by C. L. Moore
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
The Tree of Life
By C. L. MOORE
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _A gripping tale of the planet Mars and the terriblemonstrosity that called its victims to it from afar--a tale of NorthwestSmith_]
Over time-ruined Illar the searching planes swooped and circled.Northwest Smith, peering up at them with a steel-pale stare from theshelter of a half-collapsed temple, thought of vultures wheeling abovecarrion. All day long now they had been raking these ruins for him.Presently, he knew, thirst would begin to parch his throat and hunger tognaw at him. There was neither food nor water in these ancient Martianruins, and he knew that it could be only a matter of time before theurgencies of his own body would drive him out to signal those wheelingPatrol ships and trade his hard-won liberty for food and drink. Hecrouched lower under the shadow of the temple arch and cursed theaccuracy of the Patrol gunner whose flame-blast had caught his dodgingship just at the edge of Illar's ruins.
Presently it occurred to him that in most Martian temples of the ancientdays an ornamental well had stood in the outer court for the benefit ofwayfarers. Of course all water in it would be a million years dry now,but for lack of anything better to do he rose from his seat at the edgeof the collapsed central dome and made his cautious way by still intactcorridors toward the front of the temple. He paused in a tangle ofwreckage at the courtyard's edge and looked out across the sun-drenchedexpanse of pavement toward that ornate well that once had servedtravelers who passed by here in the days when Mars was a green planet.
It was an unusually elaborate well, and amazingly well preserved. Itsrim had been inlaid with a mosaic pattern whose symbolism must once haveborne deep meaning, and above it in a great fan of time-defying bronzean elaborate grille-work portrayed the inevitable tree-of-life patternwhich so often appears in the symbolism of the three worlds. Smithlooked at it a bit incredulously from his shelter, it was somiraculously preserved amidst all this chaos of broken stone, casting adelicate tracery of shadow on the sunny pavement as perfectly as it musthave done a million years ago when dusty travelers paused here to drink.He could picture them filing in at noontime through the great gatesthat----
The vision vanished abruptly as his questing eyes made the circle of theruined walls. There had been no gate. He could not find a trace of itanywhere around the outer wall of the court. The only entrance here, asnearly as he could tell from the foundations that remained, had been thedoor in whose ruins he now stood. Queer. This must have been a privatecourt, then, its great grille-crowned well reserved for the use of thepriests. Or wait--had there not been a priest-king Illar after whom thecity was named? A wizard-king, so legend said, who ruled temple as wellas palace with an iron hand. This elaborately patterned well, ofmaterial royal enough to withstand the weight of ages, might well havebeen sacrosanct for the use of that long-dead monarch. It might----
* * * * *
Across the sun-bright pavement swept the shadow of a plane. Smith dodgedback into deeper hiding while the ship circled low over the courtyard.And it was then, as he crouched against a crumbled wall and waited,motionless, for the danger to pass, that he became aware for the firsttime of a sound that startled him so he could scarcely credit hisears--a recurrent sound, choked and sorrowful--the sound of a womansobbing.
The incongruity of it made him forgetful for a moment of the perilhovering overhead in the sun-hot outdoors. The dimness of the templeruins became a living and vital place for that moment, throbbing withthe sound of tears. He looked about half in incredulity, wondering ifhunger and thirst were playing tricks on him already, or if these brokenhalls might be haunted by a million-years-old sorrow that wept along thecorridors to drive its hearers mad. There were tales of such haunters insome of Mars' older ruins. The hair prickled faintly at the back of hisneck as he laid a hand on the butt of his force-gun and commenced acautious prowl toward the source of the muffled noise.
Presently he caught a flash of white, luminous in the gloom of theseruined walls, and went forward with soundless steps, eyes narrowed inthe effort to make out what manner of creature this might be that weptalone in time-forgotten ruins. It was a woman. Or it had the dimoutlines of a woman, huddled against an angle of fallen walls and veiledin a fabulous shower of long dark hair. But there was somethinguncannily odd about her. He could not focus his pale stare upon heroutlines. She was scarcely more than a luminous blot of whiteness in thegloom, shimmering with a look of unreality which the sound of her sobsdenied.
* * * * *
Before he could make up his mind just what to do, something must havewarned the weeping girl that she was no longer alone, for the sound ofher tears checked suddenly and she lifted her head, turning to him aface no more distinguishable than her body's outlines. He made no effortto resolve the blurred features into visibility, for out of thatluminous mask burned two eyes that caught his with an almost perceptibleimpact and gripped them in a stare from which he could not have turnedif he would.
They were the most amazing eyes he had ever met, colored like moonstone,milkily translucent, so that they looked almost blind. And that magneticstare held him motionless. In the instant that she gripped him with thatfixed, moonstone look he felt oddly as if a tangible bond were tautbetween them.
Then she spoke, and he wondered if his mind, after all, had begun togive way in the haunted loneliness of dead Illar; for though the wordsshe spoke fell upon his ears in a gibberish of meaningless sounds, yetin his brain a message formed with a clarity that far transcended thehalting communication of words. And her milkily colored eyes bored intohis with a fierce intensity.
"I'm lost--I'm lost----" wailed the voice in his brain.
A rush of sudden tears brimmed the compelling eyes, veiling theirbrilliance. And he was free again with that clouding of the moonstonesurfaces. Her voice wailed, but the words were meaningless and noknowledge formed in his brain to match them. Stiffly he stepped back apace and looked down at her, a feeling of helpless incredulity risingwithin him. For he still could not focus directly upon the shiningwhiteness of her, and nothing save those moonstone eyes were clear tohim.
The girl sprang to her feet and rose on tiptoe, gripping his shoulderswith urgent hands. Again the blind intensity of her eyes took hold ofhis, with a force almost as tangible as the clutch of her hands; againthat stream of intelligence poured into his brain, strongly, pleadingly.
"Please, please take me back! I'm so frightened--I can't find myway--oh, please!"
He blinked down at her, his dazed mind gradually realizing the basicfacts of what was happening. Obviously her milky, unseeing eyes held amagnetic power that carried her thoughts to him without the need of acommon speech. And they were the eyes of a powerful mind, the outletsfrom which a stream of fierce energy poured into his brain. Yet thewords they conveyed were the words of a terrified and helpless girl. Astrong sense of wariness was rising in him as he considered theincongruity of speech and power, both of which were beating upon himmore urgently with every breath. The mind of a forceful andstrong-willed woman, carrying the sobs of a frightened girl. There wasno sincerity in it.
"Please, please!" cried her impatience in his brain. "Help me! Guide meback!"
"Back where?" he heard his own voice asking.
"The Tree!" wailed that queer speech in his brain, while gibberish wasall his ears heard and the moonstone stare transfixed him strongly. "TheTree of Life! Oh, take me b
ack to the shadow of the Tree!"
A vision of the grille-ornamented well leaped into his memory. It wasthe only tree symbol he could think of just then. But what possibleconnection could there be between the well and the lost girl--if she waslost? Another wail in that unknown tongue, another anguished shake ofhis shoulders, brought a sudden resolution into his groping mind. Therecould be no harm in leading her back to the well, to whose grille shemust surely be referring. And strong curiosity was growing in his mind.Much more than met the eye was concealed in this queer incident. And awild guess had flashed through his mind that perhaps she might have comefrom some subterranean world into which the well descended. It wouldexplain her luminous pallor, if not her blurriness; and, too, her eyesdid not seem to function in the light. There was a much more incredibleexplanation of her presence, but he was not to know it for a few minutesyet.
"Come along," he said, taking the clutching hands gently from
