The Wand of Doom

by Jack Williamson

  “Beg your pardon,” I jerked out at last. “Good morning to you.”

  “I’m glad I found you,” she said at once, with a naïve sweetness of manner that put me immediately at my ease, if it did not end my wonder at her presence. “You must be Verne?”

  “Yes, I’m Verne Telfair,” I said, more than ever astonished that she should seem to know me. Attempting in vain to recall having seen her before, I went on mechanically, “A pleasure, indeed. This is quite a lonely hole. I hadn’t seen anybody for ages. You rather startled me.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She seemed faintly puzzled.

  “That’s all right. It’s worth quite a shock, to see you.”

  “I’m Elaine,” she informed me, with enigmatic simplicity.

  “You’re just in time to save the day,” I told her, attempting a more vigorous sally. “I was in a fair way to become a vegetable. What’s doing out in the big world, anyhow?”

  A little frown of bewilderment appeared on her oval face.

  “I’m glad if I can help you,” she said, her clear tones troubled, doubtful. Abruptly she inquired, solicitously, “How is Paul feeling this morning?”

  “Oh, Paul? Why, he slept well. The best he has in weeks. He’s still asleep, in fact.” And I added, “So you know my brother?”

  “Of course,” she replied, not very enlighteningly. “I suppose you are well, Verne?”

  “Always.”

  “I shall be glad when Paul wakes, so we can talk with him.”

  My amazement was exceeding all bounds. I could not imagine how the girl had reached the castle; certainly she had not crossed the swamps afoot, for her clean body was neither scratched with briars nor splashed with mud.

  Other questions puzzled me. How had she got inside, when the massive gates of the castle could not be opened from without? Why had she walked so confidently into the room, in negligee? How did she come to be on terms apparently so intimate with my brother, who, so far as I knew, had no close friends?

  Her reply only increased my bewilderment.

  “No, I didn’t call. You see, I was already here.”

  “Already here!” I ejaculated, rather rudely, I fear. “I beg your parson, Miss— Miss Elaine, but where did you come from?”

  “Why, Verne, I’ve been here—always!”

  For an instant I was dumbfounded. Then a suspicion of the truth flashed over me. In a moment the question was on my lips. But I did not speak it. It seemed somehow indelicate.

  For the second time, I was confused and flustered by her presence—though through no fault of her own. I cast about for a means of making her comfortably at ease until I should have an opportunity to question my brother privately. “Won’t you sit down, Miss Elaine?”

  “Thank you, Verne.”

  With unconscious grace she seated herself in one of the great, luxurious chairs, while I admired again the innocent, burgeoning beauty of her white body.

  “An unusual picture, isn’t it?” I said, pointing to one of Paul’s studies on the wall, a rather grim, symbolic fantasy in crimson and black.

  Her dark eyes moved toward it quickly.

  “Yes, it’s ably done,” she said. “But I’d like it better if it were happier. We must encourage Paul. He’s too gloomy. I hope I can make him happier.

  My brother slipped out of bed, a few minutes later, and came toward us, in pajamas.

  The girl sprang up and ran to meet him. Throwing her bare arms around him with childish eagerness, she kissed his weary face with full, delicate red lips.

  “Verne says you slept all night, Paul!” she cried warmly. “I’m so glad. How do you feel now?”

  “Better, Elaine, my dear,” he said, in kindly tones, with his arms around her fair body. “I’m a new man!”

  “Splendid!” she cried, and kissed him again.

  “You are all right?”

  “Of course. I was awake early. I watched the dawn through the windows, and then came down here and found Verne.”

  His arms still around her, cherishingly, Paul turned to me.

  “Good morning, Verne. I don’t believe I told you about Elaine.”

  “You certainly didn’t.”

  “I wanted you to meet her, first,” he said. “You were so opposed—”

  “So that’s why you were so surprised!” cried the girl, suddenly. “You didn’t know about me!”

  “You mean—” I began, and hesitated. The subject seemed impossible, in the presence of the girl. “You mean that she—that Miss Elaine—”

  The girl herself answered the question, with her direct candor.

  “You see, Verne,” she explained simply, “Paul made me.”

  Even though I had already suspected it, the truth seemed incredible.

  “Yes,” said my brother, “Elaine is the latest creation of the integrator. What do you say now, Verne, to the creation of human life?”

  There was no answer. I watched the girl turn back to Paul and slip her smooth white arms caressingly around him again.

  10. Love Resurrected

  Elaine was a most astonishing young woman. She puzzled and bewildered me more than did any other of Paul’s creations. The very fact of her existence was almost beyond belief. Even to the end, it was hard for me to accept the fact that he had brought into being a mature and intelligent human being. But there was never any doubt of Elaine’s reality, nor of her lovely humanity.

  She was, of course, simply another creation of Paul’s mind, made physically real through the amazing instrumentality of his “wand of science.” And if her glorious reality was startling, it was no more remarkable than that of a few great characters of fiction, also creations of the human mind.

  The love of his tragic youthful attachment had been Elaine LeMar. In this fair being of his own creation I recognized many of the traits, physical and mental, of the lost Elaine. In a sense, she was merely a resurrection of his old love—but only, of course, as he had remembered and idealized her.

  She gave herself to my brother in unreserved devotion, and he displayed a passionate affection for her. That, I suppose, was inevitable, since she was his perfect ideal, and since in her creation he would naturally have eliminated any traits that might have been incompatible with his own nature.

  For almost a month she and Paul lived in perfect happiness. They were invariably together, strolling through the bright halls of the castle, climbing the spiral stair to look from the black central tower across the swarthy wilderness of the swamps, merely sitting side by side in some splendid room.

  I might have found the period tiresome had I not, myself, taken a tremendous liking for Elaine. She appeared to return that liking—with no lessening, of course, of her entire devotion to Paul.

  To my vast relief, my brother had completely ceased his experiments, surrendering himself completely to the joys of Elaine’s companionship. He did not enter the laboratory save to run the dynamo for a short time each day, to build up the “fixations” of energy into the castle—and in the lovely body of Elaine herself—which was continually dissipated through a process of disintegration.

  For the first time in many years, Paul slept in complete freedom from his haunting dreams of terror. Absence of worry, rest, and the stimulating influence of Elaine’s companionship seemed to have completely banished the phobia. Not only did the nightmares cease, but he walked no more in his sleep.

  His apparent recovery led me to make a fatal mistake.

  Not wishing to intrude upon his and Elaine’s intense communion, I removed my sleeping-quarters to a smaller room adjoining the long chamber which Paul and I had both occupied. The girl promised to call me if he ever seemed restless or disturbed in his sleep.

  I anticipated no evil; we were totally unprepared for the dreadful thing that happened.

  11. The Doom from a Dream

  I do not remember any specific thing that wakened me on that fatal night. Subconsciously I must have become aware of some faint sound. I am a light sleeper, probabl
y because of the years I cared for Paul, keeping alert, even in sleep, for sounds of his distress. On that night I was suddenly awake, and filled with the positive, inexplicable conviction that my brother was in trouble.

  On my feet in an instant, I ran through the curtained doorway into the long room adjoining. In the soft, clear light radiated by the walls, I saw that Paul and Elaine were gone.

  For a moment I was motionless, dumbfounded. Then, recalling Paul’s recent sleepwalking, I knew in an instant what had happened. He had risen, without waking, and gone out, probably toward the laboratory. And Elaine, aware of his going, had followed without thinking it necessary to disturb me.

  The swiftly rising drone of the motor in the laboratory reached my ears, then the vibrant humming of the generator. Paul had already reached the laboratory, and started the motor.

  My heart thudding with swift alarm, though even then I did not realize the full horror of the impending catastrophe, I raced desperately across the room, and down the shining halls to the laboratory.

  When I burst into the room, Paul had already put on the curious head-set, with the little black disks fitting against his shaven temples. He had just lit the banks of tubes; his fingers were still on the rheostat.

  His movements seemed normal, rapid and efficient enough. But a single terrified glance at his face told me that he was asleep. Though his eyes were open, they had a curiously glazed, staring, lifeless look. His features were set in a dull, leaden mask.

  Immediately I realized that I might be too late to stop him.

  Already, without waking himself, he had gained full control of the amazing power of the integrator, which could change his mental images, the stuff of his dreams, into physical reality. I did not know just what to expect, though the presence of danger was evident enough.

  Elaine was just inside the door, watching Paul with puzzled apprehension. I must try to give some idea of that last glimpse of her full-blown beauty. In the clear light shining from rosy walls and emerald vault, she was gorgeous, breath-taking. Richly curving, erect, white-skinned, her fine body was almost bare. Her abundant hair fell in glistening waves, parted by the soft curves of her white, upturned breasts. Her full red lips were parted a little, and her limpid eyes were filled with anxious concern. Swiftly, her oval face was turned to me. Her clear voice spoke quickly.

  “Oh, Verne, I’m glad you came! Paul is acting so strangely! He doesn’t seem to be able to hear me—”

  “He’s asleep!” I whispered, urgently. “Go to him, and slip that thing off his head. Hurry! But don’t startle him.”

  I thought that she could approach him more quietly than I could. I was afraid of what would happen if he were alarmed, while commanding the power of the integrator.

  Elaine moved swiftly across the concrete floor.

  Paul’s lifeless, sleep-filled eyes were lifted toward her, now. I saw recognition dawning in them—and horror!

  I remember that her bare feet made a soft, scratching shuffle upon the rough concrete. It must have been that sound. . . .

  Running through a dark room, in his childhood, Paul once overturned a box of live tarantulas that had been shipped to our father. He had always been afraid of them, and the accident paralyzed him with fear. Unable to call for help, or run, he stood there among the things. He said afterward that he could hear their feet. They made soft, scratching, shuffling sounds. . . .

  What happened is almost too hideous to write.

  The odd sound of Elaine’s feet, on the concrete, must have brought back all the circumstances of his great fright to Paul’s sleeping mind. The sound precipitated the nightmare dream, that had its sinister roots in that fright. And the integrator translated the nightmare into reality!

  I heard Paul scream. His cry was hoarse with insufferable agony of fear. It was choked off suddenly, into a strangling moan.

  Paul struggled in the hideous clutches of nightmare. His whole body was trembling violently. Glittering beads of sweat burst out upon his grimacing, corpse-white face. He was gasping; little bubbling, squeaking sounds came from his lips, like the cries of a frightened animal.

  His body was paralyzed by the recurrence of that awful fear that had been burned into his childish brain. . . . And the nightmare dream in his tortured mind was translated into unspeakable, soul-searing reality. . . .

  Elaine, moving swiftly toward him, was suddenly stopped as if she had encountered an invisible stream of opposing force. Her fair white body was pushed back by some unseen energy. Even in her distress, the beauty of her made my heart ache.

  She called out to me, her voice ringing clear in its desperate appeal.

  “Verne, help me! Please! Something is—oh, Paul—”

  Her clear, urgent call died in a dry and breathless gasp, as I leapt toward her.

  Her body had been seized by the invisible projection rays of the machine. No longer was she a separate entity; she had become merely a magnified figment of Paul’s nightmare dream. Her lovely form was suddenly enveloped in a luminous flux, so that I could not see it very plainly.

  Then she changed. Oh, God, she changed. . . .

  Paul had told me, many times, how in his hideous dreams familiar persons were altered. . . .

  Elaine became a spider!

  Her fair body seemed to melt and flow in a shining vortex. It thickened, and swelled, and became dark. Her limbs grew long and black, with dreadful swiftness; additional ones were thrust out, like pseudopods. Limbs and body were covered suddenly with a rough black hair.

  Her head sank, her white teeth became enormous and hideous fangs. Her limpid dark eyes grew scarlet, glowed insanely with implacable evil.

  With the swiftness of a dream, the innocently lovely woman was transformed into a gigantic tarantula!

  Having started to her aid, I recoiled from the incredible, monstrous thing she had become. I was paralyzed, for an instant, with an overwhelming, mind-blasting fear, akin to that of my brother.

  Then, with the sudden return of desperate strength, I dashed to the accursed machine that had wrought such horror, wrenched a heavy condenser from its connections, and began smashing insanely with it the electrons tubes and other delicate parts.

  Like a madman, I was still hammering at the integrator when Paul screamed again, in ultimate horror.

  He was awake, now.

  But the gigantic spider had seized him in its hideous jaws.

  Sunk in the depths of primal fear, he shrieked, babbled, implored me wildly to save him, and laughed . . . laughed. . . .

  I was helpless. Even had there been a weapon available, I could not have broken the chains of stark horror that fettered me.

  Physically sick, paralyzed with icy fear, I watched my brother, screaming and laughing in the jaws of the monstrous spider, until the great fangs closed with a sickening sound upon his head. . . and his shrieks came mercifully no more. . . .

  12. The Lurking Horror

  At last the hideous beast moved away, still carrying Paul’s limp body in its encrimsoned jaws. Regaining some measure of control over my shaking limbs, I ran totteringly from the room, and out of the shining castle into the swamp.

  Behind me the pile glowed with weird and eldritch radiance against the moonless darkness. Scarlet-windowed walls of lucent green. Domes of gelid violet. Towers of dull black, of sullen gold.

  I staggered on, breaking my way through rank undergrowth, tearing flesh and garments upon unseen briars, splashing through stagnant, scum-covered water, until the light of the accursed castle had vanished behind me, and the ground quaked under my feet.

  Two days I hid in the swamp, without food or water that I dared to drink, suffering agony from hordes of mosquitoes that was but a trifle against the agony of my memory of that night of horror.

  The castle and the hideous thing within it, I knew, would quickly disintegrate, when the machine failed to replace the energy they were constantly radiating. Knowing that Henri Dubois, the Cajun, would return on the third day, with the mail and
supplies, I decided to venture as far as the landing, to intercept him.

  I knew there was danger, though I hoped that the monstrous spider might already have met its fate.

  The castle was breaking up, when I came in sight of it. Fantastic towers and domes were toppling, crashing, shattering into showers of colored sparks that vanished before they touched the ground. Purple lightning—the liberated electrical energy from the disintegrating space-frames—flickered in a lurid pall about the crumbling walls, crackling and muttering.

  The black central tower collapsed as I watched. It fell into a blaze of electric violet, above the ghostly, shining ruins of crenelated walls; and hollow thunder boomed upon my ears.

  Only the bare concrete foundation, I knew, would remain in a few hours, with the dynamo and the wrecked apparatus upon it.

  Hoping that the colossal spider had met its fate within the doomed building, and forgetful of the fatal fact that Paul had been forced to make denser and hence more enduring fixations of energy in his living creations, I started down to the landing on the bayou, to wait for the Cajun’s boat.

  A crackling in the undergrowth beside the trail—

  Thus, in the middle of a sentence, Verne Telfair’s unfinished manuscript breaks off. At that point in his narrative he laid his pen aside, never to take it up again. For that night, the Cajun had told me, fever and delirium seized him, sweeping him swiftly to the lonely grave in the swamp.

  It is not difficult, from what the Cajun told me, to outline the rest.

  The monstrous spider, escaping disintegration longer than the castle, had left the falling building. Lurking in the undergrowth beside the trail, it attacked the unfortunate Verne as he came past.

  It was already weakened, perhaps, by its incipient dissolution, and he was able to escape its clutches, though somewhat injured, and to reach the landing, where he found Henri Dubois with his skiff.

  His death, five days later, from injuries that appeared relatively slight, may be laid to some poison introduced in his body during the encounter with the spider. We know nothing of the reactions of the human organism to the “matter” fixated by Paul Telfair’s marvelous integrator. In Verne’s case, however, we may well believe that the spider’s venom acted as a specific poison.