[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Shan Kar answered, pointing. The Cavern of Creation, the forbidden place, lies up there.
Nelson stared with swift interest. He saw that, north of Vruun, the level forests that encompassed the city
marched up to grassy hills that were the foothills of the great northern mountains. In the face of those dark
hills he glimpsed a great cavernous opening. He could see it in the dark because light came from it-a vague,
unreal, quivering white glow.
The light danced and wavered, throbbing like a heart. Witch-light, ghost-light, pulsing mysteriously from
that great opening!
Yes, that is the Cavern, Shan Kar answered his thought. The glow is of the cold fire that forbids entrance
to all except the few who know the secret way.
Cold fire? Nelson felt a sharp wonder. There must be something deadly there to have inspired such awe and
fear. But what?
Shan Kar said savagely, The Cavern is a curse to L'Lan! That unholy place started the Brotherhood's lying
myth that our human and beast races were there created equal.
They lost sight of that mysterious distant eye of light as they followed Tark down the forest slope. The wolf
led them into the gully of a small stream-bed that ran past the north side of Vruun toward the river.
The stream-bed was empty in this dry season, its sands baked flat and hard. Its high banks hid the city from
them as they approached. The wolf finally stopped and they heard his urgent thought-command. This
way and quickly!
Chapter VIII. WEIRD CITY 41
The Valley Of Creation
They blundered after him toward a dark, mouth-like opening in the southern bank of the little gully. Tark led
into the opening and Shan Kar, sword in hand, followed. Nelson and the Cockney gripped their pistols as they
too stooped and went in.
They found themselves in absolute darkness. Nelson flashed his pocket-light, startling both Tark and Shan
Kar.
What is this place? Nelson demanded.
It was a round tunnel of glassy substance. They could not have kept footing in it but for the dried sand and silt
on its floor.
These drains carry the waters from the ridges in the rainy season down beneath the city to the river,
explained Shan Kar. No man knows all their labyrinth.
No man, but we of the Clans know, put in Tark. I can lead you to an opening directly beneath the Hall.
Shan Kar surreptitiously pressed Nelson's wrist. It was the signal they had agreed upon and he knew what it
meant. They were to stun the wolf as soon as he led them beneath the Hall of Clans. Then, swiftly and
secretly, they must seize Kree and Nsharra and return.
Nsharra? Nelson felt an odd quickening of his pulse each time he thought of the witch-girl who had nearly
had his life once. He hated that irrational throb of excitement.
Still romantic, he told himself satirically. Even ten years of Asia hasn't ground all that out of you.
Shan Kar was telling Tark, Lead the way. But, Tark, remember that if you try to go too fast you will die very
quickly.
The wolf made no reply but trotted deliberately forward up the gently slanting tunnel. The three men,
stooping, followed. Soon, the tunnel forked. Tark unhesitatingly took the left turn. They followed, their pistols
and the light covering him.
The tense silent progress into these ramifying tube-ways beneath Vruun began to get on Eric Nelson's nerves.
He began to think he could hear a whispering echo of sound from behind them.
He told himself as he glanced swiftly backward, that he was letting his nerve slip, that he-
He did glimpse something back there in the tunnel! Blazing eyes in the gloom, eyes that were following them!
It's a trap! We're being followed- Nelson started to yell.
But the wolf caught his thought and acted even as the sound left his lips. Tark whirled and charged back on
them with inconceivable swiftness. His hairy body was a living battering-ram that knocked the little light
from Nelson's hand. The wolf crashed on through them.
Knew
it! shrilled Lefty Wister, and triggered his automatic half-blindly as the light smashed out against the floor.
Chapter VIII. WEIRD CITY 42
The Valley Of Creation
The thunderous echoes of the forty-five were deafening in the confined tunnel and Nelson heard ricochets
screaming. Then Tark, who had crashed back through them to join those other eyes following them, sent his
thought through the dark to them.
We block your way to liberty! You cannot escape lay down your weapons!
A trick! raged Shan Kar. Tark somehow managed to betray us without our knowing.
As you planned to betray me with your lie of coming for Jhanon! rang the wolf's thought from the darkness.
Fools, not to know that when Grih went toward Anshan at my order, he'd strike our trail and backtrail
it follow us to Vruun!
Nelson, in a flash, realized the wolf's cunning in sending that Clawed One they had met in the forest on a
direction that would cross their trail and thus tell the tiger something was wrong.
Lay down your weapons and we shall not kill! Tark's thought continued swiftly. You shall be our hostages
for Barin!
For answer, Lefty Wister mouthed a curse and emptied his gun into the darkness. But again the slugs
ricocheted in whining shrieks off the curved walls of the tunnel.
They're back around the fork where your weapons can't reach them! Shan Kar cried. They'll arouse all
Vruun! No chance now to seize the Guardian. We must escape this trap!
Nelson, scrambling back to the fork in the tunnel, had hastily pulled a bulbous object from his pocket. He
ripped out its pin.
This will clear the way out for us! he rasped and leaned and hurled the deadly thing around the fork of the
tunnel.
Down! he yelled, and at the same instant heard the swift warning thought of Tark.
An outland weapon, Grih! Out of the tunnel, quick!
Nelson had a second to remember that Tark had seen grenades in action in Yen Shi before his own grenade
exploded.
The explosion in the confined tunnel felt titanic. A giant scorching hand smashed them down flatter against
the silted floor. Nelson leaped up, still dazed and shaky from the explosion, and shouted to the others.
Now back out of here!
They scrambled down through the tunnel, over broken shards of glass masonry the grenade had ripped from
its walls. Now a dim circle of starlight ahead showed their exit.
They burst out of it into the starlit gully of the little dry stream, and tripped over a huge, striped, prostrate
body. The tiger, Grih, had not escaped the tunnel quite in time and the outblast of the grenade had stunned or
killed him.
I hope it got that cursed wolf too! raged Lefty. I should have killed him when I wanted to first!
Nelson, at that moment, heard a wolf-howl from nearby, and realized that Tark had escaped the blast in time.
Chapter VIII. WEIRD CITY 43
The Valley Of Creation
He rouses the city! Shan Kar cried furiously. But Barin shall pay the penalty for his trick! If we can reach
our horses
They scrambled furiously up the gully of the dry streambed to the forested ridge. Nelson, gasping, turned and
looked back. Out of torchlit Vruun, four-footed shapes were racing swiftly on their track. A terrific wolf-cry
echoed up from that band of racing creatures, a heart-stopping sound.
Nelson seemed to himself in the next minutes, to be watching from another dimension as the three of them
fled through the forest along the ridge. He was two men, and one of them was watching like a disembodied ka
of himself while the other self expended every ounce of energy in flight.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]