Rick looked out over the valley, trying to see the extent of the damage wrought by the landslide. Even the golden tomb of Genghis Khan was obscured, and all that his eyes could find was the wall dividing the living city from the dead.
The dust was slowly settling now and they moved to the edge of the plateau to get a better look. Rick saw running figures and winced as he heard agonized wails from below.
Scotty appeared beside him. "If we could only get down from here now," he said urgently. "No one would even notice."
"But how?" Rick"s eyes went to the only exit, which was the trap door. They couldn"t hope to get that open. There was no way ... no ... Wait! On the trap door were the spools of wire they had taken from the repair kit when they made the windmill.
Scotty saw them at the same time. "Look," he exclaimed.
The same thought was in both their minds. They ran to the spools. Rick picked one up. It was heavy copper, insulated with rubber and fabric.
"It would hold a man"s weight," he said.
"Mine," Scotty replied. "Let"s get busy."
"Not you," Rick objected. "If anyone takes the chance I will."
"Let"s see your hands."
He held them out, and realized that Scotty was right. He had forgotten that his hands were scored and cut from his descent down the rocks. In the excitement of all that had happened since, he hadn"t noticed the pain.
"It"s my job," Scotty said. "Come on, help me."
The professors were at their sides now. "Scotty can get down on the wire," Rick explained quickly, adding to himself: "With luck." It was a terrible risk. The Mongols might see the descending figure. Or the wire might part. It wasn"t designed to take such a load. And what could they hitch it to?
Scotty thought it over, then decided. "I"ll go down hand over hand. You couldn"t lower me. There isn"t anything to take a purchase on."
"We"ll each wind a coil of the line around our bodies, then lie down and each hold on to one of the crates," Zircon suggested.
Rick almost objected. He didn"t want Scotty to take the chance. Then he realized that, for Scotty, it was only a choice of two evils. Stay on the plateau and starve, or try the wire and perhaps survive. If he failed, it would at least be a quick end.
Rick turned hurriedly and walked to the edge of the plateau, while the others unwound coil after coil of the heavy wire. He didn"t want Scotty to see how worried he was. Only after he had stood a moment, looking down into the choking clouds of dust that still rose from the valley, did he regain control of his expression and hurry back to help the others join the wires together.
They twisted two wires together to form a stronger line, rechecked the places where they had connected coil to coil. Then, one by one, they shook hands with Scotty.
"You"ll make it," Zircon said briefly.
Weiss"s smile was confident. "We"ll expect you back through the trap door."
Rick took his friend"s hand. "Easy does it, fella."
Scotty took a pair of rubberized gloves from the repair kit and slipped them on. "Back in ten minutes," he said calmly.
Zircon, as the heaviest, would be anchor man. He wound the wire around his big body twice, then secured the end firmly. Rick was next in line. He made a double coil right in front of Zircon and slipped into it. In front of him, Weiss did the same. Then they all lay down on their stomachs, feet toward the edge of the plateau, arms around the heaviest crates they could find.
Scotty lowered the wire down the side of the plateau closest to the mountainside and saw that it reached the ground with room to spare. "Hold tight," he warned. "Here I go."
Rick noted that his friend"s voice seemed perfectly normal. Again he wondered at Scotty"s control, knowing that the boy must be scared stiff. His face was away from the edge, but he knew by the tension on the wire when Scotty put his weight on it, and he knew when Scotty went over the edge because the strands bit cruelly into his middle, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out.
Then he felt himself sliding! The awful realization came to him that Scotty"s weight was pulling them all toward the edge!
Rick tried to dig in with his feet and felt the leather soles sc.r.a.pe against the rock. He sank his teeth into his lip with the strain of holding fast to the crate he held, and saw that it was sliding, slowly, relentlessly back.
Behind him, he heard Weiss exclaim, and cold sweat started out on his face. The little professor must be near the edge! In front of him, he could see Zircon"s powerful legs pushing against the flat surface, as though the big scientist were trying to swim forward toward the center of the plateau.
The stone scored his elbows and rubbed through the thick fabric of his woolen shirt, but he didn"t even feel the pain. Like Zircon, he was trying to hold his ground with swimming motions, driving his legs against the flat stone that gave no grip whatsoever.
How long had it been? Eternity had pa.s.sed since the wire had bitten into his waist. His breath was ragged with trying to breathe against the constriction, and he felt wetness around his waist that might be blood.
Weiss let out a strangled yell and Rick and Zircon increased their efforts to hold fast. The slow, terrible dragging went on, and his elbows left thin smears of red where they pressed against the stone.
Zircon"s breathing was loud, but he heard no further sound behind him. He was afraid to look anywhere but straight ahead. Were they all to drop from the edge?
His kicking feet pushed ... and met nothing! A horrified gasp was forced from him and his clutching hands pulled at the slowly moving crate.
His feet were already over the edge ... his ankles ... his legs were waving uselessly, his knees sc.r.a.ping the rock...
The pressure stopped.
Scotty had reached the ground! Or had the wire parted?
Rick scrambled back from the edge, feeling the drag of Weiss"s body on the wire. Zircon"s powerful legs pushed at the rock, and inch by inch, they regained what they had lost, until a weak voice said, "All right. I"m ... I"m up."
Zircon whipped out of the wire coils and jumped to help Weiss. The little professor tried valiantly to stand, but his knees buckled and he fell flat.
Rick unwound the wire from around his waist, feeling the pain as it came loose. He felt as though he had been cut in half.
Julius Weiss was stark white, even his lips colorless. "He dragged me right over," he said weakly. "I thought..."
"I know," Zircon said hoa.r.s.ely. "I thought we were all done for. Did he make it?"
Rick staggered to the edge and looked down, one hand on his aching midriff. Far below, the dangling wire vanished into the cloud of dust. "I think he must have," he said.
For a few moments none of them spoke, each busy tending his wounds. Rick gulped air into his tortured lungs, inspected the welts where the wire had cut, and found that the wetness was only perspiration. He looked at his raw elbows and knees and winced at the torn, sc.r.a.ped flesh.
Then he went to the opposite side and tried to see through the heavy cloud of dust down to the entrance.
He could see dim shapes in the dust, and knew that the Mongols were at the entrance. Probably some of them had hidden from the avalanche, in the pa.s.sageway. How could Scotty get through that?
A low rumble jarred the thoughts from him. He looked up, and up, to an overhanging ledge of rock far above the valley floor. He heard Weiss and Zircon gasp behind him, but he couldn"t take his eyes from the ledge. Slowly, ever so slowly, it detached from the mountainside and seemed to float down and down.
A grinding roar shook the stone platform and smashed against his eardrums in beating waves. Dust and broken rock erupted high in the air and fell around them in a gravelly rain.
For a full five minutes, the three on the plateau stood with bowed heads, their hands held high to protect them from debris that fell in the wake of the great ledge. The roar slowly lessened and gave way to sharp explosions as small rocks smashed into the valley. Then there was only silence.
Rick looked up, his face pale.
"Please G.o.d that"s the last of it!" Zircon said.
The dust was all around them now, rising in great gusts up toward the very peaks, coating everything with brown grit and blotting out the sun.
Then, with a suddenness that sent a chill through the travelers, the whole dust-choked valley was bathed in a weird green light.
It spread over their heads in an arc and exploded into colored b.a.l.l.s of fire.
"Look," Weiss yelled.
His shaking hand pointed to the high wall that divided the city from the tomb of the Khan.
There, shadowy in the eerie light of the rocket, stood a terrible figure dressed in leather armor and standing with feet wide apart on the wall. It wore a great helmet with a horsetail crest, and on one arm was an embossed shield. From the free hand spurted a fountain of fire that arched into the sky.
The Genghis Khan!
A surprised gasp came from the two professors, and Rick"s lips framed the name: "Scotty!"
But the sound was drowned out by the wail that rose from the city below. Through the dust they glimpsed faintly a thousand Mongols, kneeling in abject worship and bowing toward the figure on the wall Rick came alive suddenly. "Professor Weiss," he shouted above the wailing. "Get on the mike and tell them the Khan has returned. Tell them to get us down from here. We"re the Khan"s true messengers! Tell them!"
"He"s right," Zircon yelled. "Hurry, Julius!"
Weiss gripped the microphone and began to chant in Mongol. Rick couldn"t understand the words, but even to him it sounded impressive. Later, Weiss told him what had been said.
The Great Khan, The Mighty Khan, Ruler Of All Men, has come again! Hear ye, people of the valley, hear and obey! Free my true messengers whom ye have imprisoned on the Hill of the Thousand Repentant Ancestors! Take them with all their belongings to the valley entrance and set them free, that they may earn, news of my coming to the outer world.
The sonorous voice rolled out, echoing hollowly from the rock walls.
This is the word of the Great Khan! OBEY!
A sigh like the rushing of a wind rose from the Mongols. They were prostrated, no man daring to lift his face to the awful being on the wall.
Rick looked again for the figure on the wall. It was gone! Where had Scotty gone?
They waited. The minutes ticked past and no one spoke.
Then the trap door grated and lifted slowly upward!
The head of the young warrior called Subotai appeared. He didn"t look at them. Behind were other warriors, eyes downcast.
"We"re sacred," Rick whispered. "They"re afraid to look."
Hastily, as though in fear of a deadly curse, the warriors lifted the equipment boxes. Zircon, Weiss, and Rick hastily piled loose odds and ends into empty crates. Subotai whacked his warriors with the flat of his sword, urging them to greater speed.
The equipment vanished through the entrance, and in an amazingly short time the plateau was cleared. With a low bow, eyes averted, Subotai stood aside. It was time for them to leave.
The stairs rushed by as they ran down, and then they were outside, breathing the dust-laden air. The city was a shambles, Rick saw. But the crowd of Mongols who bowed down to the earth seemed undiminished. With relief he realized that the place where the avalanche hit must have been thinly populated. Luckily, the slide had given some warning. Few Mongols, if any, had been caught under the ma.s.s.
But the one man whom they might have wished ill suddenly shouted and ran toward them.
Henrick Van Groot!
And, behind him, Sahmeed!
"We"ve got to get out of here," Rick shouted. But as he spoke he saw Van Groot wrenching at his pocket.
He was reaching for a gun! Rick scooped up a rock and hurled it, all his strength in the throw. It crunched into Van Groot"s stomach and doubled him up.
Sahmeed leaped forward, his face contorted.
Zircon was there to meet him.
Rick ran to Van Groot just as the man staggered to his feet, reaching again for the gun in his pocket. Rick bent low, doubling up his fist. All the strength of his wiry body was in the haymaker he swung from his shoe tops. He felt his knuckles crack as the blow landed. Van Groot"s legs buckled.
Julius Weiss stepped in and smacked the renegade sharply on the head with the flat of a sword he had picked up. Van Groot tumbled to the ground and was quiet.
Rick whirled, to see Sahmeed and Zircon locked in a t.i.tanic embrace. He grabbed a rock and leaped to the scientist"s aid, but his help was not needed.
Zircon brought up his hands sharply against the giant guide"s throat, breaking Sahmeed"s hold. The guide rocked backward, and, as he did, Zircon"s fist came up with all the weight of his big body behind it. The balled fist caught Sahmeed. He kept going backward, with increased impetus, fighting for balance. His heels struck a rock. He catapulted over and his head struck the ground with an audible crack. He lay very still.
"Run," Zircon yelled.
In a moment they caught up with Subotai and the warriors, who were lugging their equipment as fast as their short legs would travel. As the last crate was carried up the steps and into the pa.s.sageway that led from the valley, Subotai and his men turned and hurried away.
At that moment a mighty roar went up from the city.
"We"ve been found out," Rick exclaimed. Then he saw Scotty.
The weirdly clad figure that had been on the wall was racing toward them with ground-eating strides. It bounded up the steps and into the pa.s.sageway.
"Let"s go," Scotty shouted.
Out of the dust cloud, half the warriors of came charging, waving swords. The vanguard knelt and discharged bows. Arrows rattled against the stone.
"Hurry," Scotty said urgently.
From right over their heads came an ominous rumble. The four pushed into the pa.s.sageway just as rock cascaded down in an ever increasing ma.s.s. The roar increased to a thunderous crash and all light was blotted out.
The pa.s.sageway into was closed!
"Scotty," Rick choked, "what happened?"
"It was all arranged," Scotty yelled above the din. "Let"s get out of here, in case the roof of the tunnel goes."
For the next few minutes no one spoke as they wrestled the equipment to the outer end of the pa.s.sageway. At last, they stood in the sunlight, breathless from their frantic efforts.
Scotty, attired in his strange garb, grinned at them, but it was a strained grin. "I went in to see what had happened to you, and they saw me. That tipped them off, I guess, because some of them had seen me before."
"But the rockets!" Rick exclaimed. "And the landslide that blocked the entrance ..."
"I had help," Scotty said. "Unexpected help." His grin broadened.