Абрахам Меррит - Creep, Shadow!

Dahut was watching me, and I wondered why I had not seen her enter. She wore the robe of thick white cotton, but the girdle around her waist was of gold and on it the shifting symbols were red; and of red gold was the fillet that bound her hair and the bracelets upon her arms. In her hand was a golden sickle, razor-edged.

They fastened around my waist another black and silver symboled belt, and set upon my head a chaplet of the black oak leaves. De Keradel drew from his belt the maul and put it in my hand. I shrank from its touch and dropped it. He picked it up and closed my fingers around it. I tried to unclose them and could not, although the touch of the maul was loathsome. I raised the maul and looked at it. It was heavy and black with age… like the belt… like the chaplet. It was shaped all of one piece as though carved from the heart of oak; shaft in center, ends of its massive head blunt.

The mael bennique ! The beater in of breasts! Heart crusher! And I knew that its blackness was less from age than from red baptisms.

My exaltation ebbed. Something deep within me was stirring, tearing at its fetters, whispering to me… whispering that it had been to stop the beating of his maul that I had gone from Carnac long and long ago to slay Dahut… that whatever else I did I must not use the maul… but also that I must go on, go on as I had in… lost Ys meet and even steep myself in this ancient evil, so that… so that…

De Keradel's face was thrust into mine, mouth snarling, hell-fire flaming in his eyes: "You are one with us, Bearer of the Maul!"

Dahut's hand closed around mine; her cheek touched me. The exaltation swept back; the deep revolt forgotten. But some echo of it remained. I said:

"I am one with you – but I will not wield the maul." Dahut's hand pressed and my fingers were loosed and I threw the thing from me.

De Keradel said, deadly: "You do as I command. Pick up the maul."

Dahut said, sweetly, but with voice as deadly as his own: "Patience, my father. He shall bear the bowl and the ewer and do with them as is prescribed. He shall feed the fires. Unless he wields the maul of his own will, it is useless. Be patient."

He answered her, furiously: "Once before you betrayed a father for your lover."

She said, steadily: "And may again… and if so what can you do, my father?"

His face writhed; he half raised his arm as though to strike her. And then crept into his eyes that same fear as had shown there on the night we had met when he had spoken of Powers summoned to aid and obey, and she had added – "or to command us."

His arm dropped. He picked up the maul, and gave to me the bowl and ewer. He said, sullenly: "Let us go."

We went out of that room, he on one side of me and Dahut at the other. Down the stairs we went. A score of the servants were in the great hall. All wore the white robes and they held unlighted flambeaux. They sank upon their knees as we approached them. De Keradel pressed upon the wall and a section slid open, revealing wide stone steps winding down and down. Arm in arm, Dahut and de Keradel and I trod them, the servants behind us until we faced what seemed to be a wall of solid stone. Here again de Keradel pressed, and a part of the wall raised slowly and silently like a curtain.

It had masked a portal to a vast chamber hewn out of the solid rock. Through the portal stole a penetrating pungent odor, and from beyond it came the murmur of many voices. The light that filled it was dim but crystal clear – like a forest twilight. There were a hundred or more men and women facing us, and their eyes wide-pupilled and blank – rapt – looking into another world. But they saw us. There were cubicles all around the cavern, and others came out of them, women who carried babies in their arms, women at whose skirts children clung. Babies and children were wide-eyed too, small faces rapt and impassive, dreaming. And men and women wore that ancient dress.

De Keradel raised the maul and shouted to them. They answered the shout and rushed toward us, throwing themselves upon their faces as we drew near; crawling to and kissing my feet, the feet of de Keradel, the slim and sandaled feet of Dahut.

De Keradel began a chant, low-voiced, vibrant – archaic. Dahut joined him, and my own throat answered… in that tongue I knew and did not know. The men and women lifted themselves to their knees. They joined, full throated, in the chant. They lifted themselves to their feet and stood swaying to its cadence. I studied them. They were gaunt-faced and old, most of them. Their garb was what I had known in ancient Carnac, but their faces were not those of Carnac's sacrifices.

There was a glow in their breasts, over their hearts. But in too many it was dim and yellowed, flickering toward extinction. Only in the babies and the children was it clear and steady.

I said to de Keradel: "Too many are old. The fire of life is dim within them. The essence of life which feeds the wicks runs too low. We need younger sacrifices – those in whom the fire of life is strong."

He answered: "Does it matter – so long as there is life to be eaten?"

I said, angrily: "It does matter! We must have youth. Nor are these of the old blood."

He looked at me for the first time since I had refused to pick up the maul. There was calculation in the glowing eyes, and satisfaction and approval. He looked at Dahut, and I saw her nod to him, and she murmured: "I am right, my father… he is one with us, but… patience."

De Keradel said: "We shall have youth – later. All we need of it. But now we must do with what we have."

Dahut touched my hand, and pointed. At the far end of the cavern a ramp led up to another door. She said:

"Time goes – and we must do with what we have now."

De Keradel took up the chant. We walked, the three of us, between the ranks of swaying, chanting men and women. The servants with the flambeaux fell in behind us and behind them trooped the singing sacrifices. We ascended the ramp. A door opened smoothly. We passed through it into the open air.

De Keradel stepped ahead; his chanting fuller voiced; challenging. The night was cloudy and thin wisps of fog eddied around us. We crossed a broad open stretch and entered a grove of great oaks. The oaks sighed and whispered; then their branches began to toss and their leaves soughed the chant. De Keradel raised his maul and saluted them. We passed out of the oaks.

For an instant ancient time and this time and all times reeled around me. I stopped my chanting. I said, strangled: "Carnac – but it cannot be! Carnac was then… and this is now!"

Dahut's arm was around my shoulders; Dahut's lips were upon mine; she whispered: "There is no then… there is no now… for us, beloved. And you are one with us."

Yet still I stood and looked; while behind me the chanting became ever fainter, faltering and uncertain. For there was a level space before me over which great monoliths marched, not leaning nor fallen as at Carnac now, but lifting straight up, defiant, as in Carnac of old. Scores of them in avenues like the spokes of a tremendous wheel. They marched and circled to the gigantic dolmen, the Cairn, that was their heart. A crypt that was truly an Alkar-Az… greater than that which I had known in most ancient Carnac… and among and between the standing stones danced the wraiths of the fog… the fog was a huge inverted bowl covering the Cairn and the monoliths. And against the standing stones leaned shadows… the shadows of men…

Dahut's hands touched my eyes, covered them. And abruptly all strangeness, all comparisons of memory, were gone. De Keradel had turned, facing the sacrifices, roaring out the chant, black maul raised high, the symbols on black belt and cincture dancing like quicksilver. I raised the bowl and ewer and roared the chant. The faltering voices gathered strength, roared out to meet us. Dahut's lips were again on mine… "Beloved, you are one with us."