I began to walk, through the somber grass, toward the black mountains.
There was a muted beat of hoofs behind me. I turned. A shadowy horse was driving down upon me, a great gray destrier, armored. The shadow who rode it was armored, the shadow of a big man, wide of shoulder and thick of body; unvisored, but chain-mailed from neck to feet, in his belt a battle-axe and across his shoulders a long two-edged sword. The destrier was close, yet the sound of its hoofs was faint, like distant thunder. And I saw that far behind the armored man raced other shadowy horsemen, leaning forward over the necks of small steeds. The armored man drew up his horse beside me, looked down at me with faint glint of brown eyes in shadowy face.
“A stranger! Now by Our Lady I leave no straggler in the path of the wolves I draw! Up, Shadow…up!”
He swung an arm and lifted me; threw me astride the destrier behind him.
“Hold fast!” he cried, and gave the gray horse the spur. Swiftly it raced, and soon the slices of the black mountains were close. A defile opened. At its mouth he stopped, and looked back, made gestures of derision and laughed: “They cannot catch us now…”
He muttered: “Still, I do not know why my horse should be so weary.”
He stared at me from shadowy face: “I do know…you have too much of life, Shadow. He who casts you is not…dead. Then what do you here?”
He twisted, and lifted me from the horse, and set me on the ground, gently.
“See!” he pointed to my breast. There was a filament of glistening silver, fine as the finest cobweb, floating from it…stretching toward the ravine as though pointing the way I must take…as though it came from my heart…as though it were unwinding from my heart…
“You are not dead!” Shadowy pity was in his regard. “Therefore you must hunger…therefore you must thirst…until you feed and drink where the thread leads you. Half-Shadow—it was a witch who sent me here, Berenice de Azlais, of Languedoc. But my body has long been dust and I have long been content to feed on shadow fare. Long dust, I say and so suppose…but here one knows no time. My year was 1346 of Our Lord. What year was yours?”
“Nigh six centuries after,” I said.
“So long…so long,” he whispered. “Who sent you here?”
“Dahut of Ys.”
“Queen of Shadows! Well, she has sent us many. I am sorry, Half-Shadow, but I can carry you no further.”
Suddenly he slapped his sides, and shook with laughter: “Six hundred years, and still I have my lemans. Shadowy, ’tis true—but then so am I. And still I can fight. Berenice—to you my thanks. St. Francis…let Berenice hereafter toast less hotly in Hell, where without doubt she is.”
He leaned and clapped me on the shoulder: “But kill your witch, Half-brother—if you can!”
He rode into the ravine. I followed in his wake, walking. Soon he was out of sight. How long I walked I did not know. It was true that there was no time in this land. I passed out of the ravine.
The black jade mountains were palisades circling a garden filled with the pallid lilies. In its center was a deep black pool in which floated other lilies, black and silver and rusty-black. The pool was walled with jet…
It was there that I felt the first bite of the dreadful hunger, the first pang of the dreadful thirst…
Upon the wide jet wall lay seven girls, dull silver shadows…and exquisite. Naked shadows…one lay with chin cupped in misty hands, glint of deepest sapphire blue eyes in shadowy face…another sat, dipping slender feet in the black of the pool, and her hair was blacker than its waters, black spume of blacker waves, and as fine…and out of the black mist of her hair eyes green as emeralds but soft with promise glanced at me…
They arose, the seven, and drifted toward me. One said: “He has too much of life.”
Another said: “Too much…yet not enough.”
A third said: “He must feed and drink…then come back, and we shall see.”
The girl whose eyes were sapphire blue, asked: “Who sent you here, Shadow?”
I said: “Dahut the White. Dahut of Ys.”
They shrank from me: “Dahut sent you? Shadow—you are not for us. Shadow—pass on.”
……
I said: “I am weary. Let me rest here for awhile.”
The green-eyed girl said: “You have too much of life. If you had none you would not be weary. Only life grows weary.”
The blue-eyed girl whispered: “And life is only weariness.”
“Nevertheless, I would rest. Also I am hungry, and I thirst.”
“Shadow with too much of life…there is nothing here that you can eat…nothing here that you can drink.”
I pointed to the pool: “I drink of that.”
They laughed: “Try, Shadow.”
I dropped upon my belly and thrust my face toward the black water. The surface of the pool receded as I bent. It drew back from my lips…it was but the shadow of water…and I could not drink…
…Thirst, Shadow…drink only when and where I bid…
The voice of Dahut!
I said to the girls: “Let me rest.”
They answered: “Rest.”
I crouched upon the rim of jet. The silver girls drew away from me, clustered, shadowy arms entwined, whispering. It was good to rest, although I felt no desire to sleep. I sat, hands clasping knees, head on breast. Loneliness fell upon me like a garment; loneliness rained upon me. The girl whose eyes were blue slipped to my side. She threw an arm around my shoulders, leaned against me:
“When you have fed…when you have drunk…come back to me.”
I do not know how long I lay upon the rim of jet around the black pool. But when at last I arose the girls of tarnished silver were not there. The armored man had said there was no time in this land. I had liked the armored man. I wished that his horse had been strong enough to carry me wherever he had been going. My hunger had grown and so had my thirst. Again I dropped and tried to sip of the pool. The shadow waters were not for me.
Something was tugging at me, drawing me on. It was the silver filament and it was shining like a thread of living light. I walked out of the garden, following the thread…
The mountains were behind me. I was threading my way through a vast marsh. Spectral rushes bordered a perilous path, and in them lurked shadow shapes unseen but hideous. They watched me as I went, and I knew that here I must go carefully lest a misstep give me to them. A mist hung over the marsh, a gray and dead mist that darkened when the hidden things furtively raised themselves…or fled ahead to crouch beside the path and wait my coming. I felt their eyes upon me—cold, dead, malignant.
There was a ridge feathered with ghostly ferns behind which other shadowy shapes lurked, pushing and crowding against each other, following me as I threaded my way through the spectral rushes. And at every step more woeful became my loneliness, more torturing my hunger and my thirst.
I passed the marsh and came out upon a dim path that quickly widened into a broad highway which, wavering, stretched across an illimitable and cloudy plain. There were other shadow shapes upon this highway…shapes of men and women, old and young, shapes of children and of animals…but no shape inhuman or unearthly. They were like shapes formed of heavy fog…of frozen fog. They flittered and loitered, ran or stood forlorn…singly, in groups, in companies. And as they went by, or overtook me or I overtook them, I felt their gaze upon me. They seemed of all times and of all races, these shadow folk. There was a lean Egyptian priest upon whose shoulder sat a shadowy cat that arched its back and spat soundlessly at me…three Roman legionaries whose round, close-fitting helmets were darker stains upon their heads and who raised shadowy arms in the ancient salute as they strode past…there were Greek warriors with helms from which shadow plumes streamed, and shadowy women in litters carried by shadow slaves…and once a company of little men went by on shaggy silent ponies, spectral bows at backs, slant shadowy eyes glinting at me…and there was the shadow of a child that turned and trotted beside me for a space, reachi
ng up its hands to the slender filament that was leading me…dragging me…where?
The road went on and on. It became ever more thronged with the shadow people, and I saw that many more were going my way than against me. Then at my right, out upon the vaporous plain, a wan light began to glow…phosphorescent, funereal…like the glimmer of the corposants, the lights of the dead…among the monoliths…
It became a half-moon that rested upon the plain like a gigantic gateway. It sent a path of ashen light across the plain, and from the highroad into that path, the shadow people began to stream. Not all—one that tarried paused beside me, gross of body, with plumed and conical hat and cloak that streamed and wavered in a wind I could not feel, as though by it his gross body were being whipped in tatters.
He whispered: “The Eater of Shadows eats from a full board.”
I echoed, thinly: “The Eater of Shadows?”
I felt his gaze upon me, intent. He tittered in a voice like the rustling of rotting, poisonous leaves:
“Heh-heh-heh…a virgin! New born into this delectable world! You know nothing of the Eater of Shadows? Heh-heh-heh…but he is our only form of Death in this world, and many who weary of it go to him. This you do not yet fully perceive, since he has not made himself manifest. They are fools,” he whispered, viciously. “They should learn, as I have learned, to take their food in the world from which they came. No shadow-food…no, no, no…good flesh and body and soul…soul, heh-heh-heh!”
A shadowy hand snatched at the shining filament, and recoiled, twisting as though seared…the gross shadow cringed and writhed as though in agony. The rustling voice became a vile high whining: “You are going to your marriage feast…going to your marriage bed. You will have your own table…a fair table of flesh and blood and soul…of life. Take me with you, bridegroom…take me with you. I can teach you so much! And my price is only a few crumbs from your table…only the smallest share in your bride…”
Something was gathering in the doorway of the half-moon; something forming upon its glimmering surface…fathomless black shadows were grouping themselves into a gigantic, featureless face. No, it was not featureless, for there were two apertures like eyes through which the wan phosphorescence shone. And there was a shapeless mouth which gaped while a writhing ribbon of the dead light streamed out of it like a tongue. The tongue licked among the shadows and drew them into the mouth, and the lips closed on them then opened again, and again the tongue licked out…
“Oh, my hunger! Oh, my thirst and hunger! Take me with you, bridegroom to your bride. There is so much I can teach you for such a little price…”
I struck at that gibbering shadow and fled from its dreadful whispering; fled with shadowy arms covering my eyes to shut out vision of that vague and dreadful face.
…Hunger, Shadow…feed only where and when I bid. Thirst, Shadow…drink only where and when I bid!…
And now I knew. I knew where the silver filament was dragging me, and I tore at it with shadowy hands, but could not break it. I tried to run back, against it, and it swung me around, dragging me inexorably on.
I knew now what the evil, tittering shadow had known…that I was on my way to food and drink…to my marriage feast…to my bride…
Helen!
It was on her body and blood and life my hunger was to be appeased, my thirst slaked.
Upon Helen!
The shadow-land lightened. It became crystalline. Heavier, blacker shadows thrust themselves within it. These steadied, and the land of shadows vanished.
I was in an old room. Helen was there, and Bill and McCann, and a man I did not know; a lean and dark man with thin, ascetic face and snow-white hair. But wait…that must be Ricori…
How long had I been in shadow-land?
Their voices came to me as a low humming, their words an unintelligible drone. I did not care what they were talking about. My whole being was focused upon Helen. I was starving for her, famishing for her…I must eat and drink of her…
I thought: If I do…she must die!
I thought: Let her die…I must eat and drink…
She raised her head, sharply. I knew that she was aware of me. She turned and looked straight at me. She saw me…I knew that she saw me. Her face whitened…then grew pitiful. The amber-gold of her eyes darkened with a wrath in which was complete comprehension…then became tender. Her little rounded chin hardened, her red mouth with its touch of the archaic became inscrutable. She arose and said something to the others. I saw them rise, staring at her incredulously—then search the room with their eyes. Except Ricori, who looked straight at her, stern face softened. And now words shaped themselves from the low humming of their voices. I heard Helen say:
“I fight Dahut. Give me an hour. I know what I am doing—” a wave of color spread over her face “—believe me, I know.”
I saw Ricori bend and kiss her hand; he raised his head and there was iron assurance in the look he gave her… “And I know—win, Madonna…or if you lose, be sure that you shall be avenged.”
She walked from the room. The shadow that was I crept after her.
She walked upstairs, and into another room. She turned on lights, hesitated, then locked the door behind her. She went to the windows and drew down the curtains. She held her arms out to me:
“Can you hear me, Alan? I can see you…faintly still, but more plainly than below. Can you hear me? Then come to me.”
I quivered with desire for her…to eat and drink of her. But the voice of Dahut was in my ears, not to be disobeyed—Eat and drink…when I bid you.
I knew that the hunger must grow stronger, the thirst more consuming, before I could be loosed from that command. This so that only all the life of Helen could appease the hunger and slake the thirst. So that feeding, drinking…I killed her.
I whispered: “I hear you.”
“I hear you, darling. Come to me.”
“I cannot come to you—not yet. My thirst and hunger for you must grow greater…so that when I come to you—you die.”
She dimmed the lights; raised her arms and loosed her hair so that it fell in shining red-gold ringlets almost to her waist. She asked: “What keeps you from me? From me who loves you…from me whom you love?”
“Dahut…you know that.”
“Beloved—I do not know that. It is not true. None can keep you from me if I truly love you and if you truly love me. Both are true…and I say to you come to me, beloved…take me.”
I made no answer; I could not. Nor could I go to her. And more ravenous grew the hunger, more maddening the thirst.
She said: “Alan, think only that. Think only that we love. That none can keep us from each other. Think only that. Do you understand me?”
I whispered: “Yes.” And tried to think only that while the hunger and the thirst for her…for the life of her…were two starved hounds straining at the leash.
She said: “Darling, can you see me? See me clearly?”
I whispered: “Yes.”
She said: “Then look…and come to me.”
She raised her arms again, and slipped from her dress; drew off slippers and stockings. She let fall from her the silken sheath that remained. She stood facing me, all lovely, all desirable, wholly human. She threw back her hair uncovering her white breasts…her eyes were golden pools of love that held no shame…
“Take me, beloved! Eat and drink of me!”
I strained against the fetters that held me—strained against them as a soul led up from Hell to the gates of Paradise would strain to break its bonds and enter.
“She has no power over you. None can keep us apart…come to me, beloved.”
The fetters broke…I was in her arms…
Shadow that I was, I could feel her soft arms around me…feel the warmth of her breast pressing me closer, closer…feel her kisses on my shadowy lips. I merged with her. I ate and drank of her…of her life…and felt her life streaming through me…melting the icy venom of the shadow hounds…
Releasing me from the shadow bondage…
Releasing me from Dahut!
I stood beside the bed looking down on Helen. She lay, white and drained of life, half covered by her red-gold hair…and was she dead? Had Dahut conquered?
I bent shadowy head to her heart and listened and could hear no beat. Love and tenderness such as I had never known throbbed from me and covered her. And I thought: This love must surely be stronger than death…must give back to her the life I have taken…
And still I could not hear her heart…
Then despair followed the pulse of that love. And on its wake a hate colder than the venom of the shadow hounds.
Hate against Dahut.
Hate against the warlock who called himself her father.
Hate implacable, relentless, remorseless against both.
That hate grew. It merged with the life I had stolen from Helen. It lifted me. Upon its wings I was rushed away…away from Helen…back through the shadow-land…
And awakened…shadow no more.
CHAPTER XX
THE LAST SACRIFICE
I lay upon a wide low bed in a tapestried room where an ancient lamp burned with a dim rose light. It was Dahut’s room from which she had sent me forth as shadow. My hands were crossed upon my breast, and something bound my wrists. I raised them and saw twined tight around them the witch-fetters—a twisted thread of pale-gold hair, the hair of Dahut. I broke them. My ankles were crossed and bound with the same fetters, and these I broke. I swung from the bed. Around me was a robe of the soft white cotton, a robe like that I had worn to the sacrifices. I tore it from me with loathing. There was a mirror over the dressing table—on my face were the three marks of Dahut’s whip-branding, no longer crimson but livid.
How long had I been in the shadowy land? Long enough to allow Ricori to return—but how much longer? More important, what time had elapsed since Helen? A clock showed close to eleven. But was this still the same night? It might not be—shadow time and shadow space were alien. I had seemed to cover immense distances, and yet I had found Helen just outside de Keradel’s gates. For I was sure that that old room had been in the house McCann had taken.
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 198