by Don Wilcox
But the proud sister advanced only one step outside the door, when a shower of clods and eggs and stones brought her back, wailing like a spanked child.
The dignitaries put their heads together for one of their briefest conferences on record. They watched furtively as the street crowds gathered material for a bonfire; they talked business fast. In a moment they came up with their version of a bright idea.
They crowded around Jipfur, who was standing back among the pillars of the central hallway between trembling attendants bearing lighted candles.
“We’ve got it,” said one of the dignitaries. “The mob wants violence.
We’ll give them violence. They want another life to pay for Slaf-Carch. We’ll give them another life. We’ll give them your prisoner—the Third Serpent.” Jipfur nodded and turned to me, his eyes bugging with terror.
“Bring up the Third Serpent.” He handed me the key.
I knew what he meant: I should get a squad of guards to bring up the Serpent. But I had ideas of my own.
I picked up a lighted candlestick and skipped down the dark stairs. The echoes of the palace turmoil grew fainter. I hurried through the underground passages, came to the hub of several subterranean avenues, one of which led to the row of prison cells.
My candle cast broad stripes of shadows beyond the iron bars. I caught sight of the black and white circles of eyes—the mask of the Third Serpent. In the darkness I could not see his deformed, crippled figure—only his ghastly mask. He clacked across the stone floor on his peg leg to meet me.
I rushed on past his door. But my curious wisp of admiration for this strange creature stopped me. I went back and unlocked his prison bars.
“I’m taking a chance on you,” I said. “They want you upstairs. They want to throw you to the howling mob. But I’m turning you free. Watch your step.”
“And what happens to you,” he asked, “when you fail to deliver me?”
“I’m leaving,” I said. “While the mob howls—that’s the time for me to get away.”
“Alone?” he asked sharply.
Again I had that frantic urge to jerk his mask off—and see his hidden expression.
“Not alone,” I said. “I’m taking the yellow-haired girl—and possibly Kish.”
“Let me go with you, Hal,” he said. “You’ll need me before you get to Egypt.”
“How’d you know—”
“It’s the only safe way to go, if you mean to get out of Jipfur’s reach.”
“Yes, of course. But as to your coming—”
I hesitated, trying to bring myself to a decision. I thought of Betty—of the stormy night we once spent in a cave beside the Euphrates, not knowing that this ragged, grotesque, circle-eyed creature of magic was there too.
“Very well,” I said shortly. “Follow us when we leave. Meanwhile you’re on your own.”
Two avenues further on I rapped at a musty wooden door.
Betty was there, never more beautiful than by candlelight. Two girls—confidantes from her kitchen staff—were with her. Kish had brought them warning of the impending mob attack a few minutes earlier. From their frightened expressions they must have thought everyone upstairs was being murdered by this time.
I spoke in English.
“Betty, it’s time we made a run for it. Egypt. We’ll get Kish if we can. And there’ll be another—a bodyguard.” Betty shook her head slowly, dazedly. “We’ll go . . .” Her English words came forth like measured notes from low, soft chimes. “But not to Egypt.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen Kish?” she asked. “Not recently—why?”
“He received a message—for you. One of your watchers—on the great ziggurat—”
“The time machine!” I gasped.
Betty nodded. “It came this afternoon—and left us this.”
She pressed the octagonal plate of glass in my hand. A paper message was fixed between the transparent layers. It was a note signed by Colonel Milholland. It read:
“I am still trying to bring you back from the past. I will rotate through several locations making two stops in each place, twenty-four hours apart. The time machine will come again tomorrow on the exact hour and in the exact spot that it deposits this glass plate today.
Colonel Milholland
I crept up the stairs muttering to myself about Joshua.
They say that Joshua once managed to make the sun stand still. If I could only have been blessed with that power, inverted, maybe you think I wouldn’t have sent Old Sol spinning around to tomorrow afternoon!
What a jam I had let myself into by freeing that hunchbacked Serpent. Tomorrow afternoon would never come for me, I thought. If those dignitaries still wanted someone to throw to the hungry mob, they were sure to think of me—after what I had done!
To my surprise I heard no hooting and howling of mobsters as I crossed the central hall. A chill of terror struck me. That silence must mean something dreadful.
Even when you’ve been thrown in with a brutal, conceited scoundrel like Jipfur, and you’ve hated his every deed, somehow it gets you, nevertheless, to think that good recent fellow-humans have turned on him and burned him at the stake.
But my tender sentiments were premature. I had under-estimated Jipfur’s cleverness. As a patesi he was supposed to stand arm-in-arm with the Babylonian gods, and he probably knew just how far he could depend upon them in a crisis.
Somehow he and the dignitaries had got the torchlight multitude under control during my absence. The idea of throwing them a prisoner to burn had obviously been discarded. Jipfur was out on the steps making a speech.
I crept to the window and listened.
“In the name of Shamash, in the name of Marduk, in the name of Ishtar, I present myself before you. I have declared myself innocent of the dastardly deed with which a certain human Serpent tried to link my good name.
“But let my innocence be declared not by myself, nor by you, nor by any man. Let my innocence be declared by the gods.
“Tomorrow at high noon I shall ascend the steps of the king’s palace and stand upon the plaza for all to see me. Then and there, let the gods strike me dead if I have ever been guilty of raising a hand to kill or to harm one of my fellow men.”
CHAPTER IX
It was nearly noon.
Betty and I hurried toward the great ziggurat.
The wide inclined path up to the first level was like a street, always alive with pedestrains. A few yards up we stopped, gazed down over the edge.
“There’s your flat-headed little petrified man,” I said.
Betty smiled wistfully. “I suppose we’ll never see him again . . . But I’ll believe in that legend—forever!”
“Why don’t you look many times upon the river?” came a familiar voice.
We turned, and Betty shuddered, catching my arm. It was the Third Serpent, his mask of encircled eyes as impenetrable as ever. I hadn’t expected ever to see him again.
“I thought you were going to leave, Hal,” he said, shifting his huge back uncomfortably.
“We are,” I said, “but not for Egypt. We must hurry on.”
“When you come down from the tower,” he said, “I must thank you for freeing me.”
“We won’t be coming down,” said Betty, smiling mysteriously. We continued our ascent.
The Third Serpent hobbled along following us all that way to the third level and there, as we looked down over the sprawling city, he approached us again.
“Of course you won’t leave Babylon,” he said, “until you know whether Jipfur is guilty or innocent of a murder.”
“We can’t wait,” I said.
“I myself am very curious to know what the gods will say,” said the Serpent. “The lives of several thousand people will be affected one way or another. If the gods should strike him down—”
“Don’t worry,” I laughed. “With all due respect to the gods, I’m sure Jipfur knows what he’s doing.”
Betty frowned as she looked down on the glazed brick buildings.
“I see the king’s palace,” she said, “but where is the crowd?”
I didn’t know. I had supposed the plaza would be packed with a vast multitude. Was it possible that Jipfur had slid out of his proposition to stand before the gods?
“On top of the ziggurat is the palace to stand before the gods,” said the Third Serpent. “That’s why so many people have been passing us. Most of the crowd is ahead of us.”
“Ahead of us!” I was already dizzy from the four hundred and fifty feet of climbing. This remark gave me a whirling sensation as if I were spiralling down on a roller coaster.
“The king changed the place of the test,” said the Third Serpent, adding in the same dry voice. “Why are you suddenly hurrying?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “But we’ve got a certain spot reserved. We’ve got to get there—and—and clear it!”
The Third Serpent was right, the crowd was ahead of us, a good five thousand strong—an ample number to witness Jipfur’s challenge to the gods.
The ceremony was already in progress. The five thousand spectators sat close-packed on the brick floor—a vast circle of sky gazers, their eyes intent on the big fluffy clouds that passed—almost low enough to touch.
Jipfur was looking up, too, shouting into the heavens, calling the names of the Babylonian deities, challenging them brazenly.
“Come, Shamash, if you have any accusations against me, strike me with lightning. Come, Ishtar—”
I saw the anxiety flash through Betty’s face. She knew it must be only a matter of minutes until our departure.
Very well, in a few minutes we would be ready. The watchman had told us the exact point where the glass message had been deposited. We had only to take a few measurements—
But how could we? This vast throng packed every inch of circumference around the tower-top!
“Quick!” Betty whispered. “We’ve got to disregard them.”
I knew she was right. I forced my way through to a specified point at the outer edge, tried to take measured steps across the thicket of spectators.
“Down! Down!” the people hissed. They were intent on the show at the center of the ring. Jipfur was waving his arms, bellowing into the skies.
Betty moaned, “We’ve got to wait. Maybe they’ll leave soon.”
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “The bull moose means to keep it up till he wears them out. Listen to him!”
“Strike me down, if you dare, Oh Marduk! Stab me with fire if I have ever been guilty of an unkind deed!”
He tossed his pudgy head from side to side. The wavy locks beneath his cone-shaped cap fluttered in the breeze. The brass necklace, “Bull Moose,” dangled from his throat, swinging with each boastful beckon of his arms.
“In their blindness,” Jipfur roared, “my fellowmen have accused me of murdering Slaf-Carch, my beloved uncle. If I did this deed, strike me dead this inst—”
It came! It flashed down out of the sky—a veritable spiral of lightning. Five thousand people caught the quick glimpse—a cylinder of red fire!
Then it was gone.
Betty clutched my hand and I felt the awful throb of disappointment in her grip. Our chance had come and gone—and here we sat, helpless, surrounded by five thousand Babylonians, viewing the sham-religious antics of Jipfur—
What had happened?
Jipfur was lying down, motionless—but not all of him. Only the lower half of his body was there. The top half was gone!
No blood ran, no muscles twitched, there was no life in that weird looking mass of trunk, hips, and legs. But the rest of the body—chest, arms, and head—had vanished with the flash of heavenly fire.
“Jipfur! Jipfur!”
Scores of voices called the name at once, but the shrill cry of the patesi’s haughty sister rang out above the rest. Several persons started toward the grotesque, lifeless object, then drew back in fear and trembling. Hundreds of people began to mumble prayers aloud.
Suddenly, above the welter of excited clamoring, an old familiar voice sounded, loud and clear. It was the never-to-be-forgotten voice of Slaf-Carch.
“Today the gods have spoken!”
A chorus of murmurs echoed the words, like a chant. Then there was a tense silence of waiting, broken at last by a throbbing outcry from Jipfur’s sister.
“Speak on, Slaf-Carch! We are listening.”
Again the voice of Slaf-Carch spoke and as his gentle words came forth, Betty’s hand, held tightly in mine, ceased to tremble.
“Today Jipfur has been taken from you,” said the voice. “Let his passing bring peace to all who were once my laborers and my slaves. I am still with you in spirit. My helpers may carry on for me if they are willing. Even those of you who have come from a foreign land—and a foreign time—may find your ultimate place here. If you believe in me, stay and become my chosen leaders.”
Betty and I were among the last to descend the lofty tower that afternoon. There was so much to talk about, so much to plan. Somehow Slaf-Carch’s words made the world look fresh and new for both of us, now that all Betty had feared and dreaded was gone.
“As long as you’re here, Hal,” she said, looking up at me, starry-eyed, “I don’t care whether I ever go back to the twentieth century.”
“What?” I said with a wink. “Haven’t you any feelings for your poor uncle, the Colonel?”
“The Colonel!” Betty laughed. “We’ve sent him a bull moose. What more could he ask? . . .”
One day after Betty, Kish and I had gotten the business reorganization of Borbel palace well under way—Jipfur’s sister having generously honored us with managerial responsibilities and a share of ownership—I invited the Third Serpent to come in for an interview.
He closed the door behind him, settled his misshapen back within a comfortable chair, and apparently stared at me through his ring-eyed mask.
I said, “I’ve been looking over the records. You are fairly new to this Serpent clique, I see.”
“I joined early last fall, shortly before you and Jipfur met us by the marsh.”
“This job of gouging peasants for money apparently didn’t agree with you. You were very easy on them, I find.”
“You are welcome to fire me,” said the Third Serpent dryly, “if my work is unsatisfactory.”
“I’ve fired the others,” I replied. “In your case, however, certain other services are not to be overlooked. You are deserving of something over and above a Serpent’s salary. Have you ever considered taking a vacation to—say, the twentieth century?”
The Third Serpent gave a gurgling chuckle and settled more comfortably in his chair. “As a matter of fact, I have. I’d like to go back for a facial surgery job sometime—” he supplemented his smooth Babylonian words with a sprinkling of English—“sometime after the Colonel grows a bit steadier at the controls. Naturally, I’d give anything to get out of this mask.”
“Is it—quite bad?”
The Third Serpent nodded. “I never allow anyone to see me. Of course I had to learn to talk all over. Does she suspect?”
“Not at all,” I said. “The voice of Slaf-Carch is the real McCoy with her. You know how she loves that river legend.”
“Childlike!” he mused. “That’s why she’s a good Babylonian.” He rose to go.
“That hunched back of yours, Professor,” I said, “is it another Babylonian legend?”
He laughed. “It might be some day. I developed it the same week you traded off the vocoder. It’s made of leather-detachable, of course—and a splendid place to keep my magic. By the way, your machine’s a wonder. It tones down so soft that my fellow Serpents never heard me practicing my Slaf-Carch.”
“You were perfect. And to think you’ve actually made Slaf-Carch live on.”
“He deserves to live on.” H
e moved to the door, then turned back. “You won’t say anything to my daughter, of course. If she knew, she’d want to see me. For the present it’s better that she believe me dead.”
“For the present,” I nodded. “But I’ll insist that the Third Serpent be present at our Babylonian wedding.”
[*] “The breeding season begins in September, and mating goes on through the fall. At this season the bulls lose their natural timidity, become savage, and will readily attack any animal or even man, if their rage is aroused.”—From the New International Encyclopedia description of the moose.—“Bull Moose of Babylon”
MADEMOISELLE BUTTERFLY
First published in Fantastic Adventures, May 1942
It was a weird thing that happened to Raymond Quinton when he met the beautiful woman who was known as Mademoiselle Butterfly; an impossible thing . . . but it happened!
The invisible trap was closing in on me the night I finished my sell-out week at the Fraise Theatre.
The packed house applauded and shouted, “Bravo!” and “Long live Raymond Quinton!” I took eight curtain calls and by that time the grandiose governor of the island had mounted the stage to bestow official congratulations upon me.
“Raymond Quinton,” he shouted, placing a dynamic hand on my shoulder, “you are the greatest actor in all France—yes, in all the world.”
His vast jaw snapped decisively and his beady little eyes gleamed. He might have been making a historic pronouncement. The audience backed him up with an immense cheer.
“Moreover you are the greatest lover the stage has ever known! . . . Ladies of the audience, am I not right?”
The ladies shrieked with delight and some of them jumped to their feet to lead cheers for me. It was a ridiculous demonstration, the more so because none of this profuse praise was for me. It was for a famous name—Raymond Quinton.
But not even my fellow actors guessed I was not the celebrated Quinton. (My name was Louis Ribot.)
The governor concluded the flattery-ritual by making me promise I would return next year. Then the curtain went down.