The Moon Pool Page 18

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The Amphitheatre of Jet

  For hours the black-haired folk had been streaming across the bridges,flowing along the promenade by scores and by hundreds, drifting downtoward the gigantic seven-terraced temple whose interior I had neveras yet seen, and from whose towering exterior, indeed, I had alwaysbeen kept far enough away--unobtrusively, but none the less decisively--toprevent any real observation. The structure, I had estimated,nevertheless, could not reach less than a thousand feet above itssilvery base, and the diameter of its circular foundation was aboutthe same.

  I wondered what was bringing the _ladala_ into Lora, and where theywere vanishing. All of them were flower-crowned with the luminous,lovely blooms--old and young, slender, mocking-eyed girls, dwarfedyouths, mothers with their babes, gnomed oldsters--on they poured,silent for the most part and sullen--a sullenness that held acidbitterness even as their subtle, half-sinister, half-gay malice seemedtempered into little keen-edged flames, oddly, menacingly defiant.

  There were many of the green-clad soldiers along the way, and thegarrison of the only bridge span I could see had certainly beendoubled.

  Wondering still, I turned from my point of observation and made my wayback to our pavilion, hoping that Larry, who had been with Yolara forthe past two hours, had returned. Hardly had I reached it before Radorcame hurrying up, in his manner a curious exultance mingled with whatin anyone else I would have called a decided nervousness.

  "Come!" he commanded before I could speak. "The Council has madedecision--and _Larree_ is awaiting you."

  "What has been decided?" I panted as we sped along the mosaic paththat led to the house of Yolara. "And why is Larry awaiting me?"

  And at his answer I felt my heart pause in its beat and through merace a wave of mingled panic and eagerness.

  "The Shining One dances!" had answered the green dwarf. "And you areto worship!"

  What was this dancing of the Shining One, of which so often he hadspoken?

  Whatever my forebodings, Larry evidently had none.

  "Great stuff!" he cried, when we had met in the great antechamber nowempty of the dwarfs. "Hope it will be worth seeing--have to besomething damned good, though, to catch me, after what I've seen ofshows at the front," he added.

  And remembering, with a little shock of apprehension, that he had noknowledge of the Dweller beyond my poor description of it--for thereare no words actually to describe what that miracle of interwovenglory and horror was--I wondered what Larry O'Keefe would say and dowhen he did behold it!

  Rador began to show impatience.

  "Come!" he urged. "There is much to be done--and the time growsshort!"

  He led us to a tiny fountain room in whose miniature pool the whitewaters were concentrated, pearl-like and opalescent in their circlingrim.

  "Bathe!" he commanded; and set the example by stripping himself andplunging within. Only a minute or two did the green dwarf allow us,and he checked us as we were about to don our clothing.

  Then, to my intense embarrassment, without warning, two of theblack-haired girls entered, bearing robes of a peculiar dull-blue hue.At our manifest discomfort Rador's laughter roared out. He took thegarments from the pair, motioned them to leave us, and, stilllaughing, threw one around me. Its texture was soft, but decidedlymetallic--like some blue metal spun to the fineness of a spider'sthread. The garment buckled tightly at the throat, was girdled at thewaist, and, below this cincture, fell to the floor, its folds beingheld together by a half-dozen looped cords; from the shoulders a hoodresembling a monk's cowl.

  Rador cast this over my head; it completely covered my face, but wasof so transparent a texture that I could see, though somewhat mistily,through it. Finally he handed us both a pair of long gloves of thesame material and high stockings, the feet of which weregloved--five-toed.

  And again his laughter rang out at our manifest surprise.

  "The priestess of the Shining One does not altogether trust theShining One's Voice," he said at last. "And these are to guard againstany sudden--errors. And fear not, Goodwin," he went on kindly. "Notfor the Shining One itself would Yolara see harm come to _Larree_here--nor, because of him, to you. But I would not stake much on thegreat white one. And for him I am sorry, for him I do like well."

  "Is he to be with us?" asked Larry eagerly.

  "He is to be where we go," replied the dwarf soberly.

  Grimly Larry reached down and drew from his uniform his automatic. Hepopped a fresh clip into the pocket fold of his girdle. The pistol heslung high up beneath his arm-pit.

  The green dwarf looked at the weapon curiously. O'Keefe tapped it.

  "This," said Larry, "slays quicker than the _Keth_--I take it so noharm shall come to the blue-eyed one whose name is Olaf. If I shouldraise it--be you not in its way, Rador!" he added significantly.

  The dwarf nodded again, his eyes sparkling. He thrust a hand out toboth of us.

  "A change comes," he said. "What it is I know not, nor how it willfall. But this remember--Rador is more friend to you than you yet canknow. And now let us go!" he ended abruptly.

  He led us, not through the entrance, but into a sloping passage endingin a blind wall; touched a symbol graven there, and it opened,precisely as had the rosy barrier of the Moon Pool Chamber. And, justas there, but far smaller, was a passage end, a low curved wall facinga shaft not black as had been that abode of living darkness, butfaintly luminescent. Rador leaned over the wall. The mechanism clickedand started; the door swung shut; the sides of the car slipped intoplace, and we swept swiftly down the passage; overhead the windwhistled. In a few moments the moving platform began to slow down. Itstopped in a closed chamber no larger than itself.

  Rador drew his poniard and struck twice upon the wall with its hilt.Immediately a panel moved away, revealing a space filled with faint,misty blue radiance. And at each side of the open portal stood four ofthe dwarfish men, grey-headed, old, clad in flowing garments of white,each pointing toward us a short silver rod.

  Rador drew from his girdle a ring and held it out to the first dwarf.He examined it, handed it to the one beside him, and not until eachhad inspected the ring did they lower their curious weapons;containers of that terrific energy they called the _Keth_, I thought;and later was to know that I had been right.

  We stepped out; the doors closed behind us. The place was weirdenough. Its pave was a greenish-blue stone resembling lapis lazuli. Oneach side were high pedestals holding carved figures of the samematerial. There were perhaps a score of these, but in the mistiness Icould not make out their outlines. A droning, rushing roar beat uponour ears; filled the whole cavern.

  "I smell the sea," said Larry suddenly.

  The roaring became deep-toned, clamorous, and close in front of us arift opened. Twenty feet in width, it cut the cavern floor andvanished into the blue mist on each side. The cleft was spanned by onesolid slab of rock not more than two yards wide. It had neitherrailing nor other protection.

  The four leading priests marched out upon it one by one, and wefollowed. In the middle of the span they knelt. Ten feet beneath uswas a torrent of blue sea-water racing with prodigious speed betweenpolished walls. It gave the impression of vast depth. It roared as itsped by, and far to the right was a low arch through which itdisappeared. It was so swift that its surface shone like polished bluesteel, and from it came the blessed, _our worldly_, familiar oceanbreath that strengthened my soul amazingly and made me realize howearth-sick I was.

  Whence came the stream, I marvelled, forgetting for the moment, as wepassed on again, all else. Were we closer to the surface of earth thanI had thought, or was this some mighty flood falling through anopening in sea floor, Heaven alone knew how many miles above us,losing itself in deeper abysses beyond these? How near and how farthis was from the truth I was to learn--and never did truth come toman in more dreadful guise!

  The roaring fell away, the blue haze lessened. In front of usstretched a wide flight of steps, huge as those which had
led us intothe courtyard of Nan-Tauach through the ruined sea-gate. We scaled it;it narrowed; from above light poured through a still narrower opening.Side by side Larry and I passed out of it.

  We had emerged upon an enormous platform of what seemed to beglistening ivory. It stretched before us for a hundred yards or moreand then shelved gently into the white waters. Opposite--not a mileaway--was that prodigious web of woven rainbows Rador had called theVeil of the Shining One. There it shone in all its unearthly grandeur,on each side of the Cyclopean pillars, as though a mountain shouldstretch up arms raising between them a fairy banner of auroralglories. Beneath it was the curved, scimitar sweep of the pier withits clustered, gleaming temples.

  Before that brief, fascinated glance was done, there dropped upon mysoul a sensation as of brooding weight intolerable; a spiritualoppression as though some vastness was falling, pressing, stifling me,I turned--and Larry caught me as I reeled.

  "Steady! Steady, old man!" he whispered.

  At first all that my staggering consciousness could realize was animmensity, an immeasurable uprearing that brought with it the samethroat-gripping vertigo as comes from gazing downward from some greatheight--then a blur of white faces--intolerable shinings of hundredsupon thousands of eyes. Huge, incredibly huge, a colossal amphitheatreof jet, a stupendous semi-circle, held within its mighty arc the ivoryplatform on which I stood.

  It reared itself almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet up into thesparkling heavens, and thrust down on each side its ebonbulwarks--like monstrous paws. Now, the giddiness from its sheergreatness passing, I saw that it was indeed an amphitheatre slopingslightly backward tier after tier, and that the white blur of facesagainst its blackness, the gleaming of countless eyes were those ofmyriads of the people who sat silent, flower-garlanded, their gazefocused upon the rainbow curtain and sweeping over me like atorrent--tangible, appalling!

  Five hundred feet beyond, the smooth, high retaining wall of theamphitheatre raised itself--above it the first terrace of the seats,and above this, dividing the tiers for another half a thousand feetupward, set within them like a panel, was a dead-black surface inwhich shone faintly with a bluish radiance a gigantic disk; above itand around it a cluster of innumerable smaller ones.

  On each side of me, bordering the platform, were scores of smallpillared alcoves, a low wall stretching across their fronts; delicate,fretted grills shielding them, save where in each lattice an openingstared--it came to me that they were like those stalls in ancientGothic cathedrals wherein for centuries had kneeled paladins andpeople of my own race on earth's fair face. And within these alcoveswere gathered, score upon score, the elfin beauties, the dwarfish menof the fair-haired folk. At my right, a few feet from the openingthrough which we had come, a passageway led back between the frettedstalls. Half-way between us and the massive base of the amphitheatre adais rose. Up the platform to it a wide ramp ascended; and on ramp anddais and along the centre of the gleaming platform down to where itkissed the white waters, a broad ribbon of the radiant flowers laylike a fairy carpet.

  On one side of this dais, meshed in a silken web that hid no line orcurve of her sweet body, white flesh gleaming through its folds, stoodYolara; and opposite her, crowned with a circlet of flashing bluestones, his mighty body stark bare, was Lugur!

  O'Keefe drew a long breath; Rador touched my arm and, still dazed, Ilet myself be drawn into the aisle and through a corridor that ranbehind the alcoves. At the back of one of these the green dwarfpaused, opened a door, and motioned us within.

  Entering, I found that we were exactly opposite where the ramp ran upto the dais--and that Yolara was not more than fifty feet away. Sheglanced at O'Keefe and smiled. Her eyes were ablaze with littledancing points of light; her body seemed to palpitate, the roundeddelicate muscles beneath the translucent skin to run with joyfullittle eager waves!

  Larry whistled softly.

  "There's Marakinoff!" he said.

  I looked where he pointed. Opposite us sat the Russian, clothed as wewere, leaning forward, his eyes eager behind his glasses; but if hesaw us he gave no sign.

  "And there's Olaf!" said O'Keefe.

  Beneath the carved stall in which sat the Russian was an aperture andwithin it was Huldricksson. Unprotected by pillars or by grills,opening clear upon the platform, near him stretched the trail offlowers up to the great dais which Lugur and Yolara the priestessguarded. He sat alone, and my heart went out to him.

  O'Keefe's face softened.

  "Bring him here," he said to Rador.

  The green dwarf was looking at the Norseman, too, a shade of pity uponhis mocking face. He shook his head.

  "Wait!" he said. "You can do nothing now--and it may be there will beno need to do anything," he added; but I could feel that there waslittle of conviction in his words.