Human life was not utterly lacking, even in these barren wastes. Bran met the silent men of the fen – reticent, dark of eye and hair, speaking a strange mixed tongue whose long blended integrals had forgotten their pristine separate sources. Bran recognized a certain kinship in these people to himself, but he looked on them with the scorn of a pure blooded patrician for men of mixed strains.
Not that the common people of Caledonia were altogether pure-blooded – they got their stocky bodies and massive limbs from a primitive Teutonic race which had found its way into Caledonia even before the Celtic conquest of Britain was completed, and had been absorbed by the wild Picts. But the chiefs of Bran’s folk had kept their blood free from foreign admixture since the beginnings of Time, and he himself was a pure-bred Pict of the Old Race. But these fen-men, over-run repeatedly by British, Gaelic and Roman conquerors, had assimulated the blood of each, and in the process, almost forgotten their original language and lineage.
Only in Caledonia, Bran brooded, had his people, once masters of all Europe, resisted the flood of Aryan conquest. He had heard of a Pictish people called Basques, who, in the crags of the Pyrenees called themselves an unconquered race; but he knew they had paid tribute for centuries to the ancestors of the Gaels, before these Celtic conquerors abandoned their mountain-realm and set sail for Ireland. Only the Picts of Caledonia had remained free, and they had been scattered into small feuding tribes – he was the first acknowledged king in five hundred years – the beginning of a new dynasty – no, a revival of an ancient dynasty under a new name. In the very teeth of imperial Rome, he dreamed his dreams of empire.
He wandered through the fens, seeking a Door. Of his quest he said nothing to the dark-eyed fen-men. They told him news that drifted from mouth to mouth – a tale of war in the north, the blast of war-trumpets along the winding Wall, of gathering fires in the heather, of flame and smoke and rapine, and the glutting of Gaelic swords in the crimson sea of slaughter. The eagles of the legions were moving northward and the ancient roads resounded to the measured tramp of the iron-clad feet. And Bran, in the fens of the west, laughed, well pleased.
One grey evening he strode on foot across the moors, blackly etched against the dimly crimson fire of the sunset. He felt the incredible antiquity of the slumbering land, as he walked like the last man on the day after the end of the world. Yet at last he saw a token of human life – a drab hut of wattle and mud, set in the reedy breast of the fen.
A woman greeted him from the open door, and Bran’s somber eyes narrowed with a sudden suspicion. The woman was not old, yet the evil wisdom of ages was in her eyes; her garments were ragged and scanty, her black locks tangled and unkempt, lending her an aspect of wildness well in keeping with her grim surroundings. Her red lips laughed but there was no mirth in her laughter, only a hint of mockery, and under her lips her teeth showed sharp and pointed like fangs.
“Enter, master,” said she, “if you do not fear to share the roof of the witch-woman of Dagon-moor!”
Bran entered and sat him down on a broken bench while the woman busied herself with her scanty meal which cooked over an open fire on a squalid hearth. He studied her lithe, almost serpentine motions, the ears which were almost pointed, the yellow eyes which slanted curiously.
“What do you seek on the fens, my lord?” she asked turning toward him with a supple twist of her whole body.
“I seek a Door,” he answered, chin resting on his fist, “I have a song to sing to the worms of the earth!”
She started upright, a jar falling from her hands.
“That is an ill saying, even spoken in chance,” she stammered.
“I speak not by chance but by intent,” he answered, “By the mottles on your skin, by the slanting of your eyes, by the taint in your veins, I speak with full knowledge and meaning.”
Awhile she stood silent, her lips smiling but her face inscrutable.
“Are you mad, man?” she spoke, “That in your madness you come seeking that from which strong men fled screaming in old times?”
“I seek a vengeance,” he answered, “THEY I seek may give me that vengeance.”
She shook her head.
“You have listened to a bird singing; you have dreamed empty dreams.”
“I have heard a viper hiss,” he growled, “And I do not dream. Enough of this by-play. I came seeking a link between two world; I have found it.”
“I need lie to you no more, man of the North,” answered the woman, “THEY you seek still dwell beneath these sleeping hills. They have drawn apart, further and further from the world you know.”
“But they still steal forth in the night to grip straying women on the moors,” said he, his gaze on her slanted eyes. She laughed wickedly.
“What would you of me?”
“That you bring me to them.”
She flung back her head with a scornful laugh. His left hand locked like iron in the breast of her scanty garment and his right closed on his hilt. She laughed in his face.
“Strike and be damned, my northern wolf! Do you think that such life as mine is so sweet that I would cling to it as a babe to the breast?”
His grasp fell away.
“You are right. Threats are foolish. I will buy your aid.”
“How?” the laughing voice hummed with mockery.
Bran opened his pouch and poured into his cupped palm a stream of gold.
“More wealth than all the men of the fen ever dreamed of, together.”
Again she laughed. “What is money to me? Put up your rusty metal.”
“Name me a price,” he urged, “The head of an enemy – ”
“This!” she laughed, and springing, struck cat-like. But the dagger splintered on the mail beneath his cloak and he flung her off with a loathing flirt of his wrist which tossed her sprawling across her straw-strewn bunk. Lying there she laughed up at him.
“Very well! I will name you a price!” She rose and came close to him, her disquietingly long hands fastened into his cloak, “I will tell you, Bran Mak Morn, king of Caledon! Oh, I knew you when you came into my hut with your black hair and cold eyes. I will lead you to the door of Hades if you like – for a price. And that price shall be the kisses of a king! What think you of my wasted and bitter life, I whom mortal men loathe and fear? I have not known the love of men, the clasp of a strong arm, the sting of human kisses, I the were-woman of the moors! One night of love, oh king, and I grant you your desire!”
Bran eyed her somberly; he reached forth and gripped her arm in his iron fingers. And an involuntary shudder shook him at the feel of her sleek skin. He nodded slowly, and drawing her close to him, forced his head down to meet her lifted lips.
Chapter .4.
The cold grey mists of dawn wrapped Black Bran like a clammy cloak. He turned to the woman whose slanted eyes gleamed in the grey gloom.
“Make good your part of the contract,” he said roughly, “Give me a key to Hell.”
“I will,” the red lips smiled terribly, “Go to the mound men call Dagon’s Barrow. Draw aside the stone that blocks the chamber and enter. The floor of the chamber is made of five great stones, each eight sided, four grouped about the fifth. Lift out the center stone – and you will see!”
“Will I find the Black Stone?” he asked.
“Dagon’s Barrow is the Door to the Black Stone,” she asked, “If you dare take it.”
“Will the symbol be well guarded?” he unconciously loosening his blade in its sheath. The red lips curled mockingly.
“If you meet any of the folk of the Stone, you will die as no mortal man has died for long centuries. The Stone is not guarded. Perhaps THEY will be near – perhaps not. You must take your chance. But none guards it; why should they, since no man has sought them, has ever sought them? And no foe has come against them for a thousand years. Beware, king of the Picts! It was your folk you, so long ago, cut the thread that bound They of the Stone to human life. They were almost human then – they overspread the land and knew the sunlight. Now they have drawn APART. They know not the sunlight and shun the light of the moon. Not even do they seek the stars. They might have been human in time but for the spears of your ancestors.”