Абрахам Меррит - The Ship of Ishtar

From the priests arose a groan. Klaneth stood, silent, struck dumb.

There came from the waves touching the ship a sound—sonorous and sinister.

A thunderous drumming, menacing, malignant—summoning! Br–oom–rr–oom–oom!

The serpent drum swinging against the side of the ship! Lifted by the waves and by their arms beaten against the ship!

The Summoner of Nergal!

The ship trembled. A shadow fell upon the sea. Around Klaneth a darkness began to gather.

More angrily thundered the wave–beaten drum. The mists about the black priest thickened, writhed; beginning that hellish transmutation of Nergal's priest into the dread self of the Lord of the Dead.

"Strike!" howled Gigi. "Quick! Bite deep!"

He ran to the rail; dropped over it.

Kenton rushed straight upon that cloudy horror within which the black priest moved. His sword swept into it; struck. He heard a shriek, agonized, unbelieving. The voice of Klaneth. He struck again.

And striking realized that the drumming had ceased, that the voice of the drum was stilled. He heard Gigi's shout:

"Bite again. Wolf! Bite deep!"

The dark mist around Klaneth cleared. He stood there, dead eyes closed, hand holding an arm from which dark blood welled through clasping fingers.

And as Kenton raised his sword to strike again the black priest dashed into his eyes the blood from the hand that had held the wounded arm. Blinded, Kenton held his sword at mid–stroke. The black priest rushed upon him. Mechanically, through dimmed sight, he thrust out his blade to meet that rush; saw Sigurd driving down upon the remaining priests; heard the crack of bone as red stained oar met their bodies.

His sword struck against Klaneth's, and was beaten down.

Kenton's foot slipped on a gout of blood. He fell. The black priest crashed on him; his arms encircled him. Over and over they rolled. He saw Sigurd, whimpering with eagerness, striving to strike…

Suddenly Klaneth rolled over, Kenton on top of him; his grip relaxed; he grew limp; lay inert.

Kenton knelt upon him; looked up at the Norseman.

"Not yours," he gasped. "Mine!"

He sought for the dagger at his belt. The body of the black priest stiffened. Then, like a released spring, he leaped upon his feet, throwing Kenton away.

Before the Viking could raise his club Klaneth was at the rail.

He hurled himself over it into the sea!

A hundred feet away, the serpent drum floated, its top slit across by Gigi's knife. The head of Klaneth arose beside it, his hands gripped it. Under the touch the huge cylinder dipped to him with grotesque genuflection. From it came a dismal sound, like a lament.

Out of the silver haze a shadow moved. It darkened over black priest and drum. It shrouded them and withdrew. Where it had been was neither black priest nor Summoner! Man and drum—both had gone!

BATTLE fury still in his veins, Kenton looked about him. The black deck was strewn with Klaneth's men; men crushed and broken under Sigurd's mace; men from whom his own sword had let out the life; men in twisted heaps; men—but not many—who still writhed and groaned. He turned to Sharane's deck. Her women, white–faced, clustered at the cabin door.

And on the very verge of the barrier between the two decks stood Sharane. Proudly she faced him, but with misty eyes on whose long lashes tears still trembled. Diadem of shining crescent was gone; gone too that aura of the goddess which even when Ishtar was afar lingered like a splendor around this, her living shrine.

She was but a woman. Nay—only a girl! A girl all human, exquisite—

He was lifted high on the shoulders of Gigi and the Persian.

"Hail!" cried Gigi. "Hail! Master of the ship!"

"Master of the ship!" shouted the Persian.

Master of the ship! "Put me down," he ordered. And when they had set him on his feet he strode from Klaneth's deck to Sharane's.

He stood over her.

"Master of the ship!" he laughed. "And master of—you! Sharane!" He gripped her slender wrists, drew her to him.

There was a cry from Gigi, a groan echoed by the Persian. Sharane's face paled…

Out of the black cabin strode Sigurd, and in his arms was that dark statue of cloudy evil that had stood in Klaneth's shrine.

"Stop!" cried Gigi, and sprang. Before the Ninevite could reach him Sigurd had lifted the idol and cast it over into the waves.

"The last devil gone!" he shouted. The ship trembled—trembled as though far beneath its keel a hand had risen and was shaking it. It stopped. Around it the waters darkened. Deep, deep down in those darkened waters began to glow a scarlet cloud. Deep, deep beneath them the cloud moved and widened as widens the thunderhead. It vortexed into a crimson storm cloud blotted with blacknesses. It floated up; ever growing, its scarlets deepening ever more angrily, its blacks shading ever more menacingly'

The lifting cloud swirled; from it shot out strangely ordered rays, horizontal, fan–shaped. From those slant planed luminescences now whirling like a tremendous wheel in the abyss, immense bubbles, black and crimson, began to break. They arose, growing swiftly in girth as they neared the surface.

Within them Kenton glimpsed figures, misty figures; bodies of crouching men clad in armor that glimmered jet and scarlet.

Men within the bubbles!

Armored men! Men who crouched with heads on knees, clothed all in glittering scales. Warriors in whose hands were misty swords, misty bows, misty javelins.

Up rushed the bubble hosts, myriad after myriad. Now they were close to sea surface. Now they broke through.

The bubbles burst!

Out of their shattered sides the warriors sprang. All in their checkered mail, pallid–faced, pupilless eyes half closed and dead, they leaped out upon the darkened blue of the sea. From crest to crest of waves they vaulted. They ran over the waters as though over a field of withered violets. Silently they poured down upon the ship!

"Men of Nergal!" wailed Sharane. "Warriors of the Black One! Ishtar! Ishtar—help us!"

"Phantoms!" cried Kenton, and held high his blood–stained sword. "Phantoms!"

And he knew in his soul that whatever they were—phantoms they were not!

The front rank poised themselves upon the tip of a curling wave as though upon a long land barrow. They thrust down bows no longer misty. To their cheeks they drew the tips of long arrows. Came a twang of strings, a pattering as of hail against the sides of the ship. A dozen shafts quivered along the side of the mast; one fell at his feet—serpent scaled, black and crimson, its head buried deep within the deck.

"Ishtar! Mother Ishtar! Deliver us from Nergal!" wailed Sharane.

As though in answer the ship leaped as if another hand had thrown it forward.

From the hosts still breaking through the bubbles arose a shouting. They raced after the flying ship. Another rain of arrows fell upon it.

"Ishtar! Mother Ishtar!" sobbed Sharane. The hovering darkness split. For an instant out of it peered an immense orb circled with garlands of little moons. From it poured silver fire; living, throbbing, jubilant. The pulsing flood struck the sea and melted through it. The shadows closed; the orb was gone.

The moon flames it had poured dropped down and down. Up to meet them sparkled other great bubbles all rosy, pearl and silver, shimmering with glints and glimmerings of tenderest nacre, gleamings of mother–of–pearl, cream of roses.

In each of them Kenton sensed a form, a body—wondrous, delicate and delicious; a woman's body from whose beauty the shining sides of the bubbles drew their glory!

Women within the bubbles! Up rushed the spheres of glamour; they touched the surface of the wan sea. They opened.