Vault of the Ages

by Poul Anderson

  Late in the morning the boys heard shouts far away. They crowded to the door and strained against it, staring out at blank walls across the street. The guard rose, hefting his spear and peering warily about him.

  “Rescue?” cried Owl hopefully.

  “I doubt it,” said Tom. “I don’t think the gods are done with punishing us.”

  A scream rang out somewhere, and the sound of trampling hoofs, and a man’s laugh like wild dogs baying. Carl stiffened in a sudden terror. He knew that laughter.

  Hoo-oo-oo!

  A horn was blowing, and now the rattle of iron swept near. Three women ran down the street, clutching children to them, screaming. The guard outside the jail ran from sight toward the noise of battle.

  “Someone’s fighting their way into the City!” yelled Tom.

  Carl gripped himself, biting back fear. His knuckles were white where he clutched the bars of the jail. He tried to shake them—useless, useless. He was locked in here and there was nothing he could do.

  “Hold fast! Drive them back!”

  It was the voice of the patrol leader who had wanted to kill him, and Carl had to admit the man was brave. Swords were banging, a horse neighed, a man screamed.

  Backing down the street came a thin line of witch-men. They bore weapons in shaking hands, and many were bleeding from wounds. Even as Carl watched, a bow thrummed and a City dweller toppled with an arrow in him, coughing and clawing.

  “All right, men—ride ’em down!”

  Lenard!

  The horsemen of Lann came like a whirlwind, lances at rest, swords flashing free, plumes and mantles streaming in their thunderous passage. They struck the witch-line with a roar, and it broke before them.

  Hewing, hewing, the Lann rode through that boiling tide of men. The City folk turned to run.

  A mounted warrior galloped after them, laughing aloud. The battle swept on out of sight.

  “Lenard,” groaned Carl.

  The noise of fighting grew more distant. There could be only one end to that struggle, even if the Lann were outnumbered. The unwarlike City men could not stand before the determined, ruthless onslaught of trained warriors.

  “But this is taboo for them,” gasped Tom.

  “Not any longer, it seems.” Owl skinned his teeth in a mirthless grin. “They’ll simply chase the witches into the forest. And then what do we do, Carl?”

  “I don’t know,” said the Chief’s son dully. “I just don’t know.”

  They paced the cell, waiting. Shadows crawled over the street. A crow settled on one of the sprawled bodies, but flapped heavily skyward when a wounded man groaned and stirred.

  It seemed ages before hoofs were again ringing in the stillness. The Lann troops rode into sight and drew rein. There were only a score or so, but it had been enough.

  Lenard edged his horse over to the prison. “So here you are,” he said. “Hello, Carl.”

  He was in full battle dress, corselet and boots and spiked helmet, and a red cloak swinging from his shoulders and a tunic of rich blue Dale weave covering his lean, muscular body. The dark face split in a wolf-grin. “Bulak, Janzy, get that door open,” he ordered.

  Two men dismounted and attacked the lock with their battle-axes. It shivered apart and the door creaked wide. “Come on out,” said Lenard.

  The boys stumbled forth, blinking in the sunlight.

  Lance heads came down to point ominously at their breasts. Looking around, Carl saw that one elderly man in a red robe was with the troop, and that Ronwy stood by Lenard’s bridle.

  “Ronwy!” choked Carl.

  “I couldn’t leave,” said the old Chief. “They drove my people into the woods, but I couldn’t leave our City.”

  “I wouldn’t ’ve let you, anyway,” interrupted Len-ard. “According to Carl’s story, you’re the one who knows how to make those things in the time vault work.”

  “The time vault!” Carl looked with horror at the Lann prince.

  The long, lean head nodded. “Certainly. If the powers of the Doom would work for you, I don’t see why they shouldn’t work for us.” With a savage gleam of eyes: “We’ll be lords of the world if that’s right!”

  “This place is taboo,” bluffed Ronwy desperately. “The gods will be angry with you.”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Lenard, “the Lann—at least, that tribe of the confederation to which I belong —have no taboos on ancient works. Many are frightened of them, but they aren’t actually forbidden. I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “that it’s because in our home territory we have nothing to forbid. There are none of the old Cities left, only great cratered ruins. So I gathered these bold men here, who’d follow me to storm Sky-Home itself, and with my father’s agreement we came to ransack that vault. I took along a Doctor, Kuthay there—” he gestured at the man in the red robe—”to take off any evil spells we might find.”

  His contemptuous smile showed that it had only been to quiet any fears his men might have, and that he himself had no belief in ancient curses. The grin flashed on his new captives. “But I didn’t expect to find you here too. Welcome, boys, welcome!”

  “I don’t know anything really,” quavered Ronwy. “I can’t make any of those machines work.”

  “You’d better learn in a hurry, then,” said Lenard grimly. “Because if you don’t show me some results, all four of you will be killed. Now—off to the time vault—march!”

  Chapter 11

  THE GODS ARE ANGRY

  The mounted men reined in before the horse’s skull and sat staring between the walls at the high gray cube within. An uneasy mutter went from mouth to bearded mouth, eyes flickered in hard, sun-darkened faces, and hands touched lucky charms. The horses seemed to know the uncertain fear stirring in their masters and stamped restless feet. Plainly the Lann were afraid of the old magic, in spite of Lenard’s proud words.

  “We’re going in,” said the northern prince. His voice was oddly flat in the brooding, flimmering silence. “These places are cursed,” mumbled a warrior. “We’ve the power of our own gods with us,” snapped Lenard.

  “Our gods are far away in the north,” answered the man. “Say not so.” The old Lann Doctor, Kuthay, took a small iron box from his robe, and the men bent their heads to it. “I have with me the House of Jenzik, and the god himself is in it.”

  He lifted his hands and broke into a chant. Its high-pitched singsong shivered dully back from the ancient ruins. Carl listened closely, but could make out only a few words; it must be in the old language itself, which had changed greatly since the Doom. When he was through, Kuthay put the box carefully back inside his red garments and said matter-of-factly, “Now we’re guarded against whatever spells may be here. Come.”

  “Wait outside,” Lenard ordered his men. “Bulak and Toom—” he nodded to two scarred warriors who had shown no fear—“come with us, the rest mount guard. We won’t be in there past sundown.”

  He swung to the ground. “Lead us in, Ronwy,” he said.

  Slowly, trembling a little, the old chief began picking his way through the thorny brush and between the heaps of brick and glass. Lenard followed with Kuthay, then the boys; Bulak and Toom, with weapons in hand, came last.

  There was a rustle and a rattle and a blur of movement. Lenard swore as the rattlesnake struck. Its fangs sank harmlessly into the thick sole of his boot, and he crushed it with the other foot.

  “Are you sure the curse is gone?” asked Carl with grim amusement.

  The two warriors were shaken, and old Kuthay had gone white. But Lenard’s answer barked angrily forth: “A snake can be anywhere. And this one did no harm, did it? If that’s the best the guardians of the vault can do, we’re safe.”

  As they came to the entrance, he pointed to the inscription above it. “What does that say?” he asked. Carl remembered what travelers had long told, that none of the northerners could read.

  “Time vault,” said Ronwy. He turned solemn eyes on his captors. “It is time
itself, and all the ghosts and powers of a past that is not dead, only sleeping, which are locked in here. Enter at your peril.”

  “Bluff!” snorted Lenard.

  The door creaked open under Ronwy’s touch. Darkness gaped below. “Go ahead,” ordered the prince. “If there are deathtraps inside, they’ll get you first.”

  They fumbled a way down the stairs into the cool night of the cellar. Ronwy felt his way to the table where he had candles and gave one to Lenard. The Lann prince struck fire with flint and steel to light it, and a yellow glow spilled forth over the dusty cases and machines.

  Lenard’s breath sucked in between his teeth and something of the holy fire of wisdom-hunger grew in his eyes as he stared about him. “So this is the vault,” he whispered.

  He lit other candles until the shadows retreated to the corners and waited huge and threatening. Bulak and Toom posted themselves at the foot of the stairs, looking about with awe-struck vision. Kuthay’s lips moved in a voiceless chant. Lenard prowled about among the racks, touching a model here and a book there with fingers that trembled ever so faintly. Carl went over to the bronze plaque and read its appeal again. Tears blurred his eyes.

  “What is this?” Lenard touched a thing of metal plates and levers. “An instrument of torture?”

  “It is a printing press,” said Ronwy tonelessly. “They used it to make books, so that all could learn what was known.”

  “Bah!” Light and shadow slid across Lenard’s savage face, etching it against the shuddering gloom. “What can we use for war?”

  “There were no weapons here,” said Ronwy. “It was war that destroyed the ancients, and the man who created the vault did not want to raise that devil again.”

  “I think you’re lying.” Lenard slitted his eyes. “Carl! Where are the weapons?”

  “I don’t know of any,” said the boy. “Ronwy tells the truth.”

  “If I put your hands into this—printing press—and crushed them, you might remember.”

  “What good would that do you?” Ronwy straightened, strangely majestic. “You can’t wring facts from us that we don’t have.”

  “There must be something here that can be used in battle,” snapped Lenard. “Otherwise Carl wouldn’t have had the idea.”

  “There is—wisdom, knowledge, yes,” said Ronwy. He stroked his white beard. “There are no tools of war here, but there are the means of making some.”

  “What? What can you do?”

  The old man went over to a set of shelves where dusty bottles were racked, one beside the other. On his last visit, Carl had not been able to read the legends engraved on the glass. They had been letters and numbers forming no words, and he had thought they were magical signs. Ronwy had told him that they were merely symbols for various substances, and that certain old books—chemistry texts, he called them—had explained these and had told what the substances in combination would do.

  “I can make certain things,” said the witch-chief, so quietly that his voice was almost lost in the heavy gloom. “For example, from what is in these flasks I can brew a magic potion which men can eat. Thereafter they are invulnerable. No metal can pierce their skins, no stone or elub can bruise them, no poison can hurt them. Will that be enough?”

  Carl’s body jerked, and a wave of sickness swept through him. Had Ronwy turned traitor? Was he really going to aid these robbers?

  Lenard’s eyes flamed. “Yes, that will do—for a beginning!” he said. His voice rang forth, triumphant: “An army which cannot be hurt—oh, yes, that will do!”

  Even Bulak and Toom started forth, with greed in their faces.

  “One moment,” said Kuthay shrewdly. “If this is so, why have you not made the City-folk, or yourself at least, invulnerable?”

  Ronwy smiled wearily. “This place and its magic is taboo for us,” he answered. “My people would have nothing to do with it, and if I used it on myself they would cast me out.

  Furthermore, the thing is dangerous. There will be devils raised which may break loose, and it angers the gods when men thus take divine powers.”

  Bulak and Toom shrank back toward the stairs.

  “Go ahead,” said Lenard coldly. “I’ll risk the devils and the gods.”

  “I need someone to help,” said Ronwy. “Carl, will you?”

  “No,” said the boy. “No, you turncoat.”

  “Go ahead and help him,” ordered Lenard. “You know a little more than any of the rest of us about this.” He laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Or must I have you—no, not you, but your friends—put to torture?”

  Sullenly, Carl went over to the witch-chief. Lenard and Kuthay joined their men at the door, beckoning Tom and Owl over to them.

  Ronwy’s old hand shook a little as he took down one of the bottles. This one had words on it, besides the chemical symbols, but Carl could not understand them: GUNPOWDER (BLACK). Then he remembered that “guns” were the lightning throwers of legend, and despite himself he shivered.

  “This is all the vault has,” sighed Ronwy. “But we’ll have to use it all. Carl, find me a bowl.”

  The boy searched through a stack of apparatus until he found a large one. As he brought it back, Ronwy’s lips touched his ear and the chief whispered: “I’m trying to trick them.”

  A surging gladness went through Carl. He held his face tight, not daring to look toward the Lann who stood watching.

  Ronwy opened the bottle and spilled the black grains into the bowl. Again he had a chance to murmur. “They may kill us. Shall I go on?”

  Carl nodded, ever so faintly.

  Ronwy searched for other flasks. Meanwhile, he began to chant, his high, thin voice echoing in a saw-toothed wail that brought gooseflesh even to Carl’s skin. Kuthay, a black shadow against the dimly sunlit doorway, lifted the House of Jenzik against magic.

  “In the name of Atmik, and the Cloud, and the blue-faced horseman who sowed the glowing death across wasted fields, ten thousand devils chained and raging to be free, by the Doom and the darkness, I conjure you, ancient Rebel, child of night, out of the lower depths—”

  “Some more bowls, Carl. Spread the black powder in half a dozen.”

  Ronwy unstoppered another flask and shook some blue crystals into one bowl. Into another he put a white substance marked NaCl but seemingly common salt, and into a third some purplish-black stuff. “Nee-wee-ho-hah-nee-yai. Atmik, Atmik!”

  A hurried whisper: “Carl, I hope to frighten them from the vault so that they won’t dare use its real powers—”

  Mumble of witch-chant, rattle of earthernware. “Hoo-hoo-hoo! Rise, all Powers of night and death and horror, rise to me now!”

  Ronwy handed Carl a copper tube. “Tamp some of the black powder into this. When it is full, find a stopper and close one end tightly.”

  He stood making gestures, tall and gaunt and un-humanly stiff, a shudder of yellow light and moving darkness across his lined face, eyes burning. When Carl handed him the tube, he had a chance for another whisper: “I don’t know what they’ll do even if we succeed. I can only hope to frighten them from the City.” Loudly: “O almighty gods of earth and sky, fire and water, summer and white winter, be not angry with us. Loose not the devils which are your hounds against us.

  Lenard’s voice came, not unshaken. “If it’s that dangerous, maybe we’d better forget it.”

  “I can’t stop now,” said Ronwy tightly. “The Powers are already raised, now we must chain them. I hope we can! Yah-wee-nay-hah-no-nee!”

  Bulak and Toom cowered behind Kuthay, who held the House of Jenzik aloft in trembling hands.

  Ronwy took a length of coarse twine, put it in the open end of the powder tube, and sealed that end with tight-packed clay. He had his own materials and crude apparatus in the vault, which he had used for many years in trying to fathom the secrets here. “Gods of the great world, be not angry!”

  “When is it ready?” Lenard’s voice was becoming the snarl of a frightened dog.

  “
Soon, soon. Then or never.” Ronwy placed the open bowls on the floor and laid the tube beside them. He took a candle in one hand.

  “Now,” he said solemnly, his tones echoing as if a ghost spoke with him from the moving shadows, “comes the release of that which we have raised. There will be fire and a stench of devils—bear yourselves bravely, for the devils are like hounds and fly at the throat of anyone who is afraid.”

  That, thought Carl, was a masterly touch. For how could the Lann help being frightened in their hearts? He himself was cold with sweat, and his heartbeat was loud in his ears.

  “Atmik, arise!” Ronwy plunged the candle into the first bowl.

  A flame sheeted up, hissing, throwing a terrible death-blue glare on walls and faces and the crouching secret machines. A warrior cried out. Ronwy shook his head so that the long white beard flew wildly.

  “Don’t be afraid!” he shouted. “It is death to be afraid!”

  He lit the next bowl, and the flame was a hard brassy yellow. A choking, stinging smoke of fumes roiled through the vault.

  “I smell fear!” screamed Ronwy, and the echoes rolled back, “Fear, fear, fear—” He lit the third bowl, and the fire was red.

  “Blood, blood!” Ronwy’s voice trembled. “The sign of death. Someone here is going to die.”

  “I go!” Toom whirled and rushed up the stairs. Len-ard roared at him. The flames rushed higher. Ronwy lit the last bowl, and it burned green.

  “The green of mold and death,” he wailed. “The green of grass on the graves of men. Atmik, Atmik, go back! All gods help us!”

  He touched the candle to the twine fuse of the copper tube.

  “Let the torch of the gods be lit to aid us,” he quavered.

  A dim red spark glowed, eating inward.

  “The torch will not light—the gods have turned their faces from us—now flee for your lives!”

  Ronwy stumbled toward the door. Bulak howled and followed Toom up the stairs. Kuthay came after, then Tom and Owl, as frightened as their captors. The flames sheeted in the vault—blue and yellow and red and green, hard terrible light of wrath—and pain stabbed in lungs as the fumes swirled through the chamber.