After a time he came to a slow realization that he was separated from the Englishman, and that he no longer held his automatic. The weapon hung in its holster. Instead, from somewhere he had secured a bloody, wicked, razor-edged scimitar, and in the fiery lust of battle he was slashing back and forth like one possessed of a demon.
And his foes! Not the phantom Time Exiles, but the ranks of the dead! They hemmed him in on every side, cutting at him with weapons of every description.
In his revulsion Don almost dropped his weapon. A darting blade in the hand of a fleshless skeleton burned into his side—like a flash the blood-reddened scimitar leaped into action, almost as though it possessed life. A madman, Don tore into the hideous hoste. His breath was coming in great gasps, but he was filled with a blind anger that gave heed to nothing save the foul things surrounding him. At length Don became aware that his gruesome foes no longer beset him so thickly. He stood in the midst of a clear space. He laughed softly, deep in his throat, an insane, croaking sound. They couldn’t escape him, damn them!
He dashed toward the battling horde, heedlessly passing thick-strewn, mangled dead. Dimly he noticed a strangely familiar figure seated on an ice hummock with head bowed—then he sprang eagerly to meet a blond giant who ran out of the seething mass waving a great sword.
Their blades crossed. During the first few moments Don made up for his lack of skill with the awkward, curved blade by the very fury of his insane onslaught, but afterward he gave ground steadily. By instinct alone he parried the vicious thrusts and lunges. Slowly the peril of his position forced itself upon his consciousness, freed his mind of its madness. At the instant that his opponent’s heavy blade flashed toward his head, his sight and reason cleared, and he gasped the single word:
“Peter Northam!”
Vision of a startled, incredulous face; then a cloud of blackness engulfed him.
“DON! Brother Don! Awaken!” A faint, frantic voice pierced the cloud of senselessness. “I’ God’s name, speak! Say I have not slain ye!”
A calm, clear thought followed, from the mind of Gorg Merlo. “There is no danger, Peter. Even now his senses are returning. See; his eyelids move.” Don Steele opened his eyes and stared blankly around. The faces of his two friends were above him, the one anxious, the other calm and unruffled.
Suddenly he remembered. The battle of the phantoms; those horrible dead things; his fight with Peter Northam! But now the ice wilderness was deserted, save for the three of them. No mangled dead—not even blood! . . . But, of course; they were phantoms—and phantomlike, had vanished.
He staggered slowly to his feet, assisted by Peter Northam. His head was throbbing painfully, and there was a dull ache in his side, but he smiled faintly.
“Good scrap, eh, Pete? While it lasted. But that damned Keeper almost pulled it that time!”
The Englishman’s face was wreathed with smiles. “Thunder of God, Don, but I thought I had slain you! ’Twas the. madness. Verily, we fought with unseeing eyes. I checked that last blow as best I could, yet the flat of my sword glanced from your skull cap. I fear, had I not heard your cry, your blood would even now be on my hands.”
“Forget it!” Don’s old spirit was returning. He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. “What’s done is done. Let’s be moving.”
“Before we continue our journey, there is something I would say.” There was a note of impatience in Gorg Merlo’s thoughts, “I suppose I am expecting too much from your primitive minds, but please try to remember that these phantoms are harmless! While you two were fighting for your lives, I sat on an ice hummock striving to make you recover your reason to save you from yourselves. You did just what the Keeper wished you to do. Such an attitude of mind in the Black City would result in instant death. Of course, there you will be protected by the Thought King. Still, you should be more careful.”
“I know we’re at fault,” Don answered shamefacedly. “But the things seem so real . . . And you must not forget that there are ages of evolution between us and you.”
Relenting to some degree, Gorg Merlo nodded. “True. But try to remember in the future . . . Now, your wounds.”
Carefully he examined the gash in Don’s side and the bruise on his head. “Jus’ scratch’s,” he spoke finally. “We’ll fix ’m ’n a h’rry.” He bowed his head in thought.
In wonder Don and Peter watched him; then abruptly the former realized that the pain was gone! Before he could voice a query, his answer came from Gorg Merlo.
“Mind over matter. I communicated with the King of Thought, and he cured you.” He paused. “Let us go. I think the Keeper has used his most effective weapon—and failed. We will go the remainder of the way unmolested.”
Wordlessly they continued their journey across the ice.
CHAPTER V
In the Black City
LONG, weary miles lay behind the three Time Exiles, miles of steady progress across a frozen world. Now they were resting at the base of a tall, conical, ice-clad mountain, awaiting the dawn.
Day came swiftly in a riotous blaze of color. Along the jagged eastern horizon appeared a long line of vivid crimson, the brilliant rays dispelling the gray of the nocturnal sky. It broadened, spread fanwise across the heavens.
Away from the base of the mountain stretched the field of ice, tumbled millions of upright pinnacles extending on and on to vanish in the distance. These reflected the crimson light of the sky; became giant flaming candles on a mad birthday cake. Then, over this world of crimson splendor, the red sun slowly rose, tinging the sky from horizon to horizon with its light. The new day had begun.
With one accord the three arose from their seats on the ice. Don Steele waved his hand toward the sky, and grinned.
“Then came the dawn!” he exclaimed.
Peter Northam sighed. “Verily, never have I seen so brilliant a sunrise! Me-thinks some of the accursed devils we saw in the night would flee from so beautiful a sight.”
Gorg Merlo was business-like; he ignored the scenic wonders. “We are about to start on the most dangerous part of our mission. Within the mountain, as I told you when we reached it, lies the Black, City. After we climb to the top of the peak, we will be under the control of the King of Thought in every way. I have certain plans that we must follow, and he will guide us in their execution. Even our thoughts will be controlled by him. No matter what we think, the Blacks will learn only that which the Great Brain wants them to learn. For each of us he will create a false mentality. Even now our minds are shielded from them—and because of that shielding I do not believe they know that we are here. The Keeper may have—but that is purely conjecture; forget it.”
He removed his skull cap and slipped out the black rod that formed a ridge through its center. “We have reached the place where we are to use the rods in our caps. Mine I will discard and replace with my disintegrator. Yours are lamps—we will need them in the Black City. Back on the plain I had forgotten that I had not explained their use to you. You operate the lights by pressing the little knob on the back end.” He returned the altered cap to his head. “I conceal my weapon because, if the Blacks knew of its existence, they would destroy it. Your weapons they will consider too harmless to be noticed.”
His thoughts assumed the crispness of audible speech. “One fact more—then we start. The White Brains are using us as a means of entering the Black City—something that has not been accomplished in ages. If the Thought King’s plan materializes, it will mean the destruction of every Black Brain on the planet! Come.” He turned and started up the mountain-side. As Don followed, he reloaded his automatic. His last clip. It might be useful.
Slowly the three made their way up the rough incline. The journey over the jagged plain had been easy compared with this. And now they were weary from their exertions during the night. But finally, despite much slipping and floundering, they surmounted the last precipitous obstacle and stood on the mountain-top beside a great, black pit—what had evidently been the mouth of
a volcano.
CURIOUSLY Don Steele leaned over the edge of the pit—and drew back, startled, an unreasoning fear upon him. Out of the blackness had come a blast of damp, chilling air; not the dean cold of the winds that swept the plain, but a breath of icy foulness. Musty, somehow age-old, it had an unearthly, cavernous smell. He felt an unaccountable loathing, a sense of repugnance. As he drew back, he shuddered in spite of himself.
He faced Gorg Merlo and Peter Northam—and at that instant, as though a gigantic hand had gripped him, he felt the power of the King of Thought. A sudden tide of utter fearlessness, a sense of tremendous power, wisdom beyond conception—all these pulsed through him, as inner monitors.
He saw an expression of wonder flit across the Englishman’s face. “Never did man feel so,” he muttered.
A swift thought came from Gorg Merlo. “To action!”
The three stepped to the edge of the pit and stared down into its black depths. But now Don experienced none of that unreasoning fear that had gripped him before; he was only aware that a steady thought was leaving him, repeated again and again: “We come from the Keeper of the Time Sphere, the Gray Brain.” And he knew somehow that the same thought was being sent out by the others, impelled by the power of the Thought King.
Far down in the pit something moved—a vague, indefinite stirring in the darkness. First, only a shadow among shadows; then slowly, as the three watched, it began to glow with the ghastly cold light that had shone from the eyes of the monster horde on the previous night. The thing—it could be called nothing else—was almost shapeless, a mass of slow-moving tentacles and undulating billows of transparent, jellylike protoplasm. Paradoxically, despite its transparency, it was black, yet the blackness had a peculiar light-giving quality.
Up from the mass stretched three great arms, moving slowly, with deadly deliberation toward Don, Peter and Gorg. They watched with curious eyes, unflinching, for under the control of the Great Brain they knew it for the phantom it was.
The pseudopods touched them caressingly—and they relaxed in their clammy clutch; Down into the black pit they were drawn, unresisting, slowly, endlessly down, a thousand feet or more, into a place of whispered blasphemies, of foul, half-suggested shapes of hell in unmeasured depths of intangible shadows.
They felt something solid beneath them—and abruptly the viscid, clutching arms were gone, and with them, the monstrous creature of which they were a part. They were standing on the floor of the pit in absolute blackness.
MINUTES passed—and there was no sound or motion. The Time Exiles remained standing where they had landed, their nerves and muscles held in rigid restraint. They could dimly sense a presence in the room; the inner voice told them this was a test.
Suddenly a sardonic laugh broke the silence, and a deep, mocking voice addressed them “So you have been sent by the Gray One, eh? For information! We knew of your coming—and we are prepared to. show you every hospitality! Every hospitality—as the Gray One directed!” A second peal of laughter rolled through the darkness.
Don Steele received his cue from his inner guide and acted accordingly. His was the part of defiance.
“Well, I don’t see any signs of hospitality!” he exclaimed. “What’s the idea of letting us stand here in the dark? I should think—”
Abruptly they blinked in a glare of brilliant light. It appeared—and vanished instantly. But in that moment they saw a huge, naked Black Brain floating in the air beside them with its atrophied black body dangling beneath it; saw countless avenues of endless night, radiating in every direction, endless thorofares that twisted through labyrinthine windings, lined by ugly, squat, distorted structures—the dwellings of the Blacks; saw nameless things of festering evil, hidden monstrosities that kept ward over this abode of dread.
Again the Black Brain communicated with them—but now it used no voice, and the mockery was gone from its thought, replaced by utter hatred.
“Enough of nonsense! So you come from the Gray Brain—but not before you visited the accursed King of the Whites! Fools! Fools! Fools! Think you we know nothing?” The crushing weight of the being’s thought swept over the three with far greater power than that of the Keeper; it pressed them back like a physical force, drove them far along a pitchy avenue into the heart of the Black City.
“When you are wanted, you will come. And when you are no longer wanted, you will go—over a road not pleasant to travel! And it does not lead back to the White Fools!” There followed a torrent of vicious invective, then the absence of all extraneous thought, and a silence like that of the living dead in the land of the dead-alive.
Gorg Merlo’s thought came to Don Steele and Peter Northam. “All about us are the Black Brains, and we must expect all kinds of manifestations of their thoughts. In the knowledge given us by the White Brains we can ignore their terrors. Thus far everything has gone according to the Thought King’s plan. From this point I am his mouthpiece—since I am most capable of understanding the portent of his commands. You will follow my instructions—though all three of us are still under his complete control.”
Don and Peter had known that this would happen; they acquiesced immediately. As agreement flashed through their minds, a faint, agonized moan came to their ears. It was followed by an insane croaking, by hideous howls—the mad mockery of a dying demon!
“QUICK, Peter, flash your light!” Gorg Merlo’s thought came jerkily. “They cannot stand it . . . Rapid action now . . . Straight ahead along the avenue!”
A beam of brilliant white leaped from the crystal sphere on the Englishman’s skull cap, cutting the darkness for hundreds of feet. Blinking in the glare, the three dashed ahead, past a squirming abomination that screamed with the pain that the light inflicted. The dull black surface of the thorofare seemed to absorb the sound of their footfalls; in silence they ran between the squat, shadowed dwellings that housed the Black Ones.
In the distance their beam revealed a structure more imposing than the rest—and, if that were possible, it seemed cloaked in a blackness more intense than any they had ever seen. It seemed to emit a tangible foulness—an echo of the musty, age-old iciness that had struck Don as he first leaned over the black pit.
“Stop!” Suddenly, out of the air had come the single, compelling word. A wave of paralysis halted Don, Gorg and Peter in their tracks. The Englishman’s light winked into darkness, useless, burned-out. The three became aware of a mighty intellect probing into their minds, searching out every vagrant thought.
Gritting his teeth, Don hoped fervently that their protector would prove equal to the occasion, for they could do nothing to check this questioning brain.
After long minutes the tension relaxed, and they felt some of the vast power withdrawn. The King of the Whites had deceived the Ruler of the Blacks! That knowledge gave them confidence.
“Approach, honored messengers of the White Ones!” There was a ponderous humor in the command, an evil gloating, as of some ferocious carnivore playing with a mouse.
Obediently yet slowly the Time Exiles moved toward the building of black abomination from which the thought had come. Though they felt no fear, they realized that the White Brain was causing them to cringe, to shrink back in abject cowardice. The amusement of the summoning being increased. Fearfully they passed through an opening like the empty socket of an eye and stood in total darkness before the Black Ruler.
A slow, dim radiance began to dispel the darkness, the cold phosphorescence that seemed to be the normal light of the Black City. At length they were able to see their surroundings—the dull black walls of the building that appeared to project upward at a grotesque, unnatural angle—like walls seen through a prism! But the strangeness of the building was as nothing beside the sight of the monstrous Black Brain on its twisted ebony pedestal.
It was not so much its physical appearance; it differed from the White Brains only in its color. Rather was it the veil of demoniacal power that hung about it like a cloud. That black cloud was almost mat
erial; it conjured up visions of incredible evil, of heartless cruelties, of unleashed crime. In the dome of the Thought King there had been a sense of tremendous power, even greater than this—but where that had been a creative power, benevolent, and kindly, this was destructive, malevolent, devilish.
Don Steele shuddered inwardly; dimly sensed the thought of Peter Northam. “May the Mother of God preserve us!” The cringing fear, that their bodies simulated at the command of the White Brain—was not without actual emotional basis now.
“WELCOME,” the Black Ruler addressed them with ironic joviality. “So you come from him whom you call the Keeper of the Time Sphere—and the accursed Whites!” For an instant his thought reeked with miasmic hate—then it was gone. “You come as tools, as spies! Truly, they are losing their mental powers, to put faith in so hopeless a plan! You three, with only the faintest glimmerings of intelligence, to learn our intentions! I have read your thoughts, bared your every idea, and before I annihilate you, I shall show you what you came to learn! The great destruction will have watchers! You shall see the complete wiping out of all life save our own—the only real intelligence! The time has arrived.”
The dim phosphorescence in the room vanished, leaving a single square section of one of the walls glowing. The light of that section increased in intensity, and suddenly it mirrored the familiar spectacle of the gray Time Sphere in the City of Thought!
It was a scene of unusual activity. All about the massive globe were throngs of men—the Exiles of Time, now; not their phantom counterparts. All were armed with their own weapons, and a current of excitement seemed to be running through them.
“The beasts are preparing for an attack on our little playthings—and afterward, so the White Fools think, on us. They have not intelligence enough to realize it is a trap. I planted the Gray One in their midst! I planned this sham attack. The gathering of the beasts like yourselves, all of those sham battles—they are a part of my plan! Always have we been hampered in our attacks on the White City by that barrier of energy—but now it will be lowered! For the sake of strategy, so the Gray One has told them, the beasts will be loosed from different parts of the wall. When it is opened to permit their passing, our boys will attack on the ice above, and during the excitement we will charge! Watch.”
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