Forgotten Fiction

by Lloyd Eshbach

  “Hurry!” he shouted, striving to pierce the fog of sleep. “We’ve got to get out! Damn him!”

  Vilma rallied for an instant, and they reached the top of the stairs. On—across that wide, wide room, each step a struggle . . . On while the droning sound floated languidly through every nerve cell . . . On—till their muscles could no longer move, and they sagged to the hard stone, asleep.

  MOMENTS later Cliff opened his eyes to meet the hellish glare of Leon Corio. Corio smiled thinly.

  “So—you awaken. Good! I would have you know the fate I have planned for you. You see this?” He held the cutlas high above Darrell’s throat like the blade of a guillotine. “With this I could end your life quite painlessly and quickly. It really would prove entertaining for Miss Bradley, I’m sure.” He chuckled faintly behind bruised and swollen lips.

  Cliff squirmed, striving to rise, then subsided instantly. He was bound hand and foot.

  “I could kill you,” Corio repeated musingly, “but that would lack finesse.” His teeth bared in a feline smile. “And it would be such a waste—of blood! Instead, I’ll take you out to the galley and let you lie there till her crew awakens tonight. They have tasted blood, and after tonight will taste none again for another month. I imagine they’ll—drain you dry!” The last phrase was a vicious snarl.

  Cliff heard Vilma utter a suppressed sob, and he turned his head. She lay close by, bound like him with strips of leather. Furiously Cliff strained at his fetters, but they held.

  “And while you wait for those gentle Persians to awaken,” Corio continued in tones caressingly soft, “you can think of your sweetheart in my arms! It may teach you not to strike your betters—though you can never profit by your lesson.”

  Stooping, he raised Cliff’s powerful form and managed to fling him over one shoulder. Then he moved from the great hall, down the stone steps, and across the dead plain with its sighing skeleton trees. He was panting jerkily by the time he came to the fissure leading to the cove, but he reached it, despite Cliff’s two hundred pounds. Without pausing, he went on into the cavern, along the rock ledge, to step at last upon the deck of the black galley.

  “Pleasant thoughts,” he said gently as he dropped Cliff to the spongy boards. “You have only to wait till dark!”

  Cliff listened to his rapid footfalls till they died in distance; then there was no sound save his own breathing.

  Gradually his eyes became accustomed to the heavy gloom, and he saw that Corio had dropped him just at the edge of the rowers’ pit. There were white things down there—bones, pale as marble, scattered about aimlessly. Could—could those bones join to make the rowers who would arise with the night? It seemed absurd—was absurd—yet he knew it was so! He had seen too much to doubt it.

  He rolled over on his back and stared upward into the shadows. He must lie here helpless while Corio returned to Vilma—did with her as he pleased! Perhaps he might even transform her into a blood-tainted monster like himself! He saw her again in that room of ancient splendor, spread-eagled to the bed; and the muscles corded in his arms, and his lips strained white in a futile effort to break free.

  Interminably he lay there waiting. The galley was damp with the chilling dampness of a sepulcher, and the dampness penetrated deeper and deeper. Clamping his jaws together to prevent their quivering, he struggled against a rising tide of madness which gnawed at his reason. His mind began to crunch and jangle like a machine out of gear, threatening to destroy itself.

  On and on in plodding indifference the stolid moments passed, till at last Cliff realized that it was growing darker. He rolled over on his side and stared into the galley pit, eyes fixed on the inert masses of white. Soon they would move! Soon the undead would rise! His thoughts, touched by the whips of dread, sped about like slaves seeking escape from a torture pit. And abruptly out of the welter of chaotic ideas came one straw of sanity; he seized it, his heart hammering with hope.

  Those Persian sailors were armed! Their swords and knives were real, for they cut flesh! Somewhere among their bones must lie sharp-edged blades!

  He struggled to the edge of the pit, let his feet drop over. As they touched, he balanced precariously for an instant, then fell to his knees. He peered feverishly about among white bones, moldering garments, and rusted armor—and saw a faint glimmer of light on pointed steel. He sank forward on his face in the direction of the gleam, turned over, squirmed and writhed till he felt the cold blade against his hands. He caught it between his fingers and began sawing back and forth.

  It was heart-breaking work. Age had dulled the weapon, and long slivers of rust flaked off, but the leather which bound him was also ancient. Though progress was slow, and the effort laborious, Cliff knew his bonds were weakening.

  But it was growing darker. Even now he could see only a suggestion of gray among the shadows. If those undead things materialized while he lay among them!. . . Sweat stood out on his forehead and he redoubled his efforts, straining at the leather as he sawed.

  With a snap the cords parted and his hands were free. A single slash severed the thongs about his ankles, and he stood up, leaped to the deck. Not an instant too soon! There was movement in the pit—a hideous crawling of bones assembling themselves into skeletal form . . .

  Cliff waited to see no more. There were limits to what one could see and remain sane. With a bound he crossed the rotting deck, and sprang ashore. Despite the dark, he almost ran from the madness of that cave, ran till he passed through the wall of rock, till he saw the rim of the moon gleaming behind the castle.

  5. The End of the Island

  OUT on the plain he sprinted through the ghostly forest. He knew he had no time to spare—knew that soon the march of torture would begin—knew that if Vilma were within the castle, she must answer the summons of Corio’s horn. Even now light glowed faintly in the high, square windows.

  That horn! At the foot of the steps he stopped short. If he heard the horn, he too must answer! He dared not risk it. With impatient fingers he tore a strip of cloth from his shirt, rolled it into a cylinder, and thrust it into his ear. Another for the other ear—and he darted up into the castle.

  A sweeping glance revealed no one, only the murky glow of the altar fire, and the wraiths of smoke pluming upward toward the shadowed roof. Wishing now that he had brought a weapon from the galley, Cliff crossed to the opening in the wall. He stood at the top of the steps, listening, then cursed silently as he remembered that he could hear none but very loud sounds. He saw nothing; so he hastened down into the corridor. His steps were swiftly stealthy as he moved toward Corio’s room.

  He was past the first branching passage, when a sixth sense warned him of someone’s approach. He ran swiftly to the next fork, then paused within its shelter and glanced back, saw five red-cowled figures glide along the tunnel and vanish up the stairway. Cliff frowned. With the vampires in the great hall, Corio must soon follow, leading his victims to the blood-feast. He drew back deeper into the shadows.

  His groping hands touched something in the dark—round and hard—like a keg. Curiously he investigated. It was a keg, and there were others. A sandy powder trailed to the floor from a crack in one of them. Thoughtfully Cliff let it run through his fingers. Gunpowder! Of course—he had heard Corio mention pirates and their treasure, and this had been their cache of explosive. An idea was forming . . .

  He looked up to see a shadow pass the mouth of the tunnel; he crept forward and peered out. He saw the black-hooded figure of Leon Corio striding along, saw him enter the room where the passengers of the Ariel lay. In a breath Cliff was down the corridor to Corio’s room. A tarnished silver candelabrum shed faint light through the chamber, and by its flickering glow he searched for Vilma, thoroughly, painstakingly—futilely.

  He stood in the center of the room in indecision, his forehead creased with anxiety. If only he could find her, he’d know how to plan! He ran his hand through his hair helplessly, then heard very faintly the luring note of Corio’s horn. Sh
e must answer that summons, unless Corio had her tied somewhere. His best chance of finding her lay in the hall above.

  On the wall still hung the mate of the cutlas he had used to free Vilma; he wrenched it down and ran out into the corridor. The last of the naked marchers was disappearing up the stairway. Now the horn-note died, and he could feel more than hear the rumbling bass of the dirge from the depths below him.

  He ran the rest of the distance along the passageway and mounted the steps two at a stride. He looked into the torture hall. As on the previous night, Corio stood far back, close to the wall in which Cliff crouched. The arms of the Master were raised high; raised, Cliff knew though he could not hear it, in a blasphemous incantation. And then he saw something that sent a crimson lance of fury crashing through his brain.

  Vilma, stripped like the rest, stood with the other victims at the foot of the long steps! Her body gleamed pinkly, in contrast to the pallid drabness of the half-dead automatons, and she held her head proudly erect. But from where he stood Cliff could see the side of her face, and it bore a look of terror.

  He could see Corio’s face, too, and he was looking at the girl, baffled fury glaring from his eyes—as though she were there against his will.

  Cliff’s first impulse was to fling himself out there with his cutlas and hack a way to freedom for Vilma and himself, but cold reason checked this folly. Such a course could end only in death. Motionless he watched the scene before him, his brain frantically seeking a plan with even a ghost of a chance of succeeding.

  The gunpowder! There was enough of the stuff below to blast this entire castle into the hell where it belonged! Hastily he retraced his steps to the tunnel in which he had found the kegs, plucking the torch from its niche in the wall as he passed it. He held it high above his head as he examined the contents of the broken keg. Unmistakably gunpowder!

  Thrusting the cutlas beneath his belt, he clutched a handful of the black dust. Then, crouching close to the floor, he drew an irregular thread through the passageway toward the stairs. Once he returned for more powder, but in a few minutes the job was done. At the foot of the steps where the trail ended, he touched his torch to the black line and watched a hissing spark snake its white-smoked way back toward the powder kegs. An instant he watched it, then sprang up the stairs. He’d have to move fast!

  With a hideous howl he darted into the hall, his cutlas above his head. Corio spun about—and it was his last living act. A single sweep of the great blade sheared his head from his neck, sent it rolling grotesquely along the floor. For three heart-beats the body stood with a fountain of blood spurting from severed arteries; then it crashed.

  Coolly Cliff leaned over the twitching cadaver, ignoring the bedlam on the stairs, the horde sweeping down toward him, hurling aside the waiting humans. He pried open clutching fingers, seized a twisted silver instrument, and raised it to his lips.

  THE mass of undead were almost upon him, the murky light glinting on menacing blades, when Cliff blew the first note. The note of sleep! He tried again, hastily. And it was the right one!

  At the doleful, soothing sound the undead halted in their tracks; halted—and melted into nothingness before his eyes!

  But now those other five in their robes of bloody red—they were charging, and even though they were unarmed, Cliff felt a stab of fear. They possessed powers beyond the human, powers a mortal could not combat. He braced himself and waited.

  At the bottom of the steps they stopped, ranging in a wide half-circle. The central monster—the Master—flung up his arms in a strangely terrifying gesture, and Cliff saw his carmine lips move in a chant which he could not hear. Something, a chilling Presence, hovered about him, seemed to settle upon him, cloaking him with the might of the devil himself. That unheard incantation continued, and Cliff felt a cold rigidity creeping through every fiber, slowly freezing his limbs into columns of ice.

  With a mighty effort of will he flung himself toward that accursed drinker of blood—and at that instant a terrific detonation rocked the ancient building, and a cloud of smoke and flame burst from the opening in the wall. Cliff was hurled from his feet, rolled over and over, and crashed against the wall by the awful concussion, the cutlas and silver horn sent whirling through the air.

  Dizzily he staggered to his feet, crouching defensively. Sounds came to him clearly now; the explosion must have jarred the plugs from his ears. He scanned the room; saw the unclad humans scattered everywhere, most of them lying still and unconscious. He saw Vilma rising slowly; then he looked for the monsters in red. Startled, he saw them rushing toward the opening in the wall, to vanish in its smoke-filled interior. Why did they——? Then he knew. Down there somewhere were their graves—graves rent and broken by the explosion—graves threatened by the flames—and panic had seized the vampires, fear of the death which would result with exile from their tombs!

  Unsteadily Cliff crossed to Vilma. She saw him coming and flung herself sobbing into his arms. He crushed her lithe form close—and another explosion, more violent than the first, sent a section of the stone floor leaping upward as though with life of its own. Clinging to Vilma, Cliff managed to maintain his footing, though the floor bucked and heaved. A snapping, booming roar—and a great chasm opened in the floor. A breathless instant—and a segment of the stone stairs, rumbling thunderously, dropped out of sight into a newly formed pit! With it went the blasphemous altar and its phosphorescent fire.

  Deafened, stunned, momentarily powerless to move, Cliff’s mind groped for an explanation. It seemed incredible that gunpowder could cause such havoc. And the swaying of the floor continued; the thick stone walls shook alarmingly. Suddenly he understood. An earthquake! The explosions had jarred the none-too-stable understrata of rock into spasmodic motion that must grind everything to bits! The island was doomed! And Earth would be better without it.

  If only they could reach the Ariel first!

  New strength flowed through him, and hugging Vilma close, he staggered toward the spot where he knew the door must be. Somehow he reached it, and reeled down the broken stone steps.

  The plain of dead trees swayed like the deck of a ship in a storm as Cliff started across it. A gale had arisen and swept in from the sea, ripping dry branches from the skeleton growths and whirling them about like straws. Yet somehow Cliff reached the crevice in the rock wall with his burden, reached the deck of the galley, crossed it, and won to the safety of the Ariel. Minutes later, with Diesel engines purring, they crept out through the narrow channel into the open sea.

  TEN minutes later the Isle of the Undead lay safely behind them. Vilma had dressed; and now they sat together in the pilot house. Cliff had one arm about her, and one hand on the wheel.

  “And so,” the girl was saying, “while Corio carried you to that terrible old boat, I got loose. He hadn’t tied me very tightly, and I slipped my hands free. I had to hide, and I could think of only one place that might be safe, where he wouldn’t think to look for me. I ran down to the room where those—those others lay; I undressed, and buried myself among them. It was horrible—the way they sucked each other’s wounds . . .”

  Cliff pressed a hand across her lips. “Forget that!” he said almost fiercely. “Forget all of it—d’you hear?”

  She looked up at him and said simply: “I’ll try.”

  They glanced back toward the black blotch on the horizon. The seismic disturbances continued unabated. At that moment they saw the barrier of rock like a skull split and sink into the sea. Beyond, cleansing tongues of flame licked the sky. They saw a single jagged wall of the castle still standing, one window glowing in its black expanse like a square, bloody moon against a bloody sky. It crumbled.

  They turned away, and Cliff’s arm circled the girl he loved. Their lips met and clung . . . And the Ariel plowed on through the frothing brine, bearing them toward safety and forgetfulness . . . Together.

  THE OUTPOST ON CERES

  Ceres is one of those numerous little planets, properly calle
d planetoids, which are confined in their motions to what may be called an orbit of their own. Here we have a story of adventure and sacrifice of the heroic order.

  LARRY DAMORE and the Outpost on Ceres—in the annals of the Earth, Venus, and Mars Transportation Lines, Inc., the two are inseparable. No one ever mentions one without referring to the other. Queer what it takes to make—or break—a man. For Larry Damore it took that ugly wilderness of barren, sun-parched rocks—Ceres, the largest of the asteroids. That, and the wreck of the space ship Helios.

  This is Larry’s story, but it begins with H.C. MacDonald, President of the E.V. & M. Lines. In those early days of interplanetary travel, when the E.V. & M. cruisers were the only commercial crafts in space, H.C. MacDonald was laying the foundation for the complex transport chain which now unites every inhabited sphere in the Solar System. Contacts had just been made with the people of Ganymede, the third moon of Jupiter. A freighter with a cargo of produce from the three planets had visited the satellite on a trading expedition that had been profitable for all involved—or almost all, for there was one exception.

  Approximately 150 million miles from Ganymede, on the homeward journey, the freighter ran out of fuel and drifted powerless through space. No lives were lost, no suffering or hardship was caused by the delay—but the E.V. & M. Lines lost money on the trip. They had to outfit another cruiser and send it from Mars to the stranded vessel to tow it in. All of which cost money.

  When H.C. MacDonald saw the financial figures of the trip go in the red, he shook his shock of bristling, iron-gray hair impatiently. This wouldn’t do! True—it was the first time a freighter had attempted a round trip across the 340 million miles of space between Mars and Ganymede, so he’d have to make allowances. But it couldn’t happen again! He issued orders to that effect.