by Don Wilcox
The voice began with a humming and a mumbling—nothing articulate. Pakkerman’s long arms gestured with the words. He seemed to be making a terrible effort. He couldn’t seem to give his words the shape or form that the Scravvzek wanted. He was the Scravvzek’s mouthpiece, Allan thought . . . Now it was coming better. More like words. Pakkerman’s enunciation . . . but the ideas must have been the Scravvzek’s. Words of an evil power, forcing their way through the lips of a man!
What, Allan wondered, would this power be able to do to mankind if it did not have a human stooge—someone to work through and speak through?
Allan searched in vain for a parallel to such a power. He could think of none. He thought of the sun. The comparison was weak, but he couldn’t get beyond it. The sun—a force that exerted what upon the earth? Was it only a blind, unthinking force? It played its miracles as if for man’s benefit. Plant life, animal life, the forces of the sea and the winds and the seasons were the sun’s mute power translated into terms of great meaning for mankind. Was it possible that this force, burning into man’s mind and heart, worked its own miracles of some weird and evil nature? Miracles of destruction and death?
A wave of dizziness swept over Allan. He tried to tie together all the strange things that he had seen and felt and guessed since that fateful hour when Madam Lasanda had started him on this weird venture.
“Get this, Captain,” Jimmy said, nudging him. “Don’t dream off at a time like this or I’ll think it’s got you hypnotized. Are you all right?”
“I’m watching,” Allan said. “That ball of fire looks like it’s going to spill over. Is it just one ball? I seem to see three or four dancing through each other.”
Jimmy was afraid Allan was missing it. “Do ya hear it talk? That’s Pakkerman’s voice, only a hundred times bigger and deeper. D’ya hear it?”
“Sure, I hear.”
“There it comes again. That low, thunderish whisper. Hear it?”
Allan hadn’t caught all the words. There was too much to catch all at once. He kept wanting the light to clear away so he could get a clearer view of Pakkerman’s face, to see whether there was any expression of pain. To know whether Pakkerman’s mind was bending readily to this strange phenomenon.
But all the inner view was lost in the overflowing light. Overflowing, indeed! A thin outer shell of light began to move away from the rest of it. Like a cloud, forming around the outside of itself and then drifting away.
Another. And another. The balls of thin-like substance were continually forming and drifting off, then melting away in the air. But all the while, the one single strong-burning globe of evil rested solid over the shoulders of its servant—Doc Pakkerman.
Sully was standing before it, trying hard not to seem to be backing away. The fire-globes were bubbling off at the rate of one every thirty or forty seconds. Like steam, they evaporated before they had floated many feet from their prolific sun. But their coming made Sully nervous. He motioned to certain other White Sharks.
Two of them marched out from their stations gingerly and stood near him. One of the fire clouds rolled down toward the floor. They urged Sully to move back a few steps. The fire cloud rolled off in another direction and its lights waves were presently dissipated.
“. . . your report, Lieutenant Sully . . .”
It occurred to Allan that those rumbling words had been repeated two or three times. Sully was taking his time about rising to the occasion.
“. . . or which of you is the one who aspires to become a servant of the Scravvzek?”
Sully responded instantly. He gestured his two companions to one side. Heedless of a fire cloud that rolled within a few feet, he stepped up and began to speak. Now his head was high, his eyes defiant.
His song-and-dance was pretty terrible, Allan thought. His voice scratched like rusty metal on a grindstone. His continual “I” did this and “I” did that caused the two White Sharks beside him to lift their eyebrows. He noticed, and presently he widened the pronoun into a generous “We.” He went through an orgy of big boastful gestures toward the dead men who lay in disorderly rows across the floor. He waved at his subordinates, now emerging from their hiding places but keeping at a safe distance. It was his own cleverness that had accomplished this triumph of destruction. And these were the men who had cooperated in his plan.
“We planted the hatreds right in the natives’ hearts. Like you told us to do, we injected the poison. We nourished it. We stood back and watched bosom friends turn into deadly enemies.”
“Is that the way it happened?” came the Scravvzek’s rumbling voice.
Sully was in danger of bursting his own chest, trying to put it over big.
It wasn’t going over. Allan could tell that by the guttural edge to the evil voice. He had never heard Pakkerman talk like that before. Savage snarling. Like a mad animal whose food is threatened. It was the Doc’s voice, but hardened into something inhuman. As if his whole being were possessed by the Scravvzek.
Sully tried to go on. His planned speech had to go over or he was sunk.
“We gave the pojaks the stage. They flew at each other—”
“What pojeks? Where are they now? Let them tell me.”
“They flew at each other with knives. The tribe watched and took sides—”
“Lies! Lies! Lies!”
The Scravvzek’s roar caused the floor to tremble under Allan’s feet. From the big blurry ball of orange fire on Pakkerman’s shoulders a flurry of flames shot out in all directions. The steamy balls of fire rolled outward and skimmed along the floor. Some of them were lost in the pit. Some dissolved as they passed over the bodies of the dead natives. Some moved dangerously toward Sully.
Sully didn’t dodge or more backward. He stood his ground as if this were a test he must pass. One ball of fire engulfed him for a moment and seemed to whirl about him. Then it was gone, and he still stood, hard and defiant and more than ever a thing of evil, Allan thought.
The scravvzek did most of the talking. Sully’s words were lost in the roar. Allan saw that the walls were growing again, stretching and groaning and spilling their angry lava. Through the hissing and thunder and crackle of falling rocks, the savage conversation went on between the great power and the ambitious lieutenant.
Jimmy yelled at Allan against the static. “Hear what he’s telling Sully?”
“Giving him the devil,” Allan answered.
“He had it coming.”
And then Allan reflected upon his own strange comment. Curious, he thought, that he should take pleasure in seeing Sully get a proper dressing down from such an evil, monstrous power. Sully, for all his hideous actions, couldn’t have been more than a speck of meanness in the eyes of the Scravvzek. His evil achievements were as nothing in comparison.
But the personal element had turned Allan’s sympathies temporarily. He forgot that he had come to save every man of his crew who might still be saved. He hated Sully. He hadn’t learned to hate the Evil Scravvzek—only to wonder at it.
Then, too, there was the fact that Pakkerman’s flesh and blood were bound up with the fiery force. Pakkerman’s personal qualities gave this personification of the Scravvzek a certain dignity that no evil power deserved. A distinctive enunciation. Personal strength as displayed by human muscles and a fine posture. And of course the demonstration of vast powers—spectacular, blood-curdling, yet controlled.
Jimmy nudged Allan and again they listened. The Scravvzek lambasted Sully—but not for his deceit! No? Allan’s attention strained for every word. Not for his deceit hut for his lack of ingenuity!
“My servants must display a high order of talent!” the Scravvzek roared. “Where is your cleverness? What have you besides brute force? The beasts have as much! Can a dumb beast win the world by slaughtering all the people in it?”
The quaking walls and ceiling quieted, however, before the Scravvzek finished. It ended its tirade with a surprising change of tone. It suddenly became at least halfway complimen
tary.
It complimented Sully’s adeptness in lying. And his stubborn, dogged qualities of standing back of his lie. Not clever, nor adequate; but a commendable effort.
Allan groaned to himself at this turn of events. Even the lieutenant’s’ blunt cruelties were given a little passing praise. The Scravvzek always had need of men of cruelty, no matter how crude their methods.
Sully made the mistake of getting too chesty over the compliments. The Scravvzek promptly squelched him, reminding him that persons who get the habit of resorting to simple brutality could never rise high in the hierarchy of evil.
Sully talked back defensively. “I still have the damned tribe in the palm of my hand. If it’s skill you want—”
“If it’s KILL, you have it. If it’s SKILL, you don’t. Not yet.”
“I’ll give you both,” Sully shot back.
“You should have known that you missed your chance with the tribe because of Captain Burgess. He walked into your path. It was he—”
Allan’s blood froze. At the mention of his name, he saw Sully flash a glance toward the pit and then to some of the stalagmites in the shadows. Allan drew back into the deeper darkness. He wondered how many of the White Sharks may have been for him and Jimmy when they had a run for this position.
“It was he who sabotaged your game ,with the pojaks. You should have known that, Sully!”
Allan saw Sully turn pale with rage. The green fingertips of light along Pakkerman’s tall form seemed to reflect more than ever in the lieutenant’s face. This was the worst beating Sully had received, and anyone would know that he was grinding Allan between his teeth in that moment. A campaign of revenge would come out of that.
The Scravvzek gave him more. “My eye above the mountains saw the captain enter. So far, he has not gone beyond this outer doorstep of my inner world, but soon—”
Outer Doorstep! Allan caught the phrase. If this was only the outer doorstep, how much more world must lie within? The very thought was temptation itself. An invitation to know more of the world of evil.
“Don’t listen,” Jimmy whispered, suddenly terrorized to guess the thoughts that were racing though Allan’s mind.
“S-s-sh!”
Now the Scravvzek must have been talking for his benefit, Allan thought. He trembled for fear some of the fiery spheres might come rolling over in his direction and give him away. There was no question but what the Scravvzek knew he was hiding here. The big rumbling voice went on:
“I have followed his comings and goings. If you had crossed the Black River, Sully, and watched with me at the mirrors of the world, you might have observed the pattern of the captain’s comings and goings. His feet have gathered no moss since he arrived. The Eye of the World could have told you much.”
“All right, all right. I’ve got him here!” Sully retorted, his lips trembling with rage. He shot a glance at the pit. “He was here. He hasn’t gone far.”
“The Eye of the World can tell you many things, Sully. But it lies beyond the Black River, and some very brave men have reason to fear the Black River.”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then, too, the Eye of the World is too complicated for the minds of some men. Do I make you understand through this voice that is speaking?”
“I understand,” Sully said.
“I will come again when you and your men think you are ready for higher honors.”
The vertical lines of fingertips began to force Pakkerman back a few steps. The fore fingers began crawling around the floor at random, splashing their green light on the white tile floor and the bases of two stalagmites at the end of the row of bodies. Again Allan caught the impression of long giants, claw-like, invisible except at the very end, and fast, strong and flexible.
“You reckon you’d get tangled up if you’d walk through those green lights?” Jimmy whispered.
Allan wondered. He could see through those fingertips as through mist. But at once the fingers displayed another proof that there was strength in them that no man had better challenge. Steamy and translucent though they were, some of them now enacted a miracle of their own. They picked up a section of the white tile floor and held it aloft like a gigantic lid. The jagged patch of tile swayed gently in the air ten feet above the rest of the floor.
The opening below the cake of white tile was glowing with pale blue fire. The flames licked upward. Obviously Sully had never seen it before. He staggered backward, his hands upraised defensively. The fingers were going to get him. They were going to drop him into a well of blue flames.
“Look!” Jimmy gulped. “Look! Those green fingers—”
Allan had jumped at conclusions the same as Jimmy—the same as Sully. The green fingers crawled along the edge of the floor toward Sully, then beyond. They stopped at the line of dead bodies. The half visible grasp closed over a giant’s handful of dead men, dragged them across the floor and dumped them into the well of flames.
Then the fingers returned for another grab. Sully, not quite paralyzed, was bounding back out of reach.
CHAPTER XXV
It was Allan’s and Jimmy’s chance to do some bounding of their own, and they took it. Ahead and to the left—that second cavern would make way for them to get back to their clothing, and thence to their original landing place—Allan had had an eye on that route for minutes! Through a line of deep black shadow they ran.
They took one backward glance. The fingers were scooping up the last .of the dead bodies. The orange fire around Pakkerman was retreating with the slow strong step that Allan remembered so well. The show was over.
“Are you coming?” Allan called to Jimmy as they cut over the ground.
Minutes later they were dressed again, much to their relief. Again they ran.
“My feet are draggin’, Captain. Keep goin’. I’ll catch you.”
Allan passed through several curves of the passage before he slowed his pace. The darkness of the narrow tunnel seemed a kindly thing. Orange fireballs and fiery green fingers were at last lost in the distance. The air of the tunnel was cool and clean.
Allan waited for Jimmy to catch up. In his moment of waiting, he wondered about Sully. It would get him down for a few hours, at least, and he’d probably order a general rest for the whole crew. But it would be only a matter of time until he’d start scouring these caves for the two that got away. Allan knew that he and Jimmy had better prepare themselves with some solid strategy. It stood to reason that Sully wouldn’t let himself in for another humiliation of this sort from the evil Scravvzek.
“Coming, Jimmy?”
“Doggone-golly-darn-it!”
“What’s the matter? We’re in the clear, boy! Cheer up.”
“I stubbed my toe.”
“Oh, that’s it.”
“Stubbed it tryin’ to keep up with you. I’m all fagged from doggin‘ that rock-throwin’ game. I ain’t danced so much since I got tangled up in a live wire.” Jimmy took a few steps on one foot.
“We’re fifty percent casualties, Jimmy. We’d better stop and set up a hospital.”
“Laugh, gosh-ding it. It ain’t your toe. It’s my toe. My favorite toe on my right foot. Sure, laugh at me.”
“All right, chum.” Allan bent down.
“Climb on and I’ll take you piggy back.”
“Wait, now. I’m not that bad off. I’m not complainin’. Just tellin’ you, that’s all. I’ll bet you an’ I ain’t the first military power in history that’s been crippled by a stubbed toe. Oh, my-gollies-zickety-bum-bum!”
Allan ushered Jimmy along, and that seemed to help. He knew exactly what Jimmy needed.
“What you require in this emergency is a nice nurse to smile at you real sweet. Now if we just had the Yippee Girl with us—umm, do you suppose she knows how to apply a bandage?”
Jimmy gulped and spluttered, and then rose to the occasion. “If she does, it’s a cinch you’d get a stubbed toe yourself.”
“Not just one. Ten of them,�
� Allan said. “This way to the Red Room. Sully and his gang have got a rest hour coming up, if I know my ex-lieutenant. And you and I are going to have some of the same.”
CHAPTER XXVI
Sue Carson and her little friend Buni made their way up through the mountain paths above the lake of Bunjojop.
“Lead the way,” Sue would say. The little fellow would hike along with a sense of importance.
“Another turn, another turn,” he kept saying. He would glance back from time to time, evidently believing that she would play out before they arrived. She knew this ordeal was a race between distance and energies, but she was standing it like a seasoned trooper. Her rugged life as the Yippee Girl had trained her to take anything. All she hoped was that Buni wouldn’t wear himself out.
Finally they were scouting along a path which brought the towering mountain shaft closer with every step, and she knew this must be it. A bright glow of light filtered down from somewhere near the top of the shaft. For the first time she was seeing the immense “diamond” which Allan and Buni had previously seen.
The sight arrested her. She felt his hand clutching hers, and there was a little distress signal in his grasp. He urged her with all the words at his command. And so she fought off the fascination of the unbelievable brilliance right overhead.
“One more turn. Two more turns,” Buni said, now all smiles again because she was stepping along rapidly to make up for lost time.
“It’s all turns, if you ask me,” Sue said, half to herself.
The strangest turn of all had come many hours ago when she and Buni had succeeded in getting some stories of the Evil Scravvzek from a leader of a neighboring village. Now, with the dazzle of the immense diamond “eye” flooding down over every picture in her mind, she was again considering those stories, wondering what evidences of this strange power she would witness when she got inside the mountain.
“The Scravvzek dwells within the earth,” they had told her. “It has been at work for centuries. No one knows how it came to be, in the first place. But it has unlimited powers for evil. Do not try to resist it or you will become its victim.”