9 Tales Told in the Dark 3 Read online

  The place was a standard trailer, like somebody might live or travel in, but it had been turned into an office of a sort, with papers and books scattered willy-nilly, and other stuff that presumably justified the designation of laboratory. On a built-in counter and an installed desk I saw rock samples, a strewn assortment of picks and other tools, and the cross, the Cross of Xenophor which I had conveyed from a far land to these odd people. Vorchek resumed his seat in a swivel chair before the thing at the desk, without further word began scanning old documents, studying the cross, scribbling in a notebook. Theresa sat by him, I remaining standing. Shortly he commenced to mumble, “Thoracrates did not lie. This is powerful magic, if that be the proper term. This can truly make big things happen. I wonder,” Vorchek continued, speaking louder, “if this can connect with the Apache tales.”

  “The cross hails from Europe,” I pointed out. “It can’t relate to anything here.”

  Vorchek looked at me, said, “That remains to be seen, Mr. Harrow. Europe-- Hungary, I believe?--” I nodded stupidly-- “is merely a way station in this object’s long and mysterious career. I know quite a bit about it, you see, although I have never laid eyes on it until now. It was known in the Rome of the Caesars, referenced by Egyptian scribes of the elder dynasties, reputed to antedate them by half-forgotten eons. If the olden account of Jacob Bleek be accepted, then no less a scholar of antiquity than Maltheus the Wise placed its creation at the hands of the Rhexellite wizards who plumbed the arcane arts millennia before the history we know. This cross has been practically everywhere. Even if this be the first time it has graced our shores, its power holds true where ever it resides.”

  “Thank you for explaining everything,” Theresa said in a deliberately silly voice. She shook her head. “I still don’t get, Professor, what it’s supposed to do.”

  “Open a gate,” Vorchek replied, “which has been shut for almost as long as the memory of man recalls. Here is the simple version of the story. The Chiricahua Apaches, who once dwelt in these mountains, told tales to the first Spanish chroniclers who accompanied the Conquistadors, tales derived from still earlier tribes who lived here until the later migrants destroyed them. They considered these mountains a holy place, a magical land touched by the Gods. They believed that among these peaks existed one of the Gateways of the Gods, those curious, mythical portals through which the celestial Great Ones pass from Their unimaginable domain into our own. From the outer dimensions They could come and go as They pleased, and also could a clever man, one steeped in ancient lore, utilize the passage into the unknown if those Others allowed. There are legends-- often rather grim ones-- of such traffic.

  “However, we are told, via differing oral formulations, that the Gods took offense at evil deeds, or were angered by hubris, or acted through sheer maliciousness, and that they punished horribly the ancient ones who worshipped Them at the Gate, and They sealed the Gate, and They placed at the closed entrance a frightful guardian, an entity of virulently nasty power called into being by the Gods for the sole purpose of defending the opening against any who would henceforth seek to disturb it. So terrible is the creature that it can not be bested by mortal means, nor will it condescend to treat with those who would implore its forbearance. Therefore, since primordial eras the Gate has been shut, likely to remain so, lacking extraordinary measures.”

  “But the cross is that measure,” Theresa cried.

  Vorchek said blandly, “That is currently a working assumption around these parts.”

  “It’s rubbish,” I blurted. “I still don’t catch the connection. You can’t possibly believe all that. I mean, you’re a professor.” I paused significantly. “You really are, aren’t you?”

  He grinned, leaned back in his chair, stroked his beard. “More or less.”

  “Well then, you ought to know better. What difference does the cross make?”

  “Not just any cross, sir, but the Cross of Xenophor.” Vorchek hefted the thing, turned it toward the light. That was a pretty bauble. “Behold,” he said, “a surviving piece of Rhexellite sorcery from days of yore, dating so far back that conventional historians refuse to credit the possibility. My esoteric sources tell me that those ancient wizards fashioned a device, imbued with cosmic power, that in the hands of adepts would communicate with great Xenophor Himself, the Master of all power, the ultimate Power embodied.”

  “Never met the fellow,” I sneered.

  “I hope you never do,” Vorchek replied, “if legend speaks true. No one ever wins any game in which Xenophor is a player.”

  Theresa said, “Thrushwaite obviously disagrees.”

  “The man cavalierly flirts with peril,” said the professor, “if I do not mistake him. His intentions are obscure, but troubling.”

  “Why help him, then?” I asked.

  Vorchek stared at me like I was an idiot child. “I want to know what is going to happen,” he said.

  Thrushwaite stormed in, his old lady in tow, ranting and raving like a lunatic. “Get them out of here,” he said of Theresa and me, “and keep them out. They aren’t part of this. I won’t have you handing out my secrets.”

  Vorchek said patiently, “Before I may tell them all, you must first be more forthcoming with me. We must talk, sir. My labors for you are complete. Mr. Harrow, Miss Delaney, leave us now. Go out and enjoy the view.” Before we left them Thrushwaite curtly informed me that a snow plow would have cleared the road by next morning.

  That suited me fine. I figured that I was trapped with crazies, a category including Vorchek, and all I wanted was escape and the leisure to enjoy my loot. That left a dull day to kill. I didn’t approach the trailer again, partly because Hugo guarded the door after that episode. Maybe I could handle him-- I calculated the odds-- but there was no need. I had a hot girl to talk up, but no matter what I said or did she gave me the cold shoulder. Her biggest problem lay in taking her pal Vorchek too seriously. If that sort impressed her, then I didn’t have a chance.

  The girl and I shared lunch with Madame Larisha, opening cans of spaghetti and heating the goop on an electric skillet. I found Thrushwaite’s liquor stash, broke out a bottle of booze for us. Madame hit it hard. I gathered from her loose comments that she was totally under Thrushwaite’s spell, yet somewhat concerned about his plans, whatever they were. After lunch, to my surprise and distaste, she followed me outdoors as I filled the time with a modest hike about the frigid perimeter of the property. She actually took pains to make herself pleasant to me. I noted with amused disdain that she had applied her pancake makeup even more heavily.

  I wandered through the snowy paths among the hoodoos, always keeping the house on its hill in sight, making no allowances for her earnest attempts to keep up. She managed. The vistas were all impossibly weird, with those hundreds of hideous stone giants frowning and leering down at me from every angle. They got under my skin. They never moved, of course, hadn’t for a million billion years, but I got the feeling they were crowding me, closing in when I wasn’t paying attention. I got to peeking out of the corner of my eye, trying to catch a motion that ceased the moment I observed directly. I knew that was stupid.

  Madame noticed, snickered in her old, batty way, her breath smoking in condensing puffs. “The warriors of the guardian,” she said. “That is what the red men called them. He sleeps under the house, surrounded by his servants, ready to act and to command them against those who would violate the gate. We must, therefore, command him, if we wish to triumph unscathed.”

  “Under the house?” I cried. “That’s a spooky coincidence.”

  “Not at all. The rancher who raised the house a century ago put it there deliberately, to mock what he deemed a vile superstition. They say he came to a bad end. I believe that. Power rests unquietly beneath the mound. That is a curious formation in its own right, an upwelling of granite protruding through lava layers. So say the geologists. It is, in fact, the tomb or vault of the guardian, a fabrication of forces that stride between the spheres. He
waits within, eager to come forth when necessary, or when called.”

  “You wouldn’t want to wake him,” I pointed out. “Just put him out of the way, if I understand you people correctly.”

  She chortled, “If you do.” She sat down abruptly in a pile of snow, floundered, adding with a flutter of her hands, “That’s why we took over the place, cheaply too. It is down there now, ready for us.” I wondered what Thrushwaite would think of having a lush for his assistant. After I got her walking again I excused myself, dashed back to that wretched old house.

  When I arrived Vorchek and Thrushwaite were out in the lot shouting at each other. My host, at least, was engaged in a screaming match; the professor, to be fair, seemed to want to discuss quietly, but the other wouldn’t have it. Thrushwaite yelled, “The key is mine, thanks to you. Only a fool would oppose me openly. I will have it up this dawn, and the gate will belong to me, and the power of the guardian. Then there’s going to be some real changes in this world!” He stormed into the house.

  Theresa appeared from the woodwork, joined Vorchek. So did I. “A falling out among thieves?” I said.

  The girl said acidly to me, “The plow will reach us in another hour. Why don’t you get lost at the earliest opportunity?”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  “Reconsider, sir,” said Vorchek. “The matter gets out of hand, quickly. Mr. Thrushwaite knows what he wants to know. Unfortunately, he is not the man to wisely utilize dangerous knowledge. He is, I discover at last, what I term an ‘aggressive utopian’. He desires to grasp the ancient power dormant here, awaken it, master it for earth-shaking ends. Not since Thoracrates wielded the cross in the time of the Roman Emperor Egabalus has our planet seen such a transparent attempt at magically inspired enslavement. The power is genuine. The consequences of its unrestrained use are unknowable.”

  “I don’t buy it,” I stated, “and it has nothing to do with me. I have what I want.”

  “If he has his way,” Vorchek pressed, “you may not rely on the ground beneath your feet. I implore you, Mr. Harrow, to stay with us another night, until this ugly business be resolved.” About to object, my words were cut short by his hailing of Madame Larisha, who showed up just then. Vorchek demanded, “You must stop him, Madame. He has told me. Had I realized before, I would not have cooperated with this scheme.”

  She stopped short, smirked nastily. “Then it is well that you did not know. Mr. Thrushwaite is a great scholar, bold in mind and learning. He and I shall realize our dreams. Tonight we perform the ceremony of opening and awakening. Come the new day, the appointed tasks commence. That will be a hard time for our enemies.”

  “I am not your enemy--” Vorchek began.

  “But you are, Professor,” cried Thrushwaite from the porch. Hugo stood behind him, a heap of grinning beef. “I can’t allow you to interfere. Once it is done, you will crawl at my feet willingly. Until then, I must limit your activities. Hugo,” he said in the tone of an order, “take them, Vorchek and his girl, take them to the rear storage room and lock them in.” He glared at me. “That one too. Shut them in, keep them in.”

  What Theresa said at that point would have given me the giggles if I hadn’t been so angry. Her spitfire protest didn’t cause a quiver in the gun Hugo aimed at us. He snarled hoarsely, “Inside, all of you.” To me especially he warned, “One move and I blast you.”

  I knew he was dangerous from the start, but I let him catch me flat-footed, with my pistol tucked under my effects in the servant’s room. He had us for sure. I went stiffly, showing my hate, but I went, as did Vorchek and his honey. In a minute we were trapped inside a filthy hole, a kind of indoors shed with a single overhead bulb, rough benches, a collection of junk, a couple of shovels, one locked door and no windows. “It pays to keep alert,” I grumbled.

  “What happens now?” Theresa asked.

  “I did not foresee this development,” Vorchek admitted. “We are in a bad way. Mr. Thrushwaite and Madame Larisha will carry out the experiment with the cross. There is no reason-- thanks to me-- that they should fail. If they do control the power of the guardian and the gate, they can do as they see fit, which is too ghastly to think upon.”

  “We’ll figure a way out,” I said. Minus the mumbo-jumbo, the situation was still little to my liking. I intended to break free, knock some heads together.

  We rotted in there all afternoon. Occasionally Hugo jeered at us through the door, letting us know that his vigil continued. We heard when the snow plow arrived, the mechanical grinding of engine and gears that told me the road was finally clear. Then we heard the blasted thing drive away. Before dusk we heard something more, voices raised in unison, a cracked, warbling singing or chanting, sounding distant but distinct, recited in a foreign tongue. I knew those voices: Thrushwaite and the hag, acting out their nonsense in the trailer that lay near the wall of our dungeon.

  Vorchek said, “The conjuration begins. It is going to happen.” I replied, “Forget it, it’s kid’s stuff,” but hard on my words something did happen. The room shook, a rocking vibration that traveled under us, swept away our balance. Theresa sat down hard, Vorchek grabbed a post, I went into a crouch. The sickening motion swayed us back and forth, as if we were on a ship at sea in gale force winds. Then it stopped, but quickly came more chanting, and a new sound, a noise like excavation underway somewhere below. I heard a rumbling, a sliding, a crashing of rock. “Vorchek said, “It s awake, and burrowing its way out of the mound.”

  “It can’t be,” I hissed.

  Came yet another sound after an apparent pause, this emanating from the direction of the trailer: the sound of metal tearing, thin metal shredded into strips. Muffled gasps, more chanting, at a frenzied rate this time, and then I heard Thrushwaite’s voice loudly barking unfamiliar words, speech in freaky syllables that gave me the creeps. Even more horrible was the voice that answered him.

  I didn’t understand a word of it, yet what I heard frightened me more than it puzzled. Damn me, but that voice didn’t sound human. I began to second guess myself concerning what everybody had been telling me all this time. I turned to Vorchek. He said, “We must escape from here now, or there is no hope.”

  “I’m convinced of that much,” I said in a whisper. Still very quietly, I went on, “Here’s the deal. We need food, see? We haven’t eaten for hours. Kick up a fuss, keep at it until Hugo opens that door. You two stand over there in the corner. I’m asleep, see? I’m sick, I’m out of it. I’m here; don’t look at me, don’t talk to me. Ignore me completely. And you be sure to say when. Got it?”

  “We get it,” Theresa said. Vorchek nodded. We discussed the details until I knew they had it right.

  They both went after the door with their fists, moaning and complaining. Hugo cursed them, he threatened them, finally-- just to spare himself the grief, I’d guess-- he agreed to bring something. I made myself ready, folding myself up on a bench to the left of the door, face to the wall. My fellow prisoners assumed their station way to the right, seated at another bench, as far from me as they could go. We waited.

  During those nerve-wracking moments I heard something else that gave me the willies. That other, that hideous voice spoke again. It hurt my ears. Vorchek muttered to Theresa, “It demands a fee. Payment must be offered and accepted. It will not cooperate without such.” The professor could understand the lingo. That was no time for curiosity, but I burned to ask him what it wanted. I made out, barely, Thrushwaite agreeing-- sounds of muted argument-- then an awful, enduring scream in a scratchy female voice. At first calling up ideas of terror, the scream as it continued gave way to stark indications of monstrous pain. It trailed away into choking gasps, subsided into dreadful silence.

  Footsteps, keys rattling at the door, and I heard the door rasp open. I pressed my face to the bench. I detected the odors of hot food, maybe soup. Hugo’s uncouth voice said, “What’s his problem?” Footsteps, a sharp poke in the back. “Get up, fool.” I moaned, shifted a little. Hugo la
ughed gruffly. He said, with his voice turned away from me, “This will hold you, until it’s all over.”

  Vorchek, very distinctly, said, “When.”

  I came up off the bench like a buzz saw, with a shovel in my hands. Hugo scarcely had time to react. I clipped him up the side of the neck and he went down like a dropped potato sack. A single big bowl of steaming liquid crap went spinning and splattering. His gun fired aimlessly, then bounced to the floor. A fast glance assured me he wasn’t getting up again.

  “Everybody okay?” I cried. They were. Both shot to their feet. Theresa asked plaintively, “What’s been going on out there?” I cut her off, asking authoritatively as I collected Hugo’s weapon, “Can either of you use a pistol?”

  The girl stepped forward. “I’m an ace.”

  “Good. You know my room. Find my gun, and you two follow when you’re able. I’ll take this one.”

  Vorchek strode forward, took me by the arm. “What do you mean to do?”

  “Ensure my safety.” I checked the gun in hand, made certain it was primed.

  Hard on the heels of my reply came the roaring of an engine, followed by the growl of machinery in motion. Vorchek reached for a flashlight and dashed past me into the hall. The girl and I raced after, caught up with him on the porch. I couldn’t believe it. Thrushwaite’s trailer was slowly trundling down the road. I noticed a big gash in the side facing us, where the thin siding had been torn away. It reminded me of what a mountain lion had once done to my tent.

  “Look there,” advised the professor. Something dark lay in the trampled snow by the edge of the house, near where the trailer had stood. We approached it. The thing was out of shape and fragmentary, yet from bits and pieces of clothing and a handful of face I recognized the remnants of Madame Larisha.

  “Vorchek said, “He sacrificed her. Knowing him as I do now, that may be the only reason he included her.”