He had expected it to be heavy, but it was lighter than the blaster, and he could carry it easily under one arm as he turned to retrace his way, making the best speed he could.
Though he no longer coughed, his throat was dry and his eyes smarted. Whether he had taken such a dose of radiation as would doom him, he dared not think. He must take what he had found to those who might be able to use it, even if he brought his own death with it.
Up the steps he went, back into the open where the skimmer had dropped him. Though it was very hard, encased in such armor, to tilt his head back, Andas managed it far enough to see the skimmer on hover. He raised his arm in signal.
The ascent rope came tumbling down. Andas pitched the blaster from him. He needed that no longer. Still holding the box close, he made fast the hoist cord and gave the signal to rise.
The hoist jerked as it took the strain of his weight. He was hauled up, hoping that the pilot had taken the precautions in which they had drilled him, erecting a force screen between him and his passenger. No one would dare to approach Andas now until they had used every method of decontamination. But he had done it. He had their greatest weapon now in his two hands!
-18-
Having gone through the most rigid decontamination processes the medico and techs of the mercenaries could devise, Andas sat alone before the box. He thought only of what must be done now, rather than of the results of the tests they had forced on him. He had known that his quest might well be fatal, though it is hard for any man to face directly the fact of death, of ending all that he knows, feels, is—They had told him the truth, that the tests had shown a higher degree of radiation than the body could survive.
So, he had made his payment in advance. What he bought must be worth it. Andas inserted the key and turned it.
Surprisingly, though it must have been locked for centuries of time, the lid arose easily. And in the interior, bedded down in a thick layer of spongy material, were two things, one a roll of what seemed to be thin leather, the other a length of metal links, the metal dark and dull, studded with small bosses in no decorative pattern. He drew that out and straightened it to full length on the table. Disappointment choked him.
Indifferently he took up the roll, slipped off the ring that kept it tight, and flattened it out. The inner side was printed with signs and drawings, meaningless to him at first.
To have bought so little with his life! Then the promises of legends were worthless. Perhaps they had never intended to do more than to give a prop to the emperors, a confidence in knowing that if the worst came, there awaited a way out. And they were expected to find their own solutions first, not to fall back upon this deception.
Yet all the precautions—would such have been taken to preserve a fake? Yes, if the fact that it was a fake was never to be unmasked, that the belief in it was its only power.
Andas looked down at the script he could not read, at the diagrams that blurred as he stared at them. Unless—
It was a moment or two before, sunk in his despair and disappointment, Andas realized that he was able to read a word here and there. Those long hours with Kelemake, when the archivist had been so immersed in his own studies that, needing a sounding board, he had expounded them to a boy, were paying off. Intently Andas shaped the archaic symbols with his lips and traced diagrams by fingertip. There was much he did not understand, but enough—perhaps just enough—that he could!
He drew the length of metal links to him and let it slip through his fingers as if counting them. But what he quested for were those bosses that had a meaning. An hour later he leaned back in his chair. Around his waist those links made a belt. He had done what he could without fully understanding the preparations. But the old tale had not failed him.
There was only one reason for life left, to carry what he held—or rather take what he now was—to the Valley of Bones and there fight the last battle, which would decide the fate of the empire one way or the other.
Andas came out of the room. Shara sat on a stool against the wall. Beyond her Yolyos lounged, inspecting the inner workings of one of the hand weapons from the mount. They turned to him, but he raised his hand to warn them off. How deadly he himself might be now was a matter of some concern. There was that in their faces which warmed him, even through the ice that had encased him since he had heard those test readings.
"No. I have now what may be the salvation of the empire," he said hurriedly. How long did he have before the final illness began? "You have the skimmer ready?"
"Andas." Shara spoke only his name and reached out her hand to him.
"No," he repeated. "This thing was laid to me. He gave his life to begin it and bound upon me the oath to finish it."
He looked then to Yolyos. "It has been good," he said simply. "I never had a brother, nor anyone save my father whom I could trust. It has been good to know such a one, even for a short time."
Yolyos nodded. "It has been good," he answered, his voice a low purr. "Go, brother, knowing that one stands to do here what must be done."
At his orders they cleared the short hall between the room and the outer courtyard where the skimmer waited—the craft already contaminated by his flight to the temple. But there was the garrison drawn up, and, as he went, for the first time in his life he heard the full-throat roar of those hailing him as the Emperor.
"Lion, Pride of Balkis-Candace, Lord of Spears—hail!"
Andas dared not look either right or left to see those who shouted, knowing that pride alone would help him to finish that march with dignity. Somehow he reached the hatch of the skimmer and climbed into the pilot's seat. Still he could not allow himself to look back. He touched the rise and was above them in a leap, the force of which made him breathless for an instant. Then the flier was on course, heading toward the last battle of all.
Andas had only one guide to the Valley of Bones (save the general directions he had been able to piece together from old accounts), and that was the ring, for it was united, he was sure, to the source of its power. He had it wired to the control board of the skimmer and watched it for any variation in the set.
His course was not a straight one after he topped the mountains, but a zigzag to pick up a trail for the ring. And before midday it had proven to be a guide, for the dull set glowed, took on rippling Life, and grew the brighter as he flew on in the direction it indicated.
There were more heights ahead, the sere spur range of the Ualloga, once a chain of volcanoes making a blazing girdle for the continent. Their broken cones now were sided by such cliffs as not even the wild cam sheep knew, a riven and waterless land that repelled man and animal alike. In his own Inyanga the range had seldom been penetrated and many of the peaks never explored.
The stone glowed, flashed as he had never seen it do before. It pointed directly into this land. How much longer did he have, Andas wondered, before death attacked his body? The thought made him shift to top speed.
Thus he overshot his goal and was aware of it only when the gem signaled it. He circled about, also intent on what the visa-screen showed of the land below.
It was no true valley the ring brought him to, but the hollow of a giant crater. And, as he went on hover, Andas was aware of something else. About him the linked belt was warming, rousing in answer to some energy, while through his body he began to feel a vibration, almost as painful as the one that had accompanied the crawlers.
He put the skimmer on descend. There was no need to take any precaution over his arrival. Andas did not in the least doubt that those who sheltered in this hole knew of his coming. But he watched the screen carefully.
The very heart of the crater was a lake, though the waters there did not mirror the sky above, but were a dead slate gray. Around its shores there was vegetation. It had a withered, dead look, lacking the brilliant color and shadow one saw in normal plants.
Farther away from the water were heaps of some gray-white material set in loose order. And while they resembled no buildings he had e
ver seen, Andas believed them to be shelters for those who made this dismal mountain cup their home.
He brought the skimmer down on the only nearly level space he sighted. The visa-screen showed him that and a portion of sand and gravel beyond, as well as scraps of blighted vegetation—but no one moved. If there was a reception party, it was in hiding.
With care he unwired the ring, being careful not to touch the band itself. That he dared not do while he wore the belt, for their powers were so opposed, one to the other, that he believed such a connection might be fatal to him. Into the ring he inserted the end of an officer's baton, which Yolyos had smoothed down to serve that purpose. And holding this before him, he left the skimmer.
The nearest of the shelters was close enough to see clearly, and he was startled at its material. There was no mistaking the nature of the loglike objects piled to form its walls—bones—huge bones! He had never heard of an animal large enough to yield such. But why not—was not this the Valley of Bones—though that was a literal statement he had not known.
Andas's right hand hovered about his belt but did not quite touch it. With his left he held the baton well away from his body. The glow of the ring was torch-like through the gloom of the valley.
Again he looked about for some sign his arrival was known—that they were prepared to move against him. Nothing stirred. There were no sounds. If bird or insect lived in this gloom, it was silent now. There was a feeling of waiting that made him want to linger by the open hatch of the skimmer as his only refuge.
Perhaps all his race was conditioned to expect the worst here. There were too many old terror tales about the ruler of this pocket—and of much more when she wished to reach out and touch this one or that to be her follower. But the fact that he knew he was a walking dead man was armor. Fear of dissolution was now longer hers to threaten.
So Andas walked away from the skimmer, from all the world that he knew, carrying the ring as a torch. And since the huts of bones seemed the logical place to start searching for whoever dwelt here, he went to those.
Sometime later he reached the end of that line of weird dwellings, having found each empty, though there was good evidence that they were occupied. But where were those he sought? That sense of expectancy, of being on the brink of action, had never left him. Yet no movement, no sound, indicated that he was not alone in the valley.
Would the ring continue to lead him? He could try an experiment. Andas loosed his grasp on the baton until he held it by only the lightest of grips. Then he spoke for the first time. Though he purposely kept his voice low, yet his words rang unusually loud in his own ears.
"To thy mistress, go!"
The baton quivered, moved. He tried not to hold it too tightly lest he hinder that movement, yet he must not drop it. It turned at a sharp angle left. And he pivoted to face that way. The baton stiffened to point, and he found he could not make it waver.
Away from the bone-walled huts it led him, from the lake, from the skimmer. It was like a spear aimed at the steep side of the crater.
Then he saw that he walked a marked way, sided by stumpy pillars, first knee high, then waist, and finally topping his shoulders, and these were also bones.
So walled in, Andas came to an opening in the cliff. As he paused, there was a flash within, a leap of greenish flame. He smelled a stench that was worse than the odor of the crawlers.
Then a voice called, "You have sought us out, Emperor. Have you then come to seek your crown? But your hour is past—even as the crown has passed to one who can better wear it!"
In the green of the flames he saw the gathered company. Back against the wall on either side were a sprinkling of men, who stood, staring in a kind of despair and complete surrender, as if all their strength had been drained. But in the center was a group of women, and behind them another, enthroned.
Andas raised his eyes to the face of that one. On her head was the Imperial crown, the sacred one worn only when the ruler took his oath of allegiance. It was death for a lesser man to touch it. At the sight of that in this place, anger blazed hot in him.
The head on which it rested was held high with an arrogance he thought not even an empress in her own right could have shown. Her face had the perfection of a soulless, emotionless statue, with only the eyes and a cruel curl of mouth betraying life.
Her body was bare of any robe, but she held on her knees, so that it covered her to the base of her throat, a huge mask. That mask was demonic, yet not ugly. Rather it seemed great beauty had been twisted to serve great evil, so that it was degraded and debased.
"Andas." He saw the cruel smile grows as she spoke. "Emperor that wished to be. Behold your empress! Give homage as it is due!"
As she spoke, the mask before her looked at him also with a compelling stare. He shivered, knowing that it, too, had life—or was in some way an extension of a life force that had no human connection, more to be feared than merely alien.
"Homage, Andas, humble homage—" She made a chant of the words. And that chant was taken up by the women gathered at the foot of the throne until it beat in his head. But he stood erect and did not answer.
It appeared that she was not expecting such defiance, for now she ran tongue tip across her lips and ceased that chant. But a moment later she spoke again.
"You cannot stand against me any longer, Emperor of rags and tatters, of a ruined empire. If you have come to surrender—"
"I have not come to surrender, witch." Andas spoke for the first time, and his words cut across hers as swords might clang blade on blade in a duel.
"Yet you bear our emblem as a banner!" She laughed, pointing with her chin to the ring.
"Not as a truce flag, Kidaya, but as a torch to show me your path."
"And you have walked it—to your end, Emperor of ashes and dead men!"
"Not yet!" From whence came that flash of inspiration he never afterward knew. It was like an order sent ringing through his head by the will of a power beyond his own knowledge.
He readied the baton as if it were a throwing spear, such as a man uses for skill hunting. And he hurled it, so that the ring at its tip entered straight into the mouth of the mask.
Then he saw the lips move, close upon the wand and snap it. The portion bearing the ring, with the ring, vanished.
"To like fares like!" he cried, and the words also came from somewhere outside his own mind.
There was a moan running through the company. But Andas was no longer aware of them—he saw only Kidaya. Now, as her mask of confidence broke and she allowed emotion to show fleetingly upon her face—consuming hate—he traced a likeness to the Princess Abena, faint though it was. The princess was at the beginning of a crooked and shadowed road. This woman had walked the full way to stand at its end.
She laughed. "My poor littling! Now you have thrown away what small protection you ever had. As the Old Woman has eaten your safeguard, so shall she now eat you." She fell then to crooning, rubbing her hands caressingly along the sides of the mask, so that Andas could see that she did not need to steady the thing on her knees, but that it rested there of itself.
Kidaya crooned, and the mask began to grow larger and larger until it hid all of her, save her slender feet and the hands that still gentled it. If this was illusion, the hallucinatory power behind it was very great.
The eyes were alive, and they looked upon him with a stare as if to draw him forward to death, while the mouth opened and a great tongue used its tip to beckon him.
Andas could feel the urge, the need to reach that mouth. But what he wore about him kept him steady, though the pull was nigh unbearable. And all the time the mask grew.
Still Andas waited for the signal he was sure would come. Move too soon and that which manifested itself in the mask would not be drawn far enough into this plane of existence to be destroyed. Wait! But the need to go to it— He swayed as he stood, torn between the witchery of the mask and the counter force about his body.
He could not stand
it much longer—he would be torn apart!
The signal he waited for came with a flash of energy filling his whole body. Andas raised his hands and began to trace in the air the contours of the mask. From his lips poured the ancient chant he had learned at the fort. It was the sound and tone of those words that should release the energy now filling his entire being and aim it as he made of himself a vessel of destruction.
His whole body quivered and shook with what filled it. Andas believed he could actually see faint threads of light shooting from the tips of his fingers. And then he obeyed the call of the mask, leaping up to meet it as if he were its prisoner at last.
There was—
But no man could—would—be allowed to remember what came then. There was nothingness and the dark.
He was cold. He had never been so cold in his life. Life? No, this was death, which had been his burden and finally finished him. But could one smell in death? Could one feel? If so, then old speculations were at fault. Smell, feel, hear—for there was moaning he could hear.
See? Andas opened his eyes. He lay on rock, looking at blasted, blackened stone, so stained it might have been worked upon by blaster fire.
Stone? Memory came back. So, he was not dead. He levered himself to his knees and swung his head slowly from side to side. And what he saw sickened him somewhat but did not pierce far, for it was as if the cold he felt created an ice barrier between him and the world.
He could not get to his feet, but he crawled out of that hollow until he crouched in the open between the bone walls of the pathway. He was no sooner in the open than there was a resounding crash from within. A great billow of gritty dust puffed out, so he cried aloud and threw up his arms to cover his face. But afterward there was no moaning in the dark.