He paused again. In all the Temple there was no sound. The silence was smothering. It was broken by a sibilant whirring, the twirling of the noose in the talons of the executioner. Satan raised a hand, and it was stilled.
“Yet I am inclined to be merciful,”—only I, perhaps, caught the malicious glint in the jewel-bright eyes. “There are three things which man has to which he clings hardest. In the last analysis, they are all he has. One is contained in the other—yet each is separate. They are his soul, his personality and his life. By his soul I mean that unseen and not yet accurately located essence upon which religion lays such stress, considers immortal, and that may or may not be. By personality I mean the ego, the mind, that which says—I am I, the storehouse of old memories, the seeker of new ones. Life I need not define.
“Now, James Kirkham, I offer you a choice. Upon one side I place your soul, upon the other your life and your mind.
“You may join my drinkers of the kehjt. Drink it, and your life and your ego are safe. From time to time you will be happy, happy with an intensity that normally you would never be. But you lose your soul! You will not miss it—at least not often. Soon the kehjt will be more desirable to you than ever that usually troublesome guest—somewhere within you.”
He paused again, scrutinizing me.
“If you do not drink the kehjt,” he continued, “you take the steps. If you tread upon my three, you lose your life. Slowly, in agony, at the hands of Sanchal.
“If you tread upon the four fortunate ones, you shall have your life and your soul. But you must leave with me your ego, that which says I am I, all your memories. It will not be dangerous to you, it will not be painful. I will not give you to the mirrors. A sleep—and then a knife, cunningly cutting here and there within your brain. You will awaken as one new-born. Literally so, James Kirkham, since from you will have been taken, and taken forever, all recollection of what you have been. Like a child you will set forth upon your new pilgrimage. But with life—and with your precious soul unharmed.”
And now I heard a whispering behind me from the dark amphitheater. Satan raised his hand, and it was stilled.
“Such is my decree!” he intoned. “Such is my will! So shall it be!”
“I take the steps,” I said, with no hesitation.
“Your guardian angels,” he said unctuously, “applaud without doubt your decision. You remember that they have no power where Satan rules. I thought that would be your choice. And now, to prove how little strained is the quality of my mercy, I offer you, James Kirkham, a door for escape—escape with life and mind and soul, all three of them, intact!”
Now I stared at him, every sense alert. Well I knew that there was no mercy in Satan. Knowing, too, the secret of the steps, the diabolic mockery of that offer of his was an open page to me. But what blacker diabolism was coming? I was soon to learn.
“The roots of this man’s offense against me,” he turned his gaze toward the amphitheater, “were in sentiment. He placed the welfare of others before mine. Let this be a lesson to all of you. I must be first.
“But I am just. Others he could save, himself he could not save. Yet there may be one who can save him. He gives up, it is probable, his life because he dared to stand between me and the lives of others.
“Is there one who will stand between me and his life?”
Once more there came a murmuring, louder now, from the hidden darkness of the Temple; whisperings.
“Wait!” he raised a hand. “This is what I mean. If there is one among you who will step forth and take but three of the steps in his place, then this is what shall happen. If two of the shining prints are fortunate, both shall go forth free and unharmed! Yes, even with rich reward.
“But if two of the steps are mine—then both shall die and by those same torments which I have promised James Kirkham.
“Such is my decree! Such is my will! So shall it be!
“And now, if such person there be, let him step forth.”
I heard a louder murmuring. I believed that he suspected I had not been alone. It might even be that this was a trap for Barker. I did not know to what lengths the little man’s devotion might take him. At any rate, it was a line thrown out for the unwary. I walked hastily forward to the very base of the steps.
“I can do my own climbing, Satan,” I said. “Set your game.”
The murmuring behind me had grown louder.
Satan’s immobility dropped from him.
For the first time I watched expression transform the mask of his face. And that transformation was at first utter incredulity, then a rage that leaped up straight from the Pit. Plainly, as though that heavy face had melted away under it, I saw the hidden devil stand forth stark naked. I felt a touch upon my arm.
Eve stood beside me!
“Go back!” I whispered to her, fiercely. “Get back there!”
“Too late!” she said, tranquilly.
She looked up at Satan.
“I will take the steps for him, Satan,” she said.
Satan raised himself up from the black throne, hands clenched. He glanced once at the executioner. The black leaned forward, loop whirling. I threw myself in front of Eve.
“Your word, Satan,” came a voice from the amphitheater, a voice I did not recognize. “Your decree!”
Satan glared out into the darkness, striving to identify the speaker. He signed to the executioner, and the black dropped the whirling cord. Satan sank into his throne. With dreadful effort he thrust back the freed devil that had snatched away the mask. His face resumed its immobility. But he could not banish that devil from his eyes.
“It was my decree,” he intoned monotonously, but there was something strangled in the voice. “So shall it be. You offer, Eve Demerest, to take the steps for him?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“Why?”
“Because I love him,” said Eve, calmly.
Satan’s hands twisted beneath his robe. The heavy lips contorted. Upon the enormous dome of his bald head tiny drops of sweat suddenly sprang out, glistening.
Abruptly, he reached forward, and drew back the lever; the shining prints glimmered out as though touched with fire—
I heard no whirring of the hidden cogs!
What did that mean? I looked at Satan. Either I had been mistaken, or else in the rage that ruled him he had not noticed. I had no time to speculate.
“Eve Demerest,” the rolling tones still held their curiously strangled note, “you shall take the steps! And all shall be according to my decree. But this I tell you—none who has ever taken them and lost has died as you shall die. What they went through was Paradise, measured against that which you shall undergo if you lose. And so shall it be with your lover.
“First you shall see him die. Before he passes, he will turn from you with loathing and with hate…that ever he knew you. And then I shall give you to Sanchal. But not for him to slay. No, no! Not yet! When he is through with you the drinkers of the kehjt shall have you. The lowest of them. It shall be after them that Sanchal shall possess you again…for his cords and his knives and his irons…for his sport…and for mine!”
He pulled at the neck of his cloak as though it choked him. He signaled to the slaves who stood on the bottom steps. He gave them some command in the unknown tongue. They slithered toward me. I tensed my muscles, about to make one despairing rush upon the blazing-eyed devil in the black throne.
Eve covered her face with her hands.
“Jim, darling,” she whispered swiftly, under their shelter, “go quietly! Barker! Something’s going to happen—”
The slaves had me. I let them lead me over to the chair from which I had watched Cartright mount to his doom. They pressed me into it. Arm and leg bands snapped into place. The veil dropped over my head. They marched away.
A whisper came from below and behind me:
“Cap’n! The clamps don’t hold! There’s a gun right be’ind the slide. It’s open. I’m in a ’ell of a ’urry.
When you see me next, grab it an’ get busy.”
“Eve Demerest!” called Satan, “the steps await! Ascend!”
Eve walked forward steadily. Unhesitating, she put her foot upon the first of the shining prints.
A symbol leaped out in the fortunate field of the swinging globe. I heard a murmur, louder than before, go up from the darkened amphitheater. Satan watched, immobile.
She mounted, and set her foot in the next gleaming mark of the child’s foot—
I saw Satan bend suddenly forward, glaring at the telltale, stark disbelief in his eyes. From the amphitheater the murmuring swelled into a roar.
A second symbol shone out in the fortunate field
She had won our freedom!
But how had it happened? And what was Eve doing—
She had mounted to the third point. She pressed upon it.
Out upon the telltale sprang a third symbol to join the other two!
Satan’s face was writhing. The roaring at the back of the Temple had become a tumult. I heard men shouting. Satan was fumbling frantically under his robe—
And now Eve sped up the intervening steps between her and the dais. As she passed them, she trod upon each of the gleaming prints. And as she trod, out upon the fortunate field appeared, one after the other, a shining symbol.
Seven of them—in the fortunate field!
None in Satan’s!
The roaring had become deafening. Satan leaped from the black throne. The wall behind him opened. Out sprang Barker, automatic in his hand.
Now he was at Satan’s side, the barrel of the gun thrust into his belly. The tumult in the Temple stilled, as though a cloud of silence had fallen upon it.
“’Ands up!” snarled the little man. “Wye up! Two ticks an’ I scatter your guts h’over the map!”
Up went Satan’s hands, high over his head.
I threw myself forward. The clamps of the chair gave so suddenly that I slipped to my knees. I reached back into the slit, and felt the barrel of a pistol. I gripped it—the executioner Sanchal was crouching, ready to spring. I shot from the floor, and with an accuracy that gave me one of the keenest joys I had ever known, I drilled Sanchal through the head. He fell sideways, flopping half down the steps.
The kehjt slaves stood dazed, irresolute, waiting command.
“One move o’ them bastards, an’ you’re in pieces,” I heard Harry say. “Tell ’em, quick!”
He jabbed the muzzle of the gun viciously into Satan’s side.
Satan spoke. The voice that came from his lips was like that which one hears in nightmare. To this day I do not like to remember it. It was a command in the unknown tongue, but I had a swift, uneasy suspicion that it held more than the bare order to remain quiet. The slaves dropped their ropes. They slid back toward the walls.
I took the steps on the jump. Eve was beside Barker. I ranged myself at Satan’s other side. She slipped behind him, and joined me.
The tumult in the amphitheater burst out afresh. Men were struggling together in the semidarkness. There was a rush down from the seats. The edge of the brilliant circle was abruptly lined with figures.
Out from them stepped Consardine.
His face was chalk-white. His eyes burned with a fire that matched Satan’s own. He held his hands before him with fingers curved like talons. He stalked forward like a walking death. And his eyes never left Satan.
“Not yet,” whispered Barker. “Stop ’im, Cap’n.”
“Consardine!” I called. “Stop where you are.”
He paid no heed. He walked on, slowly, like a sleepwalker, the dreadful gaze upon Satan unwavering.
“Consardine!” I called again, sharply. “Stop! I’ll drop you. I mean it. I don’t want to kill you. But another step, and I drop you. By God, I will!”
He halted.
“You…will not…kill him? You will…leave…him for me?”
Consardine’s voice was thin and high. It was Death speaking.
“If we can,” I answered him. “But keep those others back. One move against us and Satan goes. And some of you with him. We’ve no time to pick friends from foes.”
He turned and spoke to them. Again they were silent, watching.
“Now then, Cap’n,” said Barker, briskly, “stick your gun in ’im, and move ’im over ’ere. I’m goin’ to show ’em.”
I thrust the automatic just under Satan’s lower ribs, and pushed him toward the throne of gold. He moved over unresistingly, quietly, almost stolidly. He did not even look at me. I studied him, the vague apprehension growing stronger. He was intent upon Consardine. His face had regained all its impassivity. But the Devil looked out of his eyes, unchained. It came to me that he believed Consardine to be the archtraitor, that it was he who had set the snare! That we were Consardine’s tools!
But why this apparently passive resignation? Even with our guns at his belly, it was not what I would have expected of Satan. And it seemed to me that besides the murder in his gaze there was a certain contempt. Had he, also, a final ace in the hole? My uneasiness increased, sharply.
“Now look, all o’ you. I’m goin’ to show you what the double-crossin’ swine ’as been doin’ to you.”
It was Barker speaking. I did not dare turn my eyes from Satan to see what he was doing. But there was no need. I knew.
“Promisin’ you this an’ that,” went on the cockney drawl. “Sendin’ you to ’Ell! An’ all the time larfin’ up ’is sleeves at you. Larfin’ fit to die, ’e was. An’ you like a parcel o’ trustin’ h’infants. I’m goin’ to show you. Miss Demerest, will you please walk down an’ then walk up them prints again?”
I saw Eve go down the steps.
“Wyte a second.” She halted at the bottom. “’Ere I am sittin’ in ’is throne. I pull the lever. But h’after I’ve pulled it, I press on the h’edge of the seat. Like this. Now, Miss Demerest. Walk up.”
Eve ascended, stepping upon each of the shining prints.
I could see, out of the corner of my eye, the telltale. Nothing appeared upon it. No symbol, either upon darkened field or lighted.
There was no sound from the watchers. They seemed dazed, waiting what was to come next.
“Didn’t make a damned bit o’ difference where you trod,” said Barker. “It didn’t register. ’Cause why? When I pressed on the h’edge of the throne, a little plate slipped down under there where the machinery is. An’ at the same time, the cogs what myde the contacts what flashed the signals on the globe got moved over to another set o’ contacts. The steps’d work all right when ’e wanted ’em to. They was always set right when ’e was off ’is throne. But after ’e’d set ’imself on ’is bloody black chair ’e’d ’ide ’is ’ands an’ press an’ disconnect ’em. ’Ell, a flock o’ elephants could o’ walked up ’em then an’ they’d never give a blink!”
The tumult broke out afresh; men, and women, too, crying out, cursing. They surged forward, farther into the ring of light.
“Back!” I shouted. “Hold them back, Consardine!”
“Wyte!” yelped Barker. “Wyte! That ain’t ’arf what the swine’s done to you!”
The uproar died. They stared up at us again. Consardine had moved to the very bottom of the steps. His face was, if possible, whiter. His eyes glared upon Satan from rings, black as though painted. He was panting. I wished Harry would hurry. Consardine was near the end of his restraint. I didn’t want to shoot him.
All of this I had seen incompletely. Suddenly I had the thought that Satan was listening, listening not to anything within the Temple, but for some sound far away. That he was willing, willing with complete concentration of all his unholy power for some certain thing to happen. And as I watched I seemed to see a flicker of triumph pass over the marble face.
“Now,” came Barker’s voice, “I’m goin’ to show you. ’Ere on the syme h’edge is seven little plyces. Rubber, set in the stone. After ’e’d disconnected the contacts from the steps, ’e put ’is finger tips on each o’ them
plyces. Three of ’em was linked up to the contacts so’s they’d flash the marks on ’is side the telltale. The other four was rigged up to flash ’em on your side. When any o’ you tread on a print ’e’d press the button ’e wanted. Up’d go the mark, of the one ’e’d picked. You didn’t make them marks show up. ’E did!’ ’E ’ad you goin’ and comin’.
“Wyte a minute! Just a minute!” Clearly Barker was enjoying himself. “I’m going to sit in ’is chair an’ show you. Goin’ to show you just what blinkin’ bloody fools he myde out o’ you.”
“Jim!” there was alarm in Eve’s voice, close to my ear. “Jim! I’ve just noticed. There were seven of the kehjt drinkers along that wall. Now there are only six. One of them has slipped away!”
At that instant I knew for what Satan had been listening and waiting. I had been right when I had sensed in his command to the slaves something more than an order to be quiescent. He had bade them watch for an opportunity that would let one of them creep away and raise the alarm.
Loose upon those who threatened him the horde of those soulless, merciless devils to whom Satan was a god since he, and only he, could open to them their Paradise.
In the absorption of us all in the drama of Satan’s unmasking, a slave had found that opportunity. Had been gone—how long?
The thoughts flashed through my head in a split second.
And at that same instant the Hell which had been piling up slowly and steadily in the Temple like thunder heads broke loose.
Without warning, swiftly as the darting of a snake, Satan’s arm struck down. It caught my arm. It sent my automatic hurtling, exploding as it flew. I heard Eve scream, heard Barker’s sharp yelp.
I saw Consardine leaping up the steps, straight for Satan. Abruptly the whole Temple was flooded with light. Like an image caught between the opening and shutting of a camera shutter, I had a glimpse of Bedlam. Those who would have followed Consardine and those who were still faithful to Satan struggling for mastery.
Satan’s hands swept in to catch me, lift me, hurl me against Consardine. Quicker than he, I dropped, twisting, and threw myself with every ounce of my strength against his legs.
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 107