THE hands left Jarles’ elbows after a slight, momentary tightening of their grip, which seemed to mean, “Stay there!” He felt the edge of a box or bench against the calves of his legs, but he did not sit down.
Gradually the faintest suggestion of his surroundings was revealed, like a midnight picture deftly painted by a master artist in brief phosphorescent strokes against a black surface tinged with violet. He was in an extensive, very low-ceilinged room. Air currents and the way his footsteps sounded told him that.
At what seemed the far end of the room, on a low dais, was a kind of chair or throne, faintly glowing, with a squat table in front of it, and on the table something that might have been a huge, old-fashioned book, open. Little creatures of some sort seemed to be playing around the throne, for he could discern a scampering movement close to the floor and hear an indistinct scratching and scuffing-and once or twice a faint plop, as if something suctorial had been pulled away from a flat surface.
Then one of the creatures sprang up on the throne, squatting there impishly-a tiny, very lean, vaguely monkeylike silhouette.
What came next sent a dry shiver up Jarles’ back and started his scalp pricking. For the creature spoke. Or at least whispers came from the direction of the throne in voices too threadlike and shrill and oddly mumbling to be human-and yet human nevertheless. He could only make out a little here and there.
“… been tonight, Mysie?”
“… inside his robe… a Fourth Circle priest… scared… wits.”
“Jill?”
“… on a visit far away, to tell…”
“Meg?”
“… on his chest, as he slept…”
“And Puss? But I know…”
“Yes, Dickon.”
The one perched on the throne seemed to be asking, the others to be answering the questions, as if in parody of human beings making reports to a leader or chairman. The last voice had a disturbing familiarity which set Jarles quivering.
“Who are you?” he called loudly-and with more confidence than he felt. “What do you want of me? Why this mystery?”
The echoes died hollowly. There was no reply-only a sudden scurrying. In a moment the dais was empty.
Jarles sat down. If they chose to play this sort of game with him, there was nothing he could do about it-save refuse to be impressed, or at least refuse to show it. But what could be the purpose of their game? In an effort to find some clue to his rescuers-and captors-he rehearsed in his mind what had happened since he had stood awaiting death in the Great Square.
The first section of his memories was clouded by shock. The impression of something solid, semitransparent, and blackly streaked closing around him. Blinding blue light and a crackling, howling, laughing pandemonium of sound. A nauseating swoop upward and then down again into a black hole that suddenly yawned.
After that, a brief period of waiting in absolute darkness. Then hands. Hands which eluded him when he sought to catch hold of them. Hands which guided him for an indeterminate distance and then left him in what cautious exploration showed to be a small cell. A long period of waiting. Again hands, bringing him here.
For a long time he peered toward the ghostly dais and throne, until he began to think he could make out other silhouettes, much fainter even than those of the small scampering creatures, so faint that they vanished when he looked at them directly. Larger silhouettes of figures seated midway between him and the violet-tinted blackness of the far wall, though none directly between him and the throne.
Suddenly his eye was caught by a fleeting smudge of phosphorescence on one of the silhouettes-where the teeth should be. Then brief yellowish tracks in the air, as if made by the waving of fingertips dipped in phosphorescence.
He looked at his own hand. Each fingernail glowed yellow. The room must be bathed in ultraviolet light. Perhaps the others were wearing some sort of transformer goggles.
“The Black Man is delayed, Sisters.” He started violently. Not because the voice-a woman’s-was the first undeniably human one he had heard. Not because the words were mysterious and darkly suggestive. But because it was so devilishly akin to one of the shrill, subhuman voices he had heard mumbling earlier. As if this were the voice which the weaker one had been mimicking.
“Dickon is here. The Black Man cannot be far away.” Another woman’s voice. Another impression of shuddering similarity.
The first woman: “What work did you do tonight, Sister?”
The second woman: “I sent Mysie to trouble a Fourth Circle priest-may Sathanas torment him eternally! She crept in his robe and scared him into white fits-if I can believe her. She’s such a sweet little liar when her mind is away from mine. Whatever happened, Mysie was famished when she came back. She’d drain me green if I let her. The little glutton!”
Abruptly his mind grasped the thread linking together all this shivery confusion. The Witchcraft of the Dawn Civilization. This would be a meeting of witches to report their exploits-a coven meeting. The Black Man-that would be the chief of this group or coven. And those little servant-creatures supposedly suckled on witch’s blood, drawn through the witchmark. What were they called? Familiars! But he had told the commoners, and he believed it, that there was no Witchcraft, save the debased and harmless remnant which the Hierarchy preserved for its own purposes.
This seemed debased enough, in a sense, with those bestial little manikins-phantasms of retrograde evolution. But harmless? He did not get that impression. He turned again toward the dais, intending to address further demands to the darkness and seek to force an answer.
But the throne was no longer empty. A dead-black, manlike shape was sitting in it. And then a voice from the shape-a silky, steely voice, bubbling with malefic mirth.
“Your pardon for my delay, Sisters. But tonight I was as busy as a priest. First must I guide the Hands of Sathanas to snatch a renegade priestling from under the very nose of the Great God. He almost sneezed in surprise, Sisters! Next Puss came scampering to tell me that the Hierarchy had seized our Sister Persephone and was conveying her to the Sanctuary. So Dickon and I must float over the roofs and drop down the Black Veil to fuddle her captors and persuade them to escort her to a safe place of refuge.”
The voice was at once attractive and repellent to Jarles.
He felt that he would like the man-and hate him!
“It tickles me, Sisters, now and then to use the priests’ science against them. And no doubt our master is grateful to be relieved of a bit of extra work. Do you know the Black Veil, Sisters? One of the little tricks we have developed from the Hierarchy’s solidograph. Two lights can make a darkness, Sisters, if they’re of the same frequency-interference, it’s called. The projector of the Black Veil sends out multiple frequencies which automatically adjust to neutralize all light in the focal region. That’s the only real darkness for you, Sisters-one that is born of two conflicting lights!
“But I monopolize the conversation, while all of you have doubtless as amusing tales to tell. First, though, our reverences to our masters!”
The Black Man rose, stretching his arms outward and upward in invocation-a batlike shadow against cloudy phosphorescence.
“To Black Sathanas, Lord of Evil, our eternal allegiance!”
“To Sathanas, our allegiance,” echoed the shadowy ring of witches-a dozen voices at least. And with those voices, like a parody of a boys’ choir, the shrill falsetto parrotings of the familiars.
“To Asmodeus, King of the Demons, on earth our master, our lifelong obedience!”
“To Asmodeus, our obedience.” Again that half-chanted response with its piping overtones.
“To the covens and the Witchcraft, to our sister witches and brother warlocks, both here on Earth and secretly dwelling in heaven, to the little ones, and to the commoners sweating under the Hierarchy’s yoke, our loyalty and love!”
“To the covens, our love.”
“For the Great God, selfstyled ruler of the universe, fat and impotent phantom, our laughter and hate!”
“For the Great God, our hate.”
“For the Hierarchy, his underlings, puffed red parasites, our devices and doom!”
“For the Hierarchy, our doom!”
Then the Black Man’s voice went low and ominous-a farcarrying, shivery half-whisper.
“Creep, night, and enshroud the earth! Come, fear, and shake the world!”
“Gather, darkness!”
The next moment the Black Man was again reclining in the throne. And now his sardonic voice was more leisurely.
“Before we proceed to our regular business, there is the matter of new members. Persephone?”
From just beside him in the darkness, Jarles heard Sharlson Naurya answer. He was triply confounded-by her unsuspected close presence, by a realization of what had made the voice of the creature called Puss disturbingly familiar, and by what she went on to say.
“I propose for membership the former First Circle priest, Armon Jarles! He has proved himself by publicly blaspheming the Great God and daring the Great God’s wrath. He should make a cunning and potent warlock.”
“Bring him forward,” commanded the Black Man, “first taking from him that which must be taken!”
A pair of hands gripped each of Jarles’ arms. He felt something needlesharp prick his back deeply. He gasped and floundered forward, struggling.
“Be not alarmed,” called the Black Man, mockingly. “We have what we want-the seed for that which must be grown. Bring him to the altar, Sisters, that he may bow his head to the Book and be baptized by me with his new name-his witchname-Dis!”
At that Jarles found his voice.
“Why should I join with you?”
A startled silence. Then, close to his ear, Sharlson Naurya’s whisper, “Be quiet!” And a sharp pressure from the fingers on that side.
The warning only stung him on. “What makes you so sure I’ll enter your Witchcraft?”
Again Naurya’s whisper, “Where else do you think you can find refuge, you fool!”
There was a flurry of murmurings, human and subhuman.
But the Black Man had risen. “Softly, Persephone,” he called. “Remember, no one may become witch or warlock save of his own uninfluenced free will. It seems that your recruit has certain reluctances. Let him tell us about them.”
“First tell me what you would expect of me,” Jarles replied. The Black Man’s voice was faintly edged with derision. “I thought you had guessed. To abjure the Great God. To give yourself, body and soul, into the service of Sathanas. To sign your name in his book by touching your forehead to it, so that it will receive the individual and unique pattern of your thought waves, which cannot be counterfeited. To submit to certain other formalities.”
“Not enough!” retorted Jarles. “I might be entering the Hierarchy, in view of all this supernatural mummery! What are the aims of this organization, whose slave you ask me to become?”
“Not ask, Armon Jarles,” said the Black Man. “And not a slave-only a free man who has contracted certain obligations. As for our aims-you heard our ritual. Overthrow of the Great God and his Hierarchy!”
Jarles’ bitter reply started another flurry of murmurs.
“In order that you may raise up your own degraded superstitions to be the decalogue of a new Hierarchy, and tyrannize over the world in your turn? The scientists of the Golden Age had good aims, too, but they forgot them as soon as they tasted power. For that matter, how do you know that you yourselves are not the dupes of the Hierarchy? True, you rescued me. But the methods of the Hierarchy are devious. They let me speak to the commoners when they could easily have silenced me. Perhaps they also let me be rescued, for some indecipherable purpose.”
“I do not quite know how to satisfy you, Armon Jarles -if you can be satisfied,” replied the Black Man with amused perplexity. “Regarding the ultimate intentions of the Witchcraft, when and if the Hierarchy is overthrown-that involves matters of high policy which I may not discuss.
“But, Armon Jarles, if there is anything within reason which I can do to satisfy you of our purposes, name it!”
“There is!” Jarles declared hotly, disregarding the imperative pressure of Naurya’s fingers. “If you are sincere in your opposition to the Hierarchy and your love of the commoners, drop all this mummery and deception! Don’t add to the commoners’ superstitions. Can’t you see that their ignorance is at the root of everything? Tell them the truth! Rouse them against the Hierarchy!”
“And suffer the consequences?” the Black Man mocked. “Have you forgotten what almost happened to you in the Great Square-and how the commoners took your words?”
“I ask a favor,” interjected Sharlson Naurya hurriedly. “This man is a thickheaded idealist. He is suspicious and faultfinding by nature. Make him a warlock by force! He’ll come around to our way of seeing as soon as he’s had time to think things over.”
“No, Persephone. I am afraid we cannot make an exception-even for a thickheaded idealist.”
“Lock him up safely, then, until he sees the light!”
“Nor, Persephone, may we use force-whether compulsion or restraint. Though I confess there are times when I itch to!” And he laughed.
His voice immediately became serious then-in so far as such a bubblingly mirthful voice ever could.
“I’m afraid it’s now or never, Armon Jarles. What do you say to joining the Witchcraft? Yes or no?”
Jarles hesitated, looking around at the circle of black, phosphorus-touched forms that were now very close. They would probably kill him if he refused. He knew too much. And then there was Naurya, whom he had thought lost to him forever. If he went through with this, he would be near her. And she seemed to want him. Weren’t Dis and Persephone king and queen of Hell?
And then all these people-the Black Man and the rest of them. His feelings toward them were mixed. He might dislike what they did, but he couldn’t hate them personally. They had saved his life.
He was terribly tired, he realized suddenly. He couldn’t be expected to dare death, of his own free will, twice in one day.
And Naurya’s fingers were conveying an insistent, anxious message. “Say yes! Say yes!”
When he opened his lips, it was to say “Yes.”
But-just as had happened in the Great Square-his idealist’s white-hot anger at all shams and supernatural mummery, like some possessing demon, seized control of him.
“No! What I said I meant! I will not compromise with hypocrisy! I will have no part in your Black Hierarchy!”
“Very well, Armon Jarles! You have made your choice!” rang the Black Man’s answer. The hands let go his arms. The Black Man seemed to spring at him. He flailed out wildly. The picture that had been painted indistinctly in blackness and phosphorescence now whirled with movement, became a formless chaos.
He was seized by other hands-smooth, rubbery-hided, and very strong. He sensed in them the pressure of some kind of field, though different in texture from the inviolability fields of the scarlet robes. He struggled futilely.
Something small and furry, but with claws, grabbed his bare leg. He kicked out convulsively. He heard the Black Man order, “Back, Dickon! Back!” His leg was free. He had time to cry out, “It’s all shams and lies, Naurya! All shams and lies!” And to hear from the darkness her angry laughter and her scathing cry, “Idiot! Idealist!”
Then he was being rushed along by a power he could not resist. Out of the room, down some narrow corridor that turned and turned again, and then reversed, like a maze. Staggering, stumbling, his shoulders buffeted by unseen walls. Then upstairs. A blindfold quickly whipped over his eyes. Another corridor. More stairs. His thoughts whirling as dizzily as he. Finally, cold night air thrusting up his nostrils and chilling his sweaty skin. The feel of cobbles under his feet.
And, in his ear, the mocking voice of the Black Man.
“I know idealists never change their minds, Brother Jarles. But if you should prove the exception to the rule, come back to the spot at which I shall release you, and wait. We might contact you. We might give you a second chance.”
A few more steps and they halted.
“And now, Brother Jarles,” said the Black Man, “go practice what you preach!”
A shrewd push sent Jarles spinning, so that he stumbled and fell painfully on the cobbles. He jerked himself up, whipping off the blindfold.
But the Black Man was nowhere in sight.
He was in the mouth of one of the streets that opened on the Great Square. In the sky was the first faint suggestion of dawn, magnifying the empty immensity of the square, touching with lovely shades of opalescence the towering domes and spires of the Sanctuary, paling a little the blue nimbus of the Great God.
And from the hillside farmlands, gathering power in its sweep across the Great Square, came a bitter wind that cut Ms naked flesh to the bone.