Part 3

"Of course; that is, the lifetime of Moonere does not correspond with any human conception of a life-span. Moonere, or the Countess Moonard, as she has been known here in London, is from another planet, and has lived on this earth, serving the God of Sudre, for many ages. As long as she serves faithfully, she will live at his will. If she never offends her fiendish deity, she will live eternally. Even in my family, where the knowledge of her has existed for many centuries, there is no record of her beginning. You will find that hard to believe, because such things are beyond the comprehension of men. It will always be so with the mysteries of this world. Only a few learn the solemn secrets, and they find their knowledge a curse, their lips forever sealed by man's eternal skepticism.

"But as I started to tell you, when Moonere and I finally clashed, my ray proved a failure--a fault I have corrected. I was seized and dragged down into the center of the temple. My clothes were torn from me, and I was thrown upon the altar. The crystal burned; the poison crept into my body. I thought that my time had arrived, that this would mean death. But that was not her plan. I was exposed only for a few brief moments, much the same as the convert who takes the final vows. Then I was released. Mind you, I was set free. I could go to the police and Scotland Yard if I wanted to. I could tell them my story."

"Why didn't you?"

"Do you think they would believe such a story? Furthermore, even if I took them to the temple, to the very altar, what could I prove? Upon the surface, Moonere has nothing that would arouse any suspicion beyond ordinary curiosity."

"But your face--you were horribly disfigured after the exposure to the glass, were you not?"

"No. That is not the way the glass first interprets the ray of Sudre. Those exposed to it for only a brief moment upon the altar, find that their youth, their physical charm, is doubly enhanced. When I was thrown from the temple, I looked years younger; my hair, which was turning gray before I entered, became black and glossy again. I could not look into a mirror without realizing the wonderful appearance that had been given to me. But it was only temporary. That is the way Moonere holds her victims for ever, sealing their lips, and bending them to unending servitude. The beauty does not last. Only by constant bathing in the rays beneath the glass can one keep fresh. Deny yourself those rays and the aid of Moonere, and you find your entire body slowly being destroyed. One look into the mirror, by a victim so denied, is enough to enslave the soul with fear.

"Any night when the heavens are filled with the diffused rays of its many bodies, and Sudre is between earth and the planet about which it revolves, the torture of slowly being burned to a cinder increases for me. That is why I remain inside my home, which I have succeeded in partially insulating from them. That is why I can walk about in the fresh air upon only those all too few dark nights. In my home, I work with my inventions, the findings of many years of research by my family. But each night, Moonere and the Thing of Sudre send their rays to me. It is their jest, a further extension of their joy in the torture of mere mortals. My body now has an attraction for those rays. Even behind the closed, insulated walls, I feel their burn. With my present ray-machine, I have been combating them. Every night, if you could only see with your normal eyes the battle of Moonere's ray of death and my own discovered ray, you would know what a strange, unbelievable life I lead."

Carl looked wan and weary. Just now it seemed to him that there was nothing real about anything. The man who stood before him with his horrible face, his story of Moonere--everything was like a mad plot and setting for a dream of horror. All he could do was trust and pray that, through this man who knew the secrets, Ruth would be saved from a life far worse than death.

"All this is so strange, so far removed from reality," Carl said. "There is nothing I can do but follow your directions. I will do anything to save Ruth from this life."

"Then you must come with me." Pierre stood up and threw his cape about his face. "I will take you to my home. There are many things I must teach you before tomorrow night, the night of the sacrifice. I will have great need of your assistance in my laboratory. You will be protected with everything my knowledge can give you. Perhaps I should warn you that I believe tomorrow night Moonere will seek to destroy me entirely. If you are with me, you may suffer a similar fate. Shall we go?"

"We go!" Carl rose to his feet, and hurriedly put on his coat and hat.

Once outside, under the low-hanging canopy of the black night's sky, Pierre breathed heavily, as if the murky air of night was doubly precious to him.

"Young man, you are about to witness what no one outside my own family has ever seen. You will see the work of many past generations, and you will see strange inventions that are of the future. Science has been very slow in its progress, compared with what my family has achieved." Pierre laughed, a rather cracked and squeaky laugh, somewhat disturbing to Carl; it was the first time he had heard the man laugh. "Indeed, my boy, if you live through this, you will never forget it; yet you will never be able to tell another soul. Imagine it! How little the people on this world really know of what is going on about them! Here is busy, foggy, magnificent, dingy, dirty London with her many souls living their frustrated daily lives, their noses to the ground; and every night a drama they can never see is played up there in the sky. In their very midst two houses hold the powers and the secrets of ages beyond recall!"

_4. The Scene in the Bowl_

Pierre's home was a decaying old town house of red brick, with bleak shuttered windows and a gray slate roof. Conservative and ancient, it stood like an unfriendly hermit, far back from the street.

Carl was impressed with the solid, substantial appearance of the old house. At one end of it, the north wing, was a glass-enclosed room, beginning at the second story and ending slightly above the regular roof-line of the building. The front door was of fortified steel. To the dull surface of the door was secured a substantial bronze tablet, covered with a rich patina of long exposure, on which were inscribed the words:

BRING NOT YOUR TALES OF THE WORLD YOU KNOW, FOR BEHIND THIS DOOR LIES A WORLD YOU WILL NEVER ENTER.

"A most hospitable door," Carl said.

"Yes, a door without a latch-key," Pierre replied.

"Then how do you open it?"

His question was answered with the silent movement of the steel door, as if someone had opened it from the inside; although in the dim light of the reception hall, Carl could see no sign of another occupant.

"It opens by cutting off the beam of light that passes from the post at one side of the door to the post on the other," Pierre said, as he ushered Carl into the hallway.

Carl turned and watched the door close silently behind him.

"You have them in some of your modern office buildings," Pierre continued. "This door has opened that way for the past forty years. My father developed the principle. Come, we will go to my observatory."

Pierre led Carl to a narrow stairway leading upward to the north wing. Up one flight they moved silently. A dim blue light illuminated the landing, and shed its ghostly rays down another hall. Up another flight, leading in the same general direction, they walked. Carl felt as if he were climbing slowly through a mad dream.

Passing through a heavy, rivet-studded door, they entered the laboratory. The room was vast, covering the entire top floor of the house. The glass enclosure which he had seen from outside served only one end and corner of this amazing room. The walls were of a peculiar gray, glowing softly as if phosphorescent. Throughout the entire expanse of the room there was arranged an incalculable assortment of instruments, switch-boards, control-panels, glass and polished chromium, copper and brass. To Carl it was like suddenly entering a room fitted with all the strange instruments of the alchemists, and yet it was like looking ahead, fifty, a hundred or even two hundred years into the future.

Pierre led the astounded Carl over beneath the glass dome. Here seemed to be the major control position for all the complex horde of machines that filled the room. In the center of this circular space stood a small insulated platform. Upon it, supported by gleaming glass rods, stood a huge, hollow hemisphere, from which emanated an eery blue light. Coming closer and looking downward into it, Carl was thrilled to see moving objects, familiar outlines of buildings he knew belonged to that part of London called Piccadilly Circus.

"This will explain the question you asked me earlier in the evening. The inventors of modern television would be envious if they knew of this creation. I need no transmitting station to bring into my home any scene I may desire."

Pierre quickly removed his cape, and began tinkering with an assortment of strange knobs upon a large panel back of the bowl. The Piccadilly Circus scene disappeared, and into its place came a picture of Ruth's deserted apartment.

Again Pierre turned the knobs, and the scene in the bowl became a moving panorama of London streets. Swiftly they passed, until the estate of the Countess Moonard appeared in the strange vessel.

"It is astounding. How--how----?" Carl gasped.

"To explain its operation would take all of our time, my boy. I have many other things to show you, the work of my ancestors and myself. This magnetic bowl has been most helpful. Through it I have been able to follow the unholy activities of the Countess Moonard. That night after I left you, I hurried back here and drew the light-rays of the Countess Moonard's home into the bowl. I saw her anointing your fiancée with the oils in preparation for the sacrifice to come; saw her filling the mind of the girl with the evil suggestions of the God of Sudre. When Ruth was sent back to her apartment, still in the trance of Moonerism, I then took over her mind. I had to be cautious, as I did not want her to confuse my suggestions with the thoughts of Moonere. When you found Ruth this morning, the Countess and I were both battling for control of the girl's mind."

"Can you see where they have Ruth?" Carl asked anxiously.

"Certainly!" Pierre turned the knobs again.

* * * * *

The little dials that traced the locations he wanted shivered onto the desired points, and Carl beheld a thrilling sight. In the bowl there was appearing a picture that resembled nothing of modern London. He saw a temple of ancient Egypt. The towering pillars along the side of the temple were adorned with strange hieroglyphics of forgotten beliefs. The vision moved slowly, like a motion-picture camera shot traveling to a close-up scene that ended at an altar where a mysterious fire was burning. The picture remained steady for only a moment, then moved on to a room filled with many pillows. Upon a richly draped couch, Carl saw his fiancée lying as if in deep slumber. Negro slaves were anointing her slim, white body with precious oils. The chamber of a princess in some forgotten age this could have been--but the girl was Ruth!

"What are they doing to her?" Carl cried out, his fingers reaching into the bowl as if he hoped to pluck her from the couch.

"They are making ready for the night of the sacrifice. Every woman who takes the vows of Moonere relinquishes her charms to the God of Sudre."

"You mean----?" Carl's fists tightened.

"It is the price each one pays for her beauty. Poor deluded fools! They come to the Countess, seeking beauty and charm with which to win and hold the man they love; instead, they give up their most priceless virtue. The God of Sudre takes their charms onto himself."

"How? You say this God is not of this world?" Carl asked.

"Look!" Pierre changed the scene in the globe.

Slowly the picture moved down the magnificent room. It approached a bronze platform, and paused. There upon the bronze dais, standing erect, was the golden image of a man, or demigod. The image was about seven feet tall. The details were perfectly wrought, and every muscle and fiber of that magnificent nude statue was the embodiment of the perfect development of masculinity. Yet it was a sensual development, eliminating all that might be good, and emphasizing all that is base and carnal. The face was cruel beyond any conception of men. The features were sharply brutal. Silent and motionless it stood, but the eyes were alive; and from them burned a dull, blue-black light that chilled Carl's blood as he watched.

"That is the image of the God of Sudre," explained Pierre. "Tonight, when the rays from Sudre become most intense, Sudre's spirit will enter it, and it will become imbued with life, the evil life of Sudre. Tonight it will indulge in an orgy of lust at which even the most dissolute of ancient Romans would have shuddered. Your bride-to-be is to give herself for ever to Sudre, and for ever she will be lost to you. No mortal man will ever possess her."

"No! No!" Carl cried out in tortured frustration.

"You will see on the night of the sacrifice," Pierre said calmly.

"But what are you going to do to save her? You haven't told me yet how this monster can be stopped."

"Everything I have and know, I will use. If I fail"--Pierre's shoulders shrugged--"there is no one to carry out my work. If I win, Moonere will be destroyed; the tortured souls, who have given all for beauty, will at last be free. We have only a few hours more. As we have talked, this night has passed. Another day is upon us; with its end comes the night when the evil rays will be fully focussed. Moonere will again send the hellish light that I have fought. Tonight I will use everything to combat her--telepathy, advanced knowledge of science, and secrets that will die with me."

"But what shall I be doing?"

"You will be helping me. Within these all too short hours, you will be learning the operation of the many machines. Follow me."

Pierre led him to another corner of the room, where an instrument, not unlike a telescope, was placed. He handed Carl a pair of glasses with very thick, colored lenses.

"Look through these. Look into the instrument, and tell me what you see."

"It looks like a beam of light, but it seems to stop in the sky; it is like a highway of white marble that ends abruptly," Carl said.

"You see the ray from the fire on Sudre, traveling at a faster speed than light, bringing with it the secret of beauty and death that only the star-glass of Moonere can transmute to potency. Now watch this!"

Pierre moved to a high stand that supported a cone-shaped searchlight reflector. He made several deft adjustments, and then pushed in a switch on the long panel that ran the length of the room. Carl, with the aid of the glasses, could see a light-beam shoot into the heavens and travel in the direction of the beam that seemed suspended in the sky.

"This is my latest invention. Everything depends upon it. Tonight you will see a spectacular sight. Everything we do will be controlled from here. You and I, working with science, destroying that which is beyond this planet."

Carl looked about him. He reached out his hand and touched a metal laboratory bench; its solidity reassured his slipping sense of the reality of it all. Dazed, he wandered again to the bowl. What he saw made him start as if he had been shot with electricity. Inspector Chadwick was struggling with two brawny servants in the temple.

"It's Chadwick!" Carl cried. "They've captured him."

* * * * *

Pierre hurried to the glass.

"The fool!" he rasped. "Why did he go there? I thought you had warned that detective friend of yours to keep out of this. Now they will make him a prisoner. They may not wait until tonight for the sacrifice to destroy him."

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Nothing, unless they hold him for the dance of the maidens in the temple. One thing certain, he will be burned as I was, or even destroyed upon the altar. Watch closely, and you will see why no one has ever betrayed the secret of Moonere."

Breathlessly Carl watched them drag Chadwick into a small throneroom where the Countess Moonard, clothed in the robes of an ancient priestess, sat in serene majesty.

They threw him down in front of the throne. He rose and shook his fist threateningly at the Countess. She smiled; her long, deeply beautiful eyes looked into his face. His trembling arms stopped shaking and dropped limply to his side. He stood in hypnotized rigidity. She pointed to a door that slowly opened. Chadwick walked meekly through it. The slaves bowed before the Countess and followed him through the door.

[Illustration: "They threw him down in front of the throne."]

"He's going into the dungeon. They are saving him for a later sacrifice," Pierre said, almost relieved. "That means we have time; we may save him."

"Chadwick wouldn't have gone to the Countess' unless he suspected something more than he let me know. He must have been well protected. He's no fool. A man can't just disappear--not an Inspector from Scotland Yard. Chadwick would have his men following him. They will get him out of that dungeon," Carl spoke with growing determination.

"You are mistaken." Pierre turned the knobs again.

The bowl showed Chadwick's men rushing into the reception hall of the Countess' home. Twisting the knob again, the bowl revealed the Countess smiling innocently. A servant brought in three of Chadwick's men. They began talking angrily to the Countess. Then the door where Chadwick had gone down into the dungeon opened. He came out, and began talking to his men.

"They're leaving!" Carl cried.

"Yes, he has instructed them to go. He has told them there is nothing wrong. Your friend's mind no longer belongs to him; his every thought, his words are the words and thoughts of Moonere. She has told him to send the men away, assuring them that nothing is wrong. You see they are gone. And now Chadwick returns to the dungeon."

"Why can't you take over his mind as you did Ruth's? You said you could do it. Why can't you free him from Moonere's grasp?"

"I can," Pierre answered calmly, "but to do that would place your fiancée in danger. Every minute I have concentrated upon her. Within her mind is the continual conflict of two powers struggling for supremacy. For the present, it is best that I whisper, 'Peace and quiet,' to the girl. You see how she slumbers, so still and unmoving; that aids my plan.

"When the time comes for the sacrifice, they will discover that their lovely maiden is not to join their dance of passion."

Pierre began laughing at the thoughts that were damning Carl.

"You need not fear, my friend; she will sleep, sleep; and nothing Moonere can do will make her gratify the desires of the evil God of Sudre. Tonight you will see a disappointed God!"

_5. The Golden Image_

Throughout the hours, Carl crammed the many secrets of Pierre Soret's strange machines. It seemed to him that he had forced the learning of all the world into his brain.

Midnight found him staring with weary eyes into the sky. The night was clear; and above the dimly haze-rimmed horizon Carl could see the metallic glitter of the stars. Looking through the telescope with his specially designed glasses, he found the light-beam again. This time it hovered very closely to the center of the heavens.

Pierre moved from one machine to another, tightening little adjustments, testing each minute detail.

When the beam reached its zenith, he said: "Now we will see the beginning of war."

In the globe, Carl could see the temple. The fire upon the altar was blazing brightly. Along the walls sat many slaves, playing strange musical instruments. The light in the temple was blue, the silvery, all-pervading blue of moonlight.

"Tonight they will begin the dance of invitation to the God of Sudre." Pierre peered over Carl's shoulder into the bowl. "Before his golden image, they will perform the subtle dance of seduction, inviting him to come and take them in his arms, and embrace them. You see the beam of light. From Sudre it has traveled the miles of space, and hurried with its concentrated rays into the star-glass. See how the flames upon the altar blaze tonight. The dance begins with Moonere's entrance. She will give her signal. Watch!"

The Countess Moonard entered the temple from a small door at one end, walked slowly through the throng, each worshipper bowing as she passed, and came before the image of Sudre. Standing there, she was both terrifying and beautiful. Her body became slowly rigid. She flung back her head, and her long, black hair fell down behind her. Her body glowed with sensuous intensity. She raised her arms slowly, in supplication and desire, and then let them fall to her side.

The musicians increased the tempo of their playing. Onto the floor of the temple came the dancing forms of many beautiful women, clad only in their long hair that waved like misty light about their supple bodies. Arms outstretched, they danced rhythmically before the idol. In the pale blue light of the temple, their forms were like white marble statues suddenly breathing life. Around and around before the God they danced, their passionate movements growing more and more intense.

Carl watched, revolted and yet fascinated by the obscene gyrations of these beautiful nude dancers who threw their charms in rhythmic supplication toward the golden image.

Shadows darted about the temple walls, shadows of arms raised high and lowered quickly across sculptured white curves, shadows of bodies thrusting and withdrawing with compelling seductiveness. Beautiful faces, swelling breasts, and eyes that cried for love--the love of an inhuman idol of gold!

"It's moving!" Pierre cried. "The God of Sudre returns."