"I thought if the maid and the blasted one were gone, that you would follow. Then I would be alone with the G.o.ddess once more. Cherkis will not slay them--and Cherkis will welcome you and give the maid and the blasted one back to you for the arts that you can teach him.
"Mercy, Masters, I meant no harm--bid the G.o.ddess be merciful!"
The ebon pools of eyes were clarified of their ancient shadows by his terror; age was wiped from them by fear, even as it was wiped from his face. The wrinkles were gone. Appallingly youthful, the face of Yuruk prayed to us.
"Why do you wait?" she asked us. "Time presses, and even now we should be on the way. When so many are so soon to die, why tarry over one? Slay him!"
"Norhala," I answered, "we cannot slay him so. When we kill, we kill in fair fight--hand to hand. The maid we both love has gone, taken with her brother. It will not bring her back if we kill him through whom she was taken. We would punish him--yes, but slay him we cannot. And we would be after the maid and her brother quickly."
A moment she looked at us, perplexity shading the high and steady anger.
"As you will," she said at last; then added, half sarcastically, "Perhaps it is because I who am now awake have slept so long that I cannot understand you. But Yuruk has disobeyed ME. That of MINE which I committed to his care he has given to the enemies of me and those who were mine. It matters nothing to me what YOU would do. Matters to me only what I will to do."
She pointed to the dead.
"Yuruk"--the golden voice was cold--"gather up these carrion and pile them together."
The eunuch arose, stole out fearfully from between the two stars. He slithered to body after body, dragging them one after the other to the center of the chamber, lifting them and forming of them a heap. One there was who was not dead. His eyes opened as the eunuch seized him, the blackened mouth opened.
"Water!" he begged. "Give me drink. I burn!"
I felt a thrill of pity; lifted my canteen and walked toward him.
"You of the beard," the merciless chime rang out, "he shall have no water. But drink he shall have, and soon--drink of fire!"
The soldier"s fevered eyes rolled toward her, saw and read aright the ruthlessness in the beautiful face.
"Sorceress!" he groaned. "Cursed sp.a.w.n of Ahriman!" He spat at her.
The black talons of Yuruk stretched around his throat
"Son of unclean dogs!" he whined. "You dare blaspheme the G.o.ddess!"
He snapped the soldier"s neck as though it had been a rotten twig.
At the callous cruelty I stood for an instant petrified; I heard Drake swear wildly, saw his pistol flash up.
Norhala struck down his arm.
"Your chance has pa.s.sed," she said, "and not for THAT shall you slay him."
And now Yuruk had cast that body upon the others; the pile was complete.
"Mount!" commanded Norhala, and pointed. He cast himself at her feet, writhing, moaning, imploring. She looked at one of the great Shapes; something of command pa.s.sed from her, something it understood plainly.
The star slipped forward--there was an almost imperceptible movement of its side points. The twitching form of the black seemed to leap up from the floor, to throw itself like a bag upon the mound of the dead.
Norhala threw up her hands. Out of the violet ovals beneath the upper tips of the Things spurted streams of blue flame. They fell upon Yuruk and splashed over him upon the heap of the slain. In the mound was a dreadful movement, a contortion; the bodies stiffened, seemed to try to rise, to push away--dead nerves and muscles responding to the blasting energy pa.s.sing through them.
Out from the stars rained bolt upon bolt. In the chamber was the sound of thunder, crackling like broken gla.s.s. The bodies flamed, crumbled.
There was a little smoke--nauseous, feebly protesting, beaten out by the consuming fires almost before it could rise.
Where had been the heap of slain capped by the black eunuch there was but a little whirling cloud of sad gray dust. Caught by a pa.s.sing draft, it eddied, slipped over the floor, vanished through the doorway.
Motionless stood the blasting stars, contemplating us. Motionless stood Norhala, her wrath no whit abated by the ghastly sacrifice. And paralyzed by what we had beheld, motionless stood we.
"Listen," she said. "You two who love the maid. What you have seen is nothing to that which you SHALL see--a wisp of mist to the storm cloud."
"Norhala"--I found speech--"can you tell us when it was that the maid was captured?"
Perhaps there was still time to overtake the abductors before Ruth was thrust into the worse peril waiting where she was being carried. Crossed this thought another--puzzling, baffling. The cliffs Yuruk had pointed out to me as those through which the hidden way pa.s.sed were, I had estimated then, at least twenty miles away. And how long was the pa.s.s, the tunnel, through them? And then how far this place of the armored men? It had been past dawn when Drake had frightened the black eunuch with his pistol. It was not yet dawn now. How could Yuruk have made his way to the Persians so swiftly--how could they so swiftly have returned?
Amazingly she answered the spoken question and the unspoken.
"They came long before dusk," she said. "By the night before Yuruk had won to Ruszark, the city of Cherkis; and long before dawn they were on their way hither. This the black dog I slew told me."
"But Yuruk was with us here at dawn yesterday," I gasped.
"A night has pa.s.sed since then," she said, "and another night is almost gone."
Stunned, I considered this. If this were true--and not for an instant did I doubt her--then not for a few hours had we lain there at the foot of the living wall in the Hall of the Cones--but for the balance of that day and that night, and another day and part of still another night.
"What does she say?" Drake stared anxiously into my whitened face. I told him.
"Yes." Norhala spoke again. "The dusk before the last dusk that has pa.s.sed I returned to my house. The maid was there and sorrowing. She told me you had gone into the valley, prayed me to help you and to bring you back. I comforted her, and something of--the peace--I gave her; but not all, for she fought against it. A little we played together, and I left her sleeping. I sought you and found you also sleeping. I knew no harm would come to you, and I went my ways--and forgot you. Then I came here again--and found Yuruk and these the maid had slain."
The great eyes flashed.
"Now do I honor the maid for the battle that she did," she said, "though how she slew so many strong men I do not know. My heart goes out to her.
And therefore when I bring her back she shall no more be plaything to Norhala, but sister. And with you it shall be as she wills. And woe to those who have taken her!"
She paused, listening. From without came a rising storm of thin wailings, insistent and eager.
"But I have an older vengeance than this to take," the golden voice tolled somberly. "Long have I forgotten--and shame I feel that I had forgot. So long have I forgotten all hatreds, all l.u.s.ts, all cruelty--among--these--" She thrust a hand forth toward the hidden valley. "Forgot--dwelling in the great harmonies. Save for you and what has befallen I would never have stirred from them, I think. But now awakened, I take that vengeance. After it is done"--she paused--"after it is over I shall go back again. For this awakening has in it nothing of the ordered joy I love--it is a fierce and slaying fire. I shall go back--"
The shadow of her far dreaming flitted over, softened the angry brilliancy of her eyes.
"Listen, you two!" The shadow of dream fled. "Those that I am about to slay are evil--evil are they all, men and women. Long have they been so--yea, for cycles of suns. And their children grow like them--or if they be gentle and with love for peace they are slain or die of heartbreak. All this my mother told me long ago. So no more children shall be born from them either to suffer or to grow evil."
Again she paused, nor did we interrupt her musing.
"My father ruled Ruszark," she said at last. "Rustum he was named, of the seed of Rustum the Hero even as was my mother. They were gentle and good, and it was their ancestors who built Ruszark when, fleeing from the might of Iskander, they were sealed in the hidden valley by the falling mountain.
"Then there sprang from one of the families of the n.o.bles--Cherkis.
Evil, evil was he, and as he grew he l.u.s.ted for rule. On a night of terror he fell upon those who loved my father and slew; and barely had my father time to fly from the city with my mother, still but a bride, and a handful of those loyal to him.
"They found by chance the way to this place, hiding in the cleft which is its portal. They came, and they were taken by--Those who are now my people. Then my mother, who was very beautiful, was lifted before him who rules here and she found favor in his sight and he had built for her this house, which now is mine.
"And in time I was born--but not in this house. Nay--in a secret place of light where, too, are born my people."