"Now why, strangers from outside, did you penetrate this land?" Thargo
asked thoughtfully. "No others from outside have ever crossed the death
mountains and entered. What object brought you here?"
"In the great world outside," Clark told him, "there are legends of a
strange, shining lake in this land. We came in search of that lake, and
once we find it, will return with some of its waters to our own land."
"The legends you heard were true, strangers," said Thargo, with changed
expression. "That shining Lake of Life does exist in this land, but
not here, not at K'Lamm. For many generations we of K'Lamm have been
striving also to win to that lake. It may be," he added craftily,
"that you and I should become allies. Dral tells me your weapons are
strange and powerful. Together we would have no trouble in winning to
the Lake of Life."
"Never will you win to the Lake, Red dog!" lashed Lurain's silver voice
suddenly. "Even if you conquered us of Dordona, there are still--the
Guardians."
"The Guardians?" echoed Thargo, then uttered a deep laugh. "Why, the
Guardians are but a myth, a legend. For ages that myth has kept you of
Dordona from the lake, but it shall not keep us. No!"
His nostrils were flaring with abrupt passion, his black eyes suddenly
all devil. Clark seemed to glimpse in the man's wolfish face a
long-repressed, eating ambition, a desire of superhuman intensity,
baffled and raging. Then Thargo smiled smoothly at him.
"We shall talk of these things later, strangers. Meanwhile, you are
welcome in K'Lamm. Tonight we banquet here in your honor, and until
then the finest rooms in this palace are yours."
"Our prisoner goes with us," Clark said coolly.
"Your prisoner goes with you, of course," Thargo agreed smoothly. "But
guard the little wildcat well, I warn you. I do not think she could
escape from this palace"--a gleam of mirth crossed his eyes--"no, I do
not think that, but she might do harm if not guarded.
"Dral will conduct you to your rooms," he finished courteously. "Until
tonight, strangers."
Clark bowed curtly. Then, taking Lurain's tensed arm, he followed the
suave captain out of the great banquet hall. His five men strode after
him, and Dral led the way up a broad stone stair to an upper floor of
stone-walled corridors and rooms. He conducted them into a suite of
four large rooms.
* * * * *
Tapestries depicting combats of red and black-armored soldiers hung on
the walls, and lay on the floor. There were chairs and couches, and a
series of great windows whose unshuttered openings looked out on the
flat red roofs of K'Lamm, gleaming in the sunset. Dral bowed and left
them, closing the door. The girl Lurain went over to the window and
stood, a slim figure, looking silently out over K'Lamm.
"Say, what was all the powwow about?" Blacky Cain asked Clark. "This
moll seemed to get the big-shot's goat."
Clark told them briefly what had passed between him and Thargo.
"As far as I can see," Clark finished, "our best course is to play
along with Thargo until we find out where we stand. He wants to get
to the lake, that's evident--he believes that stuff about its waters
conferring immortality. It's also evident that Lurain's people, the
Dordonans, prevent him from reaching the lake and would prevent us
also. Our best chance to reach this Lake of Life may be to throw in
with Thargo."
"Why didn't you give up this girl to the Red king, then?" asked
Lieutenant Morrow. "It would put us in solid with him."
"But Thargo would likely have had her killed or tortured," Clark
objected. "It's plain he'd like nothing better."
"Well, what if he did?" shrugged the young ex-army officer
indifferently. And Morrow's face was bitter with memory as he added,
"Keeping her our own prisoner may wreck everything--it won't be the
first time a woman's done it."
"Why, ye heartless scut," said Mike Shinn wrathfully, "would ye give up
a spunky girl like that to be killed?"
"We're not giving her up," Clark said decisively. "I want to question
her about the Lake of Life."
He advanced toward Lurain, and the Dordonan girl turned and met his
gaze defiantly, with hot, stormy blue eyes.
"Lurain, just where is the Lake of Life?" Clark asked. "If you told us
that, it may be we'd let you escape from here."
"Would you?" asked Lurain doubtfully, coming closer to him. Clark
nodded quickly, in affirmation.
"Yes, we would. Can you tell us how to reach the lake?"
Lurain came so close that the haunting perfume of her blue-black hair
was in his nostrils, her troubled eyes raised.
"I cannot tell the secrets of the sacred lake," she said slowly,
worriedly. "But I can tell you--_this_!"
And her hand suddenly jerked out the sheath-knife at Clark's belt, and
stabbed it with lightning speed at his heart.
_7. Thargo's Treachery_
Instinct can save itself where the momentary delay of reason would be
fatal. It was not the first time in his life that Clark Stannard had
seen the swift deadly flicker of steel licking toward his heart. The
sight exploded his brain and body into instant action.
He threw himself staggeringly backward, and the bleak steel whizzed
down through the front of his shirt, scoring his breast like a
white-hot wire. Before Lurain could turn the blade and strike upward,
Clark's brown hand grabbed her wrist. He twisted it, and was not
gentle. There was a cold, savage anger in his brain. The knife
clattered to the floor from the twisted hand. Lurain's blue eyes blazed
out of a paper-white face, but she uttered no cry of pain or fear, hate
throbbing from her.
"So you'd trick me, would you?" spat Clark harshly. "You'd kill me to
keep me from reaching your sacred lake, eh?"
"Yes, I would!" Lurain's voice cracked like a silver whip. "You
who would become Thargo's ally, who would help him and the other
blasphemers of K'Lamm who lust for the lake--you deserve death!"
"I warned you," Lieutenant Morrow told Clark bitterly. "All women are
alike--just playing you for a sucker."
"Say, the dame's got nerve!" said Blacky Cain, respect and admiration
in the gangster's pale eyes.
"She sure has," grinned Link Wilson. "Reminds me of a little Mex down
in Agua Prieta who tried to knife me one night, when----"
"Hell, we can do without autobiography," rasped Clark. "Bring cords and
we'll tie her hands--she's not safe unbound."
When they had finished securing the bonds around Lurain's wrists, the
Dordonan girl sat and glared at them fiercely.
"Someone has to stay here and watch her while we're down at this
banquet," Clark declared. "Not only because she might escape, but
because I don't trust Thargo too far. Quell, will you stay?"
"I'll watch her," Ephraim Quell nodded dourly. "Don't figger I'd care
much for the goings-on down there, anyway."
Night fell quickly. From the window, K'Lamm stretched a mass of dark,
flat roofs in the starlight, with windows and doors spilling red
torchlight. Somber against the climbing stars bulked the looming,
mighty barrier of the Mountains of Death.
Clark and his men shaved, brushed their clothes, and made what
improvements they could in their appearance, by the light of the
flickering torches servants had brought. Then Dral appeared, his long
sword clanking on the stone floor as he entered.
"The lord Thargo awaits you at the banquet, strangers," he said, his
eyes flickering toward the bound girl.
* * * * *
The great, round banquet hall flared brightly with ruddy torchlight
when Clark Stannard and his four companions entered it after Dral. Now
the tables that ran around the room were laden heavily with cooked
meats and fruits and big glass flagons of black and yellow wines. At
them sat more than a hundred men and women, the nobles and aristocrats
of feudal, medieval K'Lamm.
The men wore the red metal-mesh tunics and their swords, even at table.
The women wore chitons of red stuffs much like the garments of the
women they had seen in the city, but richer, embroidered with gold and
jewels. Their upper breasts and arms were bare as in the old Cretan
costume. They drank and laughed with the male feasters. But they and
all in the hall fell silent, staring in eager curiosity at these five
swaggering strangers who first in all the history of this land had
entered from outside the deadly mountains.
"Welcome to our feast, strangers," Thargo greeted in his powerful
voice. "Here are seats for you, and here are wine and meats and women,
for we count you as ourselves who are, we hope, to be our allies in the
great quest we soon shall make."
The Red king's face was frank and open, the sincerity of his greeting
warming. But, Clark wondered, was there not a suppressed gleam in his
black eyes, a quirk of secret amusement?
Clark took the backless metal chair held out for him, beside Thargo
himself. His four followers were distributed further along the table.
On the other side of Clark sat a languorous beauty introduced to him
as Yala, the sister of Thargo. Despite his inward alertness, Clark
could not but be moved to admiration by the coal-black hair, smooth
ivory skin and audaciously revealed rounded figure of this princess of
K'Lamm. Her velvety black eyes met his curiously.
But he turned toward Thargo. He felt that the time had come to learn
what he could of the mysteries surrounding him.
"You still wish us, then, to become your allies in an attempt to reach
the Lake of Life?" he asked bluntly.
"Very much I wish it," Thargo avowed frankly. "You carry weapons of a
power unknown here, and they will make certain our victory; though I am
sure that even without them, we still could crush Dordona."
"Where is the lake?" Clark demanded directly.
"It lies beneath us," Thargo answered.
"Beneath us?"
"Aye," the Red king nodded. "Deep beneath this prisoned land, under
leagues of solid rock, exists a great cavern, and in that cavern lies
the shining Lake of Life."
"Then how in the world can you hope to reach it?" exploded Clark,
stiffening.
"There is only one way down to that cavern of the lake," Thargo told
him, "It is a pit, or shaft, whose mouth is in the city of our enemies,
Dordona, near the eastern edge of this land. The river that flows
through the mountains runs across this whole land, and drops into that
pit.
"Long ago," Thargo continued, "our ancestors came into this land from
the outside world. They climbed over the mountains, for at that time,
so legend says, it was not death to tread the mountains, as it is now.
They explored the land, and found the pit into which the river falls,
and went down that pit into the cavern where lies the Lake of Life.
And they learned that if they drank those waters they would become
immortal, but they were forbidden to drink of them.
"They were forbidden, they said, by strange, unhuman beings who
dwelled down in the cavern of the lake and guarded its waters of
immortality. These beings, the Guardians, bade those exploring humans
to return to the surface, and never again come down to drink of the
waters, since that was an unholy thing. So the men returned in fear to
the surface, obeying the command. And legend says that the Guardians
then cast a deadly force on the mountains around this land, which still
invests them, so that no more men might enter this land in future.
"The people who were already within this land founded a city around the
mouth of that shaft to the underworld. They called the city Dordona
and over the mouth of the pit they built a temple. They considered
it blasphemy for any to think of descending the pit to the Lake of
Immortality and, in their superstition, they slew any who dared to try
it. For they were in great fear of the Guardians they believed dwelling
below, though none but the first explorers had ever seen those beings.
"But as generations passed, age after age, rebellion grew up in the
city Dordona. Many of its people said, 'Why should we die when beneath
our feet lie the waters of immortality? Who are the Guardians, to
forbid us the lake? Let us not allow them to monopolize the waters
of immortality longer; let us go down and drink of them whether they
permit it or not, so that we may become undying.'"
Thargo's fist clenched, his eyes glittered, as he continued, "Thus
spake the rebellious ones in Dordona! They sought by force to enter
the pit and descend to the lake. But most of the Dordonans were still
swayed by superstitious fears of the mysterious Guardians. They put
down the rebels by force, prevented them from entering the pit. After
that, the rebels deserted Dordona and came here to the western edge of
this land and founded a new city, this city of K'Lamm.
"And ever since then, we of K'Lamm have desired to go back and conquer
the Dordonans and go down the pit to the Lake of Life. We had not the
strength, at first. But during past generations, more and more people
have deserted from Dordona to our city, coming to believe as we do that
it is folly to grow old and die when immortality is in our grasp. So
that now, stranger, we of K'Lamm are powerful enough at last to attack
Dordona, crush the superstitious Blacks, force our way down to the
shining lake, and drink its waters and achieve immortality!"
"You actually believe, then," Clark Stannard said incredulously, "that
the waters of the lake would confer immortality?"
"I am sure of it!" Thargo said, his eyes flashing. "If we drink of them
we shall never die, for they contain the pure essence of life itself.
_That_ fact, our exploring ancestors were sure about."
"Yet you're not afraid of meeting the legended Guardians, if you
penetrate to the lake?" Clark asked curiously.
Thargo laughed contemptuously. "The Guardians do not frighten us, for
we do not think they still watch down there by the lake. No man has
seen them for ages, and even the few who saw them ages ago were not
slain by them. I think that even if the Guardians still exist down
there, they will not be able to stop us."
Here was a frank, unfearing skeptic, Clark thought. It was odd that
while Thargo was so skeptical of the dreaded Guardians, he still
believed in the impossible virtues of the shining lake.
"Why," Clark asked bluntly, "do you want our help, if you have enough
forces to overwhelm Dordona, as you say?"
"We want it," Thargo said frankly, "not because we need your
help--easily can we overcome Dordona--but because we do not want you
_against_ us, strangers, with your strange, powerful weapons. And for
reward for joining us," the Red king added, "you shall drink the waters
of the Lake of Life with us. You will become immortal, strangers, as we
will."
* * * * *
Thargo's black eyes flashed with strange light, his fist clenched
tight, his voice pregnant with emotion.
"To be immortal--think what that will mean! To stride the world
undying, generation after generation, feared and worshipped by the
races that continue to die! By the sun, once I have drunk those waters
of undying life, I will go forth from this prisoned land, will rule----"
He stopped abruptly, glancing at Clark with narrowed eyes. Then he
continued in a smooth, lower tone.
"But what is your answer, stranger, now that you know the situation? Do
you join forces with us to attack Dordona?"
Clark hesitated. A strong instinct told him not to commit himself.
"I think we will join you," he said slowly, "but before I give my word
on it, I must speak with my followers. If we do join you, our reward is
to be as much of the shining waters as we wish to take."
"Has that Dordonan wench Lurain tried to turn you against me?" Thargo
asked suspiciously. "Has she endeavored to make you an ally of her
doomed people?"
"She tried to kill me, but an hour ago," Clark said tartly. "There's no
danger of my becoming her ally."
Yet it seemed to him that smoldering suspicion persisted in Thargo's
eyes. Then the Red king laughed and exclaimed:
"But we will talk further of this in the morning. We neglect the
feast."
He raised his big hand in a signal. From an alcove suddenly thrummed
music, weird harmonies of plucked strings. It throbbed louder, wilder,
and a score of supple girls in shimmering veils rushed lightly to the
center of the torchlit hall.
They began to dance in the space between the tables, swaying, whirling
and undulating to the barbaric rush of the music, their white limbs
gleaming through the gossamer of the swirling veils.
[Illustration: "She whirled and undulated to the barbaric rush of the
music."]
"Whoopee!" shouted Mike Shinn happily over the wild music, from down
the table. "This is better than a night-club."
"Don't bother me, Mike," drawled Link Wilson, his tanned reckless face
bending toward a laughing girl beside him. "I'm doin' right fine in
sign-language with this _muchacha_."
"I'll say this beats that damned jungle, anyway," Clark heard Blacky
Cain saying with a rasping chuckle.
But Lieutenant Morrow sat drinking and staring moodily, with bitter
eyes, at the whirling, weaving girls.
"You do not drink, lord from outside?" a soft voice reproached Clark.
It was Yala, the sister of Thargo, bending toward him, her slender
white fingers extending a goblet of the black, thick wine. "Is our wine
then so poor beside that of the outside world?"
Clark took the goblet, tasted the liquor. It was heady stuff, potent,
strangely scented. Yala's languorous eyes approved as he drained the
cup. An alert servant refilled it from a flagon.
"Aye, drink all!" boomed Thargo's powerful voice over the music. "Drink
to the day that is almost here, the day when we of K'Lamm win at last
to the shining waters that will make us all undying."
"To the day!" shouted the excited, half-intoxicated feasters, draining
the goblets and setting them down with a crash.
Clark Stannard felt sudden heady exaltation as he set down the goblet
for the second time. The wine sang in his veins and suddenly life
seemed wild, sweet, thrilling. It was good to have done with the old
and outworn things of the world he had known, to sit here with this
company in feast.
They were a good crowd, he thought warmly, as he drained the goblet
again. They were making his men welcome, for now Mike Shinn was
standing up and bellowing an Irish song, and they were laughing and
applauding. Morrow was drinking heavily, silently, and the lank Texan
had his arm around the girl next to him, and only Blacky Cain's dark,
predatory face still remained watchful as the gangster sat there. What
the deuce was Blacky so watchful about?--everyone here was their friend.
Thargo's powerful face had a smile of complete friendliness on it.
Damned good scout, Thargo--by heaven, he and his men would help Thargo
conquer those superstitious Dordonans! And the girl Yala swaying
languorously closer to him, perfumed white shoulders and breasts rising
out of her red chiton like a great lily, brooding sweetness of her
black eyes making Clark's swimming senses reel!
"Are many men of the outer world as hard and handsome of face as you,
lord from outside?" she whispered.
"That may be," Clark laughed, "but of this I'm sure--no women of that
outer world are as beautiful as you, princess."
Her eyes were melting as she swayed closer, and slender satin fingers
touched and twined about his in electrical contact.
Then as he bent unsteadily toward Yala, Clark just glimpsed an upward,
meaning flash of her dark eyes, directed at Thargo. It chilled
instantly through the winy haze around Clark's brain.
Danger here! shouted an alarmed voice inside him. He realized suddenly
how near he was to intoxication. That wine--he'd already tossed off
three or four goblets of it. And Yala was proffering him another beaker
of the black stuff, with a soft smile.
"Wine brings gracious compliments from you, lord from outside. I would
hear more--so drink."
Clark took the goblet. But now his half-hazy brain raced. Yala was
trying to get him drunk, that was certain, and from the glance he had
intercepted, he knew it was at Thargo's orders.
Nevertheless he took the goblet. But as he raised it, Clark feigned
a far greater dazedness than he felt, letting his gaze wander dully,
making his tongue thick when he spoke.
"Shouldn't drink any more," he muttered thickly to the leaning
princess. "Doesn't take much--to knock me out."
"But you do not wish, surely, to deprive me of further compliments?"
Yala's red, ripe mouth pouted bewitchingly.
Clark laughed unsteadily, though inwardly he was cold and alert.
"Never--never say no to a lady. Here's to your eyes!"
He drained the goblet. The heady wine made his half-numbed senses
spin, but he resolutely kept his head. Yet he feigned now a complete
intoxication, hurled the glass away with a drunken laugh.
"Yala, I could give you compliments all night," he said maudlinly.
"You're most--most beautiful woman--ever lived."
As his eyelids pretended to droop, Clark caught again that significant
glance from the girl to her brother. Then she was leaning, her warm
breath whispering in his ears.
"Would you rather tell me those things where there are not so many to
listen, lord from outside?" she murmured.
"Sure, that's what we need--a little more quiet," Clark said sleepily.
"My head, too--feels funny----"
"Come with me," she whispered softly. "I will take you where it is
quiet--and where you can tell me all those things."
Her soft hand under his elbow impelled him to his feet. Clark swayed
unsteadily, blinking owlishly over the torchlit hall and the noisy,
riotous feasters. His dulled gaze was really keenly alert. He perceived
that Shinn and Link Wilson were at the height of merriment with their
Red neighbors, and that Morrow was still drinking heavily. But Blacky
Cain was still alert, could be depended on to watch the others.
* * * * *
None of the feasters, in the din of laughter, clinking goblets and
shouting voices, noticed as Clark Stannard stumbled out of the hall
with Yala half supporting him. Yet Clark glimpsed Thargo looking keenly
after them.
He stumbled with the princess of K'Lamm down shadowy stone halls, and
finally into a great chamber which breathed of femininity. Silken
hangings of yellow were on the walls, in the soft light of low-burning
torches. Across the room was a low, soft silken couch, and above it a
great window looked across the starlit roofs of K'Lamm.
Yala spoke a few soft words, and the two submissive-looking girls who
had hurried forward, hastily withdrew. The Red princess led Clark to
the couch, and as he sat down unsteadily, looking heavily about, she
poured more of the black wine from a flagon in the room.
She drank also, her dark eyes looking over the rim of the glass with an
expression that, despite himself, stirred his blood. Then she held the
glass to his lips, her fingertips caressing his cheek.
"Drink with me to our--friendship," she murmured.
Clark drank. His brain seemed to float inside his skull as the
additional alcohol leaped into his blood, but every fiber in him was
taut and alert. He blinked at Yala as though she was hard for him to
see. She came temptingly closer to him.
"Does the wine make me look--more beautiful?" she asked provocatively.
Her arms went softly around his neck.
"Don't need wine for that," muttered Clark. He set his lips against her
half-opened ones, his hands tightening on her bare, perfumed shoulders.
He knew the kiss was as feigned on her part as on his own. But for all
that, it was none the less wildly thrilling. Then as she drew back a
little from his embrace, eyes searching his dazed-looking face, Yala
asked him seductively:
"Lord, tell me--am I more beautiful than the Dordonan girl you took
captive--Lurain?"
"Much--much more beautiful," stammered Clark, his eyelids drooping.
"She's just--little wildcat."
"Has Lurain asked you and your men to help Dordona in the coming war?"
Yala asked him swiftly. "Has she made any offers to get you to ally
yourselves with Dordona?"
_Now_, Clark knew suddenly, he had discovered the reason for this
subtle temptation by Yala. Thargo was suspicious! Suspicious that Clark
might have agreed with the Dordonan girl to aid her people, that he
might be intending to betray K'Lamm! Thargo had had this girl, one
capable of tempting an angel, get him intoxicated to question him.
"Lurain has not asked me to help Dordona," Clark said thickly, his eyes
closing, his body swaying sleepily against Yala. "I--wouldn't listen
to her if she did. The Dordonans she led tried to kill me and my men.
We're--going to help Thargo conquer their city."
He heard the hiss of Yala's indrawn breath. Then she murmured softly,
"You are tired, lord from outside. You must rest."
He let himself fall like a log onto the soft couch as she lowered him.
Then he heard Yala stand up quickly. She bent over him as he lay with
eyes closed, her breath warm on his face. He breathed in long snores,
pretending heavy, drunken sleep.
Satisfied, Yala went to the door of the chamber and uttered a low call.
Almost at once, Clark heard the tramp of heavier feet entering the
chamber, two pairs of them. The first voice that spoke was Thargo's. He
guessed the Red king had been waiting outside.
"You heard?" Yala was saying swiftly. "He is safely on our side--he
will have nothing to do with Dordona."
"Yes, I heard," Thargo said. "I was suspicious because he would not
give up the Dordonan princess to us. But no doubt he is keeping the
girl for himself, simply because she is pretty."
"That half-boy fighting cat!" said Yala scornfully. "What would any man
want with her?"
The voice of Thargo's companion interrupted. It was an age-cracked,
ominous voice Clark guessed to be that of the withered old counsellor
he had seen with Thargo when he had first met the Red king.
"Better to slay all these strangers tonight, by surprize, and make
sure," he warned. "We of K'Lamm have more than enough force to conquer
Dordona and win to the lake. We do not need the strangers' help."
"No, we will not slay them, Shama--not yet," Thargo said
authoritatively. "Their weapons are powerful, from what Dral says.
They might kill many of us before we slew them all, and that would be
bad for the minds of our people at this time when we are on the very
verge of our long-planned attack on Dordona. Besides, why not make use
of these strangers to make our conquest even easier?
"This is what we shall do," he continued in a hard, rapid voice. "Four
days from now, as we have planned, we ride to attack Dordona, and the
strangers go with us. In the attack on the Black city, we will put them
in the forefront. As soon as we have won Dordona and our way down to
the Lake of Life lies clear and open, _then_ we shall turn suddenly on
the strangers and kill them all."
_8. The Fight at the Gate_
It was all Clark Stannard could do to keep his body from stiffening
betrayingly as he lay in pretended drunken sleep, listening to those
calmly treacherous words. Blind fury burned in him as he heard Thargo's
callous plan to make use of him, then dispose of him. Yet he managed to
preserve his appearance of intoxicated stupor. His muscles tensed as he
heard Thargo's strong step come over to the couch, and he knew that the
Red king was looking down at him.
"This drunken fool!" said Thargo contemptuously. "If he is a sample of
the men of the outside world, they will not be hard for us to rule,
once we have drunk of the lake and are immortal."
"Be not so sure," warned the old counsellor, Shama. "This man and his
comrades have courage and cunning, or they could not have penetrated
the death mountains no men ever came through before."
"He was not cunning enough," Thargo said scornfully, "to prevent a
woman's eyes from making a sot of him. You did well what I asked, my
sister. In fact, the task did not seem distasteful to you."
"Perhaps not," Yala said with a soft laugh. "Fool he may be, but this
man is--different. Until he and his men ride with your forces to
Dordona four days hence, I think to find him amusing."
"That is your affair," Thargo said indifferently. "Best get him back
to his chambers now before his men miss him. Shama and I return to the
feast."
Clark heard the ruthless plotter and the aged counsellor leave. Then
Yala bent over him, holding a pungent liquid to his nose and shaking
him softly.
"Wake, lord from outside," she said tenderly. "You must not stay here
longer--my brother would be angry."
Clark was careful to awake slowly, blinking and rubbing his eyes
dazedly. "More wine," he muttered thickly. "Got to have more wine--so I
can tell you--how beautiful you are----"
"You shall have opportunity for that in the next few days," Yala
promised with a provocative smile. "You had best return to your
chambers now and sleep, my lord. It seems that you are almost overcome
by my beauty--or the wine!"
She went to the door and called, as Clark stumbled to his feet. A
warrior in the crimson armor answered quickly.
"This soldier will conduct you to your chambers," Yala told him. "Until
tomorrow, lord from outside."
Her fingers clung warmly to his in caressing promise. Clark nodded
dazedly and staggered out into the hall. He stumbled with his guide by
shadowy, torchlit corridors, up a stair to the upper floor. The warrior
took him to the door of their chambers, bowed and left.
But Clark's apparently owlish gaze took in the fact that now there
were a score of armored guards posted unobtrusively along the corridor
outside their chambers. That showed that Thargo was still taking no
chances--and that was going to make things difficult.
* * * * *
Ephraim Quell looked up in surprize when Clark stumbled into the
torchlit rooms and slammed the door. Quell's eyes ran over Clark's
disordered hair and flushed face, and the girl Lurain, sitting taut as
a trapped tigress in a chair, watched with bitter contempt.
"There's a Book that says, 'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging,'"
twanged Quell, his bony face condemnatory. "Figger you might ought to
have read that, before you went down there."
"I'm not drunk," Clark rasped. "But I've found out a lot and it adds up
to the total news that our lives are not worth a plugged nickel if we
stay around here."
Quell jumped to his feet in alarm.
"Go down and get the others up here," Clark told him. "Don't appear too
urgent about it--but _get_ them!"
Ephraim Quell nodded tightly, and went out of the room. Clark Stannard
went rapidly across the room to Lurain.
Clark's mind, racing at top speed ever since he had discovered Thargo's
contemplated treachery, had hit upon a desperate plan. It was a
hazardous one but the only one, as far as he could see, that would give
him and his men a chance to reach the Lake of Life now.
To stay longer in K'Lamm would merely allow Thargo to make pawns of
them and then kill them. There was but one other possible course of
action by which they might win to the lake.
Lurain's blue eyes blazed hatred as Clark approached. To her amazement,
he cut her bonds.
"Lurain, I must talk with you and talk fast," he said swiftly. "I've
discovered that Thargo intends to kill me and my men, as soon as we've
helped him conquer your city of Dordona."
"I am glad!" she blazed. "Now you learn the full evil of these Red
spawn. They will kill me, but you also will die."
"Listen, you and your men came spying on K'Lamm to learn when Thargo
and his forces will attack your city, didn't you?" Clark demanded,
heedless of her hate. "Well, I can tell you that. Thargo and his men
will ride toward Dordona in four days."
"Four days?" whispered Lurain, her face suddenly going dead-white.
"But we did not dream he would attack so soon--my people will be
surprized--he will overwhelm Dordona!"
"Exactly," rasped Clark. "He will, unless we carry a warning to
Dordona."
"You mean you strangers will help me escape, help me warn Dordona?" the
girl exclaimed, with sudden desperate hope.
"We will," Clark said grimly, "and what is more, we will fight on the
side of Dordona in the coming battle. You have seen how powerful our
weapons are--it may be that our help will turn the tide against K'Lamm.
But, for all this, there is a price."
"What price, for your aid?" Lurain demanded.
"The price," Clark told her, "is this: that when we reach Dordona, you
shall take me down the pit to the Lake of Life, so that I may fill a
flask with its shining waters to take back to the world outside. For
that price, I and my men will aid your people."
"No!" flamed Lurain, leaping erect, her face blazing with wrath. "By
the sun, never will I pay that price! Ages on ages have we of Dordona
faithfully obeyed the commandments given us long ago by the Guardians
below. Never have we permitted one blasphemer to descend to the lake.
To allow you to do so would be supreme sacrilege. I reject your
proposal. I would rather die!"
"But Dordona will die too, if it is not warned," Clark pointed out.
"Yes, all its people will perish when Thargo leads the armies of
K'Lamm into the city in surprize attack. And then Thargo will be able
to descend to the lake and drink of it."
"The Guardians are there and will destroy Thargo and his horde if they
dare descend," Lurain retorted fiercely.
"Are you so sure the Guardians are there?" Clark said. "Are you sure
they exist? None in your city has seen them for ages."
"The Guardians are there!" Complete, unshakable faith of generations
rang in the girl's voice. "Though Thargo and his spawn doubt their
existence, they exist and still ward the sacred lake. Their powers are
vast and they will slay any who approaches the lake, doubt it not."
"But then, why not agree to let me descend to the lake?" Clark pressed
quickly. "If the Guardians are there, they will not let me touch the
shining waters anyway, will they? The blame will not be yours, for
you warned me. And by agreeing to let me go down there, you will save
Dordona from surprize and death."
Lurain's face expressed doubt, hesitation, agony for her imperilled
city. Clark hung on her answer. He was hoping the girl's blind faith in
the legended Guardians of the lake was strong enough so that she would
agree to let him go, as she supposed, to his death.
She said finally, her voice low and shaken, "It is true that the
Guardians will kill you when you descend to the lake. The sin of
letting you descend there will be on my soul. But--Dordona will be
warned in time to prepare for Thargo's attack.
"Yes, I agree," she continued with desperate resolution on her face.
"Help me escape from K'Lamm, promise to give my city your help in the
coming war, and when we reach Dordona I will show you how you may
descend the sacred shaft."
"Good!" Clark exclaimed, his heart quickening with excitement. "Now if
we can just get safely out of K'Lamm----"
* * * * *
The door opened, and Ephraim Quell grimly entered, followed by Clark's
other four followers. Mike Shinn was fighting drunk, bawling a song,
his battered face glistening. Link Wilson too was flushed with wine,
but Lieutenant Morrow and Blacky Cain were sober--the first because the
drink had not affected him, the second from abstinence.
"What's the lay, chief?" rasped Blacky. "Something wrong?"
"A lot wrong," Clark snapped. He told them in curt sentences of
Thargo's plot. A vicious oath ripped from the gangster.
"Double-crossing us, eh? We'll go down and put the blast on him, damn
him!"
"Sure, I'll choke the dirty scut with me bare hands!" raged Mike Shinn
furiously.
"Listen," Clark rapped, "we'll have all we can do to escape this trap
without bothering for revenge on Thargo. We're going to get out of
here, at once--and join the people of Dordona."
Rapidly he told them of the agreement he had made with Lurain. The
Dordonan girl stood tense and pale as he talked.
"It's a great idea!" exclaimed Blacky. The gangster laughed. "We'll
hand Thargo a double-cross, and when we get to this other burg,
Dordona, we can easy lift the water from the lake below."
"How are we going to get out of K'Lamm?" Lieutenant Morrow asked
quickly. "How out of this palace, even?"
"We can't go down through the palace itself," Clark said emphatically.
"The guards posted out there in the corridor would give the alarm.
There's the way we'll have to take out."
He pointed to one of the big, open windows, that looked out across the
dark city and the starry sky.
"We'll slide down from that window on a rope of some kind," Clark said
quickly. "Behind the palace I noticed a court where the horses of the
palace guards are evidently kept at night. If we can sneak back there
and get mounts, we'll make a dash out through the city."
"That's the idea," approved Link Wilson, his eyes lighting. "We can
ride right out through these _hombres_."
"What if the gates of the city wall are closed?" Morrow asked.
Clark shrugged. "I don't think they will be. I doubt if they close
those gates every night--this city fears no attack from Dordona."
The six adventurers acted rapidly. While Ephraim Quell listened
watchfully at the door, Clark and the others tore down the wall
hangings and converted them into heavy, knotted rope. They tied the end
of the rope to a heavy chest, then dropped it into the darkness outside.
The men quickly shouldered their packs. Clark peered from the window.
There were no sentries in the palace yard immediately beneath, though
he heard movement of some at the front of the building. The walled
courts in the rear of the palace were silent except for an occasional
stamping of the restless horses back there.
* * * * *
Clark hung for a moment, transfixed by the weird beauty of the scene.
The moon was rising above the mountain wall in the east, a flood of
silvery light pouring across the prisoned land. And bathed in the moon
slept the city K'Lamm, a sea of dully gleaming roofs and streets and
squares. Solemn and somber bulked the dark mountains, crouched above
the city. Then Clark Stannard snapped out of the spell.
"Come on, that moonlight will make it harder for us," he whispered
urgently. "Lurain, you follow me closely."
"Yes, Stannar," she whispered, approximating as closely as she could
the name she had heard the others call him.
Clark swung over the stone window-rail and slid softly down the knotted
rope through the moonlight, to the ground. He poised there in the
shadow, gun in hand. No sound broke the sleeping hush.
Now Lurain was following, her black metal-mesh tunic gleaming in the
silver moon. Mike Shinn and Lieutenant Morrow came after, and in a
moment they all stood in the shadow of the looming palace wall, their
pistols glinting in their hands.
They moved at once toward the rear of the sleeping palace, stepping
soundlessly on the stone paving. There seemed no guards outside the big
building. Neither were there any outside the broad wooden door of the
walled horse-court. The door creaked, and they slipped inside.
There were a score of horses in the court, and as the strangers
entered, the animals stamped nervously, tossed their heads suspiciously
in the moonlight. Clark's gaze searched the court desperately. But it
was Link Wilson who spotted the saddles and bridles, hanging on a rail
at one side of the court. Quickly they grasped these and approached the
restless horses.
The horses snorted, stamped, wheeled away with hoofs ringing loudly on
the paving. Clark cursed inwardly as they again approached the nervous
steeds. Link Wilson talked to the horses in a low, soothing monotone as
he advanced. The ex-cowboy was soon saddling one of them, and Morrow
too and also Lurain had got others to stand still. Clark noticed that
the girl worked as silently and swiftly as any of the men, her face
showing no particle of fear in the silver light. His heart warmed again
to her proud, unwavering courage.
He got one of the restive horses by the mane, and quickly attached the
high, queer saddle and the rude bridle. Quell also managed to saddle
one, but Mike Shinn and Blacky were having the devil's own time,
hanging onto horses that had begun to plunge and rear.
"Help Mike, Link," whispered Clark quickly to the Texan. As the other
obeyed, Clark hurried to aid the gangster, leading his own saddled
steed.
"This damned goat has got the devil himself in him!" whispered Blacky
furiously as Clark reached him. "I wish we had a good eight-cylinder
jaloppy for the getaway, instead of these plugs."
Clark grabbed the saddle from the gangster and threw it over the
plunging, rearing animal.
"Guards!" cried Lurain suddenly, her silver voice stabbing.
Clark whirled, still holding the mane of the plunging horse. Two
armored guards, attracted by the commotion in the horse-court, stood
framed in the half-opened door, staring. Then with a yell of alarm,
drawing their swords, they rushed forward.
Blacky Cain's automatic sprang into his hand, and with a snarl on his
lips, the gangster shot. The reports cracked in close succession and
the two charging soldiers fell in heaps.
"That ties it!" cried the gangster. "Now we got to crash our way out!"
"More guards come," called Lurain's high voice, completely calm and
unfearful but urgent, as she snatched up one of the swords of the
fallen men.
The yell of alarm had been repeated near the looming palace, and there
was a clank of running men. Clark Stannard fought furiously to tie
the girths of the struggling horse. He finally succeeded, and then he
yelled to Blacky Cain.
"Here you are! Mount at once, all of you!"
Now an uproar was spreading through the whole pile of the hexagonal
palace, and shouts and clash of arms could be heard from all around it,
converging on the horse-court.
Clark swung into the saddle. As he jerked the reins to control the
rearing animal, he saw that outside the horse-court a scattered body
of twenty or thirty Red guards were rushing forward with drawn swords
gleaming in the moonlight.
"We'll have to break out through them!" Clark yelled. "Ride!"
And he dug his heels into his steed's flanks. The nervous animal needed
no further urging, and sprang forward toward the door with hoofs
clanging on the pavement. Right beside Clark rode Link Wilson, the
Texan sitting easily in the saddle, the rest thundering after.
Straight into the scattered band of guards at the door of the court
they rode. Clark glimpsed their drawn swords, then heard the boom of a
gun beside him, over the din of hoofs and yells. Link Wilson had drawn
one of his forty-fives and was shooting as they charged. Three of the
guards slumped down as the heavy slugs hit them.
They crashed through the other guards, a mad whirlwind of riders
and steeds, the soldiers and stabbing swords seeming to spin around
them. Then, with the swiftness of a cinema film, they were through
the soldiers, riding full tilt around the big palace toward the great
avenue that led to the city wall.
Other guards ran wildly out from the palace, swords raised in the
moonlight. Clark had his own gun out now and fired, and heard Link
Wilson's pistol booming again. He saw Lurain bending low over her
mount's neck and slashing at a guard whose spear struck toward her. The
man went down and she rode right over him, and the little band raced
clattering down the wide street of the awakening city.
"The spawn of K'Lamm cannot stand against us, Stannar!" cried Lurain's
silver, pealing voice as she rode.
"_Yippee!_" yelled Link Wilson, the ex-cowboy, drunk with reckless
excitement as his horse galloped furiously over the paving.
"The whole city is rousing!" shouted Lieutenant Morrow, spurring his
horse beside Clark's.
They thundered down that wide dark street to the accompaniment of mad
yells of rage from behind them, and startled cries along the street. A
few men ran out as though to intercept them, but recoiled abruptly as
the desperate little band rode down on them.
Clanging of hoofs on stone, chorus of yells and orders, were wild
music in Clark Stannard's ears as he and his men and the Dordonan girl
thundered down the street of moonlit K'Lamm. He saw torches flickering
and bobbing ahead of them.
"Look!" yelled Ephraim Quell suddenly over the din. "The gates----"
"Faster!" cried Clark wildly, as he saw at what the Yankee skipper
pointed.
The great gates in the city wall had been open, as Clark had guessed.
But now, alarmed by the clamor at the distant palace, the guards around
those gates were hastily pushing against the mighty bronze valves, were
_closing_ them.
_9. Dordona_
"If they close those gates, we're trapped!" yelled Clark.
They spurred desperately forward. From the guard-towers on either side
of the gate, several dozen soldiers had run out and formed a line in
front of the gate. Behind that line, a half-dozen other Red warriors
were slowly forcing the great valves shut.
"Ride through them!" Clark shouted. "It's now or never."
They crashed into that solid line of guards--and stopped! For these
soldiers grabbed their bridles and stirrups and clung to them, holding
them, stabbing at them with their swords. The crazed horses whirled and
plunged in a mad inferno of struggle, the riders rising like swimmers
above a wave of armored men and slashing swords.
Clark felt a blade sear along his forearm, and glimpsed the brutal face
of the Red warrior stabbing at him. His gun kicked in his hand and
the man fell with his forehead driven in. Clark shot again, trying to
clear away the men clinging to his bridle. Link Wilson's heavy gun was
booming, while Blacky Cain, his eyes blazing and a frozen killer mask
on his face, was viciously shooting the men trying to pull him down.
"Dordona! Dordona!" pealed a silver cry from the girl Lurain, wielding
her sword with wildcat swiftness and fury.
The gates were almost closed! And from far back at the palace of
Thargo, masses of soldiers were coming on the run. Clark had a cold,
sinking sense that they were trapped. Then he heard a hoarse cry.
"Out of my way, you scum!" Ephraim Quell shouted, forcing through his
attackers, clubbing his reversed gun on their heads.
Quell broke through them. Clark saw the bony Yankee skipper break
through on his mount to the half-dozen men who now had pushed the gates
within a foot of closing. Ephraim Quell's gun-butt smashed down among
them, sent them reeling, his horse trampling them. The Yankee leaped
from his horse, swiftly pulled on one of the great valves.
He pulled it open a few yards, by frenzied, tremendous effort. But
the men he had scattered were on their feet again, rushing at him and
stabbing with their swords. Quell reeled back from them.
Clark shouted, his voice ringing over the mad din, and the others heard
and pushed desperately forward. The horses, maddened by the struggle
to the pitch of frenzy, surged forward crazily toward the gate-opening
that promised freedom, trampling down the clinging guards.
Clark's gun blazed the last of its clip, and the men stabbing at Quell
fell. Link Wilson spurred in, grabbed the Yankee skipper's horse,
helped haul the bony seaman up onto it. Then before the guards they
had broken through could reach them again, their horses were bolting
out through the opened gates. Wild from the battle and unaccustomed
gun-fire, they plunged for freedom, Clark's and Lurain's steeds jamming
momentarily in the narrow opening.
Then they were all out in the open moonlight of the plain, the dark
walls and confusion and raging shouts of K'Lamm behind them. Plunging,
racing, snorting, the horses galloped wildly over the moonlit sea of
grass and brush. The wild uproar of the Red city receded swiftly.
"Which way to Dordona?" cried Clark to Lurain, shouting to her over the
rush of wind.
"We follow the way now," she cried. "Due east from here it lies--we go
to the river, and along it to my city."
Now the horses were settling to a steady, rushing lope as their frenzy
of panic quieted a little. Clark turned in the saddle, but there was no
sign of pursuit as yet from K'Lamm.
But none of them had escaped unscathed. Mike Shinn had a bleeding cut
on his forehead; Blacky Cain had one sleeve slashed to ribbons; the
rest all had small cut or stab wounds. Only Ephraim Quell, riding
grimly forward with jacket buttoned tightly against the wind, appeared
to have escaped without injury.
Clark leaned toward the Dordonan girl riding close beside him. Lurain
had a cut across one bare knee, but it was not serious. As they
galloped, she looked tautly back to where K'Lamm had dropped from sight
in the moonlight.
"They will try to follow but they cannot trail us by night, and they
dare not go too close to Dordona in small parties," she said. Then she
laughed. "I would like to see Thargo's face now."
Ahead in the dim moonlight there soon loomed vaguely a long, low
line of dark trees. It marked the river, and they reached it in a
quarter-hour. The dull roar of the stream was loud, as it raced with
the swiftness of a mountain-flume toward Dordona.
As they rode along it, heading east, the first gray streak of dawn
showed ahead. Clark's hopes were soaring. Every beat of the hoofs
brought them nearer to Dordona, where lay the pit that was entrance to
the Lake of Life. He'd yet succeed in reaching it--he had the girl's
word now that he could descend to it.
* * * * *
Ephraim Quell suddenly toppled stiffly from his horse. They reined in
hastily and Clark ran to the Yankee's side. Quell's bony face was a
ghastly, stiff mask, his eyes closed. From under his coat welled a dark
stain, and when Clark ripped the coat open, he saw that beneath it had
been concealed two deep sword-wounds.
"Good God! Quell was badly wounded when he kept the gate from closing,
but he said nothing to us!" Clark exclaimed.
Ephraim Quell's glazed eyes flickered at Clark's drawn, tense
countenance. A smile glimmered in them.
"I'm--'bout ready to cast anchor," Quell muttered. "Felt the life
running out of me, as I rode----"
"Quell, you're not dying!" Clark said desperately. "We'll get you to
Dordona, and pull you through."
"No, I'm done for," whispered the seaman. "And--I don't mind. Ever
since my ship burned and they took my certificate, I--haven't cared
much about living."
His glazed eyes fixed on the eastern sky, pale with dawn. A cool breeze
had begun to blow from there, stirring the grass. The Yankee skipper's
lips moved, almost inaudibly.
"Fair skies and a good wind--today----" he whispered. Then his head
lolled laxly, his eyes dull, dead.
Clark let him down and got to his feet. There was a hard lump in his
throat but he made his voice harsh.
"Mike--Blacky--keep a watch to the south and west. Link and Morrow and
I will bury him."
In the paling dawn, they scooped a grave under a tree beside the
roaring river, using a little camp-spade from one of the packs. White
mists of morning made everything unreal as they put Ephraim Quell's
stiff body into the shallow grave, and covered it.
"Mount! Forward!" Clark ordered.
Again they galloped, hoofs thudding above the river roar, bearing them
on through swirling white mists.
"I'm kind of glad," said Link Wilson's drawling voice finally, "that we
buried him where he can hear water."
"Yeah," muttered Mike Shinn. "Quell was a good guy. He was a _great_
guy."
An hour later, Lurain suddenly reined in her horse and pointed eagerly
ahead.
"There is Dordona!"
Five miles ahead rose the eastern wall of the great crater, the mighty,
looming barrier of the mountains. Close under the frowning cliffs
brooded ancient, crumbling Dordona. Black, silent, brooding like a
withered ancient who has long ago fallen from greatness, it lay in the
chill white mists, strange contrast to the city from which they had
come.
Behind the black battlements of an encircling wall whose top had
crumbled at places, rose a mass of antique towers and roofs of dull
black stone, weathered by the winds and rains of ages. Under a
water-gate in the dilapidated wall ran the roaring, mill-race river
they had followed. It ran straight toward a building at the center of
the city, a huge black dome that towered two hundred feet into the air.
The gates in the black wall were pushed open as they approached.
Soldiers in black armor waved their swords in the air and yelled joyful
greetings to Lurain, riding now at the head of the little troop. And as
they rode on into the city, from somber, crumbling buildings poured men
and women with shouts of gladness.
"Lurain! The princess Lurain has returned!" they shouted.
Clark Stannard, looking about keenly, saw that indeed Dordona had long
passed the zenith of its glory. Many of the black stone buildings were
untenanted, falling to ruins. Green grass grew between the blocks of
black paving in the streets.
And the people pouring forth were not nearly so numerous as the
Reds, he saw. Clark sensed despair under their momentary joy, read
hopelessness on their pale faces, the hopelessness of great fear.
"Say, we'll be the white-haired boys in this joint for bringing back
the girl," Mike Shinn said happily.
"There aren't enough men here to defend this city properly," Lieutenant
Morrow told Clark keenly. "The place is too big now for its population,
and the wall hasn't been kept up."
Clark nodded grimly. "From what Thargo said, the population of this
place has been steadily dwindling for a long time."
"We go to the Temple of the Shaft," Lurain called to Clark. "My father,
the lord Kimor, will be there."
They rode after her toward the huge, black-domed temple that brooded
at the center of the city. It loomed massively in front of them,
incomparably the largest and most ancient building they had seen in
this land. For it was old, the stone paving in front of it worn deep by
ages of tramping feet, its slot-windows crumbling at the edges.
* * * * *
Guards took their horses, and swung open the high bronze doors of the
temple. Lurain led the way inside, her slim, boyish figure striding
with her sheathed sword rattling on the stone floor. Clark and his men,
following her inside, paused for a moment, thunderstruck.
The interior of the temple was one colossal room, dim and dusky and
vast, its only illumination shafts of sunlight from the slot-like
windows. And it was throbbing and quivering to a thunder of bellowing
sound that was deafening, an unbroken, tremendous roar of waters.
The racing river from outside ran right into the temple, through a gap
in one wall. The waters rushed with blinding speed across the floor of
the vast room, in a deep, wide canal, toward a round, black opening a
hundred feet across that yawned at the center of the floor. Into this
gaping abyss, the river tumbled with a reverberating thunder.
Clark and his men moved nearer the pit, stood on the very edge of the
abyss. He peered down into an impenetrable darkness that seemed to go
down to the bowels of the earth. He could make out that the vertical
sides of the pit were of rough rock, in which had been carved the steps
of a narrow, spiraling stair. The head of this stair was closed by
a barred gate guarded by Black warriors. And the raging cataract of
waters, leaping out over the edge of the pit, tumbled down its center
in a tremendous waterfall, dropping into the dark.
"Good God! _this_ must be the way down to the cavern far below--to the
Lake of Life!" exclaimed Clark, stupefiedly.
"Say, I don't hanker to go down there," said Mike Shinn, awed. "It
looks to me like the doorway down to purgatory."
Lurain was coming around the edge of the pit now, bringing with her a
half-dozen Dordonan men in black armor.
"My father, Stannar!" she said.
Clark turned to confront Kimor, the ruler of Dordona.
Kimor was sixty years old, at least, a tall, arrow-straight, superbly
muscled man with white hair and pointed white beard, and fierce, shaggy
white eyebrows over keen, watchful blue eyes.
"Strangers, you are welcome!" he told Clark. "My daughter has told me
how you helped her escape K'Lamm and bring us warning of the attack
which Thargo plans for three days hence. We expected no attack for
weeks--there is hardly time to prepare.
"We of Dordona will be grateful for your help in the coming battle,"
Kimor continued. "Lurain informs me you are from outside the mountains,
and bear weapons of great and strange power. You can aid us much, and
any reward we can give you will be yours."
"Why, we ask but one reward," Clark said, looking puzzledly at Lurain.
"It is what I told your daughter--that we be allowed to go down that
stair in the pit to the Lake of Life, and bring back a flask of its
waters. For that reward, we have joined you."
Kimor's fierce face turned dead-white as he heard. His eyes blazed
fire of outraged, fanatical fury, and he ripped out his sword from its
sheath. And from the Dordonans behind him came wrathful, raging cries
as they too drew their weapons, their faces contorted.
"You ask _that_?" thundered Kimor to Clark. "You ask leave from us to
commit the supreme sacrilege that no man may commit and live? Your very
request is a sacrilege to this Temple of the Shaft! Nobles of Dordona,
kill these men for their blasphemy!"
_10. Down the Stair_
Blacky Cain's gun leaped into his hands, and the others followed his
example swiftly as the Dordonan warriors leaped forward with upraised
swords, wild wrath on their faces.
"Don't shoot!" Clark yelled tensely.
For Lurain had sprung in front of the charging nobles and her fanatical
father, halting them with an urgent gesture.
"Wait!" she cried. "These are strangers from outside our land--they do
not know that it is blasphemy they speak. They will not ask for such a
thing when they understand that it is a sacrilege."
"So this," Clark grated to the girl, "is how you keep the bargain you
made with me!"
"I do not understand you, stranger," she said coldly, and turned back
to Kimor. "You will forgive their ignorance, father?"
"They should be slain for such blasphemy," said Kimor fiercely. But
slowly, reluctantly, he sheathed his sword, and said, "They are
forgiven because they are strangers who know not the law. But let them
repeat their blasphemy, let them even but glance at the sacred shaft,
and it shall mean their deaths."
"Looks like the girl's double-crossed us," rasped Blacky Cain. "Shall
we try to crash our way down into that pit? It looks like suicide to me
to go down that damned stair, but we'll do it if you say."
"Put away your guns," Clark said quickly to the gangster and the
others. "There are too many of them here for us, and the whole city
would come running. Later on, we may be able to enter the pit."
Then he turned back to Kimor and Lurain. The girl showed no sign of
emotion as she met his bitterly accusing gaze.
"We withdraw our request, since it is against your law," Clark told the
fierce old Dordonan ruler.
"Well that you do," said Kimor grimly, "for I tell you no man for ages
has been permitted to enter the sacred shaft."
He continued, "You shall be given a dwelling for your use, and food and
wine. If you wish to help us against the Reds, your help is welcome.
But whether you help or not, you cannot go near this pit. You are
forbidden from now on to enter this temple, under pain of death."
"We understand," Clark said tightly. His gaze again sought Lurain's
face, charged with his bitter scorn.
Two of the black-armored warriors, at Kimor's command, led Clark and
his men out of the temple. They conducted them along the crumbling
streets, whose occupants watched the strangers curiously.
Clark's thoughts were bitter. Lurain had tricked him neatly--had had no
intention of fulfilling the promise she had made him. They were here in
Dordona, but as far from the shining lake as ever.
The two Dordonan guides left them outside a weathered, one-story
building of black stone, with a promise that food and drink would
be brought them. The interior of the building, they found when they
entered, was one of dark, gloomy rooms, its furniture and floor covered
with dust, everything here exuding antiquity.
"Just as lief bed down in a mausoleum!" grunted Mike Shinn in disgust
as he tossed his pack into a corner and sat down.
"What," Lieutenant Morrow asked Clark keenly, "are we going to do now?"
"We're going to get into that pit, somehow, by force or stealth,"
Clark declared. "We'll wait until tonight, steal into the temple, and
overpower the guards at the head of the stair. Then we can get down the
shaft, and I think they're too superstitious to pursue us."
"But they'll be waitin' for us when we come back up," reminded Link
Wilson. "That is, if we do come back up."
"It will be up to us then to fight our way through them," Clark said
grimly. He added bitterly, "Lurain broke her bargain with us; so our
promise to help them in the coming war no longer holds. If we get back
up with the flask of water from the lake, we'll get out of Dordona as
soon as we can."
* * * * *
The day passed slowly. Clark Stannard and his men went out into the
streets of the crumbling black city for a time. Apparently they
sauntered idly, but in reality were mapping a route to the temple, one
that they could follow with less chance of being observed. He noticed
the Dordonan people now shunned them, looking at them in half-veiled
hate. News of their blasphemy had apparently spread in the city.
Night fell, and Clark watched the moon rise over the ancient city.
Then after some hours had passed, he led the others into the dark
back rooms of their dwelling, intending to slip out that way. But as
he entered the darkness there, he glimpsed a moving figure in the
blackness. Instantly he leaped at the other, grasped him by the throat.
"It's a spy!" he grated. "If they've found out what we're planning,
we're sunk." And he rasped in the language of Dordona to his prisoner,
"One shout and you die."
"Release me--I will not shout," gasped a voice.
"Lurain!" he exclaimed. "What in the world----"
He dragged the girl over to one of the windows, where the moonlight
illuminated her white, strange face and distended eyes.
"What are you doing, spying on us?" Clark demanded, his face hardening
as he remembered.
"No, I came to fulfill the promise I made you, to lead you down to the
holy lake!" she gasped. Her words poured forth in a torrent as Clark
stood in stunned surprize. "Stannar, why did you tell my father Kimor
you wished to descend to the lake? That was madness!"
"But you had promised me that you would see that I got down the shaft,"
Clark said bewilderedly.
"You do not understand," Lurain told him. "I made that promise,
yes--but what I meant was that I would secretly take you down the
shaft; for if my father knew of it he would slay us instantly for the
sacrilege--yes, even me, his daughter. I thought you understood that
and would be silent about the lake until I could fulfill my promise."
"Lord, I've misjudged you, Lurain," Clark told her impulsively. "Come
to think of it, it was rather asinine of me to blurt out my whole
business without making sure how things stood. But I hadn't had time
to think, I guess, in the rush of our escape."
"And I had to pretend ignorance when you reproached me," she said. "But
I have come now, Stannar. I shall fulfill my promise and take you down
to the cavern of the Lake of Life. The sin will be on my head, not
on my father and people. And my sin will be expiated, for surely the
Guardians will slay us down there for our sacrilege."
She was trembling violently, though her voice was steady. Clark
Stannard stared at her, frowning.
"You believe that?--believe we're both going to die down there, Lurain?
And yet you're willing to keep your promise?"
"Yes," the girl told him. "I gave you my word, and you brought warning
to Dordona as you promised. My death matters not."
Clark suddenly put his arms around her, and as he held her quivering
figure he could feel the pounding of her heart.
"Lurain, you're not going to die--neither of us will die," he told her
reassuringly. "There are no Guardians down there--that is legend only.
Even if they were there, I have my weapon."
She said nothing, but he knew she was convinced of the futility of all
human weapons against those mysterious warders. He turned to his four
men, who had listened tensely in the dark room.
"You'll stay here," Clark told them. "I should be back by morning with
the waters from the lake, if all goes well."
"Why don't we go with you?" Blacky demanded.
But when Lurain understood the question, she shook her head. "No, I
promised but to take you, Stannar. Your men would only be destroyed
down there as we will be, and their help will be needed here when
Thargo comes to attack Dordona."
"Remember, you're bound by my promise to help these Blacks against
Thargo," Clark told his men, "whether or not I return."
Then Clark brought from his pack the leaden flask he had brought so
far, along such a dangerous trail in preparation for this time. He
paused then for a moment, before the silent quartet.
"Good luck, boys, if I don't come back," he said.
"The same to you, chief, and it's me thinks you're going to need it,"
muttered Mike Shinn, as they shook hands.
"We go out the back of this dwelling," whispered Lurain, to Clark.
"Follow me--and be very silent."
He emerged with her into the checkered moonlight and shadow of one
of Dordona's silent streets. The girl, he saw now, carried a short,
pointed metal bar. She led by deserted alleys of crumbling ruins, not
toward the great temple, but toward a ruined, deserted stone building a
quarter-mile from the great dome.
* * * * *
Clark followed her wonderingly into the ruin. She led across a room
strewn with debris of crumbling stone, and knelt on the corner of the
stone floor. He knelt puzzledly beside her, turning his tiny flashlight
beam on the weathered blocks of the floor.
"Dig out these blocks," whispered Lurain, pointing to the floor. "I
will hold the light."
"But I don't----" Clark began, then halted and obeyed. It was evident
that Lurain knew what she was about.
With the metal bar she had brought, he soon dug out four of the big
blocks. There was revealed beneath them a dark, burrow-like opening
in the earth, the mouth of a horizontal underground passage. Lurain
dropped quickly down into this, and Clark followed. Turning his beam,
he discovered the passage was shoulder-high, extending away through
the solid rock.
"This passage," Lurain whispered, "was dug secretly many generations
ago, by plotters in the city who wished to reach the pit and go down
the stairs to the Lake of Life. They were of the rebels of that time
who finally left Dordona to found the city K'Lamm. They could not enter
the pit from the temple, for the stair-head there is always guarded, as
you saw. So they dug this passage, opening into the pit below.
"Just as they finished their sacrilegious work," she continued, "their
plot was detected. They were slain before they could make use of the
passage, and it was blocked up and its existence kept secret. But the
rulers of Dordona have known of it, and as daughter of the present
ruler I knew of it. It is the one way we can enter the pit, for if we
tried to enter it in the temple, the guards there would kill us at
once."