THE silver clashing of unseen cymbals and a mighty choir of invisible voices, stirring yet heavenly sweet, heralded the approach of the exercisers to the haunted house. The commoners blocking their way drew back to let them pass. But since the streets enclosing the square were wedged tight with commoners, and since other commoners crowded in to get a closer view of the procession, and since none of the commoners were willing to encroach on the unkempt and accursed grounds surrounding the haunted house, and frantically resisted being shoved in that direction, there were several of them gently cuffed aside by inviolable, red-gloved priestly hands, and one or two children knocked down, before the exercisers issued into the square. An excited murmur greeted them. Megatheopolis was astir with rumor of mighty doings in the supernatural world and the close presence of dread Sathanas, who had once again risen from Hell to challenge the omnipotence of his master.
Early this morning had come word that the Hierarchy would cleanse the haunted house of evil. This seemed an exceedingly wise and logical procedure, since the haunted house was a relic of the Golden Age and therefore a likely lair of Sathanas and his friends, who dearly loved those ancient, overweening, star-storming sinners. No matter how hard and wearisome an age this might be, it was certainly a very exciting one with regard to manifestations of the supernatural. That couldn’t be denied.
The music and the pomp of the procession of exercisers were well designed to whip up the mob’s anticipations to a high pitch.
First came four young priests, handsome and tall as angels, each bearing before him, like a truncheon, a gleaming rod of wrath.
Then two deacons bearing censers from which a sweet incense dispersed. Next a priest who walked alone, apparently the one in charge. Rather short and dumpy he seemed, but well puffed out and carrying his head high. The Fifth Ward goggled to see their ghostly counselor, Brother Chulian, in such a position of authority. After him, almost a score of priests, some with the lightning-and-coil insignia of the Fourth Circle emblazoned on their chests, bearing all manner of awe-inspiring implements-globes that glowed even in the bright sunlight, tubes, canisters, and oddly shaped metal boxes-all of them ornately decorated and bejeweled, and decked with religious emblems. Last of this group, four grimfaced priests, easing along something that resembled a gigantic metallic snailshell. It floated unwieldy at shoulder height. They guided it to the top of a tiny knoll on the desolate grounds and stepped away. Then, while the crowd gaped, one of them made mystic passes in the air, whereupon it slowly sank, crushing the weeds and bushes beneath, until it came to rest with its flaring muzzle pointing toward the haunted house. But the rear guard of the procession rather distracted from this exhibition. The excited babbling of the crowd dropped momentarily into a whispering, as those in front told those behind about the presence of the little man in black. Cousin Deth had quite a reputation. And at sight of the object borne behind him, several children set up a wail. It looked like a large, deep bowl, tightly covered. From it trailed downward a white mist, and it was dripping slowly, leaving a trail of little white pellets, which melted to nothingness but were bad to step on with bare feet, because they stuck and burned. The commoners in the front ranks felt an icy wave pass. Such containers of holy water normally flanked the doorway of the Cathedral, chilling the entry. More than one child had had skin torn from his fingers, when he had inquisitively touched one of them and then been jerked away by a screeching mother. No wonder the priests carrying it exerted their inviolability to the fullest!
The invisible music rose to an exalting climax, then broke off. The murmuring of the crowd was hushed. For a moment there was silence. Then one of the young priests strode with great dignity toward the house, bearing his rod of wrath above his head like a gleaming sword. Heads turned as, breathlessly, every commoner watched his approach.
“This place is evil!” he cried suddenly in a great voice. “It is offensive to the nostrils of the Great God. Tremble, Sathanas! Cower, ye fiends! For, lo, I inscribe here the brand of the Hierarchy!”
He stopped directly in front of the oddly wrinkled doorway. There gushed from the extended rod a violet brilliance of the same hue as his halo, which was almost invisible in the sunlight. Slowly he traced a burning circle above the doorway.
What happened next did not seem to be part of the program. He leaned forward suddenly to peer through the irregular orifice of the doorway, leaving the fiery circle unclosed. He must have seen something of exceptional interest, for he thrust in his head. Instantly the doorway puckered and snapped tight around his neck, leaving him frantically kicking and plunging, while his rod, still gushing violet light, set the green weeds smoking.
There were gasps and scattered screams and a few shrieks of hysterical laughter from the crowd. The three other young priests dashed forward to help their companion, one of them snatching up the fallen rod, which instantly ceased to flame. They tugged and pushed at him violently and pried at the doorway. The wall gave a little, as if semi-elastic. That was all. Then the door opened wide of its own accord and they all sprawled backward in the smoking weeds. The young priest who had been trapped sprang up and darted into the house before the others could stop him. The door clenched shut behind him.
The house began to shake.
Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement. Its windows all squeezed shut. One wall stretched perceptibly, another contracted. There were other distortions. An upper window dilated and through it the young priest was ejected, as if the house had tasted him and then spat him out. Halfway down he exerted his inviolability, so that his fall was slowed and cushioned. He bounced gently.
This time the laughter of the crowd did not sound entirely hysterical. The house became quiescent.
There was a flurry of activity among the priests tending the instruments. Hurried consultations. Two of them darted over toward Cousin Deth. Those tending the great coiled tube atop the knoll looked inquiringly toward him.
But of all the exorcisers, none felt so futile and confused as Brother Chulian. Why must things like this happen to him? Thrust into a position of seeming importance by Deth’s malicious whim, he knew less of what was going on than any of the others. If only he hadn’t forgotten himself last night and insulted the cruel little deacon!
The four young priests, retreating at last from the haunted house, stopped near him. Made careless of dignity by excitement, they argued together. The one who had been tossed from the upper window was being questioned by the others.
“Who wouldn’t have looked inside?” he asserted, heatedly. “Two bare feet scampering, that’s what I saw, I tell you! Just those two little bare feet, with nothing on top of them. When they danced off, I just had to see where they were going! Then, when I was caught in the door, a lot of ratty little commoners came in from somewhere and began making the most insulting remarks about my head. As if it were something stuffed and hanging on the wall! You’d have lost your temper, too! I wanted to chastise them. That’s why I ran inside.”
“But what made you jump out the window?”
“The house, I tell you! I didn’t see the commoners anywhere. But it all began to heave and shake. The floor lifted under my feet and knocked me against a wall. The wall bounced me to another. Then the floor got me again. Before I knew it I was upstairs, I got a last bang, and a window opened in the wall just before I hit it. I couldn’t help myself!”
Chulian did not want to listen. It was all too disturbing and confusing. Why did the Hierarchy want to do things like this? Why, the commoners had laughed! The deacons in the crowd had shut them up pretty quickly. But they had laughed.
Cousin Deth strolled up, followed by priests.
“And now that your reverences have edified the mob with this little display,” he was saying, “perhaps we can carry through the original instructions given us by the archpriest Goniface.”
“Given you, you mean!” one of the young priests retorted hotly. “We all had our orders from Sanctuary Control Center and the Apex Council. We were told to proceed in the usual manner.”
Deth surveyed him coolly. “But you see, your reverence, this is not the usual haunted house, set up for you to knock down. This, I fear, is a kind of war, your reverences. And perhaps war is something that only a contemptible and misbegotten deacon knows how to dirty his hands with. Unlimber the zeroentropy spray, Brother Sawl!”
A long, light, slim projector was attached to the container which had originally been carried behind Deth. Brother Chulian felt the chill strike through his inviolability field, and he edged away, shivering.
“A brief medium spray over the whole building,” Deth was directing. “Enough to stiffen the outer walls. Then full intensity straight ahead. We’ll make our own doorway. Ready? Very well. Brother Jafid, speak your piece!”
Brother Jafid’s voice, mightily amplified, was unpleasantly sweet.
“Let the Waters of Perfect Peace infold this place. Let them lull its unrest. Let them draw from it all motion and all evil.”
With a faint screaming sound of almost inaudibly high pitch, suggestive of ice scraping ice, the zeroentropy projector opened up. Snowflakes and flakes of frozen air traced the widening path of its spray. The haunted house was engulfed in a swirling miniature snowstorm. Back from it rebounded a blast of arctic cold. The crowd, tight-packed as it was, seemed to draw back still farther, huddling.
The path of the spray narrowed, concentrated around the doorway, crusted it frostily. Then the faint screaming ceased.
A priest walked up to that gleaming, icily opalescent patch and rapped it smartly with his rod of wrath. The hyperfrozen materials shattered, leaving a large, jagged-edged hole. The priest ran his rod around the edge, knocking down splinters, which tinkled like icicles as they fell.
“Now we can proceed,” said Deth sharply. “Projector and rods first. Keep together. Watch for traps. Wary of doors. Listen for my orders. If the young witch is found, inform me at once.”
Then, just as they were starting, he noticed Brother Chulian standing to one side.
“Oh, your reverence, I had almost forgotten! This was the very thing you wanted so much to see. You shall have the place of honor. Lead the way, Brother Chulian!”
“But-“
“We are waiting for you, Brother Chulian. All Megatheopolis is waiting.”
Reluctantly Chulian picked his way through the frostbitten weeds. Cold pushed upward around his ankles through the lower orifice in his inviolability field, urging his knees to tremble. Unwillingly he studied the house, whose frosted walls were already beginning to steam in the hot sunlight. Even in its present dilapidated state, the haunted house had a certain beauty of proportion. But its potential fluidity was very repugnant to one used to the ponderous, rigid plastics of Hierarchic architecture.
Somewhere he had read of the adjustable houses of the Golden Age, with elastic walls made tense by force fields, akin in structure and motivation to the mobile figure of the Great God on the Cathedral.
But the idea did not appeal to Brother Chulian. To a considerable degree he shared the commoners’ fear and awe of the Golden Age and its proud inhabitants. They must have been as unpredictable and self-willed as their houses-rebellious and critical like Brother Jarles, brazen and mocking like that witch woman.
Chulian believed that it would have been extremely unpleasant to have lived in the Golden Age, with your own free individuality continually threatened by that of everyone else and with no Hierarchy to plan your life and guarantee your security.
He was very close to the ice-rimmed opening. What if the ancient dwellers had come alive with the house? Silly thought. And yet-
“If the interior shows signs of movement, we’ll be giving it a light entropy spray to freeze it, your reverence,” he heard Deth call to him. “You’d better step lively if you don’t want your inviolability field to go into stasis, your reverence.”
Hurriedly Chulian entered the haunted house and ducked through the first interior doorway he caught sight of. It would be just like the mean little deacon to carry out his threat and the thought of being held helpless in a rigid field in this place, even temporarily, was distinctly disturbing. The feeble glow of his halo partly revealed a domed chamber of moderate size, with furnishings whose colors had faded with the centuries, but whose general lines still conveyed an impression of graciousness and comfort. Chulian coughed. Dust, churned up by the recent commotions, was everywhere resettling thickly. The floor gave slightly under his feet. Despite his general revulsion, the room exercised an odd fascination on Brother Chulian. Some features seemed almost attractive. Particularly a certain couch, which looked rather like the bed in his luxurious little cell in the Sanctuary.
A chilling sound, as if someone had grated his teeth just behind him, made him whirl around. There was no one there.
But the door had vanished. He was cut off from the others.
His first thought was, “What if the walls should close in, and in, and in.”
The couch which had first attracted his attention began to creep toward him, oozing across the dusty floor like a gigantic snail.
With a little gasp of choking, panic-inspired laughter Chulian dodged past it. It changed its course to follow Mm. Faster.
There were no doors. He tried to get solider pieces of furniture between him and the thing. It shoved them aside. He darted past it again. It swerved toward him quickly, as if it were a very intelligent, evil slug. He tripped, fell awkwardly, managed to scramble up, dart blindly forward. It had him trapped in a corner. Very slowly now, as if gloating over his terror, the couch writhed closer, suddenly reared up, quaking obscenely, and thrust out stubby arms toward him-a vile personification of the fleshly comforts so dear to Chulian. Then it embraced him. Its pressure against his chest activated the controls of his inviolability field, switching it off. His halo, carried by the funnel like extension of the field above his head, was automatically extinguished.
Darkness, then, and the suffocating, obscene endearments of the thing. Desperately he fought against it, straining his head backward, pushing out wildly. If it touched his face he would go mad. He knew it. But it did touch his face. Gently at first, recalling the feel of Sharlson Naurya’s fingers. “Goodbye, Little Brother Chulian.”
Then tighter and tighter, stranglingly, crawling over his mouth. And Brother Chulian wished he would go mad.
One useless thought insisted on staying in his mind. If he ever escaped, he would never again be able to sleep easily on his little bed in the Sanctuary.
Abruptly the pressure receded. A door appeared in the wall ahead, letting in wan light. He stared at it stupidly, swaying, feeling as weak as water. Then the realization that escape was possible penetrated his fear-numbed mind. He staggered forward.
Just outside the door he was bowled over by a scarlet tide of fleeing priests. Cousin Deth was in their midst From the floor Chulian caught one glimpse of Deth’s distorted, sallow face, white showing all around the irises of the eyes.
Cousin Deth was screaming, “The thing! The thing in the hole!”
Painfully Chulian half-scrambled, half-crawled after them, out through the chilly, ragged doorway.
In his ears thundered the uncontrollable, crazy laughter of the crowd. Nimbly, the fingers of the Black Man rippled over the banks of close-set controls. His glistening eyes scanned the tenuous solidographic miniature of the haunted house set in front of him. Through the faintly projected walls he watched the tiny scarlet-robed manikins flee from the place, disappearing abruptly as they got outside the visual field of the mechanism. Watched Brother Chulian hobble after.
His intense concentration took the form of a very gleeful, but rather taut smile. Snub nose and short, bristling, red hair emphasized the impression of impishness. He murmured a swift aside to his companion: “I am becoming very fond of that tubby little man. He scares so beautifully.” He jerked backward. The little scene had erupted with blinding light.
“At last they blast the place,” he cried. “But Sathanas always laughs last!”
And lifting a microphone to his lips, he howled maniacally. It was as if a volcano had erupted. The haunted house glowed, flared, writhed, melted. The four priests on the knoll had finally received orders to get their warblast into action. But its smoky red flare was more suggestive of hell than heaven, and from the crowd beyond came screams of agony, where a momentary puff of its carelessly handled heat had inflicted serious burns. Each narrow street was jammed by fear-crazy, fleeing commoners. Others were seeking to scramble onto the roofs of surrounding houses.
The haunted house collapsed, ceased to be.
But from the flaming, heat-blasted ruins rose a shuddering, triumphant laughter. The Black Man switched off the master controls and stood up, eying the great keyboard with regret.
“Too bad its usefulness is over. It was a lot of fun to operate. I shall miss it, Naurya.”
“But it was certainly worth it.” She was looking at him seriously.
“By Sathanas, yes! Commoners laughing at priests-that’s a major achievement. Though the poor devils will be sorry they laughed, when the Hierarchy doubles the tithes. But it was a very neat little instrument, just the same, and I have a right to mourn its passing. See, that top bank controlled the walls; the next one below it, floors and ceilings. You mightn’t believe me if I told you how many hours of practice I put in before I developed the technique required for such stunts as bouncing that first chap upstairs and out again. Quite a problem in timing.
“Third bank-windows and doors. Fourth-ventilators, and such furniture as we decided to animate. Including Brother Chulian’s over-affectionate couch.” He patted a half dozen keys tenderly.
“Tell me,” asked Sharlson Naurya, leaning forward curiously, “did the people of the Golden Age usually have houses that played such tricks?”
“Asmodeus, no! They were just a fad, I imagine, and a very expensive one. The idea was to have a house whose shape you could change to suit your fancy. Say you had a big crowd in for a party and needed a larger ballroom. You just activated the proper controls and-presto!-the walls would recede. And why not make it an oval or octagonal room while you were at it? Just as easy!”
He laughed happily.
“Of course, it all worked in slow motion. But when our investigations showed that the old equipment was still pretty much in order, it was very simple to shove in more power and speed up the tempo, so that the old place could dance a jig if we wanted it to. Then we hitched up our remote controls, and there we were!”
Sharlson Naurya shook her head. “I can’t get over thinking that there’s something disgusting about the luxury of a house like that. Imagine summoning a chair across the room because you were too lazy to walk! Or changing the shape of a couch to ease a crick in your back! Sounds too voluptuous.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Looking like some ancient jester, in his black tunic which left arms and legs bare, the Black Man spun around and pointed a mocking finger at her.
“You’ve been bitten by the toil-for-its-own-sake morality that the Hierarchy dredged out of the dirty past!” he accused laughingly. “But for that matter, none of us can escape it. I’m glad that in my case it took the form of an urge to play exceedingly laborious and complicated practical jokes.”
Naurya studied him intently, leaning her arm lightly on the edge of the control panel that occupied much of the tiny, barewalled, windowless room. He lolled back across the padded seat in front of the controls-the only piece of furniture in the room-eying her humorously. She seemed much wiser and more experienced than he, with her coldly purposeful features and enigmatic eyes.
“Are practical jokes your life’s goal?” she asked finally.
“I watched you all the time you were operating this thing. As you peered down at those scuttling scarlet little images, you kept smiling as if your sole ambition in life were to play at being a malefic demigod.”
“You’ve touched my weakness there! But the telesolidograph always gives you that godlike feeling. You must have felt if yourself. Confess!”
She nodded soberly. “I did. How does it operate? That was the first time I ever saw one.”
“So? I would have thought otherwise, since you are so close to Asmodeus.”
She shook her head. “I know nothing of Asmodeus.”
He looked at her sharply. “He takes a very special interest in you, as if you were one of the most important of us.” She did not answer. “But you know the job he’s saving for you, Naurya. Do you mean to say that Asmodeus informed you of that job in the same manner that he informed me-by indirect communications?” He watched her for a moment longer, then shrugged his shoulders carelessly. “I can believe you don’t know him. I’ve never met witch or warlock who did, myself included-and in one sense I’m his second in command. Just orders from above, that’s all he is to any of us. An invisible fountainhead of instructions. The great mystery.” His voice had a jealous tinge. He changed position, snapping his fingers restlessly. “But if Asmodeus gives you the run of our headquarters here and asks me to look out for you, I suppose it’s quite proper for me to tell you about the telesolidograph. It’s simple, really. The Hierarchy’s solidograph is a three-dimensional motion picture. The telesolidograph is the same sort of thing, except that the primary multiple-beam is invisible, long-range, and highly penetrating, only erupting into a visible, three-dimensional image when it reaches the focus. Slightly analogous to a needlepoint spray. So, for instance, if we want bare feet scampering around, or what not, we just fake a solidograph of them and feed the tapes into the projector. Phantoms to order! Vocal manifestations work in about the same way.
“The instrument I used is a bit more complicated, of course. Two-way. Viewer and projector. So I’d have a miniature image of the general focal region to guide me in operating my lifesize phantoms and manipulating the remote controls of the house.
“All our tricks are like that, Naurya. Relatively slight improvements on Hierarchic science. As soon as the priests get on the right track, it’ll only be a matter of time before they find the answers. They’ve started already. Zeroentropy to put the walls in stasis wasn’t a bad dodge.
“That’s why, in handling the haunted house, I went light on telesolidograph-one of our real trumps, worth holding up-and heavy on house controls, which we couldn’t have hoped to keep a mystery. Only used telesolidograph on the first chap-and on Deth.” He smiled reminiscently.
“Odd that such a trivial thing should scare our dear deacon. But when Asmodeus sends you a detailed fear-biography of a man, it isn’t difficult to put your finger on the weak spot-even of such a cruel crook as the deacon. What’s the matter, Naurya? He one of your pet hates?”
She shook her head, but her eyes stayed as stonily hating.
“The man behind him,” she said softly.
“Goniface? Why? I know, of course, that the special job for which you’re being saved involves Goniface. Something personal about it? Maybe revenge?”
She did not answer. He stood up.
“A little while ago you asked me about my aims. What are yours, Sharlson Naurya? Why are you a witch, Persephone?”
She took no notice of the questions. A few moments, and her expression changed.
“I wonder what is happening to Armon Jarles.”
He looked at her quickly. “Does he figure in your aims? You were hurt when he balked last night. Are you in love with him?”
“Perhaps. At least, he has a deeper motivation than the urge to play practical jokes. There’s something firm-rooted about him, solid as a rock!”
The Black Man chuckled. “Too solid. Though I was sorry we lost him. Sathanas, but we need men! Men of ability. And it’s just those that the Hierarchy grabs.”
“I wonder what is happening to him,” she persisted.
“Unpleasant things, I fear.”