by Lin Carter
They searched the trail from the foot of the mountain to the very peak, finding nothing that was of any use. There were no side trails, no clefts or fissures in the mountainside where the ogre might have concealed itself when Zarkon and Fooey Mulligan came down the trail, and not even any boulders or outcroppings large enough for the monster to have crouched behind. It had simply vanished ... if not into thin air, then somehow it had melted into the solid rock of the mountain itself.
“Too many dang things and people vanishin’ around here for the loikes o’ me,” declared Scorchy.
“Yeah,” drawled Nick Naldini, counting on his fingers. “First, John James Jones, the geologist. Then Braxton T. Crawley’s niece, Phoenicia Mulligan. Finally, the troll itself, or whatever you prefer to call the thing. Speaking of number two on the list reminds me — the chief actually found the lost girl. Where were you all night, Miss?”
Phoenicia Mulligan, who sat beside Nick and Scorchy on the ledge, kicking her heels while Zarkon searched the hut of her missing boyfriend, shrugged and yawned sleepily.
“Climbing around the top of that blasted mountain,” she declared. “Trying to get another look at the monster, or to find out where it hides itself when it’s not creeping up behind people and scaring the living daylights out of ’em.”
“Or murdering them with one touch of its red-hot paws,” added Nick Naldini in sepulchral tones.
The girl shuddered. “Do you have to keep reminding me of that?” she complained.
Scorchy was interested to find someone who had shared his own frightful experience. “You took a coupla pot-shots at the critter, too, didn’t you say?” he asked.
Phoenicia nodded wearily. “Emptied my pistol at the huge lumbering thing,” she said. “Not that it did any good, any more than your gun did; and instead of using those trick rubber bullets you guys have, mine were real slugs. Should have been able to stop a rhinoceros the way I was shooting — right smack over the heart. If volcano monsters have hearts, that is!”
Nick was preening his Mephistophelian mustachios in a thoughtful manner, his dark eyes hooded.
“You think there’s anything to this legend of a fire-devil living under the volcano?” he asked. The girl gave him a level look and snorted contemptuously.
“Aw, fooey! You’ll be asking me if I believe in vampires and werewolves next,” she griped.
Nick chuckled deprecatingly. Scorchy, however, wasn’t so sure. Like most Irishmen, he more than half believed in leprechauns, banshees, and the Little People in general. And it wasn’t a very far step from that to volcano devils. He said as much, more to trigger another argument with Nick than as an article of personal belief in the supernatural.
Nick, however, was not in the mood to trade insults with his pint-sized pal. Jet-lag was catching up with the long-legged magician: he smothered a yawn behind polite fingers.
“Well ... dunno that I believe in monsters,” he grumbled, “but something is walking around here, and it’s not only bulletproof but tough enough to go skinny-dippin’ in pools of molten lava. Devil or no devil, it’s a monster, all right.”
“Oh yeah?” growled Scorchy.
“Yeah,” said Nick.
Señor Valdez, sitting nearby and puffing on a long cheroot, cleared his throat, his expression philosophical.
“If the gentlemen do not believe in fire trolls,” he murmured, “they should perhaps apprise Tommy Kahua and Jimmie Okawa of their non-existence.” There was just the slightest flavor of sarcasm in his tones.
Scorchy blinked sleepily. “Whozzat?” he mumbled.
Nick nudged him with a vicious elbow.
“The two island boys the monster killed yesterday, you Hibernian nitwit,” he snarled.
Scorchy flushed scarlet, but said nothing.
Zarkon had completed his search of the hut and the terrain immediately around it, and rejoined them shortly after this discussion. The change in time-zones had caught everybody short on sleep, so he suggested that they return to the village, since they could do no more here.
They trooped back single-file through the jungle, and reached the outskirts of Tarapaho just as the island fishermen were dragging their morning’s catch ashore. The sight of those fat, silvery fish reminded Nick and Scorchy that they were ravenously hungry. Or reminded Scorchy, at least. For Nick was constantly hungry, and could stow aboard more victuals than the rest of his comrades put together — and still be ready to send out for hamburgers and French fries half an hour later. Nick’s digestive system was often referred to as The Bottomless Pit by his partners-in-crime-fighting. Scorchy sometimes suggested that the lanky vaudevillian possessed the proverbial or legendary “hollow leg.”
At any rate, the island boys were delighted to arrange a feed for their distinguished guests. Any excuse for a village feast was welcome in Tarapaho. Life here, one gathered, was dull and routine. A barbeque or a banquet made for a happy break in daily doings. In no time, pits were dug in the sand, charcoal was shoveled in, and fresh fish, wrapped in seaweed, were crackling and popping on the glowing coals, shedding an indescribably mouth-watering aroma on the afternoon air.
Squatting tailor-fashion under the palm trees, their necks bewreathed with chains of pink blossoms set in place by giggling native girls, Scorchy crunched down a huge mouthful of crisp fried fish and took a long, refreshing guzzle of cold, fermented coconut-milk. He wiped his mouth with the hack of his hand and sat back, replete, patting his midsection.
“This is the life,” he said dreamily.
Nick Naldini, squatting beside him, was digging into a succulent native dish, kaoliang cooked with rice, using a carved wooden bowl for a plate. He gave his partner a quizzical sideways glance.
“It would be the life,” he drawled sourly, “if we didn’t have that murdering monster prowling around up there on the mountain.”
Phoenicia Mulligan, a good-sized meal tucked away, was seated next to Ace Harrigan. The handsome young aviator was feeding her a line of air-war stories from his career as an air ace over Indochina.
“Thirty-seven enemy planes,” she murmured, snuggling next to him cozily, sounding very impressed. “My, my!”
Ace, rather bedazzled by the ease of his conquest, did not notice that every time the gorgeous blonde cuddled closer to his side, she sneaked a glance at Prince Zarkon to see if he was at all discomforted by the way she was hanging on Ace Harrigan’s every word with eyelash-fluttering fascination. He seemed oblivious to the act she was putting on.
“How ever did you get interested in planes in the first place, Ace?” she murmured cooingly.
“Runs in the family.” The pilot grinned. “My dad was one of the big names in aviation pioneering, back in the old days. Ever hear of ‘Hop’ Harrigan? Oh, he was right up there breaking records with famous guys like Barney Baxter, ‘Tailspin Tommy’ Tomkins, Bill Barnes, ‘Smilin’ Jack’ —”
Ace’s list of aviation pioneers and famous fliers broke off suddenly in mid-name.
For a shrill scream of fear ripped through the drowsy afternoon calm.
Down at the edge of the double-row of feasters, one of the native women had leaped to her feet, staring with wide eyes into the edge of the jungle. Now she clapped her hands to her cheeks and shrieked again.
The Omega men and Phoenicia Mulligan came to their feet, food and wooden utensils flying. Zarkon whipped around behind the crowd to where Señor Valdez, his fine aristocratic features tense with alarm, bent over the sobbing woman.
“What’s wrong with her?” he snapped sharply. “What is it that she saw that frightened her so?”
“Yeah,” boomed Braxton T. Crawley belligerently. The fat man came waddling up behind Prince Zarkon and the gentlemanly old Spaniard. “Dame’s hysterical! Sounded like she saw some dang-fool ghost or somethin’ —”
Señor Valdez, murmuring in the local lingo with the frightened woman, came to his feet, searching the edge of the jungle with worried eyes. Then he pointed into the dense foliage dramatically.<
br />
“That is exactly it, señor! The poor woman did indeed see a ghost — behold!”
He gestured.
All eyes turned to the gloom of the jungle’s edge. Suddenly a chorus of frightened gasps broke from the wide-eyed villagers.
From the thick bushes tottered a frail, disheveled figure with haunted face and staring eyes!
The walking scarecrow wore tattered rags. Dark rings circled his glazed and empty eyes.
He staggered toward them, one skinny arm groping, claw-fingered.
Then he collapsed at their feet.
Braxton T. Crawley turned as pale as milk. His eyes bulged huge. He swallowed something big, making his enormous mustache wobble ludicrously. When he spoke, his voice was a strangled squeak instead of a bullfrog gobble.
“Why, th-thet’s —!”
Phoenicia Mulligan cleaved through the crowd and sank to her knees beside the ragged figure.
“John James Jones!” she cried.
CHAPTER 10 — Back from the Grave
It was indeed the young American whose disappearance had touched off a sequence of inexplicable events. Braxton T. Crawley identified the young man in quite positive terms: this was the survey geologist who had worked for his company here in the Luzon islands before his unwelcome attentions to Miss Phoenicia Mulligan — unwelcome to Phoenicia’s Uncle, that is; certainly not unwelcome to the young lady herself! — had earned him dismissal as being a scoundrelly young fortune-hunter.
Crawley was not entirely the hot-headed domestic tyrant, however. The fat, red-faced industrialist with the walrus mustache soon displayed that he had a heart of — well, if not exactly of gold, at least the vital organ was composed of one of the softer metals. For he expressed troubled concern over the emaciated condition of the young geologist, and went on record as intending to hire “the best dang-fool sawbones money can buy in these islands” to restore the youth to his former robust condition of health.
They carried the young man into the trading-post and Zarkon fetched his medical kit from the equipment cases in Señor Valdez’ storeroom and checked the youth over. It would appear that prolonged exposure, to say nothing of shock and, quite simply, terror, had reduced the young man to a condition resembling that of complete physical and nervous exhaustion.
John James Jones had once been a strikingly handsome fellow, with golden curly hair, a stalwart physique, square-jawed face, and long-lashed eyes of skylark-blue. The precise shade of blue, in fact, known to melt feminine reserve in the shortest span of time, and to elevate the emotions of women to the veritable melting-point.
But his experiences, it would seem, had reduced him to a gaunt skeleton of a man, with fear-haunted eyes and a feeble, trembling voice.
Under Zarkon’s ministrations, the young American soon recovered from his swoon. Powerful restoratives returned him to a semblance of his former self. He was all too eager to tell the tale of his remarkable and horrifying adventures, and the narrative soon proved to be an astonishing one.
When the blond young man had quit his job in a rage over being accused of finagling Phoenicia Mulligan into marriage simply to get his hands on her fortune, he had come back to the islands determined to find his own. One lucky strike could repair his self-esteem, and would certainly improve his prospects. Perhaps even to such a point at which suspicious Braxton T. Crawley would no longer balk at giving his permission for the nuptials young Johnny Jones so ardently desired.
Why had he come back to Rangatoa, even after his own survey had shown the mineral deposits on the island, such as they were, to be thoroughly worthless from an industrial point of view? This was one of the questions Prince Zarkon addressed to the young man, as soon as he was able to talk.
“I don’t know,” murmured the boy. Then, setting his square jaw stubbornly, he added: “Guess I had to start somewhere ... and it would really have been a feather in my cap to have dug up something of real worth, after Pacific Mining and Minerals had officially declared the island of no value, mineralogically speaking!”
“And did you find anything?” inquired Zarkon gently.
The boy reluctantly shook his head. “No, but it wasn’t entirely my fault ... and I’m still not convinced the island has no valuable metals,” he declared.
“What do you mean, it wasn’t entirely your fault? What wasn’t your fault?” murmured the Man of Mysteries.
The blond boy shrugged helplessly. “I mean I never had a chance to finish up my survey — to do a really thorough job.”
“And why not?”
The boy gestured weakly. “I dunno, Prince Zarkon — funny things started to happen —”
“What sort of things?”
“Like tools mislaid, or lost, or — stolen! Equipment that I couldn’t easily replace. Things I know were there the day before, but were just plain gone the next day!”
“Petty pilferage, you mean,” suggested the Lord of the Unknown.
“ ‘Petty pilferage,’ nothing! Nobody’s going to carry off a twelve-thousand-electron-volt planar unit! Damned thing weighs half a ton. It’d take a pickup truck to move it ... and why would anybody steal a planar unit in the first place? They couldn’t get it off the island, and even if they did — what would they do with it? How could they dispose of it? Where could they possibly sell such a sophisticated piece of equipment?”
“What’s a planar unit, Doc?” asked Scorchy in a hoarse whisper. The big, dumb-looking man bent low to mutter in his ear.
“ ’S like a sonar set, Scorchy — probes for deposits of metals underground by subelectronic pulsations. You know how a radar wave bounces back off any solid object?” whispered the man with the marvel mind.
“Unh-huh,” grunted the runty little Irishman.
Doc Jenkins spread his baseball-mitt size hands. “Well, planar waves only rebound from metal — and all other kinds of matter are not even there, as far as they are concerned. They go right through rock and sand and soil.”
Scorchy indicated his comprehension with a nod. He started to ask something, then shut up, for Johnny Jones was talking again.
“I guess somebody — or something — was trying to discourage me, to scare me and get me to shut down my survey, get me away from the island,” he muttered. “Well, I didn’t budge! Then the two native workmen I had doing the spadework saw something up on the mountain. It scared them so badly they ran off the next day and never came back.”
“I take it that they weren’t local boys?” inquired Prince Zarkon.
Johnny shook his head. “No, they were a couple of geology students I hired on the main island. They were going to lend me a hand during vacations. Didn’t matter so much, them running off when they did, ’cause they’d’ve had to go back anyway, once college opened again.”
“So you were left alone?”
“Right. And then ... I saw it, myself!”
Johnny’s feeble, quavering tones sharpened with shrill fear: his wasted, worn features convulsed; his wide blue eyes were clouded with the shadow of horrible memories.
“Saw what?” demanded Zarkon, leaning closer. “What did you see?”
“I ... I saw the volcano monster ... coming up out of the crater ... walking unharmed through live steam that would scald a man to death in minutes, wading through molten lava whose temperature was over one thousand degrees Fahrenheit ... liquid rock so hot you can soften a steel bar by sticking it into the stuff ... and the ogre waded through it like it was tepid seawater!”
The boy shuddered, plunging his face into his hands.
“It was horrible. Like a crude stone idol brought to life by some evil magician. It had no face, no eyes. But it could feel that I was there, and it came after me . . . red-hot and smoking, it climbed up out of the lava lake and came lumbering after me ... ponderous, slow, dragging steps, like it weighed tons ... and all the time, rivulets of molten lava were running down over its face and chest and shoulders — streams of liquid rock that would sear you or me to the bone in a tenth of a secon
d ... so I ran ... into the swamp ... and kept on running...”
His voice, weak and shaky, faded. His head lolled loosely on one shoulder, slack-jawed and empty-eyed. He had passed out again. But at least he had survived the ordeal without serious physical harm. Although he looked like a nervous wreck and would take some time to recuperate, at least the hapless young geologist had escaped alive from the burning death the volcano ogre had dealt to its other victims.
After some time, the Omega men, Phoenicia Mulligan, her uncle, and Señor Valdez emerged from the room in which John James Jones lay, asleep under heavy sedation administered by Prince Zarkon. They all looked tense, worried, distraught.
“Pore kid,” rumbled Braxton T. Crawley through his huge set of mustachios. “Looks like he’s sure gone through heck, back there. What a time he’s had, hidin’ out in the swamp, afraid t’ come out f’r fear the volcano critter’d be lurkin’ around his dang-fool cabin, waitin’ for him ... drinkin’ muddy water, sleeping in a ditch, eatin’ rotten fruit ... ’s a wonder he ain’t half-dead, after a day er two of thet!”
“Yeah, cripes!” shivered Scorchy. “Here, allatime we wuz thinkin’ him dead an’ all — lissenin’ t’ his yarn is like havin’ some poor soul come back from the grave t’ tell ya what it’s like onna other side.”
Phoenicia Mulligan looked wan and troubled. “Poor Johnny’s so frail and wasted-looking,” she said faintly, “he looks like a walking corpse!” She shuddered, for the shades of night were falling, and island evenings were moist and downright cold during this season. “You wouldn’t think a couple of days and nights in the swamps could wear down a man that way. He was always so strong and healthy!”
Braxton T. Crawley patted her shoulder clumsily.
“Why, sure, honey-chil’! Them swamps can do a white man in quicker’n quick — drinkin’ thet dirty water, sleepin’ in the mud — fever — dysentery — leeches suckin’ yer blood! But don’t you worry, little gal. We’ll get yer young man over to the mainland and a good hospital —”
