Terrors (6 page)

“I dare not move,” the woman said. “This throne is connected to an explosive device planted beneath the floor. They used that means to keep me from struggling during their horrid ceremonies. They intended to take me with them when they were finished. I’m sure
they would have set the device to explode once they were gone. They don’t care about this building, they don’t care about the world of humankind at all. The only reason they didn’t set it off is that you surprised them and frightened them away. But if I try to leave the building will be destroyed and you and I will both be killed.”

The Wizard nodded his understanding. “Very well,” he instructed
the woman. “Don’t move.”

She breathed a single syllable of assent.

The Wizard climbed the remaining steps to the dais, circling
the throne in search of a tell-tale connection that ran to the explosives beneath the aged structure. With an exclamation he dropped to his knees, tracing with sensitive fingertips a slim, sinuous wire that ran from the base of the throne to a tiny opening in the floor
behind the dais.

A new tool appeared in his hand and he worked carefully over the wire until the connection was safely removed. He rose to his feet and returned to his position confronting the woman. “I’ve taken care of that as best I could, but those creatures are devilishly clever. By disconnecting the primary fuse I was forced to set a secondary timer in motion. I have no way of telling how
long it is set to run. My guess would be five minutes at most. We had best get out of here and put as much distance as possible between ourselves and this place, as quickly as we can.”

With his enemies at least temporarily vanquished and the immediate danger of explosion removed, the Wizard’s manner changed dramatically. The taciturn, commanding man of action was replaced by a gentler presence,
one nonetheless commanding, but kindly and sympathetic.

“Will you tell me your name?” he asked.

The woman said, “I am Isabella Alejandra Orquidia Paloma del Sueño y Montalvo,
Señor
. I thank you for rescuing me from those—” she hesitated, then concluded, “—from those creatures.”

“Isabella del Sueño, the star of
Ride Vaquero
,” the Wizard responded.

“That is I, yes.”

“You were reported missing
from your Hollywood home and from the studio,
Señorita.”

She smiled at the courtesy. “I was lured to a supposed charitable event for the relief of suffering in my homeland. I felt it my duty to attend and offer my support. When I arrived I was seized and drugged. I awakened here. I do not even know where I am,
Señor
. I am indebted to you for driving those monsters away and freeing me from them,
but I need to learn more of what happened. And then, of course, to return to the studio. They will have halted production of my new film,
The Caballero from Monterrey
.”

The Wizard nodded. “Of course. But first we must make sure your needs are met. I’ll bring you to my headquarters. My assistant Nzambi will care for you. Do you require medical attention?”

“No.” Isabella del Sueño pressed her
hands to her temples. “My mind is clear now. For a while it was terrible, while I was drugged I
seemed trapped in a nightmare from which there was no escape. But I feel now that I am myself once again.”

The Wizard led her to the doorway of the aged building, onto the loading dock. He bent to his waist to tap a series of commands into a tiny panel concealed there. In the sky above the building
a door opened on nothingness. An automatic reel began to revolve above them, and a ladder of metallic links gradually unwound and descended.

It halted not far above the wooden dock.

The Wizard helped Isabella del Sueño to place her foot on the bottom rung. She was wearing golden sandals. Her toenails were painted a smooth, shining shade of scarlet. Soon the glamorous olive-skinned actress was
aboard
Kpalimé
. The Wizard followed her, then drew up the ladder and shut the miniature airship’s door behind them.

Kpalimé
rose silently into the chilly air of the Seacoast City night. The airship’s gas-bag was compact. The amazing lifting power of its content, an element drawn from secret mines in an African valley unknown to the outer world, was the key to its remarkable performance. The gondola
slung beneath the gas-bag was similarly compact, its efficient design such as to pack a wealth of controls and comfortable quarters into a small space.

The Wizard engaged the compressed-air engines of the Zeppelin and guided it away from the riverfront, toward the tallest building in Seacoast City, the Central Railroad Tower. The airship had covered perhaps half the distance from the river to
its hangar when the sky behind it was brightened by a single monumental flash. “Hang on!” After an interval that could not have been as long as it seemed the little airship was rocked by a violent shock-wave. The Wizard nodded. He had expected as much.

Minutes later the door atop the Central Railroad Tower slid back to admit
Kpalimé
. The Wizard guided the airship to her cradle. A crewman locked
the ship down. Crewmen swarmed to service the little Zeppelin.

Inside the Wizard’s headquarters Nzambi awaited. When the Wizard and Isabella del Sueño entered the room, Nzambi took the other woman’s hands in hers. The actress introduced herself. Nzambi nodded, unsurprised, and gave her own name. The two women shook hands. “You need clothing,” Nzambi said. “I’ll lend you some things.”

Isabella
del Sueño thanked the other woman. “I want to get rid of everything they gave me. This garment. It stinks of those creatures.
And these jewels.” She ripped a bracelet from her arm. It appeared to be purest gold, studded with emeralds and diamonds. She laid it on a tabletop.

Soon the three of them sat at a low table sharing hot cocoa and sandwiches. Isabella del Sueño had told her story again,
this time going into greater detail than before. The Crimson Wizard had examined the jewelry that the beautiful actress removed. He placed a coded call to a certain telephone number and described the gems and ornaments with which Isabella del Sueño had been bedecked. He listened in silence, then said, “They shall be returned in the morning.”

He rose from his place and crossed the room. He twirled
the tumblers on a heavy safe and locked the jewels in it. He rose to his full height and said, “
Señorita
, as much as it would please me to entertain you, I’m sure you wish to return to your home and resume your career. You can board a train in the morning and be home in a few days. I advise you to telephone ahead and arrange for protection. We are dealing with evil forces here and they seem to
have chosen you for a special role. Do you recall, despite your drugged state, anything that they said to you? Either before you were taken to the riverfront building or while you were there.”

The lovely actress frowned. “They didn’t really mistreat me. They seemed in awe. They seemed to know that my family were from Spain. That we are of royal Bourbon blood.”

“They treated you, then, with the
deference due to royalty?”

“Yes, but—something more than that. They seemed almost to worship me. And yet I felt that they intended me no good.”

“You are a most perceptive woman,
Señorita
. There have been tribes who make gods and goddesses of mortals. They generally favor handsome youths and beautiful maidens. They dress them in finest raiment and shower them with luxuries. But then, when their
calendar so dictates, ‘when the stars are right,’ as they sometimes express it, they slay their deities. I’m afraid, if I hadn’t intervened, you were doomed.”

“And you saved my life.”

“For the time being. But those monsters made good their escape. I blame myself. I should have brought assistance and laid a trap for them, but I didn’t realize how serious the menace was. I thought at first that
we were dealing with ordinary jewel thieves. Such was not the case. The gems and trinkets that they placed upon you,
Señorita
, are unimaginably old and incalculably valuable, but the gems are the least
of our concern. These beings are not human, not part of the natural order of our world at all. Their ancestors came from some malign locale beneath the sea. They owe allegiance to no wholesome or
decent god or nation but to the foul world from which they came.”

The Crimson Wizard paced back and forth, halting at last before a tall window facing toward the Saturn River. A glow illuminated the night sky where flames leaped upward from the now-demolished, abandoned warehouse.

“Someday,” the Wizard intoned, “someday I will penetrate to the heart of this foul spew. Someday they will be destroyed.
They must be. The only alternative would be too horrible to contemplate. But the time is not yet.” With a bitter grin he quoted, ‘the stars are not yet right.’

“Still,” and behind the shimmering scarlet swirls that hid his features he raised his eyes to the heavens, “still, they must not escape unscathed. They must be pursued and punished for what they have attempted and for what they have done.”

The Wizard summoned a trusted female aide from the aircraft hangar. He instructed her to accompany
Señorita
del Sueño to an exclusive but inconspicuous inn where she would spend the night under an assumed name and under the watchful eye of the Wizard’s employee. In the morning they would proceed by luxury rail-liner to the West Coast. The Wizard would see to the return of the jewels to the Municipal
Museum of Art and History.

The actress departed, first expressing her gratitude to the Wizard and inviting him to attend the premiere of her next picture. She would, in all likelihood, be in attendance herself. Such was a premise of the Hollywood studio structure and its system of stardom. She would, she stated, take pride in entertaining the Wizard at her table at the celebratory banquet which
she expected to precede the showing of the film.

The Wizard’s expression, had
Señorita
del Sueño been able to see it through the swirling crimsons and scarlets that concealed his identity from the world, would have been one of wry amusement. “I should be delighted,” he told her as he bent over her hand, “but of course I cannot make a promise, as my obligations are many and often unforeseen.”

As soon as the actress was gone the Wizard whirled to engage his assistant in conversation. “If you please, Nzambi, our task is far from complete.”

“Of course.” With amazing rapidity and precision she shut down Bunsen burners, sealed reports, and closed notebooks in which were
recorded the endless experiments of the Crimson Wizard’s laboratory. Moving with a grace that masked her speed she disappeared
behind a concealing screen.

When she reappeared she was garbed in a costume similar to that of her employer save for its color. Where the Wizard’s outfit was of shimmering scarlet, Nzambi’s was of a rich, brilliant yellow. To the Wizard she was Nzambi but to the world she was known only as the Golden Saint.

Together they moved to the elevator that mere hours earlier had brought one Clarence
Willis, an humble shiner of shoes and brusher of shoulders from the Central Barber Shop many stories below. For the world had no inkling that the wielder of polishing cloths and whisk brooms was also the famous mystery man whose exploits thrilled multitudes.

The elevator plunged silently toward the lobby of the Central Railroad Tower, but it did not stop in that marble-floored sanctuary of Mammon.
One story below the lobby was conducted a great enterprise that connected Seacoast City’s pulsing multitudes with the rest of a great nation. Here iron-muscled leviathans loaded and unloaded their precious freight of passengers arriving in the great metropolis to conduct business transactions, to seek fame and glory on the electric-lighted stage, or merely to spend a few days gaping at the incredible
skyscrapers of the city. These last would then return to village or farm, filled with tales to brighten their evenings for years to come.

But even now the elevator plummeted past the level where glistening rails led from Seacoast City to the rest of the continent. There was still another level, a level known to none but an inner circle of important and trustworthy men. For beneath the boulevards
and the skyscrapers of Seacoast City there still flowed an underground waterway that fed the Saturn River.

The waterway had followed its ancient course for thousands of years before the coming of the settlers who pioneered Seacoast City. The pioneers and city-builders had covered over this tributary, leaving only the Saturn River itself to carry commerce to and from the metropolis. By now, most
of the great city’s denizens had forgotten all about this stream, or had never heard of its existence. But the Crimson Wizard made use of it.

Now two figures, one garbed in shimmering scarlet and the other brilliant gold, stood on a deserted river-bank. Above their heads a stone ceiling arched away, and above it the bustling railroad station, and
above this the towering office building where
throngs of workers plied their craft and earned the bread that fed their families.

A few dim lights provided what little illumination there was in the cavern. The only sounds were the gentle lapping of water and the soft footsteps of the man and the woman.

A narrow quay extended into the dark stream. The Crimson Wizard and the Golden Saint strode to the end of the pier. The Wizard knelt and
undogged the hatch of a metal-skinned, football-shaped craft. The craft’s name was graven in inconspicuous relief on her hull:
Mulungu
. The Wizard and the Golden Saint climbed into the small water-vehicle. Without exchanging a word the two figures proceeded silently to switch on previously quiescent systems, check levels of fuel and oxygen and weaponry, and settle themselves before the panel that
held the craft’s instruments and controls.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Nzambi?” the Wizard commented.

The Golden Saint agreed. “Not since the time we took on that supposed ghost of a German U-boat, Wizard.”

The Wizard nodded his head. “That was a glorious adventure, wasn’t it?”