Compleat Crow

THE VIKING'S STONE

THE VIKING'S STONE is another of those tales which seem to write themselves: it is as if, once you start, the story takes over. And that's something which should happen far more often! It is, of course, a 'ghost story'— but perhaps you should first be reminded that Titus Crow isn't one for meeting up with conventional ghosts. Or very much of conventional anything else, for that matter!

'De Marigny!' Titus Crow's voice sounded tense and urgent over the telephone. 'De Marigny, tell me - did you ever lend that book of yours, Loftsson's SagaEnglendingabok, to Benjamin Sorlson?'

'Why, yes, Titus; I yawningly answered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, '- but I got it back all right, and Sorlson seems a genuine enough chap. You know him, though, surely?'

'I know him, yes,' Crow's growl came back, strangely tinny over the wire. 'I know him for a damn good archaeologist, a damned argumentative fool... and I know him for a- friend, of sorts. But that hardly matters now. Henri, I think I might need your help - if only to talk Sorlson out of it

'Talk Sorlson out of it?' Dully, apathetically, I repeated him. 'Titus, isn't it a bit early in the morning for cryptic messages? And what on Earth are you doing up, at this hour anyway?' I was well aware of Crow's habit of working late and rising even later.

' "This hour," de Marigny, is 9:00 a.m. - and I'm up to check the mail. I've had a letter from Sorlson. He's gone to Skardaborg - and he's found the stone of Ragnar Gory-Axe!'

Gory-Axe? Skardaborg? What in heaven — My foggy sleep-sodden mind would not bring the man's words into focus. I had attended a meeting — a rather bawdy meeting toward the end, not at all Crow's sort of thing — of the London Mystery Writers' Society the previous evening, and I was now suffering the consequences. I briefly explained this to Crow.

'Coffee, de Marigny,' he barked. 'I'd prescribe three or four mugs at least, and black! Then, if you're interested, bring Loftsson's book with you and meet me at King's Cross for the first afternoon train north. I'll explain it all then.'

Well, a summons from Titus Crow is not something to be lightly put aside — the man has been my friend and mentor ever since my father sent me out of America as a youth — and so I got up and dressed, made a hurried breakfast (including, as my friend had suggested, a great pot of black coffee), placed the book Crow had requested in my briefcase, and then caught a taxi for King's Cross.

In the taxi I took out the Saga-Englendingabok and looked up 'Skardaborg'. The book was very rare, I knew that, for it was a manuscript copy in longhand from the original Latin — or so its preface led me to believe. Crow, after borrowing the book one summer some four years earlier, had told me he believed it to be a translation of Jon Loftsson's lost Latin work on the Kings of Norway and the adventures of the Vikings in England; he doubted if any other copy remained extant. He had referred to it as 'Loftsson's book' ever since. Certainly there was a lost Latin work, believed to be circa 1115, but I secretly disputed Crow's authority to claim my book as being related to that work.

Skardaborg! Yes, there it was: Scarborough, as I had guessed. So, Benjamin Sorlson, the celebrated if unorthodox archaeologist and expert in Viking and other ancient Norwegian matters, was in Scarborough. Now .. what of Ragnar Gory-Axe?

Before I could, further follow my enquiry the taxi arrived at King's Cross. I put the book away, paid the driver, and made my way to the ticket-booth. There, like a fool, I asked for a return ticket to Skardaborg before realizing my slip; but eventually I found myself on the northbound platform searching for my friend, Titus Crow.

He was impossible to miss. Tall in his dark suit, with his leonine head and imposing looks, he would have seemed prominent in any crowd; but when I stood with him it would be safe to say that few if any of the other people on the platform recognized us as 'two of London's foremost occultists'.

Now, I oppose such a description as applied in any derogative manner- to myself (and as in the past certain members of the press have found occasion so to use it) but I do not deny my interest in occult matters. How could I, and own to a father, Etienne-Laurent de Marigny, who was one of the greatest of modern mystics? It is merely that I myself am no great adept, and if I were I should certainly not use dark forces to my own ends.

Crow, too, deplores this 'Black Magician' tag, for he is one to whom, in his unending search for mysteries and discoveries of marvels, the occult has been simply a passage down which his wanderings have taken him; where he has learned, on more than one occasion, outré things unheard of in the more mundane world of ordinary men. Crow may, in that sense, be called an occultist — but so is he a most knowledgeable man and something of an expert in many fields.

We managed to get a compartment to ourselves on the train, but it was only after the journey commenced that Titus made any attempt to explain his purpose in following Sorlson to Scarborough, and then not without a little prodding on my part

'Er, you said Sorlson had "found the stone of Ragnar Gory-Axe" ... ?'

'So he has; Crow answered, nodding, 'and damn him for a fool, he intends to bring the thing back to London!'

'Just what is this stone, Titus, and why is it so important to you?'

The stone? Oh, excuse me, de Marigny, but I thought you were on intimate terms with that book of yours. The stone is a Bauta-stein or menhir — though you'd usually only use the latter term in Celtic connections — raised near a tomb for the spirit of the occupant to rest upon at night, like a perch, and by means of which the ghost might find its way back to the tomb at daybreak'

'How very homely,' I answered, with something of a shudder. 'Then it's an important historical and archaeological find. Surely Sorlson only wants to present the thing to a museum or some such authority?'

'He wants it for himself,' Crow bleakly told me, and that's exactly where the trouble lies. That stone must not be interfered with! There's a curse on the thing, one that goes back eight hundred years to the Viking wars — and it is still operative!

You see, de Marigny, he went on after a brief pause, 'unlike us Sorlson sees little to fear in this sort of thing. He laughed at me when I let it slip about the stone and its curse three months ago. In fact he made it clear that he thought I was pulling his leg about the stone's very existence... Or so I thought! But in truth he must have known something of Ragnar Gory-Axe before; and then, when I told him of your book. . . Well, no matter how slim the chance, Sorlson obviously thought my story was at least worth looking into.' He stroked his chin. 'When did he borrow the book, by the way?'

'Just six weeks ago. He only kept it for a week. Then he made me a fantastic offer for it, which I refused. I remembered how rare you believed it to be.

`Not rare, unique!' he answered. 'Kept it for a week, eh? Yes, that would be ample time to copy the information he needed.'

'Information?'

'Directions from the book,' Crow explained. 'Oh, they in there, all right! In the prose related to the poems, and—'

`Hang on a minute, Titus, I rudely cut him off. 'I'm afraid you're moving a bit too fast for me. You mean you've actually known of this – menhir – for some time?'

'For four years, yes, since I myself borrowed Loftsson's book from you and tracked the tomb down. Incidentally, did you bring the book with you? Ah, I see you did! Give it to me and I'll show you what I mean. The initial clues are here in the poems. I've always been interested in these battle sagas, and being something of an archaeologist – albeit an amateur – well, I couldn't resist the challenge. I wish I had now. But listen–' He found his page and commenced to read.

'In Skardaborg we had no yearn,

To pillage, plunder, sack, and burn;

We'd plow the waves to Whitby where

We knew a war fleet waited there.

But Skardaborg's men laid a trap,

Our great wavebiters to enwrap

In floating nets till, tangle-oared,

We had to stand and fight the horde.

No quarter asked and none proffered,

As shields were lifted, spears prepared,

Till came the furious battle-clash,

And axe and sword were soon awash . .

Crow paused in his reading and looked up: 'So commenced the battle,' he commented. 'Now, de Marigny, the poem goes on in pretty much the same "thud and blunder" fashion for many a couplet, until King Eystein, ever in the thick of the battle, notices one of his ships to be doing extremely well. With blood in his eyes so that he can't see to his best advantage, Eystein flings yet another spear while enquiring of one of his men:

"The sea-chief, name him, of yon ship,

Aye, him who stands with mail adrip,

In foemen's guts, in berserk glee;

Now tell me, Gudrod, who is he?"

'He is answered:

"Tis Ragnar, son of Hildursleif,

Commands the Seasnake like a chief,

Aye, Ragnar Gory-Axe his name,

And in the stern there, see that Dame?

A witch most learned of Lapland's art,

'Tis Ragnar's mother, legs athwart,

Calling no doubt to Ragnar's side,

The Aesir o'er the bloodied tide."

"Of wizard or witch-son I've no ken,

But say thee, Gudrod, given ten

Like him who wields yon axe so red,

We'd soon put all these foe to bed!"

'So you see, Henri, this Ragnar Gory-Axe was only an "up-and-comer", unnoticed of Eystein until this battle at Scarborough. And yet — if we can believe the book, and of course we've proof in the stone that we can — he'd been in many a fray before; and always with his mother, Hildursleif the witch, beside him. The poem goes on to describe Ragnar's death, Eystein's wrath, and Hildursleif's woe. Let's see, now — yes, here:

'And then on Seasnake's bloodied flank,

Tossing his helm down to the plank,

Young Ragnar with a berserk shriek,

Turned on the foe his dragon's beak.

But as his golden locks flew free,

An arrow speeding o'er the sea,

Brought forth a scream the world to chill,

And gored his brain with iron bill —

'Of course, Crow paused again, 'you'll notice that the poems aren't up to the standard of Skalaglam's or Thjodolf's — but I can't tell if the faults lie in the original work, which I would consider unlikely, or in the translation. The kenning is too slight to warrant comment. Anyway, Eystein wins the battle, and the saga goes on like this:

'With dragons fore and snekkes behind,

King Eystein in his blood-rage blind,

Slid in the bay and took the town,

And burned Skardaborg to the ground.

Grey Hildursleif, calling the Aesir,

Made heard her voice through all the ether,

And raised a storm and Thor's bright blade,

To guide her to a forest glade.

In craggy cleft she made his mound,

Where Ragnar's Bauta-stein she found,

And writ in ancient, northern rune,

A curse upon't before his tomb.

The stone was raised in forest bower,

Where died the Dame in that same hour,

And Seasnake's lads, all sore dismayed,

Beside her son the witch-wife laid . . .

'So there you are, de Marigny. . Of course I looked for further references in the prose, and eventually I tracked down the tomb in Allerston Forest.'

'The tomb? Gory-Axe's tomb?' I stupidly queried, still feeling the dull weight of the previous night's party

'Ragnar's tomb, yes,' Crow sighed at my slowness. 'And his Bauta-stein, with the runes still on it beneath the moss of centuries. Now Sorlson has found it, too —and it's my fault, I fear!'

Here my interest picked up greatly. 'And you say the curse is still active? You think Sorlson's in danger, then?'

'That's exactly it, Henri. He's in desperate trouble if ever he tries to move that stone, o'r even interfere with it. That part of the forest site is abhorred by locals, has been for hundreds of years. They say the area's haunted — and of course it is — and they won't go near it. The shade of the Viking walks there still, and the runes on the stone make it clear that there's a doom in store for anyone foolish enough to disturb it!'

'And you could read those "ancient northern runes"?' I asked.

'No, not immediately, but I made a copy and later used Walmsley's Notes on Deciphering Codes, Cryptograms, and Ancient Inscriptions to translate the thing. More about that later.'

'But didn't Ragnar's, er, shade — didn't his ghost make itself known to you?'

'I copied the runes — that's all. I made no attempt to disturb the stone, none whatever. But I did have a rather peculiar dream, yes!'

'A dream, Titus? What sort of dream?'

'Never mind, de Marigny,' he frowned. 'It was sufficient, though, to warn me off Ragnar's tomb forever — and that's why I blame myself for having let the thing slip to Sorlson in the first place. Why, at times I swear the man's as avaricious as old Bannister Brown-Farley used to be! Not for money, mind you, or even power or acclaim. He simply likes to own things.' He passed my book back across to me with a thin smile. 'Here, do yourself a favour and read it. I could never appreciate people who own wonderful things simply for the sake of ownership!'

So there it was; I found myself compared with Bannister Brown-Farley, a rather unscrupulous explorer-adventurer type, infamous for his smuggling of stolen foreign antiques into England! And so I sat abashed, immersed in guts and gore, Loftsson's book on my lap, for the rest of the journey. . .

After changing at York we were in Scarborough by 7:00 p.m., and we took a taxi to the Queen's Hotel where Crow knew Sorlson to be staying. We found him in the bar, well into his fifth or sixth drink, and it was plain that Benjamin Sorlson was not a particularly happy man. He did not see us approach and started inordinately when Crow took him by the arm.

'Titus Crow!' he exclaimed after a moment's hesitation. 'And Henri de Marigny, too. It's good to see you — both of you!'

Sorlson was a small but stocky man, unlike the popular image of his Norwegian ancestors, with grey eyes, sandy hair, and gangling arms. As he welcomed us to the bar and ordered drinks I could see that the hands at the ends of those long arms were visibly trembling. Crow, too, at first sight, had picked up the man's obvious nervousness. My friend became immediately concerned, I could see that, but he hid his worry for the moment in a question:

The stone, Benjamin — you've really found it?'

'I have; Sorlson answered. 'Indeed I have! The directions in Henri's book were, as you yourself told me, quite explicit.' He turned to me and grinned, a forced grin I thought, then asked Crow: 'Well, what's your next step, Titus? Are you going to shop me to the Royal Archaeological Society or something like that? It won't make any difference, you know — "finders keepers", and all that.'

You just don't want to understand, do you, Benjamin? Man, you're already shopped — and to a far greater power than any Archaeological Society, believe me! Crow's eyes narrowed as they studied the other's face. But then, perhaps I'm wrong — perhaps you are beginning to understand after all!'

'Eh? What d'you mean, Crow?'

`I mean, Benjamin, that the bar's scarcely open but already you seem well on your way to getting drunk I don't remember you for a drinking man? Secondly, you should be cock-a-hoop over your coup here — but the fact is you look more than a trifle worried. Been having any dreams during your stay, by any chance?'

'Dreams?' Sorlson visibly flinched at the word. 'Why, yes I have, these last two or three nights — since I found the stone, in fact — but that's hardly surprising, is it all that rot you fed me about curses and so on ...'

'But that was three months ago, Benjamin,' Titus quietly reminded him. 'And in any case – you've seen the inscriptions for yourself now. What did you make of them?'

`Plenty of time for translations later, Titus; and anyway, what if the stone does carry a –curse?' He tried to make light of it and reached up to clap Crow on the shoulder. 'I'll never fail to be amazed at how any man as intelligent as you are can believe in such—'

'I've heard all that before, my friend,' Crow harshly cut him off, 'but it doesn't alter the fact that this curse is real and extant! Man, I can sense these things, and so can de Marigny here. For God's sake, why don't you just take our word for it? Leave the stone where it is, Benjamin – leave it completely alone!'

Sorlson turned his eyes away. 'It's a bit late for that, Titus.'

'What's that?' I broke in. 'What's that you say, Benjamin?'

'You mean you've ... already—?' Crow let the question hang, his voice falling to a whisper on the last word.

'I have, yes – I've had the stone moved!'

'How did you do it?' Crow sounded tired, as if all of his energy had gone out of him in a moment. 'I mean, I remember that the stone stood almost eight feet tall, and there was, plenty of it bedded in the ground, too. It must have weighed almost -- four tons?'

'Just over three and a half, in fact. I hired three men and an ex-army truck fitted with pulleys and tackle. We dug around the base of the stone and then hoisted it aboard. That was about 5:30 this afternoon. They should be well on their way to London by now'

Titus Crow's eyes were suddenly bleak, his face drawn and grey as he asked: 'And the tomb? Is that why you yourself stayed back here in Scarborough?' He waited on Sorlson's answer.

'No, no – I found the cleft in the cliff, of course,' Sorlson eventually answered, 'but—'

'But something stopped you; is that it, Benjamin?'

'The truth is . . . yes, Crow. And you're right about those, dreams I've been having. They've . . . they've worried me. It's not natural for me to dream – not that sort of dream, at any rate . .

Sorlson paused, tossed back his drink and turned from the bar. 'I'm simply not willing to take any more chances, that's all. The stuff in the cleft can wait – Gory-Axe's bones, his armour and weapons.' Yet even as he spoke a greedy light glittered in the archaeologist's eyes.

'Benjamin,' Crow quietly said, 'I've only just realized. For a long time now I've called you friend – but it wasn't the man I admired, only the mind. Now I'm not even sure about that. Why, you're nothing but a thief, a ghoul, a looter of tombs. I just—'

'No, Titus, you're wrong about me,' Sorlson broke in. 'And if it means that much to you, why – I'll put the stone back again. They can always build a museum round it, I suppose!'

'Do you mean it, Benjamin?' I asked.

'Yes – yes, I do, Henri. But it's not truly out of "the-goodness-of-my-heart", as it were. Don't get me wrong – I'd have the stone and everything that goes with it, if _I dared. But there's been something wrong, out of tune, ever since I found the stone in the forest.' He turned back to Crow: 'What train are you catching tonight?'

'Train?' Crow was taken by surprise. 'Tonight?'

'Yes, certainly. The sooner we get back down to

London, the sooner Gory-Axe gets his stone back. Those men with the truck are staying in London overnight. I'm paying them tomorrow when they deliver it to my place. You know, I rather fancied it in my conservatory, along with—' He paused and shuddered. 'But not now.'

While Sorlson was collecting his notebooks, case, and overcoat, I waited in the bar with Titus Crow.

'De Marigny,' my friend said after a while, 'I hope we're in time. I mean, the inscription on that stone mentions nothing of a stay of execution for good intention!'

We -spoke no more and soon Sorlson returned . . .

We were down country almost as far as Peterborough when I was snatched rudely from my nap. Crow, too, nodding quietly in his corner seat, jerked fearfully awake as Sorlson's terror-fraught shriek filled the dimly lighted compartment.

'Wh . . . What in the name of . . . ?' I began.

Sorlson was sitting bolt upright facing Crow, his eyes wide open and full of horror.

'What is it, Benjamin?' Crow shook himself awake and leaned across to take the archaeologist's shoulder.

'Another dream, Titus – a hellish nightmare!' Sorlson gasped. 'Worse than the others. Far worse! It was Ragnar again, but this time he wasn't merely threatening; he was – after me! With his great axe smeared in blood. A . . . a Viking, his head a skull, his eye-sockets full of balefire!'

'Do you feel it, de Marigny?' Crow turned abruptly to me, his face strained and chalky grey, his voice hushed. Until then I had 'felt' nothing, but even as Crow spoke an odd sensation began to creep into my bones. A coldness, the chill of ocean spray driven on the north wind.

'I warned you, Sorlson—' Crow's voice was now oddly remote, almost faint. And by God, I was right to do so!'

The sway and rock of the train and the clatter of its wheels had lessened now, seemed muffled, and a great wall of mist had built up outside to press in on the speeding carriages; particularly on the left, that side of the train facing the fens, The Wash, and the North Sea beyond.

Sorlson was muttering — more to himself than to anyone else — his eyes wide, staring wildly about the compartment and at the swirling greyness beyond the windows: 'It's a trick! Some sort of joke! You're trying to frighten me, Crow — that's it, isn't it?' There was desperation in his strangely muted voice.

No trick, Benjamin,' Titus answered. 'God! — but I wish it were!'

Sorlson was on his feet now, peering in dreadful premonition out into the mist. I leaned across and gripped Crow's elbow: 'Titus! What in hell's happening?' My voice sounded as if it came ffom far away.

'I ... I don't know, de Marigny —`I've known nothing like this before.' As Crow answered, I saw Sorlson stiffen where he stood at the window, and I looked up at the side of the man's face. He was opening and closing his mouth soundlessly like a fish, gesticulating weakly at something out beyond the shut window.

'Titus!' I cried, moving over beside Sorlson to press my face to the glass. 'Look!' Frankly, I needed Crow's corroboration of the thing. I could not believe my own eyes!

For outside, riding the mist in ghostly majesty, a great Viking dragonship lay parallel with, our compartment, its sides adorned with moisture-dripping shields. And behind those shields, spears raised in hideous salutation, ranks of armoured skeletons gave their chief the kill!

Their chief?

In the prow, at the neck of the great, rearing dragon's head, a mist-wreathed figure stood tall and proud... but naked of flesh as its demon companions! The Thing turned its head in horrid and deliberate disdain, and sparse blond locks blew in a ghost-wind about the fleshless skull. Above grinning jaws, red lights burned in black-walled eye-sockets like coals in the bellows' blast; and those eye-sockets were turned with grim intent directly upon the fear-twisted features of Benjamin Sorlson! Then the Thing drew back its ivory arm, and a shining axe gleamed wetly in bony claw.

All normal motion of the train seemed to have stopped by then, to be replaced by the slow heave and swell of an ethereal sea, and even with the windows firmly shut I could clearly hear the slap of waves and the creaking of the dragonship's rigging.

Dimly, as if from eight hundred years back in the abysses of time, I heard Crow's voice shouting instructions: 'Down, de Marigny – for your soul's sake get down!' He was already on the floor, his hands clawing at the legs of Sorlson who stood spreadeagled against the compartment door and its window. 'Leave the window alone, Sorlson—' he shouted from a million miles away. 'Leave it alone!'

Even as I threw myself down I saw Ragnar's skeletal arm sweep forward in a powerful arc – saw him release the great axe from his graveyard fist – and as I hit the floor beside Crow I heard the window slam down and open, and Sorlson's death-scream as he hurtled backwards over our huddled forms! The stocky body of the archaeologist crashed into the opposite door of the compartment and slid in a crumpled heap between the seats. One glance in his direction told me all I needed to know; the haft of a Viking axe stuck out from the left side of his chest. And yet, as I gazed hypnotized at, that terrible weapon, slowly the steel melted into mist and vanished ... and the breast of Sorlson's suit was clean and unmarked!

In the next second I realized that the normal train sounds and motions had returned, that the slap of waves and the keening of the wind had faded to the dark oblivion of their origin. Moisture-laden fog was pouring into the compartment through the open window, but Crow was already on his feet attending to that The dragonship, too, was gone — back to whichever hell spawned the thing, or perhaps Valhalla, who can say?

'We're lucky,' Crow panted, strength and sanity surging back into his voice and manner. 'Myself in particular. But then, I did Ragnar's stone no harm — neither his stone nor his tomb.'

'And Sorlson?' I questioned, knowing the answer before it came.

'Oh, yes,' Crow answered with a nod, bending over the crumpled body 'He s dead. Heart attack — or at least, that's what they'll call it!'

And of course Crow was right.

Two mornings later, at Crow's invitation, I went round to Blowne House, his sprawling bungalow home on the outskirts of the city When I arrived he had just done with sticking a newspaper clipping in one of his many, voluminous files of weird and unnatural events. I had, however, already taken note of the incident in question; it had been given space in most of the previous day's newspapers:

THREE DIE IN MYSTERY CRASH ON Ml

At 9:15 last night, northbound travellers on the M1 at Hemel Hempstead were brought to a halt when a crashed ex-army truck blocked all three lanes with blazing debris. Apparently the vehicle had been travelling south at the time of the as yet unexplained accident, but somehow ended up on the northbound lanes! After the fire had been put out local police were baffled by the extent of damage to the truck. No other vehicle seemed to have been involved, and yet the burned-out shell of the truck showed a severely sliced superstructure and chassis. One of the policemen at the scene remarked that 'it looked as though something had tried to cut the truck in half!' Three bodies — identification not yet complete — were found in the wreckage. Police investigations are continuing...

Of Ragnar's stone there was no mention; but on that subject there was something I had yet to ask Crow. This is how he answered me:

'The inscription, Henri? Why, yes — I copied down the original runes and translated them later. I even put the thing to rhyme, as I believe it was inscribed, but of course my kenning isn't much to mention:

`Here lies the Axe, of witch-wife's blood,

Whose blade was sharp, whose aim was good,

Who washed himself in crimson flood,

Each time the war was waged;

Would-be defilers of this tomb,

Let Seasnake's shadow darkly loom,

And Ragnar's spirit seal thy doom --

His curse-lust to assuage!'

Crow also mentioned his intention of returning to Allerston Forest one day — to see if he was correct in his belief that Ragnar had sailed his marker home again. I, for one, shall not be going with him ...