The Compleat Crow (15 page)

As he strode in I rose from my seat and put down the book of poems. I was still acting but this time, though I tried to appear just a trifle drunk, my main role was one of utter astonishment. As I got to my feet I burst out:

“Gedney! What on Earth…?” I leaned forward aggressively over the table. “What the devil’s the meaning of this? Who invited you here?” My heart was in my mouth but I played my part as best I could.

“Good evening, Mr. Crow.” Gedney smiled evilly. “Who invited me? Why! You did; by your refusal to accept my warning and by your unwillingness to use your telephone. Whatever it is you know about me is matterless, Crow, and doomed to die with you tonight. At least you have the satisfaction of knowing that
you
were correct. I
do
have access to strange knowledge; knowledge which I intend to use right now. So I repeat: Good evening, Mr. Crow—
and goodbye!
”

Gedney was standing between the table and the door, and as he finished speaking he threw up his hands and commenced bellowing, in a cracked, droning tone, an invocation of such evil inference that merely hearing it would have been sufficient to mortify souls only slightly more timid than mine. I had never heard this particular chant before, though I have heard others, but as the crescendo died away, its purpose became immediately apparent. During the invocation I had been frozen, literally
paralyzed
by the sound of the thing, and I could fully understand how it was that Symonds had been forced to listen to it over his ’phone. From the first word Symonds would have stood like a statue with the receiver pressed to his ear, unable to move as his death-certificate was signed over the wire.

As the echoes of that hideous droning died away Gedney lowered his hands and smiled. He had seen the envelope at my fingertips—and as his awful laugh began to fill the room I discovered the meaning of “The Black”…

No witch-doctor’s curse this but an aeon-old fragment of sorcery handed down through nameless centuries.
This
came from a time in Earth’s abysmal past when unthinkable creatures from an alien and unknown universe spawned weird things in the primeval slime. The horror of it…

A black snowflake landed on me!
That is what the thing looked like. A cold, black snowflake which spread like a stain on my left wrist. But before I had time to examine that abnormality another fell onto my forehead. And then, rapidly, from all directions they came, ever faster, settling on me from out of the nether-regions. Horror-flakes that blinded and choked me.

Blinded?…Choked?

Before my mind’s eye, in shrieking letters, flashed those passages from Geoffrey, the
Necronomicon
and the
Ibigib
. “Thief of Light—Thief of Air…” The inscriptions at Geph, “…The spell of running water…” Alhazred—“That which is in water drowneth not…”

The bait was taken; all that remained was to spring the trap. And if I were mistaken?

Quickly, while I was still able, I drew the curtains at my left to one side and flicked the still-unopened envelope towards Gedney’s feet. Shedding my dressing-gown I stepped naked onto the tiles behind the curtains, tiles which were now partly visible to the fiend before me. Frantic, for a gibbering terror now held me in its icy grip, I clawed at the tap. The second or so the water took to circulate through the plumbing seemed an eternity, in which thousands more of those blasphemous flakes flew at me, forming a dull, black layer on my body.

And then, mercifully, as the water poured over me, “The Black” was gone! The stuff did not
wash
from me—it simply vanished. No, that is not quite true—
for it instantly reappeared elsewhere!

Gedney had been laughing, baying like some great hound, but as I stepped into the shower and as the water started to run, he stopped. His mouth fell open and his eyes bugged horribly. He gurgled something unrecognizable and made ghastly, protesting gestures with his hands. He could not take in what had happened, for it had all been too fast for him. His victim was snatched from the snare and he could not believe his eyes. But believe he had to as the first black flakes began to fall upon
him
! The shadows darkened under his suddenly comprehending eyes and his aspect turned an awful grey as I spoke these words from the safety of the shower:

Nor did this alone satisfy me. I wanted Gedney to remember me in whichever hell he was bound for; and so, after repeating that warning of the elder Ptetholites, I said:

“Good evening, Mr. Gedney—
and goodbye…
”

Cruel? Ah! You may call me cruel—but had not Gedney planned the same fate for me? And how many others, along with Symonds and Chambers, had died from the incredible sorceries of this fiend?

He had started to scream. Taken by surprise, he was almost completely covered by the stuff before he could move but now, as the horrible truth sank in, he tried to make it across the room to the shower. It was his only possible means of salvation and he stumbled clumsily round the table towards me. But if Gedney was a fiend so, in my own right, was I—and I had taken precautions. In the shower recess I had previously placed a window-pole, and snatching it up I now put it to use fending off the shrilly shrieking object before me.

As more of “The Black,” the evil blood of Yibb-Tstll, settled on him, Gedney began the frantic brushing motions which I remembered so well, all the while babbling and striving to fight his way past my window-pole. By now the stuff was thick on him, inches deep, a dull, black mantle which covered him from head to toe. Only one eye and his screaming mouth remained visible and his outline was rapidly becoming the bloated duplicate of that hideous shadow I had seen on the night of Chambers’ death.

It was now literally
snowing
black death in my room and the end had to follow quickly. Gedney’s bulging eye and screaming, frothing mouth seemed to sink into the ever thickening blackness and the
noises
he was making were instantly shut off. For a few seconds he did a monstrous, shuffling dance of agony, and unable to bear the sight any longer I used the pole to push him off his feet. My prayer that this action would put a quick end to it was answered.
He pulsed!
Yes, that is the only way I can describe the motion of his smothered body: he pulsed for a moment on the carpet—and then was still. Briefly then, the lights seemed to dim and a rushing wind filled the house. I must have momentarily fainted for I awoke to find myself stretched out full length on the carpet with the shower still hissing behind me. As mysteriously as it had come, “The Black” had departed, back to that other-dimensional body which housed it, taking Gedney’s soul and leaving his lifeless shell behind…

Later, after a stiff drink, I opened the envelope and found the flaking, brittle shards I had expected. Later still, with the rapidly stiffening, lolling corpse beside me, I drove out towards Gedney’s country home. I parked his car in a clump of trees, off the road, and in the small hours made my way back on foot to Blowne House. The brightening air was strangely sweet.

De Marigny!” Titus Crow’s voice sounded tense and urgent over the telephone. “De Marigny, tell me—did you ever lend that book of yours, Loftsson’s
Saga-Englendingabok
, to Benjamin Sorlson?”

“Why, yes, Titus,” I yawningly answered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, “—but I got it back all right, and Sorlson seems a genuine enough chap. You know him, though, surely?”

“I know him, yes,” Crow’s growl came back, strangely tinny over the wire. “I know him for a damn good archaeologist, a damned argumentative fool…and I know him for a friend, of sorts. But that hardly matters now. Henri, I think I might need your help—if only to talk Sorlson out of it.”

“Talk Sorlson out of it?” Dully, apathetically, I repeated him. “Titus, isn’t it a bit early in the morning for cryptic messages? And what on Earth are you doing up at this hour anyway?” I was well aware of Crow’s habit of working late and rising even later.

“‘This hour,’ de Marigny, is 9:00 A.M.—and I’m up to check the mail. I’ve had a letter from Sorlson. He’s gone to Skardaborg—and he’s found the stone of Ragnar Gory-Axe!”

Gory-Axe? Skardaborg? What in heaven—My foggy, sleep-sodden mind would not bring the man’s words into focus. I had attended a meeting—a rather bawdy meeting toward the end, not at all Crow’s sort of thing—of the London Mystery Writers’ Society the previous evening, and I was now suffering the consequences. I briefly explained this to Crow.

“Coffee, de Marigny,” he barked. “I’d prescribe three or four mugs at least, and black! Then, if you’re interested, bring Loftsson’s book with you and meet me at King’s Cross for the first afternoon train north. I’ll explain it all then.”

Well, a summons from Titus Crow is not something to be lightly put aside—the man has been my friend and mentor ever since my father sent me out of America as a youth—and so I got up and dressed, made a hurried breakfast (including, as my friend had suggested, a great pot of black coffee), placed the book Crow had requested in my briefcase, and then caught a taxi for King’s Cross.

In the taxi I took out the
Saga-Englendingabok
and looked up “Skardaborg.” The book was very rare, I knew that, for it was a manuscript copy in longhand from the original Latin—or so its preface led me to believe. Crow, after borrowing the book one summer some four years earlier, had told me he believed it to be a translation of Jon Loftsson’s lost Latin work on the Kings of Norway and the adventures of the Vikings in England; he doubted if any other copy remained extant. He had referred to it as “Loftsson’s book” ever since. Certainly there
was
a lost Latin work, believed to be circa 1115, but I secretly disputed Crow’s authority to claim
my
book as being related to that work.

Skardaborg! Yes, there it was: Scarborough, as I had guessed. So, Benjamin Sorlson, the celebrated if unorthodox archaeologist and expert in Viking and other ancient Norwegian matters, was in Scarborough. Now…what of Ragnar Gory-Axe?

Before I could further follow my enquiry the taxi arrived at King’s Cross. I put the book away, paid the driver, and made my way to the ticket-booth. There, like a fool, I asked for a return ticket to Skardaborg before realizing my slip; but eventually I found myself on the northbound platform searching for my friend, Titus Crow.

He was impossible to miss. Tall in his dark suit, with his leonine head and imposing looks, he would have seemed prominent in any crowd; but when I stood with him it would be safe to say that few if any of the other people on the platform recognized us as “two of London’s foremost occultists.”

Now, I oppose such a description as applied in any derogative manner to myself (and as in the past certain members of the press have found occasion so to use it) but I do not deny my interest in occult matters. How could I, and own to a father, Etienne-Laurent de Marigny, who was one of the greatest of modern mystics? It is merely that I myself am no great adept, and if I were I should certainly
not
use dark forces to my own ends.

Crow, too, deplores this “Black Magician” tag, for he is one to whom, in his unending search for mysteries and discoveries of marvels, the occult has been simply a passage down which his wanderings have taken him; where he has learned, on more than one occasion, outré things unheard of in the more mundane world of ordinary men. Crow may, in that sense, be called an occultist—but so is he a most knowledgeable man and something of an expert in many fields.

We managed to get a compartment to ourselves on the train, but it was only after the journey commenced that Titus made any attempt to explain his purpose in following Sorlson to Scarborough, and then not without a little prodding on my part.

“Er, you said Sorlson had ‘found the stone of Ragnar Gory-Axe’…?”

“So he has,” Crow answered, nodding, “and damn him for a fool, he intends to bring the thing back to London!”

“Just what is this stone, Titus, and why is it so important to you?”

“The stone? Oh, excuse me, de Marigny, but I thought you were on intimate terms with that book of yours. The stone is a Bauta-stein or
menhir
—though you’d usually only use the latter term in Celtic connections—raised near a tomb for the spirit of the occupant to rest upon at night, like a perch, and by means of which the ghost might find its way back to the tomb at daybreak.”

“How very homely,” I answered, with something of a shudder. “Then it’s an important historical and archaeological find. Surely Sorlson only wants to present the thing to a museum or some such authority?”

“He wants it for himself,” Crow bleakly told me, “and that’s exactly where the trouble lies. That stone
must not
be interfered with! There’s a curse on the thing, one that goes back eight hundred years to the Viking wars—and it is still operative!

“You see, de Marigny,” he went on after a brief pause, “unlike us Sorlson sees little to fear in this sort of thing. He laughed at me when I let it slip about the stone and its curse three months ago. In fact he made it clear that he thought I was pulling his leg about the stone’s very existence…Or so I thought! But in truth he must have known something of Ragnar Gory-Axe before; and then, when I told him of your book…Well, no matter how slim the chance, Sorlson obviously thought my story was at least worth looking into.” He stroked his chin. “When did he borrow the book, by the way?”

“Just six weeks ago. He only kept it for a week. Then he made me a fantastic offer for it, which I refused. I remembered how rare you believed it to be.”

“Not rare, unique!” he answered. “Kept it for a week, eh? Yes, that would be ample time to copy the information he needed.”

“Information?”

“Directions from the book,” Crow explained. “Oh, they’re in there, all right! In the prose related to the poems, and—”

“Hang on a minute, Titus,” I rudely cut him off. “I’m afraid you’re moving a bit too fast for me. You mean you’ve actually known of this—
menhir
—for some time?”

“For four years, yes, since I myself borrowed Loftsson’s book from you and tracked the tomb down. Incidentally, did you bring the book with you? Ah, I see you did! Give it to me and I’ll show you what I mean. The initial clues are here in the poems. I’ve always been interested in these battle sagas, and being something of an archaeologist—albeit an amateur—well, I couldn’t resist the challenge. I wish I had now. But listen—” He found his page and commenced to read.

Crow paused in his reading and looked up: “So commenced the battle,” he commented. “Now, de Marigny, the poem goes on in pretty much the same ‘thud and blunder’ fashion for many a couplet, until King Eystein, ever in the thick of the battle, notices one of his ships to be doing extremely well. With blood in his eyes so that he can’t see to his best advantage, Eystein flings yet another spear while enquiring of one of his men:

“So you see, Henri, this Ragnar Gory-Axe was only an ‘up-and-comer,’ unnoticed of Eystein until this battle at Scarborough. And yet—if we can believe the book, and of course we’ve proof in the stone that we can—he’d been in many a fray before; and always with his mother, Hildursleif the witch, beside him. The poem goes on to describe Ragnar’s death, Eystein’s wrath, and Hildursleif’s woe. Let’s see, now—yes, here:

“Of course,” Crow paused again, “you’ll notice that the poems aren’t up to the standard of Skalaglam’s or Thjodolf’s—but I can’t tell if the faults lie in the original work, which I would consider unlikely, or in the translation. The
kenning
is too slight to warrant comment. Anyway, Eystein wins the battle, and the saga goes on like this:

“So there you are, de Marigny…Of course I looked for further references in the prose, and eventually I tracked down the tomb in Allerston Forest.”

“The tomb? Gory-Axe’s tomb?” I stupidly queried, still feeling the dull weight of the previous night’s party.

“Ragnar’s tomb, yes,” Crow sighed at my slowness. “And his Bauta-stein, with the runes still on it beneath the moss of centuries. Now Sorlson has found it, too—and it’s my fault, I fear!”

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, or 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…