The A. Merritt Megapack

by Abraham Merritt

  “Very well, I would improve the game for a chosen few, gamble with them for their great desire, and for my own entertainment would use as my model these seven footsteps of Buddha.

  “And now, James Kirkham, listen intently, for this directly concerns you. I constructed two thrones upon a dais up to which lead not seven but twenty-one steps. On each third step there shines out a footprint—seven of them in all.

  “One of the thrones is lower than the other. Upon that I sit. On the other rests a crown and a scepter.

  “Now then. Three of these footsteps are—unfortunate. Four are fortunate in the aggregate. He who would gamble with me must climb to that throne on which are crown and scepter. In climbing he must place a foot on four, not five of these seven prints.

  “Should those four upon which he steps prove to be the fortunate ones, that man may have every desire satisfied as long as he lives. I am his servant—and his servant is all that vast organization which I have created and which serves me. His, my billions to do as he pleases with. His, my masterpieces. His, anything that he covets—power, women, rule—anything. What he hates I punish or—remove. His is the crown and scepter upon that throne higher than mine. It is power over earth! He may have—everything!”

  I glanced at Consardine. He was nervously bending and unbending a silver knife in his strong fingers, his eyes glittering.

  “But if he treads on the others?”

  “Ah—that is my end of the gamble. If he treads upon the first of my three—he must do me one service. Whatever I bid him. If he treads on two—he must do my bidding for a year. They are my—minor leases.

  “But if he treads on all my three”—I felt the blaze of the blue eyes scorch me, heard a muffled groan from Consardine—“if he treads on all my three—then he is mine, body and soul. To kill at once if it is my mood—and in what slow ways I please. To live—if I please, as long as I please, and then to die—again as I please. Mine! body and soul! Mine.”

  The rolling voice trumpeted, grew dreadful. Satanic enough was he now with those weird eyes blazing at me as though behind them were flames from that very pit whose Master’s name he had taken.

  “There are a few rules to remember,” the voice abruptly regained its calm. “One need not take the whole four steps. You may stop, if you desire, at one. Or two. Or three. You need not take the next step.

  “If you take one step and it is mine, and go no farther, then you do my service, are well paid for it, and after it is done may ascend the steps again.

  “So if you go farther and touch the second of my steps. After your year—if you are alive—you again have your chance. And are well paid during that year.”

  I considered. Power over all the world! Every desire granted. An Aladdin’s lamp to rub! Not for a moment did I doubt that this—whatever he was—could do what he promised.

  “I will explain the mechanism,” he said. “Obviously the relative positions of the seven steps cannot remain the same at each essay. Their combination would be too easy to learn. That combination I leave to chance. Not even I know it. Through that I get the cream of my entertainment.

  “I sit upon my throne. I touch a lever that spins a hidden wheel over which roll seven balls, three marked for my steps, four marked for the fortunate ones. As those balls settle into place, they form an electrical contact with the seven footprints. As the balls lie, so lie the prints.

  “Where I can see—and others if they are present—but not to be seen by the climber of the steps, is an indicator. As the—aspirant—sets his foot on the prints this indicator shows whether he has picked one of my three or one of his four.

  “And there is one final rule. When you climb you may not look back at that indicator. You must take the next step in ignorance of whether that from which you have come was good for you or—evil. If you do weaken and look behind, you must descend and begin your climb anew.”

  “But it seems to me that you have the better end of the game,” I observed. “Suppose one steps upon a fortunate step and stops—what does he get?”

  “Nothing,” he answered, “but the chance to take the next. You forget, James Kirkham, that what he stands to win is immeasurably greater than what I win if he loses. Winning, he wins me and all I stand for. Losing, I win only one man—or one woman. Besides, for my limited leases I pay high. And give protection.”

  I nodded. As a matter of fact I was profoundly stirred. Everything that I had experienced had been carefully calculated to set my imagination on fire. I thrilled at the thought of what I might not be able to do with—well, admit he was Satan—and his power at my beck and call. He watched me, imperturbably; Consardine, understandingly, with a shadow of pity in his eyes.

  “Look here,” I said abruptly, “please clear up a few more things. Suppose I refuse to play this game of yours—what happens to me?”

  “You will be set back in Battery Park tomorrow,” he answered. “Your double will be withdrawn from your club. You will find he has done no harm to your reputation. You may go your way. But—”

  “I thought, sir, there was a but,” I murmured.

  “But I will be disappointed,” he went on, quietly. “I do not like to be disappointed. I am afraid your affairs would not prosper. It might even be that I would find you such a constant reproach, such a living reminder of a flaw in my judgment that—”

  “I understand,” I interrupted. “The living reminder would strangely cease some day to be a reminder—living.”

  He did not speak—but, surely, I read the answer in his eyes.

  “And what is to prevent me from taking your challenge,” I asked again, “going partly through with it, enough to get away from here, and then—ah—?”

  “Betray me?” again the chuckle came through the motionless lips. “Your efforts would come to nothing. And as for you—better for you, James Kirkham, had you remained unborn. I, Satan, tell you so!”

  The blue eyes scorched; about him in his chair seemed to grow a shadow, enveloping him. From him emanated something diabolic, something that gripped my throat and checked the very pulse of my heart.

  “I, Satan, tell you so!” he repeated.

  There was a little pause in which I strove to regain my badly shaken poise.

  Again the bell sounded.

  “It is time,” said Consardine. But I noticed that he had paled, knew my own face was white.

  “It happens,” the organ-like voice was calm again, “it happens that you have an opportunity to see what becomes of those who try to thwart me. I will ask you to excuse certain precautions which it will be necessary to take. You will not be harmed. Only it is essential that you remain silent and motionless and that none read your face while you see—what you are going to see.”

  Consardine arose, I followed him. The man who called himself Satan lifted himself from his chair. Huge I had guessed him to be, but I was unprepared for the giant that he was. I am all of six feet and he towered over me a full twelve inches.

  Involuntarily I looked at his feet.

  “Ah,” he said, suavely. “You are looking for my cloven hoof. Come, you are about to see it.”

  He touched the wall. A panel slipped away revealing a wide corridor, not long, and windowless and doorless. He leading, Consardine behind me, Satan walked a few yards and pressed against the wainscoting. It slid back, soundlessly. He stepped through.

  I walked after him and halted, staring blankly, into one of the most singular—rooms, chambers, no, temple is the only word that its size and character deserve to describe it—I stood staring, I repeat, into one of the most singular temples that probably man’s eyes had ever looked upon.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was suffused with a dim amber light from some concealed source. Its domed roof arched a hundred feet above me. Only one wall was straight; the others curved out from it like the inner walls of a vast bubble. The straight wall cut across what was the three-quarter arc of a huge hemisphere.

  That wall was all of some lustrous gr
een stone, malachite, I judged. And upon its face was carved in the old Egyptian style a picture.

  The subject was the Three Fates, the Moerae of the ancient Greeks, the Parcse of the Romans, the Norns of the Norsemen. There was Clotho with the distaff upon which were spun the threads of human destiny, Lachesis guiding the threads, and Atropos with her shears that cut the threads when the trio so willed. Above the Fates hovered the face of Satan.

  One of his hands grasped that of Clotho, he seemed to whisper to Lachesis, his other hand guided that of the Fate who wielded the shears. The lines of the four figures were lined in blues, vermilions and vivid green. The eyes of Satan were not upon the threads whose destinies he was controlling. They were looking out over the temple.

  And whoever the unknown genius who had cut that picture, he had created a marvelous likeness. By some trick, the eyes blazed out of the stone with the same living, jewel-like brilliancy of those of the man who called himself Satan.

  The curved walls of some black wood—teak or ebony. There was shimmering tracery upon them—like webs. I saw that they were webs; spider webs traced upon the black wood and glimmering like those same silken traps beneath the moon. By the hundreds and thousands they were interlaced upon the walls. They shimmered over the ceiling.

  The floors of the temple lifted toward the back in row upon row of seats carved out of black stone and arranged like those of the old Roman amphitheaters.

  But all of this I noted only after I had forced my gaze away from the structure that dominated the whole strange place. This was a flight of semicircular steps that swept out in gradually diminishing arcs from the base of the malachite wall. There were twenty-one of them, the lowest, I estimated, a hundred feet wide and the highest about thirty. They were each about a foot high and some three feet deep. They were of inky black stone.

  At their top was a low dais upon which stood two elaborately carved thrones—one of black wood, and the other, resting on a pedestal which brought its seat well above the first, apparently of dull, yellow gold.

  The black throne was bare. Over the back of the golden throne was a strip of royal purple velvet; upon its seat was a cushion of the same royal purple.

  And upon that cushion rested a crown and scepter. The crown was ablaze with the multicolored fires of great diamonds, the soft blue flames of huge sapphires; red glowings of immense rubies and green radiances that were emeralds. The orb of the scepter was one enormous diamond. And all its jeweled length blazed like the crown with gems.

  Ranged down each side of the one and twenty steps were seven men in white robes shaped like the burnooses of the Arabs. If they were Arabs they were of a tribe I had never come across; to me they appeared more like Persians. Their faces were gaunt and of a peculiar waxen pallor. Their eyes seemed pupilless. Each carried in his right hand a snake-like rope, noosed like a lariat.

  From every third ebon step a footprint shone out, the footprint of a child outlined as though by living fire.

  There were seven of them, shining out with an unearthly brilliancy as though they themselves were alive and poised to march up those steps.

  I had looked first at the crown and scepter, and the sight of them had fanned within me such desire as I had never known; a burning lust for possession of them and the power that went with them; a lust that shook me like a fever.

  I had looked next at those gleaming marks of a babe’s feet, and the sight of them had stirred within me an inexplicable awe and terror and loathing as great as had been the desire which the sight of them had swiftly numbed.

  And suddenly I heard Satan’s voice.

  “Sit, James Kirkham!”

  There was an armed chair, oddly shaped, almost against the circular wall and close beside the edge of the first curving step. It was somewhat like a lesser throne. I dropped into it, glad at the moment of its support.

  Instantly, bands of steel sprang from the arms and circled my elbows; other bands bound my ankles, and from the back where my head rested a veil dropped, covering my face. Its lower edge, thick and softly padded, was drawn tight across my lips.

  I was held fast, gagged, my face hidden all in an instant. I made no attempt to struggle. These, I realized, were the “precautions” of which my host had warned me. The bonds held but did not constrict, the silencing pad was not uncomfortable, the veil was of a material which, though it hid my face, enabled me to see as clearly as though it were not enveloping my head.

  I saw Satan at the foot of the steps. His enormous body was covered from neck to feet by a black cloak. He paced slowly up the flight. As he trod upon the first step the white-robed, rope-bearing men bent before him, low. Not until he had seated himself upon the black throne did they straighten.

  The amber light dulled and went out. Before there could be anything but a thin slice of darkness, a strong white light beat down upon thrones and steps. Its edge formed a sharp semicircle three yards away from the curve of the first. It bathed Satan, the fourteen guardians and myself. Under it the seven footprints leaped out more brilliantly, seeming to be straining against some invisible leash and eager to follow their master. The unwinking eyes of the man on the black throne and their counterparts in the stone behind him glittered.

  I heard a movement at the rear of the temple among the seats of stone. There were rustlings as of many people seating themselves, faint whisperings of panels sliding back and forth in the black walls, opening of hidden entrances through which this unseen audience was streaming.

  Who they were, what they were—I could not see. The semicircle of light glaring upon the steps and thrones formed an impenetrable curtain beyond which was utter darkness.

  A gong sounded. Silence fell. Whatever that audience, the doors were now closed upon them; the curtain ready to rise.

  Now I saw, high up and halfway between roof and floor, a globe gleam forth like a little moon. It was at the edge of the white light and as I watched its left half darkened. The right half shone undimmed, the black half was outlined by a narrow rim of radiance.

  Abruptly the greater light went out again. For an instant only was the temple in darkness. The light blazed forth once more.

  But now he who called himself Satan was not alone on the dais. No. Beside him stood a figure that the devil himself might have summoned from hell!

  It was a black man naked except for a loin cloth. His legs were short and spindly; his shoulders inordinately wide, his arms long, and upon shoulders and arms the muscles and sinews stood out like blackened withes of thick rope. The face was flat-nosed, the jaw protruding, brutish and ape-like. Ape-like too were the close-set, beady eyes that burned like demon-lights. His mouth was a slit, and upon his face was the stamp of a ravening cruelty.

  He held in one hand a noosed cord, thin and long and braided as though made of woman’s hair. In his loin cloth was a slender knife.

  A sighing quavered out of the darkness beyond me as from scores of tightening throats.

  Again the gong clanged.

  Into the circle of light came two men. One was Consardine; the other a tall, immaculately dressed and finely built man of about forty. He looked like a highly bred, cultured English gentleman. As he faced the black throne I heard a murmur as of surprise and pity well up from the hidden audience.

  There was a debonair unconcern in his poise, but I saw his face twitch as he glanced at the horror standing beside Satan. He drew a cigarette from his case and lighted it; in that action was a touch of bravado that betrayed him; nor could he control the faint tremor of the hand that held the match. Nevertheless, he took a deliberate inhalation and met the eyes of Satan squarely.

  “Cartright,” the voice of Satan broke the silence. “You have disobeyed me. You have tried to thwart me. You have dared to set your will against mine. By your disobedience you almost wrecked a plan I had conceived. You thought to reap gain and to escape me. You even had it in your mind to betray me. I do not ask you if all this is so. I know it is so. I do not ask you why you did it. You did it. Tha
t is enough.”

  “I have no intention of offering any defense, Satan.” answered the man called Cartright, coolly enough. “I might urge, however, that any inconvenience to which I have put you is entirely your own fault. You claim perfection of judgment. Yet in me you picked a wrong tool. Is the tool to blame or the artisan if that tool which he picks cannot stand up under the task for which that artisan selects it?”

  “The tool is not to blame,” answered Satan. “But what does the artisan do with such a tool thereafter? He does not use it again. He destroys it.”

  “The perfect artisan does not,” said Cartright. “He uses it thereafter for work for which it is fit.”

  “Not when he has more than enough good ones to choose from,” said Satan.

  “You have the power,” Cartright replied. “Nevertheless, you know I have answered you. I am simply an error of your judgment. Or if your judgment is perfect as you boast, then you deliberately picked me to fail. In either event, punish yourself, Satan—not me!”

  For a long minute the black-robed figure regarded him. Cartright met the gaze boldly.

  “I ask only for justice,” he said. “I ask no mercy of you. Satan.”

  “Not—yet!” answered Satan, slowly, and the flaming eyes grew bleak and cold and once more a sighing passed me from the darkness of the temple.

  There was another interminable minute of silence.

  “Cartright, you have given me an answer,” the organ voice rolled out, emotionless. “For that answer you shall be credited. You have reminded me that a wise artisan uses a faulty tool only for work it can do without breaking. That too I set down for you.

  “Now, Cartright, this is my decree. You shall take the four steps. Now. And all of them. You shall have, first of all, your chance to win that crown and scepter and the empire of earth that they carry with them. This if the four footprints that you tread upon are the four fortunate ones.