Fulfillment by Will Garth Read online

  Strange Stories, April, 1939

  Fulfillment

  by Will Garth

  Out of the Piled-Up Centuries, Comes an Inexorable Summons for the Twin of Isames!

  T WAS not a dream. Despite the fact that

  situation. Simply, she had gone to bed in her

  she had distinctly remembered going to

  lovely chamber at home in Forest Hills as

  I bed as a last conscious effort after the Marjorie Westbrook, heiress to the Westbrook stormy interview with Artemus Russo, Motor millions, her mind filled with business Marjorie Westbrook knew, as she had known

  details over the present policies of the late

  about other weird instances in her life, that

  George Westbrook’s automobile factories.

  this was stark and cold reality.

  And here she was, wide awake and

  There was no state of transition standing before an altar in front of her, an altar between the pleasant business of retiring and

  of ancient Egyptian motif with the sacred ibis

  this instinct awareness of an incredible projecting in relief at the ends like figureheads

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  of ships.

  his hands busy at a set of dials and buttons

  She stood in her bare feet upon a cold

  before him. And the craziest and most outre

  floor of tessellated marble. Moreover, the part of it all was the monk’s face. He was satin nightdress, the last item of dress she

  Artemus Russo, general manager of

  remembered donning, was gone. She stood

  Westbrook Motors. Yet there was a

  there in complete nudity, but she was strangeness about him that was not Russo.

  conscious of no sense of shame or modesty.

  Before she had time to cry out, to

  Without seeing it, for she was question him, to demand an explanation, powerless to turn—she was aware of an Marjorie noticed the light. She was outlined in immensity of space which extended in all a glow of light like a psychic aura, of directions behind her, a space blocked out

  unbelievable intensity, shading from pure

  with intangible green mist that was almost

  white to garish green, mantling her in a bath

  black and almost of the density of velvet of living light. As she stared down at her drapes

  lovely form, to her horror, she saw the flesh

  At her right hand was an upright become translucent, transparent, and finally sarcophagus with the lid removed. Within the

  invisible—and the skeletal structure of her

  musty and spicily pungent interior was the

  body from neck to toe became hideously

  wrapped figure of a mummy—a mummy revealed in glowing pink.

  which, queerly enough, was headless.

  Still bound by invisible chains which

  It was all like closing her eyes upon a

  kept her motionless but without pain, Marjorie

  scene in a cinema for an instant, to open them

  heard the cowled figure speak, and the tones

  upon a sudden change of locale. With this

  of his voice awakened a thousand memories in

  significant difference: there was no continuity, her mind, memories which were not of the

  no relevance, no congruity, no connection well-tailored Artemus Russo who shouted so between her life and this grotesque pattern.

  irately about proxies and assets and common

  None? There were, of course, her stock of Westbrook Motors, Inc.

  previous experiences—those strange, uncanny

  “The hour has come, Princess,” he

  interludes in her otherwise prosaic life. But

  said, “to fulfill your destiny.”

  there was no tangible connection unless you

  “Ankhtares!” she gasped, giving him a

  considered the sarcophagus— which looked

  name which came easily from her lips. “No!

  exactly like the one she had purchased some

  No! I am not ready!”

  months before, even to the headless mummy

  Her own answer startled her

  in the musty interior.

  profoundly, shook her to the depths of her

  Somehow, and Marjorie could not soul.

  explain it, that sarcophagus which should have

  That was what made these bizarre

  been in her boudoir, was here with her in this

  occurrences in her life so distressing. It

  other world. That Egyptian sarcophagus—as

  implied knowledge on her part of monstrous

  soon as she had seen it, she had been resolved

  things from the womb of time about which

  to possess it. Its fascination for her had been

  she, as Marjorie Westbrook, should have

  but the apex of an amazing sequence of known nothing. But she did know. Even now, bizarre occurrences, and it blended as a answering so easily to the title of “princess,”

  perfect complement with those experiences....

  yet aware of herself as Marjorie Westbrook,

  Marjorie now became aware that just

  she remembered similar experiences.

  beyond the altar before which she stood was

  the figure of a man in a cowled crimson robe,

  THE first had happened when she was a child

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  3

  of ten. Without warning she had passed from a

  he spoke in a sonorous voice which echoed

  safely mundane world to a shadowy temple of

  hollowly through the great hall of the temple,

  vast halls and towering pillars. Going to bed,

  “in accordance with the rule of your house,

  all tired out from a day of happy play—falling

  blessed under the sign of the crux ansata and

  quickly asleep—suddenly she was standing

  dedicated to the service of Ra, you are here to

  before a high altar whose sides were a frieze

  choose your destiny. Are you prepared?”

  of jackal-headed dolls of angular lines. Or

  “We are prepared, O Ankhtares,”

  were they dolls? How was a little girl of ten to Marjorie heard herself and her sister reply.

  know?

  That the language was not modern English,

  Yet they were not strange to her. she did not even note.

  Without knowing how she knew, she was as

  The high priest passed his hand above

  familiar with the symbol of Anubis as she was

  the curling incense rising from the altar in a

  with her own sister, the twin who had always

  cabalistic sign, and blue smoke fairly boiled

  walked beside her. Sister? With a start, she

  up in writhing convolutions that had sparks of

  realized that another little girl was standing

  incandescent red. The figure of the high priest

  with her before that forbidding altar with its

  was obscured for a moment, and both little

  plume of curling incense. The little companion

  girls trembled. Then he came back into view.

  was an exact duplicate of herself, dressed in

  “In this, the third era in the second

  archaic headdress and queerly draped robe of

  dynasty of Ptolemy,” his compelling voice

  costly silk with beaten gold design in the hem.

  rolled out, “it is written in the Seven
th Book

  On her ankles and arms bracelets glittered,

  of Anubis that of twin princes or princesses of

  one in the form of a coiled serpent with eyes

  the direct line of Pharaoh only one can ascend

  of emerald green.

  to the throne. Herein lies the parting paths of

  This was Isames. Without being told,

  destiny. For one there is the scepter of a

  Marjorie knew that her own name was Isira. It

  queen, wealth and glory and power—and

  had always been Isira—for ten years of death before her youth has faded. For the other Egyptian childhood as a princess of the royal

  there is a timeless void until her spirit shall

  blood. There was no Marjorie Westbrook in

  find life and happiness in a future existence

  this consciousness, and yet she knew she was

  and then she shall grow old before her time.

  Marjorie Westbrook and that Sir Gerwain was

  And in the end the twain shall be reunited by a

  waiting for her out in her father’s kennels. In a bond far stronger than that of natal ties. It is so way it was terrifying, and Marjorie (Isira)

  written. Choose well, ye little princesses.

  whimpered.

  Behold, the sacred ibis awaits to carry the

  “Be brave, Isira,” whispered Isames.

  word to Ammon, Giver of all.”

  “It is our heritage.”

  Both little girls clung together and

  Before Marjorie could reply there was

  quivered in wide-eyed fright as they saw the

  movement behind the altar, and Ankhtares,

  blue smoke take the form of the sacred bird.

  high priest of Ammon, a cold and stern man

  The words of the high priest were

  with the features of Artemus Russo, her incomprehensible to them, but they stared at father’s secretary, swam into view. There was

  the shadowy bird of Ra and spoke bravely.

  a strange light in his piercing black eyes as he

  “I want to be a queen,” said Isames.

  looked out and down upon the two little girls

  “I want to be happy,” said Isira.

  who stood before the altar to the dead, tightly

  With a puff of smoke the nebulous ibis

  clasping each other’s hands.

  disappeared.

  “Princess Isira and Princess Isames,”

  “So be it!” said the voice of Ankhtares.

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  4

  There was a flash of blinding light, and

  were exact duplicates of her own! It was as

  little Marjorie Westbrook opened her eyes to

  though she stared into a burnished mirror of

  find the looming sun streaming in at the gold. Even the wide, staring eyes seemed alive window and to hear the excited yelping of Sir

  with the color and expression of her own eyes.

  Gerwain, her wolfhound, outside.

  And still this fantastic, this outre and

  That had happened when she was ten.

  bizarre experience was no dream. Majorie

  Now, at twenty-five, in the very midst of

  Westbrook was as thoroughly awake as she

  undergoing a similar experience, she was able

  would ever be. Never, since that soul-shaking

  to recall that earlier one.

  and impossible thing which had happened to

  her at the age of ten, had she experienced,

  SHE stared down in a mounting sort of mental

  awake or asleep, any further manifestation

  fear as she watched her body entirely which included so much as a mention of the disappear from beneath her, leaving only the

  lost Isames. In her nocturnal

  faintly glowing frame of her bony structure.

  materializations— and there had been at least

  And as she watched, even that began to fade

  one for every year of her life—she had never

  away in the bath of terrible light, the source of again seen this strange twin sister or heard of

  which she could not determine. Soon she her until now. It came to Marjorie with a would be a disembodied head floating above

  dreadful thrill that she was in her own twenty-

  the strange floor.

  sixth year right now.

  “The hour is at hand, Princess Isira,”

  Not once during her entire life had she

  said the cowled priest, “for the fulfillment of

  ever mentioned these weird adventures to

  your destiny. The sands of time have run their

  anyone, not even to her doctor. It was a closed

  interminable course. Beyond human and sealed book from the world, from even comprehension is the working, of the Infinite.

  Marjorie herself—except in the throes of the

  You behold, on your right, the sarcophagus of

  fantastic episodes. But it was not a dream life; Isames, queen of the Nile, taken unto the arms

  she knew that. It was some horrible destiny,

  of Anubis and Thoth in her twenty-sixth year.

  an actual and solid fate of terrific force and

  Alas, only her chu (preserved body) remains.

  dim, unguessed purpose that stalked her.

  Her ka (soul bird with human head) has

  And it did not feed solely upon the

  departed for the sun temple of Ammon. Her

  hours of night, a mere figment of her

  sacred crypt was violated by Vandals and imagination. There was that day when she was desecrators of the dead, but you can behold

  seventeen, and her father had taken her to the

  her likeness on the lid of the sarcophagus in

  county fair. Normal, happy, light-hearted girl

  beaten gold.”

  of a modern age, she had clapped her hands in

  Marjorie Westbrook, or the delight when the old Gipsy hag in the gay-consciousness that was Marjorie Westbrook,

  colored booth wanted to tell her fortune.

  stared at the cover of the ornate case and

  But no sooner had Marjorie seated

  nearly swooned in astonishment She recalled

  herself across the table of sand from the

  the face on the lid of her own sarcophagus, the

  woman than the crystal ball thereon turned

  one in her boudoir, and how its haunting inky black. The woman started in utter dismay familiarity had puzzled and intrigued her. But

  and quickly flung a cloth over the ball. She

  always it had remained vague and dim. Now,

  blanched almost white as she stared with her

  like the sensitized image on a print that has

  sharp, black eyes into Marjorie’s blue ones.

  just been withdrawn from developing fluid,

  “Let me see your right hand,” she said

  the golden features, bathed in that eerie glow,

  in a tense whisper.

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  5

  Obligingly Marjorie stretched out her

  see a green-gray figure that had materialized

  slim and girlish hand, palm up. Without behind her, a disembodied spirit that was touching her, the Gipsy stared with bulging

  human only in outline—an elemental, even an

  eyes, her golden earrings adance with violent

  ectoplasmic projection of Ankhtares.

  agitation.

  She opened her mouth to scream in

  “No,” she whispered. “No, no—I terror, but no sound came. She thought she cannot read your destiny, child.”

  was in a silent world of chimeras. And the

  “But that isn’t fair,” pouted Marjorie.

  creature carried her bod
yless head like a

  “I’ve paid you a silver dollar. You must read

  football across the intervening space and set it my fortune.”

  firmly on the shoulders of the linen-wrapped

  “Here is your money,” said the old

  mummy within the sarcophagus!

  woman, beginning to shake all over.

  “Thy destiny has been fulfilled,” came

  “I won’t have it back,” declared the voice of AnkhtaTes. “At last we shall both Marjorie defiantly. “Keep it, and read my have peace.”

  fortune.”

  There was that blinding flash of light

  which Marjorie Westbrook had come to know

  THE Gipsy groaned.

  so well, and everything went into the oblivion

  “I—I cannot,” she articulated with of nothingness....

  difficulty. “I dare not! I see only that you have a double existence. You will grow old before

  MARJORIE opened her eyes. The maid was

  your time—incredibly old.”

  letting in the sunshine. She was safe at home

  “How old?” demanded Marjorie, in her own bed in Forest Hills, the covers thinking the Gipsy was putting on a very good

  drawn snugly up to her chin.

  act.

  “Miss Westbrook,” said the maid

  “Perhaps—perhaps six thousand softly, “it is eleven o’clock. Mr. Russo is years,” choked out the other, and then, with a

  waiting to see you in the sitting room. He

  wild cry, the woman fled from the booth.

  insisted that I wake you as he has to attend

  That experience had taken place in that board meeting. He said he must have your broad daylight; had occurred to Marjorie final word.”

  Westbrook without any transition into another

  Marjorie smiled. Her personal relief

  entity, another sphere of life. So she knew she