Абрахам Меррит - Creep, Shadow!

From below came the murmur of voices, then that of de Keradel raised in anger, and following it, the laughter of Dahut – taunting, mocking, brittle with menace. I slipped to the head of the stairs. The lower hall was but dimly lighted. The voices came from the big living room, and that the two were quarreling was evident, but their words were inaudible. I crept down the stairs and flattened myself beside the edge of one of the heavy curtains which covered the doorway.

I heard de Keradel say, voice now level and controlled: "I tell you that it is finished. There remains only the last sacrifice… which I perform tonight. I do not need you for that, my daughter. Nor after it is done shall I ever need you more. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. The end toward which I have been working all my life has been reached. He… has told me. Now… He… will become wholly manifest and ascend His throne. And I – " all De Keradel's egotism was in his voice, colossal, blasphemous – "and I shall sit beside Him. He… has promised me. The dark power which men in all ages and in all lands have sought – the power which Atlantis almost attained and that Ys drew but thinly from the Cairn – the power for which the medieval world so feebly groped – that power will be mine. In all its fullness. In all its unconquerable might. There was a rite none knew, and… He… has taught me it. No, I need you no longer, Dahut. Yet I am loath to lose you. And… He… is inclined to you. But you would have a price to pay."

There was a little silence, and then Dahut's voice, very still:

"And that price, my father?"

"The blood of your lover."

He waited for her answer – as did I, but she made none, and he said:

"I do not need it. I have pressed the paupers and have enough and to spare. But his would enrich it, and it would be acceptable to… Him. He… has told me so. It would strengthen His draught. And… He… has asked for it."

She asked, slowly: "And if I refuse?"

"It will not save him, my daughter."

Again he waited for her to speak, then said with simulated and malicious wonder: "What – a Dahut of Ys to hesitate between her father and her lover! This man has a debt to pay, my daughter. An ancient one since it was for one who bore his name an ancestress of yours betrayed another father. Or was it you, Dahut? It is my duty to cancel that ancient wrong… lest, perchance, it should recur."

She asked, quietly: "And if I refuse – what of me?" He laughed: "How can I tell? Now, I am swayed by my fatherly impulses. But when I sit beside… Him… What you may mean to me I cannot know. Perhaps – nothing."

She asked: "What shape will He assume?"

"Any or all. There is no shape he cannot take. Be assured that it will not be the inchoate blackness which the dull minds of those who evoked… Him… by the rites of the Cairn forced upon… Him. No, no – He might even take the shape of your lover, Dahut. Why not? He… is inclined to you, my daughter."

Now at this my skin grew cold, and the hatred I felt for him was like a band of hot iron around my temples, and I gathered myself to leap through the curtains and lock my hands around his throat. But the shadows held me back and whispered, and the ghosts of the old house whispered with them – "Not yet! Not yet!"

He said: "Be wise, my daughter. Always this man has betrayed you. What are you with your shadows? What was Helen with her dolls? Children. Children playing with toys. With shadows and dolls! Pass from childhood, my daughter – give me the blood of your lover."

She answered, musingly: "A child! I had forgotten that I had ever been a child."

He made no reply to that. She seemed to wait for one; then said, tranquilly:

"So you ask for the blood of my lover? Well – you shall not have it."

There was the crash of an overthrown chair. I drew the curtain a hair's breadth aside and peered in. De Keradel stood at the head of the table glaring at Dahut. But it was not the face nor the body of the de Keradel I had known. His eyes were no longer pale blue… they were black, and his silvery hair seemed black and his body had grown… and long arms reached toward and long taloned fingers clutched at Dahut.

She threw something down upon the table between her and him. I could not see what it was, but it sped like a racing, small and shining wave straight at him. And he threw himself back from it, and stood trembling, eyes again blue but suffused with blood, and body shrunken.

"Beware, my father! Not yet do you sit on the throne with… Him. And I am still of the sea, my father. So beware!"

There was a shuffle of feet behind me. The blank-eyed butler was at my side. He started to kneel – and then the vagueness went from his eyes. He sprang at me, mouth opening to cry alarm. Before he could make a sound, my hands were around his throat, thumbs crushing into his larynx, my knee in his groin. With a strength I had never before known, I lifted him by his neck and held him up from the floor. His legs wrapped round me and I thrust my head under his chin and drew it sharply up. There was a faint snap and his body went limp. I carried it back along the hall and set it noiselessly on the floor. The whole brief struggle had been soundless. His eyes, blank enough now, stared up at me. I searched him. In his belt was a sheath, and in that a long, curved, razor-sharp knife.

Now I had a weapon. I rolled the body under a deep settee, stole back to the living room and peeped through the curtains. It was empty, Dahut and de Keradel gone.

I stepped back for a moment into the cover of the curtains. I knew now what it was the ghosts of the old house had feared. Knew the meaning of the trembling and the rhythmic thudding. The cavern of the sacrifices had been destroyed. It had served its purpose. How had de Keradel put it?… that he had "pressed the paupers" and had enough and more than enough blood for the last sacrifice. Incongruously, a line came into my mind – "He is trampling out the wine press where the grapes of wrath are stored… " Not so incongruous… I thought: De Keradel has trampled out another wine press for the Gatherer's drink. My blood was to have been mixed with it, but Dahut had refused to let it be!

I felt no gratitude toward her for that. She was a spider who thought her fly securely in her web, and was resisting another spider's attempt to take it from her. That was all. But the fly was no longer in her web nor did it owe her for its release. If I felt increase of hatred for de Keradel, I felt no decrease of it for Dahut.

Nevertheless, what I had heard had changed the vague pattern of my vengeance. The design clarified. The shadows were wrong. Dahut must not die before her father. I had a better plan… it came to me from the Lord of Carnac whom Dahut thought had died in her arms… and he counseled me as he had counseled himself, long and long and long ago in ancient Ys.

I walked up the stairs. The door to my room was open. I switched on the lights, boldly.

Dahut was standing there, between me and the bed.

She smiled – but her eyes did not. She walked toward me. I thrust the point of the long knife toward her. She stopped and laughed – but her eyes did not laugh. She said:

"You are so elusive, my beloved. You have such a gift for disappearance."

"You have told me that before, Dahut. And – " I touched my cheek " – have, even emphasized it."

Her eyes misted, welled, and tears were on her cheeks: "You have much to forgive – but so have I, Alan."

Well, that was true enough.

… Beware… beware Dahut…

"Where did you get your knife, Alan?"

A practical question that steadied me; I answered it as practically: "From one of your men whom I killed."

"'And would kill me with it – if I came close?"