“And so fled the Picts of Alba; to the west and to the north and there they mingled with the red-haired giants which they had driven from the plains in ages gone by. Such is not the way of the Pict but shall tradition serve a nation whose back is at the wall?
“And so as the ages passed, the race changed. The slim, small black haired people, mingling with the huge, coarse-featured, red-haired savages, formed a strange, distorted race; twisted in soul as in body. And they grew fierce and cunning in warfare; but forgotten the old arts. Forgotten the loom and the kiln and the mill. But the line of chiefs remained untainted. And such art thou, Bran Mak Morn, Wolf of the Heather.”
For a moment there was silence; the silent ring still harkening dreamily, as if to the echo of the wizard’s voice. The night wind whispered by. The fire caught the tinder and burst suddenly into vivid flame, flinging lean red arms to catch the shadows.
The wizard’s voice took up its drone.
“The glory of the Nameless Tribe is vanished; like the snow that falls on the sea; like the smoke that rises in the air. Mingling with past eternities. Vanished the glory of Atlantis; fading the dark empire of the Lemurians. The people of the Stone Age are melting like hoar-frost before the sun. Out of the night we came; into the night we go. All are shadows. A shadow race are we. Our day is past. Wolves roam the temples of the Moon-God. Water serpents coil amid our sunken cities. Silence broods over Lemuria; a curse haunts Atlantis. Red skinned savages roam the western lands, wandering o’er the valley of the Western River, befouling the entempled ramparts which the men of Lemuria reared in worship of the God of the Sea. And to the south, the empire of the Toltecs of Lemuria is crumbling. So the First Races are passing. And the Men of the New Dawn grow mighty.”
The ancient took a flaming brand from the fire and with a motion incredibly swift, inscribed the circle and triangle in the air. And strangely, the mystic symbol seemed to hover in the air, for a moment, a ring of fire.
“The circle without beginning,” droned the wizard. “The circle unending. The Snake with its tail in its mouth, that encompasses the Universe. And the Mystic Three. Beginning, passivity, ending. Creation, preservation, destruction. Destruction, preservation, creation. The Frog, the Egg, and the Serpent. The Serpent, the Egg, and the Frog. And the Elements: Fire, Air and Water. And the phallic symbol. The Fire-god laughs.”
I was aware of the fierce, almost ferocious intensity with which the Picts stared into the fire. The flames leaped and blazed. Smoke billowed up and vanished and a strange yellow haze took its place, that was neither fire, smoke nor fog, and yet seemed a blending of all three. World and sky seemed to merge with the flames. I became, not a man, but a pair of disembodied Eyes.
Then somewhere in the yellow fog vague pictures began to show, looming and vanishing. I sensed that the past was gliding by in a dim panorama. There was a battle-field and on one side were many men such as Bran Mak Morn, but unlike him in that they seemed unused to fray. On the other side was a horde of tall gaunt men, armed with sword and spears of bronze. The Gaels!
Then on another field another battle was in progress and I sensed that hundreds of years had passed. Again the Gaels charged to battle with their arms of bronze, but this time it was they who reeled back in defeat, before a host of huge, yellow-haired warriors, armed also with bronze. The battle marked the coming of the Brythons who gave their name to the isle of Britain.
Then a serried line of vague and fleeting scenes, which passed too rapidly to be distinguished. They gave the impression of great deeds, mighty happenings, but only dim shadows showed. For an instant a dim face loomed. A strong face, with steel gray eyes, and yellow mustaches drooping over thin lips. I sensed that it was that other Bran, the Celtic Brennus whose Gallic hordes had sacked Rome.
Then in its place another face stood out with startling boldness. The face of a young man, haughty, arrogant, with a magnificent brow, but with lines of sensual cruelty about his mouth. The face of both a demi-god and a degenerate.
Caesar!
A shadowy beach. A dim forest; the crash of battle. The legions shattering the hordes of Caractacus.
Then vaguely, swiftly, passed shadows of the pomp and glory of Rome. There were her legions returning in triumph, driving before them hundreds of chained captives. There were shown the corpulent senators and nobles at their luxurious baths and their banquets and their debauches. There were shown the effeminate, slothful merchants and nobles lolling in lustful ease in Ostia, in Massilia, in Aqua Sulae. Then in abrupt contrast, the gathering hordes of the outer world. The fierce eyed, yellow bearded Norsemen; the huge bodied Germanic tribes; the wild, flame-haired savages of Wales and Damnonia, and their allies, the Pictish Silures. The past had faded; present and future took its place!
Then, a vague holocaust, in which nations moved and armies and men faded and shifted.
“Rome falls!” suddenly the wizard’s fiercely exultant voice broke the silence. “The Vandal’s foot spurns the Forum. A savage horde marches along the Via Appia. Yellow haired raiders violate the Vestal Virgins. And Rome falls!”
A ferocious yell of triumph went winging up into the night.
“I see Britain beneath the heel of the Norse invaders. I see the Picts trooping down from the mountains. There is rapine, fire and warfare.”
In the fire-fog leaped the face of Bran Mak Morn.
“Hale the up-lifter! I see the Pictish nation striding upward toward the new light!
“Wolf on the height
Mocking the night;
Slow comes the light
Of a nation’s new dawn.
Shadow hordes massed
Out of the past.
Fame that shall last
Strides on and on.
Over the vale
Thunders the gale
Bearing the tale
Of a nation up-lifted.
Flee, wolf and kite!
Fame that is bright”
From the east came stealing a dim gray radiance. In the ghostly light Bran Mak Morn’s face showed bronze once more, expressionless, immobile; dark eyes gazing unwaveringly into the fire, seeing there his mighty ambitions, his dreams of empire fading into smoke.
“For what we could not keep by battle, we have held by cunning for years and centuries unnumbered. But the New Races rise like a great tidal wave and the Old gives place. In the dim mountains of Galloway shall the nation make its last fierce stand. And as Bran Mak Morn falls, so vanishes the Lost Fire – forever. From the centuries, from the eons.”
And as he spoke, the fire gathered itself into one great flame that leaped high in the air, and in mid-air vanished.
And over the far eastern mountains floated the dim dawn.
Kings of the Night
Kings of the Night
The Caesar lolled on his ivory throne –
His iron legions came
To break a king in a land unknown,
And a race without a name.
The Song of Bran
The dagger flashed downward. A sharp cry broke in a gasp. The form on the rough altar twitched convulsively and lay still. The jagged flint edge sawed at the crimsoned breast, and thin bony fingers, ghastly dyed, tore out the still twitching heart. Under matted white brows, sharp eyes gleamed with a ferocious intensity.
Besides the slayer, four men stood about the crude pile of stones that formed the altar of the God of Shadows. One was of medium height, lithely built, scantily clad, whose black hair was confined by a narrow iron band in the center of which gleamed a single red jewel. Of the others, two were dark like the first. But where he was lithe, they were stocky and misshapen, with knotted limbs, and tangled hair falling over sloping brows. His face denoted intelligence and implacable will; theirs merely a beast-like ferocity. The fourth man had little in common with the rest. Nearly a head taller, though his hair was black as theirs, his skin was comparatively light and he was gray-eyed. He eyed the proceedings with little favor.