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Title: Worms of the EarthAuthor: Robert E. Howard* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 0607861h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: September 2006Most recent update: January 2019This eBook was produced by Richard Scott and updated by Roy Glashan.Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au
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Weird Tales, November 1932
"STRIKE in the nails, soldiers, and let our guestsee the reality of our good Roman justice!"
The speaker wrapped his purple cloak closer about his powerfulframe and settled back into his official chair, much as he mighthave settled back in his seat at the Circus Maximus to enjoy theclash of gladiatorial swords. Realization of power colored hisevery move. Whetted pride was necessary to Roman satisfaction, andTitus Sulla was justly proud; for he was military governor ofEboracum and answerable only to the emperor of Rome. He was astrongly built man of medium height, with the hawk-like features ofthe pure-bred Roman. Now a mocking smile curved his full lips,increasing the arrogance of his haughty aspect. Distinctly militaryin appearance, he wore the golden-scaled corselet and chasedbreastplate of his rank, with the short stabbing sword at his belt,and he held on his knee the silvered helmet with its plumed crest.Behind him stood a clump of impassive soldiers with shield andspear—blond titans from the Rhineland.
Before him was taking place the scene which apparently gave himso much real gratification—a scene common enough whereverstretched the far-flung boundaries of Rome. A rude cross lay flatupon the barren earth and on it was bound a man—half-naked,wild of aspect with his corded limbs, glaring eyes and shock oftangled hair. His executioners were Roman soldiers, and with heavyhammers they prepared to pin the victim's hands and feet to thewood with iron spikes.
Only a small group of men watched this ghastly scene, in thedread place of execution beyond the city walls: the governor andhis watchful guards; a few young Roman officers; the man to whomSulla had referred as "guest" and who stood like a bronze image,unspeaking. Beside the gleaming splendor of the Roman, the quietgarb of this man seemed drab, almost somber.
He was dark, but he did not resemble the Latins around him.There was about him none of the warm, almost Oriental sensuality ofthe Mediterranean which colored their features. The blondbarbarians behind Sulla's chair were less unlike the man in facialoutline than were the Romans. Not his were the full curving redlips, nor the rich waving locks suggestive of the Greek. Nor washis dark complexion the rich olive of the south; rather it was thebleak darkness of the north. The whole aspect of the man vaguelysuggested the shadowed mists, the gloom, the cold and the icy windsof the naked northern lands. Even his black eyes were savagelycold, like black fires burning through fathoms of ice.
His height was only medium but there was something about himwhich transcended mere physical bulk—a certain fierce innatevitality, comparable only to that of a wolf or a panther. In everyline of his supple, compact body, as well as in his coarse straighthair and thin lips, this was evident—in the hawk-like set ofthe head on the corded neck, in the broad square shoulders, in thedeep chest, the lean loins, the narrow feet. Built with the savageeconomy of a panther, he was an image of dynamic potentialities,pent in with iron self-control.
At his feet crouched one like him in complexion—but therethe resemblance ended. This other was a stunted giant, with gnarlylimbs, thick body, a low sloping brow and an expression of dullferocity, now clearly mixed with fear. If the man on the crossresembled, in a tribal way, the man Titus Sulla called guest, hefar more resembled the stunted crouching giant.
"Well, Partha Mac Othna," said the governor with studiedeffrontery, "when you return to your tribe, you will have a tale totell of the justice of Rome, who rules the south."
"I will have a tale," answered the other in a voice whichbetrayed no emotion, just as his dark face, schooled to immobility,showed no evidence of the maelstrom in his soul.
"Justice to all under the rule of Rome," said Sulla. "PaxRomana! Reward for virtue, punishment for wrong!" He laughedinwardly at his own black hypocrisy, then continued: "You see,emissary of Pictland, how swiftly Rome punishes thetransgressor."
"I see," answered the Pict in a voice which strongly-curbedanger made deep with menace, "that the subject of a foreign king isdealt with as though he were a Roman slave."
"He has been tried and condemned in an unbiased court," retortedSulla.
"Aye! And the accuser was a Roman, the witnesses Roman, thejudge Roman! He committed murder? In a moment of fury he struckdown a Roman merchant who cheated, tricked and robbed him, and toinjury added insult—aye, and a blow! Is his king but a dog,that Rome crucifies his subjects at will, condemned by Romancourts? Is his king too weak or foolish to do justice, were heinformed and formal charges brought against the offender?"
"Well," said Sulla cynically, "you may inform Bran Mak Mornyourself. Rome, my friend, makes no account of her actions tobarbarian kings. When savages come among us, let them act withdiscretion or suffer the consequences."
The Pict shut his iron jaws with a snap that told Sulla furtherbadgering would elicit no reply. The Roman made a gesture to theexecutioners. One of them seized a spike and placing it against thethick wrist of the victim, smote heavily. The iron point sank deepthrough the flesh, crunching against the bones. The lips of the manon the cross writhed, though no moan escaped him. As a trapped wolffights against his cage, the bound victim instinctively wrenchedand struggled. The veins swelled in his temples, sweat beaded hislow forehead, the muscles in arms and legs writhed and knotted. Thehammers fell in inexorable strokes, driving the cruel points deeperand deeper, through wrists and ankles; blood flowed in a blackriver over the hands that held the spikes, staining the wood of thecross, and the splintering of bones was distinctly heard. Yet thesufferer made no outcry, though his blackened lips writhed backuntil the gums were visible, and his shaggy head jerkedinvoluntarily from side to side.
The man called Partha Mac Othna stood like an iron image, eyesburning from an inscrutable face, his whole body hard as iron fromthe tension of his control. At his feet crouched his misshapenservant, hiding his face from the grim sight, his arms locked abouthis master's knees. Those arms gripped like steel and under hisbreath the fellow mumbled ceaselessly as if in invocation.
The last stroke fell; the cords were cut from arm and leg, sothat the man would hang supported by the nails alone. He had ceasedhis struggling that only twisted the spikes in his agonizingwounds. His bright black eyes, unglazed, had not left the face ofthe man called Partha Mac Othna; in them lingered a desperateshadow of hope. Now the soldiers lifted the cross and set the endof it in the hole prepared, stamped the dirt about it to hold iterect.
The Pict hung in midair, suspended by the nails in his flesh,but still no sound escaped his lips. His eyes still hung on thesomber face of the emissary, but the shadow of hope was fading.
"He'll live for days!" said Sulla cheerfully. "These Picts areharder than cats to kill! I'll keep a guard of ten soldierswatching night and day to see that no one takes him down before hedies. Ho, there, Valerius, in honor of our esteemed neighbor, KingBran Mak Morn, give him a cup of wine!"
With a laugh the young officer came forward, holding a brimmingwine cup, and rising on his toes, lifted it to the parched lips ofthe sufferer. In the black eyes flared a red wave of unquenchablehatred; writhing his head aside to avoid even touching the cup, hespat full into the young Roman's eyes. With a curse Valerius dashedthe cup to the ground, and before any could halt him, wrenched outhis sword and sheathed it in the man's body.
Sulla rose with an imperious exclamation of anger; the mancalled Partha Mac Othna had started violently, but he bit his lipand said nothing. Valerius seemed somewhat surprized at him as hesullenly cleansed his sword. The act had been instinctive,following the insult to Roman pride, the one thing unbearable.
"Give up your sword, young sir!" exclaimed Sulla. "CenturionPublius, place him under arrest. A few days in a cell with stalebread and water will teach you to curb your patrician pride inmatters dealing with the will of the empire. What, you young fool,do you not realize that you could not have made the dog a morekindly gift? Who would not rather desire a quick death on the swordthan the slow agony on the cross? Take him away. And you,centurion, see that guards remain at the cross so that the body isnot cut down until the ravens pick bare the bones. Partha MacOthna, I go to a banquet at the house of Demetrius—will younot accompany me?"
The emissary shook his head, his eyes fixed on the limp formwhich sagged on the black-stained cross. He made no reply. Sullasmiled sardonically, then rose and strode away, followed by hissecretary who bore the gilded chair ceremoniously, and by thestolid soldiers, with whom walked Valerius, head sunken.
The man called Partha Mac Othna flung a wide fold of his cloakabout his shoulder, halted a moment to gaze at the grim cross withits burden, darkly etched against the crimson sky, where the cloudsof night were gathering. Then he stalked away, followed by hissilent servant.
IN an inner chamber of Eboracum, the man calledPartha Mac Othna paced tigerishly to and fro. His sandaled feetmade no sound on the marble tiles.
"Grom!" he turned to the gnarled servant. "Well I know why youheld my knees so tightly—why you muttered aid of theMoon-Woman—you feared I would lose my self-control and make amad attempt to succor that poor wretch. By the gods, I believe thatwas what the dog Roman wishedhis iron-cased watchdogs watched menarrowly, I know, and his baiting was harder to bear thanordinarily.
"Gods black and white, dark and light!" He shook his clenchedfists above his head in the black gust of his passion. "That Ishould stand by and see a man of mine butchered on a Romancross—without justice and with no more trial than that farce!Black gods of R'lyeh, even you would I invoke to the ruin anddestruction of those butchers! I swear by the Nameless Ones, menshall die howling for that deed, and Rome shall cry out as a womanin the dark who treads upon an adder!"
"He knew you, master," said Grom.
The other dropped his head and covered his eyes with a gestureof savage pain.
"His eyes will haunt me when I lie dying. Aye, he knew me, andalmost until the last, I read in his eyes the hope that I might aidhim. Gods and devils, is Rome to butcher my people beneath my veryeyes? Then I am not king but dog!"
"Not so loud, in the name of all the gods!" exclaimed Grom inaffright. "Did these Romans suspect you were Bran Mak Morn, theywould nail you on a cross beside that other."
"They will know it ere long," grimly answered the king. "Toolong I have lingered here in the guise of an emissary, spying uponmine enemies. They have thought to play with me, these Romans,masking their contempt and scorn only under polished satire. Romeis courteous to barbarian ambassadors, they give us fine houses tolive in, offer us slaves, pander to our lusts with women and goldand wine and games, but all the while they laugh at us; their verycourtesy is an insult, and sometimes—as today—theircontempt discards all veneer. Bah! I've seen through theirbaitings—have remained imperturbably serene and swallowedtheir studied insults. But this—by the fiends of Hell, thisis beyond human endurance! My people look to me; if I failthem—if I fail even one—even the lowest of my people,who will aid them? To whom shall they turn? By the gods, I'llanswer the gibes of these Roman dogs with black shaft and trenchantsteel!"
"And the chief with the plumes?" Grom meant the governor and hisgutturals thrummed with the blood-lust. "He dies?" He flicked out alength of steel.
Bran scowled. "Easier said than done. He dies—but how mayI reach him? By day his German guards keep at his back; by nightthey stand at door and window. He has many enemies, Romans as wellas barbarians. Many a Briton would gladly slit his throat."
Grom seized Bran's garment, stammering as fierce eagerness brokethe bonds of his inarticulate nature.
"Let me go, master! My life is worth nothing. I will cut himdown in the midst of his warriors!"
Bran smiled fiercely and clapped his hand on the stunted giant'sshoulder with a force that would have felled a lesser man.
"Nay, old war-dog, I have too much need of thee! You shall notthrow your life away uselessly. Sulla would read the intent in youreyes, besides, and the javelins of his Teutons would be through youere you could reach him. Not by the dagger in the dark will westrike this Roman, not by the venom in the cup nor the shaft fromthe ambush."
The king turned and paced the floor a moment, his head bent inthought. Slowly his eyes grew murky with a thought so fearful hedid not speak it aloud to the waiting warrior.
"I have become somewhat familiar with the maze of Roman politicsduring my stay in this accursed waste of mud and marble," said he."During a war on the Wall, Titus Sulla, as governor of thisprovince, is supposed to hasten thither with his centuries. Butthis Sulla does not do; he is no coward, but the bravest avoidcertain things—to each man, however bold, his own particularfear. So he sends in his place Caius Camillus, who in times ofpeace patrols the fens of the west, lest the Britons break over theborder. And Sulla takes his place in the Tower of Trajan. Ha!"
He whirled and gripped Grom with steely fingers.
"Grom, take the red stallion and ride north! Let no grass growunder the stallion's hoofs! Ride to Cormac na Connacht and tell himto sweep the frontier with sword and torch! Let his wild Gaelsfeast their fill of slaughter. After a time I will be with him. Butfor a time I have affairs in the west."
Grom's black eyes gleamed and he made a passionate gesture withhis crooked hand—an instinctive move of savagery.
Bran drew a heavy bronze seal from beneath his tunic.
"This is my safe-conduct as an emissary to Roman courts," hesaid grimly. "It will open all gates between this house andBaal-dor. If any official questions you tooclosely—here!"
Lifting the lid of an iron-bound chest, Bran took out a small,heavy leather bag which he gave into the hands of the warrior.
"When all keys fail at a gate," said he, "try a golden key. Gonow!"
There were no ceremonious farewells between the barbarian kingand his barbarian vassal. Grom flung up his arm in a gesture ofsalute; then turning, he hurried out.
Bran stepped to a barred window and gazed out into the moonlitstreets.
"Wait until the moon sets," he muttered grimly. "Then I'll takethe road to—Hell! But before I go I have a debt to pay."
The stealthy clink of a hoof on the flags reached him.
"With the safe-conduct and gold, not even Rome can hold aPictish reaver," muttered the king. "Now I'll sleep until the moonsets."
With a snarl at the marble frieze-work and fluted columns, assymbols of Rome, he flung himself down on a couch, from which hehad long since impatiently torn the cushions and silk stuffs, astoo soft for his hard body. Hate and the black passion of vengeanceseethed in him, yet he went instantly to sleep. The first lesson hehad learned in his bitter hard life was to snatch sleep any time hecould, like a wolf that snatches sleep on the hunting trail.Generally his slumber was as light and dreamless as a panther's,but tonight it was otherwise.
*
He sank into fleecy gray fathoms of slumber and in a timeless,misty realm of shadows he met the tall, lean, white-bearded figureof old Gonar, the priest of the Moon, high counselor to the king.And Bran stood aghast, for Gonar's face was white as driven snowand he shook as with ague. Well might Bran stand appalled, for inall the years of his life he had never before seen Gonar the Wiseshow any sign of fear.
"What now, old one?" asked the king. "Goes all well inBaal-dor?"
"All is well in Baal-dor where my body lies sleeping," answeredold Gonar. "Across the void I have come to battle with you for yoursoul. King, are you mad, this thought you have thought in yourbrain?"
"Gonar," answered Bran somberly, "this day I stood still andwatched a man of mine die on the cross of Rome. What his name orhis rank, I do not know. I do not care. He might have been afaithful unknown warrior of mine, he might have been an outlaw. Ionly know that he was mine; the first scents he knew were thescents of the heather; the first light he saw was the sunrise onthe Pictish hills. He belonged to me, not to Rome. If punishmentwas just, then none but me should have dealt it. If he were to betried, none but me should have been his judge. The same bloodflowed in our veins; the same fire maddened our brains; in infancywe listened to the same old tales, and in youth we sang the sameold songs. He was bound to my heartstrings, as every man and everywoman and every child of Pictland is bound. It was mine to protecthim; now it is mine to avenge him."
"But in the name of the gods, Bran," expostulated the wizard,"take your vengeance in another way! Return to theheather—mass your warriorsjoin with Cormac and his Gaels, andspread a sea of blood and flame the length of the great Wall!"
"All that I will do," grimly answered Bran. "Butnow—now—I will have a vengeance such as no Romanever dreamed of! Ha, what do they know of the mysteries of thisancient isle, which sheltered strange life long before Rome rosefrom the marshes of the Tiber?"
"Bran, there are weapons too foul to use, even againstRome!"
Bran barked short and sharp as a jackal.
"Ha! There are no weapons I would not use against Rome! My backis at the wall. By the blood of the fiends, has Rome fought mefair? Bah! I am a barbarian king with a wolfskin mantle and an ironcrown, fighting with my handful of bows and broken pikes againstthe queen of the world. What have I? The heather hills, the wattlehuts, the spears of my shock-headed tribesmen! And I fightRome—with her armored legions, her broad fertile plains andrich seas—her mountains and her rivers and her gleamingcitiesher wealth, her steel, her gold, her mastery and her wrath.By steel and fire I will fight her—and by subtlety andtreachery—by the thorn in the foot, the adder in the path,the venom in the cup, the dagger in the dark; aye," his voice sanksomberly, "and by the worms of the earth!"
"But it is madness!" cried Gonar. "You will perish in theattempt you planyou will go down to Hell and you will not return!What of your people then?"
"If I can not serve them I had better die," growled theking.
"But you can not even reach the beings you seek," cried Gonar."For untold centuries they have dwelt apart. There is no door bywhich you can come to them. Long ago they severed the bonds thatbound them to the world we know."
"Long ago," answered Bran somberly, "you told me that nothing inthe universe was separated from the stream of Life—a sayingthe truth of which I have often seen evident. No race, no form oflife but is close-knit somehow, by some manner, to the rest of Lifeand the world. Somewhere there is a thin link connectingthose I seek to the world I know. Somewhere there is a Door.And somewhere among the bleak fens of the west I will find it."
Stark horror flooded Gonar's eyes and he gave back crying, "Woe!Woe! Woe! to Pictdom! Woe to the unborn kingdom! Woe, black woe tothe sons of men! Woe, woe, woe, woe!"
*
Bran awoke to a shadowed room and the starlight on thewindow-bars. The moon had sunk from sight though its glow was stillfaint above the house tops. Memory of his dream shook him and heswore beneath his breath.
Rising, he flung off cloak and mantle, donning a light shirt ofblack mesh-mail, and girding on sword and dirk. Going again to theiron-bound chest he lifted several compact bags and emptied theclinking contents into the leathern pouch at his girdle. Thenwrapping his wide cloak about him, he silently left the house. Noservants there were to spy on him—he had impatiently refusedthe offer of slaves which it was Rome's policy to furnish herbarbarian emissaries. Gnarled Grom had attended to all Bran'ssimple needs.
The stables fronted on the courtyard. A moment's groping in thedark and he placed his hand over a great stallion's nose, checkingthe nicker of recognition. Working without a light he swiftlybridled and saddled the great brute, and went through the courtyardinto a shadowy side street, leading him. The moon was setting, theborder of floating shadows widening along the western wall. Silencelay on the marble palaces and mud hovels of Eboracum under the coldstars.
Bran touched the pouch at his girdle, which was heavy withminted gold that bore the stamp of Rome. He had come to Eboracumposing as an emissary of Pictdom, to act the spy. But being abarbarian, he had not been able to play his part in aloof formalityand sedate dignity. He retained a crowded memory of wild feastswhere wine flowed in fountains; of white-bosomed Roman women, who,sated with civilized lovers, looked with something more than favoron a virile barbarian; of gladiatorial games; and of other gameswhere dice clicked and spun and tall stacks of gold changed hands.He had drunk deeply and gambled recklessly, after the manner ofbarbarians, and he had had a remarkable run of luck, due possiblyto the indifference with which he won or lost. Gold to the Pict wasso much dust, flowing through his fingers. In his land there was noneed of it. But he had learned its power in the boundaries ofcivilization.
Almost under the shadow of the northwestern wall he saw ahead ofhim loom the great watchtower which was connected with and rearedabove the outer wall. One corner of the castle-like fortress,farthest from the wall, served as a dungeon. Bran left his horsestanding in a dark alley, with the reins hanging on the ground, andstole like a prowling wolf into the shadows of the fortress.
*
The young officer Valerius was awakened from a light, unquietsleep by a stealthy sound at the barred window. He sat up, cursingsoftly under his breath as the faint starlight which etched thewindow-bars fell across the bare stone floor and reminded him ofhis disgrace. Well, in a few days, he ruminated, he'd be well outof it; Sulla would not be too harsh on a man with such highconnections; then let any man or woman gibe at him! Damn thatinsolent Pict! But wait, he thought suddenly, remembering: what ofthe sound which had roused him?
"Hsssst!" it was a voice from the window.
Why so much secrecy? It could hardly be a foe—yet, whyshould it be a friend? Valerius rose and crossed his cell, comingclose to the window. Outside all was dim in the starlight and hemade out but a shadowy form close to the window.
"Who are you?" he leaned close against the bars, straining hiseyes into the gloom.
His answer was a snarl of wolfish laughter, a long flicker ofsteel in the starlight. Valerius reeled away from the window andcrashed to the floor, clutching his throat, gurgling horribly as hetried to scream. Blood gushed through his fingers, forming abouthis twitching body a pool that reflected the dim starlight dullyand redly.
Outside Bran glided away like a shadow, without pausing to peerinto the cell. In another minute the guards would round the corneron their regular routine. Even now he heard the measured tramp oftheir iron-clad feet. Before they came in sight he had vanished andthey clumped stolidly by the cell-window with no intimation of thecorpse that lay on the floor within.
Bran rode to the small gate in the western wall, unchallenged bythe sleepy watch. What fear of foreign invasion inEboracum?—and certain well organized thieves andwomen-stealers made it profitable for the watchmen not to be toovigilant. But the single guardsman at the western gate—hisfellows lay drunk in a nearby brothel—lifted his spear andbawled for Bran to halt and give an account of himself. Silentlythe Pict reined closer. Masked in the dark cloak, he seemed dim andindistinct to the Roman, who was only aware of the glitter of hiscold eyes in the gloom. But Bran held up his hand against thestarlight and the soldier caught the gleam of gold; in the otherhand he saw a long sheen of steel. The soldier understood, and hedid not hesitate between the choice of a golden bribe or a battleto the death with this unknown rider who was apparently a barbarianof some sort. With a grunt he lowered his spear and swung the gateopen. Bran rode through, casting a handful of coins to the Roman.They fell about his feet in a golden shower, clinking against theflags. He bent in greedy haste to retrieve them and Bran Mak Mornrode westward like a flying ghost in the night.
INTO the dim fens of the west came Bran Mak Morn.A cold wind breathed across the gloomy waste and against the graysky a few herons flapped heavily. The long reeds and marsh-grasswaved in broken undulations and out across the desolation of thewastes a few still meres reflected the dull light. Here and thererose curiously regular hillocks above the general levels, and gauntagainst the somber sky Bran saw a marching line of uprightmonoliths—menhirs, reared by what nameless hands?
A faint blue line to the west lay the foothills that beyond thehorizon grew to the wild mountains of Wales where dwelt still wildCeltic tribesfierce blue-eyed men that knew not the yoke of Rome. Arow of well-garrisoned watchtowers held them in check. Even now,far away across the moors, Bran glimpsed the unassailable keep mencalled the Tower of Trajan.
These barren wastes seemed the dreary accomplishment ofdesolation, yet human life was not utterly lacking. Bran met thesilent men of the fen, reticent, dark of eye and hair, speaking astrange mixed tongue whose long-blended elements had forgottentheir pristine separate sources. Bran recognized a certain kinshipin these people to himself, but he looked on them with the scorn ofa pure-blooded patrician for men of mixed strains.
Not that the common people of Caledonia were altogetherpure-blooded; they got their stocky bodies and massive limbs from aprimitive Teutonic race which had found its way into the northerntip of the isle even before the Celtic conquest of Britain wascompleted, and had been absorbed by the Picts. But the chiefs ofBran's folk had kept their blood from foreign taint since thebeginnings of time, and he himself was a pure-bred Pict of the OldRace. But these fenmen, overrun repeatedly by British, Gaelic andRoman conquerors, had assimilated blood of each, and in the processalmost forgotten their original language and lineage.
For Bran came of a race that was very old, which had spread overwestern Europe in one vast Dark Empire, before the coming of theAryans, when the ancestors of the Celts, the Hellenes and theGermans were one primal people, before the days of tribalsplitting-off and westward drift.
Only in Caledonia, Bran brooded, had his people resisted theflood of Aryan conquest. He had heard of a Pictish people calledBasques, who in the crags of the Pyrenees called themselves anunconquered race; but he knew that they had paid tribute forcenturies to the ancestors of the Gaels, before these Celticconquerors abandoned their mountain-realm and set sail for Ireland.Only the Picts of Caledonia had remained free, and they had beenscattered into small feuding tribes—he was the firstacknowledged king in five hundred years—the beginning of anew dynasty—no, a revival of an ancient dynasty under a newname. In the very teeth of Rome he dreamed his dreams ofempire.
He wandered through the fens, seeking a Door. Of his quest hesaid nothing to the dark-eyed fenmen. They told him news thatdrifted from mouth to moutha tale of war in the north, the skirl ofwar-pipes along the winding Wall, of gathering-fires in theheather, of flame and smoke and rapine and the glutting of Gaelicswords in the crimson sea of slaughter. The eagles of the legionswere moving northward and the ancient road resounded to themeasured tramp of the iron-clad feet. And Bran, in the fens of thewest, laughed, well pleased.
*
In Eboracum, Titus Sulla gave secret word to seek out thePictish emissary with the Gaelic name who had been under suspicion,and who had vanished the night young Valerius was found dead in hiscell with his throat ripped out. Sulla felt that this suddenbursting flame of war on the Wall was connected closely with hisexecution of a condemned Pictish criminal, and he set his spysystem to work, though he felt sure that Partha Mac Othna was bythis time far beyond his reach. He prepared to march from Eboracum,but he did not accompany the considerable force of legionarieswhich he sent north. Sulla was a brave man, but each man has hisown dread, and Sulla's was Cormac na Connacht, the black-hairedprince of the Gaels, who had sworn to cut out the governor's heartand eat it raw. So Sulla rode with his ever-present bodyguard,westward, where lay the Tower of Trajan with its warlike commander,Caius Camillus, who enjoyed nothing more than taking his superior'splace when the red waves of war washed at the foot of the Wall.Devious politics, but the legate of Rome seldom visited this farisle, and what of his wealth and intrigues, Titus Sulla was thehighest power in Britain.
And Bran, knowing all this, patiently waited his coming, in thedeserted hut in which he had taken up his abode.
One gray evening he strode on foot across the moors, a starkfigure, blackly etched against the dim crimson fire of the sunset.He felt the incredible antiquity of the slumbering land, as hewalked like the last man on the day after the end of the world. Yetat last he saw a token of human life—a drab hut of wattle andmud, set in the reedy breast of the fen.
A woman greeted him from the open door and Bran's somber eyesnarrowed with a dark suspicion. The woman was not old, yet the evilwisdom of ages was in her eyes; her garments were ragged andscanty, her black locks tangled and unkempt, lending her an aspectof wildness well in keeping with her grim surroundings. Her redlips laughed but there was no mirth in her laughter, only a hint ofmockery, and under the lips her teeth showed sharp and pointed likefangs.
"Enter, master," said she, "if you do not fear to share the roofof the witch-woman of Dagon-moor!"
Bran entered silently and sat him down on a broken bench whilethe woman busied herself with the scanty meal cooking over an openfire on the squalid hearth. He studied her lithe, almost serpentinemotions, the ears which were almost pointed, the yellow eyes whichslanted curiously.
"What do you seek in the fens, my lord?" she asked, turningtoward him with a supple twist of her whole body.
"I seek a Door," he answered, chin resting on his fist. "I havea song to sing to the worms of the earth!"
She started upright, a jar falling from her hands to shatter onthe hearth.
"This is an ill saying, even spoken in chance," shestammered.
"I speak not by chance but by intent," he answered.
She shook her head. "I know not what you mean."
"Well you know," he returned. "Aye, you know well! My race isvery oldthey reigned in Britain before the nations of the Celts andthe Hellenes were born out of the womb of peoples. But my peoplewere not first in Britain. By the mottles on your skin, by theslanting of your eyes, by the taint in your veins, I speak withfull knowledge and meaning."
Awhile she stood silent, her lips smiling but her faceinscrutable.
"Man, are you mad," she asked, "that in your madness you comeseeking that from which strong men fled screaming in oldtimes?"
"I seek a vengeance," he answered, "that can be accomplishedonly by Them I seek."
She shook her head.
"You have listened to a bird singing; you have dreamed emptydreams."
"I have heard a viper hiss," he growled, "and I do not dream.Enough of this weaving of words. I came seeking a link between twoworlds; I have found it."
"I need lie to you no more, man of the North," answered thewoman. "They you seek still dwell beneath the sleeping hills. Theyhave drawnapart, farther and farther from the world youknow."
"But they still steal forth in the night to grip women strayingon the moors," said he, his gaze on her slanted eyes. She laughedwickedly.
"What would you of me?"
"That you bring me to Them."
She flung back her head with a scornful laugh. His left handlocked like iron in the breast of her scanty garment and his rightclosed on his hilt. She laughed in his face.
"Strike and be damned, my northern wolf! Do you think that suchlife as mine is so sweet that I would cling to it as a babe to thebreast?"
His hand fell away.
"You are right. Threats are foolish. I will buy your aid."
"How?" the laughing voice hummed with mockery.
Bran opened his pouch and poured into his cupped palm a streamof gold.
"More wealth than the men of the fen ever dreamed of."
Again she laughed. "What is this rusty metal to me? Save it forsome white-breasted Roman woman who will play the traitor foryou!"
"Name me a price!" he urged. "The head of an enemy—"
"By the blood in my veins, with its heritage of ancient hate,who is mine enemy but thee?" she laughed and springing, struckcatlike. But her dagger splintered on the mail beneath his cloakand he flung her off with a loathsome flit of his wrist whichtossed her sprawling across her grass-strewn bunk. Lying there shelaughed up at him.
"I will name you a price, then, my wolf, and it may be in daysto come you will curse the armor that broke Atla's dagger!" Sherose and came close to him, her disquietingly long hands fastenedfiercely into his cloak. "I will tell you, Black Bran, king ofCaledon! Oh, I knew you when you came into my hut with your blackhair and your cold eyes! I will lead you to the doors of Hell ifyou wish—and the price shall be the kisses of a king!
"What of my blasted and bitter life, I, whom mortal men loatheand fear? I have not known the love of men, the clasp of a strongarm, the sting of human kisses, I, Atla, the were-woman of themoors! What have I known but the lone winds of the fens, the drearyfire of cold sunsets, the whispering of the marshgrasses?—the faces that blink up at me in the waters of themeres, the foot-pad of night—things in the gloom, the glimmerof red eyes, the grisly murmur of nameless beings in the night!
"I am half-human, at least! Have I not known sorrow and yearningand crying wistfulness, and the drear ache of loneliness? Give tome, kinggive me your fierce kisses and your hurtful barbarian'sembrace. Then in the long drear years to come I shall not utterlyeat out my heart in vain envy of the white-bosomed women of men;for I shall have a memory few of them can boast—the kisses ofa king! One night of love, oh king, and I will guide you to thegates of Hell!"
Bran eyed her somberly; he reached forth and gripped her arm inhis iron fingers. An involuntary shudder shook him at the feel ofher sleek skin. He nodded slowly and drawing her close to him,forced his head down to meet her lifted lips.
THE cold gray mists of dawn wrapped King Bran likea clammy cloak. He turned to the woman whose slanted eyes gleamedin the gray gloom.
"Make good your part of the contract," he said roughly. "Isought a link between worlds, and in you I found it. I seek the onething sacred to Them. It shall be the Key opening the Door thatlies unseen between me and Them. Tell me how I can reach it."
"I will," the red lips smiled terribly. "Go to the mound mencall Dagon's Barrow. Draw aside the stone that blocks the entranceand go under the dome of the mound. The floor of the chamber ismade of seven great stones, six grouped about the seventh. Lift outthe center stone—and you will see!"
"Will I find the Black Stone?" he asked.
"Dagon's Barrow is the Door to the Black Stone," she answered,"if you dare follow the Road."
"Will the symbol be well guarded?" He unconsciously loosened hisblade in its sheath. The red lips curled mockingly.
"If you meet any on the Road you will die as no mortal man hasdied for long centuries. The Stone is not guarded, as men guardtheir treasures. Why should They guard what man has never sought?Perhaps They will be near, perhaps not. It is a chance you musttake, if you wish the Stone. Beware, king of Pictdom! Remember itwas your folk who, so long ago, cut the thread that bound Them tohuman life. They were almost human then—they overspread theland and knew the sunlight. Now they have drawn apart. They knownot the sunlight and they shun the light of the moon. Even thestarlight they hate. Far, far apart have they drawn, who might havebeen men in time, but for the spears of your ancestors."
*
The sky was overcast with misty gray, through which the sunshone coldly yellow when Bran came to Dagon's Barrow, a roundhillock overgrown with rank grass of a curious fungoid appearance.On the eastern side of the mound showed the entrance of a crudelybuilt stone tunnel which evidently penetrated the barrow. One greatstone blocked the entrance to the tomb. Bran laid hold of the sharpedges and exerted all his strength. It held fast. He drew his swordand worked the blade between the blocking stone and the sill. Usingthe sword as a lever, he worked carefully, and managed to loosenthe great stone and wrench it out. A foul charnel house scentflowed out of the aperture and the dim sunlight seemed less toilluminate the cavern-like opening than to be fouled by the rankdarkness which clung there.
Sword in hand, ready for he knew not what, Bran groped his wayinto the tunnel, which was long and narrow, built up of heavyjoined stones, and was too low for him to stand erect. Either hiseyes became somewhat accustomed to the gloom, or the darkness was,after all, somewhat lightened by the sunlight filtering in throughthe entrance. At any rate he came into a round low chamber and wasable to make out its general dome-like outline. Here, no doubt, inold times, had reposed the bones of him for whom the stones of thetomb had been joined and the earth heaped high above them; but nowof those bones no vestige remained on the stone floor. And bendingclose and straining his eyes, Bran made out the strange,startlingly regular pattern of that floor: six well-cut slabsclustered about a seventh, six-sided stone.
He drove his sword-point into a crack and pried carefully. Theedge of the central stone tilted slightly upward. A little work andhe lifted it out and leaned it against the curving wall. Straininghis eyes downward he saw only the gaping blackness of a dark well,with small, worn steps that led downward and out of sight. He didnot hesitate. Though the skin between his shoulders crawledcuriously, he swung himself into the abyss and felt the clingingblackness swallow him.
Groping downward, he felt his feet slip and stumble on steps toosmall for human feet. With one hand pressed hard against the sideof the well he steadied himself, fearing a fall into unknown andunlighted depths. The steps were cut into solid rock, yet they weregreatly worn away. The farther he progressed, the less like stepsthey became, mere bumps of worn stone. Then the direction of theshaft changed sharply. It still led down, but at a shallow slantdown which he could walk, elbows braced against the hollowed sides,head bent low beneath the curved roof. The steps had ceasedaltogether and the stone felt slimy to the touch, like a serpent'slair. What beings, Bran wondered, had slithered up and down thisslanting shaft, for how many centuries?
The tunnel narrowed until Bran found it rather difficult toshove through. He lay on his back and pushed himself along with hishands, feet first. Still he knew he was sinking deeper and deeperinto the very guts of the earth; how far below the surface he was,he dared not contemplate. Then ahead a faint witch-fire gleamtinged the abysmal blackness. He grinned savagely and withoutmirth. If They he sought came suddenly upon him, how could he fightin that narrow shaft? But he had put the thought of personal fearbehind him when he began this hellish quest. He crawled on,thoughtless of all else but his goal.
And he came at last into a vast space where he could standupright. He could not see the roof of the place, but he got animpression of dizzying vastness. The blackness pressed in on allsides and behind him he could see the entrance to the shaft fromwhich he had just emerged—a black well in the darkness. Butin front of him a strange grisly radiance glowed about a grim altarbuilt of human skulls. The source of that light he could notdetermine, but on the altar lay a sullen night-blackobject—the Black Stone!
Bran wasted no time in giving thanks that the guardians of thegrim relic were nowhere near. He caught up the Stone, and grippingit under his left arm, crawled into the shaft. When a man turns hisback on peril its clammy menace looms more grisly than when headvances upon it. So Bran, crawling back up the nighted shaft withhis grisly prize, felt the darkness turn on him and slink behindhim, grinning with dripping fangs. Clammy sweat beaded his fleshand he hastened to the best of his ability, ears strained for somestealthy sound to betray that fell shapes were at his heels. Strongshudders shook him, despite himself, and the short hair on his neckprickled as if a cold wind blew at his back.
When he reached the first of the tiny steps he felt as if he hadattained to the outer boundaries of the mortal world. Up them hewent, stumbling and slipping, and with a deep gasp of relief, cameout into the tomb, whose spectral grayness seemed like the blaze ofnoon in comparison to the stygian depths he had just traversed. Hereplaced the central stone and strode into the light of the outerday, and never was the cold yellow light of the sun more grateful,as it dispelled the shadows of black-winged nightmares of fear andmadness that seemed to have ridden him up out of the black deeps.He shoved the great blocking stone back into place, and picking upthe cloak he had left at the mouth of the tomb, he wrapped it aboutthe Black Stone and hurried away, a strong revulsion and loathingshaking his soul and lending wings to his strides.
A gray silence brooded over the land. It was desolate as theblind side of the moon, yet Bran felt the potentialities oflife—under his feet, in the brown earth—sleeping, buthow soon to waken, and in what horrific fashion?
He came through the tall masking reeds to the still deep mencalled Dagon's Mere. No slightest ripple ruffled the cold bluewater to give evidence of the grisly monster legend said dweltbeneath. Bran closely scanned the breathless landscape. He saw nohint of life, human or unhuman. He sought the instincts of hissavage soul to know if any unseen eyes fixed their lethal gaze uponhim, and found no response. He was alone as if he were the last manalive on earth.
Swiftly he unwrapped the Black Stone, and as it lay in his handslike a solid sullen block of darkness, he did not seek to learn thesecret of its material nor scan the cryptic characters carvedthereon. Weighing it in his hands and calculating the distance, heflung it far out, so that it fell almost exactly in the middle ofthe lake. A sullen splash and the waters closed over it. There wasa moment of shimmering flashes on the bosom of the lake; then theblue surface stretched placid and unrippled again.
THE were-woman turned swiftly as Bran approachedher door. Her slant eyes widened.
"You! And alive! And sane!"
"I have been into Hell and I have returned," he growled. "Whatis more, I have that which I sought."
"The Black Stone?" she cried. "You really dared steal it? Whereis it?"
"No matter; but last night my stallion screamed in his stall andI heard something crunch beneath his thundering hoofs which was notthe wall of the stable—and there was blood on his hoofs whenI came to see, and blood on the floor of the stall. And I haveheard stealthy sounds in the night, and noises beneath my dirtfloor, as if worms burrowed deep in the earth. They know I havestolen their Stone. Have you betrayed me?"
She shook her head.
"I keep your secret; they do not need my word to know you. Thefarther they have retreated from the world of men, the greater havegrown their powers in other uncanny ways. Some dawn your hut willstand empty and if men dare investigate they will findnothing—except crumbling bits of earth on the dirtfloor."
Bran smiled terribly.
"I have not planned and toiled thus far to fall prey to thetalons of vermin. If They strike me down in the night, They willnever know what became of their idol—or whatever it be toThem. I would speak with Them."
"Dare you come with me and meet them in the night?" sheasked.
"Thunder of all gods!" he snarled. "Who are you to ask me if Idare? Lead me to Them and let me bargain for a vengeance thisnight. The hour of retribution draws nigh. This day I saw silveredhelmets and bright shields gleam across the fens—the newcommander has arrived at the Tower of Trajan and Caius Camillus hasmarched to the Wall."
*
That night the king went across the dark desolation of the moorswith the silent were-woman. The night was thick and still as if theland lay in ancient slumber. The stars blinked vaguely, mere pointsof red struggling through the unbreathing gloom. Their gleam wasdimmer than the glitter in the eyes of the woman who glided besidethe king. Strange thoughts shook Bran, vague, titanic, primeval.Tonight ancestral linkings with these slumbering fens stirred inhis soul and troubled him with the phantasmal, eon-veiled shapes ofmonstrous dreams. The vast age of his race was borne upon him;where now he walked an outlaw and an alien, dark-eyed kings inwhose mold he was cast had reigned in old times. The Celtic andRoman invaders were as strangers to this ancient isle beside hispeople. Yet his race likewise had been invaders, and there was anolder race than his—a race whose beginnings lay lost andhidden back beyond the dark oblivion of antiquity.
Ahead of them loomed a low range of hills, which formed theeasternmost extremity of those straying chains which far awayclimbed at last to the mountains of Wales. The woman led the way upwhat might have been a sheep-path, and halted before a wide blackgaping cave.
"A door to those you seek, oh king!" her laughter rang hatefulin the gloom. "Dare ye enter?"
His fingers closed in her tangled locks and he shook herviciously.
"Ask me but once more if I dare," he grated, "and your head andshoulders part company! Lead on."
Her laughter was like sweet deadly venom. They passed into thecave and Bran struck flint and steel. The flicker of the tindershowed him a wide dusty cavern, on the roof of which hung clustersof bats. Lighting a torch, he lifted it and scanned the shadowyrecesses, seeing nothing but dust and emptiness.
"Where are They?" he growled.
She beckoned him to the back of the cave and leaned against therough wall, as if casually. But the king's keen eyes caught themotion of her hand pressing hard against a projecting ledge. Herecoiled as a round black well gaped suddenly at his feet. Againher laughter slashed him like a keen silver knife. He held thetorch to the opening and again saw small worn steps leadingdown.
"They do not need those steps," said Atla. "Once they did,before your people drove them into the darkness. But you will needthem."
She thrust the torch into a niche above the well; it shed afaint red light into the darkness below. She gestured into the welland Bran loosened his sword and stepped into the shaft. As he wentdown into the mystery of the darkness, the light was blotted outabove him, and he thought for an instant Atla had covered theopening again. Then he realized that she was descending afterhim.
The descent was not a long one. Abruptly Bran felt his feet on asolid floor. Atla swung down beside him and stood in the dim circleof light that drifted down the shaft. Bran could not see the limitsof the place into which he had come.
"Many caves in these hills," said Atla, her voice sounding smalland strangely brittle in the vastness, "are but doors to greatercaves which lie beneath, even as a man's words and deeds are butsmall indications of the dark caverns of murky thought lying behindand beneath."
And now Bran was aware of movement in the gloom. The darknesswas filled with stealthy noises not like those made by any humanfoot. Abruptly sparks began to flash and float in the blackness,like flickering fireflies. Closer they came until they girdled himin a wide half-moon. And beyond the ring gleamed other sparks, asolid sea of them, fading away in the gloom until the farthest weremere tiny pin-points of light. And Bran knew they were the slantedeyes of the beings who had come upon him in such numbers that hisbrain reeled at the contemplation—and at the vastness of thecavern.
Now that he faced his ancient foes, Bran knew no fear. He feltthe waves of terrible menace emanating from them, the grisly hate,the inhuman threat to body, mind and soul. More than a member of aless ancient race, he realized the horror of his position, but hedid not fear, though he confronted the ultimate Horror of thedreams and legends of his race. His blood raced fiercely but it waswith the hot excitement of the hazard, not the drive of terror.
"They know you have the Stone, oh king," said Atla, and thoughhe knew she feared, though he felt her physical efforts to controlher trembling limbs, there was no quiver of fright in her voice."You are in deadly peril; they know your breed of old—oh,they remember the days when their ancestors were men! I can notsave you; both of us will die as no human has died for tencenturies. Speak to them, if you will; they can understand yourspeech, though you may not understand theirs. But it will availnot—you are human—and a Pict."
Bran laughed and the closing ring of fire shrank back at thesavagery in his laughter. Drawing his sword with a soul-chillingrasp of steel, he set his back against what he hoped was a solidstone wall. Facing the glittering eyes with his sword gripped inhis right hand and his dirk in his left, he laughed as ablood-hungry wolf snarls.
"Aye," he growled, "I am a Pict, a son of those warriors whodrove your brutish ancestors before them like chaff before thestorm!—who flooded the land with your blood and heaped highyour skulls for a sacrifice to the Moon-Woman! You who fled of oldbefore my race, dare ye now snarl at your master? Roll on me like aflood now, if ye dare! Before your viper fangs drink my life I willreap your multitudes like ripened barley—of your severedheads will I build a tower and of your mangled corpses will I rearup a wall! Dogs of the dark, vermin of Hell, worms of the earth,rush in and try my steel! When Death finds me in this dark cavern,your living will howl for the scores of your dead and your BlackStone will be lost to you foreverfor only I know where it is hiddenand not all the tortures of all the Hells can wring the secret frommy lips!"
Then followed a tense silence; Bran faced the fire-lit darkness,tensed like a wolf at bay, waiting the charge; at his side thewoman cowered, her eyes ablaze. Then from the silent ring thathovered beyond the dim torchlight rose a vague abhorrent murmur.Bran, prepared as he was for anything, started. Gods, wasthat the speech of creatures which had once been calledmen?
Atla straightened, listening intently. From her lips came thesame hideous soft sibilances, and Bran, though he had already knownthe grisly secret of her being, knew that never again could hetouch her save with soul-shaken loathing.
She turned to him, a strange smile curving her red lips dimly inthe ghostly light.
"They fear you, oh king! By the black secrets of R'lyeh, who areyou that Hell itself quails before you? Not your steel, but thestark ferocity of your soul has driven unused fear into theirstrange minds. They will buy back the Black Stone at anyprice."
"Good," Bran sheathed his weapons. "They shall promise not tomolest you because of your aid of me. And," his voice hummed likethe purr of a hunting tiger, "they shall deliver into my handsTitus Sulla, governor of Eboracum, now commanding the Tower ofTrajan. This They can do—how, I know not. But I know that inthe old days, when my people warred with these Children of theNight, babes disappeared from guarded huts and none saw thestealers come or go. Do They understand?"
Again rose the low frightful sounds and Bran, who feared nottheir wrath, shuddered at their voices.
"They understand," said Atla. "Bring the Black Stone to Dagon'sRing tomorrow night when the earth is veiled with the blacknessthat foreruns the dawn. Lay the Stone on the altar. There They willbring Titus Sulla to you. Trust Them; They have not interfered inhuman affairs for many centuries, but They will keep theirword."
Bran nodded and turning, climbed up the stair with Atla closebehind him. At the top he turned and looked down once more. As faras he could see floated a glittering ocean of slanted yellow eyesupturned. But the owners of those eyes kept carefully beyond thedim circle of torchlight and of their bodies he could see nothing.Their low hissing speech floated up to him and he shuddered as hisimagination visualized, not a throng of biped creatures, but aswarming, swaying myriad of serpents, gazing up at him with theirglittering unwinking eyes.
He swung into the upper cave and Atla thrust the blocking stoneback in place. It fitted into the entrance of the well with uncannyprecision; Bran was unable to discern any crack in the apparentlysolid floor of the cavern. Atla made a motion to extinguish thetorch, but the king stayed her.
"Keep it so until we are out of the cave," he grunted. "We mighttread on an adder in the dark."
Atla's sweetly hateful laughter rose maddeningly in theflickering gloom.
IT was not long before sunset when Bran came againto the reed-grown marge of Dagon's Mere. Casting cloak andsword-belt on the ground, he stripped himself of his short leathernbreeches. Then gripping his naked dirk in his teeth, he went intothe water with the smooth ease of a diving seal. Swimming strongly,he gained the center of the small lake, and turning, drove himselfdownward.
The mere was deeper than he had thought. It seemed he wouldnever reach the bottom, and when he did, his groping hands failedto find what he sought. A roaring in his ears warned him and heswam to the surface.
Gulping deep of the refreshing air, he dived again, and againhis quest was fruitless. A third time he sought the depth, and thistime his groping hands met a familiar object in the silt of thebottom. Grasping it, he swam up to the surface.
The Stone was not particularly bulky, but it was heavy. He swamleisurely, and suddenly was aware of a curious stir in the watersabout him which was not caused by his own exertions. Thrusting hisface below the surface, he tried to pierce the blue depths with hiseyes and thought to see a dim gigantic shadow hovering there.
He swam faster, not frightened, but wary. His feet struck theshallows and he waded up on the shelving shore. Looking back he sawthe waters swirl and subside. He shook his head, swearing. He haddiscounted the ancient legend which made Dagon's Mere the lair of anameless water-monster, but now he had a feeling as if his escapehad been narrow. The time-worn myths of the ancient land weretaking form and coming to life before his eyes. What primeval shapelurked below the surface of that treacherous mere, Bran could notguess, but he felt that the fenmen had good reason for shunning thespot, after all.
Bran donned his garments, mounted the black stallion and rodeacross the fens in the desolate crimson of the sunset's afterglow,with the Black Stone wrapped in his cloak. He rode, not to his hut,but to the west, in the direction of the Tower of Trajan and theRing of Dagon. As he covered the miles that lay between, the redstars winked out. Midnight passed him in the moonless night andstill Bran rode on. His heart was hot for his meeting with TitusSulla. Atla had gloated over the anticipation of watching the Romanwrithe under torture, but no such thought was in the Pict's mind.The governor should have his chance with weapons—with Bran'sown sword he should face the Pictish king's dirk, and live or dieaccording to his prowess. And though Sulla was famed throughout theprovinces as a swordsman, Bran felt no doubt as to the outcome.
Dagon's Ring lay some distance from the Tower—a sullencircle of tall gaunt stones planted upright, with a rough-hewnstone altar in the center. The Romans looked on these menhirs withaversion; they thought the Druids had reared them; but the Celtssupposed Bran's people, the Picts, had planted them—and Branwell knew what hands reared those grim monoliths in lost ages,though for what reasons, he but dimly guessed.
The king did not ride straight to the Ring. He was consumed withcuriosity as to how his grim allies intended carrying out theirpromise. That They could snatch Titus Sulla from the very midst ofhis men, he felt sure, and he believed he knew how They would doit. He felt the gnawings of a strange misgiving, as if he hadtampered with powers of unknown breadth and depth, and had loosedforces which he could not control. Each time he remembered thatreptilian murmur, those slanted eyes of the night before, a coldbreath passed over him. They had been abhorrent enough when hispeople drove Them into the caverns under the hills, ages ago; whathad long centuries of retrogression made of them? In their nighted,subterranean life, had They retained any of the attributes ofhumanity at all?
Some instinct prompted him to ride toward the Tower. He knew hewas near; but for the thick darkness he could have plainly seen itsstark outline tusking the horizon. Even now he should be able tomake it out dimly. An obscure, shuddersome premonition shook himand he spurred the stallion into swift canter.
And suddenly Bran staggered in his saddle as from a physicalimpact, so stunning was the surprize of what met his gaze. Theimpregnable Tower of Trajan was no more! Bran's astounded gazerested on a gigantic pile of ruinsof shattered stone and crumbledgranite, from which jutted the jagged and splintered ends of brokenbeams. At one corner of the tumbled heap one tower rose out of thewaste of crumpled masonry, and it leaned drunkenly as if itsfoundations had been half cut away.
Bran dismounted and walked forward, dazed by bewilderment. Themoat was filled in places by fallen stones and broken pieces ofmortared wall. He crossed over and came among the ruins. Where, heknew, only a few hours before the flags had resounded to themartial tramp of iron-clad feet, and the walls had echoed to theclang of shields and the blast of the loud-throated trumpets, ahorrific silence reigned.
Almost under Bran's feet, a broken shape writhed and groaned.The king bent down to the legionary who lay in a sticky red pool ofhis own blood. A single glance showed the Pict that the man,horribly crushed and shattered, was dying.
Lifting the bloody head, Bran placed his flask to the pulpedlips and the Roman instinctively drank deep, gulping throughsplintered teeth. In the dim starlight Bran saw his glazed eyesroll.
"The walls fell," muttered the dying man. "They crashed downlike the skies falling on the day of doom. Ah Jove, the skiesrained shards of granite and hailstones of marble!"
"I have felt no earthquake shock," Bran scowled, puzzled.
"It was no earthquake," muttered the Roman. "Before last dawn itbegan, the faint dim scratching and clawing far below the earth. Weof the guard heard it—like rats burrowing, or like wormshollowing out the earth. Titus laughed at us, but all day long weheard it. Then at midnight the Tower quivered and seemed tosettle—as if the foundations were being dug away—"
A shudder shook Bran Mak Morn. The worms of the earth! Thousandsof vermin digging like moles far below the castle, burrowing awaythe foundationsgods, the land must be honeycombed with tunnels andcaverns—these creatures were even less human than he hadthought—what ghastly shapes of darkness had he invoked to hisaid?
"What of Titus Sulla?" he asked, again holding the flask to thelegionary's lips; in that moment the dying Roman seemed to himalmost like a brother.
"Even as the Tower shuddered we heard a fearful scream from thegovernor's chamber," muttered the soldier. "We rushedthere—as we broke down the door we heard hisshrieks—they seemed to recede—into the bowels of theearth! We rushed in; the chamber was empty. His bloodstainedsword lay on the floor; in the stone flags of the floor a blackhole gaped.Then—the—towers—reeled—the—roof—broke;—through—a—storm—of—crashing—walls—I—crawled—"
A strong convulsion shook the broken figure.
"Lay me down, friend," whispered the Roman. "I die."
He had ceased to breathe before Bran could comply. The Pictrose, mechanically cleansing his hands. He hastened from the spot,and as he galloped over the darkened fens, the weight of theaccursed Black Stone under his cloak was as the weight of a foulnightmare on a mortal breast.
As he approached the Ring, he saw an eery glow within, so thatthe gaunt stones stood etched like the ribs of a skeleton in whicha witch-fire burns. The stallion snorted and reared as Bran tiedhim to one of the menhirs. Carrying the Stone he strode into thegrisly circle and saw Atla standing beside the altar, one hand onher hip, her sinuous body swaying in a serpentine manner. The altarglowed all over with ghastly light and Bran knew someone, probablyAtla, had rubbed it with phosphorus from some dank swamp orquagmire.
He strode forward and whipping his cloak from about the Stone,flung the accursed thing on to the altar.
"I have fulfilled my part of the contract," he growled.
"And They, theirs," she retorted. "Look!—They come!"
He wheeled, his hand instinctively dropping to his sword.Outside the Ring the great stallion screamed savagely and rearedagainst his tether. The night wind moaned through the waving grassand an abhorrent soft hissing mingled with it. Between the menhirsflowed a dark tide of shadows, unstable and chaotic. The Ringfilled with glittering eyes which hovered beyond the dim illusivecircle of illumination cast by the phosphorescent altar. Somewherein the darkness a human voice tittered and gibbered idiotically.Bran stiffened, the shadows of a horror clawing at his soul.
He strained his eyes, trying to make out the shapes of those whoringed him. But he glimpsed only billowing masses of shadow whichheaved and writhed and squirmed with almost fluid consistency.
"Let them make good their bargain!" he exclaimed angrily.
"Then see, oh king!" cried Atla in a voice of piercingmockery.
There was a stir, a seething in the writhing shadows, and fromthe darkness crept, like a four-legged animal, a human shape thatfell down and groveled at Bran's feet and writhed and mowed, andlifting a death's-head, howled like a dying dog. In the ghastlylight, Bran, soul-shaken, saw the blank glassy eyes, the bloodlessfeatures, the loose, writhing, froth-covered lips of sheerlunacy—gods, was this Titus Sulla, the proud lord of life anddeath in Eboracum's proud city?
Bran bared his sword.
"I had thought to give this stroke in vengeance," he saidsomberly. "I give it in mercy—Vale Caesar!"
The steel flashed in the eery light and Sulla's head rolled tothe foot of the glowing altar, where it lay staring up at theshadowed sky.
"They harmed him not!" Atla's hateful laugh slashed the sicksilence. "It was what he saw and came to know that broke his brain!Like all his heavy-footed race, he knew nothing of the secrets ofthis ancient land. This night he has been dragged through thedeepest pits of Hell, where even you might have blenched!"
"Well for the Romans that they know not the secrets of thisaccursed land!" Bran roared, maddened, "with its monster-hauntedmeres, its foul witch-women, and its lost caverns and subterraneanrealms where spawn in the darkness shapes of Hell!"
"Are they more foul than a mortal who seeks their aid?" criedAtla with a shriek of fearful mirth. "Give them their BlackStone!"
A cataclysmic loathing shook Bran's soul with red fury.
"Aye, take your cursed Stone!" he roared, snatching it from thealtar and dashing it among the shadows with such savagery thatbones snapped under its impact. A hurried babel of grisly tonguesrose and the shadows heaved in turmoil. One segment of the massdetached itself for an instant and Bran cried out in fiercerevulsion, though he caught only a fleeting glimpse of the thing,had only a brief impression of a broad strangely flattened head,pendulous writhing lips that bared curved pointed fangs, and ahideously misshapen, dwarfish body thatseemed—mottled—all set off by those unwinkingreptilian eyes. Gods!—the myths had prepared him for horrorin human aspect, horror induced by bestial visage and stunteddeformity—but this was the horror of nightmare and thenight.
"Go back to Hell and take your idol with you!" he yelled,brandishing his clenched fists to the skies, as the thick shadowsreceded, flowing back and away from him like the foul waters ofsome black flood. "Your ancestors were men, though strange andmonstrous—but gods, ye have become in ghastly fact what mypeople called ye in scorn!
"Worms of the earth, back into your holes and burrows! Ye foulthe air and leave on the clean earth the slime of the serpents yehave become! Gonar was right—there are shapes too foul to useeven against Rome!"
He sprang from the Ring as a man flees the touch of a coilingsnake, and tore the stallion free. At his elbow Atla was shriekingwith fearful laughter, all human attributes dropped from her like acloak in the night.
"King of Pictland!" she cried, "King of fools! Do you blench atso small a thing? Stay and let me show you real fruits of the pits!Ha! ha! ha! Run, fool, run! But you are stained with thetaint—you have called them forth and they will remember! Andin their own time they will come to you again!"
He yelled a wordless curse and struck her savagely in the mouthwith his open hand. She staggered, blood starting from her lips,but her fiendish laughter only rose higher.
Bran leaped into the saddle, wild for the clean heather and thecold blue hills of the north where he could plunge his sword intoclean slaughter and his sickened soul into the red maelstrom ofbattle, and forget the horror which lurked below the fens of thewest. He gave the frantic stallion the rein, and rode through thenight like a hunted ghost, until the hellish laughter of thehowling were-woman died out in the darkness behind.
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