Five Against the Gods
Hours had passed. The legionnaires, headed by Commander Desquer, were
encamped by a small, rocky inlet on the Midnight Sea, a fathomless lake
of inky water that stretched beyond the limit of vision. A pallid glow
came from the cavern roof far above, rippling over the surface of the
tideless, sluggish sea. It was a scene fantastic almost beyond belief,
and Tony, on guard at the mouth of a crevasse where the others slept,
could scarcely realize that he was still on Earth, and not beneath the
surface of some alien world.
They had come far and fast, slipping stealthily past the guards the
Copts had posted, taking advantage of every unused tunnel, guided more
by instinct than by knowledge. The city of the Copts they had skirted,
descending ever deeper to the forbidden gates of Alu. And now, on the
shore of the Midnight Sea, they were ready for the plunge into the
unknown.
“We can’t stay here,” Desquer grunted. “They’d find us sooner or later.
But in Alu we have a chance. The element of surprise will be on our
side, at least.”
He was right. Tony knew. He shifted uneasily, glancing at the carbon
pistol and checking its load. His thoughts went back to New York, and
the civilization of a world that seemed a billion miles distant. A world
lost to him—and his brothers—forever. And in exchange they had
gained—this!
A hand fell on Tony’s shoulder. Desquer said, “All right. We’re
marching.” The commander’s heavy jaw jutted as he stared out over the
water.
The others appeared one by one, ragged, disheveled, and unshaved. Brady
was wincing with the pain in his stiffened leg as he walked. Jimmy’s
face was haggard; he had not the stamina of the others. But Phil seemed
as sturdy and untroubled as ever.
Desquer turned; his cold eyes took stock of his command. “All right.
March!”
He led the way. Brady behind him. The brothers followed. Tony caught a
wink from Phil, and lagged behind somewhat, till the officers were out
of earshot of a whisper.
“Yeah?”
Phil’s hand touched his tunic pocket. “Somebody searched me while I was
asleep. I thought I was dreaming, but when I woke up, this pocket was
unbuttoned.”
Tony’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh-oh!” He squinted ahead. “Who—”
“Dunno. But—somebody. Just thought I’d tell you. We’d better keep our
eyes peeled after this.”
Phil exchanged a meaningful glance with Tony and increased his pace. The
latter frowned, trying to figure out what this new development meant.
The Earth Star? It was scarcely probable that anyone in Sub-Sahara would
know the details of the theft and its aftermath. More likely the motive
was merely petty robbery—unless, indeed, Phil had actually dreamed it.
But in his heart, somehow, Tony sensed impending danger. The baleful
fires of the Earth Star still burned far below the surface of the
planet.
Desquer? He could scarcely know anything of the jewel. Brady? Perhaps
the encounter with Zadah, the Rajah’s secretary, had aroused the
captain’s suspicions. Or—Jimmy? Was he searching for the Earth Star,
trying to learn which of his brothers carried it? That might have been
more plausible had not Jimmy kept insisting, with his brothers, that he
himself had stolen the gem.
* * * * *
Tony’s face did not change, but his hand touched the butt of the
carbon-pistol. He felt safer with the weapon at his thigh. For a time he
plodded on, every sense alert for sign of danger. The immediate peril
was from the Copts, of course.
None of the underground race appeared as the group skirted the Midnight
Sea. They came at last to a tunnel mouth where Desquer paused,
hesitating, to confer with Brady. The latter pointed to a sign cut out
of the rock above the entrance—a full moon surmounted by a crescent.
“Moon and sistrum,” the captain nodded. “This is one of the forbidden
gateways. A door to Alu.”
Desquer grunted. “Very well. Come along. Watch out for traps.”
They entered the tunnel. It was darker, though a vague illumination
filtered from the walls and roof, due, perhaps, to some sort of
radioactivity. The passage slanted down steeply. It was apparently
little used, and in spots almost blocked by debris, where the
legionnaires had to crawl through painfully. Desquer’s bull strength
came in useful there. The giant commandant was untiring, and there came
a time when he was almost carrying Brady along as the captain’s weak leg
grew weaker.
“Wonder if Jacklyn will make it,” Jimmy muttered to Tony.
“God knows. If he doesn’t, we’re in the soup.”
Phil grinned. “What if he does? We’re still in Alu!”
The tunnel grew steeper. Now half-obliterated carvings were visible on
the walls, symbols that bore the trace of immeasurable antiquity. One
sign puzzled Tony; it was a cross within a circle. It reminded him,
somehow, of the dying Coptic priest’s words—“... the Ancients who
ruled over the Four Rivers before their sons fled to Egypt.” The circled
cross struck a chord of memory in Tony’s mind, and he knew, somehow,
that the cross was supposed to represent four rivers. But—try as he
might—he could recall no more.
There were other carvings, most of them showing the sistrum and the
lunar disk. They had been cut out of the rock, Tony felt, long before
the Pharaohs had reigned in Egypt, before the uraeus crown had come to
represent a dynasty. A little chill touched Tony as he thought of the
endless centuries that had ravaged the world above and left the road to
Alu untouched.
Before Egypt—a civilization. And in Alu—_what_?
No premonition troubled Commander Desquer. His great frame marched on
untiringly, practically carrying the exhausted Brady. Down and down they
went. Tony’s legs began to ache, and Jimmy was drooping with fatigue.
Phil’s stolid face showed no emotion, but there were lines of strain
about his mouth.
Down—and down! Into Earth’s secret heart—into the forbidden land. And
what caused Tony the most uneasiness was the fact that they went on
unchallenged. Perhaps the Copts had not discovered the intruders. Or,
perhaps, the Copts knew that there was no need to guard the road to Alu.
Occasionally Tony would intercept a glance from Desquer, who would
impartially stare at the three brothers as though in puzzled curiosity.
But the commander said nothing, till at last they came out in a large
cavern from which three tunnel-mouths opened, besides the one on the
threshold of which they stood. Desquer paused, his gaze searching.
“We’ll camp here,” he said shortly. “In the middle. That way, our
retreat won’t be cut off if the Copts find us. That middle passage is
our road. Eh, Captain?”
Brady nodded. “Yes. The Moon and sistrum is over it.”
In silence the five moved wearily to the center of the cavern and
dropped rather than relaxed on the rock floor. They were tired out.
Desquer alone sat straddle-legged, his gun ready in his hand, icy eyes
flashing about.
“Sleep,” he said. “I’ll guard.”
Tony gratefully obeyed. Stillness closed over the cave. But—it was
broken.
* * * * *
Very faintly, as though from an infinite distance, came a rhythmic
chanting. Muffled and scarcely audible it whispered, almost below the
threshold of hearing.
Brady’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Hear that?”
Desquer said, “Well?”
“The Chant of Set. Somewhere they’re beginning the ceremony of Osiris,
where they’ll sacrifice Ruggiero.”
Tony said, “That’s where they tear the victim into pieces, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Commander—” Brady didn’t finish. One look at Desquer’s grim face
was enough.
“Don’t be a fool, captain. Get your rest—and the rest of you, too.
You’ll need it. You know well enough we can’t rescue Ruggiero.”
That, Tony thought as he relaxed, was true; but nevertheless he had a
curiously unpleasant feeling at the base of his spine. Somewhere amid
these caverns a white man was being horribly sacrificed, and it was not
a thought conducive to sound sleep. Yet Desquer was right. The
legionnaires’ only chance was to remain hidden ...
Once Tony roused sleepily to find the Commander lying down and Captain
Brady on guard. Brady was wandering about the cavern, staring up at the
carving of the Moon and sistrum. He was a gaunt, scarecrow figure in the
dim light. As Tony drifted off again to sleep he realized that the faint
chanting had grown louder—
That it was different now in tone—triumphant!
And then Desquer was shaking Tony’s shoulder, his hand pressed over the
legionnaire’s lips. The commander’s eyes were glittering brightly.
“_Sh-h!_ Not a sound! Rouse the others.”
Silently Tony obeyed. There was no sign of Captain Brady, he realized.
On cat feet Desquer led the three into the tunnel. Hidden by the first
turn, he whispered, “Brady’s gone. When I woke up—”
Jimmy asked, “What happened to him? The Copts?”
“Perhaps.”
“But wouldn’t they have killed us, then?”
Desquer passed a hand over his shaven head. “Not necessarily. They may
have other plans.” He smiled, not pleasantly. “So Brady’s gone. That
leaves the four of us.” There was an oddly secretive look in the cold
eyes. “Come on. We’re still heading for Alu.”
“What’s the use?” Tony asked. “If the Copts have discovered us—”
“They may not have. Brady may have gone off to try and save Ruggiero. I
doubt that, though—but we mustn’t overlook any chances. Alu is our
destination. So—_allons!_”
The three brothers exchanged glances. One by one their number was being
cut down. First the entire garrison of the fort; then Jacklyn; now
Captain Brady. Tony felt a twinge of sympathy for the weatherbeaten old
soldier. Whatever had happened to the man, Brady would have gone down
fighting.
“He didn’t try to warn us,” Jimmy muttered.
Desquer grunted. “We don’t know all the weapons of those Copts. Where
they get them God knows. Every once in a while they’ll pop up with some
super-scientific device far beyond their power to manufacture. It’s a
mystery. Maybe we’ll find the answer in Alu.”
That, to Tony, was a strange paradox. A search amid the ruins of a
forgotten past for the super-science of the future. And yet—whence had
come the mighty civilization of Egypt? What mystery lay behind the
cryptic powers of the Copts?
There could be no answer, as yet. The four men marched on, down into the
depths. They were beneath the Midnight Sea now, Tony decided, since the
tunnel had curved in a long loop. Not only beneath the Sahara Desert,
but under a sunken sea as well.
* * * * *
Endlessly the road stretched before them. But the end came unexpectedly.
So exhausted were the four that they scarcely realized that the silvery
radiance of the tunnel had given place to a reddish glow, brighter and
reminiscent of volcanic activity. Desquer lifted his hand in warning. He
went on to reconnoitre, and presently beckoned the others. His burly
figure was rigid, Tony saw.
And, as he went on, he saw something else. The tunnel ended. It opened
upon a cavern.
A cavern that was a world!
A world beneath a desert and a sea! Alu, the Land of Light, lay before
the adventurers, and human eyes had never gazed upon a stranger sight. A
metropolis of antiquity, with the wrecks of mighty buildings and fallen
pillars strewing the flat floor of the cave. It was like Pompeii, and
far older than Pompeii. It was grander than Karnak, more alien than
crumbling Ang-kor-Vat. In the distance a pyramid rose toward the roof of
the cave—touching it, supporting it as the fabled tree Yggdrasil is
supposed to support the Earth.
Red light flamed from beyond the pyramid.
Alu! Old beyond imagination, cradle of a race that had ruled long and
long ago! Alu, which the Egyptians had incorporated into their mythology
as their heaven.
The sheer, overwhelming majesty of the panorama struck the men dumb, as
a hand might strike an impious lip. Huge and desolate and dead the lost
world stretched before them, holding its secret fast, as it had held it
since before the Pharaohs reigned. No wonder the pyramids were a
mystery—built by some alien science. The same science that had reared
the colossal structures of Alu!
A hundred feet away a square white marble building towered, Doric
pillars on either side of its open gateway. Some indefinable urge drew
Tony’s eyes to it.
Desquer said, “Hear that?”
The others listened, but detected no sound. The commander grunted.
“It came from that temple. Get your guns ready. We’re going in. If
there’s trouble, shoot first.”
The four moved softly across the flat rock of the floor. Halfway to the
door of the building Jimmy clutched Tony’s arm. He pointed, his face
chalk-white.
“Look at that!”
Tony followed his brother’s gaze, as did the others. Far away were two
structures connected by an arched span. Across this span figures were
moving.
Figures with human bodies—but inhuman heads!
At the distance it was impossible to make out details, but it was plain
that there was something definitely abnormal about the beings who walked
across the span. They moved in stately file and were gone. Jimmy
whispered:
“Remember what the priest said? The gods live in Alu!”
Tony thought of the Egyptian gods, men with the heads of beasts and
birds and reptiles. Could some monstrous hybrids have survived in this
cavern? He shrugged off the thought.
“Masks, Jimmy! Don’t be an idiot. Come on.”
Desquer urged them toward the square building. “Quick! We can hide here,
until we know more about this place. Keep your guns ready.”
The commander’s icy eyes were searching the gloom of the temple as they
crossed the threshold. The symbol of Osiris, sign of the horned bull,
was carved everywhere. Crumbling, broken pillars made the interior of
the temple a labyrinth. The floor was littered with smashed blocks of
stone.
It was very dim here, but one ray of red light flamed like a sword-blade
through a gap in the wall and fell directly upon the throne that stood
on a dais at the farther end of the room. Tony and the others looked
down a long aisle toward the throne and the statue upon it—the statue
of a man, clad in stylized flowing robes, with the head of a bull upon
the human shoulders.
“Come on!” Desquer whispered. He gripped his gun. Tony felt the butt of
his own weapon cold against his palm as he walked on. The approach to
the dais seemed endless. Incredible journey amid the wreckage of a
forgotten civilization! So might a lost soul have journeyed to Osiris
... A scrap of verse came unbidden to Tony.
“_Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s altar day and night,_
_Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon’s carven
house—and now_
_Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone
to stone_
_For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble monolith!_”
Desquer stopped. His figure stood rock-still for a moment. The gun swung
up, aimed at the statue on the throne.
And now Tony saw what the commander had already realized. It was no
statue that faced them. The being was alive!