Collected Short Fiction, page 10
Nowhere did I see any living thing, nor did I hear any sound of life. In fact one of the strange things of the place was the complete absence of the lower forms of life, and even of the smaller insects. The silence hung oppressively. It grew intolerably monotonous—maddening.
Far away to the right and to the left the walls of the pit rose straight and black to the azure infinity that arched the top. To the left of me, five or six miles away, towered the gem-crowned hill, its summit a blaze of ever-changing polychromatic flame. Beyond it, all along the east, the red plateau fell away to the Silver Lake, which lay like a curved scimitar of polished steel, with the faint bank of purple mist shrouding the low red hills that rose inside the curve beyond. The sun was just above the eastern peaks, shining purple through the mist.
After a time I limped slowly down the nearest of the little valleys. As I went my roving eye caught the bright glitter of brass on the ground at my feet. Searching in the red shrubs, I picked up three fired cartridges for a .45 calibre automatic. I held them in my hand and gazed over the weird scene before me, lost in wonder. They were concrete proof that Austn had passed this way, had here fought off some danger. He must yet be somewhere in this strange crater. But where was I to find “Melvar, maiden of the crystal city,” and what was she to do for me?
Presently I went on. I wanted water to bathe my cuts and bruises. I was very thirsty as well as hungry. My pack was an irksome burden, but I did not discard it, and I carried the heavy rifle ready in my hand.
I was still feeling very weak. After a painful half mile I came to a tiny pool in a thicket of the red scrub. I lay down and drank the cool clear water until I was half sick. I threw away the remnants of my shoes and bathed my feet.
A Curious Sight
SUDDENLY my attention was arrested by a crystal clashing sound. There was a marching rhythm in it, and the clatter of weapons. I crouched down the shrubbery and peered fearfully about. I saw a line of men, queerly equipped soldiers, marching in single file over the nearest knoll. They seemed to be wearing a closely fitting chain mail of silvery metal, and they had helmets, breastplates and shields that threw off the sunlight in scintillant flashes of red, as if made of rubies. And their long swords flashed like diamonds. Their crystal armor tinkled as they came, in time to their marching feet.
One, whom I took to be the leader, boomed out an order in a hearty, mellow voice. They passed straight by, within fifty yards of me. I saw that they were tall men, of magnificent physique, white-skinned, with blond hair and blue eyes. On they went, in the direction of the fire-topped mountain, until they passed out of sight in a slight declivity, and the music died away.
It is needless to say that I was excited as by nothing that I had seen before. A race of fair-haired men in an Australian valley. What a sensational discovery! I supposed that they had built the metal ladder and come down it into the valley, but from whence had they come? Or was the Mountain of the Moon itself the cradle of humanity, the Garden of Eden?
Then the crystal weapons of the soldiery suggested that they used some transparent crystalline substance in lieu of metal, and that the iridescent crown upon the mountain might be the city of the race. Was it Austen’s “crystal city?” That would suggest a high civilization, but I saw no sign of the mechanical devices that are the outstanding features of our own civilized achievement. Certainly the soldiers had carried no modern weapons.
Then I thought of the footprints and the eerie laugh. I wondered what contact Austen had had with these people. Had they been friends or foes? I wondered if it had been the men of the crystal city who had paid me a visit outside the cliffs. If so, the red torpedo-shapes of the night must be aircraft, and they, must have advanced the art of aerial navigation to a very high degree.
I determined, first of all, to do some spying, and find out as much as possible about the strange race before I revealed my presence. I was not in a very good trim for battle, and I had taken much pains for concealment when the men passed. But I had little doubt that my guns were so far superior to their crystal swords that I could fight them at any odds if they proved unfriendly.
So presently I bound my feet with bandages from my medicine kit, attended as best I could to the wound on the back of my head, and walked slowly on the direction of the mountain, keeping in the cover of the valleys as much as possible. Although I could limp painfully along, the red vegetation offered me no very serious impediment to my progress. The low bushes crushed easily underfoot, burdening the air with their unfamiliar, pungent odor. The country was rolling, the low hills and level valleys all covered crimson with the scrub, gigantic boulders scattered here and there. The Silver Lake shimmered in the distance—a bright, white, metallic sheet.
The gem-capped mountain rose before me until I saw that the gaunt black sides rose a full thousand feet to the crown of blazing crystal. And as I drew nearer, I saw that indeed the gems were buildings, of a massive, fantastic architecture. A city of crystal 1 Prismatic fires of emerald-green, and ruby-red, and sapphire-blue, poured out in a mingled flood of iridescence from its slender spires and great towers, its. central ruby dome and the circling battlements of a hundred flashing hues.
CHAPTER IV
Melvar of Astran
JUST before noon I staggered into a little dell that was covered with unusually profuse growths of the crimson plants. Along a little trickling stream of water they were waist high, bearing abundantly the star-shaped flowers, and small golden-brown fruits. Suddenly there was a rustling in the thicket and the head and shoulders of a young woman rose abruptly out of the red brush. In her hand she held a woven basket, half full of the fruits. In my alarm I had thrown up the rifle. But soon lowered it and grinned in confusion when I realized that it was a girl, and by far the most beautiful one I had ever seen. I have always been awkward in the presence of a beautiful woman, and for a few minutes I did nothing but stand and stare at her, while her quizzical dark, blue eyes inscrutably returned my look.
She was clad in a slight garment, green in color, that seemed to be woven of a fine-spun metal. Her hair was long and golden, fastened behind her shapely head with a circlet—a thin band cut evidently from a single monster ruby. Her features were fine and delicate, and she had a surpassing grace of figure. That her slender arms were stained to the elbows with the wed juice of the plants—she had been picking the golden fruits—did not detract from her beauty. I was struck—and I will admit it, conquered—by her face. For a little time she stood very erect, looking at me with an odd expression, and then she spoke, enunciating the words very carefully, in a rich golden voice.
The language was English!
She said, “Are you—an American?”
“At your service completely,” I told her, “Winfield Fowler, of White Deer, Texas, and New York City, not to mention other points. But I own to some surprise at finding a knowledge of the idiom in a denizen of so remote a locality.”
“I can understand,” she smiled. “But I think you could talk—more simply. So you are Winfield, who came with Austen across the great—ocean from America?”
“You guessed it,” I said, trying to keep my growing excitement in hand, while I marveled at her beauty. “Is mind reading common in these parts?”
“Doctor Austen—the American—told me about you, his friend. And he gave me two books. Tennyson’s poems, and—‘The Pathfinder.’ ”
“So you have seen Austen?” I cried in real astonishment. “Are you Melvar? Are you the ‘maiden of the crystal city?’ ”
“I am Melvar,” she told me. “And Austen stopped in Astran one sutar—that is thirty-six days.”
“Where is he now?” I eagerly demanded.
“He was a strange man,” the golden voice replied. “He did not fear the Krimlu, as do the men of Astran. He walked off toward the pass in the north that leads around—around the Silver Lake, he called it. He had been watching the Krimlu as they came at night, and doing strange things with some stuff he took from—the Silver Lake. While he was here, the hunters brought in one of the—” again she hesitated, at a loss for a word. “—The Purple Ones,” she concluded. “He took that to examine it.”
“What are the Krimlu?” I exclaimed. “What—or who—are the Purple Ones? What is the Silver Lake?”
“You are a man of many questions,” she laughed. For a moment she hesitated, with her blue eyes resting on my face.
“The Krimlu, so say the old men of Astran, are the spirits of the dead who come back from the land beyond the Silver Lake to watch the living, and to carry off the evil for their food. So the priests taught us, and so I believed until Austen came and told me of the world that is beyond. He told the Elders of the outer world, but they put upon him the curse of the sun, and drove him away. And indeed it is well that he was ready to go so willingly beyond the Silver Lake, for Jorak would have offered him to the Purple Sun had he been in the city another night.”
Suddenly she must have become conscious of the intensity of my unthinking gaze, for she abruptly dropped her eyes, and flushed a little.
“Go on,” I urged her. “What about the Purple Ones and the Silver Lake? Your account is certainly entertaining, if somewhat more mystifying than illuminating. At this rate you will have me a raving maniac in an hour, but the process is not unpleasant. Proceed.”
Fowler Grows Bold
SHE looked up at me, smiled, looked off to the side, then let her eyes return to mine with curious speculation in them. “What is the Silver Lake,” she went on, “you know as well as I, though Austen tried to find its secret. The touch of its water is death—a death that is terrible. And the Purple Ones—you will see them soon enough! They are strange beings who come, no one knows whence, into the land of Astran. The priests tell us that they are ‘The Avengers of the Purple Sun.’—but did you come down the ladder as Austen did?”
“Most of the way in the same manner,” I told her. “I finished the descent rather faster than he did, I imagine.”
“Is there really,” she asked, “a broad world beyond, with fields and forests that are green, and seas that are of clear blue water, and a sun that is not purple, but white? Such Austen told me, but the elders say that the ladder is the path to the Purple Sun, and beyond is nothing. Is it true that there is a great nation of the men of your race, a nation of men who know the art of fire that Austen showed us, and greater arts, who can travel in ships over water and through the air like the Krimlu?”
“Yes,” I said, “the world is that, and more, but, in all of it, I have never seen a girl so beautiful as you.”
It is not my habit to make such speeches to ladies, but I was feeling a bit light-headed on that morning, as a reaction from my terrible adventure, and I was rather intoxicated by her charm.
She smiled, evidently not displeased, and looked away again, apparently composing her expression with difficulty. There was a suspicious twinkle in her dark blue eyes.
“Tell me why you have come into this land,” she asked abruptly.
“Austen sent for me to come to his aid.” I replied.
“You and Austen are not like the men of Astran,” she mused. “Not one of them ever went out to face the Krimlu or even the Purple Ones, of his own free will. You must be brave.”
“Rather, ignorant,” I said. “Since I have seen the ‘Krimlu,’ as you call the flying lights, I am about ready to give up my courage of any kind.” Then, because my exhausted condition had robbed me of my ordinary sense of responsibility, I did such a thing as I had never dared before. The girl was standing close before me, matchlessly beautiful, infinitely desirable. Her eyes were bright, and the sunlight glistened in her golden hair. And—well, I admit that I did not try very hard to resist the temptation to kiss her. I felt her arm at my back, a sudden quick thrust of her lithe body. The next I knew I was lying on my back, and She was bending over me, with tears in her eyes.
“Oh,” she cried. “I didn’t know. Your head! It is bleeding. And your hands and feet! I didn’t notice!”
So I was compelled to lie there while the beautiful stranger very tenderly dressed and bandaged the cut on my head. In truth, I doubt that I would have been able to get up immediately. The touch of her cool fingers was very light and deft. Once her golden hair brushed against my cheek. Her nearness was very pleasant. I knew that I loved her completely, though I had never taken much stock in love at first sight.
Presently she had finished. Then she said, “When Austen gave me the books he left a letter for any man of the outside who might happen to come to Astran. You must come with me to the city, to get it, and to rest until you can walk without limping so painfully. Then, if you will, you can go on around the northern pass. Perhaps you can find Austen. But the Krimlu are mighty. No man of Astran has ever dared oppose them. No man who has ever gone into that accursed region has ever been seen again.”
CHAPTER V
Astran, the Crystal City
THE sun dropped beneath the rim, and the purple dusk began to thicken and to creep over the valley floor. I took up my precious equipment, and Melvar and I walked off through the red brush in the direction of the mountain. The vast strange buildings of the city of gems were still glowing with soft color, and the cold, bright surface of the Silver Lake flashed often into sight beyond the rolling eminences. Presently we came to a well-worn path through the crimson scrub, but I saw nothing to indicate that anyone had thought of paving or improving it. But the Astranians did not seem to have much energy for any kind of public work. Their material civilization appeared to be on a rather low scale. In fact they supplied their wants in the way of food entirely with the abundant fruit of the red bushes. As I had guessed from the girl’s remarks, they did not even have the use of fire. Indeed the great physical and mental development of the race and the splendid city in which it lived was strangely contrasted with their absolute lack of scientific knowledge.
Our pace was hastened by thoughts of the terrors that night would bring, and perhaps because of them, we walked nearer one another, and presently we were hurrying along, hand in hand. About us the purple night deepened and, beyond the argent brilliance of the Silver Sea, the strange evil of the night gathered itself for the attack.
At last we came to the narrow path that wound up the side of the mountain to the splendid palaces that crowned it. We hurried; came to a great arched gate in the emerald wall, and entered. The huge, incredibly magnificent buildings were scattered irregularly about the summit, with broad spaces between them. Here and there were paved courts of the silvery metal, which must have been an aluminum bronze, but the open ground was for the most part grown up in rank thickets of the red brush. The great building showed the wear and breakage of ages. Here and there were great heaps of gleaming crystal, where wonderful edifices had fallen, with the brush grown up around them. Incredible as it may seem, I think the old civilization of Astran had possessed a science that was able to synthetize diamonds and other precious stones, in quantities sufficient even for use as building stone. Later I had an opportunity to examine bits of the fallen masonry.
Towering above all, on the very peak of the mountain, was a great ruby dome, vast as the dome of St. Peter’s, and mounted upon the center of the top was a huge machine that resembled nothing so much as a great naval gun, though it was made of crystal and white metal. A little group of men were gathered about it, and as I watched they swung the great tube about, and a narrow ray of pale blue light poured out of it. And down on the plain below, where the practise beam had struck, a great boulder flashed into sudden incandescence. In their exploration of the ultraviolet spectrum, our own scientists have found rays that are strangely destructive to life, and considerable progress has been made in the development of a destructive beam of wireless energy. But later I was to meet a far more terrible ray weapon than that slender blue beam.
“With that,” said Melvar, “our people fight off the Krimlu at night. But the Krimlu are so many that sometimes they are able to land and take our people. If only we had more of the beams! But there is no man in all Astran who knows how the light is made, or anything save that the blue light shines out to destroy when rock of a certain kind is put into the tube. Austen wished to examine it, and spoke of something he called ‘radium ore’ but the priests forbade. Indeed, his curiosity is one of the reasons Jorak had for driving him away.”
Standing about the ill-kept streets were a few of the people of the crystal city. All were of magnificent physique, and intelligent looking, whiteskinned, and fair haired. All wore garments that seemed of spun metal, and gleaming crystal weapons. Most of them were hurrying along, intent on affairs of their own, but a few gathered around us almost as soon as we stepped in the gate. I felt that they were hostile to me. They questioned Melvar in a tongue that was strange to my ears; then became engaged in a noisy debate among themselves. Their glances toward me were furtive and sullen, and their eyes had the lock of men crazed by fear.
Safe!
MELVAR was saying something in a conciliatory tone, and I was swinging my rifle into position for use, when there was a sudden shout from the gate of the city, and the clashing of crystal weapons. The interruption was most welcome to me. The crowd turned eagerly to the new arrivals. I saw that they were a band of soldiers, possibly the same that had passed me in the morning. Slung to a pole carried between the foremost twin, was a strange thing. Weirdly colored and fearfully mutilated as it was, I saw that it was the naked body of a human being. The head was cut half off, and dangling at a grotesque angle. The hair was very long and very white, flying in loose disorder. The features were withered and wrinkled, indeed the whole form was incredibly emaciated. It was the corpse of a woman. The flesh was deep purple!
