Part 4

Carl could not speak; he could only stare into the glowing sphere. The golden image was moving! Slowly the sinewy muscles of its arms moved downward; strong golden fingers felt along its thighs; its chest expanded as it drew in the scented breath of the temple. Carl saw the arm of the God reach down and bring up a lovely white form. He saw her swoon with pleasure in the embrace of this golden image that now lived. He saw the God release the white form of the girl, saw her fair body writhe with tormented desire, her hands clutching eagerly for him. On he walked to the throne beside the altar. As he walked, the maidens bent down before him, their lips caressed his feet, slender fingers sought to touch him as he moved majestically above that sea of adoring flesh. Moonere bowed before him. He touched her shoulder, and raised her up to meet his lips in the lingering kiss. Then he sat down upon the scarlet throne.

Food and wine were brought to him by the maidens, each seeking to outdo the others in her attentions. They fairly groveled at his throne.

"Now they will bring him the new sacrifice," Pierre said tensely. "I will let her walk slowly so that Moonere will fail to see that my mind controls her. But he will never possess her!"

"Oh, God, I pray not!" cried Carl.

* * * * *

Ruth entered the temple, her eyes staring glassily in front of her. From her shoulders trailed a flimsy white cloth, her slender form gleaming through it in the pale blue light. Two of the maidens led her to the Golden God. In torment, Carl watched him feast his eyes upon Ruth's beauty. Unable to stand the sight, Carl turned from the globe.

He looked beseechingly to Pierre. The man's lips moved in formless speech. Pierre was talking to Ruth, he knew. He looked again to see if it had worked. Carl gasped as he saw Ruth fall in a crumpled faint before the throne. Moonere rushed to her. The maidens began laboring over Ruth's lifeless form. The Golden Image frowned. Carl watched the look of surprize fade from Moonere's face; slowly, gradually it became a smiling mask of cruelty. Pierre was now laughing.

"Ah, they do not enjoy that! Moonere is puzzled. Moonere and the Golden God of Sudre are disappointed for once!" his voice rasped. He shook his fist into the globe. "Now what will you do, Moonere? What will you do to me?"

As Pierre spoke, Carl saw Moonere dart to the altar and pull quickly upon some heavy chains that hung in front of the blazing fire. Slowly a shining disk of platinum appeared. Moonere swung it rapidly until it caught the light of the hellish fire that burned upon the altar. Its glistening surface began to glow. Suddenly a blinding flash of light engulfed the globe before the two figures concentrated in front of it. Pierre's vast room filled with a strange purple and blue-green light.

"Quick! Turn on the ray-machine!" Pierre cried, pushing Carl out of his way as he hurried to the panel. "Your glasses, don't forget them. Don't forget to turn Z-4. And when I tell you, let me have R-9." Pierre was shouting now.

All through the room the strange light shattered into millions of little stars. The ray from Pierre's machine shot upward through the sky. Carl saw it cross the ray that was coming from Sudre. The sky in the vicinity of the rays, that could only be seen through Pierre's glasses, was filled with a mighty conflict of fire.

"More phosphorous liquid. Hurry! Hurry!" Pierre was almost screaming now. Carl pulled the lever, and the liquid poured into a tank beside the ray-machine. He worked feverishly, following Pierre's orders. Everything he had previously rehearsed, he now performed rapidly and automatically. He turned knobs, pulled switches, poured mysterious liquids into tanks, watched a pageantry of light and small sparkling stars leap about the room, dancing from corner to corner.

The room grew hotter. Perspiration dripped from Carl's face as he struggled to follow the orders issued by Pierre. Although he knew what to do when Pierre commanded, he did not know what each separate action meant. It was enough that he could recognize the orders and could do what must have been the simplest of things in this maze of wizardry and science Pierre had developed.

As Carl worked over a boiling vat that contained a thick mixture of evil-smelling chemicals, he felt a severe burning sensation at the back of his neck. Turning his head slightly, he saw two yellow flames shoot toward him from the switch-board panel.

"Take that other tube and place it in the switch-box. Tube X! Tube X!" Pierre's tone was frantic.

Carl whirled around in his excitement, and as he did so, a bottle fell with an explosive crash. Smoke and fire leaped up from the floor. Pierre quenched it quickly with an extinguisher. The heat of the room was beginning to show upon Carl, and he sensed that in a moment he would pass into unconsciousness.

The tube placed in the box as Pierre had directed, Carl staggered blindly back to his duties between the tank and the switch-board panel.

"Something's wrong! Something's wrong!" he heard Pierre say in a croaking voice. The fear that gripped him made it impossible for Carl to ask what was wrong.

Pierre turned from the ray-machine. Carl saw him, and for the moment went insane! Pierre's face was gone! There was only a blue light shining from the open gap that had once been the face of Pierre Soret. Somewhere in that horrible sight were two white pin-points that retained a semblance of the man's eyes. Bluish smoke was issuing from his entire body.

"We must work fast; perhaps you can finish what I have started," Pierre's broken voice came from the awful vision that represented him. "My ray-machine is not powerful enough; I cannot concentrate the rays on the temple with sufficient intensity to effect my purpose. You must take my concentration mirror, which is similar to the one you saw Moonere use. I must release your fiancée from my mind. You must submit yourself to me. I will send you to the temple, if I last that long. Your fiancée will be at their mercy until you arrive."

Sensing the danger, Carl hurried to the globe. Ruth was stretched upon a couch in front of the throne. The maidens were working desperately to revive her, while the Golden Image of Sudre glowered down upon her. Carl realized that once Pierre released his grip upon her mind, Moonere would send her into the greedy clutches of Sudre. Ruth would be lost to him.

"No! I can't permit it. You must save her!" he cried. "But how? Man, you are gone! You do not live, you can't exist as you are! In heaven's name, how could you hope to save anyone, how can you even speak? How? How?"

"This is the only way. Do not doubt me. The rays are destroying me. Everything is going fast. You must go, and I will direct you," Pierre said sternly.

Already Carl could feel the electric touch of Pierre's intellect usurping his. Even his voice sounded weak as he cried out: "No! Save Ruth! Save Ruth! Keep her asleep. Keep her--aslee----"

The blue fire that was Pierre became larger; nothing but blue, blue light filled his eyes; and Pierre, the mind of the great but tortured scientist, filled Carl's brain.

"You will take your car and speed to the Countess Moonard's. Make all haste. Nothing can stop you. You _must_ get there!" Carl heard Pierre's voice as a whisper.

At first he moved stiffly, as if each step needed the command of the man who now controlled his brain. Gradually the feeling decreased. Carl Fielding became Pierre Soret!

Into Carl's pocket Pierre thrust a round, silver disk.

* * * * *

Through the streets that led to the Countess Moonard's star-haunted residence, Carl's roadster sped like a silver bullet upon an errand of mercy. Twice he would have met certain death had it not been for the super-intellect that made quick thinking snap his movements with the deft skill of a racing driver.

"Go faster! There is little time to lose. Go faster! Do not be afraid," the voice of the professor rasped. The wind whipped past Carl's face.

Carl froze as he heard the next words of the man who gripped his brain. "Do not be afraid; nothing can harm you now, for you are not guided by the normal destiny of a human. Something stronger leads me on, and I in turn send you upon this errand which may mean death for you. Some Greater Power of Good now seems to be working against the Evil Thing of Sudre.

"I am slowly being burned to some strange form, I know not what, but my mind is keen and clear. It is the work of destiny, the destiny of good perhaps. You are at the command of my brain."

Carl could not stop now, and even the mighty fear that shook him hurled him forward. On he drove, knowing that every turn he made was being watched by Pierre in the globe--but there was nothing he could do; he was driven by a force far stronger than himself.

"Stop at the servant's entrance," Pierre said, as Carl turned his car into the driveway that led to the Countess' home.

Carl brought his car to a quick stop and leapt from it onto the little walk that led to a narrow doorway in the side of the house.

"Go through that hallway. Run!" the voice commanded.

Carl followed the directions, turning and twisting through a series of doors and porticos, opening secret panels in the walls, and hurrying through a confusing catacomb of corridors until at last he was within the temple where no one else had ever gone without being brought before the Inner Circle of Sudre. Now he was there.

They were dragging Inspector Chadwick to the altar. Huge black slaves were preparing to toss him into the flames. The pealing laughter of the Golden Image rang through the temple. The maidens were dancing; and in the very center of their circle was Ruth, now wild-eyed with passion, her face livid with the same desire Carl had seen upon the faces of the others. She was moving to the Golden Image to give herself to the God of Sudre.

"Reach into your left pocket!"

Carl's frustration ceased as he heard Pierre snap this command. The dancing ceased. An awed hush fell upon the scene of the orgy. A demoniacal scream arose from a chorus of horrified throats as Carl whipped from his pocket the silver disk. Through the glasses he was wearing, Carl saw a reflected ray of glaring intensity flash out from the disk.

He flashed it over the heads of the screaming dancers. Forked tongues of fire leapt in all directions, and licked out against the naked bodies that fled beneath its swiftly darting flames.

The Golden Image roared in anger and plunged forward to strangle Carl. He flashed the ray across the face of the thing, and to his astonishment, the Golden Image seemed no longer alive. It stood still as if it had returned to its former immobile self. Then it began to melt!

"Strike Moonere! Strike Moonere!" came Pierre's staccato command.

Carl lashed the serpentine beam full across the Countess Moonard's face. She cursed him, and screamed a horrible oath. He lashed her again. Retreating before the flailing whip of fire from the disk, the Countess ran and threw herself upon the altar. The flames leapt up, as she disappeared in a flash of blue smoke.

"My work is almost over," Carl heard the faint voice of Pierre Soret, coming like a sigh. "Throw the disk into the flames upon the altar. Hurry, for the altar of Sudre will soon be cool, and only the ashes of its evil reign will smolder in remembrance of the Fire of Sudre."

* * * * *

Carl hurled the disk into the now dwindling flames upon the altar. It twisted and curled with the flames that wrapped about it. Finally the flames sank and vanished, as a silvery snake-like wisp of smoke coiled upward, and then sank gradually into obscurity.

"Now my work is finished," Carl heard Pierre's voice, this time coming to him in the tones of whispered weariness. "Young man, do you know, strange as all my life has been, strange as all the stories of my family's struggle against the evil God of Sudre, I have never been really frightened until now--now I find myself upon the brink of another world.

"The house was burned. The flames consumed me; even as you raced to the temple, the flames were destroying me, yet I did not die. I was so afraid that I would die, and leave you in the temple with the evil I knew was there; but I lived, even after I knew that everything in my house was destroyed by fire. My inventions, my years of work--all were destroyed.

"There is nothing but dreary coldness here; and in the darkness, gray-lined specters hover all about me. Surely this is the realm between the known and the unknown. It is strange to me, like a vast sea of doubt surrounding my soul--yet in the distance I see a light, a light of infinite brightness.

"My fear? Perhaps Sudre's evil ray has tainted my soul; and yet it cannot be, for now, even here, I feel that same moving faith, the magnetic power of good, drawing me on to some better destination. It must be so. Even though I no longer live on earth, and I wander in a land of dreadful strangeness, surely I have conquered evil.

"You are listening, my friend? You hear me speak to you from beyond the border of this life. Shall I always do this? Will you be frightened, young man, when you hear my voice?

"I am watching over you, guarding you from harm. Go to your sweetheart. Lead her quickly from this temple of doom, for it is soon to fall. Lead the ones who are returned to the reality of this earth out of the temple of another world. Lead them into life as we knew it; at least as _you_ knew it. Hurry! There is little time. I will guide you safely out as I guided you into this secret domain."

Carl heard the rumble of falling stones, and saw huge cracks appear in the scrolled walls. Picking Ruth up gently in his arms, he carried her through the portal that would lead them to the outside. He beckoned to the bewildered souls who had witnessed the end of their unholy service to another god. They followed like innocent sheep. Only a few of the black slaves and servants of Moonere remained, silent, stone-like images that seemed no longer alive.

Like the thundering roll of a kettle-drum in some great symphony, Carl heard the sound of the temple falling behind him. Every step of the way that led through the intricate passages out of the Temple of Sudre seemed to crumble as his followers fled close upon his foot-steps.

Soon they found themselves in the reception room of the Countess Moonard; a strange company of unclad women, looking for some answer to their question of where they had spent their lives. Slowly, gradually, they seemed to sense that a terrible past lay behind them: something that was to fade, even as the unnatural beauty of youth faded to conform with their respective ages. Young faces on aged women were growing old as they should have done long ago. With reality came their sense of propriety, and they eagerly sought clothing with which to cover themselves.

Pierre spoke again, commanding Carl to hurry them from the house. Outside, in the clear light of the stars, they turned to see the home of the Countess Moonard sink into the earth. The quick crackle of fire popped in their ears, and the sky became illuminated with a great conflagration.

Inspector Chadwick said little; Carl also remained silent. Tonight was not the time to talk. Secretly Carl hoped that Chadwick would forget, that everyone would forget the Countess Donella Moonard.

* * * * *

London Newspapers in their morning editions carried the story of two fires: the destruction of a three-story house, occupied by an eccentric Professor Pierre Soret, who had presumably compounded some dreadful chemical which had destroyed him and his house; the other, an account of a disaster, either an explosion or fire of unknown origin, that completely demolished the home of the Countess Donella Moonard, killing her and her staff of servants.

Beyond this there was no thought of any connection between the two houses so far apart from each other. Carl smiled somewhat as he read:

"Although the Countess Moonard has been known to certain London socialites, her ancestry was never certified; nor was the claim of Countess hers by any English right. It is generally believed that the Countess originally came from France. She was a woman of mystery and rare beauty; her age was unknown. She was a follower of some strange religious belief, probably of Egyptian origin."

* * * * *

There are women with snow-white hair and failing eyes, hobbling about their homes; women who were once glamorous beauties, noted for their coldness to all men, women whose beauty could have made them beloved. Old and lonely now, they shun the world, living within their homes, wondering when and what will be the end of their existence.

Doctor Carl Fielding has not heard the voice of Pierre Soret for nearly a year now. Sometimes he thinks he hears the echo of that spirit who so strangely left this life. For a while there were moments when Carl felt an awful sense of fear, because the thoughts that were in his brain that night were the thoughts of the man who lived within the fire, but his wife's devotion has dispelled this gloomy fear and led him on to hope.