And then from the portal sped a shriek, a death cry! It cut through the silence of the ebon pit like a whimpering arrow. Before it had died, down the stairways came pouring the guards. Those at the threshold raised their swords and peered within. Abruptly Rador was between them. One dropped his hilt and gripped him--the green dwarf"s poniard flashed and was buried in his throat. Down upon Rador"s head swept the second blade. A flame leaped from O"Keefe"s hand and the sword seemed to fling itself from its wielder"s grasp--another flash and the soldier crumpled. Rador threw himself into the sh.e.l.l, darted to the high seat--and straight between the pillars of the Shadow we flew!
There came a crackling, a darkness of vast wings flinging down upon us. The _corial"s_ flight was checked as by a giant"s hand. The sh.e.l.l swerved sickeningly; there was an oddly metallic splintering; it quivered; shot ahead. Dizzily I picked myself up and looked behind.
The Shadow had fallen--but too late, a bare instant too late. And shrinking as we fled from it, still it seemed to strain like some fettered Afrit from Eblis, throbbing with wrath, seeking with every malign power it possessed to break its bonds and pursue. Not until long after were we to know that it had been the dying hand of Serku, groping out of oblivion, that had cast it after us as a fowler upon an escaping bird.
"Snappy work, Rador!" It was Larry speaking. "But they cut the end off your bus all right!"
A full quarter of the hindward whorl was gone, sliced off cleanly.
Rador noted it with anxious eyes.
"That is bad," he said, "but not too bad perhaps. All depends upon how closely Lugur and his men can follow us."
He raised a hand to O"Keefe in salute.
"But to you, _Larree_, I owe my life--not even the _Keth_ could have been as swift to save me as that death flame of yours--friend!"
The Irishman waved an airy hand.
"Serku"--the green dwarf drew from his girdle the bloodstained poniard--"Serku I was forced to slay. Even as he raised the Shadow the globe gave the alarm. Lugur follows with twice ten times ten of his best--" He hesitated. "Though we have escaped the Shadow it has taken toll of our swiftness. May we reach the Portal before it closes upon Lakla--but if we do not--" He paused again. "Well--I know a way--but it is not one I am gay to follow--no!"
He snapped open the aperture that held the ball flaming within the dark crystal; peered at it anxiously. I crept to the torn end of the _corial_. The edges were crumbling, disintegrated. They powdered in my fingers like dust. Mystified still, I crept back where Larry, sheer happiness pouring from him, was whistling softly and polishing up his automatic. His gaze fell upon Olaf"s grim, sad face and softened.
"Buck up, Olaf!" he said. "We"ve got a good fighting chance. Once we link up with Lakla and her crowd I"m betting that we get your wife--never doubt it! The baby--" he hesitated awkwardly. The Norseman"s eyes filled; he stretched a hand to the O"Keefe.
"The _Yndling_--she is of the _de Dode_," he half whispered, "of the blessed dead. For her I have no fear and for her vengeance will be given me. _Ja!_ But my Helma--she is of the dead-alive--like those we saw whirling like leaves in the light of the Shining Devil--and I would that she too were of _de Dode_--and at rest. I do not know how to fight the Shining Devil--no!"
His bitter despair welled up in his voice.
"Olaf," Larry"s voice was gentle. "We"ll come out on top--I know it.
Remember one thing. All this stuff that seems so strange and--and, well, sort of supernatural, is just a lot of tricks we"re not hep to as yet. Why, Olaf, suppose you took a Fijian when the war was on and set him suddenly down in London with autos rushing past, sirens blowing, Archies popping, a dozen enemy planes dropping bombs, and the searchlights shooting all over the sky--wouldn"t he think he was among thirty-third degree devils in some exclusive circle of h.e.l.l? Sure he would! And yet everything he saw would be natural--just as natural as all this is, once we get the answer to it. Not that we"re Fijians, of course, but the principle is the same."
The Norseman considered this; nodded gravely.
"_Ja!_" he answered at last. "And at least we can fight. That is why I have turned to Thor of the battles, _Ja!_ And _one_ have I hope in for mine Helma--the white maiden. Since I have turned to the old G.o.ds it has been made clear to me that I shall slay Lugur and that the _Heks_, the evil witch Yolara, shall also die. But I would talk with the white maiden."
"All right," said Larry, "but just don"t be afraid of what you don"t understand. There"s another thing"--he hesitated, nervously--"there"s another thing that may startle you a bit when we meet up with Lakla--her--er--frogs!"
"Like the frog-woman we saw on the wall?" asked Olaf.
"Yes," went on Larry, rapidly. "It"s this way--I figure that the frogs grow rather large where she lives, and they"re a bit different too. Well, Lakla"s got a lot of "em trained. Carry spears and clubs and all that junk--just like trained seals or monkeys or so on in the circus. Probably a custom of the place. Nothing queer about that, Olaf. Why people have all kinds of pets--armadillos and snakes and rabbits, kangaroos and elephants and tigers."
Remembering how the frog-woman had stuck in Larry"s mind from the outset, I wondered whether all this was not more to convince himself than Olaf.
"Why, I remember a nice girl in Paris who had four pet pythons--" he went on.
But I listened no more, for now I was sure of my surmise. The road had begun to thrust itself through high-flung, sharply pinnacled ma.s.ses and rounded outcroppings of rock on which clung patches of the amber moss.
The trees had utterly vanished, and studding the moss-carpeted plains were only clumps of a willowy shrub from which hung, like grapes, cl.u.s.ters of white waxen blooms. The light too had changed; gone were the dancing, sparkling atoms and the silver had faded to a soft, almost ashen greyness. Ahead of us marched a rampart of coppery cliffs rising, like all these mountainous walls we had seen, into the immensities of haze. Something long drifting in my subconsciousness turned to startled realization. The speed of the sh.e.l.l was slackening!
The aperture containing the ionizing mechanism was still open; I glanced within, The whirling ball of fire was not dimmed, but its coruscations, instead of pouring down through the cylinder, swirled and eddied and shot back as though trying to re-enter their source.
Rador nodded grimly.
"The Shadow takes its toll," he said.
We topped a rise--Larry gripped my arm.
"Look!" he cried, and pointed. Far, far behind us, so far that the road was but a glistening thread, a score of shining points came speeding.
"Lugur and his men," said Rador.
"Can"t you step on her?" asked Larry.
"Step on her?" repeated the green dwarf, puzzled.
"Give her more speed; push her," explained O"Keefe.
Rador looked about him. The coppery ramparts were close, not more than three or four miles distant; in front of us the plain lifted in a long rolling swell, and up this the _corial_ essayed to go--with a terrifying lessening of speed. Faintly behind us came shootings, and we knew that Lugur drew close. Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla nor her frogmen.
Now we were half-way to the crest; the sh.e.l.l barely crawled and from beneath it came a faint hissing; it quivered, and I knew that its base was no longer held above the gla.s.sy surface but rested on it.
"One last chance!" exclaimed Rador. He pressed upon the control lever and wrenched it from its socket. Instantly the sparkling ball expanded, whirling with prodigious rapidity and sending a cascade of coruscations into the cylinder. The sh.e.l.l rose; leaped through the air; the dark crystal split into fragments; the fiery ball dulled; died--but upon the impetus of that last thrust we reached the crest.
Poised there for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the road dropping down the side of an enormous moss-covered, bowl-shaped valley whose sharply curved sides ended abruptly at the base of the towering barrier.
Then down the steep, powerless to guide or to check the sh.e.l.l, we plunged in a meteor rush straight for the annihilating adamantine b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the cliffs!
Now the quick thinking of Larry"s air training came to our aid. As the rampart reared close he threw himself upon Rador; hurled him and himself against the side of the flying whorl. Under the shock the finely balanced machine swerved from its course. It struck the soft, low bank of the road, shot high in air, bounded on through the thick carpeting, whirled like a dervish and fell upon its side. Shot from it, we rolled for yards, but the moss saved broken bones or serious bruise.
"Quick!" cried the green dwarf. He seized an arm, dragged me to my feet, began running to the cliff base not a hundred feet away. Beside us raced O"Keefe and Olaf. At our left was the black road. It stopped abruptly--was cut off by a slab of polished crimson stone a hundred feet high, and as wide, set within the coppery face of the barrier. On each side of it stood pillars, cut from the living rock and immense, almost, as those which held the rainbow veil of the Dweller. Across its face weaved unnameable carvings--but I had no time for more than a glance. The green dwarf gripped my arm again.
"Quick!" he cried again. "The handmaiden has pa.s.sed!"
At the right of the Portal ran a low wall of shattered rock. Over this we raced like rabbits. Hidden behind it was a narrow path. Crouching, Rador in the lead, we sped along it; three hundred, four hundred yards we raced--and the path ended in a _cul de sac_! To our ears was borne a louder shouting.
The first of the pursuing sh.e.l.ls had swept over the lip of the great bowl, poised for a moment as we had and then began a cautious descent.
Within it, scanning the slopes, I saw Lugur.
"A little closer and I"ll get him!" whispered Larry viciously. He raised his pistol.
His hand was caught in a mighty grip; Rador, eyes blazing, stood beside him.
"No!" rasped the green dwarf. He heaved a shoulder against one of the boulders that formed the pocket. It rocked aside, revealing a slit.
"In!" ordered he, straining against the weight of the stone. O"Keefe slipped through. Olaf at his back, I following. With a lightning leap the dwarf was beside me, the huge rock missing him by a hair breadth as it swung into place!
We were in Cimmerian darkness. I felt for my pocket-flash and recalled with distress that I had left it behind with my medicine kit when we fled from the gardens. But Rador seemed to need no light.
"Grip hands!" he ordered. We crept, single file, holding to each other like children, through the black. At last the green dwarf paused.
"Await me here," he whispered. "Do not move. And for your lives--be silent!"