Then they reached the shore of what appeared to be a great lake of pitch, onto the edge of which the running thing ran very briefly before returning at once to the sandy shore. There he scurried about in the sand until his many feet, covered with pitch, picked up a good deal of sand. The adventurers upon his back saw the reason for this peculiar seeming industry when, with a sudden rush that came close to unseating them, their weird mount shot out onto the surface of the lake and proceeded to run across it! With its feet encased in sandy boots, the creature had traction, and so marvelous its agility and so great its speed that its dusty feet were given no slightest opportunity to sink into the pitch.
As they crossed the lake Eldin remarked: “I do believe that this must be the Stickistuff Sea.”
“Never heard of it,” answered Hero, morbidly wondering what would happen if the running thing were suddenly to stop or trip.
“Of course you have,” Eldin snorted. “Have you never dreamed that you ran in molasses, and however fast you ran you couldn’t escape your nightmare pursuers? Myself, I remember many such dreams. Well, they all have their origin right here, in the black and horrible Stickistuff Sea.”
“I believe you,” said Hero in a very small voice, which caused Eldin to inquire:
“Eh? Something wrong, lad?”
“You could say that,” Hero answered. “Don’t look now but—you remember the nightmares that used to pursue you in those dreams of yours? Well, I do believe—”
But Eldin had already turned his head to look back.
And certainly this was the stuff of nightmares, for rising up in the lake behind them spidery, oily shapes sped in hot pursuit like black, alien skaters with eyes of glowing red. There were dozens of them, squelching up from the pitch like man-sized, six-legged skeletons that dripped oil even as they shot after the running thing in fiery-eyed hate and with fearful intent. And as these hideous pursuers gained on them, so the pair began to feel the now uneven beat of their mount’s great heart and heard its ragged, sobbing breathing. Its feet sank ever deeper into the pitch and its speed slackened off by the second.
Then, putting on a burst of speed, the two closest pursuers leapt for the running thing’s rear and scrambled aboard. Hero and Eldin, swords glinting, met the lightning attack of the grinning pitch-things as only they could, sending twin heaps of lifeless, tangled sinew and bone flying into the path of the rest of the pack. This gave the running thing a brief respite, but in no time at all the pursuing horrors were right behind them once more.
Now, some two hundred yards ahead, they could make out a dim shore whose reflection formed a glassy image at the edge’ of the Stickistuff Sea. But more and more the running thing was tiring; its breathing came harsher and its sides heaved with exertion. The slapping sounds of its feet were individually audible as they moved more slowly yet, almost completely clogged with oil and pitch.
Again a pair of nightmare spiders leaped, and again they fell in tattered disorder. Then four more—all red eyes, black bones and yellow fangs—and the swords of the adventurers flickered like wands, glinting dully as they performed almost magically in the practiced hands of their masters.
Then, with a sickening lurch, the running thing skidded to a halt and toppled forward, its segmented body rising up like a whip to hurt the adventurers headlong … onto dry sand!
And now, in the shallow pitch at the lake’s edge, the running thing turned upon its attackers in a fury, like a terrier at a rat pack. In a matter of seconds ten of the nightmare creatures lay in tatters while the rest fled in a rout, frenziedly skating back out into the Stickistuff Sea and sinking bubblingly from sight in black and glutinous depths.
In a very short while all was silence once more and the adventurers climbed to their feet and dusted themselves down. As for the running thing; he very soon recovered and proceeded to shake himself like some strange and gigantic hound, until every trace of oil, sand and pitch was sent flying from his fur; and after a brief pause, once more the pair mounted.
But now their mount was far more at ease, as if it knew that no dangers lurked in this region, and its pace was much slower as it picked a zig-zag path across a vast and boulder-strewn plain. For several hours they crossed the plain, until finally they spied a dim horizon of black cliffs. The cliffs soared up for thousands of feet into luminous, opaque and misty heights; and there, where the rocky plain met the foot of the black cliffs, the running thing paused and sank down to let them climb from its back.
With its strange snout it pushed them toward grotesquely carved ruins where they loomed tall in the overhang of the cliff, and then it turned and without a backward glance scurried away. The glow of the lightmoss which adorned its sides gradually dimmed as it sped back across the plain, presently to become the merest, flickering will-o’-the-wisp.
Hero and Eldin watched it out of sight, then turned to an examination of the deserted, prehistoric piles which stood mute testimony of some primal, subterranean civilization. There was that about the ruins which soon set the pair to staring about in something other than mere curiosity; for the place was like nothing so much as a complex of titanic tombstones and mighty mausoleums, as if they walked through some ante-diluvian graveyard of the gods.
In a little while, however, as they grew aware of the utter desolation of the place—its stark antiquity, which had known no intelligent inhabitants for many thousands of years—then their apprehension evaporated and they began to wonder why the running thing had deserted them here. It had actually pushed them in the direction of this centuries-dead city, as if telling them that this was what they sought; but what they really sought was a way back to the world of fields and sunshine and bright skies above.
“It looks like the running thing didn’t understand Mathur Imniss after all,” said Eldin presently. Hero grunted an inarticulate answer and pushed on through tumbled ruins to where a great cave gloomed in the face of the cliff. While Eldin sat down on a rock and contemplated the silence and desolation of the place, Hero went exploring on his own; and in a short while, echoing down to the older adventurer where he sat, Hero’s cry of excitement brought him to his feet in an instant:
“Eldin, I think I’ve found it—the way to the outside world!”
“You’ve what?” cried the other. “Wait for me!” And he set off at a run, following Hero’s footprints in the dust to the great and gloomy cave. He soon found the younger man crouching in the depths of the cavern, his face turned upward and lined with a frown of concentration. Even as Eldin puffed and panted and recovered his breath, he saw a smile spread slowly over his colleague’s face.
“What is it, lad?” Eldin asked, casting about in the gloom with his eyes but seeing nothing. “I can’t see a damned thing. What are you grinning at?”
“You’re not supposed to see anything,” answered Hero. “You’re supposed to feel it. The breeze, Eldin, the breeze on your face!”
And now the Wanderer could indeed feel that breeze, a steadily gusting wind from some higher level; and giving a whoop he took out his firestones, tore a scrap from his already ragged jacket and struck sparks which soon turned to bright flame. The light lasted for a moment only, then died with the flame in a gust which overwhelmed both; but before that flame died the adventurers saw the stone stairs and the upward-leading tunnel whence blew that wonderful wind from more accustomed climes.
Now they eagerly scrambled forward and upward, entering the steep, rock-hewn tunnel and climbing its tight whorl of centuried steps. The only illumination was a sort of dim phosphorescence which sprang from the corkscrew walls, which were featureless except for the marks and gouges of ancient workmen. Up and up they went, and after a great deal of climbing thought to begin counting the steps.
At seven thousand Eldin sat down and started to swear and Hero followed suit. The echoes of their weary cursing came back to them over and over, gradually diminishing until they sat in silence. Then, when they had their breath back, Eldin was prompted to inquire: “Who the devil
could have built such a staircase?”
“Possibly,” answered Hero darkly.
Ignoring his friend’s morbid turn of mind, Eldin said: “But I’m bone weary! Don’t tell me we’re going to have to rest on these damned steps—perhaps even sleep here—before we’re to reach the surface?”
“If we’re to reach the surface,” answered Hero ominously.
“Damn me, but you’re a real ray of sunshine, you are!” Eldin snarled.
In a fine temper of his own, Hero turned on him. “Save your breath!” he snapped. “You’re going to need it. I’m not sleeping till I reach the surface, and then not until I find a safe spot to lay my head. Man, have you no fear for what might be lurking here in this great well of a staircase? I’m damned if I’ll stay here when there are green fields somewhere up ahead. Now come on, let’s get a move on.”
For a further hour they climbed, more slowly now, tiring rapidly, and as they went so the phosphorescence faded from the walls to leave them groping upward in inky blackness. Since by now their eyes were fairly well accustomed to gloom and darkness, and since there was nothing to do but proceed up and around the tightly spiraling stairs, Eldin refrained from burning anymore of his sadly depleted jacket and simply followed in Hero’s footsteps. He did have one panted observation to make, however, namely:
“S’funny, lad, but this is the first time I’ve known it to get darker the closer we get to daylight!”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Hero wearily answered. “Of course, it might be night up there.” A moment later, he added: “Owp!”
“Owp?” repeated Eldin, stumbling upon him from behind. “What’s up?”
“We are, I reckon,” came Hero’s voice in the darkness. “But there’s a lid on this damned hole and I’ve just cracked my head on it. Here, come up alongside me.”
Eldin squeezed his bulk up beside Hero and gingerly felt above his head until his fingers found the stone door or plug which covered or filled the stairwell. He gave it a tentative shove but was answered with total resistance. Whatever it was that blocked the way, it was solid and heavy. “We need a light,” Eldin grunted, and a moment later there came a tearing sound, the scrape of firestones, sparks and a small crackle of flame. Above their heads, illumined in the flare of yellow light, a flat, solid slab showed its gray underside. But it was a slab, not a plug, and the pair sighed their relief in unison. At least they stood a chance.
Now, as the darkness returned, they bent their heads, put their backs to the slab and heaved. It gave a little, the merest fraction, then settled back. Sweat rained from the pair as they strained again; and again the slab moved, only to fall back firmly into place when they could no longer take its weight.
Hero stooped and found a rounded pebble. “Again,” he said; and once more they strained and heaved. This time, as the slab lifted its customary half inch, Hero pushed the pebble into the gap. “Now we find a bigger pebble,” he panted, “and so on.” Except there were no more pebbles and they could not recall passing any on the way up.
After a moment’s thought Hero took out his curved sword and fingered the rounded pommel and hilt. “Heave!” he commanded; and as the slab lifted he slid the inch-thick hilt of his sword into the gap. Now, as they rested for a second or two, Eldin took out his own blade and shoved its point slantingly up through the opening. He was rewarded with a shower of dirt, several worms, some tiny centipedes and grubs.
“Soil!” cried Hero. “And shallow soil at that!”
Eldin began to use his sword in a sawing motion, cutting through thick turf above until a dim beam of light dropped like a shaft into the miles-deep staircase. They began to work frantically then, lifting at the slab and sliding it, gradually moving it to one side; and in between bouts of straining they would saw and hack at the turf as the gap grew ever wider.
Then, after a small landslide of dirt and tiny scuttling things, putting every last ounce of their combined strength to the task, they again bent their backs and heaved at the slab. With a ripping of rootlets and turf and an even greater deluge of loosened soil, finally the slab slid to one side, leaving a gap through which they could scramble into the field above. There, side by side, they lay on their backs astounded by a darkening evening sky and bursting with gladness at the sight of wispy, slow-moving clouds. But their joy was short-lived, for in the next moment—
The stench hit them …
That awesome stench of death and decay and things long corrupted and fallen into putrefaction. The overwhelming fetor of the open tomb. They gagged, and if their stomachs had been full, surely that monstrous smell would have emptied them.
“Only one place in all the dreamlands could possibly smell like this,” gasped Eldin as he turned green.
Hero nodded, his hands to his mouth and nose. “Right,” he gagged. “Zura—and these must be the charnel gardens!”
CHAPTER XIX
The Aerial Armada
Beyond any shadow of doubt this was Zura. That fact was obvious now that the adventurers had time to study their surroundings. For quite apart from the smell—perhaps even explaining some of it—they saw that they lay in a field of diseased grass studded with leaning tombstones, and that the earth within each small plot had been pushed up from below! Oh, yes, this was that land where graves are unquiet and corpses noisy as well as noisome, and it reflected hideously the subterranean city of slabs from which the pair had escaped into this, its external extension.
Staring at the dark soil of the disturbed graves, Eldin dryly commented: “Big moles in Zura, eh?” But Hero only grimaced at his joke. Then the older man said no more but fashioned a pair of nose- and mouth-masks from his thoroughly ravaged jacket. Fastening these to their faces and tying them behind their heads, the pair were able to breathe more easily. Only then did they rise cautiously to their feet, improving their view of the place. What they saw was not reassuring. Their field of tombstones and open graves was only one of many, and endless rows of lolling slabs reached to a horizon of megalithic mausoleums whose morbidly carved columns reared into the sky and formed the ramparts of the city Zura itself. What did surprise them, however, was the apparent absence of life—or death, as Eldin had it.
“I agree,” said Hero, “there is a strange dearth of death about the place—the mobile variety at any rate—though certainly I can smell where it’s been.”
“It’s not where it’s been that worries me,” said Eldin, “but where it’ll be next. I mean, what do corpses do evenings? Where’s the night life in Zura? Or rather, the night death.”
“Dunno,” answered Hero, stretching. “Maybe they’ve all rotted away—or perhaps Kuranes figured out a way to finish them off.”
“So where do we go from … get down!” Eldin hissed the final instinctive pair of words as, without other warning, a great slanting shadow fell over them. They dropped to their knees behind a huge headstone, turning their eyes skyward to gaze in awe and wonder at the flying ship which sailed slowly into view from high above the crumbling stone facade of a nearby mausoleum.
One ship, two, half-a-dozen—no, an entire armada of black ships under black sails—their octopus figureheads gazing balefully ahead through eyes painted the color of blood. And now the adventurers knew where the inhabitants of Zura the land were: manning the sky-fleet of Zura the Princess!
“Keep your head down!” Hero whispered his warning as the ships passed overhead in a silence more dreadful than a peal of mad bells. “If just one of her zombies chooses to look overboard at this very moment …”
But no one looked overboard, and the black ships sailed on with The Cadaver in the lead, high over Zura the city and climbing through rays of late sunshine into the evening sky. Their course lay to the west, their destination—
“Serannian!” Hero hissed, the short hairs rising at the back of his neck. “It can only be Serannian.”
“She’s going to do it,” Eldin gasped through his facemask. “Shoot Serannian right out of the sky!”
“Unless we stop her!” Hero snapped.
Eldin’s heart sank as he recognized the desperation, the frustration, the trapped action in his friend’s voice. “Stop her?” he repeated the younger man. “Are you crazy?”
“Maybe,” answered Hero, his voice hardening, “but that’s what Kuranes hired us for, isn’t it? I mean—can you really imagine what it would be like? Serannian, falling out of the sky …”
“But how are we going to stop her?” Eldin demanded. “She’s already airborne—Zura and all her gang and her entire fleet. Like a swarm of great locusts in the sky.”
“No,” said a quiet, muffled voice behind them, causing them to snatch at their swords in a slithering of steel, “not her entire fleet. You were right, Hero—she’s low on zombie-power. She didn’t have enough corpses to man all of her ships. She had to leave one of them behind.”
The adventurers had whirled at first sound of that muffled half-familiar voice. They had dropped into defensive crouches, blades outstretched and snarling lips drawn back from clenched teeth; but now, in a moment, their jaws dropped and their eyes widened in disbelief as a masked but recognizable figure stepped out from behind a cracked and leaning tombstone.
“Dass!” they gasped then in unison. “Limnar Dass!”
“At your service,” Dass replied with a bow and a sweep of his arm. “And delighted beyond words to see you, who I had thought never to see again.”
“But how?” inquired Eldin, sheathing his sword and grasping the captain’s outstretched hand. “You fell right off that damned volcano! We heard the rope snap.”
“I fell a short distance, aye,” Dass nodded. “And I banged my head on the way down. When I woke up it was morning and I was covered with a pile of small rocks and a layer of dust. There was no sign of you two. In the daylight it was easy to get down from the peak and I soon made my way to Bahama. I hired a fisherman to get me off Oriab and he put me ashore east of Zura. From there I made my way here on foot. All of this took a few days, of course. I’ve spent today hiding and watching the zombies prepare the fleet.”