Even for Evaya, progress was difficult. She smiled back now and then when her own sure feet slipped a little on the steeply climbing, hollowed floor.
Alan had been keeping a wary lookout behind them as they slipped and stumbled along the tube. But no darkness was following, no voiceless summons echoed in his brain. The Presence, the Alien—whatever it had been—must temporarily at least have been stopped by the moon-disc of solid light which had dropped behind them.
After what seemed to Alan a long time, the tube abruptly leveled, and Evaya stepped aside, smiling. “Carcasilla!” she said proudly.
They stepped out of the tube upon a platform that jutted from the face of a cliff. At their feet, a ramp ran steeply down; to left and right the platform circled out around the rock walls in a spiderweb gallery, as far as Alan could see. It was a curious gallery with a tilted rail around it. Automatically the four from the world’s youth moved forward to lean upon the rail and look.
Before them lay the blue-lit vista of a vast cavern. And in the cavern—a city.
Such a city as mankind had never visualized even in dreams. It was like—yes, like Evaya herself, delicate and fragile as some artifice, with a beauty heartbreaking in its sheer perfection. It was not a city as mankind understands them. It was a garden in stone and crystal; it was a dream in three dimensions—it was anything but a city built by man.
And it was—silent.
The whole cavern was one vast violet dream where no gravity prevailed, no rain ever fell, no sun shone, no winds blew. Someone’s dream had crystallized into glass and marble bubbles and great loops of avenues hanging upon empty air to fill the blue hollow of the cavern. But it had been no human dream.
Following the others down the ramp reluctantly, Alan saw a further confirmation of that suspicion. For the balcony rail was pitched at a strange angle, and set at an awkward height from the floor, yet obviously it was meant to lean upon. The gallery, like the tube that led to it, had not been designed for any human creature. Something else had dreamed the dream of Carcasilla; something else had planned and built it; something else had set this gallery around the cavern so that it might lean its unimaginable body against it and brood over the beauty of its handiwork.
THEY stood at the edge of a swimming abyss. Here, there were no floating islands of buildings overhead, no roofs below. Only the mirrored pavement. But springing out from the foot of the ramp, there climbed a long, easy spiral of ascending steps, down which pale water seemed to flow, breaking in a series of scalloping ripples at their feet, and fading into the blue-green pavement they had been walking. Obviously it could not be water, but the illusion was so perfect they drew back from the lapping ripples instinctively.
All Carcasilla defied gravity, but this was the most outrageous defiance they had yet seen. The broad, graceful curve of the waterfalling steps swept out and around over sheer space, unsupported, made four diminishing turns and ended at the base of a floating tower which apparently had no other support than the coil of flying steps.
And the tower was a tower of water. Its vague, slim, gothic outlines were veiled in pale torrents that fell as straight as rain down over the hidden walls and went gushing away along the steps. The place looked aloof and withdrawn from the rest of the brightly blooming buildings.
Evaya set her foot upon the first step, and smiled back across her shoulder, nodding toward the raining tower above. “Flande,” she said.
Dubiously, they followed her up the spiral, at first watching their feet incredulously as they found themselves walking dryshod upon the waterfall whose torrent slid away untouched beneath their soles. But when they had mounted a few steps, they found it unwise to look down. Their heads spun as they walked upon sliding water over an abyss.
The tower of rain should have roared with its falling torrents. But there was no sound as the illusory water swept downward before them, near enough to touch. And no door opened anywhere.
While the four newcomers stood gaping up, for the moment too engrossed to speak. Evaya stepped forward confidently and laid her exquisite small hands flat against the rain. They should have vanished to the delicate wrists, with water foaming around them. But the illusion evidently dwelt beneath the surface of the tower, for the rain slipped away unhindered beneath her palms.
Unhindered? After a moment the torrents began to sway apart, like curtains withdrawing. A slit was widening and widening in the wall.
“Flande . . .” Evaya said, a little breathlessly.
The opening, wide now, stopped expanding. Within it were rainbow mists like sunlight caught in the spray of a waterfall. They began to dissipate, and faintly through them Alan glimpsed a face, gigantic as a god’s. But it was no godly face. It was very human. And it was asleep . . .
Youth was here upon these quiet features, but not a youth like Evaya’s, warm and confident and glowing with inner radiance. This was a timeless youth, graven as if in marble, and as meaningless as youth upon the face of a statue a thousand years old.
As they stood silent, the closed lids rose slowly. And very old, very wise eyes looked into Alan’s, coldly, as if through the clouded memories of a thousand years. The lips moved, just a trifle.
“Evaya—” said a deep, resonant, passionless voice. “Evaya—va esten da s’ero.”
The girl beside them hesitated. “Mai ra—” she began.
The voice of Flande did not rise, but a deeper and more commanding thunder seemed to beat distantly In its tones. Evaya glanced uncertainly at the little group behind her, singling out Alan with her eyes. He grinned at her tightly. She gave him an uncertain smile. Then she turned away from the great face above them and moved slowly toward the descending ramp.
Mike Smith said sharply, “Is she running out on us? I’ll—”
Abruptly, he fell silent, lips drawn back, blunt features hardening into amazed wariness, as a voice spoke soundlessly within the minds of all of them.
Very softly it came at first, then gaining in assurance as though questing fingers had found contact. Wordless, inarticulate, yet clear as any spoken tongue, the voice said:
“I have sent Evaya away. She will wait at the tower’s foot, while I question you.”
Alan risked a sidewise look at Sir Colin. The Scotchman was leaning forward, his head cocked grotesquely, his beak nose reminding Alan of a parrot investigating some new morsel. There was no fear in Sir Colin’s face, only profound interest. Karen showed no expression whatever, though her bright green eyes were narrowed. As for Mike Smith, he stood alertly, with a coiled-spring poise, waiting.
“Do you understand me?” the voice murmured soundlessly.
“We understand.” Sir Colin spoke for them all, after a quick glance around. “This is telepathy, I think?”
“My mind touches yours. So we speak in the tongue that knows no race or barrier. Yes, it is telepathy. But speak aloud; it is easier for me to sift your minds.”
Alan touched Sir Colin’s arm, giving him a brief look of warning.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “We’ve a few questions to ask ourselves.”
Flande’s great veiled eyes flashed—and a streak of silver fire leaped out above their heads with a crackle of dangerous sharpness.
All of the little group cowered away under it as the sword-blade of silver light flashed across the platform where they stood.
The shelf was wide here, and of translucent clarity, as if they stood on a depthless pool of clear water. There was only quiet emptiness below them as they stumbled backward, the fiery menace of Flande’s glance burning tangibly past their heads.
Then Flande laughed, cool and distant. And the burning silver sword broke suddenly into a rain of silver droplets that sparkled like stars. Sparkled and came showering down around them. Karen flung up an arm to shield her eyes; Mike swore in German. The other two stood tense and rigid, waiting for the stars to engulf them all.
But Flande laughed again, a thousand years away behind his veil of memories, and the shower fell
harmlessly past them and sank glittering into the pellucid depths of the shelf on which they stood. Down and down . . . And the twinkling points began to dance with colors.
Alan watched them in a curious, timeless trance . . . And then—under his feet the glassy paving crumbled like rotten ice. He was falling—He threw himself flat, and the support held him briefly—briefly . . . Then, in a crackle of broken glass, he plunged downward.
Flande’s cool laughter sounded a third time.
“Stand up,” he said. “There is no danger. See—my magic is withdrawn.”
Miraculously, it was so. The platform spread unbroken beneath Alan’s hands, a surface of quiet water. Crimson-faced, he scrambled up, hearing the scuff of feet about him as the others scrambled, too. Karen’s lips were white. Sir Colin’s twisted into a wry half-grin. Mike muttered in German again, and Alan had a sudden irrelevant thought that Flande had made an enemy just now—for what that enmity was worth. The rest of them could accept this magic for what it was—telepathy, perhaps, group hypnotism—but to Mike it was personal humiliation and would demand a personal revenge . . .
FOR A MOMENT, they stood hesitant, facing the great visage that looked down aloofly from the tower, no one quite knowing what move to make. Flande spoke.
“Fools question me,” he said. “I think you will not question me again. These you have seen are the least of my powers. And you are not welcome here, for you have troubled my dreams.”
The brooding gaze swept out past them all, plumbing distances far beyond the cavern walls that hemmed in Carcasilla.
“You are strange people, from what I see in your minds. But perhaps not strange enough to interest me for long.”
Alan said, “What do you want of us, then?”
“You will answer my questions. You will tell me who you are, and whence you come, and why.”
“All right. There’s no secret about us. But after that, what?”
“Come here,” Flande said.
Alan took a cautious step forward, his nerves wire-strung. The vast face watched him impassively.
Still cautiously, Alan advanced, step by careful step, straight toward that enigmatic doorway. No sound from the others warned him. Only the airman’s trained instinct, almost a sixth sense, told Alan his equilibrium was going. The pavement seemed as solid as ever under his advancing foot. But sheer instinct made him twist in the middle of a stride and hurl himself backward, scrambling on the edge of an abyss he could sense but not see. The surprised faces of the others stared at him.
He reached out gingerly, exploring the platform until his fingers curled over the edge. Below lay the swimming violet depths of Carcasilla. One more step in the blindness of his hypnotic trance would have plunged him down.
“What the devil, lad—” Sir Colin rasped.
Alan got up. “I almost walked over the edge,” he said.
Sir Colin said gently, “His hypnotic powers are very strong. We thought you were walking straight toward him.”
“And that the platform was bigger than it really is,” Alan finished, his mouth grim. He swung toward the tower. “Okay. I get the idea. You’re going to kill us?” Flande smiled gravely. “I do not yet know.”
The great visage looked down at them and beyond them, fathomless weariness in its eyes. And Alan, returning that distant stare, wondered at his own daring in provoking the caprice of this incredible being of the world’s end. That enormous face looked human . . . A three-dimensional projection upon some giant screen, or only illusion, like the other things that had happened? Or was Flande really human at all?
Perhaps the face was a mask, hiding something unimaginable . . .
“Look here,” Alan said, making his voice confident. “If you can read minds, why question us? I think—”
Flande’s eyes, brooding on something far beyond them, suddenly narrowed with a look of very human satisfaction. “You will think no more!” said the voiceless speech in their minds. It swelled with a sort of scornful triumph. “Did you think I cared where you came from, little man? I know where you are going . . .”
From somewhere behind them, and below, a hoarse shout rang out upon the violet silence of Carcasilla. Close after it, Evaya’s scream lifted, pure silver, like a struck chord. Flande’s voice halted the confusion among the four beneath him as Alan took a long stride toward the stair, and Sir Colin whirled, and Mike reached smoothly for his gun.
“Wait,” said Flande. “There is no escape for you now. I do not want you in Carcasilla. You are barbarians. We have no room for you here. So I have summoned other barbarians, from the wild ways outside our city, to save me the trouble of killing you. Did you wonder why I practiced those tricks of illusion a little while ago? It was to give the barbarians time to come here, through the gate I opened for them . . . Look behind you!”
A shuddering vibration began to shake the stair; the hoarse cries from below came nearer, and the thud of mounting feet. Then Evaya came flying up into view, looking back in terror over her shoulder through the cloud of her floating hair.
“Terasi!” she cried. “The Terasi!”
Flande met her wild appeal with a chilly glance, his eyes half-closed in passionless triumph. The godlike head shook twice. Then the slitted door began to close. Mike Smith yelled something in German, and lifted his gun. But, before he could take aim, the valve had closed and vanished; curtains of rain gushed unbroken down the wall. Flande was gone.
Thumping steps mounted the last spiral. A group of ragged savages came rushing up toward them, their faces—curiously clouded with fear—taking on grimness and purpose as they saw their quarry. The leader yelled again, brandishing the clubbed branch of some underground tree.
Clearly these were raiders from some other source than Carcasilla. They looked incredibly out of place in this city of jeweled bubbles, with their heavy, muscular bodies scarred and hairy under the tatters of brown leather garments. All were fair and yellow haired. And on each face, beneath the wolfish triumph, was a certain look of fear and iron-hard desperation.
No—not all. One man was taller than the others, magnificently built, with the great muscles of an auroch, and a gargoyle face. His tangled fair hair was bound with a metal circlet; beneath it black eyes looked out without fear, but warily and grimly purposeful. A new wound slashed red across his tremendous chest, and the muscles rolled appallingly as he brandished his club. He had all of a gorilla’s superhuman strength and ferocity, but controlled in a human body and far more dangerous because of it. Now he rushed on up the steps at the head of the raiders, yelling in a great bell-like voice.
This was no place for fighting hand to hand. The steps were too narrow over that dizzy blue gulf, and the water sliding down their spiral looked slippery if it was not.
But it was too late now to do anything but fight. Alan was nearest to the charging savages. And he had no time to think. The leader’s deep bellow of triumph made the glass walls ring faintly about them as he came thundering up the steps, club lifted.
He came on straight for Alan, a towering, massive figure.
BLIND instinct hurled Alan forward, his gun leaping to his hand. But something checked, his finger on the trigger. He could not overcome a strong feeling that he must not fire in Carcasilla—that the walls would come shattering down around them from the concussion in this hushed city. He reversed the gun in his hand, and swung it, club-like, under the lifted weapon of the barbarian.
And that was a mistake. It was one of the few times that Alan Drake had ever underestimated an opponent. The club whistled down past Alan’s shoulder, missing him as he dodged. But the giant dodged Alan’s gun in turn, and his other hand moved with lightning speed. A flash of silver sang through the air.
White-hot pain darted through Alan’s wrist. His hand went lax, and the gun clattered to the water-gushing steps. Alan looked down at the drops of blood spattering from his arm, where a shining metal dart with metal vanes to guide it transfixed his wrist. These were not quite the barbarians
they looked, then, armed with things like that . . .
Plucking the metal dart from the wound, Alan tensed to meet the charging man.
Hot fury blazed up in him. He hurled himself sidewise toward his fallen gun, catching it on the very verge of the steps. Behind him, Mike Smith roared with a savage exultation that echoed the gargoyle’s shout, and cleared Alan’s stooping body with one long, catlike leap. The gunman’s lips were flattened back from his teeth and his eyes glowed oddly yellow. Mike Smith was in his element. Elsewhere, he might be ill at ease; here he functioned with smooth precision.
But not quite smooth enough. For before his feet struck the steps beyond Alan, the scarred man had sprung to meet him, one sandaled foot lashing out in an unexpected kick at Mike’s gun. Mike twisted sidewise instinctively—and then the gargoyle had him. Those mightily muscled arms closed crushingly about his ribs.
All this Alan saw as his fingers came down on the cool butt of his gun. Behind him, he had a glimpse of Karen and Sir Colin circling desperately, trying to get clear aim over Alan’s head. But before they could do it, the man had lifted Mike Smith by the neck and crotch with one easy motion, the muscles crawling under his tattered leather, and hurled his captive straight in their faces. Almost in the same motion he sprang forward in a high leap and smashed down full upon Alan, whose finger was tightening on the trigger.
Alan had a momentary surge of sheer wonder at the lightning tactics of this savage even as he tried futilely to roll away beneath those crushing feet. Then the man’s great weight crashed down and in a screaming blaze of pain oblivion blanked him out of the fight.
He was aware of shouts and trampling feet that receded into distance or into oblivion—he did not care.
After a while, he knew vaguely that the torrents of rain had parted again to let Flande’s young-old face look down at him. Evaya’s voice from somewhere near was demanding—demanding something . . . He felt Flande’s cold, pale stare, felt the enmity in it. He thought dimly that Evaya was asking something on his behalf and Flande denying it.
Collected Fiction Page 708