The Devil Rides Out Page 38

  ‘We were,’ said the Duke slowly. ‘Tanith’s presence here proves that, but she was never dead except in our dream, and that started when you arrived here with her in your arms. The Satanists at Simon’s house, our visit there afterwards, and the Sabbat were all facts. It was only last night, while our bodies slept, that our subconscious selves were drawn out of them to continue the struggle with Mocata on another plane.’

  ‘Mocata!’ Simon echoed. ‘But-but if we’ve been dreaming he is still alive.’

  ‘No, he is dead.’ The quiet, sure statement came from Tanith as she sat up, and taking Rex’s hand scrambled to her feet.

  ‘How is it you’re so certain?’ he asked huskily.

  ‘I can see him. He is not far from here-lying head downwards on some steps.’

  That’s how we saw him in the dream,’ said Richard, but she shook her head.

  ‘No, I. had no dream, I remember nothing after Mocata entered my room at the inn and forced me to sleep-but you will find him-somewhere quite near the house-out there.’

  ‘The age-old law,’ De Richleau murmured. ‘A life for a life and a soul for a soul. Yes, since you have been restored to us I am quite certain that he will have paid the penalty.’

  Simon nodded. ‘Then we’re really free of this nightmare at last?’

  ‘Yes. Dream or no dream, the Lord of Light who appeared to us drove back the Power of Darkness, and promised that we should all live unmolested by it to the end of our allotted span. Come, Richard,’ the Duke took his host’s arm, ‘let us find our coats and take a look round the garden-then we shall have done with this horrible business.’

  As they moved away Tanith smiled up at Rex. ‘Did you really mean what you said last night?’

  ‘Did I mean it!’ he cried, seizing both her hands. ‘Just you let me show you how!’

  ‘Simon,’ said Marie Lou pointedly, ‘that child will catch her death of cold in nothing but her nightie-do take her back to the nursery while I get the servants to hurry forward breakfast.’ And the old familiar happy smile parted his wide mouth as Fleur took a flying leap into his arms.

  Tanith’s face grew a little wistful as Rex drew her to him. ‘My darling,’ she hesitated, ‘you know that it will be only for a little time, about eight months-no more.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ he laughed. ‘You were certainly dead to all of us last night, so your prophecy’s been fulfilled and the evil lifted-we’re both going to live together for a hundred years.’

  She hid her face against his shoulder, not quite believing yet, but a new hope dawning in her heart, from his certainty that she had passed through the Valley of the Shadow and come out again upon the other side. Her happiness, and his, demanded that she accept his view and act henceforth as though the danger to her life was past.

  ‘Then if you want them, my days are yours,’ she murmured, ‘whatever their number may be.’

  There was no trace of fog and a fair, true dawn was breaking when, outside the library windows, De Richleau and Richard found Mocata’s body. It lay on the stone steps which fed up to the terrace, sprawling head downwards, in the early light of the May morning.

  The coroner will find no difficulty in bringing in a verdict,’ the Duke observed after one glance at the face. ‘They’ll say it is heart, of course. It is best not to touch the body, presently we will telephone the police. None of us need say we have ever seen him before if you tell Malin to keep quiet about his visit yesterday afternoon. You may be certain that his friends will not come forward to mention his acquaintance with Simon or the girl.’

  Richard nodded. ‘Yes. “Death of a Man Unknown, from Natural Causes,” will be the only epilogue to this strange story.’

  ‘Not quite, but this must be between us, Richard. I prefer that the others should not know. Take me to your boiler-house.’

  ‘The boiler-house-whatever for?’

  I’ll tell you in a minute,’

  ‘All right!’ With a puzzled look Richard led the Duke along the terrace, round by the kitchen quarters and into a small building where a furnace gave a subdued roar.

  De Richleau lifted the latch and the door swung back, disclosing the glowing coke within. Then he extended his right fist and slowly opened it.

  ‘Good God!’ exclaimed Richard, ‘However did you come by that?’

  In De Richleau’s palm lay a shrunken, mummified phallus, measuring no more than the length of a little finger, hard, dry, and almost black with age. It was the Talisman of Set, just as they had seen it in their recent dream adorning the brow of the monstrous Goat.

  ‘I found myself clutching it when I awoke,’ he answered softly.

  ‘But-but that thing must have come from somewhere!’

  ‘Perhaps it is a concrete symbol of the evil that we have fought, which has been given over into our hands for destruction.’

  As the Duke finished speaking he cast the Talisman into the glowing furnace where they watched it until it was utterly consumed.

  ‘If we were only dreaming how can you possibly explain it?’ Richard insisted.

  ‘I cannot.’ De Richleau shrugged a little wearily. ‘Even the greatest seekers after Truth have done little more than lift the corner of the veil which hides the vast Unknown, but it is my belief that during the period of our dream journey we have been living in what the moderns call the fourth dimension-divorced from time.’

  ***

  THE END