The Fiery Wheel

by Jean de La Hire

  The silence was absolute. Outside, the whistles had ceased; doubtless the red Mercurians were holding a discussion before agitating any further.

  Ahmed Bey raised his head, and spoke in a grave and insistent voice. “Monsieur de Civrac, I’ve told you that the only means of returning to Earth is a new disincarnation of our souls. That’s easy for you and me, and easy for Brad and Francisco. I only have to make a few gestures, pronounce a few words, and all four of us, pure souls in the form of sparks, will be on Earth in a quarter of a second. But it’s not the same for Lolla Mendès. The rare state of catalepsy that she’s in renders her soul incapable of obeying me and quitting her body on my command. On the other hand, we can’t take her with her body; even in the realms of the marvelous there are material impossibilities.”

  The Doctor paused, paled slightly, and continued: “There is, however, one means—and one alone.” He paused again, and his voice was tremulous when he continued: “Monsieur de Civrac, that means is terrible, and although I hope it will succeed, I can be certain of it....”

  “Speak, Doctor,” said Paul. “What is this means?”

  “You have mastery of all your courage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then...” The Doctor hesitated. He looked at Paul with an affectionate pity.

  “Speak, I beg you!” moaned the young man.

  “Monsieur de Civrac,” said Ahmed Bey, in a solemn voice, “it’s necessary to kill Lolla Mendès.”

  Paul’s entire body convulsed; a cold sweat pearled on his forehead, and he looked at the doctor with wild eyes.

  “Yes,” Ahmed Bey continued, energetically, “it’s necessary to kill Lola, coldly and cleanly, with an infallible blow. Her soul will escape her body, and it’s then that I’ll try to capture it. Monsieur de Civrac, do you have the courage to kill the woman you love?”

  “Me! Me?” stammered Paul, even paler than Lolla.

  “Yes, because neither of our companions can act with the promptitude and skill that human hands provide. As for me, I need to have the freedom of action, the eye, the voice and the presence of mind to be able to seize the precise moment that Lolla’s soul quits her mortal envelope. Yes, you must kill this body; it’s the only means of returning her soul to Earth.”

  While the Doctor was speaking, a prompt change had overtaken the appearance of Paul de Civrac. The young man’s mind must have comprehended the necessity of the unusual action. His expression was fixed; his eyes were flashing with energetic determination. His weary torso stiffened. It was evident, however, that a terrible combat was taking place within him. He sighed, and his hands were trembling.

  “Doctor,” he said, in a faint voice, “is there no other way?”

  “No.”

  “And if even this one doesn’t succeed?”

  “The soul of Lola Mendès will take flight for the other world, to mingle with the infinity of Nature.”

  A terrible silence hung over the young woman’s immobile body. Paul studied her—and gradually, his hands ceased trembling. He raised his head, the energy of his eyes became more emphatic, and he looked at the thaumaturge.

  “Doctor,” he said, in a resolute voice, “I’m ready to kill Lolla’s body. Tell me how I have to do it, in order that her death will be instantaneous and absolute. But before that, I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Speak!”

  “If Lola’s soul escapes, you must kill my body in the same way that I’ve killed hers, and you must let my soul fly away to rejoin hers, mingling, like her, with infinity. If everything is finished for her, it will all be finished for me too. Give me your word.”

  The Doctor did not hesitate. “Monsieur de Civrac, if I can’t bring back the soul of Lolla Mendès, I swear to you that I won’t bring yours back. You’ll depart together for the future life. But nothing will be finished for the two of you, for nothing that is can cease to be. You will be fused in the great All together.”

  “In that case, Doctor, I’m ready. Command!”

  He had a twinge of pain, however, at the thought of losing forever the sight of the charming body that had been the first cause of his love for Lolla.

  The Doctor understood that hidden impression.

  “I’ll give her another more beautiful than this,” he whispered.

  His only response was a sigh.

  And before the fearful eyes of Brad and Francisco, the marvelous and terrifying attempt was made.

  The Doctor had taken off the iron buckle from the belt of his trousers—or, rather, Francisco’s trousers. The tongue was long and sharp. “Take this in your right hand,” he said to Paul, and hold the buckle with the tongue forward, very firmly.

  “It’s done,” said Paul.

  “With your left hand, lift Lolla’s head up as far as you can. Good! Support it on your knee, sideways. Now, can you see the vertebrae of the spine, starting at the nape of the neck?”

  “Yes, quite clearly.”

  “Count four of them, from top to bottom.”

  “One, two, three, four.”

  “Now apply the point of the tongue directly to the vertebral column, between the fourth and fifth vertebrae, in the center. Your hand isn’t trembling?”

  “No,” Paul replied, his pallor that of death.

  “Listen,” said the Doctor. “I’m going to pronounce the sacred words. At one point, I’m going to pronounce the word Siva three times. When I pronounce it the first time, you’ll call upon all the strength of your mind and your muscles, and when the syllable Si emerges from my lips for a second time, you’ll drive in the tongue. A clean, straight thrust. Is that understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “May the Force be with you!11 Death will be instantaneous…provided that your hand doesn’t tremble.”

  And without waiting any longer, Ahmed Bey commenced the magnetic passes and sacred incantations.

  Motionless, eyes fixed, Brad and Francisco resembled caryatids of black stone. As white as a phantom’s shroud, Paul de Civrac waited. With his left hand, he supported Lolla’s head against his knee; with his right, he placed the shiny steel tongue of the buckle against her neck.

  Suddenly, the voice of Ahmed Bey swelled in volume. “Brahma, Vishnu…” he pronounced. Then, slowly: “Siva...”

  Paul shivered and stiffened.

  “Si...”

  An abrupt movement. The tongue sank in.

  Ahmed Bey’s voice was as powerful and imperious as thunder, and Paul, stricken, saw a spark spring from Lolla’s parted lips and rise, scintillating to the tip of the thaumaturge’s raised index-finger.

  “Brahma be praised!” murmured the Doctor, in a low voice. The soul of Lola Mendès is ours.”

  But Paul’s emotion was so intense that he uttered a vibrant cry and fell backwards.

  Brad and Francisco had got up.

  “Lie down beside Monsieur de Civrac!” ordered the Doctor, in a dry tone.

  The two false monopods obeyed.

  Still holding up his left index finger, with the scintillating soul of Lolla Mendès floating above it, Ahmed Bey lay down beside Francisco. With his extended right arm, he touched the three motionless bodies—and in a powerful voice, he recommenced the incantations.

  Outside, whistles suddenly resounded. The slate slab sealing the doorway of the hut fell inwards under external pressure—and the red Mercurians hurled themselves through the gap.

  In the blink of an eye, the five supine bodies were lifted up, dislocated and torn into a thousand bloody shreds by the powerful talons, and the multitude of monsters fought for their possession, while avid trunks searched the quivering flesh, swelling up with human blood.

  PART SIX

  ON EARTH

  Chapter One

  In which Monsieur Torpène Moves

  from Amazement to Amazement

  A man was standing in the middle of Dr. Ahmed Bey’s laboratory in the basement of the house overlooking the Parc Monceau, with his arms folded, in front of a marble slab on which a
human body was lying, swathed in bandages like a mummy.

  Coifed in a small turban embroidered with silver and gold, and dressed in a short braided jacket and a yellow silk skirt tightened at the waist with a dazzling cashmere shawl ornamented with gold, the man in question was the Indian, Ra-Cobrah, Dr. Ahmed Bey’s steward.

  After having considered the material envelope of his master, Ra-Cobrah sat down on the divan, lit a hookah, and began smoking, grave and meditative, in the faint and confused light spread by the sole minuscule electric lamp that was illuminated in the vast laboratory, masked on the side of the marble slab by a black silk screen.

  Since Dr. Ahmed Bey had disincarnated himself in the presence of his friends, the five scientists, in order to travel to the planet Mercury, Ra-Cobrah had been living in the laboratory, eating and sleeping on the large soft divan, his eyes lost in a vague reverie or fixed on his master’s body, which was prevented from corruption by an injection of a special liquid, three times a day.

  A servant brought the watchman’s meals, and the latter, with the natural calm of the race that had produced the Brahmins and the Stylites,12 awaited the return of the absent soul.

  That day passed like all the others, in silence, reverie and immobility, only troubled by the footstep of the servant bringing nourishment, and the gestures necessary to eating, drinking and smoking.

  The silent clock suspended in a corner of the laboratory, immediately underneath the electric lamp serving as a night-light, marked nine-twenty, and Ra-Cobrah was getting ready to lie down and go to sleep when an unaccustomed noise caused him to straighten up with a start.

  There had been a crackling sound, rapidly repeated five times.

  Scarcely was he upright than the Indian saw five sparks streaking the darkness of the laboratory. They headed straight for the marble slabs and stopped, floating two meters above the one supporting the body of Ahmed Bey.

  “It’s the master!” said Ra-Cobrah, excitedly. And he knelt down on the floor and bowed down, his head between his extended arms. Then he got up, marched to the marble slab and began carefully unwinding the immaculate bandages with which the limbs, torso, neck and head of the soulless body were wrapped.

  When the body, which appeared to have been struck by a sudden and calm death a minute before was laid entirely bare, Ra-Cobrah gently opened the mouth and took three steps back.

  Then one of the five sparks detached itself from the marvelous group and, like a dart, penetrated into the open mouth. Almost immediately, the white body took on the colors of life. The mouth closed, the eyes opened, one of the arms stirred, and suddenly, moving slowly, the resuscitated body stood up at the foot of the marble slab in front of Ra-Cobrah, who prostrated himself again.

  “Get up, faithful servant!” said Ahmed Bey, gravely.

  “Master! May Vishnu and Siva be glorified!”

  Without another word, Ra-Cobrah stood up, unrolled a packet of fabrics that had been placed on the second slab, and draped his master in a vast robe of virgin linen. He secured it at the waist with a broad belt of mauve silk embroidered with gold, and put red leather sandals on the feet, retained at the ankles by silk ribbons.

  “That’s fine, Ra-Cobrah,” said Ahmed Bey. “I’m hungry...”

  The steward rapped on a gong. Two minutes later, eight black servants appeared, carrying a square table that was already laden with food.

  Ahmed Bey had already at down on a divan; the table was set before him and, served by two domestics supervised by Ra-Cobrah the Doctor began eating.

  His appetite was, indeed, considerable. An odorous soup, an asparagus omelet, a gilded carp, a copious skylark salmi, gorgonzola, a peach, grapes and a cup of Turkish coffee made up the dinner menu.

  For as long as the table was in front of him, Ahmed Bey did not say a word, but when, at a gesture from the steward, the table was picked up and carried away by the servants, and the master had washed his hands in a silver bowl presented to him by a kneeling slave, he said: “Switch off the chandeliers, Ra-Cobrah.”

  The order was immediately carried out, and only the electric lamp serving as a night-light remained illuminated.

  “Good! Now sit down beside me on this divan, and forget that I’m your master, only remembering that I’ve judged you worthy of being my friend. Let’s talk as we have done several times before.”

  Impassive, but his eyes shining with evident joy, Ra-Cobrah sat down on the same divan as Ahmed Bey and, like him, took between his lips one of the amber mouthpieces at the end of one of the tubes of the hookah, which the slave had brought out last of all and lit before disappearing.

  “Have you read the newspapers, Cobrah?” asked the Doctor.

  “Yes, Ahmed.”

  “So you know who the humans lost among the stars were?”

  “On Venus,” said Cobra, there were two Americans, Arthur Brad and Jonathan Bild. On Mercury there were the Frenchman Paul de Civrac and the Spanish woman Lolla Mendès, with her valet Francisco.”

  “Good! Well, Cobrah, do you see those four sparks?”

  “I saw them at the same time as I saw you, Ahmed.”

  “Count them from left to right; they’re the souls of Lolla Mendès, Paul de Civrac, Arthur Brad and Francisco/”

  “You saved them, Ahmed!” said Ra-Cobrah, in a tone of triumphant pride.

  “I saved them. Only the soul of Jonathan Bild is missing. That man, as stubborn as a Hispano-American, refused to allow himself to be disincarnated, under the pretext that he liked his body too much to abandon it, and swearing to the great gods that he would return to Earth, thanks to the science of the Venusians, in the flesh, with his own height and his own thinness. Furthermore, Brad and I have brought back in our memories the elements necessary for the construction of a machine that will put us in communication with a similar machine installed by Bild on the planet Venus. But that’s for the future; let’s think about the present. My task isn’t complete. In sum, what I’ve done presented very little difficulty, but Cobrah, it’s now that my task becomes thorny and delicate...”

  “What!” said Ra-Cobrah, visibly astonished that anything in the world could be thorny and delicate in its execution, when the Doctor was involved therein.

  “Well, yes,” said the thaumaturge. “For each of these four souls, it’s necessary that I provide a body. Do you understand, Cobrah? The body in question has to be appropriate to the character of each soul, and to be as close as possible in its resemblance to the one that each of these souls left behind in the stars. Well, Cobrah—where are we going to find bodies that will please Lolla Mendès, Paul de Civrac, Brad and Francisco, when the pure souls that they are now are reincarnated?”

  Ra-Cobrah was visibly embarrassed. His gaze went from the Doctor’s impassive face to the four sparks immobile in mid-air in the laboratory, two meters above the marble slab.

  “Indeed,” he said, “that is delicate...”

  “First we have to find four suitable cadavers, one of them a woman...”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s necessary that the cadavers don’t have relatives among the living.”

  “Yes,” said Ra-Cobrah. “A family would create complications...”

  “And many other things are necessary too.”

  The doctor stopped talking, and silence was abruptly established between the two men. It lasted for some time. From each amber nozzle terminated one of the tubes of the hookah, Ahmed Bey and Ra-Cobrah drew puffs of odorous smoke, which they expelled gravely toward the high ceiling of the laboratory.

  Suddenly, Ra-Cobrah dropped the amber tip at his feet, raised his eyes to the heavens, and said: “Oh, Master! Why haven’t you thought of it first?”

  “Of what, Cobrah?”

  “Androplasty, Master.”

  At that word, Ahmed Bey was dumbstruck with astonishment. “That true,” he murmured. “It’s quite simple! Androplasty! Indeed, you’re right, Cobrah. Why didn’t I think of it?”

  “Ahmed! Your soul is still overwhelme
d by its extraordinary adventure, Master. It hasn’t yet found its ordinary lucidity, its genius.” And by means of a tone of affectionate submission, Ra-Cobrah tried to attenuate the audacious semblance of his words.

  Ahmed Bey stood up and took the hands of his steward. “Bravo, Cobrah!” he said. “You’re well worthy of my confidence and friendship.” Then he changed his tone. “It’s obvious that androplasty will get rid of any serious difficulty. Now it’s only a matter of finding four bodies, one of them female, that are physically well-proportioned, healthy, free of defects, whose organs are intact. Deaths by asphyxiation would be the most appropriate for a satisfactory reincarnation.” In his imperious voice, he added: “What time is it, Cobrah?”

  “Seven o’clock in the evening, Master.”

  “Have all the evening newspapers brought to me in the library. Send the secretary to Monsieur Torpène, the Prefect of Police, with this message, written by your own hand: ‘The master has returned; he is waiting for you, alone, right away. Can you come?’ As soon as Monsieur Torpène arrives, bring him to me yourself. Go!”

  Then the Doctor went to stand before the marble table above which the four sparks were still floating. He raised his arms toward them, and pronounced a few mysterious syllables.

  The sparks rose up to the ceiling in a flash, and remained there, like motionless diamonds attached by an invisible thread.

  The steward bowed his head and went out. Afterwards, the Doctor went into the dressing-room annexed to the laboratory and put on the modern clothes that he had been wearing on the day of his disincarnation.

  When he went up the broad marble staircase leading to the ground floor of the house, Ahmed Bey had lost the quasi-transfigured face of a thaumaturge, no longer possessing anything but the cold, impassive and slightly strange features with which his friends were familiar.