'I warned you, Sorlson—' Crow's voice was now oddly remote, almost faint. And by God, I was right to do so!'
The sway and rock of the train and the clatter of its wheels had lessened now, seemed muffled, and a great wall of mist had built up outside to press in on the speeding carriages; particularly on the left, that side of the train facing the fens, The Wash, and the North Sea beyond.
Sorlson was muttering — more to himself than to anyone else — his eyes wide, staring wildly about the compartment and at the swirling greyness beyond the windows: 'It's a trick! Some sort of joke! You're trying to frighten me, Crow — that's it, isn't it?' There was desperation in his strangely muted voice.
No trick, Benjamin,' Titus answered. 'God! — but I wish it were!'
Sorlson was on his feet now, peering in dreadful premonition out into the mist. I leaned across and gripped Crow's elbow: 'Titus! What in hell's happening?' My voice sounded as if it came ffom far away.
'I ... I don't know, de Marigny —`I've known nothing like this before.' As Crow answered, I saw Sorlson stiffen where he stood at the window, and I looked up at the side of the man's face. He was opening and closing his mouth soundlessly like a fish, gesticulating weakly at something out beyond the shut window.
'Titus!' I cried, moving over beside Sorlson to press my face to the glass. 'Look!' Frankly, I needed Crow's corroboration of the thing. I could not believe my own eyes!
For outside, riding the mist in ghostly majesty, a great Viking dragonship lay parallel with, our compartment, its sides adorned with moisture-dripping shields. And behind those shields, spears raised in hideous salutation, ranks of armoured skeletons gave their chief the kill!
Their chief?
In the prow, at the neck of the great, rearing dragon's head, a mist-wreathed figure stood tall and proud... but naked of flesh as its demon companions! The Thing turned its head in horrid and deliberate disdain, and sparse blond locks blew in a ghost-wind about the fleshless skull. Above grinning jaws, red lights burned in black-walled eye-sockets like coals in the bellows' blast; and those eye-sockets were turned with grim intent directly upon the fear-twisted features of Benjamin Sorlson! Then the Thing drew back its ivory arm, and a shining axe gleamed wetly in bony claw.
All normal motion of the train seemed to have stopped by then, to be replaced by the slow heave and swell of an ethereal sea, and even with the windows firmly shut I could clearly hear the slap of waves and the creaking of the dragonship's rigging.
Dimly, as if from eight hundred years back in the abysses of time, I heard Crow's voice shouting instructions: 'Down, de Marigny – for your soul's sake get down!' He was already on the floor, his hands clawing at the legs of Sorlson who stood spreadeagled against the compartment door and its window. 'Leave the window alone, Sorlson—' he shouted from a million miles away. 'Leave it alone!'
Even as I threw myself down I saw Ragnar's skeletal arm sweep forward in a powerful arc – saw him release the great axe from his graveyard fist – and as I hit the floor beside Crow I heard the window slam down and open, and Sorlson's death-scream as he hurtled backwards over our huddled forms! The stocky body of the archaeologist crashed into the opposite door of the compartment and slid in a crumpled heap between the seats. One glance in his direction told me all I needed to know; the haft of a Viking axe stuck out from the left side of his chest. And yet, as I gazed hypnotized at, that terrible weapon, slowly the steel melted into mist and vanished ... and the breast of Sorlson's suit was clean and unmarked!
In the next second I realized that the normal train sounds and motions had returned, that the slap of waves and the keening of the wind had faded to the dark oblivion of their origin. Moisture-laden fog was pouring into the compartment through the open window, but Crow was already on his feet attending to that The dragonship, too, was gone — back to whichever hell spawned the thing, or perhaps Valhalla, who can say?
'We're lucky,' Crow panted, strength and sanity surging back into his voice and manner. 'Myself in particular. But then, I did Ragnar's stone no harm — neither his stone nor his tomb.'
'And Sorlson?' I questioned, knowing the answer before it came.
'Oh, yes,' Crow answered with a nod, bending over the crumpled body 'He s dead. Heart attack — or at least, that's what they'll call it!'
And of course Crow was right.
Two mornings later, at Crow's invitation, I went round to Blowne House, his sprawling bungalow home on the outskirts of the city When I arrived he had just done with sticking a newspaper clipping in one of his many, voluminous files of weird and unnatural events. I had, however, already taken note of the incident in question; it had been given space in most of the previous day's newspapers:
THREE DIE IN MYSTERY CRASH ON Ml
At 9:15 last night, northbound travellers on the M1 at Hemel Hempstead were brought to a halt when a crashed ex-army truck blocked all three lanes with blazing debris. Apparently the vehicle had been travelling south at the time of the as yet unexplained accident, but somehow ended up on the northbound lanes! After the fire had been put out local police were baffled by the extent of damage to the truck. No other vehicle seemed to have been involved, and yet the burned-out shell of the truck showed a severely sliced superstructure and chassis. One of the policemen at the scene remarked that 'it looked as though something had tried to cut the truck in half!' Three bodies — identification not yet complete — were found in the wreckage. Police investigations are continuing...
Of Ragnar's stone there was no mention; but on that subject there was something I had yet to ask Crow. This is how he answered me:
'The inscription, Henri? Why, yes — I copied down the original runes and translated them later. I even put the thing to rhyme, as I believe it was inscribed, but of course my kenning isn't much to mention:
`Here lies the Axe, of witch-wife's blood,
Whose blade was sharp, whose aim was good,
Who washed himself in crimson flood,
Each time the war was waged;
Would-be defilers of this tomb,
Let Seasnake's shadow darkly loom,
And Ragnar's spirit seal thy doom --
His curse-lust to assuage!'
Crow also mentioned his intention of returning to Allerston Forest one day — to see if he was correct in his belief that Ragnar had sailed his marker home again. I, for one, shall not be going with him ...
THE MIRROR OF NITOCRIS
The one and only 'solo' appearance of Henri-Laurent de Marigny.
TITUS CROW'S APPRENTICE, Henri-Laurent de Marigny (who as we've seen plays Watson to Crow's Holmes), was sometimes witness and even participant in Crow's strange adventures. Why, at this very moment he's out there somewhere in weird spatial and temporal abysses - in the time-clock, of course - trying to track Crow down and so discover the road into Elysia, the place of the Elder Gods. But that of course is another story, even another novel! Before ever he stepped into the dear old time-clock's cavity - 'a gateway on all space and time - he very nearly got himself involved in an entirely different dimension, in
The Mirror of Nitocris.
Hail, The Queen!
Bricked up alive,