The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK ®: 25 Golden Age Science Fiction and Mystery Tales. Ray Cummings
his hand over his face for an instant as if to shut out some terrifying vision. “I shouldn’t have—I did not understand—if only I had known!”
The woman’s very words!
“God’s ways are sometimes inscrutable,” Dorian said gently; “but they are always very just.”
He stood with almost tender solicitude beside the man’s chair, waiting for him to recover his composure. There was a long silence.
“If only I had known!” repeated the financier finally. “You have done me a very great—a very wonderful service, Mr. Merlier.”
He seemed now to have partially regained his self-possession. Dorian bowed gravely. I could see his manner changing to keep pace with that of his client.
“If you really feel that you have—benefited,” he said slowly, “I am very glad—very glad indeed; though, as I have said, I am ready to show—”
He paused at the man’s involuntary shudder.
There was another silence. Then the visitor rose unsteadily to his feet, a little black oblong book in his hand. I felt, rather than saw, Dorian’s figure relax. It was as if inaudibly he were breathing a sigh of relief.
“The desk is here, Mr. Burton,” he said evenly.
He stood motionless at the financier’s elbow while Burton wrote his check. I felt myself holding my breath; but the hand that Dorian extended to take the check did not waver. His demeanor was calm and courteous.
“I thank you, sir,” he said simply.
Burton rose to his feet.
“I never break my word,” he said. “You have earned that money, and I shall never forget what you have so unexpectedly made me realize today.”
Dorian rang the little bell. Almost instantly the attendant appeared with the financier’s hat, gloves, and cane; and a moment later the door closed upon him.
I was still sitting quiet when Dorian came back into the center of the room. Evidently he had for the moment forgotten my existence. He sank into a chair and closed his eyes. He seemed almost at the point of exhaustion, as if he had used to the limit his reserve of nervous energy.
I left my seat and crossed the room toward him. He rose instantly—vibrant, full of life, self-possessed as before.
“Congratulate me, Carl!” The little white slip of paper fluttered in his fingers. “A good afternoon’s work for any man!”
We sat down together and talked. He seemed enthusiastic as a boy over his success; but nothing that he said, and nothing that I could lead him to say, made the affair more understandable to me than it had been.
“It’s your turn now, Carl,” he said, when I would let him stand me off no longer. “Come! What I have promised, I do. I said you shall see—whatever you wish.”
He had risen and was standing over me. His bantering eyes seemed impishly weaving a jest into his words. I felt myself shiver with a vague thrill of fear.
“What are we going to do?”
“I am going to show you every detail of your future life—just as I have those others.”
I stood beside him.
“I shall be all curiosity,” I said; but the tone was forced.
V
The adjoining room, into which we now passed, proved to be nearly equal in size to the one we had left. Rich Turkish rugs covered its floor, and its windowless walls were shrouded with heavy, dark-colored draperies. A cluster of evil-looking knives and simitars ranged along one side, underneath which stood a broad divan with many pillows. From the ceiling depended a huge wrought-iron lantern—the only light in the room—whose broad amber beam reflected a score of sinister glints from the naked steel on the wall. The air was heavy with a cloying incense; the whole effect was depressing in the extreme.
“Let us stop here a moment,” said Dorian. “There are some things I should like to say to you before we—begin.” He pulled me down beside him on the couch. “You have called me a trickster.” He ignored the protesting hand I raised. “Perhaps you will take that back—before we finish!”
I started to speak, but he silenced me with a swift gesture. I stared at him blankly. This measured, careful tone I had never heard from him before.
“I have told you what I am about to do. What I told you was the simple truth. I know you did not believe it. You do not believe it now, do you?”
The dull yellow light on his face made it ghastly and unreal. My wits seemed to scatter before his burning gaze.
“I—I don’t know,” I faltered.
No shadow of a smile crossed his face.
“You do not believe me now—though you will in a moment. But you do understand me, do you not?”
“Yes,” I said.
The word seemed to come almost involuntarily from my lips. His blazing eyes held mine. The vague thought came to me that he was trying hypnotism, but an instant later his gaze swung idly away.
A little copper bell stood on a tabouret at his elbow. He rang it softly. Almost before its tones died away, a slender, brown-skinned, white-turbaned youth stood before us.
“Prepare—at once,” said his master.
A flash of white teeth, a low bow, and the young Hindu was gone. Dorian turned back to me.
“To look into the future—it is almost trite when you say it that way; but I sometimes believe it the most solemn thought that words can create. We live in the future, most of us—the golden age toward which we are always looking, but which we have never seen; the future that is lighted by the radiant colors of hope. Curious that we should all be so eager to pale those beautiful colors in the white glare of knowledge!” He laughed cynically. “It is curious, Carl—don’t you think so?”
“Why yes, I—it is a human curiosity we all have, I suppose.”
“Not all of us, Carl. Our motives are many and various. Curiosity is only one of them.” He rose to his feet, still regarding me intently. “Are you quite ready—quite prepared?”
I felt my nerves steadying.
“Why, yes,” I said; “whenever you are.”
He led me down a dim, narrow hallway, lighted at intervals by soft-colored lights; our footsteps fell soundlessly on the heavy nap of its carpet. A breath of cool air came down it; the sickening sensation I had felt a few moments before left me.
I determined now to retain full possession of my faculties, if I could. I had no idea what I was about to see—what experience I was to undergo—but I understood thoroughly that Dorian was treating me now as he had those others—that he would try to make me see what they had seen, feel as they had felt; and that if, at the end, I did not understand, he would merely laugh at me for one who could be fooled as easily as they. I felt that he was bringing every art, every power, he possessed to bear upon me; and whether his powers were in truth supernatural or not, I was determined now at last to find out.
“This way, Carl.”
We turned a sharp angle and emerged abruptly into a broad, open space. My first feeling was that I was outdoors, but I remembered it was now mid afternoon, and the beautiful scene that lay spread out before me was lighted by soft moonlight. At my feet lay a little shimmering pool of water, its stone edges bordered with flowers. Palms stood about, rustling softly in a gentle breeze that gratefully fanned my flushed face.
A second glance showed me that I was in a room, larger and much higher than either of the others. Its blue ceiling, thirty feet or more above me, was dotted with tiny lights that blinked and twinkled like myriad stars. Beyond the palms