I went in to Evalie. She was crouched on the couch of skins. She had undone her hair and it streamed over her head and shoulders, hiding her like a cloak. I bent over her, and parted it. She was crying. She put her arms around my neck, and held me close, close. I felt her heart beating like a drum against mine.
“Evalie, beloved—there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“The—white falcon, Leif!”
“It is only a bird.”
“No—Lur sent it.”
“Nonsense, dark sweetheart. A bird flies where it wills. It was hunting—or it had lost its way in the mists.”
She shook her head.
“But, Leif, I—dreamed of a white falcon…”
I held her tight, and after a while she pushed me away and smiled at me. But there was little of gaiety the remainder of that day. And that night her dreams were troubled, and she held me close to her, and cried and murmured in her sleep.
The next day Jim came back. I had been feeling a bit uncomfortable about his return. What would he think of me? I needn’t have worried. He showed no surprise at all when I laid the cards before him. And then I realized that of course the pygmies must have been talking to one another by their drums, and that they would have gone over matters with him.
“Good enough,” said Jim, when I had finished. “If you don’t get out, it’s the best thing for both of you. If you do get out, you’ll take Evalie with you—or won’t you?”
That stung me.
“Listen, Indian—I don’t like the way you’re talking! I love her.”
“All right. I’ll put it another way. Does Dwayanu love her?”
That question was like a slap on my mouth. While I struggled for an answer, Evalie ran out. She went over to Jim and kissed him. He patted her shoulder and hugged her like a big brother. She glanced at me, and came to me, and drew my head down to her and kissed me too, but not exactly the way she had kissed him.
I glanced over her head at Jim. Suddenly I noticed that he looked tired and haggard.
“You’re, feeling all right, Jim?”
“Sure. Only a bit weary. I’ve—seen things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he hesitated, “well—the tlanusi—the big leeches—for one thing. I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen them, and if I had seen them before we dived into the river, I’d have picked the wolves as cooing doves in comparison.”
He told me they had camped at the far end of the plain that night.
“This place is bigger than we thought, Leif. It must be, because I’ve gone more miles than would be possible if it were only as large as it looked before we went through the mirage. Probably the mirage foreshortened it—confused us.”
The next day they had gone through forest and jungle and cane-brake and marsh. They had come at last to a steaming swamp. A raised path ran across it. They had taken that path, and eventually came to another transecting it. Where the two causeways met, there was a wide, circular and gently rounded mound rising from the swamp. Here the pygmies had halted. They had made fires of fagots and leaves. The fires sent up a dense and scented smoke which spread slowly out from the mound over the swamp. When the fires were going well, the pygmies began drumming—a queerly syncopated beat. In a few moments he had seen a movement in the swamp, close by the mound.
“There was a ring of pygmies between me and the edge,” he said, “and when I saw the thing that crawled out I was glad of it. First there was an upheaval of the mud, and then up came the back of what I thought was an enormous red slug. The slug raised itself, and crept out on land. It was a leech all right, and that was all it was—but it made me more than a bit sick. It was its size that did that. It must have been seven feet long, and it lay there, blind and palpitating, its mouth gaping, listening to the drums and luxuriating in that scented smoke. Then another and another came out. After a while there were a hundred of the things grouped around in a semi-circle, eyeless heads all turned to us—sucking in the smoke, palpitating to the drums.
“Some of the pygmies got up, took burning sticks from the fire and started off on the intersecting causeway, drumming as they went. The others quenched the fires. The leeches writhed along after the torch-bearers. The other pygmies fell in behind, herding them. I stuck in the rear. We went along until we came to the bank of the river. Those in the lead stopped drumming. They threw their smoking, blazing sticks into the water, and they cast into it handfuls of crushed berries—not the ones Sri and Sra rubbed on us. Red berries. The big leeches went writhing over the bank and into the river, following, I suppose, the smoke and the scent of the berries. Anyway, they went in—each and all of them.
“We went back, and out of the marsh. We camped on its edge. All that night they talked with the drums.
“They had talked the night before, and were uneasy; but I took it that it was the same worry they had when we started. They must have known what was going on, but they didn’t tell me then. Yesterday morning, though, they were happy and care-free. I knew something must have happened—that they must have got good news in the night. They were so good-natured that they told me why they were. Not just as you have—but the sense was the same—”
He chuckled.
“That morning we herded up a couple of hundred more of the tianusi and put them where the Little People think they’ll do the most good. Then we started back—and here I am.”
“Yes,” I asked suspiciously. “And is that all?”
“All for to-night, anyway,” he said. “I’m sleepy. I’m going to turn in. You go with Evalie and leave me strictly alone till to-morrow.”
I left him to sleep, determined to find out in the morning what he was holding back; I didn’t think it was entirely the journey and the leeches that accounted for his haggardness.
But in the morning I forgot all about it.
In the first place, when I awoke, Evalie was missing. I went over to the tent, looking for Jim. He was not there. The Little People had long since poured out of the cliffs, and were at work; they always worked in the morning—afternoons and nights they played and drummed and danced. They said Evalie and Tsantawu had gone into council with the elders. I went back to the tent.
In a little while Evalie and Jim came up. Evalie’s face was white and her eyes were haunted. Also they were misty with tears. Also, she was madder than hell. Jim was doing his best to be cheerful.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“You’re due for a little trip,” said Jim. “You’ve been wanting to see Nansur Bridge, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Well,” said Jim. “That’s where we’re going. Better put on your travelling clothes and your boots. If the trail is anything like what I’ve just gone over, you’ll need them. The Little People can slip through things—but we’re built different.”
I studied them, puzzled. Of course I’d wanted to see Nansur Bridge—but why should the fact we were to go there make them behave so oddly? I went to Evalie, and turned her face up to mine.
“You’ve been crying, Evalie. What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, slipped out of my arms and into the lair. I followed her. She was bending over a coffer, taking yards and yards of veils out of it. I swung her away from it and lifted her until her eyes were level with mine.
“What’s wrong, Evalie?”
A thought struck me. I lowered her to her feet.
“Who suggested going to Nansur Bridge?”
“The Little People…the elders…I fought against it…I don’t want you to go…they say you must…”
“I must go?” The thought grew clearer. “Then you need not go—nor Tsantawu. Unless you choose?”
“Let them try to keep me from going with you.” She stamped a foot furiously.
The thought was crystal clear, and I began to feel a bit irritated by the Little People. They were thorough to the point of annoyance. I now understood perfectly why I was to go to Nansur Bridge. The pygmies were not certain t
hat their magic—including Evalie—had thoroughly taken. Therefore I was to look upon the home of the enemy—and be watched for my reactions. Well, that was fair enough, at that. Maybe the Witch-woman would be there. Maybe Tibur—Tibur who desired Evalie—Tibur who had laughed at me. Suddenly I was keen for going to Nansur Bridge. I began to put on my old clothes. As I was tying the high shoes, I glanced over at Evalie. She had coiled her hair and covered it with a cap; she had swathed her body from neck to knees in the veils and she was lacing high sandals that covered her feet and legs as completely as my boots did mine. She smiled faintly at my look of wonder.
“I do not like Tibur to look on me—not now!” she said.
I bent over her and took her in my arms. She set her lips to mine in a kiss that bruised them…When we came out, Jim and about fifty of the pygmies were waiting.
We struck diagonally across the plain away from the cliffs, heading north toward the river. We went over the slope, past one of the towers, and put feet on a narrow path like that which we had trod when coming into the land of the Little People. It wound through a precisely similar fern-brake. We went along it single file, and, perforce, in silence. We came out of it into a forest of close-growing, coniferous trees, through which the trail wound tortuously. We went through this for an hour or more, without once resting, the pygmies trotting along tirelessly. I looked at my watch. We had been going for four hours and had covered, I calculated, about twelve miles. There was no sign of bird or animal life.
Evalie seemed deep in thought and Jim had fallen into one of his fits of Indian taciturnity. I didn’t feel much like talking. It was a silent journey; not even the golden pygmies chattered, as was their habit. We came to a sparkling spring, and drank. One of the dwarfs swung a small cylindrical drum in front of him and began to tap out some message. It was answered at length from far ahead by other tappings.
We swung into our way once more. The conifers began to thin. At our left and far below us I began to catch glimpses of the white river and of the dense forest on its opposite bank. The conifers ceased and we came out upon a rocky waste. Just ahead of us was an outthrust of cliff along whose base streamed the white river. The outthrust cut off our view of what lay beyond. Here the pygmies halted and sent another drum message. The answer was startlingly close. Then around the edge of the cliff, half-way up, spear tips glinted. A group of little warriors stood there, scrutinizing us. They signalled, and we marched forward, over the waste.
There was a broad road up the side of the cliff, wide enough for six horses abreast. We climbed it. We came to the top, and I looked on Nansur Bridge and towered Karak.
Once, thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago, there had been a small mountain here, rising from the valley floor. Nanbu, the white river, had eaten it away—all except a vein of black adamantine rock.
Nanbu had fallen, fallen, steadily gnawing at the softer stone until at last it was spanned by a bridge that was like a rainbow of jet. That gigantic bow of black rock winged over the abyss with the curved flight of an arrow.
Its base, on each side, was a mesa—sculptured as Nansur had been from the original mount.
The mesa, at whose threshold I stood, was flat-topped. But on the opposite side of the river, thrusting up from the mesa-top, was a huge, quadrangular pile of the same black rock as the bow of Nansur. It looked less built from than cut out of that rock. It covered I judged about half a square mile. Towers and turrets both square and round sprang up from it. It was walled.
There was something about that immense ebon citadel that struck me with the same sense of fore-knowledge that I had felt when I had ridden into the ruins of the Gobi oasis. Also I thought it looked like that city of Dis which Dante glimpsed in Hades. And its antiquity hung over it like a sable garment.
Then I saw that Nansur was broken. Between the arch that winged from the side on which we stood and the arch that swept up and out from the side of the black citadel, there was a gap. It was as though a gigantic hammer had been swung down on the soaring bow, shattering it at its centre. I thought of Bifrost Bridge over which the Valkyries rode, bearing the souls of the warriors to Valhalla; and I thought it had been as great a blasphemy to have broken Nansur Bridge as it would have been to have broken Bifrost.
Around the citadel were other buildings, hundreds of them outside its walls—buildings of grey and brown stone, with gardens; they stretched over acres. And on each side of this city were fertile fields and flowering groves. There was a wide road stretching far, far away to cliffs shrouded in the green veils. I thought I saw the black mouth of a cavern at its end.
“Karak!” whispered Evalie. “And Nansur Bridge! And Oh, Leif, beloved…but my heart is heavy…so heavy!”
I hardly heard her, looking at Karak. Stealthy memories had begun to stir. I trod on them, and put my arm around Evalie. We went on, and now I saw why Karak had been built where it was, for on the far side the black citadel commanded both ends of the valley, and when Nansur had been unbroken, it had commanded this approach as well.
Suddenly I felt a feverish eagerness to run out upon Nansur and look down on Karak from the broken end. I was restive at the slowness of the pygmies. I started forward. The garrison came crowding around me, staring up at me, whispering to one another, studying me with their yellow eyes. Drums began to beat.
They were answered by trumpets from the citadel.
I walked ever more rapidly toward Nansur. The fever of eagerness had become consuming. I wanted to run. I pushed the golden pygmies aside impatiently. Jim’s voice came to me, warningly:
“Steady, Leif—steady!”
I paid no heed. I went out upon Nansur. Vaguely, I realized that it was wide and that low parapets guarded its edges, and that the stone was ramped for the tread of horses and the tread of marching men. And that if the white river had shaped it, the hands of men had finished its carving.
I reached the broken end. A hundred feet below me the white river raced smoothly. There were no serpents. A dull red body, slug-like, monstrous, lifted above the milky current; then another and another, round mouths gaping—the leeches of the Little People, on guard.
There was a broad plaza between the walls of the dark citadel and the end of the bridge. It was empty. Set in the walls were massive gates of bronze. I felt a curious quivering inside me, a choking in my throat. I forgot Evalie; I forgot Jim; I forgot everything in watching those gates.
There was a louder blaring of the trumpets, a clanging of bars, and the gates swung open. Through them galloped a company, led by two riders, one on a great black horse, the other upon a white. They raced across the plaza, dropped from their mounts and came walking over the bridge. They stood facing me across the fifty-foot gap.
The one who had ridden the black horse was the Witch-woman, and the other I knew for Tibur the Smith—Tibur the Laugher. I had no eyes just then for the Witch-woman or her followers. I had eyes only for Tibur.
He was a head shorter than I, but strength great or greater than mine spoke from the immense shoulders, the thick body. His red hair hung sleekly straight to his shoulders. He was red-bearded. His eyes were violet-blue and lines of laughter crinkled at their corners; and the wide, loose mouth was a laughing mouth. But the laughter which had graven those lines on Tibur’s face was not the kind to make the bearer merry.
He wore a coat of mail. At his left side hung a huge war hammer. He looked me over from head to foot and back again with narrowed, mocking eyes. If I had hated Tibur before I had seen him, it was nothing to what I felt now.
I looked from him to the Witch-woman. Her cornflower-blue eyes were drinking me in; absorbed, wondering—amused. She, too, wore a coat of mail, over which streamed her red braids. Those who were clustered behind Tibur and the Witch-woman were only a blur to me.
Tibur leaned forward.
“Welcome—Dwayanu!” he jeered. “What has brought you out of your skulking place? My challenge?”
“Was it you I heard baying yesterday?” I said
. “Hai—you picked a safe distance ere you began to howl, red dog!”
There was a laugh from the group around the Witch-woman, and I saw that they were women, fair and red-haired like herself, and that there were two tall men with Tibur. But the Witch-woman said nothing, still drinking me in, a curious speculation in her eyes.
Tibur’s face grew dark. One of the men leaned, and whispered to him. Tibur nodded, and swaggered forward. He called out to me:
“Have you grown soft during your wanderings, Dwayanu? By the ancient custom, by the ancient test, we must learn that before we acknowledge you—great Dwayanu. Stand fast—”
His hand dropped to the battle-hammer at his side. He hurled it at me.
The hammer was hurtling through the air at me with the speed of a bullet—yet it seemed to come slowly. I could even see the thong that held it to Tibur’s arm slowly lengthening as it flew…
Little doors were opening in my brain…the ancient test… Hai! but I knew that play…I waited motionless as the ancient custom prescribed…but they should have given me a shield…no matter…how slowly the great sledge seemed to come…and it seemed to me that the hand I thrust out to catch it moved as slowly…
I caught it. Its weight was all of twenty pounds, yet I caught it squarely, effortlessly, by its metal shaft. Hai! but did I not know the trick of that?…The little doors were opening faster now…and I knew another. With my other hand I gripped the thong that held the battle-hammer to Tibur’s arm and jerked him toward me.
The laugh was frozen on Tibur’s face. He tottered on Nansur’s broken edge. I heard behind me the piping shout of the pygmies…
The Witch-woman sliced down a knife and severed the thong. She jerked Tibur back from the verge. Rage swept me…that was not in the play…by the ancient test it was challenger and challenged alone…I swung the great hammer around my head and around, and hurled it back at Tibur; it whistled as it flew and the severed thong streamed rigid in its wake. He threw himself aside, but not quickly enough. The sledge struck him on a shoulder. A glancing blow, but it dropped him.
The A. Merritt Megapack Page 148