by Sax Rohmer
She smiled up at me. And insane wonderment came.
Marusa was a figure of virginal womanhood to which I should have been prepared humbly to offer all I had. That conspiracy, anarchy, assassination could be acceptable to her as part of the creed of life, I found it impossible to believe. Yet what else could I believe?
I thought of Lonergan! Not the truculent, self-sufficient Lonergan I had known, but a subdued Lonergan, servant of the Master. This was comforting. I stared eagerly, perhaps hungrily, into the charming face of my visitor. Then came a second idea. . . .
Those figures in black armour—that remorseless, soulless thing possessed of the strength of ten men which had captured me! Were these human?
Either the magical beliefs of the past had a firmer foundation than modern science is prepared to grant, vampires and werewolves an actual existence outside mediaeval fable, or I was dreaming, had dreamed since that hour when the Voice first addressed me, since the moment I had seen a giant bat alight upon the Felsenweir tomb. . . .
In blue eyes raised to mine there was none of that queer, oblique evasion, sense of a focus beyond one, which had disturbed me in Lonergan’s glance. Marusa’s regard was passionately intense, as though she hoped to communicate thoughts to which she dared not give utterance.
I turned aside for a moment. I was trying to reject but knew myself helpless to dispel the idea that this girl was not entirely human. . . . Like other horrors I had met, she was the successful experiment of some mighty modern magician—a perfected laboratory product, a creature responsive to every whim of her creator; but having neither heart nor soul: a shell, a mockery, an allurement to drag me down. . . .
“It’s so hopelessly unavoidable.”
I turned to her.
Gratefully reassuring, that English schoolgirl accent. But the odd hint of foreign parentage in her intonation touched a note of unreality, deep enough to keep my doubts alive.
“Quite!” I admitted. “What in the name of heaven you’re doing in this galley defeats me. But I suppose it wouldn’t be sane to ask?”
“Well!” Marusa flicked ash from her cigarette. “It’s only natural after all that you should ask. I think I told you I came here straight from school? And I sort of accepted it all. I’ve never known anything different. Do please realize you’re not in the hands of a madman with absurd theories. It’s true, it’s a fact that life on the globe is going to end very shortly. Only those who know will survive. It doesn’t matter whether you think it’s right or wrong. The fact remains, doesn’t it?”
“It would seem to.”
“Of course, I don’t expect you to understand or to believe. But very shortly you’ll know what I say is true. If you think it’s any use dying, nobody can prevent you, I suppose. Frankly, I can’t see that it would serve any purpose.”
My heart turned cold. She spoke of wholesale assassination as she might have spoken of an invitation to a dance. Evidently I showed my feelings, for:
“It sounds awful to you, I realize,” she confessed. “Once it would have seemed awful to me. But when it’s all been explained to you, when you grasp that it’s inevitable, necessary, part of the scheme of things, you won’t feel like that.”
I began to wonder—and I began to hope again.
“One doesn’t curse an earthquake for killing thousands of people. There’s no room for argument about it. We can’t save them all, can we? They’re not meant to be saved. The only reason, I think, why I have been allowed to tell you, is that time’s so short, and . . . well!”
She glanced aside and made a little moue which filled me with a mad desire to kiss her.
“I like you very much and I should hate you to die!”
My hope had been realized! The truth was web come, but strange.
Marusa believed Anubis to be not a destroyer, but a saviour! His real part in the pending catastrophe was concealed from her!
“But by what right does this Anubis impose the death penalty?”
“By right of his greater knowledge. Try to imagine what would happen if the masses got to know about their coming destruction! All the same, I must admit I used to think as you do. But there’s an inevitableness about the whole thing which smashes down our poor little laws. I can’t expect you to understand. It’s so colossal. It’s entirely a matter of readjustment, you see . . . realizing how trivial and petty and silly the things are which we used to consider so big!”
She looked up at me eagerly.
“Has Anubis told you all this?”
Marusa shook her head. Her expression changed, as I suppose my tone had changed.
“I’ve never seen Anubis. . . . I’m only a sort of— privileged guest: I mean, I don’t take any active part in the work of the order. I can’t even tell you where he is!”
“You amaze me. Please go on.”
“I don’t know if you really mean it—but I’ll try to. You see, the world is a sort of schoolroom. And just now it’s overcrowded. Nobody can learn his proper lesson. A clearance is called for. The big war helped quite a lot, but we should need earthquakes and plagues and a score of big wars to put things right.”
She detected my smile and returned it with a charming smile of her own.
“Do you think I’m mad?” she asked naively.
“No!”
I had ceased smiling and I suppose I spoke the word rather grimly.
“Are you furious with me?”
“Not at all.”
“Then don’t look at me like that! Because presently you’ll find all your established ideas upset. I can see you don’t believe me. But before judging, at least wait awhile.”
The difference between the carefully preserved casualness of this conversation and that which underlay it impressed me forcibly.
“Am I allowed to ask questions?”
“No! Please don’t!”
“But there are so many things I want to know.”
“Probably things I should be unable to tell you.”
She was watching me in an earnest way which served as a reminder of her warning:
All we say is heard—all we do is seen.
Her beauty, her composed manner, the modem carelessness of her speech combined to make me forget the true facts of my situation. Moreover, I understood, or thought I understood, her place in this bloody saturnalia. And now, Marusa stood up with a little wry smile.
“You surely don’t mean you’re going?”
“I’m afraid" so.”
“But,” I said, claimed by a sudden and material curiosity, “how do you notify the mysterious elevator that you desire its presence?”
She laughed lightly. Her youth and gaiety were amazing in that place where artificial sunlight dispelled a gloom which should have been black as that of the Pit. For surely the Thing which I knew as the Voice had arisen straight from hell.
Another possibility regarding the girl, not quite so dreadful as the first, suddenly presented itself. I thought again of Lonergan. Might it not be that all creatures in Felsenweir, human and otherwise, were controlled in some way?
“It’s stupidly simple!”
Marusa spoke the words in so easily natural a manner that my half-formulated theory was swept aside.
From a small handbag which she carried she took out a sort of disk, mounted in what appeared to be dull gold. It vaguely resembled a compass, but in place of a compass needle possessed a movable indicator. She held it up before me.
“You’ll receive one of these,” she said, “very soon ... at least, I hope so. I haven’t time to explain it now, but I can show you how it works.”
She moved the indicator to a number and twisted a small knob like that of a watch. The result was that a succession of hieroglyphics appeared in a space immediately below the centre of the dial. Ceasing to turn when a figure resembling the Arab letter ’alif occupied the space, she glanced at me, smiling with schoolgirlish mischief.
“There!”
She replaced the disk and closed her bag
. I heard the whine of a rising elevator.
“Please say you won’t be obstinate! I couldn’t bear it, now. . .
3
Throughout ten minutes of sunlit silence after Marusa’s departure, I sat staring at that wall which masked the elevator shaft. I smoked without knowing I was smoking. I recalled every word she had said during our all too brief interview. By which tokens, if I had paused to consider my condition, I must have known myself in love.
So I was seated when the now familiar whine brought me sharply to my feet. I didn’t know what to expect nor whom to expect. Perhaps that unimaginable being, the Master—Anubis.
The panel slid upward.
I saw that the elevator was empty; but:
“Will you be good enough to enter, Woodville,” the Voice ordered. “When you arrive at your destination, you will be directed.”
Since plainly I had no alternative, I stepped into the narrow car.
Immediately it began to descend. My last view of the room in which I had awakened was one of the floor on my line of sight as the lift dropped, carrying the closing panel with it.
Descent took place in absolute darkness. I still had a half-smoked cigarette between my fingers when light came blindingly.
Before me I saw a vast, luxuriously furnished apartment, not resembling any place that I had hitherto seen. Despite its air of luxury it possessed a sort of simplicity. Growing roses in square stone pots were used as decorations. The walls and floor were of gray stone blocks, the latter being covered with very fine rugs.
A flat ceiling bore a geometrical design in blue and gold. There were many cushioned settees. A strange-looking statue which I had no time or inclination to examine occupied the centre of the place. It was black. Along one side of this hall, vaguely resembling a cloister and separated from the main apartment by solid square pillars, was a sort of corridor.
Since I was plainly intended to do so, I stepped out of the car.
I paused, looking about me. There was no sound. The hall was silent as a tomb. I thought I was alone— until, standing far along the cloisteresque passage, I saw a gigantic armoured figure!
The Voice addressed me.
“Come to the door before which you see the Watch standing, Woodville. He will admit you.,,
I glanced down at my dwindling cigarette, dropped it and set my foot upon it. Resolutely I stepped out, turned left, walked along the cloister, and approached that armoured Thing. Lacking those experiences which had been mine, one could never have supposed this gleaming giant to be animate. One hand upraised held a mace which rested upon the mailed right shoulder. This primitive, formidable weapon would, I verily believe, have shattered the skull of an elephant.
Some three paces I was from the black guardian when slowly his gigantic mace was moved from the shoulder and lowered. Its head dropped with a metallic crash upon the stone floor!
The figure lumberingly took a pace to the right. In the patch of wall revealed I saw such a four-foot opening as that from which I had recently come.
This, I presumed, was another elevator.
I shall not attempt to describe my feelings as I passed the Watch. But I reflected that one sudden death was as good as another and stepped into the narrow car. Immediately it arose, either mechanically as the result of my stepping into it or because of some signal which I did not observe.
Complete darkness—then, suddenly, light, as the elevator became stationary.
I stepped out on to an ancient stone staircase. . . .
This was part of the former hold of Felsenweir. I looked down to my right. A massive iron grille barred the stair. There were no windows. But sunshine prevailed. Clearly I was meant to go upwards. I began to ascend.
On and on I went. Three times I detected spaces left of the winding staircase (i. e., on the outside of the tower which clearly I was climbing) where windows had been bricked up and cemented over.
A memory came.
I recalled Felsenweir as I had seen it from the Devil’s Elbow. The battlements, the first platform, the keep, and above the keep, jutting up like a minaret, the central watch tower.
This must be the watch tower. I was climbing to the highest point of Felsenweir.
What should I find at the top? Who awaited me there ?
Already an age seemed to have elapsed since I had talked with Marusa. I was alone now in this haunted shell of a past tyranny, nearing the heart of that mystery which had brought me to the Black Forest.
Up I went and up. . . .
CHAPTER XVII - THE CHIEF CHEMIST
1
There came a change in the form of the staircase. A rather low arch intruded. Beyond, I saw that the steps were narrower; that the spiral which they described was smaller. I consulted memories of Felsenweir based upon my study of the castle from the Devil’s Elbow. Thus far, I reasoned, I had really climbed no higher than the top of the great keep.
This was the base of the watch tower. I passed the arch. The steps now were much hollowed, the masonry of the walls was crumbling with age.
I paused.
An iron gate checked further progress.
Immediately beyond this gate a section of stairway had collapsed. A black pit of unknown depth yawned before me and a draught of cold, clammy air swept up through the warmth of the passage. On the farther brink of the chasm, and about on a level with my eyes, the steps continued again, disappearing around a bend.
But—and I realized that it was an astounding phenomenon—they disappeared into darkness!
Sharply defined on the first step lay a shadow of the iron grille, an outline of the arched passage. In other words, artificial sunlight ended at the gate. . . .
Clutching the bars, I stared, with a shiver of apprehension, down into the pit. I turned, and looked behind me. What was I expected to do now?
This problem was quickly solved.
A section of seemingly solid wall immediately before me opened silently. It was a masked door. I saw a short corridor, dimly lighted in contrast to that synthetic sunlight on the staircase. Obviously this corridor was new, composed of, or faced with, the same kind of stonework as the great hall below.
At the end, on the right, there was an opening. Upon the bluish illumination of the corridor a light which I judged to be green shone out, forming a square patch on the left-hand wall.
A pace beyond the masked door stood a gigantic black-armoured figure, motionless, inhuman, its huge mace grounded upon the pavement. I wondered, doubted, but knew that my fate was not in my own hands. Then:
“I wish you to inspect the laboratory, Woodville. Dr. Nestor is expecting you.”
The Voice!
Teeth tightly clenched, I passed the guardian figure, walked on, and found myself looking into a large room in which subdued green light prevailed. It was a wonderfully equipped laboratory.
A man in white overalls awaited me. He was slim and of medium height; pallid. He wore a very small moustache, and jet-black hair grew low upon his cheekbones. Seen through the lenses of tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, his dark eyes were very cruel. A Greek, I thought.
“Ah, Mr. Woodville,” he said, and smiled unpleasantly. “My name is Nestor. I’m the second chemist here and my instructions are to show you around the laboratory. The chief chemist will be along any moment. Please come right in.”
The world's greater universities endow their inmates with certain peculiarities of accent sometimes amounting to a dialect. I had no difficulty in placing this man. Dr. Nestor was a graduate of Harvard.
I went in. I resigned myself to what I recognized to be inevitable. Anger, violence were alike uncalled for. I must accept, and endeavour to behave normally.
“It would probably interest you,” the second chemist continued, “to see one of our more simple devices. It has a certain personal interest.”
He spoke perfect Harvard, but my first theory that he was of Greek parentage remained unshaken.
“Please avoid touching things. Some of them are very
delicate; some, very dangerous. If you will come this way . . .”
I followed him through such a maze of scientific paraphernalia as surely never before had been assembled. By the farther wall of the place he paused, pointing to a sort of square desk, the top of which was covered with what appeared to be ground glass. A foot or so above it a peculiarly shaped lamp was suspended.
“I can’t offer you a cigar,” he went on, “as smoking isn’t allowed here; but”—he held out a packet of chewing gum—“this is a fair substitute. . . . No? Well, you won’t mind if I do?”
He stripped a slip of gum and placed it between his teeth.
“Now, sir, I will explain why you experienced such difficulty in exploring the woods below Felsenweir. This, you see, is a map of the territory.”
He touched a button. Upon the glazed surface appeared a delicately outlined map.
“These red dots”—he indicated them—“mark the highroad surrounding the grounds of the castle. Of course, you remember the highroad? Now these, Mr. Woodville, are the three zones.”
He manipulated a switchboard. A shimmering, changing wave of violet light sprang up within the dotted line which marked the highroad.
“The third zone.”
An inner, irregular circle of violet light appeared upon the map.
“The second zone—to which you so nearly penetrated.”
A third wave of light appeared surrounding the ground plan of the castle.
“The first zone.”
I was silent.
“These are sound waves, Mr. Woodville. The Master, if he wishes, will give you further particulars. But these barrages consist of zones of sound, tuned to so high a key as to be inaudible but instantly fatal to animal life. If you’ll notice”—the second zone disappeared in response to some manipulation— “they can be put down or raised at will. So, as you must realize, not all Hindenburg’s shock troops could reach us! Felsenweir survived five sieges in mediaeval times. To-day, notwithstanding air power, artillery development, and modern tactics, it’s impregnable as ever.”
