Sinister Paradise Read online

taken from Parker.

  "Beel! Beel!" Mercedes was jerking at Parker's leg. "What is 'appening?"

  "Something," Parker answered. "I don't know what." There was fear inhim. He could feel it in his heart, sense it in his bones, taste in hismouth. He rose above it.

  The sound swept through the air. It came out over the trees above them.On the ground, the kneelers moaned in response.

  The harping sound leaped up, became a melody of weird notes filling thenight air. Mingled with the eerie music were the moans from theprostrate humans.

  Looking upward, Parker caught a glimpse of something moving through thesky. It blotted out the light of the stars and it looked a lot like abird but like no bird he had ever seen before. It was too big to be anybird that had ever flown through Earth's air, but yet it flew. As itflew, it made the sound of a gigantic harp.

  * * * * *

  The bird passed over the village, moving along the cliff. As it slidinto the distance, the harp music faded slowly away, became again thesound of a sleepy bird.

  Around the village, the prostrate humans moaned, stirred, began to rise.

  "What the hell was that thing?" Parker gasped.

  "The damned fools call it the Jezbro!" Retch snarled. "The yellowcowards are afraid of it. I don't know what it is."

  Parker was silent. To him, Retch sounded like a man scared right down tothe soles of his shoes but desperately trying to pretend he wasn't.

  "It was a warning sent by them," Peg-leg whispered, gesturing up towardthe cliff in the darkness. "A warning to us to mend our ways."

  "It was no such thing!" Retch shouted.

  Peg-leg did not argue. He got slowly and silently to his feet. The groupwas silent, perturbed, and afraid. Even Gotch was silent. Whatever hadpassed overhead, had cast a pall of fear over them.

  "You bilious, yellow-livered cowards!" Retch raged at them.

  They made no response. The fear the Jezbro had inspired in them seemedto have made even his anger unimportant.

  "But what is the Jezbro?" Parker questioned again. "I mean--"

  "I told you it's nothing and that's enough of an answer. Hey!" The gunsthat Retch held came up sharply as another figure came soundlessly outof the forest and moved toward them. An old, bent, wrinkled Indian whohobbled along with the aid of a staff.

  "Oh, it's you, Pedro!" Retch said. "What the hell do you want?"

  For all the sign he gave, the Indian, Pedro, did not hear Retch'squestion. He hobbled straight to Parker.

  "_En la manana Padre Rozeno huit nole el hombre e la mujer._ FatherRozeno will see the man and the woman in the morning." The voice wasbroken with age.

  "I don't get it," Parker said. The Indian was already turning. He haddelivered his message, his errand was finished.

  "That damned Rozeno is not going to see anybody in the morning!" Retchyelled.

  The Indian staffed his way into the forest. He still seemed not to hearRetch.

  "Tell him they won't be there!" Retch screamed.

  Pedro's back went out of the firelight as he moved into the trees.

  Retch seemed almost to go mad. His face turned purple. Both guns came tofocus on the spot where the Indian had disappeared.

  "Why shoot him?" Parker said. "He was just a messenger."

  "Damn it!" Slowly, while the group watched impassively, Retch gothimself under control. Suddenly he began to laugh. Strangely hislaughter in this moment was more horrible than his anger had been.

  "He sent for you, and the woman. All right, he'll get you. But I'll gowith you. If he wants you, I'll take you to him." Again the laughtersounded.

  "Who is Rozeno?" Parker asked.

  "He is, or he was once, a Spanish priest. He and Ulnar think they rulethis island. They are the two men we saw watching us from the shore.You'll see them in the morning."

  That was the last word Retch said on the subject. He took Gotch apart,to talk to him. Peg-leg found food for Parker, but refused to talk. "Na,na, my son, when the Jezbro passes over us as a great bird--when it goesthrough the woods at night as a great howling beast--we do not talkabout it."

  Parker pressed for more information, but the old man turned stubbornlysilent. Later he found Parker a place to sleep in his own hut. Parkerhad the impression that, all during the night Peg-leg, sat on guard atthe entrance.

  But nothing came in the night. In the morning Retch was there, saying,with grim bitterness, that now it was time to go up the cliff to seeRozeno and Ulnar. Mercedes, looking wan and bedraggled, with hate in herhot black eyes, was with him. So was Gotch. Gotch did not look in theleast happy.

  "What's biting you?" Parker said to Retch.

  "Nothing."

  "I get the impression something around here is just about scaring thepants off of you."

  "You're crazy!" Retch's voice was a snarl. "I'm not afraid of anythingaround here--you--or anybody else." As he spoke, the man's face was amask and his eyes were wild.

  "Sure, okay, I get it," the pilot answered.

  They moved along the cliff until they came to a ledge that slopedupward.

  "We go up here," Gotch grunted.

  * * * * *

  As they went upward, they rose above the tops of the trees. Sparklingthinly in the morning sunlight, the sea came into sight. Circling theshoreline at a distance of about a mile, a curtain of mist was visible.It seemed to close in above them too, shielding the island like a thin,shining dome.

  "That's a strange fog," Parker said.

  "It's not a fog," Retch answered. "I don't know exactly what it is, butwhen it is there, the island is invisible. If you are on the other sideof it, you see nothing at all."

  "Um," Parker said. They continued upward. The ledge twisted, curved,went around the rising cliff. Slowly Parker became aware that the risingledge was not a natural formation, it was a pathway cut into the face ofthe cliff.

  At the realization, the pilot felt a touch of awe rise in him. Thisledge was old. It must have been cut into this cliff long beforeColumbus had sailed westward.

  Off in the distance beyond the curtain of mist was the coast ofCalifornia, the beaches bright with bathers, the cities wrapped in warmsunshine, the roads alive with traffic. Over there in the distance wereorange groves and millions of people.

  Here on this island, behind this mist, unknown to millions of people soclose to it, was something that did not belong in the 20th century, orin any other century Parker could imagine.

  His back felt cold. In him, somewhere, was gnawing anger. This island,this place, was real. Back in his past a horrible wrong had been done, awrong that now could never be corrected. He put the thought out of hismind.

  The ledge turned into the cliff and became a tunnel that had been carvedinto solid stone. The walls of the tunnel were as smooth as polishedmarble. What tools could men have used in the old days to cut a tunnelwith walls so smooth that they looked like glass? Modern equipment couldnot have done the job so well.

  Niches in the wall of the tunnel admitted light and gave them glimpsesof the island.

  "Where the hell will we find--Oh, Pedro!" Retch spoke. The Indianmessenger of the night before had appeared in the tunnel. He beckoned tothem. They followed him into a large room cut out of solid stone.

  It was one of the cleanest and most simply furnished rooms Parker hadever seen. It contained hand-made chairs along the wall and a big table,also hand-made. Light from a wall slit flowed into the room.

  Seated behind the table, illumined by the light flowing in from the wallslit behind them, were Rozeno and Ulnar. Rozeno had a thin nose, thenarrow face of the typical high bred Spaniard. Ulnar was short andsquat, his cheeks were flat, his nose hooked. Both had black eyes thatwere utterly fathomless.

  The faces were old, wrinkled, and kind. Parker took one look at thispriest, and instantly liked him. As he glanced at Rozeno, saw thekindness on that face, he also saw, out of the corners of his eyes,Retch drawing a gun.

  In that split sec
ond he knew why Retch had laughed so violently thenight before, when Retch had said that he would go with them to seeRozeno and Ulnar.

  Retch intended to kill both of them; to shoot them as they sat there atthat table, unarmed and defenseless; shoot them like dogs!

  The gun was already in Retch's hand. Parker's fist went out, up,connected with Retch's jaw, a blow that had all the pilot's strengthbehind it.

  Retch's head was twisted to one side. He reeled away from Parker's blow.The snarl that came from his lips was the snarl of a wild animal. Metalthudded as the gun hit the floor. The room echoed with sound--Mercedesscreaming. Parker followed Retch, followed him as a dog follows a rat.He caught a wild man.

  Retch stumbled against the wall,