THE BATTLE OF THE CITY
Raphael raised his right hand and called upon the storm. As he did
this, thunder was heard and black clouds formed in the west. For a
moment silence brooded over the plain, broken only by the deep roar of
the machine city. The light failed rapidly and a saffron glare shadowed
the hills and turned the fields to yellow-green. Great thunder-clouds
rolled up like monstrous sulphur ships and advanced on the city of the
Sorcerer.
At first a gentle wind rustled the still leaves of the forest and bent
the grass in rippling waves as it swept forward in gusts across the
plain. All the animals crept away in terror to their lairs and forms in
the thickets until the boy was left alone with the eagles.
A blue-white flash of lightning forked across the sky and split into
shreds of thunder, as the storm burst over the city. The trees that
skirted the fields in a thin fringe bent like tassels in the wind.
Lightning flashed in swift, stabbing spasms, ripping the clouds
apart, while the noise of thunder deafened Raphael with the weight
of crackling, tumbling sound. Although the clouds hid the sun, the
whole plain was lit by the shivering glare of lightning. Rain fell in
slanting, driven sheets.
But the Sorcerer had not planned idly. At the first thunderbolt the
whole city awoke to swarming activity. The skyscrapers suddenly
bristled with metal spines. From where he stood, Raphael could make out
armies of mechanicos swarming like black ants over the roofs, covering
them with twisted metal nets, which caught the lightning and wove it
into baskets of fire. Lightning crackled up and down the sides of the
great buildings in great loops and whorls, while molten metal splashed
through the air in white-hot showers as it fell hissing to the ground
below.
The wind howled in angry gusts, sweeping the great skyscrapers clean of
their mechanical men, uprooting trees, tearing down steel sign-boards
like scraps of paper, while the river rose and swept foaming and
yellow across the plain, bearing on its surface trees and stumps and
broken branches.
The whole city will be swept away, thought Raphael, and the Sorcerer
will surrender. I hope Cassie is safe. But he was frightened for all
that and shivered where he stood. Would the river wash away the garden
walls? So be it.
Then Raphael saw an army of mechanicos appear upon the banks of the
river, followed by tractors towing strange engines. Plows and steam
shovels seemed to rise out of the tortured earth in companies. To
Raphael watching on the hill, ditches and canals formed as though
dug by magic. Through the rain, the boy could see a huge wall rising
slowly, pushing back the river from the city, which loomed up like a
craggy island in a yellow sea.
The sound of mighty conflict came as the mechanicos labored. The roar
of steam engines and beating hammers offset the throaty growl of the
river. Fast though the water flooded down upon them, the city walls
rose faster. Great ditches drained off the river. The mechanicos would
save Mechana.
Raphael was appalled. The Sorcerer would win. He would never save
Cassandra. The Sorcerer would destroy the living world. It was no use,
he would go down to the plain and surrender, he would beg Mechanus
for the life of his sister, he would exchange, give himself up. But
what use would that be? The Sorcerer could now take them both. Raphael
commanded the storm to cease. ‘I won’t give up! I won’t give up! I’ll
make other plans.’ Raphael walked desperately up and down. ‘Gæa, Gæa,’
he muttered; ‘help me.’
Then an idea came to him. He would call upon the earthquake and the
volcano, and so overturn the city.
Raphael raised his right hand fiercely and called once more upon Gæa.
Almost instantly plumes of smoke rose from the hills which circled
the city of the Sorcerer and the whole earth shuddered. A light haze
drifted lazily up from the city. Then with a sudden roar the top of
the highest hill of all burst in a cloud of black smoke, and ashes
began to fall silently, carried by the light breeze. They shrouded
the sun, and twilight deepened into a thicker darkness. In the gloom,
Raphael could see the mountain pouring out fire and smoke like a huge
blast furnace.
Raphael looked about. All the animals had deserted him save the eagles,
who clustered behind him, feathers drooping.
‘This ought to destroy the city,’ he said to Empyrean.
‘We shall see,’ answered the bird.
Everything was still. After the thunder, it seemed that the world was
dead. No sound came from the city. The great machines were silent. In
the half light ashes continued to fall swiftly like snow.
‘Look!’ suddenly screamed an eagle. Raphael looked.
A great wall of black lava was spreading from the hills toward the
city. It rolled down from the mountain as molasses rolls over a colony
of ants. It oozed up from the bowels of the earth like sap welling
from a frightful gash. The boy heard for the first time the awful hiss
of steam.
Slowly the lava struck the edge of the city and welled over it,
wiping the great buildings from sight. Leveling, swallowing, drowning
everything in its terrible path, it advanced toward the heart of the
city.
As though at a signal a terrible confusion of noise broke out in
Mechana. Bells tolled, whistles blew, searchlights groped blindly
through the falling ash. There was a frenzy of activity. An earthquake
rippled over the plain which opened in livid fissures. Raphael heard
the dull crash of masonry as it toppled and fell.
‘The walls of the city!’ screamed the eagles exultantly. Raphael could
hear the shriek of straining machinery as steam shovels, tractors,
trains, and giant engines labored trying to restore order out of chaos.
But steadily, silently the lava flowed on, the ashes fell.
[Illustration: THE WAR WAS OVER]
Raphael began to worry about Cassandra. ‘I can stop this volcano,’ he
tried to reassure himself, ‘by raising my hand. But how long would
the Sorcerer hold out? Until he and Cassandra were buried in the awful
ruin of the city?’ The boy began to walk nervously up and down, up and
down. The eagles huddled behind him.
A quarter of an hour passed. There was still no sign of surrender,
though the noise of conflict in the city was dying away. Now and then
a powerful explosion would shake the plain. And a strange smell filled
the air. Raphael thought with sudden horror of the poison gas. Had
the tanks exploded? Was this the end? The destruction of everything?
Instead of saving Cassandra and the world, had he hurried on the fate
which hung over them? At any rate, the Sorcerer would never rule. The
boy stamped to and fro, muttering, ‘Surrender, surrender.’ He began to
feel sick. Was he dizzy? He stopped and looked intently at the river.
No, he wasn’t dizzy yet. Gas. Poison gas. How terrible!
A puff of wind sprang up, and drove the ashes in eddying clouds.
Raphael suddenly saw above the city a great white balloon floating. How
long had it been there? What was it doing? Then he knew. The Sorcerer
had surrendered. It was the white flag of failure. The ashes blew back
again and settled over the city. Was he too late? Had he seen in time?
Raphael raised his hand and commanded the volcano to cease.
The war was over.
Immediately the volcano was still. The earth ceased to rumble, the
ashes fell no more, and overhead the sun broke through the clouds in a
sudden golden flame over the desolation below.
[Illustration]