[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
* * *
A long while later, as we lay amid beauty and sunlight, regarding golden trees, I remarked, "So the
process involves mesmerism?"
She nodded, she yawned.
"It's the secret ingredient in such transmutation on a large scale," she explained, "a special kind of
mesmerism."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Oh," I said. " 'Special?' In what way?"
"Other-worldly energy," she replied. "There will be a vast flux of it when the door for Poe's return is
finally closed."
"And that takes place tonight, during the work?"
"They would like it to,'' she said, "but it shan't. I haven't been keeping it open all this time for their
benefit."
"You've lost me."
She smiled.
"No, I haven't lost anyone yet. Not even Poe. I plan to give them their gold and get him back, too. The
three of us will finally be together, here."
"I am not a scientist," I said, "and my training as a mesmerist is far from complete. But even without
knowing the mathematics that must prop such matters, I'm sure of one thing: The universe doesn't give
you something for nothing. What's the price?"
She smiled again.
"Mr. Ellison does not know that I am aware of his secret," she said. "He is from that Earth. Therefore, I
can exchange him for Poe andthen close the door. We will be reunited, and Mr. Griswold will be
extremely grateful."
"I'll bet," I said. "This was his idea, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
It was like looking into a maelstrom things changing constantly as I watched. Would her stratagem
prevail? Had Von Kempelen a secret army of homunculi awaiting the appropriate moment, somewhat
after midnight of a gold October 7th, to make their move onhis behalf? I was probably the only one
involved without a contingency plan.
So I kissed her, and, "Tell me more about mesmerism," I said. "When the force is as strong as ours there
must be special measures for keeping it under control."
"Oh, yes," she answered. "We must construct our own tools. . . ."
* * *
On that night of all nights in the year, well after midnight, we made our ways into the cavernous cellar of
the manse at Arnheim to commence the transmutation.
The private armies of Seabright Ellison and the men he had dubbed the Unholy Trinity faced each other
across the length of the laboratory. There were perhaps forty on each of two sides. Each man bore a rifle
and wore a brace of pistols; and there were plenty of edged weapons in sight. I wondered what it would
be like with ricochets flying all over the place. Civilians. . . . I'd sneaked in and dug a hasty trench
earlier not too far off to my left and covered it over with a piece cut from the tarp holding the
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
mountain of lead bars. I'd anticipated something like this; and at the first evidence there'd be gunfire I
intended to grab Annie and dive into it.
Von Kempelen was connecting hoses from tank to tank, rods from the final tank to the far side of the
stack of lead bars. Annie was seated in a shiny black chair which looked as if it had been constructed
from slabs of obsidian. A glass helmet covered her upper head, and she leaned against a strip of gold
which ran up its high back. She was given two rods to hold, both of which extended to the near side of
the lead heap.
Von Kempelen whispered some final instruction to her, then nodded to Ellison and the others. A certain
tension, apart from the psychological, immediately filled the room. I took a step toward Annie and felt an
increase in the forces she was manipulating. There followed a gurgling from one of the vats. Whatever
forces were emanating from Annie, they began to pulsate. The other vats began to resonate.
I seemed to hear a high-pitched whining, and suddenly my head ached. Covering my ears did not make
any difference, though everyone else was doing it, also. Then it went away and half-distinct shapes swam
through the air strange fish, strange sea. . . . Again, the pulsing intensified. It was almost something one
could lean against. I felt somewhat more conversant with the phenomenon now, following my exercise of
the previous afternoon.
The sound came and went in an instant. Minute explosions of color then filled the air, above the vats,
about the gray stack. Annie's hands were white with strain upon the rods before her.
Then came the rippling. It was as if I watched the men across from me and everything else about me, I
suddenly realized through a shallow, flowing stream. Nothing was changed, yet everything was
changed. Everything in the cellar seemed to be vibrating.
Then the points of light mostly golden this time returned, to linger within the rippling.
I took another step toward Annie. Some pressure was building. The gray bars flashed yellow for a
moment, within the rippling. A moment later the flash was repeated golden this time, lingering. The pile
seemed to change shape, shrinking each time the brightness came into it, expanding as it departed.
I glanced at Ellison, who was smiling. The frequency of the vibration increased. The gold-gray/
implosion-explosion sequence came faster and faster. Then the gold portion of the cycle was lengthened,
the gray shortened. There was a jogging effect, with the actual scraping, grating sounds of the bars
rubbing against one another as some intrinsic factor altered the size to maintain the mass. Several of them
were tumbled from the stack.
I looked to Ellison again and he seemed framed in fire, but totally unmindful of it.
Then the vibration stopped, and I beheld a mound of gold. Everyone in the room seemed to inhale
sharply at the same time. Lovely, buttery, heavy, gleaming. . . .
I looked from the gold to Annie to Ellison and back. And again. Nothing happened. Nobody moved.
Something had to happen. There had to be a counterstroke, a movement, a balancing
Annie screamed. The light which hovered about Ellison faded.
That which Annie had screamed was, "Poe is dead!"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
There was a grin upon Griswold's face. Annie released the rods, pushed back her crown of glass.
Something like a great sigh swept through the chamber, and there came a rattling like an earthquake in a
brickyard.
The pile grew and lost its shimmer, turned gray and fell apart.
Griswold screamed and so did Ellison. But no one fired a shot.
Annie repeated what she had said, very softly, but the words were clear. As if in echo there came a
tremor and all the lights shook in their sockets. "Poe," she said again, "is dead," and overhead the building
creaked. There came a fall of dust all about us.
Eyes turned upward, and a series of growling, cracking noises ensued.
* * *
"At the termination of this sentence I started and, for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I
at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me) it appeared to me that, from some very
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]