CHAPTER XII - The End of the
Journey
"Say
Doc!" It was Larry's voice flung back at me. ”I was thinking about that
frog. I think it was her pet. Damn me if I see any difference between a frog
and a snake, and one of the nicest women I ever knew had two pet pythons that
followed her around like kittens. Not such a devilish lot of choice between a
frog and a snake - except on the side of the frog? What? Anyway, any pet that
girl wants is hers, I don't care if it's a leaping twelve-toed lobster or a
whale-bodied scorpion. Get me?"
By which I knew
that our remarks upon the frog woman were still bothering O'Keefe.
"He thinks
of foolish nothings like the foolish sailor!" grunted Marakinoff, acid
contempt in his words. ”What are their women to - this?" He swept out a
hand and as though at a signal the car poised itself for an instant, then
dipped, literally dipped down into sheer space; skimmed forward in what was
clearly curved flight, rose as upon a sweeping upgrade and then began swiftly
to slacken its fearful speed.
Far ahead a point
of light showed; grew steadily; we were within it - and softly all movement
ceased. How acute had been the strain of our journey I did not realize until I
tried to stand - and sank back, leg-muscles too shaky to bear my weight. The
car rested in a slit in the centre of a smooth walled chamber perhaps twenty
feet square. The wall facing us was pierced by a low doorway through which we
could see a flight of steps leading downward.
The light
streamed through a small opening, the base of which was twice a tall man's
height from the floor. A curving flight of broad, low steps led up to it. And
now it came to my steadying brain that there was something puzzling, peculiar,
strangely unfamiliar about this light. It was silvery, shaded faintly with a
delicate blue and flushed lightly with a nacreous rose; but a rose that
differed from that of the terraces of the Pool Chamber as the rose within the
opal differs from that within the pearl. In it were tiny, gleaming points like
the motes in a sunbeam, but sparkling white like the dust of diamonds, and with
a quality of vibrant vitality; they were as though they were alive. The light
cast no shadows!
A little breeze came
through the oval and played about us. It was laden with what seemed the mingled
breath of spice flowers and pines. It was curiously vivifying, and in it the
diamonded atoms of light shook and danced.
I stepped out of
the car, the Russian following, and began to ascend the curved steps toward the
opening, at the top of which O'Keefe and Olaf already stood. As they looked out
I saw both their faces change - Olaf's with awe, O'Keefe's with incredulous
amaze. I hurried to their side.
At first all that
I could see was space - a space filled with the same coruscating effulgence
that pulsed about me. I glanced upward, obeying that instinctive impulse of
earth folk that bids them seek within the sky for sources of light. There was
no sky - at least no sky such as we know - all was a sparkling nebulosity
rising into infinite distances as the azure above the day-world seems to fill
all the heavens - through it ran pulsing waves and flashing javelin rays that
were like shining shadows of the aurora; echoes, octaves lower, of those
brilliant arpeggios and chords that play about the poles. My eyes fell beneath
its splendour; I stared outward.
Miles away,
gigantic luminous cliffs sprang sheer from the limits of a lake whose waters
were of milky opalescence. It was from these cliffs that the spangled radiance
came, shimmering out from all their lustrous surfaces. To left and to right, as
far as the eye could see, they stretched - and they vanished in the auroral
nebulosity on high!
"Look at
that!" exclaimed Larry. I followed his pointing finger. On the face of the
shining wall, stretched between two colossal columns, hung an incredible veil;
prismatic, gleaming with all the colours of the spectrum. It was like a web of
rainbows woven by the fingers of the daughters of the Jinn. In front of it and
a little at each side was a semi-circular pier, or, better, a plaza of what
appeared to be glistening, pale-yellow ivory. At each end of its half-circle
clustered a few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them surmounted by a
number of high, slender pinnacles.
We looked at each
other, I think, a bit helplessly - and back again through the opening. We were
standing, as I have said, at its base. The wall in which it was set was at
least ten feet thick, and so, of course, all that we could see of that which
was without were the distances that revealed themselves above the outer ledge
of the oval.
"Let's take
a look at what's under us," said Larry.
He crept out upon
the ledge and peered down, the rest of us following. A hundred yards beneath us
stretched gardens that must have been like those of many-columned Iram, which
the ancient Addite King had built for his pleasure ages before the deluge, and
which Allah, so the Arab legend tells, took and hid from man, within the Sahara,
beyond all hope of finding - jealous because they were more beautiful than his
in paradise. Within them flowers and groves of laced, fernlike trees, pillared
pavilions nestled.
The trunks of the
trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and of azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose
fragrance was borne to us, shone like jewels. The graceful pillars were tinted
delicately. I noted that the pavilions were double - in a way, two-storied - and
that they were oddly splotched with circles, with squares, and with oblongs of
- opacity; noted too that over many this opacity stretched like a roof; yet it
did not seem material; rather was it - impenetrable shadow!
Down through this
city of gardens ran a broad shining green thoroughfare, glistening like glass
and spanned at regular intervals with graceful, arched bridges. The road
flashed to a wide square, where rose, from a base of that same silvery stone
that formed the lip of the Moon Pool, a titanic structure of seven terraces;
and along it flitted objects that bore a curious resemblance to the shell of
the Nautilus. Within them were - human figures! And upon tree-bordered
promenades on each side walked others!
Far to the right
we caught the glint of another emerald-paved road.
And between the
two the gardens grew sweetly down to the hither side of that opalescent water
across which were the radiant cliffs and the curtain of mystery.
Thus it was that
we first saw the city of the Dweller; blessed and accursed as no place on
earth, or under or above earth has ever been - or, that force willing which
some call God, ever again shall be!
"Chert!"
whispered Marakinoff. ”Incredible!"
"Trolldom!"
gasped Olaf Huldricksson. ”It is Trolldom!"
"Listen,
Olaf!" said Larry. ”Cut out that Trolldom stuff! There's no Trolldom, or
fairies, outside Ireland. Get that! And this isn't Ireland. And, buck up,
Professor!" This to Marakinoff. ”What you see down there are people - just
plain people. And wherever there's people is where I live. Get me?
"There's no
way in but in - and no way out but out," said O'Keefe. ”And there's the
stairway. Eggs are eggs no matter how they're cooked - and people are just
people, fellow travellers, no matter what dish they are in," he concluded.
”Come on!"
With the three of
us close behind him, he marched toward the entrance.
CHAPTER XIII - Yolara,
Priestess of the Shining One
"You'd
better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the stairway
and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from Marakinoff.
"Shall I not
have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.
"When you
need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe. ”I'll tell you frankly, though,
Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust you with a gun. You shoot
too straight - from cover."
The flash of
anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold consideration.
"You say
always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he mused. ”Da - that
I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd observation - and
Marakinoff was to remember indeed.
In single file,
O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we passed through the
portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into which the light from the
chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in its sides the steps spiralled,
and down them we went, cautiously. The stairway ended in a circular well;
silent - with no trace of exit! The rounded stones joined each other evenly - hermetically.
Carved on one of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers
upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.
A crack - horizontal,
four feet wide - appeared on the wall; widened, and as the sinking slab that
made it dropped to the level of our eyes, we looked through a hundred-feet-long
rift in the living rock! The stone fell steadily - and we saw that it was a
Cyclopean wedge set within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of
our feet and stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the
polished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its roof, was
a low, narrow triangular opening through which light streamed.
"Nowhere to
go but out!" grinned Larry. ”And I'll bet Golden Eyes is waiting for us
with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed, slipping, sliding along the
glassy surface; and I, for one, had a lively apprehension of what our fate
would be should that enormous mass rise before we had emerged! We reached the
end; crept out of the narrow triangle that was its exit.
We stood upon a
wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss. I looked behind - and clutched
O'Keefe's arm. The door through which we had come had vanished! There was only
a precipice of pale rock, on whose surfaces great patches of the amber moss
hung; around whose base our ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had,
were hidden, like the luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.
"Nowhere to
go but ahead - and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!" laughed O'Keefe - but
somewhat grimly.
We walked a few
yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced the end of one of the
slender bridges. From this vantage point the oddly shaped vehicles were plain,
and we could see they were, indeed, like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly
beautiful. Their drivers sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were
piled high with cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs.
From the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran into the
broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and out of them flashed
the fairy shells.
There came a
shout from one. Its occupants had glimpsed us. They pointed; others stopped and
stared; one shell turned and sped up a runway - and quickly over the other side
of the bridge came a score of men. They were dwarfed - none of them more than
five feet high, prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.
"Trolde!"
muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging free in his hand.
But at the middle
of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back his men, and came toward us alone,
palms outstretched in the immemorial, universal gesture of truce. He paused,
scanning us with manifest wonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The
dwarf's face was as white as Olaf's - far whiter than those of the other three of
us; the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes of a
curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head like that on
some old Greek statue.
Dwarfed though he
was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him. The gigantic shoulders
were covered with a loose green tunic that looked like fine linen. It was
caught in at the waist by a broad girdle studded with what seemed to be
amazonites. In it was thrust a long curved poniard resembling the Malaysian
kris. His legs were swathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His
feet were sandalled.
My gaze returned
to his face, and in it I found something subtly disturbing; an expression of
half-malicious gaiety that underlay the wholly prepossessing features like a
vague threat; a mocking deviltry that hinted at entire callousness to suffering
or sorrow; something of the spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting.
He spoke - and,
to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar to enable me clearly to catch
the meaning of the whole. They were Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans
which is its most ancient form, but in some indefinable way - archaic. Later I
was to know that the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today
as does not that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English. Nor
was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came the certainty that
it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang.
"From whence
do you come, strangers - and how found you your way here?" said the green
dwarf.
I waved my hand
toward the cliff behind us. His eyes narrowed incredulously; he glanced at its
drop, upon which even a mountain goat could not have made its way, and laughed.
"We came
through the rock," I answered his thought. ”And we come in peace," I
added.
"And may
peace walk with you," he said half-derisively -”if the Shining One wills
it!"
He considered us
again.
"Show me,
strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded. We led the way
to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.
"It was
here," I said, tapping the cliff.
"But I see
no opening," he said suavely.
"It closed
behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time, realized how
incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam passed through his eyes
again. But he drew his poniard and gravely sounded the rock.
"You give a
strange turn to our speech," he said. ”It sounds strangely, indeed - as
strange as your answers." He looked at us quizzically. ”I wonder where you
learned it! Well, all that you can explain to the Afyo Maie." His head
bowed and his arms swept out in a wide salaam. ”Be pleased to come with
me!" he ended abruptly.
"In
peace?" I asked.
"In
peace," he replied - then slowly -”with me at least."
"Oh, come
on, Doc!" cried Larry. ”As long as we're here let's see the sights. Allons
mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. The latter, understanding
the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe with a twinkle of approval;
turned then to the great Norseman and scanned him with admiration; reached out
and squeezed one of the immense biceps.
"Lugur will
welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself. He stood aside
and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We crossed. At the base of
the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
Beyond, scores
had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us in much excitement. The
green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions and then threw himself beside us.
The vehicle started off smoothly, the now silent throng making way, and swept
down the green roadway at a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward
the seven-terraced tower.
As we flew along
I tried to discover the source of the power, but I could not - then. There was
no sign of mechanism, but that the shell responded to some form of energy was
certain - the driver grasping a small lever which seemed to control not only
our speed, but our direction.
We turned
abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens, and stopped softly
before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that these were much larger than I had
thought. The structure to which we had been carried covered, I estimated, fully
an acre. Oblong, with its slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its
walls were like the sliding screens of the Japanese - shoji.
The green dwarf
hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great carved serpents, winged
and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaicked stones between two of the pillars,
and a screen rolled aside, revealing an immense hall scattered about with low
divans on which lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically
as he.
They sauntered up
to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their faces tempered by the same
inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be characteristic of all these people we
had as yet seen.
"The Afyo
Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
The green dwarf
nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great hall and into a smaller
chamber whose far side was covered with the opacity I had noted from the aerie
of the cliff. I examined the - blackness - with lively interest.
It had neither
substance nor texture; it was not matter - and yet it suggested solidity; an
entire cessation, a complete absorption of light; an ebon veil at once immaterial
and palpable. I stretched, involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it
quickly drawn back.
"Do you seek
your end so soon?" whispered Rador. ”But I forget - you do not know,"
he added. ”On your life touch not the blackness, ever. It -”
He stopped, for
abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swinging out of the shadow like a
picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen. Through it was revealed a chamber
filled with a soft rosy glow. Rising from cushioned couches, a woman and a man
regarded us, half leaning over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet,
laden with flowers and unfamiliar fruits.
About the room - that
part of it, at least, that I could see - were a few oddly shaped chairs of the
same substance. On high, silvery tripods three immense globes stood, and it was
from them that the rose glow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller
globe whose roseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue.
"Enter Rador
with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.
Rador bowed deeply
and stood aside, motioning us to pass. We entered, the green dwarf behind us,
and out of the corner of my eye I saw the doorway fade as abruptly as it had
appeared and again the dense shadow fill its place.
"Come
closer, strangers. Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned voice.
We approached.
The woman, sober
scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my throat. Never had I seen a
woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the Dweller's city - and none of so
perilous a beauty. Her hair was of the colour of the young tassels of the corn
and coiled in a regal crown above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of
grey that could change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey
or blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm of
anger darkened them - they were not laughing, no! The silken webs that half
covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness of her flesh nor
the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for all her amazing beauty, she
was - sinister! There was cruelty about the curving mouth, and in the music of
her voice - not conscious cruelty, but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of
nature itself.
The girl of the
rose wall had been beautiful, yes! But her beauty was human, understandable.
You could imagine her with a babe in her arms - but you could not so imagine
this woman. About her loveliness hovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine
echo of the Dweller was Yolara, the Dweller's priestess - and as gloriously,
terrifyingly evil!
CHAPTER XIV - The Justice of
Lora
As I looked at
her the man arose and made his way round the table toward us. For the first
time my eyes took in Lugur. A few inches taller than the green dwarf, he was
far broader, more filled with the suggestion of appalling strength.
The tremendous
shoulders were four feet wide if an inch, tapering down to mighty thewed
thighs. The muscles of his chest stood out beneath his tunic of red. Around his
forehead shone a chaplet of bright-blue stones, sparkling among the thick curls
of his silver-ash hair.
Upon his face
pride and ambition were written large - and power still larger. All the
mockery, the malice, the hint of callous indifference that I had noted in the
other dwarfish men were there, too - but intensified, touched with the satanic.
The woman spoke
again.
"Who are you
strangers, and how came you here?" She turned to Rador. ”Or is it that
they do not understand our tongue?"
"One
understands and speaks it - but very badly, O Yolara," answered the green
dwarf.
"Speak,
then, that one of you," she commanded.
But it was
Marakinoff who found his voice first, and I marvelled at the fluency, so much
greater than mine, with which he spoke.
"We came for
different purposes. I to seek knowledge of a kind; he" - pointing to me”of
another. This man" - he looked at Olaf -”to find a wife and child."
The grey-blue
eyes had been regarding O'Keefe steadily and with plainly increasing interest.
"And why did
you come?" she asked him. ”Nay - I would have him speak for himself, if he
can," she stilled Marakinoff peremptorily.
When Larry spoke
it was haltingly, in the tongue that was strange to him, searching for the
proper words.
"I came to
help these men - and because something I could not then understand called me, O
lady, whose eyes are like forest pools at dawn," he answered; and even in
the unfamiliar words there was a touch of the Irish brogue, and little merry
lights danced in the eyes Larry had so apostrophized.
"I could
find fault with your speech, but none with its burden," she said. ”What
forest pools are I know not, and the dawn has not shone upon the people of Lora
these many sais of laya.[1] But I sense what you mean!"
The eyes deepened
to blue as she regarded him. She smiled.
"Are there
many like you in the world from which you come?" she asked softly. ”Well,
we soon shall -”
Lugur interrupted
her almost rudely and glowering.
"Best we
should know how they came hence," he growled.
She darted a
quick look at him, and again the little devils danced in her wondrous eyes.
[Unquestionably
there is a subtle difference between time as we know it and time in this
subterranean land - its progress there being slower. This, however, is only in
accord with the well-known doctrine of relativity, which predicates both space
and time as necessary inventions of the human mind to orient itself to the
conditions under which it finds itself. I tried often to measure this
difference, but could never do so to my entire satisfaction. The closest I can
come to it is to say that an hour of our time is the equivalent of an hour and
five-eighths in Muria. For further information upon this matter of relativity
the reader may consult any of the numerous books upon the subject. - W. T. G.]
"Yes, that
is true," she said. ”How came you here?"
Again it was
Marakinoff who answered - slowly, considering every word.
"In the
world above," he said, ”there are ruins of cities not built by any of
those who now dwell there. To us these places called, and we sought for
knowledge of the wise ones who made them. We found a passageway. The way led us
downward to a door in yonder cliff, and through it we came here."
"Then have
you found what you sought?" spoke she. ”For we are of those who built the
cities. But this gateway in the rock - where is it?"
"After we
passed, it closed upon us; nor could we after find trace of it," answered
Marakinoff.
The incredulity
that had shown upon the face of the green dwarf fell upon theirs; on Lugur's it
was clouded with furious anger.
He turned to
Rador.
"I could
find no opening, lord," said the green dwarf quickly.
And there was so
fierce a fire in the eyes of Lugur as he swung back upon us that O'Keefe's hand
slipped stealthily down toward his pistol.
"Best it is
to speak truth to Yolara, priestess of the Shining One, and to Lugur, the
Voice," he cried menacingly.
"It is the
truth," I interposed. ”We came down the passage. At its end was a carved
vine, a vine of five flowers" - the fire died from the red dwarf's eyes,
and I could have sworn to a swift pallor. ”I rested a hand upon these flowers,
and a door opened. But when we had gone through it and turned, behind us was
nothing but unbroken cliff. The door had vanished."
I had taken my
cue from Marakinoff. If he had eliminated the episode of car and Moon Pool, he
had good reason, I had no doubt; and I would be as cautious. And deep within me
something cautioned me to say nothing of my quest; to stifle all thought of
Throckmartin - something that warned, peremptorily, finally, as though it were
a message from Throckmartin himself!
"A vine with
five flowers!" exclaimed the red dwarf. ”Was it like this, say?"
He thrust forward
a long arm. Upon the thumb of the hand was an immense ring, set with a
dull-blue stone. Graven on the face of the jewel was the symbol of the rosy
walls of the Moon Chamber that had opened to us their two portals. But cut over
the vine were seven circles, one about each of the flowers and two larger ones
covering, intersecting them.
"This is the
same," I said;”but these were not there" - I indicated the circles.
The woman drew a
deep breath and looked deep into Lugur's eyes.
"The sign of
the Silent Ones!" he half whispered.
It was the woman
who first recovered herself.
"The
strangers are weary, Lugur," she said. ”When they are rested they shall
show where the rocks opened."
I sensed a subtle
change in their attitude toward us; a new intentness; a doubt plainly tinged
with apprehension. What was it they feared? Why had the symbol of the vine
wrought the change? And who or what were the Silent Ones?
Yolara's eyes
turned to Olaf, hardened, and grew cold grey. Subconsciously I had noticed that
from the first the Norseman had been absorbed in his regard of the pair; had,
indeed, never taken his gaze from them; had noticed, too, the priestess dart
swift glances toward him.
He returned her
scrutiny fearlessly, a touch of contempt in the clear eyes - like a child
watching a snake which he did not dread, but whose danger be well knew.
Under that look
Yolara stirred impatiently, sensing, I know, its meaning.
"Why do you
look at me so?" she cried.
An expression of
bewilderment passed over Olaf's face.
"I do not
understand," he said in English.
I caught a
quickly repressed gleam in O'Keefe's eyes. He knew, as I knew, that Olaf must
have understood. But did Marakinoff?
Apparently he did
not. But why was Olaf feigning ignorance?
"This man is
a sailor from what we call the North," thus Larry haltingly. ”He is
crazed, I think. He tells a strange tale of a something of cold fire that took
his wife and babe. We found him wandering where we were. And because he is
strong we brought him with us. That is all, O lady, whose voice is sweeter than
the honey of the wild bees!"
"A shape of
cold fire?" she repeated.
"A shape of
cold fire that whirled beneath the moon, with the sound of little bells,"
answered Larry, watching her intently.
She looked at
Lugur and laughed.
"Then he,
too, is fortunate," she said. ”For he has come to the place of his
something of cold fire - and tell him that he shall join his wife and child, in
time; that I promise him."
Upon the
Norseman's face there was no hint of comprehension, and at that moment I formed
an entirely new opinion of Olaf's intelligence; for certainly it must have been
a prodigious effort of the will, indeed, that enabled him, understanding, to
control himself.
"What does
she say?" he asked.
Larry repeated.
"Good!"
said Olaf. ”Good!"
He looked at
Yolara with well-assumed gratitude. Lugur, who had been scanning his bulk, drew
close. He felt the giant muscles which Huldricksson accommodatingly flexed for
him.
"But he
shall meet Valdor and Tahola before he sees those kin of his," he laughed
mockingly. ”And if he bests them - for reward - his wife and babe!"
A shudder,
quickly repressed, shook the seaman's frame. The woman bent her supremely
beautiful head.
"These
two," she said, pointing to the Russian and to me, ”seem to be men of
learning. They may be useful. As for this man," - she smiled at Larry -”I
would have him explain to me some things." She hesitated. ”What 'hon-ey of
'e wild bees-s' is." Larry had spoken the words in English, and she was
trying to repeat them. ”As for this man, the sailor, do as you please with him,
Lugur; always remembering that I have given my word that he shall join that wife
and babe of his!" She laughed sweetly, sinisterly. ”And now - take them,
Rador - give them food and drink and let them rest till we shall call them
again."
She stretched out
a hand toward O'Keefe. The Irishman bowed low over it, raised it softly to his
lips. There was a vicious hiss from Lugur; but Yolara regarded Larry with eyes
now all tender blue.
"You please
me," she whispered.
And the face of
Lugur grew darker.
We turned to go.
The rosy, azure-shot globe at her side suddenly dulled. From it came a faint
bell sound as of chimes far away. She bent over it. It vibrated, and then its
surface ran with little waves of dull colour; from it came a whispering so low
that I could not distinguish the words - if words they were.
She spoke to the
red dwarf.
"They have
brought the three who blasphemed the Shining One," she said slowly. ”Now
it is in my mind to show these strangers the justice of Lora. What say you,
Lugur?"
The red dwarf
nodded, his eyes sparkling with a malicious anticipation.
The woman spoke
again to the globe. ”Bring them here!"
And again it ran
swiftly with its film of colours, darkened, and shone rosy once more. From
without there came a rustle of many feet upon the rugs. Yolara pressed a
slender hand upon the base of the pedestal of the globe beside her. Abruptly
the light faded from all, and on the same instant the four walls of blackness
vanished, revealing on two sides the lovely, unfamiliar garden through the
guarding rows of pillars; at our backs soft draperies hid what lay beyond;
before us, flanked by flowered screens, was the corridor through which we had
entered, crowded now by the green dwarfs of the great hall.
The dwarfs
advanced. Each, I now noted, had the same clustering black hair of Rador. They
separated, and from them stepped three figures - a youth of not more than
twenty, short, but with the great shoulders of all the males we had seen of
this race; a girl of seventeen, I judged, white-faced, a head taller than the
boy, her long, black hair dishevelled; and behind these two a stunted, gnarled
shape whose head was sunk deep between the enormous shoulders, whose white
beard fell like that of some ancient gnome down to his waist, and whose eyes
were a white flame of hate. The girl cast herself weeping at the feet of the priestess;
the youth regarded her curiously.
"You are
Songar of the Lower Waters?" murmured Yolara almost caressingly. ”And this
is your daughter and her lover?"
The gnome nodded,
the flame in his eyes leaping higher.
"It has come
to me that you three have dared blaspheme the Shining One, its priestess, and
its Voice," went on Yolara smoothly. ”Also that you have called out to the
three Silent Ones. Is it true?"
"Your spies
have spoken - and have you not already judged us?" The voice of the old
dwarf was bitter.
A flicker shot
through the eyes of Yolara, again cold grey. The girl reached a trembling hand
out to the hem of the priestess's veils.
"Tell us why
you did these things, Songar," she said. ”Why you did them, knowing full
well what your - reward - would be."
The dwarf
stiffened; he raised his withered arms, and his eyes blazed.
"Because
evil are your thoughts and evil are your deeds," he cried. ”Yours and your
lover's, there" - he levelled a finger at Lugur. ”Because of the Shining
One you have made evil, too, and the greater wickedness you contemplate - you
and he with the Shining One. But I tell you that your measure of iniquity is
full; the tale of your sin near ended! Yea - the Silent Ones have been patient,
but soon they will speak." He pointed at us. ”A sign are they - a warning
- harlot!" He spat the word.
In Yolara's eyes,
grown black, the devils leaped unrestrained.
"Is it even
so, Songar?" her voice caressed. ”Now ask the Silent Ones to help you!
They sit afar - but surely they will hear you." The sweet voice was
mocking. ”As for these two, they shall pray to the Shining One for forgiveness
- and surely the Shining One will take them to its bosom! As for you - you have
lived long enough, Songar! Pray to the Silent Ones, Songar, and pass out into
the nothingness - you!"
She dipped down
into her bosom and drew forth something that resembled a small cone of
tarnished silver. She levelled it, a covering clicked from its base, and out of
it darted a slender ray of intense green light.
It struck the old
dwarf squarely over the heart, and spread swift as light itself, covering him
with a gleaming, pale film. She clenched her hand upon the cone, and the ray
disappeared. She thrust the cone back into her breast and leaned forward
expectantly; so Lugur and so the other dwarfs. From the girl came a low wail of
anguish; the boy dropped upon his knees, covering his face.
For the moment
the white beard stood rigid; then the robe that had covered him seemed to melt
away, revealing all the knotted, monstrous body. And in that body a vibration
began, increasing to incredible rapidity. It wavered before us like a
reflection in a still pond stirred by a sudden wind. It grew and grew - to a
rhythm whose rapidity was intolerable to watch and that still chained the eyes.
The figure grew
indistinct, misty. Tiny sparks in infinite numbers leaped from it - like, I
thought, the radiant shower of particles hurled out by radium when seen under
the microscope. Mistier still it grew - there trembled before us for a moment a
faintly luminous shadow which held, here and there, tiny sparkling atoms like
those that pulsed in the light about us! The glowing shadow vanished, the
sparkling atoms were still for a moment - and shot away, joining those dancing
others.
Where the
gnomelike form had been but a few seconds before - there was nothing!
O'Keefe drew a
long breath, and I was sensible of a prickling along my scalp.
Yolara leaned
toward us.
"You have
seen," she said. Her eyes lingered tigerishly upon Olaf's pallid face. ”Heed!"
she whispered. She turned to the men in green, who were laughing softly among
themselves.
"Take these
two, and go!" she commanded.
"The justice
of Lora," said the red dwarf. ”The justice of Lora and the Shining One
under Thanaroa!"
Upon the
utterance of the last word I saw Marakinoff start violently. The hand at his
side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting that I hardly caught it.
The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and there was amazement upon his face.
Swiftly as
Marakinoff, he returned it.
"Yolara,"
the red dwarf spoke, ”it would please me to take this man of wisdom to my own
place for a time. The giant I would have, too."
The woman awoke
from her brooding; nodded.
"As you
will, Lugur," she said.
And as, shaken to
the core, we passed out into the garden into the full throbbing of the light, I
wondered if all the tiny sparkling diamond points that shook about us had once
been men like Songar of the Lower Waters - and felt my very soul grow sick!
[1] Later I was to find that
Murian reckoning rested upon the extraordinary increased luminosity of the
cliffs at the time of full moon on earth - this action, to my mind, being
linked either with the effect of the light streaming globes upon the Moon Pool,
whose source was in the shining cliffs, or else upon some mysterious affinity
of their radiant element with the flood of moonlight on earth - the latter,
most probably, because even when the moon must have been clouded above, it made
no difference in the phenomenon. Thirteen of these shinings forth constituted a
laya, one of them a lat. Ten was sa; ten times ten times ten a said, or
thousand; ten times a thousand was a sais. A sais of laya was then literally
ten thousand years. What we would call an hour was by them called a va. The
whole time system was, of course, a mingling of time as it had been known to
their remote, surface-dwelling ancestors, and the peculiar determining factors
in the vast cavern.
