The A. Merritt Megapack Read online

  “It did get me a little,” whispered Larry. “That wasn’t quite up to my mark. But God! If we could find that trick out and take it back with us!”

  “Not so, Larree!” Yolara gasped, through her laughter. “Not so! Goodwin’s cry betrayed you!”

  Her good humour had entirely returned; she was like a mischievous child pleased over some successful trick; and like a child she cried—“I’ll show you!”—signalled again; whispered to the maid who, quickly returning, laid before her a long metal case. Yolara took from her girdle something that looked like a small pencil, pressed it and shot a thin stream of light for all the world like an electric flash, upon its hasp. The lid flew open. Out of it she drew three flat, oval crystals, faint rose in hue. She handed one to O’Keefe and one to me.

  “Look!” she commanded, placing the third before her own eyes. I peered through the stone and instantly there leaped into sight, out of thin air—six grinning dwarfs! Each was covered from top of head to soles of feet in a web so tenuous that through it their bodies were plain. The gauzy stuff seemed to vibrate—its strands to run together like quick-silver. I snatched the crystal from my eyes and—the chamber was empty! Put it back—and there were the grinning six!

  Yolara gave another sign and they disappeared, even from the crystals.

  “It is what they wear, Larree,” explained Yolara, graciously. “It is something that came to us from—the Ancient Ones. But we have so few”—she sighed.

  “Such treasures must be two-edged swords, Yolara,” commented O’Keefe. “For how know you that one within them creeps not to you with hand eager to strike?”

  “There is no danger,” she said indifferently. “I am the keeper of them.”

  She mused for a space, then abruptly:

  “And now no more. You two are to appear before the Council at a certain time—but fear nothing. You, Goodwin, go with Rador about our city and increase your wisdom. But you, Larree, await me here in my garden—” she smiled at him, provocatively—maliciously, too. “For shall not one who has resisted a world of goddesses be given all chance to worship when at last he finds his own?”

  She laughed—whole-heartedly and was gone. And at that moment I liked Yolara better than ever I had before and—alas—better than ever I was to in the future.

  I noted Rador standing outside the open jade door and started to go, but O’Keefe caught me by the arm.

  “Wait a minute,” he urged. “About Golden Eyes—you were going to tell me something—it’s been on my mind all through that little sparring match.”

  I told him of the vision that had passed through my closing lids. He listened gravely and then laughed.

  “Hell of a lot of privacy in this place!” he grinned. “Ladies who can walk through walls and others with regular invisible cloaks to let ’em flit wherever they please. Oh, well, don’t let it get on your nerves, Doc. Remember—everything’s natural! That robe stuff is just camouflage of course. But Lord, if we could only get a piece of it!”

  “The material simply admits all light-vibrations, or perhaps curves them, just as the opacities cut them off,” I answered. “A man under the X-ray is partly invisible; this makes him wholly so. He doesn’t register, as the people of the motion-picture profession say.”

  “Camouflage,” repeated Larry. “And as for the Shining One—Say!” he snorted. “I’d like to set the O’Keefe banshee up against it. I’ll bet that old resourceful Irish body would give it the first three bites and a strangle hold and wallop it before it knew it had ’em. Oh! Wow! Boy Howdy!”

  I heard him still chuckling gleefully over this vision as I passed along the opal wall with the green dwarf.

  A shell was awaiting us. I paused before entering it to examine the polished surface of runway and great road. It was obsidian—volcanic glass of pale emerald, unflawed, translucent, with no sign of block or juncture. I examined the shell.

  “What makes it go?” I asked Rador. At a word from him the driver touched a concealed spring and an aperture appeared beneath the control-lever, of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter. Within was a small cube of black crystal, through whose sides I saw, dimly, a rapidly revolving, glowing ball, not more than two inches in diameter. Beneath the cube was a curiously shaped, slender cylinder winding down into the lower body of the Nautilus whorl.

  “Watch!” said Rador. He motioned me into the vehicle and took a place beside me. The driver touched the lever; a stream of coruscations flew from the ball down into the cylinder. The shell started smoothly, and as the tiny torrent of shining particles increased it gathered speed.

  “The corial does not touch the road,” explained Rador. “It is lifted so far”—he held his forefinger and thumb less than a sixteenth of an inch apart—“above it.”

  And perhaps here is the best place to explain the activation of the shells or coria. The force utilized was atomic energy. Passing from the whirling ball the ions darted through the cylinder to two bands of a peculiar metal affixed to the base of the vehicles somewhat like skids of a sled. Impinging upon these they produced a partial negation of gravity, lifting the shell slightly, and at the same time creating a powerful repulsive force or thrust that could be directed backward, forward, or sidewise at the will of the driver. The creation of this energy and the mechanism of its utilization were, briefly, as follows:

  [Dr. Goodwin’s lucid and exceedingly comprehensive description of this extraordinary mechanism has been deleted by the Executive Council of the International Association of Science as too dangerously suggestive to scientists of the Central European Powers with which we were so recently at war. It is allowable, however, to state that his observations are in the possession of experts in this country, who are, unfortunately, hampered in their research not only by the scarcity of the radioactive elements that we know, but also by the lack of the element or elements unknown to us that entered into the formation of the fiery ball within the cube of black crystal. Nevertheless, as the principle is so clear, it is believed that these difficulties will ultimately be overcome.—J. B. K., President, I. A. of S.]

  The wide, glistening road was gay with the coria. They darted in and out of the gardens; within them the fair-haired, extraordinarily beautiful women on their cushions were like princesses of Elfland, caught in gorgeous fairy webs, resting within the hearts of flowers. In some shells were flaxen-haired dwarfish men of Lugur’s type; sometimes black-polled brother officers of Rador; often raven-tressed girls, plainly hand-maidens of the women; and now and then beauties of the lower folk went by with one of the blond dwarfs.

  We swept around the turn that made of the jewel-like roadway an enormous horseshoe and, speedily, upon our right the cliffs through which we had come in our journey from the Moon Pool began to march forward beneath their mantles of moss. They formed a gigantic abutment, a titanic salient. It had been from the very front of this salient’s invading angle that we had emerged; on each side of it the precipices, faintly glowing, drew back and vanished into distance.

  The slender, graceful bridges under which we skimmed ended at openings in the upflung, far walls of verdure. Each had its little garrison of soldiers. Through some of the openings a rivulet of the green obsidian river passed. These were roadways to the farther country, to the land of the ladala, Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk could cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass.

  We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther emerald ribbon we had seen from the great oval. Before us rose the shining cliffs and the lake. A half-mile, perhaps, from these the last of the bridges flung itself. It was more massive and about it hovered a spirit of ancientness lacking in the other spans; also its garrison was larger and at its base the tangent way was guarded by two massive structures, somewhat like blockhouses, between which it ran. Something about it aroused in me an intense curiosity.

  “Where does that road lead, Rador?” I asked.

  “To the one place above all of which I may not tell you
, Goodwin,” he answered. And again I wondered.

  We skimmed slowly out upon the great pier. Far to the left was the prismatic, rainbow curtain between the Cyclopean pillars. On the white waters graceful shells—lacustrian replicas of the Elf chariots—swam, but none was near that distant web of wonder.

  “Rador—what is that?” I asked.

  “It is the Veil of the Shining One!” he answered slowly.

  Was the Shining One that which we named the Dweller?

  “What is the Shining One?” I cried, eagerly. Again he was silent. Nor did he speak until we had turned on our homeward way.

  And lively as my interest, my scientific curiosity, were—I was conscious suddenly of acute depression. Beautiful, wondrously beautiful this place was—and yet in its wonder dwelt a keen edge of menace, of unease—of inexplicable, inhuman woe; as though in a secret garden of God a soul should sense upon it the gaze of some lurking spirit of evil which some way, somehow, had crept into the sanctuary and only bided its time to spring.

  CHAPTER XVII

  The Leprechaun

  The shell carried us straight back to the house of Yolara. Larry was awaiting me. We stood again before the tenebrous wall where first we had faced the priestess and the Voice. And as we stood, again the portal appeared with all its disconcerting, magical abruptness.

  But now the scene was changed. Around the jet table were grouped a number of figures—Lugur, Yolara beside him; seven others—all of them fair-haired and all men save one who sat at the left of the priestess—an old, old woman, how old I could not tell, her face bearing traces of beauty that must once have been as great as Yolara’s own, but now ravaged, in some way awesome; through its ruins the fearful, malicious gaiety shining out like a spirit of joy held within a corpse!

  Began then our examination, for such it was. And as it progressed I was more and more struck by the change in the O’Keefe. All flippancy was gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of his answers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying his opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing some far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Always he stressed the power of our surface races, their multitudes, their solidarity.

  Their questions were myriad. What were our occupations? Our system of government? How great were the waters? The land? Intensely interested were they in the World War, querying minutely into its causes, its effects. In our weapons their interest was avid. And they were exceedingly minute in their examination of us as to the ruins which had excited our curiosity; their position and surroundings—and if others than ourselves might be expected to find and pass through their entrance!

  At this I shot a glance at Lugur. He did not seem unduly interested. I wondered if the Russian had told him as yet of the girl of the rosy wall of the Moon Pool Chamber and the real reasons for our search. Then I answered as briefly as possible—omitting all reference to these things. The red dwarf watched me with unmistakable amusement—and I knew Marakinoff had told him. But clearly Lugur had kept his information even from Yolara; and as clearly she had spoken to none of that episode when O’Keefe’s automatic had shattered the Keth-smitten vase. Again I felt that sense of deep bewilderment—of helpless search for clue to all the tangle.

  For two hours we were questioned and then the priestess called Rador and let us go.

  Larry was sombre as we returned. He walked about the room uneasily.

  “Hell’s brewing here all right,” he said at last, stopping before me. “I can’t make out just the particular brand—that’s all that bothers me. We’re going to have a stiff fight, that’s sure. What I want to do quick is to find the Golden Girl, Doc. Haven’t seen her on the wall lately, have you?” he queried, hopefully fantastic.

  “Laugh if you want to,” he went on. “But she’s our best bet. It’s going to be a race between her and the O’Keefe banshee—but I put my money on her. I had a queer experience while I was in that garden, after you’d left.” His voice grew solemn. “Did you ever see a leprechaun, Doc?” I shook my head again, as solemnly. “He’s a little man in green,” said Larry. “Oh, about as high as your knee. I saw one once—in Carntogher Woods. And as I sat there, half asleep, in Yolara’s garden, the living spit of him stepped out from one of those bushes, twirling a little shillalah.

  “‘It’s a tight box ye’re gettin’ in, Larry avick,’ said he, ‘but don’t ye be downhearted, lad.’

  “‘I’m carrying on,’ said I, ‘but you’re a long way from Ireland,’ I said, or thought I did.

  “‘Ye’ve a lot o’ friends there,’ he answered. ‘An’ where the heart rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I’m sayin’ I’d like to live here, Larry,’ said he.

  “‘I know where my heart is now,’ I told him. ‘It rests on a girl with golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair—but me feet don’t seem to get me to her,’ I said.”

  The brogue thickened.

  “An’ the little man in green nodded his head an’ whirled his shillalah.

  “‘It’s what I came to tell ye,’ says he. ‘Don’t ye fall for the Bhean-Nimhera, the serpent woman wit’ the blue eyes; she’s a daughter of Ivor, lad—an’ don’t ye do nothin’ to make the brown-haired coleen ashamed o’ ye, Larry O’Keefe. I knew yer great, great grandfather an’ his before him, aroon,’ says he, ‘an’ wan o’ the O’Keefe failin’s is to think their hearts big enough to hold all the wimmen o’ the world. A heart’s built to hold only wan permanently, Larry,’ he says, ‘an’ I’m warnin’ ye a nice girl don’t like to move into a place all cluttered up wid another’s washin’ an’ mendin’ an’ cookin’ an’ other things pertainin’ to general wife work. Not that I think the blue-eyed wan is keen for mendin’ an’ cookin’!’ says he.

  “‘You don’t have to be comin’ all this way to tell me that,’ I answer.

  “‘Well, I’m just a tellin’ you,’ he says. ‘Ye’ve got some rough knocks comin’, Larry. In fact, ye’re in for a devil of a time. But, remember that ye’re the O’Keefe,’ says he. ‘An’ while the bhoys are all wid ye, avick, ye’ve got to be on the job yourself.’

  “‘I hope,’ I tell him, ‘that the O’Keefe banshee can find her way here in time—that is, if it’s necessary, which I hope it won’t be.’

  “‘Don’t ye worry about that,’ says he. ‘Not that she’s keen on leavin’ the ould sod, Larry. The good ould soul’s in quite a state o’ mind about ye, aroon. I don’t mind tellin’ ye, lad, that she’s mobilizing all the clan an’ if she has to come for ye, avick, they’ll be wid her an’ they’ll sweep this joint clean before ye go. What they’ll do to it’ll make the Big Wind look like a summer breeze on Lough Lene! An’ that’s about all, Larry. We thought a voice from the Green Isle would cheer ye. Don’t fergit that ye’re the O’Keefe an’ I say it again—all the bhoys are wid ye. But we want t’ kape bein’ proud o’ ye, lad!’

  “An’ I looked again and there was only a bush waving.”

  There wasn’t a smile in my heart—or if there was it was a very tender one.

  “I’m going to bed,” he said abruptly. “Keep an eye on the wall, Doc!”

  Between the seven sleeps that followed, Larry and I saw but little of each other. Yolara sought him more and more. Thrice we were called before the Council; once we were at a great feast, whose splendours and surprises I can never forget. Largely I was in the company of Rador. Together we two passed the green barriers into the dwelling-place of the ladala.

  They seemed provided with everything needful for life. But everywhere was an oppressiveness, a gathering together of hate, that was spiritual rather than material—as tangible as the latter and far, far more menacing!

  “They do not like to dance with the Shining One,” was Rador’s constant and only reply to my efforts to find the cause.

  Once I had concrete evidence of the mood. Glancing behind me, I saw a white, vengeful face peer from behind a tree-trunk, a hand lift, a shinin
g dart speed from it straight toward Rador’s back. Instinctively I thrust him aside. He turned upon me angrily. I pointed to where the little missile lay, still quivering, on the ground. He gripped my hand.

  “That, some day I will repay!” he said. I looked again at the thing. At its end was a tiny cone covered with a glistening, gelatinous substance.

  Rador pulled from a tree beside us a fruit somewhat like an apple.

  “Look!” he said. He dropped it upon the dart—and at once, before my eyes, in less than ten seconds, the fruit had rotted away!

  “That’s what would have happened to Rador but for you, friend!” he said.

  Come now between this and the prelude to the latter half of the drama whose history this narrative is—only scattering and necessarily fragmentary observations.

  First—the nature of the ebon opacities, blocking out the spaces between the pavilion-pillars or covering their tops like roofs, These were magnetic fields, light absorbers, negativing the vibrations of radiance; literally screens of electric force which formed as impervious a barrier to light as would have screens of steel.

  They instantaneously made night appear in a place where no night was. But they interposed no obstacle to air or to sound. They were extremely simple in their inception—no more miraculous than is glass, which, inversely, admits the vibrations of light, but shuts out those coarser ones we call air—and, partly, those others which produce upon our auditory nerves the effects we call sound.

  Briefly their mechanism was this:

  [For the same reason that Dr. Goodwin’s exposition of the mechanism of the atomic engines was deleted, his description of the light-destroying screens has been deleted by the Executive Council.—J. B. F., President, I. A. of S.]

  There were two favoured classes of the ladala—the soldiers and the dream-makers. The dream-makers were the most astonishing social phenomena, I think, of all. Denied by their circumscribed environment the wider experiences of us of the outer world, the Murians had perfected an amazing system of escape through the imagination.