Now what on earth was that faultlessly gowned girl doing in an ancient powder magazine or storeroom which used to serve the garrison in days past? I’d prowled around in many of them; all were crowded with rubbish, and filth, and the dust of centuries.
Now when should I begin to trail her? If immediately, I should betray my presence; if I paused, I’d lose the trail. And then I became aware of the aura of perfume she had left behind her, a rich, heavy, arabesque fragrance. The very scent a sample of which Pierre had let me smell the other evening. Now, by the rod, I could trail that persistent, curious perfume anywhere… So, after a pause of a few more moments, I leaped from the parapet and plunged into the magazine.
“Plunged” is the right word, though I didn’t begin plunging until my third step into the darkness, when I stepped into vacancy. I came to a stop at a landing, ten steps down. With belated good judgment, I sized things up with my electric torch. More steps, steep, narrow, rubbish-laden, leading to abysmal blackness far below. And in darkness I edged my way down. The haunting, persistent fragrance of La Belle Allzaneau led me on.
I paused at the foot of the last flight. My feet were on sandy bottom. I listened, but heard nothing save the breathing of that fierce silence. And from the subterranean mustiness came the perfume of Lili, reaching from the blackness to enfold me. She had been there, and had not branched off into any lateral passages on her way down.
Luger in one hand, torch in the other, I stabbed the gloom. Vacancy. I was alone in that ancient vault, alone with the perfume of a girl who wore a jeweled peacock in her hair.
There were tiny footprints on the sand. And then I noted a low archway, an exit, which, being on the shadowed side of a bastion, had not had its presence betrayed by the entrance of outer moonlight. Lili had left the vault, whose bottom was on a level with the bottom of the dry moat; had left the enclosure of Bayonne, and was without the walls, somewhere.
Then I picked up the trail, tiny footprints in the sand. She had kept close to the wall, heading along toward Porte d’Espagne. But I knew she would not pass that point: for no woman would ruin her footgear in the slime and mud of the moat bottom past the Gate of Spain, the result of seepage from the locks of the Adour.
Beneath the drawbridge of Porte d’Espagne, I picked a lingering trace of perfume; and likewise her footprints, which for several paces I had lost. She had edged away from the wall, crossed the moat, ascended the steep bank.
Her destination? Logically, any place; she had choice of the whole country-side. Nor could I trail her any farther. Tracking in sand is the limit of my skill.
I took stock of my surroundings. If she continued in a straight line…
Hell’s hinges! She was bound for the Spring of St. Leon, that unsavory spot where d’Artois, in his moment of victory over Santiago, had been struck from the rear.
Conceivably she might be keeping a rendezvous with the marquis, or more likely, some other lover. And we had seen her there a week ago, at sunset.
Things seemed to be pulling together, but leaving me still confused. The girl had some connection with this spot where Santiago, armed with a sword whose pommel was adorned with a peacock, had met d’Artois. The marquis had a similar sword; and the marquis was the girl’s lover. And the girl was the living image of the former mistress of the marquis. She wore a peacock in her coiffure, and I wore one on my left hand. Well, what of it? Something, yes; but what?
A sequin glistened on the ground. In the stillness of the clearing, the heavy air still bore a trace of her perfume. But she was nowhere in sight.
I sized up the ground near the spring. There, in that small, flat space, Pierre and Santiago had crossed swords. There was the rock on which he had laid his hat and coat. Here he had taken his position, sword in hand, on guard…
I whirled in my tracks. Pure nervousness; a reflex occasioned by the memory of that something which had struck d’Artois from the rear. There, in the shadow of a small knoll, was the entrance to a casemate, seemingly at least. Another sequin gleamed on the ground. On her way, she had severed a thread of her gown, and was now shedding sequins every few paces. With her short start, she could scarcely have left my range of vision, unless she were deliberately hiding. Then…logically, she had entered the casemate; had at least paused at its entrance, as the sequin dropped from her gown indicated.
Without any excessive eagerness or exultation, I entered the casemate. Darkness, absolute. But a trace of her perfume! I smelled not only perfume, but trouble; here, for a fact, I was really getting into something.
A few steps, feeling my way in the dark. I dared not risk the torch. Ahead of me, apparently around a curve, was a faint glow, as of a dim light still farther beyond, a shadowy reflex of a half-concealed illuminant; so dim that I had not perceived it for a moment. Well…
“Halt!” snapped a voice.
The flare of an electric torch smote me full in the face, blinding me. But before I could draw the Luger…
“You are late,” continued the voice, “and I doubt that the master will receive you in that garb…”
“Never mind my clothes,” I temporized, catching my wits and also a glimpse of my accoster, now that the ray had left my face. “Has the lady of the peacock—?”
I touched my forehead with my left hand, a more instinctive than deliberate gesture to indicate Lili’s coiffure. As I lowered my hand, the watcher bowed low, kissing the peacock’s figure.
That was an excellent little blackjack I wielded with my right, smacking neatly across the inclined head of the warder.
“Well, and if the master is particular about costumes, perhaps this will answer.”
After stripping the hood and cape from the sentry, I bound and gagged him, arranged him snugly against and parallel to the wall, and continued my way down the passage; down, literally, as it inclined at a rather quick slope, curving ever to the right, so that it led back toward the citadel of Bayonne, and far beneath its foundations. At regular intervals, candles cast a dim light.
I had noted the swarthy, foreign features of the warder I had blackjacked, and wondered still more. Almost anything was likely to happen…and where was Pierre?
Then came steps, winding, circular steps, leading to the very heart of the earth. Chilly dampness had displaced the outer warmth. To what strange festival was that girl bound? And what was that peacock which had such talismanic effect on the warder? Who the master? And why the costume?
At the foot of the winding stairs I found a twisting passage, this time level. Turns…more turns…a murmur of voices, chanting sonorously…and then…
A heavy iron grillwork, a gate, barred my progress. I flattened myself close against the door jamb, peering through the bars at a unique sight. Before me, at the end of the passage, was a great vaulted chamber, illumined with a deep red glow. As much of the walls as I could see was covered with black arras, figured grotesquely in silver embroidery, monstrous designs of intertwining forms and unheard-of creatures alternating with medallions inscribed in characters resembling Arabic. At the far end of the vault was an altar, behind which stood the enshrined image of a great peacock, his painted fan fully spread, and enameled in naturalistic colors. A bronze railing rose waist-high before the altar; and from a cleft in the platform between the railing and altar, two great black hands, palms uplifted, reached forth.
Kneeling on the floor in crescent formation were a dozen robed and hooded figures, worshipers at the peacock’s shrine. The chanting had ceased; and from the group rose one who advanced to the altar steps, facing the image, extended his arms, and began the recital of a ritual. At times he paused for the response of the communicants; resumed his chant, ceasing again to make gestures and genuflections. But not a word of it could I understand; neither of the priest, nor of the worshipers.
Well, and where was La Belle Allzaneau, she who wore on her forehead the unusual symbol, which seemed to be the key
to this secret place into which I had wandered? And Pierre? Certainly he had not sent me on into this place and stayed off the scene himself; or had he miscalculated, sending me to real action instead of reserving it for himself?… And thus I wondered, wondered at the scene, at the rites, at the unholy tapestry of the walls, and the cornices which depicted in sculptured panorama the unsavory themes of Asian mysteries…the predecessors of the peacock.
Pierre?… No, Pierre could not have miscalculated so far as to send me into the midst of things and follow a false lead himself…great Lord, could it be Pierre who conducted the ritual? Absurd; but the audacity of the man knew no limits.
On and on rolled the rich, resonant voice of the priest. Acolytes marched about the crescent of kneeling communicants, swinging censers and chanting; retired, grouped themselves about the altar. And then…
The priest turned to face the congregation. Not Pierre, but Etienne, Marquis de la Tour de Maracq! He who had stolen the mummy of a princess; he who lived surrounded by death’s symbols, a servant of polycephalous idols, he who studied an obscure book bound in human hide, found time also to act as high priest of the silver peacock.
A sweeping gesture; another sonorous phrase; and the assemblage rose, bowed, backed out of the vault, toward the iron grating through which I peered.
I shrank back against the wall, becoming a shadow among the shadows, and waited for the grill to swing open and let the worshipers enter the passage so that, emerging from my angle, I could mingle with them, one of them, disguised in my hood and mask, and guarded by the peacock on my wrist. And once they had passed on, I could return.
And then I remembered the warder I had bound and gagged. Would they notice him lying in the shadows? Should I hasten on ahead of them, conceal the sentry outside the passage, and thus avoid the alarm caused by his discovery? Damn that sentry! Why had I left him where he dropped?
The door clicked. Too late to run on ahead to clear the way. The cloaked worshipers crowded even into my corner in that narrow passage, not even noticing me. One, however, seemed to mistake me for a comrade who had knelt beside him, and had left at his elbow.
“The master seemed hasty tonight, don’t you think, Raoul?”
I shrugged my shoulders, mumbled a phrase in Tagalog. The ruse served well. Evidently men of all languages met there.
“Oh, pardon, Monsieur…”
And he went on through the passage in search of his comrade.
I mingled with the dozen who were leaving, contriving to fall back un-obtrusively, thus avoiding the appearance of lingering in a place from which all were departing. And as the tail of the file of hooded men rounded the first turn, I dropped back and resumed my post at one side of the grill, deep in the shadows, seeing, but unseen.
The marquis descended from the altar steps, halted in the center of the vault; stroked his black mustache; frowned… Three swift steps to his left brought him to the heavy black arras, which he parted.
“They have gone, chérie.”
And from behind the embroidered hangings came La Belle Allzaneau, white arms and shoulders and iridescent gown agleam under that deep, lurid light.
“Etienne, I’m somewhat disappointed…I had expected—”
“To see something grotesque and awful, and outlandish? Ma chère, those whom you saw were neophytes, and the rites of the innermost shrine are not for their eyes,” explained the marquis as he again parted the arras and drew from behind it a low table laden with refreshments.
He then drew up a chaise longue among whose cushions the girl enthroned herself. The marquis took his place opposite her, and facing me, so that while I could look him full in the eye, I could see but the profile of La Belle Allzaneau, Lili of Lachepaillet, the lorette who had the manner of a queen.
“No, petite,” continued the marquis, “those were neophytes. But to you I shall reveal—”
“Yet am I not even more of a neophyte?” interrupted the girl as she selected a wafer from the tray before her.
“Nevertheless, I shall reveal to you, as I promised, the innermost secrets; you shall enter the adytum, the awful holy of holies.”
“But, Etienne, you must explain. Who is this peacock, and what is his significance?”
Who, indeed, was the peacock? I forgot, for the moment, that the bound and gagged sentry might be discovered by the departing communicants, thus betraying the fact that someone had intruded. Still, it had taken me ten minutes to enter; and they, going upgrade, up flights of steps, would require more time. And should they return, they would search each passageway, taking their time, in all thoroughness, probably twenty minutes or half an hour.
Well then, and what was that glittering bird whose image had caused the warder to bow and kiss my left hand?
“The peacock,” explained the marquis, answering the girl, as well as myself “is the symbol of him we serve: Malik Taûs, which in the Persian signifies ‘Lord Peacock’.”
“Which explains exactly nothing, Etienne!”
“Malik Taûs,” he repeated, as one who humors a captivating but unruly child, “is none other than he whom they call Ahriman…Lucifer, the Morning Star… Satan, the outlaw, he whom we, the rebels, the battered but unvanquished ones serve. Now do you understand?”
Eavesdropping on devil-worship! What next?
And La Belle Allzaneau smiled her slow, enigmatic smile, unterrified at that which made me shudder.
Thus, as they ate and drank, the marquis explained the monstrous scenes depicted on the cornices, Oriental perversions antedating Malik Taûs, the girl interrupting from time to time. I watched, and wondered.
Very curious it was that their voices seemed to come from my right clearly, but as from a greater distance than the speakers seemed to be. It was as if I were watching some phantasmagoria. Her voice I heard as her lips parted; but it seemed to come not from her lips, but from my right.
And then it struck me as odd that they both were left-handed. Both ate left-handed, picked up their goblets with their left hands. The marquis, striking a match, struck it with his left. Was this left-handedness another manifestation of the rites of Malik Taûs, or was it but coincidence that both the girl and her host were left-handed?
“This is an ancient shrine,” continued the marquis, his voice clear, but coming not from in front of me, down a long, narrow passage, but seemingly from my right. “This is an ancient shrine in which Mithra was worshiped by Roman legionaries; and renegade Moslems and those who followed the Moorish forces into Spain bowed here before Tanit, and Istar, Mylitta, and Anaïtis, all of whom are one, one goddess who came out of Egypt…Isis, the Great Goddess…”
I listened, fascinated by the rich voice of that strange, dark man; nor wondered that the girl was ensnared by his pagan chant, his intoned syllables which sang of monstrous rites and unheard-of lore. I forgot, remembered, and straightway dismissed the thought of the possible return of the departed neophytes. My Luger would serve me well, if necessary; and hand to hand, the brass knuckles.
As the marquis smoked and drank, and expounded, I saw that his gaze went past the girl, seeming to seek me in my alcove of blackness. But no, surely he could not see me, where I crouched in darkness. He frowned passingly, shook his head, made a fleeting gesture of annoyance, as of one who is irritated by the buzzing of a mosquito. Then, continuing his speech, he reached again behind the arras.
I heard a click, and at the same time a faint, droning, humming sound. For a moment the lights dimmed. And then, suddenly, I awoke to the significance of that which had occurred. In the darkness I saw very distinctly a bluish violet glow, an aureole which surrounded each of the bars of the gates before me. That click had been the sound of a latch slipping into place; and that glow was the leakage into the air of a high tension electrical current.
Hell’s bells! Had he seen me? Did he know of my presence? Or…perhaps…most likely it was that he su
spected the presence of some loitering neophyte, some eavesdropper who had paused, and who would, as he leaned against the grillage, be seared and scorched lifeless by the flaming death that lurked in that ironwork. My advance was barred beyond all hope.
Well, I could watch; and in case of a pinch, a shot from my Luger would reach down the passage. For I felt sure that the marquis designed some outlandish deed; not only the words of Pierre, but the atmosphere of the place, the very expression of the man himself so worked on my nerves that I sensed the presence of something hideous and unheard of. That lurid light, that glittering peacock, those black hands upraised toward the altar, and the hypnotic words and chanting tones of the marquis…I shuddered. It is not pleasant to consider shooting an unarmed man from ambush, but…as these French put it, que voulez-vous?
“Without evil, there could be no good,” continued the sonorous rhythm of the marquis. “They are extremes of the same essence, even as heat and cold are of the same nature. And to serve the Lord of Evil (if evil indeed there is) is to pay a just tribute to him without whom there could be none of the so-called good, if good indeed there is. Thus in time to come, when Malik Taûs spreads his painted fan over all the earth, we who now serve him shall be princes and lords, and shall inherit the world. Look!” he commanded, his voice rising imperiously as he pointed to the shrine; “look and see his thousand eyes that watch over us!”
The girl turned, following with her eyes his compelling gesture. And in that instant the marquis, never pausing in his speech, dropped into her wine a tiny pellet.
The man was mad with a fearful, unspeakable madness. And here I was, barred from preventing what I now sensed to be impending, a sequel to the preliminary rites I had witnessed, a manifestation of demonolatry in which none but the high priest would officiate.
“Those black hands? They are the hands of Abbadon, the Dark Angel who serves Malik Taûs; and on them we lay that which we dedicate to the Lord Peacock,” explained the marquis.
I loosened the Luger in its holster. At times one must shoot from ambush…but not yet.
The 11th Golden Age of Weird Fiction Page 7