Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 06.djvu/70

720 the top of the cliff, the raging roar of his mob of followers lessened a little, their pace slackened.

O'Riley yelled back to them, "On, comrades! In a minute we'll be inside the Master's castle!"

"Death to the Master!" thundered back the wild, climbing horde.

Now David and the three friends close at his heels climbed onto the sheer rock shelf in front of the castle. The huge square structure loomed black and somber before them, doorless and windowless.

"There's a door somewhere in front here!" David cried. "We'll find it!"

He led them at a run toward the towering, black wall of smooth stone that was the front of the citadel.

Suddenly he stopped short, and at the same moment every man behind halted in his tracks. He could not go forward! He wanted to, for every fiber in his body was aflame with raging desire to rush forward and break into this structure into which Christa had gone. But he could not take a single step forward. It was as though his legs had suddenly ceased to obey his brain's commands, and were under outside control.

The men behind him, smitten to a halt by the same weird phenomenon, were struck silent with stupefaction for a moment. Then a cry of horror and dread went up from the ragged mob.

"The Master's will is on us!"

"God save us—the Master has us in his grip!"

David fought to move forward, making a tremendous effort of his will to move his legs even one step. Sweat stood out on his forehead, but he could not move.

He heard a confused cry of terror from the mob behind him. Then he saw that the ragged horde, and also Von Hausman and Husper and O'Riley, had begun to move back down the cliff, walking with stiff, mechanical strides down the path.

"O'Riley! Halfdon! Come back!" yelled David hoarsely. "We can still break in and destroy that demon inside."

The big Irishman, his face white and beaded with sweat, called thickly back, "Lad, we can't!"

And Von Hausman, as they marched stiffly away down the path, cried back up to David, "The Master—his will is making us return to the village!"

Stiffly striding, shouting in their terror now, David's ragged followers descended the path up which they had raged a few moments before, and stiffly his three friends followed despite their struggles. David was left standing alone in the flickering dusk before the enormous citadel.

Suddenly his legs began to move under him. Stiffly as those of a dead man, they stalked forward with him toward the front of the great building. He could not control that movement—it was another brain that was directing his forward strides. But he did not try to fight it now, for in his throbbing brain was only the desire to get into the castle where Christa was. Still gripping his ax tightly in his hand, he strode forward with those mechanical steps.

As he neared the blank black wall of the citadel, a tiny round aperture appeared in it. The aperture expanded rapidly, like an opening camera shutter, into a round door beyond which he saw a great hall filled with misty blue light. David strode on, into that blue-lit hall, and heard the door close with a sighing sound after him.

Tramp, tramp—the steady strides, which he did not himself will, took him across the great hall. He saw through the light-mists, massive, shining mechanisms of unearthly design standing about him,