THE DOOMSMAN (28)
By:
September 1, 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.
IN THE FULNESS OF TIME
The streets were as light as noonday, and Constans found no difficulty in keeping the dying figure in sight. But, run as he would, he could not gain a yard.
“Arcadia House,” muttered Constans, under his breath, as he noticed the direction taken by the runner. What more natural than that a man should seek his own home at such a time? But Constans’s brow was clouded as he followed in Quinton Edge’s footsteps.
Arcadia House, and why? There could be but one answer to that question after Nanna’s message, conveyed to him through Ulick’s dying lips. Esmay had disappeared, and yet had remained in Arcadia House. He, who knew Quinton Edge, would understand.
Constans told himself grimly that he did understand. This insolent wanted the girl, just as he had desired many another thing in life, and it had always been his way to take what he coveted. But this time — Constans set his teeth hard, and now, at last, Arcadia House was in sight.
During this last quarter of an hour the progress of the conflagration had been perceptibly slower, and the great sheaf of flame in the western sky had almost disappeared. It was like the lull that so often takes place in a storm, a period of sudden quiet in the element strife that should warn the prudent that the worst is still to come. To Constans it was the most fortunate of happenings, the comparative darkness enabling him to keep close upon Quinton Edge without risk of discovery.
As though satisfied that he had arrived in time, Quinton Edge now slackened his pace, making for the gateway on the side street. Whereupon Constans determined to scale the wall at the rear and take the short cut through the garden, so as to intercept the Doomsman at the entrance. Once over the wall, the way was clear. Disdaining caution, he crashed recklessly through the shrubbery, the wet and tangled grass wrapping itself exasperatingly about his ankles as he ran. At the carriage-drive he stopped, flinging himself full length on the ground and close against the wall that marked the sunken way. The run had winded him, and he was thankful for the moment’s breathing-space.
From where Constans lay he could command sight of the north terrace that connected the porticos of the river and western fronts. Suddenly it seemed to him that the terrace was occupied by some living thing. A moment before he had noticed a darker blur in the shadows at the river corner; it had appeared to move. He heard a soft padding on the flag-stones as of an animal moving cautiously. He strained his eyes, striving to resolve that dusky blotch into shape intelligible; then a new burst of flame lit up the western sky and he saw clearly — it was Fangs, the hound.
The dog stood motionless, her head thrown upward as though listening. She could not possibly see Constans where he lay, but the smallest noise must betray him.
His revolver was in a side pocket, and he drew it forth with infinite care. Then he discovered that it was unloaded and that he had no more cartridges. His knife also had disappeared from its sheath; he realized that he was absolutely unarmed and helpless.
The hound leaped lightly from the terrace and began ranging in great half-circles. Constans looked on with fascinated eyes. It could be a matter of seconds only when she must cross his scent, and he knew that she would remember it — there was a blood-feud between them — the death of Blazer, who had been her mate.
The pass-key rattled in the lock of the postern-door, and Quinton Edge entered the sunken way. Fangs heard the noise, hesitated a moment, then tossed her black muzzle in the air and bounded forward to meet her master. Constans wiped away the sweat that was blinding his eyes and waited. Quinton Edge, with the hound by his side, went up the steps leading to the terrace.
Some one came forward to meet him — a slim, womanish figure dressed in white. Constans’s heart gave a great bound, for who but Esmay carried her small head with so irresistible a grace. She held out her hands as Quinton Edge reached her side, but he crushed her into his arms and kissed her on the lips. They walked slowly along the terrace, turned the corner of the eastern portico, and disappeared. Constans, running up, was just an instant too late; he heard Quinton Edge calling the dog inside, then the sound of the closing door.
By a supreme exercise of will Constans stopped short of the insanity that impelled him to thunder on the barrier and demand admittance. Yet he must gain instant entrance to the house, and he ran around the terrace to the river portico. As he had expected, the hall-door was fastened, but he had no difficulty in forcing one of the long windows of the drawing-room; he stepped into the dark and empty room and stood listening.
There was perfect silence everywhere, but he could not trust to it — eyes and ears might be in waiting at every turn, and, above all, there was the dog. He wondered that the hound had not already detected his presence in the house, and his pulse thumped at the thought; he fancied that he could hear deep breathing and the oncoming of padded feet.
The minutes passed, and the silence remained unbroken. Then the sense of his cowardice smote him; the jaws of the brute would be preferable to this intolerable inaction, and he went forward through the half-opened door and into the main hall.
This, too, was empty, and, having windows that faced the west, it was sufficiently well lighted by the conflagration to make the fact of its desertion certain. And Constans owed it to the friendly flames that he was once more provided with a weapon. There was a rapier hanging upon the wall, slender and yet strong, of very ancient make; in an instant he had it down and was trying the temper of its blade upon the hearthstone.
The touch of the cold steel was like a tonic; heart and blood responded immediately. Its discovery had been a fortunate chance, for again the illumination in the west died down the final pianissimo before the full crash of the orchestra — and the darkness returned deeper than before.
Constans, with the rapier held shortened in his hand, found his way to the staircase and began the ascent. At the turn of the second landing he stopped, feeling instinctively that there was something in the way. When he could bear no longer to wait and listen, he put his hand down and felt beneath it the smooth, hairy coat of the hound’s body. The dog was quite dead, and lying in a pool of her own blood; there was a warm, sickly smell of salt in the air, and Constans’s hand was wet when he fetched it away. Who had done this thing, and why?
He went on, with every sense on edge. He could hardly have mistaken his way now, for the door before him stood partly ajar, and there was a light in the room; Constans guessed that it must be the first of the private apartments belonging to Quinton Edge.
He looked in. The room was a large one and luxuriously furnished. An ancient hanging-lamp of brass hung from the ceiling, diffusing a soft radiance; the curtains that concealed the deep window-seat were closely drawn, and, had Constans made his observations with more care, he might have noticed that something moved behind them, an unwieldy bulk that gathered itself as though for a spring.
But he took no account of these smaller things, his eyes being full of Esmay only, and surely that was she who stood there in the shelter of Quinton Edge’s arms; now she half turned her head, the better to look into her lord’s face, and Constans could trace the outline of her profile — the upper lip, so deliciously short, and the exquisite curve of her throat. His breath came quick as he watched them, and his grasp tightened upon the rapier hilt. So she had deceived him, after all; she had played the traitress from the very beginning. Twice, now, she had smiled into his eyes and sold him for some piece of trumpery — a bracelet of carbuncles or a kiss from Quinton Edge’s lips. Well, he could kill them both, and almost at a single stroke, since they stood with their backs to the doorway and were quite unconscious of his presence. But, upon further thought, he determined to wreak positive vengeance on Quinton Edge alone. It was shame to strike a woman, and unnecessary — it would be her punishment to live.
Dispassionately he reviewed his decision and reaffirmed it; it was now the time for action. But he had delayed just a moment too long. Before he could take that first forward step the one who waited behind the window-curtains had passed before him, an ungainly figure of a man, who limped upon one knee and whose black beard fell like a curtain before his cruel mouth and lips — Kurt, whom men called the “Knacker.” A knife was in his hand, and he struck once and twice at Quinton Edge.
“This for the thirty lashes at Middenmass!” he shouted; “and this——”
But here Constans’s rapier passed through his throat, and he fell back, gurgling horribly and tearing at his windpipe.
It had all happened so quickly that the two living men could only stare alternately at each other and at the burden that lay in Quinton Edge’s arms. A slim, white figure, with that red stain upon her breast — spreading, spreading.
Constans gathered himself with a mighty effort. “Let me help you,” he said, and between them they carried her over to the couch and laid her down. On a near-by table stood a ewer of water; Constans fetched it and began moistening the bloodless lips. They parted with a little sigh, and then the eyes of his sister Issa opened upon him. “Little brother,” she whispered, and smiled.
Constans looked over at Quinton Edge, but he shook his head and stood back among the shadows.
“Little brother,” said Issa again, and put out a wavering hand.
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.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.