Beyond the golden stair

by Bok, Hannes, 1914-1964

  Carlotta made an involuntary sound which combined groan and wail, and clung to the giant as if hoping to hide by blending with him. His hand tightened on the butt of his gun, and he shook his head several times in disbelief.

  Mareth was imperturbed. Indeed, she was admiring, not the unlovely spectacle but the motive that made it.

  Patur beamed, frankly pleased. He said: 'The blue flamingo was our intermediary, the summoner of the Way between Worlds. The Great Ones"—he and Mareth fingered their brows—"they say that if Burks can take the semblance of the bird he killed and serve in its stead for the length of its life, then he is to receive instruction, be armed with the Sign, and made one of us.**

  ''Such was his sentence upon himself I'* Mareth mar-

  veiled, and bent her knee to Burks. "My homage to so brave a man!'' Her look at Hibbert was warm, and basking in Bm-ks' glory, he yearned to be glorious himself.

  Carlotta choked: "But the blue flamingo was a thousand years oldl"

  "And more," Patur answered blandly. 'To us of Khoire, time means httle. Thought has httle to do with time and distance.'*

  Scarlatti impatiently pushed Carlotta away. Immediately she rammed herself back to his shelter. He shouted: "Burks! Can you hear me?^

  Slowly, reluctantly, the answer came, "I hear.''

  ^'Make him stop, Frankr' Carlotta muttered, peering in every direction as though expecting an onrush of vampires.

  Scarlatti dashed sweat oflF his brow. *Have you gone nuts, Burks? It ain't possible for a man to turn into a birdi You ain't got the right kind of blood and stuff."

  Hibbert began to edge closer to the giant. The gun butt was protruding temptingly from Scarlatti's belt.

  Burks said: "Go to the Great Ones, Frank. Get straightened out."

  "I don't need straightening outl"

  A dry rattle of laughter crackled from the folded figure, its radiant equivalent like a dissolving sheet of crumpled metal-foil. ^TTou more than anybody, Frankl"

  Hibbert was very near the giant now, so near that he could feel the heat Scarlatti cast off. Stealthily, he lifted his hand toward the gun. A touch from behind froze him. He turned. Mareth was shaking her head.

  "No, John Hibbertl" she whispered.

  "But— ^ He tried to convey in the word that Scarlatti without the gun would be practically helpless.

  She drew him still farther away. She breathed: ^Tou

  would save me from hurt, but that is not the way. Trust mel Provoke no violence."

  "Its over now,'* Burks was saying. *Tou re on your own .. r Again the crepitant laugh.

  Burks twitched as though within him a hand were tugging on his muscles, an idiot's hand jerking an unfortunate hand-puppet into meaningless pantomime. Over his bare body, gray shadows and steely iridescence ran and vanished like the track of a breeze crossing a placid pool. His sldn limiped with goose-flesh as if the crazed hand within him were thrusting blunt needles outward to the surface, and his hair, gone lackluster and drab, thickened to something like quills, then slipped back to threads.

  A pinfeather burst from his side with a little pop, fluflFed out with down, then furled and shpped back into the skin. Burks arched his neck backward, his head held high, and it seemed that his throat was longer. He bent his arms at the wrists and elbows like folded wings and crouched on tiptoe as he floated, his knees pressing against his ribs—birdlike in pose, his visitors forgotten.

  His mouth opened and his gums protruded in flat crescents like the dehberately malformed Ups of the Ubangis. Through them shot white splinters of bone which yellowed as they lengthened into something not quite approximating a bird's hooked beak.

  Mareth and Patur looked on with what might have been the mirrored pride of accomplishment, but Car-lotta's face grew almost as gray as that of Burks. She clapped a hand to her mouth and reeled out, sick, into the hall.

  The giant's knees were shaking but he stood his groimd. He made one last effort, "What'll I tell the

  boys downstairs about all this, Burks, when I get back to them?" Only an unintelligible sputter came from the thing which was no longer a man nor yet a bird.

  He gave Burks one last look, repressed a shudder, and went out to Carlotta. She was leaning weakly against a wall, holding her middle, but when the giant appeared she hurled herself against him and hugged hdm whimpering. Hibbert had followed, and as Patur and Mareth came forward, Scarlatti patted Carlotta resoundingly and muttered:

  "Buck upl We gone this far without a hitch—don t crack up nowl""

  Patur was closing the door on Burks softly, almost reverently. Scarlatti said: "Look, Mister Patur, I feel like a heel on account of I haven't put on that crystal gimmick what lets you read my mind. So I want to square things up and do it now.'*

  "There is no needl" Patur said. "I know you well from the images that the others gave of you.''

  Scarlatti masked his frustration with an ingratiating smile as out of place, on his harsh countenance, as a rabbit in a pack of wolves.

  "Yeah, but I got to show you something nobody else knew anything about, only mel And maybe it's something your bosses ought to get smart about. But I don't know how to say it right in words, I won't be able to make sense of it. You just let me shp on that mask-thing though, and the pictures will show it all nice and clear."

  Patur turned to Mareth, and his expression asked her a question. She regarded Scarlatti for a long few seconds, then Hibbert, and returned to Patur. She said:

  "I have seen the best of these folk. Why not their worst?"

  *Very well,*' Patur said, "we will hasten to where the mask is kept."

  Scarlatti and his woman exchanged a mutual gleam of smug congratulation.

  They followed Patur out to the center of the bridge and made contact with that aligned point in the blackness where, on high, Burks' tower shone reversed and in miniature. In a moment or two, they came to the green-walled chamber wherein were the red cubes containing the crystal mask and the cobweb screen.

  Along one wall was a row of the blue-robed beings, each equipped with a rake whose teeth were not of metal but of flame, and all of them moved in unison in what was probably dance as much as janitorial duty, sweeping the flames over the green walls. In spite of their efforts, Hibbert noticed no change on the surfaces at which they labored.

  Change! He remembered Burks in the red tower and winced at the word. Well, there were still many hours remaining before he could expect the worst to happen, and there was no use worrying about it in advance. He would have plenty of time for worry afterward, no doubt.

  The blue-robes ceased their operations on sight of the newcomers and stood respectfully at attention.

  Scarlatti protested, "Look, Mister Patur, I told you before, I got to show you what I got to show you strictly in private. After youVe seen what I got to show you, youTl know I was right."

  "Oh, then I shall leave," Mareth said, turning.

  He whisked in front of her, blocking the way and grinning as the Wolf must have greeted Red Riding Hood.

  **No, I didn't mean youl I just meant them things over therel"

  Patur signalled to the blue-robes, and they inarched out. He went up to his bench and relaxed with a sigh on its cushions. Mareth tripped to the half-circle of pillows confronting the bench and seated herself in the little flame-burst that was the flicker of her draperies. Carlotta remained standing, and Hibbert also.

  Scarlatti stalked to the right-hand cube and said: "I guess the mask's in this one, right?*'

  Patur put up a hand in protest, but Scarlatti wasted no attention on him. The giant fingered the edges of the block in search of the secret spring which would fling back its Hd. He knifed a fingernail around the block in search of a crack, found none, and swore. *'Carlotta, hustle over here and hand me your knife!''

  The woman bent, pulled up the frayed hem of her skirt, and drew a knife from a strap around her leg. A gong clashed faintly at the door, and she grew guiltily rigid, then whirled toward the sound. Patur's two servants, t
he man and woman whom Hibbert on first sight had thought automatons, flowed forward so smoothly that had Hibbert not seen their swinging legs he would have imagined that they shd on runners.

  **FraiikI" Carlotta croaked, but Scarlatti was on his knees at the cube and thudding the heel of his hand on the stone, scowHng and mumbling.

  The manservant took his post on Patur s left. The woman would have stepped into place at the right-hand cube save that Scarlatti was in her path. He saw her, went tense for a startled moment, and then, making a snap decision, rose up from her way with a sardonic smirk. She eyed him briefly, wonderingly, then slipped into the vacated spot and stared straight ahead, obhvious.

  Carlotta hovered uneasily, knife in hand.

  Patur spoke to the maidservant. She swung the

  cube's lid back by the merest touch, bent, and drew forth the mask. The manservant lifted the cover of his own cube and produced the silken web. He flung it in the air before Patur. It unfolded and himg flat.

  Scarlatti brushed the woman aside and peered down into her cube, tugging on something there. He marched over to the manservant's cube and looked into it also. Both Patiu* and Mareth sat calmly awaiting fresh developments, something like Uttle children trying to be good, motionless but very interested.

  Carlotta cleared her throat. "Can you see what works them? Do things still check?''

  He grunted assent. ''Both of them, the mask and the screen, are hooked up to some land of transformers, but I kind of get the drift. It won t be too hard to rig up something that'll work just as good. Yeah, it all checks."

  Scarlatti's plan was now transparently clear to Hib-bert. It was to snatch mask and screen and use the gun to force Patur into taking Carlotta and himself out of Khoire.

  But boldly accusing the giant could accomphsh no good—the Khoireans had said over and again that they did not beheve in violence, and raising an alarm would be useless. It was hard to believe that Patur and Mareth were so naive as to be innocent of what the giant was intending, yet there they sat certainly looking naive enough.

  If only Mareth had not prevented him from taking Scarlatti's guni

  Well, as long as he was supposed to be unaware of the giant's intentions, there was still the chance of making some swift—and, he hoped, correct—^move which might still fend off the coming crisis, if not swinging the balance to their complete disadvantage.

  The best thing to do would be to work his way close to Carlotta until he could get behind her and wrest the knife from her, holding her before him as a shield from Scarlatti's gun. Even then, knowing the giant's temper, he was not at all sure that the big man would not shoot. Once he had Carlotta with the knife at her back, he must steer her in front of Mareth, thus shielding Mareth.

  Patur? Well, the servants would have to join him against Scarlatti. Hibbert could scarcely defend a roomful of people. At worst it would be stalemate. If Scarlatti harmed Patur, Hibbert could retaliate on Carlotta.

  He regretted his crippled leg. He would have to be very near Carlotta indeed before he could cover any ground between her and himself in one abrupt jiunp. He edged toward her in a cursory movement which he hoped she would mistake for mere shifting of weight from one tired foot to the other, but her head swerved toward him, sharp-eyed. She sensed his aim, and for every inch that he thought to gain on her, she sidled another away.

  He paused. So did she, not at all intimidated. She was smiling slyly.

  The woman at the cube shook the mask at Scarlatti as a mother shakes a toy to attract her child's attention. Patur asked: "What is it that you would reveal?"

  Scarlatti wrenched the mask from the maidservant. Hibbert had restuned his stealthy pursuit of Carlotta without making noticeable headway.

  The giant did not raise the mask to his face. He jerked on its wires, snapping them, and stowed the shallow disc of crystal under his shirt. One hand buttoned the shirt, and the other snatched out his gun.

  At the same time, Hibbert sprang for Carlotta. She

  had anticipated him and was ready, her knife flashing down at him. He saw the descending flicker and folded in mid-air, dropping just below the swing of the blade and on his knees, skidding a foot or two on the mirror-smoothness. He was glad of the skid, for Scarlatti had swiveled and fired, and the bullet zinged over Hibbert's head, snipping the hair.

  Patur, Mareth, and the servants craned forward but stayed calm and secure in their places as if no danger could possibly threaten them—as if invisible guardians surrounded them noting every hostile breath.

  Carlotta swooped with her knife, and Hibbert caught her ankles, thrusting them away and so toppling her upon him and screening himself from a second shot. She aimed another knife-thrust as she fell, but missed. Her heavy weight knocked the wind from him.

  ^'John Hibbert! Stopl" came Mareth's cool voice.

  "Carlottal" Patur called testily. ''There need be no violence."

  Hibbert caught Carlotta's knife-hand and twisted the sldn of her wrist. She howled but did not drop the blade. She sank her teeth in Hibbert's cheek, and he released her hands to push at her face. The knife chcked on the floor, and then her arm swept up for another stroke.

  Chapter Twelve

  Scarlatti Tells His Plans

  Meanwhile Scarlatti had been wadding the flimsy web into a tiny ball, and before thrusting it into his shirt along with the mask, had broken oflF the silken connecting wires dangling from it. While doing this, he had remained alert not only to the struggling pair but to Patur and his servants as well, the stohd impassivity of the three bringing a scornful twist to his Hps.

  Now he sped down to Carlotta and Hibbert and spraddled wide-legged over them. He tore Carlotta out of his way, bent his legs, and ground a knee into Hibbert's throat. Hibbert clawed up at the asphyxiating knee, and the giant looped a wire aroimd one of the hands in a half-hitch.

  By then, Carlotta had scrambled back, whimpering with rage and intent on knifing her enemy, helpless or not Scarlatti seized her shoulder and hurled her away. She sprawled backward and sHd a few yards on the slick floor.

  The giant shifted and wrenched Hibbert over, caught the youngster's free hand and knotted it to the other. He stood up, and Hibbert lay writhing and kicking, wresting at the thin threads binding him and

  finding that they held only too well, cutting painfully into his skin.

  Mareth's gown flashed in flame as she straightened up from her cushion. "O fools so soon to destroy your-selvesl Must you then destroy each otherl Set John Hibbertfreel"

  Til take care of you, cookie, in another minute,** Scarlatti promised, going to Carlotta. He dragged her on her feet and cuffed her on the ear. She shook her head, dazedly. "Now get this straight, and don't foul me up. Lift the kid up, and keep your knife on him, in case he gets cocky. But don t blow your top and hint him, get me?"

  He slapped her again. "Answer mel Got what I saidr

  She nodded sullenly, narrowing her eyes at Hibbert She Hcked her dry lips.

  "Then don't forget itl" Scarlatti growled, and shoved her stumbling toward Hibbert. He strode to meet Mareth, and she hesitated, halted, and drew back.

  "Careful, Scarlattil*' Patur said gently.

  "Go ahead, talk away. It won't get you no placel** Scarlatti sneered, and made a fast pounce for Mareth. She had changed her backward movement into an odd sidewise weaving, and even as the giant's great paws touched her, she winked from sight like a blown flamel So did Scarlatti's arms, shoulders, and head, and he was nothing but half a body, the legs bending and bracing themselves.

  Carlotta emitted a squawk and moved as though to run to what was left of the giant, but the rest of him reappeared, it seemed in flame, but that was simply because his arms were tight around Mareth, dragging her back from the nothingness into which she had slipped.

  TLet me go!" Mareth cried, beating Scarlatti with tiny fists. 'The touch of you, the smell of you—they sicken mel"

  He kept a steely arm around her waist and she could not pull free, urgently as she might
try. Hibbert groaned and twisted the wires binding him to no avail Carlotta laughed! But her face, turning to the giant and Mareth, was grim.

  Scarlatti gave no mind to Mareth's futile struggles. With his free hand he trained his gun on Patur.

  "All right. Mister Patur—wise guyl Get yourself off of that easy chair there and come on down over here, unless you want to see little cutie-pie here get hurt! And you two"*—^the gun jerked at the servants—'T^ack up to the window. Shake a leg, the whole damn tribe of you!"*

  Patur did not stir, save to say calmly: "Release Mareth and your friend. Your threats are idle ones, for this is Khoire! Have I not taken pains to teach you that Khoire's ways are not yours?'*

  "Still bluflSng, pretending you got a lot of guys hiding to jump me! You don't fool me!"

  "Nobody is hidden. Nobody will lift a hand to you. But so great as the emotions which rule you, so swift will the Change overtake you. And your passions are strong, Frank Scarlatti! Now let Mareth go!'*

  "Ah, drop the wise speeches and get down here before I lose my patience and drill you!**

  Mareth was still struggling desperately, but in disgust rather than fear. The giant's gaze was still on Patur, but he snarled at her: "Quiet, or I'll slug you!"

  Hibbert called: "You let her alone!" He forgot his bound hands and pushed forward. Carlotta punched him back. Patur studied Mareth with the beginning of a frown, and abruptly her struggles ceased. She rest-

  ed docilely enough in the giant's grasp, but nonetheless drawn as far away from him as she could get.

  Then Scarlatti lost his temper. **A11 right, so you won t show me the way outi So I don't need you! I got MarethI Either she takes us down the steps, or I give it to her, but not quickl Slow, get that? Slowl"