Shadows in the Moonlight

by Robert E. Howard

  2

  Olivia dreamed, and through her dreams crawled a suggestion of lurkingevil, like a black serpent writhing through flower gardens. Her dreamswere fragmentary and colorful, exotic shards of a broken, unknownpattern, until they crystalized into a scene of horror and madness,etched against a background of cyclopean stones and pillars.

  She saw a great hall, whose lofty ceiling was upheld by stone columnsmarching in even rows along the massive walls. Among these pillarsfluttered great green and scarlet parrots, and the hall was throngedwith black-skinned, hawk-faced warriors. They were not negroes. Neitherthey nor their garments nor weapons resembled anything of the world thedreamer knew.

  They were pressing about one bound to a pillar: a slender white-skinnedyouth, with a cluster of golden curls about his alabaster brow. Hisbeauty was not altogether human--like the dream of a god, chiseled outof living marble.

  The black warriors laughed at him, jeered and taunted in a strangetongue. The lithe naked form writhed beneath their cruel hands. Bloodtrickled down the ivory thighs to spatter on the polished floor. Thescreams of the victim echoed through the hall; then lifting his headtoward the ceiling and the skies beyond, he cried out a name in an awfulvoice. A dagger in an ebon hand cut short his cry, and the golden headrolled on the ivory breast.

  As if in answer to that desperate cry, there was a rolling thunder as ofcelestial chariot-wheels, and a figure stood before the slayers, as ifmaterialized out of empty air. The form was of a man, but no mortal manever wore such an aspect of inhuman beauty. There was an unmistakableresemblance between him and the youth who dropped lifeless in hischains, but the alloy of humanity that softened the godliness of theyouth was lacking in the features of the stranger, awful and immobile intheir beauty.

  The blacks shrank back before him, their eyes slits of fire. Lifting ahand, he spoke, and his tones echoed through the silent halls in deeprich waves of sound. Like men in a trance the black warriors fell backuntil they were ranged along the walls in regular lines. Then from thestranger's chiseled lips rang a terrible invocation and command:'_Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!_'

  At the blast of that awful cry, the black figures stiffened and froze.Over their limbs crept a curious rigidity, an unnatural petrification.The stranger touched the limp body of the youth, and the chains fellaway from it. He lifted the corpse in his arms; then ere he turned away,his tranquil gaze swept again over the silent rows of ebony figures, andhe pointed to the moon, which gleamed in through the casements. And theyunderstood, those tense, waiting statues that had been men....

  Olivia awoke, starting up on her couch of branches, a cold sweat beadingher skin. Her heart pounded loud in the silence. She glanced wildlyabout. Conan slept against his pillar, his head fallen upon his massivebreast. The silvery radiance of the late moon crept through the gapingroof, throwing long white lines along the dusty floor. She could see theimages dimly, black, tense--waiting. Fighting down a rising hysteria,she saw the moonbeams rest lightly on the pillars and the shapesbetween.

  What was that? A tremor among the shadows where the moonlight fell. Aparalysis of horror gripped her, for where there should have been theimmobility of death, there was movement: a slow twitching, a flexing andwrithing of ebon limbs--an awful scream burst from her lips as she brokethe bonds that held her mute and motionless. At her shriek Conan shoterect, teeth gleaming, sword lifted.

  'The statues! The statues!--_Oh my God, the statues are coming tolife!_'

  And with the cry she sprang through a crevice in the wall, burst madlythrough the hindering vines, and ran, ran, ran--blind, screaming,witless--until a grasp on her arm brought her up short and she shriekedand fought against the arms that caught her, until a familiar voicepenetrated the mists of her terror, and she saw Conan's face, a mask ofbewilderment in the moonlight.

  'What in Crom's name, girl? Did you have a nightmare?' His voice soundedstrange and far away. With a sobbing gasp she threw her arms about histhick neck and clung to him convulsively, crying in panting catches.

  'Where are they? Did they follow us?'

  'Nobody followed us,' he answered.

  She sat up, still clinging to him, and looked fearfully about. Her blindflight had carried her to the southern edge of the plateau. Just belowthem was the slope, its foot masked in the thick shadows of the woods.Behind them she saw the ruins looming in the high-swinging moon.

  'Did you not see them?--The statues, moving, lifting their hands, theireyes glaring in the shadows?'

  'I saw nothing,' answered the barbarian uneasily. 'I slept more soundlythan usual, because it has been so long since I have slumbered the nightthrough; yet I don't think anything could have entered the hall withoutwaking me.'

  'Nothing entered,' a laugh of hysteria escaped her. 'It was somethingthere already. Ah, Mitra, we lay down to sleep among them, like sheepmaking their bed in the shambles!'

  'What are you talking about?' he demanded. 'I woke at your cry, butbefore I had time to look about me, I saw you rush out through the crackin the wall. I pursued you, lest you come to harm. I thought you had anightmare.'

  'So I did!' she shivered. 'But the reality was more grisly than thedream. Listen!' And she narrated all that she had dreamed and thoughtto see.

  Conan listened attentively. The natural skepticism of the sophisticatedman was not his. His mythology contained ghouls, goblins, andnecromancers. After she had finished, he sat silent, absently toyingwith his sword.

  'The youth they tortured was like the tall man who came?' he asked atlast.

  'As like as son to father,' she answered, and hesitantly: 'If the mindcould conceive of the offspring of a union of divinity with humanity, itwould picture that youth. The gods of old times mated sometimes withmortal women, our legends tell us.'

  'What gods?' he muttered.

  'The nameless, forgotten ones. Who knows? They have gone back into thestill waters of the lakes, the quiet hearts of the hills, the gulfsbeyond the stars. Gods are no more stable than men.'

  'But if these shapes were men, blasted into iron images by some god ordevil, how can they come to life?'

  'There is witchcraft in the moon,' she shuddered. '_He_ pointed at themoon; while the moon shines on them, they live. So I believe.'

  'But we were not pursued,' muttered Conan, glancing toward the broodingruins. 'You might have dreamed they moved. I am of a mind to return andsee.'

  'No, no!' she cried, clutching him desperately. 'Perhaps the spell uponthem holds them in the hall. Do not go back! They will rend you limbfrom limb! Oh, Conan, let us go into our boat and flee this awfulisland! Surely the Hyrkanian ship has passed us now! Let us go!'

  So frantic was her pleading that Conan was impressed. His curiosity inregard to the images was balanced by his superstition. Foes of flesh andblood he did not fear, however great the odds, but any hint of thesupernatural roused all the dim monstrous instincts of fear that are theheritage of the barbarian.

  He took the girl's hand and they went down the slope and plunged intothe dense woods, where the leaves whispered, and nameless night-birdsmurmured drowsily. Under the trees the shadows clustered thick, andConan swerved to avoid the denser patches. His eyes roved continuouslyfrom side to side, and often flitted into the branches above them. Hewent quickly yet warily, his arm girdling the girl's waist so stronglythat she felt as if she were being carried rather than guided. Neitherspoke. The only sound was the girl's quick nervous panting, the rustleof her small feet in the grass. So they came through the trees to theedge of the water, shimmering like molten silver in the moonlight.

  'We should have brought fruit for food,' muttered Conan; 'but doubtlesswe'll find other islands. As well leave now as later; it's but a fewhours till dawn--'

  His voice trailed away. The painter was still made fast to the loopingroot. But at the other end was only a smashed and shattered ruin, halfsubmerged in the shallow water.

  A stifled cry escaped Olivia. Conan wheeled and faced the dense shadows,a crouching image of menace. The noise of the
night-birds was suddenlysilent. A brooding stillness reigned over the woods. No breeze moved thebranches, yet somewhere the leaves stirred faintly.

  Quick as a great cat Conan caught up Olivia and ran. Through the shadowshe raced like a phantom, while somewhere above and behind them sounded acurious rushing among the leaves, that implacably drew closer andcloser. Then the moonlight burst full upon their faces, and they werespeeding up the slope of the plateau.

  At the crest Conan laid Olivia down, and turned to glare back at thegulf of shadows they had just quitted. The leaves shook in a suddenbreeze; that was all. He shook his mane with an angry growl. Oliviacrept to his feet like a frightened child. Her eyes looked up at him,dark wells of horror.

  'What are we to do, Conan?' she whispered.

  He looked at the ruins, stared