Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain (28 page)

The apish chemist squinted around with eyes that saw nothing. The effort to perceive
any particle of light made them throb.

“Black as a bat’s nightmare,” he decided.

“We are not dead?” demanded Fiana Drost from nearby.

“Don’t be such a problem child,” sulked Long Tom.

“The way Doc explained the how this darkness-marking machine works,” Monk was saying,
“is that it creates an electronic field, causin’ the rod-and-cone mechanism of the
eyes to stop workin’. Any light gettin’ to our retinas won’t be turned into pictures
in our brains.”

“That shouldn’t bother you any,” Ham said unkindly. “You have hardly any brains to
begin with.”

Long Tom was moving about the aircraft’s exterior by feel, seeking the landing gear.
Condition of the struts and tires would tell him how rough the landing had been.

“Everything checks out O.K.,” he reported.

Monk said, “Not a bad landing—if I do say so myself.”

Ham scowled. “Let’s wait for light before you start boasting. We don’t know if the
wings are still attached.”

But Monk had already clambered up on the high wing and began bouncing along its length
like a boisterous bull gorilla demonstrating his strength.

“Feels solid,” he pronounced.

The other side of the wing proved to be intact, also, from the whanging sounds it
made under Monk’s tramping feet. Satisfied, the hairy chemist leapt to the ground
and, guided by voice sounds, joined the others.

They sat down to wait for Doc Savage, no better course of action suggesting itself.
Walking around the plane had caused them to bump into one another repeatedly and this
was becoming tiresome.

As Monk put it, “If we wander off, no tellin’ how hard it’ll be to get back.”

A steady wind began blowing. It made a low keening, as of lost souls in search of
home. A wintery chill touched their exposed flesh, prompting shivers. The air was
filled with the smoky scent that overhung parts of Ultra-Stygia, owing to the burning
of dead vegetation. This made throats scratchy, and clogged nostrils, which accounted
for what happened next.

Fiana Drost suddenly gasped.

Ham demanded, “What?”

“I hear something.”

“Probably a bad dream you had once,” said Long Tom sourly.

“No!” Fiana dropped her voice. “I hear footsteps.”

Monk had excellent hearing, and cocked his nubbin of a head this way and that, ears
hunting sounds.

“I ain’t hearin’ anything but the dang wind.”

“I believe fresh snow is falling,” suggested Ham.

Monk reached out an apish hand in the painfully-intense darkness and scooped up some
of the cold precipitation. Tasting it, he pronounced, “Snow all right. Heavy stuff,
too. We may have to move back into the plane.”

It was a good idea, but they got organized too slowly for it to pay off.

First, Fiana Drost stood up. They could hear her unfold herself, but that was all.

“I
smell
them,” she breathed anxiously.

“Who?” asked Long Tom.

Sniffing the air, Monk Mayfair suddenly shot to his feet.

“She ain’t kiddin’. I smell polecat, too!”

“What?” wailed Ham.

Monk bellowed, “It’s them invisible hedgehog things!”

WITH that, everyone found their feet. The natural instinct was to make a circle, with
their backs to one another. They did that in a rough fashion, by feel, but by the
time they managed it, the foul odor was unmistakable in their recoiling nostrils.

“Everyone back into the plane,” ordered Ham, waving his sword cane about commandingly.
Unfortunately, it was a poor idea because in doing so, he conked Long Tom by accident.

Thinking an unseen foe had struck him, Long Tom lashed out with a bone-hard fist and
knocked the dapper lawyer off his feet, with the result that Ham saw stars and lost
consciousness. Long Tom packed dynamite in his fists.

Monk hissed, “What happened?”

“I think I socked Ham by accident,” said Long Tom.

“You shoulda been more careful,” Monk gritted.

“He started it.”

Monk gathered the unconscious barrister in his burly arms and bore him toward the
open cabin door. The hairy chemist advanced three paces before he encountered something
as hairy as himself. The sensation was of a great invisible porcupine obstructing
his path. It smelled rank, beastly.

“Uh-oh,” undertoned Monk.

“What is it?” hissed Fiana sharply.

“One of them blasted ogres. Right in front of me.”

“Where?” demanded Long Tom. “I can’t see a blamed thing!”

No one could. It was maddening. The effort to see through the impenetrable darkness
made their eyes ache like diseased teeth.

Gingerly, they began backing away.

This time, Fiana Drost ripped out a scream that might have brought some of her soul
coming up through her throat.

“There is one here… beside me…” she husked.

“Where?” yelled Monk, jumping around in place and making furry fists.

It was at that point when they realized that they were helpless. Helpless and surrounded
by the unseen things whose invisibility was made more distressing due to the baffling
influence of the darkness maker.

“Wait a minute,” mumbled Monk. “If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. Right?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Long Tom doubtfully.

Abruptly, Monk dropped Ham Brooks to the ground and felt about for Ham’s dropped stick.
Monk used his foot, encountered the barrel, and reached down without hardly having
to bend. His apish arms were exceedingly long.

Separating the thing, Monk whispered in Mayan, “Hit the ground.” He waited for the
sound of dropping forms. Then he began flailing the supple blade around in wild circles.

The hairy chemist was no swordsman. He jabbed, stuck and plunged the blade into any
hairy form he encountered. He encountered many.

Hands clutched at him, seized, but suddenly relaxed as the potent anesthetic daubed
on the sharp point worked its chemical magic. Merely a scratch introduced the quick-acting
stuff into the bloodstream.

“If Ham ever finds out I had to use his overgrown pig-sticker,” Monk muttered darkly,
“I’ll never live it down.”

“Are you beating them?” Long Tom demanded, head swiveling in futile anger.

“They keep coming!” complained Monk, swinging wildly. “And this sticky dope don’t
last forever.”

It was the truth. Monk stabbed and jabbed again and again. But although he laid a
stack of the coarse-coated monsters at his feet, others moved in with grasping paws
that triggered acute terror in the unrelieved darkness.

Suddenly, moonlight washed over all. Just like that.

It had the effect of harsh sunlight on their unprepared optics.

Bellowing, Monk threw a hirsute beam of an arm across his deep-set eyes to protect
them.

A great unseen paw swept in and relieved him of Ham’s stick.

Seeing this, Fiana screamed, then choked back all further outcry. All of her cool
self-possession had been stripped away by the hideous combination of frustrating darkness
and unseeable foes.

Lowering his arms, Monk peered around, heavy jaw slack, seeing nothing. The former
impression of many forms crowding him was suddenly no longer there.

Instead, Monk saw that he was surrounded by a veritable wall of eyes. Separate, varicolored
orbs regarding him with cold, inimical intent. It was as if some species of otherworldly
bees were harassing them. Their unremitting stares were something to remember.

“You will all surrender,” a firm voice ordered.

Monk looked around, seeking the source of that commanding voice.

A green-uniformed man stepped forward. General Basil Consadinos!

MONK exploded, “What are you doin’ here?”

“Preparing to launch a war that I cannot lose,” said the general, smiling under his
pointed mustaches.

While that was sinking in, a new figure stepped forth.

Alone of all of them, Long Tom recognized the smooth features of the new arrival.
He was a wolfishly lean man.

“Emile Zirn!”

“That ain’t the Emile Zirn we met,” Monk muttered, squinting at the man.

“It’s the one from the
Transylvania,
” explained Long Tom.

Monk asked, “The gink who went up in a cloud of smoke back on that liner?”

“The very same,” said Emile Zirn proudly. “It was a very smooth trick, I might add.”

Long Tom eyed the other narrowly. “I had my doubts about your story,” he said.

Zirn executed a polite bow. “It was sufficient for me to cover all tracks and return
to my homeland with my prize.”

“Prize?”

“I might have lost it to certain Egallan spies,” Zirn offered, “but they fell upon
you instead. Or so I am told. Your misfortune became my salvation, you see.”

“The typewriter case you carried to the hotel,” Long Tom growled. “What is it?”

“Never mind,” snapped General Consadinos. “For we have just acquired a newer prize.
A glorious trophy of war.” He seemed very pleased with himself.

The war minister lifted a heavy hand and made a gesture.

All light vanished. Their eyes began hurting, it was so dark.

“The blasted
black,”
muttered Long Tom.

They stood in the smothering grimness for less than a minute before the general called,
“Light, please.”

The world returned to normal—or as normal as the spectral weirdness of Ultra-Stygia
could seem.

A soldier in green was crouching there, closing a heavy steel box which sat on the
ground. The darkness-making mechanism was apparently housed within.

The general smiled at them. “We have lately acquired this from our national enemy,
Egallah. Now we may proceed with the annexing of the Marea Negra region of Ultra-Stygia
as a first step toward hurling the enemy far from our present frontier.”

“Blazes!” Monk said. “How’d you get it away from them?”

“Our Elite Guard has the ability to go anywhere in Ultra-Stygia—and Egallah, for that
matter—to spy and pillage at will.”

General Consadinos gestured toward the numberless orbs that surrounded them. They
blinked as lightning bugs might, one at a time, no two exactly matched. It was unsettling.

“You control these things!” blurted out Long Tom.

“They are our secret weapons. Not monsters, but men. Loyal soldiers of the Tazan nation.”

“There’s been talk about your nation conducting scientific experiments with invisibility,”
said Long Tom.

The general nodded in acknowledgement. “Experiments which have succeeded—but not without
peculiar side effects. Hair on men is one of them. But we discovered that this could
be put to good use. Instead of invisible spies, we had produced invisible creatures.
Hair growing so profuse that it covered the eyes. So we instructed our Cyclops Corps
to cut back the hair over one eye only. That made what remained half as visible, and
produced a very shocking effect. No?”

“Not Cyclops after all,” muttered Monk. “Just hairy men with one eyeball covered.”

“This preyed upon the animal fears of the Egallans, who are a very superstitious people.
For this land is said to abound with
varcolaci
—werewolves to you.”

Monk said, “Wait a minute! What about that big monster that pulled the other Emile
Zirn apart? The thing with a dozen heads and twice as many paws. Ham and I saw it.”

“Or thought you did,” purred General Consadinos. He snapped his fingers once.

Suddenly, Monk was surrounded by a half a dozen unmatched eyeballs. Heavy hands took
him by his wrists, elbows—everywhere. He felt them rather than saw them. Hides so
hairy they scratched his rusty skin.

Monk lunged forward in the middle of the grunting commotion. His rusty-knuckled fists
began popping about him. They smashed faces—or what felt like faces, producing the
sounds of very satisfying grunting and pained exclamations of surprise. Encouraged
by this, Monk’s big feet began to stamp. This, too, brought reactions. Howls of agony
accompanied the crunching of toe bones. The press of unseen hairy bodies seemed to
retreat.

“Boy oh boy, am I hot tonight!” Monk said gleefully.

Monk’s foes were tough. Moreover, there seemed an unending supply of them. Others
rushed in, took fresh hold. Monk wrenched, fought back. With each move, he emitted
a whooping howl or bellow of wrath. But the supply of unseen combatants appeared inexhaustible.

Soon, Monk was overwhelmed. Before he knew it, the homely chemist was lifted into
the air and pulled in several directions by strong pairs of bristling but irresistible
hands.

“Ye-o-o-w!” he hollered. “Leggo of me, you hair-coated goons!”

Monk’s strength was prodigious. He pulled one hand free and lashed out. Four more
paws seized his furry wrist, arresting it. It was impossible to fight the unseeable.
But Monk gave it his all. He tried biting. Twisting his bullet head, his great teeth
snapped in vain. Something slapped him in the face. He roared. Feet kicked out. Monk’s
ribs took a pounding. He kicked back.

In the end, he had to take it. Growling, Monk gave up.

“Do you understand now?” asked the general. “You saw only eyes, nothing more. The
rest was your imagination attempting to cope with what you perceived. Thus do we of
Tazan control and guard Ultra-Stygia.”

Long Tom had attempted to intervene, but something that felt like a bear tripped him
so hard he landed on his stomach. A heavy foot reminiscent of a barrel cactus set
down on his back and kept him flat to the cold ground.

After a bit, the foot withdrew and Long Tom was allowed to stand up. He looked like
a man spoiling for a fight, but the wall of staring orbs which closed in from all
sides dissuaded the slender electrical wizard.

MONK began floating away. Another one-eyed ogre picked up Ham Brooks. The elegant
barrister was promptly carried off, shouldered, to all appearances, as if by a playful
winter wind.

Long Tom and Fiana Drost fell in line, shoved along by the rude porcupine things.