The sky was overcast with misty grey, through which the sun shone coldly yellow, when Bran came to Dagon’s Barrow, a round hillock overgrown with rank grass of a curious fungoid appearance. On one side of the mound showed the entrance of a crudely built stone chamber which evidently penetrated the barrow. One great stone blocked the entrance to the tomb. Bran laid hold of the sharp edges and exerted all his dynamic strength. It held fast. He drew his sword and thrust the blade between the blocking stone and the sill. Working carefully, as with a lever, he managed to loosen the great stone and soon wrenched it out. A foul charnel house scent flowed out of the aperture, and the dim sunlight seemed less to illuminate the opening than to be fouled by the rank darkness which clung there.
Sword in hand, ready for he knew not what, Bran groped his way into the chamber which was long and narrow, built up of heavy joined stones, and was too low for him to stand erect. Either his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the gloom, or the darkness was, after all, somewhat lightened by the sunlight filtering in through the entrance. At any rate he came into a round low chamber and was able to make out its general dome-like outline. Here no doubt, in old times had reposed the bones of he for whom this mound had been reared, but now of those bones no vestige remained on the stone floor. Five stones, Atla had said. And bending close and straining his eyes, he made out the strange, startlingly regular pattern of the floor – four well cut slabs grouped about a central stone.
He drove the point of his sword into a crack and pried carefully. The edge of the central stone tilted slightly upward. A little work and he lifted it out and leaned it against the curving wall. Straining his eyes downward he saw only the gaping blackness of a dark well, with small, worn steps that led downward and out of sight. He did not hesitate. Though the skin between his shoulders crawled curiously he swung himself into the abyss and felt the clinging blackness swallow him.
Groping downward he felt his feet slip and stumble on steps too small for human feet. With one hand pressed hard against the side of the well he steadied himself, fearing a fall into unknown and unlighted depths. The steps seemed to be cut into solid rock, yet his sense of feel told him that they were greatly worn away. The further he progressed, the less like steps they became, mere bumps of worn stone. Then the direction of the shaft changed sharply. It still led down but at a shallow slant, down which he could walk, elbows braced against the hollowed sides, head bent low beneath the curved roof. The steps had ceased altogether, and the stone felt slimy to the touch, like a serpent’s lair. What beings, Bran wondered, had slithered up and down this slanting shaft for how many centuries?
The tunnel narrowed until Bran found it rather difficult to shove through. He lay on his back and pushed himself along with his hands, feet first. Still he knew he was sinking deeper and deeper into the very guts of the earth – how far below the surface he was, he dared not contemplate. Then ahead began a faint witch-fire gleam. He grinned savagely and without mirth. If they he sought came suddenly upon him, how could he fight in that narrow shaft? But he had put the thought of personal fear or danger behind him when he began this hellish quest. He crawled on, thoughtless of all else but his goal.
And he came at last into a vast space where he could stand upright. He could not see the roof of the place. The blackness pressed in on all sides, and beside him he could see the entrance to the shaft from which he had just emerged – a black well in the darkness. But in front of him a strange grisly radiance glowed about a grim black altar built of human skulls. The source of that light he could not determine, but on the altar lay a sullen night-black object – the Black Stone!
Bran wasted no time in giving thanks that the guardians of the grim relic were nowhere near. He caught up the stone and gripping it under his left arm, crawled into the shaft. When a man turns his back on Peril, it menaces him more than when he advances upon it. So with Bran, crawling back up the nighted shaft, with his grisly prize, felt the darkness turn on him and slink behind him, dripping fanged and grinning. Sweat beaded his flesh and he hastened as well as he could, ears strained for some stealthy sound to betray that fell shapes were at his heels. Strong shudders shook him, despite himself, and the short hair on his neck prickled as if a cold wind blew at his back.
When he reached the first of the tiny steps he felt as if he had attained to the outer boundaries of the mortal world. Up them he went, stumbling and slipping, and with a deep gasp of relief, came out into the tomb, whose vague greyness seemed like the blaze of noon, in comparison to the Stygian darkness he had just traversed. He replaced the central stone and strode into the light of the outer day. He lifted the great blocking stone, shoving it back into place, and picking up the cloak he had left at the mouth of the tomb, he wrapped it about the Black Stone and hurried away, a strong revulsion and loathing shaking his soul and lending wings to his strides.
A grey silence brooded over the land. It was desolate as the blind side of the moon, yet Bran felt the potentialities of life – under his feet, in the brown earth – sleeping, but how soon to waken and in what horrific fashion?
He came through the tall masking reeds to the still deep lake men called Dagon’s Mere. No slightest ripple ruffled the cold blue water to give evidence of the grisly monster legend said dwelt beneath. Bran looked all about, scanning the breathless landscape. He saw no hint of life, human or otherwise. He sought the instincts of his savage’s soul to know if any unseen eyes fixed their lethal gaze upon him, and found no response. He was alone as if he were the last man alive on earth. Swiftly unwrapping the Black Stone he weighed it in his hands and calculating the distance, flung it far out, so it fell almost exactly in the middle of the lake; a sullen splash and the waters closed over it. There a moment of shimmering flashes on the bosom of the lake, then the surface was placid again.
Chapter .5.
The were-woman turned swiftly as Bran approached her door. Her slant eyes widened.
“You! And alive! And sane!”
“I have been into Hell and I have returned,” he growled, “What is more, I have that which I sought.”
“The Black Stone?” she cried, “You have really stolen it? Where is it?”
“No matter; but last night my stallion screamed in his stall and I heard something crunch beneath his thundering hoofs which was not wood – and there was blood on his hoofs when I came to see, and blood on the floor of the stall. And I have heard stealthy sounds in the night, and noises beneath my dirt floor, as if worms burrowed deep in the earth. They know I have stolen their Stone – have you betrayed me?”
She shook her head.
“I keep your secret; they do not need my word to know you. The further they have retreated from the world of men, the greater have grown their powers in other ways. Some dawn your hut will lie empty and if men dare investigate they will find nothing – except crumbling bits of earth on the dirt floor.”
Bran smiled terribly.
“I have not planned and toiled thus far to fall prey to the talons of the vermin of the earth. I have a word for the worms of the earth. I have their one idol – or whatever it be to them. If they strike me down in the night, they will never know what became of it. I will bargain with them.”