The Compleat Crow

  Here my interest picked up greatly. 'And you say the curse is still active? You think Sorlson's in danger, then?'

  'That's exactly it, Henri. He's in desperate trouble if ever he tries to move that stone, o'r even interfere with it. That part of the forest site is abhorred by locals, has been for hundreds of years. They say the area's haunted — and of course it is — and they won't go near it. The shade of the Viking walks there still, and the runes on the stone make it clear that there's a doom in store for anyone foolish enough to disturb it!'

  'And you could read those "ancient northern runes"?' I asked.

  'No, not immediately, but I made a copy and later used Walmsley's Notes on Deciphering Codes, Cryptograms, and Ancient Inscriptions to translate the thing. More about that later.'

  'But didn't Ragnar's, er, shade — didn't his ghost make itself known to you?'

  'I copied the runes — that's all. I made no attempt to disturb the stone, none whatever. But I did have a rather peculiar dream, yes!'

  'A dream, Titus? What sort of dream?'

  'Never mind, de Marigny,' he frowned. 'It was sufficient, though, to warn me off Ragnar's tomb forever — and that's why I blame myself for having let the thing slip to Sorlson in the first place. Why, at times I swear the man's as avaricious as old Bannister Brown-Farley used to be! Not for money, mind you, or even power or acclaim. He simply likes to own things.' He passed my book back across to me with a thin smile. 'Here, do yourself a favour and read it. I could never appreciate people who own wonderful things simply for the sake of ownership!'

  So there it was; I found myself compared with Bannister Brown-Farley, a rather unscrupulous explorer-adventurer type, infamous for his smuggling of stolen foreign antiques into England! And so I sat abashed, immersed in guts and gore, Loftsson's book on my lap, for the rest of the journey. . .

  After changing at York we were in Scarborough by 7:00 p.m., and we took a taxi to the Queen's Hotel where Crow knew Sorlson to be staying. We found him in the bar, well into his fifth or sixth drink, and it was plain that Benjamin Sorlson was not a particularly happy man. He did not see us approach and started inordinately when Crow took him by the arm.

  'Titus Crow!' he exclaimed after a moment's hesitation. 'And Henri de Marigny, too. It's good to see you — both of you!'

  Sorlson was a small but stocky man, unlike the popular image of his Norwegian ancestors, with grey eyes, sandy hair, and gangling arms. As he welcomed us to the bar and ordered drinks I could see that the hands at the ends of those long arms were visibly trembling. Crow, too, at first sight, had picked up the man's obvious nervousness. My friend became immediately concerned, I could see that, but he hid his worry for the moment in a question:

  The stone, Benjamin — you've really found it?'

  'I have; Sorlson answered. 'Indeed I have! The directions in Henri's book were, as you yourself told me, quite explicit.' He turned to me and grinned, a forced grin I thought, then asked Crow: 'Well, what's your next step, Titus? Are you going to shop me to the Royal Archaeological Society or something like that? It won't make any difference, you know — "finders keepers", and all that.'

  You just don't want to understand, do you, Benjamin? Man, you're already shopped — and to a far greater power than any Archaeological Society, believe me! Crow's eyes narrowed as they studied the other's face. But then, perhaps I'm wrong — perhaps you are beginning to understand after all!'

  'Eh? What d'you mean, Crow?'

  `I mean, Benjamin, that the bar's scarcely open but already you seem well on your way to getting drunk I don't remember you for a drinking man? Secondly, you should be cock-a-hoop over your coup here — but the fact is you look more than a trifle worried. Been having any dreams during your stay, by any chance?'

  'Dreams?' Sorlson visibly flinched at the word. 'Why, yes I have, these last two or three nights — since I found the stone, in fact — but that's hardly surprising, is it all that rot you fed me about curses and so on ...'

  'But that was three months ago, Benjamin,' Titus quietly reminded him. 'And in any case – you've seen the inscriptions for yourself now. What did you make of them?'

  `Plenty of time for translations later, Titus; and anyway, what if the stone does carry a –curse?' He tried to make light of it and reached up to clap Crow on the shoulder. 'I'll never fail to be amazed at how any man as intelligent as you are can believe in such—'

  'I've heard all that before, my friend,' Crow harshly cut him off, 'but it doesn't alter the fact that this curse is real and extant! Man, I can sense these things, and so can de Marigny here. For God's sake, why don't you just take our word for it? Leave the stone where it is, Benjamin – leave it completely alone!'

  Sorlson turned his eyes away. 'It's a bit late for that, Titus.'

  'What's that?' I broke in. 'What's that you say, Benjamin?'

  'You mean you've ... already—?' Crow let the question hang, his voice falling to a whisper on the last word.

  'I have, yes – I've had the stone moved!'

  'How did you do it?' Crow sounded tired, as if all of his energy had gone out of him in a moment. 'I mean, I remember that the stone stood almost eight feet tall, and there was, plenty of it bedded in the ground, too. It must have weighed almost -- four tons?'

  'Just over three and a half, in fact. I hired three men and an ex-army truck fitted with pulleys and tackle. We dug around the base of the stone and then hoisted it aboard. That was about 5:30 this afternoon. They should be well on their way to London by now'

  Titus Crow's eyes were suddenly bleak, his face drawn and grey as he asked: 'And the tomb? Is that why you yourself stayed back here in Scarborough?' He waited on Sorlson's answer.

  'No, no – I found the cleft in the cliff, of course,' Sorlson eventually answered, 'but—'

  'But something stopped you; is that it, Benjamin?'

  'The truth is . . . yes, Crow. And you're right about those, dreams I've been having. They've . . . they've worried me. It's not natural for me to dream – not that sort of dream, at any rate . .

  Sorlson paused, tossed back his drink and turned from the bar. 'I'm simply not willing to take any more chances, that's all. The stuff in the cleft can wait – Gory-Axe's bones, his armour and weapons.' Yet even as he spoke a greedy light glittered in the archaeologist's eyes.

  'Benjamin,' Crow quietly said, 'I've only just realized. For a long time now I've called you friend – but it wasn't the man I admired, only the mind. Now I'm not even sure about that. Why, you're nothing but a thief, a ghoul, a looter of tombs. I just—'

  'No, Titus, you're wrong about me,' Sorlson broke in. 'And if it means that much to you, why – I'll put the stone back again. They can always build a museum round it, I suppose!'

  'Do you mean it, Benjamin?' I asked.

  'Yes – yes, I do, Henri. But it's not truly out of "the-goodness-of-my-heart", as it were. Don't get me wrong – I'd have the stone and everything that goes with it, if _I dared. But there's been something wrong, out of tune, ever since I found the stone in the forest.' He turned back to Crow: 'What train are you catching tonight?'

  'Train?' Crow was taken by surprise. 'Tonight?'

  'Yes, certainly. The sooner we get back down to

  London, the sooner Gory-Axe gets his stone back. Those men with the truck are staying in London overnight. I'm paying them tomorrow when they deliver it to my place. You know, I rather fancied it in my conservatory, along with—' He paused and shuddered. 'But not now.'

  While Sorlson was collecting his notebooks, case, and overcoat, I waited in the bar with Titus Crow.

  'De Marigny,' my friend said after a while, 'I hope we're in time. I mean, the inscription on that stone mentions nothing of a stay of execution for good intention!'

  We -spoke no more and soon Sorlson returned . . .

  We were down country almost as far as Peterborough when I was snatched rudely from my nap. Crow, too, nodding quietly in his corner seat, jerked fearfully awake as Sorlson's terror-fraught s
hriek filled the dimly lighted compartment.

  'Wh . . . What in the name of . . . ?' I began.

  Sorlson was sitting bolt upright facing Crow, his eyes wide open and full of horror.

  'What is it, Benjamin?' Crow shook himself awake and leaned across to take the archaeologist's shoulder.

  'Another dream, Titus – a hellish nightmare!' Sorlson gasped. 'Worse than the others. Far worse! It was Ragnar again, but this time he wasn't merely threatening; he was – after me! With his great axe smeared in blood. A . . . a Viking, his head a skull, his eye-sockets full of balefire!'

  'Do you feel it, de Marigny?' Crow turned abruptly to me, his face strained and chalky grey, his voice hushed. Until then I had 'felt' nothing, but even as Crow spoke an odd sensation began to creep into my bones. A coldness, the chill of ocean spray driven on the north wind.

  'I warned you, Sorlson—' Crow's voice was now oddly remote, almost faint. And by God, I was right to do so!'

  The sway and rock of the train and the clatter of its wheels had lessened now, seemed muffled, and a great wall of mist had built up outside to press in on the speeding carriages; particularly on the left, that side of the train facing the fens, The Wash, and the North Sea beyond.

  Sorlson was muttering — more to himself than to anyone else — his eyes wide, staring wildly about the compartment and at the swirling greyness beyond the windows: 'It's a trick! Some sort of joke! You're trying to frighten me, Crow — that's it, isn't it?' There was desperation in his strangely muted voice.

  No trick, Benjamin,' Titus answered. 'God! — but I wish it were!'

  Sorlson was on his feet now, peering in dreadful premonition out into the mist. I leaned across and gripped Crow's elbow: 'Titus! What in hell's happening?' My voice sounded as if it came ffom far away.

  'I ... I don't know, de Marigny —`I've known nothing like this before.' As Crow answered, I saw Sorlson stiffen where he stood at the window, and I looked up at the side of the man's face. He was opening and closing his mouth soundlessly like a fish, gesticulating weakly at something out beyond the shut window.

  'Titus!' I cried, moving over beside Sorlson to press my face to the glass. 'Look!' Frankly, I needed Crow's corroboration of the thing. I could not believe my own eyes!

  For outside, riding the mist in ghostly majesty, a great Viking dragonship lay parallel with, our compartment, its sides adorned with moisture-dripping shields. And behind those shields, spears raised in hideous salutation, ranks of armoured skeletons gave their chief the kill!

  Their chief?

  In the prow, at the neck of the great, rearing dragon's head, a mist-wreathed figure stood tall and proud... but naked of flesh as its demon companions! The Thing turned its head in horrid and deliberate disdain, and sparse blond locks blew in a ghost-wind about the fleshless skull. Above grinning jaws, red lights burned in black-walled eye-sockets like coals in the bellows' blast; and those eye-sockets were turned with grim intent directly upon the fear-twisted features of Benjamin Sorlson! Then the Thing drew back its ivory arm, and a shining axe gleamed wetly in bony claw.

  All normal motion of the train seemed to have stopped by then, to be replaced by the slow heave and swell of an ethereal sea, and even with the windows firmly shut I could clearly hear the slap of waves and the creaking of the dragonship's rigging.

  Dimly, as if from eight hundred years back in the abysses of time, I heard Crow's voice shouting instructions: 'Down, de Marigny – for your soul's sake get down!' He was already on the floor, his hands clawing at the legs of Sorlson who stood spreadeagled against the compartment door and its window. 'Leave the window alone, Sorlson—' he shouted from a million miles away. 'Leave it alone!'

  Even as I threw myself down I saw Ragnar's skeletal arm sweep forward in a powerful arc – saw him release the great axe from his graveyard fist – and as I hit the floor beside Crow I heard the window slam down and open, and Sorlson's death-scream as he hurtled backwards over our huddled forms! The stocky body of the archaeologist crashed into the opposite door of the compartment and slid in a crumpled heap between the seats. One glance in his direction told me all I needed to know; the haft of a Viking axe stuck out from the left side of his chest. And yet, as I gazed hypnotized at, that terrible weapon, slowly the steel melted into mist and vanished ... and the breast of Sorlson's suit was clean and unmarked!

  In the next second I realized that the normal train sounds and motions had returned, that the slap of waves and the keening of the wind had faded to the dark oblivion of their origin. Moisture-laden fog was pouring into the compartment through the open window, but Crow was already on his feet attending to that The dragonship, too, was gone — back to whichever hell spawned the thing, or perhaps Valhalla, who can say?

  'We're lucky,' Crow panted, strength and sanity surging back into his voice and manner. 'Myself in particular. But then, I did Ragnar's stone no harm — neither his stone nor his tomb.'

  'And Sorlson?' I questioned, knowing the answer before it came.

  'Oh, yes,' Crow answered with a nod, bending over the crumpled body 'He s dead. Heart attack — or at least, that's what they'll call it!'

  And of course Crow was right.

  Two mornings later, at Crow's invitation, I went round to Blowne House, his sprawling bungalow home on the outskirts of the city When I arrived he had just done with sticking a newspaper clipping in one of his many, voluminous files of weird and unnatural events. I had, however, already taken note of the incident in question; it had been given space in most of the previous day's newspapers:

  THREE DIE IN MYSTERY CRASH ON Ml

  At 9:15 last night, northbound travellers on the M1 at Hemel Hempstead were brought to a halt when a crashed ex-army truck blocked all three lanes with blazing debris. Apparently the vehicle had been travelling south at the time of the as yet unexplained accident, but somehow ended up on the northbound lanes! After the fire had been put out local police were baffled by the extent of damage to the truck. No other vehicle seemed to have been involved, and yet the burned-out shell of the truck showed a severely sliced superstructure and chassis. One of the policemen at the scene remarked that 'it looked as though something had tried to cut the truck in half!' Three bodies — identification not yet complete — were found in the wreckage. Police investigations are continuing...

  Of Ragnar's stone there was no mention; but on that subject there was something I had yet to ask Crow. This is how he answered me:

  'The inscription, Henri? Why, yes — I copied down the original runes and translated them later. I even put the thing to rhyme, as I believe it was inscribed, but of course my kenning isn't much to mention:

  `Here lies the Axe, of witch-wife's blood,

  Whose blade was sharp, whose aim was good,

  Who washed himself in crimson flood,

  Each time the war was waged;

  Would-be defilers of this tomb,

  Let Seasnake's shadow darkly loom,

  And Ragnar's spirit seal thy doom --

  His curse-lust to assuage!'

  Crow also mentioned his intention of returning to Allerston Forest one day — to see if he was correct in his belief that Ragnar had sailed his marker home again. I, for one, shall not be going with him ...

  THE MIRROR OF NITOCRIS

  The one and only 'solo' appearance of Henri-Laurent de Marigny.

  TITUS CROW'S APPRENTICE, Henri-Laurent de Marigny (who as we've seen plays Watson to Crow's Holmes), was sometimes witness and even participant in Crow's strange adventures. Why, at this very moment he's out there somewhere in weird spatial and temporal abysses - in the time-clock, of course - trying to track Crow down and so discover the road into Elysia, the place of the Elder Gods. But that of course is another story, even another novel! Before ever he stepped into the dear old time-clock's cavity - 'a gateway on all space and time - he very nearly got himself involved in an entirely different dimension, in

  The Mirror of Nitocris.

  Hail, The Queen!

>   Bricked up alive,

  Never more to curse her hive;

  Walled-up 'neath the pyramid,

  Where the sand

  Her secret hid.

  Buried with her glass

  that she,

  At the midnight hour might see

  Shapes from other spheres called;

  Alone with them,

  entombed, appalled

  — to death!

  Justin Geoffrey

  Queen Nitocris' Mirror!

  I had heard of it, of course — was there ever an occultist who had not? — I had even read of it, in Geoffrey's raving People of the Monolith, and knew that it was whispered of in certain dark circles where my presence is abhorred; I knew Alhazred had hinted of its powers in the forbidden Necronomicon, and that certain desert tribesmen still make a heathen sign which dates back untold centuries when questioned too closely regarding the legends of its origin.

  So how was it that some fool auctioneer could stand up there and declare that this was Nitocris' Mirror? How dare he?

  Yet the glass was from the collection of Bannister Brown-Farley - the explorer-hunter-archaeologist who, before his recent disappearance, was a recognized connoisseur of rare and obscure objets- d'art - and its appearance was quite as outre as the appearance of an object with its alleged history ought to be Moreover, was this not the self-same auctioneer, fool or otherwise, who had sold me Baron Kant's silver pistol only a year or two before? Not, mind you,- that there was a single shred of evidence that the pistol, or the singular ammunition that came with it, had ever really belonged to the witch-hunting Baron; the ornately inscribed 'K' on the weapon's butt might stand for anything!

  But of course, I made my bid for the mirror, and for Bannister Brown-Farley's diary, and got them both. 'Sold to Mr, er, it is Mr de Marigny, isn't it, Sir? Thought so! - sold to Mr Henri-Laurent de Marigny, for . . .' For an abominable sum.