Von Kempelen whispered some final instruction to her, then nodded to Ellison and the others. A certain tension, apart from the psychological, immediately filled the room. I took a step toward Annie and felt an increase in the forces she was manipulating. There followed a gurgling from one of the vats.
Whatever forces were emanating from Annie, they began to pulsate. The other vats began to resonate.
I seemed to hear a high-pitched whining, and suddenly my head ached. Covering my ears did not make any difference, though everyone else was doing it, also. Then it went away and half-distinct shapes swam through the air—strange fish, strange sea... . Again, the pulsing intensified. It was almost something one could lean against. I felt somewhat more conversant with the phenomenon now, following my exercise of the previous afternoon.
The sound came and went in an instant. Minute explosions of color then filled the air, above the vats, about the gray stack. Annie's hands were white with strain upon the rods before her.
Then came the rippling. It was as if I watched the men across from me—and everything else about me, I suddenly realized—through a shallow, flowing stream. Nothing was changed, yet everything was changed. Everything in the cellar seemed to be vibrating.
Then the points of light—mostly golden this time—returned, to linger within the rippling.
I took another step toward Annie. Some pressure was building. The gray bars flashed yellow for a moment, within the rippling. A moment later the flash was repeated—golden this time, lingering. The pile seemed to change shape, shrinking each time the brightness came into it, expanding as it departed.
I glanced at Ellison, who was smiling. The frequency of the vibration increased. The gold-gray/
implosion-explosion sequence came faster and faster. Then the gold portion of the cycle was lengthened, the gray shortened. There was a jogging effect, with the actual scraping, grating sounds of the bars rubbing against one another as some intrinsic factor altered the size to maintain the mass. Several of them were tumbled from the stack.
I looked to Ellison again and he seemed framed in fire, but totally unmindful of it.
Then the vibration stopped, and I beheld a mound of gold. Everyone in the room seemed to inhale sharply at the same time. Lovely, buttery, heavy, gleaming... .
I looked from the gold to Annie to Ellison and back. And again. Nothing happened. Nobody moved.
Something had to happen. There had to be a counterstroke, a movement, a balancing—
Annie screamed. The light which hovered about Ellison faded.
That which Annie had screamed was, "Poe is dead!"
There was a grin upon Griswold's face. Annie released the rods, pushed back her crown of glass.
Something like a great sigh swept through the chamber, and there came a rattling like an earthquake in a brickyard.
The pile grew and lost its shimmer, turned gray and fell apart.
Griswold screamed and so did Ellison. But no one fired a shot.
Annie repeated what she had said, very softly, but the words were clear. As if in echo there came a tremor and all the lights shook in their sockets. "Poe," she said again, "is dead," and overhead the building creaked. There came a fall of dust all about us.
Eyes turned upward, and a series of growling, cracking noises ensued.
"At the termination of this sentence I started and, for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very crackling and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story... ."
And then there came a pounding within all the walls, followed by a creaking sound. The entire chamber seemed to move sideways, and more bars fell from the pile of gray. Ellison glanced about quickly, began a retreat toward the stair. A moment later the trio opposite him did the same. There came a crash like thunder.
"Poe is dead," came a whisper which filled the entire room.
" 'And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrible and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.'
"Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feel of wild amazement—for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer."
A massive fall of stone crashed upon the stairway, blocking our exit. For the first time, various of the men began to scream. Weapons were discarded as they pushed forward, seeking to escape. Annie raised her arms and swayed from side to side. As if in sympathy, the entire structure around and above us did the same. There followed a series of terrible crashes from overhead, and the ceiling collapsed in a halfdozen places. Some of the men were screaming in agony now, as they were pinned beneath debris. Now it seemed some passing wind lamented Poe rather than words; and from somewhere there came to me a smell of smoke... .
She had gray eyes, and brown hair lay disheveled upon her brow. Her hands were delicate, fingers long.
Her blue skirt and white blouse were sand-streaked, smudged, the hem of the skirt sodden. Her full lips quivered as her gaze darted from him to the castle and back, but her eyes remained dry.
"I'm sorry," he repeated.
She turned her back to him. A moment later her bare foot kicked forward. Another wall fell, another tower toppled.
"Don't!" he cried, rising, reaching to restrain her. "Stop! Please stop!"
"No!" she said, moving forward, trampling towers. "No."
He caught hold of her shoulder and she pulled away from him, continuing to kick and stamp at the castle.
I caught hold of her shoulder. The whole damned roof was coming down, and fire was falling in on us, along with rafters, stone, wood.
"Annie! Stop it!" I cried.
She didn't even seem to realize I was there. Somewhere high above I heard a wall give way. In a moment, I felt, the entire silly-ornate structure would be down here in the cellar with us.
"Annie!"
She wailed and the earth moved beneath our feet. So I clipped her on the jaw and caught her as she fell.
Then I called upon that bond established back in Spain before I'd entered Toledo.
"Ligeia!"
I saw her limned in light as I raised Annie in my arms.
"I am waiting," she said.
"Here is my half of the way. Meet me at the middle, pray."
The corridor of silver shot forward to join with its counterpart. As I walked it to the place where the lady waited I heard at my back a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters.
I kept going.
XV
Months later I discovered to my total surprise that I had been named in the last will and testament of Seabright Ellison, inheriting from him a small stipend and the residence known as Landor's Cottage, where Annie and I now reside as I labor at the assembly of these memoirs.