The seal which he had painstakingly set upon his inner being held. Even so, he prayed for strength as he backed away from the water and into the aisle in the machinery from which he had first come. After him flowed the monster, and behind it, in turn, came the remaining spires.
No more did the House use its vile blandishments to make him an ally and thus attempt to lure him within its reach. For it recognized him. Its hatred of the one being who had ever broken its power and had helped destroy much of its awful kingdom overcame it, until its strange composite mind could think of nothing else but to obliterate the impudent minikin before it. What—did the very inner parts of its buried realm, its hidden mates’ playground, hold no safety from this feared and dreaded enemy? On, on, and slay! Its speed increased, and its groping, vibrissal pseudo-pods flailed the dead air as it sought to rend him.
Carefully, judging his speed to a nicety, Hiero fled from the thing and its pack of followers. The assaults on his mind he repelled, content merely to ward off the House’s attack and not to try to retaliate. Any such trial on his part might serve instead to open new corners of his own brain to fresh and unknown assaults. Who knew of what else the monster was capable if allowed, even for an instant, to forget its mad rage?
Down the silent, dust-laden corridors, under the dim illumination of the glowing bars of millennia-old light, the strange chase continued. The human fled; the living lord of the slime sought to overtake him and extinguish its bitterest foe from the earth. Save for the light footfalls and breathing of the man and the sucking, slithering noise of the fungoid pack’s progress, there was utter quiet. The deadly race, to an observer, would have appeared some strange and voiceless charade or shadow show. The squat House and the tall, dozen remaining mold pillars sped on; the man ran; the shrouded, ancient machines were backdrop.
Always, the priest led his pursuers south, shifting a little back and forth so that it would not be too obvious and straight a road, but never going very far from the line he had chosen. And now, at length, there fell upon his ear a sound for which he had yearned. It was the distant vibration of a legion of people moving, the faint but distinct echo of many feet! The Unclean host was upon them and must even now be debouching into the great cavern!
Still, husbanding his strength, Hiero ran on; and, implacable as ever, the alien master of the mold-things and its last minions followed on his track, centuries-old dust by now coloring them all the same pallid gray.
At a certain intersection of two opposing aisles, Hiero suddenly increased his speed. His careful appearance of fatigue was suddenly shed, as quickly as that of a parent bird whose apparently broken wing has led the searcher far from, its huddled young.
Now he turned and darted away at full speed, taking the House by surprise as he did so. He flashed away toward the south wall and then—barely before leaving the shelter of the machines—darted into a narrow gap between two huge engines and was gone. One instant the House thought it had him trapped, the next he was utterly vanished!
Ravening, the unstable, shifting bulk increased its speed, layers of filth and dust flying as it sped forward in the manner of some Brobdingnagian snail on its rippling base, its slender mates coming on in its wake.
Hiero, now two hundred yards off and well to the left of his former track, peered cautiously out toward the open, the southern end of the ancient cave. What he saw made him draw breath in exultation.
Pouring into the cave, rank upon rank, file upon file, came the massed forces of the Unclean. Even as he watched, the last ones entered the great cave, and the tunnel gaped empty behind them. At least two hundred creatures were already streaming across the open, some of them men in dark uniform clothes, armed with pikes, others Leemutes in their own skins. He recognized red Hairy Howlers, brown Man-rats, and, far off to one side, a clump of the new things he had first encountered on the ship, the Gliths, their gray, scaly hides glistening. Not far from the entrance itself, marshaling their forces, were a group of men in dark cloaks and hoods. The adepts were preparing for a master stroke, and he smiled grimly as he thought that only one man was the cause of all this preparation! Truly, the enemy had not been properly challenged for a long time.
And then it happened. The first part of his desperate scheme came to fruition, just as he had planned it and willed it, but (down inside) never dared believe it would.
Out into the open from the central passageway, charging along in its blind rage, seeking the hated human and oblivious of ail else, came the House!
From his vantage point, Hiero could see it all, every stage of the weird ensuing drama. All movement ceased instantly out on the quarter mile of open, between the machines and the cavern wall Not a man, not an Unclean mutant, stirred. The little group of hooded masters of evil were frozen, standing with their heads together, as if turned to ice in the middle of their plots.
He spared a glance for the House. It too had checked and come to a halt, and for once its own unstable, wobbly outlines were not moving. A little way out in the open from the street he had just quit, it halted, its acolytes motionless also. Its pursuit was forgotten as it strove to adjust to a new situation with all the power at its command.
I’m right! the priest exulted. The strange, mesmeric power of the House was unaffected by the Unclean mechanical screens, screens which Hiero himself had been unable to penetrate. The House really did not operate on the brain at all, and the blocking power the Unclean scientists had devised was therefore useless against it.
Around him, surging in a way which to his sensitive mind was practically physical, Hiero could feel the ferocious wills of the Unclean overlords struggling to be free. But the only free brains in the House’s environs now were his own and those under his protection. The monster’s pressure upon his had ceased as it grappled with its new and unexpected foes. It had never had so many creatures to control before and it was having a hard time holding them immobile. Hiero, observing from the “outside,” so to speak, could actually feel, with his mind, the House’s efforts to maintain its screen as the swarm of enemy beings tried to break the hold it had laid on their bodies.
But now the priest was himself in motion again, running hard to the left along the southern tier of silent engines. He kept in the shadows, and neither the House nor the Unclean army seemed aware of his flitting shape, engrossed as they were in their silent grapple.
In a few moments he spied tracks in the dust ahead of him, coming from the center of the mechanical maze, and followed them to an alcove between two canopied buttresses. Here, Brother Aldo, the girl, and the bear were waiting, the humans’ faces strained and intent and even Gorm shaking with excitement and shifting nervously from one paw to another.
Come on! Hiero sent. Don’t even think from now on if you can help it. I’m going to keep covering your minds. Aldo—build a reserve shield under mine, if you can. Now, let’s go—fast!
“Hiero,” Luchare cried, trying to say something, but the blazing glance he spared her made whatever message she had die unspoken.
They were only a few steps from the open space on the south, and he led them quickly out into it. He felt Luchare, whom he was actually leading by the hand, tremble at her first sight of the massed enemy off to their right, but she never faltered. Behind them, the other two trotted in their wake, raising yet more dust. By now, Hiero thought, we must be visible. God help us if my screen drops!
The House did indeed sense their motion somehow. Despite the efforts it was putting forth to hold the Unclean ranks imprisoned, it spared another bolt for them. Hiero warded it off, using his new technique, with almost contemptuous ease. Once one knew how the House operated, its traps were not all that clever, and besides, now it could spare only a fraction of its strength.
But to the other enemy, who had never met it before, its methods were deadly indeed. Strain as they might, the Unclean army, masters and slaves, Leemute and human, could not move a muscle. Two evil forces worked to allow the good freedom!
Soon Hiero was
compelled to pass close to a squad of black-clad soldiers with dark, metal helmets and long spears. They had been racing toward the northern section and the House had caught and held them in mid-stride. Their eyes gleamed with deadly hatred as the four loped by, but they could not twitch so much as a finger to impede their progress.
Another such group and another they passed, living yet locked like statues in the foul embrace of the fungoid horror.
Next they passed what had been a crouching, bounding crew of giant Man-rats, creatures Hiero knew well from the past as devilish foes, huge, mutated rodents with all of human reasoning ability and clawed hands as capable as any man’s. Their fists now clutched sharp knives, clubs, and long lances, while their brown-furred bodies bore elaborate harness and equipment. But no more than their human allies could they break the grip of the House on muscle and nerve. Only the red eyes glared with hate.
Next, close to the mouth of the tunnel itself, the fleeing four came to the half-dozen hooded shapes of the enemy commanders. Of those looking his way, Hiero could see the knowledge and hatred flare in their eyes as his little group passed by. But though they would, he did not doubt, cheerfully die in order that he too might be slain, they were as helpless as the stupidest and least of the evil servitors in their forces. For it was obvious that they did not understand the House’s power and methods any more than had the warrior-priest himself when he first encountered it.
His crossbow slung, he carried his sword-knife in his right hand as he ran, leading the panting Luchare with his left. But his fear that one or more of the Unclean would free himself proved groundless. On past the last of them, a pair of Howlers whose acrid stench supervened even over the drifting reek of the House, he sped, the others close behind. They were actually into the tunnel now, and he saw at once why the enemy had chosen and used it.
Before them, still clear in the remaining light of the cavern’s glowing rods, stretched a smooth, level ramp, thirty feet across, curving up in a gentle spiral sweep into the gloom ahead. Many heavy feet had beaten a path down the dusty floor; the dust had hardly had time to settle, but the way ahead seemed clear enough.
The priest stopped and relit the firepot to which he had stubbornly clung ever since he had shot his flaming arrow into the living towers of the fungi. They would need some light ahead, for they were leaving the artificial glow of the lost cavern.
He released Luchare’s hand, pushed her on, and waved the others past. In silence they moved, obedient to his orders. Alone, Hiero watched the scene below for a last, fascinated instant. About his head, he had never stopped feeling the surging currents and giant forces in contest as the Unclean tried to free themselves and the countergrip of the House still stubbornly kept them trapped in its invisible mesh. One look only he spared, seeing for the last time the slime-bedewed, grayish shape, its attendant pale cones towering over it, and between it and himself, the equally silent, motionless legions which had come to destroy him.
The Metz turned and ran, holding his lamp high as he caught up to the others. They had not gone far, but were waiting for him only a little above. Aldo held the other lamp, and Luchare was just filling it from the now depleted oilskin, which she cast away. They did not light it but fell in behind Hiero and began their upward journey. He set a sharp pace and no one questioned it, but they were all too exhausted to run, and a brisk walk was the best they could do.
“How long can it hold them, do you suppose?” Luchare gasped at length.
“Long enough,” Hiero said curtly. “For God’s sake, darling, save your breath! We’re not out of danger yet. The ancient had exact time devices and I don’t! Just keep walking and try to keep your mind a blank.”
She did not flare up in anger, for she recognized by now that his orders had reason, and they trudged on in silence. The light showed the ramp to be almost featureless, a great tube, lined with some age-defying substance, which had been cut into the earth and rock with micrometer precision by its long-dead makers. Once or twice they passed a sealed opening in the walls, but they did not stop. There were no lights visible, and only the flicker of their little lamp lit the way.
This must have been the main path, the priest reflected, driving his weary legs forward and upward. They had been walking a long time, at least it felt like forever, but he dared not rest. The forces trapped in that place behind them were too awful to take any chances with. But talking might ease the strain.
“Did you find any computers?” he asked at length.
“No,” was Aldo’s answer. “Such a search might take a week, or a month. But Luchare found something. She is carrying it. Do you think the Unclean can free themselves? They have the man and beast power to find anything there. And what about the House? It is so powerful, Hiero. What might it not do with the knowledge of the past?”
“The house nothing about the past or machines or weapons. I know what it thinks or feels as well as anyone human that is now alive. It has no use for mechanical devices, but only what it makes or grows itself.” He forgot Luchare’s find as his worry reasserted itself.
“Yet it, or perhaps one of its creatures, was looking around at the control board. Don’t forget that.”
“I know.” Hiero’s laugh was grim. “And it had no idea what it was doing, I’m sure of that too. Yet it may have given us a way out by its action. How long have we been walking, do you suppose?”
“At least an hour, I should think. Are we safe yet?”
“No. Keep walking. We’ve got to keep on till we drop, if necessary. I can still feel the pressure behind me. And the House is weakening!”
“Can they kill it and follow us? Maybe we can block this tunnel, then.” Luchare’s tone was defiant, her attitude that of the princess she was. Hiero’s heart warmed to her.
“Maybe we can,” he said more cheerfully. “But it hasn’t quite let go yet. It never had to control so many powerful minds before, all alien to it and all trying to break loose. It hasn’t dared move, I can feel that, all right. Perhaps it’s summoning some of its carnivorous slime molds. And the Unclean are still there too. I can feel all their minds, even under their screens, like one big ball of force.”
“I also,” Aldo admitted. “What an amazing creature the House is. How I would like to know it, to learn what it thinks, feels, and wants from life.” His tone was wistful.
Hiero glanced at his aged ally in amazement. The Eleventh Commandment really embraced everything, it seemed!
We are close to the good air. Gorm had been waddling unhappily along, his pink tongue hanging out and his fur an inch deep in gray film. Now he scented escape from this underground world he disliked, and his spirits lifted.
Hiero momentarily covered the lamp with the edge of his cloak, and they all strained their eyes. Was there a faint lessening of the blackness ahead? The very thought revived their flagging energy.
Soon it was a reality. As the light grew, Hiero slowed his pace, may be a rearguard,” he said. “They’d be fools if there weren’t something of the kind. Let me probe a bit while you three rest and catch your breath.”
His mind sped forward ahead of them, seeking any intelligence that might be lurking above at the tunnel’s mouth. But he could detect nothing, not even the shrouded energy which he had learned meant an Unclean mind shield. Unbelievable as it seemed, the whole force of the enemy had apparently plunged into the bowels of the earth, so overconfident of his destruction it had left nothing behind.
He told the others this, and they went cautiously on. Three more great curves, and the light was quite strong enough to make the guttering lamp unnecessary.
The faint calling and piping of birds came to their ears now, and even the human noses could catch the sweet scent of the air which poured down the shaft.
“Let me go first.” Hiero took the lead again and soon saw the great, opened doors ahead. He absently noted the shattered hinges and, when he stepped outside, the cleverness of the device amazed him. For the two huge doors were made of something on
the outside which imitated weathered, gray rock and yet which must have been far more impervious than any granite. The Unclean had been indeed cunning to penetrate their secret and so quickly follow on his traces.
All this raced through his mind as he drank in the cool air of the tropic dawn, but he urged the others on as before.
“Hurry,” he said, “hurry! We can’t delay yet! We may not be safe for hours!” He gave Luchare, who was stumbling, his arm again. He was oblivious to the packet to which she clung with her other hand, for her telescoped spear was now tucked through her belt.
The four set off to the south over the boulder-strewn waste onto which the huge tunnel had opened. Limping and staggering, they went on, no one questioning Hiero’s iron determination or right to drive them thus. Aldo now frankly leaned on his heavy staff, something no one had seen him do before.
Still they staggered on, their breath coming in painful gasps, their muscles twitching and burning. The ground was semi-desert, tall weeds and thorn bush growing up through patches of rock and scree. The cool air of dawn gave way to the burning heat of morning and (very slowly now) they hobbled forward. Time seemed to pass with terrible slowness.
Then it happened. Hiero, who had been listening both with his mind and his other senses, felt it first.
“Down!” he shouted and, falling, pulled Luchare close to him. Aldo, too, fell prone, while the bear simply collapsed.
First came a gentle tremor of the earth, so slight it might have deceived them into thinking it was a muscle spasm of their own overused bodies.
Then the earth began to shake and heave, rising and falling in a great wave, as if the tiny atoms of flesh which clung to it were being tossed in some inconceivable blanket. For the first time, Gorm let out a howl of sheer terror.
A distant, muffled roar filled the air. Slowly the heaving of the troubled earth died away. A ringing in their ears also ceased. They raised their heads and looked at one another. Hiero was the first to grin, his white teeth flashing in a countenance so dirty it looked like pure mud. Then Aldo laughed, a deep-throated, ringing sound. Hard on his heels a bird began to sing nearby, tentatively at first, then bursting into its full series of rippling cadences.
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