The Arthur Leo Zagat Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur Leo Zagat

  Two shrieks of terror behind him, a rapidly diminishing rattle of shale, and Dunton knew that his dark-skinned bearers had incontinently departed; they would take back to their village still another tale of horror about this mystic mountain land.

  “I don’t wonder they ran,” he thought, as he surveyed the apparition barring the path. Ten feet tall, the figure stood, in the conical hat, the flowing robes, the skirted “Shamtabs” of the Tibetan lamas. The beardless face was sternly set in a forbidding scowl. The right arm, hand extended, was raised in a gesture which clearly conveyed the message, “Go no further!” Motionless the giant figure stood, and the eyes, the entire form in fact, seemed to dominate the defile.

  “So that’s it!” Dunton grunted. “Well, we’ll soon see whether you’re real or not.” Resuming his headlong rush, Dunton made straight for the figure. Suddenly his fierce attack was checked. Without warning, he had come up against an invisible but rigid barrier. He could see nothing, yet ten feet before he reached the evil image he had come up against a something that had resisted his drive. So sudden and unexpected was the check that he was sent crashing backward onto the shale. Bruised and bleeding, he leaped to his feet and again, rushed forward. Again he met the invisible barrier. Clubbing his automatic in his right hand, and grasping a long hunting knife in his left, he hammered frantically, and cut, and slashed at the Nothing which stayed him. But he could not approach the object of his wrath.

  * * * *

  At last, exhausted, he paused. Glaring again at the mysterious lama, he saw it move for the first time. The arm was slowly descending, the outstretched fingers slowly closing. Down, down, came the arm until a long forefinger pointed straight at him.

  Again Dunton rushed forward to the attack. Again he was thrown back by that invisible Nothingness. But this time, though he fell, he did not reach the ground. He felt himself lifted into the air by the same impalpable being he had been so vainly battling. At the same time all power of volition left his limbs; he could not move!

  Like some dead leaf soaring on the bosom of the west wind he was borne aloft, straight up between the towering walls of that narrow defile, up again into the light of day. Higher and higher he rose, in great swooping spirals, until he saw revolving far below him the snow-capped peaks and grassy plateaus of mysterious Tibet. Then off like an arrow he moved toward a distant range of mountains—taller even than their brethren.

  Only his vision and his acute brain were alive. The powerful body of this six-foot American was as useless, as immovable, as a felled log.

  But barely had he a chance to gather his senses, when he found this impetuous rush slowing far above the range that had been its objective, spiraling downward now. Again the circling swoops set in. Below, he could see, set deep amidst a ring of high and unscalable cliffs, a grassy bowl. It was almost circular in shape, patterned with masses of flowers, cut by winding paths that centered about a white tower. That tower, rising sheer three hundred feet from the gardened plain, was unlike anything his wide journeying had brought to his view. Covering a circular area of a full acre, soaring high in alabaster beauty, it was topped by a huge sphere of burnished metal about one hundred feet in diameter. The glare of the sun’s reflection from the tremendous ball blinded Dunton, but in his paralysis he could neither turn his gaze from it, nor relieve his seared eyeballs by dropping their lids.

  The swift spirals brought him closer and closer in diminishing circles to the blazing globe, till at last he hovered some hundred feet above it. Then, like an unfolding tulip, the upper hemisphere slowly opened, to reveal a black pit within. Suddenly the force supporting Dunton relinquished him, and like a plummet he dropped, losing consciousness with the awful rush of his fall…

  * * * *

  Out of the blackness of oblivion the consciousness of the explorer beat its way. His eyes opened—opened on a scene whose unexpectedness startled his dazed brain to life. Dunton stared about him in amazement. Lying on a pile of cushions of rare and costly silks, he found himself in a room whose splendor surpassed anything he had beheld.

  The circular chamber, with sea-blue ceiling a full twenty feet above him, was hung with tapestries worked in lustrous silks, in threads of gold and silver, encrusted with sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, opals and other precious stones. The floor was covered with a deep rug whose pattern was a maze of weird imagery. A low table near him was cut from the purest crystal in a tracery of carving such as only some Oriental Cellini could have produced. What could be seen of the floor and walls was of the purest alabaster. The scene was bathed in a soft sheen of opal light from a hidden source.

  * * * *

  Tentatively Dunton moved an arm, a leg. His muscular control had returned. Carefully he felt his limbs. No broken bones, no bruises remained to mark that horrible fall. His traveling garments were gone, and in their place he was arrayed in robes of the finest silk.

  The American arose, and stared about him. No window, no door, was apparent. Swiftly he strode to the wall nearest him, and skillfully he paced about the chamber, searching under the splendid hangings for some means of exit. An unbroken stretch of glowing alabaster mocked him.

  “No chance of getting out of here,” he muttered, as he returned to his cushioned resting place. “Major Blakely was right, I sure did get into a mess this trip.”

  His thoughts turned to the inception of this journey which had culminated thus strangely. The famous Shanghai Club—the grizzled English officer sitting across the table from him. The calm curling of pipe smoke contrasting so vividly with the tales of adventure in the far corners of the earth that the two exchanged as they sipped their pegs.

  “I’m going into Tibet next,” Dunton had said. “When I was in Arabia last, I heard some wild stories about Towers of Evil, erected in a chain around the world, from which malign influences are supposed to radiate. There is one in Arabia. I never got to it. But Seabrook, in his Adventures in Arabia tells of visiting it and being shown around. He didn’t see much for he was kept out of a good half of the structure. The chief tower is said to be in the interior of Tibet, and I’ve made up my mind to have a try at finding it, as I know the language. In fact, I’m starting very shortly.”

  Major Blakely had started, then very impressively had warned him. “My boy, keep out of that forsaken country. I doubt you’d ever come out alive. It’s hellish traveling. In the first place, the whole region stands on end. And then—well—queer things happen in there.” He paused, blew some rings of smoke, watched them fade, then resumed.

  “I was sent in there, fifteen years ago, with a small force, to punish some bandits. I don’t like to think of what happened—but I was the only one who got out. And when I got home, my wife was dead—killed in a midnight attack on our little home—and my little three year old daughter—was gone. I have never found out what became of her and I don’t speculate too often. Afraid to. Don’t go! It’s the Devil’s own land.”

  “Well. I’ll think it over,” Dunton had replied. But his mind was set, and the Major’s warning merely confirmed his determination to penetrate the mysteries of the Forbidden Land.

  The American reviewed the months of toiling progress that followed. The difficulties he had overcome to assemble a sufficient number of bearers for his expedition. The ominous prophecies he had received as the caravan had proceeded from village to village. Dunton had laughed at the tales of horrors which lay before him, but his men had not laughed. One by one they had deserted, until only two stalwarts had been left to enter that narrow gorge with him and witness its terrors.

  “Looks like there was something to those stories, all right. Of course, it isn’t magic, but somebody here has control of forces that white scientists never even dreamed of.

  “Well,” he thought, “I suppose I’ll be lots wiser before I’m much older. I’ve been in plenty of tight places before and I’ve always found a way out. But what a story I’ll have to tell when next I see the boys at the Explorers’ Club in New York. Meanwhile this isn’t s
uch a bad place—but I wonder if the idea is to starve me to death.”

  A soft rustle behind him, and he turned like a flash— “Well, where did you come from?”

  There, set like a more gorgeous jewel in this glittering room of splendor was a girl—a white girl—a beautiful white girl. Rippling waves of golden fire, her long hair fell about her, framing a face whose loveliness sent a thrill of pain to his heart. Eyes, deeply blue, like the Mediterranean at midsummer. Small straight nose, whose nostrils, shell pink, quivered with her soft breathing. Red lips, with perfect lines, their luscious beauty parted to show the gleaming whiteness of her teeth. She was garmented in a single silken robe of cerulean blue, which dropped straight down from her shoulders, caught at the waist by its only ornament, a thick golden rope whose tasseled ends swung against a thin white ankle.

  In her hands she held a crystal tray, on which were crystal dishes heaped with food, and a tall glass whose amber contents glowed in the opal light.

  Dunton leaped to his feet with a torrent of questions. “Who are you? What is this place? How did you get in?—” But the lovely maiden did not speak. She straightened, looked at him a moment—put an incomparably beautiful finger to those red lips—then as the explorer started toward her—slipped behind a hanging close beside her. In a moment Dunton had ripped the tapestry down—nothing but the cold white alabaster wall. Frantically he beat at it, pushed, pressed here and there on the smooth surface, sought for a nail hold. He could find not the slightest seam in the gleaming surface, no secret button, no yielding panel. He was imprisoned as securely as before.

  Finally Dunton turned to the food the maiden had brought him. “That’s the queerest of all—he mused as he ate. “I could swear that this is the Tower of Evil, but there’s no evil about that girl, that I’ll stake my life on. God, but she’s beautiful. I’ve never seen any one who could hold a candle to her! And yet, and yet, there was something familiar about that face. It haunts me. Somewhere, some how I’ve run across some one who resembles her.” He pondered for a long time. “No, can’t place it. But I’ve never seen her before. No one could forget that beauty.”

  His hunger satisfied at last, he lay back among his cushions. “What next, I wonder?”

  CHAPTER II

  THROUGH THE WALL!

  It was sometime later as he sat musing that Dunton suddenly lifted his head, and sniffed the air. A faint subtle incense pervaded the room. What was it? Where had that peculiar, though not unpleasant fragrance greeted his nostrils before? The answer eluded him. Meanwhile the odor grew more and more definite—a heavy, sweet, cloying perfume. Thin wisps of vapor curled and floated round the room.

  Suddenly a picture formed and grew clear in his mind. China…Peking…an obscure temple on the outskirts of the city… himself in mandarin costume, disguised; no foreign devil entered here on penalty of death… the underground chamber—the priests of the temple lying about on low couches in various stages of exaltation—the same peculiar essence. That was it! Hashish!

  Even as he recognized it, the wisps of fog clouded and billowed; the room and its contents blurred. The explorer felt his mental perceptions growing hazy. Though he fought against the feeling, his mind swayed and swooned; the powerful drug was numbing his senses—he was slipping… Then the fumes suddenly lifted and cleared!

  The explorer shook himself, striving to clear his fuddled brain. What was coming next? Too long had he been in the East not to know that this was but the prelude for something sinister. He must be prepared for anything now.

  It came! A panel noiselessly slid open in the smooth alabaster surface of the wall, revealing an opening about a foot square. Dunton backed away to the opposite wall, keeping a watchful eye.

  A dark mass blocked the space, then floated through into the room. It poised momentarily, suspended in mid-air. Dunton crouched in readiness, determined to sell his life dearly. He gazed intently at the floating body. It slowly took shape and form. Brave though he was, he fell back in horror. An involuntary cry burst from his tortured throat!

  Great Heavens! It was impossible! A tiny human being, eight inches in height, perfect in every lineament, floated and spun on the impalpable air. Even as he stared wild-eyed, the creature grew and visibly increased in size. Upward it floated, expanding all the while, until the head almost touched the ceiling. By this time the body had attained normal human dimensions. It hovered, then slowly descended until the feet were planted firmly on the floor, revealing to Dunton’s bewildered eyes an old, old man. His wizened face was the color and texture of brown parchment, seamed with innumerable wrinkles almost out of all semblance to human features. A curving beaklike nose, and bony claw-like fingers gave the appearance of a bird of prey, hovering over its victim. Black beady eyes of astonishing luster and vitality protruded from that incredibly ancient countenance. Surmounting all was a conical yellow hat.

  He was clad in a flowing yellow robe, the costume of a Tibetan lama, but it was unusual in the richness of its ornaments and the profusion of strange characters that covered it. Afterwards the explorer discovered that these marks were mystic writings in Tibetan and ancient Persian. At the moment, however, he was too astounded to take note of the details.

  The ancient lama gazed at him with an air of authority. “Who are you that dare set foot in the sacred limits of our territory, where no foreigner or Tibetan has ever penetrated; and what was your purpose in coming here?”

  The explorer collected his scattered wits. For a moment he hesitated, then determined that frankness was the better plan.

  “My name is John Dunton, and I am an American. I am an explorer by inclination, and have ventured in strange lands over the far stretches of the earth, setting foot in many places that no white man’s foot but mine had trod before. Three months ago in China, I heard the legend of a strange sect that inhabited a secluded valley in the highest reaches of the Amnyi Machen Range, and of their still stranger practices. I determined to discover for myself the truth of this legend.

  “For months I traversed the peaks and plateaus of China and Tibet, until finally I came to a wild gorge. The rest, no doubt you know.”

  “Yes, I do,” the semblance of a smile found lodging in the withered features. “What was done, was done at my command.”

  Then the lama grew stern again.

  “Know you that by attempting to penetrate our holy domain, your life has become forfeit? No living being may enter here except on my orders and for my purposes. No Tibetan in his right mind would come within twenty miles of the prohibited territory. Yet you have rashly dared, and must pay the penalty.”

  The American hid his emotions behind an impassive air. Not for worlds would he display even the semblance of fear before this cruel, cold-blooded, priest. Quickly his eye flashed around the room. If only there were an exit anywhere—a single bound would strangle the ancient creature before him; and then—perhaps—escape.

  But the walls were impenetrably smooth; even the little panel had slid back into position, leaving no trace.

  The lama smiled again. He seemed to have read the explorer’s thoughts.

  “Banish any idea of escape. I have ways of preventing that. Even should you gain the outer valley, you could not progress an inch unless I will it. You have seen enough to convince you I am possessed of more than mortal powers. By but a thought, I could blast you into eternal nothingness.”

  “Rot!” was the contemptuous retort. “I grant you have performed some weird tricks upon me. Some of them I can explain very easily. For instance that figure of light in the gorge. That could easily have been done with a magic lantern projector on a cloud mass. Your spectacular entrance into my prison, I attribute to a hypnotic illusion due to hashish fumes. Only that invisible wall of air in the gorge, and my levitation through space, I cannot explain. Possibly you have discovered the principle of gravity nullification. Or perhaps that too was a hypnotic illusion.

  “Once, in Africa, I overawed a savage tribe so that they bowed down befor
e me like a God. Before their startled eyes I turned water into blood with a little phenolphthalein and soap—and back again into water with a dash of vinegar. I caused the trees to speak—my radio speaker was hidden in the leaves. And as a final touch—luck aided me with an opportune eclipse—I darkened the sun.

  “Your scientific wonders, or illusions, do not dismay me. I respect your achievements, but I do not fear them.”

  The Lama looked at him again with keen, beady eyes; then appeared to lose himself in reflection.

  The American waited tensely; his racing mind seeking some mode of extricating himself.

  Abruptly the old priest raised his head.

  “But you fear death?” he challenged.

  An inner shudder traveled through Dunton. Brave and fearless to a fault, he could not view the prospect of immediate extinction without a qualm. But outwardly he remained calm. His captor must not be permitted to sneer over his tremblings or pleas for mercy.

  “When it comes, I shall meet it as a brave man should,” he said simply.

  An unwilling gleam of admiration crept into the lama’s eyes. “This is the man for my purposes,” he muttered to himself.

  Then he spoke. “Hearken carefully to what I say. Should you prove the man of sense and intelligence I take you to be, you shall not only avoid the frightful tortures already prepared for you, but you shall become possessed of power undreamt of by mortal man. For almost a century have I toiled and perfected my plans; and now the day of accomplishment is near. To-morrow at the moment the sun rises over the mountain tops, the earth shall lie prostrate at my feet, and I shall rule over the nations; and the name of Lord Shaitan”—here he touched his forehead devoutly with one finger—” Shall once more be worshiped by the people of the earth as in ancient wise. We shall destroy mercilessly the altars of your upstart God who too long has triumphed.”

  The explorer gazed at him in growing astonishment. Why, the man must be mad! “But I am old—very old,” continued Shaitan’s priest, “And soon the day will come when I must depart to the bosom of great Shaitan. Who then shall continue the great work? For years have I searched for a worthy successor. All in vain. These stupid lamas, my underlings, are fit only to take orders and obey them blindly, not to conceive and plan. Not one of them knows all my purpose. Only one—a girl—has the brains I require, but then—she is only a girl.”