Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain (21 page)

Simon Page’s voice rang out, “You defeated it!”

“Both of them.”

“Both—?”

“Two creatures, pretending to be one.”

“What are they?”

“Later,” said Doc, driving the man forward.

Together they reached another door. Doc poked his head out, saw nothing, then motioned
for Simon Page to follow.

Working along the stone-flagged passage that smelled of must and mold, they began
to hear voices talking excitedly, urgently.

“What do you know?” one dominating voice demanded. “Speak!”

Silence.

“Then tell us what Baron Karl has planned for the invasion.”

“I do not know,” a female voice returned.

Simon gasped. “That sounds like—”

Doc Savage signed for quiet with a sharp chop of one hand. Signaling for Simon Page
to remain behind, the bronze man advanced carefully.

His going was stealth itself.

Turning one corner, then another, Doc came to a room where light showed around the
edges of a very modern door. The voices were coming from the other side. They were
growing more rancorous.

THE harsh male voice of General Consadinos was saying, “You are a spy for Egallah.
Admit this!”

“I admit nothing,” said Fiana Drost wearily.

“Doc Savage brought you to us, with a wild tale of a new weapon of war. What do you
know of this thing?”

“I pray,” said Fiana firmly, “that this new weapon will prove to be the one thing
that can defeat your unholy forces.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know full well what I mean. The things that are abroad in the night.”

“There are many things abroad in the night in Ultra-Stygia,” returned Consadinos smoothly.
“It is a haunted land.”

“We both know this,” Fiana spat. “We are in a new era of warfare, fighting with new
forms of terror machines.”

“If you have nothing to contribute to our defense,” said General Consadinos, “then
there is left for you only the execution wall.”

“I have already stood before such a wall today,” spat Fiana Drost. “Such trifles mean
nothing to me. Do your worst, you cur.”

The meaty sound of a hand slapping flesh sounded clearly.

At that, Doc Savage wrenched open the door.

His appearance, so bold and unexpected, caused every head to turn and eyeballs to
pop from their sockets. Mouths opened. Jaws dropped. No one spoke.

In those fleeting seconds, the mighty Man of Bronze was plunging across the room where
a Tazan soldier was belatedly recalling that he possessed a sidearm in a belt holster.
He failed to snatch for it in time.

Bronze fingers snared the still-holstered weapon, and yanked. The web belt supporting
weapon and holster tore loose—gun, steel buckle and all. When the guard got hold of
his balance, he was staring stupidly at the muzzle of his own pistol.

Doc had removed it from the holster, tossing the latter aside.

General Consadinos said suavely, “It is understood that Doc Savage does not shoot
to kill. It is against his well-known code of ethics.”

Doc dropped the muzzle, fired, placing a bullet in the wood directly in front of Consadinos’
booted right toe.

“Bullets do not have to kill,” he pointed out. “They can maim.”

Consadinos grew so white his mustaches seemed to darken. Words hung on his tongue
unuttered. No one moved.

The bronze man shifted to the chair where Fiana Drost sat trussed hand and foot. He
began unraveling knots. They were good stout knots, but under his strong fingers they
came apart easily.

Standing the woman up, Doc Savage told her, “We will go now.”

Fiana blinked doe-dark eyes doubtfully. “How?”

“Yes. How?” echoed Consadinos stiffly. “You are in my nation. Alone. There is no escape.”

Doc Savage strode up to the general and seized him by the throat. Bronze fingers moved
along the flesh, found the nerves they sought, and put the man to sleep on his feet.

Doc lowered him to the floor, one-handed. This display of casual strength brought
gasps from onlookers.

“Remarkable,” breathed Fiana Drost.

Doc saw a key ring on a table and, recognizing it as the key ring that opened the
dungeon cells, reasoned that one of the keys might fit this door. So he took it.

“You will shoot them now?” asked Fiana eagerly.

“No,” said Doc.

Her fierce eyes blazed. “If you do not shoot them, they will give the alarm.”

Doc moved to the disarmed soldier’s side, rendered him unconscious. The procedure
was repeated on another man who was unarmed. Doc had to catch him first, for the man
lunged blindly for the door. But it was soon done.

“No need to shoot,” Doc told Fiana.

The woman sneered, “Shooting is final. If we let them live, they will hunt us down
like wild wolves.”

“No time to argue,” rapped Doc, urging her out of the room. He paused to lock the
door, after first dousing the room’s light.

Retracing his steps, Doc reached the spot where he had left Simon Page.

Two sad grass-green eyes fell upon Fiana Drost.

“Hello, Fiana.”

Fiana looked around wildly. “Who speaks?”

“Me. Simon Page.”

Her thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You live? Where are you, Simon?”

“Here. Right beside you.”

Fiana Drost made searching faces. Dark orbs falling upon the familiar green ones that
were framed by no face, she became rubbery in the knees.

“Simon…” she breathed.

“Time for talk later,” said Doc. “We are getting out of here.”

Doc Savage led them along until they came to a soldier in chartreuse who stood guard
at what appeared to be a side door to the castle structure.

Spying them, he brought his rifle to his shoulder and ordered a halt.

Doc obliged. There was nothing else to do.

“Simon,” he undertoned.

The green eyes winked out. Consequently the guard failed to notice them advancing.
A shuffling of brushy feet caused the man to switch his rifle muzzle this way and
that, thinking that someone—or some
thing
—was moving along the corridor.

Seeing no one, he shifted his weapon back to fix the big bronze man in his gun sight.

Abruptly, the muzzle jumped upward, began twisting out of his hands. Grunting, the
sentry strove to hold on, but the sheer unbelievability of what was happening threw
him badly.

The rifle went flying. Doc Savage captured it in both hands, snapped it around, training
the cold muzzle on the dumbfounded guard.

“Shoot this one!” Fiana hissed.

“I have a better idea,” called the voice of Simon Page.

The guard wore a steel helmet. It came off his head and without anything seeming to
control it, began hitting the top of his skull repeatedly.

This produced painful unconsciousness. The man corkscrewed and flopped on his slack
face. The helmet landed on his head with a clunk of a sound.

Doc maneuvered Fiana Drost around the conquered one, saying to the disembodied green
eyeballs, “Good work.”

“My pleasure.”

“I cannot get used to this,” murmured Fiana, looking very drained of color now.

THEY emerged into clear daylight. Before them lay a broad expanse of open field, brown
with dead grass.

Preparations appeared underway for an incipient war. There were soldiers everywhere.
Drilling. Marching in formation. Officers were shouting profane orders.

“The Tazans are mobilizing,” Fiana breathed.

Simon Page assessed the situation perfectly. “We would never get past all those soldiers.”

Doc Savage directed, “Back.”

They slipped inside the castle and Doc Savage went hunting. He found closed doors,
signifying more offices, and tried knob after knob until one surrendered.

Slipping within, he found a telephone reposing on a desk. Jiggling the switch hook,
Doc got some type of switchboard on the line.

In perfect Tazan, the bronze man began issuing curt orders.

“The enemy spy Drost has escaped. She was seen leaving by the back way, headed into
Ultra-Stygia. No doubt she expects to rendezvous with confederates there.”

His voice, tone and inflection, was unmistakably that of General Consadinos. Doc Savage
was a perfect voice mimic.

“At once, General,” a nervous voice returned.

Rejoining the others, Doc waited.

A great stirring came from outside. Shouted orders cracked out. Men and machines were
quickly organized for the hunt. Canvas-sided military trucks rumbled into view. The
latter carried soldiers in green crouching in the back.

In short order, the assembled forces of Tazan were charging into Ultra-Stygia, in
hot pursuit of Fiana Drost, led by a formidable war tank which grumbled along with
grim purpose.

“They will not be fooled for very long,” Fiana warned.

“The contrary,” said Doc. “The soldiers believe themselves to be under official orders.
They will comb Ultra-Stygia until you are found.”

“I refuse to be found,” Fiana said defiantly.

Doc led them back to the empty office, where he placed a telephone call to the Hotel
Kronstadt.

“Put me through to the royal suite,” he asked in Tazan.

“Yes, General Consadinos.”

Fiana Drost stared in amazement at the giant bronze man.

Monk Mayfair answered, “Yeah?”

Doc switched to the Mayan language, to foil any eavesdropper. In quick succession,
he explained his predicament, and ordered Monk and the others to slip out of the hotel
and reclaim their aircraft.

“I will meet you there,” Doc concluded.

“Got it. Where are we goin’?”

“Back to Egallah.”

“Is that smart?”

“Smarter than remaining in Tazan, where we are certain to be shot.”

“Won’t we be shot on sight if we show our faces in Egallah?”

“Conceivably,” admitted Doc.

“So what’s the difference?” asked Monk.

“The difference,” returned Doc Savage, “is that the darkness machine is in Egallan
hands, and that is our main objective now that I have collected Simon Page.”

“Meet you there!” Monk said enthusiastically.

GETTING OUT OF the royal suite proved more challenging than Monk, Ham and Long Tom
Roberts expected.

Two police officers stood outside their door when they attempted to exit the suite.
Each wore broad web belts which supported a holstered revolver on one hip and a long
ceremonial sword on the other. At the sound of the door opening, hands went nervously
to hilts, knuckles whitening.

“You cannot leave,” one told them firmly.

“Why the heck not?” demanded Long Tom.

“You are under house arrest.”

Ham Brooks stuck his head out and said, “I happen to be an attorney. There has been
no formal arrest. Therefore, we are free to go.”

The police changed their minds about drawing their swords. Two pistols were produced
and aimed at the dapper lawyer’s aristocratic nose.

“Consider this official notification of arrest,” he was informed.

Ham retreated. There was nothing he could do in the face of the twin muzzles.

“Monk, you reason with them.”

Monk emerged next. The sight of the great hairy chemist whose long arms dangled gorilla-like
to his knees gave the officers momentary pause. Prudently, they trained their pistols
on him.

“We’re kinda bumfuzzled,” Monk confessed. “Maybe you boys can explain what the charges
are.”

The other spoke up. “We do not know. We have orders only.”

“Do you have orders to shoot us if we escape?” wondered Monk.

The two officers of the local law looked momentarily nonplussed. It was plain that
their instructions did not go that far. It was written all over their features.

“Sounds like you boys got hold of a powerful dilemma,” suggested Monk.

The American word was unfamiliar to them. They said so.

“A dilemma,” said Monk expansively, “is a conundrum with horns.”

“What is conundrum?” one wondered.

“Why, it’s a— Hold on. I’ll show you an example of one.”

Monk ducked into the suite only long enough to unship his supermachine pistol from
his underarm holster. When he emerged, the spiky muzzle was trained directly on the
two police officers, who had crowded a little too close together in their efforts
to block the door.

“What is that?” one gulped.

Monk said breezily, “A kind of a conundrum. You have one pistol each. Right?”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“I have only one pistol. Correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Your pistols are loaded with six shots apiece. That makes twelve, all told.”

“Yes. Twelve. More than sufficient to shoot you,” the other officer reminded.

“On the other hand,” Monk said flatly, “this pistol of mine holds sixty shots in the
drum and can spit lead faster than a Tommy-gun.”

The two police officers did some mental math. It told them that if the hairy ape of
a fellow menacing them so casually should pull his trigger, it would take only four
seconds to empty the drum into their unprotected bodies.

“Are you asking us to surrender?” asked one man, thick-tongued.

“Because if you are,” said the other, “that is strictly against our orders.”

Monk eyed them. “Your orders that don’t allow you to shoot us. Is that right?”

The pair exchanged uneasy glances. In that moment, their muzzles wavered.

That was sufficient opening for the hairy chemist.

Monk pulled back on the firing lever of his supermachine pistol and mowed them down
with a brief moaning burst.

They collapsed to the carpet, their pistols unfired. Almost immediately, the duo began
breathing like men who had fallen asleep. The thin-walled mercy-bullet capsules had
broken against their skins, introducing a potent anesthetic into their bloodstreams.

Monk called over his shoulder, “Let’s go.”

Ham emerged first. “That was easy,” he murmured.

“It’s all in the buildup,” beamed Monk.

They took the elevator down to the lobby and sauntered out the rear exit, unchallenged
and unmolested. It was late afternoon, and pedestrians, bundled up in their winter
hats and coats, appeared busy rushing homeward.