The Ultimate Weird Tales Collection - 133 stories - Clark Ashton Smith (Trilogus Classics) (134 page)

Because of a religion so barbarous, it has sometimes been argued that the Hamurriquanean culture—if one can term it such-- must have flourished at an earlier period in man's development than the Heendouan. However, in dealing with a realm of research that borders upon prehistory, such relative chronology can be left to theorists.

Excepting, of course, in our own superior modern civilization, human progress has been slow and uncertain, with many intercalated Dark Ages, many reversions to partial or total savagery. I believe that the Hamurriquanean epoch, whether prior to that of the Heendouans or contemporary with it, can well be classified as one of these Dark Ages.

To return to my main theme, the cult of Awto. It is doubtiess well known to you that in recent years certain irresponsible so-called archaeologists, misled by a desire to create sensation at the cost of truth, have fathered the fantastic thesis that there never was any such god as Awto. They believe, or profess to believe, that the immolatory vehicles of the ancients, and the huge destruction of life and limb caused by their use, were quite without religious significance.

A premise so absurd could be maintained only by madmen or charlatans. I mention it merely that I may refute and dismiss it with all the contempt that it deserves.

Of course, I cannot deny the dubiousness of some of our archaeological deductions. Great difficulties have attended our researches in the continent-embracing deserts of Hamurriqua, where all food-supplies and water must be transported for thousands of miles.

The buildings and writings of the ancients, often made of the most ephemeral materials, lie deep in ever-drifting sands that no human foot has trod for millenniums. Therefore, it is small wonder that guesswork must sometimes fill the gaps of precise knowledge.

I can safely say, however, that few of our deductions are so completely proven, so solidly based, as those relating to the Awto cult. The evidence, though largely circumstantial, is over-whelming.

Like most religions, it would seem that this cult was obscure and shadowy in its origin. Legend and history have both lost the name of the first promulgator. The earliest cars of immolatioin were slow and clumsy, and the rite of sacrifice was perhaps rarely and furtively practised in the beginning. There is no doubt, too, that the intended victims often escaped. Awto, at first, can hardly have inspired the universal fear and reverance of later epochs.

Certain scraps of Hamurriquanean printing, miraculously preserved in air-tight vaults and deciphered before they could crumble, have given us the names of two early prophets of Awto, Anriford and Dhodzh. These amassed fortunes from the credulity o their benighted followers. It was under the influence of these prophets that the dark and baleful religion spread by leaps and bounds, until no Hamurriquanean street or highway was safe from the thunderously rolling wheels of the sacrificial cars.

It is doubtful whether Awto, like most other savage and primnrdial deities, was ever represented by graven images. At least, no such images have been recovered in all our delvings. However, the rusty remains of the iron-built temples of Awto, called grahges, have been exhumed every-where in immense numbers.

Strange vessels and metal implements of mysterious hieratic use have been found in the grahges, together with traces of oils by which the sacred vehicles were anointed, and the vehicles lie buried in far-spread, colossal scrapheaps. All this, however, throws little light on the deity himself.

It is probable that Awto, sometimes known as Mhotawr, was simply an abstract principle of death and destruction and was be lieved to manifest himself through the homicidal speed and fury of the fatal machines. His demented devotees flung themselves before these vehicles as before the embodiment of the god.

The power and influence of Awto' s priesthood, as well as its numbers, must have been well nigh beyond estimation. The priesthood, it would seem, was divided into at least three orders:

The mekniks, or keepers of the grahges. The shophurs, who drove the sacred vehicles. And an order—whose special name has been lost—that served as guardians of innumerable wayside shrines. It was at these shrines where a mineral liquid called ghas used in the fuelling of the vehicles, was dispensed from crude and curious pumping mechanisms.

Several well-preserved mummies of mekniks, in sacerdotal raiment blackened by the sacred oils, have been recovered frorm grahges in the central Hamurriquanean deserts, where they were apparently buried by sudden sandstorms.

Chemical analysis of the oiled garments has so far failed to confirm a certain legendary belief current among the degenerate bushmen who form the scant remnant of Hamurriqua's teaming myriads. I refer to a belief that the oils used in anointing those ancient cars were often mixed with unctuous matters obtained from the bodies of their victims.

However, a usage so barbarous would have conformed well enough with the principles of the hideous cult. Further research may establish the old legend as a truth.

From the evidence we have unearthed, it is plain that the cult assumed enormous power and wide-spread proportions within a few decades of its inception. The awful apex was reached in little more than a century. In my opinion, it is no coincidence that the whole period of the Awto cult corresponded very closely with Hamurriqua's decline and ultimate downfall.

Some will consider my statements too definite, and will ask for the evidence above mentioned. In answer, I need only point to the condition of those skeletons exhumed by thousands from tombs and vaults dated according to the Hamurriquanean chronology.

Throughout the time-period we have assigned to the Awto cult there is a steady, accelerative increase of bone-fractures, often of the most horribly complicated nature. Toward the end, when the fearful cult was at its height, we find few skeletons that do not show at least one or two minor, if not major, breakages.

The shattered condition of these skeletons, often decapitated or wholly disarticulated, is almost beyond belief.

The rusty remains of the ancient vehicles bear similar witness. Built with an eye to ever greater speed and deadliness, they fall into types that show the ghastly growth and progress of the cult. The later types, found in prodigious numbers, are always more or less dented, broken, crumpled—often they are mere heaps of indescribably tangled wreckage.

Toward the end, it would seem that virtually the whole population must have belonged to the blood-mad priesthood. Going forth daily in the rituals of Awto, they must have turned their cars upon each other, hurtling together with the violence of projectiles. A universal mania for speed went hand in hand with a mania for homicide and suicide.

Picture, if you can, the ever-mounting horror of it all. The nation-wide madness of immolation. The carnivals of bloody holidays. The highways lined from coast to coast with crushed and dismembered sacrifices!

Can you wonder that this ancient people, their numbers decimated, their mentality sapped and bestialized by dire superstition, should have declined so rapidly? Should have fallen almost without a struggle before the hordes of the Orient?

Let history and archaeology draw the curtain. The moral is plain. But luckily, in our present state of high enlightenment, we have little need to fear the rise of any savage error such as that which attended the worship of Awto.

Obituary item broadcast from Toshtush on the 1st day of the year 5999:

We are sorry to record the sudden death of Professor Erru Saggus, who had just delivered the last of his series of lectures on Hamurriquanean Archaeology at the University of Tosh-Tush.

Returning on the same afternoon to his home in the Himalayas Professor Saggus was the victim of a most unfortunate accident. His stratosphere ship, one of very newest and speediest models, collided within a few leagues of its destination with a ship driven by one Jar Ghoshtar, a chemistry student from the great College of Ustraleendia.

Both ships were annihilated by the impact, plunging earthwand in a single flaming metoric mass which ignited and destroyed an entire Himalayan village. Several hundred people are said to have burned to death in the resultant conflagration.

Such accidents are all too frequent nowadays, owing to the crowded condition of stratosphere traffic. We must deplore the recklessness of navigators who exceed the 950 mile speed limit. All who saw the recent accident bear witness that Erru Saggus and Jar Ghoshtar were both driving at a speed very much in excess of 1000 miles per hour.

While regretting this present-day mania for mere mileage, we cannot agree with certain ill-advised satirists who have tried to draw a parallel between the fatalities of modern traffic and the ancient rites of immolation to the god Awto.

Superstition is one thing, Science is another. Such archaeologists as Professor Saggus have proven to us that the worshippers of Awto were the victims of a dark and baleful error. It is unthinkable that such superstition will ever again prevail. With pride for our achievements, and full confidence in the future, we can number the most Honorable Professor Erru Saggus among the martyrs of science.

THE HAUNTED CHAMBER

Several years ago, I shall not give the exact date, I received an invitation from a second cousin of mine, one Charles Burleigh, to visit him at his home near London for a few weeks in the winter. As Charles and I are stout friends, and I had no business at the time to detain me, I made haste to answer the note in the affirmative.

Three days later found me at the railway station of my cousin's native town. The village, tho it can scarce be called one, of X. Some snow has already fallen, and when I stepped from the train I found the ground to be white with it. The weather was bitterly cold, so I found it expedient to don a heavy overcoat.

I stood for some time on the platform, gazing about for the man who, I had been informed, would be there to meet me. At last I perceived himan old servant of my cousin's, bronzed with the hue of a tropic clime. As I knew that he had served in the great mutiny, this was not perplexing to me. But I had cause, in the light of later events, to remember he fact.

Charles' house was on the very outskirts of the [village,] at distance of about a half a mile from the station. It was a stately old building, dating from the time of King James the First. The walls [were] ivy-grown in many places. There was an isin-garden, in which the house was buried, enclosed by a high stonewall.

The place had originally, before our family came into possessing it, belonged to a certain family, whose names are well-known to my readers, but which, I shall not, for certain reasons of my own, mention.

Charles I found anxiously awaiting me. He is a man about thirty-five years of age. His countenance is pleasant, but there is on it a tinge of sadness, as of a man who has known trouble.

His early days were soured by certain events; these, however, I cannot tell now, as they have little or no bearing on this story.

The greetings over, we went within. Dinner was served in a great hall, a few hours after my arrival. It was a lonely-looking apartment, lonely because of its vastness and a certain air about it, as of sadness. It affected me in much the same manner as the [tone?] of the house, that is, with a melancholy feeling, synonymous with that described by an American poet in the following manner:

—A feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles rain.

We sat after dinner for several hours, talking of various subjects. Most of them have escaped my memory, but there is one that will stick in my mind as long as I live. I shall never forget it.

We had reached the subject of ghosts and spirits, and were exchanging opinions and reminiscences. I pooh-poohed the idea of the supernatural from the very moment that we took it up.

"There is no such thing as a ghost," I said.

"How can you know that?" he said.

"Because men have always been able to explain satisfactorily to themselves and others how their only foundation is some optical illusion or else there is a human agency behind it all."

"I don't know anything about the 'human agency' in this case" said my cousin in reply, "but I know that I have seen and heard things in this house with my own eyes and ears that cannot be explained under such a heading."

"How long past have you seen them?" I asked, my curiosity leaping up within me on the moment.

"For three months", said Charles, "On every occasion that I have slept in a certain room in this house I have seen and heard strange things."