CHAPTER XIII
Yolara, Priestess of the Shining One
"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of thestairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken fromMarakinoff.
"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.
"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe. "I'll tell youfrankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trustyou with a gun. You shoot too straight--from cover."
The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a coldconsideration.
"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," hemused. "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this oddobservation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.
In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, wepassed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, intowhich the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set inits sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. Thestairway ended in a circular well; silent--with no trace of exit! Therounded stones joined each other evenly--hermetically. Carved on oneof the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingersupon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.
A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the wall; widened,and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes,we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! Thestone fell steadily--and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge setwithin the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feetand stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was thepolished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into itsroof, was a low, narrow triangular opening through which lightstreamed.
"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry. "And I'll bet Golden Eyes iswaiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed,slipping, sliding along the glassy surface; and I, for one, had alively apprehension of what our fate would be should that enormousmass rise before we had emerged! We reached the end; crept out of thenarrow triangle that was its exit.
We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss. Ilooked behind--and clutched O'Keefe's arm. The door through which wehad come had vanished! There was only a precipice of pale rock, onwhose surfaces great patches of the amber moss hung; around whose baseour ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, likethe luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.
"Nowhere to go but ahead--and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!"laughed O'Keefe--but somewhat grimly.
We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, facedthe end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point theoddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed,like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their driverssat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high withcushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. Fromthe pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran intothe broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and outof them flashed the fairy shells.
There came a shout from one. Its occupants had glimpsed us. Theypointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned and sped up arunway--and quickly over the other side of the bridge came a score ofmen. They were dwarfed--none of them more than five feet high,prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.
"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging freein his hand.
But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back hismen, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched in the immemorial,universal gesture of truce. He paused, scanning us with manifestwonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The dwarf's face wasas white as Olaf's--far whiter than those of the other three of us;the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyesof a curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his headlike that on some old Greek statue.
Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him.The gigantic shoulders were covered with a loose green tunic thatlooked like fine linen. It was caught in at the waist by a broadgirdle studded with what seemed to be amazonites. In it was thrust along curved poniard resembling the Malaysian kris. His legs wereswathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His feet weresandalled.
My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something subtlydisturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that underlay thewholly prepossessing features like a vague threat; a mocking deviltrythat hinted at entire callousness to suffering or sorrow; something ofthe spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting.
He spoke--and, to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar toenable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They werePolynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancientform, but in some indefinable way--archaic. Later I was to know thatthe tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does_not_ that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English.Nor was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came thecertainty that it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang.
"From whence do you come, strangers--and how found you your way here?"said the green dwarf.
I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us. His eyes narrowedincredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which even a mountain goatcould not have made its way, and laughed.
"We came through the rock," I answered his thought. "And we come inpeace," I added.
"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively--"if theShining One wills it!"
He considered us again.
"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded.We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.
"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.
"But I see no opening," he said suavely.
"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time,realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleampassed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and gravelysounded the rock.
"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said. "It soundsstrangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He looked at usquizzically. "I wonder where you learned it! Well, all that you canexplain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in awide salaam. "Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly.
"In peace?" I asked.
"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least."
"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry. "As long as we're here let's see thesights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. Thelatter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefewith a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman andscanned him with admiration; reached out and squeezed one of theimmense biceps.
"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself.He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. Wecrossed. At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing usin much excitement. The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushionsand then threw himself beside us. The vehicle started off smoothly,the now silent throng making way, and swept down the green roadway ata terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward theseven-terraced tower.
As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but Icould not--then. There was no sign of mechanism, but that the shellresponded to some form of energy was certain--the driver grasping asmall lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but ourdirection.
We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens,and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that thesewere much larger than I had thought. The structure to which we hadbeen carried covered, I estimated, fully an acre. Oblong, with itsslender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were likethe sliding screens of the Japanese--shoji.
The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad
steps flanked by greatcarved serpents, winged and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaickedstones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside,revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on whichlolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.
They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in theirfaces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to becharacteristic of all these people we had as yet seen.
"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the greathall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with theopacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff. I examinedthe--blackness--with lively interest.
It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--and yet itsuggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption oflight; an ebon veil at once immaterial and palpable. I stretched,involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back.
"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador. "But I forget--youdo not know," he added. "On your life touch not the blackness, ever.It--"
He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swingingout of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen.Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow. Risingfrom cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaningover a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowersand unfamiliar fruits.
About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--were afew oddly shaped chairs of the same substance. On high, silverytripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the roseglow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whoseroseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue.
"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.
Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass. We entered,the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw thedoorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadowfill its place.
"Come closer, strangers. Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-tonedvoice.
We approached.
The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in mythroat. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of theDweller's city--and none of so perilous a beauty. Her hair was of thecolour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crownabove her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that couldchange to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey orblue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the stormof anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no! The silken websthat half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whitenessof her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for allher amazing beauty, she was--sinister! There was cruelty about thecurving mouth, and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty,but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.
The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes! But her beauty washuman, understandable. You could imagine her with a babe in herarms--but you could not so imagine this woman. About her lovelinesshovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller wasYolara, the Dweller's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!