The prisoner answered for her. “Kepta, son of vileness, Thrala is not for you. Remember, beloved one,” he spoke to the Daughter, “the day of deliverance is at hand—”
Garin felt a sudden emptiness. The prisoner had called Thrala “beloved” with the ease of one who had the right.
“I await Thrala’s answer,” Kepta returned evenly. And her answer he got.
“Beast among beasts, you may send Dandtan to his death, you may heap all manner of insult and evil upon me, but still I say the Daughter is not for your touch. Rather will I cut the line of life with my own hands, taking upon me the punishment of the Elder Ones. To Dandtan,” she smiled down upon the prisoner, “I say farewell. We shall meet again beyond the Curtain of Time.” She held out her hands to him.
“Thrala, dear one—!” One of his guards slapped a hand over the prisoner’s mouth putting an end to his words.
But now Thrala was looking beyond him, straight at the grill which sheltered Garin. Kepta pulled at her arm to gain her attention. “Watch! Thus do my enemies die. To the pit with him!”
The guards twisted their prisoner around and the morgels crept closer, their eyes fixed upon that young, writhing body. Garin knew that he must take a hand in the game. The Ana was tugging him to the right and there was an open archway leading to a balcony running around the side of the pit.
Those below were too entranced by the coming sport to notice the invader. But Thrala glanced up and Garin thought that she sighted him. Something in her attitude attracted Kepta, he too looked up. For a moment he stared in stark amazement, and then he thrust the Daughter through the door behind him.
“Ho, outlander! Welcome to the Caves. So the Folk have meddled—”
“Greeting, Kepta,” Garin hardly knew whence came the words which fell so easily from his tongue. “I have come as was promised, to remain until the Black Throne is no more.”
“Not even the morgels boast before their prey lies limp in their jaws,” flashed Kepta. “What manner of beast are you?”
“A clean beast, Kepta, which you are not. Bid your two-legged morgels loose the youth, lest I grow impatient.” The flyer swung the green rod into view.
Kepta’s eyes narrowed but his smile did not fade. “I have heard of old that the Ancient Ones do not destroy—”
“As an outlander I am not bound by their limits,” returned Garin, “as you will learn if you do not call off your stinking pack.”
The master of the Caves laughed. “You are as the Tand, a fool without a brain. Never shall you see the Caverns again—”
“You shall own me master yet, Kepta.” The Black Chief seemed to consider. Then he waved to his men. “Release him,” he ordered.” Outlander, you are braver than I thought. We might bargain—”
“Thrala goes forth from the Caves and the black throne is dust, those are the terms of the Caverns.”
“And if we do not accept?”
“Then Thrala goes forth, the throne is dust and Tav shall have a day of judging such as it has never seen before.”
“You challenge me?”
Again words, which seemed to Garin to have their origin elsewhere, came to him. “As in Yu-lac, I shall take—”
Before Kepta could reply there was trouble in the pit. Dandtan, freed by his guards, was crossing the floor in running leaps. Garin threw himself belly down on the balcony and dropped the jeweled strap of his belt over the lip.
A moment later it snapped taut and he stiffened to an upward pull. Already Dandtan’s heels were above the snapping jaws of a morgel. The flyer caught the youth around the shoulders and heaved. They rolled together against the wall.
“They are gone! All of them!” Dandtan cried, as he regained his feet. He was right; the morgels howled below, but Kepta and his men had vanished.
“Thrala!” Garin exclaimed.
Dandtan nodded. “They have taken her back to the cells. They believe her safe there.”
“Then they think wrong,” Garin stooped to pick up the green rod. His companion laughed.
“We’d best start before they get prepared for us.”
Garin picked up the Ana. “Which way?”
Dandtan showed him a passage leading from behind the other door. Then he dodged into a side chamber to return with two of the wing cloaks and cloth hoods, so that they might pass as Black Ones.
They went by the mouths of three side tunnels, all deserted. None disputed their going. All the Black Ones had withdrawn from this part of the Caves.
Dandtan sniffed uneasily. “All is not well. I fear a trap.”
“While we can pass, let us.”
The passage curved to the right and they came into an oval room. Again Dandtan shook his head but ventured no protest. Instead he flung open a door and hurried down a short hall.
It seemed to Garin that there were strange rustlings and squeakings in the dark corners. Then Dandtan stopped so short that the flyer ran into him.
“Here is the guard room—and it is empty!”
Garin looked over his shoulder into a large room. Racks of strange weapons hung on the walls and the sleeping pallets of the guards were stacked evenly, but the men were nowhere to be seen.
They crossed the room and passed beneath an archway.
“Even the bars are not down,” observed Dandtan. He pointed overhead. There hung a portcullis of stone. Garin studied it apprehensively. But Dandtan drew him on into a narrow corridor where were barred doors.
“The cells,” he explained, and withdrew a bar across one door. The portal swung back and they pushed within.
Thrala arose to face them. Forgetting the disguise he wore, Garin drew back, chilled by her icy demeanor. But Dandtan sprang forward and caught her in his arms. She struggled madly until she saw the face beneath her captor’s hood, and then she gave a cry of delight and her arms were about his neck.
“Dandtan!”
He smiled. “Even so. But it is the outlander’s doing.”
She came to the American, studying his face. “Outlander? So cold a name is not for you, when you have served us so.” She offered him her hands and he raised them to his lips.
“And how are you named?”
Dandtan laughed. “Thus the eternal curiosity of women!”
“Garin.”
“Garin,” she repeated. “How like—” A faint rose glowed beneath her pearl flesh.
Dandtan’s hand fell lightly upon his rescuer’s shoulder. “Indeed he is like him. From this day let him bear that other’s name. Garan, son of light.”
“Why not?” she returned calmly. “After all—”
“The reward which might have been Garan’s may be his? Tell him the story of his namesake when we are again in the Caverns—”
Dandtan was interrupted by a frightened squeak from the Ana. Then came a mocking voice.
“So the prey has entered the trap of his own will. How many hunters may boast the same?”
Kepta leaned against the door, the light of vicious mischief dancing in his eyes. Garin dropped his cloak to the floor, but Dandtan must have read what was in the flyer’s mind, for he caught him by the arm.
“On your life, touch him not!”
“So you have learned that much wisdom while you have dwelt among us, Dandtan? Would that Thrala had done the same. But fair women find me weak.” He eyed her proud body in a way that would have sent Garin at his throat had Dandtan not held him. “So shall Thrala have a second chance. How would you like to see these men in the Room of Instruments, Lady?”
“I do not fear you,” she returned. “Thran once made a prophecy, and he never spoke idly. We shall win free—”
“That will be as fate would have it. Meanwhile, I leave you to each other.” He whipped around the door and slammed it behind him. They heard the grating of the bar he slid into place. Then his footsteps died away.
“There goes evil,” murmured Thrala softly. “Perhaps it would have been better if Garin had killed him as he thought to do. We must get away…”
Garin drew the rod from his belt. The green light motes gathered and clung about its polished length.
“Touch not the door,” Thrala advised; “only its hinges.”
Beneath the tip of the rod the stone became spongy and flaked away. Dandtan and the flyer caught the door and eased it to the floor. With one quick movement Thrala caught up Garin’s cloak and swirled it about her, hiding the glitter of her gem encrusted robe.
There was a curious cold lifelessness about the air of the corridor, the light-bearing motes vanishing as if blown out.
“Hurry!” the Daughter urged. “Kepta is withdrawing the living light, so that we will have to wander in the dark.”
When they reached the end of the hall the light was quite gone, and Garin bruised his hands against the stone portcullis which had been lowered. From somewhere on the other side of the barrier came rippling laughter.
“Oh, outlander,” called Kepta mockingly, “you will get through easily enough when you remember your weapon. But the dark you can not conquer so easily, nor that which runs the halls.”
Garin was already busy with the rod. Within five minutes their way was clear again. But Thrala stopped them when they would have gone through. “Kepta has loosed the hunters.”
“The hunters?”
“The morgels and—others,” explained Dandtan. “The Black Ones have withdrawn and only death comes this way. And the morgels see in the dark…”
“So does the Ana.”
“Well thought of,” agreed the son of the Ancient Ones.
“It will lead us out.”
As if in answer, there came a tug at Garin’s belt. Reaching back, he caught Thrala’s hand and knew that she had taken Dandtan’s. So linked they crossed the guard room. Then the Ana paused for a long time, as if listening. There was nothing to see but the darkness which hung about them like the smothering folds of a curtain.
“Something follows us,” whispered Dandtan.
“Nothing to fear,” stated Thrala. “It dare not attack. It is, I think, of Kepta’s fashioning. And that which has not true life dreads death above all things. It is going—”
There came sounds of something crawling slowly away.
“Kepta will not try that again,” continued the Daughter, disdainfully. “He knew that his monstrosities would not attack. Only in the light are they to be dreaded—and then only because of the horror of their forms.”
Again the Ana tugged at its master’s belt. They shuffled into the narrow passage beyond. But there remained the sense of things about them in the dark, things which Thrala continued to insist were harmless and yet which filled Garin with loathing.
Then they entered the far corridor into which led the three halls and which ended in the morgel pit. Here, Garin believed, was the greatest danger from the morgels.
The Ana stopped short, dropping back against Garin’s thigh. In the blackness appeared two yellow disks, sparks of saffron in their depths. Garin thrust the rod into Thrala’s hands.
“What do you?” she demanded.
“I’m going to clear the way. It’s too dark to use the rod against moving creatures…” He flung the words over his shoulder as he moved toward the unwinking eyes.
V
KEEPING HIS eyes upon those soulless yellow disks, Garin snatched off his hood, wadding it into a ball. Then he sprang. His fingers slipped on smooth hide, sharp fangs ripped his forearm, blunt nails scraped his ribs. A foul breath puffed into his face and warm slaver trickled down his neck and chest. But his plan succeeded.
The cap was wedged into the morgel’s throat and the beast was slowly choking. Blood dripped from the flyer’s torn flesh, but he held on grimly until he saw the light fade from those yellow eyes. The dying morgel made a last mad plunge for freedom, dragging his attacker along the rock floor. Then Garin felt the heaving body rest limply against his own. He staggered against the wall, panting.
“Garin!” cried Thrala. Her questing hand touched his shoulder and crept to his face. “It is well with you?”
“Yes,” he panted, “let us go on.”
Thrala’s fingers had lingered on his arm and now she walked beside him, her cloak making whispering sounds as it brushed against the wall and floor.
“Wait,” she cautioned suddenly. “The morgel pit…”
Dandtan slipped by them. “I will try the door.”
In a moment he was back. “It is open,” he whispered.
“Kepta believes,” mused Thrala, “that we will go through the pit. The morgels will be gone to better hunting grounds.”
Through the pit they went. A choking stench arose from underfoot and they trod very carefully. They climbed the stairs on the far side unchallenged, Dandtan leading.
“The rod here, Garin,” he called; “this door is barred.”
Garin pressed the weapon into the other’s hand and leaned against the rock. He was sick and dizzy. The long, deep wounds on his arm and shoulder were stiffening and ached with a biting throb.
When they went on he panted with effort. They still moved in darkness and his distress passed unnoticed.
“This is wrong,” he muttered, half to himself. “We go too easily—”
And he was answered out of the blackness. “Well noted, outlander. But you go free for the moment, as does Thrala and Dandtan. Our full accounting is not yet. And now, farewell, until we meet again in the Hall of Thrones. I could find it in me to applaud your courage, outlander. Perhaps you will come to serve me yet.”
Garin turned and threw himself toward the voice, bringing up with brushing force against rock wall. Kepta laughed.
“Not with the skill of the bull Tand will you capture me.”
His second laugh was cut cleanly off, as if a door had been closed. In silence the three hurried up the ramp. Then, as through a curtain, they came into the light of Tav.
Thrala let fall her dark cloak, stood with arms outstretched in the crater land. Her sparkling robe sheathed her in glory and she sang softly, rapt in her own delight. Then Dandtan put his arm about her; she clung to him, staring about as might a beauty-bewildered child.
Garin wondered dully how he would be able to make the journey back to the Caverns when his arm and shoulder were eaten with a consuming fire. The Ana crept closer to him, peering into his white face.
They were aroused by a howl from the Caves. Thrala cried out and Dandtan answered her unspoken question. “They have set the morgels on our trail!”
The howl from the Caves was echoed from the forest. Morgels before and behind them! Garin might set himself against one, Dandtan another, and Thrala could defend herself with the rod, but in the end the pack would kill them.
“We shall claim protection from the Gibi of the cliff. By the law they must give us aid,” said Thrala, as, turning up her long robe, she began to run lightly. Garin picked up her cloak and drew it across his shoulder to hide his welts. When he could no longer hold her pace she must not guess the reason for his falling behind.
Of that flight through the forest the flyer afterward remembered little. At last the gurgle of water broke upon his pounding ears, as he stumbled along a good ten lengths behind his companions. They had come to the edge of the wood along the banks of the river.
Without hesitation Thrala and Dandtan plunged into the oily flood, swimming easily for the other side. Garin dropped the cloak, wondering if, once he stepped into the yellow stream, he would ever be able to struggle out again. Already the Ana was in, paddling in circles near the shore and pleading with him to follow. Wearily Garin waded out. The water, which washed the blood and sweat from his aching body, was faintly brackish and stung his wounds to life. He could not fight the sluggish current and it bore him downstream, well away from where the others landed. But at last he managed to win free, crawling out near where a smaller stream joined the river. There he lay panting, face down upon the moss. And there they found him, water dripping from his bedraggled finery, the Ana stroking his muddied hair. Thrala cried ou
t with concern and pillowed his head on her knees while Dandtan examined his wounds.
“Why did you not tell us?” demanded Thrala.
He did not try to answer, content to lie there, her arms supporting him. Dandtan disappeared into the forest, returning soon, his hands filled with a mass of crushed leaves. With these he plastered Garin’s wounds.
“You’d better go on,” Garin warned.
Dandtan shook his head. “The morgels can not swim. If they cross, they must go to the bridge, and that is half the crater away.”
The Ana dropped into their midst, its small hands filled with clusters of purple fruit. And so they feasted, Garin at ease on a fern couch, accepting food from Thrala’s hand.
There seemed to be some virtue in Dandtan’s leaf plaster for, after a short rest, Garin was able to get to his feet with no more than a twinge or two in his wounds. But they started on at a more sober pace. Through mossy glens and sunlit glades where strange flowers made perfume, the trail led. The stream they followed branched twice before, on the edge of meadow land, they struck away from the guiding water toward the crater wall.
Suddenly Thrala threw back her head and gave a shrill, sweet whistle. Out of the air dropped a yellow and black insect, as large as a hawk. Twice it circled her head and then perched itself on her outstretched wrist.
Its swollen body was jet black, its curving legs, three to a side, chrome yellow. The round head ended in a sharp beak and it had large, many faceted eyes. The wings, which lazily tested the air, were black and touched with gold.
Thrala rubbed the round head while the insect nuzzled affectionately at her cheek. Then she held out her wrist again and it was gone.
“We shall be expected now and may pass unmolested.”
Shortly they became aware of a murmuring sound. The crater wall loomed ahead, dwarfing the trees at its base.
“There is the city of the Gibi,” remarked Dandtan.
Clinging to the rock were the towers and turrets of many eight-sided cells.
“They are preparing for the Mists,” observed Thrala. “We shall have company on our journey to the Caverns.”
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