Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle (35 page)

All three moved. Their two bands of attackers remained frozen.

Neville Folliot, hatred and fear blazing in his eyes, continued to stride toward Clive, moving with terrible, slow deliberation. He had drawn a pistol and was raising it toward his brother.

Clive covered the distance separating himself and his brother before Neville could bring the weapon fully to bear. Clive placed his hand upon his brother's wrist. He exerted no pressure, made no effort to turn the pistol aside.

Instead, he said, "Neville, I am the Master of the Ordolite. I command you to lower your pistol."

With infinite slowness, Neville moved to comply. Desperation flashed from his eyes, his muscles twitched, sweat sprang from his brow. But with unerring certainty, he returned the weapon to its holster. He opened his mouth to speak, but his movements were so slow that Clive simply ignored them.

To his followers, Clive said, "I know what is to be done. Come with me."

He did not look back to see if they followed. The question did not enter into consideration. He set off at a trot, efficient and space-consuming but unhurried. He passed the band of armored troopers, slowed for a moment to contemplate his grandniece, Anna Maria, then shook his head regretfully. There was no time to learn to know her better.

Reaching the front of the train, he grasped a metal rod and hauled himself into the engine compartment. A normal crew was present—an engineer, a pilot, a plotter, a mechanician. They appeared unharmed but were as motionless as the warriors outside on the endless gray plain.

Clive turned to Sidi Bombay and the others. "Don't hurt them. But get them out of here."

"What—?"

"Obey."

As his aides removed the crewmen, Clive said, "We shall decouple this engine from the cars behind. We are going on!"

 

The engine that pulled the space-train bore only a slight resemblance to the locomotives with which Clive was familiar.

"It looks like one of them bloody things that Missoor Verne writes about," Horace Smythe commented. "All pointy and smoothed off, like a bloomin' gigantic bullet."

"That doesn't matter," Clive said. "Just—can we run it?"

Smythe studied the controls, rubbing his chin and humming tunelessly the while. Clive's eyes darted toward Sidi Bombay. The Indian stood impassively; he, too, was watching Horace Smythe. Clive turned to look at Dr. Frankenstein's creation. The monster, like Sidi Bombay, was gazing at Horace Smythe in rapt concentration.

Unable to restrain his impatience, Clive peered from the cab. The enigmatic spiral of stars still hung in the blackness above the train.

Was the spiral revolving—or was Clive's distress causing him to imagine that it was? Were the stars burning suns uncounted millions of miles from the Earth and its own illuminating flame—or were they merely tiny points of light, no more than candles or miniature gas flames that hung tantalizingly just beyond human reach?

Clive knew that Annie had recovered the polished metallic machine she had obtained from the Japanese force at New Kwajalein Atoll. Could she now soar in it to those stars?

Back on the endless gray plain, Clive could see the two forces from which he and his companions had escaped. One party was still arrayed in precise alignment, clad in identical suits of gleaming armor; the other was as varied as the first was uniform, as disordered as the first was disciplined. And in either force, not a muscle moved.

Only the form of Clive's brother Neville moved. With agonizing slowness, Neville Folliot struggled toward the cab. His face was suffused with concentrated effort, his muscles bulged. His appearance was that of a man running through a vat of viscous fluid.

"Come along, then, Sergeant!" Clive could contain himself no longer. "Can you run this thing?"

Smythe turned from the complicated control panel. He frowned, then seemed to make an internal decision. "Yes, sah! I can do it, Major! I apologize for the delay, sah, but these controls are very strange to me. But I believe I can do it, sah. I'm willing to give it a go!"

"Fine, Sergeant Smythe!"

Sidi Bombay and the monster set about uncoupling the engine from the leading coach of the train.

Neville Folliot was nearing the platform.

Horace Smythe was working over the controls.

The engine vibrated.

Neville reached a hand toward the railing.

The coupler holding the engine to the rest of the train opened with a metallic clang.

The engine lurched forward.

Neville's fingers closed on the railing.

Sergeant Smythe pulled back on a lever.

The engine lifted from the featureless gray plain.

Although the engine was accelerating steadily, it had not yet achieved a great rate of speed. Far outside the window, silhouetted against the featureless sky like a black period on a sheet of gray foolscap, something was flying frantically toward the engine. As Clive stared, the point of blackness grew large. It took clear shape. It was a perfect miniature of the Lady 'Nrrc'kth.

Clive cried out, reaching for the beautiful creature.

"Stop, sah! Can't you see what it. is?"

"It is the Lady 'Nrrc'kth, Horace!"

"No, sah! It's the Chaffri! It's concentrating all its force on you, sah! That's why I can see its true form! Don't let it in here again, sah!"

"Horace is right," Sidi Bombay called. "Keep it out, Clive Folliot!"

"No!" Clive shouted. "Even if you're right, it may be of use to us! Horace—see if you can get that cage back in order!"

In moments, Horace Smythe had jury-rigged the Chaffri's smashed cage, rebuilding it from its own smashed fragments. It was a makeshift job, but it looked sturdy enough, albeit untidy. Smythe stood aside, invisible from outside the engine.

Clive stood with his arms outstretched. "My darling! My Lady 'Nrrc'kth! You have returned to me!"

The Chaffri flew through the engine's window. Clive lunged aside as Horace Hamilton Smythe swooped upon the Chaffri, locking it once more in its cage.

Penned helplessly in its makeshift prison, the outwitted Chaffri went wild. In rapid sequence it assumed a dozen forms. Feathers, tentacles, scales, plates, fur chased one another across its skin. A series of piercing wails rose from it. Horrible fangs and claws scraped at the inside of its prison.

Finally it collapsed into a corner of its cage. It slithered, grew molten, puddled. With a twinge of guilt at his own gallows humor, Clive noted aloud that it looked like nothing more than a spoiled blancmange. It had only one discernible feature, a set of great teeth that it gnashed in frustration.

The engine accelerated, heaving forward and upward.

Outside the engine, Neville Folliot had finally drawn abreast of a window. The contrivance had lifted from the plain, but it moved at a height little greater than a tall man's thigh.

Clive bent and looked into his brother's face. Neville had managed to raise one arm painfully and grasp a metal railing on the side of the engine. But Clive realized instantly that Neville, unassisted, could not pull himself into the engine compartment. Left to his own devices, he would lose his grip and fall back onto the plain.

The engine was rising and accelerating ever more rapidly. Neville's feet had left the ground and he was clinging desperately to the side of the engine. Higher the engine moved, and faster.

Peering into the grayness, Clive estimated the distance the engine had now risen. If Neville fell from here he would surely die.

A hundred mixed emotions surged through Clive Folliot, a thousand memories flickered across the screen of his mind like images at a magic lantern show. Neville ragging and bullying him as a child. Neville leading him on a wild goose chase through East Africa. Neville appearing to rise from his casket and offer Clive the enigmatic journal that had led him to more grief in his journey through the Dungeon. Neville betraying Clive's trust time and again. Neville selling the Folliot honor.

All Clive needed to do was permit Neville to fall and he might be rid of him forever. Other considerations aside, this event might leave Clive to inherit the title of Baron Tewkesbury. Neville had married and fathered a son, and that son had married and fathered a daughter, Anna Maria Folliot. Was Anna Maria's father still alive? If so, then with Neville's death the Tewkesbury title would devolve upon him; otherwise, upon Anna Maria. Clive had slipped to third place in the line of succession. But title or no, he could not cold-bloodedly permit his brother to die.

"This is not for your sake, Neville," Clive grunted under his breath. "This is for dear Little Miss Minnie!"

He reached his hand to his brother and drew him into the cab. He had every justification in the world to abandon Neville to his fate. But he could not do this.

The two brothers stood toe-to-toe. Each waited for the other to speak. At last Neville said, "Thank you, Clive."

With equal stiffness, Clive replied, "You are welcome, brother."

Neville surveyed the situation in the engine cab. He peered back at the gray plain where the remainder of the space-train still stood. He nodded as if he had been considering a difficult problem and had finally reached his conclusion. He looked closely at Horace Hamilton Smythe, nodded curtly to the man; then, at Sidi Bombay, and repeated the gesture, this time even more quickly and perfunctorily. At Frankenstein's monster he simply gazed, struck motionless as well as dumb.

The monster, hitherto as unmoving as a statue, opened his eyes wide and raised a hand toward Neville. "Insect, do you wonder at the sight you behold? Know you not my origin and nature? As your puny race is to the God who made you, or whom you imagine to have made you, so is my kind to yours. My kind, of which I am the single representative, thanks to the wickedness of the very Man who built me and who then both created and destroyed the helpmate whose companionship was the sole beseechment of my prayer!"

Eyes fiery, the monster turned to Clive. "You, Clive Folliot, surprise me!"

"Do I?"

"I had thought ill of you, Clive Folliot."

"Indeed you must have! You tried to drown me by casting me from the boat crafted by Chang Guafe."

"I have a penchant for drownings, Clive Folliot. Try not my patience. Nonetheless, I have learned a good deal of your brother Neville Folliot, and it is clear to the judgment of any fair-minded observer that you have been harmed and offended by him. Even so,
in extremis
, when you could have consigned him to his doom simply by withholding from him your assistance—without taking positive action to his detriment, Clive Folliot—you granted that assistance. Tell me, Clive Folliot, why that was your act. I am puzzled. I had consigned you to the grade of mortal whose evil warrants no slightest consideration save to be crushed beneath the heel of an avenger as a helpless ant is squashed beneath a bumpkin's boot. I had considered you no more worthy of moral consideration than the gibbering, chittering thing that cowers in yon cage."

The monster paused and pointed dramatically at the Chaffri crouched against its bars, quivering and squealing softly and piteously.

Clive began to answer the monster, but before he could speak, the monster resumed his tirade. "You held the most violent of grudges, were the victim of the most heinous of affronts and provocations at the hands of your brother. And yet you have displayed a selfless consideration for his welfare and survival. Why, Clive Folliot, why? You are a member of the privileged and oppressing class of the most depraved and indulgent society on the face of the Earth, and even so, you perform an act of selfless charity. Do you even comprehend the motivation within your own breast that moved you to this act? Do you possess, after all, a moral sense worthy of my note? Tell me these things, Clive Folliot. Speak!"

Before the monster could catch his breath and resume still again, Clive managed to get his answer out. "I saved him for the sake of a little cat, Monster. That is the whole of it."

The monster drew a deep breath. But before he could launch another tirade, Neville laid a carefully manicured hand on Clive's wrist. "Does he always talk like that, brother?"

"Always, brother. For a while there, when he was trying to drown me, I thought it might be worth the experience to let him go ahead purely in order to escape his ran tings."

Neville stared at his toes, obviously deep in thought. "Why
did
you save me, brother? Your answer to this exotic fellow may satisfy him, but I demand more of you. I did wrong you grievously, Clive. Have you forgiven me?"

"I have, Neville."

"But I have betrayed you more times than once."

Clive gave a bitter laugh. "Many more, indeed."

"And yet you forgive me again and again. Why, Clive? How many times will I wrong you, and how many will you forgive?"

"Seven times, Neville. Or seven times seven. Are we not so taught? The monster, poor soulless creature, may be motivated by revenge and consequently incapable of forgiveness. But our friend Sidi Bombay's philosophy is not so very different from that which is taught to us. And in the end, so Sidi has led me to understand, we determine our own fates. You will be saved or damned, my brother, by your own doing. Not by mine. I shall pray for you in either case."

"Pray for your enemies, Clive? Is that it?"

"I will pray for my brother. Enemy or friend, that is up to you, Neville. But my brother you are, will you or nil you."

Neville turned toward Horace Smythe. "Where are you headed, Sergeant?"

"There's only one place to go, sah. I'm certain that the Major knows it as well as I do."

"You are headed for the homeland of the Gennine!"

"Yes, sah!"

"Don't go there, Clive!" Neville Folliot grasped his brother's sleeve. The tables had been turned, the tyrant become supplicant. "Please, Clive!"

Neville turned from his brother, attempted to shove Horace Smythe from the engine's controls. Smythe resisted, and Clive pulled Neville away.

"What's the matter, older brother? Why are you so reluctant to visit the homeland of your masters?"