Image of the Beast / Blown

  goblet fell from his grip and rolled out through a doorway

  which was collapsing.

  Cold wet mud lifted Forry and carried him as if he were

  on a rubber raft through the doorway just before it closed

  in on itself. He shot out through another room as if he were

  a cake of soap slipping out of the wet hands of a bather.

  The goblet appeared before him riding upside down on a

  wave of mud. Forry reached out and grabbed it and held

  it to his chest even through his terror and his screaming.

  Then he was turned upside down. Mud covered him

  and filled his nostrils and mouth. He choked and fought

  against the wet heavy stuff killing him.

  Something struck the side of his head, and he fell into a

  darkness and silence blacker and quieter than the mud.

  43

  Partly stunned when he hit the wall at the first turning of

  the corridor, Childe was hurled down the next hall, spun

  off lightly at the second turning, turned aside by a great

  curling wave, and shot down another hall. At its end it

  opened onto the front door and, on the side, to a large

  room. The waters split here, one torrent shooting through

  the doorway after having broken down the door, and the

  other torrent spilling into the room.

  The parting of the flood greatly diminished its force and

  its level. Childe scraped his knees and hands on the lintel

  as he went through the front door and was deposited at the

  foot of the steps at the bottom of the porch. Staggering

  because of the water that was falling on his back, he

  crawled away and then got to his feet. He took two steps

  and screamed as he fell outwards and down. The mud of

  a very steep bank took him, and he slid face down for

  some distance before plunging up to his shoulders into the

  sticky stuff. He fought his way out and then lay on his

  back, staring upwards.

  Light was streaming out through the open door and sev-

  eral other windows. He was lying on top of the cave-in.

  And if he did not get out of the way soon, he would be

  crushed by the entire weight of the mansion. It was groan-

  ing and swaying, and the slides of mud around him her-

  alded a greater slide.

  Though he would have liked to stay there and rest,

  he turned over and slipped and slid to his feet and sludged

  away from the building looming above him as fast as he

  could go. Once he tripped over a solid object, which he

  would have thought a small boulder if it had not moaned.

  He got down on his knees and felt the roundness, which

  was the head of a woman buried up to her neck.

  "Who is it?" he said.

  "It's me," the woman said.

  "Who?"

  "Diana Rumbow. Who're you?" And then, "Help me!"

  Mud abruptly covered his legs to the ankles. He looked

  up but could not see much except that the house seemed

  to be tilting a little more. Suddenly, the lights went out,

  and a great grinding noise came from the house.

  He went on as swiftly as he could. It would take him

  a long time to dig her out, and the house was surely

  coming down on them at any minute. Besides, he owed

  an Og nothing except death.

  When he had gotten to one side, far enough out of

  danger from the house, though not from the slippage of

  the hill beneath him, he turned. Just as he did, the great

  Structure screamed and toppled down the steep slope.

  Though it was so dark, he could still see that it had

  turned over on its side, so swiftly had the earth beneath

  it fallen in.

  He wanted to make for the ruins as fast as he could,

  but he was too emptied and shaken. He sat down in the

  mud and wished that he could cry. After a while, he got

  up and sludged through the mud, sinking to his knees

  with every step. He went even more slowly than the

  effort accounted for, because he was never sure that he

  would not keep on sinking.

  The first body he found was Forry Ackerman's. It was

  lying on top of the mud, though sinking very slowly. He

  was on his back, his face covered with mud but his

  spectacles still on. A glow of headlights coming up the

  road below showed him palely to Childe.

  "Forry?" he said.

  The mud-covered lips parted to show mud-covered

  teeth.

  "Yeees?"

  "You're alive!" Childe said. And then, "How in hell

  did you get here? What's been going on?"

  "Help me up," Forry said.

  Childe hauled him up, but Forry got down on his knees

  and started groping around. The headlights of the car came

  up over the top of the road below them, and Childe could

  see much better. But he could see nothing that Forry

  might be groping for.

  "I had it! I had it!" Forry groaned.

  "What?"

  "The Grail! The Grail!"

  "You had it? How? Forry, tell me, what's going on?"

  Forry, feeling into the mud and uttering curses which

  were completely out of character for him, told him.

  Childe pulled him to his feet. "Listen, you'll never find

  it in this mess. We better go into the house, if we can

  get into that mess, and look for our friends. If they are

  our friends."

  Forry raised his head sharply. "What do you mean,

  if they are our friends?"

  "How much do you and I really know about the

  Tocs?" Childe said. "They've been nice to us, but then

  they have a reason to be so. Even the Ogs became better

  after they had a reason to get my cooperation. So …"

  "I have to find that Grail," Forry said. "I want to go

  to the planet of the Tocs. It'll be the only chance I'll ever

  have!"

  "All right, Forry," Childe said. "We'll get it somehow.

  I'd like to have it, too, so I could settle this thing once and

  for all! But we'd better see who we can save. After all,

  Toc or Og, human or not, they feel pain, and they're

  going to need help."

  The car had approached as closely as its driver dared.

  Four people got out and walked through the mud to them.

  It took a few minutes of questioning by both parties

  before it was established that the newcomers were Tocs.

  They had been summoned from the other side of the

  world and had just managed to get here.

  "I wouldn't worry about finding it, Captain," the leader,

  Tish, said. "You can concentrate on it, and it will glow.

  The glow will come up even through tons of mud."

  44

  The Tocs and the Ogs had hired a hall.

  Over two-thirds of the big dance floor of the American

  Legion post had been marked off in squares. The re-

  maining third was given over to the hundred or so

  surviving members of both groups. And to Childe, the

  Captain, the Grail and its pedestal. And to Forry Acker-

  man, who sat on one side to observe. He would participate

  in the ceremony but only as one caught in the sidewash of

  radiation. When the time came for the voyaging, he would

  move into the direct influence of the power and, if all
/>
  went well, travel with the others to the stars.

  Childe sat in a chair before the Grail. Beyond him the

  Tocs and Ogs stood in ranks of twelve abreast. They

  were naked. Everybody in the hall was naked.

  They were here because Childe had ordered it. He

  had told them that if both groups did not declare, and

  keep, a truce, he would destroy the Grail and would

  refuse to act as their Captain. If they agreed to keep the

  peace" and to participate together, he would transport

  both groups to their home planets.

  They did not take long in reaching an agreement.

  Childe was still dubious about his ability to move them

  across intergalactic spaces and pinpoint the exact world

  for each. But he hoped that it would work. It meant

  ridding the Earth of a number of monsters and potential

  monsters. He wished that he could also do this with

  others than the Tocs and the Ogs.

  Hindarf and Pao had died under some heavy timbers

  and several tons of mud. Tish had been elected master of

  ceremonies. It was he who had arranged that the authori-

  ties did not investigate the ruins. With the spending of

  much money, he had kept the police and others out of the

  area, and the Tocs and the Ogs who survived had se-

  cretly buried the dead.

  Now Tish called up the couples, one by one, to begin

  the ceremony. These were male and female with each

  couple composed of a Toc and an Og. There were about

  four females left over, and these were also to couple in

  the beginning.

  Male and female, they approached Childe and knelt

  before him. They touched his genitals and kissed his penis

  and then rose. He stared at the Grail while his cock be-

  came bigger with each kiss until it had reached its utmost

  rigidity. The Grail began to glow and to pulse. Its glow

  waxed and waned as the throbbings of his dong built up.

  One by one they knelt and kissed or sucked his cock.

  Then they returned to their stations to wait, hand in hand,

  or hand on cock or cunt, for the last couple to return.

  The light from the Grail grew brighter and brighter until

  it could not be looked at directly by anybody but Childe.

  The light filled his eyes and his skull, but he could still

  see the Grail and the people beyond.

  Finally, Tish approached Childe and knelt and stroked

  his balls and cock and then kissed the glistening glans.

  Childe's body from behind his naval to his knees had

  turned to ice, and the peter was giving little jerks while

  the fluid moved more swiftly towards its exit. He beck-

  oned to an exquisite Thai woman, a Toc, and she ran

  to him and bent over to take his cock into her mouth.

  Immediately, the man who had been her partner came

  up behind her, got down between her legs, and buried his

  face in her cunt. Another woman got down on all fours

  and began sucking his dong; a man went down on her;

  a woman crawled between his legs and sucked on his

  peter; a man thrust his tongue up her slit; a woman got

  under him and started to work on the head of his penis

  with her mouth; and so forth. The result was a daisy

  chain with the woman on the end lying on her back

  blowing a man and nobody on her cunt.

  Tish walked down the line of the grunting, moaning,

  smacking, writhing men and women. He straddled the

  last woman and let himself down, not too easily, into her

  slit.

  But even while he was pumping away, Tish called out

  in a strange language. He chanted, and Childe understood

  the words, though he was not able later to translate them.

  Childe sat still and let the woman mouth his glans and

  run her tongue over his prick while the ecstasy mounted

  and mounted and mounted. Suddenly, he gave a little

  scream and spurted. The Grail seemed to burn; it shot

  out a pulsing light that drove away every shadow in the

  hall. Tish continued to chant. Apparently, he had not

  come yet. And then, as Childe's peter gave its final jerk

  and spurt, Tish cried out.

  The air over the squares darkened. Little clouds

  formed. The air became very cold, chilling the hot and

  sweating bodies. There was a wind, as if the air was

  moving towards the clots of duskiness over each square.

  At first, the air moved gently, but within a minute it

  was whistling from every corner of the hall and rattling

  the windows. Dust from the floor rose up and whirled in

  small cyclones.

  The Grail continued to pulse dazzlingly, though Childe

  had ceased to ejaculate. It did not obliterate the shadows

  above the squares; it seemed to make them darker.

  The first one that Childe recognized was Igescu, the

  Toc whom he had killed in his oak-log coffin by thrusting

  a sword through his heart. Afterwards, the body had

  been burned to ashes in the fire of the great house.

  Childe had never expected to see that long lean face

  with the high forehead, thick eyebrows, high cheekbones,

  and large eyes, nor the very long and skinny dick.

  And there was Magda Holyani, the beautiful blonde

  weresnake.

  And there was Hindarf and beside him was Pao.

  They were all naked and all in their human form.

  And where was Dolores del Osorojo, the beautiful

  California-Spanish "ghost" who had literally fucked her-

  self back into a materialization of flesh and blood and

  bone, only to be killed and skinned by the Ogs?

  He saw her in a square in the middle of the crowd.

  She was smiling at him, and her hips were rotating as if

  she were relishing the memory of their times together.

  The air warmed up, and the wind ceased.

  The hall was filled with many voices. The living and

  the recently dead were chattering, yelling, laughing.

  Tish waited for five minutes and then shouted for

  silence.

  It came slowly and reluctantly, because the Tocs and

  the Ogs were human in that they had to express their

  emotions.

  "Now for the voyaging!" Tish shouted.

  They all faced him expectantly. Childe noted, out of

  the corner of his eye, Forry sitting on his chair. His eyes

  were bulging out, and he was covered with sweat. Childe

  did not know whether this reaction was caused by the

  ceremony he had just seen or the thought of the trip.

  It was up to him whether or not he went along. If he

  decided to go, he just had to move from the side of the

  hall to the middle of the floor, and he would be taken

  along automatically.

  Tish had not liked the idea that Forry was not partici-

  pating in the ceremony, but he admitted that his non-

  involvement would reduce the effect of the Grail by only

  a negligible amount.

  Tish indicated that a woman should bring up a bowl

  with a dark liquid in it. She took a position by Childe

  after kissing his penis and the second ceremony began

  immediately. She sprinkled his genitals with a few drops

  of the dark liquid before
each person kissed his peter.

  Tish stood on the other side and every third person dipped

  his finger into the bowl and passed it over Childe's lips.

  The stuff tasted like honey with a trace of rancid cottage

  cheese. When the bowl was empty, Tish signaled for it to

  be refilled, and the ceremony went on.

  The Grail kept on pulsing brightly. Its white light

  was beginning to affect Childe. He did not become blind

  or any less able to see what was going on around him.

  But he was receiving flashes of strange scenes. Usually

  these were seen as if he was standing on the surface of a

  planet, but several times he whizzed by a star burning

  redly, greenly, or amberly. He seemed to be no more than

  a hundred thousand miles from the great luminaries.

  Despite the brightness and nearness, he felt no heat, only

  a bone-crystallizing cold.

  Tish began to chant in the foreign language. Childe

  beckoned to Dolores, who ran gladly towards him, her

  big shapely breasts bouncing with the impact of her feet.

  She got down on her knees and buried her face in his

  crotch and wept. Then she took the end of his half-limp

  organ and began to suck on it. It rose as if she were

  blowing air into it, became hard and throbbing, and gave

  him that first warming under his belly button.

  The Grail pulsed faster, and the flickers of alien

  topographies and brilliantly colored stars increased in

  number and variety.

  Dolores sucked harder and moved her head back and

  forth. Igescu came up behind her then and lifted her up

  so that she was standing up but with her knees bent. He

  rammed his dick into her asshole and began pumping.

  Plugger got down on his knees behind Igescu's lean but-

  tocks, spread them, and thrust his tongue up Igescu's ass-

  hole. His body rocked back and forth as he rode the

  vampire's ass with his face.

  Even through the woman and the man, Childe could

  feel the shock of Plugger's tongue. He hoped that the

  others would form the daisy chain quickly, because if

  they didn't they were going to get caught short. He was

  going to come soon. This would require starting the

  voyage ceremony over again, because the chain had to be