Carillon of Skulls

(by Philip James)

Ann Muller ran a pale hand down the massive bole of the single oak, standing out in forsaken grandeur over the ruins of Lefferts Park, and gripped tightly on a shaggy outcropping of its bark. Through a hole in the tattered leaves overhead she saw angry clouds scudding across the sky and watched the last threads of the moon vanish, leaving the park a pit of sordid black. She shuddered and old words slipped through her teeth.

"How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me? My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

"Strange words from you, dearie." The voice piped up from the blackness near her, ending in a cackling hiccup. A thin shaft of moonlight trickled down again, showing an old crone with dirty gray hair and the ragged shreds of former beauty still clinging to the reddened face. "Strange names you're calling on this night, I'm thinking. Hee!"

Ann dropped her hand from the tree and nodded faintly. "Perhaps. You're late, Mother Brian. Did you find the remedy?"

"That I did, and simple enough, too. Dried dust of balsam needles, the book said, and I have it with me. Here's your bag with it, though I'd not open the same, was I you. And the bullet. What you'll be doing, though—"

"Your pay," the girl suggested, stripping a curious green-set ring from her finger. "It's all I have now."

Mother Brian—Madame Olga, the seeress, she called herself now— pushed it aside. "Then you keep it, dearie. I've whiskey money this night, and you used to be a good girl, once. It's a long memory only that brings Madame Olga into this God-forsaken place, not pay. Heel A sweet girl, if a bit headstrong and foolish before—"

"Yes. Thank you, Mother Brian. What night is it?"

"Friday." She bit the word out reluctantly, and the girl jerked back at it, her fingers trembling as she caught at the oak bark again. In the dark, the old dealer in spells stretched forth a solicitous hand.

"Friday! Are you sure?" Ann's eyes strained against the darkness, and saw truth on the other's face. "Then that's why he was with me when I woke. He doesn't trust me now, but whispers his orders in my ear while I'm sleeping."

"Lot of good it'll do him this night. They've a police guard all about the place so only them as know the old tunnel can squeeze through the bulls and get in. It's an empty night for him, the slimy thing. For a thimble of smoke, I'd be—"

"No." Ann interrupted again, wearily. She was strangely tired, and the assurance of Madame Olga failed to bring hope with it. "No, they wouldn't believe you, and he'd—hunt. You'd better leave now, Mother Brian. He might come."

"Hee! He'll be busy still." But she turned away and went creaking out through the gloom with a grunted farewell.

Ann slumped against the tree, noting that the rift in the clouds was only a brief flash this time, and that it promised to be the last that night. But her eyes were accustomed to the dark, and she watched the old figure hobble away, down into a weed-grown hole, and out of sight toward safety.

Then she twitched her shoulders and stepped out from under the tree, picking her way through the tangle around. At one time Lef-ferts Park had been the mecca of the amusement-minded, with theater, roller-skating rink, picnic grounds, and places where barkers

announced the admission price was "only a thin dime, folks, the tay-yenth paht of a dollah." But that had been years before.

Now weeds and sumac had overgrown it, crowding against the few deserted beech-trees. Where the wooden recreation buildings and flashy theater had been, there was only an irregular series of pock-marks in the ground, cellars half filled in by dirty cans, bottles, and general debris, or crumbling foundation walls, overgrown with a mossy fungus of some kind. Charred boards and cinders of old dead fires showed that the last occupants had been bums seeking its weedy privacy for the night.

Ann picked her way with uncannily sure feet through the maze, hardly glancing at the tangle about her. She was thinking of other things, chiefly of him and his reasons, and her thoughts were barely rational. If only the control were less complete, so that she could pierce through to his object, or remember details, if— But there were too many ifs. It was Friday night, when his commands were always strongest; what those commands were or had been was hazy, but the repressed memories in the back of her mind filled her with a dread that was greater because of its vague uncertainty.

She skirted the roller-skating pavilion, an area treacherous with covered holes, and slipped quickly past what had been the Apollo Theater. Across town a bell sounded, laboring under the twelve Strokes of midnight, and yellowish light began to shine through the back windows of the theater. They were getting ready for another performance, apparently, though the marquee was still either missing or hidden by the shadows. Probably her duties would lead her there before the night finished.

The gateway leading from the park was in front of her then, and she looked out cautiously. Mother Brian had been right; two police were moving slowly up and down in front. Some of their words spilled back to her.

" Tis the very broth of hell's kettle in there, MacDougall, I'm think* Ing. I'd put face to the Old One himself before I'd be sleeping in there, sure as my name's O'Halloran."

"Aye."

"Yet fools there are, and newspapermen, like as not the one under two names. Devil a bit of it do I like."

"Aye."

Back in the park, a shrill burble of sound keened out in what might have been a laugh or a shriek of derision. O'Halloran hunched his big shoulders and scowled in its general direction. "Faith, what a

noise, not human at all, at all. Well, 'twas probably the wind a-howling through a hole. No need to be looking again for what made it, d'you think? Better to stick to our beat."

"Aye."

The girl turned back aimlessly, still mumbling over the dark suspicions in her mind. That shriek had been his voice, directed at her for loitering. Ann knew, but what good were his orders if no one entered the park? Of course, there was no one there, so she had nothing to fear. He—but who was he? Something probed at her mind, and vanished, leaving her standing there uncertainly. She knew where she was, but how had she got there, and why? What was she doing at night in Lefferts Park? She was sure she had known an instant before, but now the memory eluded her.

Then she was conscious of being cold, and the faint smell of wood-smoke coming to her from the back of the park. Someone must have a fire there that would offer warmth and companionship until her vagrant memory returned. She shivered and moved forward toward it, now picking out her way carefully, and stumbling a little over the tangled ruins under her feet. Down in a hollow beyond her, sheltered by a corner of a wall that still stood, she caught a flicker of yellow light and hastened toward it, drawing the inconspicuous dark suit closer to her thin, small body, and clutching tightly on the odd handbag, decorated with bright beads and closed at the top by means of a drawstring.

There was a man at the fire, she saw now, and hesitated. But he was well dressed and pleasant-faced as he bent over to light his cigarette from the fire and put on more wood. As he straightened, he caught sight of her from the corner of his eye and jerked around in surprise. "Hello, there," he called uncertainly, staring at her doubtfully. But her large gray eyes, contrasting with the white face, must have been reassuring, for he motioned her forward. "Care to join me?"

"Please, yes ... I hope you don't mind." She shouldn't be here, talking to a strange man, but until the vanished thread of memory returned, there was little else to do. "It was so dark and cold out there alone, and I saw your fire. I'll go away, if you wish."

He smiled quickly at that. "No, glad to have you. Coffee? There. Afraid the rock is the best seat I can offer you." As she settled down beside the fire, he smiled again, and she was no longer afraid of him; only of the dark outside the rim of light thrown by the fire. Then,

suddenly he frowned. "How'd you get in here? I thought the police were guarding the whole place."

"Were they? I didn't know. Nobody stopped me. . . . And how'd you get here, then?"

"Oh, they know I'm here; got a permit from the captain to stay here and see what happens for my newspaper—the Kendicon Daily Leader. I'm Harry Chapman, Miss—"

"Ann Muller."

"Hmm. Well, anyway, White—the editor—sent me down here. We couldn't find any trace or clue of the heads that have been missing, so he figured it would at least make a good suspense story, and might even trap the maniac who's responsible." At her uncertain look, he stopped. "You know about the missing heads, don't you?"

Was she supposed to? There was something vaguely familiar about It, but nothing clear. "No."

"Don't read the papers, eh? Well, briefly it's like this. Every week for the past four weeks, there's been a man killed here. Every Saturday morning the police find a body—but no head. They've hunted for the missing heads, but there's not even a speck of blood left to ihow where they went. Either some maniac's loose here, or there's black magic—which we don't believe. But nobody can find any traces."

Ann nodded, poking at the fire with a stick and only half listening. "I must have heard something about it, I guess, but not much. What happened?"

"That's the catch; nobody knows. The first three were bums, probably just hiding out here for the night, but the third was Dean Mallory . . . had an orchestra playing at the Dug-Out. At a guess, I'd say he stumbled here in looking for atmosphere for a modern thing he was writing, and it got him. His head was sheared off as clean as a cut of meat from the butcher. . . . Hope I'm not frightening you?" *

"No." Whatever reaction came to her from Chapman's words, it wasn't fear, though there had been a tinge of fright since the moment when she first noticed the park about her. Her eyes wandered out Into the shadows and back to him quickly. "They think it's a maniac?"

"All except a drunken old fortune-teller named Olga. She's been pestering the police sergeant with tales of the supernatural. Claims it's a nis. And I think he about half believes her, judging by the stress he lays on the absence of rats from the ruins, and the cross he made

me wear around my neck." Harry tapped his shirt to indicate the faint bulge of the tiny object. "You know, it's lucky you found me; running around here alone might be bad. More coffee?"

"No, thanks." Funny the way the flickering light on his face made it seem quixotical and boyish. Ann slipped closer to him. "What's a nis, some kind of evil ghost? I... I've heard the name somewhere, I think."

"Mmm. I had to look it up in a book." He bit off the comer of a cigarette package, pulled one out, and lighted it without disturbing the arm on the stones behind her. Where his fingers touched her back, little dancing tingles went tripping up as he continued. "Seems a nis is someone who was too interested in life and too contrary to die, so he turns into a half-demon, decides on what he wants to do and does it, not bothering about normal men anymore. According to the book, there used to be one who stole colors from living people to paint his pictures, leaving them with eyes black as a stoat's and hair like the feathers of a crow. But nisses can't stand sunlight, so it killed him when he tried to steal the colors from the sunlight."

Ann stirred restlessly. "Good always triumphs in the stories, doesn't it? And I think you used the wrong plural."

"Probably. There's another story with a somewhat neater ending, if you'd care to hear it. ... Mmm. One of them took up lodging in a valley hidden from civilization and went about building up a choir. He swiped the voices from all the yokels around and played on them like an organ, thundering his music down from the hills in a great symphony. Naturally, without voices, the people were struck dumb. Then word got out, and musicians began stemming in from the far corners of the earth to listen. But so many who came left their voices behind in the valley that in time they stopped coming, and even the location of the valley was lost to man's memory."

"Rather horrible, those legends, aren't they?" She stretched out suddenly and got to her feet, restlessness stirring in her. "Let's go somewhere to a show; I'll pay my way. At least, it's more cheerful than sitting out here all night."

Harry glanced at his watch. "It's rather late. What show'd you have in mind?"

"Apollo, I guess." What other show would they see, with the Apollo only a few yards away across the park? There was no point to going clear across town to another. "Just cheap vaudeville, of course, but better than usual this week; at least everybody says so."

Chapman made no comment, but came to his feet quickly, one

hand sliding back to his pocket and clutching at something there; in the flickering light, it looked like the handle of a gun. His actions were suddenly unfriendly and odd. She turned at his motion, leading the way, and he followed a few feet behind. She could feel his eyes riveted on the nape of her neck, and hear him muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "maniac," but she shook her head and stopped puzzling about it, heading toward the theater. From the dark ahead, a gurgling ululation sounded. There was something about it—where had she heard that before?

"Lord!" Harry's gasp behind her cut through her thoughts and brought them back to him. "Look! It's there!"

His fingers were pointing ahead to the building that reared up from the tangled ground, its marquee blazing with light, announcing the stellar attraction of Loto, the Incomparable. The lights spelled Out Apollo Theater in no uncertain letters.

"Of course it's there. What did you expect?" His odd surprise was amusing, though it annoyed her a little. "Shall we go in?"

"Listen, I may be crazy, but O'Halloran and I went over the grounds this morning, and it wasn't there then. I even dug part of that sign out of the wreckage. There hasn't been an Apollo Theater for forty years. You'll be telling me next I'm the headhunting maniac." He stared about hastily, and his fingers clutched more tightly on the object in his pocket. "What's the game?"

He was being silly about something. Perhaps it would be best to forget about taking him in, she thought, then felt a pressing urgency to have him accompany her. "It's always been there, Harry," she assured him soothingly. "You must have been imagining things by the fire; people do that sometimes."

"Mmm. All right, I'm crazy. ... I must be, unless I'm asleep Tay the fire.' Okay, in we go. This wouldn't make good copy, but it may^ be interesting—maybe." He strode forward grimly, glancing back at her once as if expecting her to be gone. She smiled at him, but there was no lightening of his face.

Suppose he was right? He seemed so positive, and there were alarming gaps in her memory. Something had happened before she found herself in the park, but she could recall none of it. And this building, standing in the wilderness about, didn't make sense. She glanced at the sign again, studying the billing. Loto, the Incomparable. Who and what was Loto? Harry was back at her side then, and she clutched his arm.

"Let's not go in; I've changed my mind. There's something wrong here; I can feel it."

"You're darned right there is. They aren't charging amusement tax, for one thing. Still trying to tell me I'm crazy?"

"I don't know. I can't remember what I should about all this; there's a blank in my head."

"Mmm. You're a queer kid, Ann, and I should take you to O'Hal-loran, but I'm going to trust you instead. Maybe there's a cog slipped in your memory—amnesia; we'll see about it later." He took her hand and the friendliness she wanted from him was back, though determination pulled his face in stern lines. "Come on, we're in this now, and whatever it is, I'm seeing it through. It wouldn't surprise me to find the missing heads somewhere at the bottom of it. Game to try it?"

Ann tossed her head, though a prickling of her skin seemed like a warning, and they passed into the lobby. There was a moldy smell in the air, and a look of cheap opulence to the place that dated it. The unsmiling usher greeted them, his face masked in shadows, and led them down the middle aisle and to fancy plush-covered seats at the edge. The place was dimly lighted, probably by gas lamps, and the shadows spewed over the audience and up to the stage, which stood out in a contrasting glare of brilliance, though the curtain was still down. The musty odor was stronger, and the hissing buzz of the audience already seated carried a note that was half familiar, but entirely unpleasant.

Harry nudged her. "Notice anything queer about the audience? No? Well, try and pick out any details. All I can see are dark blobs. I can't focus on them—might as well be a veil over the whole place— and I don't like it, Ann. Maybe you shouldn't be here."

"Shh. I'm here now." She caught his hand. It was nice to be worried over. Whatever her past, she was sure there had been too little of that. "Curtain's going up."

"Yeah."

There was a fanfare from the orchestra pit and a blurred announcement from the stage, followed by a quartet, all with long moustaches and dressed in tight pants, who came out and sang sentimental ballads, ending on the sad song of "Nelly, the Bartender's Daughter," unexpurgated. Ann had the impression that it was old to her, even the disgust at the cheap words. Harry grunted, but said nothing.

A team doing stunts on roller skates to jingling ragtime came next, followed by a man who juggled little balls that looked like glass

eyes. Ann was still puzzling over the feeling of familiarity with the acts. Harry sat with his eyes glued on the stage, and his nerves sticking out all over. A hush settled over the audience, and the stage lights cut to a center spot, coming from the wings, and leaving two lanes of black around the lighted section.

Offstage a ratty voice announced the main feature with unctuous pride. "The Great Loto, with his Carillon of Skulls, the Delight of the Crowned Heads of Europe, in Person. Rasputin himself was proud to honor the art of the Incomparable Loto. Ladeezngents, we now bring you a new and hitherto Unplayed Symphony of his own composition. I give you—Loto!"

A full roll from the drums brought Loto out, dressed like a clown and carrying a large, covered object that must surely be his instrument. But his chalk-white face and long, red mouth were entirely unfunny, and the tapering fingers of his hands might have belonged to an Inca priest, adept at tearing the living heart out of a sacrifice. When he removed the covering from his instrument, it was revealed to be in truth a long line of skulls, suspended from a shining bar by small chains. The effect was appalling, and a low shudder of expectancy ran through the audience.

Loto was a good showman; the skulls went into the lane of light, so that attention was focused on them and his fingers, which held two small hammers shaped at the ends like teeth. The rest of him was shrouded in shadow, except for the thin white oval of his face. Harry twisted in his seat and caught at Ann's shoulder.

"Third skull from the end!" His breath came whistling between his teeth, harsh against her ear. "Notice the bulge over the eye sockets. If it didn't belong to Dean Mallory, I'll eat it!"

Ann looked, and sickness swept over her as something in her head snapped. She remembered noticing—long ago, it seemed—how Mallory's brow bulged out, and now she saw the same on the skulk So that was what he wanted! And now, under his command of the night, shrouded in forgetfulness, she had brought another.

"Harry!" She fought down her qualms and forced out the words. "Now I remember. We've—"

"Hush, he's starting. I've got to think this out." His arm on her shoulder held her down, and the weakness that had engulfed her kept her from throwing it aside. She turned her eyes numbly to the stage, and the first of Loto's music clamped her down completely, leaving only numbness and fear.

Loto was swaying back and forth in the semidarkness behind the

skulls, tapping out the notes as on a xylophone. Mostly they were in a minor key, but interwoven with majors in a fashion both fascinating and horrible. This piece was worse than the others she had heard; it should never have been written, but it fitted the instrument, and there was a frightful personality to each individual note that seemed to rouse the audience to a frenzy. Loto ran down to a long wail and began developing a rising crescendo, going higher and higher, until the air seemed to shriek under the torture of the impact.

Suddenly he stopped with one hammer in the air above his head, needing still one savage higher note to complete it; but the last skull was missing. The chain which should have held it dangled there, but there was only a screw and a small shred of bone left. A sigh welled up from the audience, and Loto turned to face them, his hammer still in the air. Slowly his feral eyes swung over the rows of seats, lingering just a moment on each, while he seemed to study.

Ann shuddered, knowing what was to come and powerless to stop it as the eyes swung slowly over the seats and toward them. Harry was staring toward the stage, too tense to notice her efforts to attract his attention. Then Loto's eyes found them and lingered, swept sideways, up and down, and came back to Harry. He nodded, lowered his hammer softly, and strode firmly down the steps into the orchestra pit, while the whole audience swung to keep their eyes on him.

Then her hand slid over the beads on her bag and sudden hope shocked her back to control. It would not be this time! Not this man! She dug her fingers into Harry's arm, tightening her grip until he jerked around. "Quick, before he reaches you. If I help now, will you help me later?"

"Of course," he answered, still studying Loto from the comer of his eyes. "But I can take care of Loto. I'm armed."

She shook her head urgently. "No, you mustn't. The others had guns and knives. Here, take my bag—here! Breathe some of the balsam needle dust into your nose like snuff and throw the rest toward Loto. Meet me the same place tomorrow night. . . . Now, quickly!"

Would he never take it! His hand hovered halfway between the useless gun and the bag while his eyes shuttled uncertainly to her, back to Loto, and then to the purse. But some of her sincerity must have impressed him, for he finally reached out impulsively and opened the bag. Loto was at the row in which they sat as he breathed in on the dust and tossed a handful toward the advancing figure.

There was a strangled sound as it spread out in the musty air, and all the blurred outlines wavered. Ann felt something catch at her breath and go stinging down into her lungs. She crumpled down and lost consciousness with a tired little sigh of satisfaction; tonight there would be no headless corpse in Lefferts Park.

With the contrariness of nature, there was a glorious moon the next night, but Ann was in no mood to appreciate it. He had not appeared, and she wondered why, unless the effects of the night before were still on him. Surely he must have seen that it was her bag the balsam dust came from, and he was not the forgiving kind. But she was too tired to care much.

What had Harry thought, and would he keep his appointment? Once, years before, there had been another—but that was past. The Apollo was only a weed-grown basement tonight, but she gave it a wide berth; there was no way of telling where he might be hiding. Then a faint smell of smoke reached her, and she half smiled and quickened her pace a little. Harry had remembered.

"Hiss! Annie, lass." It was Madame Olga's voice, and Ann stopped to let the hobbling figure catch up with her. "Och, now, I've been chasing you all over the place, I have. I've almost run my legs off my poor old body, dearie."

Half annoyed, Ann waited until the old crone caught her breath. "What is it, Mother Brian?"

"Hee! I'm a fool, dearie—a fool, no less—poking my nose where it's no business a-being. But I looked in on you last night, and a rare sight it was, seeing him get the surprise he did. A-standing there on them old stones, making noises fit for the Old One, while the two of you sat like ones bewitched on the dirty old wall. Though I'm sorry you learned of the things he'd have you do; 'twas ever my thought that you'd best never find that out."

She thrust a dirty paper sack into Ann's hands. "Your young man forgot them, and O'Halloran—the dumb mick—never saw a thing but the lad asleeping in the ruins. Most smart and proper was the tongue-lashing he gave the boy, too. Hee! You'll find your bag, your bullet. . . which'll fit; I tried it... and his gun there in the bag. I was after them as soon as the sun upped in the early morning."

"Thank you, Mother Brian. You're kind." The girl fiddled uncomfortably with the sack, and stared out toward the source of the smoke. Madame Olga cackled.

"All right, be off with you, dearie, since you're wanting the sight

of him. But keep the two ears of you open. I had the cards out this day, and I read things in them that'll surprise you, mayhap."

She chuckled again and made off quickly before Ann could ask what the surprises were. But the girl wasted no time in wondering. Tucking the bag under her arm, she moved forward toward Harry's fire, hastily inserting the cartridge Madame Olga had made into the gun. Unless her plans went wrong, another morning should find release for her. Then, as she neared the fire, she caught the rich voice of O'Halloran and saw two bulky figures beside that of the reporter. Moving soundlessly, she slid into the shelter of a tangle of scrub growth and waited.

"Kept thinking I'd heard the name," O'Halloran was saying, "though where you heard it, devil knows. But sure enough, this morning it come to me. Used to be a girl by that name poking around here, looking for something; claimed she was busy about historical research or something. But that was twenty, twenty-five years ago, and never a word has been heard of her since; disappeared all of a sudden, like she came. Little, dark, queer thing she was."

Harry nodded vaguely. "Probably not the person I'm thinking of, though it fits. ... I still think the center of what's going on here is the Apollo."

"Might be. I grew up hereabouts, lad, and there was ever men-strong, God-fearing men they was, too—who'd have devil a thing to do with the place, even in broad daylight. Sure, being a kid, I wanted to see for myself, what with the skating rink and all that, but I was never allowed it. Well, don't be dreaming again this night, lad. Come on, MacDougall, we belong outside."

"Aye." They lumbered off, flashing their lights about nervously.

Ann waited a few minutes more, while Harry glanced at his watch and fidgeted on the rough stone seat, then slipped out of her concealment and was beside him before he realized his waiting was over.

"So I didn't dream up this date, then?" For a man of almost thirty, the embarrassment on his face was almost too boyish, but Ann decided it was charming in a way. He suffered from another acute case of fidgets before he went on. "Look, Ann, I feel like a heel for going to sleep on you last night. Darn fool stunt, and I can't even remember what happened."

"Sleep?"

"Yeah. Right after I finished the nis yarn, I guess . . . wasn't it? Ugh, and what nightmares I had. Walking around in my sleep and letting O'Halloran find me in the ex-Apollo!" He grimaced sheep-

ishly. "If I hadn't found your footprints around here, I'd have thought the whole thing was imagination. When did you leave?"

The temptation to continue the pretense of his sleeping was almost overpowering, but cold logic choked back the impulse, even as she started to follow it. He was still somewhere near, and there was no time for small talk. "After you threw the dust," she answered, holding out the automatic to him. "Here, Mo . . . Madame Olga found this and sent it to you."

"After I—" He disregarded the gun, his face freezing into a tight mask of suspicion. "That's ridiculous! I looked over the Apollo as soon as O'Halloran woke me, and it's in ruins. What's the game?"

"Only the truth, Harry. Would I remember your dreams—the dust, the carillon, how you were unable to see the audience clearly? You saw the Apollo through my eyes, and I'm . . . But you promised to help me."

He nodded reluctantly, only partially convinced. "If it's true, I did. But—hell, what is it you want?"

Ann held out the gun again, trembling a little, now that the moment had actually come. The carefully rehearsed explanation she had planned in advance left her now and she stumbled for words. And from across the park, a quavering shriek keened out, warning her there was no time to waste.

"Well?" Chapman's voice was impatient.

"There's a silver bullet in it now," she began, and hesitated. Then, because she could find no other way, she blurted it out in a rush. This acting as a lure under temporary forgetfulness must stop, and there was no other escape. "I want you to use it on me, Harry! It . . . oh, I can't explain it, but you must. You promised!"

Blankness crowded the grimness and suspicion from his face, only to vanish abruptly. He grabbed her shoulder and began shaking it, shouting at her. "Ann, are you crazy? Of all the damned nonsenseJ Put up that gun. And if you try to use it yourself, I'll spank you— Soundly!"

So she had failed; the human taboos she had almost forgotten were stronger than his promise. But it had seemed so right, so obvious to her! Wearily she slipped from him and back toward the tangled hinterland. "All right. I can't use it anyway; that's part of his commands. Good night, Harry!"

"Wait. No you don't!" One of his arms caught her as she turned •nd swung her back. "You're going to explain this mess before you go. And whose commands are you talking about?"

Her futile struggles against him were cut short as a voice oozed out of the shadows behind them. Still dressed in his clown's clothing, Loto slipped out from a clump of weeds. "I believe," he said unctuously, "that I am the one she refers to. I'm her master, even when she tries to disobey me." He was rubbing his hooked fingers over the edge of a curved saber and there was a sickly grin on his chalky face. "Ah, what a lovely skull shape, man-thing. I admire it."

Ann saw Harry tense for a spring as Loto lifted the heavy blade and knew he would never make it. Up went the blade, twisting a little, curved in the air, and started down! Then the scream that had been stuck in her throat ripped out, and she felt one of her hands, sill clutching the gun, go up to knock against the blade, just as Harry began his leap. But the saber continued down. She heard it thwack as it struck and saw Harry crumple into a heap. Loto moved forward.

"Stop!" Her throat was frozen shut so that the word was only a whisper, but Loto heard it and paused.

His voice was filled with furious arrogance. "You dare! One side, wench! You've been useful, but this is too much for my patience. Drop that harmless toy and leave me!"

"The harmless toy," she warned him quietly, "is loaded with a silver bullet."

Loto checked himself. "Silver! You fool, you little fool! If you dared to use it, you couldn't go back to your place without me, and the morning would find you here. You know what that means?"

"Death, I suppose, when the sunlight touches me."

"Death!" He wrenched the word out and started forward again. "And an unpleasant one, I assure you. Give me that gun."

As he reached for it, her fingers seemed to contract of their own volition, and the automatic coughed once. Disbelief flickered over Loto's face. He threw out one arm, easing slowly to the ground, his eyes boring into her. "You . . . you love the man; I should have known."

Blood was trickling from his mouth, and he coughed his throat clear, forcing himself half erect. 'Then, Ann Muller, I give back your womanhood before I... die. I revoke the curse. And the man-thing ... is stunned ... no more. You—" Something that was either a smile or a sneer slit his thin mouth and was replaced by horror as he pitched forward limply.

Ann stumbled back into the shadow of a tree. The curse was gone, as Loto had said—she had felt the change as he spoke; but the

picture of him softening under the shadow of death was too much for her to grasp.

"Harry!" she called, wondering fearfully whether the last words had been truthful.

They had. Harry was coming toward her as she turned, rubbing his temples. "It's all right, Ann. Only the flat of the blade, thanks to you. I came to just as you shot and heard the rest."

"Then you know?"

"Hush, it doesn't matter now. We'll forget all this nightmare." Faintly in the darkness, she saw his eyes smiling down at her, and a glow swept up and enveloped her like a soft wind. "But O'Halloran must have heard the shot and he can't find you here—too hard to explain. Know someplace to hide?"

"There's an old hidden tunnel near the Apollo."

"Good. I'll tell O'Halloran I shot the maniac and phone the paper. Then . . ." His lips brushed light across her forehead and he turned her around and pushed her gently away. "When it's safe, I'll find you. Now, off with you."

Somehow her feet found their way through the tangle, but her thoughts were dancing on ahead, no longer bothered by Loto's strange reversal of manner or the quick telescoping of events. Ahead, the Apollo loomed up, its naked ruins now nothing but a monument to a dead past, and behind the wind brought the faint sound of excited voices. She stopped beside the old oak, caressing its wrinkled bark, then turned toward the tunnel, slowly, as the emotions denied her so long pulsed hotly through her. So intent on them was she that she almost tripped over a dim-burning lantern before she noticed Madame Olga squatting in the tunnel.

"Mother Brian-"

"I know, dearie." The seeress rose slowly to her feet, her eyes on the rotten door that covered the entrance. "I heard, and 'twas a good thing to see him a-dying, may the Old One carry his foul soul away!*'

"Shh!" Ann couldn't hate him now, not with the curse so newly gone from her. "Mother Brian, I'm a woman again. A woman!"

"That I know, too, and the words you've been hearing from the boy. But did the lad see your face—did he that, Annie child?"

"I don't suppose so; we were in the shadows. But what's wrong with that?" In the old woman's eyes there was a glint of tears before they dropped again, and something that sent a cold lance of fear down her back. Ann clutched at the bent shoulders. "Mother Brian, is there—? There's nothing wrong? There can't be!"

For answer, the crooked old fingers groped in a dirty bag and came out with a broken mirror. "When you've done with it, I'll be waiting at the other end," Madame Olga said gently. "Don't be waiting too long."

She went hobbling off hastily and Ann raised the mirror, studying it with dawning comprehension. There had been no kindness in Loto's last gesture! Even dying, he had planned that time, held in abeyance during the years his trickery had held her, should finally catch up with her. And Harry! But he was young enough to forget, though he might wonder for a time.

The cracked mirror slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor, its work finished. Then, with a low moan, she turned slowly down the tunnel, away from all she wanted in life. For the face in the mirror had been that of a woman of fifty, without even a trace of youthfulness to match her unchanged emotions.

Done Without Eagles (by Philip St. John)

The triangulator registered eight thousand miles up from Earth, though naturally we couldn't see the old ball behind us. When they built the Kickapoo, they left out all windows and covered her with a new laboratory product to bounce back hard radiations, which is why I have a couple of normal kids instead of half-monsters; cosmic rays just love to play around with a man's genes and cause mutations if they get a chance. Anyway, the spy instruments we used were worth a whole factory of portholes.	*

Captain Lee Rogers ran his eyes over the raised indicators when I signaled that we'd made one diameter, and found them all grooved where they should be. He pushed back his shoulders and tapped down for normal space acceleration before swinging around to face me. "They all come back, Sammy," he said, for no good reason I could see. "Once a man's been outside the atmosphere, you can't keep him grounded. Remember Court Perry?"

How could I help it, with some of the records he'd made still unbeaten? He'd won his eagles back in the old quartz-window days.