Flicker of Doom

by Paul Kenyon

  She slipped through the door they'd so thoughtfully opened for her, not stopping to retrieve the unraveled dress. She'd worry about being in her underwear after she got outside the walls of Don Alejandro's fortress.

  She avoided the broad stairs leading down to the great hall and ran down a smaller back staircase. She met no one. There was a door leading to some sort of scullery, and then a passageway with mops and pails and dustrags. She found a big, iron-bound door and stepped outside.

  There was night air and the sound of crickets. She could smell jasmine and the salty Mediterranean. A large, empty expanse that looked as if it once had been a garden stretched in front of her. She could see where shrubs and hedges had been pulled up and the ground partially leveled by rollers. It was about the size of a football field, with no cover, but the outside wall was beyond it.

  There was no one about. She'd have to chance a quick dash to the wall.

  Like a big powerful cat, she sprinted toward the level area. She was halfway across it when something astonishing happened.

  Great thorny trunks, writhing like snakes, pushed their way out of the ground. They formed an impenetrable hedge. She stopped, bewildered, staring wildly from side to side.

  It seemed to be some sort of maze. There was a long corridor between the thorn hedges, and a turning at the end of it.

  She moved uncertainly toward the bend. She felt odd, lightheaded, confused. There was something odd about a hedge suddenly appearing where there had been none before, but she couldn't think why.

  She reached the end of the tunnel. Instead of a turn, there were now two corridors. Which should she take? She turned right and took a step forward. The vines writhed and closed up. She went left instead. When she'd gone only a few steps, the foliage closed behind her, and now there were three tunnels branching off.

  She was dizzy. There was an impression of flickering light behind her eyelids. She shook her head, but it wouldn't go away.

  A figure in a black dress loomed up in front of her. It was the Duchess of Quimera. The Duchess grinned evilly, and then there were two Duchesses. She had to get past them. She started forward, and then there were three, waving her back, making warning gestures. She blinked, and there was a whole mob of Duchesses, stretching back as far as she could see.

  She turned to the second passageway. The El Greco Inquisitor was there, miraculously come to life. He beckoned toward her with his crucifix. He didn't seem so threatening. She walked toward him. The crucifix turned into a scourge. She screamed. The archway of thorns flowed and closed up.

  There was nothing blocking the third passageway. It was a straight, long corridor. She could see the outside wall at the other end. She ran down the passageway at a trot, laughing with relief.

  She burst through into open air.

  The outside wall was gone.

  She was facing the castle door she'd come from. She was back where she'd started!

  Dr. Funke was standing there, grinning like an ape. With a cry of rage, she started toward him.

  The dwarf watched her come at him, showing no alarm. She was almost there when something like a great black flower opened up in front of her and swallowed her up.

  She had a sensation of falling, falling through limitless space. She was tumbling slowly, round and round, and she was getting smaller. She shrank, and shrank, until she was a dust mote falling through emptiness. And then even the dust mote disappeared, and she was gone.

  * * *

  "What did you see?" Don Alejandro said.

  She opened her eyes. She was tied with heavy ropes that were wrapped around her like a cocoon. She was propped up in one of the high-backed chairs in the great hall. Her hair was tangled, falling in front of her face, and she had a broken bra strap so that one breast had fallen out of its cup.

  She understood immediately what had happened.

  "Aversion," she said. "The light stimulated my brain to feel aversion whenever I took a wrong turn, and my subconscious mind filled in a visual image to explain the aversion."

  Don Alejandro turned to Dr. Funke. "Didn't I tell you that she was an intelligent woman?" he said.

  Dr. Funke didn't answer. He was staring at the pink nose of her exposed breast. His wizened little face was beaded with sweat, a miniaturized caricature of a Prussian centered in a big globe of a head.

  "What did you see?" Don Alejandro repeated.

  "The Duchess," she said. "And then she split in two."

  He laughed. "Marvelous. You have a fertile imagination."

  "What are you going to do with me?" she said.

  "Why, I'm going to kill you, of course. But first I'm going to make use of that intelligent brain of yours. You'll make a rewarding experimental subject. Much more rewarding than the dolts I've had to content myself with so far. Dr. Funke can refine his techniques."

  "You can induce epileptic fits?"

  "Oh, yes, and I can go far beyond that. With powerful enough equipment, for example, I could drive an entire city mad. For example, synchronized lights flashing from the windows of rented offices in the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center and a few other tall buildings in New York. Millions of people would assault and kill one another, or fall down in convulsions. And no one could stop me. There's no defense against light."

  "You're crazy," she said.

  "No," he said. "Just ambitious. I'd start more modestly. I'm going to assassinate the President of the United States to begin with."

  "You can't do it," she said. "Even with your light weapon. Security will be too tight. The gambit you used with Leclerc and the others won't work anymore. You won't be able to get close enough to him with a camera."

  He raised an eyebrow. "My dear Baroness, I've gone far beyond those crude methods. Dr. Funke and I have been busy."

  "The President will make his speech in a closed television studio."

  "Just so. And we will turn that fact against him."

  Dr. Funke stirred in his chair. "We have found a way to cut into the power supply. We can do it at a great distance from the studio. We will send a surge of current through the cables. It will be controlled by computer."

  Don Alejandro smiled. "The joke is, we'll be watching your President on television, like everybody else. And so will our computer. We'll read the necessary feedback of behavior clues right off the screen."

  "But, how?…"

  "The television lights!" he said triumphantly. "The lights in the studio! We'll make them flicker from a half-mile away!"

  "Ja," Dr. Funke said. "But the flicker will express itself as a variation in intensity. The people in the studio will not be able to tell that the lights are flashing more brightly for a few millionths of a second at a time."

  "Can you see the picture?" Don Alejandro said, rubbing his hands together. "Your President will be addressing the world, via satellite. All the Arab oil ministers will be there. And then your President will begin to behave in an irrational manner. Just a little, at first. No one will be sure that anything is wrong. He will act crazier and crazier. But no one will dare to do anything. He will begin to talk nonsense. It will seem as if he is… hopped up. Then, perhaps, obscenity. It is a very common prelude to these seizures. After all, we will be reaching the amygdala through the optic nerve. It is the part of the brain that governs sex and violent emotion. The world will be shocked. Your President will disgrace himself, and disgrace the United States. Then, finally, violence. As the seizure progresses, he will attack people in the studio. The technicians, perhaps, or one of the Arab ministers. It will be a scandal., Only then will anyone dare to interfere. They will pull him away. But, by then, he will be in the last stages of his fit. He will be twitching, foaming at the mouth. He will be incontinent. A lovely spectacle for the television audience! And then he will die."

  Penelope was unable to speak. She sat transfixed by the obscene horror of it.

  "No one will know how we did it," Don Alejandro went on. "Perhaps they won't believe it when they receive our anonym
ous message. But we will remind them of Leclerc and the others. We will arrange more such demonstrations of our power. No national leader will be safe. There is no defense against light. And they will not know it is light. We will reach the leaders of the world through the bulletproof windows of their limousines, through the security guards that keep crowds away, reach them as they make their speeches over television. It is a media world these days. No government can hold power if its leaders cannot be seen, cannot make themselves heard. There will be international chaos. Anarchy. Rather than permit that, they will give in to my demands. It will be simpler. And my demands will be modest at first. It will seem a small price to pay."

  "And what will your demands be, Don Alejandro?" Penelope whispered.

  "Power in Morocco, to start with. The big powers will gladly throw Morocco to the wolves. I will rule through a screen of Arab extremists. They don't much like King Hassan, anyway. There will be no protests when they take over."

  "And then what?"

  "I will use Morocco as a base and take over Spain. After all, Franco did that in 1936. His revolt against the Popular Front government started in Morocco. He stirred up the military garrisons. It spread until it became civil war. He used Moorish auxiliaries. He still uses Moorish troops as palace guards in Madrid."

  "The big powers wouldn't let you get away with it,"

  Penelope said.

  "Why not? They threw Spain to the wolves in 1936. Again, it will seem a small price to pay. They'll be nerving themselves up for my big move."

  "Which will be?…"

  "There won't be any," he said with a devil's grin. "When I have my ancestral kingdom back, the rest of the world can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned."

  "It is a brilliant strategy," Dr. Funke said, "brilliant. He will take the pressure off just before the point where it would become intolerable. He will even let the present Spanish regime retreat to the northern provinces of the country. They will retain Madrid as a capital. They'll retire and lick their wounds and make the best of it. The rest of the world will not become too exercised. It won't matter that much to anybody."

  "But they'll leave me alone," Don Alejandro said savagely. "By God, they'll leave me alone!"

  Penelope's head was swimming with the lunacy of it. But it could work. It might just work.

  "You're willing to see millions of people die in civil disorders?" she said. "You're willing to bait the big powers and risk them flinging nuclear bombs at one another? Just so you can sit in a country estate in Andalusia and play duke of a kingdom that hasn't existed since the fourteenth century?"

  "To each man his dream," he said simply. "That is mine."

  Dr. Funke scratched his crotch. "Fortunately, Don Alejandro has the means to make his dream come true."

  "And is it any worse," Don Alejandro said, "than the daydreams of the silly little men who come to power in your country or the Soviet Union, who don't know what to do with their armies and rockets and nuclear bombs, but who stir up mischief while they're allowed to play with them? Common men, the descendents of peasants and petty bourgeoisie!"

  "Give me their brand of mischief any day," Penelope said, "in preference to the mischief of a shabby, self-styled aristocrat who gives himself airs."

  There was the crack of a hand across her cheek. Penelope tasted blood.

  It must have been the word "shabby" that made him lose his temper.

  "Enough!" he shouted. "Take her to the dungeon!"

  Dr. Funke slid from his chair, looking like a misshapen child. He scuttled crab-like across the floor, his long arms trailing. Despite his small size, he had enormous strength. Penelope felt herself lifted like a sack of potatoes. The little man flung her across one wide shoulder. She struggled in her cocoon of rope, but couldn't get free. Dr. Funke reached up with one gorilla arm and slapped her on the rump. "Be quiet!" he said.

  Don Alejandro was pacing the floor, his nostrils white and pinched. He raised his eyes toward the Inquisitor's portrait by El Greco.

  "You make light of my ancestors?" he said. "Very well! I'll show you what their instruments can do!"

  13

  It was like all the old engravings she'd ever seen. Don Alejandro must have studied those same pictures faithfully. There was the Iron Maiden, standing open so that you could see the spikes inside its lid. There was the Boot, with its bone-cracking screws and the Pear, with its spines that pierced the tongue and stifled the screams of the dying. There was the Rack, with its ropes and wooden winches, and the charcoal brazier full of glowing coals, and the bowl of molten lead and the hooks and thumbscrews and pincers.

  Mingling strangely with the ancient instruments was a jumble of electronic equipment. Penelope could make out a computer console, and a swivel mounting holding something that looked like a giant corkscrew with a chromium tube down its center.

  Dr. Funke swung her around and dumped her roughly on the Rack. She looked up and saw a naked man dangling in chains from a pulley arrangement that was attached to an overhead beam. It was Ahmed.

  "Your playmate," Dr. Funke said. "We are questioning him, but he is very stubborn."

  Ahmed raised his head weakly. He was a shocking sight. His body was covered with nasty little burns where they'd pulled out pieces of flesh with the red-hot pincers.

  "Your playmate, you mean," Penelope said. "I found the bug he planted on me. What happened? Did thieves fall out?"

  Don Alejandro looked startled. Then he laughed. "He planted a bug on you? That is amusing. Because Dr. Funke and I planted a bug on him. One of our confederates managed to insert it in the lining of his jacket in a crowded street. The sound of your lovemaking quite upset poor Dr. Funke."

  From up above, Ahmed spoke. His voice was like a rusty hinge. "I'm with Moroccan State Security, Penny," he said. "I've been investigating this pair."

  "Don't tell them anything, darling," Penelope said. She felt a wave of compassion for his poor broken body.

  "It's nothing we don't already know," Funke said. "What we want to find out is whether he made out a report on us. And where you fit in."

  "Leave him alone, you bastards!" she said. "If he'd had a chance to report to his superiors, you'd be in a cell by now. And the reason I became interested in him was I thought he was connected with your PAFF thugs."

  Funke shook his head. "You're working together."

  Ahmed spoke again in a croaking voice. "I thought the Baroness was connected with the two of you. I saw her speak to you in the Medina, and I followed her to the PAFF hideout in the rug factory. She has nothing to do with me. Let her go."

  "Do you know what, Dr. Funke?" Don Alejandro said. "I rather believe him."

  "It's possible," the little man said grudgingly.

  "But let's get on with the proceedings, anyway. I want to be quite sure that our plans are in no danger."

  Dr. Funke peered up at the dangling man. "You should not have come here tonight," he said. "Our little maze trap surprised you, hein?"

  Now Penelope understood what she'd seen through her optical fiber periscope. Ahmed had been a prisoner. He'd been trying to brazen it out.

  Dr. Funke stripped to the waist. He looked more apelike than ever, with his hairy chest and his bulging shoulder muscles. His little legs looked doll-like in the rolled-up trousers. He grasped the pulley chain in his furry hands and lowered Ahmed to within a few inches of the stone floor. He screwed a monocle into his eye and studied Ahmed's naked body.

  "Now, where to begin?" he said.

  It was horrible to watch. Ahmed's body flopped like a fish while Dr. Funke applied the ancient instruments. His arms, forced up behind his back, were dislocated. There was the smell of burning flesh, and awful, prolonged screams that were torn from Ahmed's throat. The little man had drawn up a bench to stand on, so that he could reach every part of Ahmed's body more conveniently. He looked like some kind of demon out of hell, dancing about on the bench, his bulging torso shiny with sweat and reflecting the ruddy light from the charcoal brazier
.

  "You bastards!" Penelope said, straining at the ropes that bound her to the Rack. "I'm going to kill you both!"

  They paid no attention to her. They were examining Ahmed's torn body. He'd lost consciousness. Dr. Funke stood on tiptoe on the bench and peeled back one of Ahmed's eyelids.

  "He's coming around," he said. They threw a bucket of water on him and started over again.

  This time it was the Boot. They fitted Ahmed's foot into it and turned the screws. The heavy iron contrivance closed, squeezing the foot. Ahmed screamed. His foot must have been crushed to pulp. He fainted again.

  Don Alejandro examined him with a physician's eye. "He's almost finished," he said. "His heart won't stand much more."

  "You'll pay, Don Alejandro," Penelope said quietly from the Rack. "Oh, believe me, you'll pay."

  Ahmed was just the rags and tatters of a man. He'd been stretched, torn, broken, flayed. He wouldn't have wanted to live.

  Dr. Funke picked up a scourge that was festooned with little fish hooks. He stood there and waited until Ahmed's remaining eye opened.

  "Now," he said, "have you told anyone about Deathshine?"

  "Go to hell, you little turd," Ahmed whispered.

  Dr. Funke flicked the scourge across Ahmed's ribs and pulled it loose with little pieces of flesh clinging to it. Ahmed didn't even scream. There was a sort of prolonged sigh from him, a long whistling exhalation, and his body went as limp as an empty balloon.

  "He's dead," Dr. Funke said, turning to Don Alejandro.

  Don Alejandro's eyes roved over Penelope's body. "Your turn," he said.

  * * *

  They turned the winches of the Rack until she was spread out like a starfish. She was stretched out beyond the possibility of moving. Dr. Funke pawed at her bra and pulled it completely off, then ripped away her panties. He studied her naked body, the fish hook scourge still dangling from his hand.

  "You have a very interesting gland, Baroness," Don Alejandro said. "It's called the pineal body. It's about the size of a pea, and it's located at the top of your midbrain. Let me tell you about it."