The Secret of Kralitz Read online

farthermost reaches of the dim cavern, a hush fell,and the bellows and howlings, and the insane tittering of the flyingthings, were no longer heard. My companions leaned expectantly towardme. Standing alone at the head of the board, I raised my goblet anddrank. The liquor was heady, exhilarating, with a faintly brackishflavor.

  And abruptly I knew why the pain-racked, ruined face of my companion hadseemed familiar; I had seen it often among the portraits of myancestors, the frowning, disfigured visage of the founder of the Houseof Kralitz that glared down from the gloom of the great hall. In thatfierce white light of revelation I knew my companions for what theywere; I recognized them, one by one, remembering their canvascounterparts. But there was a change! Like an impalpable veil, the stampof ineradicable evil lay on the tortured faces of my hosts, strangelyaltering their features, so that I could not always be sure I recognizedthem. One pale, sardonic face reminded me of my father, but I could notbe sure, so monstrously altered was its expression.

  I was dining with my ancestors--the House of Kralitz!

  My cup was still held high, and I drained it, for somehow the grimrevelation was not entirely unexpected. A strange glow thrilled throughmy veins, and I laughed aloud for the evil delight that was in me. Theothers laughed too, a deep-throated merriment like the barking ofwolves--tortured laughter from men stretched on the rack, mad laughterin hell! And all through the hazy cavern came the clamor of the devil'sbrood! Great figures that towered many spans high rocked with thunderingglee, and the flying things tittered slyly overhead. And out over thevast expanse swept the wave of frightful mirth, until the half-seenthings in the black waters sent out bellows that tore at my eardrums,and the unseen roof far overhead sent back roaring echoes of the clamor.

  And I laughed with them, laughed insanely, until I dropped exhaustedinto my seat and watched the scarred man at the other end of the tableas he spoke.

  "You are worthy to be of our company, and worthy to eat at the sameboard. We have pledged each other, and you are one of us; we shall eattogether."

  And we fell to, tearing like hungry beasts at the succulent white meatin the jeweled trenchers. Strange monsters served us, and at a chilltouch on my arm I turned to find a dreadful crimson thing, like askinned child, refilling my goblet. Strange, strange and utterlyblasphemous was our feast. We shouted and laughed and fed there in thehazy light, while all around us thundered the evil horde. There was hellbeneath Castle Kralitz, and it held high carnival this night.

  * * * * *

  Presently we sang a fierce drinking-song, swinging the deep cups backand forth in rhythm with our shouted chant. It was an archaic song, butthe obsolete words were no handicap, for I mouthed them as though theyhad been learned at my mother's knee. And at the thought of my mother atrembling and a weakness ran through me abruptly, but I banished it witha draft of the heady liquor.

  Long, long we shouted and sang and caroused there in the great cavern,and after a time we arose together and trooped to where a narrow,high-arched bridge spanned the tenebrous waters of the lake. But I maynot speak of what was at the other end of the bridge, nor of theunnamable things that I saw--and did! I learned of the fungoid, inhumanbeings that dwell on far cold Yuggoth, of the cyclopean shapes thatattend unsleeping Cthulhu in his submarine city, of the strangepleasures that the followers of leprous, subterranean Yog-Sothoth maypossess, and I learned, too, of the unbelievable manner in which Iod,the Source, is worshipped beyond the outer galaxies. I plumbed theblackest pits of hell and came back--laughing. I was one with the restof those dark warders, and I joined them in the saturnalia of horroruntil the scarred man spoke to us again.

  "Our time grows short," he said, his scarred and bearded white face likea gargoyle's in the half-light. "We must depart soon. But you are a trueKralitz, Franz, and we shall meet again, and feast again, and make merryfor longer than you think. One last pledge!"

  I gave it to him. "To the House of Kralitz! May it never fall!"

  And with an exultant shout we drained the pungent dregs of the liquor.

  Then a strange lassitude fell upon me. With the others I turned my backon the cavern and the shapes that pranced and bellowed and crawledthere, and I went up through the carved stone portal. We filed up thestairs, up and up, endlessly, until at last we emerged through thegaping hole in the stone flags and proceeded, a dark, silent company,back through those interminable corridors. The surroundings began togrow strangely familiar, and suddenly I recognized them.

  We were in the great burial vaults below the castle, where the BaronsKralitz were ceremoniously entombed. Each Baron had been placed in hisstone casket in his separate chamber, and each chamber lay, like beadson a necklace, adjacent to the next, so that we proceeded from thefarthermost tombs of the early Barons Kralitz toward the unoccupiedvaults. By immemorial custom, each tomb lay bare, an empty mausoleum,until the time had come for its use, when the great stone coffin, withthe memorial inscription carved upon it, would be carried to its place.It was fitting, indeed, for the secret of Kralitz to be hidden here.

  Abruptly I realized that I was alone, save for the bearded man with thedisfiguring scar. The others had vanished, and, deep in my thoughts, Ihad not missed them. My companion stretched out his black-swathed armand halted my progress, and I turned to him questioningly. He said inhis sonorous voice, "I must leave you now. I must go back to my ownplace." And he pointed to the way whence we had come.

  I nodded, for I had already recognized my companions for what they were.I knew that each Baron Kralitz had been laid in his tomb, only to ariseas a monstrous thing neither dead nor alive, to descend into the cavernbelow and take part in the evil saturnalia. I realized, too, that withthe approach of dawn they had returned to their stone coffins, to lie ina death-like trance until the setting sun should bring brief liberation.My own occult studies had enabled me to recognize these dreadfulmanifestations.

  I bowed to my companion and would have proceeded on my way to the upperparts of the castle, but he barred my path. He shook his head slowly,his scar hideous in the phosphorescent gloom.

  I said, "May I not go yet?"

  He stared at me with tortured, smoldering eyes that had looked into hellitself, and he pointed to what lay beside me, and in a flash ofnightmare realization I knew the secret of the curse of Kralitz. Therecame to me the knowledge that made my brain a frightful thing in whichshapes of darkness would ever swirl and scream; the dreadfulcomprehension of _when_ each Baron Kralitz was initiated into thebrotherhood of blood. I knew--_I knew_--that no coffin had ever beenplaced unoccupied in the tombs, and I read upon the stone sarcophagus atmy feet the inscription that made my doom known to me--_my own name,"Franz, twenty-first Baron Kralitz."_