In proof of her story, the crone brought out the swaddling clothes, which were of fine purple linen broidered with yellow and scarlet silk. She also displayed to Simban a queer amulet of green-zoned jasponyx which Olot had found hanging about the infant’s neck. This amulet was carved with the grotesquely grinning profile of the god Yuckla, patron of mirth and laughter. The weft and pattern of the swaddlings and the workmanship of the amulet were not unfamiliar to Simban, and they confirmed his suspicions regarding the girl’s nativity. He persuaded the crone to part with those tokens and promptly stored them in a great leather pouch which he carried at all times together with the money-bag at his girdle. He wished to show them to Hoaraph, thinking that the mystery of such matters would add another seduction to Rubalsa’s natural charms, and would serve to titivate the somewhat captious desires of the king.
[When the party reaches the monastery they meet another guest, a man in a broidered cloak, who passes out from drink. The following portion occurs at the end of the story after Zobal and Cushara draw lots for Rubalsa.]
An unexpected interruption occurred at that moment, for the man in the broidered cloak, whose very existence all had temporarily forgotten, appeared suddenly from the ruins and accosted Zobal. He seemed as one lost and bewildered, and plainly his bemazement was not wholly due to the after-effects of the heavy potations that had overcome him at the monastery table.
“Surely I have dreamed a strange dream,” he said. “Methought that I came to an abbey in the waste, after losing my way in a weird untimely darkness. I was entertained too well by the abbot and his monks, and fell asleep after sundry draughts of their strong amber-brown ale. But I awakened beneath the moon, in a foul pit with crumbling walls, where human bones and fragments of putrefying members were littered about me, like the leavings of a feast of ghouls. I climbed from the pit by a broken stair, to find myself amid this ancient ruin, to which I cannot remember coming.”
Zobal recounted succinctly the events of the night, and added, “Thou art fortunate, for mayhaps the fiend Ujuk had intended thee for his ghoulish repast when he had done playing the incubus.”
“Scarcely can I credit thy tale,” said the stranger. “Yet I seem to remember seeing thee and thy companions at the abbot’s table…. Yea, clearly I recall the girl who stands yonder, for she bears a strong likeness to one that was dear to me in the former time.”
Then, as if feeling that some further explanation was due, he went on.
“My name is Vadarth, and I hold the post of almoner to King Ilorgh of Tasuun. I am passing through Izdrel on my way to the valleys of the river Vos…. This girl reminds me of the reason of my journey: for she resembles Irali, the wife of my bosom, who died nearly nineteen years agone after giving birth to a girl-infant. The girl was stolen from me at the age of five months by a vengeful servant whom I had dismissed for certain peccadilloes. I sought long but vainly for any trace of her, and despaired at last of ever finding the child. But only a few weeks since, there came to me a man who had met the kidnapper in a far city; and the kidnapper, who was then at the point of death, had confessed to this man the stealing of my child, which he had come to repent; and he told him that he had fled into Yoros with the babe, and had set her adrift in a barge on the upper reaches of the Vos, and had known nothing of her fate thereafter.
“This tale has revived in me a dead hope: for it may be that the girl still lives. In search of her I shall follow the windings of the Vos and make inquiry among the bordering peoples.”
Cushara and Rubalsa had come forward, and they and Zobal were listening to the almoner with open wonderment.
“Verily,” exclaimed Cushara, “the marvels of this night are not yet done.” He then told Vadarth the circumstances under which he and his companions had found Rubalsa dwelling beside the Vos, and the story that Simban had extracted from the old crone as to the finding by her son Olot of the girl-baby in the barge.
“There were certain tokens that the crone gave to Simban,” interpolated Zobal. He stooped down beside the dead eunuch and began to examine the great pouch at his belt, which had been ripped open by Ujuk’s claws. A piece of embroidered cloth protruded from the rift, and pulling it forth, Zobal exhibited the swaddlings worn by the infant Rubalsa. Something that had been carefully wrapped in the folds dropped clattering on the flagstones, and before Zobal could recover it, Vadarth sank to his knees with a loud cry and held up the fallen object.
“Truly this is the amulet worn by my lost child, and those are her swaddlings,” he said in a voice that trembled. “The amulet bears an image of the god Yuckla, and I hung it about her neck to ward off the assailments of ill demons.”
He rose to his feet and embraced Rubalsa, who seemed overcome with astonishment and joy at the revelation that Vadarth was her father.
The almoner turned to Cushara and Zobal. “Will ye come with me to Tasuun?” he inquired. “For this night’s work, I shall make ye captains in the service of Ilorgh.”
“Thy destination is mine,” said Cushara. To this the archer added:
“There is an old saying, that parent should not be parted from child, nor lover from lover, nor comrade from comrade. I also come with thee.”
APPENDIX FIVE:
ALTERNATE ENDING TO
“I AM YOUR SHADOW”
Jones went home at the usual post-midnight hour, after getting himself systematically and completely replastered. He prided himself that he had achieved a sort of bland indifference to shadows. Whatever forms they might manifest, were alike inconsequential. He ignored the ebon monstrosity that still companioned him when he turned on the light in his bedroom.
Still, he was glad of the darkness of closely drawn blinds that blotted it from sight and, he hoped, from existence. He lay with eyes tightly shut, waiting the deeper darkness of alcoholic oblivion.
He had almost reached the indefinite verge where stupor becomes sleep. A sourceless voice, a light, thin, sibilant whisper, pierced the gulf into which he was sinking. Jones was roused into a sort of semi-awareness, without knowing whether the voice spoke in his own mind or from without.
“Who’s that?” he mumbled drowsily.
“I am your shadow.”
“What the hell do you want?” Jones began to awaken now, startled and even a little frightened.
“I shall want many things… in the end. But just at present I can offer to do something for you.”
Jones thought: “I certainly must have them now. After seeing things, I’m hearing voices.”
However, the bravado of many Martinis had only half evaporated. He said aloud: “What can you do for me, shadow?”
“More than you think,” rejoined the whisper. “You have seen the foreshadowing of the crime that your partner meditates: the crime that he will attempt tonight. If you wish I can prevent him.”
“You’re only a shadow,” protested Jones, wondering if the fantastic dialogue were part of some insidious but growing delirium. “You’re an ugly bastard: but I’m the only one that can see you. How could you prevent anything?”
“You have made me strong,” averred the whisper. “And I have power now over other shadows, both seen and unseen, and can exert myself in the world of physical causes and effects.”
“I don’t believe it,” sneered Jones, feeling even as he spoke a weird horripilation in the mid-region of his back. Something—perhaps a hand or a hoof—was pressing his chest lightly through the bed-clothes. The pressure deepened by almost imperceptible gradations till it became an incubus-like burden that seemed to flatten his ribs and breast-bone and lungs against his spine. He gasped and agonized for breath; and the dreadful weight was withdrawn with insupportable slowness.