Those damned shapes of flame! They were everywhere. And look at them running…Emer and Urd and spawn of the Old Race. My men…running…conquered! My men…what did he mean…my men? What a hell of a light…what a hell of a night! Good rhyme that…it seemed to stop the spread of that cursed numbness. Try another—ashes to ashes and dust to dust, if the shadows don’t get you the winged flames must. No…that didn’t help any. What the hell was the matter with his head? Poor Huon…wonder if Suarra knew he was down here…wonder where Nimir was…ah, now he knew whom he hated so…the Snake-woman…damned monster…Yes, Dark Master, I am coming!
Hell—what had made him say that? Brace up Nick Graydon…Nick Graydon of Philadelphia, Harvard School of Mines, U.S.A.…brace up!…Yes, yes, Dark Master…I…am coming!
An arm encircled him. He drew back, snarling. Why—it was Regor.
Regor! Something of the creeping deadness lifted from his brain.
“Head—Regor! Something wrong!”
“Yes, lad. It’s all right. Come now—with Regor. To the—to Suarra.”
Suarra? Yes, sure he’d go with Regor to Suarra. Not to that Snake-woman though! No, no! Not to her…she wasn’t human…No, not to her. Dark Master…
Why, here he was back in the Temple! How the devil had he gotten there? Something was pulling at that collar. Pulling him by it. He wouldn’t go! That’s where that numbness came from—up from the collar. Ah—but he would have to go! But not before he had told Suarra about it all. Ah, there she was! Not the Snake-woman though…No, Dark Master, I’ll not…it was good to have Suarra’s arms around you…your head on her breast…
“Hold him tight, Suarra,” said the Mother, quietly. “Kiss him. Talk to him. Do anything—but keep him aware of you. Kon!”
The spider-man drew from the shadows, looked down upon the muttering Graydon sorrowfully.
“Watch him closely, Regor. Kon may have to help you hold him. When the full call comes to him, his strength will be out of all bounds. If you must—bind him. But I would rather not—for my own reasons. Yet Nimir shall not have him. Ah—I feared it! Stand ready, Tyddo!”
A green glare, bright as daylight, flooded all the Hidden Land. The slaying shadows had vanished, the crimson light had gone from the clouds. Up from the plain midway between Temple and lake arose an immense pillar of coruscant green flame. As it arose it roared. It pulsated with a slow, regular rhythm. Around its girth and above it and at its feet, lightnings flashed, and thunder crackled like torrents of shattering glass.
Beneath that terrifying glare the battling figures upon mead and plain stood motionless, then in shrieking panic raced for cover.
From every quarter the winged shapes of flame throbbed into being. They swept toward the pillar, merged with it, fed it.
“His last play, Tyddo,” whispered the Serpent-woman. “Yet it may be his best.”
The Lord of Folly nodded, and took his station at the mechanism of crystal rods. The two great disks of moonlight radiance and cobweb strands were whirling. The Serpent-woman glided first to one, then the other, manipulating levers at their bases. Slowly their speed decreased.
“Now my ancestors aid me!” murmured the Snake Mother.
More slowly spun the disks. Fewer and fewer became the shapes of flame that fed the column. And now no more appeared.
The pulsing column quivered, swayed, and with a bellowing of thunders leaped a hundred feet from the ground. It dropped upon the amphitheater of the Dream Makers. Bellowing, it leaped again—from where the amphitheater of the Dream Makers had been.
Higher it drove this time. It came down among the trees of the city. Again the thunderous bellow—
The disks were still. The pillar of flame came rushing toward the Temple.
“Now!” cried the Serpent-woman to the Lord of Folly. From the mechanism he was manipulating spread out a gigantic fan of violet radiance—straight toward the racing column. It met and held it. It mingled with it. The pillar bent, twisted,-struggled like a living thing to escape.
There was a vast screaming, a crash like mountains falling. Then darkness and an appalling silence.
“That was well done,” breathed the Mother. “And thanks be to all my ancestors that done it is!”
Graydon raised his head from Suarra’s breast. His face was white and drawn, the eyes turned upward so that the pupils were almost covered by the upper lids. He seemed to be listening.
The Serpent-woman drew to him, watched him closely. His lips moved.
“Yes, Dark Master—I hear!”
“It is close. Take him, Regor. No—let Kon hold him.” She glided to her coffer, took from it the sistrum of the quicksilver globe, and another larger one threaded with many beads of the same gleaming substance; took from it also a blunt crystal tube in which glowed an imprisoned purple flame like that of the rod the Lord of Folly had used in the Cavern of the Lost Wisdom. She handed the second sistrum to him.
The spider-man lifted Graydon in his arms. He lay there, inert, apparently still listening. The Mother undulated to him.
“Regor,” she whispered rapidly, “stay you here with Suarra. No, child, no use to plead nor weep. You cannot come. Be still!” she said sternly, as the girl lifted beseeching hands, “I go to save your lover. And to end Nimir. Regor—I take Kon with me. Quickly now—”
She clicked to the spider-man. Carrying Graydon, he stepped upon the movable platform which masked the shining shaft. She glided beside him, coiled herself, made room for the Lord of Folly. The platform dropped. They passed out into the corridor of the shaft.
Graydon’s body bent into a bow.
“I hear! I come. Dark Master!” he cried, and tore at the spider-man’s arms.
“Yes,” hissed the Serpent-woman. “But by my way—not Nimir’s. Set him down, Kon. Let him go.”
Graydon, eyes still strained sightlessly upward, was turning his head like a dog seeking scent. He began to run down the corridor, straight to the portals of the Temple.
Behind him, sistrum raised, in her other hand the tube of violet fire, swept the Serpent-woman, matching effortlessly his pace, and behind her, as effortlessly, the Lord of Folly with Kon. They came to the corridor that led to the chamber of the thrones. From the sistrum shot a tiny ray. It touched Graydon’s head. He swerved, turned. Again the ray flashed, over his head, striking against a wall. Up rolled one of the curtains of stone, unmasking the passage. Again the ray touched Graydon. He ran into that passage.
“Good!” breathed the Mother.
Twice more the ray of the sistrum opened a passage. Graydon sped on. He never turned his head, never looked back, seemingly was unaware of the three who followed. And weird enough must have been that sight—the running man, and behind him the gleaming undulating rosy-pearl length of the Serpent-woman bearing high her exquisite face and body, the scarlet, many-armed shape of the spider-man, the ancient wise face of the Lord of Folly with its sparkling youthful eyes.
On and on went Graydon, like a straw drawn to a whirlpool, a grain of iron to a lodestone.
“But, Adana, will not Nimir know we follow?” the Lord of Folly spoke with unhurried breath.
“No,” the Mother answered as tranquilly. “When Nimir hid himself from my seeing thought, he hid me from his as well. He can no more look through that veil at me than I can at him. He draws this man to him—but he does not know how he comes. Only that he is coming.”
“He goes more swiftly,” said the Lord of Folly.
“He nears Nimir,” said the Serpent-woman. “I do not guide this man, Tyddo, he guides me. All that I do is to open the shortest way for him to that which summons him— Ah, I thought so!”
Graydon had been running, blindly, straight toward a blank wall. At the touch of the sistrum ray, a stone had drawn up. Through the aperture streamed red rust of light.
They passed into the lair of the Shadow.
Faster sped Graydon, a racing shadow in the murk. Up loomed the black cliff. Along it he ran. It ended. He turned the e
dge. There was the carven screen, the dais, the throne of jet.
Stretched out on the cavern’s floor, prone upon their bellies, lay hundreds of the lizard-people, the females and young of the Urd, and those who, surviving the Ragnarok of the Temple, had scuttered back to the red cavern. Mingled with the reek of their bodies was the obscene fragrance of the Shadow’s garden.
And crouching upon the jet throne was Nimir!
“Dark Master—I am here!” Graydon’s voice was toneless; he halted as though awaiting command.
Nimir’s pale eyes lifted from the groveling remnants of the horde. His monstrous body expanded, lifted itself from the throne; his long, misshapen arms thrust out hungrily, his face was filled with triumph.
“Come!” he whispered, and as though his muscles had been taut steel strings, Graydon bounded up the side of the dais.
“No!” the cry of the Serpent-woman was shrill. From the sistrum in her hand the thin ray shot, touched Graydon’s head. He spun and dropped, almost at Nimir’s feet.
The gaze of the Lord of Evil fell upon the Serpent-woman, abruptly became aware of her—as though some veil between them had been rent apart, revealing her. His eyes flashed from her to the Lord of Folly and the spider-man, and then blazed out with the fires of hell itself.
His hands darted to his girdle, darted out with something that glittered like frozen green flame. Before he could raise the object, the Serpent-woman had leveled the crystal tube in her left hand. A ray of intense violet darted from it. It struck the hand of Nimir and that which was clenched within it. There was a tinkling explosion, and a cloud of sparkling purple atoms swirled round him, hiding both the Lord of Evil and his throne.
The Serpent-woman snatched the larger sistrum from the Lord of Folly. Out of its innumerable tiny globes shot moonlight radiance, and condensed into a three-inch sphere of dazzling brilliance. It darted into the swirling purple mist at the level of Nimir’s head—and passed on. It struck the carven screen of rock, and sprayed over its surface. From side to side and from top to bottom, the screen cracked and split, came crumbling down.
Where screen had been yawned the black opening of a tunnel.
At the touch of the sphere the purple mist had dissolved. Head bent low, squatting close to the floor of the dais, was Nimir, untouched by the Mother’s missile. Before she could hurl another, he had snatched up Graydon’s body, thrown it over his back like a cloak, arms over his shoulders, and had leaped into the darkness of the tunnel.
The Serpent-woman hissed, furiously. High reared the coil that held her body. Her gleaming length flowed over the edge of the dais and through the black opening. And in her wake sped the Lord of Folly, and Kon!
They needed no light to guide them, that three to whose eyes, like those of Nimir’s, darkness and light were as one. And suddenly against the end of the passage was silhouetted the monstrous shape of Nimir. It blackened into outline, and vanished—
The passage had opened into the Cavern of the Face. It ended close to the top of that Cyclopean stairway which was the pathway to the Face. Despairing, hunted, Nimir had doubled back to his dungeon.
The Serpent-woman halted there. Half down the steps Nimir was plunging, holding tight to his shield of living flesh and blood. Through the storms of luminous atoms streaming from the cavern’s walls the great Face brooded upon her. From the circlet around its brow the golden sweat still dropped; still from its eyes ran the tears of gold, and from the drooping corners of the mouth the golden slaver dribbled.
The Face’s eyes of wan blue gems were lifeless. They glittered—but they were empty. No prisoned thing peered through them. Gone was all imperious summonings, all subtle promises of domination. The Face stared indifferently, unseeingly, over the head of Nimir—Nimir who for so long—so long—had dwelt within it.
From the throat of the Serpent-woman came a bugle note. It was answered from beyond, where the cavern’s floor edged the immeasurable depths. Out of the space that overhung the abyss arrowed a pair of the winged serpents.
One dropped upon the shoulders of the Lord of Evil, buffeting him with its pinions. The second twisted its coils around his legs.
The Lord of Evil staggered, dropped Graydon, struck out at the beating wings.
The coils about his legs drew closer. The Lord of Evil toppled.
He went rolling down the steps. Graydon’s body lay, motionless, where it had fallen.
The Serpent-woman clicked. The spider-man scuttered down the steps, grasped Graydon, rushed back with him, and dropped him beside her.
Buffeting wings and clinging coil of the winged serpents withdrew from Nimir. He stumbled to his feet. He hopped to the Face.
He reached its chin. He turned, facing the Mother. Two faces of the Lord of Evil were there. The great face of stone, lifeless, indifferent—and its miniature of dream stuff and rusted atoms interwoven, instinct with life.
Against the cliffed chin pressed the Lord of Evil, arms outstretched, facing the Serpent-woman. In living eyes that matched the glittering ones far above them was neither fear nor appeal for mercy.
Only hate—and merciless threat. He spoke no word, nor did she.
The Lord of Evil turned. Like a great frog, he swarmed up the stone.
The Serpent-woman raised her sistrum. Out shot a radiant sphere. After it another—and another. The first struck the Face squarely upon the brow, the other two, almost simultaneously, upon eyes and mouth.
They burst and sprayed. Tongues of white lightning licked out. The Face seemed to grimace; contorted. Its stony mouth writhed.
Out sped a fourth sphere. It struck the climbing body of the Lord of Evil, and climbing figure and Face were hidden by the tongues of the white lightning. They vanished—those tongues.
There was no Face in the abyss! Only a smooth smoking surface of black stone.
There was no Lord of Evil! Only a smear of rusted atoms against the blasted rock. The smear quivered. It seemed to be feebly trying to cling.
Another of the brilliant spheres struck it. The white tongues licked it—
The rock was clean!
And now shining sphere upon sphere shot from the sistrum. They struck the walls of the cavern, and the tempests of shining atoms died. The gemmed flowers and fruits upon those walls dulled, and dropped.
Darker grew the cavern where the Face in the abyss had been—darker and darker.
Densest darkness filled it.
The Serpent-woman’s voice lifted into one long, wild, shrilling, clarion note of triumph.
She beckoned the spider-man and pointed to Graydon, She turned her back on the black tomb of the Lord of Evil. She glided into the portal of the passage.
Behind her followed the Lord of Folly, and Kon…holding Graydon’s body to his scarlet breast like a child—nuzzling him with his lips—crooning to his unhearing ears.
CHAPTER XXVII
Farewell of the Snake Mother
It was five days before Graydon opened his eyes to consciousness. During all that time he had lain in the bower of the Snake Mother, Suarra attending him. Nor would the Mother take the collar of Nimir from his neck.
“I am not yet sure,” she told the girl and Regor when they begged her to open it, rid Graydon of it. “It will not hurt him. Or should it threaten him, then will I take it off quickly enough—I promise you. But it was a link, and a strong link, between him and Nimir, and may still be so. I am not yet sure that which we knew as Nimir has been wholly absorbed in what sent him forth. I do not yet know what was that Shadow. But if something of it still survives, it will be drawn by that symbol, try to enter him through it. Then I will see what measure of strength that something possesses. If nothing of Nimir survives, the collar can do no harm. But until I know—he wears it.”
That ended the matter. The first day Graydon was restless, muttering of the Dark Master, listening as though to spoken words, speaking now and then to one unseen. Whether to some beseeching wisp of Nimir or to some phantom of his sick mind only the Serpen
t-woman knew. His unease increased until the second night, and so did his mutterings. The Mother came now and then and coiled herself beside him, lifting his lids, examining closely his eyes. On that night when his restlessness reached its peak, she had Regor lay his naked body on her own nest of cushions. She took the smaller sistrum and held it over his head. A soft radiance began to stream from it. She moved the sistrum around him, bathing him from head to feet in its light. On the third day he was much quieter. That night she examined him intently, nodded as though satisfied, and sent a strong ray from the sistrum upon the collar. Graydon groaned feebly, began to raise trembling hands as though to protect it.
“Hold his hands, Regor,” said the Mother, impassively. A stronger ray sprang from the sistrum. The collar of the Lord of Evil lost its sullen gleaming; changed to a lifeless brown. She took it between her hands and broke it. It crumbled to a pinch of dust in her fingers. Immediately Graydon relaxed and passed into deep normal sleep.
On the morning of the fifth day he awakened. Suarra and Regor were beside him. He tried to rise, but his weakness was too great. He was drained of all strength. His mind, however, was crystal clear.
“I know everything you’re going to say against it,” he told them, grinning faintly and holding tight to Suarra. “But it’s no good. I feel as though I’ve been shot through a dozen windmills. In fact, I feel like hell. Nevertheless, I’m not going to close my eyes again until I’m brought up to date. First—what happened to Nimir?”
They told him of the pursuit of the Lord of Evil, and of his end in the cavern of the Face, as they themselves had been told it by the Mother.
“And then,” said Regor, “she blasted the tunnel through which Nimir had gone so that it is sealed forever. She blasted Nimir’s throne and the dais. The strange garden she destroyed utterly. It screamed and shrilled its agony as the tongues of the white lightnings licked it up.”
“Evil was that garden,” said Suarra. “Evil beyond all imaginings, the Mother told me. And that for its creation Nimir alone deserved annihilation. But what sorcery he wrought there, to what uses he had put it or what uses he intended it—she will not tell me.”
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 136