The Eighth Green Man and Other Stories

1: The Dark Star-6

Nothing was changed. The candles, burning in a windless night, showed nothing more— only gray surging clouds of mist in ceaseless movement. The Picture was like the crater of a volcano where smoke eddied and swung in the void before the destroying fire burst up from its depths.

The watchers saw no change in Alan's face except, perhaps, a deeper shadow of repose. It was a sign, Broome knew, that he was farther and farther away with every passing hour— following— following through space— on and on to dim uncertain perilous horizons where the finite mind can no longer function.

Broome faced his thought steadily, though it was overwhelming in its horror. Had Red Alastair the power to lead on to voids no mortal spirit can endure? His straining eyes grew more intent.

"Something is moving behind the mist," he said.

A rift showed at the top of the Picture; a glimpse of pale sky, a tooth of jagged rock appeared. Thin wispy trails floated across the rift. Gradually, as if rent and shredded by a furious wind, the whole horizon cleared to show a colorless cloudless sky and moorland heights, below which a sea of mist still whirled and eddied to and fro.

But no figure was visible. Until long past dawn the two kept watch, their eyes red-rimmed and aching, but a cold pale sky and desolate peaks of Vorangowl mocked them with their emptiness.

Broome had watched narrowly in all the long hours for some change in Alan, too; but it did not come. The day passed and the fourth night passed. Dawn of the fifth day approached. Broome and Maisry once more shared the vigil, for he had warned her it was the most pregnant of the twenty-four hours.

The Picture showed the same chill breadth of sky and sharp-toothed crags. The rest was veiled. It was in Alan's face that Broome read indication of a crisis. Its indescribable look of sphinx-like, age-old remoteness was softened. The eyelids no longer gave the impression of carven lids that, covered sightless eyes; they seemed merely to have drooped in sleep. A warmer, fuller outline curved cheek and jaw and temples.

"Alan! Alan!"

"No." Broome curtly stopped her. "It is the Picture you must watch. It is the door he must pass through to his body."

Round a tall spur of rock they saw a dark speck moving. Slowly— oh, very slowly— it came on. Impossible to see its face, its outline, or any distinguishing mark at all, but both knew at once who struggled there up on the heights of Vorangowl.

"Bring him back ! Bring him back with all your will." Broome spoke to the trembling girl beside him but kept his eyes on the Picture. "He's done! You and I must give him strength—his is spent, and overspent."

They watched the efforts of the far-off lonely figure and tried to fight back their own despair. The road stretched so endlessly — so endlessly... would that halting, stumbling traveler, so miraculously returning— would he ever reach his bourn?

Now it was full dawn in the green leafy actual world outside the Keep. Birds shook the spell of silence into sound. Long rosy fingers of sunlight thrust through an east window and touched the dusty floor. The candles, paling ghostly sentries, burned on.

Dawn too, it seemed, in the changing Picture. Behind Alan the sky grew light, throwing sun and shadow on the heights he had passed. But in front of him the road wound into mist and shadows— shadows that fell blackest and most impenetrably into the deep gorge which the cliff-path skirted.

Once more that haunted cliff-path must be crossed. Could Alan traverse it? Could he control his swooning weariness on its sharp edge?

"Good, ah, good! His will holds firm."

Broome's voice sank to a deep exultant note as they saw Alan drop on hands and knees to crawl along the path. Maisry watched with pain too overpowering for tears. She spoke to him as if he were close beside her, as if she trod the path before him.

"Dear—it is halfway now. We will rest on the other side. Follow, follow me— a little more— a little more. Ah, you will not let me go alone— Alan! Alan! Come with me... come..."

Broome marveled at her. And Alan's face lifted as if he saw her on the path before him; now and again he put out a hand as if to touch her own. It was full noon when at last he reached the end of the path and lay on the heather slopes beyond.

Until sunset, Maisry coaxed and pleaded and besought the figure on the painted Picture. With Broome beside her, aiding her strength, her wisdom, she fought for Alan, bringing him mile after weary mile along the dark glen road, bringing him back across the cursed painted miles from hell, back to the warmth and beauty of his own green earth, to her and to her love.

The sun sank low, and lower. And still Alan was outside the gates of Gorm. Candlelight showed him on the endless road, swaying and lurching with weariness beyond control. More than once he fell, but rose and stumbled on in answer to Maisry's low entreating words of love. Then at last he fell and did not rise; he seemed deaf to her voice, her pleadings, her tenderness.

Behind him, the long road was clear of mist and shadow, but the foreground he had not yet passed still lay obscure and dark.

Maisry turned imperiously to her companion. "A chair! Put one close that I may touch him, help him up again."

He saw her climb and lean close until her hands could touch the exhausted broken figure lying on the road. Close, close to the painted wall, her moving tender hands seemed to raise, to lift him to his feet. Once more, miraculously, he dragged himself forward— on— on to the gates of Gorm. He reached them, passed through and was swallowed up in velvet darkness of the trees.

No shred of mist remained in all the Picture. In its foreground, the gray Keep abruptly thrust up, grim, boding, expectant.

Dimly in the starlight, someone bulked faintly, uncertainly upon the battlements. Broome's lips formed a word: "Alan !"

The name died on a sudden breath of horror. It was not Alan who so monstrously obscured the stars. It was a heavier figure. It moved, turned, thrust forward a great head. Ah, that demon's face, that flaming beard and hair!

Broome leaped to Maisry's side, to draw her away, to interpose himself between her— leaning forward, her golden head and lovely face not a foot from the painted Keep— and the peering lustful mask. But she resisted him, thrust back his hands, turned a changed face and eyes that flashed like swords full on Red Alastair. She was a golden flame of anger.

"Go back!" her voice rang in the echoing room like bugles blown for war. "Dead, cursed thing— go back to your own hell! Dead— defeated— forgotten ghost! I am not afraid! Back— back to hell!"

The thing upon the tower roof shrank, wavered, dwindled in the starlight. Maisry's eyes pierced it, followed it, tortured it. The monstrous bulk grew vaporous, insubstantial as a web, a dusty cobweb flung on the massive, wall. The web, caught by a breath of wind, was torn from its last slight moorings— tossed from the Keep— drifted from sight...

As it vanished, the Picture cracked across and across. Its painted scene faded, dissolving, disintegrating, obliterated by the all-pervading dust of centuries. In a moment, nothing remained of outline or of color. Above the hearth, a cracked and moldering wall showed in the golden candle-light.

Maisry sprang down, caught Broome's arm. "Now he can come to me! Now I am free! Alan ! Alan ! Alan!"

She knelt beside the truckle-bed. Alan lay still. He seemed to sleep, to dream. A faint smile curved his lips, and his heavy eyelids quivered. Maisry kissed the curving lips, the fluttering eyelids, until the dark eyes opened wide. His voice was a faint exhausted whisper.

"You came for me. You brought me home. I could not have won back— alone. Your voice— dearest— I followed it— your voice— your little hands ..."

His eyes closed in weakness, then opened once again.

"I tried to warn you, to tell you he was coming, too. It was forbidden— I was not allowed ! If you had been afraid— he would have had power— to stay. We had to fight— together, my beloved— together ..."

He sank back to deep oblivion and sleep. Maisry, crouched beside him, let her head fall on the hands that clasped his own. Sleep folded her too, softly, suddenly.

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