Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain (30 page)

“What could be worse?” asked Ham, sitting up.

Fiana replied to that. “We are to be shot as spies.”

Monk said, “That wasn’t what I was gettin’ at. But that part may be true, too.”

“What could be worse than being shot?” wondered Ham, shaking snow out of his hair.

“We lost your cane back by Doc’s plane,” Monk elaborated.

At first this did not sink in, but when it did, various expressions played along the
dapper lawyer’s handsome face. Finally, he began swearing.

Normally, good breeding prevented the elegant barrister from resorting to profanity.
But the loss of his prized stick brought forth a stream in bitter maledictions.

Fiana Drost, surprising them all with a sudden display of primness, inserted both
fingers into her ears to keep out the bad language.

When Ham had exhausted his spleen, he noticed Baron Karl sprawled beside him, in obvious
discomfort, looking like a crippled starfish.

“Where is your monocle?” asked Ham, recognizing the man at once.

Baron Karl merely groaned. He was very pale. All of his former suaveness had departed,
along with his Continental dignity.

Ham sputtered, “Jove! This man looks as if he fell into a nest of those were-men!”

“He did,” said Monk. “They practically pulled him apart until he told them where the
darkness machine was at.”

Stabbed by the memory, Baron Karl squeezed his eyes shut in pain. He was gnashing
his thin lips with his teeth, fighting agony in every joint.

“Who has it now?” asked Ham.

“General Consadinos.”

“And there’s another surprise,” added Long Tom. “Emile Zirn is here, too.”

Ham blinked. “Which one?”

“The one who was supposed to have evaporated on the
Transylvania.
”

“Queer,” mused Ham, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“Next thing we’ll know,” Long Tom observed, “Countess Olga will rise from the dead.”

“Do not mock that possibility,” inserted Fiana Drost. “In Ultra-Stygia, anything is
possible. Even
that.”

No one had the energy to argue the point, so they lapsed into silence as the snowy
landscape reeled past. Even with the white stuff covering all, the terrain looked
dark and disturbing.

“What happened to Habeas?” asked Ham.

“Left behind,” said Monk morosely.

Ham looked around and seemed surprised at how much snow had piled up in such a short
interval. It lay over the terrain in mounds and sharp, wind-sculpted drifts.

“Any idea as to our destination?” he inquired.

“What does it matter?” sniffed Fiana. “One stone wall is the same as any other.”

Which comment prompted Long Tom to fashion a snowball and pelt the morose woman with
it.

“Next time it’ll be my foot,” Long Tom added warningly.

Fiana only glared at him, brushing caked snow off her shoulder.

ANOTHER few minutes of lumbering along brought them to a small town. A military barracks
town from the looks of it. Green-clad soldiers marched everywhere. They wore strained
faces. No one paid the new prisoners any heed.

A makeshift air field of sorts stood nearby. Warplanes sat idly, knife-like wings
collecting heaps of snow. Only a glimpse of these could be seen as they rushed past
them. But they counted three aircraft.

Out of the lead vehicle came General Consadinos. He began issuing curt orders, whereupon
the activity grew more alarmed.

An orderly raced up, snapped off a brisk salute, and chopped out his report.

Fiana translated it for their benefit.

“Great vampire bats have been harrying the troops of Tazan,” she repeated. “Men have
died of asphyxiation. Poison gas, they are saying it is.”

“Then war has started in earnest,” breathed Ham Brooks.

Fiana made an impatient gesture for silence. She listened intently, pulling dark hair
off one cocked ear.

“The general is giving the orders to counter-attack,” she translated.

Monk’s eyes widened. “No kiddin’?”

“He is ordering warplanes into the sky. He is telling his men to fight back with snow.”

“Snow?” said Long Tom.

“He is telling them to unleash what he is calling ‘the Snow of Silence.’ ”

Ham frowned. “What could that mean?”

“I do not know,” admitted Fiana. “But the orderly who accepted this order has turned
very white. Like a ghost.”

“More mystery,” muttered Long Tom. He was looking around. “I don’t see any sign of
that Emile Zirn.”

“Small potatoes in this witch’s brew,” grunted Monk.

Soldiers in Tazan green came forward and escorted them to a long barracks-like building.
Hard rifle barrels prodded them along. To a few were affixed bayonets.

There they were placed in a basement that had but one entrance and only a single light—a
feeble bulb in a lamp stand without a shade. It sat on a wooden box, of which there
were many strewn about. They had the look of rough coffins. All empty.

“At least it’s not another cell,” said Long Tom. “I’m mighty sick of them.”

They were locked in, and left to consider their fate. Scratching sounds in the cobwebbed
corners suggested rats at work. So they stood around instead of sitting.

“Doc oughta be findin’ our plane by now,” reminded Monk.

“That doesn’t mean he will find
us,
” Long Tom said pessimistically.

Ham turned to the puny electrical wizard. “Has the company of that bloodless woman
been rubbing off on you? You sound like her long-lost brother.”

Long Tom opened his mouth to assert the contrary opinion, but decided against doing
so. The dapper lawyer’s verbal barb had stung. Ham turned to fussing with his clothes
and fretting over his missing cane.

Then, Long Tom began fooling with one sleeve of his shirt. Out popped a small item.

“What’s that—another trick coin?” asked Monk.

“No, a crystal rectifier.” Another device came from the opposite sleeve.

“That’s an electrical meter, isn’t it?” asked the hairy chemist.

“Quiet.”

Long Tom began hooking these up to a thin wire that led from his vest. It was an ordinary
looking vest. But obviously it was not. Vests are not usually wired for electricity.

“Mind explaining what you’re up to?” asked Ham.

“I put this on back in the plane. It’s a radio direction-finding vest. Government
men use them to locate pirate radio broadcasting stations. A directional loop is woven
into the lining of the back of the vest. I just connected it to the crystal rectifier
and meter. If we bust out of this dump, I can trace that radio transmitter that’s
been broadcasting the queer nightmare music.”

“What possible good will that do?” asked Fiana.

Long Tom ignored her. He went on, “I have an idea that the music is some kind of clever
carrier for coded messages. I don’t know how it works, but if we find the source of
the broadcasts, we’ll get to the bottom of whoever issued the orders that nearly killed
us a time or two.”

“You’re thinking that the music started the first time we tried to land, and that
infernal darkness clamped down,” suggested Ham Brooks.

“Exactly. That was when the darkness-making weapon was in Egallan hands. Now it belongs
to Tazan.”

“Speaking of the Devil,” said Monk. “What happened to Baron Karl? They didn’t haul
him off the truck with us.”

A moment later, a volley of rifle shots cracked out.

“I think that was your Baron Karl,” said Fiana Drost dryly. “Encountering his destiny.”

“Isn’t he
your
Baron Karl?” wondered Ham. “Your countryman?”

“I have no longer any country,” Fiana Drost reminded.

A thick silence followed as the severity of their situation sank in.

Booted footfalls came tramping up to within earshot. A lock grated. The door opened
and a body was tossed in without comment. It landed heavily. And did not move.

The wan light disclosed that it was Baron Karl. Of that, there was no doubt. His face
was a bloodless mask of horror.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” pronounced Ham.

The door closed again with an awful finality.

Not long after, the sound of aircraft warming up their engines came through the fieldstone
basement walls.

“Warplanes, I’ll wager,” said Ham.

“Yeah,” said Monk. “Gettin’ ready to counter-attack. It’s gonna be a pretty big show,
and here we are sittin’ on the sidelines.”

One by one, the warplanes moaned up into the sky. Soon, their sound began to recede.

WHILE Long Tom was experimenting with his vest rig, Monk and Ham examined the cellar
for another exit. There was only the locked door.

“This bouncin’ from one hole to another is startin’ to get me down,” Monk complained.

“You should talk!” Ham snapped. “Look at my clothes!”

“At least,” Monk returned, “you’ll be buried in style.”

“You two give me a swift pain,” said Long Tom peevishly. “Pipe down!”

A while later, a tentative sound came from the direction opposite of the locked door.
All eyes veered to it.

There, a crate of some kind began opening. In the gloom, it might have been a coffin
lid rising. With a slow creaking of hinges, the top lifted with hair-raising fascination.

No one blinked as the operation continued with drawn-out slowness.

Then, a bulbous-shaped head began lifting up from the coffin-shaped box.

It was round in an odd way, uncanny in its inhuman aspect. It might have belonged
to some hairless vampire from the Netherworld.

A sinuous body followed it and this slipped silently from the coffin, made its careful
creeping way toward them in the dark. The thing was almost soundless.

Not until it came under the weak radiance of the standing light bulb did they behold
the new arrival clearly.

When they did, pent breaths escaped open mouths in a great rush.

Fiana gasped, “You!”

Ham blurted, “Who?”

But it was Long Tom Roberts who gave the apparition its identity.

“Countess Olga,” he breathed. “Back from the Other Place.”

The elegantly tall emerald-turbaned countess placed a long carmined fingernail to
her rouged lips and said, “Hush! I am here to succor you.”

“Aren’t you dead?” asked Long Tom.

“Many times over. But never mind that now. Come!”

They were not bound, so she gestured them to the long box from which she had emerged.

Monk looked within. A grin wreathed his wide features.

“An escape tunnel! We’re as good as out of here, brothers.”

“No!” said Fiana Drost sharply. “Do not trust that witch! She is not what she seems.”

“You should talk,” sniffed Ham.

“Yeah,” added Monk. “You she-bat.”

Olga hissed, “Quiet, all of you! Escape or talk. But not both.”

They hesitated. Long years walking the paths of danger invested Doc Savage’s men with
great caution. On the other hand, they expected to be stood before a firing squad
by dawn—if not before.

Invariably impressed by nobility and position, Ham offered gallantly, “I feel we can
trust this woman.”

Because he was always contrary in the face of Ham’s opinions, Monk snapped, “Wait
a minute! Could be Fiana is right. All we know about this woman is that Long Tom saw
her disappear in a puff of black smoke back on that ocean liner.”

All eyes fell on the pallid electrical wizard, who was expected to cast the deciding
vote.

“I saw no such thing,” Long Tom reminded. “It was Emile Zirn who claimed that she
did. And neither of you two have shown a lot of brains when it comes to trusting strange
women.”

Monk and Ham clamped their mouths shut. Long Tom had them dead to rights.

“On the other hand,” added Long Tom, “anything’s better than a firing squad. Let’s
go!”

Suiting action to words, the slender electrical expert went first.

“I refuse!” snapped Fiana Drost.

Ham said coolly, “Very well. Remain here. We will return for you later.”

“If there is a later for you,” added Countess Olga pointedly.

Fiana Drost flinched at the sound of that. Various conflicted expressions troubled
her drawn features. She waited until the others had clambered into the coffin-like
crate, then followed with undisguised reluctance.

The lid closed with a dull clap, after which the cellar became silent except for the
industrious rustling of rats in a corner.

THEY FOUND THEMSELVES in a long tunnel of packed earth. At intervals, wood rafters
shored it up. The floor had the hardness that comes of human tread tamping down dirt
over generations.

Countess Olga led the way with a blazing flashlight. Its backglow made shadows leap
and flutter. This did not make for comfortable feelings. The way slanted downward,
going deeper and deeper into the ground.

Eying the gloomy cobwebbed ceiling, Ham murmured, “Any bats down here?”

Countess Olga spoke up. “Bats are the creatures of Egallah.”

“You are not Egallan?”

“No.”

“Tazan, then?”

“Not that either.”

“Where is your allegiance?”

“It lies vith the destiny of Ultra-Stygia,” Countess Olga intoned.

“Do not believe her!” hissed Fiana Drost from the rear. “She is a creature of Tazan.”

“Your own credibility, young lady, is hardly exemplary,” sniffed Ham Brooks.

Fiana said nothing to that.

On they marched, not appreciating the noisome smells of the earth. Broken bones poked
up from the dirt here and there, making them think that they were crawling through
catacombs where the ancient dead were interred.

A long claustrophobic march ensued. It took them deeper and deeper into the earth—and
then they came to a wooden ladder. It looked new.

Pointing the flashbeam upward, Countess Olga invited them to climb it.

No one looked pleased at the prospect. They were deep under the pocked and pitted
surface of Ultra-Stygia.

Long Tom went first. He used his fist to knock a trap door out of his way, poked his
head up and then called down.