The House of Doors - 01 (19 page)
Read The House of Doors - 01 Online
Authors: Brian Lumley
S
ith of the Thone had not been following the progress of the seven; he had other things to do, and anyway the synthesizer was monitoring them, recording all that transpired. Sith would enjoy their various predicaments later, during editing. But for the present, while he was kept busy with his programming and with thoughts of his glorious future as Grand Thone, they simply adventured in those alien worlds which could support them, however marginally.
ith of the Thone had not been following the progress of the seven; he had other things to do, and anyway the synthesizer was monitoring them, recording all that transpired. Sith would enjoy their various predicaments later, during editing. But for the present, while he was kept busy with his programming and with thoughts of his glorious future as Grand Thone, they simply adventured in those alien worlds which could support them, however marginally.
So far they had had the (random) choice of those worlds; Sith had not yet interfered with them, not substantially. He had little doubt that some of them would “die” during the course of their adventures between the synthesizer’s foci; indeed some of them might already be “dead”—but that made no real difference. The manner of such “deaths” would have been recorded, for editing later, and all would be seen to have expired ignobly, without honour. They were an ignoble species.
Because he had not kept tabs, Sith was unaware that Haggie had been taken out of the game until the correction construct brought his unconscious body back to the control room. The correction construct had access to all stored worlds and had been “hunting” for Haggie ever since his accidental incarceration here. Hunting was not its normal function: that was the removal of extraneous refuse from (and the general tidying up of) stored worlds
after
contamination by any particular group of beings under test. In this way the synthesizer’s memory was kept clean and uncluttered by events that had taken place since the original recording and storage. Thus the correction construct was a sort of erasing cursor moving across and within the entire scale of the synthesizer’s multiscreen. Its hypodermic stinger was a refinement Sith had built into the construct to facilitate its handling of Haggie.
after
contamination by any particular group of beings under test. In this way the synthesizer’s memory was kept clean and uncluttered by events that had taken place since the original recording and storage. Thus the correction construct was a sort of erasing cursor moving across and within the entire scale of the synthesizer’s multiscreen. Its hypodermic stinger was a refinement Sith had built into the construct to facilitate its handling of Haggie.
When the construct arrived via one of the control room’s many projection ducts, Sith was on the point of entering the Bannerman construct in order to reinsert himself into the game. He couldn’t leave it too long, for he desired to be present—indeed to be responsible—when both Gill and Turnbull met up with and were consumed by the Unthinkable; desired to let them
know
he was responsible, and so square the account. It was not Thone-like to behave in this manner, and Sith knew it. But it was Sith-like: the minds and mores of all individual creatures are individual. And so Sith was annoyed that he must now deal with Haggie before proceeding further with his plans.
know
he was responsible, and so square the account. It was not Thone-like to behave in this manner, and Sith knew it. But it was Sith-like: the minds and mores of all individual creatures are individual. And so Sith was annoyed that he must now deal with Haggie before proceeding further with his plans.
At first, in his annoyance, Sith considered destroying Haggie, disposing of him utterly. That was no real problem: Sith might simply transmat him far out into space, or into the heart of this system’s sun. But … in fact Haggie had been something of a bonus. If all Earth’s billions of inhabitants were of his stamp, then none of Sith’s subterfuge was necessary in the first place! He could have simply recorded the vileness of the place and commenced planetary restructuring out of hand. Yes, for Haggie’s capacity for wrong thinking and doing was simply astonishing; the dark depths of his incredibly complex criminal mind were as yet unfathomed. So … perhaps Sith might yet find a use for him in the scheme of things to come.
Of course, Haggie was quite different from the other players in Sith’s game. For one thing—and quite apart from the fact that he was a self-confessed criminal—his presence there at all was completely unscheduled, an error. He had put himself in the game. (Or the “examination,” as Sith should rightly think of it. Except that now he preferred to think of it as a game. His game.)
And because Haggie had not been processed, his needs and requirements remained exactly what they had been before he was taken: he required to eat, drink, sleep, and perform all the other human-animal functions he’d performed before. The others didn’t; the synthesizer had taken care of all such matters; but of course they had no way of knowing it. Unless by now they’d started to work it out for themselves … .
Sith stored Haggie—not synthesised storage but the real thing—by placing him in suspended animation: hypersleep, as the Thone knew it, when they journeyed out between the stars. As he did so, he checked the little redhead’s numerous parts for any permanent damage and found none. Small degrees of dehydration, hunger, and the resultant fatigue were only to be expected; while he slept, the hypersleep chamber’s placenta would adjust to his needs and make up any deficiencies. Sith quickly programmed it to do just that.
Finally all was done and he could now reenter the game. He used the control room’s rapid-scan locator to check the whereabouts of the six, discovering them on a desert world which for the past thousand years had been the domicile of three medium-rank Thone theosophists. In such close proximity, each could argue with the others the various merits of his philosophy to his core’s content. This balanced the disadvantage of overcrowding.
Of course, the six humans only occupied a projection of that world as it had been before Thone colonization, a synthesised “memory” of it. It was nonetheless real within the parameters of its three dimensions, its mass and all its content, but it did not occupy space as the humans were aware of space. It was instead a synthesised world occupying synthesised space.
Sith decided to take the easy route: he would emerge up in the mountains, at the focus which they had made their destination. But before leaving, he must check a small matter of programming. It had amused him to wonder what would happen if the adventures of the six were shaped by their own fears and beliefs, their own phobias and fallacies; and to that end he had programmed the synthesizer to produce effects corresponding to each individual’s character. The trigger was to have been the mind of whichever one of the group first passed through a door.
Now, on checking, he was delighted to discover that on this occasion Clayborne had been the first. Clayborne with his vertigo and his ghosts, his religious and paranormal passions. For what the mind of any sentient creature could imagine, the synthesizer could make real. And right now it was working to make real all of Clayborne’s worst nightmares … .
To the diamond blue eyes of the birds of prey fanning high overhead, the six people plodding the dunes formed a straggly line of black dots on an aching white backdrop, leaving prints like punctuation marks behind them. Two dots to the fore, like the head of some strange lizard, three in the middle, the lizard’s squat body, and one bringing up the rear like a stubby tail. Anderson and Varre were the head, Gill, Turnbull and Angela the body, and Clayborne, carrying the dead quadruped over his shoulder, the tail.
Despite the fact that they’d been tramping the dunes for close on two hours, still the small, hot sun seemed scarcely to have moved in the sky. Sweat rivered them, causing Gill to wonder out loud, “Where the hell does it all come from? I mean, did we really drink this much on our way down the escarpment? And if we did, why haven’t we found an easier, quicker way to be rid of it?”
“Don’t talk about drink,” Turnbull groaned. “Lord, I could murder a pint!”
“Really?” Gill said. “Are you dying for one?” Turnbull looked at him. They’d had this conversation before. “No,” he eventually answered, perhaps reluctantly, “not really. Frankly, I don’t think I need a drink. It’s just that I know I should, and I remember what a pint tastes like.”
Angela walked between them, half a pace to the rear. She looked from one to the other. “Am I supposed to know what you two are on about?”
Gill managed a grin, if only for her sake. He wiped the dust from his upper lip where it clung to the sweat. “We’re on about something we’ve discussed once before,” he said. “About not needing to shave, eat, drink, sleep, go to the loo, et cetera. About me being a dying man—and never feeling so fit in my life! And Anderson being overweight—but belting along there like an athlete only slightly behind in his training. And you, a ‘slip of a girl,’ as the saying goes, having the energy of a war-horse!”
Turnbull took over. “We’re talking about cuts and bruises that heal in hours, and presumably lethally poisonous stings that knock you down but don’t kill you, and about being sick to your stomach from eating inedible fruit, yet an hour or so later running a ten-mile cross-country marathon!”
“In short”—Gill again—“we’re talking about something being very wrong—or right?—with our bodies! So what do you make of it?”
She considered it and said, “I had noticed those things, I suppose, but hadn’t really worried about them. There’s always been so much else to think about. In fact we did sleep, in that cave back in that other world, but now that I think of it, I’m not sure we needed to. I don’t think I did, anyway. We did it out of custom, out of habit. As for calls of nature …” She shrugged. “I for one haven’t been called. Which for me is strange, to say the least. I’m like most women: I spend my pennies frequently. Or I used to.”
“And yet,” Turnbull put in, “when Haggie slept on top of the escarpment, it was because he was quite genuinely exhausted. Also, he’d grown a straggly beard and his hair had gone a bit wild. And I noticed that when he slaked his thirst, he really went at it. By comparison, we only took sips.”
Gill nodded. “He needed food, too.
Really
needed it! He was actually drooling when he killed that poor wild centaur thing.”
Really
needed it! He was actually drooling when he killed that poor wild centaur thing.”
“And he … made water,” Angela added. “Twice in the forest, he … went. I just walked on a little way and waited for him.”
Turnbull frowned, wiped sweat from his forehead. “So what’s the big difference between him and us?”
“I don’t know,” Gill answered, “but maybe we should be thankful for it. Whatever the difference was, that hunting machine didn’t much like it!” He came to a halt, shielded his eyes, and gazed up ahead. Another mile and the mountains began, rising maybe a thousand feet to sharp, craggy crests. Gill’s eyes narrowed as he let his sixth sense come into full play.
“And talking about machines,” he said, “Clayborne’s ‘burning bush’ is just such an animal!”
Turnbull and Angela stopped, too. They all three squinted their eyes to gaze up into the shadow-streaked flanks of the shimmering range. The unknown glinting, fire-flashing object was still there, a bright jewel of painful light reflecting out from shadowy darkness. Clayborne, coming from behind, caused Gill to start where he brushed by. He mumbled incoherently as he passed between the three, his “sacrifice” draped limply over one shoulder. They let him get out of earshot.
“A machine?” Turnbull finally said. “You can feel it from here?”
Gill nodded. “Oh, don’t be mistaken, there’s ‘machine’ all around us, just like before—a background of machine static that tells me we’re still inside the House of Doors—but it has its focal point up there. Take my word for it: it’s there, waiting for us … .” He started forward again and the others kept pace.
“What sort of machine?” Angela wanted to know.
Gill slowly shook his head. “I only wish I knew,” he said, a little peevishly, angry that any sort of mechanism should elude him. “The sort of machine that’s sitting there right now on the slopes of Ben Lawers. It didn’t have any doors—not on the outside, anyway. Castles within castles, worlds within worlds. Chinese boxes that fit inside each other.” Again the angry, frustrated shake of his head. “Russian dolls, making more space on the inside than there is on the outside. Houses of Doors enough to build a city, and each one of them the same—the
self
same—House of Doors!”
self
same—House of Doors!”
He looked at Turnbull, then Angela, and grimaced. Either the puzzle would crack him or he’d crack the puzzle. He forced himself to offer them another grin, and nodded. “That’s what’s up ahead,” he said. “A Russian doll within a Russian doll within … et cetera. With no apparent rhyme or reason to it.”
“Well, I know one thing.” Turnbull took up the lead, striding out as the ground became firmer underfoot. “I may not be clued up on Russian dolls, but I once played Russian roulette. And each time we use one of these doors, that’s what it feels like. So far the hammer keeps falling on empty chambers, more or less. But what happens when we reach the loaded one? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Gill had no answer to that, just another question.
What I’d like to know,
he kept it to himself,
is who loaded the bloody thing?
What I’d like to know,
he kept it to himself,
is who loaded the bloody thing?
Sith saw them on his screen, toiling up the mountainside, and for the moment delayed his reentry into the game. Nightfall would be soon enough. Human eyes weren’t equipped for night, for which reason they tended to fear it. And because they were true primitives, night in an alien place would be that much more fearful.
So far there had been no manifestations; that, too, was because it was still daylight, and Clayborne was comparatively happy with the situation. But as night fell and his hagridden, half-crazed mind got to work—and the darkness expanded his mind’s terrors larger than life—so, too, the synthesizer would get to work.
Perhaps Sith-Bannerman’s sudden eruption onto the scene might also trigger things. Sith was anxious to obtain the best results possible … .
W
ith Gill and Angela close behind him, and having overtaken all the others, Turnbull was the first of the party to get a good look at the shining object. Having taken what had seemed the most accessible route up the flank of the mountain, they’d eventually been obliged to traverse in order not to overshoot. Even so, they had in fact gone a little higher than was necessary, so that when Turnbull reached the jagged crest of that last spur, he found himself looking slightly down on the thing. It lay bedded in rubble, in the shadows of a scree-filled reentry between twin spurs, and it was not what had been expected. The climb down to it looked easy enough, but for the moment Turnbull found it difficult to tear his eyes from the object itself.
ith Gill and Angela close behind him, and having overtaken all the others, Turnbull was the first of the party to get a good look at the shining object. Having taken what had seemed the most accessible route up the flank of the mountain, they’d eventually been obliged to traverse in order not to overshoot. Even so, they had in fact gone a little higher than was necessary, so that when Turnbull reached the jagged crest of that last spur, he found himself looking slightly down on the thing. It lay bedded in rubble, in the shadows of a scree-filled reentry between twin spurs, and it was not what had been expected. The climb down to it looked easy enough, but for the moment Turnbull found it difficult to tear his eyes from the object itself.
Gill had been quite right, it was a House of Doors—of sorts. But it was also the weirdest one they’d come across so far.
Giving Angela a hand, Gill hauled and pushed her up alongside the big man, then climbed up to stand with them. And they all three stared at the—crystal?—together. Now that the sun was off it, the thing was a dull, slaty colour, like a gigantic, polished, many-faceted jewel with a heart of stone. It might simply have grown there, except it was more perfect than nature would have made it, and there were aspects she could never have incorporated. It was a magnificent alien crystal on an alien world; but it was also, unmistakably, a House of Doors. Its facets, around the perimeter where it was bedded in the scree, were oblongs; and central in each oblong was a black, obsidian door. Even from here they could see the knockers—shaped like gargoyles?—set in large, skull-shaped panels of veined quartz, themselves set high in the otherwise blank obsidian slabs.
The effect was beautiful in its simplicity, ugly in its implications, frightening in its clear purpose—which was to frighten. Like the warning hieroglyphs on some ancient pharaoh’s tomb, the skull and gargoyle motifs cried out: Don’t touch!
Or perhaps,
Gill thought,
abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Or perhaps,
Gill thought,
abandon hope all ye who enter here.
“Well?” said Clayborne, panting under his burden as he clambered up level with them. “Well?”
Gill shook his head. “Sorry, Miles,” he said. “No burning bush, I’m afraid.” But his voice held no trace of sarcasm.
“Of course not.” Clayborne’s eyes opened wide as they spied the giant crystal House of Doors. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. Did you really think to find a burning bush as such, on a … world with … no vegetation?” He paused and the colour drained from his face. He had become aware of the ominous aspect of the thing. “But this—”
“Is no work of the Lord.” Anderson finished it for him as he joined them.
Varre was last up. “A House of Doors,” he said quietly. “But where the others were merely awesome, this one is … menacing.”
“What now?” Turnbull looked at Gill.
“I should have thought that was obvious.” Anderson puffed himself up, became “leader” again. “We proceed!”
Gill looked at him and in an even tone said, “Off you go then, boss. Me, I’m proceeding nowhere.”
“What?” Anderson frowned. “You intend to stay here?”
“For now, yes,” Gill answered. He looked from face to face and they waited for him to continue. “Look, right now we don’t seem threatened in any way—unless it’s by that,” and he nodded down the incline towards the House of Doors. “Apart from a few birds and a strange-looking lizard or two in the desert, we’ve seen nothing of local life-forms. If there were any, and if they were unpleasant, they’d probably have found us before now. We must have stuck out like sore thumbs coming across those dunes. So it appears that we’re safe for the moment. We’re nowhere, but we are safe.”
Turnbull said, “You don’t think we should be quite so eager this time, right?”
Gill nodded. “I think we’d be wise if we rested up for a couple of hours—maybe until morning—before taking the next step. Let’s face it, if we are threatened during the night, we can always try our luck then. Personally, I’d like to take the opportunity to feel this thing out. I’d like to just take it easy, give my mind and body a break, and … see what happens.”
The others had taken in what he’d said and he saw from their faces that they agreed—all except Clayborne. He probably hadn’t even heard him. “We should worship,” the American said. “You must give me your clothes—all of them! I am commanded to make a burnt offering to my God, and this shall be your personal sacrifice, that you give up your clothes that I may burn them.” He pointed a shaking finger at the giant crystal. “That is the devil’s work! There are devils in the very air of this place—can’t you feel them? But we shall drive them away with a fire and the sacrificial offering of this lamb.” He stroked the beast lying stiff on his shoulder.
Turnbull looked at him with narrowed eyes, knotted a huge fist and gritted his teeth. It was obvious that he intended to knock the other cold. But Gill caught his eye, shook his head. Clayborne saw the look that passed between them. “What? Do you plot against me? Do you dare deny the Lord God His—”
Gill had drawn out the thorn stinger from its holster. Now he jabbed Clayborne in the thigh and gave the bulb in the root of the thorn a gentle squeeze. Clayborne’s eyes stood out like marbles. He coughed once, sighed, and simply crumpled down into himself. The centaur thing slid from his back, went cartwheeling all the way down the scree slide to the jumbled depression between the spurs.
“Okay,” said Gill, “let’s get him down there as gently as possible. Maybe when he wakes up, he’ll be over it. If not”—he shrugged, sighed—“then I really don’t know what the answer is.”
“There is an answer,” said Varre, avoiding their eyes, scowling at his cracked, dirty fingernails. “Clayborne is a liability, useless to us. Why should we allow him to jeopardize our lives? That place down there—that House of Doors—is clearly different from the others, possibly dangerous. It bears the skull and crossbones of the poison bottle. I suggest we simply go along with whatever Clayborne says; except, of course, we do not give him our clothes. But when the time comes, and if he desires to use one of those menacing doors, then we … put no obstacle in his way. At least that way he will have contributed something.” He looked up from the examination of his fingers.
Blank-faced, Turnbull and Angela looked away. Anderson said nothing but raised a speculative eyebrow. Gill said, “You’re a cold-blooded bastard, aren’t you, Jean-Pierre? Thanks for your … suggestion, anyway. But from now on I step very carefully.”
“You?” Varre looked surprised. “But why?”
“In case I should accidentally break a leg,” said Gill. “That’s why … .”
Gill came awake knowing that something was happening or about to happen. He sat with his back to a depression in a sloping slab of rock, his feet shoved down into loose scree which formed a brake against any sliding. His arms were round Angela where she snoozed beside him, with her head on his chest and one arm thrown carelessly across him. He remembered very little of their settling down in that position, and nothing of conversation.
Turnbull was close by, chattering gibberish to himself in his sleep. In the east the first stars were coming out in a palid sky, a small scattering of them that threw their reflections into the great crystal’s many facets; far to the south the tiny secondary sun was setting, leaving a floating ring of bright light like a halo to mark its passing; a lone kite wheeled over the highest crags.
Anderson and Varre were already awake, yawning where they got to their feet a little distance away. A nine-inch grey lizard with a yellow frill along its back went streaking down the slope, taking a tiny avalanche of dust and pebbles with it. Fifty feet away, Clayborne was standing in front of the House of Doors. He was quite naked and raving again, which was what had disturbed Anderson and Varre. But Gill had been awakened by something else. He could sense the House of Doors stirring. It, too, was coming awake.
Clayborne’s clothing was piled a short distance from the giant crystal, and the madman had put the dead centaur on the pile and set fire to the lot. Flames were licking up, and black belches of rolling, stinking smoke.
Turnbull woke up and saw what was going on. He looked around and saw Gill where he gently shook Angela awake. “Where’d he get the makings?” the big man mumbled. Then he patted his jacket pocket and gave a snort. “He stole my matches!” he said. “Well, no, actually they were his.”
Angela was awake now and Gill could move her and get to his feet. “So much for not needing sleep,” she said, stretching. “Our bodies mightn’t, but out brains certainly do.”
“Miles,” Gill called out, stiffly making his way towards the American. “Clayborne, you should get away from there right now. It’s not safe there.” He tried to make his advice sound urgent without causing Clayborne to panic. He spoke quietly, as if he feared that the House of Doors itself was listening. And maybe it was, for certainly it was gearing itself towards something.
Clayborne turned to face him. “Keep back, Gill!” he thundered. “I know what I’m doing—and I know what you would do, too! Put me to sleep, would you? Fool—that way lies eternal damnation! Don’t you know we tread the rim of the very pit? I make obeisance. Man, it will be the saving of our souls!”
He stood between his fire and the crystal. Gill was close now but something warned him to go no closer. For the first time he noticed that the doors were numbered, and how they were numbered: in multiples of one hundred and eleven. Those which were within view bore the numbers 888, 777, 666, and 555, left to right in an anticlockwise direction. Clayborne stood before door number 666, and Gill couldn’t help but wonder if it was significant.
In fact it was, for now Clayborne turned towards the door and pointed at it, shouting, “See? The devil is revealed. The Lord my God has shown me his number, which is the number of the beast! Now I turn my back on him”—he did, and facing the fire threw his arms wide—“saying, get thee behind me, Satan!”
“Clayborne!” Gill hissed, aware of the vast crystal crouched there like something about to spring. “For Christ’s sake, man!”
“For Christ’s sake?” Clayborne howled across smoke and flames. “Yes, and for yours, and for mine. Great merciful God, now hear this sinner and show to him a sign, that he shall know he is forgiven and made welcome to Thy bosom … .”
It was coming—
now!
Gill threw himself flat.
now!
Gill threw himself flat.
Door number 666 slid swiftly, silently down out of sight—and hell itself was visible behind it. Red and orange fires rumbled and roared in there—and now roared
out
of there! A great shaft of fire belched out like a thick, dripping tongue, and licked Clayborne for long seconds head to heel. He disappeared screaming in liquid light and heat, and Gill felt his own hair and eyebrows singeing as he scuttled frantically away on belly, knees and elbows. Then the tongue of fire was retracted and the door hissed shut to contain it, and for a few brief moments splashes of fire dripped sparks from the rim of the obsidian panel.
out
of there! A great shaft of fire belched out like a thick, dripping tongue, and licked Clayborne for long seconds head to heel. He disappeared screaming in liquid light and heat, and Gill felt his own hair and eyebrows singeing as he scuttled frantically away on belly, knees and elbows. Then the tongue of fire was retracted and the door hissed shut to contain it, and for a few brief moments splashes of fire dripped sparks from the rim of the obsidian panel.
Amazingly, horrifyingly, Clayborne still stood there—but only for a few seconds. Then he crumpled. He was like a plastic doll tossed on a bonfire by some spoiled child, and dragged back out again as the child felt something of the doll’s agony. He was a candle that dripped its wax and slumped under the blast of a blowtorch. He was a dying
thing
that screamed a bubbling, boiling lobster scream as he fell in a smoking, steaming pile on the scorched scree.
thing
that screamed a bubbling, boiling lobster scream as he fell in a smoking, steaming pile on the scorched scree.
And the House of Doors stood there as before, an alien evil under alien stars … .
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