by Don Wilcox
“How do you know?”
“My conscience tells me.”
“My conscience doesn’t tell me anything,” the little child said innocently. “I want to stay and watch him.”
For a long moment they lingered. Their eyes adjusted to the weird red flames. The details of this shadowy room became clear-cut. The little old man didn’t see them. He was too busy puttering around the flames of the pit.
In his wrinkled red hand he held a long, crooked wire, heavy enough to stir the sputtering, lava as one might stir a kettle of bubbling broth. He didn’t mind the fumes that wafted up from the glowing coals.
“I’ve seen him once before,” Muriel whispered. “He came to the festival last year. He’s a hermit.”
“He’s talking to himself,” said little Neeka. “What does it mean?”
“I wonder.”
At that moment a liquid bubble rose out of the pit and floated upward, slowly, slowly, toward the domed ceiling. It glistened with running colors like a soap bubble, and it grew larger and larger until it was as big as a bucket. Then—pop!
The bubble broke into a thousand splinters of light, and out of it fell—a skull.
The skull floated downward as slowly as the bubble had floated up. Its narrow jaws yawned and it gave forth a thin-voiced cry. “Gheeeee-aaaah-gawwww-yup!”
It struck the surface of the lava, choked off, and sank.
“Oh!” Neeka cried out before Muriel could stop her. The old man turned. He came toward them slowly, dragging the wire with red hot end so that it made sparks beside his bare feet.
Muriel snatched up the two torches, handed one to Neeka, and started to run with her. They sprinted down the tunnel—
Clannnnk! A metal wall fell before them. Their escape was closed. A hidden mechanism, operated from a lever in the circular room, had made them prisoners.
Muriel caught a tense breath. She went back to face her captor. Her heart pounded. She felt as innocent and helpless as Neeka, even though she was the child’s guardian.
“Must you be frightened?” The little old man spoke in a thin, cackling voice.
Muriel couldn’t answer. He was so strange in appearance, as if his half-naked body had taken on the qualities of the lava pool. His face and shoulders and chest bore a thousand wrinkles, glowing like fire. His twisted locks of hair were like coiled ribbons of brass.
His eyes shone at her, deep and fierce and mysterious, under great eyebrows that were likewise twisted ribbons of brass, as were his whiskers. It was hard to guess whether he was scowling or smiling.
Another bubble floated up from the lava pool, and now a purplish-white skull floated down gently, and he caught it on his fingertips and held it. Its jaw fell open and it began to cry like a dying animal.
Muriel was trying hard not to be frightened. But now she heard Neeka sobbing.
“Aren’t you ashamed, scaring a little girl?”
“I have so few visitors. I didn’t want you to run away so soon.” There was something plaintive in the old man’s voice. He looked at Neeka, disturbed by her crying, yet seemingly unaware that the whine of the skull was an unnatural thing that might frighten anyone. “Is this your little sister?”
“She is Neeka,” said Muriel. “I’ve taken her to be my child.”
“Neeka—oh!” The brassy-whiskered old man-tossed the skull deftly and caught it between the teeth. It ceased to cry. Then Neeka stopped her sobbing. The old man said, “Neeka—too bad, too bad. Does she know the tragedy of her parents?”
“S-s-sh! I try to protect her, so she’ll never be reminded,” Muriel said. She was surprised that this hermit should know all about the tribal happenings.
He repeated his words of sympathy. “Too bad, too bad. Twenty-five thousand of us Dobberines, and not one of us has the nerve to defy the Evil Heart Ceremony . . . Come here, little girl, let me talk with you.”
He tossed the skull back into the sputtering pit and started toward Neeka, dragging the heavy wire, now hooked onto his metal belt.
Muriel stepped in his path, and he stopped before her. The cackle of his voice was harsh with impatience. “I’m not going to frighten her. Believe me, I know about her misfortunes. I could prove to her that her father was innocent. There was no reason to sacrifice him. Much less reason for her mother to commit—”
“Please!” Muriel cried. “Don’t! I beg you, don’t say any more to her.”
The little lava man’s great eyebrows raised. He stared, silent, hurt.
“I was trying to help,” he said slowly. “I have ways to prove what no one else knows. My skulls—”
“Please let us go,” Muriel pleaded through tears that she couldn’t hold back. Little Neeka’s tragedy, her mother’s suicide from grief after her father was sacrificed, must not be recalled to the child’s mind. To Muriel, the happiness of Neeka meant more than anything. “Please—”
“Good-bye,” the Lava man said abruptly. He stalked to the lever, hooked it with the heavy wire. The latticed door across the tunnel lifted into the ceiling. “Come back if you ever need me . . . Good-bye.”
As Muriel and Neeka hurried away, they heard the weird songs of the floating skulls fading in the distance.
CHAPTER II
Irlinza Needs Jewels
Irlinza saw Muriel and Neeka returning to the city that day. She saw them approaching the footbridge at the rear of the palace. She touched a button to signal to the bridge guard. The bell tinkled, the guard jumped to his feet and obediently bent to the crank. The footbridge lifted so that no one could cross.
Irlinza, watching from the palace roof garden, laughed to see how much trouble she caused the two weary hikers. They were forced to take the long way around.
“Did you mean to do that?” a servant asked timidly. After all, Irlinza was only a luncheon guest. Her act was purely malicious.
“I have to amuse myself somehow,” said Irlinza. “Why not amuse oneself at the expense of a ‘nobody’ like Muriel?”
“Is she a nobody, Miss Irlinza?” the servant asked submissively.
“Her father was a moss-gatherer.”
“I’ve heard,” said the servant, “that she may enter the Moss Festival beauty contest this year.”
Irlinza mocked. “A sweet chance she’d have. The Dobberking doesn’t even know her. And after all, he is the one who chooses.”
“His royal workers vote, you know—”
“Vote or no vote, the Dobberking, makes the choice,” Irlinza said emphatically. “That’s why I’ll be the queen again this year. Get me some more dessert.”
Of the twenty-five thousand people in this cavernous world—the kingdom of the Dobberines—Irlinza was one of the most ambitious for wealth and royal privileges.
She was already a celebrity. She had won the beauty contest for the last two years. She had been the favorite luncheon guest of the young bachelor ruler known as the Dobberking.
Irlinza was twenty, a brunette of slinky curves. Her wardrobe was a subject of much gossip among the Dobberine women; Metal mesh was the standard material for wearing apparel for both men and women. But Irlinza also possessed dresses made of supple-bark products brought down from the storm-thrashed surface of this planet, high above the caverns.
Irlinza’s eyelashes were so long and beautiful that the court poet continually wrote poems about them. But Irlinza never read these poems. Reading was a bore to her. Besides, the flutter of her long lashes was for the Dobberking, not for any addle-brained poet.
The Dobberking had been in one of his frequent bad humors today. He had hurried away from lunch to take care of the affairs of state. Left to her own devices, Irlinza sat at the roof garden table, absent-mindedly gazing down the cavern valley to where Muriel and little Neeka found a place to leap across the narrow stream. Again she laughed, then her mind darted to the problem at hand.
“Neeka’s jewels,” Irlinza said to herself. Her eyes narrowed. “Today
The servant was at her side.
; “Did you call for something, Miss Irlinza?”
“Er—how soon does the Dobberking expect his royal workers to return?”
“In three or four days, Miss. Then the Moss Festival will begin at once. Are you already for the contest?”
Irlinza didn’t answer. Secretly, she was thinking of the new costume she expected to wear. Jewels—the cavern’s finest. She watched little Neeka and her guardian climb the sloping path toward the farther side of the cavern city . . . Jewels . . . Three or four days . . .
“I’ll go now,” said Irlinza. “But first, bring me the silver cheese-moss knife that the Dobberking was showing me.”
“I’m not sure whether I should, Miss—”
“Bring it to me. I’ll wait on the porch steps.”
She sauntered to the front of the roof garden. Immediately before the palace was the sentry house carved in the outcropping rock ridge that formed the shape of a question mark. The dot-end of the question mark was a six-foot onyx stalagmite that had come to be used for a sacrifice post.
There was where Neeka’s father had been tied, in last year’s Evil Heart Ceremony, when the floods were rushing down.
Beyond the palace plaza lay the sprawling city on the upward slope of the cavern floor—a few thousand watertight clay mounds with glass windows. Most of the windows were lighted, at present; for it was mid-day, and thousands of torches burned.
Days and nights were a part of the
Dobberine’s well-ordered existence in this world of a thousand caves. Written legends traced the origin back to the habits of earlier ancestors who had, lived on the outside of another planet called the earth. The red rock walls of Onyx City, the capitol, glowed with a profusion of torches through, the day time, and the waters of the subterranean streams chased noisily through the crevasses.
But at night the caverns were darkened, and the noisier streams were choked off for ten hours, to provide ideal conditions for sleep.
Only the lonely farmers—those moss-gatherers who lived apart in the various dark branch caves, could ignore the system of night and day. Many of them were said to sleep the greater half of their lives away. However, at such occasions as the annual Moss Festival or, later, the Evil Heart Ceremony, which came with the yearly rush of floods, all the population of these caverns gathered in to share the excitement of the city.
The servant met Irlinza on the porch steps. “I’m sorry, Miss. The Dobberking says the beautiful cheese-moss knife must be saved for the winner of the beauty contest.”
“He’s just being spiteful,” she said angrily. “There’s no reason he shouldn’t give it to me now.”
She wandered out across the palace plaza. Ubolt, the burly guard in the red and black chain-metal uniform, was sitting in his easy chair on the sentry house roof.
“What’s new, my famous beauty?”
“If there’s anything new, you should know it,” she retorted.
It was a fact that Ubolt, with his gift for gossip and time on his hands, kept a vulture’s eye on the comings and goings of the kingdom. His station was an Ideal vantage point. Carved out of the hook of the rocky question mark, it overlooked the palace plaza, the business streets and metal shops, the childrens’ playgrounds, and the mound-shaped residences.
“I suppose you’ve picked out a costume for the contest?” said Ubolt.
“If I had, I wouldn’t tell you,” said Irlinza.
“Be sure to dazzle y the Dobberking,” said Ubolt. “When you walk off with the prize, you’ll hear a big cheer from the top of this sentry house. That’ll be me.”
Irlinza threw a kiss to Ubolt and went on her way.
She crossed the town and came to the house of Neeka. It stood at the end of the street where the cavern floor and roof came together. She found the little girl playing along the narrow cliff path, watching the silver birds fly over. “Neeka, my darling.”
“Hello,” said Neeka.
“I’ve come to see you, my dear. Do you remember me? I used to be a friend of your mother. She would often show me her beautiful beads and bracelets.”
Neeka shook her head slowly. “I don’t remember that.”
“Who takes care of you these days, Neeka? Do you have any friends besides Muriel? . . . What a lovely old house . . . Is anyone at home?”
“What do you want?” Neeka faced her stubbornly.
“Come, sit down with me here on the step,” Irlinza said, brushing the little girl s hair. “You are very charming. Some day I’d like to take you to the Dobberking’s palace.”
“I don’t like palace people,” Neeka said innocently. “Today someone raised the bridge so we couldn’t get across.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Muriel takes me on long walks,” said the little girl. “We see wonderful sights. And we never tell anyone. You’d never guess the sights we see or the sounds we hear. . . Aren’t you the lady who wins the beauty contests?” Irlinza smiled. “Would you like for me to win again, Neeka? Think how beautiful I would look in your mother’s jewels . . . Would you like for me to try them on?”
Diamonds, rubies, emeralds—beautiful necklaces, bracelets and tiaras—these were the pictures that floated through Irlinza’s mind as she strove to win little Neeka’s confidence.
“If you want to see the jewels,” Neeka said simply, “you may come in. Muriel is trying them on right now.” Irlinza rose in surprise. “Muriel? Why?”
“She’s going to wear them in the contest. I told her she could.”
“What! Muriel She—”
“I think she’s the most beautiful person in the world.”
“Oh, Neeka, you poor little dear. Why, the Dobberking wouldn’t even look at her.”
Just then the door opened and Irilinza’s jealous eyes beheld Muriel, dressed in a dazzling white party dress, bedecked with rubies and emeralds.
“Now, Neeka, how do I—oh!” Muriel caught her breath to find Irlinza here on the porch. “Oh—hello.”
“Well, well.”
Irlinza drew herself up haughtily. She walked back and forth as if inspecting a model. “How very glamorous. And you, a moss-gatherer’s daughter! What’s the occasion? A wedding?”
“I was thinking of entering the contest—”
“Indeed!” Irlinza’s lips curled in a cynical smile. “And do you think the
Dobberking will be impressed by jewels—borrowed jewels?”
Little Neeka, bright-eyed, seized her opportunity. “But you came to borrow them yourself.”
Irlinza’s face tightened. She hated that meddlesome child.
No ten-year-old girl was going to cross her path. In a saccharine voice she said, “Isn’t that innocence for you. Neeka thought I wanted to borrow the jewels.”
“And didn’t you?” Muriel was plainly puzzled.
“Certainly not,” Irlinza lied. “I’d heard the rumor that you were going to enter the contest and I only wanted to make sure. You see I’ll be much surer of winning if you do.”
“I don’t quite understand,” said Muriel.
“The Dobberking hates, jewelry. Irlinza’s sarcastic smile played its full power upon the bewildered Muriel. “I do hope you’ll wear lots of jewels in the contest.”
CHAPTER III
The Moss Carnival
The silver birds flew along the cavern ceilings migrating to new-sources of food. Jaff, the fleet-footed young, messenger of the royal palace, came running back to Onyx City with the news that the royal gatherers of cheese-moss were returning.
Through the night they came, several hundreds of them, the-royal brigade of workmen. Their twowheeled carts, heavily laden with heaps of cheese-moss as thick as sod, rumbled along the cavern thoroughfares. There would be food aplenty in storage when the annual floods rushed down through these subterranean chambers to wash the last of the old crop away.
Cheese-moss was the most important item of the Dobberine diet.
The Festival began with the spectacle of a colorful parade and ended wit
h the tense excitement of choosing the queen of beauty. Muriel was always thrilled by the gay pageantry of these occasions. Now, for the first time, her own beauty was a part of the parade.
She rode with nine other girls. Their float was decorated with moss blossoms—pink, white and yellow. Moving slowly through the crowds, she caught sight of her friends waving at her. Little Neeka’s eyes danced with delight as she ran along beside the float.
“Be sure to win!” Neeka called.
Muriel nodded her head, smiling. She wouldn’t win, of course. Not with Irlinza and other court favorites to compete against.
But it was fun being in the contest, if only for Neeka’s sake. It had been Neeka’s idea more than her own. This lovely white party dress, these jewels that hung lightly at her breasts, had, once been worn in this festival by Neeka’s mother. Today amid the gaiety, a few spectators would recall the tragedy of last year’s Evil Heart Ceremony.
Far across the crowd Muriel saw the little Lava Man. What an oddity. Of all these thousands of gayly dressed people, here was one who paid no attention to the parade. Half naked, he was lying on a red stone, like a lazy lizard that sleeps against a background of protective coloration. When the metal rhythm instruments began to beat a stirring band march, he didn’t even look up.
“Get back in line, Muriel.”
Muriel winced. She was quite in line, she thought, as she glanced along the row of nine other girls.
It was Irlinza who had spoken. This was the third time since the parade began that Irlinza made an occasion to bawl her out. Graciously, Muriel said nothing.
The parade halted. One by one, the ten girls stepped down from the float, escorted by a uniformed official, and marched up the steps of the palace.
Muriel was the last one in the line. Suddenly she realized that a great many people were gazing at her. individually. Noskin, a brisk important little palace official with a face like a bird, batted his eyes twice. He touched his sash and bowed as if the Dobberking were passing. The unexpectedness of this gesture made Muriel smile.
