Delerium's Mistress: Tales of the Flat Earth Book 4 (16 page)

“Forgive me, sweet wife. I cannot enjoy you tonight. I
am weary.”

So saying, Jadrid lay
down and feigned the most abject slumber. Yet she was prudent. She did not
steal away till moonrise.

When he was sure she had
gone, Jadrid leapt up, flung on his clothes, and belted on his sword. He ran
noiselessly through the house and into the cellar, and so came out into the
pitchy vault of the catacombs beyond.

He had prepared for
himself a dull lamp, by which he could just find his way. For the rest, he knew
the passages from before. He went forward with enormous stealth nevertheless,
shielding the vague light also with his cloak. And as well. At a turning among
the cubbies of disintegrate bones, he caught a flicker of brightness—it was
the hem of her shift, the shimmer of her white instep and a white ankle with a
chain of gold upon it. So certain she was that none had tracked her here, and
so eager for her destination, she went easily, never looking back. And he,
taking pains where she did not, pressed after.

Suddenly the tunnels
ended and came up through a quantity of caves into the open air. Here the bats
took exception to Jadrid’s light
(she
had
needed none), and he put it out. Still without a glance over her shoulder, the
pale flicker of Liliu sped on before him, and through the ruined wall of the
old burial ground.

The moon stood high and
made a silver twilight. On all sides, among the funeral trees and weeds, the
tall tombs rose up, the houses of the dead—and it reminded Jadrid in an awful
way of the boulevard of mansions where he had first followed to find his love.

Presently, they drew
near a very large tomb, in parts crumbled and fallen down, but elsewhere
pillared, and sculpted in historic ways—it had been the resting place of a
mighty prince. Out of cracks and holes, and between the carvings of this, there
streamed a greenish glow, and as Liliu approached, abruptly the door grated
wide. Up the steps she ran, merry as a maiden running to greet her husband, and
in. And the door howled shut again.

Jadrid stood awhile. His
blood was ice, and many another man would probably have hurried away. But
anger, and love-gone-rotten, can work wonders. In less time than it would have
taken him to offer a prayer for salvation to one of the deaf gods of the
Upperearth, Jadrid had climbed a tree which overlooked the prince’s bonehouse,
and so got on its roof. Here he quickly discovered an aperture to look through,
and availed himself.

What a scene was that,
down below, and which he saw in such detail. A great stone catafalque, from
which the skeleton had long since been rolled, and great stone chests much
despoiled—only those of a superhuman strength could have opened them to rifle
them—yet still with skeins of pearls, rubies, diamonds dripping down, and
marvelous instruments (such as a long-necked harp) leaned by, and books of
erudition centuries old, all green like the putrescent phosphorus which made
the light, yet supposedly readable, and held in covers of pure gold. On high,
threescore filigree jewelry lamps, with the nasty substance burning away in
them. In the midst of it all some nine persons who passed around between them
nine golden, gem-encrusted goblets, each containing a different colored wine.
And as they did so, like guests before a feast, they laughed and joked with
each other, kissed and intimately fondled each other. They might, for a fact,
have been a family, and in a manner of speaking, they were, doubtless. Each was
of exceptional good looks, slender, pale, and with that red-black poppy hair
Jadrid knew so well and had admired so much. And each was clothed, too, as if
newly escaped from some bedchamber. And the ninth of them, of course, was
Liliu, his wife.

“Then let us drink,”
said one of them, a man who could have been brother or cousin of Jadrid’s wife,
yet who held her to him in a way Jadrid himself would have been shamed to do in
company. “Let us drink to our immemorial lineage, our destiny, and our success,
and to our genius when compared to the clay-brains of ephemeral mankind. For it
transpires we have each succeeded. Who are lords then, but ever we?”

And they did indeed some
extra drinking, and toasted each other again and again, in the green and yellow
and scarlet and white and even the black wines. And tickled and caressed and
lipped each other as never before, making all the while obscene and
uncharitable comments on the sexual ableness of humanity they had, apparently,
every one of them recently had to endure.

And then another door
opened to the rear of the tomb and their servants came out, some rather like
monkeys, some like men, and one of the latter was the very servant who had
conducted Jadrid to Liliu’s garden. He it was bowed low, and proclaimed that
the feast had been brought.

The nine diners were
very much delighted, and more so when this feast was laid before them on the
catafalque. They fell to with appreciating cries and smacking of lips. But
Jadrid, who also saw on what they banqueted, had fallen prone among the
ornaments of the roof in a deathly swoon.

When he came to himself again, the sky was gray, the
dew was down, and the great tomb in darkness. Trembling, Jadrid gave some
prayers of thanks to the gods (who were not at all responsible) that the
ghoulish feasters had not discovered him.

Now, Jadrid saw it all.
Demonstrably their race was old, of “lineage” and “destiny” as the male ghoul
had remarked. It would seem that for some reason they sought to live among men,
and so tricks had been played—not only Liliu’s upon himself. In her case there
was no elderly father, no house—the mansion deserted, the chariot some dead
king’s, the horses—phantoms? Only the dowry, the plunder of a hundred graves,
was real. Probably it was a variation of this theme they had played elsewhere.
Nine in number, they had now, it would seem, snared nine families by their
deceptions. From eight other beds, some of hapless wives, some of trusting
husbands, these fiends stole out on certain nights to meet together and
rejoice. Small wonder Liliu did not care to eat with her lord. Small wonder she
abhorred the wholesome sun.

Jadrid’s course was sure.
He would go home and wait for darkness. When she came to him with her wiles, he
would kill her.

As he strode from the
cemetery, tears and rage on his face, the sky was lightening but the sun not
up. Dwellers in hovels under the city wall, seeing him emerge in this way from
the haunted burial ground, fled indoors screaming to each other he was the
very devil they had feared all these years, who caroused in the tombs all night
and ate their deceased relatives. Which irony was lost on Jadrid.

It happened that Jadrid’s father had been away a day
or so on business. And that night, which was the night of his return, Jadrid
gave orders that there was to be a dinner of especial magnificence.

Accordingly, about
sunset, all came to the table, the merchant, and also the guests and relations,
every one of whom had been at Jadrid’s wedding. Presently Jadrid entered with
his wife. “I have entreated her to dine with us, for once.”

Everything was laughter
and smiles.

Jadrid sat beside his
wife. He begged her to take some wine.

“Pray excuse me,” said
she.

“No. Tonight you must
drink with us.”

“But you know, my lord,
that I never drink wine.”

“A wonderful wife,”
exclaimed one of the guests. “So abstemious.”

“Then at least,” said
Jadrid persuasively, “you must taste a little of this meat—”

“Pray excuse me.”

“This fruit—”

“Pray excuse me.”

“A pastry then. A
spoonful of honey—”

“Excuse me, dear lord,”
said Liliu. “I have already eaten. Alone, as is my custom.”

“How frugal,” said
another guest. And another: “How charmingly bashful.”

“Yes,” said Jadrid,
smiling upon his wife, “it is true she eats elsewhere, and not with me. But
tell us, gentle Liliu, what
is
it that you
eat? The servants say they bear you dishes of food, but mostly these dishes go
back untouched. Another has declared that he suspects you of throwing what
food is gone to stray dogs under the house wall.”

The guests laughed.
Liliu lowered her eyes.

“A sip of wine now, to
bring some color to your pale cheeks,” said Jadrid, with vast concern. “A
morsel of bread, to please me.”

“Excuse me, I pray you,” said Liliu. “I am not
hungry.” “This,” said Jadrid, “is probably a fact. For last night, I think, you
ate very well.”

Something in his voice
then caused a silence in the chamber. Even the flames straightened in the lamps
as if anxiously to listen. But Liliu did not raise her eyes.

“What can you mean,
Jadrid?” the merchant asked his son. “You say she does not eat with you, and
then you say she has, to your knowledge, eaten well. The poor maiden will be
distraught. You must not tease her so.”

“No?” said Jadrid. “An
end to the teasing then.” And now his face and voice were very terrible. “Last
night, having had a warning, I followed my wife, who often, it seems, leaves my
bed in the depths of the dark. I followed her by way of the tunnels under our
house, out to the burial ground beyond the city wall. And there in a tomb she
met with acquaintances of hers, her kindred, and together they mocked the
silliness of mankind, as they tore off the breasts of dead women and devoured
them. And there they drank to the inferiority of men, as they guzzled the blood
and bile of corpses.”

Horror struck the
company. Not one moved, till Liliu jumped up, and rushing to the merchant, she
threw herself at his feet. “Save me, my father,” she cried, “for your son has
gone mad.”

“Mad, yes, very nearly,”
said Jadrid, whose face was now if anything paler than hers. “If you, my own
kin and friends, doubt me, I ask you to call in the servants. Among them you
will find one at least who has seen this thing I took for wife coming up at
morning through the courtyard stones, to wash off the foulness of her feeding
at our well.”

Then Liliu jumped to her
feet again. She turned and gazed at them all, and her beauty was gone, her face
ugly and ravenous. Not one who looked on her at that moment but did not know
Jadrid had been honest.

“Oh, you, so cunning and
so clever the world reels at you, oh dear husband, what will you do?”

“Why, only this,” said
Jadrid. And going straight up to her, he plunged his dagger into her heart.

She shrieked once, and
then she fell to the ground, while the candles sank low in the lamps, as if
afraid to see.

3.
The Tale Continues

EVERYONE in the house was sworn to secrecy concerning
the events of that awful night. The oath was a terrific one. It was given out
that Jadrid’s young spouse had died tragically and suddenly at table, by
choking on a bone. (There was a gruesome humor to this of which Jadrid himself
may well have been aware.) Of the other houses in the city which might have fallen
prey to the company of ghouls, no heed was taken. They must look out for
themselves.

Liliu was buried next
day with much pomp and lament.

Jadrid
was said to be overwhelmed by grief. He had commissioned for his beloved a
special monument, and this was why she was first to be laid in a burial chamber
unconnected to the family mausoleum, and on ground beyond the family plot.

Out
of respect for the family’s sorrow, the whole street where stood the merchant’s
house was closed for three days and three nights.

During
this period, too, the house itself stayed shut up and its inmates indoors. It
may be true that Jadrid grieved, but his misery was of a feverish, furious
sort. In dreams the alarmed father heard his son cry out that he wished he
might slay the foul witch a second time. Such is love.

On the third
night, some hours before dawn as the moon was sinking, Jadrid roused out of a
leaden sleep.

Waking,
he knew himself still unconscious. For a nightmare crouched at the bed’s foot.
It had the shape of Liliu, her perfume even, her long hair of blackest red
which poured across his feet, and it leaned to the vein in his ankle and sucked
the blood from it.

Jadrid
struggled, and would have shouted for help, but he was weak with horror. And
even as he tried to free himself of the vile dream, the vile dream itself
raised her head and smiled at him, while his blood ran from her teeth. “Be
still, dearest lord,” said Liliu. And she set her hand on his chest and pushed
him back. She had the strength of a giantess; he could not resist. “Why so
surprised?” said Liliu. “Is it not right a wife should be by her husband in his
bed? Ah, you did not think you killed me? Such flesh as I am, nothing can kill
it for long, not iron, nor steel, nor stone nor bone nor water, nor fire. Did
we not boast our greatness in the tomb?”

And
then she stood up, and laughing at him, became a column of spinning smoke, and
this vanished into the air.

“Then,
thank the gods, it was a dream—”