Абрахам Меррит - Creep, Shadow!

I climbed up to her. There was no hint of tenderness now in her eyes or face. Only triumph… and her eyes were violet flames. She lifted a fold of her dress, veiling eyes and face from me.

The bracelet of Ys was gone from her arm!

She beckoned, and I followed her. We skirted the ridge, and ever the ruddy glow grew brighter. I saw that the surges were no longer sullen, but that great waves marched with us, clamoring, white banners of foam streaming, white manes of the sea-horses tossing.

The path ran now below the crest of the ridge. Ahead, on the landward side, was another upthrust of rock, and here again she waited for me. She stood with face averted, still covered by the fold. She pointed to the rock; she said:

"Climb – and see." Once more the spray-cold fingers touched my eyes… "And hear"… they touched my ears.

She was gone.

I climbed the rock. I scrambled over its top.

Strong hands caught my arms, pinioning them behind me, forcing me to my knees. I twisted and looked into the face of McCann. He was bending, his face close to mine, peering as though he found it difficult to see me clearly.

I cried: "McCann!"

He swore, incredulously, released me. Someone else was on the rock – a lean and dark man with thin, ascetic face and snow-white hair. He, too, was leaning and peering at me as though he found it difficult to see me. That was odd, for I could see them both clearly. I knew him… he had been in the old room where my shadow search for Helen had ended… Ricori.

McCann was stammering: "Caranac – my God, boss, Caranac!"

I whispered, steeling myself against any blow:

"Helen?"

"She lives." It was Ricori who answered.

My whole body went weak with reaction so that I would have fallen had he not caught me. A new fear took me: "But will she live?"

He said: "She has had a – strange experience. When we left her she was fully conscious. Steadily growing stronger. Her brother is with her. You are all she needs. We are here to take you back to her."

I said: "No. Not until – "

Gale blast that closed my mouth as though a hand had struck it. Crash of wave against the ridge, shaking it. I felt the spray of it on my face, and it was like the whip of Dahut and it was like the cold fingers of her on my eyes…

And suddenly McCann and Ricori seemed unreal and shadowy. And suddenly I seemed to see the shining body of Dahut swaying onward upon the path between the sea and the ridge… and I heard a voice in my heart – the Lord of Carnac's voice and mine: How can I kill her, evil as I know her to be?…

Ricori's voice… how long had he been talking?… "and so when last night you did not appear, I used, as you had suggested – my judgment. After we were assured of her safety, we set out. We persuaded the guardians of the gates to let us enter. They will guard no more gates. We saw the lights, and we thought that where they were you would most likely be. We distributed our men, and McCann and I came by chance upon this excellent place for observation. We saw neither you nor the Demoiselle Dahut…"

… Dahut!… another wave broke upon the rock, and shook it, then surged back shouting shouting – Dahut! Another gust roared over the rock roaring – Dahut! Ricori was saying: "They are down there, awaiting our signal – "

I interrupted, attention abruptly centered: "Signal for what?"

He said: "To stop what is going on down there."

He pointed toward the inward edge of the rock, and I saw that its edge was outlined black against depths of the ruddy light. I walked to the edge and looked down.

The Cairn was plain before me. I thought: How strangely close it seems… how stark the monoliths stand out!

It was as though the Cairn were but a few yards away… de Keradel so close that I could reach out my hand and touch him. I knew that there were many of the standing stones between me and the Cairn, and that it must be a full thousand feet away. Yet not only could I see the Cairn as though I were beside it, I could see within it as well.

Strange, too, although the wind was roaring overhead and whipping us on the rock, that the fires before the Cairn burned steadily; flickering only when those who fed them sprinkled them from the black ewers they carried… and that although the wind came from the sea, the smoke of the fires streamed straight against it.

And strange how silent it was down there among the monoliths when steadily grew the shouting and the clamor of the sea… nor did the flashing of the lightning marching ever higher dim the fires, nor did the rumbling thunder invade the silence of the plain more than did the clamor of the combers…

Those who fed the fires were not now in white but in red. And de Keradel was clothed in a robe of red instead of the white robe of the sacrifices. He wore the black belt and the cincture but the shifting symbols on them glittered not silver but scarlet…

There were ten of the fires, in a semi-circle between the three altars and the monoliths which faced the threshold of the Cairn. Each was a little more than a man's height, and they burned with a cone-shaped, still flame. From the peak of each arose a column of smoke. They were as thick as the arm of a man, these columns, and having risen twice the height of the fires, they curved, and then streamed straight toward the threshold of the Cairn. They were like ten black arteries of which the ten fires were the hearts, and they were threaded with crimson filaments, like little fiery veins.

The blackened hollowed stone was hidden by a greater fire which burned not only red but black. Nor was this, like the others, a still flame. It pulsed with slow and rhythmic beat – as though in truth it were a heart. Between it and the great slab of granite upon which he had beaten in the breasts of the sacrifices stood de Keradel.

There was something lying upon the stone of sacrifice, covering it. At first I thought it a man, a giant, lying there. Then I saw that it was an immense vessel, strangely shaped, and hollow.

A vat.

I could look into this vat. It was half-filled with a clotted, reddish- black fluid over the surface of which ran tiny flames. Not pale and dead like the corposants, but crimson and filled with evil life. It was to this vat that the blank-eyed men who fed the fires came to have their ewers refilled. And it was from it that de Keradel took that which he sprinkled upon the pulsing fire and his hands and his arms were red with it.

On the threshold of the Cairn was another vessel, a huge bowl like a shallow baptismal font. It was filled, and over its surface ran the crimson flames.

The smoke from the lesser fires, the ten crimson-threaded arteries, met in the thicker column that arose from the throbbing fire, mingled with it, and streamed as one into the Cairn.

The silence of the plain was broken by a whispering, a faint wailing, and up from the bases of the monoliths shadows began to rise. They lifted, as I had first seen them, to their knees… and then they were wrenched from the earth, and whimpering, wailing, were sucked into the Cairn… beating about it… fighting to escape.

Within the Cairn was the Gatherer… the Blackness.

From the first I had known It was there. It was no longer shapeless, nebulous – part of an infinitely greater Something that dwelt in space and beyond space. The Gatherer was breaking loose… taking form. The small crimson flames were running through It… like corpuscles of evil blood. It was condensing, steadily becoming material.

That which filled the font on the threshold of the Cairn was empty.

De Keradel filled it from the vat… and again… and again.

The Gatherer drank from the font and fed upon the shadows, and upon the smoke of the fires which were fed by blood. And steadily It assumed shape.