The Collected Stories
Page 174
A minute later the ground rocked beneath their feet, followed by a dull thunder. A slow shower of shale fragments spewed from the direction of the valley and clattered about them. When all had quieted down, they raced back to the valley edge. Looking down, they saw the Blue Mist quivering strangely. Whirls and currents arose in the lake of vapor that had been quiescent for untold years.
Rand eagerly made his way to the cliff edge overlooking the mesa. Looking straight down, he saw the Blue Mist pouring out near the base of the rock partition. Like a river it billowed over the mesa-land. Before it stretched a hundred miles of smooth desert over which it would diffuse to nothingness.
Curwood stood there, a tiny, helmeted mannikin, watching. He waved and then the flood of Blue Mist enveloped him. Rand heard a little moan beside him. Aletha had also seen and her eyes were filled with apprehension. Rand spoke to her in Latin and was amazed at the joy that came over her face when he had made her understand that Curwood was safe.
Two hours later Curwood joined them at their camp and together they watched the incredible sea of Blue Mist empty out of its centuries-old bed. Eagerly Rand and Curwood waited to see what would be revealed.
They gasped as first a tower and then the outlines of other buildings materialized out of the thinning fog. The entire floor of the deep Valley was taken up with them. In the very center, a curved object slowly took form and finally lay revealed as a large, torpedoshaped ship of some sort, with narrow flanges running from nose to stern.
But the watchers waited to see something more vital—the forms of the people who had inhabited this strange city. The level of the blue fog sank. In another half hour the last hazes of it had been swept away and all lay revealed.
“Look!” whispered Rand. “Hundreds of them! People who fell asleep, or whatever it is, in the Blue Mist—but how many years ago? Lord l—how many unthinkable centuries ago?”
CHAPTER III
The Sleepers Wake
CURWOOB broke the spell, “Nothing like finding out,” he said. “Let’s go down and—”
A sob interrupted him, from Aletha.
Her blue eyes, gazing at the quiescent scene, filled with tears. She pointed to the valley and shook her head vehemently, speaking in her liquid tones.
Rand caught something and questioned her sharply, in Latin. The girl seemed anxious to make her meaning clear, staring as though trying to make him understand by sheer force of will.
Finally Rand switched to English. “By glory, Tom, I grasped at least half of that. Either I’m beginning to catch on to her patois, or she’s modifying het words to something near Latin. At any rate, she says most of those down there are her people, but are ‘bound’—I think she means enslaved! She said, in about six different ways, that we are to watch out for the Twelve—they seem to be a sort of composite Simon Legree. What did you make of it, Ramon?”
“She say the Twelve are terrible and powerful!” returned the Castilian.
“I think we’d better go well armed, Tom,” said Rand. “No telling—”
A few minutes later, armed with pistols, they went down the slope, eyes fastened eagerly ahead. Already some of the sprawled forms in the strange city were stirring on the ground. A low moan arose in the air, as of hundreds of persons yawning and awakening at once. When they had reached the valley floor, several of the figures were sitting up, blinking dazedly.
Rand, in the lead, let out a startled cry. “Look, Tom!” he gasped. “That figure—the one in armor—he’s not like Aletha’s people. He’s—by glory, he’s a Spanish Conquistador of the 16th Century!”
They saw other spade-bearded men, wearing corselets of metal, with swords in hip scabbards. Also other strange figures—men in 17th Century French cloaks, 18th Century English woolens, 19th Century Daniel Boone costumes. It looked like some mockery of a masquerade party. But by far the majority were golden-haired people like Aletha, dressed in abbreviated kirtles and loose blouses.
“I get it!” whispered Curwood, awed. “Every one who has come here for the gold since the Spanish first explored has succumbed to the Blue Mist—and lived! Doc—”
But Allan Rand was running ahead, with a queer, intense look on his face. fit was searching every form he passed, every face. He disappeared around the corner of a building. Curwood suddenly understood and snapped his fingers. Then he turned curiously as he saw Aletha fall to her knees beside a golden-haired man who was sitting up. Aletha spoke to him eagerly, smoothing his brow tenderly. The blankness in the man’s eyes suddenly cleared and he clutched her to him, babbling.
Curwood turned away, lips tight. He forced himself to take note of the surroundings. The buildings around were of a strange, ornate architecture. Toward the center line of the valley, where the sunlight was strongest, were the huge machines he had vaguely seen through the visor of his air-helmet during his first descent into the Blue Mist. Mirrored and skeletal, they seemed to be some sort of sun-engine. Thin vanes within glass spheres began already to rotate as the sun’s rays poured into them.
And everywhere was gold. Every building’s cornice was of shining yellow sheet metal; the frameworks of the sun-machines, and even the paving blocks of the city’s wide main avenue.
Ramon’s dark, avaricious eyes were glowing. He looked from the gold of the buildings to the golden hair of beautiful olive-skinned women, and a madness came into his eyes. It was El Dorado!
Queto stood dumbly, staring as though it were an incredible dream-city.
“I pray you, good sir,” said a voice almost in Curwood’s ear. “Canst tell me what has happened? ’Tis witchcraft! But an hour ago I fell asleep in the Blue Mist and now—God pity this poor soul, but I understand not!”
“You and me both,” returned Curwood unhelpfully. He looked half pityingly at the grey-eyed man whose speech and clothing were of 18th Century England. “Brother,” he muttered to himself, “I wonder what you’ll think when you realize this is 1938 A.D., two centuries after your time! Why, you don’t even know there was a Napoleon!”
The man staggered away uncertainly, searching for his companions. Ramon was exchanging words in Spanish with one of the Conquistadors who had arisen. The latter finally clapped a hand to his sword-hilt angrily, as though to draw it. Then he spied one of his companion Conquistadors and ran toward him, forgetting Ramon.
“He call me a dog Frenchman,” laughed Ramon, “because my accent so different from his. So I tell him to go lie down beside Balboa’s bones, and that make him mad!”
A confused babble now arose as all the sleepers of the Blue Mist looked around, mentally stupefied. Archaic French, Spanish, English filled the air. Bewildered, shocked faces looked around and lighted suddenly to behold others of their kind. Soon little parties formed, jabbering in their own language among themselves, glaring suspiciously at other groups. In all their eyes was reflected the golden glare of the immense wealth of tawny metal around them. They had all braved the Blue Mist for that one thing. It was the sole common thing they had among them, though their minds, times, customs, clothing and all else were different.
“Valley of Lost Souls!” Queto murmured beside Curwood and the latter reflected that legend for once was close to the truth.
Aletha’s people, the true inhabitants of the valley, were first to recover mental orientation and go about their business. They began to stream toward the large space at the center of the valley, where the large ship reposed. They did not seem too surprised at the queer outsiders in the valley with them, but nevertheless stared at them curiously as they passed.
Aletha, however, did not join the moving throng. Holding the goldenhaired man’s hand, she brought him eagerly before Curwood and pointed to him, speaking to her companion excitedly. The man looked at Curwood with a half-friendly, half-suspicious expression. Curwood did not know it, but he in turn was scowling.
Then he spied Rand returning, rounding the corner of a building. Curwood blinked. The man whose arm Allan Rand held looked like his older brother.
“The Blue Mist—”
“Of course,” Rand nodded. “It preserved human bodies, buildings, metal, everything in this valley, from the hand of time. Impossible, but true!”
The elder Rand gravely shook hands with Curwood. His eyes had a punch-drunk expression. “It is a miracle to be alive!” he whispered hoarsely. “But I knew I would be, seeing the others preserved in the Blue Mist. Just before I succumbed to the mist, I wrote that note to Allan. It hardly seems possible that it was twenty-five years ago! I gave it, and the map, to the Honduran of my party who had come into the mist, searching for me. He had not been in long enough to yield to it. Thank God for that!”
“The same map,” murmured Allan Rand, “that brought these dozens of adventurers of four different centuries to this valley! Has fate ever played a stranger game? And Aletha and her people? That is the mystery to solved!”
They turned to the rest of their party. Aletha and the golden-haired man were still talking excitedly. Queto stood stolidly by. Ramon, however, was missing. When questioned, Queto could only say that the Castilian had slipped away in the crowd.
Aletha tugged at Allan Rand’s sleeve and spoke, voice shrill, accents worried. Rand swung to the others. “Aletha says we must leave,” he announced. “She says chances of escaping the Twelve, whoever they are, are getting slimmer every second. Up the slope, all of us. I’ll try to get more out of her up there. She risked coming down here in the first place only to find her brother here, Enzal.”
Rand did not notice that Curwood’s face suddenly cleared as if by magic at the word “brother.” But Aletha did; she drew close to him as the party set off for the slope at a half-run. Curwood felt like kicking himself for not noticing the strong family resemblance in their faces.
“I don’t quite see the sense of this,” panted the elder Rand to his son as Aletha sprang fleet-footed to the fore and urged them on with frantic gestures.
“Nor do I, exactly,” confessed the younger man. “But I can tell you that girl is dead serious about the danger.”
Aletha and her brother both showed by their fear-struck faces that they expected some form of resistance from the mysterious Twelve back in the city. They scrambled up the slope pantingly. Some deep-rooted dread of what lay behind lashed them on. The others wondered.
Suddenly, when they had achieved more than half the slope, they all stopped, as though by command. To Allan Rand, it felt like the effect of a narcotic drug. Though his conscious mind could think as clearly as before, something had gripped his subconscious with intangible fingers. Against his wishes, he found his body turning back to the valley. Alarmed, he tried to fight off the insidious hypnotic spell, but he could not move another inch up the slope.
The party of six made its way down the slope, under command of an alien will!
“Damn!” gasped Curwood. “What is this? Doc, any idea? Can we break out of it somehow?”
“I’m afraid not,” Allan Rand’s eyes were bleak. “Some devilish force has gained control of our locomotor brain-centers. Suspended animation—mental control! God, what sort of wizards are these Twelve!”
The two golden-haired people had fallen silent. They stumbled down the slope in dejection, shoulders drooping. Their manner spoke so eloquently of defeat and despair that a gloomy pall of silence fell over them all. Like robots they strode toward the center of the city.
Here, circled by buildings was a large space filled with the entire population of the valley. They were clustered around a central platform, back of which was the huge, finned ship, and beside it a tall, needle-like tower of gleaming metal from whose apex every inch of the valley floor must be visible.
Several figures were in the tower, manipulating strange mirror-like devices.
The ranks of the golden-haired people parted, leaving an aisle to the platform. Under the weird mental control, the party of six made its way to the dais, stood before it. They found themselves beside the lost souls of the past centuries. They, too, had been herded here by the mental control. Their superstitious faces glowed with stark fear at this manifestation of witchcraft. And it was plain that all the hundreds of golden-haired people back of them, too, were in fear and awe of the figures on the platform, who had brought this all about.
CHAPTER IV
Slavery
THEY were the Twelve. A dozen men of the golden-haired race, lines of haughtiness, even cruelty, in their faces, sat in ornate chairs on the dais, looking disdainfully out at the crowd. One of their number was haranguing the golden-haired people in their own tongue. Suddenly he waved a hand in dismissal and the crowd dispersed, quickly and obediently, vanishing among the buildings.
Curwood suddenly grunted and nudged Rand, pointing to the far end of the platform. A thirteenth figure was there, leering at them.
“Ramon!” gasped Rand.
One of the Twelve now stood before the motley group remaining. He fastened his icy blue eyes particularly on Aletha and her brother and queried them sharply. Aletha answered, first with humble fear, then with stubborn defiance. The eyes of the man on the platform blazed angrily and he spoke imperiously.
Aletha turned a grave face to Allan Rand and words tumbled out tremulously. Rand’s face grew worried. He translated to the others. “The Twelve are angry at her and us for trying to escape. No one must escape the valley. We are to be slaves to the Twelve, just as Aletha’s people are and have been! Evidently Aletha told them they had no right to enslave us, but the Twelve say they are masters of all who come before them. Maybe I’m making this up, I don’t know. But she intimates that they consider themselves the future rulers of all the world, by right of conquest!”
“The Napoleon complex, eh?” ground out Curwood. “We’ll see about that.” He gripped his friend’s arm fiercely. “Look—fifty armed men here who owe no allegience to the Twelve. Four of us have pistols. And that damned mental control isn’t on us right now. Doc, you rally these men in French and Spanish; I’ll use English. We’ll settle this master business here and now—”
Realizing the advantage of swift attack, Rand agreed, whispering hastily to his father and Queto. Curwood gently pulled Aletha back of them. At a prearranged signal, Rand and Curwood drew their pistols and fired pointbiank at the figures on the platform, shouting loudly in the meantime to the fierce armed men around them, in three languages. Men of action, they caught fire instantly. Swords, knives and ancient flintlocks flashed in the sunlight. With a concerted rush, the fifty men swarmed toward the platform, faces alight with battle lust.
Strangely, the Twelve on the dais were not alarmed. They did not even arise from their chairs. Nor did any of them fall from the bullets aimed at them. And when the vanguard of the warriors tried to clamber up the edge of the platform like pirates boarding a vessel, an invisible wall of force bruised their knuckles and bumped their heads. In utter surprise they fell back. Then fear drove the battle light out of their faces. This again was witchcraft!
“No use!” groaned Allan Rand, as Curwood reloaded his emptied pistol. “Our bullets don’t even get there. They are protected by an invisible barrier. They are wizards—scientific wizards! In a way, we played into their hands, for they have proven themselves invulnerable!”
Curwood swore, shot three more times at the Twelve with deliberate aim. Plainly he could see sudden disks of lead form in mid-air at the edge of the platform, and drop to the ground. Aletha came before him and stared up into his face, blue eyes brimming with tears, smiling sadly. She seemed to voicelessly praise his bravery and deplore their helplessness.
Then, as though to demonstrate further the Twelve’s power, the intangible mind-gripping mental ray bathed them again. Under command of the alien will, weapons were tossed in a heap. Curwood strained to resist but found hi
mself tossing his pistol atop the pile of swords, as though he were another person.
Rand looked up. That ray came from the top of the tall tower. And perhaps the curtain of protective forces also. Energy came from the giant machine beside the tower, its strange mirrors gathering in sunpower silently. Were they inoperative at night, or did they store power?
Now unarmed and sheepishly humble, the half hundred of four centuries stared at the Twelve, wondering what their fate was to be. Finally a tall, dark figure stepped in the speaker’s position. It was Ramon, smirking in the direction of Rand’s group.
“He’s evidently wormed into their confidence,” hissed Allan Rand. “He knows Latin, of course, and so made himself understood.”
Ramon gave a short, concise message in Spanish, French and finally English, addressing the entire group.
“You are slaves of the Twelve,” he said. “The Twelve are all-powerful, as you have seen. They are mighty wizards of a land far away in time. Do as you are told and no harm will come to you. Do not try to escape the valley. The next one that tries will be killed by a burning death. The Twelve have spoken! You will now be led to the far end of the city, to labor. Remember, death comes swiftly if you disobey. Go!”
Cruel-faced men with long, black whips had now appeared behind the massed group. Snapping them, they motioned down the long main avenue. Cowed, crestfallen by the overwhelming events of the past hour since the awakening, the men obeyed. They were no longer proud Conquistadors, haughty French noblemen, empire-building Englishmen—they were slaves! The whips cracked and the lines moved faster.
Ramon stayed Rand’s group and spoke to them. “Slaves!” he jeered. “Look upon your master! But yesterday you, Senor Curwood, struck me. You shall suffer for it. The girl, Aletha, thinks I am not worthy of her. I will have other slave-women, and her, too. But now to your labors, slaves!”
Curwood turned in contempt, cursing under his breath, and he and his companions followed the last of the other-century men out of the large central space. They were led down the long main avenue toward the far end of the valley, flanked by men with whips.