The only moment of real consciousness I had was when I put my hand up and felt McCann’s holster under my armpit.
I have the vaguest recollection of the dinner. I know that de Keradel greeted me with the utmost politeness and hospitality. During the dinner, he talked on and on, but what he was talking about I’m damned if I knew. Now and then I was aware acutely of the Demoiselle, her face and big eyes swimming out of the haze that gripped me. And now and then I thought that I must have been drugged—but whether I had or hadn’t been didn’t seem to matter. There was one thing that I was acutely conscious did matter, however—and that was how I answered de Keradel’s questions. But another sense, or another self, unaffected by what had so paralyzed my normal ones, seemed to have taken charge of that, and I had the comfortable feeling that it was doing it most satisfactorily.
And after a while I heard Dahut say: “But, Alain, you are so sleepy. Why, you can hardly keep your eyes open. It must be the sea air.”
I replied, solemnly, that it must indeed be the sea air and apologized for my dullness. I had a dim perception of the solicitous readiness with which de Keradel accepted the feeble excuses. He, himself, took me to my room. At least, I was hazily aware that he accompanied me to some place where there was a bed. I rid myself of my clothes by sheer habit, dropped into the bed and in an instant was sound asleep.
I sat up in my bed, wide-awake. The strange drowsiness was gone; the irresistible torpor lifted. What had awakened me? I looked at my watch, and it was a few minutes after one. The sound that had awakened me came again somberly—a distant muffled chanting, as though from far under earth. As though from far beneath the old house.
It passed slowly from beneath the house, rising, approaching; becoming ever plainer. A weird chanting, archaic; vaguely familiar. I got up from the bed, and went to the windows. They looked out upon the ocean. There was no moon but I could see the gray surges breaking sullenly against the rocky shore. The chanting grew louder. I did not know where was the switch to turn on the electrics. There had been a flashlight in one of my bags, but these had been unpacked; their contents distributed.
I felt around in my coat and found a box of matches. The chanting was dying away, as though those singing were passing far beyond the house. I lighted a match, and saw a switch beside the wall. I pressed it, and without result. I saw my flashlight on a table beside the bed. I clicked the catch, but no ray streamed forth. Suspicion began to take hold of me that these three things were linked—the strange sleepiness, the useless flash, the unresponsive switch…
McCann’s gun! I felt for it. There it was, nestling under my left armpit. I looked at it. The magazine was full and the extra clips safe. I went to the door and cautiously turned the key. It opened into a wide, old-fashioned hall at the end of which dimly glimmered a great window. The hall was curiously uneasy. That is the only word for it. It was filled with whisperings and rustlings—and shadows.
I hesitated; then stole to the window and looked out.
There was a bank of trees through whose half-bare branches I could see across a level field. Beyond that level field was another bank of trees. From beyond them came the chanting.
There was a glow through and over these trees—a gray glow. I stared at it…thinking of what McCann had said…like light decaying…rotten…
It was exactly that. I stood there, gripping the window, looking at the putrescent glow wax and wane…wax and wane. And now the chanting was like that dead luminescence transformed to sound…
And then a sharp scream of human agony shot through it.
The whisperings in the hall were peremptory. The rustlings were close. The shadows were pressing around me. They pressed me from the window, back to my room. I thrust the door shut against them, and leaned against it, wet with sweat.
Leaning against it, I heard again that scream of anguish, sharper, more agonized. And suddenly muffled.
Again the torpor swept over me. I crumpled down at the edge of the door, and slept.
CHAPTER XV
/> BEHIND DE KERADEL’S WALL—2
Something was dancing, flittering, before me. It had no shape, but it had a voice. The voice was whispering, over and over: “Dahut…beware of Dahut…Alan, beware of Dahut…give me release, Alan…beware of Dahut, Alan…give me release…from the Gatherer…from the Blackness…”
I tried to focus upon this flittering thing, but there was a brilliancy about it into which it melted and was lost; a broad aureole of brilliancy and only when I turned my eyes from it could I see the thing dancing and flittering like a fly caught in a globule of light.
But the voice—I knew the voice.
The thing danced and flittered; grew larger but never assumed definite shape; became small, and still was shapeless…a flittering shadow caught in a brilliancy…
A shadow!
The thing whispered: “The Gatherer, Alan, the Gatherer in the Cairn, do not let It eat me but beware, beware of Dahut free me, Alan, free…free…” Ralston’s voice!
I lifted myself to my knees, crouching, hands on the floor; my eyes fixed upon the brilliancy—straining to focus this flittering thing that whispered with the voice of Ralston.
The brilliancy contracted—like the eyes of the captain of the Brittis. It became the knob of a door. A knob of brass glimmering in the light of dawn.
There was a fly upon the knob. A bluebottle; a carrion fly. It was crawling over the knob, buzzing. The voice I had thought that of Dick was drained down into the buzzing; became one with it. There was only a bluebottle fly flittering and buzzing upon a shining brass door-knob. The fly left the knob, circled me and was gone.
I staggered to my feet. I thought: Whatever you did to me there on the boat, Dahut, it was a first-class job. I looked at my wrist watch. It was a few minutes after six. I opened the door, cautiously. The hall was shadowless; tranquil. There was not a sound in the house. It seemed to sleep, but I didn’t trust it. I closed the door quietly. There were great bolts at top and bottom which I dropped into place.
There was a queer emptiness in my head, and I could not see clearly. I made my way to the window and drew deep breaths of the sharp morning air, the tang of the sea strong within it. It made me feel better. I turned and looked at the room. It was immense; paneled in old wood; tapestries, colors softened by centuries, fell here and there. The bed was ancient, carved and postered and canopied. It was the chamber of some castle in Brittany, rather than that of a New England manse. At my left was an armoire, ancient as the bed. Idly, I opened a drawer. There upon my handkerchiefs lay my pistol. I pulled it open. Not a cartridge was in the chamber.
I looked at it, unbelievingly. I knew that I had loaded it when I had placed it in one of my bags. Abruptly, its emptiness linked itself with the useless flash, the unresponsive switch, the strange sleepiness. It jarred me wide-awake. I put the gun back in the drawer and went and lay down on the bed. I hadn’t the slightest doubt that something other than natural cause had induced the stupor. Whether it had been suggestion by Dahut while I lay asleep on the deck, or whether she had given me some soporific drug with my lunch, made no difference. It had not been natural. A drug? I remembered the subtle drug the Tibetan lamas administer—the drug they name “Master of the Will” which weakens all resistance to hypnotic control and renders the minds of those to whom it is given impotent against command, wide-open to hallucination. All at once the behavior, the appearance, of the men on the boat, the servants in this house, fell into an understandable pattern. Suppose that all were being fed with such a drug, and moved and thought only as the Demoiselle and her father willed them to move and think? That I was surrounded by human robots, creatures who were reflections, multiplications, of the de Keradels?
And that I, myself, was in imminent peril of the same slavery?
Belief that something like this was the truth became stronger the more I thought over it. I strove to recall the conversation with de Keradel the night before. I could not—but I still retained the conviction I had passed the ordeal successfully; that the other sense or self which had taken charge had not allowed me to be betrayed. Deep within, I felt that assurance.
Suddenly, as I lay there, I felt other eyes upon me; knew that I was being watched. I was facing the windows. I drew a deep breath, sighed as one does in deep sleep, and turned with arm over face. Under its cover, with scarcely opened lids, I watched. In a few moments a white hand stole from behind a tapestry, drew it aside, and Dahut stepped into the room. Her braids fell below her waist, she wore the sheerest of silken negligees and she was incomparably lovely. She slipped to the bottom of the bed, soundlessly as one of her shadows, and stood studying me. I forced myself to breathe regularly, as though in soundest slumber. She was so lovely that I found it rather difficult. She came to the side of the bed and leaned over me. I felt her lips touch my cheek as lightly as the kiss of a moth.
Then, as suddenly, I knew she was gone.
I opened my eyes. There was another scent, unfamiliar, mingling with the breath of the sea. It was oddly stimulating. Breathing it, I felt the last traces of lethargy vanish. I sat up, wide-awake and alert. There was a shallow metal dish on the table beside the bed. Piled on it was a little heap of fern-like leaves. They were smoldering, and from their smoke came the invigorating scent. I pressed out the sparks and instantly smoke and scent disappeared.
Evidently this was an antidote to whatever had induced the other condition; and quite as evidently there was no suspicion that I had not slept uninterruptedly throughout the night.
And possibly, it occurred to me, the shadow crowded, rustling hall and the bluebottle fly that had buzzed with the voice of Ralston might have been by-products of this hypothetical drug; the sub-consciousness fantastically picturing under its influence, as it does in dream, chance sounds in terms of what has been engrossing the consciousness.
Maybe I really had slept through the night. Maybe I had only dreamed I had gone out into the shadow crowded hall…and had fled from it and dropped down beside the door…had only dreamed the chanting.
But if there had been nothing they had wanted me to be deaf and blind to—then why had they bundled me up in that blanket of sleep?
Well, there was one thing I knew I had not dreamed.
That was Dahut slipping into the room with the leaves.
And that meant I hadn’t acted precisely as they had expected, else I wouldn’t have been awake to see her. There was one lucky break, whatever the cause. I would be able to use those leaves later, if they repeated the bundling.
I went over to the tapestry and raised it. There was no sign of opening, the paneling seemingly solid. Some secret spring existed, of course, but I postponed hunting for it. I unbarred the door; the bars were about as much a guarantee of privacy as one wall in a room with the other three sides open. I took what was left of the leaves, put them in an envelope and tucked them in McCann’s holster. Then I smoked half a dozen cigarettes and added their ashes to those on the dish. The appeared about the same, and they were about what would have remained if all the leaves had burned. Maybe nobody would bother to check—but maybe they would.
By then it was seven o’clock. I wondered whether I ought to get up and dress. How long was it supposed to be before the antidote took effect? I had no means of knowing and no desire to make the least mistake. To sleep too long would be far safer than to wake too soon. I crawled back into bed. And I did go to sleep, honestly and dreamlessly.
When I awakened there was a man laying out my clothes; the valet. The dish that had held the smoking leaves was gone. It was half after eight. I sat up and yawned, and the valet announced with antique humility that the Lord of Carnac’s bath was ready. Despite all that the Lord of Carnac had on his mind, this combination of archaic servility and modern convenience made me laugh. But no smile answered me. The man stood, head bent, wound up to do and say certain things. Smiling had not been in his instructions.
I looked at his impassive face, the blank eyes which were not seeing me at all as I was, nor the world
in which I lived, but were seeing me as another man in another world. What that world might be, I suspected.
I threw a robe over my pajamas and locked the bathroom door against him; unstrapped McCann’s holster and hid it before bathing. When I came out I dismissed him. He told me that breakfast would be ready a little after nine, and bowing low, departed.
I went to the armoire, took out my gun and snapped it open. The cartridges were in place. Furthermore, the extra clips lay orderly beside where it had been. Had I also dreamed that it had been emptied? A suspicion came to me. If I were wrong, I could explain it as an accident. I carried the gun to the window, aimed it at the sea and touched the trigger. There was only a sharp crack as the cap exploded. In the night the cartridges had been made useless and, without doubt, had been restored to the pistol during my later sleep.
Well, here was warning enough, I thought grimly, without any buzzing bluebottle, and put the gun back. Then I went down to breakfast, cold with anger and disposed to be brutal if I had the chance. The Demoiselle was waiting for me, prosaically reading a newspaper. The table was laid for two, so I judged her father had business otherwhere. I looked at Dahut, and as always admiration and a certain tenderness reluctantly joined my wrath and my rooted hatred of her. I think I have mentioned her beauty before. She was never more beautiful than now—a dewy freshness about her, like the dawn; her skin a miracle, clear-eyed, just the right touch of demureness…not at all the murderess, harlot, and witch I knew her in my heart to be. Clean.
She dropped the paper and held out her hand. I kissed it, ironically.
She said: “I do hope you slept soundly, Alan.”
And that had just the right touch of domesticity. It irritated me still more. I dropped into my chair, spread my napkin over my knees: “Soundly, Dahut. Except for a big bluebottle fly that came and whispered to me.”
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 192