Читать книгу Damned - E. S. Dorrance - Страница 3

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An air of apprehension pervaded the throne room.

The most imperfect day known for ages in the Court of Gehenna was drawing to a close. The seven Tartarean courtiers had effaced themselves as far back in the auditorium as the folds of its black and red electric hangings would permit. Each held eyes and ears intent, realizing far too well that his particular tenure of preferment hung upon the mood of the moment. Even the prime minister, Old Original Sin, who had weathered so many Apollyon storms that he well might have considered himself immune, sat ill at ease in his chair of honor upon the dais.

His Satanic Majesty leaned forward from the throne chair, imposing in its effect of onyx and gold. His head drooped as though from weight other than the voltage of his crown. His elbows pressed upon the chair-arms, that both his strong, long hands might stroke in turn his pointed, copper-colored beard. About the room, as lightning plays in advance of thunder, flashed his gray-eyed glances. When he spoke, although in a mild voice, each auditor quivered through taut nerves.

“Draw the night curtains. Throw on every switch. I dislike this pale, abiding light.”

Without awaiting the attendants, the courtiers sprang to do the royal will. Sin himself operated the electric switch-board. At his touch, a design in heraldry blazed from the wall behind the dais. In pseudo-seeming, bands of ebony and of beryl formed the setting for a golden crown in bas relief, its points pricked out with emeralds. Projecting from its headband, three horns of power suspended from their tips the ruby-writ words “Japheth,” “Shem” and “Ham.” The crown itself looked to rest upon a sword that dripped all jewels known, like tears of every agony, from those of water to those of blood. Beneath, through letters transparent as thin sardonyx, flamed this caption:

SATAN the FIRST and LAST.

Outcast of Paradise

Heir-apparent to Earth

Monarch of Greater Gehenna

His Highness glanced back at this elaborate conceit and a gratified expression crossed his face. He signed a page to spread out his crackling mantle of gold-bordered black; slanted a self-respecting look at the splendid proportions revealed through his easy-fitting body garment of opaque red light; matched his long-nailed finger-tips in pairs.

The seven waited with increased perturbation. They knew that calm, considering look to presage some diabolical idea; realized that no flattery might blind that super-keen sight; appreciated that the day had run too unevenly for hope of a restful end.

From the moment of the royal rising that early morn, the King had seemed of malevolent mind. The attendants in his private suite insisted that he had quit the royal bed from the right side. Yet he had seemed to assimilate perversity from his static shower, declaring the current hot when, in fact, it was cold as refrigeration could make it. In a passion he had unwound the small dynamo of a new costume considered by his chief tailor a creation; later had hurled his breakfast filectric-mignon at the first chef, asserting that it bore no resemblance, either in appearance or gastronomic satisfaction, to the beefsteaks of men.

The inadequate light cast by his pet device, an imitation of Sol, had provoked a personally conducted investigation of the mammoth power plant in the lower badlands. Disregarding the affairs which awaited his personal direction, he had spent the noon hour tinkering at the mechanism of his sun, moon and flock of stars.

At the General Assembly of Demons his ill-temper had gained momentum. After listening for a time in sneering impatience to suggestions offered as amendments to the general proposition of standardizing crime, he had hurled upon that august body a very cataclysm of political overthrow. One by one he had assailed the ministry, down to the most faded of those angel plotters cast out with him at The Fall. Announcing that he would run the nether world alone and unaided, he had dissolved the cabinet, assigning its members to labors futile as their protests.

In view of his treatment of those who had served him so long and so infernally, what was in store for mere courtiers, sycophants of a few recent centuries?

When he straightened in the throne-chair, each of the seven straightened with him. When, tilting his crown at an easier slant, he glanced speculatively about, all crowded back against the highly charged curtains and tried to look indifferent at the shock.

His gaze settled upon the prime minister.

“Sin, you aborigine, a word!”

Old Original—so called because his visability, like the King’s own, never had dimmed—made obvious effort to assume the sang-froid of one who knows himself to be indispensable; sauntered to the steps; bent in an obeisance of elaborate mockery.

“Future of the Universe, I await your will,” he remarked with nasal twang.

Satan looked contemptuous of his handyman’s forced effrontery.

“I know you do. You’ve taken to awaiting my will entirely too much for your own good. There was a time when you were full of vile ideas. But you’ve lost your ingenuity of late. Since when have you designed a sin-mask that would deceive the least suspicious of earthlings or invented a new form of torture with which to demonstrate our canons of damnation?”

The aged demon, forced on the defensive, eyed the Master with reproach.

“Æons agone there ceased to be anything new beneath the sun and I——”

“And you,” His Highness interrupted, “may be dispensed with if that is true. I am proficient in all the old tricks myself. However, I am disposed to give you a chance to disprove it, being ever kind and just. Is that not true?” The lightning of his look threatened the seven sycophants. “Am I not ever kind and just?”

“As the hope of Hell!”

“Oftener than ever!”

“In our best-worst interests, Sire!”

The medley whined from the shimmering shadows.

Sin’s voice gained in assurance, even as his mind lost at the trend of Satanic argument.

“But, my King, haven’t I had the whole mortal world at war? Didn’t I trick all peoples into slaughter of each other as you planned?”

“I notice you use the past-perfect tense in speaking of that late little unpleasantness. As a matter of fact we lost out on it—lost our one best bet since Noah and the Flood. How did you make the mistake of assuming that any scrapper who falls fighting for his country could be condemned by his fellow men? The worst of them is guaranteed a passport to Abraham’s bosom. As for the leaders—the brains of the drive—most of them were lost to us through that meanest of mortal weaknesses, fear for the integrity of their own hides. They all want to live. That is what’s wrong with conquerors. When earth-wars are such good training for——”

His Highness’ teeth bit the sentence in two. His saber-like gaze slashed suspiciously from face to face.

“You do your own army an injustice to compare its morals with that of any on earth,” soothed the old toady. “I’ll acknowledge that I am somewhat used up. Even Sin might get brain-fag, you know.”

“That excuse is antedated. You have had ample time to recuperate.” The royal digits made a crackling sound as they touched. “You failed egregiously on every important specification of the big fight. Did you keep them at it until the world was engulfed in one red sea of gore? Did you inoculate hate until it over-ruled every gentler human impulse? Did you overcome the too-young at home and the too-old who were to instruct them and the women who were to bear the spawn to continue the slaughter? With all the possibilities of modern wholesaleness, that war was not half what it should have been.”

“Admitting all you say,” the prime minister defended, “I don’t see cause for your august dissatisfaction over our progress with the mortal world.”

“You don’t? What you need is an oculist.”

His Majesty descended the steps and began to pace the great room.

“I have had a day of realization,” he continued in lifted voice. “Something must be done. Things are too slow to suit my purposes. We are not getting our share of those who enter Shadow Land. Entirely too many are ticketed through to the Fields by Mors.”

“You know, Sire, something of my efforts to buy that stubborn old keeper of the outer gate,” interpolated Sin. “Nothing I offer seems to have any value to him. He is polite enough, but drones always the same reminder that for the present he must abide by the records of Earth.”

“The trouble is not with Mors, fool fiend,” Satan snapped. “It is with that book of his—with the ‘Judgments of Men.’ The feelings of mortals do soften sickeningly toward their dead. They say the good die young. Certainly we try to see to it that the bad die old. That’s why everything has seemed to depend upon our new searchlight summoning towers. Mors is able, with only two such towers ranged on either side the Mystery Gate, to make his lists, set his automatic finders and turn on his power. What results? Every evening and all night long they come at his call. There’s certainly nothing attractive about the patriarch. He is grim as the first law of mortality and looks it. Yet every witness he subpœnas comes. Nothing stops them, the long, drear journey, the fear of the unknown, the hissing belly-crawlers along the way. What happens when I build a dozen searchlight towers to his two? I make my selected list of earthlings for whom no modern Ananias could pass a good word. I set my alleged finders and turn on all the power we can generate. With what result?”

Glaringly though he challenged reply, none who knew his latest scheme to add to the population of his kingdom dared remind him of its failure. Of necessity he answered himself.

“For a week now our tower tops have been shafting calls to Earth. Has one of the nominated accepted? I am forced to admit that there is something more to this death business than searchlighting. I’ve never been so disappointed since Pontius Pilate double-crossed me.”

“Wait until Mors summons the choice crowd of leaders you mention who started the world war,” Sin suggested.

“Wait? That seems to be your persistent idea. I tell you we can’t afford to wait.”

Halting before the lesser fiend, Satan seared him with a look.

“I don’t expect you even to suggest where the Associated Electricians of Gehenna have failed. And in other respects your title and office are jeopardized. I offer you a last chance to save them. If overnight you invent some new feasible scheme for conscripting earthlings into our standing army, your job is saved. If not——”

“The feasible idea already is invented and its workings under way, O King. Compared with it, all our past schemes are limited and crude. Camouflaged under propaganda of universal appeal, it cannot fail to start a whirlpool which will, in time, suck every man, woman and child into moral death.”

“You refer to Bolshevism, I suppose? Not a good idea—not good at all. The germ of it has lain in my mind for centuries. I’d suggest that you saunter to the outer gates and quiz the evening’s grist. You might happen upon a Red recruit with cheering news.”

“The very thing I was about to propose,” Old Original made reply on his way to the door.

The ruler frankly sneered. “Great minds, eh? Are you trying to flatter yourself or me? While you are going, take the wall decorations with you.” He included the courtiers in his gesture. “How many centuries do you obsoletes need to rise to the worst that’s in you? Do you suppose for one split-second—mortal time—that I’d work with evil natures as I have done since that fracas up in Paradise just for the company of the evilest of them through eternity? By to-morrow I shall have decided what to do with such choice parasites. Out with you, or I’ll fit my skeleton key to the trap-door of the bottomless pit and throw you in before your time.”

With alacrity which showed their relief at this temporary escape, the seven followed the prime minister through the separating rays of the rear curtain.

Satan looked to share their relief that they were gone. For a space silence reigned with him in the throne room except for the snap of his heels upon the floor and the swish of the royal robe. His reflection in one of the mercurized panels of the side walls caused him to halt. For long he studied his face, then, straightening, appreciated his magnificent outlines. A look of satisfaction cleared the frown of evil affairs from his brow. Lifting his crown, he bowed into the mirror.

A voice from behind the curtain also saluted him:

“‘No wonder that thy heart was lifted up, that thy wisdom was corrupted by reason of thy brightness.’”

“Step out, caitiff. Be as apparent as your flattery. Why do you linger to spy upon me when I order the court cleared?”

A Balial glare fixed upon the returned minister’s ingratiating grin.

“Not to spy upon you, Sire. Rather, to admire you. You certainly are the Boss of Below for looks.”

His Highness, never having outlived his first fault of vanity, gave benefit of doubt to the compliment, as also to the glass-like tumbler bewhiskered with crisp-crackling green held toward him.

“I thought Your Majesty’s harassed spirit might feel in need of refreshment, so made bold to have this quaff mixed. It is as near as may be like those they have voted too strong for the United States of America, suh. Here you are—a frappé low-bolt!”

Sin proffered both explanation and cup with that irrepressibility which so far had made, but at any moment might break him. With sympathy sips, he watched the sampling of the liquidized current concocted by the first royal bartender, a past-master indeed of the art before it was amended off Forty-second Street and Broadway, New York.

“Get the kick?” he asked, fearing as much as hoping that the julep would fail of its effect.

Satan threw the goblet on the floor, where it snapped and flashed, but did not break.

“If I didn’t, you would.”

Sin believed him. From experience he had learned the difficulty of gauging the moods of m’lord after a few such applications had filed or smoothed the edges of his tooth-sharp temper. For safety’s sake he gave a side glance into the sensitized panel.

“Notice the size of you as compared with me—and I am supposed to be well-developed from my criminal calisthenics.”

His Highness frowned. He also “noticed.”

“Where is the value in good looks,” he conceded, “if there’s none around whom you admire to admire you?”

Old Original was quick to follow the advantage. “A word on that very subject is what I returned to say, a word of condolence and advice.”

“You offer condolence and advice to me?” The King of Evil glared at the most malapert fiend of his kingdom.

“Condolence, Sire, over your state of solitariness. Advice as to how to ease it. From my hurting envy of your appearance I realize one littleness in my largeness. Absolute admiration may endure only where envy may not spring. Why does not Your Majesty seek that companionship which is not born to jealousy? Isn’t there a complete assortment of rags and bones and hanks of hair in Gehenna’s bargain basement?”

“You suggest for me the companionship of—” Satan paused briefly to sneer—“of a female shade? Don’t you suppose, if I cared for the sex, that I’d be running a harem of all nations, stocked with every famed siren, from Helen of Troy forwards and back? You should know by this time, old weakling, that your spirit in women doesn’t appeal to me any more than to mortal profligates. And the pulchritude of most has gone by the time they get here.”

“But there are the dewy-looking souls loitering about the Fields. Why not break the rule that there may be no transference between Elysium and the Lower Land before the Call? Aren’t you the exception to all rules? Why not an adventure for Your Excellency such as often we have seen in the cinemized episodes of modern villains—an abduction, say, of the most visible and fair before the guards can interfere? Don’t despise my idea, generated from a conviction that the chief lack in your life is loneliness.”

“An angel for me?” Mirthlessly His Highness laughed. “Sir Sin, they bore me limp as a summer-resort collar. To be sure that a she-soul is going to be eternally good is a fraction worse than to be sure she’ll be eternally bad. No, philanderer, you’ll have to do better than that. There is not a female, quick or dead, for whose absolute admiration I’d give a plugged nickel.”

The click of the door-knocker punctuated this assertion. Satan strode to the throne; replaced his crown; signaled the minister to respond.

Soon Sin bowed low before his Master, a look of evil animation on his face.

“Already the Seven have returned, Sire. They report that a goodly number of bad ones were crowding through the gates. Among others, they interviewed a couple who, they thought, may interest Your Majesty. They await your pleasure without.”

“May divert My Majesty from complaint of them, you mean. Yet I suppose that they, as well as you, should have that proverbial last chance due evil intenders. By no means make any diverting shade await my displeasure. Page, bid them enter The Presence.”

Royal tolerance fled, however, at sight of the candidates.

“A crippled old soldier and a woman with a suckling babe! It behooves me to find some way of revising the current notion of what constitutes My Majesty’s diversion.”

He relapsed into silence as the new-comers were half led, half dragged toward the dais by a pair of the scrub-oak dwarfs who ushered inside the Gehennan gates. By light of the dynamo that is within each soul, they were clothed as in the habiliments they had worn in their late estate on earth, he in a rusty uniform, she in nun’s gray. With his crutch the cripple resented their intent to be rough, but his travel-mate stumbled forward without resistance, her head drooped so low that her long, loose hair swaddled the whimpering infant shade in her arms.

The kingly choler increased when, at the steps, she sank as though from exhaustion rather than reverence to her knees. One last, promising glare he shot at Old Original and the seven, then spoke in a voice quiet, yet more dire to those who knew him than any thunder-clap.

“To swoon, madam or miss, is out of date down here. I pray you postpone the attempt for some less sophisticated audience.”

Sin, leaning forward from his especial chair just back of the throne, dared to insinuate: “And I pray you, Damnity, do not sentence her until you have considered her. There is something exceptional about her. She may have been sent to prove that idea of mine.”

Satan scorned to notice the suggestion.

“Come,” he ordered the woman soul, “show your passport.”

As though from shame, she crumpled against her breast a scarlet slip. Shaking back her hair, she looked up at him.

His Highness, startled, returned her look. He did not heed or hear Sin’s gasp of anticipation. He forgot the seven, the pages and the dwarfs. Leaning lower, he looked and looked.

Truly he, who had been the fate of most fair women since Eve, never had beheld one of a face of such appeal.