A week went by, and the snake-man was seen no more. The two were so near supreme happiness! The oasis was a garden of wonder, supplying all physical needs. They would have been content to forget the outer world, dwell there for ever. Each found in the other a joy never known before, a bliss made only more keenly poignant by the intruding darkness of anxiety.
In the rear wall of the courtyard was the arched entrance to a long hall of granite, that led back into the sand-heaped, crumbling main pile of the old palace. Near the garden it was bright enough, illuminated by high, unglazed clerestory windows. Farther back, however, the invading sand had completely covered it. It became a dark tunnel into mysterious, buried ruin.
They had explored it as far as daylight penetrated, and since it furnished the only standing roof available, they made the outer end of it their dwelling.
Above the end of the hall was a stone tower, still standing, so high that it overlooked the walls of Anz. Price was able to climb its crumbling stairs. Several times daily he ascended, to scan the ruins of Anz and the surrounding desert for Aysa’s enemies.
On the morning of the ninth day Price saw a tiny speck creeping across the heaving oceans of yellow-reddish dunes, northward. He watched it for an hour, until it had grown to a tiny yellow animal, with a black dot upon its back, running toward the buried city.
“I see that yellow tiger coming,” he told Aysa, when he rejoined her in the green shadows of the marble-walled garden.
He could see that the information threw her into an extremity of terror. Her face went white, and she trembled, though she retained her composure.
“It’s Malikar!” she whispered, “riding himself after me, upon the tiger. M’almé, we must hide! With your weapons gone, we can not fight the golden man! Where—”
Price nodded toward the end of the long hall.
“What about that? I’ve been wanting to explore it, anyhow.”
The girl shook her head. “No, we would be trapped there, in the dark.” Then another idea evidently overtook her. “But no matter!” she cried. “Let us hasten!”
Each gathered an armful of the rude torches they had made—merely bundles of dried palm-leaves. And they set out down the hall.
The floor, sifted with red sand, was twenty feet wide; the arched roof thirty feet above. For many yards there was light enough from the entrance and the high windows. Then they entered the main pile of the palace, a mountain of tumbled, sand-covered ruin.
Lighting the torches, they went on, through the darkness and the utter silence of a city entombed. Their feet trod soundlessly upon the sand; instinctively they spoke only in whispers.
Dark, narrower passages opened at intervals from the long central hall. They paused to peer down each. Most of them were filled with sand that had sifted from above; a few were blocked with fallen masonry.
At last, hundreds of feet from the entrance, the central hall ended in a blank stone wall. Price was discouraged; they had found neither hiding-place nor fortress; the hall seemed only a gloomy trap. Aysa eagerly led the way into the last branching passage.
It was a smaller, lower hall, almost free of sand. They had followed it a hundred feet when they passed a pile of moldering wood that once had been a door. Beyond, a steep flight of steps led downward. Complete darkness and breathless silence mocked them from below.
Price could not keep his imagination from conjuring up weird fantasms, upon that black stair, leading into the bowels of a city that had been lost a thousand years. He hesitated, went on only when Aysa moved to pass him.
Three hundred steps downward, and they entered the crypts.
A gloomy labyrinth beneath the buried city; long halls, intricately winding, hewn in dark rock. The stagnant air was dank, laden with dusty odors of the tomb, but not actually dangerous, Price knew, since the torches continued to flare.
They stopped at the foot of the stair, peered rather apprehensively about. The torches were far too feeble to illuminate the vast chambers. Grotesque shadows flickered, leapt at them like dancing demons.
“I believe I’d rather meet Malikar outside,” Price whispered. “Suppose the torches went out!”
Shadows danced like demons in the winding, pillared halls, and a taunting echo mocked: “… the torches went out…”
“We are in the crypts of Anz!” Aysa cried. “The tombs of the ancient great ones! Iru is sleeping here!”
Ghostly echoes whispered, “… Iru is sleeping here …”
Price shuddered. Above ground, in daylight, it had been easy enough to laugh at the prophecy that an ancient king would wake again; but in these dank, uncanny catacombs, whose lurking darkness was always leaping to battle with the torchlight, the thing seemed grimly possible.
Rather reluctantly, Price accompanied Aysa as she began a circuit of the walls, pausing to study the inscriptions upon the narrow, upright slabs of dark stone that were the doors of tombs.
“The vault of Iru!” she cried suddenly, and Price started.
It was a low, narrow door of stone, with a knob of dull gold. She turned the knob, motioned Price to set his shoulder to it. He hesitated, and she moved to try her own strength with it.
The door swung inward upon silent hinges, when he lunged against it, more easily than he had expected. He fell into the tomb. Aysa followed anxiously, in response to his startled cry. It was a small, square chamber, hewn in dark rock. On a long, shelf-like niche in the farther wall were the remains of Iru.
To Price’s relief, the old king was extremely dead. Only the bare skeleton remained.
On the end of the ledge lay his weapons: a folded skirt of chain-mail, the interlocking links golden, finely wrought; a small, oval shield to be carried on the left arm; and a great battle-ax.
Eagerly, Price picked up the ax: here, at least, was a weapon. The heavy, massive head was gold, untarnished. Its keen, curving blade, half as long as the handle, was engraved, like the sword of tempered gold in Jacob Garth’s possession, with inscriptions in a language Price could not read.
The short, thick helve was of ebony, or some similar black, hard wood. It seemed perfectly preserved. Worn or carved in it was the impression of a hand, a rounded groove for each finger.
Price lifted it, as if to swing it. And those grooves fitted his fingers perfectly, as if the ax were made for his hand, not that of the skeleton beside him, dead a thousand years and more.
“Queer,” he muttered. “Just fits my hand.”
“Even so,” Aysa whispered. “It is strange—or is it strange?”
Puzzled by something in her voice, he looked up at the girl. She stood just within the tiny, rock-hewn tomb, the flaring torches in her hands. She was smiling, framed against the blackness of the crypts, her violet eyes suddenly mysterious with some enigmatic thought.
Price had never seen her so beautiful as there against the gloom of the catacombs. The sheer loveliness of her made his heart ache; made him want to take her in his arms again, and kiss her; made him want desperately to carry her away from the weird perils gathering about them, to some far place of security and peace.
“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered.
Aysa turned, and stopped with a horrified gasp, as the torchlight fell upon a man in the doorway behind her—a tall, hatchet-faced man, upon whose high forehead glittered the golden likeness of a coiled serpent!
Price leapt at the intruder, whirling the golden battle-ax, which he still had been carrying in his hand. And if Aysa had displayed fright, the snake-man betrayed abject terror. His mouth fell open. His thin, cruel features were distorted with the utmost horror that Price had ever seen upon a human face. Shrieking, hands flung up, he staggered backward, and ran into the black, labyrinthine catacombs.
“A slave of the snake,” Aysa whispered. “Malikar sent him down to search for me.”
“What scared him so? He looked as if he’d seen—I don’t know what!”
“I think I know,” Aysa said quietly. “He saw Iru awakened.”
/> “Iru awakened? What do you mean?”
“In you the prophecy is fulfilled!” she cried, her violet eyes shining. “You are Iru, come back to conquer the golden folk and deliver the Beni Anz!”
“I? Of course not! Nonsense!”
“Why not? You are tall, as Iru was, red-haired, blue-eyed. Did not the ax fit your hand?”
It was something of a coincidence. But Price had always looked askance upon theories of reincarnation. He felt that one life was load enough, without attempting to assume the burdens of the dead.
“Anyhow,” Aysa added practically, “it will help for the snake-man to think you are Iru. Why not put on the mail?”
“I’ll be anything, sweetheart,” Price assured her, “to get you out of this.”
“And perhaps you should learn the ax-song, written on the blade,” she suggested. “Iru always sang it in battle.”
By torchlight, she read the words to him. Their strange, chanting rhythm oddly stirred his blood. He could render them only roughly into English:
Hew—
Justice in battle! Foe of all evil!
Strike-Child of the anvil! Forged by the thunder!
Cleave—
Korlu the smiter!
Lightning-tempered!
Slay—
Korlu the war-ax!
Drinker of life-blood!
Kill—
Korlu the red doom!
Keeper of death-gate!
Price donned the yellow mail. Upon his unaccustomed body it felt cold and stiff and heavy, but it fitted extraordinarily well. He took up the small, oval shield, and fiercely gripped the helve of the ax.
He had never loved Aysa more than during the bitter time of that weird vigil in Iru’s tomb, when the cold dank air of the catacombs brushed like clammy wings against them, and minutes stretched into hours, as they awaited the coming of Malikar, sitting side by side.
Greenish light flickered down the stair, and five men came into the crypts. Four were blue-robed, hooded figures; two armed with long pikes, two carrying torches that flared strangely green.
The other was the golden man Price had seen on the tiger. Gigantic, thick of shoulder, mighty of arm. He wore a red skull-cap, a voluminous robe of crimson. On his shoulder he carried his great, spiked club of yellow metal.
He led his men straight toward the tomb of Iru.
Triumphant evil rode his harshly lined, golden-bearded yellow face. Ugly elation gleamed in his shallow, tawny eyes. Eyes of unhuman age and wisdom, brooding with dark secrets of the lost past.
Price waited in the tomb, gripping the ancient ax.
The blue-robes, he saw, were afraid. Their steps dragged. Their faces were white and apprehensive. Malikar pushed roughly past them, but even he stopped outside the tomb.
“Come forth, woman!” he shouted harshly.
Aysa made no reply.
The yellow man snatched a torch from one of his cowering men, and pushed boldly into the tomb. Price stepped to meet him in the doorway.
The flat yellow eyes held fear for a moment, incredulous amazement. Then Malikar leered grimly, came on.
“Kalb ibn kalb!” he snarled, in the same oddly accented Arabic that Aysa spoke. “Iru can not rest? I can put him back to sleep!”
He flung the flambeau to the floor between them, where its green flame still flared, unextinguished. In both hands he lifted the great spiked mace.
Price struck with the yellow ax, a short, chopping swing at the red skull-cap. The golden man stepped quickly back, into the shelter of the doorway. The shimmering ax-blade slipped harmlessly in front of his face, but his own blow was diverted; he could not swing the mace in the narrow doorway.
The golden man charged through the opening again, and Price began chanting the ax-song Aysa had taught him. Once more he saw fear in the shallow, tawny eyes. From one of the blue-robes came a shaken cry of terror.
After an instant’s hesitation, Malikar leapt into the tomb.
Moving to the rhythm of his chant, Price gave ground before the threatening mace, whirled the battle-ax aloft, put all his strength into a swing at the red skull-cap. Put too much strength into the blow!
He felt the ominous cracking of the age-dried helve, as the ax came down, knew in an instant of sickening tragedy what had happened.
A fatal snap, and the haft was light in his hands, a useless, brittle stick. The broad-edged head clattered to the floor of the tomb, as Price fell back in dismay, the ax-song dead.
A queer, hurt feeling was in his heart. He had been betrayed. The Durand luck had failed him.
An unpleasant grin of surprised triumph on his yellow face, Malikar sprang forward, lifting his great, spiked club deliberately, to crush the skull of his disarmed foe.
With a sharp little cry of pain and rage, Aysa leapt forward, under the descending mace. The slender dagger flashed in her hands.
Malikar checked the blow, reached out a massive, red-sleeved, golden arm, seized her lifted wrist. The dagger clattered from her helpless fingers, and Malikar flung her, with careless, brutal strength, toward the waiting blue-robes beyond the door.
Price sprang at the yellow man, swinging a blow with his fist. The mace came down over his head. It was a short, one-armed blow. And Price ducked, flung up the oval shield. The mace crashed through his defense, and splintering fire exploded in his head.
Price sat up in the cold, musty darkness of the subterranean tomb. The torches were gone. He was very thirsty; in his dry mouth was a bitter, metallic taste. He knew that he had been unconscious for many hours.
He fumbled about. No other living thing was in the tomb. But he struck something large and smooth and imperfectly round, that rolled rattling across the floor.
Fighting down icy panic, he stumbled to the doorway. A smooth, unbroken, surface of cold stone opposed him. Wildly, he ran his fingers over the tight-fitting slab. Then he remembered that the massive stone door of the vault had swung inward, and that it had no knob on the inside.
He was sealed in Iru’s tomb!
11. THE TIGER’S TRAIL
AFTER a time Price gave up his frantic attempts to force the vault’s locked door, and sank back exhausted on the chill stone floor of the ancient tomb.
Panic was near, the red, blind insanity of terror. His body was a-tremble, clammy with sudden sweat. He found himself beating with his hands on the polished cold stone, and the vault was full of his hoarse, useless shouts.
A quiet voice in his brain bade him sit down, and conserve his strength, and think. His situation was extreme, almost melodramatic—locked in a tomb, in the catacombs beneath Anz, beneath a sand-whelmed city centuries lost. Fear-nerved struggles would get him nowhere. He must collect his scattered senses, think.
He dared not hope for outside aid. Malikar and his acolytes, departing with the captive Aysa, had obviously left him here to die. The vault must be opened by his own efforts. And he had not long for the task; the air was already vitiated. His lungs were gasping in the musty stuff with great gulps; his head rang and roared. Already half suffocated, he was still dazed from Malikar’s final blow.
Pressing his hands to his throbbing head, Price tried to think. He must take stock of his prison. If he could find some tool…
Anxiously he fumbled for his matches, felt the little box. With a sigh of relief he struck a light, peered about the tiny square chamber. Among scattered human bones he saw the broken helve of the ax, then the shining golden head of it, at the door. The oval shield was near, the heavy yellow mail still upon his body.
Abruptly giddy from the splitting pain in his head, he leaned on the cold wall, and lighted a cigarette with the dying match. The smoke cleared his brain a little; it hid the musty charnel odor of the vault. But still his head throbbed, still his mouth was bitter and dry.
When the cigarette was gone he lit another match, and examined the door, a massive slab of hewn and polished granite, cleverly hung, so that metal lock and hinges were concealed. On the outside there was
a golden knob. But its smooth black inner surface was unbroken.
Forcing himself to deliberate and unhurried movement, he picked up the head of the golden ax. Wrapping his handkerchief about the blade to protect his fingers, he attacked the door with the picklike point opposite the cutting edge.
The hidden mechanism of the lock, he reasoned, must be contained in a cavity in the stone, at the level of the golden knob. The shell of granite covering it would be relatively thin; it might be possible to break it away.
The stone was obdurate, his tool clumsy. His head drummed with pain, and the air was rapidly becoming unbreathable. Gasping for breath, he reeled as he worked, occasionally striking a match to estimate his progress.
For a time that seemed hours he toiled, when another man might have cursed and dropped his tool and flung himself down to die. The idea of defeat, of failure, was not in Price Durand’s nature. He had a vast confidence that the Durand luck—though it had so recently betrayed him—would come to his rescue, if he just kept fighting.
Thought of Aysa, as much as his own safety, spurred him on. He knew that he loved the brown-haired, gayly brave fugitive. She was his, by some immutable law of life. Her captivity filled him with savage resentment.
Ringing hollow beneath the ax-point, the shell of rock cracked at last. Rapidly, then, it crumbled beneath his blows. Holding a match in one hand, he manipulated the bronze levers and tumblers of the ancient lock.
Staggering and blind with fatigue and asphyxiation, he slid back the great bolt, swung the door inward, and pitched through the opening into the cleaner air of the open catacombs.
In delirious joy he sucked in the air that had once seemed musty and stale, until he was able to light one of the torches he and Aysa had brought into the crypts. Then taking up the ax and the oval shield, he found the stair, and climbed wearily back to the surface.
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