Thor put a hand in his frayed pocket and drew out the warm ruby. He
said, "This must be the only key. We haven't found any door yet."
They put hands on the jewel and moved it. They went forward over the
red grasslands for a hundred feet. Thor said, "This ought to be just
about right." Once more they turned the jewel, and experienced the
dark, the coldness, and the vertigo.
Cobblestones underfoot, and smooth rock walls lining the streets as
they crept forward. It was a dead city lying under the white moon,
stark in its emptiness, sorrowful in its brooding strength. The windows
were dark, the doorways shadowed.
Once Thor and Slag heard footsteps, but they came from a great
distance, and soon faded into the eternal silence.
Ahead of them loomed the temple with the golden dome, where the paean
to Aava had thundered forth, where the urn that held the green flame
stood on its white pedestal.
"They will have taken Karola there, to Aava," whispered Thor. "That is
where we must go. To the temple of the green flame."
A massive knob of bronze, covered with greenish rot and carved with the
emblem of Aava-in-the-urn, screeched as Thor turned it. The thick oaken
door swung wide. Pale radiance bathed the arched columns that trod the
mosaic floor of the vast chamber. At the far end of the room, the black
urn stood empty and black.
Thor ran across the vast chamber, his footfalls sounding loud and
lonely. He stepped to the white pedestal and peered within the black
urn. Green flakes and crystal chips encrusted the bowled bottom of the
urn.
He slipped a torn handkerchief from his pocket, and with the buckle of
his belt, loosened some of the crystal chips.
"I don't know whether I can ever analyze these," he said to Slag, "but
I'll take them along, anyhow."
Slag stood at one of the tall, arched windows, red head gleaming in the
sun. He was making guttural noises in his throat, and he kept lifting
and dropping his big warclub. Thor stepped to his side and looked into
the streets.
Men were walking stealthily along the cobblestones.
* * * * *
Thor blinked and rubbed his eyes. He was staring down at men clad in
chain-mail armour, men in fur skins, men in suits of the same cut as
he wore. There was a huge creature that Thor would have sworn was an
ape, except for the two tusks depending from its lips, and its erect,
intelligent bearing. There was a four-legged being, and something that
had two heads. There was--
"They are men, Slag. Real men. Not androids!"
He felt a warm delight in him, a welling of friendliness inspired by
the weeks of wandering on the red, lonely grasslands. He lifted an arm
and opened his lips to shout. A mental censor made him close his mouth.
It would be better to wait, to see what manner of men these were who
stalked the empty streets of a deserted city, before showing himself.
Thor vaulted over the stone sill, calling to Slag to follow. Side by
side they crept after the group.
They went deeper into the heart of the city. By twisted alleys the
stalkers went, and their furtive tread and cautious glances told Thor
that they were in hostile territory. Where a building cast gloomy
shadows, he ran nearer, until he could distinguish voices.
To his amazement, some of the beings spoke English. He could catch
fragments of words, of phrases. Mixed with his own language were terms
of the jewel-speech of Klogor. And there were other tongues, too,
languages that were like the cacklings of monkeys or the shrill treble
of singing birds. They were mingled together, as through the ages
of common living had created a new tongue that was all of none, yet
something of each.