“I am no one, nothing. I am an abstraction, an emotion, the ooze of terror, the sweat of horror, the shake in the air when a scream has departed.”
“You speak the voice of man.”
“Why not? Such things as I speak lie in the closest and dearest center of the human brain.”
Guyal said in a subdued voice, “You do not make your invitation as enticing as might be hoped.”
“No matter, no matter; enter you must, into the dark and on the instant, as my lord, who is myself, waxes warm and languorous.”
“If light there be, we enter.”
“No light, no insolent scorch is ever found in the Museum.”
“In this case,” said Guyal, drawing forth his Scintillant Dagger, “I innovate a welcome reform. For see, now there is light!”
From the under-pommel issued a searching glare; the ghost tall before them screeched and fell into twinkling ribbons like pulverized tinsel. There were a few vagrant motes in the air; he was gone.
Shierl, who had stood stark and stiff as one mesmerized, gasped a soft warm gasp and fell against Guyal. “How can you be so defiant?”
Guyal said in a voice half-laugh, half-quaver, “In truth I do not know … perhaps I find it incredible that Destiny would direct me from pleasant Sfere, through forest and crag, into the northern waste, merely to play the role of cringing victim. Disbelieving so inconclusive a destiny, I am bold.”
He moved the dagger to right and left, and they saw themselves to be at the portal of a keep, cut from concreted rock. At the back opened a black depth. Crossing the floor swiftly, Guyal kneeled and listened.
He heard no sound. Shierl, at his back, stared with eyes as black and deep as the pit itself, and Guyal, turning, received a sudden irrational impression of a sprite of the olden times — a creature small and delicate, heavy with the weight of her charm, pale, sweet, clean.
Leaning with his glowing dagger, he saw a crazy rack of stairs voyaging down into the dark, and his light showed them and their shadows in so confusing a guise that he blinked and drew back.
Shierl said, “What do you fear?”
Guyal rose, turned to her. “We are momentarily untended here in the Museum of Man, and we are impelled forward by various forces; you by the will of your people; I, by that which has driven me since I first tasted air … If we stay here we shall be once more arranged in harmony with the hostile pattern. If we go forward boldly, we may so come to a position of strategy and advantage. I propose that we set forth in all courage, descend these stairs and seek the Curator.”
“But does he exist?”
“The ghost spoke fervently against him.”
“Let us go then,” said Shierl. “I am resigned.”
Guyal said gravely, “We go in the mental frame of adventure, aggressiveness, zeal. Thus does fear vanish and the ghosts become creatures of mind-weft; thus does our élan burst the under-earth terror.”
“We go.”
They started down the stairs.
Back, forth, back, forth, down flights at varying angles, stages of varying heights, treads at varying widths, so that each step was a matter for concentration. Back, forth, down, down, down, and the black-barred shadows moved and jerked in bizarre modes on the walls.
The flight ended, they stood in a room similar to the entry above. Before them was another black portal, polished at one spot by use; on the walls to either side were inset brass plaques bearing messages in unfamiliar characters.
Guyal pushed the door open against a slight pressure of cold air, which, blowing through the aperture, made a slight rush, ceasing when Guyal opened the door farther.
“Listen.”
It was a far sound, an intermittent clacking, and it held enough fell significance to raise the hairs at Guyal’s neck. He felt Shierl’s hand gripping his with clammy pressure.
Dimming the dagger’s glow to a glimmer, Guyal passed through the door, with Shierl coming after. From afar came the evil sound, and by the echoes they knew they stood in a great hall.
Guyal directed the light to the floor: it was of a black resilient material. Next the wall: polished stone. He permitted the light to glow in the direction opposite to the sound, and a few paces distant they saw a bulky black case, studded with copper bosses, topped by a shallow glass tray in which could be seen an intricate concourse of metal devices.
With the purpose of the black cases not apparent, they followed the wall, and as they walked similar cases appeared, looming heavy and dull, at regular intervals. The clacking receded as they walked; then they came to a right angle, and turning the corner, they seemed to approach the sound. Black case after black case passed; slowly, tense as foxes, they walked, eyes groping for sight through the darkness.
The wall made another angle, and here there was a door.
Guyal hesitated. To follow the new direction of the wall would mean approaching the source of the sound. Would it be better to discover the worst quickly or to reconnoitre as they went?
He propounded the dilemma to Shierl, who shrugged. “It is all one; sooner or later the ghosts will flit down to pluck at us; then we are lost.”
“Not while I possess light to stare them away to wisps and shreds,” said Guyal. “Now I would find the Curator, and possibly he is to be found behind this door. We will so discover.”
He laid his shoulder to the door; it eased ajar with a crack of golden light. Guyal peered through. He sighed, a muffled sound of wonder.
Now he opened the door further; Shierl clutched at his arm.
“This is the Museum,” said Guyal in rapt tone. “Here there is no danger … He who dwells in beauty of this sort may never be other than beneficent …” He flung wide the door.
The light came from an unknown source, from the air itself, as if leaking from the discrete atoms; every breath was luminous, the room floated full of invigorating glow. A great rug pelted the floor, a monster tabard woven of gold, brown, bronze, two tones of green, fuscous red and smalt blue. Beautiful works of human fashioning ranked the walls. In glorious array hung panels of rich woods, carved, chased, enameled; scenes of olden times painted on woven fiber; formulas of color, designed to convey emotion rather than reality. To one side hung plats of wood laid on with slabs of soapstone, malachite and jade in rectangular patterns, richly varied and subtle, with miniature flecks of cinnabar, rhodochrosite and coral for warmth. Beside was a section given to disks of luminous green, flickering and fluorescent with varying blue films and moving dots of scarlet and black. Here were representations of three hundred marvellous flowers, blooms of a forgotten age, no longer extant on waning Earth; there were as many starburst patterns, rigidly conventionalized in form, but each of subtle distinction. All these and a multitude of other creations, selected from the best of human fervor.
The door thudded softly behind them; staring, every inch of skin a-tingle, the two from Earth’s final time moved forward through the hall.
“Somewhere near must be the Curator,” whispered Guyal. “There is a sense of careful tending and great effort here in the gallery.”
