He did not return toward the temple, but led the way deeper into
the heart of the catacombs. A great excitement burned within him, a
bright and terrible thing that communicated itself to Stark. Treon had
suddenly taken on the stature of a figure of destiny, and the Earthman
had the feeling that he was in the grip of some current that would
plunge on irresistibly until everything in its path was swept away.
Stark's flesh quivered.
* * * * *
They reached the end of the corridor at last. And there, in the red
gloom, a shape sat waiting before a black, barred door. A shape
grotesque and incredibly misshapen, so horribly malformed that by it
Treon's crippled body appeared almost beautiful. Yet its face was as
the faces of the images and the old kings, and its sunken eyes had once
held wisdom, and one of its seven-fingered hands were still slim and
sensitive.
Stark recoiled. The thing made him physically sick, and he would have
turned away, but Treon urged him on.
"Go closer. It is dead, embalmed, but it has a message for you. It has
waited all this time to give that message."
Reluctantly, Stark went forward.
Quite suddenly, it seemed that the thing spoke.
_Behold me. Look upon me, and take counsel before you grasp that power
which lies beyond the door!_
Stark leaped back, crying out, and Treon smiled.
"It was so with me. But I have listened to it many times since then.
It speaks not with a voice, but within the mind, and only when one has
passed a certain spot."
Stark's reasoning mind pondered over that. A thought-record, obviously,
triggered off by an electronic beam. The ancients had taken good care
that their warning would be heard and understood by anyone who should
solve the riddle of the catacombs. Thought-images, speaking directly to
the brain, know no barrier of time or language.
He stepped forward again, and once more the telepathic voice spoke to
him.
"We tampered with the secrets of the gods. We intended no evil. It was
only that we love perfection, and wished to shape all living things as
flawless as our buildings and our gardens. We did not know that it was
against the Law....
"I was one of those who found the way to change the living cell. We
used the unseen force that comes from the Land of the Gods beyond the
sky, and we so harnessed it that we could build from the living flesh
as the potter builds from the clay. We healed the halt and the maimed,
and made those stand tall and straight who came crooked from the egg,
and for a time we were as brothers to the gods themselves. I myself,
even I, knew the glory of perfection. And then came the reckoning.
"The cell, once made to change, would not stop changing. The growth was
slow, and for a while we did not notice it, but when we did it was too
late. We were becoming a city of monsters. And the force we had used
was worse than useless, for the more we tried to mould the monstrous
flesh to its normal shape, the more the stimulated cells grew and grew,
until the bodies we laboured over were like things of wet mud that flow
and change even as you look at them.
"One by one the people of the city destroyed themselves. And those of
us who were left realized the judgment of the gods, and our duty. We
made all things ready, and let the Red Sea hide us forever from our own
kind, and those who should come after.
"Yet we did not destroy our knowledge. Perhaps it was our pride only
that forbade us, but we could not bring ourselves to do it. Perhaps
other gods, other races wiser than we, can take away the evil and keep
only the good. For it is good for all creatures to be, if not perfect,
at least strong and sound.
"But heed this warning, whoever you may be that listen. If your gods
are jealous, if your people have not the wisdom or the knowledge to
succeed where we failed in controlling this force, then touch it not!
Or you, and all your people, will become as I."
* * * * *
The voice stopped. Stark moved back again, and said to Treon
incredulously, "And your family would ignore that warning?"
Treon laughed. "They are fools. They are cruel and greedy and very
proud. They would say that this was a lie to frighten away intruders,
or that human flesh would not be subject to the laws that govern the
flesh of reptiles. They would say anything, because they have dreamed
this dream too long to be denied."
Stark shuddered and looked at the black door. "The thing ought to be
destroyed."
"Yes," said Treon softly.
His eyes were shining, looking into some private dream of his own. He
started forward, and when Stark would have gone with him he thrust him
back, saying, "No. You have no part in this." He shook his head.
"I have waited," he whispered, almost to himself. "The winds bade me
wait, until the day was ripe to fall from the tree of death. I have
waited, and at dawn I knew, for the wind said, _Now is the gathering of
the fruit at hand._"
He looked suddenly at Stark, and his eyes had in them a clear sanity,
for all their feyness.
"You heard, Stark. 'We made those stand tall and straight who came
crooked from the egg.' I will have my hour. I will stand as a man for
the little time that is left."
He turned, and Stark made no move to follow. He watched Treon's twisted
body recede, white against the red dusk, until it passed the monstrous
watcher and came to the black door. The long thin arms reached up and
pushed the bar away.
The door swung slowly back. Through the opening Stark glimpsed a
chamber that held a structure of crystal rods and discs mounted on a
frame of metal, the whole thing glowing and glittering with a restless
bluish light that dimmed and brightened as though it echoed some vast
pulse-beat. There was other apparatus, intricate banks of tubes and
condensers, but this was the heart of it, and the heart was still alive.
Treon passed within and closed the door behind him.
Stark drew back some distance from the door and its guardian, crouched
down, and set his back against the wall. He thought about the
apparatus. Cosmic rays, perhaps--the unseen force that came from beyond
the sky. Even yet, all their potentialities were not known. But a few
luckless spacemen had found that under certain conditions they could do
amazing things to human tissue.
It was a line of thought Stark did not like at all. He tried to keep
his mind away from Treon entirely. He tried not to think at all. It was
dark there in the corridor, and very still, and the shapeless horror
sat quiet in the doorway and waited with him. Stark began to shiver, a
shallow animal-twitching of the flesh.
He waited. After a while he thought Treon must be dead, but he did not
move. He did not wish to go into that room to see.
He waited.
Suddenly he leaped up, cold sweat bursting out all over him. A crash
had echoed down the corridor, a clashing of shattered crystal and a
high singing note that trailed off into nothing.
The door opened.
A man came out. A man tall and straight and beautiful as an angel, a
strong-limbed man with Treon's face, Treon's tragic eyes. And behind
him the chamber was dark. The pulsing heart of power had stopped.
The door was shut and barred again. Treon's voice was saying, "There
are records left, and much of the apparatus, so that the secret is not
lost entirely. Only it is out of reach."
He came to Stark and held out his hand. "Let us fight together, as
men. And do not fear. I shall die, long before this body changes."
He smiled, the remembered smile that was full of pity for all living
things. "I know, for the winds have told me."
Stark took his hand and held it.
"Good," said Treon. "And now lead on, stranger with the fierce eyes.
For the prophecy is yours, and the day is yours, and I who have crept
about like a snail all my life know little of battles. Lead, and I will
follow."