The Day the World Ended

by Sax Rohmer

  “Thanks! A whisky and soda would be acceptable.”

  And I was proud that I could speak, and speak unfalteringly!

  A few phrases in that strange, guttural tongue Anubis uttered, and Mizmun poured out a glass of white wine whilst Isa prepared whisky and soda.

  I tried in vain to catch the girl’s eyes. She looked beyond me, through me.

  Anubis spoke again.

  I shuddered, drank, and hastily set my glass upon the floor. The two girls disappeared into shadows.

  “This was the condition to which I referred, Woodville. I have fulfilled all my promises.” . . .

  A curtain was drawn aside.

  In the dim bluish light I saw a crystal coffin, not upright, but tilted slightly backward. In it, naked as he was born, lay Gaston Max. His hands were clasped upon his breast, his sightless eyes stared straightly before him. . . .

  CHAPTER XIX - FREEDOM OF FELSENWEIR

  1

  Like a caged animal I paced up and down my room. Snatches of the dwarfs conversation haunted me. . . .

  “So he would remain, Woodville, for many generations”—this had referred to Gaston Max—“but his brain would live on for an undeterminable period. He would watch himself die. This fate he may avoid. . . .

  “Certain indiscretions of the Watch master have created quite a local legend. Felsenweir is reputed to be haunted. But the trust which holds the property is influentially backed. Glimpses have been obtained of my Black Watch. . . .”

  The very sibilance of the soft, mocking voice seemed to be repeated in my ears. . . .

  “So named after a famous regiment of your British Army. Their armour, composed of metal unfamiliar to most metallurgists, renders them immune to the zones. They can patrol where no living thing could penetrate. My bodyguard, Woodville. They operate within a mile radius of the Watch master’s quarters. Stripped of their armour they are unpleasant, but capable of swift movement under suitable direction. A lobster out of its shell would be a ghastly object, would it not? Owing to an unforeseen accident, I was compelled to despatch one of them to pursue you. . .

  Those creatures were not human—they were not human I It beat upon my brain with hammer blows: they were not human!

  The monstrous dwarf in that blue-lighted room had even begun to tell me something of the life history of the Things composing his Black Watch. He invited me to visit a subterranean dungeon in which, in his own words, “these useful servitors are perfected.”

  But, rising supreme among all the horrors I had witnessed and had heard of, was that one of the girls to whom he referred as his Corps of Pages . . . “Recruited, Woodville, from many nations, in infancy----”

  They had no souls!

  I thought I knew what he meant. Selected for their beauty and trained with that one object in view (his details respecting this training had maddened me dangerously), they were, I deduced, permanently under that influence which I had experienced, and which I believed enthralled Lonergan. They were soulless in the sense that Anubis controlled their destinies.

  Yet, sometimes, I reasoned, they must be permitted to leave the castle. On such occasions, by means of his devilish arts, he would temporarily relieve them of the control. Meeting one, she would seem to be a beautiful but a normal girl!

  I clutched my head, pacing more and more rapidly up and down that narrow apartment.

  Marusa! I could not believe it! Yet how could I dare to doubt so palpable a truth ?

  I saw her, as I had seen the others, in that shameful servitude—her shapely head bound by a golden turban, her lithe, sun-browned body. . . .

  Marusa was one of the Corps of Pages!

  I had given my heart to a shadow! I loved a beautiful phantom, incapable even, if Anubis now willed it, of being my woman as I longed to be her man!

  “I will give her to you. . . .”

  Dropping into an armchair, I lowered my head in my hands and clutched it frenziedly. So I sat facing a prospect which looked like madness when the Voice of Anubis addressed me.

  “Truth is sometimes strong medicine, Woodville. But if we can assimilate it, it means new life. I have released John Lonergan of control. I suggest that you dine together. By the way, it is just seven o’clock. Lonergan has a brilliant brain. I could make use of him. Gaston Max has had also his experience. He is ready for the decision which I have demanded. I shall disconnect your room. Nothing that takes place in it during tonight will be known outside its four walls. You have the freedom of Felsenweir. This upon my word, which you may disbelieve, but which I never broke. You have five hours. At midnight I shall ask for your verdict.”

  The Voice ceased.

  I raised my head. I had heard that whining sound which told of an elevator ascending. The panel slid upward.

  John Lonergan stepped into the room!

  “Woodville!” A light of sanity shone in his keen eyes, the whole force of the man expressed itself in the grip of his hand. “Our time is short!”

  The panel reclosed. The elevator descended. We were alone.

  “Lonergan!”

  “Woodville—we have five hours. In that time we’ve got to save the world! ”

  2

  Lonergan’s story was simple enough.

  “When you left me back there, in the hotel,” he explained, “to go send the telegrams, I heard a noise out on the balcony. I had the shutter up in a matter of seconds. Nobody was there. But I saw a little black box on the table. Right away, I guessed—a bomb!

  “I guessed wrong. But I walked around it and didn’t touch it. When my back was to the gardens and my face to the apartment, the lid opened! I know now I must have been covered. There was a line to it. A blinding light shot into my eyes!”

  “I know! I know!” I cried excitedly.

  “Is that so?” He looked at me dully. “I just thought my guess was right and the bomb had exploded. Because I wasn't given any more guesses until I found myself sitting in an armchair, Max and you looking at me.

  “It’s all clear from there on right to the time it was arranged I shared Max's room—beyond that, right to when I went to sleep. Then it’s a mix-up like a Navaho blanket . . . patterns that don’t seem to mean anything.

  “I've got a hazy idea of climbing down some place—the balcony, I guess—and of running . . . some time later I sort of dreamed, Woodville, I was talking to you. Mostly I remember a pair of tiger eyes . . . but it's all foggy. Until three minutes ago, when I found myself in a room the dead spit of this, empty, and the Voice directed: ‘Be good enough to step into the elevator.' Said elevator arrived and I did as I was told. Here I am. I've certainly got a lot to learn!”

  “You have! So have we all. You disappeared from that hotel bedroom, Lonergan, leaving a note behind.”

  “My own handwriting?”

  “Your own handwriting! Max and I followed you here, to this hell-hole. It was a trap!”

  “As I see it,” Lonergan declared, “we’ve got just one hope . . . the copper-haired maiden.”

  I heard the elevator ascending. I glanced at Lonergan.

  “It’s all right,” he nodded. “You can still believe what I say. My brain’s clear.”

  When the panel shot up and the tiny car arrived:

  “I suppose, an invitation to explore?” I said, smiling very mirthlessly—“as we have the freedom of Felsenweir! Wait for me below.”

  “Seems that way,” Lonergan agreed.

  He stepped into the elevator. It immediately descended and the panel closed. I waited, listening to the weird whining in diminuendo. We were trapped! The organization of Felsenweir was automatic. Our courses were preordained. The elevator ascended again. The panel opened. I stepped in. In utter darkness I went down.

  I found myself in that strange, sun-lighted hall with the futuristic square pillars—the amazing statue—the sense of emptiness—futility. Lonergan was awaiting me. By him stood a big blond man wearing white overalls. His fair, graying hair stood upright, stubble-fashion, his ruddy face
was decorated by spectacles containing such powerful lenses that any character which may have rested in his eyes was not to be detected. He smiled and bowed.

  “Mr. Woodville,” he said, speaking English with a marked accent, “I have already made myself known to your friend—but my name is Richter. I belong to the laboratory staff. At the moment I am instructed to act as your guide to Felsenweir. I may add, a pleasant duty.”

  I exchanged glances with Lonergan. He nodded reassuringly.

  “You have seen the laboratory, I understand? What then can I show you?”

  “I guess,” said Lonergan, “we’ll leave it to you.”

  “Very good!” Mr. Richter seemed to be delighted. “I shall explain to you therefore the system of the Black Watch. Follow me closely, gentlemen.”

  We followed him across the hall, which I remembered well, to a door upon the opposite side from that which gave access to the tower. It was open and unguarded. We descended a short flight of stone steps and found ourselves in a square room, obviously a survival of the original fortress. It was unoccupied and unfurnished, but an arched opening showed at the farther end. The room was more dimly illuminated than that above, and an effect of twilight was produced.

  Herr Richter turned to us. His eyes, or what I could make out of his eyes through the thick lenses, were lighted up with the enthusiasm of the specialist.

  “The secretary of the British Association of Chemists,” he said—“I more particularly address you, Mr. Woodville, although Mr. Lonergan also will be interested—recently pointed out that, since we understand the composition of protoplasm, there would seem to be no reason why chemistry should not ultimately accomplish its synthesis, thus causing life to manifest itself. He suggested that a modification of this mysterious substance, which gives rise on the one hand to the amoeba and on the other to a more highly organized being, might in time, by a process which he described as yet undiscovered, enable us to incubate a human being resembling ourselves.”

  “I read a report of his speech,” I replied. “It was delivered in Birmingham, I believe?”

  “Quite correct,” Herr Richter confirmed. “He suggested—I quote from memory—that perhaps in a thousand years—somewhat pessimistic, I think— chemists might produce synthetic beings who could perform the workaday work of the world, thus setting free those naturally begotten to undertake fresh conquests of knowledge and of Nature. He added that this seemed to be an absurd dream, but that it would be unwise to dogmatize and to say that it could not be realized.”

  He paused, staring alternately at Lonergan and myself. Then:

  “It has been realized!” he added. “And those thousand years suggested by the English chemist have been bridged by the greatest scientist the world has ever produced. Be good enough to follow me.”

  He stepped into shadow under the arched opening.

  Exchanging a hasty glance with Lonergan, I followed.

  My worst fears were realized! . . .

  This was the incubating chamber referred to by Anubis, to which in fact he had offered personally to conduct me!

  Over what I was now compelled to see I prefer to draw a veil. The enthusiasm of Richter was nauseating! I conceived a loathing for the man which I can find no words to express. Stage by stage, he showed us how the gigantic creatures known as the Black Watch were produced. Synthetic they were, undoubtedly—laboratory products. But, try as I would, my unscientific mind would not allow me to get away from the idea that in the end some spark of humanity animated those ghastly, hopeless creatures, controlled mechanically, as an engine is controlled, by a “Watch master."

  To him Herr Richter now proposed to introduce us.

  “There are in Felsenweir/’ he said, “a class of products, purely human, but subjected to scientific treatment, to whom I should be happy to draw your attention. But I am not free to do this. I refer to the Corps of Pages, more particularly attached to the Master, but frequently detailed for special duty when distinguished visitors are guests in the castle —as is the case at present.”

  “Anubis, himself,” I interrupted harshly, “has been good enough not only to explain to me the education of these damsels, but also to introduce me personally to two of them. I think, Herr Richter, we may pass over this subject.”

  Herr Richter shrugged his shoulders and smiled with unending amiability.

  “As you wish,” he replied, “as you wish, I merely desire to carry out my instructions. Shall we visit the rare animals?”

  “Say—what do you mean, exactly?” Lonergan demanded.

  “Well,” Richter explained, “here in Felsenweir, since Felsenweir is our headquarters, we have the more rare and delicate beasts selected by the Master for survival. The more ordinary brutes, chosen by our experts, are, as no doubt you know, assembled at various spots, insulated, of course, all over the world. A series, Mr. Lonergan”—he turned to my companion—“of minor Arks!”

  “I get your meaning entirely,” said Lonergan, speaking without humour, or indeed any other emotion whatever.

  And so, presently, in a subterranean place deep below the rock of Felsenweir, in queer light, I found myself looking through thick plate glass at creatures whose homes were so widely separated as Borneo is from Iceland.

  “All essential, you see,” Richter explained. “In the modified world, gentlemen, inimical life will find no place. That harmful phase will have been eliminated. What little remains in accidentally insulated spots it will be the duty of specialists like yourself, Mr. Woodville, to discover and exterminate.”

  My brain reeled! And as we proceeded on that incredible tour of inspection, the borderland of sanity receded farther and farther.

  Lonergan’s expression sufficiently indicated that he shared my frame of mind.

  Thus we enjoyed the freedom of Felsenweir. . . .

  3

  There were parts of the rambling old fortress where synthetic sunshine did not prevail: dark, dimly lighted tunnels, worn stairs, and crumbling arches. At one such point, a narrow flight of steps descended on the left to impenetrable darkness, whilst rather farther ahead was an ascending flight, down upon which a dim light shone.

  I had frankly lost my bearings. But from this indication and that, I had come to the conclusion we were in the base of the great keep.

  An extraordinary desire to test this theory overpowered me.

  Herr Richter, full of scientific enthusiasm, was leading Lonergan down the dark steps.

  ‘‘Some noxious creatures,” I heard him say, his voice echoing hollowly around the vault-like place in which we were, “play a definite and a useful part in the scheme of the world, Mr. Lonergan.” . . .

  He disappeared, Lonergan stumblingly following him.

  I had just time to explore the stair on the right before I should be missed! I advanced, turned on to the stair, and above me saw what I took to be a spear of natural sunlight striking through an arrow-hole of some chamber to which the staircase led.

  Standing still, I listened.

  Richter’s voice was dying away, deep in the bowels of the fortress. I was taking risks. I might get lost. I might blunder into some death zone. But that I should peer into this chamber at the top of the steps was imperative. I felt like a schoolboy being shown around some historic spot, as I slipped away from my guide to do a little exploring on my own account.

  Quietly, but swiftly, I mounted the stair. On the threshold of the room to which it led, I pulled up short....

  It was a large, rectangular, roughly paved chamber lighted by that one arrow-hole which really had been my objective. Yet, as I have said, on the threshold I pulled up. That part of the chamber immediately before me where the wall should have been—for the room plainly had once been square—now presented a black cavity into which the constrained light from the arrow-hole failed to penetrate!

  This was queer enough, but not queer enough to have struck that chill to my heart which I had experienced at the moment I had reached the threshold.

 
; Hanging from a beam not seven paces away were three monstrous bats!

  I cannot express the horror and loathing which the nearness of the things induced. Seen in that dim light, they resembled at first glance, in every respect, bats in repose, for so, swung from some support, the bat sleeps.

  Frankly, I think I should have bolted, but horror held me rooted to the spot. I was compelled to stare. Therefore my eyes slowly grew used to semi-darkness.

  I noticed a peculiarity which distinguished these bats from any others with which I had come in contact (and on the Rio Negro my experiences in this respect had been ghastly and terrible: men wither and die there from nightly visitations of vampire bats).

  The difference which had arrested my attention was this:

  These bats hung upright and not head downwards!

  They were monstrous creatures, at least as large as I had estimated when first I had sighted one in the cemetery above the town. They were of a fishlike colour. I imagined that in the light of the moon they would have been nearly invisible.

  Dead, glassy eyes—of the size of the bottom of a tumbler—they had, flat and meaningless; attenuated bodies. But, peering more closely, I perceived that these bodies were quite flat. Mosquito-like wings drooped from the shoulders downward. But where the body—or, considering their abnormal size, the carcase—of the creature should have been, was this pendulous flatness, reminding me unpleasantly of a squashed beetle.

  Courage was reborn. I advanced a step into the Room of the Bats; when:

  “Mr. Woodville!” came dimly.

  Herr Richter had missed me!

  Quickly I stepped forward. I grasped the nearer of those three pendent forms.

  “Mr. Woodville!”

  The voice grew urgent, nearer.