Eldritch Tales (14 page)

The ill-made cottage shakes, the pack without

Dance with new fury in demoniac rout.

Quick as his thought, the valiant bailiff stands

Above the wolf, a weapon in his hands;

The ready ax that served a year before,

Now serves as well to slay one monster more.

The creature drops inert, with shatter’d head,

Full on the floor, and silent as the dead;

The rescu’d wife recalls the dire alarms,

And faints from terror in her husband’s arms.

But as he holds her, all the cottage quakes,

And with full force the titan tempest breaks:

Down crash the walls, and o’er their shrinking forms

Burst the mad revels of the storm of storms.

Th’ encircling wolves advance with ghastly pace,

Hunger and murder in each gleaming face,

But as they close, from out the hideous night

Flashes a bolt of unexpected light:

The vivid scene to ev’ry eye appears,

And peasants shiver with returning fears.

Above the wreck the scatheless chimney stays,

Its outline glimm’ring in the fitful rays,

Whilst o’er the hearth still hangs the household shrine,

The Saviour’s image and the Cross divine!

Round the blest spot a lambent radiance glows,

And shields the cotters from their stealthy foes:

Each monstrous creature marks the wondrous glare,

Drops, fades, and vanishes in empty air!

The village train with startled eyes adore,

And count their beads in rev’rence o’er and o’er.

Now fades the light, and dies the raging blast,

The hour of dread and reign of horror past.

Pallid and bruis’d, from out his toppled walls

The panting bailiff with his good wife crawls:

Kind hands attend them, whilst o’er all the town

A strange sweet peace of spirit settles down.

Wonder and fear are still’d in soothing sleep,

As through the breaking clouds the moon rays peep.

Confus’d with age, the tale half out of reach;

The list’ning guest, impatient for a clue,

Fears ’tis not one tale, but a blend of two;

He fain would know how far’d the widow’d lord

Whose eerie ways th’ initial theme afford,

And marvels that the crone so quick should slight

His fate, to babble of the wolf-rack’d night.

The old wife, press’d, for greater clearness strives,

Nods wisely, and her scatter’d wits revives;

Of wolf and bailiff, miracle and gale.

When (quoth the crone) the dawn’s bright radiance bath’d

Th’ eventful scene, so late in terror swath’d,

The chatt’ring churls that sought the ruin’d cot

Found a new marvel in the gruesome spot.

From fallen walls a trail of gory red,

As of the stricken wolf, erratic led;

O’er road and mead the new-dript crimson wound,

Till lost amidst the neighb’ring swampy ground:

With wonder unappeas’d the peasants burn’d,

For what the quicksand takes is ne’er return’d.

Stops in her tale, to watch a hawk soar by;

The weary list’ner, baffled, seeks anew

For some plain statement, or enlight’ning clue.

Th’ indulgent crone attends the puzzled plea,

Yet strangely mutters o’er the mystery.

The Sieur? Ah, yes . . . that morning all in vain

His shaking servants scour’d the frozen plain;

No man had seen him since he rode away

In silence on the dark preceding day.

His horse, wild-eyed with some unusual fright,

Came wand’ring from the river bank that night.

His hunting-hound, that mourn’d with piteous woe,

Howl’d by the quicksand swamp, his grief to show.

The village folk thought much, but utter’d less;

The servants’ search wore out in emptiness:

For Sieur De Blois (the old wife’s tale is o’er)

Was lost to mortal sight forevermore.

THE WHITE SHIP

From far shores came those white-sailed argosies of old; from far Eastern shores where warm suns shine and sweet odours linger about strange gardens and gay temples. The old captains of the sea came often to my grandfather and told him of these things, which in turn he told to my father, and my father told to me in the long autumn evenings when the wind howled eerily from the East. And I have read more of these things, and of many things besides, in the books men gave me when I was young and filled with wonder.

But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. All my days have I watched it and listened to it, and I know it well. At first it told to me only the plain little tales of calm beaches and near ports, but with the years it grew more friendly and spoke of other things; of things more strange and more distant in space and in time. Sometimes at twilight the grey vapours of the horizon have parted to grant me glimpses of the ways beyond; and sometimes at night the deep waters of the sea have grown clear and phosphorescent, to grant me glimpses of the ways beneath. And these glimpses have been as often of the ways that were and the ways that might be, as of the ways that are; for ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.

Out of the South it was that the White Ship used to come when the moon was full and high in the heavens. Out of the South it would glide very smoothly and silently over the sea. And whether the sea was rough or calm, and whether the wind was friendly or adverse, it would always glide smoothly and silently, its sails distant and its long strange tiers of oars moving rhythmically. One night I espied upon the deck a man, bearded and robed, and he seemed to beckon me to embark for fair unknown shores. Many times afterward I saw him under the full moon, and ever did he beckon me.

Very brightly did the moon shine on the night I answered the call, and I walked out over the waters to the White Ship on a bridge of moonbeams. The man who had beckoned now spoke a welcome to me in a soft language I seemed to know well, and the hours were filled with soft songs of the oarsmen as we glided away into a mysterious South, golden with the glow of that full, mellow moon.

And when the day dawned, rosy and effulgent, I beheld the green shore of far lands, bright and beautiful, and to me unknown. Up from the sea rose lordly terraces of verdure, tree-studded, and shewing here and there the gleaming white roofs and colonnades of strange temples. As we drew nearer the green shore the bearded man told me of that land, the Land of Zar, where dwell all the dreams and thoughts of beauty that come to men once and then are forgotten. And when I looked upon the terraces again I saw that what he said was true, for among the sights before me were many things I had once seen through the mists beyond the horizon and and in the phosphorescent depths of ocean. There too were forms and fantasies more splendid than any I had ever known; the visions of young poets who died in want before the world could learn of what they had seen and dreamed. But we did not set foot upon the sloping meadows of Zar, for it is told that he who treads them may nevermore return to his native shore.

As the White Ship sailed silently away from the templed terraces of Zar, we beheld on the distant horizon ahead the spires of a mighty city; and the bearded man said to me: ‘This is Thalarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders, wherein reside all those mysteries that man has striven in vain to fathom.’ And I looked again, at closer range, and saw that the city was greater than any city I had known or dreamed of before. Into the sky the spires of its temples reached, so that no man might behold their peaks; and far back beyond the horizon stretched the grim, grey walls, over which one might spy only a few roofs, weird and ominous, yet adorned with rich friezes and alluring sculptures. I yearned mightily to enter this fascinating yet repellent city, and besought the bearded man to land me at the stone pier by the huge carven gate Akariel; but he gently denied my wish, saying: ‘Into Thalarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders, many have passed but none returned. Therein walk only daemons and mad things that are no longer men, and the streets are white with the unburied bones of those who have looked upon the eidolon Lathi, that reigns over the city.’ So the White Ship sailed on past the walls of Thalarion, and followed for many days a southward flying bird, whose glossy plumage matched the sky out of which it had appeared.

Then came we to a pleasant coast gay with blossoms of every hue, where as far inland as we could see basked lovely groves and radiant arbours beneath a meridian sun. From bowers beyond our view came bursts of song and snatches of lyric harmony, interspersed with faint laughter so delicious that I urged the rowers onward in my eagerness to reach the scene. And the bearded man spoke no word, but watched me as we approached the lily-lined shore. Suddenly a wind blowing from over the flowery meadows and leafy woods brought a scent at which I trembled. The wind grew stronger, and the air was filled with the lethal, charnel odour of plague-stricken towns and uncovered cemeteries. And as we sailed madly away from that damnable coast the bearded man spoke at last, saying: ‘This is Xura, the Land of Pleasures Unattained.’

So once more the White Ship followed the bird of heaven, over warm blessed seas fanned by caressing, aromatic breezes. Day after day and night after night did we sail, and when the moon was full we would listen to soft songs of the oarsmen, sweet as on that distant night when we sailed away from my far native land. And it was by moonlight that we anchored at last in the harbour of Sona-Nyl, which is guarded by twin headlands of crystal that rise from the sea and meet in a resplendent arch. This is the Land of Fancy, and we walked to the verdant shore upon a golden bridge of moonbeams.

In the Land of Sona-Nyl there is neither time nor space, neither suffering nor death; and there I dwelt for many aeons. Green are the groves and pastures, bright and fragrant the flowers, blue and musical the streams, clear and cool the fountains, and stately and gorgeous the temples, castles, and cities of Sona-Nyl. Of that land there is no bound, for beyond each vista of beauty rises another more beautiful. Over the countryside and amidst the splendour of cities rove at will the happy folk, of whom all are gifted with unmarred grace and unalloyed happiness. For the aeons that I dwelt there I wandered blissfully through gardens where quaint pagodas peep from pleasing clumps of bushes, and where the white walks are bordered with delicate blossoms. I climbed gentle hills from whose summits I could see entrancing panoramas of loveliness, with steepled towns nestling in verdant valleys, and with the golden domes of gigantic cities glittering on the infinitely distant horizon. And I viewed by moonlight the sparkling sea, the crystal headlands, and the placid harbour wherein lay anchored the White Ship.

It was against the full moon one night in the immemorial year of Tharp that I saw outlined the beckoning form of the celestial bird, and felt the first stirrings of unrest. Then I spoke with the bearded man, and told him of my new yearnings to depart for remote Cathuria, which no man hath seen, but which all believe to lie beyond the basalt pillars of the West. It is the Land of Hope, and in it shine the perfect ideals of all that we know elsewhere; or at least so men relate. But the bearded man said to me: ‘Beware of those perilous seas wherein men say Cathuria lies. In Sona-Nyl there is no pain nor death, but who can tell what lies beyond the basalt pillars of the West?’ Natheless at the next full moon I boarded the White Ship, and with the reluctant bearded man left the happy harbour for untravelled seas.