He lay down. His last recollection was the feel of Karola's long nails
pressing the flesh of his hand....
* * * * *
Thor hung bodiless in blackness. He was aware with all the five senses
of him, that life teemed about and all around the blackness, that
something walked and spoke and moved. Thor struggled until a dull pain
pounded and throbbed all through his being.
"Patient. Be patient," counseled a gentle voice.
"Are you the Discoverer?"
"I am he. It would be too dangerous to let you take your first
mentastral flight alone. Besides, your brain has not the electrical
potential sufficient to let you make progress. Hush, now. Listen!"
There were voices, deep and thunderous in a rolling wave of sound. Dim
and faint at first, the paean swelled and pulsed. And as the sound
grew, so came the light--at first in tiny riplets of greyness that
shimmered and fled--then a refulgent glory in broad bands.
He hung above the broad walls and ramparts of a queer city, whose domes
and minarets were queerly bent and twisted. The broad avenues and
narrow alleys were bare. It was a dead city.
"Not a dead city. Listen!"
The song was louder, richer.
"Lower yourself. Think yourself down."
Thor found himself sweeping in a gentle arc closer and closer to the
towers and temple domes. Now the song was crashing out in ponderous
triumph.
"Go through the golden dome. You can do it."
Yellow metal shone and glimmered as he dropped gently through
opalescent hues of gold and amber and yellow. It was like thick water,
with faint bubbles glistening, locked within. He broke free and hung in
the groined ceiling above a great chamber.
Hundreds of the androids with the glittering jewels on their chests
stood arm to arm. Their rich voices boomed tribute toward a niche cut
in the north wall, arched and wide, that held a squat black urn resting
on a white alabaster pedestal.
"The song is nearly done. Watch the urn."
All sound and movement died away.
A tongue of green fire stabbed upwards out of the black urn. For one
long instant it hung there, quivering and pulsing. It broke and faded
into green mist that the breezes blew out across the chamber.
"That was the manifestation of Aava. Now we will see him as he really
is."
They swept through the air with the speed of light. Matter that
was wall and stone and metal blurred into a liquescent dimness that
darkened the further they went. From grey to black to grim jet went the
colours. And still they went on. Now the colour grew light tan, like
sand.
"We are in the bowels of the Mountains of Distortion. The blackness is
rock hidden forever from a glimpse of sunlight. We are nearly there. Go
cautiously! This buried desert is right above him."
It was a cave. From the high rock ceiling stalactites drooped like the
fringes of a weeping willow eternally etched in stone. Amid a riotous
profusion of clubshaped stalagmites thrusting up from the rough cave
floor, lay a circle of red space.
And in the red space stood Aava.
Green light, flickering and flaring, now subdued, now pouring forth in
a verdant shower of pride and strength, flooded the cave. Thor could
feel its sentience through every beat and pulse of it. Like the tongue
of some mighty star trapped in matter, it licked and thrust and strove
to speak its greatness.
The green fire lowered, hung brooding.
"I smell men."
"Careful," thought the Discoverer.
Thor moved no muscle, took no breath in his spirit form. Yet the
machinations of his mind slipped a cog. He thought, and the green
flames knew.
A sword of flame lunged outward, at him. He felt its heat, the wild
life of it, the pride and all the cruelty.
He tried to cry out. Then his mind went. The last he knew was the voice
of the Discoverer.
"Come!"
* * * * *
Thor gasped lungfuls of sweet, cool air, staring up at the sun in the
blue sky. Yellow hair splashed on his face and chest as Karola wept and
whimpered. Wonderingly, Thor put a big hand to his face. It was beaded
with damp sweat.
The Discoverer beamed a thought at him.
"That was a near thing, man of Earth. Had I not kept constant control
of your mind, Aava would have had you."
"What--what is he? That green fire is alive. I could feel it. I knew
its emotions."
"Aava is alive. He has been alive for eons piled upon eons. His
beginning I know not. Whether he will have an end--I also know not."
Thor shuddered.
The Discoverer went on, "Destroy Aava, and destroy his universe, and
you may return to your own. But how can you destroy Aava when even I,
the Discoverer, must admit failure?"
Thor shook his head. Destroy that flame? It was impossible.
When he looked up, the Discoverer was oozing a path into the distance
and Karola was hugging herself to him. Thor put an arm around her,
smiling grimly into her frightened eyes.
"We're in it, baby. All the way. Lost in some mad corner of space that
nobody can get in or out of. Trapped. And me with an education to
catch up on. Although," he grinned, looking at her thick yellow hair
and large red mouth, "I'm not feeling any too scholarly at the moment.
Yeah, I guess it could be worse. I guess it could."
Slag came toward them with three rabbits dangling from his right hand.
He knelt and began to make a fire. Thor and Karola watched him until
the roasting flesh scents reached their nostrils.
Thor laughed, "Hell. I'm just hungry. After a good meal, I'll feel
better about it all."
But that meal was never finished.
The androids came in the middle of the second rabbit. One moment there
was only the stars and the rolling meadowland, and the red flames
making shadows on the grass and on their arms and legs. The next they
were falling out of thin air, all over them, fists hitting at Slag and
Thor, hands reaching out for, and lifting, a screaming, clawing Karola.
"Thor! Thor!" she cried.
Thor heaved up from under three androids. His muscles rended with the
strain, but he threw them from him. His fists lashed out and thudded
into rib and jaw. He clove a path through living men, dropping them
with chops and uppercuts.
Karola stood writhing in the grasp of three giants. Their hands were
wrapped about her wrists, and their free hands fumbled at the jewels
that hung about their necks.
Thor flung an android from him; whirled to his left, avoiding a sword
thrust, hitting down with the edge of his hand against the android's
neck even as he turned. His knees slid under another's knife and
splintered his ribs. He heard Slag's club crunching home to his left,
but all he could see was Karola with the firelight playing across legs
and midriff.
"Thor! Thor! It's dark, Thor! I'm frightened!"
Her scream sent cold horror into his spine. Her white feet were almost
in the fire. How could it be dark to her? Unless these fiends who came
and went were blinding her--
Thor roared.
He lowered his head and charged, as some Viking ancestor might have
charged a longboat's deck. His fists hammered and clubbed. He blasted a
path through cursing, sobbing men.
Karola was in front of him.
He reached out for her.
Karola disappeared.
Thor felt his hands sink through empty space where Karola should have
been; where she was standing, one instant before. On spraddled legs he
stood, naked chest gulping in cool air, staring at the darkness.
"Karola!" he cried.
The androids were all fading. Thor dimly understood that it was Karola
they had been after, seeing them drop into nothingness, one after the
other. The fire flared brighter. In its red beams, one still sat,
fumbling a little dazedly at the jewel on his chest. Thor knew his own
thoughts were fumbling, just as the other's fingers were. Karola was
gone. The androids were going, only one was left. There was no way to
follow.
The firelight hung in the ruby jewel for one bursting moment, like
red blood bursting. Red jewel. Fumbling fingers clawing at it.
Three androids with Karola also clawing at their jewels. And Karola
disappearing--
Thor leaped.
His big right hand stabbed for the ruby. He closed his fingers on it
and tugged. The chain resisted, and then the android came awake to what
Thor wanted and pounded at him. Thor lowered his head and chin until
his jaw rested against his chest and hunched his shoulders. He rode
the buffets, swaying as he did in the ring.
Tug, tug. Tug and tear with that right hand, his mind kept telling him.
Get that jewel!
It broke and came loose in his hand. The android screamed, reaching
out. Slag came over the fire with a tremendous bound and his club
swung. It caved in the android's head and toppled him forward into the
fire.
Thor stared at the dying green fire that spilled from the android's
head. That was a part of Aava, that fire. It was the life-force.
He looked at the jewel throbbing soft red fire in his palm. He grinned.