A. E. Merritt - The Ship of Ishtar.pdf - A. E. Merrit - borsukomiks

THE SHIP OF ISHTAR

A. A. Merritt

PART I

1. The Coming of the Ship

A TENDRIL of the strange fragrance spiralled up from the great stone

block. Kenton felt it caress his face like a coaxing hand.

He had been aware of that fragrance-an alien perfume, subtly troubling,

evocative of fleeting unfamiliar images, of thought-wisps that were gone

before the mind could grasp them-ever since he had unsheathed from its

coverings the thing Forsyth, the old archaeologist, had sent him from the sand

shrouds of ages-dead Babylon.

Once again his eyes measured the block-four feet long,a little more than

that in height, a trifle less in width. A faded yellow, its centuries hung

about it like a half visible garment. On one face only was there inscription,

a dozen parallel lines of archaic cuneiform; carved there, if Forsyth were

right in his deductions, in the reign of Sargon of Akkad, sixty centuries ago.

The surface of thestone was scarred and pitted and the wedge shaped symbols

mutilated, half obliterated.

Kenton leaned closer over it, and closer around himwound the scented

spirals clinging like scores of tendrils, clinging like little fingers,

wistful, supplicating, pleading-- Pleading for release! What nonsense was this

he was dreaming? Kenton drew himself up. A hammer lay close at hand; he lifted

it and struck the block, impatiently.

The block answered the blow! It murmured; the murmuring grew louder;

louder still,with faint bell tones like distant carillons of jade. The

murmurings ceased, now they were only high, sweet chimings; clearer, ever more

clear they rang, drawing closer, winging up through endless corridors of time.

There was a sharp crackling. The block split. From the break pulsed a

radiance as of rosy pearls and with it wave after wave of the fragrance-no

longer questing, no longer wistful nor supplicating.

Jubilant now! Triumphant! Something was inside the block! Something that

had lain hidden there since Sargon of Akkad, six thousand years go! The

carillons of jade rang out again. Sharply they pealed, then turned and fled

back the endless corridors upwhich they had come. They died away; and as they

died the block collapsed; it disintegrated; it became a swirling, slowly

settling cloud of sparkling dust.

The cloud whirled, a vortex of glittering mist. It vanished like a

curtain plucked away.

Where the block had been stood-a ship! It floated high on a base of

curving waves cut from lapis lazuli and foam-crested with milky rock crystals.

Its hull was of crystal, creamy and faintly luminous. Its prow was shaped like

a slender scimitar, bent backward. Under the incurved tip was a cabin whose

seaward sides were formed, galleon fashion, by the upward thrust of the bows.

Where the hull drew up to form this cabin, a faint flush warmed and cloudy

crystal; it deepened as the side slifted; it gleamed at last with a radiance

that turned the cabin into a rosy jewel.

In the center of the ship, taking up a third of its length, was a pit;

down from the bow to its railed edge sloped a deck of ivory. The deck that

sloped similarly from the stern was jet black. Another cabin rested there,

larger than that at the bow, but squat and ebon. Both deckscontinued in wide

platforms on each side of the pit. Atthe middle of the ship the ivory and

black decks met withan odd suggestion of contending forces. They did not fade

into each other. They ended there abruptly, edge to edge; hostile.

Out of the pit arose a rail mast: tapering and green asthe core of an

immense emerald. From its cross-sticks awide sail stretched, shimmering like

silk spun from fireopals: from mast and yards fell stays of twisted dull gold.

Out from each side of the ship swept a single bank ofseven great oars,

their scarlet blades dipped deep withinthe pearl crested lapis of the waves,

And the jewelled craft was manned! Why, Kenton won-dered, had he not noticed

the tiny figures before? It was as though they had just arisen from the deck .

. .a woman had slipped out of the rosy cabin's door, an armwas still

outstretched in its closing . . . and there wereother women shapes upon the

ivory deck, three of them,crouching . . . their heads were bent low; two

clasped harpsand the third held a double flute. . . Little figures, not more

than two inches high. . . Toys! Odd that he could not distinguish their

faces, nor thedetails of their dress. The boys were indistinct, blurred,

asthough a veil covered them. Kenton told himself that the blurring was the

fault of his eyes; he closed them. for a moment.

Opening them he looked down upon the black cabinand stared with

deepening perplexity. The black deck had been empty when first the ship had

appeared-that he could have sworn.

Now four manikins were clustered there-close to the edge of the pit! And

the baffling haze around the toys was denser. Ofcourse it must be his

eyes-what else? He would liedown for a while and rest them. He turned,

reluctantly; he walked slowly to the door; he paused there, uncer-tainly, to

look back at the shining mystery- All the room beyond the ship was hidden by

the haze! Kenton heard a shrilling as of armies of storm; aroaring as of

myriads or tempests; a shrieking chaos asthough down upon him swept cataracts

of mighty winds.

The room split into thousands of fragments; dissolved.Clear through the

clamor came the sound of a bell-one-two-thr- He knew that bell. It was his

clock ringing out thehour of six. The third note was cut in twain.

The solid floor on which. he stood melted away. He felt himself

suspended in space, a space filled with mists ofsilver.

The mists melted.

Kenton caught a glimpse of a vast blue wave-crestedocean-another of the

deck of a ship flashing by a dozenfeet below him.

He felt a sudden numbing shock, a blow upon his righttemple. Splintered

lightnings veined a blackness that wipedout sight of sea and ship.

2. The First Adventure

KENTON lay listening to a soft whispering, persistentand continuous. It

was like the breaking crests of sleepywaves. The sound was all about him; a

rippling susurra-tion becoming steadily more insistent. A light beat

throughhis closed lids. He felt motion under him, a gentle, cra-dling lift and

fall. He opened his eyes.

He was on a ship; lying on a narrow deck, his headagainst the bulwarks.

In front of him was a mast risingout of a pit. Inside the pit were chained men

strainingat great oars. The mast seemed to be of wood coveredwith translucent,

emerald lacquer. It stirred reluctant mem-ories.

Where had he seen such a mast before? His gaze crept up the mast. There

was a wide sail; a sailmade of opaled silk. Low overhead hung a sky that was

alla soft mist of silver.

He heard a woman's voice, deep toned, liquidly golden.Kenton sat up,

dizzily. At his right was a cabin nestlingunder the curved tip of a scimitared

prow; it gleamedrosily. A balcony ran round its top; little trees blossomedon

that balcony; doves with feet and bills crimson asthough dipped in wine of

rubies fluttered snowy wingsamong the branches.

At the cabin's door stood a woman, tall, willow-lithe,staring beyond

him. At her feet crouched three girls. Two of them clasped harps, the other

held to her lips adouble flute. Again the reluctant memories stirred andfled

and were forgotten as Kenton's gaze fastened uponthe woman.

Her wide eyes were green as depths of forest glens,and like them they

were filled with drifting shadows. Herhead was small; the features fine; the

red mouth deli-cately amorous. In the hollow of her throat a dimplelay; a

chalice for kisses and empty of them and eager tobe filled. Above her brows

was set a silver crescent, slimas a newborn moon. Over each horn of the

crescentpoured a flood of red-gold hair, framing the lovely face; the flood

streamed over and was parted by her tiltedbreasts; it fell in ringlets almost

to her sandalled feet.

As young as Spring, she seemed-yet wise as Au-tumn; Primavera of some

archaic Botticelli-but MonaLisa too; if virginal in body, certainly not in

soul.

He followed her gaze. It led him across the pit of theoarsmen. Four men

stood there. One was taller by a headthan Kenton, and built massively. His

pale eyes staredunwinkingly at the woman; menacing; malignant. His facewas

beardless and pallid. His huge and flattened headwas shaven; his nose vulture

beaked; from his shouldersblack robes fell, shrouding him to feet. Two

shavenheads were at his left, wiry, wolfish, black-robed; each ofthem held a

brazen, conch-shaped horn.

On the last of the group Kenton's eyes lingered, fas-cinated. This man

squatted, his pointed chin resting on atall drum whose curved sides glittered

scarlet and jet withthe polished scales of some great snake. His legs

weresturdy but dwarfed-his torso that of a giant, knottedand gnarled,

prodigiously powerful. His ape-like armswere wound around the barrelled

tambour; spider-likewere the long fingers standing on their tips upon thedrum

head.

It was his face that held Kenton. Sardonic and malicious-there was in it

none of the evil concentrate in theothers. The wide slit of his mouth was

frog-like andhumor was on the thin lips. His deep set, twinkling blackeyes

dwelt upon the crescented woman with frank ad-miration. From the lobes of his

outstanding ears hungdisks of hammered gold.

The woman paced swiftly down toward Kenton. When she halted he could

have reached out a hand and touchedher. Yet she did not seem to see him.

"Ho-Klaneth!" she cried. "I hear the voice of Ishtar.She is coming to

her ship. Are you ready to do her hom-age, Slime of Nergal?" A flicker of hate

passed over the massive man's pallidface like a little wave from hell.

"This is Ishtar's Ship," he answered, "yet my DreadLord has claim upon

it too, Sharane? The House of theGoddess brims with light-but tell me, does

not Nergal'sshadow darken behind me?" And Kenton saw that the deck on which

were thesemen was black as polished jet and again memory stroveto make itself

heard.

A sudden wind smote the ship, like an open hand,heeling it. From the

doves within the trees of the rosycabin broke a tumult of cries; they flew up

like a whitecloud flecked with crimson; they fluttered around thewoman.

The ape-like arms of the drummer unwrapped, his spi-dery fingers poised

over the head of the snake drum. Dark-ness deepened about him and hid him;

darkness cloakedall the ship's stern.

Kenton felt the gathering of unknown forces. He sliddown, upon his

haunches, pressed himself against thebulwarks.

From the deck of the rosy cabin blared a goldentrumpeting; defiant;

inhuman. He turned his head, andon it the hair lifted and prickled.

Resting on the rosy cabin was a great orb, an orb likethe moon at full;

but not, like the moon, white and cold-an orb alive with pulsing roseate

candescence. Overthe ship it poured its rays and where the woman calledSharane

had been was now-no woman! Bathed in the orb's rays she loomed gigantic. The

lidsof her eyes were closed, yet through those closed lidseyes glared! Plainly

Kenton saw them-eyes hard as jade,glaring through the closed lids as though

those lids hadbeen gossamer! The slender crescent upon her brows wasan arc of

living fire, and all about it the masses of herred-gold hair beat and tossed.

Round and round, in clamorous rings above the ship,wheeled the cloud of

doves, snowy wings beating, redbeaks open; screaming.

Within the blackness of the ship's stern roared the thun-der of the

serpent drum.

The blackness thinned. A face stared out, half veiled,bodiless, floating

in the shadow. It was the face of theman Klaneth-and yet no more his than that

which chal-lenged it was the woman Sharane's. The pale eyes had be-come twin

pools of hell flames; pupilless. For a heartbeat the face hovered, framed by

the darkness. The shadowdropped over it and hid it. Now Kenton saw that this

shadow hung like a curtainover the exact center of the ship, and that he

crouchedhardly ten feet distant from where that curtain cut thecraft in twain.

The deck on which he lay was pale ivoryand again memory stirred but did not

awaken. The ra-diance from the roseate orb struck against the curtain ofshadow

and made upon it a disk, wider than the ship,that was like a web of beams spun

from the rays of arosy moon. Against this shining web the shadow

pressed,straining to break through.

From the black deck the thunder of the serpent drumredoubled; the brazen

conches shrieked. Drum-thunderand shrieking horn mingled; they became the

pulse ofAbaddon, lair of the damned.

From Sharane's three women, shot storm of harpings,arpeggios like gusts

of tiny arrows and with them shrilljavelin pipings from the double flute.

Arrows and javelinsof sound cut through the thunder hammering of the drumand

the bellow of the horns, sapping them, beating themback.

A movement began within the shadow. It seethed. It spawned.

Over the face of the disk of radiance black shapesswarmed. Their bodies

were like monstrous larva, slugs; faceless. They tore at the web; stove to

thrust through it; flailed it.

The web gave! Its edge held firm, but slowly the center was pushedback

until the disk was like the half of a huge hollowsphere. Within that hollow

crawled and writhed and struckthe monstrous shapes. From the black deck

serpent drumand brazen horns bellowed triumph.

Again rang the golden trumpet cry from the deck ofivory. Out of the orb

streamed an incandescence in-tolerable. The edges of the web shot forward and

curved They closed upon the black spawn; within it the blackspawn milled and

struggled like fish in a net. Like a netlifted by some mighty hand the web

swung high up abovethe ship. Its brightness grew to match that of the orb.From

netted shapes of blackness came a faint, highpitched, obscene wailing. They

shrank, dissolved, were gone.

The net opened. Out of it drifted a little cloud of ebon dust.

The web streamed back into the orb that had sent it forth.

Then, swiftly, the orb was gone! Gone too was the shadow that

had shrouded the blackdeck. High above the ship the snowy doves circled,

screaming victory.

A hand touched Kenton's shoulder. He looked up intothe shadowy eyes of

the woman called Sharane; no god-dess now, only woman. In her eyes he read

amazement, startled disbelief.

Kenton sprang to his feet. A thrust of blinding pain shot through his

head. The deck whirled round him. Hetried to master the dizziness; he could

not. Dizzily theship spun beneath his feet; and beyond in wider arcsdizzily

spun turquoise sea and silver horizon.

Now all formed a vortex, a maelstrom, down whose pithe was

dropping-faster, ever faster. Around him was aformless blur. Again he heard

the tumult of the tempests; the shrillings of the winds of space. The winds

died away.There were three clear bell notes-- Kenton stood within his own

room! The bell had been his clock, striking the hour of six.Six o'clock? Why

the last sound of his own world beforethe mystic sea had swept it from under

him had been thethird stroke of that hour clipped off in mid-note.

God-what a dream! And all in half a bell stroke! He lifted his hand and

touched a throbbing bruise overhis right temple. He winced-well, that blow at

least hadbeen no dream. He stumbled over to the jewelled ship.

He stared at it, incredulous.

The toys upon the ship had moved-new toys had ap-peared! No longer were

there four manikins on the black deck.

There were only two. One stood pointing toward thestarboard platform

near the mast, his hand resting on the shoulder of a red bearded, agate eyed

soldier toy cladall in glittering chain mail.

Nor was there any woman at the rosy cabin's door asthere had been when

Kenton had loosed the ship from theblock. At its threshold were five slim

girls with javelinsin hands.

The woman was on the starboard platform, bent lowbeside the rail! And

the ship's oars were no longer buried in the wavesof lapis lazuli. They were

lifted, poised for the down-ward stroke!

3. The Ship Returns

ONE BY ONE Kenton pulled at the manikins, eachtoy. Immovable, gem hard,

each was, seemingly part ofthe deck itself; no force he could exert would move

them.

Yet something had shifted them-and where were thevanished ones? From

where had the new ones come? Nor was there any haze around the little figures,

norblurring; each lineament stood out clean cut. The point-ing toy on the

black deck had dwarfed, bowed legs; historso was that of a giant; his bald

pate glinted and inhis ears were wide discs of gold. Kenton recognized him-the

beater of the serpent drum.

There was a tiny silver crescent upon the head of thebending woman toy,

and over its tips poured flood of red-gold hair-- Sharane! And that place at

which she peered-was it not wherehe had lain on that other ship of his dream?

That-other ship? He saw again its decks ebon andivory, its rosy cabin and its

emerald mast. It had beenthis ship before him-no other! Dream? Then what

hadmoved the toys? Kenton's wonder grew. Within it moved a sharp un-ease, a

sharper curiosity. He found he could not think clearly with the ship filling

his eyes; it seemed to focus allhis attention upon it, to draw it taut, to

fill him with atense expectancy. He unhooked a hanging from the walland threw

it over the gleaming mystery. He walked fromthe room, fighting with each step

an imperative desire toturn his head. He dragged himself through the doorwayas

though hands were gripping his ankles, drawing himback. Head still turned away

Kenton lurched shouldersagainst the door; closed it; locked it.

In his bathroom he examined the bruise on his head. Itwas painful

enough, but nothing serious. Half an hour ofcold compresses fairly well

removed all outward marksof it. He told himself that he might have fallen upon

thefloor, overcome by the strange perfumes-he knew thathe had not.

Kenton dined alone, scarce heeding what was set be-fore him, his mind

groping through perplexities. Whatwas the history of the block from Babylon?

Who had setthe ship within it-and why? Forsyth's letter had saidthat he had

found it in the mound called Amran, justsouth of the Qser or crumbled "palace"

of Nabopolasser.There was evidence, Kenton knew, that the 'Amran moundwas the

site of E-Sagilla, the ziggurat or terraced tem-ple that had been the Great

House of the Gods in an-cient Babylon. The block must have been held in

peculiarreverence, so Forsyth had conjectured, since only sowould it have been

saved from the destruction of thecity by Sennacherib and afterwards have been

put backin the re-built temple.

But why had it been held in such reverence? Whyhad such a miracle as the

ship been imprisoned in thestone? The inscription might have given some clue

had it notbeen so mutilated. In his letter Forsyth had pointed outthat the

name of Ishtar, Mother Goddess of the Baby-lonians-Goddess of Vengeance and

Destruction as well-appeared over and over again; that plain too were

thearrowed symbols of Nergal, God of the Babylonian Hadesand Lord of the Dead;

that the symbols of Nabu, the Godof Wisdom, appeared many times. These three

names hadbeen almost the only legible words on the block. It wasas though the

acid of time which had etched out theother characters had been held back from

them.

Kenton could read the cuneatic well nigh as readily as his native

A. E. Merritt - The Ship of Ishtar.pdf

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