“Tutul Xac thought so, but it was the truth. Long ago, before ever I saw you, I went out into your world and saw life and laughter and—and love. Those things I had never known in Chichen Chikin. I wanted, then, to be a part of that life, not to destroy it for the sake of a few old men on another world. I prayed, my Steven, that you would rescue me. For ages, I have hated Tutul Xac, have rebelled against his cruelty in my heart. But always his will was too strong—until you came and lent strength to my spirit.”
“When we get out of here,” Markham began, “I promise you’ll know all the things you—”
Behind them, the golden beam that still partially supported their aching bodies whipped out, blanketing them with impenetrable darkness.
Freed of all support, Markham’s body dragged downward with fearful weight. His hands slipped and tore as they lost their grip on the rock. He felt a narrow point of rock and somehow got one arm hooked over it.
Beside him in the darkness, he heard a quick rustle of movement and a gasp of terror. He threw out his free arm blindly and caught Tolkilla just as she was slipping from her slender perch. For a moment his one arm, crooked over the nub of rock, supporting both their bodies as they swung precariously over the dizzying depth. The agony of tearing weight on Markham’s arm brought a sob of agony to his lips.
“My arm—is—slipping. Can’t—hold—any longer,” he gasped hoarsely. “Goodbye—Tolkil—”
His arm tore free of its slender hold.
CHAPTER X
Backs to the Wall
Their fall was barely beginning when the golden beam flashed back. The fatal plunge was instantly slowed, and desperation gave Markham the strength he needed to claw a fresh grip on the rough stone. It was only a momentary arresting of their fall, but it gave Tolkilla time to get a resting place. Freed of her added weight, Markham felt almost buoyant.
“The end is not yet,” Tolkilla exulted. “Tutul Xac guessed we were in the shaft and turned off the beam so we would be plunged to destruction. But when our bodies failed to come crashing down, he thought he had guessed wrong. He turned the beam back on quickly, then, in order to rush more warriors down this shaft. They will come dropping down at any moment.”
“Then, climb as you never climbed before,” Markham gritted.
He fairly hurled his aching body up the steep shaft, finding and using impossible handholds in his desperation. And Tolkilla, panting and sobbing from exhaustion, kept pace with his frantic ascent.
Abruptly, they reached the tunnel ledge and hauled themselves out onto solid rock. They had barely time to drag their numbed bodies into the shadowy tunnel mouth when the shaft suddenly filled with a horde of feathered warriors, flashing down past their hiding place to the passage below. Only the speed of their descent and grim concentration on their goal below kept the warriors from spying the two exhausted figures stretched on the middle ledge.
“Come on,” Markham groaned when the warriors had all hurtled past. “We’ve got to run. They’ll discover any moment that we aren’t down below and then no place will be safe from search. Lead on to those stairs.”
It seemed to Markham that he ran for hours through inky blackness, guided only by Tolkilla’s hand and the patter of her feet. At last, they slowed and crept, hand in hand to the edge of a lighted chamber at the foot of a mounting stairway. Two feathered guards, sunlight guns in their hands, stood alertly at the foot of the stairs. Across the chamber loomed the black mouth of another tunnel, the continuation of the one they were in.
Slipping past those guards unnoticed was sheer impossibility. But somehow, they had to get up those stairs and get up quickly before pursuit closed in again. And there was no other way to reach those quivering shafts of destruction far above.
“Hold your breath,” Markham whispered.
He caught up a handful of rock fragments from the floor and began to toss them, one at a time, into the opposite tunnel mouth. The fallen pebbles set up a ripple of faint echoes like the clatter of footsteps. Both guards jerked up their weapons and whirled toward the other tunnel.
Markham held his breath until, after an exchange of puzzled whispers, the two guards crept toward the black tunnel mouth to investigate. As they halted there, light beams probing the passage, their backs were turned toward Markham.
“While we’re fighting,” Markham whispered, “get by and race upstairs. Smash those shafts—for my sake.”
Then he spun and raced on his toes toward the unsuspecting guards.
The rustle of his movement reached their ears. They whirled, tried to center their weapons on the plunging figure but Markham was already too close. His crooked arms darted out and encircled two bronzed necks. For a moment they reeled and shuffled in a grim dance of death.
Then, Markham got the leverage he wanted. Two plumed heads crashed together with sickening impact and the two figures went limp in his arms.
“Round one,” he exulted and dropped the lifeless bodies, tossing one of the captured weapons to Tolkilla.
Side by side they raced up the carved stairs and burst out through a curtain of hanging silks into a huge chamber that was much like the one in which Markham had been held prisoner.
A startled guard whirled at their noisy entrance and snatched at the sunlight gun in his belt. Markham’s beam lashed out mercilessly and the guard went down with a gaping hole seared through his breast.
Nauseated, Markham hurdled the reeking body and raced after Tolkilla toward an arched doorway. On the threshold, he turned and blasted the deadly, concentrated sunlight around the room in quick, sharp bursts of blinding light. Curtains, draperies, cushions burst into flame.
“Might—raise enough—hell—to—delay—any—pursuers,” he panted.
They sped down dark, silent corridors, between huge formless stone statues that towered up into the darkness above like vengeful entities. Another door burst open at their impact and tumbled them out into the open air, under the radiance of a silvery moon that seemed to hang almost within arm’s length, turning the night into blazing brilliance.
“Steven!” Tolkilla’s warning cry rang sharply.
A dozen plumed figures poured out of the shadows. Markham dropped to his knees a split-second ahead of a golden beam that lashed the air where he had been, spraying his face with fiery needles of intense heat.
Then, his own beam was lashing back, cutting down the startled guards. Beside him, Tolkilla crouched low, the gun in her own slender hand adding its blazing flare to Markham’s relentless fire.
The last guard went down, but the night was awake with the sudden echo of pounding feet as other warriors rushed to answer their comrades’ shouts. Markham’s shoulder was throbbing to the searing agony of a beam’s caress but he was hardly conscious of the pain.
With Tolkilla beside him, he raced away from the thunder of approaching feet, diving into the denser shadows for cover, skirting close to the square buildings and the smaller pyramids.
“Close your mind,” Tolkilla panted a warning. “Do not think intensely about anything—especially your own plans or your goal. Tutul Xac’s mind will be questing for your thought vibrations to betray your movements.”
“Hell!” Markham cursed. “I never thought of that, and my mind has been practically shouting everything I’m trying to accomplish.”
“We can only pray that he has so far missed your thought-pictures.”
“Take me the shortest way to the other metal shaft,” Markham whispered. “Not the one by the altars but the other one, across the city. That one might not be guarded so closely and destroying it would accomplish my purpose just as well. Neither one will do the job without the other.”
For the moment, they seemed to have shaken off pursuit. Then, Markham’s breath caught at the sight of the second great pyramid a short way ahead, its slender silver finger lifting beckon
ingly toward the eager moon overhead.
Behind them, a plume of black smoke billowed up, hiding the stars. An angry crimson glow tinged the bottom of that cloud and the wailing of innumerable voices rose on the air. The fire started by Markham’s weapon seemed to have spread and drawn a large share of the population.
“Come on!” Markham cried. “Whatever happens to us now, we’ve got to get one good blast at that spire, either with sunlight beams or my dynamite. Anything to break up those vibrations and ruin the pitch of the shaft.”
“Wait,” Tolkilla laid a restraining hand on his arm and held him in the shadows. “There may be a trap laid for us at the pyramid. I will project my image on ahead to investigate.”
While Markham fidgeted with impatience, she stiffened into deep concentration. A moment later, his staring eyes saw a second Tolkilla, different only in a shimmering mistiness, move through the shadows toward the looming bulk of the pyramid. Markham held his breath as the phantom drifted across a patch of open moonlight and raced up the stone steps.
He saw her there, moving about, for some time. Then, she vanished and beside him, the real Tolkilla stirred and sighed.
“All clear?” Markham demanded eagerly. “Come on.”
“Wait!” Her voice was sharp with bewilderment. “There is no one in sight, no signs of a trap. And I am certain no guards are concealed close enough to reach us with the light beams. But I am afraid, my Steven—terribly afraid. It is not natural or right for the spire of the Great Attainment to be left so unguarded when everyone in Chichen Chikin would lay down his life to protect it.”
“Nonsense,” Markham growled impatiently. “The whole crowd is demoralized by our escape and by the fire that’s spreading. They don’t know what they’re doing tonight. Come on, before some guards do show up.” Heedless of her protests, he raced forward, sunlight gun in hand. A moment later, his feet were pounding up the stone stairs toward the towering finger of moon metal far above. Tolkilla, racing beside him, moaned in terror. “Please, my Steven—”
Bam!
The smashing report and the accompanying spurt of crimson flame leaped at them from the shadows of a huge building several hundred yards away. Something that was like a white-hot hammer slammed the back of Markham’s head. He stumbled, heard Tolkilla’s scream rising as from a great distance, and plunged forward in the swirling black clouds of unconsciousness that swept up to engulf him.
His last visual impression was of tumbling over and over down the long steps, of hearing another shot from the Luger, and of seeing Tolkilla throw up her hands, spin around and fall in a crumpled heap.
CHAPTER XI
The Doomed Land
Markham could not have been unconscious more than a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, he was still lying head downward on the steps with Tolkilla close by. And down below, hundreds of feathered warriors with Tutul Xac at their head, were racing toward the foot of the pyramid’s stairs. The lean priest’s clawed right hand was holding the Luger with all the casual ease of a trained marksman.
This was not too surprising, considering the fact that Tutul Xac had been able to project himself out into the world at any time or place, to study and absorb knowledge at his leisure. He might even have had guns brought in from the outer world for study and practice.
The trap itself was horribly clear to Markham now. Instead of lurking at the base of the pyramid, within range of their sunlight guns, the warriors had withdrawn beyond chance of discovery and depended upon the long range Luger to snap the death trap for them. Beyond a doubt, Tutul Xac had caught Markham’s unconscious thoughts and had been perfectly aware that this was his goal.
Markham stirred painfully and saw that Tolkilla’s eyes were open.
“You are alive,” she whispered joyfully. “I pretended to be struck in order to lure Tutul Xac within range of my sun weapon.”
“Brave kid,” Markham whispered.
His heart was leaping with new courage. Tutul Xac was not such a deadly shot after all. He had completely missed Tolkilla and his shot at Markham had no more than creased the back of his skull.
The racing warriors were close—but not yet quite close enough for beams of deadly sunlight to be effective.
Markham fumbled cautiously in his pocket while Tolkilla stared in wonder. Abruptly a match flame broke into brilliance in his hands and the sight brought a roar of surprised fury from the charging mob below. Markham surged to his knees and used every ounce of his strength to hurl a sputtering dynamite stick, straight up toward the top of the pyramid where a group of bronzed warriors, appearing out of nowhere, were charging down to pin the two between their ranks.
There was no time to speculate on how the new group of attackers had reached the top. The explosion of the dynamite was hurling terrible thunder into the sky, smashing helpless warriors into bits, when Markham snatched out another stick.
From below came the bam-bam of the Luger. A slug screamed from the steps in front of Markham’s face, filling eyes with rock splinters. Another thudded solidly into a step beside him.
“Up!” Markham roared, leaping to his feet. “Run for the top! Those babies up there are disorganized anyhow. And keep twisting so a bullet can’t hit you.”
Straight at the disorganized warriors above they ran. Markham hurdled a torn body and raced on, furiously capping another dynamite stick. Tolkilla’s light ray lashed the life from a warrior above and the others fell back beyond the rim. Behind them, the beams of their attackers from below were heating the rocks underfoot to molten agony.
Running, dodging, twisting, Markham lit and hurled another dynamite stick, ignoring the pursuers below to concentrate on his goal of blasting the deadly vibrating spire above. The blast nearly swept them from the steps but it discouraged any resistance from above. Another dynamite stick, thrown back down the steps this time, did horrible damage to the front ranks of the charging mob. There was not time to see if Tutul Xac was among the victims.
Markham snatched out another dynamite stick and realized with a sinking heart that it was his last. This one had to smash the moon metal spire.
They raced up onto the pyramid’s top. Three surviving warriors sprang at them but their sunlight guns seemed useless, probably shattered. Tolkilla’s beam cut down two of them in midstride.
Markham dodged the plunge of the third, hunched over a match flame for a moment and then hurled his last stick of dynamite straight at the base of the slender spire. The mushrooming explosion rocked the pyramid under their feet and for a moment flame and smoke hid the deadly spire.
Then, a sob tore through Markham’s set teeth. The tall shaft seemed unharmed, although the rock at its base was shattered to bits. It seemed almost as though the moon metal was impervious to the terrible destructive fury of the blast.
“Tolkilla! Quick, the sunlight on the spire!”
He snatched his own weapon, felt it torn from his hands. The surviving warrior was upon him, knocking the weapon from his hand.
In that agonizing second, Markham saw Tolkilla pounding frantically against the golden lever of her own weapon, but the gun was either damaged or empty.
And over the pyramid’s brink, now poured a maniacal horde of screaming, yelling warriors, survivors of Markham’s dynamite attack, thirsty for the blood of their enemies. Tutul Xac himself was in the lead, mad flames leaping in his black eyes.
Markham drove off his adversary with a hail of smashing blows and then launched himself straight at Tutul Xac’s charging figure.
They met with bone-shattering impact. The priest’s steel fingers clawed at Markham’s throat. The geologist tore free, drove a whirlwind of smashing, scientific blows into the thin hawk face before him. Warriors, ringing their battling figures, sought to break in and tear Markham away from his enemy. From the corner of his eye, he saw Tolkilla helplessly pinned in th
e grasp of massive warriors.
Abruptly, Markham stiffened and threw up his hands while a shriek of sheer agony burst from his lips.
Louder, stronger, more terrible than ever before came the agonizing doom-sound—the nerve-shattering drone of the great spire in full vibration. Before its flaming torture, Markham’s brain reeled helplessly and his muscles turned to water.
Then suddenly, the agony lifted. The piercing drone deepened, changed to an audible whine that dropped with terrible speed to a full-toned rumble of super-sound.
The warriors and Tutul Xac, who had been paralyzed by Markham’s unexpected actions, fell back with cries of fright at the roaring sound. Underfoot, the heavy rock of the pyramid’s cap heaved and pitched and split apart. For a moment it seemed to Markham that the whole universe was rocking dizzily to the rhythm of that terrible sound.
The movement was too much for the warriors. With yells of terror they broke and raced down the rocking, pitching steps—steps that broke under their feet and opened gaping pits of death. Tutul Xac, snarling in rage, raced after them.
“The spire,” Markham cried. “The dynamite couldn’t crack it but it set up new vibrations, all out of pitch. It’s shaking Chichen Chikin apart. Run!”
He caught Tolkilla’s trembling figure and raced down the steps, hurdling gaping cracks, dodging and staggering and somehow reaching the solid ground beneath unharmed.
“To the shaft,” Markham shouted. “Lead us to the shaft. We’ve got to get down and into the plane before the whole plateau shakes apart. There’s no telling what the new vibrations will do.”
They fled down the pitching, rocking street, past screaming mobs who ignored their presence as they raced helplessly up and down the cracking streets of the doomed city.
“In here, my Steven.”
They darted through an opening an instant before the wall itself collapsed. At their feet was the mouth of the smaller shaft, still alight with the golden radiance of the beam. At any moment, that force might be shut off or wrecked by the mounting fury of the quake.
The Adventure Novella MEGAPACK® Page 21
