Eldritch Tales (15 page)

And the bird of heaven flew before, and led us toward the basalt pillars of the West, but this time the oarsmen sang no soft songs under the full moon. In my mind I would often picture the unknown Land of Cathuria with its splendid groves and palaces, and would wonder what new delights there awaited me. ‘Cathuria,’ I would say to myself, ‘is the abode of gods and the land of unnumbered cities of gold. Its forests are of aloe and sandalwood, even as the fragrant groves of Camorin, and among the trees flutter gay birds sweet with song. On the green and flowery mountains of Cathuria stand temples of pink marble, rich with carven and painted glories, and having in their courtyards cool fountains of silver, where purl with ravishing music the scented waters that come from the grotto-born river Narg. And the cities of Cathuria are cinctured with golden walls, and their pavements also are of gold. In the gardens of these cities are strange orchids, and perfumed lakes whose beds are of coral and amber. At night the streets and the gardens are lit with gay lanthorns fashioned from the three-coloured shell of the tortoise, and here resound the soft notes of the singer and the lutanist. And the houses of the cities of Cathuria are all palaces, each built over a fragrant canal bearing the waters of the sacred Narg. Of marble and porphyry are the houses, and roofed with glittering gold that reflects the rays of the sun and enhances the splendour of the cities as blissful gods view them from the distant peaks. Fairest of all is the palace of the great monarch Dorieb, whom some say to be a demigod and others a god. High is the palace of Dorieb, and many are the turrets of marble upon its walls. In its wide halls many multitudes assemble, and here hang the trophies of the ages. And the roof is of pure gold, set upon tall pillars of ruby and azure, and having such carven figures of gods and heroes that he who looks up to those heights seems to gaze upon the living Olympus. And the floor of the palace is of glass, under which flow the cunningly lighted waters of the Narg, gay with gaudy fish not known beyond the bounds of lovely Cathuria.’

Thus would I speak to myself of Cathuria, but ever would the bearded man warn me to turn back to the happy shores of Sona-Nyl; for Sona-Nyl is known of men, while none hath ever beheld Cathuria.

And on the thirty-first day that we followed the bird, we beheld the basalt pillars of the West. Shrouded in mist they were, so that no man might peer beyond them or see their summits – which indeed some say reach even to the heavens. And the bearded man again implored me to turn back, but I heeded him not; for from the mists beyond the basalt pillars I fancied there came the notes of singer and lutanist; sweeter than the sweetest songs of Sona-Nyl, and sounding mine own praises; the praises of me,who had voyaged far under the full moon and dwelt in the Land of Fancy.

So to the sound of melody the White Ship sailed into the mist betwixt the basalt pillars of the West. And when the music ceased and the mist lifted, we beheld not the Land of Cathuria, but a swift-rushing resistless sea, over which our helpless barque was borne toward some unknown goal. Soon to our ears came the distant thunder of falling waters, and to our eyes appeared on the far horizon ahead the titanic spray of a monstrous cataract, wherein the oceans of the world drop down to abysmal nothingness. Then did the bearded man say to me with tears on his cheek: ‘We have rejected the beautiful Land of Sona-Nyl, which we may never behold again. The gods are greater than men, and they have conquered.’ And I closed my eyes before the crash that I knew would come, shutting out the sight of the celestial bird which flapped its mocking blue wings over the brink of the torrent.

Out of that crash came darkness, and I heard the shrieking of men and of things which were not men. From the East tempestuous winds arose, and chilled me as I crouched on the slab of damp stone which had risen beneath my feet. Then as I heard another crash I opened my eyes and beheld myself upon the platform of that lighthouse from whence I had sailed so many aeons ago. In the darkness below there loomed the vast blurred outlines of a vessel breaking up on the cruel rocks, and as I glanced out over the waste I saw that the light had failed for the first time since my grandfather had assumed its care.

And in the later watches of the night, when I went within the tower, I saw on the wall a calendar which still remained as when I had left it at the hour I sailed away. With the dawn I descended the tower and looked for wreckage upon the rocks, but what I found was only this: a strange dead bird whose hue was as of the azure sky, and a single shattered spar, of a whiteness greater than that of the wave-tips or of the mountain snow.

And thereafter the ocean told me its secrets no more; and though many times since has the moon shone full and high in the heavens, the White Ship from the South came never again.

THE HOUSE

Set close to a hill,

Where the branches are telling

Strange legends of ill;

Over timbers so old

That they breathe of the dead,

Crawl the vines, green and cold,

By strange nourishment fed;

And no man knows the juices they suck

Tall blossoms and fair,

Each pallid bloom throwing

Perfume on the air;

But the afternoon sun

With its shining red rays

Makes the picture loom dun

On the curious gaze,

And above the sweet scent of the blossoms

On terrace and lawn,

Dim memories sav’ring

Of things that have gone;

The stones of the walks

Are encrusted and wet,

And a strange spirit stalks

When the red sun has set,

And the soul of the watcher is fill’d

I stood by that scene,

When the gold rays of noon-time

Beat bright on the green.

But I shiver’d with cold,

Groping feebly for light,

As a picture unroll’d—

And my age-spanning sight

Saw the time I had been there before

THE NIGHTMARE LAKE

Beyond the wonted haunts of man,

Where broods alone in a hideous state

A spirit dead and desolate;

A spirit ancient and unholy,

Heavy with fearsome melancholy,

Which from the waters dull and dense

Draws vapours cursed with pestilence.

Around the banks, a mire of clay,

Sprawl things offensive in decay,

And curious birds that reach that shore

Are seen by mortals nevermore.

Here shines by day the searing sun

On glassy wastes beheld by none,

And here by night pale moonbeams flow

Into the deeps that yawn below.

In nightmares only is it told

What scenes beneath those beams unfold;

What scenes, too old for human sight,

Lie sunken there in endless night;

For in those depths there only pace

The shadows of a voiceless race.

One midnight, redolent of ill,

I saw that lake, asleep and still;

While in the lurid sky there rode

A gibbous moon that glow’d and glow’d.

I saw the stretching marshy shore,

And the foul things those marshes bore:

Lizards and snakes convuls’d and dying;

Ravens and vampires putrefying;

All these, and hov’ring o’er the dead,

Narcophagi that on them fed.

And as the dreadful moon climb’d high,

Fright’ning the stars from out the sky,

I saw the lake’s dull water glow

Till sunken things appear’d below.

There shone unnumber’d fathoms down,

The tow’rs of a forgotten town;

The tarnish’d domes and mossy walls;

Weed-tangled spires and empty halls;

Deserted fanes and vaults of dread,

And streets of gold uncoveted.

These I beheld, and saw beside

A horde of shapeless shadows glide;

A noxious horde which to my glance

Seem’d moving in a hideous dance

Round slimy sepulchres that lay

Beside a never-travell’d way.

Straight from those tombs a heaving rose

That vex’d the waters’ dull repose,

While lethal shades of upper space

Howl’d at the moon’s sardonic face.

Then sank the lake within its bed,

Suck’d down to caverns of the dead,

Till from the reeking, new-stript earth

Curl’d foetid fumes of noisome birth.

About the city, nigh uncover’d,

The monstrous dancing shadows hover’d,

When lo! there oped with sudden stir

The portal of each sepulchre!

No ear may learn, no tongue may tell

What nameless horror then befell.

I see that lake – that moon agrin–

That city and the
things
within–

Waking, I pray that on that shore

The nightmare lake may sink
no more
!