Абрахам Меррит - The Ship of Ishtar

Was it another city—the refuge they had sought? A place where they might stay, safe from Klaneth and his pack until they could sally forth to meet that pack and its master on more equal terms?

Yet if a city—what giants were they who had reared it?

The oars dipped faster; the ship sped; closer came the barrier―It was no city!

Up from the depths of the turquoise sea thrust thousands of rocks. Rocks blue and yellow, rocks striped crimson and vivid malachite; rocks all glowing ochre and rocks steeped in the scarlet of autumn sunsets; a polychrome Venice of a lost people of stone, sculptured by stone Titans. Here a slender minaret arose two hundred feet in air yet hardly more than ten in thickness; here a pyramid as great as Cheops', its four sides as accurately faced—by thousands, far as eye could reach, the rocks arose in fantasies of multi–colored cone and peak, aiguille and minaret and obelisk, campanile and tower.

Straight up from the depths they lifted, and between them the sea flowed in a maze of channels both narrow and broad; in some of the channels smoothly, in others with swift eddies and whirlpools and racing torrents; and in others the sea lay like placid lakes.

There came another shout from the Viking, urgent, summoning—and with it the clangor of his sword beating upon the shield.

Down upon the ship and little more than a mile away rushed a long line of other ships, a score or more of them both single and double banked—boats of war racing on oars that dipped and rose with swiftness of sword blade stroke. Between them and the Ship of Ishtar drove a lean and black bireme leaping the waves like a wolf.

The pack of Klaneth with the black priest in the lead!

The pack, breaking out of the mists unseen by Sigurd, eyes like the others fast upon that colossal fantasy of stone that seemed to be the end of this strange world!

"In among the rocks!" cried Kenton—"Quick!"

"A trap!" said Sigurd.

"A trap for them as well as us then," answered Kenton. "At the least, they cannot ring us there with their boats."

"The only chance!" grunted Gigi.

The slaves bent their backs; through a wide channel between two painted monolithic minarets they flew. Behind them they heard a shouting, a baying as of hungry hounds in sight of a deer.

Now they were within the maze and the rowers must go slowly and the Viking's rudder–craft was needed indeed, for the currents swung them. gripping at bow and stern and the sheer rocks menaced. Twisting, turning, on and on they went until the painted decks closed from them sight of the open sea. Yet now, too, Klaneth and his fleet were in the maze. They heard the creak of the oars, the commands of the helmsmen, searching, ferreting them out.

Abruptly as though snapped out, light vanished and darkness fell! Darkness blotted out the channel they were following, blotted out the towering rocks. From the pursuing boats came horn blasts, orders shrill with fear, outcries.

A purplish glow sprang up within the blackness.

"Nergal!" whispered Sharane. "Nergal comes!"

The whole of the black deck was blotted out as though an inky cloud had dropped upon it and out of that cloud leaped Sigurd and ran to where the others stood.

And now from every quarter of the horizon whirled pillars of darkness. Their feet were in the sullen sea, their heads lost in the pall that spread above. Ahead of them drove a charnel odor, the breath of death.

"Nergal in all his might!" shuddered Sharane.

"But Ishtar—Ishtar promised the strife should end!" groaned Kenton.

"But she did not say how it would end!" wailed Sharane. "And, O Beloved—Ishtar comes no more to me—and all my power is gone!"

"Ishtar! Ishtar!" she cried—and caught Kenton in her arms. "Mother—my life for this man's! My soul for his! Mother Ishtar—!"

The van of the whirling pillars was close; the circle between them and the ship swiftly narrowing. On the echo of Sharane's cry a blinding light, pearl white and pearl rose flashed down upon them—on Sharane, the three men and the warrior maids crouched white–faced at Sharane's feet.

High over their heads, thrice the height of the mast, a great globe of moon fire hung poised, effulgent, serene, and brighter, far brighter than a score of moons at full. From its periphery poured rays, enclosing the whole fore part of the ship as in a tent of light; a radiance that ringed them and in whose center they stood as though prisoned in a hollow cone whose top was the moon globe.

Around that radiant tent the pillared darknesses, churned, pressing for entrance; finding none.

Faint at first and far away began a keen–edged shrieking; louder it grew as though from racing hordes fresh loosed from Abaddon. The purple darkness lightened, turned to a lurid violet. It was pricked by countless points of crimson fire.

And now the myriads of fiery points were at the ship; striking like little snakes of fire at globe and sides of radiant tent, shooting at them like arrow heads of fire, thrusting like little lance tips of fire.

There was the whir and rustle of thousands of wings. Around calm globe and cone of light whirled doves of Ishtar in thousands. And as the points of fire struck and stabbed the doves darted to meet them. Like little living shields of shining silver they caught the thrusts of the fiery javelins upon their breasts.

Where were the doves coming from? Cloud upon cloud of them poured from above the moon orb yet, for each whose ashes were whirled away a score rushed in to meet the striking fires, and all the air was palpitant with the tumult of their wings.

The shrieking raised itself a full octave. The inky cloud that had leaped upon the black deck shot up towering, gigantic, into the heavens. The countless points of fire rushed together, coalesced. They became a crimson scimitar of fire that struck down upon shining orb and ship!

Before the first stroke could fall the phalanxes of the doves had wheeled; had formed themselves into a shield mighty enough to have been held and wielded by Ishtar's own arm!

And ever as the scimitar of fire slashed and thrust at the radiant globe and ship, the shield of the doves met it. Fiery point and fiery edge struck and blackened the living argent—but could not pierce. And ever the seared wounds of that shield shimmered moon white, as soft, untouched silver breasts darted in and healed them.

In mid–sweep it met another sword of brilliant light—a sword forged all of those white flames he had seen in his vision and that were the life of that radiance that fructified the swarms of worlds!

The scimitar was dimming! No longer was its fire so crimson bright!

The moon orb pulsed; its radiance flamed wide, dazzling, blindingly, hurling back the darknesses. Swiftly as it had come it vanished! With it went the doves!

Kenton saw the gigantic scimitar pause, quiver uncertainly—as though the dread hand that held it had been stilled with sudden doubt—then down it swept once more.

The red scimitar fell shattered!

He heard a voice—the voice of Ishtar—

"I have beaten you, Nergal!"

And Nergal, snarling—

"A trick, Ishtar! Not with you, but with your Sister–Self was my warfare to be!"

And again Ishtar—

"No trick, Nergal! I never said that I would not fight you. Yet this I will grant—though you have lost the ship—I will not take it! The ship is free!"

Then Nergal, grudgingly, snarling still—

"The strife is ended! The ship is free!"

For one beat in time Kenton seemed to see a vast vague face gazing down upon the ship, a face in which were all the tendernesses of all mothers, all loving women beneath the sun—the shadowy eyes dwelt softly on Sharane, softly but enigmatically upon him—

The face was gone!

As when a shutter is dropped before a closed lamp, so the darkness had fallen; and abruptly as when the shutter is lifted so the darkness fled; light took its place.