Worms of the Earth - Robert E. Howard (best novels for beginners txt) 📗

Chapter Four

The cold gray mists of dawn wrapped King Bran like a clammy cloak.

He turned to the woman whose slanted eyes gleamed in the gray gloom.

 

“Make good your part of the contract,” he said roughly. “I sought

a link between worlds, and in you I found it. I seek the one thing

sacred to Them. It shall be the Key opening the Door that lies unseen

between me and Them. Tell me how I can reach it.”

 

“I will,” the red lips smiled terribly. “Go to the mound men call

Dagon’s Barrow. Draw aside the stone that blocks the entrance and go

under the dome of the mound. The floor of the chamber is made of seven

great stones, six grouped about the seventh. Lift out the center

stone—and you will see!”

 

“Will I find the Black Stone?” he asked.

 

“Dagon’s Barrow is the Door to the Black Stone,” she answered, “if

you dare follow the Road.”

 

“Will the symbol be well guarded?” He unconsciously loosened his

blade in its sheath. The red lips curled mockingly.

 

“If you meet any on the Road you will die as no mortal man has

died for long centuries. The Stone is not guarded, as men guard their

treasures. Why should They guard what man has never sought? Perhaps

They will be near, perhaps not. It is a chance you must take, if you

wish the Stone. Beware, king of Pictdom! Remember it was your folk

who, so long ago, cut the thread that bound Them to human life. They

were almost human then—they overspread the land and knew the

sunlight. Now they have drawn apart. They know not the sunlight and

they shun the light of the moon. Even the starlight they hate. Far,

far apart have they drawn, who might have been men in time, but for

the spears of your ancestors.”

 

The sky was overcast with misty gray, through which the sun shone

coldly yellow when Bran came to Dagon’s Barrow, a round hillock

overgrown with rank grass of a curious fungoid appearance. On the

eastern side of the mound showed the entrance of a crudely built stone

tunnel which evidently penetrated the barrow. One great stone blocked

the entrance to the tomb. Bran laid hold of the sharp edges and

exerted all his strength. It held fast. He drew his sword and worked

the blade between the blocking stone and the sill. Using the sword as

a lever, he worked carefully, and managed to loosen the great stone

and wrench it out. A foul charnel house scent flowed out of the

aperture and the dim sunlight seemed less to illuminate the cavern-like opening than to be fouled by the rank darkness which clung there.

 

Sword in hand, ready for he knew not what, Bran groped his way

into the tunnel, which was long and narrow, built up of heavy joined

stones, and was too low for him to stand erect. Either his eyes became

somewhat accustomed to the gloom, or the darkness was, after all,

somewhat lightened by the sunlight filtering in through the entrance.

At any rate he came into a round low chamber and was able to make out

its general dome-like outline. Here, no doubt, in old times, had

reposed the bones of him for whom the stones of the tomb had been

joined and the earth heaped high above them; but now of those bones no

vestige remained on the stone floor. And bending close and straining

his eyes, Bran made out the strange, startlingly regular pattern of

that floor: six well-cut slabs clustered about a seventh, six-sided

stone.

 

He drove his sword-point into a crack and pried carefully. The

edge of the central stone tilted slightly upward. A little work and he

lifted it out and leaned it against the curving wall. Straining his

eyes downward he saw only the gaping blackness of a dark well, with

small, worn steps that led downward and out of sight. He did not

hesitate. Though the skin between his shoulders crawled curiously, he

swung himself into the abyss and felt the clinging blackness swallow

him.

 

Groping downward, he felt his feet slip and stumble on steps too

small for human feet. With one hand pressed hard against the side of

the well he steadied himself, fearing a fall into unknown and

unlighted depths. The steps were cut into solid rock, yet they were

greatly worn away. The farther he progressed, the less like steps they

became, mere bumps of worn stone. Then the direction of the shaft

changed sharply. It still led down, but at a shallow slant down which

he could walk, elbows braced against the hollowed sides, head bent low

beneath the curved roof. The steps had ceased altogether and the stone

felt slimy to the touch, like a serpent’s lair. What beings, Bran

wondered, had slithered up and down this slanting shaft, for how many

centuries?

 

The tunnel narrowed until Bran found it rather difficult to shove

through. He lay on his back and pushed himself along with his hands,

feet first. Still he knew he was sinking deeper and deeper into the

very guts of the earth; how far below the surface he was, he dared not

contemplate. Then ahead a faint witch-fire gleam tinged the abysmal

blackness. He grinned savagely and without mirth. If They he sought

came suddenly upon him, how could he fight in that narrow shaft? But

he had put the thought of personal fear behind him when he began this

hellish quest. He crawled on, thoughtless of all else but his goal.

 

And he came at last into a vast space where he could stand

upright. He could not see the roof of the place, but he got an

impression of dizzying vastness. The blackness pressed in on all sides

and behind him he could see the entrance to the shaft from which he

had just emerged—a black well in the darkness. But in front of him a

strange grisly radiance glowed about a grim altar built of human

skulls. The source of that light he could not determine, but on the

altar lay a sullen night-black object—the Black Stone!

 

Bran wasted no time in giving thanks that the guardians of the

grim relic were nowhere near. He caught up the Stone, and gripping it

under his left arm, crawled into the shaft. When a man turns his back

on peril its clammy menace looms more grisly than when he advances

upon it. So Bran, crawling back up the nighted shaft with his grisly

prize, felt the darkness turn on him and slink behind him, grinning

with dripping fangs. Clammy sweat beaded his flesh and he hastened to

the best of his ability, ears strained for some stealthy sound to

betray that fell shapes were at his heels. Strong shudders shook him,

despite himself, and the short hair on his neck prickled as if a cold

wind blew at his back.

 

When he reached the first of the tiny steps he felt as if he had

attained to the outer boundaries of the mortal world. Up them he went,

stumbling and slipping, and with a deep gasp of relief, came out into

the tomb, whose spectral grayness seemed like the blaze of noon in

comparison to the stygian depths he had just traversed. He replaced

the central stone and strode into the light of the outer day, and

never was the cold yellow light of the sun more grateful, as it

dispelled the shadows of black-winged nightmares of fear and madness

that seemed to have ridden him up out of the black deeps. He shoved

the great blocking stone back into place, and picking up the cloak he

had left at the mouth of the tomb, he wrapped it about the Black Stone

and hurried away, a strong revulsion and loathing shaking his soul and

lending wings to his strides.

 

A gray silence brooded over