Beyond the golden stair Read online

  And worriedly: "And if thats so, then maybe oiu: bodies indeed will undergo some sort of change with the passage of time. You'd almost think we'd be turned inside out.''

  Carlotta's bolt-of-light groan indicated that she didn't like the picture of herself with hair and skin on the inside, and entrails and bones on the outside. "Didn't I tell you, Frank, what the flamingo said? We'd turn into animals or worsel"

  Burks asked testily, as if the mystery were Hibbert's fault: "But what, or maybe who, juggled with physics to make this place this way?*'

  Hibbert answered: "If this place can hang invisible and unsuspected over the Everglades—and it certainly does, unless we're all dreaming the same dream— it's proof that there's a lot of natural law that oiur physicists haven't stumbled upon as yet. Still, why not? There's no such thing as exactness in science.

  I

  A century ago, and scientist would have sworn by all that's holy that such things as airplanes, television, and atomic fission were impossible: they violated all known laws of physics. Which means that if the conditions of this place have been achieved artificially, we're in the power of beings who make Einstein look like a Stone Age idiot. But on the other hand, it's perfectly possible that conditions here are just as natural for this place as the conditions of our own world are perfectly natural there."

  Burks said: "The people here have foimd a way of linking this place with our own very different one. They're smart, all rightl" And more to himself than the others: "Maybe we've blundered into something good, something the people down below might like to know about—and pay for, plenty, to have us tell them." He laughed wryly. "If, of course, the cops didn't shoot us first, or we didn't get sent to the nut house for having delusions. No, I guess there's no way back. What a wastel"

  Scarlatti asked, wincing from the geyser of tints he produced: *Tfou mean this place is floating in the sky— like heaven?'*

  Hibbert shrugged. Biu-ks took a match from his pocket and swiped his thumbnail over its head. Rather than the crackle of ignition followed by a flame, the opposite happened—^there was a quick flash of light and then a strong twittering note like the tremolo whirr of an insect's wings.

  Burks glanced at the Fu dogs and the silent figures at the gong. "Can t say I like it, but at least it beats the swamp. It may be as full of minor dangers as the swamps were, but it's a perfect hideout. The law can never find us here. The people who could build a place like this must be at least as advanced as our own.

  and they haven't a thing against us. We can start here with clean slates—and I like that much of it, anyway/*

  Scarlatti gestured ineflFectually. ''But there ain't no such place! We're just dreamingi"

  Carlotta sulked: '*You wouldn't believe me when I told you what the flamingo said. And it said we wasn't going to come to no good up here, so don't talk to me about no clean slates. And ain't you forgot something? Who rubbed out the blue flamingo if it wasn't you? Do you s'pose the owner of this place is going to go for that?"

  She struck out irritatedly at the colors made by her voice. ''Why, maybe the flamingo was his pet, or somethingl" She pointed with a dig of her chin. "And them there lions or tigers—^what're you going to do, stick yoiu* head in their mouths?"

  ^Them?" Scarlatti's snort spiralled in a tiny chromatic whirlpool. "Don't you know statues when you see them?"

  She indicated the six waiting figures. "Well, how about them?"

  The giant answered by striding briskly to the kneeling man and rapping him on the shoulder. Gruffly he said: **Hey, youl"

  The man's face lifted, the ruddy hair streaking back like the twisting flame of a brandished torch, blue sparks shooting from it and snapping faintly as if far away someone had cracked a whip. Scarlatti stood rooted a moment in suiprise, then faltered back.

  The upturned face might have been that of an angel, but certainly no dweller of any paradise as yet discovered. Its mascuKne sharpness of plane was brimful of settled character despite an utter lack of crease and line—^mature though ageless, serene and not a httle terrifying. It was void of all human weakness and

  I

  human blemish. The blue eyes were clear as sapphires set in shell. Each hair of the brows and lashes was faultlessly placed as though weighed, measured, and counted before insertion in the flesh by the tweezers of the master artisan who had designed that face.

  Hibbert thought—a designed face? Then it was the face of an automaton! And why was it so familiar? The realization flashed upon him—it was the face of Burks!

  Well, if physiognomy were reliable and the inner self could be revealed by the study of the surface structure, then this person besides sharing Burks' features must also share his implacable nithlessness— which was certainly no cheerful prospect. Hibbert peeped at Burks, who was standing openmouthed, though his eyes were narrowed and calculating.

  Now the kneeling woman raised her head. Her face was the feminine coimterpart of the man's. Doll faces both—but dolls not only discomfortingly ahve; dolls equipped with powers beyond the most advanced scientists of Hibbert's world.

  Scarlatti felt out blindly for Carlotta. She grasped his hand greedily—at last, he was turning to her for support! The giant muttered:

  "I think we better lam out of here while the going's good!"

  But Burks repeated his previous statement. "It's a perfect hideaway! We play oiu: cards right, and we can stay here for keeps/'

  Carlotta cried: "For keeps? Are you nuts? What's that except being in prison?"

  "It's prison here, or prison if we go back down the stairway," Burks answered. "Take your choice. The odds are better here."

  "Not for me they ain't I'd rather be locked up with

  people like myself, than running around loose with lions and ... and .. /' She could not find the word.

  *Well, I don't know what you call 'em, but I don't want no part of theml" A tremor from Scarlatti, conveyed through his hand gripping hers, diverted her attention.

  The kneeling figures had arisen and now were standing stiffly, their hands still crossed on their breasts. The hooded figures had glided up to the ebon frame and their cloth-concealed hands were pressing now here and now there on the gems. Light flared within each jewel they touched, and at the same time, the golden radiance lost a degree of its intensity. It was dimming, dying away.

  **They're putting out the hghtl" Scarlatti yelled. "They're closing the way out—^penning us in, Hke hogsl"

  He let go of Carlotta's hand and lunged forward. **Hey, lay off, do you hear me?" The blue-robed beings continued on their business with no indication of having heard. 'Why, damn you—"

  He grasped his gun. Before he could shoot, indeed even as he swung up his hand, Burks had leaped at him and was tearing the gun from him.

  "^ou fooll" Burks raged. "Didn't I tell you that they mustn't have anything against us? We want them for friends!"

  Carlotta flared: "What about the flamingo you kiUed?"

  "m find a way to explain it." He thrust the giant's .38 in his belt, and turned to the frame's attendants with a placating smile—but they had not paid, nor were paying, the shghtest attention whatever.

  The last vestige of golden glory vanished. The frame hung empty.

  "It's all your fault!'' Scarlatti screamed, his voice as treble in fury as a child's. "Now we're marooned here, and all on account of you, damn youl"

  Unreasoning as a child, he struck blindly at Burks, sending him reeling, following up the attack in a bull rush so that Burks had no opportunity to snatch at his guns.

  Hibbert heard a growl. Carlotta shoved him aside, a knife glinting in her hand. ''Don't you lift no hand against Frank!" The men reeled as she rushed them, Scarlatti unwittingly protecting Burks by lurching against the woman, thrusting her back.

  "Carlotta!"

  Hibbert caught her from behind and bent back the hand with the knife. The woman hooked a leg around his calves and tripped him. They tumbled to the floor, the knife clanging a flash of hght. Carlotta p
awed for it. Hibbert struck it and sent it spinning over the sUck floor to the base of one of the Fu dogs.

  Carlotta rolled atop Hibbert, whimpering with hatred, a thread of spittle swinging from her chin. All her pent-up jealousy of him had found outlet at last. Try as Hibbert might, he could not wrest himself from her hold—^he had all he could do just to keep her nails from raking his eyes.

  Meanwhile, Scarlatti had aimed a wild swing which would have hurled Burks off his feet had the fist made contact But Burks easily avoided it and brought his foot up in a vicious kick. Scarlatti folded, groaning, and sank to the floor.

  The blue-robed figures stood patiently in the background in their old order and in nowise pertiu-bed.

  Carlotta's hands clenched on Hibbert's throat, strangling him, but by then Burks was upon her. He

  cKpped her neatly on the jaw. She sat back, her face long with stunned surprise.

  The giant was gathering himself for another leap. Burks stepped smartly away from anyone's reach. But now he held his guns ready, as cool as though he had been standing by while the others had fought.

  "One move from any danmed one of you, and I plug youl We can t get away, and instead of bickering, we ought to be casing the place to find out what's ahead of us. We re all in this together, so we might at least stick together. No more rough stuflF, get me?"

  He looked to them singly for answer. There was a grudging acquiescence in the sullen faces of the giant and his woman. Burks nudged his gun toward Hibbert, who nodded.

  ""But let me tell you something,'* Carlotta said, smoothing her disordered hair. "If anything harms Frank up here, just because you had to keep him here—^well, if the boss of this joint don't give it to you, I will, so help mel"

  Her eyes, brooming the floor in quest of her lost knife, located the blade at the Fu dog's feet. She almost started for it, but after a hasty peep at the towering sentinel above it, squirmed and changed her mind.

  Then a vast voice boomed forth from all sides at once, blaring as if Vayu, the god of all the winds, were sounding a trumpet cast from all the world's brass.

  "Welcomel And—warning! Newcomers to Khoire, who have entered unpossessed of the necessary Sacred Sign, pray to your gods—but never to us—to keep both your acts and your motives unsulliedl For here are no secrets! Here thought and matter are one. Here, what you are within your hearts holds sway over whatever you may pretend to be!"

  No seething colors accompanied the voice, which perhaps signified that one heard it only in the mind Was that why it seemed so familiar—like the voice of the seething shadow in Hibbert's dream? He trembled: it was that very voice!

  "Now this is Khoire's law; all who come here must be detained, not as prisoners but as honored guests, if they will so have it, until each receives his due. Some have called it reward, others punishment, but know that for all it has been—justice! Thus it must be, that those to whom you return below—for you have not the Sign and cannot settle here—may learn from your example what awaits the invaders of Khoire. We make no threat: all danger here lies within yourselves. Therefore, take warning! Abjure all evil whether in thought or deed, in this realm where both are as one! Such as truly you are, so shall you become!"

  Carlotta was palpably frightened, but she protested staunchly: 'It don't none of it make sense!"

  Burks frowned. "So you hear it, too! But it can't be a real voice—there's no color!"

  The hooded figures and the flame-haired man and woman swept forward, floating on their mirrored images rather than walking, as if it were more effort to touch feet to the floor than to lift them from it. Close to the outsiders, they paused, and one of the cowled figures slowly pointed toward the prodigious brazen portals, where from each side and from forty feet above, the eyes of the dog-sentinel statues blazed down. The white-fanged jaws were grinning evilly, which came as a shock to Hibbert—hadn't their mouths been closed when first he had noticed them? Well, doubtless he hadn't really been certain one way or another. Whatever other incredible facts about this

  place he might have to swallow, he couldn't accept that these towering monsters might really be ahve.

  The ponderous brass leaves slid back into the walls, light streaking from them in flights of rainbow javelins—^the sound, Hibbert supposed, of their creaking. Beyond lay stark blackness.

  "That's iti" Carlotta cried. "The shadow I dreamed about that hasn t any bottom! The voice we just heard —that was the shadow's voicel''

  The threshold indeed might pitch off into measureless depths, but this wasn't the blackness of Hibbert's dream, pulsing with a life of its own. Burks didn't seem to think so either. He nodded with emphatic heartiness at the pointing form and started toward the door with every evidence of trust. Hibbert went along with him simply because there was nothing better to do, but Scarlatti and the woman hung back. The giant jetted fire:

  "I ain't goingi" And as every eye swung to him: "I ain't—not imless I know first what's under them there hoodsl I got a right to knowl"

  The blue-clad shape which had pointed, and indeed was still pointing, raised its arm higher and flexed it. The sleeve-hidden hand gripped the drapery hiding the face and began to lift it.

  Then Carlotta shrieked and hid her face against Scarlatti's shoulder. The giant's knees buckled; his face went gray. Hibbert unabashedly clutched Burks, who stopped tense, mouth open in amazement.

  For the blue-robe's arm had not bent at the elbow, but snakily all along its length, and as it had curled, it had tightened and drawn back the sleeve. Not five but a dozen fingers had shpped into view—^white fleshed and translucent, pebbled with glistening gelatinous lumps, and boneless—^not fingers at all but tentaclesl

  1

  ^'Nol" Scarlatti bawled. "No morel*'

  The hand did not finish lifting the cowl from who knew what terror of a visage, but fell lax, concealed once again by the sleeve. Scarlatti and Carlotta broke into a run over to Burks and Hibbert.

  "They ain't people I They're worms I I don't want nothing to do with no king-size worms!"

  Burks asked: "If they behave like people, what's the difference? I'd rather be chummy with peaceful snakes than with some of the humans I've knownl What's the matter, Frank, turning chicken again?"

  He moved onward through the archway, Hibbert beside him. But while he carried himself with a show of confidence, Hibbert noticed that he sKd his feet cautiously before him, testing every step he took. There was nothing above, below or before them but the infinite blackness.

  ^'Chicken, helll'' Scarlatti snarled, and came along. As they passed the Fu dogs, Carlotta scinried aside and snatched up her knife.

  And now they had left the pearl-walled chamber.

  On all sides, the blackness closed in upon them.

  Chapter Six

  The Crystal Mask

  TTiey walked along what was probably a continuation of the mirror, the sound of their footfalls transmuted into light so that they kicked up splashes of color; what httle illumination there was thus came from below. There were no landmarks to measm-e the distances which they covered.

  Curious gusts of wind smote them from haphazard sources, as though in the darkness they passed doors open to stormy weather. They were taken around an invisible comer, for though they seemed to be walking straight forward there was a queer weaving sensation, a backing up and shifting aside which Hibbert recognized by the gravitational drag on his body and the rush of air in his ears. He gave but passing heed to this locomotive eccentricity, entirely unaware of its full and fateful significance.

  In the middle of this motion, he glimpsed a string of iridescent bubbles hanging slantwise in the air like a necklace, thought them near, and reached for them —^but they were far and small as beads only because diminished by distance. Their highhghts were oddly human in shape, as though people were riding within them. Abruptly as they had appeared, they winked

  out of sight, and with them the soprano murmur which they had made.

  He walked along still straight
ahead, but now they were ascending steeply. It was another of those unwonted conflicts between motion and direction whose unmense importance he did not comprehend. As though they had rounded a bend, a line of emerald light flashed out, widening into a door.

  They crossed the threshold of a room which, though large, was certainly no larger than a small auditorium or ballroom; whose ceiling, though high, was not lost as that of the frame's chamber in a pinpoint of perspective. Its walls were green as if built from blocks of emerald and illumined from behind.

  Directly ahead was either a large roimd mirror of black glass or a window opening upon gloom such as they had just traversed. Before it was a bench of glowering red stone cushioned with blue. On either side of it were large cubes of the same smoldering hued stone; scattered before them and the bench were a number of blue pillows, soft and deep.

  On the bench, a man awaited them. Hibbert hardly had to look at him to recognize him, and then it was only a filling-in of half-forgotten details. This was the old man of his dream, and judging from Carlotta's gasp and Burks* sudden rigidity, their dreams as well.

  He was small, incredibly ancient, his age not revealed in the unUned and youthfully pink face but in the tired droop of his pose which comes with the years, and in his slanting, almost feline eyes, limpid with the aloof, age-old wisdom that shines in the steady gaze of a cat. He looked forth with just such surety of knowledge, such encompassing understanding—^and too, such pity—that the eyes alone stamped their owner with an antiquity beyond belief.