As the despoiler of the dead crept past the alley, Dath leapt out, cloak flying; Riska could only imagine what sort of image registered in the skulker’s eyes, but his shriek rebounded deafeningly off the rock walls. A moment later Dath returned, bearing in a three-handed grip, a small, wizened man in ragged dress. When Riska tried to question him, he was incoherent, so she had Dath put him down and back away a few steps. “Has Zostris taken the city?” she asked again, pronouncing each syllable carefully.
“He has,” the robber said between gasping breaths, “taken all…except that Morrien’s forces still hold the Palace. Dath’s followers gather at the inner wall; it cannot stand against them till the morning. Please…” and here he lay down on the pavement at her feet. “Have mercy on me, Lady Witch—consort of demons. I was only taking what the dead would have no further use for.”
She left him there, groveling to no purpose, the words consort of demons making her feel uneasy, The cloak blew back, exposing Dath’s awkward shape. In the caverns, dependent on the being, she had learned to overlook how alien Dath was.
They zigzagged across the city, avoiding the places where fighting was still going on, pockets of resistance that could not stand long against the lunatic hordes that Zostris had released. Under a pale dawn sky, veiled with smoke from burning buildings, they saw that the inner wall still held and that Zostris, flanked by Galk and several armored priests, was exhorting his multitudes before the gate from a tall hastily-assembled platform. “There he is, my enemy,” said Riska, “the one who commits all this in your name.”
“You’re still too weak to fight,” said Dath. “Let me fight your enemy out of love, though I don’t know how we’ll reach him, with these crowds impeding our way.”
“Throw off your cloak.” She heard Dath’s rasping otherworldly laughter, and wished that the being had used the word ‘gratitude.’ Could one love a monster, after all? The crowd melted away before them, giving frenzied screams and trying to crawl over one another to get out of the way of the dark-furred shape that moved with a hopping gait. Riska tried to keep pace, but Dath quickly moved ahead.
Riska watched Zostris; surely he had noticed the perturbation in the crowd caused by Dath’s progress, though he seemed not to. Raising long, thin arms above his head, he was chanting the familiar, “Dath brings dreams,” which the crowd echoed in full voice.
She saw that Dath had now reached the ladder that led up to the platform, and Zostris still seemed oblivious to anything but the sound of his own voice, the echo of the crowd. Dath climbed more quickly than seemed possible, the crowd ceasing their chant as they saw his dark bulk reach the top of the platform. Galk was still dressed in his moth-eaten spider costume. She saw Zostris lift a delicate hand in a tentative gesture, and begin, “Dath drinks—” and then look quickly from counterfeit god to real and back again. Riska could only imagine what the priest thought in that moment. Faith was one thing, reality quite another.
“Charlatan, I drink you,” she heard Dath bellow, leaping forward.
From someplace in his robes, Zostris had drawn a dagger. Riska saw it glitter as Dath closed in on him, The sight of the god attacking his own priest made the crowd turn on the shave-skulls in a howling rage. They had been made ready to rend someone; it little mattered who.
From the foot of the platform, Riska saw Dath’s clawed hand rake Zostris’ face, putting out the fanatic glitter of his eyes. Other priests were diving outward, accepting the mercies of the hostile crowd. Galk gibbered and danced about like an unnerved animal, and before Riska could cry out a warning, he leaped onto Dath’s back. For a moment the alien staggered forward under his weight, then a long furred arm reached around to dislodge him, and Dath held his struggling body with the two small hands while battering him with the large ones.
Mewling and blinded, Zostris teetered on the edge of the platform and fell into a pile of burning debris, screaming as he curled and blackened, a maggot in a candle flame. The smell of his burning drove back the crowd.
As Dath dropped Galk’s inert body onto the planking, Riska saw more of Morrien’s soldiers appearing along the top of the wall. She scrambled halfway up the ladder to shout a warning and Dath leapt lithely off the platform as arrows thunked into the wood behind him, “I thought those were the ones we came to rescue,” said Dath in utter innocence.
“Some people lack gratitude,” she said wryly.
She saw one she thought to be Morrien atop the wall, but smoke made her vision blur. A knot of men had gathered, babbling and pointing toward Dath. “Let’s get out of here, quickly.” She neglected to mention cages or worse fates for those as different as the spider-being, but perhaps they were both aware of them.
“You don’t want to seek your own kind now that you’ve completed your mission?” The leathery mask of Dath’s face was unreadable, but as in an unconscious gesture, one of the smaller, black-scaled hands was extended, and Riska, now becoming aware of her own exhaustion, reached out to grasp it. Together they fled through the crowd.
* * * *
Riska awoke and listened to the wind slap at the frail boards of the abandoned dwelling. She lay in a silken, cocoon-like bed suspended halfway between ceiling and floor; Dath had constructed a similar bed and lay sleeping across the room. The alien had grown fatter and lazier, glossier of fur with every day they lived here, Riska thought, but that may only have been that they’d acquired some cattle and there was no further need for hunting. That may have been it, Riska thought, but it was really more than that. The alien was complacent and anxious at the same time, as if awaiting some inevitable event.
Except for the occasional moment of doubt, like now, Riska had to admit that she’d become content here herself, for the most part, though sometimes she longed for the excitement of the undercity, and remembered the times with Morrien. As she lay there, she saw a brown-furred limb thrust from the pale silken threads of the cocoon-bed. Half playful, Riska closed her eyes to slits and breathed deeply. Sometimes Dath would slip furtively to her bed and surprise her with the gift of dreams.
Riska was surprised, although not with dreams, to see the alien cross the room stealthily, looking back for reassurance that she still slept. She continued to lie still, now puzzled, thinking perhaps she should say something. Yet she had the unshakeable impression that Dath had slipped out this way before, into the grainy light of just-before-dawn. Strange, she thought, how days of trust could dissolve in a heart-beat’s time, just time enough for a door to open.
Giving the creature a head-start, Riska slid down from the bed and followed Dath’s route to a cave-mouth, the opening to the tunnel by which they’d come here. It was camouflaged by dead tree branches, but Dath pushed these aside. The being seemed to have some knowledge of the caverns and soon lifted a round metal trapdoor, sliding down into a hidden chamber.
Riska opened the door a crack and peered inside. There was light, a pale blue luster where no light should have been. She knew she should call out to Dath; re-establish their trust, but there was no way to do so now without Dath realizing how she’d come here. Listening to hear the bulky creature move further away into the tunnels. she hung by her hands a moment over nothingness and dropped. The cold light seeped around a corner, and she went that way, mostly out of curiosity. After a moment she found herself at the entrance to a small chamber.
As her eyes grew accustomed to the diffuse radiance, she saw that a bluish, phosphorescent gel spread across one wall gave off the light. She watched as Dath reached into lustrous belly-fur, seeming to grope deeper and finally to draw out a string of faceted blue-green gems. These were placed with care on the wall where they clung by means of the gel. Riska saw the sparkling thousands already in place and realized they weren’t gems at all.
The glitter of the wall distracted her attention, and she didn’t manage to dodge out of the doorway fast enough as Dath turned. She knew
the spider-being’s sight was better in the dark than her own, so it seemed ridiculous to try to hide.
“The mission I once told you of,” said the being in a voice made resonant by the close quarters, “was to multiply myself.”
“I was wrong to follow you,” said Riska. “I wish I hadn’t…” and in the next breath, “so many; I wouldn’t have thought there could be so many.”
“I wish you hadn’t followed,” said Dath. “There are things I owe, but—” The creature was edging toward her with that peculiar grace, now all alien, all menacing.
Riska gripped the hilt of Morrien’s gift. “If I thought our kind could share a world, the way we shared—but that’s not possible, is it. You’re growing an army, here.”
The thing shrugged lumpishly, a strangely human gesture that Riska could only think had been learned from her. “We pass ourselves on, that’s all. Foolish to worry about what an egg may become before it hatches.”
“It’s odd,” said Riska, as if to fill some idle space of time as Dath crept nearer. “Two years ago had you asked me for this world, I’d have said, ‘Take it and welcome.’ My kind have done nothing for centuries except to quarrel over and despoil it, and I suppose it’s not realistic to think that tomorrow will be different. But, through no fault of my own, I’ve been made mindful of posterity. The world’s no longer mine to throw away.” Her eyes swept the chamber; she didn’t like the close quarters. She knew that Dath could still move quickly, even though grown corpulent of late.
“Our reasons are the same,” said Dath, almost with satisfaction. “I’ll reserve a place for you in my memory.”
“Kind of you,” said Riska. “But I intend to grow old, remembering you.” One of Dath’s walking hands came at her like a club as claw-tipped fingers raked across the arm she threw up just in time to save her eyes. The blow threw her hard against the wall, but she kept herself from falling. A numbness immediately began to spread from the scratches, so she knew she’d have to win fast if she was to win at all. Dath must charge blindly.
She tore a strand of eggs from their protecting gel and threw them to the ground. When she brought her foot down, there was a satisfying pop as one of the brittle eggs shattered. Dath shrieked and leapt, so quickly that Riska was almost not ready, but she crouched back against the wall, hoping to make herself a small target. She was overwhelmed for a moment by the smothering bulk, but felt her knife go hilt deep. Warm liquid spurted, matting the fur, soaking Riska’s hand and wrist. As the thing recoiled, the weapon was wrenched from Riska’s hand. Rather than curling up to die, Dath was wheeling for a second charge. Riska was borne down by the lumbering weight this time, raked by claws, pummeled by huge fists, but she thought that the blows became steadily weaker. Soon they stopped altogether and she heard the rasp of the thing’s labored breathing. Desperately, she scrabbled about on the rocky floor until her hand closed on a rough-edged stone. “I think…you’ve won,” said Dath in a dry, reedy voice very close to her ear. “But, please, won’t you let me bring the dreams to you, one more time?”
Riska felt her grip on the stone loosen a moment, and she found herself actually considering it, such a hold the dreams had upon her.
Since she gave no answer, Dath’s face drew closer, the mouth opening upon the delicate needle-teeth. With an effort of will Riska brought the stone smashing up into the being’s face, breaking the fangs and making the monster’s body convulse with pain. For a moment more, claws shredded her clothing and skin, but the struggles grew slower, and at last she could free herself of the oppressive weight.
Her right arm had gone numb; she had to grasp it with her hand to reaffirm its presence, and the numbness seemed to be spreading as if she had been injected with slow poison. Forcing herself to move, she crept in and out of the chamber, bringing armloads of dry brush. It seemed to take forever for it to catch fire, but when it did, she stripped the eggs from the wall. She fed the flames without guilt, thinking that there was plenty of time for guilt later, if there was to be a later.
When the fire blazed up hotly, smoke beginning to fill the chamber and the tunnels beyond, she rolled the great fur bulk that had been Dath into the flames. The corpse could still contain eggs—hundreds? thousands? And Dath had managed to come back from the dead once, why not again?
She realized she’d almost waited too long to run, hacking and gasping for air as she fled the chamber. The opening to aboveground seemed impossibly far as she leapt for it, once, twice, catching hold on her second leap and by a last surge of effort pulling herself up. She could crawl only a little way from the cave-mouth before being sick and ultimately collapsing.
* * * *
The rasp of the chisel against crumbling mortar was a loud sound in the silence of the labyrinth, but Riska could feel another large stone coming loose. She eased it from its place and lowered it to the ground, pleased to see a dim light filtering through a heavy drapery on the other side. She couldn’t even remember the decision to return here, let alone the path she must have taken, half-poisoned as she had been. She struck the chisel again, the hammer muffled in cloth wrappings still making an awful noise. With miraculous ease the dry mortar broke away, and she removed another stone. Now the opening was large enough to squeeze through.
Before she entered she reached blindly into the niche and her hand closed on the cold hilt of the old dagger she’d left there.
The flickering light in the room came from a low-burning cresset suspended near the bed. It outlined the bulky form of Morrien, lying swathed in fur bedclothes, and beside him, that of his wife, slim and delicate in a gauzy night-dress, uncovered by his unconscious greediness. The feeble lamplight gave an unreal glitter to hair that lay in curling wisps about her face, turned the lowered lashes to frail crescents of gold. Riska leaped to the bed, shadows in the room giving her lean shape an alien look. No flicker of light from her knife blade which had gone black with tarnish. The sleeping woman’s eyes flew open as Riska sent the blade in hard under her ribs. Her face contorted. Surely now she would scream and wake Morrien, but if she screamed, Riska couldn’t hear it. She sent the knife in again and again, till her hands were red to the wrist in seeping blood. Incredibly, Morrien did not stir. He slept as if drugged, cocooned in his furs.
As she drew back, her work finished, Riska was startled by a motion at the foot of the bed. Stiffening, she peered into shadows and saw the dark-haired child. She was lying with head raised, dark opaque eyes wide open and watching, giving back reflections, her fat fists clenched on the bedclothes. Riska drew in her breath, tried to hide her red-streaked hands, but the small soft mouth of the child was turning up in a knowing smile.
* * * *
Rain, sluicing in icy rivulets over her face, plastering the clothes to her body, woke her at last. She lay in the clearing before the cave-mouth. As she shuddered into full wakefulness, caught for a moment between the lingering horror of the dream and a perverse disillusionment that it was not, after all, real, she decided that she had been given one last gift, triggered by alien chemicals residual in her system. She sat up at last, feeling heavy, but glad that the poison was wearing off. Maybe being alive was the most important, after all, though alliances formed and dissolved in the smoke of old wars. She forced herself to her feet and staggered toward the dwelling Dath and she had shared, wanting protection from the driving rain.
Despite her thoughts of shelter, she stood for some time outside, gripping the door and thinking of the loneliness she knew she’d find when it was opened.
GATHER ROUND THE FLOWING BOWLER, by Robert Bloch
Originally published in Fantastic Adventures, May 1942.
I was sitting in my usual seat at Jack’s place the other night when I was startled out of it. I literally began to rise and show the shine on my trousers.
“Hey, there!” I called.
A gangling figure paused midway betwe
en tables and veered rapidly in the direction of my booth. With a melancholy grin, Mr. Lefty Feep sidled over and extended a dripping hand.
“You been carrying a herring?” I inquired. “Your hand is wet.”
“I am all wet,” said Lefty Feep. “And I like it,”
It was true. Lefty Feep was all wet. For the first time I permitted my gaze to run along the rainbow of his suit. Feep was wearing a box-shoulder Navajo blanket pattern of such blinding hue that at first I thought somebody had spilled spaghetti on him.
But it was not spaghetti that poured from his lapels and cuffs. It was water. Lefty Feep was soaked to the skin.
“Have you been out in the rain?” I ventured.
“You win the $32 question, friend.” said Feep. “I am strolling in a storm this last hour. Outside it is mostly moistly.”
“But you’ll ruin your clothes,” I said —as if it were possible to ruin that atrocious costume.
“So I buy another suit,” Feep grinned, sitting down. “You will pardon me if I seem to drip.”
“I never knew you liked water.”
“I am extremely fond of water—for external use only. Why, it is water that brings me my fortune this last year.”
“Your fortune?” I echoed. Then I regretted it.
For the last time I’d met Lefty Feep he was introduced to me as the biggest liar in seven states. The story he told then more than qualified him for that honor. It dealt, as I remember, with Mr. Feep’s accidental visit to the bowling dwarfs of the Catskill Mountains. Feep claimed to have followed the footsteps of Rip Van Winkle by drinking the dwarf’s brew and sleeping twenty years into the future. He explained his return by claiming he’d bribed the dwarfs to send him back—by building for them a regulation bowling alley on the mountain top.
The Fantasy MEGAPACK ® Page 17