“All that was twenty years ago—” the Judge said, then paused again before asking: “Is it gold?”
“Yes, but of unknown manufacture. I’ve shown it to three or four experts over the years, and always the same answer. It is a very ancient thing, but from no known or recognizable culture. Only the fact that it is made of gold saves it from being completely alien! And even the gold is…not quite right. Kirby has one, too.”
“Oh?” I could hear the surprise in the Judge’s voice. “And where did he get it? Why, just looking at this thing under the glass, I should have taken it for granted—even knowing nothing of it—that it’s as rare as it’s old!”
“I believe they are very rare indeed, surviving from an age before all earthly ages. Feel how cold it is. It has a chill like the ocean floor, and if you try to warm it…but try it for yourself. I can tell you now, though, that it will not stay warm. And I know what that means….
“Kirby received his in the mail some months ago, in the summer. We were at home in Mérida, in Yucatán. As you know, I settled there after—after—”
“Yes, yes I know. But who would want to send the boy such a thing—and why?”
“I believe it was meant as—as a reminder, that’s all—as a means to awaken in him all I have worked to keep dormant. I’ve already told you about…about Kirby, about his strange ways even as a baby. I thought they would leave him as he grew older. I was wrong. That last month before he vanished was the worst. It was after he received the talisman through the mail. Then, three weeks ago, he—he just packed a few things and—” She paused for a moment, I believed to compose herself, for an emotional catch had developed in her voice. I felt strangely moved.
“—As to who sent it to him, that’s something I can’t say. I can only guess, but the package carried the Navissa postmark! That’s why I’m here.”
“The Navissa—” The Judge seemed astounded. “But who would there be here to remember something that happened twenty years ago? And who, in any case, would want to make a gift of such a rare and expensive item to a complete stranger?”
The answer when it came was so low that I had difficulty making it out:
“There must have been others, Jason! Those people in Stillwater weren’t the only ones who called Him master. Those worshipers of His—they still exist—they must! I believe it was one of them, carrying out his master’s orders. As for where it came from in the first place, why, where else but—”
“No, Lucille, that’s quite impossible,” the Judge cut her off. “Something I really can’t allow myself to believe. If such things could be—”
“A madness the world could not face?”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Sam used to say the same thing. Nonetheless he sought the horror out, and brought me here with him, and then—”
“Yes, Lucille, I know what you believe happened then, but—”
“No buts, Jason—I want my son back. Help me, if you will, or don’t help me. It makes no difference. I’m determined to find him, and I’ll find him here, somewhere, I know it. If I have to, then I’ll search him out alone, by myself, before it’s too late!” Her voice had risen again, hysterically.
“No, there’s no need for that,” the old man cut in placatingly. “First thing tomorrow I’ll find someone to help you. And we can get the Mounties from Nelson in on the job, too. They have a winter camp at Fir Valley only a few miles out of Navissa. I’ll be able to get them on the telephone first thing in the morning. I’ll need to, for the telephone will probably go out with the first bad snow.”
“And you’ll definitely find someone to help me personally—someone trustworthy?”
“That’s my word. In fact I already know of one young man who might be willing. Of a very good family—and he’s staying with me right now. You can meet him tomorrow—”
At this point I heard the scrape of chairs and pictured the two rising to their feet. Suddenly ashamed of myself to be standing there eavesdropping, I quickly returned to the library and pulled the door shut behind me. After some little time, during which the lady departed, I went again to Judge Andrews’s study, this time tapping at the shut door and entering at his word. I found the old man worriedly pacing the floor.
He stopped pacing as I entered. “Ah, David. Sit down, please, there’s something I would like to ask you.” He seated himself, shuffling awkwardly in his chair. “It’s difficult to know where to begin—”
“Begin with Samuel R. Bridgeman,” I answered. “I’ve had time to read his books now. Frankly, I find myself very interested.”
“But how did you know—?”
Thinking back on my eavesdropping, I blushed a little as I answered, “I’ve just seen Mrs. Bridgeman leaving. I’m guessing that it’s her husband, or perhaps the lady herself, you want to talk to me about.”
He nodded, picking up from his desk a golden medallion some two inches across its face, fingering its bas-relief work before answering. “Yes, you’re right, but—”
“Yes?”
He sighed heavily in answer, then said, “Ah, well, I suppose I’ll have to tell you the whole story, or what I know of it—that’s the least I can do if I’m to expect your help.” He shook his head. “That poor, demented woman!”
“Is she not quite…right, then?”
“Nothing like that at all,” he answered hastily, gruffly. “She’s as sane as I am. It’s just that she’s a little, well, disturbed.”
He then told me the whole of the thing, a story that lasted well into the night. I reproduce here what I can remember of his words. They formed an almost unbroken narrative that I listened to in silence to its end, a narrative that only served to strengthen that resolution of mine to follow this mystery down to a workable conclusion.
“As you are aware,” the Judge began, “I was a friend of Sam Bridgeman’s in our younger days. How this friendship came about is unimportant, but I also knew Lucille before they married, and that is why she now approaches me for help after all these years. It is pure coincidence that I live now in Navissa, so close to where Sam died.
“Even in those early days Sam was a bit of a rebel. Of the orthodox sciences, including anthropology and enthnology, few interested Sam in their accepted forms. Dead and mythological cities, lands with exotic names, and strange gods were ever his passion. I remember how he would sit and dream—of Atlantis and Mu, Ephiroth and Khurdisan, G’harne and lost Leng, R’lyeh and Theem’hdra, forgotten worlds of antique legend and myth—when by rights he should have been studying and working hard toward his future. And yet…that future came to nothing in the end.
“Twenty-six years ago he married Lucille, and because he was fairly well-to-do by then, having inherited a sizable fortune, he was able to escape a working life as we know it to turn his full attention to those ideas and ideals most dear to him. In writing his books, particularly his last book, he alienated himself utterly from colleagues and acknowledged authorities alike in those specific sciences upon which he lavished his ‘imagination.’ That was how they saw his—fantasies?—as the product of a wild imagination set free to wreak havoc among all established orders, scientific and theological included.
“Eventually he became looked upon as a fool, a naïve clown who based his crazed arguments in Blavatsky, in the absurd theories of Scott-Elliot, in the insane epistles of Eibon, and the warped translations of Harold Hadley Copeland, rather than in prosaic but proven historians and scientists….
“When exactly, or why, Sam became interested in the theogony of these northern parts—particularly in certain beliefs of the Indians and half-breeds, and in Eskimo legends of yet more northerly regions—I do not know, but in the end he himself began to believe them. He was especially interested in the legend of the snow- or wind-god, Ithaqua, variously called ‘Wind-Walker,’ ‘Death-Walker,’ ‘Strider in the Star-Spaces,’ and others, a being who supposedly walks in the freezing boreal winds and in the turbulent atmospheric currents of far northern lands and adjacent waters.