The A. Merritt Megapack

by Abraham Merritt

  Lantlu glared up at him, vacantly; he wiped a hand over his mouth, stared at its scarlet wetness stupidly.

  “He says your women will find it difficult to admire you hereafter,” trilled the Serpent-woman. “Again he is right!”

  Graydon looked at her. The little hand holding the sistrum was clenched so tightly that the knuckles shone white, her red forked tongue flickered upon her lips, her eyes were very bright…The Mother, he thought, might be angry with him, but she appeared to be uncommonly enjoying the sight of Lantlu’s battered countenance…he had seen women at the prize ring watch with exactly that expression the successful mauling progress of their favorite. He drew up beside her, nursing his bruised knuckles.

  And now Lantlu was trying to break from the hands of his men who were holding him…Graydon rather admired him at that moment…certainly the brute had courage…quite a hog for punishment…

  “Lantlu!” the Snake Mother raised herself until her head swayed a man’s full height over them, her eyes were cold purple gems, her face like stone—“Lantlu—look at me!”

  She lifted the sistrum. The globe stopped its quicksilver quivering, and out of it sprang a ray of silvery light that flashed on Lantlu’s forehead. Instantly he ceased his struggling, grew rigid, raised his face to her. The silvery ray flashed across the faces of his followers, and they too stiffened into men of wood, silent.

  “Lantlu! Carrion carrier for Nimir! Listen to me! You have defiled the Temple, the only one of all the Old Race to do that. By violence you have forced your way to me, Adana, of the Older Race who fed your forefathers with the fruit of our wisdom. Who made you into men. You have mocked me! You have dared to raise armed hands against me! Now do I declare the ancient pact between my people and yours broken—broken by you, Lantlu. Now do I, Adana, declare you outlaw, and outlaws all those with you. And outlaw shall be all who hereafter throw their lot with yours. I cast you out! Go to your whispering Shadow, tell it what has befallen you. Go to your Dark Master, Lantlu, and beg him to make you whole again, restore your beauty. He cannot—not he, whose craft has grown so weak that he cannot find himself a body. Let this comfort you. Tempted as he may have been, he will not now try to hide behind that face of yours. Tell him that I, who worsted him long time ago, I, Adana, who prisoned him in the stone, am awake, and on guard, and will meet him once again when the hour has struck—aye, and worst him again. Aye, utterly destroy him! Go, you beast lower than the Urd—Go!”

  She pointed with the sistrum to the tattered curtains. And Lantlu, head swaying in weird mimicry of hers, turned stiffly, and paced away. Behind him, heads swaying, went his nobles. The blue-kirtled soldiers herding them, they passed from sight.

  The Serpent-woman’s body ceased its movement, her pillared coil dropped, she rested her little pointed chin on Suarra’s shoulder. Her purple eyes, no longer cold or glittering, weighed Graydon quizzically.

  “As the brutes fight!” she mused. “I think there must be something human in me after all—so to enjoy those blows and the sight of Lantlu’s face. Graydon, for the first time in ages, you have lifted all boredom from me.”

  She paused, smiling at him.

  “I should have slain him,” she said. “It would have saved much trouble. And many lives—maybe. But then he would have had no time to mourn his vanished beauty—nor to eat his vain heart out over it. No, oh no—I could not relinquish that, not even for many lives. Augh-h!—” she yawned, “and for the first time in ages, I am sleepy.”

  Suarra leaned against the side of the alcove. A golden bell sounded. A door opened and through it came four comely Indian women, carrying a cushioned litter. They set it beside the Serpent-woman, stood waiting, arms crossed on brown breasts, heads bowed. She swayed toward it, stopped—

  “Suarra,” she said, “see that Regor and Huon and the others are shown to their quarters, and that they are properly cared for. Graydon, wait here with me.”

  They knelt to her once more, then followed Suarra through the opened portal.

  Graydon stood with the Mother. She did not speak, was deep in thought. At last she looked at him.

  “That was a boasting message I sent to Nimir,” she said.

  “I am not so sure of the outcome, my Graydon, as I seemed to be. You have given me several new things to think about Still—it will also give that creeping Evil something to think on besides his deviltries—perhaps.”

  She was silent until Suarra returned. Then she slipped out of her nest, thrust her body into the litter and slowly drew her shimmering coils after her. She lay for a moment, chin cupped in her tiny hands, looking at them.

  “Kiss him good-night, daughter,” she said. “He shall rest well, and safely.”

  Suarra raised her lips to his.

  “Come, Graydon,” laughed the Serpent-woman, and when he was close, she put her hands on each side of his face, and kissed him, too.

  “What abysses between us!” She shook her head, “and bridged by three blows to a man I hate—yes, daughter, I am woman, after all!”

  The women picked up the litter, Suarra beside her, they moved away. From the entrance came two blue-kilted Emers, who with low bows, invited him to follow them. The Mother waved a hand toward him, Suarra blew a kiss. They were gone.

  Graydon followed the Indians. As he passed the red throne he saw a figure within it—a shrunken figure all in tasseled robe of red and yellow.

  The Lord of Folly! He had not seen him enter. How long had he been there? He paused. The Lord of Folly looked at him with twinkling, youthful eyes. He reached out a long white hand and touched him on the forehead. At the touch, Graydon felt all perplexities leave him; in their place was a careless gayety, a comfortable feeling that, despite appearances, things were perfectly all right in a world that seemed perfectly all wrong. He laughed back into the twinkling eyes.

  “Welcome—son!” chuckled the Lord of Folly.

  One of the Indians touched him upon the arm. When he looked back at the red throne, it was empty.

  He followed the Indians through the portal. They led him to a room, dimly lighted, cobweb curtained, a wide couch in its center. There was a small ivory table on which were bread and fruit and a pale mild wine. As he ate, the Indians took from him his suit-of-mail, and stripped him to the skin. They brought in a basin of crystal, bathed him, and massaged him and rubbed him with oil. They drew a silken robe around him, and put him to bed.

  “‘Welcome—son!’” muttered Graydon, sleepily. “Son? Now what did he mean by that?”

  Still wondering, he went sound asleep.

  CHAPTER XX

  Wisdom of the Serpent Mother

  It was mid-morning of the next day when an Emer came to Graydon with a summons from the Snake Mother. He had awakened to find Regor and Huon watching him from the doorway. Regor still wore his black, but Huon had traded the yellow of the Fellowship for the Serpent-woman’s blue. As he arose, he found on a settle beside his bed a similar costume. He put on the long, loose blouse, the hose and the heelless, half-length boots of soft leather. They fitted him so well that he wondered whether some one had come in during the night and had measured him.

  There was a circlet of gold upon the settle, but he let it be. After a moment’s hesitation he thrust his automatic into the inner fold of his wide girdle. A blue silken cloak, fastened at the shoulders with loops of gold, completed his dress. He felt rather self-conscious in it, as though he were going to a costume party—something he had always loathed; but there was nothing else to wear, his suit-of-mail had vanished, and his other clothing was in the ravished lair.

  He breakfasted with the pair. Huon, he saw, was taking matters badly, his beauty grown haggard, his eyes unhappy. Also, much of Regor’s buoyancy had fled, whether through sympathy for Huon or for some other reason he did not know. Neither of them made slightest reference to his fight with Lantlu, and that aroused in him a piqued curiosity. Once he had led the talk close to it; Huon had glanced at him with a flash of irritated distaste; Regor h
ad given him an admonitory kick under the table.

  He did not find it a pleasant meal, but he had been enlightened as to Huon’s manner. Regor and Huon had started; to go out. Graydon would have accompanied them, but the giant told him gruffly that he would better stay where he was, that the Mother was sure to send for him, that she had turned over all her soldiery to Huon and himself and that they would be busy drilling them. In a few moments he returned, alone.

  “You did well, lad,” he grumbled, slapping Graydon’s shoulder. “Don’t mind Huon. You see, we don’t fight each other in just the way you did. It’s the way of the Urd. I tell Huon that you’re not supposed to know our customs but—well, he didn’t like it. Besides, he’s heartbroken about the Fellowship and Dorina.”

  “You can tell Huon to go to hell with his customs,” Graydon was hurt and angry. “When it comes to a brute like Lantlu, I fight tooth and nail, and no hold barred. But I see why Lantlu beat him. He was on the job while Huon, probably, was considering how to say it to him with flowers!”

  “Much of that was in your own tongue,” grinned Regor, “but I get your meaning. You may be right—but Huon is Huon. Don’t worry. He’ll be over it when you meet him again.”

  “I don’t give a damn whether he is or not—” began Graydon, furiously. Regor gave him another friendly slap, and walked out.

  Still hotly indignant, Graydon dropped upon a settle and prepared to await the expected summons. The walls of the room were covered with the filmy curtains, dropping from ceiling to floor. He got up and walked around them, feeling through the webs. At one spot, his hand encountered no resistance. He parted them and stepped into another room, flooded with clear daylight from a balconied window. He walked out on the balcony. Beneath him lay Yu-Atlanchi.

  The Temple was high above the city, the ground falling away from it in a gentle slope. Between it and the lake the slope was like a meadow, free of all trees, and blue as though carpeted with harebells. And the opposite side of the lake was nearer then he had judged, less than a mile away.

  He could see the spume of the cataract, torn into tattered banners by the wind. The caverns of the colossi were like immense eyes in the brown face of the precipice. The figure of the Frog-woman was plain, the green stone of which she was carved standing out in relief against the ochreous rock.

  And there was the white, exquisite shape which guarded the cavern of the dead.

  There was another colossus, cut, it seemed, from rosequartz, shrouded to the feet, its face hidden behind an uplifted arm; and there was a Cyclopean statue of one of the gray and hairless ape-men. These stood out clearly, the outlines of the other he could not distinguish for their color merged into that of the cliffs.

  At his left, the meadow changed to a level plain, sparsely wooded, running for miles into the first wave of the forest, and checkered by the little farms of the Indians. At his right was the ancient city and, now seen so closely, less like a city than a park.

  Where the city halted at the edge of the Temple’s flowering mead, and half-way to the lake, was a singular structure. It was shaped like an enormous shell whose base had been buried to hold it upright; its sides curved gracefully, drawing closer in two broad, descending arcs, then flaring out to form an entrance. It faced the Temple, and from where he stood Graydon could see practically all of the interior.

  This shell-like building was made of some opaline stone. Here and there within it glowed patches of peacock fires of the Mexican opal’s matrix, and here and there were starry points of blue like those which shine from the black opal. The reflected rays from them appeared to meet in the center of the structure, stretching across it like a nebulous curtain. And, like a shell, its surface was fluted. The grooves were cut across, two-thirds from the top, by tier upon tier of stoneseats. Its top was all of three hundred feet high, its length perhaps thrice that. He wondered what could be its use.

  He looked again over the city. If Lantlu were preparing an attack, there was no evidence of it. Along the broad avenue skirting the lake was tranquil movement, Indians going about their businesses, the glint of jeweled litters borne on the shoulders of others; a small fleet of boats with gayly colored sails and resembling feluccas skimmed over the water. There was no marching of armed men, no sign of excitement. He watched laden llamas swinging along, and smaller deer-like animals, grazing. The flowering trees and shrubs hid the lanes threading the grounds of the palaces. Then he had been summoned to the Serpent-woman. Graydon followed the messenger. They paused before a curtained recess; the Indian touched a golden bell set in the wall. The hangings parted.

  He was on the threshold of a roomy chamber, through whose high, oval windows the sunlight streamed. Tapestries covered its walls, woven with scenes from the life of the serpent-people. Upon a low dais, her coils curled within a nest of cushions, was the Snake Mother. Behind her was Suarra, brushing her hair. The sun made round it a halo of silver. At her side squatted the Lord of Folly in his cloak of red and yellow. Suarra’s eyes brightened as he entered, dwelling upon him tenderly. He made obeisance to Adana, bowed low to the Lord in motley.

  “You look well in my blue, Graydon,” lisped the Serpent-woman. “You haven’t the beauty of the Old Race, naturally. But Suarra doesn’t mind that,” she glanced slyly at the girl.

  “I think him very beautiful,” said Suarra, quite shamelessly.

  “Well, I myself find him interesting,” trilled Adana, “after all these centuries, the men of Yu-Atlanchi have become a bit monotonous. Come and sit beside me, child,” she motioned toward a long, low coffer close to her. “Take a pillow or two and be comfortable. Now tell me about your world. Don’t bother about your wars or gods—they’ve been the same for a hundred thousand years. Tell me how you live, how you amuse yourselves, what your cities are like, how you get about, what you have learned.”

  Graydon felt this to be a rather large order, but he did his best. He ended almost an hour later, feeling that he had made a frightful jumble of skyscrapers and motion pictures, railroads and steamships, hospitals, radios, electricity and airplanes, newspapers and television, astronomy, art and telephones, germs, high-explosives and arc lights, he tripped on the electronic theory, bogged hopelessly on relativity, gulped and wiped a wet forehead. Also he had been unable to find Aymara words to describe many things, and had been forced to use the English terms.

  But Adana had seemed to follow him easily, interrupting him seldom, and then only with extremely pointed questions.

  Suarra, he was sure, had been left hopelessly behind; he was equally sure that the Lord of Folly had kept pace with him. The Serpent-woman had seemed a little startled by the airplanes and television, much interested in skyscrapers, telephones, high-explosives and electric lighting.

  “A very clear picture,” she said. “And truly amazing progress for—a hundred years, I think you said, Graydon. Soon, I should think, you would do away with some of your crudities—learn to produce light from the stone, as we did, and by releasing it from air. I am truly concerned about your flying machines, much concerned. If Nimir wins, they may soar over Yu-Atlanchi and welcome! If he does not—then I shall have to devise means to discourage any such visits. Truly! I am not so enamored with your civilization, as you describe it, to wish it extended here. For one thing, I think you are building too rapidly outside yourselves, and too slowly inside. Thought, my child, is quite as powerful a force as any you have named, and better controlled, since you generate it within yourself. You seem never to have considered it objectively. Some day you will find yourselves so far buried within your machines that you will not be able to find a way out—or discover yourself being carried helplessly away by them. But then I suppose you believe you have within you an immortal something which, when the time comes, can float out of anything into a perfect other world?”

  “Many do,” he answered. “I did not. But I find my disbelief shaken—once by something I saw in the Cavern of the Face, once by a certain dream while I slept beside a stream, and later
found was no dream—and again by a whispering Shadow. If there is not something to man besides body—then what were they?”

  “Did you think it was that immortal part of me which you saw in the Cavern? Did you think that, really?” she leaned forward, smiling. “But that is too childish, Graydon. Surely my ethereal essence, if I have it, is not a mere shadowy duplication! Such a wonderful thing should be at least twice as beautiful! And different—oh, surely different! I am a woman, Graydon, and would dearly like to try a few new fashions in appearance.”

  It was not until after he had left her that he recalled how intently the Serpent-woman had looked at him when she said this. If she thought something was within his mind—some reservation, some doubt—she was satisfied with what she found, or did not find. She laughed; then grew grave.

  “Nor did anything of you rush forth from your body at my call. It was my thought that touched you beside the brook; my thought that narrowed the space between us—precisely as your harnessed force penetrates all obstacles and carries to you a distant picture. I saw you there, but it pleased me to let you see me as well. So it was that I watched Lantlu march into the Temple. Once we of the Older Race could send the seeing thought around the world, even as you are on the verge of doing with your machines. But I have used the power so little, for so long and long and long again, that now I can barely send it to the frontiers of Yu-Atlanchi.

  “And as for Nimir—” she hesitated. “Well, he was master of strange arts. A pioneer, in a fashion. What this Shadow is—I do not know. But I do not believe it is any immortal—what do you name it, Graydon—ah, yes, soul. Not his soul! And yet—there must be a beginning in everything…perhaps Nimir is pioneer in soul making…who knows! But if so—why is it so weak? For compared to that which was Nimir in body this Shadow is weak. No, no! It is some product of thought; an emanation from what once was Nimir whom we fettered in the Face…a disembodied intelligence, able to manipulate the particles that formed the body of Cadok—that far I will go…but an immortal soul? No!” She dropped into one of her silences; withdrawn—then—“But the seeing thought, I do know, I will show you, Graydon—will send my sight into that place where you saw the ship, and yours shall accompany it.”