The Collected SF & Fantasy Works. Abraham Merritt
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word for their god — all else had been in his own tongue, and so, fortunately, they did not understand. But the contempt in his action they did recognize — and a dead, a fearful silence fell upon them all. Lugur’s eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in their green. The priestess reached up, caught at O’Keefe. He seized the soft hand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre.
“The Shining One.” He spoke low. “An’ now again I see the faces of those who dance with it. It is the Fires of Mora — come, God alone knows how — from Erin — to this place. The Fires of Mora!” He contemplated the hushed folk before him; and then from his lips came that weirdest, most haunting of the lyric legends of Erin — the Curse of Mora:
“The fretted fires of Mora blew o’er him in the night;
He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight.
For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight —”
Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and once more he gripped her hand. His eyes grew fixed — he crooned:
“And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune,
When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon —”
He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let the priestess have her way; drained again the glass.
And now my heart was cold, indeed — for what hope was there left with Larry mad, wild drunk!
The silence was unbroken — elfin women and dwarfs glancing furtively at each other. But now Yolara arose, face set, eyes flashing grey.
“Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur — and all who are here!” she cried. “Now I, the priestess of the Shining One, take, as is my right, my mate. And this is he!” She pointed down upon Larry. He glanced up at her.
“Can’t quite make out what you say, Yolara,” he muttered thickly. “But say anything — you like — I love your voice!”
I turned sick with dread. Yolara’s hand stole softly upon the Irishman’s curls caressingly.
“You know the law, Yolara.” Lugur’s voice was flat, deadly, “You may not mate with other than your own kind. And this man is a stranger — a barbarian — food for the Shining One!” Literally, he spat the phrase.
“No, not of our kind — Lugur — higher!” Yolara answered serenely. “Lo, a son of Siya and of Siyana!”
“A lie!” roared the red dwarf. “A lie!”
“The Shining One revealed it to me!” said Yolara sweetly. “And if ye believe not, Lugur — go ask of the Shining One if it be not truth!”
There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words — and whatever their hidden message to Lugur, it was potent. He stood, choking, face hell-shadowed — Marakinoff leaned out again, whispered. The red dwarf bowed, now wholly ironically; resumed his place and his silence. And again I wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had so to sway Lugur.
“What says the Council?” Yolara demanded, turning to them.
Only for a moment they consulted among themselves. Then the woman, whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty, spoke.
“The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!” she answered.
Defiance died from Yolara’s face; she looked down at Larry tenderly. He sat swaying, crooning.
“Bid the priests come,” she commanded, then turned to the silent room. “By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara takes their son for her mate!” And again her hand stole down possessingly, serpent soft, to the drunken head of the O’Keefe.
The curtains parted widely. Through them filed, two by two, twelve hooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green one sees in forest vistas of opening buds of dawning spring. Of each pair one bore clasped to breast a globe of that milky crystal in the sapphire shrine-room; the other a harp, small, shaped somewhat like the ancient clarsach of the Druids.
Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed gently upon it each their globe; and two by two crouched behind them. They formed now a star of six points about the petalled dais, and, simultaneously, they drew from their faces the covering cowls.
I half-rose — youths and maidens these of the fair-haired; and youths and maids more beautiful than any of those I had yet seen — for upon their faces was little of that disturbing mockery to which I have been forced so often, because of the deep impression it made upon me, to refer. The ashen-gold of the maiden priestesses’ hair was wound about their brows in shining coronals. The pale locks of the youths were clustered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems like moonstones. And then, crystal globe alternately before and harp alternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing.
What was that song, I do not know — nor ever shall. Archaic, ancient beyond thought, it seemed — not with the ancientness of things that for uncounted ages have been but wind-driven dust. Rather was it the ancientness of the golden youth of the world, love lilts of earth younglings, with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals of young stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and goddesses. A languor stole through me. The rosy lights upon the tripods began to die away, and as they faded the milky globes gleamed forth brighter, ever brighter. Yolara rose, stretched a hand to Larry, led him through the sextuple groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre of their circle.
The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black, save for the circle of the glowing spheres. Within this their milky radiance grew brighter — brighter. The song whispered away. A throbbing arpeggio dripped from the harps, and as the notes pulsed out, up from the globes, as though striving to follow, pulsed with them tips of moon-fire cones, such as I had seen before Yolara’s altar. Weirdly, caressingly, compellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated, re-repeated theme, holding within itself the same archaic golden quality I had noted in the singing. And over the moon flame pinnacles rose higher!
Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped O’Keefe’s. She raised them above their two heads and slowly, slowly drew him with her into a circling, graceful step, tendrillings delicate as the slow spirallings of twilight mist upon some still stream.
As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly the slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor, crept in a shining ring around those two — and began to rise, a gleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier — rising, ever rising — hiding them!
With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires, shook loose the waves of her silken hair. It fell, a rippling, wondrous cascade, veiling both her and O’Keefe to their girdles — and now the shining coils of moon fire had crept to their knees — was circling higher — higher.
And ever despair grew deeper in my soul!
What was that! I started to my feet, and all around me in the darkness I heard startled motion. From without came a blaring of trumpets, the sound of running men, loud murmurings. The tumult drew closer. I heard cries of “Lakla! Lakla!” Now it was at the very threshold and within it, oddly, as though — punctuating — the clamour, a deep-toned, almost abysmal, booming sound — thunderously bass and reverberant.
Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, and began to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara’s swaying form grew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veiling cloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals her face glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy.
The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose their delicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into a square — inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires of the pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of that Gorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformed into a nameless thing — hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was the true soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God help us in very deed!