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)
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
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