The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (56 page)

As he spoke another pair joined the first–then suddenly the dark well below us was alive with floating yellow gleams, like evil stars reflected in a nighted gulf. They flowed up the stairs toward us, silently except for that detestable sliding sound. A vile earthy smell welled up to our nostrils.

“Back, in God’s name!” gasped Conrad, and we began to move back away from the stairs, up the tunnel down which we had come. Then suddenly there came the rush of some heavy body through the air, and wheeling, I fired blindly and pointblank in the darkness. And my scream, as the flash momentarily lighted the shadow, was echoed by Conrad. The next instant we were racing up the tunnel as men might run from hell, while behind us something flopped and floundered and wallowed on the floor in its death-throes.

“Turn on your light,” I gasped. “We mustn’t get lost in these hellish labyrinths.”

The beam stabbed the dark ahead of us, and showed us the outer corridor where we had first seen the arrow. There we halted an instant, and Conrad directed his beam back down the tunnel. We saw only the empty darkness, but beyond that short ray of light, God only knows what horrors crawled through the blackness.

“My God, my God!” Conrad panted. “Did you see? Did you see?”

“I don’t know!” I gasped. “I glimpsed something–like a flying shadow–in the flash of the shot. It wasn’t a man–it had a head something like a dog–”

“I wasn’t looking in that direction,” he whispered. “I was looking down the stairs when the flash of your gun cut the darkness.”

“What did you see?” My flesh was clammy with cold sweat.

“Human words can not describe it!” he cried. “The black earth quickened as with giant maggots. The darkness heaving and writhing with blasphemous life. In God’s name, let’s get out of here–down this corridor to the tomb!”

But even as we took a forward step, we were paralyzed by stealthy sounds ahead of us.

“The corridors are alive with them!” whispered Conrad. “Quick–the other way! This corridor follows the line of the hill and must run to the door in Smuggler’s Point.”

Until I die I will remember that flight down that black silent corridor, with the horror that slunk at our heels. I momentarily expected some demon-fanged spectre to leap upon our backs, or rise up out of the blackness ahead of us. Then Conrad, shining his dimming light ahead, gave a gasping sob of relief.

“The door at last! My God, what’s this?”

Even as his light had shown a heavy iron-bound door, with a heavy key in the massive lock, he had stumbled over something that lay crumpled on the floor. His light showed a twisted human shape, its blasted head lying in a pool of blood. The features were unrecognizable, but we knew the gaunt, lank shape, still clad in the grave-clothes. The real Death had overtaken Jonas Kiles at last.

“That cry as we passed the Point tonight!” whispered Conrad. “It was his death-scream! He had returned to the tunnels after showing himself to his brother–and horror came upon him in the dark!”

Suddenly, as we stood above the corpse, we heard again that damnable sliding scrambling noise in the darkness. In a frenzy we leaped at the door–tore at the key–hurled open the door. With a sob of relief we staggered into the moon-lit night. For an instant the door swung open behind us, then as we turned to look, a savage gust of wind crashed it shut.

But before it closed, a ghastly picture leaped out at us, half lighted by the straggling moon-beams: the sprawling, mutilated corpse, and above it a grey, shambling monstrosity–a flaming-eyed dog-headed horror such as madmen see in black nightmares. Then the slamming door blotted out the sight, and as we fled across the slope in the shifting moon-light, I heard Conrad babbling, “Spawn of the black pits of madness and eternal night! Crawling obscenities seething in the slime of the earth’s unguessed deeps–the ultimate horror of retrogression–the nadir of human degeneration–good God, their ancestors were men!

The pits below the fifteenth tier, into what hells of blasphemous black horror do they sink, and by what demoniac hordes are they peopled? God protect the sons of men from the Dwellers–the Dwellers under the tomb!”

An Open Window

Behind the Veil what gulfs of Time and Space?

What blinking mowing Shapes to blast the sight?

I shrink before a vague colossal Face

Born in the mad immensities of Night.

The House of Arabu

To the house whence no one issues,

To the road from whence there is no return,

To the house whose inhabitants are deprived of light,

The place where dust is their nourishment, their food clay,

They have no light, dwelling in dense darkness,

And they are clothed, like birds, in a garment of feathers,

Where, over gate and bolt, dust is scattered.

–Babylonian legend of Ishtar

“Has he seen a night-spirit, is he listening to the whispers of them who dwell in darkness?”

Strange words to be murmured in the feast-hall of Naram-ninub, amid the strain of lutes, the patter of fountains, and the tinkle of women’s laughter. The great hall attested the wealth of its owner, not only by its vast dimensions, but by the richness of its adornment. The glazed surface of the walls offered a bewildering variegation of colors–blue, red, and orange enamels set off by squares of hammered gold.

The air was heavy with incense, mingled with the fragrance of exotic blossoms from the gardens without.

The feasters, silk-robed nobles of Nippur, lounged on satin cushions, drinking wine poured from alabaster vessels, and caressing the painted and bejeweled playthings which Naram-ninub’s wealth had brought from all parts of the East.

There were scores of these; their white limbs twinkled as they danced, or shone like ivory among the cushions where they sprawled. A jeweled tiara caught in a burnished mass of night-black hair, a gem-crusted armlet of massive gold, earrings of carven jade–these were their only garments. Their fragrance was dizzying. Shameless in their dancing, feasting and lovemaking, their light laughter filled the hall in waves of silvery sound.

On a broad cushion-piled dais reclined the giver of the feast, sensuously stroking the glossy locks of a lithe Arabian who had stretched herself on her supple belly beside him. His appearance of sybaritic languor was belied by the vital sparkling of his dark eyes as he surveyed his guests. He was thick-bodied, with a short blue-black beard: a Semite–one of the many drifting yearly into Shumir.

With one exception his guests were Shumirians, shaven of chin and head. Their bodies were padded with rich living, their features smooth and placid. The exception among them stood out in startling contrast.

Taller than they, he had none of their soft sleekness. He was made with the economy of relentless Nature. His physique was of the primitive, not of the civilized athlete. He was an incarnation of Power, raw, hard, wolfish–in the sinewy limbs, the corded neck, the great arch of the breast, the broad hard shoulders. Beneath his tousled golden mane his eyes were like blue ice. His strongly chiselled features reflected the wildness his frame suggested. There was about him nothing of the measured leisure of the other guests, but a ruthless directness in his every action. Whereas they sipped, he drank in great gulps.

They nibbled at tid-bits, but he seized whole joints in his fingers and tore at the meat with his teeth. Yet his brow was shadowed, his expression moody. His magnetic eyes were introspective. Wherefore Prince Ibi-Engur lisped again in Naram-ninub’s ear: “Has the lord Pyrrhas heard the whispering of night-things?”

Naram-ninub eyed his friend in some worriment. “Come, my lord,” said he, “you are strangely distraught.

Has any here done aught to offend you?”

Pyrrhas roused himself as from some gloomy meditation and shook his head. “Not so, friend; if I seem distracted it is because of a shadow that lies over my own mind.” His accent was barbarous, but the timbre of his voice was strong and vibrant.

The others glanced at him in interest. He was Eannatum’s general of mercenaries, an Argive whose saga was epic.

“Is it a woman, lord Pyrrhas?” asked Prince Enakalli with a laugh. Pyrrhas fixed him with his gloomy stare and the prince felt a cold wind blowing on his spine.

“Aye, a woman,” muttered the Argive. “One who haunts my dreams and floats like a shadow between me and the moon. In my dreams I feel her teeth in my neck, and I wake to hear the flutter of wings and the cry of an owl.”

A silence fell over the group on the dais. Only in the great hall below rose the babble of mirth and conversation and the tinkling of lutes, and a girl laughed loudly, with a curious note in her laughter.

“A curse is upon him,” whispered the Arabian girl. Naram-ninub silenced her with a gesture, and was about to speak, when Ibi-Engur lisped: “My lord Pyrrhas, this has an uncanny touch, like the vengeance of a god. Have you done aught to offend a deity?”

Naram-ninub bit his lip in annoyance. It was well known that in his recent campaign against Erech, the Argive had cut down a priest of Anu in his shrine. Pyrrhas’ maned head jerked up and he glared at Ibi-Engur as if undecided whether to attribute the remark to malice or lack of tact. The prince began to pale, but the slim Arabian rose to her knees and caught at Naram-ninub’s arm.

“Look at Belibna!” She pointed at the girl who had laughed so wildly an instant before.

Her companions were drawing away from this girl apprehensively. She did not speak to them, or seem to see them. She tossed her jeweled head and her shrill laughter rang through the feast-hall. Her slim body swayed back and forth, her bracelets clanged and jangled together as she tossed up her white arms. Her dark eyes gleamed with a wild light, her red lips curled with her unnatural mirth.

“The hand of Arabu is on her,” whispered the Arabian uneasily.

“Belibna!” Naram-ninub called sharply. His only answer was another burst of wild laughter, and the girl cried stridently: “To the home of darkness, the dwelling of Irhalla; to the road whence there is no return; oh, Apsu, bitter is thy wine!” Her voice snapped in a terrible scream, and bounding from among her cushions, she leaped up on the dais, a dagger in her hand. Courtesans and guests shrieked and scrambled madly out of her way. But it was at Pyrrhas the girl rushed, her beautiful face a mask of fury. The Argive caught her wrist, and the abnormal strength of madness was futile against the barbarian’s iron thews. He tossed her from him, and down the cushion-strewn steps, where she lay in a crumpled heap, her own dagger driven into her heart as she fell.

The hum of conversation, which had ceased suddenly, rose again as the guards dragged away the body, and the painted dancers came back to their cushions. But Pyrrhas turned and taking his wide crimson cloak from a slave, threw it about his shoulders.

“Stay, my friend,” urged Naram-ninub. “Let us not allow this small matter to interfere with our revels.

Madness is common enough.”

Pyrrhas shook his head irritably. “Nay, I’m weary of swilling and gorging. I’ll go to my own house.”

“Then the feasting is at an end,” declared the Semite, rising and clapping his hands. “My own litter shall bear you to the house the king has given you–nay, I forgot you scorn to ride on other men’s backs. Then I shall myself escort you home. My lords, will you accompany us?”

“Walk, like common men?” stuttered Prince Ur-ilishu. “By Enlil, I will come. It will be a rare novelty. But I must have a slave to bear the train of my robe, lest it trail in the dust of the street. Come, friends, let us see the lord Pyrrhas home, by Ishtar!”

“A strange man,” Ibi-Engur lisped to Libit-ishbi, as the party emerged from the spacious palace, and descended the broad tiled stair, guarded by bronze lions. “He walks the streets, unattended, like a very tradesman.”

“Be careful,” murmured the other. “He is quick to anger, and he stands high in the favor of Eannatum.”

“Yet even the favored of the king had best beware of offending the god Anu,” replied Ibi-Engur in an equally guarded voice.

The party were proceeding leisurely down the broad white street, gaped at by the common folk who bobbed their shaven heads as they passed. The sun was not long up, but the people of Nippur were well astir. There was much coming and going between the booths where the merchants spread their wares: a shifting panorama, woven of craftsmen, tradesmen, slaves, harlots, and soldiers in copper helmets. There went a merchant from his warehouse, a staid figure in sober woolen robe and white mantle; there hurried a slave in a linen tunic; there minced a painted hoyden whose short slit skirt displayed her sleek flank at every step. Above them the blue of the sky whitened with the heat of the mounting sun. The glazed surfaces of the buildings shimmered. They were flat-roofed, some of them three or four stories high.

Nippur was a city of sun-dried brick, but its facings of enamel made it a riot of bright color.

Somewhere a priest was chanting: “Oh, Babbar, righteousness lifteth up to thee its head–”

Pyrrhas swore under his breath. They were passing the great temple of Enlil, towering up three hundred feet in the changeless blue sky.

“The towers stand against the sky like part of it,” he swore, raking back a damp lock from his forehead.

“The sky is enameled, and this is a world made by man.”

“Nay, friend,” demurred Naram-ninub. “Ea built the world from the body of Tiamat.”

“I say men built Shumir!” exclaimed Pyrrhas, the wine he had drunk shadowing his eyes. “A flat land–a very banquet-board of a land–with rivers and cities painted upon it, and a sky of blue enamel over it. By Ymir, I was born in a land the gods built! There are great blue mountains, with valleys lying like long shadows between, and snow peaks glittering in the sun. Rivers rush foaming down the cliffs in everlasting tumult, and the broad leaves of the trees shake in the strong winds.”

“I, too, was born in a broad land, Pyrrhas,” answered the Semite. “By night the desert lies white and awful beneath the moon, and by day it stretches in brown infinity beneath the sun. But it is in the swarming cities of men, these hives of bronze and gold and enamel and humanity, that wealth and glory lie.”