Alis sighed and shook her head. "He came and took her even as she communed with the G.o.ds. It was a foul deed and brutal."
Daiv said grimly, "And by that we know that this is His city, indeed. For where else would He be so powerful and so daring?"
"Yes," said Alis, "the more I think on it, the more I believe you are right. Above ground must be Hisdomains. We have not guessed the truth, because for countless ages we have dwelt in the tiled corridors of Be-Empty."
"Tell us more," demanded Daiv, He-who-would-learn, "about the halls of Be-Empty. Why are they called that?"
"I know not, Daiv. It is the ancient name, yet the corridors are not empty. They are a vast network of underground pa.s.sages, built by the Ancient Ones for mystic rites we no longer know. Great wonders are here, as I will later show you.
"These corridors are tiled with shining creet, and upon their roadbeds lie parallels of G.o.d-metal, red and worn. Aie, and there is a greater wonder still! From place to place I can show you ancient hoams, with doors and many windows and seats. These hoams were tied together with rods of G.o.d-metal, and whensoever the Ancient Ones would move, they had but to push their hoams along the parallels to a new location!
"Once we were not all one clan, but many. There were the Women of the In-Deeps, and there were the Aiyartees. But we were the strongest, and we welded all the livers-underground into one strong clan.
"We have many villages, wide creet plateaus built on the sunken roadways of the Ancient Ones. Each village has its entrance to the city above, forbidden Loalnyawk, but we use these only when urgency presses. For there are openings aplenty to the sun, there are streams of fresh water. Safe from the Wild Ones above, we raise our vegetables and a few meat-animals.
"Yet," continued Alis proudly, "there is no spot in all Loalnyawk to which we have not ready access should it be necessary to get there. Above ground there are many shrines like that of great Granstoom and the fallen tower of Arciay. There is also the Citadel of Clumby to the north, and not far from where we now sit could I show you the Temple of s...o...b..t, where each year the Ancient Ones sacrificed a thousand virgins to their G.o.ds. There is the forbidden altar of Slukes-"
The Mother"s mouth stayed in midsentence. Her eyes widened.
"Slukes!" she repeated awfully.
"Well?" Meg and Daiv leaned forward, intent.
"That must be it! In the ancient legends it tells that there was where He visited most often. That must be His present lair and hiding place!"
"Then there," proclaimed Daiv, "we must go!"
CHAPTER FIVE.
MEG STUMBLED on a sharp stone, lurched against Daiv and steadied herself on his rea.s.suring presence. Her eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the endless gloom, now, though they ached and burned with the concentra-tion of peering into murky blackness, then having the blackness lighted from time to time, unexpectedly, by a shaft of golden sunlight flooding into the corridors of Be-Empty from the city above.
Her feet, though, thought Meg disconsolately, would never accustom themselves to this jagged, uneven roadbed. She had been told to walk between the parallels of G.o.d-metal, for that was the best, driest, safest walking. Maybe it was. But it was treacherous. For there were creet crossties on which her doeskin-clad feet bruised themselves, and ever and again there were rocks and boulders lying unsuspectedly in the road.How far they had come, Meg had no way of guessing. It must have been many miles. They had pa.s.sed, easily, twoscore tiny, raised villages of the Be-Empty Clan. At each of these they had tarried a moment while the warrior lootent, under whose guidance Alis had dispatched a small foray party at Meg"s disposal, made known herself and her mission.
Meg panted, hating the heavy, stuffy air her lungs labored to suck in, fuming at the slowness of their march, eager only to reach their destination. It did not improve her temper to slip on a round rock, submerge one foot to the ankle in a stream of sluggish water. Of the lootent she demanded, "How much farther, my daughter?"
"We are nearly there, O Mother."
Daiv grunted. It was a think-grunt. Meg tried to see him, but in the darkness his face was a white blur.
"Yes, Daiv?"
"There"s more to this than meets the eye, Golden One. These pa.s.sageways are not the purposeless corridors Alis thought. I was wondering-"
"Yes?"
"Well-it sounds ridiculous. But do you remember those hoams on wheels? The ones with the windows?
Suppose the Ancient Ones had the magic power to make them run like horses along these parallels?"
Meg shrugged.
"But why should they, Daiv? When it would have been so much simpler to make them run on top of the earth? These grottoes were built for some sacred purpose, my mate."
"I suppose you"re right," acknowledged Daiv. But he didn"t sound convinced. Sometimes Meg grew a little impatient with Daiv. He was, like all men, such a hard creature to convince. He couldn"t reason things out in the cold, clear logical fashion of a woman; he kept insisting that his "masculine intuition" told him otherwise.
Much time had pa.s.sed. They had broken fast at the hoam of the Mother, and had eaten a midday meal here in the depths of Be-Empty. The last opening under which they had pa.s.sed revealed that the sun was being swallowed by the westward clouds; for twelve hours it would pa.s.s through the belly of the sky, then miraculously, tomorrow, a new sun would be reborn in the east.
So it was almost night when the lootent halted at a tiny, deserted creet platform, turned and touched her forehead to Meg.
"This is it, O Mother."
"This?" Meg glanced about. There was nothing unusual about this location.
"Above this spot lies the forbidden altar of Slukes. I... I fear-" The lootent"s eyes were troubled. "I fear I dare take you no farther, O Mother. You and your man are inviolate; I and my warriors are but humble women. That which lies above would be destruction for us to gaze upon."
Meg nodded complacently.
"So be it, my daughter. We shall leave you now, go to dare Him in His den."
The lootent said, "We shall wait, Mother-""Wait not, my child. Return to your village."
"Very well, Mother. Your blessing ere we leave?"
Meg gave it, touching her fingers to the lips and the forehead of the kneeling lootent, chanting the hallowed phrases of the Ancient Ones" blessing. " "My country, Tizathy; sweet land of liberty-"" Then there were stifled footsteps in the gloom and Meg and Daiv were alone.
Only briefly did Meg consider the possibility of entering His temple at this time-and then she abandoned the project. It would be suicidal. Everyone knew He was strongest at night. His powers waned with the waxing sun. So she and Daiv built a tiny fire in the quarters of a long-vanished warrior named Private Keepout, and there huddled together through the long, dank, fearsome night.
They awakened with the sun, broke their fast with unleavened biscuit given them by Alis. Daiv, who was expert at such matters, then examined with painstaking care their swords and hurling-leathers. He approved these. And as if feeling within his own breast an echo of the dread that fluttered in Meg"s, he pressed his lips hard against hers in a touching-of-mouths. Then, hand in hand, they climbed a long flight of steps, into the sunlight, forward to the threshold of His stronghold.
It was a majestic building.
How many footsteps long and wide it was, Meg could not even conceive. It reached half as far as the eye would reach in one direction; in the other, it branched into many smaller buildings. And it was pine-high. An awe-inspiring sight.
Daiv, standing beside her, stared dubiously at the main portal. He said, "This may not be the place, Meg.
Alis said the name of the temple was Slukes, didn"t she? This is called-" He glanced again at the weather-worn carving atop the doorway. "This is called Stlukes."
Again, as oft before, Meg felt swift pride at her mate"s intelligence. Daiv was a living proof that men were the equals-or almost, anyway-of women. It had taken her many, many summers to learn the art of reading the speech-without-words; he had a.s.similated the knowledge from her in a tenth the time.
"It is the right place, Daiv," she whispered. "The Ancient Ones were often careless in putting down the language. But can you not jeel that this is His abode?"
For she could. Those grim, gray walls breathed an atmosphere of death and decay. The bleached walls were like the picked bones of a skeleton lying in some forgotten field. And the great, gaping vents of windows, the sagging lintels, the way one portion of roof had fallen in-there were marks of His dominance. Meg did not even need the omen of the red-throated carrion buzzard wheeling lazily ever and ever about the horrid altar of Slakes.
"Come," she said, "let us enter."
Daiv held back. There were anxious lines about his eyes. "He does not speak, Meg?"
"No one has ever heard His voice, Daiv. Why?"
"I thought I heard voices. But I must have made a mistake. Well"-he shrugged-"it does not matter."
Thus they entered the secret hiding place of Death.
All the great courts lay silent.What Meg had expected to see, she did not rightly know. Perhaps a charnel house of human bodies, dismembered and gory, raw with frightful cicatrices, oozing filth from sick and rotting sores. Or perhaps that even more dreadful thing, chambers in which were imprisoned the mournful souls of the dead.
Against flesh and blood, no matter how frightful, Meg knew her courage would hold. But she did not know whether her nerves would stand before the dim restlessness of the gray unalive.
She found neither of these in the temple of Slukes. She found only floors and walls and ceilings which had once been shining white, but were now gray with ages of floating dust. She found her footsteps m.u.f.fled beneath her upon a mat of substance, now crumbling, but still resilient to the soles. She found silence, silence, silence that beat upon her eardrums until it was a tangible, terrifying sound.
And finding that, she took comfort in Daiv"s keen, questing, ever-forward search for Him.
Down a long hallway they strode on catlike feet; a chamber they pa.s.sed in which heaped dust outlined the seats and stools of Ancient Ones. Past a G.o.d-metal counter they walked, and saw within its confines not one but a half-dozen water fountains like that Daiv had wrenched from the wall of Ited-Ciga"s shrine.
Above their heads, from time to time, they glimpsed strange, magic pendants of green and red G.o.d-metal; beneath one of these was a greater marvel still-a pear-shaped ball with wire seeds coiled within.
Transparent was the skin of this fruit, and slippery to the touch. Daiv tried to split it, hungering for a taste of its newness, but it exploded in his hands with a fearful pop! -and there was nothing but its stem and seeds!
The fruit itself had vanished, but the skin, as if angered, had bit Daiv"s palm until the blood flowed.
Meg blessed the wound, and begged forgiveness in a swift prayer to the G.o.ds of the harvest at having destroyed the magic pear.
And they went on.
Either side of the corridor through which they moved was lined with doorways. Into one of these they looked, believing He might have hid there, but the rooms were vacant except for strange, four-legged G.o.d-metal objects humped in the middle, on which reposed parasitic coils and twists of metal twined inextricably together. Dust lay over all, and in one room more carefully shuttered, barred and sealed than the others, they saw tatters of something like homespun covering the coils. But when Meg attempted to touch this, the wind from her motion swept the gossamer cloth into nothingness.
Aie, but it was a mighty and mysterious place, this altar of Slukes, where dwelt Him who steals away the breath! There were rooms in which reposed great urns and pans of G.o.d-metal; these rooms held, also, huge metal boxes with handles on the front, and their platters were crusted with flaked and ancient grease. Meg shuddered. "Here," she whispered to Daiv, "He burnt the flesh of them He took." In the same room was a ma.s.sive white box with a door. Daiv opened this, and they saw within neat metal racks. "And here," whispered Meg, "must He have stored the dwindled souls until again He hungered.
But now He does not use this closet. I wonder why?"
And they went on.
Until at last, having climbed many flights of steps, Meg and Daiv came at last to the chamber they had been seeking. It lay on the story nearest the roof. Oh, but He was a methodical destroyer. The compartments in which he imprisoned His victims were all carefully labeled in the language. Contagious Ward, Infants" Ward, Maternity Ward-all these Meg saw and read, and shuddered to recognize. And this, His holy of holies, was symbolized as His workroom by the sign, Operating Room.Once it had been a high, lofted chamber; now it wore the roof of infinity, for some antique cataclysm had opened it to the skies. Crumbled plaster and shards of brick heaped the floor.
But in its center, beneath a gigantic weapon defying description or understanding, was His bed. It could be nothing else, for even now, upon it, lay the lately-slain body of a woman. Her face was a mask of frozen agony; His touch had drawn taut her throat muscles and arched her back in the final paroxysm.
Her lifeless fingers gripped the sides of the bed in unrelaxing fervor.
And the room bore, amidst its clutter and confusion, unmistakable signs of recent habitation! The trappings of the newly slaughtered woman had been tossed carelessly into a corner, along with countless others. Feet, many feet, had beaten firm the rubble on the floor; in one corner, not too long since, had been a fire. And the blood that had gushed from the dead woman when her heart had been roughly hewn from her bosom still clotted the floor!
Meg cried, a little cry of terror and dismay.
"He is here, Daiv!"
Then all things happened at once. Her cry wakened ominous echoes in chambers adjacent to this. Daiv"s arm was about her, pulling her away. There came the patter of footsteps, voices lifted, and the door at the farther end of the room jerked open.
And Daiv cried, "Not only He, but His ghouls! Behind me, Golden One!" Then the deluge. A horde of Wild Ones of the same tribe as those whom they had fought two days before, charged into the room.
CHAPTER SIX.
THERE WAS NO TAINT of cowardice in the heart of Meg the Mother. Had she any fault, it was that of excess bravery. Oft before had she proven this, to her own peril. This time, Daiv"s speed left her no opportunity to become a courageous sacrifice to His minions.
His quick eye measured the number of their adversaries, his battle-trained judgment worked instinctively.
For an instant he hesitated, just long enough to strike down with flailing long sword the foremost of their attackers. Then he swept Meg backward with his mighty right arm, thrust her irresistibly toward a doorway at the other end of the room.
"Flee, Golden One!"
Meg had no choice. For Daiv was on her heels; his body a bulwark of defense against hers and a battering-ram of force. They reached the door, crashed it shut in the face of the charging ghouls. Daiv braced himself against it stanchly, his eyes sweeping the small chamber in which they found themselves.
"That!" he commanded. "And that other, Golden One. And that!"
His nods designated objects of furniture within the room; heavy, solid braces of G.o.d-metal. Meg bent to the task, and before Daiv"s strength could fail under the now clamorous pounding on the doorway, the portal was braced and secured with the ma.s.sive frames that once had been chairs, a desk, a cabinet.
Now there was time for breathing and inspection of their refuge. And Meg"s soul sickened, seeing the trap into which they had let themselves.
"But, Daiv-there is no way out! There is but one door to the room. The one through which we entered!"Daiv said, "There is a window-" and strode to it. She saw the swift, dazed shock that creased his brows, moved to his side and peered from the window.
It was an eagle"s aerie in which they stood! Down, down, down, far feet below, was the sun-lit courtyard of this building. But the wall was sheer and smooth as the jowls of lean youth; no crawling insect could have dared that descent.
Daiv looked at her somberly, and his arm crept about her.
"Since we cannot flee, we must outwait them, Golden One. If we cannot get out, they, at least, cannot get in."
He did not mention the thought uppermost in his mind and in hers.
That their food pouches lay far below them, in the murky grotto of Be-Empty; that they had no water.
And that the shortest of sieges would render them impotent before their adversaries.
For he was Daiv, known as He-who-would-learn. And even in this moment when things looked darkest, he was roused to curiosity by the chamber in which they were immured.
It was a small and cluttered room. More dusty than most, and that was odd, because it was not open to the dust-laden air.
But Daiv, questing, discovered the reason for this. The floor was gray not with rock dust, but with the fragments of things which-which- "This is a great mystery, Meg. What are, or were, these things?"
Meg, too, had been staring about her. A faint suspicion was growing in her mind. She remembered a word she had heard but once in her life, and that when she was but a young girl, neophyte priestess under the former Mother.