The Black Throne

by Roger Zelazny

  She looked our way as we entered, let go the rods and came to me. I held her.

  "I knew you'd come," she said, "today."

  Von Kempelen looked our way.

  "I know you," he said. "You was with the little man—and the monkey."

  I nodded.

  "I get around." Then, "Come on, Annie, let's get out of here," I told her.

  She looked to Von Kempelen.

  "Go ahead. You can finish charging it later," he said.

  I took her out of there and up the stairs and through the halls and gallery and out into the garden, leaving them there below.

  * * *

  A long while later, as we lay amid beauty and sunlight, regarding golden trees, I remarked, "So the process involves mesmerism?"

  She nodded, she yawned.

  "It's the secret ingredient in such transmutation on a large scale," she explained, "a special kind of mesmerism."

  "Oh," I said. " 'Special?' In what way?"

  "Other-worldly energy," she replied. "There will be a vast flux of it when the door for Poe's return is finally closed."

  "And that takes place tonight, during the work?"

  "They would like it to,'' she said, "but it shan't. I haven't been keeping it open all this time for their benefit."

  "You've lost me."

  She smiled.

  "No, I haven't lost anyone yet. Not even Poe. I plan to give them their gold and get him back, too. The three of us will finally be together, here."

  "I am not a scientist," I said, "and my training as a mesmerist is far from complete. But even without knowing the mathematics that must prop such matters, I'm sure of one thing: The universe doesn't give you something for nothing. What's the price?"

  She smiled again.

  "Mr. Ellison does not know that I am aware of his secret," she said. "He is from that Earth. Therefore, I can exchange him for Poe and then close the door. We will be reunited, and Mr. Griswold will be extremely grateful."

  "I'll bet," I said. "This was his idea, wasn't it?"

  "Yes."

  It was like looking into a maelstrom—things changing constantly as I watched. Would her stratagem prevail? Had Von Kempelen a secret army of homunculi awaiting the appropriate moment, somewhat after midnight of a gold October 7th, to make their move on his behalf? I was probably the only one involved without a contingency plan.

  So I kissed her, and, "Tell me more about mesmerism," I said. "When the force is as strong as ours there must be special measures for keeping it under control."

  "Oh, yes," she answered. "We must construct our own tools... ."

  * * *

  On that night of all nights in the year, well after midnight, we made our ways into the cavernous cellar of the manse at Arnheim to commence the transmutation.

  The private armies of Seabright Ellison and the men he had dubbed the Unholy Trinity faced each other across the length of the laboratory. There were perhaps forty on each of two sides. Each man bore a rifle and wore a brace of pistols; and there were plenty of edged weapons in sight. I wondered what it would be like with ricochets flying all over the place. Civilians... . I'd sneaked in and dug a hasty trench earlier—not too far off to my left—and covered it over with a piece cut from the tarp holding the mountain of lead bars. I'd anticipated something like this; and at the first evidence there'd be gunfire I intended to grab Annie and dive into it.

  Von Kempelen was connecting hoses from tank to tank, rods from the final tank to the far side of the stack of lead bars. Annie was seated in a shiny black chair which looked as if it had been constructed from slabs of obsidian. A glass helmet covered her upper head, and she leaned against a strip of gold which ran up its high back. She was given two rods to hold, both of which extended to the near side of the lead heap.

  Von Kempelen whispered some final instruction to her, then nodded to Ellison and the others. A certain tension, apart from the psychological, immediately filled the room. I took a step toward Annie and felt an increase in the forces she was manipulating. There followed a gurgling from one of the vats.

  Whatever forces were emanating from Annie, they began to pulsate. The other vats began to resonate.

  I seemed to hear a high-pitched whining, and suddenly my head ached. Covering my ears did not make any difference, though everyone else was doing it, also. Then it went away and half-distinct shapes swam through the air—strange fish, strange sea... . Again, the pulsing intensified. It was almost something one could lean against. I felt somewhat more conversant with the phenomenon now, following my exercise of the previous afternoon.

  The sound came and went in an instant. Minute explosions of color then filled the air, above the vats, about the gray stack. Annie's hands were white with strain upon the rods before her.

  Then came the rippling. It was as if I watched the men across from me—and everything else about me, I suddenly realized—through a shallow, flowing stream. Nothing was changed, yet everything was changed. Everything in the cellar seemed to be vibrating.

  Then the points of light—mostly golden this time—returned, to linger within the rippling.

  I took another step toward Annie. Some pressure was building. The gray bars flashed yellow for a moment, within the rippling. A moment later the flash was repeated—golden this time, lingering. The pile seemed to change shape, shrinking each time the brightness came into it, expanding as it departed.

  I glanced at Ellison, who was smiling. The frequency of the vibration increased. The gold-gray/

  implosion-explosion sequence came faster and faster. Then the gold portion of the cycle was lengthened, the gray shortened. There was a jogging effect, with the actual scraping, grating sounds of the bars rubbing against one another as some intrinsic factor altered the size to maintain the mass. Several of them were tumbled from the stack.

  I looked to Ellison again and he seemed framed in fire, but totally unmindful of it.

  Then the vibration stopped, and I beheld a mound of gold. Everyone in the room seemed to inhale sharply at the same time. Lovely, buttery, heavy, gleaming... .

  I looked from the gold to Annie to Ellison and back. And again. Nothing happened. Nobody moved.

  Something had to happen. There had to be a counterstroke, a movement, a balancing—

  Annie screamed. The light which hovered about Ellison faded.

  That which Annie had screamed was, "Poe is dead!"

  There was a grin upon Griswold's face. Annie released the rods, pushed back her crown of glass.

  Something like a great sigh swept through the chamber, and there came a rattling like an earthquake in a brickyard.

  The pile grew and lost its shimmer, turned gray and fell apart.

  Griswold screamed and so did Ellison. But no one fired a shot.

  Annie repeated what she had said, very softly, but the words were clear. As if in echo there came a tremor and all the lights shook in their sockets. "Poe," she said again, "is dead," and overhead the building creaked. There came a fall of dust all about us.

  Eyes turned upward, and a series of growling, cracking noises ensued.

  * * *

  "At the termination of this sentence I started and, for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very crackling and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story... ."

  * * *

  And then there came a pounding within all the walls, followed by a creaking sound. The entire chamber seemed to move sideways, and mor
e bars fell from the pile of gray. Ellison glanced about quickly, began a retreat toward the stair. A moment later the trio opposite him did the same. There came a crash like thunder.

  "Poe is dead," came a whisper which filled the entire room.

  * * *

  " 'And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrible and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.'

  "Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feel of wild amazement—for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer."

  * * *

  A massive fall of stone crashed upon the stairway, blocking our exit. For the first time, various of the men began to scream. Weapons were discarded as they pushed forward, seeking to escape. Annie raised her arms and swayed from side to side. As if in sympathy, the entire structure around and above us did the same. There followed a series of terrible crashes from overhead, and the ceiling collapsed in a halfdozen places. Some of the men were screaming in agony now, as they were pinned beneath debris. Now it seemed some passing wind lamented Poe rather than words; and from somewhere there came to me a smell of smoke... .

  * * *

  She had gray eyes, and brown hair lay disheveled upon her brow. Her hands were delicate, fingers long.

  Her blue skirt and white blouse were sand-streaked, smudged, the hem of the skirt sodden. Her full lips quivered as her gaze darted from him to the castle and back, but her eyes remained dry.

  "I'm sorry," he repeated.

  She turned her back to him. A moment later her bare foot kicked forward. Another wall fell, another tower toppled.

  "Don't!" he cried, rising, reaching to restrain her. "Stop! Please stop!"

  "No!" she said, moving forward, trampling towers. "No."

  He caught hold of her shoulder and she pulled away from him, continuing to kick and stamp at the castle.

  * * *

  I caught hold of her shoulder. The whole damned roof was coming down, and fire was falling in on us, along with rafters, stone, wood.

  "Annie! Stop it!" I cried.

  She didn't even seem to realize I was there. Somewhere high above I heard a wall give way. In a moment, I felt, the entire silly-ornate structure would be down here in the cellar with us.

  "Annie!"

  She wailed and the earth moved beneath our feet. So I clipped her on the jaw and caught her as she fell.

  Then I called upon that bond established back in Spain before I'd entered Toledo.

  "Ligeia!"

  I saw her limned in light as I raised Annie in my arms.

  "I am waiting," she said.

  "Here is my half of the way. Meet me at the middle, pray."

  The corridor of silver shot forward to join with its counterpart. As I walked it to the place where the lady waited I heard at my back a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters.

  I kept going.

  XV

  Months later I discovered to my total surprise that I had been named in the last will and testament of Seabright Ellison, inheriting from him a small stipend and the residence known as Landor's Cottage, where Annie and I now reside as I labor at the assembly of these memoirs.

  Our friends, such as Dirk Peters, have come to visit us from time to time. Neither of us has forgotten Edgar Allan Poe, who has left two worlds the poorer for his passing. We would that he could share with us the park-like splendors of this place where, on all sides, the violets, tulips, poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses entangle amid the tall trees, among lily-fringed lakes and meadows.

  And at times we open a different door, to the rear of that pleasant dwelling, stepping out upon a foggy beach where the sea flows warm as blood and dark shapes pass. From there we've journeyed many a midnight mile to realms both rare and strange, whose ways would not be open had our dear brother never been:

  * * *

  By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule—

  From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE—out of TIME.

  From Dream-Land, Edgar Allan Poe

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