To Frannie, the subterranean river was an inferno of roaring blackness.
Her dhrane was whirled along, sometimes swimming, sometimes floundering
desperately. Frannie clung to its antlers and closed her eyes. . . .
An eternity. . . . She heard Rokk shouting; felt the dhrane scrambling
upon solid ground. The water dropped away from its sides. . . .
Frannie found herself and her dhrane standing in a dull, luminous
darkness upon a ledge by the river. The other dhranes were there. Rokk
spoke to Leela.
"What does he say?" Frannie demanded.
"He says we must get larger--this is too dangerous."
They followed then the methods used afterward by Degg in guiding Martt
and Zee. Wading, in a large size, they went down the river. Then into
the passageway leading upward.
And then the climb into largeness. To Frannie it seemed unending; but
though they were only an hour or two ahead of Martt in starting, they
were several hours ahead when they reached the giant world. Frannie and
Leela were near to exhaustion, even though they had ridden most of the
way. Rokk had not paused to sleep.
It was day when they reached the desolate land of the Arcs. Then a
tomblike night; then blood-red day again.
Rokk rode now with Frannie and Leela beside him, and the woman Mobah
behind. Rokk was jubilant. He talked swiftly to Leela. At intervals,
Leela translated.
"He says he is glad to have us. He is taking us to his house--his
mound, he calls it. He says, very soon there is something important
happening up here. He is going to take us--show us it--happening."
Leela shuddered.
"What is going to happen?" Frannie demanded.
"I don't know. Something--sinister, horrible. You saw his face when he
told me?"
Frannie had seen it, indeed, but she was striving to master her fear.
There was something queerly sinister, inhuman, about Rokk. And his
smile had a leer to it. Shining in his dark eyes, which often were
fixed thoughtfully on Leela, there was a look Frannie could not fail
to understand. The woman, Mobah, had noticed it. Once, over her broad
expressionless face a torrent of passion had swept. Hate? Jealousy? It
flashed at Leela--and at Frannie--and was instantly gone.
Frannie said now, "Ask him what he wants of us. Why did he ever go
down into our world?"
Leela listened to Rokk's smiling explanation. The man's voice was soft,
caressing. Leela went white.
"He says, Frannie--he says his world here is very harsh--not good to
live in. There is very little food--he says that he and some other
men--his followers--are planning to descend into my world and conquer
it. Kill all its men--Frannie, don't you understand?--kill, just the
men of my world----"
There was a silence. Then Leela added, with a frightened hush to her
voice, "Up here all is bleak and terrible. The women are all like this
woman behind us--unbeautiful----"
Rokk was riding faster now, and soon, as they ascended a rise of
ground, his home came into view. It lay on a falling slope, with paths
trodden in the snow about it--a bulging mound built of pressed blocks
of the gray-black snow. It rose above the surface perhaps ten feet--an
oblong mound twenty feet wide and five times as long, like the grave of
some giant buried there, with a small upright chimney at its farther
end for a headstone. A few rectangles of white marked its doors and
windows as though one might care to stand on the ground and gaze down
at the coffin entombed within. Near by, two other mounds lay like the
graves of children, with beaten paths connecting them.
Rokk's home was set alone in the midst of this snowy waste! Frannie's
heart was cold with apprehension. What was to be her fate--and
Leela's--within?
* * * * *
At Rokk's call a half-grown boy appeared in a doorway of the main
mound. He led the dhranes away. Frannie and Leela were taken down a
crude flight of icy steps and into the mound. It was much longer than
it appeared; it seemed to extend at least another story underground,
for Frannie saw an incline leading downward.
They had entered the top story. Rokk led them along a passageway;
Frannie saw low-roofed rooms, with ceilings curved to the mound. Each
with a window opening at the ground level; and with crude furniture
seemingly fashioned from stone blocks.
Into such a room Rokk ushered them. He was smiling, bowing like a
friendly host; his words to Leela were suave. But in his eyes there
was an unmistakable irony, and when Frannie hesitated at the door, he
pushed her roughly.
Mobah had disappeared. Rokk stood a moment talking to Leela. The door
to the passageway was open. Rokk and Leela had their backs to it.
Frannie became aware that beyond the door Mobah was standing listening.
And in the dimness there, Frannie caught a glimpse of the woman's
intense face. It was torn with a jealous passion--a torrent of loosed
passion debasing its calm stolidity into an aspect almost bestial.
As Rokk turned slightly, the lurking woman silently fled. Rokk bowed
to Frannie, and to Leela--a bow ceremoniously grotesque, but with a
dignity, nevertheless. His hand lingered on Leela's white arm, but
Leela jerked away. He shrugged, smiled, and went through the door,
barring it after him.
"Oh, Frannie!" Leela at last gave way. She sobbed with fright
unrestrained; and this gave Frannie additional strength to be calm. She
sat Leela on the couch--a railed slab of stone, with a litter of furs
on it like the bed of an animal. She tried to comfort Leela. Then left
her; tried the door softly. It was stoutly barred.
Then she tried the window. It had a pane as transparent as glass, but
evidently unbreakable. Frannie struck it recklessly with her fist. And
there seemed no way to open the window. Through it Frannie could see
along the snow-covered ground outside. The night had just come. The
ground was dark, with faint stars showing above.
Frannie sat on the bed with Leela. They were both so exhausted that for
a time they slept. Hours, perhaps--Frannie never knew. Then she awoke.
The scene in the room was unchanged. It was night again. Leela was
awake. Frannie began questioning her as to what Rokk most recently had
said. Leela was outwardly calm now.
"He--insists we are not to be harmed, Frannie. He told me--just before
he left--that he wanted me to like him." A shiver ran over Leela's
frail body. "He will work to make me like him--he will be very good to
me. And you--he says there is a young man--that man he left back in
Reaf--named Degg. He is sure Degg will like you, Frannie."
"Did he say any more about that important thing which is going to
happen?"
"Yes. He said he is going to take us somewhere--as soon as we have
rested, and Degg has come to join us here. Take us somewhere--where we
shall see a wonderful awesome sight. Frannie, he told me the men here
in this world do not like their women. He has brought me and you--to
show us to the men--that they may see how beautiful women can be.
Then--they will join him to go down into smallness--to conquer----"
Leela choked. She added, and a hush fell upon her voice: "Frannie, this
Rokk has planned it all. He says there is too little food here. The
women--and the children that the men no longer want to feed--are all
placed apart. Exiled to a city--where he is going to take us. And show
us----"
A tapping at the window checked her. The girls stared at each other
with the blood draining from their faces. A gentle tapping from
outside. A scraping, fumbling as though soft fingers were working at
the window.
Frannie stood up, trembling. Then she moved along the wall, and with
her face to the window, peered out. The tapping had stopped. Outside
she saw a faint, lurid red glow. And three gleaming spots of green.
Moving, peering. And then like the tendrils of a creeping vine, a
leafy something, with a red sheen upon it, gently beating at the pane;
tapping--fumbling.
Frannie drew back. "Leela--out there----" But another sound stopped
her. Someone--something--was unbarring the door of their room! The
two girls were frozen with terror, incapable of sound or movement.
A bar dropping with a muffled thump! The door slowly began opening
inward. . . .
It was the woman Mobah. Her face was grim; her dull eyes were
smoldering green-black coals. She flung a menacing glance at the girls,
moved swiftly across the room. Her fingers at the pane touched some
hidden lock. The window swung open.
Mobah darted back, seized Leela, tried to shove her toward Frannie
and the window. Leela screamed, resisted, fought with all her little
strength and called a warning to Frannie.
But it was too late. Through the window a thick, red-glowing tentacle
came slithering. Its green eyes were waving triumphantly. It caught
Frannie; rolled back upon itself, jerking her upward.
Heavy steps sounded in the passageway outside the room, and Rokk's
alarmed voice, shouting. Rokk burst in. He knocked Mobah aside with a
blow of his fist, and swept Leela protectingly backward.
The segment of red thing within the room slithered out the window,
carrying Frannie with it.