The Citadel of Fear

by Gertrude Barrows Bennett

Colin had one leg over the basin's edge. The immense weight of the font prevented its oversetting, but some of the gold containers set on its ledge went spinning down to roll across the floor.

  After one futile effort to aid her lord by loosening his captor's grasp, the girl stooped for one of these containers. She took it without selection at the hazard of desperation. All she knew of them was that they held stuff of diabolical power, and a desperate woman is not particular about her weapons.

  She rose, a gold flask in her hands. It must have held about a pint, and it was carved all over with writhing, lizard-like forms. It possessed a crystal stopper that stuck but could be twisted out. She proved it.

  Meantime, the Lord of Fear recalled that he had other servants than Khan and raised his head, mouth open for command.

  It was well for Colin that in the same moment he had wrenched himself fairly free. Calm as she seemed, his Dusk Lady proved capable of an impetuosity as unconsidered as had more than once carried her lord into trouble. To fling the contents of a flask at two struggling men, trusting to hit the one and miss the other, requires either great recklessness or supreme faith in one's own aim.

  But impetuosity for once was justified. Because of his sudden efforts and wrenching away, only a few minute drops of the stuff sprinkled Colin and they on his hand. Though he hastily wiped the hand on his trousers it was painful for days afterward.

  Kennedy, however, was less fortunate. He released his prisoner and staggered back with a short, stifled shriek, and it was the last sound save one that was to be heard from him. He had clapped both hands over his face--the human hand and the paw--but not before Colin caught one glimpse of it--a dripping, darkening, purplish expanse, of which the features in that flash of time had assumed the most curiously blurred appearance. A strong odor as of bitter almonds filled the air.

  It is likely that the liquid in the flask was what Kennedy had referred to as the "second solution." Very probably the application of it in this wholly unscientific manner would not have produce the "beautiful" results that he so much admired.

  The question, however, is theoretic, for as a subject of this variation of process he did not last long enough to be termed a decisive experiment.

  As he reeled backward, there began a recurrence of that great, inexplicable vibration, and with its coming a wild rage appeared to seize upon the marsh's grisly in habitants.

  Transmuted or not, they retained the instinct of beasts to sense disaster, and if they had any share in "the intellect of man" they displayed it now by behaving as man does in a panic. The rage that gripped them was of fear, not malice.

  Archer Kennedy, head in arms, limbs wabbling like an animated strawman's, staggered blindly to the pavement's very edge, and instinctively Colin shouted a warning. But this third effort to save a worthless life was vain.

  Out of the rushes beyond a slimy mass heaved, lashing out with a dozen squid-like arms. It was hard to conceive how such an acephalous mass of squirming tentacles had ever known a master, but the grace to obey was whelmed under now in a more natural instinct. Panic makes no discriminations.

  Round the Lord of Fear a tentacle whipped, clung and contracted, and as it caught him a last sound passed what was left of the man's lips.

  Colin heard--the word was pitched in a key so low and different from the other noises. "God!"

  Prayer perhaps, but much more likely habit. It was his favored ejaculation.

  Colin, who not being God, could not help him, turned away his eyes, and when he looked back a score of nameless, fighting creatures were at the edge, with Archer Kennedy somewhere under them, wallowed down in mud.

  As he had lived, so he died--without comprehension. But he was an empty, negligible thing, and behind him he left the real master--the black, discarnate hate for whose will he had been the blind channel.

  CHAPTER XXX

  The Gate Lodge Again

  Table of Contents

  "Macclellan! Well, upon my word!"

  Rhodes descended from the car and advanced, hardly knowing whether to be amused or indignant.

  They had come through Undine a few minutes earlier, and by following the pike had found Reed's place without difficulty. But they were not the first on the scene. Two cars were standing outside Jerrard's ill-omened gates, one drawn up by the wall, the other fairly blocking the road.

  As Rhodes' car halted, a man had turned away from the first car, and under the roadlight Rhodes had no trouble in knowing him.

  The stout detective gave something very like a guilty start, but recovered instantly.

  "Ain't this your car, Mr. Rhodes?" he demanded, as casually as though their meeting here was most natural event.

  The other two passengers from the Rhodes car had descended now.

  "Colin did come here!" exclaimed Cliona tensely. "That is our car that he left outside!"

  "I knew it!" MacClellan seemed affably triumphant. "Forester," indicating a second man who had emerged from the car's shadow, "he says she ain't, but you can't fool me on a car I've once rode in. I says --"

  "Mr. MacClellan, pardon me, but did you come out in search of my car, or because you changed your mind about the possible dangers of the house behind those gates?"

  "Now, don't get sarcastic again, please. I'm a conscientious man, and I thought, since you were so worked up over it, we might as well run out and look things over. But seeing you've brought your wife along, I guess you drew it a little stronger than you meant over the phone, eh?"

  "Tony!" Cliona pulled at his sleeve. "My Colin's in there, and we stand talking!"

  "The gate is unlocked," Biornson called over his shoulder. "I've left the shotgun for you, Rhodes, and taken the rifle. Coming?"

  He was already pushing through the gates.

  "Rifle!" snapped MacClellan. "Hey, there, mister, I don't know who you are, but you haven't any license to walk in that man's grounds carrying weapons! Come back here!"

  "Mr. MacClellan, please, please!" In her distress Cliona caught the stout detective's hand. "Don't stop us! I tell you, the thing's maybe in there that left that awful trail of blood down our hill--do you want my brother's death on your soul?"

  "If your brother had seen fit to tell me of his suspicions --" began MacClellan, but was interrupted by a series of sharp, quick reports. "That fool!" he ejaculated, and sprang for the gates. But once inside, his intent to check Biornson and confiscate the rifle underwent sudden alteration.

  Behind the gate lodge a curious scene was being enacted.

  The norseman stood there, beating with the rifle's heavy stock at what seemed a tangled mass of writhing white fire.

  "Can't kill--a thing like--this--with bullets!" he shouted against the wind "Got that shotgun, Rhodes? Quick! Oh, watch out there! Watch--out!"

  The tangle of fire had fairly rolled away from him and toward the drive. An automatic spat viciously from MacClellan's hand. He didn't know what he was shooting at, but even his conservatism admitted a need of shooting.

  Rhodes turned, only to have the shotgun thrust into his hands by an, excited little figure that had dashed out to the car and back again while the men were thinking about it.

  A second later the mar of a ten-gauge duck gun shattered the night. Rhodes, who had let go with both barrels at once, staggered back, but the double dose of number four at that close range had been very effective.

  The writhing fire fairly flew asunder and quivered almost instantly to darkness.

  "What is it?" MacClellan's voice shook suspiciously. "For heaven's sake, what is it?"

  Young Forester, who had stood his ground though unarmed, bent forward.

  "Some kind of big white snake," he said coolly, "all tangled up with a tree branch. It's still wriggling. Going to plug it some more, Mr. Rhodes?"

  For that gentleman was hastily shoving fresh shells into the gun's emptied chambers.

  "No need." Biornson had stooped for a closer inspection than Forester's. "It's blown into three pieces now. When I came past the
lodge," he continued, "I heard a rustle, and then this--this creature came rolling out the door. Odd about the branch--look here! The end of it was driven clean through the thing's body, just behind the head. Hmph! I wonder who did that, now? O'Hara, do you think?"

  "He would have finished the job, not left the thing alive and dangerous," judged Rhodes.

  "Alive, but not dangerous. I think this is O'Hara's work."

  Above them the naked branches lashed, as if blown by the gusty laughter of some invisible giant. The gatekeeper's hard-dying fragments writhed feebly, but there was no light in them now.

  "Golly! Watch it bleed!" said Forester.

  He obeyed his own inelegant recommendation cheerfully, but the others turned aside, rather sickened.

  "Come away, Cliona," pleaded Rhodes. "Let Forester stay with you in the car while the rest of us go on. I suppose," he queried of MacClellan, "that you are convinced now?"

  "Guess something's wrong," conceded the detective heavily. "Any man who keeps an illuminated boa-constrictor like that in his gate lodge will bear looking at."

  And just then, through the shouting wind, a mighty reverberation shook the air--a long, dull, roaring sound, followed by a kind of tearing crash.

  Both noises came from deeper within the grounds, and before Rhodes could interfere Cliona was off up the drive. She had not even a pistol for self-protection, but self was not concerning her. In a rush to the rescue, she no more stopped to consider what she would do on arrival than the Dusk Lady had thought twice before returning here after her lord. The main consideration was to get on the spot as quickly as possible.

  But, unlike Tlapallan's child, Cliona was followed by human reinforcements. What might otherwise have been a justifiably cautious advance was made at a reckless run that only caught up with its feminine leader in the shadow of the porte-coch�re.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  A Strange Battlefield

  Table of Contents

  Somehow Colin got out of the font and onto his feet. Did the floor really heave under them, or was it the dimness of his brain that made it seem so?

  "The door--the door!" cried the Dusk Lady, and clutched at his arm to pull him toward it.

  But Colin was looking to the marsh. Would its inhabitants regard a former command of their master's as more sacred than his person? They were already at the forbidden boundary line on all sides, and only the fact that they were fighting very energetically among themselves hindered their crossing it.

  The idea of weaponless flight with such pursuers at their heels was unattractive to Colin. His eye fell on the spade lying in the golden chest. It was leaf-shaped, pointed, and looked heavy.

  Rather unsteadily, he made for the only weapon in sight, and in the act perceived a new development.

  Out of the marsh not one black serpent but a dozen were invading the solid pavement.

  They writhed, crept, advanced--flowed into one, and suddenly under that sinister invasion a whole section of the floor sank away and was swallowed.

  Colin cried out wildly, "The marsh! 'Tis the devilish marsh itself coming in!"

  But he was wrong. Not the marsh, but what had flooded the marsh was carrying its mire across the floor. The ooze was no longer taking the form of exploring serpents, but coming on in long ripples, like water over breaking ice. And not the floor alone was affected. The old granite piles of the house were sinking, crumbling, while the rotted beams they supported sagged and bulged downward.

  But another force than water was at work tonight.

  Above the roofs, like the blow of a giant's fist, something struck the cupola. The candles burning beside Nacoc-Yaotl's dais flickered wildly. Colin felt a great blast on his cheek and looked up to see night sky roofing the shaft--stars, obscured by scudding vapors of cloud.

  The outer gale had lifted the cupola. bodily, had flung it far and shattered, and its after-breath struck down the shaft like an eager promise of freedom. The foul mists swirled and cleared.

  All had happened so swiftly that Colin, stooping for the one visible weapon, had barely time to raise it before the first goblin brute crossed the line.

  Combat in the open would have been folly, and sweeping his Dusk Lady with him the Irishman made a rush for the doorway. Under their running feet the floor had a give and resilience like thin, tough ice. Reaching the door, Colin would have closed it but lacked time. On the very threshold he turned to meet the first assailant, a thing of innumerable legs, rather like a magnified centipede, but whose head belonged somewhere in the mammalian scale.

  It was a hybrid of fancy worth looking at, but Colin was unappreciative. He was very weak and the spade seemed not only heavy, but heavy as lead. When the many-legged brute came at him he struck out feebly.

  It dodged like lightning, came at him from another angle, and the end came near being immediate.

  But the floor, an inch deep in water now, chose that opportune moment to subside altogether, with a long, gurgling swish!

  Colin had pushed the Dusk Lady through the doorway, and himself stood just inside it. The footing there remained solid enough, but the creature of too many legs found itself wallowing in thin mud and much impeded thereby. The floor had gone to pieces under it like a breaking floe.

  Colin thrust with his spade, and this time was so lucky as to bury its point in one of the beast's eye-sockets. It screamed horribly and plugged its bleeding head in the liquid mire.

  Colin looked for its mates, but in looking beheld a sight so strange that he nearly forgot that peril.

  More than the floor had gone under. The font and every other piece of gold in the place was gone; but the dais of Nacoc-Yaotl, with its black canopy, had not sunk. Like a somber islet on a surface of rippling ebony it lay, not floating, apparently, but solid as if supported by a column of stone.

  There still crouched Genghis Khan, and there the Black God sat unmoving. But that last was not strange, for how may marble, however sacred, move of its own volition?

  The strangeness was above the dais--above the canopy.

  Though the candelabra had sunk out of sight, though the livid vegetation of the marsh had been crushed under the inundation by its inhabitants, the place was by no means in darkness.

  Something hung in mid air now, globular as had been the evil fungi, transparent, pale as the ghost of an old moon against the sky of day, but growing brighter with each passing moment. Hung in mid air where only vacancy had been. Out of nothing it hid come to illuminate all with a sweet light, mellow as a sunset's afterglow. It was bright as a clear winter moon in a black sky--brighter--not transparent at all.

  A great gust roared down the shaft, circling the dais with the sweep of a whirlwind.

  It sucked the breath from Colin's lungs and drove it back again. He straightened. That was clean air--air to breathe and be strong, but--but hot as the desert's sand wind!

  That fireball, so mysteriously appearing from nowhere, was giving off more than light. Having passed in a few seconds from pale shadow to dazzling brilliance, it hung less like the moon than a fiery replica of old Sol himself. And the hot wind circled the shaft.

  "My lord--my lord!" cried a sweet, excited voice in Colin's ear. "I think the gods battle tonight! The gods! So have I seen Tonathiu grow to glory in the heart of his temple! The rushing wings of the Feathered Serpent beat fiercely by! Tlaloc of the Floods is with us! But the Black God is strong--strong! See how he sits unharmed! The flood may not rise further nor the fire descend--and his servants live on in the flood--oh, my lord --"

  "Back there! Get back!"

  Colin had wrenched his eyes from the fierce focus of light that overhung Nacoc-Yaotl. Whether the Dusk Lady were right or no in thinking this a battlefield of gods, he knew for sure that battle for a man was toward, and that man himself.

  The liquid blackness before him was suddenly all asplash with swimming terrors. Heads came up at him from every direction, no longer tearing at one another's throats, but reaching toward his with a unanimity of purpo
se that called for instant defense.

  The Dusk Lady came of a warrior people. At his rough command she sprang back out of his way, and the fight was on.

  The fire globe grew more radiant, the hot, pure wind circled the shaft, and Colin strangely forgot that he had been drained of strength. In his hands the heavy spade was like a feather--like a living feather of fire--like a sword of fire!

  There came to him a great, joy and exhilaration. He smote and thrust joyously. The strength of ten was in him, and a vigor that was endless--undying.

  The great wind circled the shaft--and across the black water, beneath Nacoc-Yaotl's canopy, two slit-eyes had opened wide and glaring in a rage more frightful than any mortal anger!

  CHAPTER XXXII

  The Battle of the Doorway

  Table of Contents

  "Everything's dark as a pocket," complained MacClellan, "and this flash won't work. Battery's wore out. Say, Forester, gimme your flash."

  "He's outside with my wife," said a voice in the dark beside him.

  "No, I ain't," contributed another voice cheerfully. "Here you are, Mac. Sorry, Mr. Rhodes, but your lady here would come along."

  A white beam snapped into existence, disclosing a quiet, orderly looking reception hall. They had entered it from the porch through a door that stood invitingly open, and though Rhodes had begged Cliona to remain outside, and hastily asked the younger detective to see that she did, neither request, it appeared, had been respected.

  The two had followed close on the leaders' heels, and now the whole party stood together near the hall's center.

  "Don't believe that crashing noise came from here --" began MacClellan.

  "Hush!" said Cliona. "Listen!"

  "Sounds like a crowd of people yelling from a long way off," Forester commented after a moment.

  "From beneath our feet," corrected Bjornson sternly. "And those are not human voices."

  "Say! Do you smell smoke? And--say, the floor's shak--"

  MacClellan's exclamation was drowned in a vibratory roar, like that they had heard earlier, only now they were fairly above its source. Through the heavier noise there ripped a long, shattering crash.