by Brian Lumley
And obligingly, they had given him the opportunity. Now he would test them in the time-honoured tradition of the invigilator. Ah, but not quite in the prescribed manner! They would be faced with all the terrors the synthesizer could conjure; but Sith would record only their defeats and none of their victories, assuming there were to be any of the latter. And it would be seen (after the careful editing of all of his recordings) how just and right it was that this race be terminated to make way for the Thone.
Finally Sith considered Clayborne, and in the American he recognised his trump card. Whatever the mind of man could conjure, the synthesizer could duplicate. As well as the real, it could manufacture elements of the unreal and give them life. And Clayborne’s mind was a veritable storehouse of terrors undreamed, or perhaps only dreamed. So far.
Clayborne believed in a netherworld—or many netherworlds, called hells—all inhabited by supernatural beings and governed by chaos. He saw the synthesizer, the House of Doors, as a gateway into these dark .dimensions. Very well, let it be so.
Men considered themselves the masters of this world, eventually of the universe. And to fulfill their destiny they must only survive against themselves. So let it be: the six would be tested against themselves.
Men (and one woman) against their own worst nightmares. Especially Clayborne’s!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I have to get after Haggie and Angela!” Gill could contain himself no longer. Now that it seemed certain Anderson, Varre and Clayborne would live, more important things had returned to mind. And there were several great swaths of forest and plain to cross before nightfall. A week ago, even a few days ago, the idea would have been unthinkable. And yet now, when by rights Gill should be totally exhausted if not actually bedridden, he fully intended to go on alone and brave whatever terrors this alien place—the heart of this great machine—should hold for him. Moreover, he felt he actually had the strength for it, and maybe even some to spare.
“I’m coming with you,” said Turnbull at once.
“What?” Anderson sat and cradled his stomach where he looked from one to the other. His ashen face showed something of his astonishment, and something more of his fear. “Neither one of you is going anywhere!” he stated flatly. “You’ve seen how deadly this place is—poisonous plants and insects. For all we know everything here is poisonous! The very air itself could be killing us! And you, Jack—you amaze me! An hour ago you were flat out, unconscious. We had to carry you down the final stretch. What makes you think you can make it?”
Turnbull shrugged. “I have a good constitution, I suppose.” Then he frowned. “So it was you who carried me, eh? No wonder I’m bruised to hell! Anyway, listen: you’re not the only one who’s amazed. I thought I was done for, too. But my hand’s almost back to normal and I feel good for another thousand miles. So don’t tell me the air is killing me. It strikes me it’s doing all of us a lot of good!”
He could be right, Gill thought, fingering his chin. It could be that something really is … improving our condition? But … the air? He didn’t think so.
Anderson tried to stand, groaned and sat down again. “Anyway,” he said, “you’re not going.” He looked sulky as a spoilt child. “We all agreed that I was to be leader here, and I am. I say we all stay together. Safety in numbers, and all that.”
“I seem to remember you saying much the same thing to Haggie,” Gill reminded him. “Safety in numbers, and all that. And where’s Haggie now?”
“But that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Anderson wheedled. “If we keep splitting up, in no time at all each one of us will be on his own. It’s best if we stick together.”
Varre spoke up. “Oh, for goodness’ sake let them go! All this bickering is going to make me sick again.” His face was still tinged green.
Clayborne agreed with him. “Yes, go on,” he said. “Get the hell on with it. You’re heading straight into hell anyway. And when we stumble across your bodies, at least it’ll be a warning for us.”
“Shit!” said Turnbull, chewing his lip.
Gill looked at him enquiringly.
“My gun,” Turnbull explained. “Gone! I can’t understand it. The holster’s there but no gun. It has a safety strap with a spring release. You couldn’t lose it if you tried—and yet I have.” He glowered at Anderson and company. “You three got me down. Have you seen it? Maybe one of you thought I wouldn’t be needing it, eh?”
“Jack, that’s ridiculous,” said Anderson. “You must have lost it in the pool under the cataract. You certainly didn’t have it when we were pumping water out of you.”
“The pool?” Turnbull didn’t know about that. “What water are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you about it when we’re on our way,” said Gill, “if you’re still coming.” And to Anderson: “Minister, you’d better get used to being just plain mister. You were the one who said he was leader, but I don’t recall anyone agreeing with you. I don’t recall voting on it. And let’s face it, you’re out of your depth here. It’s not for our safety you want us to stay but for yours. So listen and I’ll tell you something. I don’t remember much about that hunting thing carrying me down the cliff, but there’s one thing I can’t forget. In the half hour before dawn, when I was hanging on for dear life I heard things howling and shrieking in that forest. Haggie mentioned them, remember? Now my advice would be forget your bellyache and follow on after us just as soon as you can. And if you do get caught short when night falls, for God’s sake do it in the open where you can see what’s happening, or at least find a place that will give you some protection. That’s all from me.” He turned toward the east and Turnbull made to follow him.
“You just called me a coward!” Anderson cried, enraged. “Well, it seems to me you’ve just admitted who the real coward is. You want to get to the mansion before nightfall. You’ve no stomach to stick with us and see it through!”
Gill turned on him. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Anderson had finally managed to get to his feet. He saw the look on Gill’s face and fell back a little. “Eh? What do you mean?”
“I mean that Haggie is alone with that girl, that’s what I mean. The man’s an animal, you know that. He’s like a trapped rat. He’s given up hope and all he can do now is keep on running. But with the girl along … there’s no saying what he’ll do next.”
“But—” Anderson started.
“But nothing!” Gill spat the words out. “And one more thing—you speak to me like that again and there’s no saying what I’ll do, right?”
He turned away, set off into the forest, and Turnbull right alongside him … .
“Thanks,” Gill said, when they were under the canopy of the trees and out of earshot.
“No need,” Turnbull grunted. “Anderson’s a slob, Varre’s an arrogant bastard, and the ghostbuster gets on my tits!” He grinned. “That leaves you. And anyway, I’m your minder, remember?”
The forest’s floor was divided by animal tracks running at random from and in all directions. The tracks were wide, well trodden, fouled here and there with droppings, some of which were fresh. The pellets were egg-size, black, oily, and sweet-smelling. Taking a rabbit pellet as standard, that would make the howlers—if this was the spoor of the things that howled and killed each other—pretty big. Man size at least. But now, with searchlight beams of sunlight falling through the trees and dappling everything golden and green, and the foliage canopy keeping the floor cool, there wasn’t even a hint of menace. Unless it lay in the silence. Unlike at night, during the day this was a very quiet forest.
Keeping the sun at their backs, Gill and Turnbull walked and loped in turn (loped because vines and creepers hung down from above almost everywhere, so that the men were continually ducking) and were reasonably pleased at their progress. After a while they came out from the first belt of forest onto a flat stretch of grassy plain. Tall reeds told them where the ground was marshy and they stuck to the drier,
shorter grass and patches of springy heather. Behind them, already two miles away, the escarpment went up like a wall in the west; in front was the plain and beyond it more forest.
They saw nervous, hopping things like leathery, flightless birds, which squawked wildly and scattered at their approach; blue snake things with powerful hind legs that fired them down burrows like bolts of living lightning; birds as near as damn like Earth birds but not quite, whose wings were more membrane than feathers. There were insects, too—mainly Earth size but including a species of green, twelve-inch centipede—and clouds of yellow-legged flies which followed after the men in swarms but without landing on them. Turnbull kept a wary eye out for squat limpet rocks but didn’t see any.
With few exceptions the flora was as close to Earth type as possible, or seemed to be; since neither Gill nor Turnbull was a botanist, it made no difference anyway. One plant which wasn’t earthly looked like a six-foot-tall stand of rhubarb which furled up all of its huge veined leaves at the stomping of their feet. The yellow-leg flies seemed to find this one irresistible, clinging to its stalks in their thousands.
Gill had earlier brought Turnbull up to date on the things he’d missed. Now, halfway across the plain, he said, “We’re doing fine. I calculate we’re already a quarter of the way there.”
Turnbull had been silent, thoughtful for some little time. As they slowed from a jog to walking again where the heather was thick and spongy underfoot, he said, “Sure, we’re doing fine.” The words somehow didn’t ring true. And he continued, “But … Spencer, you know this is all wrong, don’t you?”
Gill nodded, kept walking. “Yes,” he answered simply, “I know.” And: “Okay, you tell me what you think is wrong, and I’ll tell you what I think is wrong. Between us the result might be interesting.”
“You’re pretty cool about all of this.” Now Turnbull’s voice held mild reproof.
“So are you, actually,” Gill answered. “But isn’t that the best way? I mean, it’s happened—is happening—fait accompli. Would it improve matters if we raved? No, best to be cool. The only thing I’m hot about is Angela. For … various reasons.” And hurriedly: “Now let’s get back to what you think is wrong. Wrong in what way?”
“I mean ‘wrong’ apart from having been kidnapped and etcetera,” Turnbull answered. “Like … basically wrong.”
“Kidnapped?” said Gill. “As in for ransom, do you mean? I don’t think so. Taken prisoner, yes. Why we don’t know, not yet.”
“Whichever.” Turnbull shrugged. “But tell me this: how long have we been here?”
“A little more than twenty-four hours, at a guess.”
“And are you hungry?”
“Not especially—but I’ve seen what the local fare can do to you! Varre seemed to think he was hungry, I remember.”
Turnbull nodded. “Now get this,” he said. “We’ve had twenty-four hours of misery—lots of hard work, unaccustomed exercise—been bitten by poisonous crustacea and stung by giant, robot scorpions—you name it. And we’re not dead on our feet? We’re not especially hungry? Not even tired?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Gill. “Frankly I could happily fall into a bed right now. But you’re right, I’m not desperate. So?”
“Eh, so?”
“Your conclusion?”
Turnbull shrugged again and said, “This is going to sound silly.”
“Try me.”
“Well … is this real? I mean, couldn’t we be dreaming or something? Now tell me the truth, have you pinched yourself yet? I don’t mind admitting I have—hard!”
“And what happened?”
“A bruise.”
“We’re not dreaming,” said Gill. He grinned, however wryly. “If I dreamed something like this, I’d see a psychiatrist.”
Turnbull snorted. “Can you be serious?”
“I am serious. But go on, tell me what else is wrong.”
“Well, this thing about Bannerman being a machine. Don’t get me wrong, I believe you—but then what’s he doing? Watching over us or something? Some kind of guardian angel? If so, how come he tried to kill us at your flat? It was him, I’m sure.”
“All part of the mystery,” said Gill. “For now. What else?”
“Nothing else,” Turnbull grunted. “And everything! The whole situation is crazy—and that’s about the only real alternative to being asleep and dreaming all of this: I could simply be crazy.”
“Am I included in that? Listen, I’m sane—and so are you. If I didn’t know the Castle was real, an alien mousetrap back there on Earth, and that it had snatched us, then I might be tempted to think the same way. But knowing what’s happened to us, I prefer to think I’m sane but stuck in a crazy situation, undergoing a close encounter, an alien experience, an … examination?” He paused and frowned. “You know, that might just be it?”
“Something’s checking us out? But why?”
“I don’t know.” Gill shook his head. “But I’m aware that I’m inside a vast machine, and that Bannerman’s also a machine, and likewise Haggie’s pursuer. And that all of this is happening to us inside the Castle, the House of Doors, on the slopes of Ben Lawers. And yet that the mansion we’re heading for is also the House of Doors! But that nothing is crazy, no, just different—alien. So for now”—he shrugged—“I’m satisfied.”
“You’re what?” Turnbull glanced sideways at Gill, perhaps doubting his sanity after all. “Satisfied?”
“That we know more than we did at square one,” Gill answered. “Not a great deal, but we’re learning. When we’ve learned a lot more, then maybe we’ll be able to do something about it. But right now all we can do is keep going and keep learning. And meanwhile I have some questions for you.”
“Oh?”
“You were poisoned, desperately ill. Remember? That was maybe, oh, an hour and a half ago? And maybe five hours ago I was given an alien injection to keep me out of trouble. And yet here we are eating up the miles like we were teenagers again! I don’t know about you, but I should be stretched out in an oxygen tent!”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you!” said Turnbull, exasperated.
“But you forgot something,” said Gill. “Something just as weird.” He started to jog again, making for a track through the next stretch of forest.
Turnbull came up alongside him. “Go on.”
“Hair,” said Gill. “Facial.”
“Eh?”
“How often do you shave?”
“Twice a—what?” Turnbull put up a hand to rub his face and chin. “Shit!” he said.
“Like a baby’s backside,” said Gill. “The only one with excess hair around here is Haggie. How do you explain that?”
They were into the trees, “I don’t,” said Turnbull. “It’s just another—whoa!”
They pulled up short. In front of them a cobweb stretched right across the path. It was eight feet high with strands like wire netting—if not in strength, though that was debatable, certainly in thickness. Up above, a series of dark blots obscured the light, making the place gloomy. Straining their eyes, they saw several clusters like great balls of cotton wool up there—and they heard something that rattled with a slow, unmechanical, warning beat. Strands from the web went up to the balls of fluff. And now the web had started to vibrate … .
They backed off, found another track, carried on-running. But now they were quiet and there was no more talk about things being wrong, and their eyes were everywhere. Otherwise they might have missed it. Gill saw it first and went white as death. It was hanging low down on a thorn bush, trailing on the forest’s floor.
Angela’s white, frilly, now torn and bloodstained blouse!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I don’t understand,” Anderson gasped, jogging alongside Varre and Clayborne. “An hour ago we were crippled, bent double, from eating those damned apple things. But it passed almost as quickly as it came. How could we get so ill, and yet recover so rapidly? It makes no sense. Also,
I’ve lost my spectacles somewhere, but my sight hasn’t suffered. Now how can that possibly be?”
“Save your breath,” the Frenchman told him. “Gill’s advice was good: make it to the mansion before nightfall. The sun is past its zenith, slipping down towards the escarpment. How long have we got? Three, four hours?”
“Both of you save it,” said Clayborne. “Why try to understand anyway? Even our striving may be futile. This is the world of the supernatural, evil given embodiment in a landscape, the place of fear. The whole situation is satanic, can’t you see that? And we’re the playthings of hell’s dark forces.”
“I can’t believe in your spooks!” Anderson snapped. “While this place may be subtropical, it certainly isn’t a furnace—fiery or otherwise! This is no place of fire and brimstone! But if you’re so convinced, then why don’t you quit right now?”
“Evil takes all forms,” said Clayborne. “Are you tempting me to quit? Temptation is evil. This place has already tainted you. Without even considering what you’re saying, you advise me to lie down and let evil overtake me! Now who put those words in your mouth, eh? No matter—I know well enough—but I’ll tell you why I won’t take your devil’s bait. We’ve all had nightmares, haven’t we? Yes, and we woke up from them. If I see a man or a woman knifed to death in the street, I don’t lie down and die with them, do I? No, I face up to it and say ‘evil exists, but I have to live with it.’ While there’s that in me which is good—even a small part—I can’t surrender all of myself to evil. Life is good and it’s precious, mine included, and that’s why I don’t quit. So keep your advice to yourself and let me live till I die!”
“Well, if we fail to catch up with Gill and Turnbull,” Anderson replied, “you might well end up doing your dying sooner than you think. Together they could be our salvation. Gill has a unique mind. If there’s an answer to all of this, he’s the one most likely to find it. As for Turnbull: he’s a survivor. Before he was a minder he was … something else. When his nerve started to go, he was taken out of it. But he’s stepped naked out of places and situations where you wouldn’t go in armour plate!”
