The Dark World

The Dark World
Henry Kuttner
1946

I. Fire in the Night
II. Call of the Red Witch
III. Locked Worlds
IV. Matholch -- and Medea
V. Scarlet Witch
VI. The Ride to Caer Secaire
VII. Men of the Forest
VIII. Freydis
IX. Realm of the Superconscious
X. Swords for the Coven
XI. In Ghast Rhymi's Tower
XII. Harp of Satan
XIII. War -- Red War!
XIV. Fire of Life
XV. Lair of Power

XVI. Self Against Self
XVII. Freedom at Last!

I. Fire in the Night
TO THE north thin smoke made a column against the darkening sky.
Again I felt the unreasoning fear, the impulse toward nightmare flight
that had been with me for a long time now. I knew it was without
reason. There was only smoke, rising from the swamps of the tangled
Limberlost country, not fifty miles from Chicago, where man has
outlawed superstition with strong bonds of steel and concrete.
I knew it was only a camper's fire, yet I knew it was not. Something, far
back in my mind, knew what the smoke rose from, and who stood
about the fire, peering my way through the trees.
I looked away, my glance slipping around the crowded walls -- shelves
bearing the random fruit of my uncle's magpie collector's instinct.
Opium pipes of inlaid work and silver, golden chessmen from India, a
sword...
Deep memories stirred within me -- deep panic. I was beneath the
sword in two strides, tearing it from the wall, my fingers cramping hard
around the hilt. Not fully aware of what I did, I found myself facing the
window and the distant smoke again. The sword was in my fist, but
feeling wrong, not reassuring, not as the sword ought to feel.
"Easy, Ed," my uncle's deep voice said behind me. "What's the matter?
You look -- sort of wild."
"It's the wrong sword," I heard myself saying helplessly.
Then something like a mist cleared from my brain. I blinked at him
stupidly, wondering what was happening to me. My voice answered.
"It isn't the sword. It should have come from Cambodia. It should have

been one of the three talismans of the Fire King and the Water King.
Three very great talismans -- the fruit of â¢cui, gathered at the time of
the deluge, but still fresh -- the rattan with flowers that never fade, and
the sword of Yan, the guarding spirit."
My uncle squinted at me through pipe-smoke. He shook his head.
"You've changed, Ed," he said in his deep, gentle voice. "You've
changed a lot. I suppose because of the war -- it's to be expected. Arid
you've been sick. But you never used to be interested in things like that
before. I think you spend too much time at the libraries. I'd hoped this
vacation would help. The rest --"
"I don't want rest!" I said violently. "I spent a year and a half resting in
Sumatra. Doing nothing but rest in mat smelly little jungle village,
waiting and waiting and waiting."
I could see and smell it now. I could feel again the fever that had raged
so long through me as I lay in the tabooed hut.
My mind went back eighteen months to the last hour when things were
normal for me. It was in the closing phases of World War II, and I was
flying over the Sumatran jungle. War, of course, is never good or
normal, but until that one blinding moment in the air I had been an
ordinary man, sure of myself, sure of my place in the world, with no
nagging fragments of memory too elusive to catch.
Then everything blanked out, suddenly and completely. I never knew
what it was. There was nothing it could have been. My only injuries
came when the plane struck, and they were miraculously light. But I
had been whole and unhurt when the blindness and blankness came
over me.
The friendly Bataks found me as I lay in the ruined plane. They brought
me through a fever and a raging illness with their strange, crude,
effective ways of healing, but I sometimes thought they had done me
no service when they saved me. And their witch-doctor had his doubts,
too.

He knew something. He worked his curious, futile charms with knotted
string and rice, sweating with effort I did not understand -- then. I
remembered the scarred, ugly mask looming out of the shadow, the
hands moving in gestures of strange power.
"Come back, O soul, where thou are lingering in the wood, or in the
hills, or by the river. See, I call thee with a toemba bras, with an egg of
the fowl Rajah moelija, with the eleven healing leaves...."
"Yes, they were sorry for me at first, all