Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
The Secret of Kralitz
By HENRY KUTTNER
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _A story of the shocking revelation that came to thetwenty-first Baron Kralitz_]
I awoke from profound sleep to find two black-swathed forms standingsilently beside me, their faces pale blurs in the gloom. As I blinked toclear my sleep-dimmed eyes, one of them beckoned impatiently, andsuddenly I realized the purpose of this midnight summons. For years Ihad been expecting it, ever since my father, the Baron Kralitz, hadrevealed to me the secret and the curse that hung over our ancienthouse. And so, without a word, I rose and followed my guides as they ledme along the gloomy corridors of the castle that had been my home sincebirth.
As I proceeded there rose up in my mind the stern face of my father, andin my ears rang his solemn words as he told me of the legendary curse ofthe House of Kralitz, the unknown secret that was imparted to the eldestson of each generation--at a certain time.
"When?" I had asked my father as he lay on his death-bed, fighting backthe approach of dissolution.
"When you are able to understand," he had told me, watching my faceintently from beneath his tufted white brows. "Some are told the secretsooner than others. Since the first Baron Kralitz the secret has beenhanded down----"
He clutched at his breast and paused. It was fully five minutes beforehe had gathered his strength to speak again in his rolling, powerfulvoice. No gasping, death-bed confessions for the Baron Kralitz!
He said at last, "You have seen the ruins of the old monastery near thevillage, Franz. The first Baron burnt it and put the monks to the sword.The Abbot interfered too often with the Baron's whims. A girl soughtshelter and the Abbot refused to give her up at the Baron's demand. Hispatience was at an end--you know the tales they still tell about him.
"He slew the Abbot, burned the monastery, and took the girl. Before hedied the Abbot cursed his slayer, and cursed his sons for unborngenerations. And it is the nature of this curse that is the secret ofour house.
"I may not tell you what the curse is. Do not seek to discover it beforeit is revealed to you. Wait patiently, and in due time you will be takenby the warders of the secret down the stairway to the undergroundcavern. And then you will learn the secret of Kralitz."
As the last word passed my father's lips he died, his stern face stillset in its harsh lines.
* * * * *
Deep in my memories, I had not noticed our path, but now the dark formsof my guides paused beside a gap in the stone flagging, where a stairwaywhich I had never seen during my wanderings about the castle led intosubterranean depths. Down this stairway I was conducted, and presently Icame to realize that there was light of a sort--a dim, phosphorescentradiance that came from no recognizable source, and seemed to be lessactual light than the accustoming of my eyes to the near-darkness.
I went down for a long time. The stairway turned and twisted in therock, and the bobbing forms ahead were my only relief from the monotonyof the interminable descent. And at last, deep underground, the longstairway ended, and I gazed over the shoulders of my guides at the greatdoor that barred my path. It was roughly chiseled from the solid stone,and upon it were curious and strangely disquieting carvings, symbolswhich I did not recognize. It swung open, and I passed through andpaused, staring about me through a gray sea of mist.
I stood upon a gentle slope that fell away into the fog-hidden distance,from which came a pandemonium of muffled bellowing and high-pitched,shrill squeakings vaguely akin to obscene laughter. Dark, half-glimpsedshapes swam into sight through the haze and disappeared again, and greatvague shadows swept overhead on silent wings. Almost beside me was along rectangular table of stone, and at this table two score of men wereseated, watching me from eyes that gleamed dully out of deep sockets. Mytwo guides silently took their places among them.
And suddenly the thick fog began to lift. It was swept raggedly away onthe breath of a chill wind. The far dim reaches of the cavern wererevealed as the mist swiftly dissipated, and I stood silent in the gripof a mighty fear, and, strangely, an equally potent, unaccountablethrill of delight. A part of my mind seemed to ask, "What horror isthis?" And another part whispered, "You know this place!"
But I could never have seen it before. If I had realized what lay farbeneath the castle I could never have slept at night for the fear thatwould have obsessed me. For, standing silent with conflicting tides ofhorror and ecstasy racing through me, I saw the weird inhabitants of theunderground world.
Demons, monsters, unnamable things! Nightmare colossi strode bellowingthrough the murk, and amorphous gray things like giant slugs walkedupright on stumpy legs. Creatures of shapeless soft pulp, beings withflame-shot eyes scattered over their misshapen bodies like fabled Argus,writhed and twisted there in the evil glow. Winged things that were notbats swooped and fluttered in the tenebrous air, whisperingsibilantly--whispering in _human_ voices.
Far away at the bottom of the slope I could see the chill gleam ofwater, a hidden, sunless sea. Shapes mercifully almost hidden bydistance and the semi-darkness sported and cried, troubling the surfaceof the lake, the size of which I could only conjecture. And a flappingthing whose leathery wings stretched like a tent above my head swoopedand hovered for a moment, staring with flaming eyes, and then darted offand was lost in the gloom.
And all the while, as I shuddered with fear and loathing, within me wasthis evil glee--this voice which whispered, "You know this place! Youbelong here! Is it not good to be home?"
I glanced behind me. The great door had swung silently shut, and escapewas impossible. And then pride came to my aid. I was a Kralitz. And aKralitz would not acknowledge fear in the face of the devil himself!
* * * * *
I stepped forward and confronted the warders, who were still seatedregarding me intently from eyes in which a smoldering fire seemed toburn. Fighting down an insane dread that I might find before me an arrayof fleshless skeletons, I stepped to the head of the table, where therewas a sort of crude throne, and peered closely at the silent figure onmy right.
It was no bare skull at which I gazed, but a bearded, deadly-pale face.The curved, voluptuous lips were crimson, looking almost rouged, and thedull eyes stared through me bleakly. Inhuman agony had etched itself indeep lines on the white face, and gnawing anguish smoldered in thesunken eyes. I cannot hope to convey the utter strangeness, theatmosphere of unearthliness that surrounded him, almost as palpable asthe fetid tomb-stench that welled from his dark garments. He waved ablack-swathed arm to the vacant seat at the head of the table, and I satdown.
This nightmare sense of unreality! I seemed to be in a dream, with ahidden part of my mind slowly waking from sleep into evil life to takecommand of my faculties. The table was set with old-fashioned gobletsand trenchers such as had not been used for hundreds of years. There wasmeat on the trenchers, and red liquor in the jeweled goblets. A heady,overpowering fragrance swam up into my nostrils, mixed with thegrave-smell of my companions and the musty odor of a dank and sunlessplace.
Every white face was turned to me, faces that seemed oddly familiar,although I did not know why. Each face was alike in its blood-red,sensual lips and its expression of gnawing agony, and burning black eyeslike the abysmal pits of Tartarus stared at me until I felt the shorthairs stir on my neck. But--I was a Kralitz! I stood up and said boldlyin archaic German that somehow came familiarly from m
y lips, "I amFranz, twenty-first Baron Kralitz. What do you want with me?"
A murmur of approval went around the long table. There was a stir. Fromthe foot of the board a huge bearded man arose, a man with a frightfulscar that made the left side of his face a horror of healed whitetissue. Again the odd thrill of familiarity ran through me; I had seenthat face before, and vaguely I remembered looking at it through dimtwilight.
The man spoke in the old guttural German. "We greet you, Franz, BaronKralitz. We greet you and pledge you, Franz--and we pledge the House ofKralitz!"
With that he caught up the goblet before him and held it high. All alongthe long table the black-swathed ones arose, and each held high hisjeweled cup, and pledged me. They drank deeply, savoring the liquor, andI made the bow custom demanded. I said, in words that sprang almostunbidden from my mouth:
"I greet you, who are the warders of the secret of Kralitz, and I pledgeyou in return."
All about me, to the