by Don Wilcox
“Barbara! My bowl of bread and milk. You never did get—”
Silence. Utter and complete silence. The girl imprisoned in Wayne Early’s arms struggled with all her might. “Let me go! I’ve got to get back to him. Please!” The girl choked with angry sobs. “Wayne Early, I hate you! Take your hands off me!”
Wayne relaxed his frozen grip on the girl’s head and shoulders enough to allow her to catch her breath. Her eyes blazed up at him, then her lips parted aghast. The unspeakable terror in Wayne Early’s face went through her like an electricution.
“What—what’s happened?” she whispered. “Why is it so quiet?”
All she could hear was his heart pounding against her throat. Then his arms released her. She turned to look at the excursion ship.
It had drifted beyond the brilliant rainbow, several yards ahead of the rowboat, but she could see it quite vividly through the screen of mist. The decks were empty. Everyone was gone.
The ship moved slowly on, through the long minutes that followed, as if driven by subterranean currents. It described a wide semicircle, returned through the rainbow mists, floated idly back toward the Congo Gardens inlet.
Barbara and Wayne boarded it. They searched it from stem to stern. They found not a single person, living or dead. The mysterious rainbow had somehow swept the ship clean.
CHAPTER VI
In the lavender mists deep within the surfaces of the earth, nine of the Servants of Death were conferring.
“These three interlocked names are still awaiting a decision.”
“We have brought one of them down.”
“Which one?”
“The aged judge. He is now passing through the outer halls with other newcomers, on his way to join the silent parade of eternity.”
“Our indecision calls for holding him back until the other two names have been acted upon.”
“What is their situation by this time?”
“The talented young man is finding Londotte’s absence an advantage. He is pressing for an immediate marriage.”
“The girl, however, is dazed from the shock of her grandfather’s disappearance.”
“No doubt. We took Londotte through one of our few direct gateways. The opportunity was right for taking the girl, too, but we lacked a decision.”
“Now she is confused. She is not so much grief-stricken as stung. Her outraged feelings have turned upon our new agent, Wayne Early, who is still ignorant of the nature of his work.”
“We had best put Early to the test soon.”
“Yes. He will be reluctant to continue unless he can catch a gleam of the service we are rendering. Has he been invited to come down for his first visit?”
“He is on his way. But it is his compassion for the bereaved girl that brings him. He hopes to clear himself of any wrongdoing.”
“The old story. All of our agents, it seems, must go through that painful stage. It may be hard for him to reconcile himself to deaths he helped to bring about.”
“Especially if we find it necessary to take the granddaughter and her friend.”
“My feelings tell me that we should take both—before the marriage. Do the rest of you agree? . . . But wait. Our agent, Early, is approaching.” . . .
Wayne was falling through endless darkness. He couldn’t believe it was happening, he snapped his fingers, yanked at his hair to convince himself he was conscious. It was more like the sinking sensation of taking ether—
Now the blackness was pierced by rays of deep purple light, so heavy a hue that he doubted at first whether it was more than a trick of his eyes. He kept falling. It was a magic carpet fall, not with currents of air cutting past him, rather as if he were inclosed in a protective ball which kept air, temperature, and gravity constant.
The purple light into which he fell grew brighter, more penetrating. He was descending into a vast underground cave whose depths couldn’t be seen.
Up through the mists came millions of intricate lavender branches like arms of coral. Now he was falling past them and there was someone at his side—a shadowy figure that was neither man nor ghost.
The amazement which came over Wayne was due not so much to the figure’s presence as to his own realization that this creature belonged here. With phantom-like gestures, it was trying to break the mental shock for Wayne—trying to let him down gently, as it were.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” said the phantom, as they descended side by side. “You have talked with me before.”
“Up there?” said Wayne?”
“Yes, I met you at the door in Cairo, and forced you to fall. You suspected, then, that I was something other than a human being.”
“Yes,” said Wayne, startled to know that this shadowy form was so quick to read his mind. “Then you must know why I came, as well?”
“To learn the nature of your job. I’m not in the least surprised at your curiosity. Only a few of earth’s men are privileged to be agents for this important work. Only a few are capable of appreciating it. You will know within a few hours whether you are worthy of continuing.”
“What will I need to do,” said Wayne, “to be worthy?”
“The first thing,” said the phantom, “is to remind yourself that Death, however sad or painful or unwelcome, is an inescapable fact.”
“Of course it is,” Wayne answered hastily. “But what has that to do with your taking me into this strange underground world?”
“We are the Servants of Death,” said the phantom.
They were still falling. A little later the phantom repeated his statement, but Wayne found himself unable to answer. The breath had all gone out of him, somehow, though the protective air around him had not changed.
Through the lavender mists Wayne saw the endless avenues of columns, spreading downward to the solid floor beneath. Then his feet were on that floor, he was walking with not one, but nine Servants of Death.
They talked with him as they explored the regions where nine hundred and ninety other Servants of Death were at work, making names vanish with swift strokes of their tireless fingers.
Wayne listened and watched. He stood motionless for many minutes when they pointed beyond the forest’s edge to the marching columns of newly dead. There all ages and colors and types of human creatures mingled in a shadowy parade that vanished into the lavender mists beyond.
“Will I ever be able to mix with my fellow mortals after this?” Wayne asked himself, as the Servants were leading him back through the forest. They caught his question and answered it.
“You must. Only by doing so can you serve them and us.”
Another Servant said, “What troubles you?”
Hesitantly Wayne explained his personal problem, the mystery of Judge Londotte’s disappearance or death.
A Servant commented, “Judge Londotte was surely ready for death.”
“But my guilt in leading him to it!” Wayne exclaimed impetuously. Then he saw that the Servants of Death were smiling at him. He was baffled. He blurted his purpose bluntly. “I want to recover him. “I’ve promised. I told his granddaughter that if it was humanly possible to bring him back—”
“It isn’t humanly possible.”
Wayne caught his breath. That Servant’s emphasis upon the word “human” implied something at once hopeful and awful. “Then you—you can?”
“Not once in a million deaths do we employ that power. Only when our earth agents are new, like yourself, and require a special proof.”
“You mean you’ll restore Judge Londotte to life?” Wayne’s voice trembled.
“Why must you be so eager? Would his return be a blessing? You must know that the girl is better off without him.”
Wayne bit his lips in silence. He was beginning to understand. But there was a stubborn barrier in the way of reversing his intentions. “I’ve promised her—”
The nine Servants conferred among themselves for a few moments. Then: “Judge Londotte.” one of them announced, “will return
to life for twenty-four hours. At the end of the time—to be precise, exactly forty-eight hours after he first entered death by the rainbow approach—he will come back to us.”
“By the rainbow, as before,” another Servant added.
They crossed through the columns and neared the misty parade of newly dead. After some waiting they whispered that the spirit of Judge Londotte was approaching. They commanded one of the marching shadows to come aside.
Wayne Early, told to watch from a distance, saw the shadow take form. Against the background of a massive purplish-white column the cloudy mass became a dim silhouette of the aged grandfather, clothes in disarray, cane held stoutly in the puffy fist. Although the facial features did not come clear, the voice betrayed a mood that was no less gloomy than in life.
Three of the Servants talked with him, asked if he knew he was in the realm of death.
The judge understood that this was death, that he had come because his life was done, that the rainbow had been a death-dealing device—a mercifully painless one.
“Are you content to stay?” a Servant asked. “Eternity is a long time. Would you like a few more hours on earth?”
The judge evaded the question. He stomped restlessly, bumped his cane against the column.
“Careful,” a Servant warned. “You’ll mar a name.”
The judge gazed at the cane. “How was I able to bring this?”
“You were gripping it tightly when you came through the Rainbow of Death.”
The judge’s bulky form was motionless for a moment, then jerked as if shocked. His words clattered thickly.
“If I had held on to some other object—something I particularly wanted
“It would have come with you,” said a Servant.
“Even if it was a person?”
“Even.”
The phantom judge began to tremble. “By God, if I had it to do over—er—what’s this you say? Can I go back to earth and die all over again?”
“Yes. A friend has interceded for you, so that you will have this rare privilege. We will conduct you back at once. Exactly forty-eight hours after your first rainbow exit from life you will make your second. Here are tickets.”
They led the tottering old heap of shadows off, in the direction of Wayne’s descent; and with one of the Servants as a traveling companion, Judge Londotte rose into the mists and disappeared.
The other eight Servants returned to gather around Wayne, who had suddenly gone icy to the fingertips.
“I must go back too,” he said in a frenzied voice. “There’s danger—”
“You must stay,” said a Servant, and the others nodded in agreement. “You are here to witness the complications of our business. Until your favored friend, Judge Londotte, returns to us. you may witness the earth’s happenings from this distance.”
“Witness them!” Wayne gasped. The horror of helplessness was freezing him.
“Climb to the upper branches of this life-root,” said a Servant. “All happenings will filter down to you. And if you wish, you may send whispered messages aloft to whomever you wish.”
With a Servant’s help, Wayne floated up through the mists to the uppermost branches that were like slender arms of coral. There he sat alone, waiting. At once he knew what was happening through the forests of death—in Cairo, high overhead—in Congo Gardens—
CHAPTER VII
That night, a full forty hours after Judge Londotte’s mysterious disappearance, Barbara was packing the suitcases. For the fifth time she asked Larry to come and help her, for she was deathly tired, and the cases were heavy.
But Larry was busy putting the musical inspiration of the moment into manuscript.
“Is this all the help I can expect, after we’re married?” Barbara asked. To which Larry banged off a bar of a wedding march on the piano, came bounding over the suitcases, grabbed her and kissed her.
“That’s the first time you’ve admitted you’re about to marry me,” he exulted. “Hell, we’re going to be so happy—”
“Please, Larry, I can’t force myself to be happy yet, after all that’s happened.” She caught his accusing eye. He had been bitterly jealous of Wayne, and they had quarreled. Larry had argued strenuously that Wayne’s airplane flight to Cairo was a walkout, to avoid accounting to the law for his sending a boatload of passengers to their death.
“I’m not talking about Wayne Early,” Barbara added defensively. “I’m talking about Granddaddy. If you shared my affection for him—”
“But I do.”
“I don’t believe it. You haven’t had a kind word to say about him since he was lost.”
“He never had a kind word to say about my music,” Larry snarled. “I can sing to most folks and lift them right into the clouds. But that damned crusty old fossil never had a soul.”
“Larry! Please—”
“Be careful what you say, Larry.” The whisper was barely audible.
“Huh? Who said that?” Larry was up on his toes. “It sounded like that Early bird.”
Barbara hadn’t heard anything. She looked at Larry suspiciously. He drew back the draperies, peered under the table, glanced into the hallway. Barbara warned him to pay no attention to strange sounds. This cheap ramshackle rooming house was full of them.
“You ought to apologize,” she said, “for speaking that way of the dead.”
“Your grandfather is not dead” said a whisper at her ear.
“Wayne!” the girl gasped. She rose, trembling, sure of the voice.
Larry’s eyes narrowed at her viciously. “So he is here. He’s eavesdropping—”
“Larry, did you hear what I heard?
Granddaddy isn’t dead. That whisper—just now—did you hear it? That’s what it said.”
“Let’s get out of here, Barb,” Larry snapped, his eyes combing every corner and shadow. “We’re hearing things. That’s what happens to folks when they get tired and jittery. Come on!” They picked up their luggage and started. At the front door they met Judge Londotte. They backed into the hallway, for the aged gentleman was not only alive, he was angry . . .
It was well after midnight before the consternation of that surprise entrance, as far as Barbara was concerned, modified into an acceptance of the new situation. The intervening two hours of excited talk were a strange mixture of doubts and fears, rejoicing, suspicions, distrust, confused emotions.
But there Judge Londotte sat, with his feet propped up on the suitcases and his flabby arm waving a fan at his pallid, perspiring face.
Larry wasn’t one to admit he was utterly confused over the turn of events. He sat scowling, while the old gentleman talked, and did his best to be aloof and skeptical.
But when the judge related his vivid dream of descending into the region of the dead and talking with the phantoms that lived there, both Larry and Barbara were dumbfounded. That dream dovetailed too well with fact.
“But you were on the Rainbow Excursion ship, Granddaddy,” said Barbara. “That part couldn’t be a dream.”
“Don’t be silly,” said the old man. “I still have the tickets. It’s tonight that we go on the excursion.” He produced three new tickets from his pocket.
Barbara and Larry exchanged glances. The judge’s story was becoming impossible. Barbara distinctly remembered that all tickets had been collected on the Rainbow Excursion, and she knew that Larry, who had failed to make the boat, still had his.
“Where did you get those?” she asked accusingly. “Did Wayne sell you some more?”
“Certainly not,” the old man growled. “I wouldn’t go on the same excursion twice. We’ll go tonight—the three of us.”
“But you’ve been!”
“That was a dream, I tell you. It had to be a dream.” Purple rage colored the old man’s face, Barbara would have dropped the subject, just to humor him; but Larry had to throw a sarcastic remark into the fray.
“Did you get those fresh tickets in your dream?”
“What if I di
d?” the judge exploded. “I got them didn’t I?”
Larry followed through cruelly. “Where’s your cane? Did you leave that in your dream?”
“What if I did? I’m going back, ain’t I—er—ah—ah—” The old man’s roar broke off weakly, he groaned painfully, slumped back in his chair. He looked deathly scared.
Barbara, though utterly terrified over his strange behavior, still had the presence of mind to cope with the situation. She whispered a warning to Larry. The old man must be humored. He’d had a nervous shock that might take months for him to overcome. Let him talk, don’t cross his path, don’t annoy him with argument. In time he would no doubt straighten his story out.
If there was anything Larry hated to do, it was to humor Judge Londotte. Damn it, just when the wedding march was humming in his ears—
“What’s this, Granddaddy?” Barbara asked, as she was trying to help him out of his coat. A yellow slip of paper had fallen from his pocket. She and Larry examined it, to the tune of the old gentleman’s dark mutterings. It was the stub of an airline ticket.
“All right, I’ve just flown back from Cairo,” Judge Londotte snapped. “I kad to fly back from Cairo. That’s where my dream ended.”
Barbara weaved, almost fainting from dizziness. This was too much. She wanted to scream, or run away—But Larry, for once, came to her rescue in his backhanded method. “The old codger is crazy,” he whispered, “but I’ll help you humor him and maybe he’ll pull out of it.”
“Thanks, Larry.”
“And we won’t let him interfere with our getting married?”
“All right, Larry,” the girl sighed.
Now they were on the Rainbow Excursion boat, churning through the muggy blackness.
Barbara’s spirit had rebelled against coming again; she had fought it with all her might. But there had been an overpowering urgency in Judge Londotte’s demand. She and Larry must come with him—or were they harboring secret hatreds against him?
Of course the judge’s whims had won out. To humor him, Barbara had turned a deaf ear to that eerie whisper, so like the whisper of Wayne Early, that seemed to be repeating in her ears, “Stay off the boat . . . Stay off the boat . . .”