The Fiery Wheel

by Jean de La Hire

  Ahmed Bey let his arms fall, lowered his head and murmured: “It’s impossible!”

  A sob replied to him. Paul de Civrac wept, his head hidden in his trembling hands.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly and terrifyingly, tumultuous whistles resounded. The four Terrans turned round; in the distance, on the far side of the plateau, a host of Mercurians was running toward them.

  “We have to run,” said the Doctor. “We have to get away from them. All is not lost for Lolla.”

  “My God!” Paul sighed.

  “No, no! I’ll save her, I promise you. I’ll find a way. It will be terrible—but it’s the only practicable one. In the meantime, let’s escape. Urgently! Follow me, all of you!”

  Incarnated in the body of the Spaniard, the Doctor possessed all his vigor. He picked up Lolla Mendès, loaded her on to his shoulders, and with a single bound, leapt into the middle of the lake. Paul, Brad and Francisco launched themselves after him.

  They fell into great turbulence. At first they spun vertiginously, but they succeeded in holding on to one another. Then a current gripped them, and drew them away. Within a minute, the immense cavern and the cascades disappeared. They were speeding along a subterranean channel.

  They perceived that their glide was taking them closer to the source of the terrible rhythmic rumbling and the frightful shrill screams. Those frightful sounds were soon mingled with furious whistling—and it was as if the din of an apocalyptic battle were resounding in the mystery of immense invisible grottoes.

  Suddenly, however, the current drew the Terrans around a sharp bend, and they saw a spectacle that froze them in horror, congealed the blood in their veins and caused their limbs to tremble.

  “A new world!” cried Ahmed Bey. “A new Mercurian world! Look! Look!”

  “They’re fighting!” Paul howled, above the infernal racket.

  “We’re doomed!”

  The current was shoving them toward a shore on which, on the floor of a grotto so vast as to be unimaginable, extending as far as the eye could see, thousands of black Mercurians were rushing to assault a kind of fortress looming up in the distance, on the very edge of the golden river.

  That fortress was made of a substance as shiny as new gold and carved into facets like a diamond. Its summit was crowned by strange, incomprehensible machinery. Very tall, with complicated frameworks, they each had a base in a kind of funnel with a broad opening, aimed at the groups of besieging monopods. Nothing came out of those funnels except, at regular intervals, the shrill screams that resembled the agonized scream of thousand of human beings in agony.

  At each scream, however, a kind of tempestuous wind blew around the fort, and immediately, a group of monopods would light up, catch fire, melt and explode in a spray of sparks.

  As for the rhythmic rumbling, louder now than claps of terrestrial thunder, it was coming from inside the fortress, presumably produced by the automatic maneuvering of the extraordinary machines.

  What were those horrible engines of death? What were they projecting? Whatever they were emitting from the monstrous funnels was invisible, as invisible as the wind—and yet, in the distance, at every invisible and noisy volley, the monopods in the line of fire were struck, set ablaze and annihilated.

  Was it an electricity of another species than that known on Earth? Or was it merely an inconceivable and powerful displacement of air, driven like a projectile? And why, without anything seeming to touch them, were the monopod assailants exploding like masses of gunpowder struck by a spark?

  Mysteries! Unfathomable mysteries!

  “Look! Look!” cried Paul. “There are beings at the summit of the fortress!”

  “Mercurians!”

  “Those are yellow!”

  “And larger!”

  “They have two eyes!

  “And no trunk, no mouth!”

  “If they see us, we’re doomed!”

  “They’ve seen us! They’ve seen us! They’re directing their screaming machine at us!”

  Paul de Civrac and Ahmed Bey had exchanged these cries and exclamations while the vertiginous current of the golden river was still drawing them closer to the shore, toward the inexplicable fortress.

  For one minute of supreme anguish, they watched one of the titanic battles engaged by the inhabitants of planets in the mystery of their elements, unknown to Terrans. Evidently, the yellow Mercurians, who were launching an invisible force from the height of the diamond-bright fortress, by means of an incomprehensible black machine, which was annihilating legions of black Mercurians, were a different species, more intelligent and more knowledgeable, physiologically different from the one with which the Terrans had previously had to deal.

  What was the reason for this titanic subterranean battle, this conflagration of Mercurian species? Paul, Ahmed Bey and their companions were never to discover that.

  In any case, amid the frightful racket of shrill howls and mortal blasts, the rhythmic rumble of the apocalyptic machines, and the crazed storms of furious and desperate whistles uttered by the monopod assailants who were continually being vanquished, the horrified fugitives were only thinking about their inevitable imminent death.

  They anticipated that the blasts would be aimed in their direction, and that they would be annihilated in a matter of seconds by the formidable engine of war. How could they not be mad at that nightmarish moment?

  “Lolla! Lolla!” cried Paul, sobbing and heart-broken—and, paying no heed to the inevitability of death, the young man embraced Lolla, whom Ahmed Bey was supporting in his muscular arms.

  Francisco and Brad, in their Mercurian bodies, could only express themselves by means of inarticulate whistles. They huddled close to Ahmed Bey, trembling.

  And those men, so courageous, who had braved the most terrible of deaths a hundred times over, were finally vanquished by the horror of that unimaginable end, in the terrifying surroundings, in the midst of the nightmarish battle being fought by mysterious monsters...

  Only Ahmed Bey, presumably thanks to his knowledge of matters of the beyond, maintained an apparent calm, even though his soul was shivering—not for himself, but for Paul de Civrac and Lolla, in whose destiny he was now more interested than his own.

  “Courage!” he shouted. “Courage!”

  But none of his companions heard him. Eyes widened by fright, they saw, as they were passing directly in front of the fortress that seemed to be built with enormous blocks of gilded crystal, some kind of mirror at the top of the edifice gradually turning its blinding face toward them…and as the mirror turned, an invisible howling blast was turning, turning...

  Ineluctably, it was advancing toward them; it would reach them, scything through them and annihilating them as it passed...

  “Lolla! Lolla!” Paul moaned, gluing his lips to the white lips of the inanimate young woman—and then, vanquished by grief, he fell in a faint.

  Ahmed Bey saw him fall.

  “Lie down! Lie down!” he howled.

  He dropped Lolla Mendès beside Civrac’s body, which was being drawn away by the current. With a single movement he knocked Brad and Francisco down, and extended himself with them. Offering the entire surface of their bodies to the current, instead of merely the soles of their feet, the Terrans were dragged away with even greater rapidity...and they flew like arrows beneath the blast, which passed above them, its shrill screech multiplied a hundredfold in horrifying intensity.

  It was then that the entire phantasmagoria of flames and reflections of the cascades suddenly vanished, as if in a dream. The blinding light and dazzling sparks were succeeded by a kind of yellow-tinted twilight. The torrid head was succeeded without transition by relative coolness.

  Paul opened his eyes. “Lolla!” he stammered. “Lolla!”

  Then, sensing the young woman’s body in his arms, he remembered, recovered his presence of mind, and stammered: “Where are we?”

  “Saved!” said Ahmed Bey.

  “The blasts…the yellow Mercurian
s…the battle...oh!”

  “All that’s far behind us. When I saw you fall unconscious, drawn more rapidly by the current of the river, my mind was illuminated by the thought that we were conclusively saved. I dropped Lolla and knocked Brad and Francisco down. I lay down myself, and we passed safe and sound through the empty space providentially contrived between the projecting of burning wind and the surface of the river. The current immediately dragged us into a narrow tunnel, where we are now...”

  “Shall we remain lying down?” Paul asked.

  “No, let’s get up, in order to be more easily able to use our arms and hands.”

  All four of them stiffened and get to their feet. The Doctor picked up Lolla’s body again. She was still in the same condition of mysterious coma. Huddling close together, they could see the black walls of the narrow tunnel speeding by.

  Gradually, the rumbling and howling decreased in intensity, and were soon no longer audible. The calm after the din was so strange and profound that for a minute or two the Terrans doubted the reality of the Mercurian battle, an episode to which they had been witness and to which they had almost fallen victim. Their senses had been too greatly affected, however, for them to be able to believe that it had been a collective hallucination or nightmare. The memory of it alone caused them to tremble.

  “Let’s think about the future, not the past,” said the Doctor, who noticed that impression and even experienced it himself. “We’ll surely find ourselves among the Mercurians again, for the current of this little river is diminishing in its rapidity, which leads me to believe that we’ll soon emerge from the mountain on to a plain...”

  “There are four of us now,” said Paul. “We’ll be able to escape the monsters if they attack us again…always provided that we’re dealing with black Mercurians, not the yellow ones...”

  “Oh,” said the Doctor, “how I’d love to fathom the mysteries of this disconcerting planet! But we’ll come back later! We’ll come back, and it won’t be dangerous then!” He paused for a moment, thoughtfully, and then said: “Monsieur de Civrac, I’m so much more hopeful of saving us that I only ask for a quarter of an hour’s respite to disincarnate Lolla, and all of us immediately thereafter...”

  “What are you going o do?” Paul asked. “You mentioned a terrible means.”

  “Terrible, yes, and hazardous; it offers us one chance of success and ninety-nine of failure, but it’s the only one we have left. And in our situation, a one per cent chance isn’t to be neglected...”

  “But what is this means? What does it involve?”

  “You’ll know soon enough.” The tone in which Ahmed Bey pronounced those words made Paul understand that it would be futile to insist.

  A quarter of an hour went by. The golden river because less and less rapid. Suddenly, the Terrans saw the luminous orifice of the tunnel in the distance. A few minutes later, they emerged into bright light, in the middle of a vast plain, unlimited on three sides. To their left, however, mountains rose up in the far distance.

  “The plain will be fatal to us,” Paul said. “The heat and light are too intense there, and the tortures of thirst will soon be added. Let’s abandon the river and try to reach those mountains over there. We can climb them, and from the top, we might be able to see which way the twilight zone lies. There we’ll be safe from the Mercurians as well as the heat and light. Perhaps we’ll have a chance of rainfall, if we stay there long enough.

  “I approve of the idea of reaching the mountains,” Ahmed Bey replied, “but there’s no reason to fear thirst. I only ask for a quarter of an hour of immobility—and, above all, of shade. Yes, shade, in order that disincarnated souls will be visible to me. In the intense light of the plain, the pale sparks that souls are would remain invisible. In the shadow of the twilight zone, or simply some grotto, I’d be able to see them, and to do what’s necessary to capture them.”

  “Let’s quit the river, then.”

  “Yes.”

  The order was communicated to Brad and Francisco, and a few diagonal bounds too the Terrans to the river-bank. Ahmed Bey was still carrying the inanimate Lolla. Paul wanted to take her.

  “No,” said the Doctor. “You’re still weak because of your injured foot and the fall in the cataract. I have Francisco’s muscular legs and supple torso. I’ll keep Lolla Mendès…and let’s head for the mountains, as quickly as possible.”

  During the journey, Paul de Civrac looked at Lolla’s watch—which he was still carrying in his belt—several times. Every time, though, he saw the crazed hands rotating around the dial with somersaults and rapid surges, like the needle of a broken compass. Another inexplicable effect of the planet Mercury!

  They were leaping through fields of russet grass of wearing monotony. There was not a single breath of wind, not a single tree or animal; it was a desert, in an extraordinary light and heat. Fortunately, there were no Mercurians. The fugitives took very little rest, so overexcited were their nerves. They knew that, according to what Ahmed Bey said, their miraculous return to Earth was imminent. It was necessary to reach either a shady grotto or the twilight zone of the Mercurian globe—and immediately afterwards, there would be salvation!

  Such thoughts gave the Terrans wings; even though they had one leg fewer than Paul and Ahmed Bey, Brad and Francisco made such good use of their Mercurian bodies that they were traveling and bounding just as rapidly as the column’s leaders.

  When they arrived at the base of the mountain, however, they saw that it rose up sheerly, presenting a smooth wall for more than three hundred meters.

  “Let’s go along the cliff,” said Ahmed Bey. “We’ll find a ravine, gorge or cavern eventually.”

  He turned to the right. For two mortal hours the fugitives followed the abrupt wall. Above them the eternal clods were traveling heavily through the sky, driven by winds they could not feel and passing over the mountains, the top of the cliff not reaching their height.

  Thanks to their Mercurian bodies, Brad and Francisco were indefatigable, but Ahmed Bey, laden with Lolla’s weight, and Paul de Civrac, weakened by his recent adventures, and both more sensitive to the murderous climate of the strange planet, began to pant heavily. They understood that they would soon be utterly exhausted.

  “Will this cliff never end?” said Ahmed Bey, petulantly.

  “I can’t do any more,” Paul stammered.

  At that moment, however, the cliff had an abrupt bend, and the fugitives stopped, astonished by the spectacle.

  In truth, the Mercurian world was one of continual surprises. Before the Terrans’ eyes a cavern of colossal dimensions opened in the mountain. So far as Ahmed Bey and Paul could judge, it must have measured at least five hundred meters in depth, a kilometer in breadth and two hundred meters in height. And on the floor of the fantastic grotto, an agglomeration of some forty huts was located.

  At the appearance of the two Terrans, followed by the two false Mercurians, a few monopods that happened to be outside the huts started uttering whistles and disappearing behind the pyramids.

  “We’re your prisoners, Francisco!” Paul de Civrac shouted. “We’ll go into a hut, where you’ll seem to be imprisoning us. Brad will go in with us. You’re a chief; so, silent and dignified, you can stop anyone else coming in.”

  With a movement of his trunk, Francisco made it known that he understood, and would play his part. With Ahmed Bey still carrying Lolla, Paul behind him, Brad mounting guard over his pretended prisoners, and Francisco taking the lead, the group advanced toward the nearest hut. At the same time, a hundred monopods surged from all directions, filling the air with furious whistles.

  “Look!” said Paul. “These have red skins!”

  “That’s true,” said Ahmed Bey. “Another Mercurian race, undoubtedly. And look, their trunks are shorter and their eyes black.”

  “But they’re running at us, as enemies!” Paul exclaimed. “They’re yet another race, different from the ones with the machines.”

  “Damn!
Fortunately, all I need is a quarter of an hour of tranquility.”

  Meanwhile, the red monopods stopped short, having arrived within twenty paces of the group in a fury. Their arms pointed at Paul and Ahmed Bey. Their eyes were incontestably expressing extreme amazement, and they were no longer whistling. The new Mercurians were obviously as brutal as the black ones, because they bore no resemblance to the intelligent monopods who manipulated the marvelous and terrible machines in the underworld.

  “They’re cutting off our route to the hut,” said Paul.

  “Let’s try to go through the middle of them. Keep going, Francisco...”

  But before Francisco could make another leap, twenty red monopods had leapt on him and he fell. Brad raced to his aid.

  “I don’t understand...” said Paul.

  “The red race is the enemy of the black,” hissed the Doctor. “To the hut! To the hut! Brad and Francisco will get out of it.”

  Veering to the right, Paul and Ahmed Bey started running toward one of the pyramidal cabins. They had just reached it when a black body bounded over the hut and, landing at their feet, swiftly opened the door.

  “Bravo, Francisco!” Paul exclaimed.

  Following Ahmed Bey, who plunged in first through the low doorway, with Lolla, Paul went in. Francisco and Brad hastened after them. The slab of slate that closed the door from within was raised again, and Brad and Francisco braced themselves against it.

  Thousand of furious whistles resounded outside.

  Ahmed Bey had immediately deposited Lolla on the ground in the middle of the hut. He knelt down at her feet, facing her.

  “Monsieur de Civrac,” he said, “kneel down to Mademoiselle’s left. Now close your ears to the noises from outside. Don’t think about the dangers that might still threaten us, but from which we’re separated by the thickness of the door, which Brad and Francisco are supporting. The moment is critical—listen to me.”

  In the gloomy interior of the hut, which only a little light entered through a hole contrived at the summit, Brad and Francisco, solidly braced against the door, watched the Doctor with their red eyes. Paul, kneeling by Lolla’s side, waited, his soul suddenly tortured by an inexplicable anguish. Lying there, Lolla seemed to be dead, her eyes closed, her lips bloodless, her cheeks white and her forehead as icy as marble. Kneeling at her feet, facing her, the Doctor reflected momentarily, with his head bowed.