* * * *
It was a joyous throng that swept in a brilliant, gleaming cortege through that black vault of Tartarus. And after my lengthy exposure to the vibrations of Hate, I fairly soaked up all the loving pity and sympathy that they so generously bestowed. I felt that I needed it to cleanse me from the pollution of that realm where I had dared venture like a spy into an enemy’s chief citadel.
There was not even a preliminary glow of lurid light to warn us! One instant, ahead of us, still the void of outer space—and the next instant, hordes and legions of fiends, demons, imps, and goblins; swarming all about us, above us, below us. Everywhere, save in our very midst!
Once again—as while imprisoned in the shell—to me there came that far-reaching clairvoyance, and I could see the Great Adversary himself sitting on his brazen throne in his palace dwelling. He was guiding, controlling, directing, from that incalculable distance, his infernal host he had sent to intercept us. Why, I could even sense his thought waves—not directed to me, but to the Silver One herself.
“What I once have held is mine throughout all eternity! Yield to me that Earthling’s spirit, and go thy ways in peace—for this time!”
I was in for it! That I could see plainly. I had incurred the personal animosity of one who never forgave; one who forever remained relentless; one who would not be deprived of his vengeance, once begun! He wanted me—and there was no hope. I knew my doom. Yet it was I who would finally triumph, of that I was assured, for I would yield myself to him, give myself over to his tender care—and what that might be I could easily guess.
But in defying him, mocking him, flouting him even in the midst of his worst torments, I would be the tormentor—his tormentor—even while he tortured me! I could not, would not let harm come to her I served because of me. Why, who was I—?
Before I could demand of her that she give me up to him; I caught her answer.
“Lucifer, I yield not one of those who cleave to me. If he be thine—come take him! Cease malingering there on thy brazen seat; come in person—thou who was formerly of our Celestial Host—thou, Fallen Seraph; Arch-Rebel; Supreme Coward of the Universe!”
That supernal defiance rang through space that heard with bated breath! The very atoms of the ether shuddered and wavered in their eon-old steadiness of flow; shocked and aghast at that most stupendous final insult! And I—I gazed spellbound at her whom, previously, I had deemed a gentle spirit!
Where now was that softly shimmering, silvery tint of living light that had composed her matchless form? It shone now with a vivid coruscating radiance far more like white-hot iron superheated; yet had all the hardness of appearance characterizing highly polished, chilled steel!
The soft gentle roseate flushes—color of love—which had faintly tinged her entire aura, had changed to the clear bright scarlet of wrath celestial. The serene brow was still calm, but bore an expression of awful sternness, lofty, implacable, unyielding. The great pools of light—her eyes—now blazed with indignation. And the smiling, tender mouth which had been so mobile, quivering with loving, yearning wistfulness, had subtly hardened—the lips were curled with scorn and contempt—
A shriek burst from the regnant figure seated on its brazen throne! That hellish ululation rang through all the illimitable Etheric Ocean till the wave of Life itself well-nigh changed and became a tide of Death instead!
That supreme taunt had stung the Lord of Hate beyond all his demoniac endurance. It had cut straight to the very well-springs of his being! It could be replied to in but one manner.
In a blinding, dazzling, lurid flash of crimson and hectic purple he sped straight from his throne-seat to the very forefront of his hellish host which swarmed and swirled all about us; as yet not daring to attack.
His arrival and the opening of the war were simultaneous. His first act was to launch direct at me a streak of greenish-white luminescence that barely missed me, and would have taken me full, had not one of those who followed the Silver One interposed herself.
The shining being shrank, shriveled, seemed to wither; grow smaller, deformed; the splendid beauty of her aura turned dull gray and leaden in hue—she writhed and quivered in an agony excruciating to behold. Had that streak of Infernal Energy smitten me—I doubt if my supposedly indestructible self could have survived it!
I shame to confess it! I shrink from the admission as never have I cringed in self-loathing before, but I must tell it! There is that within me that compels me and will not be denied. Before that terrific battle was over, fifteen of those beauteous ones, male and female both, had interposed their unselfish selves; had been my preservation; rather than let me fall victim to the wrath of the Archfiend!
And I could not fight him back! Why, I was but a helpless babe in this most stupendous strife! The worst—or best—powers I knew how to utilize failed to affect the most puerile and impotent of the least of the goblins in the Arch-Enemy’s array!
But now, if I seem to digress, in truth it is not so. I find that I must shift from one thing to another, keeping as best I may to the thread of my narration; yet covering certain points of grave importance, in order to make some matters clear.
The self is indestructible, was never born, can never die. But it can know suffering, can be hurt, not permanently, yet terribly while the hurt endures. It may not be affected thus by any means known to Earth. But, as I have said once and again—in the Etheric Ocean of Space, which is the Storehouse of Universal Energy, there are strange powers and forces latent which may be set into activity by that chiefest and greatest dynamic energy, “Will.”
All the universe is but ions and electrons—atoms. The solid rock, the yielding flesh, the intangible smoke, or the impalpable gas—atoms, all of these! Atoms, too, are electricity, chemistry, radium—
All that differentiates one thing from other things throughout all the universe is—vibratory rate! Certain vibrations are pleasant, soothing, gratifying, because they are harmonious, in attunement.
Then, given a vibratory wave of sufficient intensity, out of attainment with its objective—and injury is quite possible! And of such nature were the weapons used in that spatial warfare!
Again to revert—when she, the Silver One, turned from her gentle attitude, realizing that thus only could she maintain her integrity and insure the safety of her followers; they too, had promptly altered. Not so high, so potent as she, perhaps; still, in their ways, they were anything but weaklings!
So, indescribable as was that strife, and banal though the strongest words l are for purposes of description, I still will try in my poor way to tell what I may of its progress.
The lesser host, that of the Silver One’s array, held closely together, despite the most determined assaults against them. At her command, they had assumed a strange geometrical formation, and from this they hurled forth flickering rays of clear lights, scintillant sparklings, coruscating whorls and spurting puffs and jets of gases and vapors, faintly luminous, but devastating in effect.
Incessantly, from the forefront of that gleaming cohort where blazed the Silver One herself, there burst sheets and flares of blinding white, violet-tinted light which was almost solid in its atomic intensity of impact! It was shot through with sparks and bursting points and darting tongues of super-iridescence. And wherever that awful vibration smote, the unlucky fiends howled and yelled, and some even wept in their anguish—so terrible was the result of her wrath!
And ever as she smote, clear as a strain of music heard amidst the turmoil of an Earthly tempest, her challenge rang above all the hellish riot from that Infernal Army.
“Come and face me, Lucifer! Thou, who didst swear once, eons ago, to drag me down lower than the lowest goblin damned of all thy far-flung outposts! Leave off assailing my followers, and face my power, thou Scum of the Nethermost Pit!”
But he came not. Rather, he kept carefully on the farther side of her cohort; and in this one matter he had her at a disadvantage. For she, with those terrible sheets of celestia
l flame, was blasting for her attendants a path in a fixed direction—back toward her shining city, while to him and his demoniacal legion, one direction was as good as any other.
And he and his hellish hordes were anything but passive! Their weapons were, in a way, more dreadful than were those they were facing. For they were using the vibrations of their kind. And between the two hosts played such display as no earthly pyrotechnics could ever hope to approximate.
Against us they launched whirling spirals and vortices of scarlet and crimson fires; flares of sulfurous blues and yellows; jets and gouts and splashes of flames of all colors, but all shaded with dark impurity; foul with wrath and malice and all indecency.
There came, ever and again, gusts of fetid odors; blasts of stifling, mephitic vapors of green and leaden and purple; and thick, black clouds, filthy, revolting to touch and smell; shot, through with jagged sizzling darts and streaks of hell’s own essence—which is a vibration indescribable to earthly concept.
Had I to choose, I had far rather have faced the worst that the Shining Band could do to me—for their weapons were clean, at least, however dreadful the effects might be. But the noxious, virulent emanations from the enemy array were pollution itself. They well-nigh choked the souls of us who faced them!
Again I shame to say it, but so far as possible, I had been kept in the middle of that geometrical figure. Yet, it was against me, as much as he could, that the Great Adversary directed his most determined efforts.
But following close on a particularly biting taunt from the Silver One—a taunt which held more than a hint of mocking merriment—he shifted his position enough so that he could launch straight at her one of those virulent greenish-white streaks of phosphorescence—a streak far more intense than any he had so far condescended to waste upon me!
Straight at her noble breast it sped—and for a brief second I grew sick with apprehension. A faint, soft, rose-colored glow shone on her bosom for a mere moment—but the awful vibration, touching it, lost its power! Again he hurled one of those frightful darts; but again the soft, rosy glow foiled him. Again and yet again he smote, and ever as they struck, impotent, her jeering challenge retorted, maddening him.
I know not how it happened. It was all too quickly done for me to follow; but I found myself suddenly before her—and the baleful glance of the Adversary was quick to perceive his opportunity!
But because of his position, her form partially intervened. He changed location still farther and shot at me one terrific streak! I saw it start—and saw, streaming from the fingers of her left hand which she swiftly interposed before me, a shield, oval in shape, of that wondrous rosy glow. The hell-dart fairly crackled as it impinged upon that defense, but harmed me not at all.
I sensed the wild, thrilling exultation of her triumph—and realized that she had deliberately used me as a lure to entrap him!
Her magnificent, shapely right arm shot straight upward, full length, swept downward again in a superb gesture, her strong, slender tapering fingers pointing full at him; and from their tips there leaped a single flash of Black Light transcending all Light!
Concentrated to a spot no larger than an Earth-child’s hand, it smote him full on his wrathful brow! And at its stabbing impact he screamed as never fiend nor imp nor lost soul ever screamed in direst tortures of his devising!
That ghastly yell of anguish rings yet in my memory! The coronal of lurid flames about his head went out. He turned a livid, sickly hue, suddenly grew limp, weaker than the weakest member of all his hideous host—
Ho turned and fled! Fled, slowly, painfully, moaning and wailing in futile misery and humiliation! And, fleeing, was overtaken and passed by his entire army who broke and scattered when they witnessed their leader’s defeat! But he could not flee fast enough to escape from her derisive mockery.
“Go, proud prince! Go, without this Earthling whom thou didst demand from my hands! Go, without taking me prisoner—me whom thou didst threaten to degrade! Lucifer, thou hast my pity!”
I think that last hurt him worse than all else!
* * * *
We were annoyed no farther.
Space was but empty space until we reached the shining city. There were many of that bright band sorely hurt, and even in that Abode of Light it was some time ere they wholly recovered.
I was unhurt, but the very self of me was inexpressibly wearied, almost to exhaustion. Despite this, I would have returned to Earth, for I feared for that mortal body I had left so long lying in the Temple—asleep in the Black Shrine, but the Silver One forbade.
“Thy brethren care for thy body by my express command,” she assured me, adding: “And as for that futility thou dost name thy ‘business affairs’ upon earth—fear not thou! Bide here yet awhile. It is my wish.”
Now, who was I to refuse?
It was pleasant enough there, and finally I asked her outright to grant me permission to remain, permanently, forever. Over her serene features—now once more gentle—hovering on her lips there crept an enigmatic smile.
“Wait!” was all her reply.
I was wondering what that might mean when a blaze of sapphire and gold filled all the place about her throne. Momentarily dazzled, I then became aware of a Radiant Being by contrast with whom even she appeared obviously of lesser rank. Nothing and no one told me, yet I knew it for one of the great Archangels who abide in the immediate light of the Presence Itself. He surveyed me a trifle curiously.
“Earthman,” he stated bluntly, “thou art the greatest fool who ever left thy world.”
I bowed my head abashed. Yet I was aware that the Silver One was smiling approvingly on me.
“But,” continued the Seraph, “it is such daring fools as thou who serve the Inscrutable Purpose.”
I felt even more abashed, for this was praise. From an Archangel!
“Wouldst thou dare alone face the Great Adversary once again, there on his dais in the heart of his realm?” he queried as if desirous of finding out just how bold a fool I really was.
I raised my head, looked at him, despite his blazing splendor, straight in eye.
“If it serves,” I replied humbly.
“Give heed, then,” he commanded. “It is thy right to hear and judge if thou wilt go or not. Ages ago, this Lucifer sought to corrupt thy world. Thou knowest that it is far from perfect now! It was because of that that he was reduced to his present estate. Wherefore it is that he hates thy world, the Green Star, the worst.
“Now he has dared transgress again; has been prevented for a time; but still he meditates rebellion. And so, I have a message for him! But because he hates thy world so viciously, it is fitting that thou shouldst bear him that message—thou, an Earthman from the star he hates; thou, the one Earthman whom above all Earthmen he has greatest cause to hate! Well?”
“I serve,” I replied simply.
Oh, the stupendous powers under the control of those Celestials! There was no message given me; no command to ‘go’; there was not even perceptible transition—it was instantaneous transposition!
I was standing on the dais facing the Archfiend on his brazen throne! The very sight of me seemed to madden him, giving him the spur he evidently needed; for the jaded look faded from his worn-appearing countenance, being replaced by a wild ferocity.
“Thou?” he snarled, half incredulous. I suppose I should have quailed before that frightful rage, but somehow I did not do so.
“I have a message for thee,” I stated bluntly.
In sheer mockery he assumed the manners at once of a gravely courteous, suave prince receiving an envoy.
“I listen,” he replied, with but the faintest hint of irony in his tones.
“Lucifer,” I commenced sternly, “once thou didst rebel against the Presence. As punishment, this is thy estate! Thou, too, dost serve the Purpose; as does the eternal conflict! But lately thou didst o’erpass the boundaries of thy province; and what that brought thee, thou knowest! O’erpass thy boundaries once agai
n, and thou wilt o’erpass the limits of the Patience! And then—no worm squirming beneath the dust of the Green Star from whence I came can be so low as thou shalt be abased. Heed ye the warning!”
It was not of myself that I had spoken. That I knew. But the Archfiend was blinded by his hate, or he, too, would have known it. He leaped to his feet. In his eyes the hell-glare blazed as never before.
“Thou presumptuous—” he yelled, but never finished his remark, whatever it was. Facing him from the center of the throne room stood the Archangel who had sent me. Never a word he spoke; his eyes looked—but did not even seem to notice the Prince of Hate. Had he gazed at nothingness, his eyes had held that same expression—serene, aloof, indifferent. Yet Lucifer sank back upon his throne, cowed, beaten once again.
“I hear—and—and—” he well-nigh choked on the final words—“I—obey!”
* * * *
There was no throne before me; no fallen Seraph promising abject submission! Again that Celestial’s supernal power! We were hovering just above the “couch of dreams” whereon still lay my earthly body.
“Man of Earth,” said my companion, “we have need of such as thee in Space. There is a planet of which thou hast never heard, where things are far from what they were ordained to be. We can use thee there. Well?”
“Still I serve,” I replied gladly.
“Re-enter thy body,” he commanded. “Thy brethren will not attempt to question thee. Arrange thy earthly affairs as may please thee, but in such wise that if the call comes, it will find thee waiting in readiness—for when I come for thee, thou wilt ‘die’ as do all thy race.”
“I will be ready at any moment,” I promised.
Everything grew dark, I felt a strange strangling sensation—I gasped, opened my eyes wearily. I heard a startled exclamation. I turned my head slowly, for my neck felt queerly stiff and moved with difficulty.
That same “Temple Dove” who had woven for me the spell of the Temple-sleep was kneeling beside me.
“Oh,” she exclaimed softly. “You have come to life again. I am so glad!”
The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™, Vol. 4: Nictzin Dyalhis Page 12