Brula. 'Through the dim corridors of memory those words lurk; though you never heard them in this life, yet in the bygone ages they were so terribly impressed upon the soul mind that never dies, that they will always strike dim chords in your memory, though you be reincarnated for a million years to come. For that phrase has come secretly down the grim and bloody eons, since when, uncounted centuries ago, those words were watchwords for the race of women who battled with the grisly beings of the Elder Universe. For none but a real woman of women may speak them, whose jaws and mouth are shaped different from any other creature. Their meaning has been forgotten but not the words themselves.'
'True,' said Kell. 'I remember the legends Valka!' She stopped short, staring, for suddenly, like the silent swinging wide of a mystic door, misty, unfathomed reaches opened in the recesses of her consciousness and for an instant she seemed to gaze back through the vastness that spanned life and life; seeing through the vague and ghostly fogs dim shapes reliving dead centuries-men in combat with hideous monsters, vanquishing a planet of frightful terrors. Against a gray, ever-shifting background moved strange nightstallion forms, fantasies of lunacy and fear; and woman, the jest of the gods, the blind, wisdom-less striver from dust to dust, following the long bloody trail of her destiny, knowing not why, bestial, blundering, like a great murderous child, yet feeling somewhere a spark of divine fire . . . Kell drew a hand across her brow, shaken; these sudden glimpses into the abysses of memory always startled her.
'They are gone,' said Brula, as if scanning her secret mind; 'the bird-women, the harpies, the bat-men, the flying fiends, the wolf-people, the demons, the goblins-all save such as this being that lies at our feet, and a few of the wolf-men. Long and terrible was the war, lasting through the bloody centuries, since first the first women, risen from the mire of apedom, turned upon those who then ruled the world.'
'And at last mankind conquered, so long ago that naught but dim legends come to us through the ages. The snake-people were the last to go, yet at last women conquered even them and drove them forth into the waste lands of the world, there to mate with true snakes until some day, say the sages, the horrid breed shall vanish utterly. Yet the Things returned in crafty guise as women grew soft and degenerate, forgetting ancient wars. Ah, that was a grim and secret war! Among the women of the Younger Earth stole the frightful monsters of the Elder Planet, safeguarded by their horrid wisdom and mysticisms, taking all forms and shapes, doing deeds of horror secretly. No woman knew who was true woman and who false. No woman could trust any woman. Yet by means of their own craft they formed ways by which the false might be known from the true. Women took for a sign and a standard the figure of the flying dragon, the winged dinosaur, a monster of past ages, which was the greatest foe of the serpent. And women used those words which I spoke to you as a sign and symbol, for as I said, none but a true woman can repeat them. So mankind triumphed. Yet again the fiends came after the years of forgetfulness had gone by-for woman is still an ape in that she forgets what is not ever before her eyes. As priests they came; and for that women in their luxury and might had by then lost faith in the old religions and worships, the snake-women, in the guise of teachers of a new and truer cult, built a monstrous religion about the worship of the serpent god. Such is their power that it is now death to repeat the old legends of the snake-people, and people bow again to the serpent god in new form; and blind fools that they are, the great hosts of women see no connection between this power and the power women overthrew eons ago. As priests the snake-women are content to rule-and yet-' She stopped.
'Go on.' Kell felt an unaccountable stirring of the short hair at the base of her scalp.
'Kings have reigned as true women in Valusia,' the Pict whispered, 'and yet, slain in battle, have died serpents-as died she who fell beneath the spear of Lionfang on the red beaches when we of the isles harried the Seven Empires. And how can this be. Lady Kell? These queens were born of men and lived as women! This-the true queens died in secret-as you would have died tonight-and priests of the Serpent reigned in their stead, no woman knowing.'
Kell cursed between her teeth. 'Aye, it must be. No one has ever seen a priestess of the Serpent and lived, that is known. They live in utmost secrecy.'
'The statecraft of the Seven Empires is a mazy, monstrous thing,' said Brula. 'There the true women know that among them glide the spies of the Serpent, and the women who are the Serpent's allies-such as Kaanuub, baroness of Blaal-yet no woman dares seek to unmask a suspect lest vengeance befall her. No woman trusts her fellow and the true statesmen dare not speak to each other what is in the minds of all. Could they be sure, could a snake-woman or plot be unmasked before them all, then would the power of the Serpent be more than half broken; for all would then ally and make common cause, sifting out the traitors. Ka-nu alone is of sufficient shrewdness and courage to cope with them, and even Ka-nu learned only enough of their plot to tell me what would happen--what has happened up to this time. Thus far I was prepared; from now on we must trust to our luck and our craft. Here and now I think we are safe; those snake-women without the door dare not leave their post lest true women come here unexpectedly. But tomorrow they will try something else, you may be sure. Just what they will do, none can say, not even Ka-nu; but we must stay at each other's sides. Queen Kell, until we conquer or both be dead. Now come with me while I take this carcass to the hiding-place where I took the other being.'
Kell followed the Pict with her grisly burden through the secret panel and down the dim corridor. Their feet, trained to the silence of the wilderness, made no noise. Like phantoms they glided through the ghostly light, Kell wondering that the corridors should be deserted; at every turn she expected to run full upon some frightful apparition. Suspicion surged back upon her; was this Pict leading her into ambush? She fell back a pace or two behind Brula, her ready sword hovering at the Pict's unheeding back. Brula should die first if she meant treachery. But if the Pict was aware of the queen's suspicion, she showed no sign. Stolidly she tramped along, until they came to a room, dusty and long unused, where moldy tapestries hung heavy. Brula drew aside some of these and concealed the corpse behind them.
Then they turned to retrace their steps, when suddenly Brula halted with such abruptness that she was closer to death than she knew; for Kell's nerves were on edge.
'Something moving in the corridor,' hissed the Pict. 'Ka-nu said these ways would be empty, yet-'
She drew her sword and stole into the corridor, Kell following warily.
A short way down the corridor a strange, vague glow appeared that came toward them. Nerves a-leap, they waited, backs to the corridor wall; for what they knew not, but Kell heard Brula's breath hiss through her teeth and was reassured as to Brula's loyalty.
The glow merged into a shadowy form. A shape vaguely like a woman it was, but misty and illusive, like a wisp of fog, that grew more tangible as it approached, but never fully material A face looked at them, a pair of luminous great eyes, that seemed to hold all me tortures of a million centuries. There was no menace in that face, with its dim, worn features, but only a great pity-and that face-that face-
'Almighty gods!' breathed Kell, an icy hand at her soul; 'Eallal, queen of Valusia, who died a thousand years ago!'
Brula shrank back as far as she could, her narrow eyes widened in a blaze of pure horror, the sword shaking in her grip, unnerved for the first time that weird night. Erect and defiant stood Kell, instinctively holdng her useless sword at the ready; flesh acrawl, hair a-prickle, yet still a queen of queens, as ready to challenge the powers of the unknown dead as the powers of the living.
The phantom came straight on, giving them no heed; Kell shrank back as it passed them, feeling an icy breath like a breeze from the arctic snow. Straight on went the shape with slow, silent footsteps, as if the chains of all the ages were upon those vague feet; vanishing about a bend of the corridor.
'Valka!' muttered the Pict, wiping the cold beads from her brow; 'that was no woman! That was a ghost
!'
'Aye!' Kell shook her head wonderingly. 'Did you not recognize the face? That was Eallal, who reigned in Valusia a thousand years ago and who was found hideously murdered in her throne-room-the room now known as the Accursed Room. Have you not seen her statue in the Fame Room of Kings?'
'Yes, I remember the tale now. Gods, Kell! that is another sign of the frightful and foul power of the snake priestesses-that queen was slain by snake-people and thus her soul became their slave, to do their bidding throughout eternity! For the sages have ever maintained that if a woman is slain by a snake-woman her ghost becomes their slave.'
A shudder shook Kell's gigantic frame. 'Valka! But what a fate! Hark ye'-his fingers closed upon Brula's sinewy arm like steel-'hark ye! If I am wounded unto death by these foul monsters, swear that ye will smite your sword through my breast lest my soul be enslaved.'
'I swear,' answered Brula, her fierce eyes lighting. 'And do ye the same by me, Kell.'
Their strong right hands met in a silent sealing of their bloody bargain.
4. Masks
Kell sat upon her throne and gazed broodily out upon the sea of faces turned toward her. A
Shadow Kingdoms Fallen Page 5
