THE DOOMSMAN (13)
By:
June 13, 2024
Set ninety years after the cataclysmic pandemic of 1925, Van Tassel Sutphen’s The Doomsman imagines a Kamandi-like future in which medievalized American tribes struggle with the marauding Doomsmen for control of the ruins of New York City… where a mad priest worships a powerful technology. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize this 1905–1906 proto-sf novel for HILOBROW’s readers.
ALL INSTALLMENTS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30.
GODS IN EXILE
February, and a full three months since Constans had come to Doom. And yet he was virtually at his starting-point, so little had he been able to accomplish along the line of his purpose. A dozen times indeed he might have planted an arrow between the delicately shrugged shoulders of Master Quinton Edge as he strolled, of a sunshiny morning, along the Palace Road, surrounded by his little body-guard of flatterers and political courtiers. But such an act would have stained his honor without fully satisfying his vengeance; he did not want to strike until he should know where it would hurt the most.
It had been Ulick always who had stood in the road; Ulick with his eternal lamentations over the maid Esmay. Together they had searched for her in every possible quarter. But where was one to look first in this wilderness of stone? It would have been an obvious procedure to have kept close watch upon the movements of Quinton Edge, whose complicity was a matter of reasonable suspicion. But the first attempts at shadowing him had resulted in nothing, and early in December the Black Swan, with Quinton Edge himself in command, had left her moorings in the Greater river, bound doubtless on some piratical expedition.
It was an added aggravation of Constans’s impatience that Ulick himself was ordered away at the end of January. He had been drafted to take part in a raid, and since the route of the proposed foray led far to the southward he would probably be absent for a considerable time. It would take a fortnight’s hard riding for the band to reach the distant colony against which the attack had been planned, and fully six weeks would be required in which to drive the cattle home. Two full months, then, and as yet only one had passed; the returning raiders would not cross the High Bridge much before the first day in April.
As the weeks went heavily on, Constans, in spite of his philosophy, began to fret and chafe. He could put in a part of each day in the library poring over his books and digging out the ancient wisdom from the printed page by sheer force of will. But there always came a time when only physical exertion would have any effect in dispelling the mental disquietude that possessed him, and then he would throw aside his books and walk the empty streets for hours.
The weather continued bad, bitter cold alternating with storms of rain and sleet. Towards the end of January the snow came in earnest: it lay a foot deep on the level, and the Doomsmen, after their custom, kept closely within doors. Constans would occasionally note a few fresh tracks along the Palace Road, and the smoke that curled steadily from scattered chimney-pots and the bivouac fires on the Citadel Square might be taken as evidence that the suspension of social activities was only temporary. But for the present, at least, Constans had the city to himself, and he wandered about as he chose without a thought of possible danger.
An anxiously longed-for discovery was the reward of one of these lonely excursions. In a shop that had once been devoted to the sale of fire-arms, Constans found a quantity of ammunition of a caliber that would fit the chambers of his revolver. The cartridges had been packed in hermetically sealed cases, presumably for export-shipment or upon a special order. However that might be, the precaution had prevented the deterioration of the powder, and the ammunition was consequently, in condition for use. Constans nerved himself to make the experiment, but although his studies had made him well acquainted with the theory of the explosive projectile, he had to summon all his resolution for the actual pulling of the trigger.
The detonation that followed startled him out of his self-possession. He dropped the pistol, and was out of the shop and half way across the street before he could recover himself. Then, ashamed of his cowardice, he forced himself to pick up the weapon and went forward to examine the two-inch plank at which he had taken aim. To his astonishment and delight he saw that a hole had been drilled clean through the solid oak and the bullet itself was lying on the ground, flattened from its impact with the masonry behind the planking. All this, let it be said again, was perfectly familiar to Constans in theory, but its realization in fact gave him a strange thrill. A score of men armed with these large caliber pistols, or, better still, rifles, might easily enough compel the surrender or bring about the destruction of the entire fighting force of the Doomsmen.
Inspired by this new thought, Constans made a thorough examination of the stock of arms in the shop. To his disappointment he found most of the rifles in unserviceable condition, covered with rust and verdigris. Finally, however, he came across a dozen carbines carefully wrapped and packed for a prospective shipment across the ocean. Protected by their heavy coverings the weapons had suffered comparatively little damage, and Constans spent the best part of a week in cleaning them and getting the mechanism of their working parts into tolerable order.
Later on, Constans removed the serviceable ammunition, amounting to several hundred rounds, to a convenient hiding-place in the cellar of a building fronting on the Lesser or Eastern river, and he also transported thither the carbines, the latter carefully wrapped in greased rags to preserve them from dampness. Some day the opportunity would come to put these things to use. And now, February had passed, and March was well into its third quarter; in a few more days the returning sun would cross the line, and spring, the time for action, would be at hand. How he longed for its advent.
This was the third occasion upon which Constans had noticed that peculiar noise, a continuous, deep, humming note, such as might have been made by swarming-bees multiplied a hundredfold. On the day that he first heard it he happened to be walking three blocks to the westward of the Citadel Square, and it seemed then that the seat of the mystery lay almost due south. A week later he happened to be in the same locality. Once more, those deep-toned vibrations smote upon his ears; now the sound-waves were all about him and the sense of direction was lost; again, and they plainly proceeded from somewhere to the eastward. It was perplexing, but the varying quarter and strength of the wind might be sufficient to account for the difference, and in one curious particular the two observations corresponded. The day of the week in each case had been Friday, and the humming noise had commenced at precisely the same time — the passing of the sun over the meridian.
To-day was the third successive Friday, and Constans had made preparations for the careful noting of the phenomenon should it reoccur. He waited with a lively sense of expectation, and he was not disappointed. At high noon the humming began again, and it seemed to be louder than when he had listened to it on the two former occasions — the air was full of the vibrant droning. There was a sinister quality, too, in its monotone, and Constans for the moment felt himself swayed by a gust of superstitious terror. He recalled the traditions current among the House-dwellers, the belief that Doom was inhabited not only by the outlaws but by demons of many a grewsome sort and kind. There were strange tales of lights that lured the wanderer onward, only to vanish as the victim sank into some frightful abyss; of invisible hands that plucked at the rash intruder’s skirts; of monstrous shapes that leered and gabbled behind the traveller’s back and were only blocks of stone when he turned to face them; of bloodless creatures that one might meet in the full flood of day, and whose unearthly character was only to be proved by observing that they cast no shadow in even the brightest sunlight; of vampires and ghouls and fair women with enchanting voices, who enticed their victims into blind passageways and then changed suddenly to foul, harpy-like monsters. But in this latter case the foolish one had only himself to blame, for if he kept on the lookout he could always detect the masquerade by observing the creature’s hands. The harpies could transform themselves in every other way, but their claws remained unchanged, and they were, consequently, obliged to cover them with gloves. “Beware the gloved hand,” was a familiar aphorism among the wise women of the West Inch, and Constans, shaken in spite of himself by the remembrance of these old fables, felt the sweat break out upon his forehead, for all that the wind blew shrewdly cold.
Yet as he waited and listened and still nothing happened his natural good-sense reasserted itself. Overhead a glorious winter sun was shining; as everybody knew, the sirens never sang until after dark, and assuredly they were accustomed to give a much more artistic performance. His courage re-established, curiosity asserted her rights; he must discover the source and nature of this mystery, and so he proceeded cautiously in the direction from whence it now appeared to come, a course that led him south by east for perhaps ten of the city blocks.
Constans found himself a short distance below the Citadel Square and in a quarter of the city that he had never yet explored. Suddenly he came upon a large building of brick covering a full square in area but only two stories in height. As he approached the humming noise grew louder and louder; the secret, whatever it was, lay concealed behind those commonplace-looking walls. Constans held his breath and went forward slowly.
The street, upon which the main elevation of the building faced was an unusually wide one, and directly in front of the entrance to the structure the snow had been cleared away from a circular space whose diameter was about forty feet. In this enclosure were three women whose costume, a dark gray cloak and scarlet hood, proclaimed them to be of the Doomsmen. They were kneeling on the hard pavement, and kept alternately bowing their foreheads to the ground and then bringing the upper body to a vertical position, the arms extended and the palms turned outward. The movements were done in time to the rhythmic throb of the mysterious humming, and undoubtedly the ceremony possessed some religious significance.
For perhaps ten minutes Constans stood motionless, watching the scene. Then, together, the women rose to their feet and approached a rude, block-shaped structure of stone that apparently served as an altar. Upon it each in turn laid her gift, some article of food, and immediately departed. In his eagerness to see what would follow, Constans stepped boldly around the corner, and so came within the view of a man who had just made his exit from the building.
It was too late to retreat, and Constans stood his ground, noting that the stranger seemed equally astonished with himself at the encounter. An elderly man, to judge by the whitening beard, but his eye was bright and searching, and there was no hint at superannuation in either port or movement. He was dressed in a long skirtlike garment of black cloth — true priest garb — and for a girdle he wore a length of hempen rope tied in the peculiar and sinister fashion known as the “hangman’s knot.” Around his neck, suspended like a priest’s stole, hung a steel chain with pendent manacles or handcuffs that jangled unmusically as he moved. A grotesque, almost ridiculous figure this priest of the Doomsmen, but with the first look into the man’s face one forgot about the fantastic garb. A singular contradiction it presented, for the large, square jaw was indicative of a mind keenly rationalistic, while the high, narrow forehead assuredly proclaimed the partisan and the bigot.
It was the elder man who broke the silence.
“The time is long since a man of the Doomsmen has appeared to pay his vows to the Shining One. You are welcome, my son.”
Constans wondered if he had heard aright. Then he remembered that he was wearing a suit of Ulick’s clothes and that his hair was cut after the Doomsmen fashion. It was a comfortable assurance of the merit of his disguise that it had passed muster so easily; he had only to guard against talking too much, and detection was practically impossible. So he contented himself with what might pass for an obeisance and some vague words of apology. The priest, however, paid no attention to his excuses, but continued in a tone of sarcastic bitterness:
“Strange that you should think it worth while to seek a god who is served only by women. Yet the Shining One seems neither to know nor to care that the sons of the Doomsmen come no longer into his presence chamber and bring no gifts to his altar. A god forsaken by his people, a neglected shrine, a worn-out creed — why, indeed, should any one do reverence to such things as these? Yet you have come.”
“I — my father —” stammered Constans. “There are reasons; I will explain —”
“It matters not,” interrupted the priest, impatiently. “It is enough that you are here, and, being a man, you have the privilege of the inner mysteries. And possibly a message may be awaiting you. Come.”
He took Constans by the hand and drew him towards the vaulted entrance-way. There was no reasonable opportunity for protest, and before Constans was fully aware of what was happening he had been hurried through the passage and into a large, semi-darkened building that was filled with the rumble and clank of machinery in rapid motion. Constans, having recovered from the first surprise and his eyes becoming accustomed to the obscurity, looked about him with a dawning sense of comprehension.
In the middle of the hall was installed an enormous piece of machinery, a vast cylindrical construction revolving at great speed, and Constans became the more certain of its real nature as he proceeded to examine it in detail. He recalled the illustrations and diagrams that he had been poring over only the day before at the library building, and he was sure that this monster could be nothing else than an electric dynamo, and one of the very largest size, delivering as high as fifteen thousand horse-power of potential energy. But how to account for the chance that had preserved this mightiest of the Old-World forces? What miracle had been wrought to keep this soulless giant in life through so many years of darkness and of silence? Constans felt his head spinning; the consciousness of a fact so tremendous was overwhelming; to save himself he turned away from the dynamo proper and began looking about for the source of its mechanical energy. He found it in an odd-appearing motor, to which the dynamo was connected by the ordinary means of a shaft and belting.
The engine was simple enough in outward construction. All that could be seen was an apparatus consisting of two ten-foot tuning-forks of steel supported on insulated pedestals, and between them a disk of some unknown composition, mounted in a vertical plane and revolving at inconceivable velocity. The power was taken from the shaft of this revolving disk and reduced in speed by means of gear-wheels before being conveyed to the dynamo. The prongs of the big tuning-forks continued to vibrate strongly, and gave out in unison the loud, humming note that had originally attracted Constans’s attention. It was undoubtedly, a form of motor whose power was derived from some secret property of vibratory bodies, a recondite subject to which his books alluded but obscurely. Yet in the years immediately preceding the Great Change the principle seems to have been reduced to practical utility. Here was the engine in actual operation, and whatever its source of fuel supply or the ultimate secret of its energy there could be no doubt about its production of power. It moved, it was alive, and Constans gazed upon it with fascinated eyes.
The priest had risen to his feet; he touched Constans lightly on the shoulder.
“The presence chamber,” he said, in a whisper. “Come, that you may look upon the face of the Shining One; he will rejoice in knowing that there is left even one faithful in Doom.”
He opened a door leading to a room at the left of the main hall and motioned Constans to enter. The door closed behind them and they stood in darkness. Then came the click of a switch-key, and out of the blackness faint lines of radiance appeared, changing slowly to a fiery brightness. And as the lines grew visible they resolved themselves into the semblance of a great and terrible face, the countenance of a man of heroic size with long hair. There was no suggestion of a body, only that majestic head crowned with hyacinthine locks and limned in lambent fire.
Constans felt his knees shaking under him, and involuntarily he prostrated himself; then again he heard the switch click, and the vision faded into nothingness.
There was the sound of a shutter being thrown back, and the daylight streamed in. He rose uncertainly to his feet and looked about him.
It was a small apartment, low-studded, with cement walls and a tiled floor. Near the door and fastened against the wall was a wooden framework, bearing a complicated arrangement of push-buttons and levers. Constans had seen its like pictured in his books, and he instantly conjectured it to be an electrical switch-board, designed to control and direct the current generated by the dynamo. On the opposite wall was suspended a thick sheet of some insulating substance — vulcanite — and fixed upon it was a net-work of wires in whose outlines he could distinguish the lineaments of the fiery face. Now he understood; it was simply a trick, the passing of a strong current of electricity through platinum wires until they became incandescent.
The recognition of those material agencies for the production of the apparition that had so terrified him gave Constans back his confidence; his books had not deceived him, and he was ready now for any fresh marvels that might be on the cards. But the attitude of the priest puzzled him. Was he really the charlatan, the trickster that he seemed? Was it not equally simple to regard him as the self-deluded votary? He could not decide.
“You have looked upon the face of the Shining One,” said the old man, breaking the silence. “Now behold his throne; perchance he will accord you the honor of sharing it with him.”
In the middle of the apartment stood the only piece of furniture proper that it contained, a massive oaken chair, with a head-piece, upon which was fastened a metal plate. On the arms of the chair were copper clips, the size of a man’s wrist, and all the points of contact were supplied with cups containing sponges. Again Constans understood. It was only necessary to dampen these sponges to ensure a perfect discharge of the electrical current passing through the head-rest and the metal wrist-clips. Constans shuddered, and this time with reason; he knew enough of the science to realize that the slightest contact with those enormously charged electrodes must be fatal.
The priest went to the switch-board, and, after a series of genuflections and the mumbling of what might have been an invocation, he turned a lever. Constans stepped back hastily.
“Now is the Shining One come upon his throne. Take your seat at his side if you would put his divinity to the proof. Or else be content to serve him in silence and singleness of heart, even as I.”
Constans guessed acutely that the full current from the dynamo must be passing through the metal framework of the great chair; he moved a little farther back and stood on guard. There was a glitter in the old man’s eye that was disquieting, and Constans did not relish the idea of a hand-to-hand struggle in this contracted space with these wicked-looking wires running in every direction. One of them had been broken, and from the dangling end, which hung close to a metal wall-bracket, a continuous stream of sparks fizzed and spluttered.
“I am content,” he said, quietly.
The priest smiled grimly. “Yet it is a pity that your doubts are not of a more stubborn growth, for it is many a year since the Shining One has taken a man to his arms. Of a truth, the ancient faith has failed miserably among the children of the Doomsmen, and I alone of all his priests remain to serve our lord.”
There was silence, the old man remaining apparently absorbed in his bitter reverie. Constans had been growing more and more uncomfortable, and this seemed to be his opportunity to escape. He edged towards the door. Now the metal knob of the door handle was within reach; he grasped it, and received a severe electric shock. Unable to master his startled nerves, he gave utterance to a cry of pain. The priest turned quickly, a frosty smile upon his lips.
“The sentinels of the Shining One are faithful to their duty,” he said, quietly. He touched a push-button, and Constans was at last able to let go of that innocent-looking door-knob; he fell to rubbing his arm vigorously in order to relieve the contracted muscles. What a ridiculous figure he had made of himself, he thought, vexedly.
“My son.”
There was a new note in the old man’s voice, an inflection almost kindly, and Constans wondered.
“Nothing happens of itself,” continued the priest, “and it was more than chance that led you thither. Surely, the Shining One has been mindful of his own, for I am an old man and my days are numbered. Therefore, has he sent you, my son, that to you I may commit the secrets of his power and worship. Then shall I ascend in peace upon the knees of the Silent One, knowing that his honor is safe in your hands. What say you?”
Constans realized that he was in a difficult position; nay more, that he was absolutely at the mercy of his new acquaintance. There was no means of exit save by the one door, and he had no desire for a second trial of strength with the electric current. The old priest might be ignorant of the real nature of the forces under his control, but certainly he was well provided with practical formulas for their exploitation, as witness the illuminated face and the electrically charged door-knob. Constans understood that he was in a trap, where even to come into contact with the walls of his prison-house might mean death. There was but one thing to do, and that was to surrender.
“I will serve the Shining One,” he said, quietly.
“You have chosen well, my son,” returned the old man. “Now a fool would never have understood that a net may be none the less strong for being invisible, and our lord does not love to speak twice. You have heard and you have obeyed; it is good.”
He stepped to the switch-board, and, after going through a series of genuflections, accompanied by an undertone of carelessly gabbled ritual, he depressed a lever. Instantly the room was in darkness and the spluttering wire ceased its crackling. The priest passed into the great hall, motioning Constans to follow him. Another brief and incomprehensible ritual and he approached the vibratory motor. Constans watched intently as he proceeded to manipulate a series of polished rods and levers. Suddenly the loud, humming note separated into two distinct tones, at first in musical accord and then becoming more and more dissonant. The revolving disk slowed down and stopped, and with it the dynamo came finally to rest. The hour of worship had come to an end; the Shining One had departed from his sanctuary.
At the suggestion of his ecclesiastical superior Constans brought within doors the offerings of food that had been left by the earlier worshippers. There were some dry cakes, baked of rye flour, a pot of honey, cheese, milk, and two bottles of wine. These provisions he was ordered to carry to a room on the story above the street, where a fire of sea-coal burned cheerfully in a brazier. Here they sat down and feasted amicably together, for the frosty air had put a keen edge to appetite and the noon hour was long overpast. And then as they sat at ease after the meal and the old man was well started on his second pipe, Constans came directly to the point.
“If I am to serve the Shining One acceptably,” he said, “there are many things that I should know. May I speak, my father?”
The priest looked at him searchingly. “As you will,” he replied.
All through the afternoon and deep into the night they talked earnestly together. And so, from time to time, in the days that were to follow, for it was a question of many things, and of some that were hard of understanding.
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
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