The Mansion in the Mist Page 5

  "I have to hand it to you, Em," whispered Miss Eells. "Those amulets work."

  "Of course they work," snapped Emerson. "You don't think I'd lead you into danger without some sort of protection, do you? And now I think we're deep enough into the forest for me to turn on the flashlight. Besides, it's pitch-black in here, and sooner or later one of us is going to slam into a tree trunk."

  Emerson clicked on the flashlight, and it burned with a foggy, wavering glow. They tried to ignore the thick-clustered dark trees that seemed to be watching them. Very soon they came out into the open—apparently the trees were just a grove and not a large forest at all. The three adventurers found that they were at the edge of a small lake covered with lily pads and a gray scum. On the other side of the lake stood a small eight-sided building with a columned porch and a copper dome. In the distance was the gleaming wall of mist that hung beyond the garden and the mansion.

  "Charming scene, eh?" said Emerson sourly. "If you were a real estate agent you'd go out of your mind trying to sell this place."

  Miss Eells looked thoughtful. "Em," she said slowly, "why did the Autarchs make this place such an awful one? I mean, if they can work magic, why didn't they create a pleasant estate with sunshine and normal moonlight and starlight?"

  "I suspect that this estate had to turn out the way it did," Emerson answered, with a sad shake of his head. "Either the magic went haywire, or... well, who knows? You should also remember that the Autarchs were once ordinary people living in our ordinary everyday world. Creating this estate deformed their bodies and their minds. They've probably been here so long now that they don't realize what a monstrous place this is. Love of power has replaced ordinary human feelings in their minds. Of course, from what Anthony heard, there was one rebel who refused to accept the values of the Autarchs, and he's the one who hid the Logos Cube. Anyway, let's stop jawing and follow this path around the edge of the lake. I'll bet any money that little domed building is the Temple of the Winds."

  Once more Emerson began to walk along the edge of the small lake, playing the beam of the flashlight before him. A heavy stillness hung over the lake—no crickets, no frogs, no sign of anything living. Soon the three of them were standing before the columned porch of the little building. Sure enough, on the marble cornice above the pillars these words were carved: TEMPLE OF THE WINDS.

  A short flight of broad, cracked stone steps led to the porch, and beyond was a bronze door that stood half ajar. Emerson's light continued to burn foggily, because this was an evil and cursed place. But he plunged ahead and shoved at the door, and with a loud groan it scraped inward. Emerson stepped inside and played his light around. And then he almost laughed. The temple was full of gardening equipment! On a warped table stood stacks of clay flowerpots, and a trowel lay nearby. Rakes and hoes leaned against the wall, and there was even an old-fashioned mechanical lawn mower. Hedge clippers and sickles hung from brackets, and overhead was a dark oil lamp on a chain.

  "Humph! If this doesn't beat everything!" muttered Emerson. "You know, I'll bet all this stuff belonged to the rebel, the one who split away from the Autarchs. He was probably trying to make this miserable dump a bit more human. But the sixty-four dollar question still is: Where is this so-called great clue?"

  For a long time Emerson and his friends poked around. They looked under flowerpots and on the sills of the narrow windows. They peered into the blades of the lawn mower and moved rakes and scraped around on their hands and knees in dusty, dirty corners. But they came up empty.

  "Phooey on this miserable place anyway!" growled Emerson, as he dragged himself to his feet. "The Autarchs must have searched here, and if they didn't find anything, I don't see how we can expect to." He wiped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and gazed blearily around. He had been working so hard that he was panting, and he felt thoroughly dejected. Anthony looked gloomy too—he hung his head and felt tears trickling down his cheeks. Only Miss Eells seemed optimistic. She darted her head around and smiled weirdly.

  "Oh, I don't know, Em," she said, as she began shifting the objects on the dusty table. "We haven't completely ransacked this place. I see that these inner walls are made of brick. Maybe one of them is loose. In the meantime I suggest that we take out our anger on these flowerpots here. I can damage things without trying to, but sometimes it's fun to..." Instead of finishing her sentence, Miss Eells picked up a flowerpot and pitched it against a wall. Pieces of red clay flew everywhere. Grinning wickedly, Miss Eells threw another pot and another, while Emerson and Anthony gaped in amazement. But when she heaved the next pot, something unexpected happened: A small shiny object went spinning out of the clay fragments and landed in the middle of the room. With a loud exclamation, Emerson swooped down and picked it up. He played his flashlight's beam over it.

  "Heavens!" he breathed. "Do you know what this is? It's a Brasher doubloon!"

  Miss Eells and Anthony stared in bewilderment. Emerson might as well have told them that he had found a packet of Stardust or the Wizard of Oz's hat. When he saw that the other two were thoroughly befuddled, Emerson sighed and began to explain. Ephraim Brasher was a rich planter in Virginia before the Revolutionary War. A neighbor of George Washington's, in fact. Well, back in those days private citizens could make gold and silver coins. All they needed was the metal and a coin press. Mr. Brasher struck some gold coins called doubloons, and only three are known to exist today. Needless to say, they are priceless and are all in museums or private collections.

  "And here is a fourth one," said Emerson, holding the coin up. "But whoever owned it has lowered its value a great deal by scratching a word on one side with a knife." Emerson handed the coin to Anthony, and he peered at it as the pale beam of the flashlight played over it. Sure enough, on one side of the coin the word WABE had been scratched in large capital letters.

  Anthony looked bewildered and gave the coin to Miss Eells so she could examine it. After squinting at the carved word, she looked up. "And who or what is a wabe?" she asked. "Sounds like baby talk for wave, doesn't it?"

  Emerson shrugged. "Could be someone's name, or just a piece of incredible folderol. Or a practical joke. But if this is the so-called great clue, I'll take vanilla, thank you." He banged his flashlight on the table and stood staring angrily at the blank wall.

  Miss Eells gently patted her brother on the arm. "Look, Em," she said quietly, "the meaning of clues isn't always clear. Maybe if we take the coin back with us and think a while in the peace and quiet of the cottage, we will decipher the meaning of the word. So come on. Let's get out of this awful, cursed place."

  Emerson didn't need to be persuaded. With a little shrug he stuck the coin in his pocket and led the way out of the door, down the steps, and along the sandy patch to the grove of trees. None of them liked the idea of entering that gloomy sinister clump of trees again, but they had to. Again the trees groaned and creaked, and vines groped feebly at them. But they were not stopped, and soon they stood by the chest again. One at a time, as before, they went back: Emerson first, then Anthony, and finally Miss Eells. Just before she climbed into the chest, Miss Eells took a quick look around. The mansion was still dark, and the plants and vines in the garden rustled uneasily because an intruder was near. Miss Eells did not notice a dark figure standing in the shadow of the grove of trees.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When the three adventurers got back to the cottage, only an hour and a half had passed, according to their clocks. They all felt incredibly weary and threw themselves into bed without even changing into their pajamas. The next morning, as they sat around the kitchen table eating ham and eggs and drinking coffee and milk, Anthony and his friends felt a bit woozy, and the trip they had taken seemed like an unpleasant dream. But there was the Brasher doubloon shining on the table in front of them. It was real; their otherworldly adventure had been real. When he finished eating, Emerson lit his meerschaum pipe and leaned back in his chair. "Wabe," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe it's initials for something
like Will All Babies Expectorate."

  Anthony looked puzzled. "What does expectorate, mean?"

  Miss Eells laughed. "It's a polite word for 'spit.' That's a wonderful reading of the clue, Em. I'm sure that's exactly what the word means."

  "I was not being serious, Myra. Hmm. Wabe. Wabe. Backward it's Ebaw, but that's not very helpful either. Hmm. Hmm." He went back to puffing on his pipe and thinking. Meanwhile, Anthony cleared the plates off the table and scraped the leftover food into the garbage pail. Miss Eells boiled water on the stove in a huge teakettle, so they would have hot water for doing the dishes. Suddenly Emerson let out a loud roar and banged his fist on the table.

  "By God! I have it! How stupid of me not to have seen it before!"

  Miss Eells whirled suddenly and with a sweep of her arm knocked a teacup off the drainboard of the sink. "Good heavens, Em!" she exclaimed. "What did you find? The answer to the riddle of the universe?"

  Emerson smiled. "Well, not exactly that. But something nearly as good. Do you remember the Jabberwocky poem in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass?"

  "Yes, of course I do. But I can't recite it from memory."

  Emerson looked smug. "Well, I can. It begins like this:

  'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

  See? It mentions 'Wabe,' doesn't it? But, you will say, these are nonsense words in a nonsense poem, and they mean nothing. And the answer is, not necessarily. You see, there is a character in the poem—a real know-it-all type, like me—named Humpty Dumpty. And he tries to explain to Alice what the words in Jabberwocky mean. The important part is this: He claims that Wabe means 'The plot of grass around a sundial.' Well, Humpty may be talking through his hat, but this clue—probably left by the mysterious rebel Autarch—is important. If there's a sundial on that blasted estate, the Logos Cube is probably buried near it. Doesn't that seem likely?"

  Miss Eells laughed. "Em, I don't know if you've noticed it, but whenever you come up with some farfetched explanation, you say something like, 'Well, now, isn't that logical? Isn't that reasonable?' Quite honestly, this wabe business seems like pie in the sky. For all you know, the rebel—the guy who left the clue—may be named Cyrus Q. Wabe. Or maybe he scratched that word on there just for the fun of it. Or to throw people off. If this character really did hide the Whatsis Cube, would he have left clues leading to its discovery? Wouldn't he have just destroyed the stupid thing?"

  Emerson's face was beginning to get red. "It may not be possible for anyone to destroy the Logos Cube," he mumbled. "As for leaving clues, he may have hoped that people of goodwill—like ourselves—would come to the cottage, find the card in the vase, and carry the cube away so the Autarchs couldn't get it."

  "The logic of all this is as full of holes as Swiss cheese," Miss Eells shot back. "And so is your head."

  By now Emerson was getting angry. "My dear sister," he said in a strained voice, "I have been right up to now, haven't I? Well, haven't I?"

  Miss Eells sighed helplessly. "I suppose..." she began uncertainly.

  "Well, then," said Emerson triumphantly, "I don't see why you should doubt my intuition and my logic in this case. We have to locate that sundial!"

  "Did you see any sundials when we were at the estate last night?" asked Anthony timidly.

  Emerson sighed. "No, Anthony, I did not. But I have a good idea of where one might be: in that blasted, infernal garden. You see, the Autarchs have tried to make their world look like an old-fashioned English estate. Years ago I went on a historic houses tour in England, and I recall that many of them had sundials in their gardens. It frightens me to think about it, but we are going to have to go into that garden and find the sundial. It might not be there, but it's the most logical place for one.

  "As far as I'm concerned, it'll be about as much fun as going down in the crater of a smoking volcano. But it must be done."

  That night, the weather got in the way of Emerson's plans. The day was sunny and chilly, but around sunset the sky clouded over, and the chest failed to appear. Meanwhile, the Autarchs were holding a special meeting. One of their servants, a guard at the estate, had spied on Emerson and the others through one of the windows in the Temple. Later, he had followed them down the path and had watched them get into the chest. At first the guard had been afraid to report to his masters, but he knew that the Grand Autarch could read minds, and he decided that it would go easier with him if he just went in and told what he knew. So the special meeting was called. Candles burned in every wall bracket and sconce, and their yellow wavering light played over the polished mahogany table and the faces of the grotesque black-robed people who ruled this strange, gloomy world. The guard stood near the end of the table where the Grand Autarch sat. Like most of the men who patrolled the estate, this was a young man, and he wore a close-fitting leather jacket studded with iron spikes. His hair was long and yellow, and on one cheek was an ugly scar made by a knife. The Grand Autarch had recruited him personally, on one of his trips to earth. On a visit to the city of Montreal, he had contacted the young man, who had no money and no friends and slept on park benches at night. Now the young guard stood nervously rubbing his hands together as he told his tale. He told of the three strange people who had invaded the Temple of the Winds and how they had taken away a small glittering object—a coin, probably. As the guard talked, the Grand Autarch grew angrier and angrier. His lips curled into a hateful scowl, and he fiddled with the golden chain of office that he wore around his neck. When the guard had finished making his report the Grand Autarch began to speak. He seemed to be struggling to control himself, and there was a tremor in his voice.

  "Do you mean to tell me," he began, "that you made no attempt to seize these intruders? No attempt at all?"

  The guard stared at the floor. "I couldn't," he said in a frightened voice. "They were carrying some kind of protection with them—amulets, maybe, I don't know. But I couldn't go near them. I could only watch."

  The Grand Autarch glowered scornfully. "You could only watch," he repeated in a dangerously calm voice. "You couldn't do a thing. You were helpless. And so those people were able to escape and carry away something that might be of great importance to us."

  The guard wiped his sweaty forehead with his hand. "Yes, my lord," he mumbled. "I couldn't help it, as I—"

  He never got to finish his sentence. With a loud cry the Grand Autarch rose from his seat and pointed a long bony hand at the guard. The guard screamed in pain, and the air around him turned to gray smoke. When the smoke cleared there stood a hunched old man with drooping wrinkled cheeks and a few wisps of white hair on his head. His eyes were red-rimmed and sunk into deep hollows. His spiked leather uniform hung loosely on his skinny withered body.

  "Why did you do this to me?" the guard asked. His voice was cracked and shaky, the voice of a man who might be eighty or ninety years old. "I tried to do my duty, I really did."

  The Grand Autarch was still boiling with rage. He clenched his fists and sank back into his seat. "I have punished you because you failed. A true servant of the Autarchs would have found a way to stop three silly, helpless people. And why didn't you come to me immediately after you saw them get away?"

  "I was afraid," said the guard, who was weeping helplessly now.

  "Why don't you kill him now?" said a nasty-looking old woman who sat at the far end of the table. "I hate to see people suffer."

  The Grand Autarch shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "He will water the plants in the garden and rake leaves and do other tasks that are fit for elderly servants. Some day, if I feel that he has suffered enough, I will return him to his former shape. Go, wretch. I am finished with you for now."

  The guard turned and shuffled away, still weeping. When the door had closed behind him all the Autarchs began to speak at once.

  "What do you suppose they found?"

 
; "We should go after them!"

  "We need what they've got! And we need vengeance!"

  "Who are they? And how did they find out about this place?"

  And so on. Finally the Grand Autarch raised his arms and roared, "Silence! I still rule here, and I will deal with the problem in my own way. I will pursue these wretched intruders and make them wish they had never tampered with our world. In fact, I shall go tonight. The meeting is adjourned."

  The Autarchs got up and left the Council Room, still muttering to themselves. But the Grand Autarch swept his cloak about him grandly and walked to a place in the paneled wall where carved cherub heads smiled amid clusters of carved grape leaves. Seizing one of the heads between his thumb and his forefinger, the Grand Autarch twisted it, and part of the paneled wall swung inward. Stone steps wound down into darkness, and the Autarch snatched a torch from a bracket just inside the doorway. A muttered word from him made the end of the torch bloom with fire, and down he went, along a corkscrewing passage so narrow that his shoulders almost brushed both walls. At last he came out into a crypt, a large room with heavy stone pillars and ribbed vaulting. Set into the walls were oblong niches, and in many of them were coffins. Brass plates glimmered on the sides of the coffins, showing that a certain Autarch had died on such-and-such a date at such-and-such an age. The grim-faced leader stalked on until he came to an empty wooden coffin that lay in the middle of the floor. Climbing into it, he lay down and crossed his hands over his chest. He muttered a few words in a strange language, and the coffin began to fill with yellow smoke. When the smoke had cleared, the Autarch was gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  For the next three days, the sky over Shadow Lake was gray and gloomy. Clouded by day and clouded at night. Emerson and the others felt terribly frustrated, but there wasn't much they could do except wait. Meanwhile, at night Anthony began to hear and see strange things. Once he woke from a sound sleep to hear someone whispering outside his door. Rigid with terror, he sat listening. Who was it? What was the whisperer saying? Anthony could almost make it out, but not quite. He didn't dare go near the door, and after a while the whispering died away. On another night, he heard something tapping at his window. It couldn't be a branch, because there weren't any trees close enough to his window to touch it. Still the tapping went on, and with a sudden cry of fear Anthony rushed to the door and flung it open. There was no one there.