Then, as though by a trick of changing vision, a mound of mud assumed a more regular form and a rectangular outline could be distinguished surrounding a central dome. The hand of the metal maiden quivered upon the key bank. She pointed down.
"Atlantis!" she murmured. "Behold its people!"
Upon the dome sprawled a long ribbon-like form, coil upon coil surrounding something more than half hidden by the windings. Pulsations ran through the lax body as it fed. The horrible head lifted, sensing the unfamiliar light, and they could see the bones it was mumbling, nearly stripped of flesh, still mingled in the wreckage of the Saxon ship.
Gwalchmai was about to inquire if the wreck could be searched for Merlin's chest of magic treasures, but the creature poised only an instant in indecision. Then, with jaws agape to show row upon row of fangs, it came swimming with long undulations to investigate the edibility of this strange visitor.
Fast as it came, the Vimana was faster. Upward again, in a long steep slant, they rose to a point where light beat down upon them in thin rays through the tangled weed. Hour after hour, just below the longest streamers, they sped along. Gwalchmai tired, but would not give in to sleep.
Finally, the girl, whose metal body could not know weariness, perceived his need.
At the time, they were in the room of the murals depicting the past glories of Atlantis. Without saying what she intended to do, Corenice rose and" began to dance. Softly as thistledown, lightly as a windblown leaf, she leapt and spun and swung from one black square to another, waking melodies no human ear had heard since the seas had marched over Poseidonis.
Softer and more sweetly yet, the mystical harmonies sounded, interrupted by not a single discord. Gracefully the lithe figure swayed and postured, every movement a poem of beauty. His eyelids grew heavier and, drooping, finally closed. He lay back upon the soft metal of the bench and the music stopped.
Corenice smiled to herself and crossed the room. She stepped heedlessly from square to square, but now there were no answering sounds. Even the chiming bells of her mechanism were muted.
A concealed spring in the frame of the harbor scene let down a soft folding couch from the wall, the existence of which he had not suspected. She lifted him in her metal arms, easily as a mother lifts a baby, and laid him gently and tenderly down.
Long ago all fabrics had disappeared from the Vimana. Age had seen to that, and the sea air, but the couch was Still comfortable as a bed of feathers, made from that wondrous orichalcum which could be either down-soft or diamond-hard.
She left him there and went to the control room in the bird's head. Frowning with concentration, she willed, having set the controls for mental operation. The speed increased. The broad, webbed feet beat the water with redoubled power. The ship tore on, fifty feet below the surface, toward the North. The strange girl stared out through the lenses, tireless, strong, more than human, unwinking and watchful. Only she knew what her thoughts might be and what the thoughts of the Vimana—for it did think, as no other creation of man had ever done, since the beginning of the world.
He did not waken when, far beyond the borders of the weed, the ship slanted upward to the surface of a calm, smooth sea. Morning came, finding him still sleeping, and another night.
Upon the surface, the swan swam faster. Its broad breast skimmed over the waves, and its wings, even though one was crippled, were spread enough to give a slight lifting power which increased the speed. With its long neck laid well back and its head down between its shoulders, it hurtled along.
As though the steady rumble of shafting had a soothing, soporific effect upon his exhausted body, Gwalchmai slept on and on. The vibration did not disturb him or the gentle rocking of the giant bird as first one and then the other paddle thrust against the water.
Again, through the second night, the swan-ship swam steadily northward, but slower, for it followed now a rocky, well-wooded coastline. When he finally awoke, a little after sunrise, the bed no longer vibrated under him, though he felt a slight lifting and falling and could hear a lapping of baby waves against the sides of the vessel.
To dress was the simple matter of putting on his moccasins, and, leaving his weapons where they lay, he went above to the upper deck in search of the girl. The air was chill as he emerged upon the back of the Vimana. He was surprised to see that early autumn had laid coloring fingers upon the leaves of the maple and oak trees which fringed the shores of the little cove, where, sheltered from the outer breakers, the ship lay at anchor. He had not realized until then how far the year must be advanced, nor how long he must have been drifting.
The seasons had passed unnoticed during the time he had been locked in the southerly sea of weed, but now he knew that months had elapsed, many precious days stolen from his life, in which he might have gone far upon his way.
A hail from the shore interrupted his thoughts and he saw Coreniee waving to him.
"Ohi!" she called. "Are you really alive again? Accouter yourself and come to land."
He waved back, laughing, and in a few moments reappeared fully armed. One broad wing of the Vimana lay fully extended over the water, its tip touching some scattered rocks. It was easy to leap from one to another and gain the shore where she was waiting.
Her merry mood had passed when he reached her and pausing only for a brief clasp of hands she turned to serious business, hurrying him away from the edge of the beach, into the edge of the wood.
Here she paused and, pointing toward the ground, indicated to him the faint beginnings of a narrow trail.
"Many times I have passed along this way, in the spirit, following the makers of this path and helpless to warn against the wrongs they intended. Now I am here, in the body, and here my vow begins its fulfillment! You must say now, man, if you are with me. From this place, once we begin, we shall not turn back."
"Lead on," said Gwalchmai, "I follow."
She smiled. "I was sure I could depend upon you, but first there is a thing to be done. While you were sleeping I followed up the path a little way to be quite certain that there was no mistake in my recognition of the locality.
"As we may have far to go, we cannot leave the Vimana here to be seen and perhaps taken by an enemy. I
will send it away, over the horizon, to await our return."
"You will do what?"
"Watch and see."
She turned toward the water. Through an opening in the tree clusters, the cove was plainly visible, and also the floating Vimana. Without making a discernible movement and without speech, she looked intently at the ship.
Gwalchmai thought he heard a faint clicking somewhere within her beautiful frame, a sound unlike the usual musical sounds accompanying her movements. At once a harsh rattling was heard from the cove. The Vimana, by itself, was taking in its anchor!
The wide-spread pinion furled tight against the shining body, the long neck swayed high and the powerful head turned purposefully about, as though the swan-ship was looking for its mistress. She waved her arm in a commanding sweep and after an instant of hesitation, almost human in its indecision, the great bird turned in a welter of foam and raced out to sea. <«
"Now, just how did you do that?" the young Aztlanian asked, deeply puzzled.
Corenice laughed, a chiming peal of melody. "Perhaps I have instruments within me to direct it from afar. Perhaps" —her voice was low and mocking—"it may have understood me! Are not we two of one flesh?"
He grunted in disbelief. Still smiling to herself, she led the way into the wood. They had not gone far before a little brook of sweet water crossed the path and here he lay and drank, long and deeply.
She stood and watched him, knowing his need. Somewhat wistfully she recalled that once, ages ago, she too had drunk and eaten with enjoyment of the good things that life in a body of flesh desired.
"You are hungry also?" she asked. "I did not remember. My energy comes directly from the sun, not by eating the things which the sun causes to grow. I made no provision for yo
u, but yonder in the trees are vines and upon them grow purple grapes. If they would do for the moment—?"
She waited while he plucked ripe, heavy clusters, frost sweetened, eating avidly, selecting bunches to carry as they walked on.
"Are they juicy and good?" she queried, a bit ruefully. "I remember I used to enjoy them very much, long ago, when I was alive."
He nodded, mouth too full to reply, and they passed deeper and deeper into the forest, along the trail, leaving the cover far behind.
Nunganey, the Abenaki, lay flat as the rattlesnake he resembled, with his death-paint of yellow upon his belly and brown and black blotches on his back. Wood ashes smeared his cheeks and he was softly chanting his death song as from a lofty oak limb he looked down the forest trail.
Along this way came always the red-haired killers from Aldlinek, the Island of Demons, somewhere on the tidal sea.
He did not know just where it might be situated. Once thirty canoes had gone to seek it. A great war party, the strength of three tribes. None had ever returned, taken either by the sleek green wolves of Squant, the square-eyed sea-goddess, or Hobbamock the foul, who dwelt upon that island to be the curse of men.
Twice each year the hairy killers came ravening through the forests of the Abenaki—when the snow was one moon gone from the hills and again shortly before it returned. Never had they been conquered. They came as they pleased, with their heavy axes and their shirts from which the arrows bounced and their war-bonnets upon which stone tomahawks broke.
They plundered, slew, ravaged and were gone to sea again, paddling over the horizon in their curious stone boats (for Nunganey knew nothing of metals) with their weighty loads of maize, furs, meat and captives.
When they had gone, Nunganey's people were destitute. Still they clung to their homeland and hunting grounds, loving their country savagely, refusing to be driven away or to fall permanently into the position of a subject nation. They always fought, though they never won.
Nunganey thought moodily on these things, striking softly into the thick bark with his stone hatchet as he waited.
Orono, the chief, had derided his plans for vengeance after the last raid, when Cosannip, his blood brother, had been taken captive, for what purpose no one knew. Nunganey had refused to become discouraged. He kept on, climbing daily into his high tree with bags of pebbles on his back.
Now, forty feet above the ground, there were suspended two ponderous sacks of stones, each made from the hide of a large black bear. Between them hung a latticework of saplings, studded with foot-long stakes, sharpened and burned stone hard. A single cut of his hatchet upon a single thong would release the cunning fastenings which held the whole suspended over the trail below.
He would see if these stonish men were proof against that, as they were against dart and spear I Then he would follow swiftly, sliding down the rawhide rope which lay ready to his hand. He would drop among them to kill and kill and kill again, until Cosannip was avenged and he himself lay dead.
That he would be slain he had no doubt. There was no man of the People who could stand singly against a demon's axe. He could not help marveling at the return of the killers, so soon after their raid. Generally one trip was all at each season, though the old men told that, in their grandfather's time, three visits a year had been the cus-torn, and NTcarnayoo—of old time—even oftener. He had only hoped, without reason, that they might return and fall into his trap.
Always, it would appear these demons, these Chenoo, had persecuted the Abenaki, the Children of the Dawn. Now here they were and he was waiting. Wan-pe, the fisher, had seen them on the shore and fled into the village to warn the people and Nunganey had sought the great oak and was ready.
Here they came at last, striding noiselessly over the forest floor. Where they so confident, these Chenoo, that two alone thought that they could walk among the wickams to choose and take as they would? Nunganey growled deep in his corded throat. He would see!
But what in the name of Kiehtan were they?
The man was dressed in somewhat similar manner to the invaders, but his hair was brown, not flaming red—his skin bronzed, not pallid hike the Chenoo. Nor was his companion like any Abenaki woman. Entirely naked, her very flesh like the hard integument which the Chenoo put off or on at will, she was a beautiful demon who must die.
Both were strangers, however strangely armed, and they came from the sea. That alone marked them as enemies, in Nunganey's mind.
A score of strides more—ten—five—! The Abenalds' dark eyes glittered and his hatchet fell upon the restraining thong.
Gwalchmai and Corenice had come a long way without speaking. The forest was very still, but neither** suspected " danger until a blue-jay squawked. Then a whir in the air and a dark blur crashing down caused the metal girl to whirl quick as a tree-cat against him. Thrusting him violently aside and crouching, she received upon herself the full ringing impact of that mighty blow.
Flat on his back, Gwalchmai jerked out the flame gun at his belt. A blast of livid light crashed into the tree and Nunganey, already swinging from his rope, fell thudding from bough to bough, followed by a rain of debris as that rope was clipped above him.
' Down smashed the entire treetop with a splintering roar. He saw the painted body strike the earth in a coil of rawhide, to be instantly covered with swishing leaves. He plunged into the foliage, yanking out the stunned Abenaki, and, stepping back, was about to cut down upon him with the flame swathe when Corenice called:
"Save that man alive! I want speech with him!"
Glowering, holding his surly prisoner rigid under the menace of that crystal lens, he turned upon her. Unscratched, unharmed, with her golden hair flying loose, she stood in the wreckage of the lattice. Its many prongs were driven deep around her, broken and askew. The two weights had fallen on either side, to burst the bags and send stones flying afar, splashing up the turf like soft mud.
Bewildered at her odd shortness of stature, he could at first only grin as, all woman in the midst of ruin, her first care was to wipe away a splotch of black loam from her face. She smiled back at him, quite undismayed, and easily cleared away the lumber in front of her, snapping stout pieces of seasoned oak with those dainty hands which looked so small and frail.
Then, still knee-deep, as she had been driven into the forest mold, she took seven steps through the soft earth as though it had been snow. The knees of Nunganey quaked as she approached him, warrior though he was. For an instant he sagged against the tree at his back as he wailed, "M'teoulin! Magician!" But then, stiffening proudly, he beg-gan to chant his death song. Desperation was in his eyes, but no more fear.
Gwalchmai looked at Corenice as she spoke to the Aben-aki in his own language. "Man! Say now! Know you me?"
"Ho! Bumole the Night Woman art thou! Whom spear cannot touch nor hatchet harm! Slay me quickly and be done!"
Corenice thought swiftly, She was familiar with Abenaki legends. Upon many winter evenings of story telling, she had invisibly haunted the wickams and long houses, when lonely for humanity she sought to learn—and forget her sterile existence. If she could use those legends to her own advantage, so much the better. So much easier her task would be.
"Right, Netop, Bumole am I, and this is Glooskap the mighty, master of the thunder! Long ago, I swore to aid the Abenaki against their enemies and at last the time has come to dwell among you for a space. We would be treated by you as an ordinary hunter and his mate might be. We wish to live with you, play with you, perhaps fight for you if you prove worthy!"
Nunganey fell to his knees before her to prove his shame, but Corenice laid her little hand on his shoulder like an accolade, saying:
"Numchalse! Arise! Let us all be equal together, for if we are to help you, I also need your help. To enter your village, I must be clothed after the manner of your women, lest I be recognized as no human and thought no friend. Say, Netop, can you find me garb befitting a maiden of your people?"
Nunganey stammered i
n his joy and surprise, proud to be addressed as comrade by one so mighty, but finally answered:
"My sister, Keona, was to be a bride. One full year she worked with soft doe skin and porcupine quills to make herself beautiful in the eyes of her lover, but the Chenoo took her and she is no more. A boy then, I have grown to become a man, but still my mother cherishes the garments that she made. If satisfaction to the Night Woman, these shall be hers, though they are not lovely enough for her!"
Corenice beamed upon him at the unexpected compliment "Wurragen!" she said. "It is well!"
Gwalchmai lowered his weapon, at her nod, and Nun-ganey sped without other permission into the forest. The young Aztlanian had followed most of the conversation as the language was somewhat similar to that of the Hoden-osaunee, where Merlin had held court in their forest towns, and the wearer of Merlin's ring could understand the languages that Merlin had known.
"Do you think he will come back?" he asked. Corenice did not trouble to answer, merely signing him to follow as she walked on in the direction the Abenaki had taken.
They had covered perhaps a mile when they heard the padding of a runner approaching. Nunganey appeared, panting, bearing a pack upon his back. He shrugged it down and cried:
"My people await you with dancing and a feast! I have told them the Chenoo shall come against us in vain, now that the gods love us! They anxiously wait!"
"Then let it not be I to keep them waiting long!" gaily remarked Corenice, as she disappeared into a dense clump of low hemlock. In a few moments she reappeared and the two men gasped at the change.
Her soft shirt of white doeskin, lined with the breasts of woodpigeons, displayed her perfect throat. Careful embroidery, of colored porcupine quills and shell beads, could be seen beneath the open tunic worn outside the shirt and two narrow belts of tiny beads crossed between her breasts. Her tunic, short skirt and leggings were also ornamented and were deeply fringed with seagreen thrums. Moccasins of caribou skin covered her small feet and over her gleaming braided hair she had drawn the pointed hood of deer hide which was attached to the blue-gray fur cloak of wolf skin wich she wore over all.
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