Mrs. Rahlo's Closet and Other Mad Tales Page 6

  “It’s going to spring!”

  “Get the box into the water. The bands are melting! Heave it over the wall! There!”

  It hit with a splash and a hiss as of a thousand snakes. The vision overhead disappeared.

  The case glowed as it sank, lighting its descent with a gleaming green. Then abruptly it began to rise. The men leaped back to run high up the road as hissing hills of steam boiled from the water.

  “We have outraged the balance of elements!” Rosen shouted in triumph. “Fire cannot burn water. Watch!”

  Steam billowed up in ever-changing shapes, eerie and ectoplasmic, to meet overhead in a canopy of cloud. Music, clangorous and plangent, welled up in wordless, nonhuman song that sent the senses throbbing to an ancient, longing sadness. For a moment, within the cloud canopy a face peered down, weirdly beautiful, its eyes eloquent of all the waters that ever were.

  “The undine!” whispered Rosen with awe.

  A fountain of fire spouted suddenly from the waters below like an ignited oil well, burning exultantly, forming ghostly hills of vapor. The water hissed away in a volley of steam.

  The dolorous song rose an octave. The seething waters piled into a single liquid column, steadily rising till it seemed that gravity alone would send it crashing to drown everything below. Still it rose, and more, overtopping the fountain of fire, then moved quickly to engulf it.

  For a moment all was quiet. The fire blazed through the green water like the sun inside an emerald. Then, with a thunderous crack, the shaft of flame erupted skyward, as the wave cascaded down to shatter in a burst of flying spray.

  “It has gone back,” Shanks heard someone say while the stream of fire shrank to a spark above and vanished in the upper atmosphere. Rain poured down. The sky held only clouds.

  At the top of the reservoir a dazed Rosen tugged at his friend’s passive arm. “Come,” he said. “It is a long walk home.”

  The Tower in the Jungle

  E ven as a child did I first go alone to the mummies. The Old One sent me to retrieve his golden scroll, left below in the catacombs. Never had I been without his strong presence to guide me. They frightened me, crouching in their cold tunnels. Dust lay everywhere, pieces of them. I remember a whim I had to extinguish the torches rather than look upon those grinning human fragments. Instead, I thought to sing an ancient song the Old One had taught me about a foolish barber and his drunken slave. This made me laugh so that I tarried long, dallying to hear my voice echo along the corridors. I emerged only reluctantly to the light, scroll in hand. Thus perished my dread of mummies.

  From my earliest awakening the mummies shadowed all. Every freshly opened catacomb yielded mummies. Mummies by the thousand infested the ancient, oppressive ruins, which haunted the rotting jungle like an insidious spell. Great heaps of megalithic blocks those ruins were, dazzlingly white, carven with savage design. Their unstained whiteness extruded from the persistent foliage like newly stripped bones.

  The Old One and I lived in a solitary tower, the only ancient edifice left standing. About us swept the ocean of jungle, vast beyond my computation, constantly growing, shifting, burying what remained of the ruined city. Stifling and copious, the jungle cast its waves, save in the clearings, where the mammoth ruins glowed by moonlight. By moonlight, too, the jungle exuded a pungent perfume, disturbingly like the spices the ancients used to preserve their dead.

  And there were the apes who inhabited the ruins and nearby caves. Sometimes by brightest moonlight, when the night fragrance grew strongest, would I ascend to the stone casement midway up the tower and peer down upon the apes swarming over the blinding stones like maggots on bad meat.

  And there was the Old One, forever adrift among his alembics, retorts, and crucibles, or conning the script on a worm-eaten parchment while he took meticulous notes on his golden scroll. Ever in pursuit of the Grand Experiment, ever seeking the rectified red powder to force the dead to whisper their secrets.

  The Old One was the only living human my boyhood knew. From earliest infancy had I looked upon his distended orbicular eyes and leathern skin with an awe born of the awful spaces his wizard’s mind had penetrated. He had come to the jungle ages ago from the iron-walled city that stood somewhere near Ur. He it was who taught me to chant and to read the ancient tongues, though rarely did he speak to me in those latter days, withdrawing himself instead to the very top of the tower to ponder, alone, in the alchemical chamber.

  Now this room was wonderful to behold, hung on three sides with a vast tapestry in gold and vermilion depicting a league of hunters pursuing some nameless monstrosity across a background of hurling planets. Lacquered tables bearing wonderful instruments straddled the stone flooring. One device stood there of polished wood, a nest of concentric hemispheres couched one inside another, the whole beautifully emblazoned with zodiacal signs of amethyst and ruby.

  Most beautiful of all was the multiplicity of glass bowls, domes, balls, tubes, and cylinders forming a network that thrummed with bubbling liquids of the most exquisite reds, greens, and ambers. Thus was the alchemical chamber perpetually awash with color.

  Weary of his experiments, the Old One sometimes retired to a stone throne set within a shallow recess at one end of this room. Across the entrance hung tawny curtains of tiger’s skin; these he drew together, then sat and pondered ways to glean the Secret.

  For a certain Secret was known to the ancient race whose mummies glutted the tombs below the jungle. But this secret the ancients had neither incised in stone nor limned on parchment, for it was a terrible secret, a secret of infinite power, learned just before the race perished and known only to the highest sorcerers among them—the wizard priests who whispered it in an oblate room beneath the most ancient of their temples. I spent my days opening tombs, seeking their black-robed, turbaned mummies, while aloft amidst alchemical apparatuses or on his stone throne behind tiger-skin curtains, the Old One brooded on a formula to make them speak.

  Always he pursued the Grand Experiment, the recipe for the rectified red powder that would unlock the dusty tongues of the mummy wizards, so that whichever knew the great secret could whisper to him the terrible words. So time passed as the Old One came ever closer to perfecting his powder.

  I have told you of the apes. One I feared above the others, a large old bull more erect than its fellows and clearly the leader of the other apes. It stood always in the forefront, its red eyes and murderous fangs perpetually twisted into a mask of malignant ferocity. On moon-haunted nights it gave the impression of a hideously deformed maniac. Yet it was the mane—that odious shock that crowned its misshapen cranium—that made the creature abhorrent to me, a profusion of shaggy wires distending—almost twitching with its own life. This being I called Nazzla, after the Atlantean word for maniacal horror.

  Many times did I brave the wet, weary heat of the jungle, ever seeking new catacombs among the fallen stones, in quest of the mummies of ancient sorcerers, distinct, as I have said, in black robes and turbans. So far I had gathered only thirteen, and the Old One would have me harvest all I could, against the time that he should perfect the rectified red powder to make them speak. For he reasoned that among the turbaned dead, surely one must know the secret of infinite power.

  These sorcerers’ mummies we laid on trestles in a long room on the ground floor—a sumptuous room, full of lacquered cabinets loaded with canopic jars overflowing with fragrant spices. Amid these aromatic surroundings the sorcerers’ mummies lay in mute and awful dignity, carefully preserved against the day that the Great Work should be perfected. Then, one by one, would each black-robed, turbaned mummy be summoned forth to yield the secret, if it knew. The lesser mummies, abundant in every catacomb and cellar, we used for experiments at the top of the tower, though I was seldom privy to these experiments.

  So I spent my boyhood harvesting mummies in the catacombs beneath the jungle. The apes never offended me unless I happened to be carrying a mummy. Then they screamed. They followed the mummy an
d me, always at a distance, shrieking until I had borne the mummy inside the tower.

  And this was the labor of my childhood and early youth.

  But there came a time of great change. It happened in this wise. Obeying instructions, I ascended late one afternoon into the tower room. The crystal tubes and cylinders bubbled their red-, green-, and amber-colored liquids as I tiptoed to the curtained alcove.

  “Master,” I called. “It is sunset.”

  There was no answer.

  “Master.”

  Then I heard a sharp intake of breath as the Old One’s face appeared between the tiger-skin curtains.

  “Moisture from the thag beetle,” he said.

  I raced down the stairs and out into the jungle. Not much sand had sifted to the bottom of the Old One’s great hourglass when I returned with a pouchful of clicking, scraping insects.

  Selecting three of the largest, the Old One, with thumb and forefinger, deftly squeezed out their moisture over a bowl of beaten copper, nearly brimming with seething white ichor. He stirred the mixture till it turned pink, then dipped a cloth into the bowl and began to anoint a mummy on a nearby slab. No sooner had the mixture met the mummy’s skin, than the mummy began to change color. The deep brown faded to a light tan, then bleached to a deathly white. Tiny ripples played about its wizened carcass. It raised its head to peer at us with the ghost of eyes.

  “Rise up,” the Old One commanded in a tongue of magical lore.

  It left its slab and went the way pointed by the Old One’s finger.

  “Yon stone door,” the Old One thundered, “the trap to the lower chamber—lift it.”

  The mummy knelt for the iron ring set in the stone floor. It wrenched the stone free, then broke apart. For some minutes after, the pieces continued to writhe.

  “Master!” I cried. “You made it move; soon you will make them speak; you will learn the great secret!”

  “Pah,” he said. “It was too fragile.” He withdrew behind the tiger-skin curtains.

  Something screamed in the jungle, a long, loud ape scream. Instantly echoed an uproar. I held my ears as I peered through the casement. The jungle below seethed with apes, their heads tilted to rage at us in the tower as they howled and screamed and pounded their chests. Behind me I could hear the soft whisper of the mummy’s fragments twitching on the stone floor. Below, like a captain disposing his troops, one ape roared the loudest of all. I did not have to see the long cranial hairs to know that it was Nazzla.

  • • •

  Now that the Old One had learned to make the mummies walk, it amused him to animate many. About the tower they wandered or out into the jungle. Occasionally a mummy broke and left its fragments twitching.

  Seldom quiet now, the apes prowled ever nearer to our tower, yet gave way whenever I escorted a mummy through the jungle. Always the apes kept their distance—just out of sight—but the violent screams died not until the mummy and I were far away.

  The second momentous event happened in this wise. The Old One sent me down one morning to gather some of the giant scorpions infesting a certain stagnant pool. This I did and brought back many plump ones with scarlet stingers.

  Hours later he sent a mummy down the tower steps. As I sat conning a curiously runed parchment, the mummy laid its thin hand on my shoulder and beckoned me to follow to the tower room, where the master awaited.

  Before I could speak, the master pointed to a brown and twisted mummy propped against a wall.

  “Behold yon mummy,” he whispered.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “I can make it scream.”

  In a moment he produced a carven box of cinnabar and prised off its lid. Out sprang one of the larger scorpions. Catching it in a pair of tongs, the Old One briefly immersed it in the pink mixture within the bowl of beaten copper. Instantly the liquid turned a bright red. Then he released the insect. It leaped across the floor, crawled up the mummy’s body, and perched upon the face. The master spoke a word of power. The mummy gaped open its jaws. With a flurry of multijointed legs, the insect crawled inside the mummy’s mouth. There was a sharp crunch as the mummy’s teeth broke the hard shell; a scarlet ichor shot from the desiccated jaws.

  At that moment the mummy opened its ghost eyes and screamed. Again and again, shrilly, as though the very night were affrighted with horror. The jaws closed. But the screams persisted, echoed from a hundred throats in the jungle. The apes. Their screams rent the air till the glass balls shook on the tables. Then the night went quiet.

  Its jaws shut tight upon the dying insect, the mummy stood motionless against the wall. The mummy’s skin was no longer brown; the mummy glared a deadly white.

  “Master,” I cried. “You made the mummy scream. You made the mummy scream. Soon they will all speak and whisper secrets!”

  “Pah,” he spat. “Not with such a bug. It was only a game.” Folding his silken robe about him, he retired behind the tiger-skin curtains.

  Another effect of the Old One’s experiments was the way the mummies attached themselves to me. Thus I found myself, on an oppressively hot and overcast day, entering the jungle to collect a certain variety of bloodworm. Vapor rose in thick, wet clouds from every tree, fern, and creeper. As I penetrated deeper, the way grew darker till I felt my way through an opaque wall of hot gloom. The steam cushioned every sound. The silence overwhelmed. Suddenly a titanic network of light tore the sky apart, followed by an earsplitting explosion of thunder. Then the steam closed in once more, and the world contracted to opaque silence.

  I had made my way so far when something crossed my path. I started, then realized it was only a mummy. Glad of the company, I smiled a greeting, and with the mummy tramped farther into the jungle. I could feel the electricity gathering in the air; sparks fell from the mummy’s face and fingers. Another shock of thunder shook the world to its foundations. I covered my eyes against the burning flash of lightning. When I looked up again, I found I had picked up another mummy.

  By and by it began to rain, slowly at first, then a persistent patter that gradually increased to a flood. A dreadful gash of lightning exploded overhead, and I saw that I had picked up more mummies.

  The rain became a deadly downpour of stinging, wounding arrows, vicious and overwhelming. The hissing was deafening, surpassed in volume only by those terrific thunderclaps that seemed to flatten the jungle. There was neither safety nor shelter—only rain and affliction and the sense of drowning.

  Then abruptly the rain ceased. One moment the world drowned; the next moment the sky was dry. The steam floated away. All about me I heard the pat-pat-pat as the jungle dripped from every leaf. It was good to be free from the deadly drops that struck the head like a hammer. I stood up to find myself surrounded by mummies. I laughed happily. Now that the storm had ceased, I could resume my task of gathering worms for my master.

  Thunder stamped the earth once more with a concussion that left my ears ringing. The storm had not passed. This was merely a lull. The steam rose, twisting to impenetrable wraiths. The mummies dripped electric sparks.

  Directly ahead a figure loomed. Another mummy, I thought. But it was not a mummy. Massively it moved through the mist, fire sparking from every point. Its head—misshapen in some way—blazed, too, as the creature loped toward me through the oppressive gloom. A big bolt of lightning crackled. The figure raised its face to scream at the booming sky. It was Nazzla.

  The apes attacked from every bush and tree, ripping the mummies’ parchment skin with fierce, murderous fangs. Thunder boomed as a mountain of water burst like a tidal wave. I raced through the flood even as the hate screams shrilled with the roaring rain.

  I ran as I had never run before. Eventually I reached the tower. Pausing only to fill my lungs, I fled up the stone steps into the great room bubbling with colored lights. Not finding the master, I turned to the recess covered by the tiger-skin curtains.

  “Master,” I cried. “The apes have broken my mummies.”

  The master’s he
ad appeared between the parted curtains.

  “I had not thought of the apes,” he said, and closed the curtains.

  When the dawn’s feeblest rays barely pierced the gloom of my chamber, I looked up from my bed to see a mummy standing over me. There was movement about its mouth, and I saw it was chewing a scorpion. With a sharp snap it crushed the shell, then opened its mouth, and said, “Come” in a sepulchral voice. So I sleepily followed the mummy aloft to the room of alchemy.

  Wearing a plain brown robe, the Old One sat writing figures on his golden scroll. I waited respectfully. When he was finished he looked up.

  “I dreamed of a tomb beneath a great boulder shaped like an ape’s head. Enter the tomb and bring me what grows on its walls.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “To reach the tomb begin now and walk with the wind until sundown. The failing rays will light the ape’s head.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Tarry not; and take no mummies, lest the apes molest thee.”

  Then did I notice a coil of rope and some copper tackle upon a stone bench.

  “Master,” I said. “You have a rope and implements.”

  The Old One wrapped his brown cloak tightly around himself.

  “I, too, go into the jungle,” he said. “But a different way.”

  There was no path leading to the tomb of the master’s dream. I wielded a great knife to slash through coils of spiny creepers barring my way. Twice did venomous serpents pass close to my sandals. Vermin drove sharp needles into my legs as I plodded through sucking mud. Still I followed the wind, never doubting the wisdom of my master’s dream.

  Throughout the daylight hours I burrowed through dripping foliage. I stood up at last in a clearing just as the dying sun painted the jungle blood-red. My heart nearly leaped from my rib cage. Waiting for me was Nazzla.

  But, no, it was the boulder, the white ape-headed boulder the master sent me to find. A mass of vegetation topped its summit and, in that awful and uncertain light, resembled nothing so much as a mane of wiry hair. As the dying sun withdrew its fires, the head dimmed cold and white. The foliage at its summit fluttered with an invisible wind against the darkening sky. I found the entrance to the tomb, the gaping hole I had mistaken for the mouth of the colossal head, an upright tunnel ending abruptly in a great iron door encrusted with verdigris.