by Gene Wolfe
“As I was saying a few moments ago,” resumed the occultist, “fighting that monster was misdirected effort. We must find its master; for even though we destroyed the beast, body and soul, he would create —”
“Soul?” exclaimed Barrett. “That —”
“Yes. We are confronted by the recrudescence of an ancient evil that began among the Black Magicians of Atlantis. It is written in the occult records: The Atlanteans had become magicians who created monsters with the strength of the brute and the cunning of the savage; and these they ensouled with the most malignant of elementals, who became guards and messengers, the terrible symbols of the power of the Kings of Darkness.
“To bind these dread beings more closely to their service, they offered them sacrifices of slain animals and slain men. Fifty thousand years passed: and then the Dragons of Wisdom sent a doom forth from Holy Shamballah.“
“Is that creature fifty thousand years old?” wondered Barrett.
The Chêla smiled and shook his head.
“That is only the time during which the Black Masters were at the height of their power. They were destroyed something like 850,000 years ago when the word went forth from Shamballah. And as it was done then, so must we do now: make the slave betray the master,” continued Sidi Abdurrahman as he drew a seven-pointed star in the innermost circle.
“We will bribe and drug that monster with blood. It shall find its doom in the very evil by which it has lived all these ages; it cannot resist the bait; and instead of warning its master, it will lead us to him.”
“For a Mohammedan,” whispered Barrett as the Chêla reached for a small copper bowl which he had brought with him, “he certainly is unorthodox.”
“Mordieu! Who said he was a Moslem?” countered d’Artois. “His name signifies nothing. He gets his knowledge from study of occult records which are the fountainhead of learning, and transcend race and religion.”
Sidi Abdurrahman set the bowl at the center of the circles; then he cast into it the contents of a small packet: a fine, bluish powder.
That done, he drew a dagger, saying, “This will be its last drink of blood! And it cannot refuse the bait; for such is the law of its kind.”
But before the keen blade touched the vein of the Chêla’s forearm, Barrett interposed.
“Let me in on this,” he said, thrusting forward his own arm.
“No. I have an old debt to pay. One contracted in a former life, by a former failure. Just is the Wheel, and unswerving and this is my debt.”
With the evening’s earlier madness, Barrett found the occultist’s reference to a previous incarnation entirely rational. He stepped back as the blade bit, and the old man’s blood spurted redly into the copper bowl.
When the bowl was filled to the brim, d’Artois stepped forward and with a handkerchief and lead pencil devised a tourniquet to check the flow.
They watched the occultist bow ceremonially to the cardinal points of the compass, and make ritual gestures. They heard him intone, “The hour has struck, and the black night is ready…let their destiny be accomplished.…”
And then Barrett could no longer understand the Chêla’s utterance. The sonorous, majestic intonation was in a tongue so foreign and archaic that it seemed not even remotely related to any speech of mankind.
They stood, poised and expectant, watching the copper bowl and the blood that glowed like a monstrous carbuncle. They became aware of another presence in the room. A grayish vapor finally coalesced above the red surface; and then as Sidi Abdurrahman’s great voice thundered the ultimate, triumphant syllables of that age-old occult chant, the materialization became complete.
Barrett started in sudden alarm as he recognized at the center of the circle the same beast which had so nearly overcome him; but it was now translucent and unsubstantial, a phantom replica of the living horror. It knelt submissively, wings folded over its back as though it were a bird of prey subdued and garbed in the mockery of human form; and as with bestial eagerness it lapped up the bowl of blood, its body seemed to become more dense. A musty, reptilian stench pervaded the room.
When the bowl was empty, Sidi Abdurrahman’s arm flashed out in a commanding gesture. The monster shrank as from the touch of red hot iron, then stepped from the circle.
D’Artois slipped an automatic pistol into Barrett’s hand. The cold metal reminded him that at least a shred of reality remained.
“There will be men, later,” d’Artois explained. Then, anticipating Barrett’s question: “When this is over, I will tell you the answer—if we survive.”
The grotesque procession filed down the hall and to the deserted rue Lachepaillet. The monster shambled down the street and at the end of some fifty yards, crossed toward the parapet, then stepped into a narrow doorway. They followed it down a steep, rubbish-littered stairway that led to a vaulted chamber which, by the beam of d’Artois’s flashlight, Barrett recognized as a long untenanted dungeon; and then, on its hands and knees, the apparition crept through a low archway. It emerged on the bottom of the moat.
“Ah…this is not entirely a surprise,” muttered d’Artois as he noted the direction taken by their spectral guide. “And we’ll soon see whether Don José is its master.”
After passing Porte d’Espagne, they ascended the steep bank of the moat, and thence toward the somber grove at the Spring of St. Léon, where their spectral guide turned toward a casemate which was barely visible in the shadow of a solitary, gigantic tree.
Sidi Abdurrahman halted at the entrance of the casemate. His majestic features were tense; and the fixity of his gaze betokened the concentration whereby he maintained his control of the monster. The occultist gestured toward the passageway which led straight into the heart of the knoll that rose from the level of the clearing.
“Part of Vauban’s fortifications?” wondered Barrett, as by the beam of d’Artois’s flashlight they stepped into the darkness.
“For a distance, yes,” agreed d’Artois. “But before we are through, we will enter a place which neither Vauban nor any other honest engineer ever built.”
Although the apparition was faintly luminous in the darkness, Barrett was certain that the Chêla followed it by some sense other than the five which normal humanity has.
“How did he call that thing out of thin air?” whispered Barrett, to whom the entire uncanny proceeding seemed like the fantasy of a nightmare.
“He provided it with a body, very much as a spiritualistic medium furnishes the substance for a materialization,” explained d’Artois. “Its visible form is made up of part of the etheric double which every living creature has. And in order to maintain the form that the creature is using, Sidi Abdurrahman is exerting a tremendous effort, and drawing on an incredible reserve of psychic and physical energy. Few can endure the strain of lending too much vital force: which accounts for the eventual collapse of most spiritualist mediums.
“The force that animates this materialization of the monster is the elemental spirit that ensouled the body of the beast that killed Louise. This which we now see is not its physical body; and thus, being bound in an artificially created etheric form, the elemental cannot warn its master of our approach—ah…we’re getting somewhere!”
The passageway had opened into what seemed to be a squad room for that portion of the outer defenses of the citadel. Sidi Abdurrahman and his guide had passed through an opening which pierced the further wall of the chamber.
“This is where Vauban’s work ends,” muttered d’Artois. “Beyond—God alone knows!”
The opening had been roughly cut through the masonry. Beyond it was a low tunnel whose spade-marked walls showed that it had been recently dug. At the end of a dozen paces it terminated at the upper landing of a staircase which was not the work of any military engineer. It had been relieved of the earth which had buried it for uncounted ages—brought to light again by the black master who had sent death stalking in the moonlight.
An aura of incalculable antiquity op
pressed them as they stepped to the threshold of the blackness below.
Flight succeeded flight, until they arrived in a vaulted passage whose walls were buttressed with pilasters of masonry whose prodigious bulk dwarfed the mighty columns of Karnack.
“Good Lord!” whispered Barrett, awed by the monumental architecture. “It looks as though we’ve gone beyond time and reason and —”
“Mon ami,” countered d’Artois grimly, “the evening is young. Listen —”
Far ahead of them, out of the age-old darkness, came the muttering of drums and the wailing of pipes. Sidi Abdurrahman halted, gestured.
“He will stay here to hold the messenger,” explained d’Artois. “Allons!”
As they advanced along the passage they heard chanting, and the antiphonal responses of a ritual. And finally, as they rounded a turn, the corridor opened into a vault which was pervaded by a vibrant bluish glow.
The dome, supported by colossal pillars, swelled high above those who flitted to and fro in the satanic twilight of great glowing orbs whose quivering radiance was beclouded by fumes that rose stiflingly sweet from tall censer-tripods. They were warped and gnarled, those subterranean dwellers, long-armed, hairy survivors of a race that had vanished aeons before man in his present form appeared.
One among them, however, was tall and towering, and resplendent in a robe that flamed and coruscated as though woven of gems; and on his head he wore a conical miter of beaten silver. At his gesture the drumming and piping subsided and the acolytes ranged themselves on each side of an arch that pierced the further extremity of the vault. The arch was veiled by a heavy damask drape of crimson shot with gold.
“The master of the show,” whispered d’Artois. And then, as the tall, resplendent leader turned: “And I was right—Don José!”
The dabbler in forbidden arts had finally descended to become high priest of those subterranean beast-men. Barrett shuddered as he thought of what their food might be, since they did not appear by daylight to eat of what grew beneath the sun. He wondered whether they had always lived in those archaic vaults, or whether they had but recently been revived from suspended animation —
And then the crimson drapes parted like flames torn by the breath of some nether hell. Barrett knew then that Sidi Abdurrahman had guided them well.
In the niche exposed by the parting of the gold-shot curtains was a lotus blossom carved of rock that glistened with the glassy luster of lacquer-ware. In the heart of the black lotus sat Yvonne, eyes veiled by her long lashes, arms crossed on her breast, head slightly inclined. Her fine features had the tranquility of the drugged, or of the quiet dead.
Barrett’s hand flashed to his pistol butt as he gathered himself to spring from the concealing shadows; but d’Artois restrained him.
“They will cut us to pieces with their knives,” whispered the old man. “This calls for strategy.”
The odds were twenty to one. Though they emptied their pistols and extra clips, the survivors could still overwhelm them; and the enemy had to be exterminated if Yvonne were to be taken from that satanic vault.
“Then let’s go back and get reinforcements,” suggested Barrett.
D’Artois shook his head.
“Maybe, maybe not. Better see what this show signifies. We might not be able to return in time to —”
“What’s that—over there?” demanded Barrett. “Good Lord! Did it get away from Sidi Abdurrahman?”
He indicated something that stirred in the shadow of a pillar at the right of the altar; and then he saw that despite its similarity to the beast which had overcome him, it was distinctly another creature.
“A new monster about to be ensouled by an elemental, to be a companion to the one that killed Louise,” explained d’Artois. “And Yvonne is here to provide the blood offering—remember Sidi Abdurrahman’s remarks?”
“Let’s go out blazing!” growled Barrett; but again d’Artois restrained him.
“Not yet,” murmured d’Artois. “We have to get her out of here.”
But despite the calmness of his voice, his features were pale, and perspiration cropped out on his forehead as in desperation he searched his brain for some device to accomplish the impossible. Sidi Abdurrahman, holding the first monster helpless, was out of the question as an ally; but now, if ever, they needed that great occultist’s aid.
“He won’t fail us,” d’Artois said. “And we’ll see our moment.…”
Two acolytes were advancing toward the altar. One had a bowl of burnished copper, the other, a long-bladed knife. And as they took their posts, Don José began chanting.
“Bal-Taratan, come forth! Bal-Karadîn, come forth! From the blackness and from Avichi, Dark Lords, come forth!”
The braying and bellowing of strange wind instruments and the savage thunder of drums was bestial as the sluggish shape that crouched whimpering by the altar, awaiting the elemental that was to emerge from Avichi, the eighth and nethermost hell.
“God…that’s awful,” muttered Barrett as he watched the weaving gestures of Don José and his acolytes.
Brass clanged. The deep, hoarse, booming blasts of horns shook the vault. Mists were writhing like phantom serpents basking in the rays of a phantom sun that revived them from the chill of night.
“Bal-Taratan! Bal-Karadîn! I open the Gateway! I mark the Path!” intoned Don José, his voice rich and clear above that lustful bellowing and the sharp clack-clack of pebbles rattled in a yellowed skull. The acolytes, gesturing now like automatons, stared glassily, unaware of the shapes that were becoming visible.
“Bal-Taratan! Bring him forth! Bal-Karadîn! Bring him forth! I have a house for him! And for him I have food! Ia Bal-Taratan! Ia Bal-Karadîn!”
And as Don José paused at the enunciation of the names of the Lords of the Eighth Hell, the acolytes hissed a phrase that was a dying, evil echo of those dread words.
“A feast of blood! A drink of blood!”
The acolytes responded, “Yea, the fumes of blood! The fumes, and the savor!”
The mist was now thicker, and its coldness had become folds of reptilian foulness. D’Artois and Barrett crouched in the angle of the pilaster, stricken by the sorcery of that evil chant. The terrific blasting of that awful rhythm had numbed and paralyzed body and mind.
“Yea, the fume of blood, and its savor!” thundered the chorus.
They were weaving a red symphony. Blood…blood…red mists shot with streaks of blackness that coruscated, and blackness that flamed! There was a stirring and chirping and twittering, and the flapping as of monstrous wings beating the upper air of the vault.
D’Artois’s cheeks were gray, and Barrett’s face was distorted from the acute physical misery induced by that terrific reiteration and weaving of words. His teeth were clenched, and sweat poured from his brow.
The words of the chant now became strange syllables whose fusion and blending gave a meaning that transcended language, striking into the very souls of the two who crouched in the shadows, binding them with a hideous fascination.
The bowl was ready. And the knife was rising.…
IV.
The Lords of Fire
A solemn command came from the chaos of sound: “Bring him forth, Bal-Taratan! Bal-Karadîn!”
Don José’s voice was the final assault to pierce the veil, and open the Gateway for the elemental that was to possess that hideous body; but it served still another purpose. D’Artois flinched from the anguish of the impact; the shock wrenched into life his numbed muscles, his stupefied brain; and his wrath, suddenly released, sent his hand flashing to his holster —
“Smack-smack-smack!” The acolyte with the knife pitched forward. The one who held the bowl dropped to the flags.
“Gardez-vous!” shouted d’Artois, with his left hand jerking Barrett to his feet. “Pick them off! Steady, now!”
The ranks of the acolytes wavered before the deadly fire, broke in panic.
“Missed him!” growled Barrett, as Don
José flattened behind a pedestal and a bullet ricocheted, whining into the shadows.
The enemy reformed and charged, knives advanced. They flashed forward like serpents, darting and zigzagging, hunched forward in a crouch.
Some jerked suddenly upward as a slug pitched them end for end.
Others, riddled, charged on, to collapse within a pace of their mark.
But many lived.
“Give me a clip!”
“Fini!” snapped d’Artois. “Take a knife —
His pistol for another instant chattered like a machine gun; then came a sudden silence. The enemy paused, wondering; then they understood, and closed in.
Hoarse breathing, and the slip-slip of bare feet that wove in and out, devil-dancers darting back and forth with flickering blades.
“Too many,” gasped Barrett, during a breathing space when the fury of their concerted assault drove the enemy back in momentary panic. “Get us—yet—get that—get José —”
D’Artois, master swordsman, might with his uncanny skill bore through the press and close in with the high priest. No other resource remained.
But the voice of Don José urged his beast-men to the attack, and the overwhelming wave surged resistlessly forward.
“Back!” yelled d’Artois. “Before they surround us. Into the niche. Ca!”
Even as he spoke, he flashed forward—then back, and on guard again, blade dripping afresh, hand ready to strike again, slash through some weak spot in the dense line.
Another command from Don José. The attack withdrew, and he advanced to parley.
“Ah…d’Artois,” he said, “since steel will not dislodge you, let us try —”
Suddenly his dark eyes became fixed, and his hands made rhythmic gestures. D’Artois and Barrett, caught off guard by the unaccountable action of their empty-handed enemy, faltered for an instant, perplexed. Despite the wrath of battle, their instincts for a moment restrained their attack on an unarmed man.
D’Artois was the first to recover.
“Rush him!” he cried, leaping forward. But he had waited too long.