And clearly, this return of mine had not been expected by Dahut—at least not so soon. I reflected grimly that I always seemed to be a little ahead of schedule so far as Dahut and her father were concerned…I reflected much more grimly that it had never advantaged me greatly. Nevertheless, it must mean that her dark wisdom had its limits—that there had been no shadowy spies to whisper to her my escape…that she believed me still under her sorceries; still obedient to her will; still held back by her command until my lust for Helen had grown strong enough to kill when loosed…
Might that not also mean her purpose had failed…that loosed too soon I had not killed…that Helen was alive?
The thought was like strong wine. I walked to the door and saw that the heavy inside bars were down. How could they have been dropped, since only I was in the room? Of course…I was Dahut’s prisoner, and she wanted no tampering with my body when she was not beside it. She had barred the door and made use of the secret opening into my room to come and go. Quite evidently she had considered the bars safe from my helpless hands. I lifted them cautiously, and tried the door. It was unlocked. I opened it as cautiously, slowly, and stood peering out into the hall, listening.
It was then I first felt the unease, the trouble, the fear, of the old house. It was filled with fear. And with wrath. It came to me not only from the shadowed hall, but from all of the house. And suddenly it seemed to be aware of me, and to focus itself upon me, frantically…as though it were trying to tell me why it was troubled and raging and afraid.
So sharp was the impression that I closed the door, let one of the bars fall, and stood with my back to it. The room was unhaunted, unafraid, and shadowless, the faint rose light penetrating to every corner…
The house invaded the room, striving to make coherent to me what it was that troubled it. It was as though the ghosts of all those who had lived and loved and died there were in revolt…appalled by something about to happen…something execrable, abhorrent…an evil something that had been conceived in the old house while its ghosts had watched, impotent to prevent…and now were appealing to me to abort.
The house trembled. It was a tremor that began far beneath it and throbbed up through every timber and stone. Instantly that which had feared and had appealed to me withdrew; sweeping down to the source of the trembling—or so it seemed to me. Again the house trembled. Trembled in actuality, for the door at my back quivered. The trembling increased and became a shuddering under which the solid old hand-hewn joists creaked and groaned. There followed a distant, rhythmic thudding.
It ceased, and the old house quivered, then seemed to settle, and again the joists cracked and groaned. Then a stunned silence…and again the ghosts of the old house were around me, outrage in their wrath, panic in their fear, crying, crying to me to hear them…to understand them.
I could not understand them…I walked to the window, and crouched there, peering out. It was a dark night, sultry and oppressive. There was a flashing of lightning from far beneath the horizon and faint distant rumbling of thunder. I went quickly about the room looking for some weapon, but could find none. My intention was to get into my room, clothe myself and then hunt down Dahut and de Keradel. Precisely what I was going to do after I found them I did not know—except to end their sorceries. All confusion as to whether these were sorceries or super-illusions was gone. They were evil realities belonging to a dark wisdom evilly used…none should be allowed to live to wield this evil power…and they were swiftly mounting to some dreadful climax which must be thwarted at any cost…
The ghosts of the old house were silent—I had gotten their message at last. They were silent, but they had lost none of their fear, and they were watching me. I went to the door. Some obscure impulse made me pick up the white robe and throw it around me. I stepped out into the hall. It was filled with shadows but I gave them no heed. Why should I, who myself had been a shadow. As I passed, they clustered and crept behind me. And now I knew that the shadows too were afraid, like the old house…were cringing before some imminent and dreadful doom…like the ghosts were beseeching me to avert it…
From below came the murmur of voices, then that of de Keradel raised in anger, and following it, the laughter of Dahut—taunting, mocking, brittle with menace. I slipped to the head of the stairs. The lower hall was but dimly lighted. The voices came from the big living room, and that the two were quarreling was evident, but their words were inaudible. I crept down the stairs and flattened myself beside the edge of one of the heavy curtains which covered the doorway.
I heard de Keradel say, voice now level and controlled: “I tell you that it is finished. There remains only the last sacrifice…which I perform tonight. I do not need you for that, my daughter. Nor after it is done shall I ever need you more. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. The end toward which I have been working all my life has been reached. He…has told me. Now…He…will become wholly manifest and ascend His throne. And I—” all De Keradel’s egotism was in his voice, colossal, blasphemous—“and I shall sit beside Him. He…has promised me. The dark power which men in all ages and in all lands have sought—the power which Atlantis almost attained and that Ys drew but thinly from the Cairn—the power for which the medieval world so feebly groped—that power will be mine. In all its fullness. In all its unconquerable might. There was a rite none knew, and…He…has taught me it. No, I need you no longer, Dahut. Yet I am loath to lose you. And…He…is inclined to you. But you would have a price to pay.”
There was a little silence, and then Dahut’s voice, very still:
“And that price, my father?”
“The blood of your lover.”
He waited for her answer—as did I, but she made none, and he said:
“I do not need it. I have pressed the paupers and have enough and to spare. But his would enrich it, and it would be acceptable to…Him. He…has told me so. It would strengthen His draught. And…He…has asked for it.”
She asked, slowly: “And if I refuse?”
“It will not save him, my daughter.”
Again he waited for her to speak, then said with simulated and malicious wonder: “What—a Dahut of Ys to hesitate between her father and her lover! This man has a debt to pay, my daughter. An ancient one since it was for one who bore his name an ancestress of yours betrayed another father. Or was it you, Dahut? It is my duty to cancel that ancient wrong…lest, perchance, it should recur.”
She asked, quietly: “And if I refuse—what of me?” He laughed: “How can I tell? Now, I am swayed by my fatherly impulses. But when I sit beside…Him…What you may mean to me I cannot know. Perhaps—nothing.”
She asked: “What shape will He assume?”
“Any or all. There is no shape he cannot take. Be assured that it will not be the inchoate blackness which the dull minds of those who evoked…Him…by the rites of the Cairn forced upon…Him. No, no—He might even take the shape of your lover, Dahut. Why not? He…is inclined to you, my daughter.”
Now at this my skin grew cold, and the hatred I felt for him was like a band of hot iron around my temples, and I gathered myself to leap through the curtains and lock my hands around his throat. But the shadows held me back and whispered, and the ghosts of the old house whispered with them—“Not yet! Not yet!”
He said: “Be wise, my daughter. Always this man has betrayed you. What are you with your shadows? What was Helene with her dolls? Children. Children playing with toys. With shadows and dolls! Pass from childhood, my daughter—give me the blood of your lover.”
She answered, musingly: “A child! I had forgotten that I had ever been a child.”
He made no reply to that. She seemed to wait for one; then said, tranquilly:
“So you ask for the blood of my lover? Well—you shall not have it.”
There was the crash of an overthrown chair. I drew the curtain a hair’s breadth aside and peered in. De Keradel stood at the head of the table glaring at Dahut. But it was not the face nor the bod
y of the de Keradel I had known. His eyes were no longer pale blue…they were black, and his silvery hair seemed black and his body had grown…and long arms reached toward and long taloned fingers clutched at Dahut.
She threw something down upon the table between her and him. I could not see what it was, but it sped like a racing, small and shining wave straight at him. And he threw himself back from it, and stood trembling, eyes again blue but suffused with blood, and body shrunken.
“Beware, my father! Not yet do you sit on the throne with…Him. And I am still of the sea, my father. So beware!”
There was a shuffle of feet behind me. The blank-eyed butler was at my side. He started to kneel—and then the vagueness went from his eyes. He sprang at me, mouth opening to cry alarm. Before he could make a sound, my hands were around his throat, thumbs crushing into his larynx, my knee in his groin. With a strength I had never before known, I lifted him by his neck and held him up from the floor. His legs wrapped round me and I thrust my head under his chin and drew it sharply up. There was a faint snap and his body went limp. I carried it back along the hall and set it noiselessly on the floor. The whole brief struggle had been soundless. His eyes, blank enough now, stared up at me. I searched him. In his belt was a sheath, and in that a long, curved, razor-sharp knife.
Now I had a weapon. I rolled the body under a deep settee, stole back to the living room and peeped through the curtains. It was empty, Dahut and de Keradel gone.
I stepped back for a moment into the cover of the curtains. I knew now what it was the ghosts of the old house had feared. Knew the meaning of the trembling and the rhythmic thudding. The cavern of the sacrifices had been destroyed. It had served its purpose. How had de Keradel put it?…that he had “pressed the paupers” and had enough and more than enough blood for the last sacrifice. Incongruously, a line came into my mind—“He is trampling out the wine press where the grapes of wrath are stored…” Not so incongruous…I thought: De Keradel has trampled out another wine press for the Gatherer’s drink. My blood was to have been mixed with it, but Dahut had refused to let it be!
I felt no gratitude toward her for that. She was a spider who thought her fly securely in her web, and was resisting another spider’s attempt to take it from her. That was all. But the fly was no longer in her web nor did it owe her for its release. If I felt increase of hatred for de Keradel, I felt no decrease of it for Dahut.
Nevertheless, what I had heard had changed the vague pattern of my vengeance. The design clarified. The shadows were wrong. Dahut must not die before her father. I had a better plan…it came to me from the Lord of Carnac who Dahut thought had died in her arms…and he counseled me as he had counseled himself, long and long and long ago in ancient Ys.
I walked up the stairs. The door to my room was open. I switched on the lights, boldly.
Dahut was standing there, between me and the bed.
She smiled—but her eyes did not. She walked toward me. I thrust the point of the long knife toward her. She stopped and laughed—but her eyes did not laugh. She said:
“You are so elusive, my beloved. You have such a gift for disappearance.”
“You have told me that before, Dahut. And—” I touched my cheek “—have, even emphasized it.”
Her eyes misted, welled, and tears were on her cheeks: “You have much to forgive—but so have I, Alan.”
Well, that was true enough.
…Beware…beware Dahut…
“Where did you get your knife, Alan?”
A practical question that steadied me; I answered it as practically: “From one of your men whom I killed.”
“‘And would kill me with it—if I came close?”
“Why not, Dahut? You sent me as a shadow into the shadowy land and I have learned its lesson.”
“What was that lesson, Alan?”
“To be merciless.”
“But I am not merciless, Alan—else you would not be here.”
“Now I know you lie, Dahut. It was not you who released me from that bondage.”
She said: “I did not mean that…nor do I lie…and I am tempted to try you, Alan…” She came toward me, slowly. I held the point of the knife in readiness against her coming. She said:
“Kill me if you want to. I have not much love for life. You are all that I love. If you will not love me—kill me.”
She was close; so close that the point of the knife touched her breast; she said: “Thrust—and end it.”
My hand dropped.
“I cannot kill you, Dahut!”
Her eyes softened, her face grew tender—but triumph lurked under the tenderness. She rested her hands on my shoulders; then kissed the whip-welts one by one, saying: “By this kiss I forgive…and by this I forgive…and by this I forgive…”
She held her lips up to me: “Now kiss me, Alan—and with that kiss say that you forgive me.”
I kissed her, but I did not say that I forgave, nor did I.
I let fall the knife. She trembled in my arms and clung to me and whispered: “Say it…say it…”
I pushed her away from me and laughed: “Why are you so eager for forgiveness, Dahut? What do you fear that makes my forgiveness so desirable before your father kills me?”
She asked: “How did you know he means to kill you?”
“I heard him say so when he was making that pleasant little demand for my blood not long ago. Bargaining with you for me. Promising you a substitute who would be far more satisfactory…” Again I laughed… “Is my forgiveness a necessary part of that incarnation?”
She said, breathlessly: “If you heard that, you must also know that I would not give you to him.”
I lied: “I do not. Just then your servant forced me to kill him. When I was free to resume my eavesdropping—returned, in fact, to cut your father’s throat before he could cut mine—you and he had gone. I supposed the bargain closed. Father and daughter reunited and of one purpose—setting forth to prepare the funeral meats—myself, Dahut—to furnish forth the marriage tables. Thrift, thrift, Dahut!”
She winced under my mockery; whitened. She said, strangled: “I made no bargain. I would not let him have you.”
“Why not?”
She said: “Because I love you.”
“But why this insistence upon my forgiveness?”
“Because I love you. Because I want to wipe away the past. Begin afresh, beloved…”
For a moment I had the queer feeling of double memory; that I had acted this scene before in minutest detail, had heard the same lines; and realized I had in that dream of ancient Ys, if dream it had been. And now, as then, she whispered piteously, despairingly: “You will not believe me beloved, what can I do to make you believe!”
I answered: “Choose between your father—and me.”
She said: “But I have chosen, beloved. I have told you…” again she whispered… “How can I make you believe!”
I answered: “End his—sorceries.”
She said, contemptuously: “I do not fear him. And I no longer fear that which he evokes.”
I said: “But I do. End his—sorceries.”
She caught the pause this time, and its significance. Her eyes dilated, and for seconds she was silent, studying me. She said, slowly:
“There is but one way to end them.”
I made no comment on that.
She came to me and drew my head down to her and looked deep into my eyes:
“If I do this…you will forgive me? You will love me? Never leave me…as once before you did…long and long and long ago, in Ys…when once before I chose between my father and you?…”
“I will forgive you, Dahut. I will never leave you as long as you have life.”
That was true enough, but I closed every window of my mind so she might not glimpse the determination that was its source. And again, as it had been in Ys, I took her in my arms…and the lure of her lips and her body shook me and I felt my resolution weaken…but the life within me that had come
from Helen was implacable, inexorable…hating Dahut as only one woman who loves a man can hate another who loves him…
She loosed my arms from round her: “Dress, and wait for me here.” She passed through the door.
I dressed, but I kept the long knife close.
The tapestry that concealed the secret panel wavered, and she was in the room. She wore an archaic robe of green; her sandals were green; her girdle was not golden but of clear green stones that held the shifting gleam of waves, and a wreath of green sea flowers bound her hair. Upon her wrist was the silver bracelet set with the black stone that bore in crimson the trident symbol which was the summoning name of the sea-god. She looked like a sea-god’s daughter…
I felt my resolution weakening again until she came close and I could see clearly her face. It was unsmiling, and the mouth was cruel, and the hell-sparks were beginning their dance in her eyes.
She lifted her arms and touched my eyes with her fingers, closing them. The touch of her fingers was like that of cold sea-spray.
“Come!” she said.
The ghosts of the old house were whispering: “Go with her…but beware!…”
The shadows were whispering: “Go with her…but beware!”
“Beware Dahut…” My hand tightened on the knife hilt as I followed her.
We went out of the old house. It was strange how plainly I could see. The sky was heavy with clouds, the air murky. I knew the night must be dark indeed, yet every stone and bush and tree stood out plain, as though by some light of its own. Dahut led me by a dozen paces, nor could I lessen that distance, try as I might. She moved like a wave, and around her played a faint nimbus of palest golden green like the phosphorescence that sometimes clothes a wave moving through darkness.
The shadows flittered and swayed around us, interlacing, flowing in and out of each other, like shadows cast by some great tree fretted by a fitful wind. The shadows followed us, and flanked us, and swayed before us—but they shrank from Dahut, and never was there one between her and me.
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 199