The Altar and the Scorpion
The Altar and the Scorpion
“God of the crawling darkness, grant me aid!”
A slim youth knelt in the gloom, his white body shimmering like ivory. The marble polished floor was cold to his knees but his heart was colder than the stone.
High above him, merged into the masking shadows, loomed the great lapis lazuli ceiling, upheld by marble walls. Before him glimmered a golden altar and on this altar shone a huge crystal image–a scorpion, wrought with a craft surpassing mere art.
“Great Scorpion,” the boy continued his invocation. “Aid thy worshipper! Thou knowest how in by-gone days, Gonra of the Sword, my greatest ancestor, died before thy shrine on a heap of slain barbarians who sought to defile thy holiness. Through the mouths of thy priests, thou promised aid to Gonra’s race for all the years to come!
“Great Scorpion! Never has man or woman of my blood before reminded thee of thy vow! But now in my hour of bitter need I come before thee, to abjure thee to remember that oath, by the blood drunk by Gonra’s blade, by the blood spilled from Gonra’s veins!
“Great Scorpion! Guron, high priest of the Black Shadow is my enemy! Kull, king of all Valusia, rides from his purple spired city to smite with fire and steel the priests who have defied him and still offer human sacrifice to the dark elder gods. But before the king may arrive and save us, I and the girl I love shall lie stark on the black altar in the Temple of Everlasting Darkness. Guron has sworn! He will give our soft bodies to ancient and abhorred abominations, and at last, our souls to the god that lurks forever in the Black Shadow.
“Kull sits high on the throne of Valusia and now he rides to our aid, but Guron rules this mountain city and even now he follows me! Great Scorpion, aid us! Remember Gonra, who gave up his life for you when the Atlantean savages carried the torch and sword into Valusia!”
The boy’s slender form drooped, his head sank on his bosom despairingly. The great shimmering image on the altar gave back an icy sheen in the dim light and no sign came to its worshipper, to show that the curious god had heard that passionate invocation.
Suddenly the youth started erect. Quick steps throbbed on the long wide steps outside the temple. A girl darted into the shadowed doorway like a white flame blown before the wind.
“Guron–he comes!” she gasped as she flew into her lover’s arms.
The boy’s face went white and his embrace tightened as he gazed apprehensively at the doorway. Footfalls, heavy and sinister, clashed on the marble and a shape of menace loomed in the opening.
Guron the high priest was a tall, gaunt man, a cadaverous giant. His evil eyes glimmered like fiery pools under his penthouse brows and his thin gash of a mouth gaped in a silent laugh. His only garment was a silken loin cloth, through which was thrust a cruel curved dagger, and he carried a short heavy whip in his lean and powerful hand.
His two victims clung to each other and gazed white eyed at their foe, as birds stare at a serpent. And Guron’s slow swaying stride as he advanced was not unlike the sinuous glide of a crawling snake.
“Guron, have a care!” the youth spoke bravely but his voice faltered from the fearful terror that gripped him. “If you have no fear of the king or pity for us, beware offending the Great Scorpion, under whose protection we are!”
Guron laughed in his might and arrogance.
“The king!” he jeered. “What means the king to me, who am mightier than any king? The Great Scorpion? Ho! Ho! A forgotten god, a deity remembered only by children and women! Would you pit your Scorpion against the Black Shadow? Fool! Valka himself, god of all gods, could not save you now! You are sworn to the god of the Black Shadow!”
He swept toward the cowering youngsters and gripped their white shoulders, sinking his talon-like nails deep into the soft flesh. They sought to resist but he laughed and with incredible strength, lifted them in the air, where he dangled them at arm’s length, as a man might dangle a baby. His grating, metallic laughter filled the room with echoes of evil mockery.
Then, holding the youth between his knees, he bound the girl hand and foot while she whimpered in his cruel clutch, then flinging her roughly to the floor, bound the youth likewise. Stepping back, he surveyed his work. The girl’s frightened sobs sounded quick and panting in the silence. At last the high priest spoke.
“Fools, to think to escape me! Always men of your blood, boy, have opposed me in council and court. Now you pay and the Black Shadow drinks. Ho! ho! I rule the city today, let he be king who may!
“My priests throng the streets, full armed, and no man dare say me nay! Were the king in the saddle this moment, he could not arrive and break my swordsmen in time to save you.”
His eyes roved about the temple and fell upon the golden altar and the silent crystal scorpion.
“Ho ho! What fools to pin your faith on a god whom men have long ceased to worship! Who has not even a priest to attend him, and who is granted a shrine only because of the memory of his former greatness, who is accorded reverence only by simple people and foolish women!
“The real gods are dark and bloody! Remember my words when soon you lie on an ebon altar behind which broods a black shadow forever! Before you die you shall know the real gods, the powerful, the terrible gods, who came from forgotten worlds and lost realms of blackness. Who had their birth on frozen stars, and black suns brooding beyond the light of any stars! You shall know the brain shattering truth of that Unnamable One, to whose reality no earthly likeness may be given, but whose symbol is–the Black Shadow!”
The girl ceased to cry, frozen, like the youth, into dazed silence. They sensed, behind these threats, a hideous and inhuman gulf of monstrous shadows.
Guron took a stride toward them, bent and reached claw-like hands to grip and lift them to his shoulders. He laughed as they sought to writhe away from him. His fingers closed on the girl’s tender shoulder–
A scream shattered the crystal gong of the silence into a million vibrating shards as Guron bounded into the air and fell on his face, screeching and writhing. Some small creature scurried away and vanished through the door. Guron’s screams dwindled into a high thin squealing and broke short at the highest note. Silence fell like a deathly mist.
At last the boy spoke in an awed whisper:
“What was it?”
“A scorpion!” the girl’s answer came low and tremulous. “It crawled across my bare bosom without harming me, and when Guron seized me, it stung him!”
Another silence fell. Then the boy spoke again, hesitantly:
“No scorpion has been seen in this city for longer than men remember.”
“The Great One summoned this of his people to our aid!” whispered the girl. “The gods never forget, and the Great Scorpion has kept his oath! Let us give thanks to him!”
And, bound hand and foot as they were, the youthful lovers wriggled about on their faces where they lay giving praise to the great silent glistening scorpion on the altar for a long time–until a distant clash of many silver shod hoofs and the clangor of swords bore them the coming of the king.
The Curse of the Golden Skull
The Curse of the Golden Skull
Rotath of Lemuria was dying. Blood had ceased to flow from the deep sword gash under his heart, but the pulse in his temple hammered like kettle drums.
Rotath lay on a marble floor. Granite columns rose about him and a silver idol stared with ruby eyes at the man who lay at its feet. The bases of the columns were carved with curious monsters; above the shrine sounded a vague whispering. The trees which hemmed in and hid that mysterious fane spread long waving branches above it, and these branches were vibrant with curious leaves which rustled in the wind. From time to time great black roses scattered their dusky petals down.
Rotath lay dying and he used his fading breath in calling down curses on his slayers–on the faithless king who had betrayed him, and on that barbarian chief, Kull of Atlantis, who dealt him the death blow.
Acolyte of the nameless gods, and dying in an unknown shrine on the leafy summit of Lemuria’s highest mountain–Rotath’s weird inhuman eyes smoldered with a terrible cold fire. A pageant of glory and splendor passed before his mind’s eye. The acclaim of worshippers, the roar of silver trumpets, the whispering shadows of mighty and mystic temples where great wings swept unseen–then the intrigues, the onslaught of the invaders–death!
Rotath cursed the king of Lemuria–the king to whom he had taught fearful and ancient mysteries and forgotten abominations. Fool that he had been to reveal his powers to a weakling who, having learned to fear him, had turned to foreign kings for aid.
How strange it seemed, that he, Rotath of the Moonstone and the Asphodel, sorcerer and magician, should be gasping out his breath on the marble floor, a victim to that most material of all threats–a keen pointed sword in a sinewy hand.
Rotath cursed the limitations of the flesh. He felt his brain crumbling and he cursed all the men of all the worlds. He cursed them by Hotath and Helgor, by Ra and Ka and Valka.
He cursed all men living and dead, and all the generations unborn for a million centuries to come, naming Vramma and Jaggta-noga and Kamma and Kulthas. He cursed humanity by the fane of the Black Gods, the tracks of the Serpent Ones, the talons of the Ape Lords and the iron bound books of Shuma Gorath.
He cursed goodness and virtue and light, speaking the names of gods forgotten even by the priests of Lemuria. He invoked the dark monstrous shadows of the older worlds, and of those black suns which lurk forever behind the stars.
He felt the shades gather about him. He was going fast. And closing about him in an ever nearing ring, he sensed the tiger taloned devils who awaited his coming. He saw their bodies of solid jet and the great red caverns of their eyes. Behind hovered the white shadows of they who had died upon his altars, in horrid torment. Like mist in the moonlight they floated, great luminous eyes fixed on him in sad accusation, a never ending host.
Rotath feared, and fearing, his curses rose louder, his blasphemies grew more terrible. With one last wild passion of fury, he placed a curse on his own bones that they might bring death and horror to the sons of men. But even as he spoke he knew that years and ages would pass and his bones turn to dust in that forgotten shrine before any man’s foot disturbed its silence. So he mustered his fast waning powers for one last invocation to the dread beings he had served, one last feat of magic. He uttered a blood-freezing formula, naming a terrible name.
And soon he felt mighty elemental powers set in motion. He felt his bones growing hard and brittle. A coldness transcending earthly coldness passed over him and he lay still. The leaves whispered and the silver god laughed with cold gemmed eyes.
EMERALD INTERLUDE
Years stretched into centuries, centuries became ages. The green oceans rose and wrote an epic poem in emerald and the rhythm thereof was terrible. Thrones toppled and the silver trumpets fell silent forever. The races of men passed as smoke drifts from the breast of a summer. The roaring jade green seas engulfed the lands and all mountains sank, even the highest mountain of Lemuria.
ORCHIDS OF DEATH
A man thrust aside the trailing vines and stared. A heavy beard masked his face and mire slimed his boots. Above and about him hung the thick tropic jungle in breathless and exotic brooding. Orchids flamed and breathed about him.
Wonder was in his wide eyes. He gazed between shattered granite columns upon a crumbling marble floor. Vines twined thickly, like green serpents, among these columns and trailed their sinuous length across the floor. A curious idol, long fallen from a broken pedestal, lay upon the floor and stared up with red, unblinking eyes. The man noted the character of this corroded thing and a strong shudder shook him. He glanced unbelievingly again at the other thing which lay on the marble floor, and shrugged his shoulders.
He entered the shrine. He gazed at the carvings on the bases of the sullen columns, wondering at their unholy and indescribable appearance. Over all the scent of the orchids hung like a heavy fog.
This small, rankly grown, swampy island was once the pinnacle of a great mountain, mused the man, and he wondered what strange people had reared up this fane–and left that monstrous thing lying before the fallen idol. He thought of the fame which his discoveries should bring him–of the acclaim of mighty universities and powerful scientific societies.
He bent above the skeleton on the floor, noting the inhumanly long finger bones, the curious formation of the feet; the deep cavern-like eye-sockets, the jutting frontal bone, the general appearance of the great domed skull, which differed so horribly from mankind as he knew it.
What long dead artizan had shaped the thing with such incredible skill? He bent closer, noting the rounded ball-and-socket of the joints, the slight depressions on flat surfaces where muscles had been attached. And he started as the stupendous truth was borne on him.
This was no work of human art–that skeleton had once been clothed in flesh and had walked and spoken and lived. And this was impossible, his reeling brain told him, for the bones were of solid gold.
The orchids nodded in the shadows of the trees. The shrine lay in purple and black shade. The man brooded above the bones and wondered. How could he know of an elder world sorcery great enough to serve undying hate, by lending that hate a concrete substance, impervious to Time’s destructions?
The man laid his hand on the golden skull. A sudden deathly shriek broke the silence. The man in the shrine reeled up, screaming, took a single staggering step and then fell headlong, to lie with writhing limbs on the vine-crossed marble floor.
The orchids showered down on him in a sensuous rain and his blind, clutching hands tore them into exotic fragments as he died. Silence fell and an adder crawled sluggishly from within the golden skull.
The Black City
(Unfinished Fragment)
The Black City
(Unfinished Fragment)
The cold eyes of Kull, king of Valusia, clouded with perplexity as they rested on the man who had so abruptly entered the royal presence and who now stood before the king, trembling with passion. Kull sighed; he knew the barbarians who served him, for was not he himself an Atlantean by birth? Brule, the Spear-slayer, bursting rudely into the king’s chamber, had torn from his harness every emblem given him by Valusia and now stood bare of any sign to show that he was allied to the empire. And Kull knew the meaning of this gesture.
“Kull!” barked the Pict, pale with fury. “I will have justice!”
Again Kull sighed. There were times when peace and quiet were things to be desired and in Kamula he thought he had found them. Dreamy Kamula–even as he waited for the raging Pict to continue his tirade, Kull’s thoughts drifted away and back along the lazy, dreamy days that had passed since his coming to this mountain city, this metropolis of pleasure, whose marble and lapis-lazuli palaces were built, tier upon gleaming tier, about the dome shaped hill that formed the city’s center.
“My people have been allies of the empire for a thousand years!” The Pict made a swift, passionate gesture with his clenched fist. “Now, is it that one of my warriors can be snatched from under my nose, in the very palace of the king?”
Kull straightened with a start.
“What madness is this? What warrior? Who seized him?”
“That’s for you to discover,” growled the Pict. “One moment he was there, lounging against a marble column–the next–zut! He was gone with only a foul stench and a frightful scream for clue.”
“Perhaps a jealous husband–” mused Kull.
Brule broke in rudely: “Grogar never looked at any woman–even of his own race. These Kamulians hate we Picts. I have read it in their looks.”
Kull smiled. “You dream, Brule; these people are too indolent and pleasure loving to hate anyone. They love, they sing, they compose lyrics–I suppose you think Grogar was snatched away by the poet Taligaro, or the singing woman Zareta, or prince Mandara?”
“I care not!” snarled Brul
e. “But I tell you this, Kull, Grogar has spilt his blood like water for the empire, and he is my best chief of mounted bowmen. I will find him, alive or dead, if I have to tear Kamula apart, stone by stone! By Valka, I will feed this city to the flames and quench the flames in blood–”
Kull had risen from his chair.
“Take me to the place you last saw Grogar,” he said, and Brule ceased his tirade and led the way sullenly. They passed out of the chamber through an inner door and proceeded down a winding corridor, side by side, as different in appearance as two men could well be, yet alike in the litheness of movement, the keenness of eye, the intangible wildness that proclaimed the barbarian.
Kull was tall, broad shouldered and deep chested–massive yet lithe. His face was brown from sun and wind, his square cut black hair like a lion’s mane, his grey eyes cold as a sword gleaming through fathoms of ice.
Brule was typical of his race–of medium height, built with the savage economy of a panther, and of skin much darker than the king’s.
“We were in the Jeweled Room,” grunted the Pict, “Grogar, Manaro and I. Grogar was leaning against a half-column set into the wall when he shifted his weight full against the wall–and vanished before our eyes! A panel swung inward and he was gone–and we had but a glimpse of black darkness within, and a loathsome scent flowed momentarily outward. But Manaro, standing beside Grogar, whipped out his sword in that instant and thrust the good blade into the opening, so the panel could not wholly close. We thrust against it, but it did not yield and I hasted after you, leaving Manaro holding his sword in the crack.”