BUT Mason went down at last, fighting desperately. He felt his hands being drawn behind him, saw Alasa straining forward on the throne, her body darkly crimson. She cried, “Kent, are you hurt? Did they—”
“I’m okay,” he said—and Zol came forward, his ruined face bloody and hideous. He glared down at the white man.
“Soon you will die.” His whisper was fury-soft. “But not slowly—no!”
He turned to the lake, lifted the sacrificial knife.
“Dweller in the Abyss,” he chanted. “The priestess is prepared. Soon she will serve you.”
Mason strained to escape from the arms that held him. Useless!
The Curupuri below the pyramid roared applause at the priest.
Then silence. And cutting through it a thin, high scream that made the short hairs prickle on Mason’s neck. There was defiance in that scream—desperate rage, and horror, and something above and beyond all these. The priest hesitated, looked down. His jaw dropped.
Mason turned his head. On the beach, knee-deep in the black waters, was Yana the priestess, nude, a golden statue in the moonlight. Her black hair streamed in the wind. She lifted her arms; her red lips parted. From them came again that dreadful cry—
Alien. Summoning!
Summoning—what?
The priest shrilled, “Slay her! Slay her!”
The others streamed down from the pyramid’s summit, racing toward Yana, save for two who still held Mason motionless. The priestess cried again that strange call.
In Zol’s face Mason read something that made him look out across the lake. A few ripples troubled the black surface. That was all.
No. There was more. Something was moving toward the shore, a dark and tremendous bulk that glided through the waters with unhurried smoothness. Something that could never exist in a sane world . . .
And now Mason remembered Yana’s words: “I have learned much—the words of power that call the Thunderer from the lake. Once before it was done, ages ago, and the Dweller rose from the depths . . .”
The god of the Curupuri had answered the summoning of his priestess. Through the dark inky waters the thing glided, and a black, shining bulk arose in the moonlight, a flat and serpentine head and a long, undulating column of neck . . .
Zol’s face was a Gorgon mask of horror abysmal. The natives were almost at the lake’s shore—and they shrank back. Yana screamed her weird call—and the cry turned into a shriek as the monster was upon her.
The giant head swooped, lifted with the girl’s body dangling from immense jaws. Cold, reptilian eyes surveyed the village. As the girl vanished into the thing’s maw the creature lumbered up onto the beach.
Desperately Mason tried to rationalize his fear. Some prehistoric survival—an aquatic reptile that had dwelt for ages in this secret crater, untouched by the changes of evolution. It was possible, he knew. Always there had been tales of such monsters filtering through the jungles, gigantic beasts that dwelt in the Patagonian swamps and the hidden fastnesses of the Andes. Yet he could not control the cold horror that crept over him at sight of the thing that was emerging from the lake.
Its body was over fifty feet long, torpedo-shaped, with great flippers that propelled it slowly forward. The snake-like head and neck writhed, curved. All over its shining, reticulated body grew algae; shells clung to the armored hide. It came plunging up into the village, and the Curupuri went stampeding in a frenzied panic that made them easy prey for their god.
The two natives holding Mason went with the rest. Only Zol stood his ground, glaring around, bruised lips working silently. He saw Mason. He sprang forward, knife upraised.
THIS time Mason was ready. Grinning unpleasantly, he dived at the priest, tackled him viciously. Zol stabbed down with his knife, sending a white-hot streak of agony along Mason’s ribs.
The white man clutched his enemy’s wrist, held it motionless. Yelling rage, Zol bent his head, tried to sink his teeth in Mason’s throat.
The screams of the fleeing Curupuri came up from below. And a cry—closer, nearer! Alasa!
“Kent! The devil-god—it’s coming here—”
The sweating, bloody face of Zol was a gargoyle mask; the man’s breath was foul in Mason’s nostrils as the priest tried to reach his enemy’s throat with his teeth. Beyond, a gargantuan shadow in the moonlight, Mason saw the head of the monster—coming closer!
Mason let go of the other’s knife-wrist. Zol was not expecting that move. Before he could recover, the white man had gripped the priest by neck and crotch, hurled him up in mid-air. Mason’s muscles cracked under the strain. He spun about swiftly, staggering.
The priest tried to stab down, missed. He had no other chance.
Out of the night came rushing the devil-god, silent and menacing. The huge head was not twelve feet from the pyramid’s summit when Mason let go of his captive.
Sent Zol hurtling straight for the monster!
His aim was true. The jaws dipped slightly, and gripped the priest. One agonized shriek Zol gave, and then his bones and flesh were ground into pulp between remorseless fangs.
Mason waited to see no more. There was no time to free the girl; he leaped to the throne, picked up her bound, nude form, and slung it over his shoulder, hoping that Alasa would suffer no injury by such treatment. But it was that or death, for already the monster’s head was snaking out as Mason leaped down the pyramid’s side, keeping his balance with difficulty. He was trying to reach the passage that led into the structure, and he succeeded just as the giant reptile’s jaws clicked closer than Mason cared to guess.
But they were safe, for the monster could not reach them in the narrow tunnel. Mason retreated further into the darkness, warily trying to pierce the gloom. Other Curupuri might have retreated here. Perhaps, though, their panic fear had driven all thought but instant flight from their minds.
Later Mason realized that this was indeed the case. But at present he was busy freeing Alasa, comforting her hysterical tears as well as he could. There was no sound from outside; either matters had quieted down, or it was difficult to hear within the pyramid. Mason drew Alasa close, and she, too frightened and exhausted to resist, relaxed in the man’s arms, and, presently, slept. Mason did not arouse her. Though his position was cramped, he endured it, fearing that any movement on his part would waken the girl.
When an hour or more had passed, he judged it time to move.
“Alasa,” he whispered.
She stirred “Kent? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he told her. “But we’d better be moving.”
The girl arose and followed Mason to the portal. Peering out into the moonlit night, they could see nothing of the Curupuri, though a distant commotion in the jungle hinted of the monster’s activity. Mason was quick to act. Seizing Alasa’s hand, he hurried around the pyramid’s base and slipped through the village, keeping carefully in the shadows. Once the girl paused to pick up a discarded length of cloth and wrap it about her nude body. Both of them, shivering in the cool night air, would have been glad to search for warmer clothing, but they dared not spare the time.
THEY headed for the pass in the crater’s walls. “You can reach it in the fourth part of a day,” the priestess had said. If anything, she had overestimated the distance. Presently Alasa and Mason reached the gap, having seen nothing of either the Curupuri or the monster.
Below them lay a broad stretch of moonlit jungle, slanting down to a distant horizon. Far, far beyond that horizon, Mason guessed, lay the Atlantic Ocean, the Ocean Sea of a pre-Columbian Europe. For a moment a queer thought was strong in his mind; he would like to visit that lost, strange world, dim in the forgotten past. How odd it would be to see and speak with the legendary figures of history!
He saw the time-ship. Half a mile away, it lay in a little clearing in the forest, the moonrays reflecting from it in a blaze of cold brilliance. Mason wished he had brought a weapon. There might be jaguars—perhaps even the prehistoric giant sloth lumbered thro
ugh this teeming jungle.
Night-prowlers were abroad, but they did not menace the two humans. Once some beast stalked them for a while; they could hear it rustling in the underbrush. But it gave up presently and disappeared. And once a jewel-bright macaw fluttered sleepily across their path, screaming its harsh cry.
But they came to the ship without hindrance. The Curupuri had apparently feared to enter it, for Mason found nothing amiss within the craft. He felt oddly relieved when he had closed the port, locking Alasa and himself within.
“I hope nothing was wrecked when we crashed,” he told the girl. “It wouldn’t be—pleasant.”
Mason set to work examining the instruments. For more than an hour he puzzled over the intricate dials and gauges. Something he had learned from Greddar Klon, and more from Murdach. So, after a time, he felt that it might be possible to return to the future-world from which they had come.
“This dial,” he said slowly, “indicates our time-rate, I think. Each time we stop, a permanent record of that halt is marked on the dial—those red spots, see? This one, at zero, is your own world, I imagine, where the ship was built. This dot, further up, is right under the needle. That’s where we are now. And the third dot is where we left Murdach and Erech. If I can set the controls to that time-sector—”
It was another half-hour before Mason was satisfied. He tested the mechanism, lifted the ship fifty feet into the air. The atomic power worked smoothly enough. With a grim nod at Alasa, Mason threw the time-switch.
Blackness. A second, an hour, or an eon—a brief eternity in which there was no consciousness of time. Then light came again.
The tower of the giant ants sprang into visibility nearby. They had reached their destination. The amazingly accurate controls of the craft had brought them back to the lost world of the future. But something was wrong.
From the tower’s summit a horde of giant winged ants were pouring down, racing toward the ship. On the ground below lay the crushed form of another monster. But of Murdach and Erech there was no trace!
Instantly Mason guessed the reason. They had come too far—a few moments, or a few hours. No longer, certainly. His familiarity with the instruments helped him now. He made a quick adjustment and again moved the time-control.
Blackness—and light. The ship had apparently not moved. Only the Sun was in a different position in the sky, and the horde of ants had gone. Looking down, for a brief incredible moment Mason saw a replica of the time-ship, with two figures in it, rushing forward, colliding in mid-air with a huge ant. And as he watched—the ship vanished!
It was gone—back, Mason knew, to the pre-Columbian South American jungle. The ant, crushed, was falling toward the ground—toward two figures, missing them by a few feet. Erech and Murdach!
They waved tiny hands upwards, gesticulating. Mason sent the ship down. Grounded it, flung open the port. Toward the craft raced the two men, eyes wide with hope they had long abandoned.
Erech pushed Murdach aboard, sprang after him. “By El-lil!” he swore. “You come in time, Ma-zhon! Let’s get out of here, quick!”
Murdach was fumbling with the controls. The time-ship lifted, lanced across the desolate plain.
At last the four were reunited. Now—now, Mason thought triumphantly, they could seek Greddar Klon. Seek the Master—and slay him!
CHAPTER XII
STRANGE QUEST
THE ship hung above the leaden sea, safe from attack, while the four talked, and Murdach and Mason planned. Murdach’s tattered leather uniform was hanging in rags. His hawk-face was gaunt and tired; his red hair dark with grime. But Erech seemed unchanged. His pale eyes watched coldly above the beak of a nose; the thin lips were grim as ever.
“What I can’t understand,” Mason observed, “is how I got from Arabia—Al Bekr—to South America, a continent on the other side of the globe. I was moving in time, not in space.”
“Globe?” murmured Alasa, puzzled. “Surely the Earth is flat, surrounded by an abyss?”
Murdach said, “You traveled in space, too. In a million years, or more or less, the world travels with the Sun, naturally, along its orbit. But the gravitational drag keeps the ship bound to Earth, which is lucky or we might find ourselves in space, light-years from any Solar System. The ship’s bound—but not too tightly. The Earth revolves; the time-ship lags; and so you found yourself once in Al Bekr, once in—what did you say?—South America, and once here. But all three places are near the equator.”
He turned to pages of calculations. “I’ve located Greddar Klon, I think. But nothing’s certain. We cannot stay here, though, or we’ll starve to death soon enough. Shall we—?” He read the answer in the others’ eyes. Without speaking he sent the ship into time.
The light failed, and grew again. They hung above a craggy mountain range, gigantic, towering to the sky. The Sun was warmer, closer and larger. Earth was green again, lacking the dead, leaden grimness of the ultimate future.
“This is before my own time, and after yours, Mason,” Murdach said. “About 2150.”
“2150 A.D.? That was Nirvor’s time-sector,” Mason said, remembering the words of the silver priestess. He went on, as a sudden thought came to him, “Hadn’t we better find weapons first? In my time I can dig up a few—machine-guns, bombs—and you probably have better ones in your time, Murdach.”
The other looked at him oddly, a curious expression in his eyes. “My time—I do not wish to return to it. Not yet, at least. As for weapons, the Master will not be expecting us. And we can perhaps find arms on our way. The needle points to the east, and we must go there. We’ll watch as we travel.”
Mason was not satisfied, but said no more. He scanned the barren mountains and plains, the teeming jungles, the lakes and broad sea over which they fled. Once he saw a gleaming globe on a mountaintop, and pointed it out to Murdach. The other brought the ship down.
A transparent globe, miles in diameter, hanging in empty air. Within it, as they hovered, Mason could see unfamiliar-looking machines, rows upon rows of long cylinders of glass. Within the cylinders were human beings, men and women, dead or asleep.
Murdach landed the ship, and they tried to find some way of entering the giant globe, but in vain. There were no openings, and the transparent substance was steel-hard.
“We have a legend of this,” Murdach said. “In the days of beast rule, ages ago, when experimenters sought to create human beings out of animals. Mankind foresaw some danger, a temporary waning of the solar rays, I think. They built huge spheres and sealed themselves within, throwing themselves into suspended animation for years. A few scientists tried to adapt themselves to the changing radiation, and spent their time making beasts into men, having some thought of creating an empire of their own to defeat the sleepers when they awakened. But they failed.”
“We can’t get weapons here,” Mason grunted. “That’s sure, anyway.”
“There was some weapon those last scientists perfected,” Murdach mused. “It was lost, forgotten. Only its power was remembered. No shield could bar it. If we could find that weapon, use it against Greddar Klon—” His eyes were alight.
“You need such magic to battle the Master,” said Erech. “My scimitar would fail. I know that!”
The ship rose, drifted on. A jungle slipped beneath. Far away, steadily growing nearer, was a city—and Mason caught his breath at its heartbreaking beauty. Not Rome nor Babylon nor Capri had ever had the delicate, poignant splendor of this strange metropolis, hidden in the jungle, crumbling and cracked with age at closer view, but still a matchless jewel of architecture.
“A rose-red city half as old as time,” Mason quoted softly, half to himself.
The ship drove down. There was furtive movement in the jungle metropolis—not human movement. Animals scurried from sight. A leopard loped swiftly away. Birds flew startled.
“Greddar Klon is close,” Murdach whispered. “My instruments show that.”
The ship landed in a marble street. Hesita
ting, Mason opened the port, stepped out. Nothing happened. The still, humid air was utterly silent.
Far away a beast cried, lonely and strangely poignant.
In the distance Mason saw a human figure. It came forward slowly, with a shambling, dragging gait. A man—an old man.
An Oriental, Mason guessed, noting the distinctive shape of the eyes, the facial contours, the hue of the skin. The oldster’s face was withered, shrunken and dry as a walnut. Sparse white hair patched the skull. The thin lips moved endlessly, whispering. Filmed eyes dwelt unseeingly on Mason and the others.
BUT the man halted, and a new look came into his face. He spoke louder, in a language Mason thought he recognized. It was Chinese, but oddly changed, with a different stress and accent. Yet if Chinese had persisted for so many centuries, there was no reason why it should not exist in 2150 A.D. Two hundred years would make little difference.
The Chinese said, “The Sleepers have awakened, then?”
Guessing at his meaning, Mason replied carefully, “We are not Sleepers. We come from another time—another age.”
The man closed his eyes; tears trickled from the wrinkled lids. “I thought I had been forgiven. Ah, we have been punished indeed.”
“Punished?”
“When the Sleepers went to their globes of refuge, we refused to join them. We thought to build a kingdom of beastmen. We reared cities for them, took possession of those already existing. We raised up the beasts . . . but that was long ago. Only a few are left now. They warred one upon another; slew and were slain . . . so now I, Li Keng, live alone in Corinoor, since Nirvor went across the desert with her leopards . . .”
Murdach had caught the familiar names. “Nirvor?” he broke in. “Ask him more of this, Mason! Is she here? What does he say?”
“I have met Nirvor,” Mason said in Chinese. “She is alive, I think. You are her friend?”
Li Keng did not reply. Into his eyes crept a dull glaze. His lips twiched, writhed. He mumbled wordlessly. Suddenly he broke into a maniacal cackle of laughter.
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