The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “I guess it did. That’s where I first heard it.”

  Muriel turned and started down the chasm path. She was walking fast, almost running. Aunt Friel couldn’t possibly keep up.

  “Where are you going, Muriel?”

  Muriel called back, just loud enough to hear herself above the chasm stream.

  “They can’t say those things about me. I never dreamed of murdering anyone. I couldn’t. Not unless it was

  “What did you say?” Aunty Friel called after her.

  “I don’t commit murders and I don’t have delusions. But I’ve seen floating skulls and I’ve heard them sing. No one can tell me different. I’m going to see them again right now.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  If Muriel Were to Murder—

  After a long walk Muriel found the right cave. She wound through the narrow passage, where the flames of her torch touched the red rock ceiling and her flowing blonde hair brushed the walls;

  But her visit was doomed to disappointment. The latticed gate was down. There was no way to get through.

  She placed the torch back of a rock, and when it’s light was no longer in her eyes she could begin to see a little of the lava chamber at the end of the tunnel. Flames were leaping. The lava bubbles were floating upward, bursting with a fine spray of light, and frequently. the purplish-white form of a skull could be seen floating downward.

  They could be heard continuously. If one were to pass this tunnel casually, he might think the weird noises were simply the fantastic echoes of some babbling subterranean river. But as Muriel listened, she began to catch what she had caught before—the clearly defined singing tones and the bable of distinct syllables.

  “Waaaat-cannn-thaaaaa-tooooooo . . .”

  Sometimes she could almost distinguish a series of chanted words. But other skull voices would come in over the one she was trying to listen to; or the sputtering of flames would drown out the consonant sounds.

  She had watched the scene for several minutes before she made anything out of the dark form lying beside the lava pit. Now she saw, by the leaping flames, that it was the Lava Man lying there asleep.

  “Hello!” she called. “Helloooooo!”

  He didn’t stir. She called again and again. It was hopeless. Like many of the moss-gatherers who lived away from the city, he probably slept like dead for hours on end.

  Once her call apparently attracted one of the skulls, for it started to float out into the tunnel toward her. This frightened her so that she fell silent. How long would she have to wait before he came to life? Hunger and fatigue were on her. She knew where she could find some cheese-moss. A little food, a little rest, perhaps a bit of sleep.

  When Muriel awoke, it was with the feeling that the skulls had been whispering to her. She saw three of them drifting back from the lattice gate as she arose. By the lava pit the little old man was still sleeping. Muriel’s torch had almost burned away. It was high time to start back to the city unless she could find another light.

  “Maybe I can overtake a search party,” she thought.

  Whether it was due to her rest or to something the skulls had chanted to her, Muriel might never know; but the odd fact was that her thoughts began to click, one, two, three. Everything was coming to her, crystal clear.

  As she hiked along, she talked to herself.

  “Muriel, they’ve trapped you,” she said slowly. “The skull that warned you was right. This good fortune has brought evil down on your head . . . Evil . . . Evil!”

  The awful word echoed in her ears.

  The Evil Heart Ceremony . . . Whom would they choose for the sacrifice? They would choose someone whose evil doings inflamed their imaginations.

  Would they choose some poor moss-gatherer? No. Would they choose some metal worker or tradesman who was comparatively unknown? No.

  They would choose someone who had recently risen to the pinnacle of popularity—and slipped! Someone whose spectacular rise to fame could be interlocked with a criminal scheme. Someone who had borrowed jewels to become the beauty queen, and then, intoxicated by her success, had committed murder.

  “The story is already spreading like fire,” Muriel said to herself. “By the time I get back to Onyx City someone will be believing it—unless little Neeka can be found alive.”

  But where did Irlinza fit into this pattern? Was she now a friend who might be counted upon to help turn the tide of this false rumor? Or had she herself started it?

  Before Muriel got back to the Onyx Cave she was to learn that her worst fears were justified.

  Twice she came within listening range of search parties. Their conversation was highly revealing. A few of the searchers had come out from the city within the past hour, and they brought the knockout story.

  “Yes, the circumstantial evidence all points to Muriel as the murderer of Neeka,” they would say. “If the body isn’t found, the Dobberking will have an easy time deciding who is to be sacrificed.”

  Muriel’s torch had gone out. She sat in the darkness, watching the party move on through the canyon, listening to their ceaseless call of “Nee-eeka! Nee-eeka!”

  The steel in Muriel’s heart hardened. This was no time for despair. If she yielded before the awful tragedy that was engulfing her, she would be deserting Neeka. For Neeka’s sake she must fight. For Neeka might still be alive, j She might be waiting within some cavern prison, sobbing her little heart out, wondering why Muriel didn’t come for her.

  “It’s a trap,” she said aloud. “It’s a deadly net woven out of jealousy. And it’s meant to catch me—and Neeka—and Neeka’s jewels and property. It’s a net—and the only way I can escape it is to cut my way out.”

  She repeated these words slowly, desperately. Then she added, “With a knife.”

  The steel was welding to a deadly hardness in her heart. What she had been subjected to in these recent hours—the Dobberking’s brutality, Irlinza’s wily deceptions, the treachery of spreading rumors—flooded through her with the heat of fire, transforming her soft nerves into the toughest steel mesh. There would be a way to fight this trap. No matter if it cost her her own life. There would be a way. She must think, plan, act.

  Another party passed along within her hearing, and one of the voices struck through her like an electric shock. It was Irlinza. This was Irlinza’s rescue party, but they were not calling out for Neeka. They were too much engrossed in their own conversation.

  “The Evil Heart Ceremony always follows the same pattern,” Irlinza was saying. “When the time comes for the accusing speeches, I’ll be ready.”

  Yes, the routine of the Ceremony, thought Muriel, would give Irlinza every opportunity to win. For the crowds would be excited, and any dramatic accusation would sway them.

  The Dobberking would be the one to decide, in the analysis. But in the first place, there would be a call for nominations from the crowd, and at such a time any number of persons might be nominated. It was a common thing for a man to nominate his worst enemy. However, unless he could make a speech that would ignite the hatred of the crowd against that enemy, he usually failed in his purpose.

  Once the nominations were made, it was up to Noskin, the record keeper, to check over the evidence against the most prominent candidates. Then—while a crowd waited in awful suspense—he would whisper his recommendation to the Dobberking.

  The final steps, then, would be the Dobberking’s announcement of the victim. Whether the Dobberking would always choose the person that Noskin recommended was a secret that no one but he and Noskin would ever know.

  But as Muriel rehearsed these steps in her mind she saw clearly which step was the key to her fate: it was the speech. That fate was already in the making. For the words of Irlinza that she had just overheard were unmistakable. “When the time comes for the accusing speeches, I’ll be ready.”

  Muriel sprang to her feet. The steel of her heart had spread to every nerve of her body. She ran swiftly, silently, along the dark cavern path toward the
lights of the rescue party that had just passed.

  Now she slackened her pace. Again she could hear the voice of Irlinza. She stopped, and her keen eyes searched the contour of the walls ahead, picking out the hiding places. She dare not approach much closer to the party, for fear the swish of pebbles under her feet would cause them to turn.

  The light of five torches was in her face. The shadows of her hand against the rock wavered as the five torch bearers moved along. She needed one of those torches. But more to the point, she needed one of those persons bearing the torches—needed that person alone—within the reach of her own clutching fingers—fingers that could choke a soft throat like Irlinza’s.

  She skipped silently along to the next hiding place, and the next, and the next.

  “Listen!” one of the four servants said. “What did I hear?”

  Deadly silence, except for distant echoes of underground streams.

  “Nee-eeka! . . . Nee-eeka!” The servant wasted his voice on several calls. He turned to Irlinza. “Do you think she would come this far?”

  Irlinza answered impatiently. “Just keep on searching. That’s the only way. I’ll leave you to your own devices. Yell your throats out if you want to, but don’t think you’ll hear any answers. Someday someone will find her skeleton in the bottom of a chasm, and then we’ll know that Muriel got rid of her, just as I said.”

  “Aren’t you coming with us, Irlinza?”

  “I’ll have to go back now. The Dobberking wants me to run over my speech. You keep searching, and remember, I’ll reward you well if you find her body.”

  Irlinza turned back, then the party went on.

  Muriel crouched low among the rocks. The light of Irlinza’s torch came close, causing the black shadows to bob and bend and turn along the dim red rocks.

  Irlinza passed within seven feet of Muriel. Her face was a study. The lips slightly curled in a smile of deceit, her eyes with their long lashes, narrowed against the light.

  “The knife!” Muriel’s lips formed the words. She held her breath, waited, watched. Yes, it was the same silver moss knife that the Dobberking had given her. The scroll design on the handle could not be mistaken. And now the blade of the knife hung at Irlinza’s side.

  Muriel stalked her prey. With soft, soundless footsteps she kept pace, hardly ten yards back.

  Twice she dodged, when Irlinza looked back over her shoulder to make sure the rescue party was moving along.

  Then Irlinza slowed her pace, watching furtively from the corner of her eyes, as if half aware that someone among these dark walls might be watching her. She kicked at a pebble, then bent down casually to pick it up.

  Muriel bounded toward her. The beat of footsteps caused Irlinza to whirl about. Muriel leaped forward with one swift sure purpose. That knife—it was hers—hers to use—

  Irlinza reached for it, too, and their fingers locked over the handle. The torch jumped from Irlinza’s hand. For an instant the struggle froze.

  Irlinza’s eyes flashed hatred. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “You took Neeka! Where is she?”

  “Don’t shriek at me, you little fool!”

  “Where is she? You’ll pay—”

  The breathless words were lost in a furious match of strength against strength. Muriel’s full force wrenched at the knife, tore it free, hurled it into the air. I fell to the path where, catching the light of the torch, it lay like a slice of red fire.

  Muriel paid dearly for that split second of throwing the knife. Irlinza caught her by her long flowing hair, jerked her off her balance, threw her to the ground. She tried to spring up. She fought at the tight fingers in her hair. Irlinza reached for the torch.

  “Beauty queen!” Irlinza sneered. “We’ll see.”

  The torch fluttered as Irlinza’s arm swung down. The blaze barely touched the ends of Muriel’s blonde hair. Slap! Muriel struck out the blaze. She rolled, and Irlinza rolled with her. They were off the path. Their struggling bodies struck a wall rock. The torch tumbled away. They were engulfed in the shadows.

  But there was that slice of red light—the silver knife. Muriel’s heart thumped like bouncing stones. A stone was in her hand, then, and that hand was free to strike.

  It lifted.

  The light caught it. Irlinza’s arm batted against it. The stone humped across the path and plummeted into the chasm beyond.

  Again they were rolling, biting, pulling hair, slapping. Toward the chasm. Away from it. Back again. It was a horrible see-saw.

  Then Muriel’s fingers were tightening on the soft throat. Irlinza was gasping hard. .

  “Where is Neeka?” Muriel cried. “Where? What did you do with her?”

  “Let me up,” came Irlinza’s sullen snarl.

  “Where is she? I’ll choke the very life out of you if you don’t tell. I’ll—”

  The knife! Muriel’s hand swept it up, her arm lifted it. Its reflected light flashed over Irlinza’s terror-filled eyes.

  “I’ll count to five,” Muriel said. “If you refuse to tell me about Neeka, I swear I’ll plunge this knife through your black heart . . . One. . . . Two . . . Three. . . Four . . .”

  Irlinza screamed. She must have seen what Muriel saw—a purplish white skull hanging in the air. It had seemingly materialized before their eyes. It was whining within three feet of their ears, louder, louder.

  “Nnnn . . . nnnn . . . nnnnaa.” It’s tone was that of a hurt animal. The word came clearer. “Nnnoo . . . nnooo . . . no! . . . No . . . Murrrielll, do not killlll.”

  CHAPTER IX

  The Voice of Conscience

  “Will you follow meee, Murielll?” said the skull in a soft, weird, chant. This was no delusion. Even Irlinza knew that. The faint white glow from the floating object fascinated her. Muriel saw her shrink when it moved past her:

  The enchanting invitation was more persuasive than any command. Muriel followed. Once she looked back.to see Irlinza disheveled and temporarily defeated. The ex-beauty queen picked up the torch and started off toward the city without a word.

  “Forgettt about Irlinnnza,” the skull sang. Its voice was a. feminine voice, Muriel thought, though it. was low-pitched and rich with resonance. At once she felt confident that it was friendly.

  It led her back to the chamber of Lava Man. The gate was open. The little brass whiskered old man was wide awake, puttering around the flames with a long wire. The wrinkles of his red face twisted into a smile at the sight of her.

  “Welcome, welcome, Miss Muriel. I am very proud to have a beauty queen as my guest.”

  Muriel felt not at all like a beauty queen. She felt like a fighter who had just won—and almost lost—the hardest physical combat of her life. She glanced at her torn sleeves, her soiled skirt and dusty shoes. Only the knife at her belt had come through the combat shining.

  “You told me that if I ever wanted to see you I might come back.”

  “Do you think it is me you need talk to with so much as your own conscience?”

  Muriel trembled at the thought. “My conscience? What would it tell me now?”

  The purplish-white skull that had led her back to the cave—undoubtedly the same skull that had come to her many days ago during the Moss festival—now began to speak again.

  “I say to you—” it’s words were drawn out in a singing resonance, soft, yet accusing voice, “ that you must beware of knives.”

  “What does this mean?” Muriel turned to the old man in alarm. “Is this my conscience?”

  “Does it sound like your conscience—or the conscience of someone else?” the old man asked. “Hasn’t it been with you all along? Haven’t you heard it in your dreams?”

  Again the purplish-white skull was hovering close to her, offering its whispers. Accusations, warnings, exhortations. So this was her conscience!

  “You almost murderrrred.” It drew out the awful word. “You might have murderrrred. If it hadn’t been for me, you would have murrrdered.”

  “O
h. I don’t want to be haunted by you,” Muriel cried. “Don’t talk to me.”

  “You’d rather hear the conscience of some of the others, perhaps?” the old man suggested.

  A host of skulls burst out of their lava bubbles, and the cavern became a pandemonium of singing. Wails, harsh laughter, gutteral growls, and the high-voiced shrieking of unbelievably hideous consciences—all of these mixed their voices in a terrifying concert.

  Once she distinguished the heavy thundering words that somehow reminded her of Ubolt’s thumping footsteps. The voice was accusing someone of entering houses and stealing.

  Once she heard the rasping of an ugly, spiteful voice. The long-jawed skull somehow reminded her of the pointed face of a bird—or of Noskin. But what this conscience might be accusing Noskin of was more than she could catch. Too many other weird sounds came in upon it.

  Could this light, sweet-toned singing be the voice of Neeka’s conscience? If so, did it mean that Neeka was still alive?

  “Can you hear the conscience of Neeka’s parents?” the little old man asked. “No, I’m afraid they’re too faint. Against all these others, the voices of the dead are not easily distinguished. But if you can make them out you’ll find them much like Neeka’s—with an unusual sweetness. You see, they haven’t worn themselves hoarse accusing their owners.”

  These voices eluded her, for now she was hearing the rasping feminine conscience that kept calling, “You are a liar, a cheat, a kidnaper, a murderer.” Over and over again, in a tone that connoted jealousy, avarice, and uncontrolled ambition. “You are a liar . . . a murderer.”

  Muriel caught the implication of this conscience—unquestionably Irlinza’s. It was trying to tell Irlinza what she was becoming. It was trying to swerve her from her course of action.

  “Does Irlinza hear these words?” she asked.

  The little old man shook his head sadly. “Most people don’t listen to their consciences. Irlinza? My dear, her conscience has been shrieking at her for years without the least bit of effect.” A ray of hope came to Muriel out of all this bedlam. “These voices—they tell so much,” she was pleading. “Can’t they be used to tell the people that I am not too terribly guilty?”