How utterly right he was, speedily became manifest.
The pit-black murk of night slowly gave place to the pallid, wan daylight wherein no actual sunlight ever shone, and as we gathered up our Blastors and other impedimenta, preparatory to setting forth, Toj Qul raised a hand in warning.
There was no need for speech. We all heard what he did. I think the dead must hear that infernal, discordant din every time it is sounded. Describe it? I cannot. There are no words!
When our ears had somewhat recovered from the shock, Yir Dax shook his head.
“O-o-o-f-f-f!” he exclaimed. “To hear that very often would produce madness! It is agony!”
“Perhaps,” growled Hul Jok. “But I have already gone mad because of it—gone mad with curiosity! Come along!”
He was commander. We went, leaving our Aethir-Torp to care for itself. But never again were we thus foolish.
We proceeded warily, spread out in a line, each keeping within sight of the next. The noise had come from the north side of the flat, and thither we directed our steps. Well for us that we were hidden by the trees and bushes!
As one we came to a sudden halt, drew together in a group, staring amazed, incredulous, horrified.
We were at the very edge of the high-bush, and before us was open space clear to the foot of towering cliff-walls, which rose sheer to some ten times the height of a tall male.
Half way up this there stuck out a broad shelf of rock, extending completely across the face of the cliff from the western end to the eastern, and at regular intervals we could perceive large, rectangular openings, covered, or closed, by doors of some dully glinting, leaden-hued metal.
And all the space between the edge of bush-growth and foot of cliff was occupied by the same sort of loathly monstrosities as we had previously encountered! There they lay, expectant, apparently, for their attentions were seemingly concentrated upon the shelf of rock high in air above them.
A door close to the western end opened and a procession emerged therefrom. At last we had found—“Great Power of Life!” ejaculated Mor Ag profanely. “Those beings are no Aerthons!”
And he was right. Aerth never had produced any such type as we then beheld!
They had faces, and they had not faces! They had forms and they were formless! How may I describe that which baffles description? We are accustomed to concrete, cohesive, permanent types of form and faces, and these were inchoate! Never in any two moments were their aspects the same. They elongated, contracted, widened, expanded. At one moment the lower parts of one of these beings would apparently vanish while the upper parts remained visible, and again, conditions were reversed. Or a front aspect faded instantaneously, leaving but the rear section visible, only to promptly reverse the phenomenon. Or a left side disappeared, leaving the right side perceptible, then—but picture it for yourself! I have said enough!
It made me dizzy; it provoked Mor Ag because he could not name them! It enraged Hul Jok, inflamed him with desire to attack the whole throng, shatter them—why, he could not have told, but looking at them made him feel that way.
Ron Ti was mildly curious; Vir Dax frantic with ambition to study such beings—our Lady of Bliss deliver me from the curiosity of such as Yir Dax, his methods of study!
Only Toj Qul and Lan Apo remained unperturbed: Toj Qul because he is a diplomat, therefore in no wise startled or amazed at, or by, anything. And Lan Apo was contemptuous, for as he looked at them, any race thus shifting as to bodily aspect must inevitably be shifty as to minds, and he had naught but despisal for a liar of any sort. Strange argument, strange stimulus to courageousness, yet perhaps as good as any!
Only one permanency had these beings—and even that fluctuated. They were of a silvery color, and they were black, of that blackness which is blacker than black. Later, we learned what manner of beings these were, and whence they came to afflict Aerth with their presences.
They formed in a row well back from the shelf-edge, and then, from out the same door from which they had emerged, came another procession, or rather, a rout or rabble. These were, as Mor Ag at once asserted, unmistakably Aerthons. But how had that once wise and mighty race fallen! For these men were little better than brutes. Naked, round-shouldered, bowed of heads, cringing, shambling of gait, matted as to hair, and bearded—the males, at least—and utterly crushed, broken, dispirited!
It had long been a proverb on all the inhabited planets, “As beautiful as the Aerthon women;” but the females we were then beholding were, if anything, more abject, more deteriorate, than the males.
Many things became apparent to us who stared at these poor unfortunates. Very evidently, some things, from some where, had enslaved, debased that once mighty race who were, or had been, second to none in all the universe—and this, this, was the result!
Hul Jok shifted his feet, stirred uneasily, growling venomously deep in his throat. Despite our giant’s ferocious appearance, his heart was as a little child’s, or like that of a girl, gentle, tender, and sympathetic where wrong or oppression dared rear their ugly heads. And here, it was all too apparent, both those pit-born demons had been busily at work.
The rabble of Aerthons halted at the very edge of the shelf, grouped together, about equidistant from either end of the long line of the Things we could not name. And as the Aerthons stood there, the animate abhorrences on the ground fixed their malignant eyes upon the wretched creatures, the triangular mouths gaped wide, and from all that multitude of loathly blubs came beating against our shrinking, quivering, tormented ear-drums that same brain-maddening discordance we had previously heard, even before we left the Aethir-Torp.
Of a sudden the Things standing behind the Aerthons ceased flickering, became fixed as to forms, although the change was anything but improvement. For, although they became in shape like other living, sentient, intelligent beings, their faces bore all evil writ largely upon them.
Acquaint yourself with all depravity, debauchery, foul indecency ever known throughout the universe since the most ancient, forgotten times, multiply it even to Nth powers, limitless, and then you have not approximated their expressions!
Personally, even beholding such aspects made me feel as if, for eons uncountable, I had wallowed in vilest filth! And it affected the others the same way, and we knew, by our own experience, what had befallen the Aerthons!
Had such foul things once gained foothold on the great central sun, even the radiant purities of that abode of the perfected would have become tainted, polluted by a single glance at such unthinkable corruptiveness!
They, the Things, slowly raised each an arm, pointed at one Aerthon in the group. He, back to them as he was, quivered, shook, writhed, then, despite himself, he slowly rose in the air, moved out into space, hung above the blobs that waited, avid-mouthed. The Aerthon turned over in the air, head down, still upheld by the concentrated wills of the things that pointed…
Breathless, my eyes well-nigh starting from my head at sheer horror of what must in another moment befall, I stared, waiting the withdrawal of the force upholding the wretched Aerthon.
Half consciously, I saw Hul Jok’s Blastor swing into line with the poor shrieking victim, and, just as he commenced dropping toward those triangular, gaping, hideous orifices which waited, slavering, saw him vanish—and silently blessed Hul Jok for his clemency and promptitude.
Then, momentarily, we all went mad! Our Blastors aimed, we pressed the releases, and swept that line of things. And, to our aghast horror, nothing happened. Again and again we swept their line—and they were unconscious that aught was assailing them! The deadly Blastors were impotent!
Ron Ti first grasped the situation.
“These Things are not ‘beings’—they are but evil intelligences, of low order, crafty, vile, rather than wise! They are of too attenuate density—the vibrations of disintegration cannot shatter, but pass unfelt through their atomic structures! We can do naught save in mercy slay those poor Aerthons, and destroy those foul corruptions
which wait to be fed.”
We did it! It was truest kindliness to the Aerthons. Yet, despite the seeming callousness of our deed, we knew it for the best. And one thing it proved to us—low as the Aerthons had sunk, they had not fallen so far from their divine estate but that in each the silver spark that distinguishes the soul-bearers from the soulless, was still present. For as each body resolved back to the primordial Aethir from whence it was formed, the silver spark, liberate at last, floated into air until in distance it disappeared. Then we turned our attentions to the blob-things.
But even as we smote the filthy Things, we noted that the strange beings on the rock-shelf had grasped the fact that a new phase of circumstance had entered into Aerth’s affairs. They stood, amazed, startled, bewildered for a space of perhaps a minute, then passed into activity with a promptitude well-nigh admirable.
Several of them calmly stepped from the rock-shelf into air and came hurtling toward us. In some way they had sensed our direction. In no time, they hovered above us, descended, and confronted us.
One, evidently of importance among his fellows, made articulate sounds, but we could not understand. Nor did we wish to! For with such as those, there can be but one common ground—unrelenting war!
And so, again and again we tried the effect of the Blastors, and, as previously, found them impotent. I caught Hul Jok’s eye. He was fairly frothing at the mouth with wrath—literally.
The Things, close by, seemed to emanate a vibration that was abhorrent, stultifying. Little by little I felt a silent but urgent command to start toward the foot of the rocky cliff. Unthinkingly, I took a step forward, and Hul Jok’s mighty arm slammed me back.
“I can feel it, too,” he snarled at all six of us. “But,” he thundered sternly, “I command you by the Looped Cross itself, that you stand fast! ’Tis but their wills! Are we babes, that we should obey?”
Suddenly—I laughed! Obey the wills of such as these? It was ridiculous. Answering laughter came from the rest of our party. Hul Jok nodded approvingly at me.
“Well done, Hak Iri!” he commended. “The Looped Cross thanks you—the Supreme Council shall give you right to wear it, for high courage, for service rendered!”
And he had promised me our planet’s supremest gift, highest honor for—laughter! Yet, though I myself say it, perhaps the service was not so trivial after all. For there is, in final analysis, no weapon so thoroughly potent against evil as is laughter, ridicule! To take evil seriously is to magnify its importance; but ridicule renders its venom impotent, futile. Try it, you who doubt—try it in your hour of utmost need!
The Things became all black, no silvery tints remaining. One attempted to seize me, thrust me in the desired direction. Something—I had not known that it lay dormant within me—flamed into wrath. My hand closed, became a hard knot, my arm swung upward from my side with no volition on ray part, and my fist drove full into the face of the Thing—left a horrible, blank orifice which slowly filled into semblance of a face again. The Thing emitted a strange, sobbing, gasping squawk of pain.
“Aho!” shouted Hul Jok, gleefully. “They may not be shattered nor slain, but—they can be hurt!” And he swung his Blastor up as a truncheon and brought it down full on the head of the nearest. The stroke passed through the Thing as through soft filth, yet that Thing, evidently having enough, rose hurriedly into air and sped to safety, followed by the rest.
“Back to the Aethir-Torp!” commanded Hul Jok, and we retreated as swiftly as legs would take us. And at that, we did not arrive there first.
To our dismay, we found it in possession of a horde of those Things. They were all over it, even inside, and worse still, all about it on the ground were Aerthons, a great crowd of them formed in solid masses, all facing outward, bearing in their hands long, shimmering blades of brightly glinting metal, sharp as to points, with keen cutting edges.
“Swords,” gasped Mor Ag. “I had thought such weapons obsolete on Aerth ten thousand years ago! ‘Ware point and edge!”
“Hue-hoh!” shouted Hul Jok. “The Blastors, quick!”
Oh, the pity of it! I know that tears streamed from my eyes before it was finished. Ron Ti was equally affected. Hul Jok himself was swearing strange oaths, and, had it not been for Lan Apo, I doubt if we had had the necessary fortitude to go through with the ghastly affair. But as the silver sparks floated upward, a smile, almost beatific, came upon his set, white face.
“But they are rejoicing!” he cried out to us who grieved even while we smote. “I can feel their gratitude flowing to us who give them release from a life which is worse than death. They are glad to depart thus painlessly!”
And thereafter, we sorrowed no more.
* * * *
The Aerthons were almost all disposed of when Mor Ag shouted:
“Catch one or more of those slaves—alive! I would question—”
Hul Jok leapt forward, caught one by the wrist, wrenched his blade from his hand, slammed him against the hull of the Aethir-Torp, knocking him limp, threw him to us; and dealt likewise with another.
Meanwhile, our Blastors played unrelentingly, and presently there were no more of the unfortunate Aerthons to be seen. Yet, the Things who, through sheer will-force alone, had compelled the Aerthons to face annihilation—for they could not fight; the Blastors slew from far beyond reach of sword-blade or hurled rode—those Things still held our Aethir-Torp. Surely, Our Lady of Venhez kept them from guessing that they had but to slide the stud atop one of the great Ak-Blastors from the white space to the black one, and we—ugh! Well for us that there was no Lan Apo among them to catch our thoughts!
A long while afterward, we found out that they were acquainted with the principle of the Ak-Blastors—and I can only account for their not using those on us by the supposition that they wished to capture us alive in order to gratify their fiendish propensities, so refrained from slaying us, willing to go to any lengths rather than do so, for the dead can in no wise be made to suffer!
We drew back, shaking from excitement and from the strain induced by their evil minds, or wills, beating upon us, for, though they could not make us obey, still that force they directed was almost solid in its impact. Our craft was still in their possession, and we were standing on open ground, and sorely perplexed as to how we were to regain possession of our Aethir-Torp.
Hul Jok, war prince, solved our dilemma. He grasped a young tree, thick as his wrist, tore it from the ground, broke it across his knee—“Club!” he grunted. “Our million-year-ago ancestors used such on Venhez. There are records of such in the Central War Castle!”
Hurriedly he prepared one for each of us, talking as he wrought.
“They can feel,” he growled, “for all that they may not be slain. Very well! We will beat them from the Aethir-Torp!”
And that is precisely what occurred. On Venhez I had, at times, worked with my hands, for sheer delight of muscle-movement. But never had I dreamed what actual hard work was until that hour, during which, club in hand, we stormed our own craft, until at last we stood watching the last of the Things as they rapidly passed through the air toward their cliff-abode—all but one, which we had finally cornered alone in a compartment into which it had strayed from the rest. We hemmed it about, beat it with our clubs until it cringed from the pain. Then Ron Ti thrust his face close to its face…
We caught Ron’s idea, added our wills to his, overbore that of our captive. It became confused, bewildered, shifted from silver to black, to silver again, the black became dull, smoky, the silver paled to leaden hue, the Thing crouched, palpitant with fear-waves, manifest in dim coloration!
“We have learned enough!” declared Ron Ti, solemnly. “Back to Venhez! This is matter for the Supreme Council, as I feared even before we started. Here we cannot cope with conditions: we seven are too small a force. Back to Venhez!”
“Nay,” Hul Jok demurred. “Let us remain and clean Aerth of this spawn!” And he indicated the captive Thing with a contemptuous gesture of
his foot.
But Vir Dax added his voice to that of Ron Ti; and I—I was eager to go—to stay—I knew not which. The others felt as I did. Both courses had their attractions—also their drawbacks. For myself, I fear me very greatly that I, Hak Iri, who ever held myself aloof from all emotions of violence, desiring clear mind that I might better chronicle the deeds of others—I fear, I say, that in me still lives something of that old Hak Iri, my remote ancestor who, once in the Days of Wildness of which our minstrels still sing, made for himself a name of terror on all Venhez for his love of strife.
But Mor Ag really settled the argument.
“We have this—Thing,” he declared. “It must be examined, if we would learn aught of its nature, and that must be done if we hope ever to cope with such as it has proved to be in structure” (here an unholy light shone transient in the keen, cold eyes of Vir Dax), “and,” continued Mor Ag, “we can, while on the return to Venhez, learn what has actually happened to Aerth from the two Aerthons—”
“One Aerthon!” interrupted Vir Dax. “The other died. Hul Jok knows not his own strength!”
He bent over, examined the living Aerthon and promptly brought him back to consciousness. Mor Ag spoke to him. The Aerthon brightened a trifle as he became assured we meant him no harm. He brightened still more when he observed that we held captive one of his former masters.
Then the Thing caught the Aerthon’s eye, and Lan Apo hastily turned to Hul Jok.
“It were well to confine this—where the Aerthon may not win to it,” he warned emphatically. “Otherwise the will of the Thing will compel the enslaved fool to assist it to escape, or work us harm in some manner!”
We left the captive Thing in the little room, fastened the sole door, and Hul Jok retained the ward-strip which alone could unlock it again. The Aerthon said something to Mor Ag, who smiled and patted him on the shoulder, reassuringly.
The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™, Vol. 4: Nictzin Dyalhis Page 21