There were queer beasts, some like the ones he had seen in the woods, a unicorn among them, and creatures that were humanoid. Around them, encircling them, were ribbon bands that bore marks unlike any lettering Nick knew.
As his fingers passed he could see them plainly for a moment or two. Then they faded so they were discernible only as faint scratches.
Having tried one door he passed to the next and once more put it to the test of touch. Again he saw pictures, though these were different in both form and arrangement.
What lay behind these doors? Nick gently applied pressure. There were no visible latches, locks, knobs, or any aid for their opening. And they remained fixed, immobile, against all his strength.
Locked doors, deserted city. Nick returned to the middle of the street and forged ahead. Though the belief that someone—something—was watching him held, Nick had regained a little confidence. He sensed no threat in this place. If he had violated some sanctuary then as yet those who guarded it had not made up their minds whether he was a threat to their purposes or not. And the longer they held off the more confident he felt. That in itself might be a danger, he began to realize.
Nick advanced resolutely toward the flashing point ahead, shading his eyes to its glare. So he came out into what might be the heart of the city, though he had no way of knowing if that were so. This was an open space into which fed five avenues, like the one he followed. The shape he could see was that of a five-point star, one street entering at each point.
Now that he was close to that which flashed, it did not glare as much as earlier and he recognized its shape. For this he had seen in his own world, and that it had a very ancient significance he knew.
Set up straight in the middle of the star was a giant representation of the Egyptian ankh—the looped cross. It appeared to be fashioned, not of the crystal of the towers, but of a ruddy metal. And in the mid-center of the two arms, on the arms themselves, and around the loop were shining gems. But could those be gems? Whoever heard of precious stones of such size they could not be spanned by two hands together?
It was from these that the light flashed, green, blue, white—but no red nor yellow. As those rays shot well over the level of his head, Nick judged that the height of the ankh was equal to that of a four-or five-story building.
From it came such a force of radiant energy that he felt dizzy, weak. He staggered back. Was this the source of the safety devices of the People? But what powered it? He saw no evidence of machines. Or was it some receiver or booster broadcaster?
Nick wavered. For the first time, stark fear broke through his wonder. This—this was overpowering. His skin tingled, his dizziness grew. He must get away.
But could he? The avenue—Somehow he managed to turn, though the gem lights nearly blinded him. There—get—out—Nick broke into a stumbling run, heading for the opening to the avenue. But it was as if he were trying to wade through deep mud. Something sucked avidly at his strength, his very life-force. He must get away!
He stumbled, fell, but somehow pulled himself to his hands and knees and kept on at a crawl. The buildings rose on either hand, he was within the avenue. But not far enough. And he was not going to make it—
Nick gasped, fought for breath. Now it felt as if the air about him was being sucked away, that he could not get enough into his lungs—he was choking.
He lay flat, his arms outstretched above his head, his fingers still moving feebly, trying to find some crevice between the blocks of the pavement into which they might fit and draw him forward, even if only for an inch or two.
“Come!”
Had he heard that? Nick still fought to move. There were hands on his shoulders, he was being dragged away from the star, down the avenue, out of the baleful influence of the ankh. He could not summon strength enough to look up and see who—or what—had come to his aid. Not the Herald—the Herald had been his own illusion. Stroud? His thoughts were weak, slipping from him. He no longer really cared who saved him.
The tingling in his flesh faded. But he was not regaining his strength. However, the hold on him relaxed and he made a great effort to roll over so he could see his rescuer.
She did not have that misty outline of light about her this time but looked thoroughly solid and substantial. Nor were there tears on her cheeks.
“Rita.”
He must have said her name aloud. Or else, like Jeremiah, she could read his thoughts.
“I am Rita, yes.” There was in her speech that same toneless quality that marked the Herald’s.
But her face was not as expressionless as Avalon’s. There was concern there, and something else. She studied him, Nick thought, as one might study a tool before one put it to service.
“You might have died—back there. You are not of the Kin.” She made statements, she asked no questions.
“Are you alone here?” he asked.
“Alone?” Plainly that had startled her. She glanced from left to right and back again, as if she saw what he could not and was astounded by his speech. “Alone—why—” Then she paused. “You are not of the Kin,” she repeated. “The sight is not yours. No, though you do not see, I am not alone. Why did you come if you would not be one with Avalon?”
“To find out what keeps the city free from attack. Your people—they are in danger. They need protection.”
“There is no danger for the Kin, Safety those others can have for the asking. It is so. I have gone to them and they drove me out. They are blind and will not accept sight, they are deaf and they will not hear. They—” For the first time her voice trembled. “They will be lost because they choose it so.”
“They say that you changed.”
“Yes. I have become one with the Kin. See.” She went to her knees beside him and laid her arm next to his, not quite touching.
Her skin was white, a dazzling white, and very smooth, without any fluff of hair along its surface. Against it his arm was coarse, rough, browned. She took his hand in hers and the sensation of flesh meeting flesh was not as he had known it before, but rather as if fingers and palm of sleek marble had grasped him.
“Thus it is with the bodies of the Kin,” Rita told him. “That is how we go protected against the weapons of the flyers, and against other dangers here. There are evils that can destroy us, but those are evils native to this world, and they reach us in other ways than by wounds of the body. If your people accept Avalon, then they shall become of Avalon, as I now am.”
“You are—hard—” Nick could not find another word for the feel of her flesh. “Yet—when you were in the woods—I saw Linda’s hand pass through your arm.”
Rita did not answer him. Instead she said with the authority of one who did not imagine she would be disobeyed:
“You have come where you cannot stay. If you accept not Avalon, then that which is of Avalon can kill. You have felt the beginning of that death. Get you out—this place is not for you.”
She touched his forehead in much the same place as the fanatical monk had pressed the cross so painfully into his skin. There was chill to her fingers. But from them flowed into him a renewal of strength so he could stand again.
“You saved my life. Is there anything I can do for you?” Always, Nick thought, he would remember those tears and what lay in the eyes where that moisture gathered.
“What words can you use with them that I have not already spoken?” Rita asked. “Their fear lies so deep in them that they would kill before they will accept what I offer.”
He expected her to stay, but when unable to find words to deny the truth of what she said, Nick started away, Rita matched step with him.
“I will go out of the city. You need not trouble—”
There was a trace of a smile on her face. “To see you to the door?” she ended for him. “But there is a need. I do not know how you entered, but you, being what you are, cannot win free again save that the door be opened for you.”
Not all the strength drained from him had retur
ned. Nick moved slowly along the silent, empty street. But to his companion was it either silent or empty? He believed not. That he could see her might be because she was originally of his kind. Or maybe she willed it so because she still felt a faint linkage with those outside. She did not explain, in fact Rita did not speak again until they reached the abrupt ending of the avenue, the beginning of the grassy plain.
Then again came her question delivered with authority.
“How did you enter through the barrier?”
Nick wanted to dissemble and found he could not. With her eyes upon him he must speak the truth.
“I followed a Herald.”
“That is—impossible. Yet, I see that it is also the truth. But how can it be the truth?”
“The Herald was of my imagining. I pictured him into life.”
He heard a hiss of breath that was a gasp. “But you are not of the Kin! How could you do such a thing?”
“I learned how to save my life. And it was Avalon himself who gave me the clue as to how it could be done. The others are trying it too—”
“No!” That was a cry which carried a note of fear. “They cannot! It means their destruction if they have not the power of the Kin. They are children playing with a raw fury they do not understand! They must be stopped!”
“Come and tell them so,” Nick returned.
“They will not listen—”
“Can you be sure? Having used this power I think that they understand more than they did before. The Vicar, I am sure he will listen.”
“Yes, he has a deepness of heart and a width of mind. Perhaps this can be done. I cannot but try again. But they must not attempt to weave the great spell. It can kill—or summon up that which it is better not to see. Avalon has some life in it that can answer one’s dreams in a way to freeze the very spirit.”
Nick remembered the devilish things that had besieged the party in the woods.
“So I have seen.”
Rita gave him a long measuring look and then held out her hand.
“Let us go.”
As her cold, smooth fingers closed about his, Rita drew him along. So linked they went out into the open, heading for the ridge where he had left Stroud on watch. Would the Warden accept Rita? Had the prejudice of the party been so shaken by Nick’s discovery that they would listen to the one they had cast out? Nick hoped so.
But he was not so sure when they did climb the ridge and Stroud was not waiting. Nick found the flattened grass where the Warden must have lain in hiding to watch him enter the city. But no one was there.
“Stroud!” Nick called, but he dared not shout as he wished.
An answer came in a croaking caw, as a bird burst up from the grass, beating black wings to carry it skyward. Once aloft, it circled them, still calling hoarsely.
“He has—he is in danger!” Rita watched the bird. “The balance has been upset, the force thoughts have released evil. You see—” She turned fiercely on Nick, her composure broken. “You see what such meddling can do? The Dark Ones hunt, run he ever so far or fast. And he, not understanding, will lead them to the rest!”
“Lead who?”
“All those of the Dark who are not bound to any place of evil. And all those they can command among the sons of men! You played with the power, erecting no safeguards. And they who do so open all doors, many of which give upon the Outer Dark. We must hurry—!”
Rita gripped his wrist again, her grasp biting into the still tender flesh so that Nick winced. But she did not note that as he strode forward, dragging him on.
Instead of skulking under cover Rita made her way confidently along the shortest route, heading for the cave. It would seem she had no fears of this land. But Nick did not share her confidence. However, when he tried to free himself from her hold, he found that as impossible as if her fingers were a metal handcuff.
He came to a stop, jerking her to a halt.
“Tell me exactly what we may be facing, what Stroud may have done, or what might have happened to him.”
“Do not delay us!” Deep in the eyes Rita turned upon him was an alien glow. “He has fled—but you saw the Corraven where he had been. That is the creature of the Dark. It was left to warn us. It so declared this was not a matter for the Kin.”
“Yet you are making it your matter,” Nick pointed out.
“Yes, but that I cannot help. I am tied, heart-tied, and I have not been long enough among the Kin that those ties are loosed. Still do I care for those of my old heritage. I am free in Avalon, free of choice. If I choose to go up against the Dark, then none will step before me to say ‘no.’ For I choose, knowing what may be the price. But we waste time. Come!”
15
The sky that had been so bright was now overcast. Though it was summer a chill breeze blew, bringing with it a faint, sickening scent as if it passed over some source of stale corruption. Rita ran easily wherever the ground was clear enough to allow it. But Nick felt the effects of what he had faced in the city and would have lagged behind, in spite of his efforts, had not her hold on him lent that energy of hers.
He could see ahead the rolling hills among which was the cave. And there darkness gathered, clouds massed. While the air was alive, not with saucers, but rather things that flew with flapping wings, some feathered, some of stretched skin. There was movement on the ground, also, though Nick could not be sure of what or who caused that for it did not show clearly.
Yet Rita took no care in her going, as if no hint of ambush concerned her. She was as impervious in her attitude as the Herald had been when under attack from the saucer.
Before they reached the approach to the cave entrance she slowed to a halt. About them now, though Nick could see very little, he was aware of that same miasma of evil he had felt on the night he had been captive. A black-winged bird, with eyes of glowing red, blazing points of fire set in a feathered skull, planed down straight for them, uttering a piercing cry. Nick’s free hand went to his belt, drew the dagger.
The bird, with a second scream, sheered away. And there was a small sound from Rita.
“Iron!” She pulled a little away though she did not drop his hand. “Keep that from me—you must! It will serve you, but to the Kin it is deadly.”
In this dusk, which was increasing abnormally fast, her body showed the radiance he had seen before, her eyes were bright. There was an excitement about her as if just ahead lay an ordeal.
But he could also see that the ground, the bushes, around them were astir. Things peered at them in menace, yet did not make the attack Nick braced himself to meet. Rita still moved forward, now at a walking pace. There was a breathless quiet about them that those skulking around did not break. Were they real, or illusions? And if illusions, fostered by what enemy?
Ringing them around, moving with them as they advanced, were dwarfs. They were squat of body, furred with gray hair. They turned faces grotesquely human, yet so malignant of aspect as to be weapons in themselves, toward those they escorted, showing teeth that were those of carnivorous beasts in frog-wide mouths, which they opened and shut as if they spoke, or shouted, yet there was no sound.
Behind these stalked others man-tall, specter thin, their limbs mere bones covered with dry and dusty skin, their hairless heads skulls. Moldy tatters clung to them; they moved stiffly yet at surprising speed.
There were other things—some that might have been wolves yet had an obscene humanity about them, reptile forms, giant spiders—all things that might have haunted the nightmares of generations were here given form. But these were only the fringes of the company. And suddenly the air was split with shouts, arrows sang.
“Hurry now!” Rita cried, “I cannot hold double protection long.”
Then Nick saw that the radiance from her body had spread to enclose him. Against that the arrows dashed, to fall. He heard more confused shouting. Other forms rushed at them, shrank from the bright mist.
There followed what could only be the crack of a rifle. Nick invo
luntarily ducked, but did not reach the ground as Rita’s hold on him dragged him up and on. The mist was thickening but he was sure he could see through it men in black uniforms. They must be passing through a small army.
Evil it was, the loathsome scent the breeze had earlier hinted at was sickeningly strong. It formed a choking reek. But Nick could see dimly the rocks that were the outer guard of the cave.
There came the sudden chatter of a machine gun. On either side, as the besiegers reluctantly parted to let them pass, men fell. A machine gun! Where had the English obtained that?
“On!” Rita sounded breathless.
They scrambled among the rocks, up to the higher entrance. The rattle of gunfire was now constant, deafening—Perhaps it was turned on them. Nick did not know. But at least nothing penetrated the barrier Rita held. Though he could see that it was thinning.
With a last effort they tumbled into the hollow of the sentry post. The radiance dimmed. A man arose before Nick, aimed at him pointblank with a handgun.
“Illusion!” Rita cried. “It is an illusion!”
Real! The death before him was real!
“No!”
Nick thought to feel the impact of the bullet, but that did not follow. The man swung away from him as if he no longer existed. He was a stranger in battle dress. There were three defenders with a machine gun, aiming and firing at the Dark Ones. Nick stumbled after Rita, down into the cave.
“You!”
They were all there, even Stroud, though the Warden lay upon the floor, his coverall marked with dark stains. The rest stood as might those determined to fight to the end, meeting death but not capture.
It was Crocker who had cried out, his voice echoing through the cave. For the clatter of gunfire was now gone. Jean caught at the pilot’s arm as he faced Rita, his eyes wide, his hand holding one of the daggers. He might have been warding off attack, though Rita had not moved. The glow about her was only a lingering glimmer.