Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 Canadian (15 page)

Hynek did not finish. A sound came from the rear of the recess, where the corpse of the Vampire Zcerneboh lay still bleeding. "Wugh-g-h-gh-gh!" and a scraping sound against the stone. With horror, they saw Zcerneboh arising— staggering to feet—lunging toward them.

"He isn't dead!" screamed Mina.

Hynek voiced an exultant cry.

"He has his sword!" cried Christian, gathering Mina into his arms. Realizing they lacked the vital moment to gird for defense, and uncertain as to Zcerneboh's strength they retreated out to the ritual chamber.

Here, if necessary, they would have room to battle. Hynek followed. Stumbling over the Wend corpses they turned in time to face the monstrous deity as he staggered through the opening.

Christian directed Mina up the steps to the chamber above, and returned quickly to Planquette's side to defend themselves and see if possible to the final ending of the vampirish god. Hynek might have capitalized on the opportunity were not his hands still bound.

Zcerneboh straightened. His ghastly head and naked bleeding torso caused even Hynek to shudder. The crimson eyes swept the room, taking in the array

THE MAD DANCERS

of Wendish corpses. But when he moved instead of approaching Christian and Planquette, Zcerneboh went toward an opposite wall. He picked up a five-foot log, one of several used by the Wends to sit on. He thrust it over his shoulder and turned around.

"He will try to kill us/' warned Plan-quette. "A move from you, Hynek, and you are dead. Draw your sword, Christian, we must beat him to the attack— I from in back—you from the front for you are more agile!"

Zcerneboh, however, was not coming toward them, but was staggering toward the idol.

The trio stood with amazement to behold an unexpected spectacle, for with a mighty heave Zcerneboh swung the log against the sacred statue. It tottered— crashed with an awesome noise and the chips skidded across the floor in all directions.

With a terrified yell, Hynek Zerotin fell to his knees and dropped his head. Zcerneboh dropped the log, surveyed the fragments, and slumped to the floor. The grotto, all the rocks around them, seemed to tremble, and for a prolonged momejit weird cries came out from the walls. For awhile Christian and Planquette were as if transfixed. Then Planquette went to Zcerneboh and stooping, examined him.

"Now," he pronounced, "Zcerneboh is really dead."

* * *

/^iNCE again the horizontal rays of ^ the sun were striking the cupola of the Octagonal Chapel at Aix-la-Chapelle, and once again Christian Nohl

was standing beneath the Earbarossa chandelier. Though not many months had passed, he was a much older looking Christian. This time, however, he stood alone.

But it was not long before someone else entered the chapel, the figure of an old man. It was, in fact, old Henri Planquette.

"So sober at a time like this, my nephew?" he questioned cheerily as he came to Christian's side.

"Ah, my good uncle, but Charlemagne was truly a great man."

"Indeed. But listen to mc. I have most conclusive news. Reports have just come in from five other cities confirming unanimously that the Dancing Mania ceased all at once on the night of September 3."

Christian looked up with keen interest. "Wonderful!" he exclaimed, and grasped the old man's hand.

A door to the chapel from another part of the cathedral opened, and they were interrupted as a woman's voice called out: "Christian, why didn't you tell us the Doctor had come? The Father and all of us are waiting!"

"I am sory, Frau . . .**

"Now! now! No more 'Frau.' From now on it's 'Mamma' to ine. But wait until you see Mina! Her gown, if I did make it myself, is beautiful—gorgeous! And Mina, if she is my own daughter, is the loveliest bride ever to take nuptial vows at Aix-la-Chapelle!"

But suddenly she hushed, and they entered, for music from the Charlemagne organ was rising.

Fangs of Tsan-Lo

OF COURSE I do not know about the unknown. But I am sure that there is more to this world than any living man has even dreamed. Silly? Talking through my hat? Perhaps, but my Erst /ear of Tsan-Lo came to me the day I read the letter about him. And yet it was just an ordinary letter, like hundreds I've received. Dear Mr. Roberls:

As per our previous agreement, I am tliis day shipping Tsan-Lo from Wind city. He should arrive the 27th

of May. I am depending on you to see that he receives proper care.

To be perfectly frank, I do not expect miracles from him. He is big, strong, and able, but obstinate, and" possibly you will have to undo the harm wrought by my amateurish efforts. I have experimented with Tsan-Lo myself.

Please keep me informed of his progress.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ibellius Grut. I stared across the desk. But sweat stood on my forehead and cold chills chased each other up and down my spin. I tried to shake the feeling off, and could not, and I read the letter again. There

By JIM KJELGAARD

was nothing even a little bit strange about it, unless you'd call Tsan-Lo a strange name for a Chesapeake retriever and wonder a little bit about anyone named Dr. Ibellius Grut. I tried to shrug it away.

"Get hold of yourself, Clint," I said. "First thing you know you'll be crazy as a drunken pigeon."

"Drunken pigeons don't talk to themselves," a voice said.

I turned around and saw Sally standing in the open door. She's Sally Evers, daughter of John Evers, and I wouldn't do a darned tiling for her—except anything she asked me to. Yes, I'm in love with her. In fact to put it mildly, she's the sun, the moon, the stars, and the air I breath all rolled into one. But I'd never told her about it because, though you wouldn't call them exactly filthy rich, her folks have plenty of what it takes. And her mother made up Sally's mind that she's going to marry Harris H. Harris, who's social register, Harvard, and the Harris Company. Nobody knows why she wants to spend any of her time with an ordinary trainer of retrievers—but I'm awfully grateful for small favors as long as she's part of them.

"'Smatter, Frank Buck?" she asked

What possible connection could there be between a prehistoric lizard and a Chesapeake dog?

THE FANGS OF TSAN-LO

77

me. "You look as though you'd seen a ghost."

"Only a vision, sweetheart," I told her. "Come on in."

That was spoken very lightly, but boy how it felt deep down inside! Sally's about five feet three, and beautiful from any angle. Her coppery hair frames a small face, and I think it's her eyes that get me most. They're big and brown, and half the time they're full of the devil. But the other half they're so serious that Sally could be a thousand years old. She

has the darndest ideas, especially about animals and animal training, and she spouts them out on the slightest provocation.

"What'd you have for breakfast?" she wanted to know.

"A little girl about your size. Too bad you weren't around. I could have eaten another one."

"Clint Roberts, the great humorist!" she said scathingly. "But you do look terrible, and no wonder. Look at this house! The only things in place are the

THE FANGS OF TSAN-LO

pictures of your dogs! I declare! Men would still be savages if women hadn't been around to civilize 'em !"

"Yes," I said drily, "the earth would probably be overrun with uncivilized men if there'd never been any women." But the little cold fingers were still plucking at my spine, and I didn't want her to notice it. I, a professional trainer of retrievers, was frightened because I had another one to train! "Why don't you come around once in a while? Buck's been lying on the ground with his head between his paws, moaning to himself since you left yesterday afternoon. And, if it's any satisfaction to you, he refused his dinner last night" "Oh, poor Buck 1"

"She's like that, loves to pretend that she's tougher than a baby-killer most of the time. But the minute anything suffers, or she thinks it's suffering, she melts all over the place. She scooted out the back door, threaded her way among dog crates, and stopped in front of Buck's run. He had been lying under his kennel on the ground. But the minute she came in sight he jumped out, started leaping in the air and yelling his fool head off. I stayed on the porch a minute to enjoy the sight.

T HAVE thirty-seven dogs. Five belong A to me, and Buck's one of them. He's a big, black Labrador with a sleek, shiny coat, and muscled like a Hon, arid is the best retriever I ever saw. I'm grooming him for the National field trials, and will win them as soon as I can correct a few minor faults. He, too, adores Sally, and when I got to the run he was pushing his nose through the wire so she would scratch it. Sally looked at me. "Clint Roberts I" she scolded. "Let

this poor dog out of that dinky little pen!"

It isn't a dinky little pen. it's twenty by twenty, but I let Buck out and made him stt. He obeyed, looking at Sally instead of me. It's she he loves best, and I guess he'd do anything in the world for her. Sally picked up a stick and threw it. "Fetch!" she said.

Buck unleashed all the power in his mighty body, and flew after the stick as though he'd been shot from a gun. At the edge of the mud hole he paused, leaped a quarter of the way across it, struggled through the mucky slime, climbed out on the other side, and got the stick. He jumped right back into the mud, crossed it, and put the stick in Sally's hand. His coat wasn't black any more, but mud-colored.

"Fine thing," I said, "making my dog swim across the mud !"

She tickled Buck's ears. "Oh, Buck can take it. Why don't you fill that awful place in, anyway?"

"I've dumped two hundred tons of ashes and gravel into it."

The mud hole was on the place when I got it. It's a pit, I think an old quarry hole, and I don't know how deep it is because I've never been able to sound the bottom. It's fed by subterranean springs that carry a lot of gooey mud from somewhere. On top it's soupy stuff, but the mud get thicker the farther down you go. About all a man can do is push a fifteen-foot pole down into it — any deeper than that the mud's so thick you can't push.

We wandered down to the lake, and I watched Sally put Buck through his paces. He jumped in, and swimming so

THE FANGS OF TSAN-LO

79

smoothly that scarcely a ripple flowed behind him, brought back a stick she cast. Then she pointed a floating stick out to him and he got thai. He seemed eager to obey her, and if only he'd work that way for me I'd as soon enter him against any competition anywhere. I looked at my watch.

"Well, I'm glad somebody can play. But I'm a working man. I have to pick up a new dog."

"Can we take Buck?**

"Nope."

"Gee, you're mean."

But it's one of my rules that a new dog must come in as easily as possible. They're usually nervous anyway, after a long train ride and new surroundings, and taking another dog when I pick them up at the station only makes them more so. But I knew Sally couldn't resist having a look at a new dog any more than she can stop breathing. We locked Buck back in his run, and left him moaning while we climbed into the pickup.

"What is the new dog?" Sally asked.

"A Chesapeake. His name's Tsan-Lo."

Sally settled back in the seat and away we went.

"TTHE train was just pulling out when we got to the station. We walked around ft> the express platform, and sure enough, there was my dog in his crate. I whi;*Jrtd. Whoever crated the dog either had a lot of money to waste or else wanted to be absolutely sure that Tsau-Lo ■ikki't get out. He was in a tubular steel crate, reinforced at the corners with steel blocks and the door had a double padlock on it. Dimly through the slats I made out the dog, lying down, and there was a big white sign riveted to the crate. "For

Mr. Clinton Roberts. From Dr. Ibellius Grut."

And again, for some unknown reason, the hair at the nape of my neck bristled and cold chills ran up my spine. Even as he stood crated on the station platform, there was something about Tsan-Lo like nothing in any dog I'd ever seen. It wasn't what he did, for he did nothing except lie in the straw on the floor of his crate. But what came out of that crate—. I couldn't see it but I could feel it. It was as though this dog was directing at everything cl.se some invisible aura, some mysterious waves. And it was at that moment, for the first time in my life, that I felt hate.

I do not mean that I hated. But I sensed that the air was charged with hate, viciousness, brutality, and concen-tra:ed fury in its most primitive and elemental form. It was emanating from the crate that housed Tsan-Lo. I shook my head, trying to shake such notions from it. Sober thought told me that the whole thing was silly, no dog was capable of the attributes with which I was crediting this one. But I could not shake it off, and unaccountably there rose before me a mental image of a papier tncche creature I had seen in a museum. Tyrannos-aurus, they had called it, a reconstruction of a monstrous prehistoric reptile with huge jaws and immense teeth. As I stood before it my imagination had given it life, and I clearly remembered experiencing the same sensations I felt now.