“—SYDYK of Uighur, of the courtyard of the Lady Ma-Lin, being son to her marshal, one U-Val. In your fifteenth year you departed for fleet training, serving under.”
Names, a roll of names, ringing through Ray’s head. The voice droned on and on with details from the life of one Sydyk, and though Ray tried to shut his ears, or his mind, to them, he found that he could not. He was held in thrall by that voice, and what it conveyed to his mind could not be erased either, making him conscious of all the minutiae of Sydyk’s life. At the same time, though he could not open his eyes to see, he was aware of hands on his body, sensations on his skin of wet and cold, strange odors.
“You were taken by Murian guards, but you managed to win free, putting the onus of treachery upon the novice RuGen, saying that he had approached you for passage out of Mu and that you had refused him. The crew of the Cleave Wave will also be mind-set in this story. You will follow these orders. Two hours after you drop anchor off the frontier post of U-MaChal, you must contrive to come to shore alone—follow the curve of the beach north until you reach two pointed rocks standing very tall. There you await the coming of a small boat. He who commands it will say, ‘The east rises,’ and you will reply, ‘The west falls.’ You will enter the boat and do what must be done.”
What—why? He was caught in a net, vainly trying to fight to freedom.
“For a month you will watch and do what has been set upon you. Then, for a space of three days, a ship of the fleet, disguised as a fruit carrier from the south, will be off the harbor of the Five Walled City. She will fly a plague flag to keep off boarders. You must, if you can, reach her before the fourth day. Do you understand?”
Though he did not, Ray felt his head move in an answering nod.
“You are Sydyk out of Uighur!”
Ray opened his eyes. He was looking into the reflective surface of a mirror at a man with a brown-yellow skin and black hair falling in greasy locks about a face that, by some art, was older and coarser than his own.
“Your clothing.”
A hand appeared at one side of the mirror and indicated a bundle of stuffs waiting on a stool. He put on the rough cloth undertunic and a leather jerkin and kilt, dyed blue but stained with salt and smelling of sweat and the sea. Instead of sandals, there were sea boots of hide with a small fringe of natural hair left about their tops. His fingernails were rough and had heavy deposits of black under them. Grime lines were deep-etched in the skin of his hands. Where that small tattoo was on his wrist, a broad band of copper braceleted the skin. There was a plain sword belt of black leather and a bronze helmet without a crest.
“It is done, as well as we may,” said a voice behind him, though he saw no face in the mirror over his shoulder. “Remember to slouch as you walk; you are from the far frontier, with no manners. What are you doing?” The voice was sharp, alert. Ray ran a hand along his right arm and then the other along the left. What he searched for he could not quite remember. Black, yes, it was black! And he should wear it here—and it was highly important to him!
He tried again to fight off the mist that imprisoned his mind.
“Black.” In the mirror he saw his lips frame the word. “Black armlet—mine!”
Suddenly he could see it as clearly in his mind as he saw this strange reflection in the mirror. The black armlet was his. He would not stir from this place until they gave it to him! And he fixed upon that with strange stubbornness, as if it offered some safety now.
There was movement behind him, although he could see nothing in the mirror. But now he was able to turn, as if it were a difficult business to get his reluctant body to obey him in even so small and ordinary a thing.
There were three of them. The first an officer by his dress; then one in a serving man’s tunic, who was now busy with a box of small pots and bottles, over whose shoulder hung a towel stained yellow-brown like the new color of Ray’s skin; and, lastly, a Naacal. It was in the priest’s hands that Ray saw what he sought—a black armlet of serpents with diamond eyes. He reached for it.
“It would betray him to the first Atlantean who saw it. No trader would wear such a treasure.” The officer moved to intercept him.
But the Naacal looked at Ray. “I do not know. That he wishes it so strongly now, this is not to be lightly dismissed. Why would you have this, my son?”
To Ray that black band was a smoldering, living thing. He needed it; he must have it—it was his and they could not take it!
“Mine!” His voice was close to a snarl; his hand went to the dagger at his belt. The world, the room, narrowed to the armlet and his need for it.
But it seemed that he would not have to fight for it after all, for the Naacal, still regarding him with that deep, probing gaze, now held it out to him, his other hand waving back the officer.
“There is a reason, even if he, nor we, know it not for now. But do not wear that openly, my son.”
Ray fondled the coolness of the band. No, to wear it would be dangerous; he must keep it out of sight—to be safe, very safe. He put it inside his tunic with satisfaction.
“Listen now.” There was such authority in the priest’s voice that Ray looked at him squarely. “You will perhaps come to believe that what we have done this night is an evil thing for you. But time and fate left us no other choice in our hour of need. No man of the motherland could put on the semblance of Sydyk and thus open closed gates for our eyes. We knew that the Shadow could not bar you when you went before into its lurking place. Therefore, we must put hand again to the weapon you give us. There is this: under the power of the Flame we read the sparks and the stars. Although death shall be as a cloud over you, a cloak about your shoulders during the days before you, still, y by our reading, it will claim you not. Rather will it be that what you carry in naked hands is more potent than any sword. We use you now without consent because we are driven to such measures. And you may hate us for that. Yet still.” He paused. “Go in peace a with the blessing, the nine times’ blessing of the Flame.” His hands moved in a gesture, as if he drew some unseen substance out of the air, filled his palms with it, and then held them up to shower what he had so invisibly gathered upon the American.
The officer moved forward. “Your ship sails at daybreak. Within ten days you should be at the meeting place. During the passage of the canal stay below deck, saying you are fevered. Your mate will act as captain. Now—we shall go.”
It must have been early morning as he came out of the palace on the heels of the officer, with a couple of guardsmen trailing him. But he knew that he could not escape. Whatever compulsion they had set upon him in the citadel kept him marching, would move him, as a chessman is moved, until he accomplished what they wished of him. For the moment his mind was numb and dull, having sunk into a fog once his small battle for the armlet was won. He no longer possessed a spark of rebellion.
They came to the docks, to a grain ship. A man challenged them from its shadowed deck. Ray blinked in lantern light.
“Captain.” the seaman greeted him. “All is in readiness.”
“This is the mate, Ra-Pan.” Some inner portion of the American’s mind supplied a name.
“We sail at dawn.” Ray returned.
“Aye, sir.”
The officer from the citadel and the guards did not linger. When they had gone with no farewells, Ray stood by the rail. Above the harbor lay the city. Lights gleamed here and there, but only a few. The city still slept. Ray stirred restlessly. Back there—he frowned—it was so hard to think. Sydyk out of Uighur, he was Sydyk out of Uighur. He must not, he dared not, now try to think beyond that.
Dawn was here now. Ra-Pan moved across the deck. Ray turned to him with words already on his tongue as if prepared for him to say.
“I do not feel well. Do you take command for me.”
And the mate appeared to find nothing amiss in that. Ray went below to a small, dark cabin. Uncurtained alcoves opened from it. He threw himself on a bunk in the one that was Sydyk’s. Though he tried to sleep, over and over in his mind tumbled thoughts and memories that were Sydyk’s and that made him indeed feel feverish and ill. So he got up to drink stale water from a jug. But finally sleep came, and it was dreamless.
Ray awoke shivering, chilled. A wooden trencher, with two corn-flour cakes and a strip of meat, awaited him on the table in the outer cabin. He choked down the bread, but the smell of the meat made him queasy, and he left it, going out on deck. There was a strong wind blowing, and they were on the open sea. Ra-Pan was by the wheelman. Parts of Sydyk’s knowledge of the ship and its workings were Ray’s to call upon, and he had been assured that the crew had been conditioned by some means to accept him as their rightful commander. But it would be very easy to make some error and awaken suspicion. He looked eastward. There, half the world away, lay Atlantis. And he did not even know what he was to do there when he arrived—if he arrived. Yet he was also certain that he could not make a single move that would not lead him to Atlantis.
They passed the canal, needing to wait their turn, so Ray spent three days below in the stale-smelling cabin. Then they were in the Inner Sea.
“We stop at Manoa.” Ra-Pan made one of his infrequent observations one evening.
It was not a suggestion but a statement. Ray’s warning sense instantly awoke. This had not been planned. And self-preservation, he had come to believe, would follow only the obeying of those orders laid upon him.
“That is not so. We go on to U-Ma-Chal.”
Ra-Pan frowned. “This is not as always.”
Were the controls the Naacals had set on the crewmen beginning to break? If so, the whole ship’s company might mutiny.
“That does not matter.” Ray tried to turn upon the Uighurian the same compelling stare the priests used. He had to convince Ra-Pan that this was proper or else they would account for him before the mission was well begun.
“Do you refuse my orders?” he demanded sharply.
It was as if the mate tried to look away but could not. He wet his lips with his tongue.
“Always it has been Manoa.”
Was there or was there not an uncertain note in that? Ray hoped there was. But from now on he must be alert that Ra-Pan or some other did not question him more.
“But now it is U-Ma-Chal!” he said with emphasis. Ra-Pan nodded, the dull look once more in his eyes.
So the American watched the crew. He ate only of food he saw the mate taste, slept with a sword ready to hand, and tried to rest as little as possible.
Seven days more and they were at the eastern entrance of the sea. The open weather appeared also to be at an end; the night sky was cloudy. Ray stood close to the rail, trying to see the beacon light of the town. Within his tunic something sharp pressed into his chest. His fingers closed upon the armlet. In all the world there was but one other like it
Who had said that? When? A white band—belonging to someone he had known long ago. He drew out the armlet and turned it around in his hand, fighting to recapture memory. The diamond eyes flashed sparks.
“Ah.”
Ray closed his fist upon the band. Ra-Pan stood there. The dullness was gone from his eyes. He stared at Ray’s closed fingers as if he could see through flesh and bone.
“What do you want?” the American demanded. “You should be at the wheel.”
“I came to ask if we make port this night—“ But still he stared at the hand rather than looked to Ray’s face.
“Have I not already said so? Get to your post!”
In spite of the American’s fears, the mate tramped away. Ray shivered once more. He was very near to this part of the venture, and he did not want to know what the next would be.
“The fort signals, Captain!” the lookout called at a flash from shore. “They wish to know our mission.”
“Ra-Pan”—Ray saw in this his chance, or thought he did—”go you to answer them.”
He half expected the mate to object, but the Uighurian obeyed, rowed ashore by two of the crew. Ray made his own preparations in haste. He got a dinghy overboard and, alone at the oars, pulled along, using the nearby shoreline as his guide. A murmur of voices from the shore, carrying over the waves, startled him.
“Worth six months’ wages, and he carries it under his tunic. Who will ever know? Kill him, or pluck him and leave him for the priests of Ba-Al. They might even pay us for him.”
A lower answering mutter and then a sharp rebuttal. “Sydyk? No, they have done some of their cursed thought-meddling. That is not Sydyk, I tell you. They have set one of their own men in his place. And that bit of news is worth a fat reward from the east!”
Ray stopped rowing. So, the conditioning no longer held with the mate. And to leave the man behind him—no. He could see them now, shadows against a patch of white sand where they stood arguing. One thrust of the oars ought to take him in far enough, and there were only two
He gave that last push, putting into it all the strength he could muster. Dropping the oars, Ray leaped to the wave-washed sand. He saw those shadows swing around, and one skidded a little, but a sword glinted in the other’s hand.
“I think you will make no sales to Ba-Al this night!” Ray cried. Stooping, he scooped up sand and hurled it as a cloud into the swordsman’s face. Then he was on the other, striking with the side of his hand, kicking upward in the style of fighting for which this enemy was unprepared.
There was a cut-off gasp, and the other fell. Ray, half by instinct, ducked and pivoted, ready to tackle the other assailant. He bore him back with a rush until they both crashed, and then he heard a sickening crack of skull against rock and got to his feet again unharmed, but breathing hard. One of the seamen lay in a heap against a rock, very still, and the other was stretched upon the sand.
Ray went to him. There was no pulse under the American’s seeking fingers. He pulled at the inert body, dragging it to lie beside the other, and set about shoveling sand over them. Whether they had any confederates he did not know, but at least he had gained some time.
It was not until he left that strip of beach, having taken the further precaution of setting his boat to drift bottom up, that reaction struck. Long ago he had learned the tricks of such warfare, but he could not remember that ever before had he dealt death with his hands. He plowed on through the sand, seeking some trace of the rocks that marked his meeting place. Inside him the cold grew, yet there was no turning from this path, nor any return to the person he sensed he had once been before Sydyk of Uighur had been sent to invade his mind.
The cold grew, and he had left his cloak in the boat, tangled about one of the seats, a mute answer, he hoped, to any suspicion that Captain Sydyk had not met with disaster. The air had frost in it, and Ray swung his arms vigorously for warmth.
Then he rounded a point of land, and before him, so massive and unmistakable as to be easily sighted, even on this cloudy night, were two pointed rocks. Certainly this was the meeting place. But if so, he was early; there was no one waiting.
Ray set his back to the nearest rock and looked out to sea. Tonight he had killed with his hands. He discovered that he was flexing his fingers, then rubbing them up and down against him, as if to brush off more than sand. They would have killed him, perhaps not at this hour and here, but in a much less merciful way, by revealing him to the Atlanteans. Ray had a dim memory of a man lying on an altar in a red-walled temple waiting a death blow. That would have been his portion, if not worse. Still—he continued to rub his hands.
Then he started away from the rock. Sounds came from across the water, the faint grate of what might be oar in oarlock on some would-be silent boat. Ray moved to the water’s edge. A skiff came in through the surf, two muffled figures aboard her.
“The east rises.” The voice was guttural, deep in the throat.
“The west falls.” Ray made answer in a half-whisper.
“Let us be gone. The rats of Mu keep watch, and we are too near the fort for comfort.”
Ray waded out to the skiff.
“It is well you are prompt,” commented the Atlantean. “They patrol often nowadays, and we dare not linger long. You came alone?”
Did that seem suspicious? But the Naacal had not warned him.
“I was betrayed.”
“By whom? And—were you followed?”
“By Ra-Pan, my mate. The Murians got to him,” Ray improvised. “But he is dead.”
“So? Well done.”
The oarsman sent them on with swift, sure strokes. They were now beyond the protection of the headlands, and the sea air was even colder. Ray could not control his shivers, though he tried hard. Out of the dark arose a hull, a peaked cabin roof against the sky. They bumped the side of a vessel, and a rope ladder was guided into Ray’s hands. He climbed to the deck. No lights, not even a shielded deck lantern. They must indeed be afraid of being sighted. Then one of the men from the skiff caught him by the arm and steered him on.
“Below with you. We must get under way.”
They went down a steep ladder and pushed between the flaps of a leather curtain into the main cabin. Red-painted walls, hung with an amazing collection of weapons, boxed about them. The floor was a checkerboard of black and white, marred and stained with grime. There was the odor of spilled wine, unwashed humans, and even more unpleasant reminders that the commander of this ship was not dainty in his habits.
But also there was a jumble of what might have been loot, as could be seen in a ship that had been raiding. There were metal plates as well as crude earthenware ones on the table. Silken hangings, rent and fouled, lay on the benches. The table itself was a thing of beauty, dark wood inlaid with designs of silver and ivory, though much scarred and scratched.
Ray’s Atlantean guide dropped his cloak on a bench and poured wine from a begemmed flagon into a battered goblet.
“Down this. It is a chill night. A man needs a little fire to run in his veins.”
Had his shudders been so apparent, Ray wondered? He could only hope they were attributed to the cold wind. He drank and choked, but turned that into a cough. Over the goblet rim he studied his host. The Atlantean was shorter by an inch or two than himself, thick of upper arm and shoulder, the width of which was somewhat balanced by a sizable paunch. His long arms ended in huge hairy paws of hands.
Unlike the Murians, who were always smooth of face, a black beard grew in a thick mat to his cheekbones. A liberal application of grease had been used to shape that growth into a point touching his upper chest. Out of this his lips showed startlingly thick and red, so brightly red that one could almost believe he had applied some coloring to them.
Though he sported so full a beard, he showed, as he now put aside a crestless bronze helmet, that his skull had been shaven except for a single thick lock at the crown. Also greased, this was wreathed about the dome of his brown skull.
He grinned, showing yellow teeth, and patted the midsection of a silken tunic stained with food droppings. His golden belt, Ray thought, had never been fashioned to contain that paunch. It was closed by a loop of chain that added several inches to its length.
“Welcome to the Black Hawk, brother. I am Captain Taut. Those of Mu have no reason to look upon me with favor, though the pickings are lean these days when all their merchantmen sulk protected in the Inner Sea.”
Ray put down his goblet and waved aside the gesture of refilling it. “I am Sydyk out of Uighur.”
“Ho—but you are a seaman. Broken officer from the fleet? They join us now and again. How does the motherland these days?”
Ray forced a laugh. “You seem to be a reader of pasts, Captain Mu—they begin there to wake at last. I got free only in time.”
Captain Taut nodded. “Well, I have always said that the Murians are far too trusting, but they cannot be thought utterly blind. Now, you seem to have had something of a wetting, Sydyk—off with those wet rags.” He went to rummage in a chest, returning with new clothing.
“Good stuff. Got them off a ship we took in the North Sea before they signaled them in. Belonged to some officer. He met Ba-Al, or so I heard.”
Reluctantly but not daring to show his dislike, Ray put on the dead man’s clothing. Stealthily he transferred the jet armlet into new hiding.
“Turn in if you wish.” Captain Taut pointed to one of the alcoves. “We do not raise land until tomorrow.” He went out, leaving Ray alone. Choosing a bunk that seemed less odorous than the rest, he stretched out wearily. He had come so far—but what waited beyond the next hour, the next day?
RAY did not dream of trees that night, but he ran and walked through scenes that flowed curiously one into another, so that he was both an onlooker and a participant in action. He was Sydyk of Uighur, reliving past years. Yet he was also another, standing apart, watching Sydyk because there was a desperate need to learn and remember all that Sydyk had done and been.
It was a cry of “Land ho!” that awoke Ray at last. He lay for a moment or two, feeling heavy and unrefreshed. There was the sound of feet crossing the deck, a muffled calling of orders. Taut had said land on the morrow. He must have slept long, sunken in those dreams.
Slowly he sat up. On a neighboring stool lay the salt crystaled clothing of Sydyk, dry now but wrinkled and yet further discolored by the wetting of the nigh before. Still he would rather wear that than the plundered garments. As he went on deck, he was still buckling on his sword belt.
“Holla!” Captain Taut was by the wheelman. “You must have been greatly wearied, friend, to sleep so deeply through the hours. So, you wish to see the first of the Red Land? We have been favored by Ba-Al. A following wind is behind us. I have laid a wager of five silver pieces we shall raise harbor well before night. And this time I shall be glad to anchor there. The rats of Mu grow keener-sighted, and their teeth are sharp.” He grinned and strode a step or two nearer the rail, to spit into the sea. “It is lean picking when the merchant-men come not into the North Sea. But the Poseidon’s service promises more than just hard knocks and nor loot, though they had better come true soon, those golden promises. And, friend, I care not if you repeat those words to Chronos’s—the Poseidon’s—ugly face... We wolves of the north are no sworn liege men of his, if, we do choose to ally with him upon occasion. We want more than just fair promises. Now, what say you to loaf bread and other good fill for the belly—none of that black stuff that tastes of dust and black beetles, such as you find on Chronos’s own ships—‘
He led Ray back to the cabin. And the food, though it was dished up in a strange collection of mismatched plates, was better than any Ray had eaten since he left Mu. It would seem that such fare was one of Captain Taut’s self-indulgences and something upon which he prided himself.
“I thought”—Ray waved away another dish the captain urged upon him—”that you were of the Atlantean fleet.”
“Of the fleet!” Captain Taut stared. “Me—Taut? Not so—I am a free captain. There are ten like men who harbor now at the Five Walled City. But only for now, mind you, only for now. There were no pickings elsewhere—and the Poseidon has big plans. But we own no man master; our quarrel lies with full-bellied merchantmen and the Murians who hold swords between us and that we would take. However, had they spoken up as loud and clear as Chronos, talked of our looting the Red Land, we would have chosen to stand with Mu. They keep their promises. But Mu will have none of us. Now when we must take sides, we harbor at Atlantis. There, too, is our free town of Sanpar. Chronos sent his emissary to speak us straightly—as straightly as he can speak. We know well that a man watches before him, to each side, and turns often to look across his shoulder when he comes to the Red Land. But Chronos has need of us, so we raise his banner—always making sure that there is no shadow reaching toward us from the shore. We have no love for Chronos. He is over free with ordering this and that. One learns early the need for a slight deafness in that direction. And he sends men to Ba-Al, or to that new devil come at the Red Robes’ call—the Loving One.
“It is with us like strange wolves meeting in the forests of the Barren Lands. Both growl, sniff, show fangs, but do not strike lest they provoke their own deaths. Fear and hate can be evenly matched to one’s fortune. So we wait and watch, fangs ready for some day when he thinks he has the greater power.”
“Ten ships of you?”
“Ten ships, and a berth on this one for you, friend, if you will it. We can use seamen who are not pledged to the Red Land. I do not think, and this I say in warning, Sydyk, that such a one as you will discover Chronos so generous a master that you will remain long in his service. When you have had enough of the smell of fear in his fine palace, come to the sea wolves. I warn you that though a man sweats blood in his service, the day comes when he will cast you forth without a piece of silver to your betterment, if he does not send you to Ba-Al. When he needed a ship to send for you, he named mine because I have some weight among the free captains, and if the Murians took me, he would smile, not pour any sop of wine to ease the thirst of my hungry ghost.
“We return; thus he has lost a small part of his gamble. The news you bear had better, for your sake, be worth such disappointment to him. But, remember, come to us if you need refuge.”
“Why do you offer this? You know nothing of me,” puzzled Ray.
The captain’s heavy shoulders rose and fell in an exaggerated shrug. “Why? I know not. Perhaps because you are young and a seaman like unto us. I have no liking for Ba-Al, nor for the red-robed crows who croak in his temples. Or perhaps it is because I would frustrate Chronos, if only by so little. Hark.” They heard a new stir from the deck. “Come aloft. It would seem that I have won my wager, and we come now to harbor.”
Ray was eager to see the main port of Atlantis. It was set on a wide bay with a narrow entrance. Beyond lay the city, not as brightly gleaming as the Murian capital but far more somber with its dark walls.
“Chronos’s hold. They say it cannot be stormed because of its five walls and three canals. But”—Taut grinned again—”that has never yet been tested. Give me a hundred swords of the proper sort and a small smile or two from fortune—then—then we might just prove that belief false.”
Ray glanced at the wolfish crew in the waist of the vessel. It seemed to him that their united stare at the shoreline reflected a fierce hunger.
“I believe you,” he returned.
Taut laughed. “Chronos would not. Remember, if you have need, come to us.”
The raider worked its way in through a mass of shipping and anchored a little beyond the docks, where merchantmen were tied up. A small boat was lowered, and two of the seamen climbed down to it. Ray nodded to the captain.
“May the Sun.” He stopped short, aware that some trick of memory had played him false. His hand went to sword hilt, though he had no chance of defense.
But the raider captain only gave him a sharp look. “Guard your tongue better, Sydyk. You have been too long in Murian lands. Here they may strike first and ask questions afterward, if they hear such a greeting. Get you gone! But remember, we lie here.”
Ray climbed over the rail, bewildered. Down in the boat he sat quietly, his eyes on the dock toward which they rowed but his thoughts occupied with Captain Taut. That unusual insistence that Ray seek him out if he got into trouble—why? Judging by his background, the raider would be far more likely to sell him out as soon as he gained a hint that Sydyk was more—or less—than he seemed. Suspicion was the necessary shield for Ray now; trust was too expensive to hold to
A man wearing plain body armor stood on the dock as Ray disembarked.
“Whence come you, stranger?” There was a kind of insolent contempt in his demand.
“Uighur,” Ray answered shortly.
“And your name might be Sydyk—?”
“It might.”
“If it is, you come with me,” returned the soldier. “If it is not, you will discover that it is not safe to play childish games—not with those who now await you.”
The Atlantean set off through the crowd, and Ray matched strides to his. A wall of red stone arose high over their heads a small distance from the dockside. They skirted this until a gate, overhung with the pointed teeth of a portcullis, opened. The soldier spoke to the guard, and they were passed to a narrow bridge over a canal where dark water swirled and rippled.
This bridge ended in another gate, this time in a gray-white wall. And then a second sweep of water with a bridge across to a black wall and a third canal. The Atlantean spoke.
“See you the guards of Atlantis? They have been well designed. If any enemy dares to come to test us, those gates will be barred and the bridges all withdrawn. There is no army that can win past such safeguards as these.”
Ray thought of Captain Taut’s boast that with the right sort of followers, he could give the city dwellers something to think about. To Ray these defenses appeared too formidable, if the enemy came armed only with such weapons as he had already seen in use.
Two more walls had to be passed after the last canal before they were in the city. The buildings were of three colors, red, black, and gray-white. Those, too, looked as if they had been erected with an eye to their possible future use as fortifications.
There was a different race walking the streets. They did not have the fair skins or the height of the Murians, and there were many more armed men among them. They spoke their guttural tongue as if they did not o want to be overheard, even by their close neighbors. The city of Chronos had a smell to it, one that had nothing to do with the normal odors born of many people living close together. No, this was the smell of fear. Ray wondered how he knew that, but he was sure it was true.
His guide brought him to a large square. Directly facing them was what had once been a majestic temple of white marble. But now it looked as if it had been deliberately defaced and despoiled. Ray noted that the Atlanteans made a business of avoiding any close approach to it. Before the wide steps leading to what had been the temple platform were two pillars draped in dull crimson cloth, now tattered and dusty.
The soldier laughed and pointed. “See the temple of the Flame, built by those from Mu? Our fathers of Ba-Al handled it somewhat roughly on the day when our Dark One came into his own.”
“Why are the pillars veiled?” Ray asked.
“It is forbidden to speak of those.” The soldier glanced sharply from left to right. “Come.” He quickened his pace across the square. But still they must pass close to the defaced temple, and as they did so, the Atlantean again pointed to a chipped and broken line running along one wall, about the height of a man’s breast. Rusty brown stains were in the stone there.
“That was where we stood the Sun-born, and those who served them, when we made a final end. They did not cry out, even when, death took them. They are stubborn, those Sun-born. Their children were given to Ba-Al, and it is said not even the youngest cried. They have courage—but that is all. And courage will not cloak or shield them against the will of Ba-Al. Now they have gone, save for a few in the slime pits and those given to the priests for experiments.”
“What will happen to those in the slime pits?” Ray did not look again at that wall. He fought against the picture that his imagination, aroused by the guide’s words, had painted for him.
“They are brought forth sometimes and questioned. The Poseidon keeps them for some purpose. Come, it grows late.”
“Tell me,” he said a moment later. “You have seen Mu, man from Uighur. Is the motherland as rich as stories say?”
“It seemed so to me.”
“And the Sun-born, there are many of them?”
Ray thought he saw a chance to plant a small seed of doubt. “Very many—and they have strong powers there. It is their ancient homeland.”
“Chronos has promised us their women when the men are sent to the altars of Ba-Al. We shall fall upon Mu, and their powers will not aid them. Then all the riches shall also be ours, and those not of the Sun-born will be our slaves. So does Ba-Al promise!” There was complete confidence in the Atlantean’s voice.
Ray’s fingers curled, as if about to reach for the soldier. Memory was not too dim any more. Things were breaking through the overlaid crust of Sydyk since he walked this city. To think of the Lady Aiee—the Lady Ayna so used…
“It may not be so easy. I have seen the Murians. They are good warriors—not just children to be swept easily from one’s path.”
“Ah—but they have no Loving One,” observed the other. “Now, down there is the temple of Ba-Al.”
A huge building of red stone squatted at the end of a wide avenue. But Ray caught no more than a hasty glimpse of it before they turned into another street and so came to the Poseidon’s palace. Here the Atlantean left him with an officer of the guard.
Through long dark corridors, for any windows were set far apart and high, hardly more than slits in the thick stone, up narrow and winding stairs, they went. There was a damp chill, in this place of many shadows, to set one shivering. It was far more a sullen fortress than a palace, bearing no resemblance to that of the Re Mu. At last they came to a small archway that gave on a court lying open under the sky.
The officer announced Ray. “The man from Uighur.”
He advanced a step or two, very much aware that this was the real test of the part he played and that the least fraction of a mistake, such as the one he had made before Taut, would mean his death. He was Sydyk, and must be only Sydyk. There was no other safety for him.
“Well, where is he, where is he?” someone demanded querulously. “Bid him step out to be seen, Magos.”
“Come hither, man out of Uighur,” was the order. Ray came into the light, which was that of sunset.
“You are late,” complained the first voice.
“There were delays, Dread Lord,” replied Ray with caution.
“Come! Come here!”
Ray approached a gold couch and went quickly to his knees, his head bowed, hoping he looked the perfect humbled and awed servant.
“Look up, look up! Let me see what manner of man you are, Sydyk of Uighur!”
This was Chronos, Poseidon of Atlantis—as he had seen him once in a dream. No, it was danger to remember that, now and here, in this company.
Small eyes in a bloated, fat cheeked face under a fringe of perfumed and elaborately curled hair; fat hands postured back and forth in studied gestures, now and then lifting to the pouting lips some dainty from a heaped plate standing on a small side table at the ruler’s elbow. Beside him, but standing, was a red-robed priest, shaven of skull, very bright of eyes. Ray thought that he was more to be feared than the Poseidon he professed to serve.
“Will the Dread One be pleased to hear the words of this his slave?” Ray followed the formula that had been drilled into him.
“Shall he speak fully now, Magos?” Chronos asked the priest.
“Perhaps it would be well, saving time, Dread One. Then, if you believe it necessary, he may repeat his report before the council later.”
“Speak then, man from Uighur.”
“Following the orders given your slave, I journeyed to Mu,” began Ray. The words came so easily that they must have been planted in his mind to be released by the asking of just such a question.
The Poseidon squirmed about among his cushions. “Yes, yes!” He was impatient. “But what of their defenses?”
Again the words came to Ray. “All the coastal forts have been reinforced, with the reserves called up. And the fleet has been recalled to receive further men and new ships, and to cruise in the western seas.”
“All that is already known to us, you fool! Have you nothing of greater importance for our ears? What of the matters you were told especially to ferret out?”
“Your slave bribed a young novice of the temple—he knew of something.”
“And that—that? Know they of the Loving One?”
“Yes. The Naacals pierced the curtain of darkness and saw the Loving One.” Still the words spilled out of Ray, and he knew that they were not of his thinking but had been set in him for the answering of just such questions—though the purpose of his revelations he did not know.
Chronos balled a flat fist and dug it deeply into one of the cushions that supported his weight. “So.” He looked petulantly at the priest. “You told me that the curtain could not be penetrated, and it has been. Are the Naacals then so much more powerful than.”
“Dread One!” The Red Robe’s hand made a warning gesture, indicating Ray. But if the priest did not wish such matters discussed here and now, his royal master was in no mood to be silenced.
“Do these Naacals have greater powers then?” he repeated, his voice rising shrill and sharp.
“As I have told you, Dread One”—in return the priest’s tone was even and reasonable—”no mind born of Mu could have reached us. But we sensed something. If they did penetrate the temple.”
“If?” Chronos interrupted him. “They must have done so. You—do they plan any defense against the Loving One? What said this cub priest of that?”
“They work upon one, Dread Lord. But of that he could discover only that it was a ray of black light.” Where did these words come from? Ray wanted to put his hands to his lips, smother his own voice. But it was no longer his; it was being used by a brain outside him—and in him this awoke a new kind of fear. “The novice was detected and taken before he learned more. Your slave had only a small warning in time to flee.”
“A ray of black light,” Magos repeated thoughtfully.
“You have heard of such? What is it?” Chronos demanded.
“I must search the records.” The priest was evasive. “What else do you have to tell us?” It was as if he greatly wished to switch Chronos’s attention from that particular subject.
“That Uighur wavers, Dread One,” Ray heard himself reporting. “She is not the loyal daughter, ready to leap to defense of the motherland, as Mu believes.”
“Good! Good!” Chronos made a whistling sound of satisfaction.
“You see.” He turned again to the priest. “Already the seed so carefully sown by our agents begins to sprout, and will speedily bear fruit. On the appointed day Mu shall call for allies, and there will be none to answer. Then she shall stand alone, ripe to our plucking.”
“Tell me”—the priest now asked a question—”heard you, while in Mu, any story of a stranger lately come to high favor with the Re Mu? One who is not of Mu, but from afar, one having some strange powers?”
“There is such a tale.” Ray was still only the tool of that will which had sent him here. “To its veracity your slave cannot bear witness. The commoners say that the Re Mu and the Naacals have summoned to their need a power from outside—outside.” he repeated.
Chronos sat up abruptly and cushions cascaded to the floor.
“Can this thing be true?” Again he turned upon the Red Robe for his answer.
“Who can tell, Dread One? Rumor reports many things, but few such are founded in any scrap of truth. However, this much is logic—we have our aid, and it came not from the world we know. Mayhap the Naacals have also called in the same manner. That would account for the piercing of the curtain—they could use their called one in such a way.”
“Could such a summoned one prevail upon us?” persisted Chronos.
“We summon from the Dark; they from other forces—if that is what has happened. What man can say which is the stronger until they meet in some open battle? No matter what comes to stand under the banner of Mu, we have the Loving One and its kin strong for Atlantis. Know you no more of this matter?” he asked Ray.
“No, son of Ba-Al. Whispers in a city—and as you say, such whispers may not even be the thinnest shadow of truth.”
“But they are enough to prepare us. Man from Uighur, you have done well in our cause. Is that not so, Dread One?” Magos asked of the Poseidon.
He appeared to jar the ruler out of some depth of thought.
“Oh—oh, yes, yes. You are free to go. The officer without will show you the quarters prepared for you.”
Ray inched backward, still on his knees, not rising until he was at the door. When he glanced up, he saw that Poseidon and priest were whispering together, and he thought Magos was engaged in soothing his royal master.
RAY leaned across the wide sill of the window. In this upper story of the palace, the windows were more than the narrow slits of the lower rooms. Through the night outside, lights shone in the harbor, for he was high enough here to see beyond the walls to the docks.
Down there somewhere was the raider that had brought him here. He mused on Captain Taut’s pressing and unexpected suggestion that he might find refuge on board if there were need. Why had the captain gone out of his way to speak of that, not once but several times?
The room behind him was bare, poorly furnished. The Poseidon did not treat his faithful servants from the outposts too well, it appeared. Four red walls, a dusty floor, a battered couch, and a bench—Even Ray’s clothing had been taken from him, and he wore the black metal-on-leather armor of a petty officer in Atlantean service. At least they had not locked him in, as he more than half expected that they would. Taking up his black crestless helmet, he went out into the silent corridor. In fact, the hall wore so deserted a look that Ray suspected this was a not too-much-frequented portion of the sprawling palace, which suited him well.
Now he went down into a better lighted and busier lower corridor. Soldiers and petty officers lounged on benches at its far end. He could hear the drone of their talk, with now and then a laugh. But he had no desire to join their company. Then a few words caught his attention.
“Murians. Yes, tonight. Rare sport within the audience chamber before the hour is spent.”
Murian prisoners! He must see them. This—this was another manifestation of the will which had taken over during his meeting with Chronos. There was no struggling against it.
A gong boomed hollowly, and the Atlanteans by the door snapped to attention, marched in answer. Recklessly Ray hurried to join the tail of the squad.
Here was the red hall he had seen during the dream journey, and once more Chronos occupied the gold throne. Ray lingered behind one of the pillars, assuming a guard’s stiff posture, trusting thus to pass unnoted. The Poseidon raised his scepter, that symbol of authority which had been granted by Mu to the first Atlantean lord ruling here in the east, a bronze trident. The murmur of sound died.
“Let the Twelve of the Law Giving stand forth!” Chronos’s voice was small and shrill in the mighty proportions of the hall, lacking the dignity he undoubtedly strove for. Twelve men moved out to take their places, six on either side of the throne.
“Hark you, men of Atlantis. This be the will of the Poseidon, the beloved of Ba-Al. On the third day of the month of slaying winds, twenty days from now, the. fleet of Atlantis shall set sail toward the falsely termed ‘motherland.’ Mu, the oppressor, shall lie open to our fire and swords. So is it spoke, so let it be recorded.”
The twelve raised their hands.
“Is this also your will, mouthpieces of the provinces?” asked Chronos.
“Dread One, it is,” they answered as one.
“Then it is so. And the word of the law may not be changed.”
All in the hall chanted in answer, “This be the law, and the word of the law may not be changed.”
Chronos leaned forward a little. His pale tongue caressed his pouting lips, as if he prepared to savor some new and delightful dainty.
“Bring out the Murian rats whom we have already caught in our nets!”
Ray watched a file of soldiers enter from the other side of the hall, ten men loaded with chains between; them. The prisoners kept their feet with difficulty. They were spotted and befouled with smears of green, slime, and they tottered, helping one another along. 5But when they were brought to face Chronos, they gave him no salute and held their heads as proudly high as they could.
“It seems that you still have spirit. Perhaps our hospitality has been too generous!” Chronos tittered.
One of the prisoners answered rustily, as if hardships had sapped the vigor of his voice. “What do you want of us, false king?”
“Perhaps you are now ready to say your ‘false’ is true, to change allegiance.”
Ray knew that was no real offer, merely a cruel teasing. Already the Murian spokesman shook his head.
“We offer freedom and honor to any who join us.” Chronos continued to smile.
“Honor!” The Murian’s reply had whip-cut sharpness.
The Poseidon’s jowls went pasty white. “So.” And the evil in his voice was plain. He was silent for a long moment. Magos reached up to pluck at his sleeve. And Chronos nodded to the Red Robe.
“Ah, Magos. Yes, yes, I remember. You need more men for your laboratories, do you not?”
Ray heard a quickly stifled gasp that must have broken from one of the prisoners. But all else was silence.
“Magos and Ba-Al need men, strong men. You may have these, Magos. It would seem they are strong, since they now have the will to stand before us so. Perhaps I shall come to watch your use of them. I have been told it is strangely diverting.”
Ray knew now why he had been sent here by that ruling will. But he—what could he—one man alone—do? For the present, watch and wait, be ready to seize any opportunity fortune might send. Was that his own thought or one sent by the will? To depend upon fortune was too risky
Now! They were coming this way. He stood statue straight in the shadow of the pillar and watched the guards and the prisoners pass. Then he took a chance and flitted in their wake. After all, would any of these around suspect him? They would watch for a break from those they guarded, not for outside help for their captives in the heart of Chronos’s own palace.
Up the stairs—yes—this way led to the wing of the palace wherein lay his own chamber. He climbed swiftly, reached that room, and crouched behind a partly open door, a vantage point from which he could watch the party now at the far end of the corridor. There—they were putting the prisoners inside—posting a sentry
Ray snatched up the cover from his couch and waited for the tramp of returning feet. Then he slipped out from his own door to the recess that held the next. From his belt pouch he took two of the square metal coins they had supplied him with and tossed them along the floor. They struck the stone with a jangle that sounded very loud indeed, and the sentry moved forward to look at them.
The American sprang and struck with the edge of his hand at a point where neither helm nor armor protected the sentry’s throat. He caught the Atlantean before he fell and lowered him to the floor with a minimum of sound. Around the inert body went the covering, and then he dragged the bundle back to his own room and bolted the unconscious man within.
He sped back to the door the sentry had guarded and sprang its outer bolt. The Murian spokesman from the audience chamber stared across a narrow room at him.
“What do you—who are—you—?”
“Come!” Ray was busy with their chains, using the key pulled from the sentry’s belt. But the spokesman jerked away from him.
“False hope—a new torture. Do not yield, comrades.”
“I am freeing you.” Ray was exasperated. They must be quick; this was no time for arguments.
“Who are you?”
“One from Mu.”
“Which is easy to say but not easy to prove.”
“Will you chance trust in me? Or do you want to await the pleasures of Magos?” Ray demanded. “Time waits for no second thoughts here.”
“He is right,” cut in and of the others. “At least with free hands and out of this room, we can make sure that they retake only dead men. Which is a good enough hope for me!”
“And our only one. Even if we reach the harbor, there is no ship. And to strike inland is greater folly.”
Ray thought of Taut. Such a thin hope, but all he had. “There may even be a ship. But come!”
They were out in the corridor. The Murian leader stooped and caught up the sword the sentry had dropped.
“Do any of you know the inner ways of this place?” asked Ray. “I came here only this day.”
One stepped forward. “I was sent here before, but Magos did not use me.” He could not control the shudder that shook his skeleton body. “I can take us as far as the outer gate.”
“Then let us go!”
But they went at a crawling pace, listening, scouting. Their guide did not descend the stair Ray had used earlier but led them into a side hall and then down a narrower flight, halting suddenly before a door.
“The watch room of the guard that serves Magos,” he whispered. “Within—perhaps arms.”
Ray pushed past the Murians. In appearance he was one of the palace guard and so might pass unchallenged. He opened the door. Three men within looked up in surprise.
“You!” Ray tried to get the rasp of an order into leis voice. “Up with you! The Murian prisoners have escaped!”
Two of the guards gaped at him. The third was on his feet.
“How?”
Ray was impatient. “How should I know? The order is to go out and hunt them down.”
But the ready guard was eying him narrowly. “There has been no alarm gong.”
“No time to sound it yet. And should we warn them into faster flight? Come.”
The two who had raised no question obediently headed for the door; the other turned and reached for a small stick lying beside a gong. But Ray struck first, sharp and true, as he had in the upper hall. He did not watch his victim go down but whirled and kicked out at the nearest man, knocking him off balance to the floor, at the same time catching a glimpse of the Murian with the sword using that weapon on the guard who had reached the doorway. A second or so later the Murians were in the chamber, starting to strip the guards of their armor and weapons. There was other body armor stacked there, perhaps belonging to men off watch, and more than half of the former prisoners were soon wearing Atlantean uniforms.
When they were ready, Ray spoke. “Now, we must play a part. I am the dator in command of this cohort. We are going to deliver slaves to a ship of the fleet in the harbor. But there we have also another mission, to arrest Captain Taut of a North Sea raider, who is suspected of treason. So, as we march hence, you”—he nodded to those for whom there was no armor—”are prisoners. Do you stand ready to try this?”
“Lord, we do!” There was a fierce determination in that answer that promised ill for any who dared question them this night. Ray jerked the alarm gong from its stand and took it with him. The two unconscious guards were tied, thrust back under a table, and the dead man wedged behind the door where he could not easily be seen.
They formed up in the hall. Ray was amazed. These men did not resemble Chronos’s warriors; suddenly they were those warriors! They had coiled their long hair under the helms, their rags were now uniforms, and in the half light their features could not be clearly distinguished. They moved as drilled troops.
With renewed confidence he gave the order to march. Between them wavered four prisoners, their arms apparently bound behind them. The party came into the courtyard and there, for the first time, saw sentries. Be confident, or at least have the appearance of it, Ray counseled himself.
“Who goes?” demanded the gate guard as Ray marched the squad to that portal. This was not the main entrance to the palace but a lesser one his Murian guide had suggested.
“The Dator Sydyk, on the word of the Poseidon,” replied Ray. His mouth was so dry that it was hard to get those words out, and they sounded low and harsh—so perhaps natural to the Atlanteans, though he half thought the pounding of his heart could be heard as well.
“That being—?”
“Business in the harbor. Do I shout my orders to the wind?” He permitted himself a small blaze of anger, almost sure that fortune had favored them as far as she would—that they might end here in a fight. But the man waved them through.
They tramped along briskly. Ray wanted to break into a run. He expected any moment to hear a shout or a gong beat from behind. The gong he had brought from the guard room under his cloak he thrust into a bush just outside the gate.
These were the city streets, and the night was so far advanced that they were empty. But before them still were the five walls and the three canals to cross. To expect their amazing luck to hold was sheer folly, and he said as much to the Murians.
“There is this,” their leader commented. “They expect ill to come from without, not from within, and unless there is an alarm from the palace—Ah, well”—he shrugged—”we can but do the best we can.”
On they marched, past the ruined temple of the Flame into the lower streets, coming finally to the first of the wall gates. Ray advanced to the sentries there.
“Who goes?”
With every sense alert, he was sure they did not seem too surprised to see the squad.
“Dator Sydyk, on orders of the Poseidon.”
“And your purpose, Dator?” Still no sign of alarm, no sign that this was not routine as far as the guards were concerned.
“To deliver oar slaves to the harbor. Also to arrest a raider captain.” He used his bluff, poor as it now seemed to him.
“You have a tablet of authority, Dator?”
Now—this was it! Ray took a step closer. “Just so, Dator. Would you look upon it? Here.” He stepped forward as if to seek the light beneath the gate and held out his hand. The officer came to meet him. Ray’s other hand chopped, and he caught the slumping man against him, swinging his body around. The long dagger from his belt was now set across the bare throat of the Atlantean.
“You.” he began to the other sentries.
“Now!” He heard a soft call from the Murian commander. Men from the squad rushed the remaining guards. And those were swept away, with only one choked cry, quickly smothered, to mark the change of guard. The Murian gave an order, and the fallen men were dragged out of sight. He came back to Ray.
“You have a use for this one?”
“He is perhaps our key out.”
The Murian pushed back the captive’s lolling head. “He is senseless.”
“But can be roused again,” Ray answered. “But let us get on”
They passed through, closing the gate and wedging it so behind them. Ray slapped the face of his prisoner, and one of the Murians came from the small guard room in the wall to splash water onto the Atlantean. He gasped, and his eyes opened, widened. Ray clapped his hand over the mouth that had also begun to open. Again his dagger pricked the other’s throat.
“You will march,” he said slowly, intent upon making the other understand every word, “and you will do as we say. Thus you will live. Do otherwise—and it will not matter to you what happens to us, for you shall not see it. Understand?”
The man’s head moved in a jerky nod.
“Now.” Ray dropped his gagging hand and swung the Atlantean around, so they stood arm in arm, but behind the prisoner the Murian leader moved up, his dagger to the other’s back.
“We march,” Ray ordered.
March they did to the second gate, and on the way Ray spoke in a half whisper, giving orders to their captive. Whether he could or would obey, that they must wait to see. But that the Atlantean was assured that he dealt with men who intended to carry out their threats, Ray did not doubt.
“Who goes?” It was the challenge of the second gate.
The prisoner cleared his throat and then answered.
“Dator Vu-Han. It is orders—pass this dator and his squad to the harbor.”
For a moment there was silence, and Ray heard a tiny gasp from Vu-Han and felt his small movement as if the Murianheld dagger had pricked the deeper.
If the sentry had doubts, he did not voice them. Perhaps Vu-Han would be a key even as they hoped. But as they marched through the second gate, Ray knew that he would not breathe really free again until they reached the docks.
The third gate, the first bridge, always the Murians marching in order, Vu-Han playing the part they had set him. Fourth gate, another bridge. Too good, going too good. Something inside Ray hammered a warning. Who could expect to get away with this?
Last bridge—and beyond—the last gate. Still no alarm, free passage under Vu-Han’s guidance. But it was well they had not come to depend too much upon fortune, for the Atlantean, in mid-point of that narrow way above the murky canal, suddenly swung his weight against Ray, at the same time crying out. The American had only an instant of warning, and that only because they were so close he had felt the tensing of the other’s body. He threw him self forward, and the Atlantean, instead of pushing him into the flood below, sprawled across Ray’s body, to fall, with a second cry, into the water. Ray was aware of the Murian officer hurdling his legs; pounding on the gate ahead, of a cry from behind, and of the trembling of the bridge under him. The sentries at the gate behind would raise the bridge, would crush the fugitives between its bulk and the descending portcullis.
He scrambled forward on his hands and knees, not wasting time to get to his feet. Then his shoulder was caught, and he was pulled up to join in the Murians’ flight to the already raising end of the span.
At least half their party had reached that point of safety and were fighting at the gate, and it was only because they did clear the way that the rest made the chancy leap from the quivering end to the small portion of safety beyond. Since the bridges had been designed to keep out attackers, rather than bottle in would-be escapers, that margin of footage on the other end, where the bridge embedded during use, did exist.
They fought their way through the gate and at last heard an alarm gong boom out. Coming free into the dock road, they began to run.
“Where to?” called the Murian leader.
“Can you all swim?”
Laughter rippled out of the dark. “Are we not of the fleet?”
“Then we take to the water.”
They ran, still hugging shadows, winding a path among bales and boxes on the wharves. Ray paused once to get his bearings, to look for the landmark of a ship of the fleet that he had fastened on earlier as a way to reach Taut’s anchorage.
“Guards!”
He did not need that warning, for he heard the thud of running feet and the shouting.
“To the water.”
They stripped off the armor, those who had posed as galley slaves already diving and paddling around waiting for the others. The sea here was cold; Ray gasped as he felt it close about him. Then he began to swim, knowing the Murians were following him. But he was stiff and chilled by the time he reached for the dangling rope ladder on the side of the ship. For a moment he paused, both because he was so stiff that any effort was difficult and because he hoped for a sign from any deck watchman. But waiting was too long and dangerous. He would have to brave this as he had all else this night: So he climbed, slipping cautiously over the rail to the deck.
“Stand steady, my fine fellow!” Lantern light glinted on a naked blade and the hulk of a black shadow that held it.
Ray knew that voice. “Captain Taut!”
“Snake of deep water! Sydyk, said to be out of Uighur.” came the answer, but the blade did not waver from its readiness to slash out.
“Come in answer to your invitation, Captain.”
“With a goodly pack behind you,” snorted Taut. “And what more—?”
They could hear the clamor on the docks even this far across the open water.
“What sort of serpent’s egg have you hatched, man from Uighur, and why should it matter to me?”
“Why it should matter, I do not know,” Ray returned as crisply. “Save that you offered me refuge. You can send us—or a portion of us—back into the hands of Chronos’s guard. But I warn you that will not be easy. Or”—he paused before making his shot in the dark—”you can live longer, to lead your men into Poseidon’s palace, their steel open in their hands.”
“So. You have a scheme afoot and wish the raiders to do the dirty end of it. You—who are you who make free to tramp my deck without let or heed?” he growled as the Murians continued to climb over the rail and muster behind Ray, each carrying a sword he had not abandoned with the rest on the docks.
“The dirty work as you call it, Captain, has been largely done. Take service with me, and you will have a powerful ally.”
“Mu.” That was statement, no question. “And what will Mu offer—with the need of going halfway around the world to collect?”
“Enrollment in her forces, pardon for past offenses, a chance to loot in Atlantis.”
“Your authority for all this?” Taut interrupted.
Ray pulled the jet armlet from beneath his undertunic. “Take this, and these men—to Mayax. You will find then what I have promised.”
“You are very sure of yourself.”
“And of you!” returned Ray boldly. This was such an hour when even the wildest chance must be played because there was nothing else to do.
He saw the flash of lantern on blade, but that came as the captain sheathed his sword. And then the American heard Taut laugh.
“By the iron claws of Ba-Al, if you have brought ten Murians out of the city this night, then I can try to got them from the harbor. And, sea god willing, your men will speak for me in Mayax before I am blown out of the water by those who have been non-friends.”
“They will speak for you:”
“They—what of you?”
Ray had put his hand to his head and rubbed his finger’s back and forth across his forehead. It was not really an ache there, behind flesh and bone, that he felt. It was knowledge cold and set—that he could not be a part of Taut’s dash for freedom. That will which had set him on the path to Atlantis was not done with him yet.
“I have not finished what I came here to do,” he said slowly, knowing he spoke the truth.
“But to return is to face certain death,” protested the Murian officer.
“I have no choice.” Ray’s voice was bleak. “When you come, if you come, again to the motherland, tell them they have indeed fashioned a tool to their service.”
“If you must stay,” Taut. broke in, “go you to the maker of sails in the shop by the drinking den at the end of the third wharf. Say to him my name. It may gain you a measure of safety.”
“We shall return with you.” began one of the Murians.
Ray shook his head. “Mu has need of ten blades, and the men to wield them, and also of what knowledge you have gained here of the city and its defenses.”
“That is true, even though it be hard saying,” agreed the officer. “But, remember this. When you come again into the Sun, you have ten liege men waiting to back your banner, my lord. And may the brightness of the Flame light any path you take!”
Ray returned to the ladder, eager to be away, though this time he might be going straight into the arms of Ba-Al.
RAY clung to one of the piles under the wharf. He could hear voices, though they were too muffled to make out words clearly. He already knew that the hunters were out. From this hiding place he could not see the raider. Would Taut be able to get out to sea, perhaps running a gauntlet of the fleet? Or would he even try? The captain’s conversion to Mu was so easy that it made Ray suspicious. Perhaps he had only waited for the American to leave before he signaled the Poseidon’s men to collect the escaped Murians. But if, that was his plan—why let Ray go? He would be an. even bigger prize.
Unless they believed that he could lead them to more. Murian contacts in the city and would trail him—yet; Taut himself had given him a contact. Though, of course, the sail maker might have the guard waiting
He wedged himself tighter into his small crevice, but he could not stop shivering, and not only from the chill of his soaked undertunic. Why had he come back—or been sent? Somehow they had planted orders in his brain during that time they had been making him into Sydyk. And he did not understand those orders
The movement overhead ceased. They must have gone on to search elsewhere. He had been careful not to swim to a quay near where they had taken off but one some distance to the west. But where to go now? To try, to get back into the city was as good as marching up to the nearest guard with his hands in the air. And he was so tired that he wanted nothing so much as a dark corner into which he could crawl and perhaps sleep a little.
His present position was too cramped. Ray doubted whether he could make any sort of getaway if they: came upon him suddenly. Better move into the open where perhaps he had a thin chance. Clumsily he edged along one of the under support beams, transferred to another, working his way to land, while under him the water washed sluggishly. He often halted to listen for noise aloft or the sound of oars in the harbor.
He hesitated for a long moment before he swung up and managed to reach the upper side of the wharf. There were bales heaped there, and he scurried to them as one might dart for shelter, worming his way through a crack between two into a kind of cave. Although these were a barrier against the wind, still Ray shivered. He must have dozed without knowing it, for now it was gray instead of dusky in the cracks and crevices between the piled bales, and he heard the tramp of feet outside. Morning? The dock workers coming?
Ray pulled out of his hiding place on the water side, ready for a dive into the oily wash of water below if the need came. For the first time he looked down at his body, trying to judge what sort of appearance he would make in the open.
When they had taken to the water, he had left on the dockside the kilt, helm, and corselet of the guard. What covered him now was an undertunic, and it was so stained by contact with the none-too-clean waters of the harbor that it resembled a laborer’s tunic. His boots—he frowned at those but he could not discard them. Perhaps they did not look too much as if they had been part of a uniform.
For weapons he had only a dagger and his two hands. He held those out, regarding them appraisingly. In a country that knew nothing of the kind of infighting training given in his own world, they were proving to be better weapons of defense than any steel. He rubbed them up and down the front of his clammy tunic.
He was hungry; there was a pinch in his middle. Ray licked the salt taste from his lips and tried not to think of food.
“Put your back to it—jellyfish! Think you can move these by looking and wishing?”
The shout was underlined by a cracking snap. Ray started, ready to slip into the scummy water. Then, instead, he wriggled to the end bale to peer around. There was a work crew moving onto the wharf under a whip-swinging overseer. Slaves probably, Ray thought. But save that they wore rope sandals and he boots, there was little outward difference between those slouching, sullen laborers and himself.
Suppose he were to join such a crew—could he pass unnoticed? But it might well be that the overseers kept too close a watch on their charges, that they would be as quick to note one too many as one too few. Better not try it.
He swung over the end of the wharf and found another place from which to climb to the quay. There were boxes there being unloaded from a cart, and a waiting line of men to take them up. Ray waited in the shadows for a chance to move on. Then he saw that other, a thin man with a face more than half masked in a bush of ragged beard. He wore a tattered tunic, and he was also keeping out of sight of the overseer, his glance flitting back and forth between the boxes and the man in charge of their unloading. Then, with a quick dart, he joined the tail end of the line of workers, coming up just in time to receive one of the boxes. Instead of following the man before him, he shot to one side and began to run, the box in his arms.
Ray seized the opportunity the other’s audacious act had given him.
“Thief—stop, thief” Whether that was the regulation cry in such circumstances, the American had no way of telling. But it brought an answering cry from the overseer. Several men dropped their burdens and broke out of line to follow the runner. Ray joined with these, playing the part of a hound after the man who dodged in and out among carts and burden bearers. Then the American saw a welcoming doorway and darted into its shadow. The portal gave slightly under the hand he put out to steady himself, and, daringly, he entered, letting it swing to behind him.
The dusk here was darker than the early morning outside. There were many foul smells, but some odors of food made Ray’s stomach knot. He walked softly, waiting a second or two outside each curtained doorway. There were small sounds from some, a grunt, a scrape, enough to let him know the building had its inhabitants. But he reached the end of the hall without seeing any of them. There was another door there, and it had an inner latch, which he eased out of its bar with infinite care.
Beyond lay a narrow alley littered with rubbish. Ray glanced from right to left along it. Mankind did not change through the centuries. This could be a back way through any slum. Some of the smells were a little more exotic than those of his own age—that was all.
There were windows in plenty looking down upon this way. But whether anyone looking through them might take an interest in him—it could well be that in such a district as this one minded one’s own concerns, saw nothing, heard nothing that was not of one’s private business.
He picked a way through the mess of garbage and rubbish and was drawing near to one of the side outlets when he froze. A groan? Certainly that had been a groan? And it came from behind a rotting basket piled high with refuse. Ray edged closer to the wall and kicked at a noisome heap of decaying matter.
There was only a second or two in which to regret his folly. From behind the basket a wild figure leaped at him, and the knife in one hand was as bright as the sun. Well trained in fighting tactics, Ray made a counter move to that confident attack. His hand closed about a wrist, and the knife was hurled against the wall, but not quite in time.
Ray pressed his hand against his side. Not in his heart, but only because of luck. He could feel the warm blood ooze through the stuff of the tunic. Just now he dared not explore the amount of damage. No pain, though—not yet.
He stooped and caught up the knife the other had dropped, keeping it ready in his hand as, with his boot, he pushed at the flaccid body. His attacker must have struck his head against the wall
As the body rolled, the head moved queerly, too loose upon the shoulders. Ray caught his breath. Dead, he thought—neck broken. The Atlantean was young, hardly more than a boy, and he was very thin, his bones showing clearly under a yellow skin that was also marked with purplish eruptions. His tunic was better than those Ray had seen on the dockside workers, and he had a belt with silver studs, a purse hanging from it.
There were two rings on his forefingers and a hoop earring in one ear. Thief—and probably a successful one. Perhaps this trick had worked well for him in the past. To groan as if he were the victim of an attack, to draw the attention of someone who did not mind his own business—then walk off with the profit from the would-be investigator’s curiosity or folly.
Ray pressed his hand harder to his side. The wound was beginning to sting now. And he dared not let even a small hurt go untended. Leaning back against the wall, he explored the cut. It was, he believed, very shallow, more nuisance than real trouble. But he must not lose any blood to weaken him or attract attention by stains such as were already dark on his tunic.
Which left him no choice. He set to work.
A short time later he strode from the far end of the alley with more confidence then when he had entered. The boots and the leather tunic that might have betrayed him were gone. He wore the brown garment of the dead thief and, beneath it, a strip of undertunic tied tightly over the cut. The other’s moccasin-like footgear was a little large on his feet, but that was better than too small. And he had a purse with silver pieces in it. There was nothing left to connect him with Sydyk the Uighurian.
The tramp of feet from behind—Ray noted that those in the street glanced up, and a few dodged into doorways. He thought it prudent to follow their example, though he did not make the mistake of looking over his shoulder to see what sent them into hiding.
Fortune and his nose had brought him to a tavern of sorts. There was the stench of sour wine and cooking. Once Ray might have found that mixture of strong odors stomach-turning; now he only wanted some food. The front of the room was open to the street. Along it marched a cohort of the Poseidon’s guard. They came to a halt at the entrance to the tavern, and Ray knew that this time fortune had deserted him, and he would have to face inspection by the enemy. He glanced about the room.
There were three tables with benches on either side. And there was a door that led to another room or rooms from which came the cooking smell. Two other customers were present.
One looked as if he might well have spent the night here. He sprawled over the end of one of the tables, his head pillows on his arms. From him came a steady series of gurgles and snorts that suggested he was still deep in a slumber that could have begun by the emptying of too many of the same kind of tankard as one lying beside him. The fingers of one of his hands were still clasped laxly about it.
The other man sat at another table facing Ray. He wore much the same sea-stained jerkin as Ray had been given to play the part of Sydyk, and he was eating with industry, first a spoonful of gravy dipped from a bowl, then a mouthful of bread from a piece he kept in his left hand. But Ray saw the single quick glance he shot at the soldiers without, and the American thought that the diner was less interested in the food than he wished to appear.
A woman shuffled out of the inner room. Her hair had been braided with leather thongs and then pulled into an erect pile on her head in a grotesque copy of the elaborate style Ray had seen on the ladies of the Poseidon’s court. She had a sleeveless robe laced down the font to the waist, bagging about a bony frame, hacked off short at mid-calf. It had once been a bright orange but was now faded in streaks and stained with long drip marks here and there.
Her face was puffy fat in contrast to her lean frame, so that she presented the distinctly odd appearance of a mis-mated body and head. Around both arms just below the shoulders she had broad bands of copper, and a stud of gilt was set in the over-abundant curve of one nostril.
She set both fists on the table before Ray and leaned toward him a little to demand, “What’ll it be?” Her voice was a whine, and he had almost to guess at her words, they were so slurred.
“Food—wine.”’ He was handicapped by not knowing what specific dishes one would order in such a place. Then he took a chance and pointed to the other diner. “Some of that—if it is ready.”
Her grunt might be either agreement or denial However, she turned away toward the inner room. But before she reached the door, there was a sharp sound, and they all swung around to view the entrance.
The dator of the guard stood there, two of his squad to back him. He had some of the bullying arrogance of a man who knew he need expect no opposition. Now he slammed his sheathed sword down again on the nearest table in an attention-demanding rap.
Here it comes, thought Ray. He measured the distance between him and the door to the inner room, but the woman was in the way. Also, how could he be sure there was another exit beyond? He might dash there only to find himself bottled in a trap.
The woman wiped the back of her hand across her lips. Then she smiled, or leered.
“Wine for the lords?”
“Not your rot gut,” returned the dator. “You, there.” He pointed to the seaman. “Who are you and from where?”
The man swallowed what was in his mouth. “Rissak, mate on the Sea Horse. What of it? I’ve been in and out of this port more years than you’ve been growing hair on that chin of yours—“
“For too quick tongues there is an answer—a knife blade across them,” the dator retorted, but he did not push the matter further. “You then.” He had already turned to Ray.
“Ran-Sin,” Ray improvised, “from the north.”
“Stand up!” the dator commanded.
Ray got to his feet. Suppose he rounded the table or overturned it—could he get out to the street? Hardly, not with the rest of the cohort waiting there, doubtless ready and waiting to stop any suspicious characters their commander might flush.
But to his surprise the dator did not order his men to move in upon a prisoner. Rather did he survey the American with a long head-to-foot stare, which was repeated back from foot to head again. Perhaps—perhaps the search parties had been provided with a description, and his change of clothing with the dead thief was now to his advantage.
“Him?” One of the squad pointed to the snoring sleeper.
The dator shook his head impatiently. “Nothing like.”
So—Ray thought—he was right. They had a description of sorts. And it would also seem that the dator was one who depended only on the details as issued from official sources. But how could they know, Ray wondered as they left, that there was anyone now to be hunted? If Captain Taut had carried out his part of the bargain, should they not believe all had escaped, or at least were on the raider trying to reach the North Sea?
On the other hand, the captain could have played him false, which had a very good chance of being the truth. Or else Taut had failed, his ship had been taken, and questioning of the prisoners had uncovered the fact that Ray Was still loose in the quay district. He had better believe that the worst had happened.
But what was left here to do? As yet no further order had come from the will. Why had that unseen, unheard monitor, apparently so deep set in him that he could not fight it, brought him back? For something more than to play hide and seek with Poseidon’s men along the docks—of that he could be certain.
The woman had gone into the kitchen, and now she returned with a tray. There was a bowl of stew, a hunk of bread, and a tankard of evil-smelling liquid, which probably passed for wine in this establishment.
Ray took a coin from the thief’s pouch and saw her eyes widen a fraction as she beheld it. Too much, he told himself. He did not slide it across the table, as he had first intended, but kept it between two fingers so she saw only its edge.
She smiled, with some of the same attempt to ingratiate that had been in the look she had turned upon the dator.
“You want something else, my lord?”
“A room—where a man can rest privately.” he said.
“Rest,” she repeated. “Oh, perhaps we could find you such.” Her eyes flickered from him to that visible edge of coin, then back to his face. Then she pointed with her chin.
“Through there,” she said, indicating the entrance to the back room, “and up the stair. Take the chamber with the blue curtain.”
Ray spun the coin. Her palm flattened it to the board and swept it into hiding somewhere about her person. He picked up the tray and took it with him, trying not to move with such haste as to arouse her suspicions any more.
The room with the blue door curtain was the second from the top of a breakneck flight of stairs. There had been two in the kitchen to watch him cross the end of that room—another woman, older, even less prepossessing than the hag-waitress, and a man with a bowed back who had been cutting up some stalked vegetables, so bent over his work that his chin was hard threatened by the sweep of his own knife.
Behind the blue curtain was a cell-like cubbyhole. . No chair or table existed, only a bed, which was no more than a pallet raised on a frame of four legs from the dirty floor, and a shelf on the wall on which stood a jug. But there was a window with shutters, now barred. Ray set the tray on the shelf and went to open the window. It resisted his efforts, but some prying with his dagger point finally freed it, and he pushed open the slats of wood.
A few feet away was a blank stone wall, probably that of a neighboring building. Ray looked down. A narrow runway between walls was there, more than half choked with refuse, full of traps for the feet of anyone who tried to use it as a way of quick escape. But at least he felt a fraction easier with that window open and close to hand.
He sat down on the edge of the unwholesome looking and smelling pallet and began to eat. The stuff tasted strange, hot and peppery—probably over spiced to induce the buying of more drink. But it satisfied his hunger, and he ate it to the last drop, wiping the bowl with a crust of bread.
Then he leaned back against the wall to think. In his interview with Chronos, that implanted will had certainly taken over and dictated what he said. He had been keenly aware of that during the process. Also, he was more than certain that the rescue of the Murians had been directed, even if the details of the action along the way had been his alone. Therefore, both incidents had been part of the reason for his being here. But what else remained for him to do?
And how long must he sulk about waiting to be nudged into accomplishing whatever duty was his? His resentment of such management was no longer quick and hot, but it was a dull and lasting fire in him. Yet until such a time as he could face those who had sent him here, he must stifle that. A man could be blinded by anger and thus easily make a mistake.
Ray stared very hard out of the window at the wall. “All right.” His lips shaped the words he did not say aloud. “Here I am just waiting. If I wait too long, perhaps I am finished, and whatever you want of me goes undone. Come through wherever you are and give me a hint. What do you want of me?”
He tried to think that, to make it a silent cry, as if he could reach across three oceans to the mind of a Naacal—or the Re Mu, or whoever had planted the compulsion in him.
It seemed that the stones in that wall darkened trees! Ray shut his eyes, then opened them again slowly. This was like looking through the wrong end of a pair of field glasses. Trees, row upon row of them—all tiny. Yet his mind told him that they were really tall—towering
No! That was not the answer—not the trees! He screwed his eyelids together in an intensity of effort. The trees had no part of this. He would not look at them, think of them
“Come in.” He thought of that will now as if it were a broadcast sent on interrupted frequencies, one he could only pick up now and then. He put his head down to rest on balled fists, his eyes still tightly closed. Come in, he begged, let me know what I am to do. Before it is too late, just let me know!
Fordham held the small strip of perforated paper in his hand. So Burton believed this was the answer, did he?
“Do not spindle, bend, or tear,”’ Hargraves quoted. “I suppose we should be used to any sort of black, white, red, green, or blue magic by now, but somehow I refuse to accept that a man can be reduced to that! Frankly I don’t want to believe it. It’s—it’s obscene!”
“Not a man—no.” corrected Burton. “We asked for an equation that might fit a certain mind pattern so we, could set up what would amount to a homing device. Your own computer gave us that. Just as it provided you earlier with your equation for Atlantis.”
“Which might not have been correct at all!” flared Hargreaves. “All we saw, recorded, was a forest of trees, remember? I’ll believe in Atlantis when I see a little more definite proof.”
“All right, no one insisted upon its really being Atlantis,” returned Fordham. “But Dr. Burton is right. We fed in the data; we got an equation; we used that equation and got what you saw for yourself, what we filmed. And we lost a man in there. It’s logical to believe that he hasn’t stayed right on that spot where he went to all this time. And if this will work.”
“If it will work,” stressed Hargreaves.
Fordham passed his hand over his face. He was tired, so tired that it was an effort to make the smallest move. When had he really slept? He could not remember now.
“It’s not all we should have,” Burton cut in. “You must understand that. We have the facts from his army record, reports from people who knew him, data from his last physical, and the like. I must set the odds very high against its working. But it is the best we can do. To have a better chance, we ought to have his behavior pattern charted, other reports, reaching back at least two years.”
“Since we don’t have those”—Fordham’s words slurred into each other wearily—”we’ll try this. Miracles have happened.”
Hargreaves shrugged. “I’m beginning to believe that General Colfax is right. Send in a search party.”
“And maybe lose them, too?” Fordham asked. “Not until we must.” He looked again at the strip of paper that, the computer reported, added up to a man—a living, breathing, walking, talking, thinking, hating, loving man. Or did it? They would never be sure, unless their long shot succeeded arid Ray Osborne came out of a forest of giant trees to face them and his own world again in answer to this experimental broadcast.
DANGER? Ray raised his head, listening intently. But there was no sound from the hall outside. He stood up and stepped softly to look out of the window, down into that slit. No one stood there. Yet in him now there was such a feeling of being under close scrutiny that it was almost as if he could turn his head and see a figure in the other corner of the room.
Accompanying that sensation of being spied upon came a driving desire to be in the open, one he could not withstand any longer. The walls about him might be moving in to cut off air needed by his laboring lungs. Over all hung such an aura of menace as he had known before only in nightmares. Though he held onto remnants of caution, Ray knew that he could not stay in this temporary hiding place, that he was being tipped out of it as he himself might tip over a basket to set some small terrified animal on the run again.
This had no kinship with the compulsion that had kept him in the Atlantean port—this, he was sure, was of the enemy. But it was also something he could not easily fight.
All right—he would get out of here. Or else—Ray licked his lips—if the pressure continued to build, he would simply stand there shrieking his identity aloud to these four walls until his enemies appeared to collect him.
Move in obedience to that order—by yielding so much, he might still retain something of his own will. And as long as he had even a fraction of that, he would keep fighting, dodging, running! If he only knew why he had been left here, then he might have both a purpose and a reason to stand firm.
The sailmaker’s shop Captain Taut had mentioned, should he head for that? He had no reason at all to believe in the good will of the raider captain. Still it was all he had—a shadow of help.
He turned suddenly, and his hand went to his side. The wound there was tender enough to make him wince. He had inspected it again in the privacy of this room. It had crusted over, and if it were clean, healing had already begun.
Ray went to the window again and studied the runway one story below. When he leaned out as far as he dared without overbalancing, he could see that to his left, at the front of the tavern, there was no opening to the outer street, only a high boarding making a dead end. The other way—yes, there was perhaps an exit there. Quickly he stripped the top cover—and the only one, he discovered—from the bed, making its end fast to the leg of the supporting frame. It did not give a very long rope, but enough to provide him with a safer landing. Then he was through the window, swinging over the debris. Ray let go and fell as he had been taught to tumble to save himself from hurt. Only such lessons had never been practiced with a view to landing in a dump.
Crashing through a top layer of refuse, the American struck less fragile material with bruising force. For a moment or two he lay in the mess, pain shooting along his side, fearing almost to move lest he discover a broken bone.
Finally, because that feeling of being hunted was so strong, Ray clawed his way up and out of the debris. With one hand against the wall for support over the entrapping footing, he began a careful journey toward the rear of the tavern. If the crash of his landing had alarmed any inhabitant of the other upper rooms, apparently it had not led them to investigate.
The narrow slit reached the end of the building, but still a high fence of rotting boards walled him in on the right. To the left the windowless wall of the other structure continued. The, wood of the fence was dry and powdery, and Ray thought he could kick a way through it, but there was no need for such drastic methods of escape as yet.
He struggled on through the noisome swamp of the refuse and finally came to a right angle of the fence meant to bottle up the slit. As he went, the need for freedom, for space in which to run, had so worked in him that, as he fronted that barrier, caution was burned away and he kicked and tore at the disintegrating wood, breaking his way out into an alley much the same as that in which he had met the thief.
Shaking off as much as he could of the filth left by his trip down the slit, Ray looked right and left, uncertain as to which might promise a small measure of safety, if any safety was to be found in this maze of dockside warrens.
If he had not totally lost his sense of direction, then the sail shop lay to the left. Well ahead a figure was busied, poking through the refuse, turning over nasty piles of litter with a long stick, now and then pouncing upon some bit it transferred to a bag it dragged behind. All Ray could see was stick-thin bare arms protruding from a huddle of rags so old and grimed that they had lost all color. The closer he approached the scavenger, the less human it seemed. But when he was perhaps the length of its search stick away, it moved with a speed he would not have thought possible for such a walking skeleton, swinging that same stick around to trip him up, while from the swathing of rags hooding its head came a shrill cackling.
Again trained reflexes saved Ray as he dodged that tripping stick. And the scavenger, apparently overbalanced when his weapon did not connect with Ray’s shins as planned, went tottering on a step or two, pulled by the very force of the intended blow.
“Yahhhh!” First failure was not deterring the assailant from another try. But Ray could not bring himself to close with the creature. This was not as human as the thief, rather something that had slid so far down from the human that it was loathsome.
He kicked the bag it had been using to store its harvest and dodged again. Swinging the stick, it tottered on, tripping upon the bag, and fell with a shrill wail. Ray ran.
His breath was coming in sharp gasps when he reached the end of the alley. The way was narrow, hardly wider than his outstretched arms, and it gave upon a street that was much in use. Heavy wagons moved there, going to the dock laden, returning empty. Men in uniform drove those wagons, and some had guards riding on them as well. Ray leaned against the wall, in what he hoped was inconspicuous shadow, to watch, at first incuriously, as he got back his wind, then with some attention.
War supplies was his guess, being loaded on the ships of the fleet. Preparations for an all-out attempt against either Mayax or Mu. Surely they would have to deal with Mayax before they took—or tried to take—Mu. But how did Chronos hope to engage all the rest of the world in open war unless there was a way of reaching Mu by sailing east instead of west? He had never seen a complete map of this world. What about Africa? Did that continent exist in this age, and if so, who held it? Too bad he knew so little that was helpful.
But possible geographical changes slipped from his mind. He might have left the tavern room, escaped the attack of the scavenger, but he had not lost that sense of being under surveillance, and it acted now as a spur to keep him moving.
Any extraordinary behavior here would certainly alert the guards on the drays. Ray began to walk along, hugging the walls of the buildings to his left, heading back to the harbor. If—if whatever will kept him here wanted him back in the city, perhaps these wagons might be the answer to such a return. He tried to examine them without betraying too much interest, searching for any way of hiding on one of the returning ones.
According to his cursory inspection, there was no chance of that—not in broad daylight, anyway. Ray reached the end of the cross street and faced the wide thoroughfare forming the spine from which the docks made one-sided ribs. He crossed the line of carts as they drew up for a wait, making himself walk at an even pace, fighting against hunching his shoulders under the eyes of the drivers and guards, expecting any moment to hear a cry raised, feel steel bite at him.
His trip through the alley had brought him well along the harbor. Now he was near the western end and began to watch for the sailmaker’s shop or the wine booth that would identify it.
“Stop!” It was an instant or two before Ray realized that command had not been heard by his ear but rang in his head. And with it came a pressure for obedience.
“Come!” He had stopped, yes. The sheer surprise had brought him to a halt, so suddenly that a man ran into him and turned with a snarl to demand, in argot Ray could barely understand, what he thought he was doing.
“Come!” Again that calm assumption that he would obey, that he had no recourse, but to answer that call. He turned away from the scowling Atlantean. There was no help; he had to answer that imperious summons. But it was not from the will that had kept him here. And as he obeyed it against all his desires, he knew that that other shrank, dwindled—as if the two pressures could not exist together within him.
“Come!”
Come where? His conscious mind might not know that, but whatever now controlled his body seemed to be sure. He walked east, not at any hurried pace but steadily as he had done before. And he could not break the hold that kept him going one step after another. The docks were crowded, and Ray threaded a way among men, wagons, beasts of burden. He passed the tavern from which he had fled only a little while ago, went on arid on There was a flow of brilliant color here—the tunics of men, the bright blankets and panniers of the animals—but Ray became aware of a spot of red that seemed to glow with some inner fire. And it waited—for him. He was imprisoned in a cell of flesh and bone that moved to the command of what also animated that red pillar there—no, not a pillar, but a robe—a robe of a deep blood shade, and wearing it, someone who was more than a mere man.
Fear lives with all men from their birth to their dying. There are many small fears, and sometimes terrors that are not small from which a man may cower in the dust or run shrieking to escape. Fear can be a prod to action, an enemy to battle, or a blanket that saps sane life. Ray thought he had known fear many times before he marched toward it on the harbor road of Atlantis. But such fear as this—never!
“Come!”
He was coming. There was no choice left him, no trick learned in his own world that he could call to his aid. He was mesmerized by that terrible aura of fear, drawn to it.
They were only a few feet apart now, he and that Red Robe with the closed face upon which there was no triumph, no lust of battle. The priest’s will was all centered on one thing, to hold and then to draw, even as he was doing.
Ray stared into that lean face, with its beaked nose, its point of chin, finding it familiar. Then the priest raised his hand, and about his wrist was a shining band that caught Ray’s eyes for a moment. Watch band reported one small portion of his brain. Watch band—watch—here—His! His watch—which had been taken from him on the Atlantean ship at the beginning of this whole wild adventure. And this—this was the Red Robe from that ship.
The hand holding that watch gestured. Pain burst in Ray’s head, and he dropped under the blow aimed by the warrior who had moved in behind him.
Ray lay in the dark, and under him was a hard surface, so chill that its cold and damp made his bones ache. He moved his hand to the pulsing agony of his head and heard metal scrape, felt the jerk at his wrist preventing him from completing that movement.
“Do you wake at last, comrade?” Words out of the dark. It seemed to take a long time for them to register any meaning in his mind. “I had come to think but your empty husk lay there and that. you had escaped.”
“Who—who are you?” Ray looked in the direction of that voice, but the dark was too complete to see anything.
“One like yourself, a prisoner waiting the pleasure of Chronos! May his bones rot before his flesh and his spirit wail on the winds, homeless forever!”
“Are you Murian?” Ray tried to pull himself up a little, then fell back, for the pain in his head was worse.
The other made a sound that might have been laughter, except in this place there was no laughter. “No. I am Atlantean born, though no friend to Chronos and his liegemen. And you?”
Ray hesitated. What was he? A spy he might say. “I came from Mu.” That much he could answer, giving away no more than they already knew.
“What mean you?” the other demanded eagerly. “Is there a landing—war?”
“Not yet.”
“But perhaps soon? That is good hearing to one who has been here for five years.”
“Here?” Ray could not believe that. This hole—how could anyone measure time or even keep his sanity?
“No. In this cell only a short time. You do not count days in the dark when there is only the black of night. But they have brought food eight times. However, before they dragged me here, I was captive above where there is day in the cells and sometimes even sun. But of what passes outside these walls, I do not know.”
“Atlantis moves against Mu.”
“It took them long enough to nerve themselves to that. For a hundred years the priests of Ba-Al have wrought what manner of magic they could to this end. Five years ago when I tried to ship out, they were approaching some summit of their evil. Men whispered of that—“
“How is it that you still live?”
Again that sound which was almost laughter. “Brave as Chronos would like to think himself, he dares not go against ancient prophecies. There is some blood he cannot shed until he is truly master of the world which will be a long time coming. And he will not kill the true holder of the Trident, since it was vowed long ago that that would bring the wrath of the sea in upon the land.”
“What do you mean?”
“The line of the true Poseidons was supposed to have ended a hundred years ago., but in truth it did not, for the last Poseidon’s daughter, rather than accept as her consort the man chosen by the priests of Ba-Al, fled into the mountains, letting it be thought she died. There she exchanged bracelets with the captain of her guard, a Sun-born true to her. And I am a direct descendant of that union, as Chronos knows. He has slain all the Sun-born he can lay hands on, destroyed the temple of the Flame, but he dares not yet put knife to me—for it is written in the stars, to be read even by the priests of the Shadow, that Atlantis will endure only as long as does the true blood. He keeps me safe under his hand, but he does not kill.”
“But you are loyal to Mu?”
“How could it be otherwise?” asked the other simply. “I am of the house of the Sun in Atlantis; the son may not turn against his mother. Chronos is not of the Sun-born; that is one reason his hate for them is so black and bitter. But now I say, comrade, may the Sun speed the ships of Mu, for I cannot believe they are waiting for the Shadow’s sons to attack first—“
“I hope that they come,” Ray answered. But, he thought, what was he doing in the middle of this quarrel which was none of his? He could hope for some miracle to save him from whatever fate those of Atlantis prepared for him, but to count much on such a hope was folly.
“Now, comrade, what of you? Just a short time ago they brought you here. You say you are from Mu, yet in their torchlight you had not the look of the motherland.”
“My name is Ray and I am from the Barren Lands.”
“The Barren Lands? Have they then established a colony there?”
“I am not of Mu, save that the Re Mu has granted me that courtesy,” Ray said slowly. Granted him? No, lulled his suspicions that he might prove to be a weapon—or whatever he meant to the will that ruled him here. Will—Ray suddenly became conscious that that was gone from him. Either it had been banished by the force that Red Robe had used to draw him tamely into captivity, or else it had withdrawn because he was no longer of use.
“The Barren Lands,” the other repeated. “Wait they come!”
A sharp click and an oblong of light appeared in the wall. Ray tried to shield his eyes as two soldiers bearing rods that gave off yellow light stepped within.
“Welcome, hounds of Chronos!” cried his cellmate. “How goes it with you? Have those of Mu come down upon you yet, or do you still brew some foul Shadow magic hoping thus to make yourselves new walls against Murian steel?”
Ray turned his head. Fastened to the wall near him was a young man, emaciated, the cheerfulness of his voice belied by deep lines about his well-cut mouth. And silver frosted his long black hair.
One of the warriors grunted as he set a gourd of water and some hunks of dark bread on the floor. His companions thrust one light rod through an iron ring in the wall before they left together.
“Now I wonder what is the meaning of that?” The Atlantean prisoner pointed to the light. “They plan some trickery. In this prison one comes in time to question the very stones of the walls. Chronos does nothing without purpose. He learned that much from Magos.”
He reached for the nearest hunk of bread and passed it to Ray. “Best eat while you may, comrade. Chronos has a fondness for experiments, and he might wish to see how long we can live without even crumbs. You have named yourself—let me do likewise. I am Uranos.”
“Eat but half,” Uranos advised as Ray chewed the tasteless stuff. “It is better to have less today than none tomorrow. Chronos hatches some plan beneath his misshapen skull that holds nothing but ill for us. Me he fears, not for what I, a prisoner, can do, but because I am who I am. And you must also threaten him in some fashion, or he would not hold us together. The promise made by the stars may not save me.”
“I met a man, the captain of a raider, who swore he could take this city if he led the proper men. In spite of all the walls and canals,” Ray said slowly, not knowing why that came into his mind now.
Uranos frowned. “It could well be done. There are secrets within Chronos’s walls, which he has manned so securely, that are secrets even to him.”
“You mean?”
“Rooms and passages underground where the foot of man has not stirred dust these hundred years. I have heard tales of such, and perhaps your captain has also, or knows even more than tales. If he has found such a way, the core of the city might lie open to him. But this captain is loyal to the Shadow, is he not?”
“No longer, or so I hope. He sailed with escaped Murian prisoners onboard.”
“Then”—Uranos smiled—”perhaps in the future Chronos may have some unsought visitors. Would that I could look upon his face if and when that happens. Also I think he shall lie uneasy tonight.”
“Why?”
“I suspect we have been overheard, and a report of our words will be speedily carried to Chronos!”
“Someone listening?” Ray stared at the walls.
“Years of such hospitality have given me keen ears. It is not the first time this has happened. Now there will be a mighty scurrying, hunting underground ways. Whisper a warning into a coward’s ear and he will straightway feel a knife pricking his throat. But there are hundreds of passages; mostly long sealed, and he will never find them all. So will he sweat and fear.”
“But what if he finds the right passage and sets an ambush there?” It seemed to Ray that his cellmate was entirely too optimistic.
“That is as fortune decrees, but somehow I think it will not happen. What man may change the lines written on his forehead at birth, or the future the stars foretell? I believe that I shall live to reign here.”
In spite of himself Ray was moved by the Atlantean’s confidence. Could these men really see the future, or a portion of it? What had the Lady Ayna once said—that they saw a future but that some decision of their own could change it.
“How can you be so sure?”
Uranos looked at him, and now that glance steadied into a hard, measuring stare.
“If you have passed the First Mysteries, as by your age you must have, how can you ask that? What manner of man are you? Of the Barren Lands you said, Murian by the Re Mu’s favor—but no colonist. What are you?”
“No man of this time.”
“You mean?”
“I was born into the world of the far future. I came through time to here. How, and why I do not know.”
Uranos was silent for a long moment. If the same story had been told him, Ray wondered, would he have believed it?
“So—then did the Naacals send forth a summons also? One that you answered by your coming?”
“No, I came by accident.” He told the story in a few sentences.
“And if you can never return?”
“That I do not know. Nor even if I have any future beyond this hour, or this day. Judging by our present circumstances, probably not.”
Uranos shook his head. “It is well to be prepared for ill, but do not yet toss away the future, my friend. Let us forget a little and give those who listen something to be heard. Tell me of your world—no, let me first show you mine.”
And he talked of his boyhood in the mountain valleys and of how he had hunted horses in the plains.
“Comrade, nowhere in the world is there aught to equal the beauty of a horse finishing a race, his mane long on the wind, his hoofs pounding as war drums. The sailors speak of ships, the huntsmen of the elk at bay—but the horse fills my heart. And did I not ride Flame breather to victory five times over!” Passionate longing broke through his voice.
“Tell me.” he began after a pause, and then made a sharp gesture toward the door. “They come again,” he said in a half whisper.
And it seemed to Ray that a kind of evil shadow came first, dimming the light rod, hanging about them.
ACCOMPANYING the guards this time was one of the Red Robes.
“All hail, brother of the Shadow,” Uranos addressed him as their guards released their chains from rings in the wall. “Why does the servant of Ba-Al come to disturb us?”
The priest looked from Ray to Uranos and then centered his stare on the Sun-born. The American thought that he had never seen so cold and measuring a regard. He did not answer Uranos but spoke to the guards.
“Bring them forth.”
They found it hard to get to their feet. The short chains had so held them that the muscles of their backs and thighs were cramped. But pushes from the guards sent them stumbling out into a narrow hall.
“They count us mighty heroes,” Uranos observed. “See, brother, they must send eight warriors and a priest to have us out!”
But if he were trying to bait the Atlanteans into some move, none of their escort arose to his needling. Instead, the soldiers closed upon them, urging them on at a fast pace after the hurrying priest. They went on up and down dark passages, and Ray thought how like this was to a giant spider web, with Chronos, like a bloated insect, in its midst. Then they came to a wider and better lighted hall and halted before a door curtain of metal, not fabric.
Their guards shifted uneasily, keeping their attention riveted upon the curtain. It was, Ray decided, as if they were unhappy at being sent here. Then the priest placed his right hand on the screen, and it opened at what could have been only a light touch. With an audible sigh of relief, the warrior nearest Ray thrust the American on the heels of the Red Robe, with Uranos, similarly urged, beside him.
Two Red Robes waited and caught at their chains as if this was a matter in which they had long practice. Ray had no chance to struggle before his arms were locked firmly behind him.
“On!” commanded the third priest who had led them.
They crossed a bare room and went through a second door into a chamber with walls the rusty brown of dried blood. There was a single large chair there, carved from one block of black stone, which looked none too comfortable. But its occupant appeared as much at his ease as Chronos lolling among cushions. Magos brooded. There was a satiated, yet anticipatory look about him, such as might have been worn by a vulture perched above a slaughter yard.
He was smiling, if the rictus that twisted his thin lips could be given such a definition, leaning forward slightly to hear the better some tale now being whispered into his ear by another priest. But when his eyes rested upon the prisoners, it became a wide and evil smirk.
“So, my lord Sun-born, Poseidon-who-has-no-hope-of-being, you have come to me at last,” he said to Uranos. “Do you hold in memory now a past meeting when I spoke to you of the will of the Dark master and you refused to listen? You cut yourself from the future that day, Uranos. Do you regret that?”
Uranos held his head high. “Magos, you claim to be the son of Ba-Al upon earth. Does the Shadow agree to that, I wonder? But I can well believe you aspire to play the role as fittingly as something born of flesh and blood can, since such evil otherwise would not come into any sane mind. If you propose to entreat me again.”
“Entreat you—you!” The high priest laughed, a chill, thin sound that might have issued from the bony jaws of a skull. “Magos does not ask a second time. Nor have you any value now. This time you will serve another purpose.”
“That shall be as the Sun decides. The future lies within the temple.”
“Ba-Al’s shrine.”
“I think not. There still stands another temple in this city.”
Magos’s smile was gone. His eyes burned as Ray had never seen a human’s burn before.
“The Flame is long quenched. You pay a debt.”
“And I say to you, Magos, that in the end the paying shall come from you. And it shall be such a paying as this world has never seen.”
There was such conviction in Uranos’s voice that one could believe he looked into the future, reading there enough to make that not a threat but a prophecy.
“Dare you believe that, you who are an insect upon which the servant of Ba-Al can set a sandal and no realize that he has crushed aught at all? Dare you speak to me—me, the ruler of the world under the shadow?”
“Has Chronos heard such words, Magos? He sees himself the ruler of the world.”
The smile returned to the priest’s vulturine face. “Chronos? Who—what is Chronos? A man uses a tool, to aid in a task. Once done, that tool may be thrown away, perhaps broken. When I choose, I shall brush Chronos into nothingness. Think not to appeal to Chronos.”
It was Uranos’s turn to laugh. “And again I say, Magos, Chronos might not agree with your words. I think, were they to be reported to him, there might be a visitor to your sleeping chamber with the night, one carrying steel and knowing how to use it silently.”
But Magos continued to smile. “That is of no importance, certainly no concern of yours.”
“Then why have you sent for us, son of the pit?”
“Like other men, Uranos, at times I wish amusement. And games of chance interest me. My friend, Conth”—he nodded to the priest who had been whispering to him—”has wagered me a curious ring out of Uighur, a ring that is said to give its holder some odd powers, that I cannot keep a man alive for seven days in the laboratories while he undergoes some changes. Now I am proud of the skill of my workmen, and I desire that ring with its attractive history. So I thought of all the prisoners within these walls who could be spared, and I summoned you.”
Uranos might not be broken, but he had been shaken enough to say, “Devil!”
“So have others called me before they passed through that door.” The high priest pointed to an opening at the far end of the room. “And yet later they blessed me when I granted them death—much, much later. You are strong, Uranos; so does this other one look also. I think I shall win my wager.”
He arose, and the icy claws of the priest behind Ray fastened on the American’s shoulders, propelling him forward. Magos had taken two steps before lie turned and came back.
“Now I am a true son of the Shadow. It has come to me that perhaps Ba-Al should have a voice in this. Therefore, you twain shall choose between black and white stones. He to whom my lord sends the black shall save my wager, and he who gains the white shall wait for a while. Yes, that is fit and proper.”
The other priests echoed his laughter. Ray watched Conth bring a bowl and ostentatiously drop two stones, one white, one black, into it. Then once more Magos held up a hand.
“Put in two of the white. If both draw, then I know that Ba-Al wishes them for himself: The will of the Shadow is our full desire. Conth shall draw for Uranos, and Path-tan for this stranger. Draw, Conth.”
Magos took the bowl and held it well above the eye level of the lesser priest. Conth’s hand moved and opened to show a white stone on his palm.
Path-tan came forward and dipped his fingers in turn. Then he tossed his prize to the floor, where it rolled to touch Ray’s foot. It was also white.
“Our lord has spoken.” Magos broke the silence. “By his will be it so.”
The other priests echoed his words. But Ray wondered—had it been only a trick? Why did Magos want to threaten and then reprieve? Or indeed had chance selected the stones and Magos been superstitious enough to allow himself to be balked, believing Ba-Al had guided the priest’s groping fingers?
“Uranos.” The high priest came a step closer. “What do you expect—the altar and the knife—or”—he paused—”the embrace of the Loving One?”
“What matters it how a Sun-born warrior faces death as long as he does so under the Flame? The body dies—but not that which is the true man. And in death do I conquer, as well you know, who have chosen to turn down the path of the Shadow. The altar of this devil you speak of—the Loving One.”
“The devil I speak of?” Magos replied. “You should not utter words about things you do not know so lightly, Uranos. The Loving One it shall be, and you will call upon your Flame in that hour, and it will not leap to your calling. Then you will beg for death—but it shall come in its own time and by its own desire. And; for you—likewise!” For the first time since they had: entered that room the high priest looked straight at Ray. “Take them to the temple so that they may be ready at hand when the hour strikes.”
Once more they traveled through dark passages, some of them so dusky that they might be moving through an endless night. Once Ray saw trickles of oily moisture on the walls and slimy tracks left by nameless dwellers in these underground ways.
They came to steps climbing up and up, passing ate least two other levels of floors, then out into a red-walled corridor with rods of light set at regular intervals along it, and finally into the hall of murals, which Ray had seen during that dream journey.
“We are in the temple of Ba-Al.” Uranos spoke for the first time since they had left Magos. “See you, brother, how the Lord of the Shadow would keep his foul amusements ever before his worshipers’ eyes?”
Ray gave those obscene pictures but a glance and then averted his gaze.
“Be silent!” One of their escort slapped Uranos across the mouth viciously. “Time for speech, yes, and for wailing and calling upon a long-quenched Flame will come. They say that the Sun-born do not know how to beg for mercy. But then the Sun-born have not yet met the Loving One. I warrant you will squeal as loudly at the last as did the last Murian who went into the embrace of That Which Crawls!”
They were put in a small side chamber, their chains again snapped to rings in the walls, and then the priests left them.
“What was Magos’s purpose?” Ray asked when they were alone. “Did he play a game with those stones? Or did he really believe Ba-Al made the choice?”
“Who knows?” the other returned. “If he played a game, it was not wholly aimed at us, I think. This Loving One—I wish I knew more.”
He did not agree, Ray decided. He leaned his head against the wall as his older problem came back full force. Why had the will kept him here in the heart of the enemy’s country? What had been the task he had not completed? Since he had been summoned by the Red Robe on the quay, that void which the will had filled had been empty in him. Had it fled or been driven out by the power of the Atlantean priest?
Why was he here?
The stones at his back were chill and cold; he was lost. Not this time in a forest of giant trees but in a place he could not describe, where not his body, but another part of him, drifted without purpose—beyond his control. Lost, yes, as he never thought anyone or anything could be lost
Then—that which he had become—that drifting wisp of near nothingness was caught—held—drawn in another direction and by the will!
Ray was in his body, and there was a tingling in his flesh, a warmth under his skin, which had once come from the sparkling water in the Murian citadel. In him again the will was firmly seated—waiting—though for what he did not know.
“Brother!”
Ray turned his head and looked to the other. Uranos had pulled to the end of his chains and was trying to touch Ray with one outstretched hand. His face mirrored amazement and concern.
“How is it with you?” he asked as Ray’s gaze met his.
“Well—now,” the American answered and knew that was the truth. With the will had come confidence. Yet do not depend upon it, caution urged.
“You—it was as if you went from your body.” half whispered Uranos.
“But I have returned,” Ray said. “And also…” He hesitated.
“Yes—?” Uranos asked.
“I think—listen!” His head still rested against the wall, and it seemed to him that through the stone came sound, very dim and far away.
The Atlantean turned his head and laid his right ear also to the wall.
“Like sea surf,” he said after a long moment.
“What is it?”
They were not given long to speculate. The priests returned to unhook their chains. As they came into the great hall of the temple, that sound was clearer, sharper, as if some acoustic property of the building picked up and amplified it. It was now indeed a roaring. Uranos kept turning his head.
“That—this is battle!” he cried out suddenly.
“Mu!” But how? Ray questioned his own answer. There surely had not been time enough for the motherland to gather an army, to strike thus at the very heartland of the enemy. But could he be sure of that either?
It may well be.” Uranos looked to the priest holding his chains. “Look well to the wings of your Shadow now, brother of the pit. When the Flame dances, all darkness fails. And when the motherland comes to cleanse the land, naught will remain to give your dark god cover.”
The priest struck him. “Ba-Al is not blown as a feather on the breeze. The Loving One will make you forget all but itself—and soon!”
Uranos spat blood from a cut lip. “Look about you. So gather now the spirits of the murdered dead! Think you they shall not guide their avengers, call through your streets for an end to Ba-Al’s rule? I say to you, the Five Walled City shall vanish from the earth, and even its name will be lost to the memory of man. Ba-Al must seek again the pit from which he crawled, and those who serve him will be left to face the light they fear more than any sword. That which you have called up shall be master, not servant, before it is also sent once more into its own place!”
He spoke not as one voicing threats but with such assurance that he might have been a prophet who believed implicitly in his vision of a future shortly to come.
Again the priest raised his hand to strike, but he did not complete that blow. The roaring had faded somewhat, and now they heard a pounding, as if someone ran through the halls. A priest, who wore a brazen corselet over his robe and carried a helm within the crook of his arm, came hastily from behind a row of pillars.
“The Murians.” he panted. “They have sunk ships across the mouth of the harbor after loosing two fire galleys to ram in among the fleet. They landed other forces to the north, and the herdsmen of the plains have revolted to join them. Magos bids you bring these carrion forth to the pyramid above the walls that he may show them what power we can send out to eat them up!”
This—this was what he had been sent to do, said the will within Ray. This was a part of the battle in which he would be the weapon.
The first sharp consciousness of that ebbed as the priests hurried him on with Uranos. Men who were dressed half as priests and half as mailed warriors closed about them and brought them out of the temple.
They could hear the roar better, see the glare of fire beyond the walls and canals, spreading from the docks. There was a tenseness to be felt in the city, its streets crowded with soldiers so that the party from the temple was slowed. Shock was a part of it, Ray sensed. The Atlanteans had not expected this blow—not so soon—and not here. How had the Murian forces managed to move so fast and with such secrecy that they appeared to have caught their enemies unaware—bottled the Atlanteans in their city?
It must be past dawn, but the sky was murky with darkening clouds. And to those one of their guard called their attention.
“See, your Sun is veiled. So does Ba-Al draw his protective curtains over us this day!”
Uranos was jostled against Ray, and the American noticed the other was breathing deeply, drawing the air, tainted though it was with all the pollution of the city, into his lungs eagerly. Then he remembered that his fellow prisoner had been a long time captive, and to him this air was fresh with a kind of freedom.
“They take us to the west wall. See—there is the pyramid,” Uranos observed.
There was an erection of alternate red and black blocks, very dark under the lowering sky. Its top was a square platform reaching perhaps some ten feet higher than the adjacent wall. Up there a small group stood awaiting them.
The flight of stairs leading aloft was very steep, its treads narrow. Twice Ray stumbled, to be finally pulled and hauled along by the guards.
Magos was there. And beside him, still in a gold court robe, with no martial trappings of helm or body armor, Chronos. But the latter did not turn to look as the prisoners were half boosted onto the platform. He was biting the nails on his stubby fingers, staring out, not at the smoke and flame above the harbor, but at the distant clouds, so low-lying. An officer came up the steps of the pyramid at breakneck speed.
“Dread One,” he reported, “those who entered the city from the ruined temple have been driven back again.”
Chronos turned his head. There were flecks of white at the corners of his fleshy lips. His eyes were wild and did not seem to really see outward but rather inward. And Ray knew that this would-be ruler of the world was now filled with fear.
“Kill! Kill!” he screeched. “Let there be blood and burning. Let not one escape! Return not unless you bring also their headseach and every head!”
The officer passed Ray in his going. And the American noted that his face was drawn and haggard, as if the news he had brought was not good but ill and that he had reported defeat instead of part-victory.
It was Magos who gave the next order. Chronos stared once more at the clouds from which came the sound that had been like a distant murmur of ugly, angry surf within the temple and that was not the raging of a sea gone mad but the clamor of a major battle.
“Place them at the pillars—lash them fast,” Magos commanded his priests.
The platform on which they stood was ringed with pillars. They were strong, firmly rooted, and several feet taller than Ray and Uranos who were now bound to them. Uranos nodded across to Ray as Magos came to inspect their bonds narrowly. Then the high priest called to Chronos.
“All is in readiness, Dread One. Shall it be done?”
His manner was outwardly subservient, but malice lurked beneath the lip service he gave the Poseidon. Almost reluctantly Chronos came away from his view of the battle.
His fingers, bloody where he had bitten the nail quicks, were pressed to his wobbling paunch as if some inner pain thrust there. But he summoned the energy to laugh at Uranos.
“Ha—true blood dies—Atlantis falls—is that not what they said all those years agone? Well, those who mouthed that did not know the Loving One!” He looked then to Ray.
“Sydyk out of Uighur—more or less than that, Magos tells me—if you are he—or that—which the Naacals called from another world, then now is the time we shall see whose calling has summoned a greater power. And I think that you are the less—since Phedor was able to summon you when he wrought magic with what was once against your flesh. Such magic moves lesser men, and when you answered to it, then you proved that you were not of the Outer Ones, the terrible ones we have dealings with. So shall you be food for the greater and aid it in bringing forth more of its kind.”
Some of that made sense, but not all. It was apparent that the Atlanteans knew or guessed his identity, thought that he might be some focus of unknown power—but was that true? Ray sought to reach the will within him. It lay there still, but to his appeal there came no answer.
“Can those beyond”—Chronos waved his hand—”can they see clearly?”
“Yes. They have far-seeing glasses that will be trained upon us.”
“Then begin, begin! What do you wait for? Or is there danger for us?” The Poseidon gave back a step or two, edging for the stair head.
“Never, Dread One. The Loving One will not turn against its masters. Prepare them for the embrace.”
Guards were on Ray, slashing at his worn tunic, ripping it down so that he stood bare to the waist. One drew his dagger and cut twice across the American’s breast, leaving a shallow cross-shaped wound that welled blood. There was no harm in the cuts, and the reason for them Ray could not guess. Uranos, he saw, had been similarly marked.
“Go!” As Magos gave permission, the priestly guards departed with the speed of those leaving an ill-omened place. And Chronos withdrew to the very edge of the platform. It was plain that for all Magos’s reassurance, he did not want to front too closely this ultimate weapon.
Magos held a brown bowl of such rough fashioning that he might have patted it together moments earlier from the mud of some riverbank. In this he dropped dully glowing bits of charcoal taken from a footed brazier. Setting it equidistant from the pillars and the prisoners, he puffed the coals into glowing life and then tossed a handful of black powder on them.
Curling brown smoke followed and with it such a stench as made Ray cough, while it irritated his eyes until tears ran down his cheeks. It was as if all the unclean things in the city had been reduced to the handful of powder and set afire.
The smoke cleared, but the nauseating odor still hung there. Chronos had now retreated one step down the stairway. But Magos was smiling, and all the rest of his life—if he had much more of life, Ray thought—he would remember that smile.
“Has your evil failed to answer your call?” asked Uranos. “You have produced smoke and a mighty smell. But what else follows, Magos?”
“Look before you, Uranos. Even now That Which Crawls comes to claim our offerings, that it may wax strong enough to open wide a door for all its blood-kin!” answered the priest.
Ray stared at the stone to which the priest pointed. There was an odd-looking shadow there. And it was growing! Under his gaze it gathered form, as if it drew substance from the very material on which it rested. And as it grew in girth, so did it gain in solidarity. No longer was it shadow.
FOR Ray the whole world narrowed to that shadow which was no longer shadow. Bloated sides swelled yet larger; a head pushed up and out, a blind head with no mark of eyes. Yet the head wove back and forth as if it quested by either sight or sound. Then green-black horns snapped into being, to break the wormlike outline of the head.
It had no legs but, beneath, a gaping mouth that puckered and relaxed rhythmically, wavered, thickened, grew in extension; two tentacles, and on these were ulcer pits of suckers. In color it was basically black, yet splotched here and there with a dull and loathsome green, and from it came an odor to make a man retch. A giant snail lacking any shell, a slug—comparisons arose in Ray’s mind, but none were as stomach-turning as the thing itself.
Magos came forward, and, at either the sound or the vibration of his step, the monster’s head whipped around. Its long neck stretched; the horns waved vigorously.
“Seek your prey, dweller in the Outer Darkness,” commanded the priest. “The blood drips to beckon you—seek your prey!”
The thing raised its head high. Ray wanted to close his eyes, but he could not. A moment or two and then the cuts in his flesh or Uranos’s would guide it.
Those horns continued to weave jointlessly, as if testing the air. Then suddenly it lowered the worm head and humped its back as might a slug in movement. As smoothly as a flow of polluted water, it glided toward the prisoners.
It had chosen, Ray saw. His horror at that moment was so great that it paralyzed him—for he was the choice. After it moved a short distance, it gathered its bulk together in a crouch. Again the horn-waving head arose as if to verify the scent. The stench from it was a gas. Ray wanted the thing to spring now—to finish this. But instead it waited, as if it savored—like a refinement of the promised feast—the disgust and fear of its victim, deliberately prolonging the advance as though to suck in his repugnance.
Then it flowed again—nearer. And from this there was no escape. No escape—or was there? Was it Ray Osborne or was it the will which had brought him here that stirred then? Suppose what he supposed he did not know but only grasped wildly—as a man caught in the sucking maw of quicksand would catch at any branch overhanging that spot—for something within him with which to do battle.
Black—black—the creeping thing of the Dark—the blackness. What fought black? White—light! The white of the temple walls of Mu; the white of a Naacal’s robe; the white of—of Flame! But fire was red—yellow—Not so! The Flame was white—white with a dazzling purity. White! The will within him, all within him that dreaded death, as mankind dreaded extinction, stiffened into defense. A white Flame
And this thing from the pit—it dreaded that Flame. Ray felt it check, felt the small flash of uneasiness that lay behind that check. Its head jerked faster from side to side. Now it was no longer silent. A low, whining note hurt his ears. Or was that sound at all?
Flame—a shooting Flame—a Flame that moved and made a wall before that thing. It was there—he could actually see it now—white Flame that might have seared his eyes with its force and yet did not. And in him that will swelled and flowered but—only through him. So this was the why and wherefore—he was the instrument through which—then the will blotted out his own thoughts; it must have the whole of him in this struggle.
Again the thing gave a little ground, and its keening whine grew the shriller. Fear—its fear grew! He must use that fear as the handler of a savage beast uses a lash to ward off attack. And like a whip he cracked his thought:
“Back, nameless evil, back into the world wherein you were set to dwell! Cross not into this! Back to the foulness that is rightfully yours!”
But the thing retreated no farther, only lay there, its head darting from side to side as if it butted against a wall. Then Ray knew Magos was holding it, using his counter powers to drive it on. He, too, drew upon some inner will or force. Ray faltered. The Loving One humped forward. Flame—the Flame was there
Again the slug’s advance was stayed; the angry whine arose. Under Magos’s urging it rocked back and forth, its baffled cry growing louder. But this time Ray held. How long could he do so?
They were locked in silent battle. Magos and his creature of the Dark striving to find some weakness, Ray the channel for the will that drew heavily upon his strength. He was weakening. The thing flowed—stopped, flowed again.
“Brother, give it my body!” Faint and far away was that call. “Give it me and gain time.”
“No!” Ray rallied. His body was trembling; he felt as if only the chains that bound him to the pillar kept him on his feet. Forward crept the Loving One
“On!” commanded Magos.
“Back!” ordered Ray and the will.
Noise—shouting...
Ray’s concentration broke. The Loving One leaped. Too late the American tried to set the barrier again. A tentacle slapped across his body; the suckers fastened greedily on the bloody cuts. He shrank and yet could not move from the contamination of that embrace.
Flame—Flame—but there was no Flame that would touch the thing now mad with blood hunger. Only he was not yet done! It was as if deep within him he now fronted that will and demanded of it as it had demanded of him.
Ray’s head raised. Come, he told that will—be with me now! And if it had made of him a servant and a weapon, so now in the depths of extremity he reversed that. Into him flowed, after a second or two of amazed resistance, a kind of power such as he had never felt before.
The loathsome flesh pressed to him quivered. Slowly, with the added torture of physical pain, the tentacles loosened as, reluctantly, fighting, the monster drew back. Magos had released his pressure. Too late he saw what was happening.
“Flame!” Ray thought he shouted that aloud. It was an order, to his own strength, to the will he had seized. “Flame!”
Again it was there, the leaping, dazzling Flame.
“Hold—those of Mu climb the stair!” Words—without meaning. All that existed in the world was that Flame created out of thought, which must be held, and held, and held
The Loving One twisted and turned, hissing, but it retreated from the Flame. There was a cry from the stairs.
“Hold!” shouted Uranos again. “Hold but a little longer, brother!”
Magos was desperate. Ray felt the loosing of the Red priest’s power. He was strong—maybe too strong. But if he won, he must first face a fight, a real fight
The high priest strode back and forth across the platform, his thoughts sharp and swift, like thunderbolts, prodding the thing. The Loving One reared, writhed, twisted, crept forward
And the Flame dwindled. It was not Ray’s spirit but his body that weakened. And again the tentacles closed about him.
“Ray! Ray!” A call. He tried to draw upon the will, but there was nothing left.
White fire—the Flame again? Ray raised his head.
No, just a ray, touching the horns of the Loving One. It writhed against him. But the tentacles dropped, tearing his flesh. There was a roaring in his head, he saw distortedly, as through a watery mist.
Clash of steel against steel. Then he was falling, free of the pillar. Someone caught him, steadied his limp body, lowered him gently. He saw a face wavering in and out of focus. Cho—from far away and very long ago—Cho “The-Loving-One.” He tried to warn and thought that perhaps his words were not even a whisper. But those ice-blue eyes understood; lips curved in a smile as frost-filled as a winter storm.
“Watch, brother.”
The Murian raised his hand. Cupped in the palm was a crystal, flashing rainbow lights. And from its center rayed a shaft of white light. Again Cho played that upon the horns of the thing and so drove the crawler back, for it could not escape the beam he turned upon it.
Magos stood beyond, his face contorted into a mask that had only a faint humanity in it. And the power in him—Ray could feel it aimed at them—at the Loving One. Yet the monster was out of his control.
“Devil!” Magos screamed.
“Drinker of blood,” Cho returned. “Listen now to this beast of yours. I think it hungers. And is not true that when it comes to your call, it must be fed, one way or another? Behold—the reckoning!”
The Loving One, as if goaded beyond endurance, sprang—not at the Murians but at the priest. Its tentacles closed about Magos with the grim grip of a trap. The priest tore one arm free and thrust at the obscene roundness of the slug body. His dagger sank into the black hide, but when it was withdrawn again, there was no trace of a wound on the sleek skin. And all the while the Loving One fed.
Ray’s head fell back on Cho’s arm. He had been too close to that himself to watch now. But the Murian did not look away, and when the monster would have turned at last, Cho held it with the beam.
There was one scream. Cho’s arm tightened about y the American. Then the Murian raised the crystal for the last time.
“It is done,” he said. “Now we destroy the doer.”
Ray looked once more. A tattered bundle of stained rags lay upon the stone. Above that oozed the monster, and it was crooning to itself. Just as Magos’s rage had earlier reached to them, so did now a horrible satisfaction.
The light became a sharp sword of radiance. At its touch the creature ceased to croon its contentment and moved uneasily. Then it whined, shrilly, its plaint hurting in one’s head.
Now the beam changed color, from white to faint rose, from rose to red. Then it rippled, as if rising in ever strengthening waves from a concealed source. And in Ray’s body he felt the rhythm of that rippling.
While the Loving One twisted, writhed, its whining became a vibration, too high for human ears to catch any longer. Then it started to dissolve. Its outlines blurred; a black pool oozed slowly from under it. And the stench was a sickness in the air.
Still Cho held the light steady on that writhing bulk. Once the creature seemed to make a last desperate effort to survive. Its head lifted, the body heaved as if to hurl itself at the Murian, but the light chained it fast.
So it perished, the body becoming a pool of liquid corruption, which, in turn, was consumed by the ray. Then there was a shouting on the platform, echoed from the street below.
“The city falls,” Cho said. “They throw down swords and call for mercy. And now—we must see to your wounds, brother.”
Another Murian in armor went to his knees beside the American. Under that helmet, surely—Ray frowned—a face he had seen. Yes—this was he who had led the prisoners.
“You—then Taut did as he promised.”
“Surely, lord, and better.” began the other, but Cho shook his head.
“Time for talking later. This now.” He smeared a paste across Ray’s breast. “Now, a cloak about you. We must get you into the hands of the Naacals as soon as we can.”
“Lord!” One of the Murians spoke; his hand rested on Uranos’s shoulder. “What of this Atlantean?”
“Cho.” Ray summoned what small strength he still possessed. “This is the real Poseidon, Uranos—their—their prisoner, too. Listen to him.”
“That shall be done.”
Ray sank back on the cloak. The invading party here was a small one, eight Murrain and four wild-looking rogues who might have come from Taut’s own ship. Uranos knelt beside him.
“Warriors’ high salute to you, comrade. And for your courtesy in remembering me—my thanks. Of the Atlanteans taken—I do not think that one will find any to speak for him.”
Ray looked in the direction the other pointed. Two of the Murians were tying the hands of Chronos behind his fat body.
“He was captured.”
“Yes. It was his hate and his cowardice that kept him here. He wanted to witness our ending, and he feared the battle below. So for him the game is now lost, and I do not think he will relish what will follow.”
Ray listened in a dreamy detachment. The ointment Cho had used on his wounds had taken away the pain. And he felt queerly light and empty. The will was gone once more, and this time for good—or so he believed. All about him was hazy, as if the place, the men, all else save he himself, had no reality. He was alive; the Loving One—whatever that horror had been—was gone, taking Magos with it. And Chronos was a prisoner.
“It seems”—Cho returned from the head of the stairs—”that we must stay here yet a while. To travel the streets now is a matter of fighting; there are pockets of desperate men who will not surrender.” He sat down on his heels by Ray and slipped from his own arm a band of black, transferring its coolness to the American’s limp arm. “This was, in a way, our key to the city.”
“How?” The touch of the armlet had an odd effect on Ray. It steadied the world and brought it into focus again.
“Captain Taut brought it and the Murians to speak for him. And Taut knew an inner way to bring troops inside the walls.”
“As I said,” Uranos commented, “there were secrets of which Chronos knew nothing, which even the Red Robes had not explored.”
“But.” Ray touched the armlet with his other hand, running his fingers along it. “How did Mu get here—so soon?”
“Ask the Re Mu, ask the Naacals—ask those who appeared to us to be so blind to danger and so lacking in preparedness. The legions of Uighur came in from the east, and our fleet from Mayax. But I sailed with Taut in the vanguard, claiming my right.”
“Your right?”
Cho looked surprised. “Are we not sword brothers? The Re Mu said that you were already in service within the Red Land—so thus I would come. I think we set a record—look.” He held out his palm and showed red blisters on the skin. “Even officers took their turn at the oars when there was need. Taut had the command, and I am but a. first-year swordsman when compared to his experience in such raids. He knows this coast better than any warder. Once, when he was pursued by a guard ship whose commander could not be bought off, he stumbled upon a secret. It is a narrow break in the cliffs, so small a fault one cannot believe that it gives upon aught worthwhile. But there is a scrap of beach and a cave, and then a tunnel that must have been cut by men before the recording of time. The tunnel leads under the city to the lower chambers of the temple of the Flame.
“We lanced there by night. And a party remained to lead in later forces from the fleet. Taut swore that the sons of the Shadow depended so much upon their rings of walls and water that they would be part vanquished already if we appeared in their midst. And I believe he had the right of that.
“At dawn we captured a Red Robe, and I think he mistook us for spirits of the murdered Sun-born, for he told us freely that Magos planned to summon the Loving One and feed it well. The nature of that monster was such that it would thereby be able to bring from its own pit others of its kind, loosing thus a weapon we could not stand against.
“We thought that what he drooled about would happen in the temple of Ba-Al, and we fought to reach there. It was not until later we saw what chanced’ here and knew of our mistake. Without the walls the legions of Uighur are in action, and with them those of Atlantis who have never taken kindly to rule by the priests of the Greater Dark. Now such resistance that remains is being hunted out, pocket by pocket, while ever more men come through the temple passage.”
“And this?” Ray pointed to the crystal.
“Of the Naacals’ making, but they have only, a few of them. This was sent to me just before I entered the passage. We were warned that we must be very close to that monster before it could be used. But, Ray, twice we saw that evil thing retreat, and yet you were bound and had no weapon at all!”
“He has done what I would have sworn none could do!” Uranos burst out. “He beat back that fear with his will, held the Dark at bay.”
“No,” said Ray, his fingers still slipping about the jet armlet, that touch which tied him to the here and now. “I did what was set upon me to do, I summoned the Flame.”
“The Flame?” questioned Cho.
“The white Flame,” repeated Ray, once more slipping into that odd state of detachment.
“The undying Flame,” Cho said. “But that—that is not of man, for man to look upon! Truly the shield of the motherland was raised above you on this day!”
“Once that Flame burned in the sanctuary of the altar in this city.” Uranos spoke then.
“But never will it so again,” answered Cho.
“What do you mean?” asked the Atlantean prince.
“moon shot is your simple gamble—a schoolroom exercise compared to this,” Burton retorted.
“When do you make the first try?” General Colfax spoke for the first time.
“In exactly fourteen hours, five minutes. Then we open the gate and hold it for an hour. Dr. Burton activates the seeker according to the equation.”
“And then—we just wait.” The general spoke as if to himself.
“We wait,” echoed Fordham.
“And maybe,” added Hargreaves, “we just go on waiting—forever.”
RAY struggled up on one arm to look out into the main hall of the ruined temple. Part of the roof was open to the night sky, and light rods were set in the old brackets to illuminate the stone blocks now serving Murian war captains as tables and seats.
“How is it with you?”
The American looked over his shoulder at an approaching Naacal.
“Better.”
The priest smiled. “So you’re weary of our tending and would be up and about? Well.” His fingers touched Ray’s wrist and hunted for his pulse. “Perhaps if I do not suffer such folly, you will be out on your own anyway.” He clapped his hands, and a man wearing the shorter white tunic of a temple servant brought clothing.
With help Ray slipped a soft leather tunic over the bandages that wrapped him mummy-wise from armpit to waist. Over that went a kilt reinforced with metal strips, but no breast plate. The priest waved that aside.
“You will not need it, and the weight is too much for your wounds.”
“Cho—?” asked Ray.
“At present he is on duty at the western gate.”
“And the city?”
“It has surrendered, save for the inner keep of the palace. When most of the guard discovered Chronos taken, they threw down their arms. Those who still fight are the Red Robes of Ba-Al and such others as have good reason to believe they deserve no mercy at our hands.”
“Ray!” Cho came swiftly across the hall. He stopped a short distance off to survey the American from head to foot. “Good—warrior ready. But you have no sword. This perhaps—I took it but a short time ago from the captain of the gate.” He had in his hands a belt and sheathed sword, the hilt of which gleamed red with a pattern of rubies.
“Now—that is better. You must be ready.”
“For what? The Naacal said most of the fighting was over.”
“Not for battle, no. But the Re Mu enters the city at dawn. All but the inner part of the palace is now ours.”
“And Chronos?”
“Swords from the private guard at the Great One hold him safe. The Re Mu wishes to see you.”
And I, thought Ray, wish to see him. There are questions—but whether he would ever get a chance to ask them, that he did not know. That sense of unreality had closed about him again. He watched and listened, but he was not a part of all this. And now no touching of the armlet reunited him with this world in which he stood, like a spectator at a vivid pageant.
He was with Cho as the Re Mu entered the Five Walled City. He saw the white war chariot of the Sun drawn by snorting stallions crunch over the debris of battle. And he even copied Cho’s war salute to the Emperor and went forward with the Murian when that ruler beckoned to them.
“I see you, my lords.” The Re Mu gave the formal greeting as Ray again followed Cho’s lead and touched knee to the dust of the roadway.
Cho bowed his head to give the conventional answer: “We are yours, Great One, with all loyalty and strength.”
But Ray looked up into those remote blue eyes. If the Re Mu read his thoughts here and now, he knew that Ray did not echo that and that his outward show of homage was only that—show.
“Never, I think, has the Sun been so ably served, my lords.” returned the Emperor. “Come to me within the hour.”
“We hear and obey,” Cho agreed, and they got to their feet as the chariot rumbled on.
Hear and obey, yes; he had heard and would obey—in this much, but not by choice. And he would have answers—trailing Cho, the American followed the royal procession into the heart of the city. Townspeople were being herded along by Murian troops, also converging on the center of their half-destroyed capital.
Though the soldiers tried to keep some sort of order and clear lanes through the throng, the ways were choked. Cho appealed to a harassed officer.
“We are summoned by the Great One. How may we—?”
The officer threw up his hands. “Not this way, Sun-born. Take to the lesser streets, even to the roofs, but you will make no haste.”
Cho took his advice, bringing them into a side way and finally weaving an in-and-out route to reach the temple once more.
“Where is Uranos?” Ray asked as they came at last to their goal. He was panting with effort and had to lean against a wall.
“I do not know. He went to the Re Mu last night. If he is as he claims.” But Cho broke off, for they were now a part of a crowd of officers and men drawn up behind a hastily arranged throne. Blocks from the fane had been set together and draped with brilliant war cloaks. There the Re Mu had taken his seat to judge the city. About him was a glittering mass of polished and bejeweled armor, with here and there the plain white robe of a Naacal for contrast, while at the Emperor’s right, on a lower block seat, the Naacal U-Cha leaned forward a little as if he were so shortsighted he had difficulty in making out with clarity the scene before him.
As Cho and Ray mingled with the warriors, there was a sharp and demanding roll of war drums, four of them together, standing waist-high to the drummers on the steps. And as that died away, so did the surf like murmur of the throng.
The Re Mu’s face was expressionless, yet in some strange way it was as if he saw not just the multitude of people gathered there but each and every man or woman in it as an individual whom he was to judge. Ray watched people in the nearer ranks drop their heads, look to left or right, but in the end they once more raised their eyes as if commanded to do so by a power they could not disobey.
Then the Emperor’s hand lifted but an inch or two from the clasp it held, fingers locked upon the hilt of a bared sword that stood upright between his knees, and pointed to the cracked and stained stone under his feet. At that slightest of gestures, one of the warriors moved out a pace or so to his left. Under the edge of that man’s helm Ray saw a face that he knew. It was Uranos.
“People of Atlantis.” The Re Mu’s voice rang with the same compelling note as the drums. “Dwellers under the cloak of the Shadow.”
A ripple crossed the crowded square. They were falling to their knees, holding up their hands, some in swift abasement, others more reluctantly.
“Forgive.” A kind of sobbing wail, which grew stronger, followed that ripple.
“Some things go beyond the bounds of forgiveness. Look you, choosers of the Dark, upon the stains that stand upon these walls, think you how they came to bear such red testimony against you.” The Emperor’s sword swung up, and the rising sun caught fire along its blade, making it flame. It pointed to the walls where the Sun-born had had their ending.
“We did as those over us commanded, Great One. Forgive!”
“And I say unto you, men of heart would have risen and put down any who gave such commands. It becomes no man in a day of judgment to hide behind an order that was evil, saying, ‘I did as I was commanded.’ In each man at birth is placed the knowledge of good and evil, and each day, each hour, is he allowed choices of both. If he chooses ill out of fear or weakness or lust or greed or rage, still he has had a choice, and by that choice he shall be judged when the final day comes. When your forefathers came to this land, they were given two treasures, that they might look upon them and remember the right.” Again his sword flashed and this time pointed to the pillars still covered with:: the dusty, tattered cloths. “Behold, those now go cloaked from sight because of shame and hate and fear, because you dare not look upon what you have so openly betrayed. Thus did you blot out the symbols of right. and justice, choosing rather the cover of the Shadow,,‘ some of you following it even to the pit. So must this, city be erased from the sight of men—blood cover blood. Is not that justice—the kind you understand the best, men of Atlantis?”
“Mercy—mercy.” It was a thin wail—from the women and children, Ray believed. He saw no man in that throng give tongue.
“And what mercy did you show in your day, men of Atlantis? Think upon that! No, this city shall be as if it never was—and that by nightfall. And you who have made it an abode of uncleanness, what shall be done with you?”
They were silent now, save here and there where a child or woman cried.
“Yes, an abiding place for unclean things have you made this city. Behold, this temple lies in ruins while that of Ba-Al proudly stands. Give me a reason, men of Atlantis, why you should not also suffer the fate of your city?”
“Mercy, Great One. If not for us, then for the children of our courtyards.” A single voice raised that plea.
“Harken to my words. There are different justices and differing judgments. You are weak and foolish, but evil was taught unto you—the most of you. It did not spring in all of you equally. Therefore, I say unto you, go forth from this city, taking naught save what you can carry of food and clothing within your own two hands. And be forth of the gates by sundown—lest the greater judgment overtake you in the end.”
Uranos moved then and went on his knees before the, Emperor.
“Great One, these are my people. Suffer me to go with them, to lead them until they can build anew.”
“Uranos, in the past these turned their faces from your house, set aside the rule of those of your blood, to take unto themselves a leader of their own choice, another of those choices that they made freely. In the motherland, honor and a service fitted to you await your coming. In this place where the blood of your kindred still stains the wall before your eyes, do you say this? Do you wish to lead these people?”
“Great One, you have spoken much of choices in this life and the making of them, and thereafter abiding by the results of such choosing. Though I am of the Sun-born, yet am I also of this land, sharing it with these people. So do I choose to go with them, and that is a free choice. Also, I will abide by all that comes of it.”
The Re Mu’s sword rose high in the air, then descended to touch Uranos lightly on the right shoulder and on the left. Finally he reversed that blade and held out the hilt, which Uranos kissed.
“Listen well, men of Atlantis,” the Emperor commanded. “I set before you now such a leader as you have not had since the old days when this was a fair, clean land. He is of the Sun-born, yet also is he of Atlantis, an Atlantean of Atlanteans, and no foreign conqueror. So I say unto you, cherish him and obey him and abide by such a choice.
“Uranos, Poseidon of Atlantis, do you swear to establish once more the dwelling of the Flame, to walk with your people in the light, warring upon the Shadow and all its legions, to hold to the law and the justice, under the Sun, to be a sword and shield for the motherland in her hour of need?”
“Upon the Flame do I swear it, for me and for my people, Great One.”
For the second time he kissed the hilt of the Re Mu’s sword and then arose and turned to face those watching him from below. They gave him no greeting, but as he walked down the steps of the temple, they pressed forward. Some went to their knees, kissing his hands, the hem of his cloak. With them about him, he turned once more to face the throne now above him.
“We shall obey the commands laid upon us, and at sunset we shall be gone,” he said.
The ripple spread once more across the square, and Ray thought the people were preparing to scatter. Only once more the drums rolled, and that summons held them. In the issuing silence the Re Mu spoke again.
“Men of Atlantis, you have come to judgment. Now do you also judge. What will you do with this man?”
The Murians about the throne parted, and a party of guards came through. Chronos, white, his face twitching, his head jerking from side to side, was half led, half dragged in their midst.
Sound then, such a rising snarl came from the crowd as made Ray step back a pace. He had heard, read, of mob fury, but he had never seen it in action. This was as horrible in its way as the Loving One.
“To us, Great One, to us!” The scream arose from a hundred and then thousands of throats.
“What say you, Chronos? Is this justice? Do you wish it?”
To Ray’s amazement the deposed Poseidon lifted his head, stilling that crazy jerking.
“Yes,” he answered. Did he have some idea that that meant escape, or was he mad?
The Re Mu nodded. “The choice is yours, so be it.”
As the Murian guards stepped back, the mob licked up in a wave and Chronos was gone. No scream, no sound, save a kind of worrying—an eddy in the mob—then nothing. The throng broke, streamed away from the square, and the Re Mu rose from his improvised throne and went back into the temple, the Naacals closing in about him. An officer came to Cho and Ray.
“The Great One wishes you.”
They came into that part of the temple where there was a stone much hacked and defaced with scorching, a central altar once, Ray believed. And by that now stood both the Re Mu and U-Cha. It was to Cho the Emperor first spoke.
“You asked of us the post of greatest danger, Sun-born. And you wrought well thereafter. Also by your hands was that spawn of evil—that thing summoned from another world—slain. What do you claim from us in return?”
“Naught. The duty was mine.”
The Re Mu smiled. “Naught—the answer of youth and courage and what lies in the morning of life. But your naught is not enough. To you the serpent, and after you those of your sons and sons’ sons. Come you.”
Cho knelt at the Emperor’s feet. From his own war helm the Re Mu detached a circlet of a striking serpent, fitting it on Cho’s, while those about raised their bared swords.
“You.” The Re Mu looked to Ray. “Ah, yes, you have that to ask of us also. No, by rights you can demand. Since you did not surrender your will to duty, the choice was taken from you.”
“Yes,” Ray replied shortly.
“You were not of our blood; this was not your quarrel. In our moment of great danger, we forged of you a weapon of which we had need. If you think all this, it is the truth. I have spoken much of choices and of standing by the result of such choices. We chose to use a stranger who trusted us, and this was ill doing. But for this I have a single answer: my choice lay between the good of one man and the salvation of all my people.
“We could not reach into this land; it was too well guarded by barriers that were not only visible men and steel, walls and water, but also that which had been raised by Magos and his adepts to speedily trip any of our blood daring to venture here. I think you had a taste of their weapons when you were taken at last.
“Because you were not of us, you had certain inborn safeguards we could not hope to develop. Thus we put into you that which we had that was needful to open doors. You were the key, the only one we had.”
“Even to the Loving One?” asked Ray evenly. He had not knelt as did Cho. He was gazing eye to eye with this man who ruled most of a world. And now there was no awe between them.
“Even to the Loving One,” agreed the Re Mu. “That was only the first, the scout, if you will, of an army of its kind Magos would have loosed upon us. It, too, was a key, for each time it was summoned, and fed, it grew a stronger tie with this world. Eventually it would have brought its kind—and perhaps worse—for the place from which Magos summoned it is alien and, to us, always the stronghold of the enemy. And we do not know what other horrors that pit may hold. So you were to be the bait to bring it forth when there was still a chance to deal with it and close that gate.
“And I say that, in all our history, no man ever served the motherland as have you, a stranger. Nor has any man ever faced such evil and held it powerless for a space. It is not in my power to reward you fittingly, for to speak of rewards is to belittle what you have done. But ask whatever you desire.”
“Return to my own time and place,” asked Ray.
The Re Mu stood in silence. Then he said slowly, “Our knowledge, all that exists, shall be yours. Whether this can be done, I do not know. But if it cannot—?”
“I do not know. Only that I am”—it was Ray’s turn to hesitate, to find it difficult to put into words his feelings—”not of this time. It may be that I cannot return, but I must try.”
“So be it!”
As Ray stepped back, Cho matched step with him. The Murian was sober-faced.
“Do—do you hate us, brother?” he asked. “Because of what they willed you to do? I did not know that this was so. But I can see how it would raise anger in a man.”
“Hate.” Ray repeated. He felt no emotion, only a kind of weary emptiness, an odd dislocation, as if he were not a part of life any more but existed in a place not meant for him. A swimmer in the ocean, looking upon all the wonders and colors of a world that was not his own and never could be, in which he was the alien visitor, might feel this way, Ray decided. Since he had been emptied of the will and seen the Loving One die—he had been an onlooker only. And to be real again” No, not hate,” he said more to himself than Cho. “Only tired—I am tired.”
“And—if you cannot return?” The. Murian put out his hand but did not quite touch Ray, as if he, also, felt they were somehow separate and even a meeting of fingers upon fingers could not in any way unite them.
“I do not know.”
Cho’s hand dropped to his side, but he continued to walk beside Ray, now and then glancing at him. He was tired, Ray thought, and now he went back to that place in the temple where he had been brought for treatment, stretching out on the couch there. Cho had thrown himself down on a neighboring pile of cloaks and was quickly asleep. But though he was so weary, the American could not sleep himself. He shut his eyes and tried to picture—yes, this time—tried to see the trees, the silent forest.
The Re Mu had offered him whatever he wished. A . ship might be the answer, a ship to the north, and then across the plain and into the dusk of the forest—to the place where he had entered this time. And what if he did come to stand once more on that very spot and nothing happened?
He heard a small movement nearby and opened his eyes. U-Cha, looking very old—old and faded in his white robe, as if that had far more substance than the frail body it covered—stood there gazing down at him.
“You were that will,” Ray said.
“I was that will—in part,” agreed the Naacal.
“But,” he added, “the will was less than you held it to be, though you may not believe that, for the strength behind the will was more than half yours.”
“But I did not want—”
“To do our bidding? Yes, that is also true. Only; think upon this—when the will had need, there were depths to draw upon such as you will not find among us. Different you are, complex to our measuring, for you have been shaped in other days by a life we know nothing of. But I think that what you are now is not what you were when you stepped from your time into ours. A smith draws molten metal from the heat and beats upon it. He chills, reheats, works. And what he has in his hands at the end of his labors is not what he held at the beginning.”
Ray sat up. Under the bandages his wounds pained him a little. And somehow that pain was faintly reassuring, making him more alive instead of only a detached onlooker.
“Do you mean—that this change might keep me here?”
“It is a thought that perhaps you should hold in your mind, my son, for this much I am sure of—you are not the same man who came to us. Perhaps that change began even as you entered from your world and is of a process like unto growth. So.”
“So I should be prepared to fail. Very well, you have warned me. But will you also help me?”
“With all that we have—we know—yes.”
“Not here,” said Ray, “nor in Mu, but in the north.”
U-Cha looked at him in surprise. “To the north—in the Barren Lands? But we have no temple, no place of learning.”
“I only know that it is from the north I came and there I must return. Also that it must be soon, I believe, or not at all.”
U-Chas head bowed. “So be it.”
Then he raised his thin hand, on the back of which the old veins made heavy blue ridges. And in the air between them he drew a sign that to Ray was not visible.
“Let your spirit rest and your mind give ease to your body, for it is not this day, nor tomorrow, nor perhaps many tomorrows, that we can aid you on that trail. Until then be at peace.”
And Ray, lying back upon the couch, discovered sleep waiting, a dreamless rest in which no shadows or memories dared to move.
At sunset he stood outside the city in company with Cho and those tough raiders who had guided the Murian forces into the citadel. The last of the survivors from the town were straggling through the inland gates, forming into family groups, then into companies, to trudge on and on, the mounted rebels from the plains forming the guard to keep them moving, while in the city a house-to-house search was in progress to make sure no hiders were forgotten. And it was dusk when the last of those searchers also came forth. When they, too, reached the hills, beams of light shot from the Murian ships offshore, from points inland. There was a crash as those rays met, louder than any thunder-clap, a shuddering of ground that knocked many of the watchers from their feet. And a cloud of gritty dust was caught by whirling winds, drawn up to darken the sky still more.
“The temple of Ba-Al.” Cho caught at the American’s shoulder. “Look you to the temple!”
In the rubble the sullen red-walled structure still squatted, to their eyes intact. Again the beams closed, now aimed upon that one building alone, but when they were gone, still it stood.
Then from the sky itself, as if their machines of destruction had drawn some force of nature, came a jagged stroke of blinding, dazzling light. There was a sound to deafen them, and when they could see again, the temple was gone.
But in that moment Ray had a curious impression he could neither believe nor explain, nor did he ever speak of it afterwards. He thought he saw a black shadow, not unlike that of a crouching human body surmounted by a bull’s head, flee into the night, drawing about it as a concealing cloak the very substance of the normal dark.
As they turned to seek their ships, a mounted man rode up from the slow-moving snake of the Atlantean refugees. Uranos leaned from the saddle to speak to Ray.
“Comrade, I have not forgotten. All mine is yours; ask it of me. Thus shall it also be with our sons and sons’ sons. Should you call, and I shall come, even unto have need the ends of the earth. Now I must go with my people. But remember, brother.”
Ray’s hand went to clasp his. “No debt between us.” This he must make the other understand. “Go in peace, freely
The fingers tightened on his and then loosed, and the rider was gone. But Cho was now beside the American.
“The ships wait—and also the motherland.”
Together they started for the shore.
“THIS is your landing? You are sure of the place?”
Ray could almost agree to the doubt expressed by
Captain Taut. There was no marker on that deserted and empty shore, and one piece of this coast was very like another, but Ray was sure.
“Right there,” he repeated confidently. He turned his head; it was hard even by so little to break that cord which he had felt drawing him with an intensity that grew stronger the nearer they approached the Barren Lands.
Home to the motherland, Cho had said days earlier. But Ray had known then that such a return could not be for him, would not be. As he had told U-Cha, there was only one road to take, and that lay north. And Taut, sailing under new orders, to hunt down fugitive fragments of the Atlantean fleet scouts, had agreed to set him ashore where he wished.
The raider captain pulled his sea cloak tighter about his thick shoulders. There was a chill breeze, more like the breath of the winters Ray had known in the land this would become. Now he could see patches of white ashore, traces of snow.
“We’ll cruise to the east. Light your signal fire when you want to be taken off.”
Ray nodded. That signal, he thought, would probably never be lighted. Best make Taut understand that.
“I may not return at all,” he said. “I go to find my own people.”
“Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no fancy tales,” replied the other. “Oh, aye, every man is entitled to his own secrets. There is no colony here, only wilds and things in them such as make for hard meetings, one way or another. There were Atlantean ships cruising here, and some will turn pirate now. Outlaws make their camps back there.” He waved his hand to the shore. “Walk quietly, warrior, and keep your hand ever on sword hilt while you do so. We’ll watch for your signal.”
“And if you do not see it within five days, go about your own business and do not seek me further,” repeated Ray firmly.
“Agreed. But then what do I report when I return? That I landed you in a wilderness, that you would have no escort from among us, and that I left you alone here? I think that I would have to accept sword-challenge if I said that. Especially when facing the Sun-born Cho whom you tricked when you stole away from him to come aboard my ship, bearing those orders with you.”
“Tell him to ask his questions of U-Cha, the Naacal. There are those who know what I must do.”
Ray was impatient. He almost wanted to dive over the side of the ship and swim. But at last Taut did not appear to wish to waste more time in argument. The captain gave orders, and Ray was rowed ashore. He jumped from the boat to the wave-washed sand and turned to catch the provision bag the steersman threw to him. But he did not wait thereafter to watch the boat return to the ship.
Wind and wave had worked upon the sand dunes, but not too far away were fire-smoked stones. Yes, his inner urging had led him aright. This was the place of the Atlantean camp where he had been a captive. Now.
Ray cached the bag of supplies behind a convenient rock. That was only an unnecessary burden and one he would probably never see again. He began to walk on as steady a course inland as if his feet followed a well-marked road, as sure of his route as if that path stretched smoothly-paved before him.
In time he came to the ravine where lay the cleaned bones of the elk. He scrambled up the rise down which they had brought him a prisoner. Before him, against the sky, was the dark line of the forest. There was no sun today. The sky was cold and drear, and winter bit more deeply here.
Dark was that forest, for, in spite of the season, there had not been a complete loss of leaves from the trees, so a dusky canopy still hung overhead. He put aside a withered vine that struck against the crest of his Murian helmet and paused to pull the hem of his cloak from the thorny grasp of a bush.
Beneath the soles of his high sea boots was a moss carpet, its green only faintly touched with brown. As he looked on down those tree aisles, he could see only murk. This was his recurring dream of the forest and what might walk there to meet him. Yet this was his road, and now he had no power to turn from it. There was no will overriding his fears and desires as there had been in Atlantis, but he felt an overwhelming need to go on and on, to reach the place where he had come through time. The need had been only an uneasiness of spirit at first, but it had grown stronger and stronger each day, pulling at him in a way he could no longer resist, even if he had wanted to.
The leather and denim he had worn then were gone. He had a tunic of hide, tanned to fabric-softness, the metal-enforced kilt of a soldier, and over his bandaged chest a corselet of metal. A sword belt weighed about his waist, the sheath rubbing against his thigh. By so much had he changed. He wondered fleetingly what they would think when they saw him, the men of his own time. His fantastic story—perhaps his clothing would give it some credence.
Heedless of scratches, Ray broke through the last of the underbrush that fringed the true forest and trotted on down the aisle before him. He had fled this way in panic: Would he be able to find again the exact spot of the breakthrough? At least that pull on him continued, and he had come to trust it as a kind of homing device.
He was running again, this time into the wood, not from it. Now—now—now.
“Something is coming in!” Burton pushed aside one earphone.
They could see the alien scene on the screen, the giant trees, the edge of the forest glade. Hargreaves glanced around at the others gathered there. He thought—they didn’t really believe it. Until now—in spite of the film, all the other shots—they didn’t believe it. You can’t—until you actually see it for yourself.
“A reading—give me a reading!” Burton demanded sharply of one of his three assistants.
Each repeated a series of coordinates, and Burton adjusted dials before him, frowning.
“Dalberg—repeat!”
The man to the left reread his figures. Burton’s pencil dug hard into the surface of the pad at his elbow as he scribbled. His frown deepened. He added, crossed out with a vicious stroke, and set down another line of figures.
“What is it?” asked General Colfax.
Burton waved an impatient demand for quiet. “Campbell—try” Another flood of equations was delivered to his right-hand neighbor. Fingers flicked keys; dials were turned. Burton hunched his shoulders, leaning farther forward until his nose tip was not far, from that smaller viewscreen repeating the scene on the larger.
Fordham spoke for the first time. “Ten minutes to go on this hold.”
Burton looked around. “That may not be enough. We have him—or someone—on the beam. You’ve got to hold longer.”
“If we do, we’ll have to draw from the reserve. And we may blow any chance of another try very soon.”
“But we have him, I tell you!”
“You said—him or something.”’ The general spoke again. “You didn’t sound so sure a moment ago.”
“We’re doing this all on a supposition basis, on an equation built from inadequate data,” Burton replied. “Naturally we must expect some variation. Well, we do have a fix on a mind now, and it’s coming in, answering the beam. I don’t think we could pick up anything but your man. We built our call around what we know of him—and him only.”
“But you’re still not sure.” The general picked up a small come from the table to give his own orders.
“Small, alert your men. Pick up whoever comes through, I want him brought here on the double the minute he shows.”
Fordham consulted his own dials. “Six minutes to go on this setting. How close is he now?” he asked of Burton.
“Less than a mile. You’ll have to switch onto the extra time, I tell you!”
Fordham’s fingers drummed on the edge of the panel. Finally he pulled a mike to him. “Let her go onto extra. Yes, I said switch onto extra when the time is up!”
Those trees on the screen, just an innocent picture now, Hargreaves thought. There were men stationed down there by the Indian mound, ready to jump on what was being pulled through, back into their time. This Ray Osborne—or someone or something. It was human with a human brain or Burton’s beam could not have snared it, pulled it in. But was it their man or someone whose true world included that awesome forest?
Ray’s boot toe caught in a half-rotted, earth-embedded branch. He threw out his arms in an involuntary effort to keep his balance and managed to remain on his feet as he tottered forward into a glade. His hand slapped against a tree trunk, and he gripped the bark. Then—the tree—it was fading! He stumbled again and went to one knee. Shadows whirling in and out, around and about him in a giddy dance. There was a larger shadow looming—heaped earth—a mound—the Indian mound!
With an inarticulate cry Ray threw himself at that. But his hands did not touch earth, even though he could see it. He pulled himself up. There was the mound, but though he drove his fist at its solid surface—What solid surface? His hand went into—through—what his eyes assured him was frozen earth.
He backed away a step or two, his hands still up and out. Shadows running toward him from behind the mound, less stable than the earth he could not touch. Men—he could see faces, uniforms, but they were misty. He watched them throw out hands, try to hold him. One launched himself in a tackle aimed at Ray’s knees—to go sprawling along the ground, his hands grasping the same nothingness that Ray had met in the mound.
“No—no!” Ray heard his own wild shout. This was the end of the nightmare, the end he had never met in sleep but had to face waking. He retreated again. The shadow men—one raised a gun—fired.
“No!” Ray cried again. The forest, safety in the forest. Will it to return, will the trees back again!
The shadow men and the mound which was and yet was not—no!
A wild rebellion burst in him. And that cord which had pulled him back to this insanity broke. Trees—trees—Ray closed his eyes and thought of trees. Suddenly in his mind they stood, tall, strong, alive again. Will it, urged that inner part of him. Remember, you held against the Loving One; you must hold now—or else be lost in a shadow world where you cannot exist. Trees!
Substance against his shoulder. Not daring to open his eyes, Ray put out his hand, and it struck the roughness of bark. He curled his fingers tight, trying to anchor himself to that. A tree!
Salt sweat trickled down his cheeks. Trees—around him trees and not a world of substanceless shadows!
He dared now to open his eyes. Yes, there were trees about him. But ahead—as if he looked through an open door or window—he saw the lift of the mound’s sides, and against it men—soldiers. They were more real than shadows now—but that was because they were in their place and he in his, not trying to move across a forbidden barrier. The cord that had drawn him here was broken. Instead he looked at strangers in a strange and forbidden world. For a long moment they stood so. Then that window—in what, time or space?—vanished. He was alone in the forest. With a gasp, Ray leaned against the tree at his side.
What had happened? He had surely half returned to his own time. The mound, the uniforms on the men, were eye-proof of that. But he had not been able to go wholly through. See but touch not—never again. He must accept that there was to be no return. But for the moment the sheer relief of escape from that half-world was all that he knew.
“What happened?” General Colfax broke the silence first.
Burton sat still, staring into the screen, his fingers gripping the edge of the board before him, a look of complete disbelief on his face. Fordham answered first.
“We’re finished—for the present. The installations are burned out—completely.” He tapped the surface of some of the dials before him. Their needles remained fixed and quiet.
“You saw him.” Burton turned his head, looking to Hargreaves in appeal. “You did see him?”
“A shadow—a ghost.” Hargreaves fumbled for the proper word of description.
“He wore armor,” the general supplied, “and a sword. Not your man. Or, if he was, what has he been doing over there? But why didn’t he come through?”
“He can’t,” Fordham answered. “If that was Osborne and we brought him back, he’s no longer of our world. There were plenty of theories we studied when we set up Operation Atlantis. You know the old paradox they always cite when one discusses time travel—that a man could go back and alter his own family history and the result would be that he himself would never be born at all. We weren’t attempting that type of time travel. But suppose Osborne in some way did something important to the history on that level—became involved in action that gave him roots there. Then well—he might become fixed in that world.”
The general got to his feet. “If you’re right—then the same thing might happen to anyone who tried to cross over?”
Fordham nodded. The general turned his small com unit around.
“I’ll make my report.”
“To suspend the project,” Fordham said, rather than questioned.
“To suspend. Maybe we can look through. But I’d advise no going through—not until we know more much more.”
“And Osborne?” asked Burton.
“If that was Osborne, he seems to have found a place for himself. Unless we can learn more, he’ll stay.” Fordham replied.
“I think,” said Hargreaves, “that maybe he’s not too badly off—always supposing we did catch Osborne in that mindbeam. He’s been gone some weeks, lost in an unknown world. When he returns, or half returns, he’s wearing armor, carrying a weapon. Apparently he’s made a good contact with whoever inhabits that level and found so much of a place among them that he has been provided with clothing and arms. Also—if Dr. Fordham is right—perhaps he has accomplished something important over there. I wonder”—he looked at the blank screen—”I wonder what it was.”
“Well”—Burton arose slowly—”we’ll probably never know. He’s somewhere we can’t reach—in safety.”
“Not somewhere”—Fordham shook his head—”but somewhen, an uncharted somewhen.”
The com in General Colfax’s hand crackled. He raised it to his ear. “Colfax here, come in.” He listened for a moment and then turned to face the others. There was shocked amazement in his face.
“Report from the Pentagon. A new landmass in the Atlantic, another in the Pacific—not rising from the sea bottom just suddenly there! Right there, as if they had always been.”
“Atlantis.” Fordham half whispered. “But how—why—?”
“Ask your computers for a new equation. We plant a man over there by mistake—and we get two continents in exchange. It seems we may have a somewhen on this side, too. Only it’s in the here and now, and we have to deal with it. Those lands—if they have people—if they are open—they’ll have to be dealt with.”
“Up for grabs, unless they’ve arrived complete with inhabitants,” commented Hargreaves. “Perhaps we had better begin wondering about that. Maybe Osborne will have the best of two possible worlds from now on.”
Tall trees, but nothing alarming about them now in spite of the gloom beneath their sky-piercing branches. Ray moved easily. He only hoped that he could find his way back to the shore now that the guide that had brought him no longer operated. The sense of security that had come with the return of the trees still held. It was as if his escape from the shadowy half world was an escape from a danger threatening more than his body.
There was no going back. He accepted that now. What U-Cha had warned must be the truth. His actions here had set a barrier between him and the past. Now that he knew that and accepted it, the reality he had lost in the Five Walled City enclosed him again. This was the here and now and was all he had—or needed. After all, his own time had no more to offer—rather less than he had found here.
He was out of the forest, and now he fell into a jog trot. How long had he been ashore? It was still far from evening. Perhaps the raider still hung close enough to see his signal soon.
Now Ray was running, as he had once run from the same wood before. What had the Re Mu promised—whatever he asked for? Now, now he was beginning to know what he did want—a—stake in this land. There might be those willing to settle here. But it was his own land, his last link with the past—though he must not hold to it for that reason. The Barren Lands—that name was all wrong. They were not barren—look at that forest, this plain! Good land just waiting for man.
Overhead, the clouds parted, letting through the brightness of the sun. The dried grasses of the plains turned golden under his feet. Barren? No! Someday there would be cities here, people Ray was breathing hard. He slowed to a walk as he came at last to the seashore. But in spite of the pain beneath his ribs, the weariness settling on him, he began to comb the rocks for driftwood. A big pile, enough to make a pillar of smoke once some brush was added to it. Taut’s lookout ought to catch sight of it soon.
He squatted on his heels to touch the fire stick from his belt pouch to that fire. He blew it into vigorous life. Barren Lands—real lands—He thought of that window and the shadows moving beyond it. This was the here and now. What was that? Somewhere—no, somewhen. And it had no life for him any more. He threw on some more brush and watched the dark smoke spiral up under the sun, a warm and now comforting sun.