Lin Carter - Down to a Sunless Sea

by Lin Carter

  Then he fell limply, sprawling across the body of the Prince. He kicked out once or twice, an involuntary action. Then he lay dead as a piece of stone.

  And Brant sucked in his breath, heart chill with fear. For he knew exactly what had happened. The communion of minds, it seemed, could touch other nerve centers of the brain besides the visual sense. It could gontrol even the involuntary muscles of the body, those over which the will has little or no control, such as the beating of the heart …

  The Sea People had slain the murderer of their Prince in their own way … by thought alone.

  Suoli uttered a shriek of despair when Agila staggered and fell. Now, soft, plump little hands shaking like leaves in a

  tempest, she turned like a cornered beast upon the folk of Zhah.

  Brant’s second power gun was in those trembling hands. And Suoli knew how to use it���

  “Suoli, no���!” the big Earthsider yelled from a raw throat, but she was too far gone in panic even to comprehend his words.

  Hathera turned his sorrowful gaze upon the small woman, and she dropped the gun. She sagged and crumpled to the flooring, and crawled feebly some small distance, until her head lay upon the breast of her lover. Then, as if somehow contented, she breathed a small sigh. And … died.

  An hour or two had passed since that terrible scene in the chambers of the Prince, and Brant paced up and down, restless as a caged tiger. Tuan sat, arms clasped about his knees, face grim, eyes brooding on nothingness.

  Strangely enough, no vengeance had been visited upon the rest of the strangers: only upon Agila and Suoli. But the mind-force had herded them together into a side-room, and they found themselves unable to leave it. Doubtless at this very moment Hathera and the leaders of the princely clan were conferring upon the manner of their doom.

  The old scientist glanced at Brant impatiently. “Jim, I wish you’d stop pacing back and forth! You’re making me nervous.”

  Brant grunted sourly, and flung himself down beside where Zuarra sat. He said nothing: but all of this waiting was making him nervous.

  The outlaw chief caught Brant’s eye with a small, mirthless grin. “Tuan wishes that the Sea People would make an end to this,” he stated flatly. “If they intend to kill us, then by the Timeless Ones, let them get it over with!”

  Nobody made reply, but the rest of Tuan’s warriors stirred restively, hefting their weapons.

  “Maybe we should make a break for it,” Brant muttered. “We still have the guns.”

  “How far would we get?” asked Will Harbin. “Besides, we can’t pass through the door. The mental power of the Sea People holds us under constraint as surely as if there were iron bars across the door.”

  “We could try something,” said Brant. “Set the building on fire, maybe. They’d be too busy putting it out to bother with us …”

  His voice died away lamely into the silence. He knew it was a lousy idea, but the raw instinct to fight for survival was strong within him. Much rather would he go forth to face Death like a man, than crouch like a coward or a weakling, and wait for it to visit him at its leisure… .

  Suddenly, Will Harbin lifted his head. “Listen!” he whispered. But they had all heard it at the same moment, the distant keening. It was a low, wailing song without words, a moaning as of many voices. And it was coming nearer���

  Brant and Tuan sprung to their feet, and the others scrambled up upon their cue.

  Hathera appeared in the doorway, like a sudden apparition. He was naked, save for a wreath of strange blossoms which crowned his brow. Behind him many others could be seen, men, women, young children. All wore similar wreaths of the curious flowers.

  “The time has come for you to leave us,” said Hathera softly. His face was lined and weary, his eyes sorrowful, with no animosity in them.

  At that moment, the mental constraint which had bound them all within the room���changed. They were free to leave the chamber, and a compulsion came upon them to do so. They trooped out into the hallway and Hathera turned, leading them. And, although Tuan’s band of outlaws had their weapons ready in their hands, it did not occur to them to use them; perhaps this was another form of the constraint, for by now Hathera had learned the meaning of the word “weapon.”

  Zuarra slipped her strong, small hand into Brant’s, nodding behind them. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the Sea People were bearing the bodies of Agila and Suoli upon stretchers.

  The twin power guns lay upon the breasts of the slain couple.

  *

  When they emerged from the central building into the dim luminance of eternal dawn, they saw an unearthly sight.

  For all of the people of Zhah, from the oldest man to the babes in their mother’s arms, were gathered to observe their passage. In their hundreds and their thousands they stood ranked along the way, and each of them wore the strange crown of blossoms upon their brows.

  The soft, sorrowful crooning rose now in a swelling chorus from the throats of many thousands. It was a sad, low susurration, like the sobbing of wind in gaunt boughs, or the sighing of the sea. It raised the hackles on Brant’s nape.

  He stared into many faces as Hathera led them down to the sea. The same mournful expression was upon each face, and in the eyes of all. Nowhere did he read anger or even resentment: only a stricken, heart-deep sorrow, a hurt puzzlement.

  The ship was waiting for them at the end of the long quay, but whether it was the same vessel that had borne them across the luminous sea to the floating city, or another very much resembling it, they could not tell.

  They boarded the vessel, and Hathera stood aside to let them pass. Brant felt the urge to say something���to stammer apologies���but the words died in his mouth. There was nothing to say; nothing at all… .

  The sad-faced children were on board the vessel before them, and the moment the last of the unwelcome visitors strangers had reached the deck, lines were cast off and the captive dragonflies bore the ship away from Zhah.

  The elfin city dwindled gradually across the expanse of the shining waters, until it was merely a moat on the horizon. And Brant felt a strange, sad elation rise up within him.

  “Guess they’re not going to kill us, after all,” he muttered to Will Harbin. “Wonder why?”

  “God knows,” said the older man soberly.

  Among the naked children who manned the craft were little Kirin and the girl Aulli who had tutored the two Earthsiders in the ancient tongue of Zhah. But the children only looked at them sadly, wistfully, and did not address the two. Neither did Brant or Harbin attempt to speak to them.

  They sat down on the deck, rather shakily, glad to be still alive. A somber mood was upon them all, and they said little to each other, for each was busied with his own thoughts.

  The ship sailed on across the glowing sea.

  Expelled from Eden

  The voyage was a dreamlike thing, and ever after they found it difficult to recall aught that occurred during this time. The silent children gave them food and drink; at intervals they slept; when rested, they woke. The children did not address them and left them strictly to themselves.

  After a time, the jewel-strewn shore came into view on the horizon, but whether they had been brought back to the same place or not they could not at once discern.

  They were put ashore, and the bodies of Suoli and Agila went with them. As he was about to leave the ship, Brant turned and his gaze sought out the face of the boy.

  “Kirin,” he said awkwardly, but he said no more. For tears welled into the amber eyes of the lad and fell slowly, one by one, down his cheeks. Brant bowed his head and turned away and left.

  Once they were all ashore, the ship was turned about and began the voyage back to Zhah. Brant felt a pang go through him as it receded into the haze of the distance.

  Will Harbin stood beside him, and they both gazed, rather wistfully, as the ship vanished.

  “Can we ever return here again?” murmured the scie
ntist. “The knowledge we could gain, the wisdom, the value to science���!”

  Brant said nothing. They both knew that this Eden was forbidden to them, and to all men from the surface world forever. They did not need the vision of the angel with the flaming sword to tell them they were expelled from Eden… .

  “You have your memories, your notes,” Brant said, almost roughly. The old scientist screwed up his face into a rueful expression.

  “I do, Jim; but who would ever believe the story, even if he heard it from our own lips?”

  Zuarra came toward them, excitement in her face.

  “They have returned us to the very place where they found us,” she informed them breathlessly. “See? There���our gear and garments���and there! The strange forest where we fed.”

  She was right, of course. The fungus forest stood as it had always stood, and Brant could even spot the growth from which they had first eaten. Everything was as it had been then … the azure moss, with its tiny white star-flowers, the nodding fungi in their rich and varied hues … but everything was different.

  The weird underground cavern-world had turned against them as swiftly as it had once warmly and innocently welcomed them. And they must soon begone from this enchanted place where they were no longer wanted.

  But first there was a grim and melancholy duty to be performed. From his gear, Brant removed an entrenching tool and began to dig the twin graves. When he was winded, one of Tuan’s warriors replaced him. They dug the graves shallowly enough, for there were no wolves in this faerie world, no predators who would disturb the peaceful slumbers of the dead.

  And they laid to rest Agila and Suoli, wrapped in each other’s arms, under the azure moss.

  No words were spoken over the dead, for the Martian natives have little in the way of religious ceremonies, as Earthsiders understand the term. If, any of them prayed to the Timeless Ones to watch over the slumber of the twain, it was silently and inwardly.

  Brant and Zuarra stood side by side, hand clasped in hand, as Tuan’s men laid the mossy sod over the dual grave. He stole a sidewise glance at her, and found her face stony and devoid of any expression. Neither were there any tears in her eyes.

  She had said her farewells to Suoli long ago, he guessed or knew… .

  They had buried them without the guns. Those now hung heavy in the hands of Tuan.

  The outlaw chief saw that Brant had noticed that he had taken up the power guns that he had once thieved from Brant. Now, his face proud, he approached the Earthsider, who stood easy, empty hands at his side, waiting for whatever might come.

  “The truce that was between the people of Brant and the people of Tuan was to last only so long as both were the prisoners of the Sea People,” Tuan reminded him softly. Brant nodded.

  “I remember.”

  “It was only right,” said Tuan. “Then we were few among very many, outnumbered and alone.”

  “I know,” said Brant levelly.

  Suddenly, Tuan did an amazing thing. He extended both hands to Brant, offering the power guns hilt forward. Brant refused to let his surprise show in his face. He accepted the weapons without changing expression, but in his heart he knew. When a warrior of Mars offers a weapon to one of the Hated Ones, it is a gesture of brotherhood, not of friendship: a gesture that means even more than the sharing of water.

  Meeting Tuan’s eyes squarely, he replaced the guns in their worn holsters.

  “He who stole the treasure of my ancestors from me has gone down to death, and paid the expiation for his crime,” said Tuan. “Those who were his companions, who remain, are innocent of wrongdoing, for they knew him not at that time, neither did they learn of his crime until later. So be it.”

  Brant nodded silently. Tuan wet his lips.

  “They have been through much together, Tuan and Brant,” he declared. “Side by side, they have looked upon wonders such as no man would believe. And never has the one betrayed the other, even when death threatened them all. True has been the trust which Tuan placed in Brant, and truly has that trust been returned. Is it not so?”

  “It is so,” answered Brant softly.

  Tuan grinned. “Then let the truce continue���forever, if needs must! Never shall we be foes again: comrades, if it comes to that���”

  “And friends, anyway, if it doesn’t,” remarked Brant.

  They smiled at each other. It was not a Martian custom to shake hands, but the touch was there in their linked eyes.

  Tuan turned away, clearing his throat noisily.

  “Then let us begone from this place that welcomes us no more,” he said gruffly.

  Securing their garments and their gear, they found the entrance to the stair again, and paused thereupon for a time, looking off over the strange vista of this weird world, which had become so familiar to them in so brief a span of time.

  Zuarra fingered something in the pocket of her robes. She withdrew it and opened her fingers to show Brant the glimmering and jewel-like stone she had taken up from the shores of the luminous sea during the first hours they had spent here in the world of Zhah.

  “Zuarra knows in her heart that we are forbidden this place ever again,” she said sadly. “But���O, Brant, must I give this stone back to the shores of the sea?”

  Brant put his arm around her and grinned down into her wistful, upturned face.

  “I think a souvenir is permitted to us,” he said gently. The Martian woman said nothing. She replaced the smooth, richly colored gemstone in its pocket, and her expression was radiant.

  They stood and gazed for one last time upon the sloping sward of indigo moss, upon the fantastic fungus-forest, and upon the old, gentle hills that hid from their view the luminous waters of the Last Ocean.

  Then they turned and began to ascend the stony stair.

  28

  The Return

  The way back up the great stair was harder than before, but, then, this is always the case. It is more difficult to climb a stair than it is to go down one, simply because of gravity.

  They carried with them that of their gear and clothing they had abandoned on the indigo moss-slopes. And they climbed��� and climbed���with the stronger assisting the weaker of them. From time to time, as before, they paused to rest and refresh themselves on the stone platforms.

  It had occurred to them, of course, to take precautions against thirst and hunger. So the outlaws, with their long knives, had carved off slabs of mushroom-meat, and had filled their canteens with sweet fluid from those growths in the fungus-forest which bore the honey-hearted meadlike liquor.

  They yearned for fresh water and for cooked meat. But these were not to be had on the stair, and there was naught else for them to do but try to ignore those yearnings which could not then be appeased.

  They continued the ascent. After a time, weary, they slept. Only to wake and climb again.

  Presently, they began to notice a reversal of the conditions they had observed during their descent of the stair. That is, the wan and pearly luminance slowly ebbed; the humidity seeped from the air and it became dry; the warmth faded, and when, despite the heat of their exertions, it became unpleasantly chill, they paused during one rest-period to don again their garments.

  Brant and Will Harbin climbed into their protective, heated suits of nioflex. The natives, including Zuarra, resumed their long, loose robes. And they climbed up and up, while the air became more like the atmosphere they had known on the surface���cruelly dry, bitterly cold, depleted of all but vestiges of life-giving oxygen.

  It was as difficult for their bodies and respiratory systems to readjust to these conditions as it had been earlier. They must pause to rest themselves many times, panting, starved for air, their flesh slick with greasy perspiration as their body-chemistry reverted to the conditions they had known before, on the surface.

  In time, they returned to normal.

  They spoke little between themselves, saving their breath for the ascen
t of the stone stair. But during the breaks between the intervals of the ascent, when they rested, drank frugally, ate sparingly of their scant supplies, a few words were exchanged.

  Will Harbin’s face was screwed into a doleful expression during one such rest period. Brant asked if he was feeling all right; it had occurred to him that the strain on the older man’s heart, caused by the long and painful ascent of the stair, might very well prove injurious.

  The other shook his head. “My ticker’s strong as ever,” he declared. “No, I was just mourning the loss to science of the information, the knowledge, the data we could have brought back from Zhah. If only I had brought along a camera! Or specimen-bottles. Incredible or not, my colleagues would have to pay some attention to tissue-samples from the mushroom-trees, or a segment of a dragonfly wing. …”

  He cast Brant a sour glance, and the big man grinned ruefully, knowing what was in Will Harbin’s mind at that moment. He had mightily wished to fill his canteen with water from the luminous sea, but Brant had refused to permit this, on the grounds that they would become mighty thirsty on the stair, and every canteen was needed for nourishing fungus juices.

  And, of course, he was quite right. Long before they reached the top of the stair, their supplies of drinkables gave out and their mouths and throats became parched with thirst. But knowing that Brant had been right in refusing him permission made it no easier for the scientist to do without the single water sample which would, if not exactly have proven beyond all doubt or question the existence of the subterranean world beneath the dunes of Mars, at least have surprised and interested the world of science.

  He heaved a heavy sigh, and stopped thinking about the loss to human knowledge. Many and strange were the mysteries of Mars, and in all the generations since first the Earthsiders came hither to explore, to colonize, to exploit, few had been uncovered, and multitudes more remained hidden in the hostile wastes of the Red Planet.

  Brant’s physical powers were amazing to the outlaws, and won him their admiration and respect as nothing had before.