The Black Throne

XIV

"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet henceforward art thou also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven, and to Hope! In me didst thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

From William Wilson, Edgar Allan Poe

It was night in the lonesome October when I went over the high wall of fieldstone, avoided an armed patrol and began to make my way through the miles of landscape garden toward the main house at the Domain of Arnheim. I could not be certain of the exact location of that edifice, but a recent visitation with Ligeia—who now seemed to have access to the kingdom by the sea—had left me with marching orders for the ascent of the Wissahiccon River. I broke into Landor's cottage that night and slept there, Ligeia having mentioned that Annie might have been confined to the place for a time. I did find there a Spanish comb such as she had once worn in her hair at Prospero's castellated abbey. I kept it, of course, and in the morning I pressed on.

The magnificence of the landscape gardening would, at any other time, have proved distracting. But I was blind to beauty now. Every night—and sometimes days, as well—came a fresh dream or waking vision, of Annie, of Ligeia, of distant Poe rushing toward his doom. Such a coming together of power and of disturbances told me that something in our relationship was building toward a climax.

Onward.

The visions of the local scene had all pointed in one direction: Ellison and his rivals had concluded that it would be better for them to join forces than to fight each other. My supposed benefactor was now in league with the men he had sent me to chase more than halfway around the world. Von Kempelen, here at Arnheim with them, would transmute a large amount of lead into gold. This hoard of precious metal would then be turned over to Ellison, as payment for vast properties—including Arnheim itself—considerable jewelry, and some other items of great worth. Immediately thereafter, all parties to the agreement would witness the destruction of the gold-making apparatus. No further production would occur to cheapen the price of gold and devalue the new hoard.

Onward.

The colors of autumn were all about me, as I moved my gaze from the sky-blue lake where the most recent vision had occurred. It involved killing Von Kempelen afterwards, so that the process would not soon be repeated.

Onward.

And so at last I reached the center of the Domain, the Paradise of Arnheim, and there I was overwhelmed by a gush of melody, an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor, and a dream-like intermingling of tall eastern trees, bosky shrubberies, flocks of golden and crimson birds, fountains, lakes, flowers, meadows, silver streamlets. For longer than I should have, I stood overpowered by the sensory assault, and then I entered there.

I took my way cautiously, but I encountered no patrols. Before me, upsprung from the midst of botanical grandeur was a great mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred oriels, minarets, and pinnacles. Amazing.

As I drew nearer, I realized that the place was moated. I circled it, several times, keeping well-concealed by the profuse shrubbery. Seeing no other means of entry I selected a likely causeway and dashed across it.

Save for a barely perceptible crack down the front of the place, the masonry looked in excellent order.

I passed through a Gothic archway and approached a heavy wooden door. I tried it and found it unlocked. I entered.

There was much old woodwork, somber tapestries on the walls, and an ebon blackness to the floor. I crossed the room quickly and carefully, without making a sound, blade loose in its scabbard, pistol loaded, other surprises hidden about my person.

I stepped into a hallway and passed along it, inspecting each room that I passed. Seabright Ellison was in the third one to the left.

Seeing no need for a dramatic entrance, I merely walked in. It was a library, and Ellison in a maroon dressing gown of silk was seated on a dark, bulging lounge reading and smoking a cigar, a glass of what was probably sherry on a side table to his right.

He looked up and smiled as my shadow fell upon him.

"Perry," he remarked, "and right on time."

I was not about to play it his way and ask what he meant by that. I simply responded with my most important question:

"Where is she?"

"Here, and quite comfortable," he replied. "No one here would harm her, believe me."

"She is being held here and forced to do something against her will."

"I assure you she will be well-paid for her efforts," he said. "For that matter, you are owed considerable recompense yourself for your activities on my behalf."

"I believe I recall your offering a bonus If I killed Griswold, Templeton, and Goodfellow for you. I'm willing to do it now. Is the offer still good?"

He paled slightly, then grinned.

"I'm afraid it expired several months ago when I came to an agreement with these men."

"You're partners now?" I asked.

"More or less, yes."

"And Von Kempelen's here?"

"So he is. You have been doing your homework. Would you care for a glass of sherry?"

"So long as you'll keep talking."

"Of course. What can I tell you?"

He found me a small brandy snifter, from which a few drops were ordinarily inhaled. He filled it halfway.

"You say you'll pay Annie," I stated. "But you're still forcing her to do something she doesn't want to."

"For her own good, as I can demonstrate."

I took a sip.

"Demonstrate it, then."

"I spoke of her share in a great fortune, so great that—"

"I see. And Edgar Poe?"

He rose. He jabbed the air with his cigar and paced through the smoke.

"What of Edgar Poe?" he asked. "If he has become a friend of yours—and Annie's—I'm sorry. Truly.

But the unique relationship among the three of you could not go on forever."

"Oh, could it not?"

"It could not." Ellison nodded, as if I had simply been agreeing with him from the beginning. "Because Poe no longer exists—not in this world, our world, the world of practical affairs. He must go his way as we go ours. He has chosen the dreamer's way—I did not choose it for him, nor did you."

"The separation is your choice, though."

"Not a bit of it, my boy. No, not a bit. Dreams and the world of practical affairs can never mingle long."

I took a final sip of the sherry and put the glass aside.

"I want to see her."

"Of course," he said.

He walked across the room and made a small gesture. I followed him.

He opened a door and we passed into another larger room, also filled with books and pictures. He continued through it, but I paused before a painting in a niche to the left. It was a portrait of a woman with curling hair and large dark gray eyes. She wore an old-fashioned bonnet and an Empire robe with rounded neck and shoulders, possessed of a floral design. I halted and stared at those mysterious eyes, the dark masses of hair.

"Come on," Ellison called, halting on the threshold.

"Seabright Ellison sounds almost like a stage name," I said. "You ever do any acting?"

His eyes narrowed.

"Perhaps. Why do you ask, lad?"

I studied him in turn. The painting was a larger version of one which I possessed in miniature—my only picture of my mother, Elizabeth. I doubted he could know I owned it.

"The lady looks somehow familiar," I said.

He shrugged.

"It came to me as part of an estate I bought. Just fit that piece of wall."

My head spun. Nothing I had encountered since meeting the man had shocked me as much as this.

"Oh," I said, and turned away.

He passed through the door and into another high-ceilinged room of books, armor, and art. I took a quick step back and ran my thumb over the painting's dusty brass nameplate.

Elizabeth Arnold, I read there, and I hurried after.

It was my mother's name, though I'd hardly needed that confirmation of the actress' identity. If he were really the man who'd abandoned her... .

But this was this world, not my original one. Ceteris paribus, he was Poe's deserting father, not mine.

But all things were not equal between this Earth and my Earth, which meant I could never know for certain whether he were truly, intentionally sacrificing his own son in this enterprise. Or if my own father had been a person similar to him, back home.

"Lovely place," I said, catching up with him. The doors had ceased after those first two rooms and now we passed through Gothic archways hung with red or blue cloth. I began realizing that this gallery passed along the entire side of the building.

"You don't remember your folks, do you?" he said, after a time.

"I don't think so. I was pretty young."

We came to the end of the gallery and turned right. A short length of hallway took us past an entranceway to a courtyard about which numerous armed men lounged, eyeing each other from opposite ends of the place.

"Athletic teams?" I suggested.

He chuckled.

"Yes. Mine and theirs. We brought them along to keep each other honest."

"So you had to go in together to meet Von Kempelen's price?"

He nodded.

"The man drives a hard bargain."

"If he were me he'd have brought his own athletic team, to keep the other two honest."

He clapped me on the shoulder.

"Spoken like a true soldier," he observed. "One of the reasons I hired you. You're going to have to tell me all about your odyssey when this thing's done."

"What is Von Kempelen's edge, anyhow?"

"He's got something we want," he said.

"And after you get it how does he walk out of here?"

He took a deep draw on his cigar and let it go. He showed me a lot of teeth then, but said nothing.

"Care to see his lab?"

"I want to see Annie."

"She's probably there."

"What happens to her," I asked, "when this is all over?"

"She's the greatest natural psychic in the world, you know."

"What does that mean?"

"A powerhouse like that is worth money in a lot of other endeavors."

"What if she doesn't want to work?"

"She's becoming dependent upon certain chemicals. She'll work for them."

I felt tears come into my eyes.

"I'm glad you're not my father," I said, on impulse.

He stepped back as if I had struck him. My hand was on the hilt of my blade. I let it drop. I still needed him.

"And I'm not Poe's father either," he said through clenched teeth.

"Never said you were. Do you have any children?"

He turned away.

"None to speak of," he said.

I followed him in what I took to be a northerly direction.

"You hate me, don't you?" he asked, after a time.

"That's right."

He paused at the head of a wide stone stairway. He turned and leaned back against the wall.

"I'd like to clear that up before tonight."

"So that's what you meant about my timing?"

He nodded.

"Tonight's the night. But you must have known that, at some level."

"I guess I did."

"I get to keep all the gold," he said then. "But I had to surrender a lot of my holdings, including most of this place."

"And Annie?" I asked. "She's a part of the price?"

He nodded again.

"But I'm going to want you on my side tonight, Perry, when it's time to pick up the pieces. Yes, I promised them Annie. I'd have promised them anything to get the work done. But afterwards... .

They're going to have to be happy with the real estate, the jewels, the foreign holdings. I get the gold, you get Annie, the hell with everybody else."

"You're too Byzantine, Ellison," I said, "too Machiavellian. There's no way I could trust a man like you even if I wanted to."

He sighed. Then he stared downward at his feet. A full minute must have gone by. Either he really had at one time been an actor or there was a great internal struggle in progress.

Then, "All right," he said, and he reached beneath his dressing gown and withdrew a silver flask. He unscrewed its top, removed it and waved it under my nose. It smelled like whisky.

He filled the top, which was the size of a shot glass, and he tossed it off in a single swallow. Then he refilled it and extended it toward me. I accepted it and did the same.

"I crossed over by accident myself, during a strange storm," he said, "apparently in exchange for my counterpart. So I knew it could be done. It took me a long time to figure how it might be managed—which is how I first came to know Griswold and Templeton. We worked together to discover the means. But they'd gotten greedy on a recent deal." He offered me the flask again. I declined. He took another slug himself, capped it, and put it away. "So I've no qualms about reneging on part of a deal with them. If the lady really means that much to you, she's yours."

I sat down on the top step, massaged my brow.

"Consanguinity makes these things easier," he said at last.

"Damn you, sir," I said.

"I'm not asking filial piety, just cooperation," he said. "We'll finesse these bastards and come out on top.

I'll get my gold, you'll get your Annie and they'll still be rich enough not to complain too loudly. It'll be better than death."

"Your troops look pretty evenly matched to me."

"I've reserves they don't know about," he said. "They show up on cue, the balance gets tipped, nobody fights. We all back away from each other, snarling and go about our business."

"What about Von Kempelen?"

"What about him?"

"He gets to live."

"Why?"

I remembered the old popeyed man who'd given us a cup of tea back in Paris and shown concern for our welfare as we scrambled away over the rooftops. True, he was venal. But he was not a killer, not a madman, not a predator. But I couldn't say this, and even if I did, it would mean nothing.

"Because that's how I want it," I answered him.

He made as if to reach for the flask again, thought better of it, let his hand fall.

"It'd mean my watching him for the rest of his life, to see he doesn't try the gold trick again."

I felt the left corner of my mouth quirk upward.

"Think you can afford that?" I asked.

"Damn you, sir," he quoted. "If that's what it takes, you've got it. Shall we shake on it?"

"No."

He dropped his cigar to the floor and stepped on it.

"All right then," he observed. "Between you and me, now, everything must be staged. We block out the action, we agree upon our cues. We have our entrances and our exits... ."

We entered the deep cellar, illuminated by torch and candle, a bit later in the day. The setup was somehow reminiscent of the arrangement on the worktable in Von Kempelen's Paris apartment, only on a much vaster scale. There were several ovens cooking things. There were jars and vials and alembics and retorts. But the majority of the chemicals occupied large vats, arranged about the floor in some pattern I did not understand. A massive quantity of dark metal was stacked upon a tarpaulin at the room's center. Annie, in a simple gray frock, stood beside a vat holding a pair of rods which extended from it.

She looked our way as we entered, let go the rods and came to me. I held her.

"I knew you'd come," she said, "today."

Von Kempelen looked our way.

"I know you," he said. "You was with the little man—and the monkey."

I nodded.

"I get around." Then, "Come on, Annie, let's get out of here," I told her.

She looked to Von Kempelen.

"Go ahead. You can finish charging it later," he said.

I took her out of there and up the stairs and through the halls and gallery and out into the garden, leaving them there below.

A long while later, as we lay amid beauty and sunlight, regarding golden trees, I remarked, "So the process involves mesmerism?"

She nodded, she yawned.

"It's the secret ingredient in such transmutation on a large scale," she explained, "a special kind of mesmerism."

"Oh," I said. " 'Special?' In what way?"

"Other-worldly energy," she replied. "There will be a vast flux of it when the door for Poe's return is finally closed."

"And that takes place tonight, during the work?"

"They would like it to,'' she said, "but it shan't. I haven't been keeping it open all this time for their benefit."

"You've lost me."

She smiled.

"No, I haven't lost anyone yet. Not even Poe. I plan to give them their gold and get him back, too. The three of us will finally be together, here."

"I am not a scientist," I said, "and my training as a mesmerist is far from complete. But even without knowing the mathematics that must prop such matters, I'm sure of one thing: The universe doesn't give you something for nothing. What's the price?"

She smiled again.

"Mr. Ellison does not know that I am aware of his secret," she said. "He is from that Earth. Therefore, I can exchange him for Poe and then close the door. We will be reunited, and Mr. Griswold will be extremely grateful."

"I'll bet," I said. "This was his idea, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

It was like looking into a maelstrom—things changing constantly as I watched. Would her stratagem prevail? Had Von Kempelen a secret army of homunculi awaiting the appropriate moment, somewhat after midnight of a gold October 7th, to make their move on his behalf? I was probably the only one involved without a contingency plan.

So I kissed her, and, "Tell me more about mesmerism," I said. "When the force is as strong as ours there must be special measures for keeping it under control."

"Oh, yes," she answered. "We must construct our own tools... ."

On that night of all nights in the year, well after midnight, we made our ways into the cavernous cellar of the manse at Arnheim to commence the transmutation.

The private armies of Seabright Ellison and the men he had dubbed the Unholy Trinity faced each other across the length of the laboratory. There were perhaps forty on each of two sides. Each man bore a rifle and wore a brace of pistols; and there were plenty of edged weapons in sight. I wondered what it would be like with ricochets flying all over the place. Civilians... . I'd sneaked in and dug a hasty trench earlier—not too far off to my left—and covered it over with a piece cut from the tarp holding the mountain of lead bars. I'd anticipated something like this; and at the first evidence there'd be gunfire I intended to grab Annie and dive into it.

Von Kempelen was connecting hoses from tank to tank, rods from the final tank to the far side of the stack of lead bars. Annie was seated in a shiny black chair which looked as if it had been constructed from slabs of obsidian. A glass helmet covered her upper head, and she leaned against a strip of gold which ran up its high back. She was given two rods to hold, both of which extended to the near side of the lead heap.

Von Kempelen whispered some final instruction to her, then nodded to Ellison and the others. A certain tension, apart from the psychological, immediately filled the room. I took a step toward Annie and felt an increase in the forces she was manipulating. There followed a gurgling from one of the vats.

Whatever forces were emanating from Annie, they began to pulsate. The other vats began to resonate.

I seemed to hear a high-pitched whining, and suddenly my head ached. Covering my ears did not make any difference, though everyone else was doing it, also. Then it went away and half-distinct shapes swam through the air—strange fish, strange sea... . Again, the pulsing intensified. It was almost something one could lean against. I felt somewhat more conversant with the phenomenon now, following my exercise of the previous afternoon.

The sound came and went in an instant. Minute explosions of color then filled the air, above the vats, about the gray stack. Annie's hands were white with strain upon the rods before her.

Then came the rippling. It was as if I watched the men across from me—and everything else about me, I suddenly realized—through a shallow, flowing stream. Nothing was changed, yet everything was changed. Everything in the cellar seemed to be vibrating.

Then the points of light—mostly golden this time—returned, to linger within the rippling.

I took another step toward Annie. Some pressure was building. The gray bars flashed yellow for a moment, within the rippling. A moment later the flash was repeated—golden this time, lingering. The pile seemed to change shape, shrinking each time the brightness came into it, expanding as it departed.

I glanced at Ellison, who was smiling. The frequency of the vibration increased. The gold-gray/

implosion-explosion sequence came faster and faster. Then the gold portion of the cycle was lengthened, the gray shortened. There was a jogging effect, with the actual scraping, grating sounds of the bars rubbing against one another as some intrinsic factor altered the size to maintain the mass. Several of them were tumbled from the stack.

I looked to Ellison again and he seemed framed in fire, but totally unmindful of it.

Then the vibration stopped, and I beheld a mound of gold. Everyone in the room seemed to inhale sharply at the same time. Lovely, buttery, heavy, gleaming... .

I looked from the gold to Annie to Ellison and back. And again. Nothing happened. Nobody moved.

Something had to happen. There had to be a counterstroke, a movement, a balancing—

Annie screamed. The light which hovered about Ellison faded.

That which Annie had screamed was, "Poe is dead!"

There was a grin upon Griswold's face. Annie released the rods, pushed back her crown of glass.

Something like a great sigh swept through the chamber, and there came a rattling like an earthquake in a brickyard.

The pile grew and lost its shimmer, turned gray and fell apart.

Griswold screamed and so did Ellison. But no one fired a shot.

Annie repeated what she had said, very softly, but the words were clear. As if in echo there came a tremor and all the lights shook in their sockets. "Poe," she said again, "is dead," and overhead the building creaked. There came a fall of dust all about us.

Eyes turned upward, and a series of growling, cracking noises ensued.

"At the termination of this sentence I started and, for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very crackling and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story... ."

And then there came a pounding within all the walls, followed by a creaking sound. The entire chamber seemed to move sideways, and more bars fell from the pile of gray. Ellison glanced about quickly, began a retreat toward the stair. A moment later the trio opposite him did the same. There came a crash like thunder.

"Poe is dead," came a whisper which filled the entire room.

" 'And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrible and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.'

"Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feel of wild amazement—for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer."

A massive fall of stone crashed upon the stairway, blocking our exit. For the first time, various of the men began to scream. Weapons were discarded as they pushed forward, seeking to escape. Annie raised her arms and swayed from side to side. As if in sympathy, the entire structure around and above us did the same. There followed a series of terrible crashes from overhead, and the ceiling collapsed in a halfdozen places. Some of the men were screaming in agony now, as they were pinned beneath debris. Now it seemed some passing wind lamented Poe rather than words; and from somewhere there came to me a smell of smoke... .

She had gray eyes, and brown hair lay disheveled upon her brow. Her hands were delicate, fingers long.

Her blue skirt and white blouse were sand-streaked, smudged, the hem of the skirt sodden. Her full lips quivered as her gaze darted from him to the castle and back, but her eyes remained dry.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

She turned her back to him. A moment later her bare foot kicked forward. Another wall fell, another tower toppled.

"Don't!" he cried, rising, reaching to restrain her. "Stop! Please stop!"

"No!" she said, moving forward, trampling towers. "No."

He caught hold of her shoulder and she pulled away from him, continuing to kick and stamp at the castle.

I caught hold of her shoulder. The whole damned roof was coming down, and fire was falling in on us, along with rafters, stone, wood.

"Annie! Stop it!" I cried.

She didn't even seem to realize I was there. Somewhere high above I heard a wall give way. In a moment, I felt, the entire silly-ornate structure would be down here in the cellar with us.

"Annie!"

She wailed and the earth moved beneath our feet. So I clipped her on the jaw and caught her as she fell.

Then I called upon that bond established back in Spain before I'd entered Toledo.

"Ligeia!"

I saw her limned in light as I raised Annie in my arms.

"I am waiting," she said.

"Here is my half of the way. Meet me at the middle, pray."

The corridor of silver shot forward to join with its counterpart. As I walked it to the place where the lady waited I heard at my back a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters.

I kept going.