Collected Short Fiction, page 450
The gem-capped mountain rose before me until I saw that the gaunt black sides towered a full thousand feet to the crown of blazing crystal. As I drew nearer, I saw indeed that the gems were buildings of a massive, fantastic architecture. A city of crystal! Prismatic fires of emeraldgreen, 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 rushing 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 jerked up the rifle. I lowered it and grinned in confusion when I realized that it was a girl, by far the most beautiful one I had ever seen. I could only stand there 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 jeweled circlet. 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 red juice of the plants—she had been picking the golden fruits—did not detract from her beauty.
I was struck—conquered by her face. For a little space 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!
“Are you—an American?” she asked.
“Yes,” I told her. “Winfield Fowler, of White Deer, Texas, and New York City, not to mention other points. But I’m amazed 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 the Winfield who came with Austen across the great—ocean from America? Doctor Austen 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.
“Are you Melvar? Are you the maiden of the crystal city?”
“I am Melvar,” she told me. “Austen stopped in Astran one sutar—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 departed toward the pass in the north that leads 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 demanded. “What are the Purple Ones? What is the Silver Lake?”
“You are a man of many questions.” She laughed. For a moment she hesitated, 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 remained 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.”
She looked up at me, smiled, glanced away and 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. The Purple Ones you will see 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. Did you come down the ladder as Austen did?”
“Yes,” I told her.
“Is there really,” she asked, “a broad world beyond, with fields and forests that are green, seas 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 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 wasn’t my habit to make such speeches to ladies, but I was feeling a bit lightheaded that morning and I was rather intoxicated by her charm.
She smiled, evidently not displeased. 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.”
Then, because my exhausted condition had robbed me of my ordinary sense of responsibility, I did a brazen thing as I swayed weakly on my feet. The girl was standing close before me, matchlessly beautiful, infinitely desirable. Her eyes were bright, and the sunlight glistened in her golden hair. I did not try very hard to resist the temptation to kiss her before the world blacked out. I came to my senses to feel her arm at my back. She was bending over me, tears in her eyes.
“Oh,” she cried. “I didn’t know. Your head! It is bleeding. And your hands and feet!”
I WAS compelled to lie there while Melvar tenderly dressed and bandaged the cut on my head. The touch of her cool fingers was 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 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 behind the rim, and the purple dusk began to thicken and to creep over the valley floor. I took up my precious equipment and followed Melvar off through the red brush in the direction of the mountain. The 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. 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. The 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. 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. Ascending, we 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 buildings 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 seemed, I deduced that the old civilization of Astran had possessed a science able to synthetize diamonds and other precious stones in quantities sufficient even for use as building stone.
Towering above all, on the very peak of the mountain, was a great ruby dome. 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. 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 practice beam struck, a great boulder Hashed into sudden incandescence. Later I was to meet a far more terrible ray weapon than that slender blue beam.
“With that,” explained Melvar, “our people fight off the Krimlu at night. But the Krimlu are so many that sometimes they are able to land and take prisoners. 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 one,’ but the priests forbade.”
STANDING about the ill-kept streets were a few of the people of the crystal city. All were of magnificent physique, intelligent looking, white-skinned, and fair-haired. All wore garments 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 engaging in a noisy debate among themselves. Their glances toward me were furtive and sullen; their eyes had the look of men crazed by fear.
Melvar was saying something in a conciliatory tone. Nevertheless, 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 caused the group to turn anxiously toward 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 two was a strange thing. Weirdly colored and fearfully mutilated as it was, I saw it was the naked body of a human being. The head was cut half-off, and dangling at a grotesque angle. The hair was long and very white, flying in loose disorder. The features were withered and wrinkled, the whole form incredibly emaciated. It was the corpse of a woman. The flesh was deep purple!
As I stood staring at the thing in horror, there was laughter and cheering in the crowd, and a little child ran up to stab at the thing with a miniature diamond sword. Melvar touched my arm.
“Come,” she whispered. “Quickly! The people do not like your coming. They did not like the things Austen told of the world outside, for the priests teach that there is no such world. It is well that the hunters came when they did with the Purple One. Let us hope that the priests of the Purple Sun do not hear of you.”
As she spoke she led me rapidly away across a tangle of the red brush and through a colonnade of polished sapphire. I followed her docilely down a deserted alley, across another patch of the red shrubbery, and down a short flight of steps into a chamber that was dark.
“Wait here,” she commanded. “I must leave you. I think that Jorak has spies upon me. If we’re too long absent he might grow suspicious. He was the enemy of my father, and some day my brother will slay him. But sometimes I am afraid of the way he looks at me. However, there is no danger now. If the priests learn of you, I will somehow get you out of Astran. My brother will bring the message from Austen, and food and drink. May you rest well, and have faith in me!”
She ran up the steps, leaving me standing in the darkness in a state of uncomfortable indecision. I did not like the turn that affairs had taken. I would have much preferred to take my chances out on the open plain, with nothing but the moving lights to fear. Terrible as they were, it was better than here in this strange city full of ill-disposed savages. A diamond knife could kill a man just as effectively as the weirdest death that ever roamed the night.
For a time I stood waiting tensely, my rifle in hand, but I was very tired and weak. Presently I got out my flashlight and examined the place. It was a little cell, apparently hewn in the living rock of the mountain. There was nothing in the way of furniture except a sort of padded shelf, or bed, at the back. I sat down upon it. Exhaustion claimed me before I knew it, and I went to sleep there.
THE next I knew, someone was shaking my arm, and shouting strange words in my ear. I opened my eyes to see a young man standing before me. In one hand he held a crystal globe filled with a glowing, phosphorescent stuff that faintly lighted the little apartment. I sat up slowly, stiffly, gun still in my hand.
Without saying more, the young fellow pointed to a tray that he had set by me on the shelf. It contained a crystal pitcher of aromatic liquid, and a dish of the yellow fruit. I gulped down some of the drink and ate a few of the fruits, feeling refreshed almost immediately. Then the boy—he was not more than sixteen years of age—thrust into my hand an envelope addressed in the familiar handwriting of Dr. Austen.
With feeling that well may be imagined, I tore open the envelope and read, in the faint light of the glowing bulb, the words of my old friend.
Astran, in the Mountain of the Moon.
June 16, 1927
To whomsoever of my own race this may be delivered:
Since you must so far have traveled the mysterious dangers of this strange world, it it needless for me to dwell upon them. I write this brief missive for the information of anyone who shall happen to find their way here after me, and in order that the riddle of my own disappearance may be cleared up. if I fail to return. For I intend of explore the region beyond the Silver Lake—or to lose my life in the attempt.
My name is Dr. Horace Austen. I came to the Great Victoria Desert to investigate the sculptured columns reported by Hamilton, far to the west of here. I found the ruins and incredibly ancient they are. They must date from fifty thousand years ago, at the latest. Among them was an amazing pictographical record of a race of men driven by the drying up of their country to emigrate to the crater of a great mountain nearby. There was no mistaking the meaning. I was, of course, intensely interested, for nothing of the kind had ever been reported in Australia, and certainly the people depicted were not Bushmen.
It happened that I remembered Wellington’s account of the Mountain of the Moon, whose northern, cliff was followed for a few miles by his route of 1887. That appeared to be the best chance for the great crater described on the columns. It was but natural for me to decide to investigate it. There is no use for me to dwell upon my hardships, but the last of my water was drunk when I found the ladder, located just as the inscriptions indicated.
I reached the red plain without accident, and found the fruit of the strange vegetation a palatable and nourishing food. So far I have escaped the red lights that haunt the night. It is their mystery I am determined to solve. I investigated the metallic lake. I confess myself quite unable to account either for the nature or for the incredible origin of the fluid. With proper equipment it can be studied without great difficulty, but since I am almost entirely without apparatus, I have learned little enough about it.
I was in the crater a week before I decided to approach the city of jewels on the mountain. I have been in Astran over a month, but on account of the savagery and ignorance of the people, and the oppressive rule of the priesthood, I have not been on very friendly relations with them—with the exception of the girl, Melvar, who seems far above the others of her race, and who has been my friend from the first. I have been able to learn but little from them, although I have acquired a fair knowledge of the language. My instructor in it, the beautiful Melvar, is showing a keen desire to learn English, of which she is gaining a command with remarkable speed, and is developing, as well, an insatiable curiosity about the outer world.
The sentiment against me is running higher, and tomorrow I shall leave the crystal city and endeavor to round the sea in the north to reach the mist-veiled land beyond. My only regret in leaving is that I shall see Melvar no more. I wish there were some way to secure her the advantages of a civilized education.
These may be my last words to the world, if, indeed, they ever come into the hands of a civilized man. I know that sooner or later the crater will be discovered and entered. My chief purpose in writing this, aside from the satisfaction of leaving an account of my own doings is to state my firm belief that the strange things to be observed here, supernatural or incredible as they may appear, result from perfectly natural forces in the control of a civilized power that may not be much above our own advancements.
