The Moon Pool Page 20

  CHAPTER XX

  The Tempting of Larry

  We paused before thick curtains, through which came the faint murmurof many voices. They parted; out came two--ushers, I suppose, theywere--in cuirasses and kilts that reminded me somewhat ofchain-mail--the first armour of any kind here that I had seen. Theyheld open the folds.

  The chamber, on whose threshold we stood, was far larger than eitheranteroom or hall of audience. Not less than three hundred feet longand half that in depth, from end to end of it ran two hugesemi-circular tables, paralleling each other, divided by a wide aisle,and heaped with flowers, with fruits, with viands unknown to me, andglittering with crystal flagons, beakers, goblets of as many hues asthe blooms. On the gay-cushioned couches that flanked the tables,lounging luxuriously, were scores of the fair-haired ruling class andthere rose a little buzz of admiration, oddly mixed with ahalf-startled amaze, as their gaze fell upon O'Keefe in all hissilvery magnificence. Everywhere the light-giving globes sent theirroseate radiance.

  The cuirassed dwarfs led us through the aisle. Within the arc of theinner half--circle was another glittering board, an oval. But of thoseseated there, facing us--I had eyes for only one--Yolara! She swayedup to greet O'Keefe--and she was like one of those white lily maids,whose beauty Hoang-Ku, the sage, says made the Gobi first a paradise,and whose lusts later the burned-out desert that it is. She held outhands to Larry, and on her face was passion--unashamed, unhiding.

  She was Circe--but Circe conquered. Webs of filmiest white clung tothe rose-leaf body. Twisted through the corn-silk hair a threadedcirclet of pale sapphires shone; but they were pale beside Yolara'seyes. O'Keefe bent, kissed her hands, something more than mereadmiration flaming from him. She saw--and, smiling, drew him downbeside her.

  It came to me that of all, only these two, Yolara and O'Keefe, were inwhite--and I wondered; then with a tightening of nerves ceased towonder as there entered--Lugur! He was all in scarlet, and as hestrode forward a silence fell a tense, strained silence.

  His gaze turned upon Yolara, rested upon O'Keefe, and instantly hisface grew--dreadful--there is no other word than that for it.Marakinoff leaned forward from the centre of the table, near whose endI sat, touched and whispered to him swiftly. With appalling effort thered dwarf controlled himself; he saluted the priestess ironically, Ithought; took his place at the further end of the oval. And now Inoted that the figures between were the seven of that Council of whichthe Shining One's priestess and Voice were the heads. The tensionrelaxed, but did not pass--as though a storm-cloud should turn away,but still lurk, threatening.

  My gaze ran back. This end of the room was draped with theexquisitely coloured, graceful curtains looped with gorgeous garlands.Between curtains and table, where sat Larry and the nine, a circularplatform, perhaps ten yards in diameter, raised itself a few feetabove the floor, its gleaming surface half-covered with the luminouspetals, fragrant, delicate.

  On each side below it, were low carven stools. The curtains partedand softly entered girls bearing their flutes, their harps, thecuriously emotion-exciting, octaved drums. They sank into theirplaces. They touched their instruments; a faint, languorous measurethrobbed through the rosy air.

  The stage was set! What was to be the play?

  Now about the tables passed other dusky-haired maids, fair bosomsbare, their scanty kirtles looped high, pouring out the wines for thefeasters.

  My eyes sought O'Keefe. Whatever it had been that Marakinoff hadsaid, clearly it now filled his mind--even to the exclusion of thewondrous woman beside him. His eyes were stern, cold--and now andthen, as he turned them toward the Russian, filled with a curiousspeculation. Yolara watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebebehind her.

  The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that seemed cut ofamber. The priestess poured from it into Larry's glass a clear liquidthat shook with tiny sparkles of light. She raised the glass to herlips, handed it to him. Half-smiling, half-abstractedly, he took it,touched his own lips where hers had kissed; drained it. A nod fromYolara and the maid refilled his goblet.

  At once there was a swift transformation in the Irishman. Hisabstraction vanished; the sternness fled; his eyes sparkled. He leanedcaressingly toward Yolara; whispered. Her blue eyes flashedtriumphantly; her chiming laughter rang. She raised her own glass--butwithin it was not that clear drink that filled Larry's! And again hedrained his own; and, lifting it, full once more, caught the balefuleyes of Lugur, and held it toward him mockingly. Yolara swayedclose--alluring, tempting. He arose, face all reckless gaiety; rollickingdeviltry.

  "A toast!" he cried in English, "to the Shining One--and may the hellwhere it belongs soon claim it!"

  He had used their own word for their god--all else had been in his owntongue, and so, fortunately, they did not understand. But the contemptin his action they did recognize--and a dead, a fearful silence fellupon them all. Lugur's eyes blazed, little sparks of crimson in theirgreen. The priestess reached up, caught at O'Keefe. He seized the softhand; caressed it; his gaze grew far away, sombre.

  "The Shining One." He spoke low. "An' now again I see the faces ofthose who dance with it. It is the Fires of Mora--come, God aloneknows how--from Erin--to this place. The Fires of Mora!" Hecontemplated the hushed folk before him; and then from his lips camethat weirdest, most haunting of the lyric legends of Erin--the Curseof Mora:

  "The fretted fires of Mora blew o'er him in the night; He thrills no more to loving, nor weeps for past delight. For when those flames have bitten, both grief and joy take flight--"

  Again Yolara tried to draw him down beside her; and once more hegripped her hand. His eyes grew fixed--he crooned:

  "And through the sleeping silence his feet must track the tune, When the world is barred and speckled with silver of the moon--"

  He stood, swaying, for a moment, and then, laughing, let the priestesshave her way; drained again the glass.

  And now my heart was cold, indeed--for what hope was there left withLarry mad, wild drunk!

  The silence was unbroken--elfin women and dwarfs glancing furtively ateach other. But now Yolara arose, face set, eyes flashing grey.

  "Hear you, the Council, and you, Lugur--and all who are here!" shecried. "Now I, the priestess of the Shining One, take, as is my right,my mate. And this is he!" She pointed down upon Larry. He glanced upat her.

  "Can't quite make out what you say, Yolara," he muttered thickly."But say anything--you like--I love your voice!"

  I turned sick with dread. Yolara's hand stole softly upon theIrishman's curls caressingly.

  "You know the law, Yolara." Lugur's voice was flat, deadly, "You maynot mate with other than your own kind. And this man is a stranger--abarbarian--food for the Shining One!" Literally, he spat the phrase.

  "No, not of our kind--Lugur--higher!" Yolara answered serenely. "Lo,a son of Siya and of Siyana!"

  "A lie!" roared the red dwarf. "A lie!"

  "The Shining One revealed it to me!" said Yolara sweetly. "And if yebelieve not, Lugur--go ask of the Shining One if it be not truth!"

  There was bitter, nameless menace in those last words--and whatevertheir hidden message to Lugur, it was potent. He stood, choking, facehell-shadowed--Marakinoff leaned out again, whispered. The red dwarfbowed, now wholly ironically; resumed his place and his silence. Andagain I wondered, icy-hearted, what was the power the Russian had soto sway Lugur.

  "What says the Council?" Yolara demanded, turning to them.

  Only for a moment they consulted among themselves. Then the woman,whose face was a ravaged shrine of beauty, spoke.

  "The will of the priestess is the will of the Council!" she answered.

  Defiance died from Yolara's face; she looked down at Larry tenderly.He sat swaying, crooning.

  "Bid the priests come," she commanded, then turned to the silent room."By the rites of Siya and Siyana, Yolara takes their son for hermate!" And again her hand stole down possessingly, serpent soft, tothe drunken head of the O'Keefe.<
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  The curtains parted widely. Through them filed, two by two, twelvehooded figures clad in flowing robes of the green one sees in forestvistas of opening buds of dawning spring. Of each pair one boreclasped to breast a globe of that milky crystal in the sapphireshrine-room; the other a harp, small, shaped somewhat like the ancientclarsach of the Druids.

  Two by two they stepped upon the raised platform, placed gently uponit each their globe; and two by two crouched behind them. They formednow a star of six points about the petalled dais, and, simultaneously,they drew from their faces the covering cowls.

  I half-rose--youths and maidens these of the fair-haired; and youthsand maids more beautiful than any of those I had yet seen--for upontheir faces was little of that disturbing mockery to which I have beenforced so often, because of the deep impression it made upon me, torefer. The ashen-gold of the maiden priestesses' hair was wound abouttheir brows in shining coronals. The pale locks of the youths wereclustered within circlets of translucent, glimmering gems likemoonstones. And then, crystal globe alternately before and harpalternately held by youth and maid, they began to sing.

  What was that song, I do not know--nor ever shall. Archaic, ancientbeyond thought, it seemed--not with the ancientness of things that foruncounted ages have been but wind-driven dust. Rather was it theancientness of the golden youth of the world, love lilts of earthyounglings, with light of new-born suns drenching them, chorals ofyoung stars mating in space; murmurings of April gods and goddesses. Alanguor stole through me. The rosy lights upon the tripods began todie away, and as they faded the milky globes gleamed forth brighter,ever brighter. Yolara rose, stretched a hand to Larry, led him throughthe sextuple groups, and stood face to face with him in the centre oftheir circle.

  The rose-light died; all that immense chamber was black, save for thecircle of the glowing spheres. Within this their milky radiance grewbrighter--brighter. The song whispered away. A throbbing arpeggiodripped from the harps, and as the notes pulsed out, up from theglobes, as though striving to follow, pulsed with them tips ofmoon-fire cones, such as I had seen before Yolara's altar. Weirdly,caressingly, compellingly the harp notes throbbed in repeated,re-repeated theme, holding within itself the same archaic goldenquality I had noted in the singing. And over the moon flame pinnaclesrose higher!

  Yolara lifted her arms; within her hands were clasped O'Keefe's. Sheraised them above their two heads and slowly, slowly drew him with herinto a circling, graceful step, tendrillings delicate as the slowspirallings of twilight mist upon some still stream.

  As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly theslender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor,crept in a shining ring around those two--and began to rise, agleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier--rising, ever rising--hidingthem!

  With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires,shook loose the waves of her silken hair. It fell, a rippling,wondrous cascade, veiling both her and O'Keefe to their girdles--andnow the shining coils of moon fire had crept to their knees--wascircling higher--higher.

  And ever despair grew deeper in my soul!

  What was that! I started to my feet, and all around me in thedarkness I heard startled motion. From without came a blaring oftrumpets, the sound of running men, loud murmurings. The tumult drewcloser. I heard cries of "Lakla! Lakla!" Now it was at the verythreshold and within it, oddly, as though--punctuating--the clamour, adeep-toned, almost abysmal, booming sound--thunderously bass andreverberant.

  Abruptly the harpings ceased; the moon fires shuddered, fell, andbegan to sweep back into the crystal globes; Yolara's swaying formgrew rigid, every atom of it listening. She threw aside the veilingcloud of hair, and in the gleam of the last retreating spirals herface glared out like some old Greek mask of tragedy.

  The sweet lips that even at their sweetest could never lose theirdelicate cruelty, had no sweetness now. They were drawn into asquare--inhuman as that of the Medusa; in her eyes were the fires ofthe pit, and her hair seemed to writhe like the serpent locks of thatGorgon whose mouth she had borrowed; all her beauty was transformedinto a nameless thing--hideous, inhuman, blasting! If this was thetrue soul of Yolara springing to her face, then, I thought, God helpus in very deed!

  I wrested my gaze away to O'Keefe. All drunkenness gone, himselfagain, he was staring down at her, and in his eyes were loathing andhorror unutterable. So they stood--and the light fled.

  Only for a moment did the darkness hold. With lightning swiftness theblackness that was the chamber's other wall vanished. Through a portalopen between grey screens, the silver sparkling radiance poured.

  And through the portal marched, two by two, incredible, nightmarefigures--frog-men, giants, taller by nearly a yard than even tallO'Keefe! Their enormous saucer eyes were irised by wide bands ofgreen-flecked red, in which the phosphorescence flickered. Their longmuzzles, lips half-open in monstrous grin, held rows of glistening,slender, lancet sharp fangs. Over the glaring eyes arose a hornyhelmet, a carapace of black and orange scales, studded with foot-longlance-headed horns.

  They lined themselves like soldiers on each side of the wide tableaisle, and now I could see that their horny armour covered shouldersand backs, ran across the chest in a knobbed cuirass, and at wristsand heels jutted out into curved, murderous spurs. The webbed handsand feet ended in yellow, spade-shaped claws.

  They carried spears, ten feet, at least, in length, the heads of whichwere pointed cones, glistening with that same covering, from whosetouch of swift decay I had so narrowly saved Rador.

  They were grotesque, yes--more grotesque than anything I had ever seenor dreamed, and they were--terrible!

  And then, quietly, through their ranks came--a girl! Behind her,enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out menacingly, in onepaw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a frog-man, huger than any of theothers, guarding. But of him I caught but a fleeting, involuntaryimpression--all my gaze was for her.

  For it was she who had pointed out to us the way from the peril of theDweller's lair on Nan-Tauach. And as I looked at her, I marvelled thatever could I have thought the priestess more beautiful. Into the eyesof O'Keefe rushed joy and an utter abasement of shame.

  And from all about came murmurs--edged with anger, half-incredulous,tinged with fear:

  "Lakla!"

  "Lakla!"

  "The handmaiden!"

  She halted close beside me. From firm little chin to dainty buskinedfeet she was swathed in the soft robes of dull, almost coppery hue.The left arm was hidden, the right free and gloved. Wound tight aboutit was one of the vines of the sculptured wall and of Lugur's circledsignet-ring. Thick, a vivid green, its five tendrils ran between herfingers, stretching out five flowered heads that gleamed like blossomscut from gigantic, glowing rubies.

  So she stood contemplating Yolara. Then drawn perhaps by my gaze, shedropped her eyes upon me; golden, translucent, with tiny flecks ofamber in their aureate irises, the soul that looked through them wasas far removed from that flaming out of the priestess as zenith isabove nadir.

  I noted the low, broad brow, the proud little nose, the tender mouth,and the soft--sunlight--glow that seemed to transfuse the delicateskin. And suddenly in the eyes dawned a smile--sweet, friendly, atouch of roguishness, profoundly reassuring in its all humanness. Ifelt my heart expand as though freed from fetters, a recrudescence ofconfidence in the essential reality of things--as though in nightmarethe struggling consciousness should glimpse some familiar face andknow the terrors with which it strove were but dreams. Andinvoluntarily I smiled back at her.

  She raised her head and looked again at Yolara, contempt and a certaincuriosity in her gaze; at O'Keefe--and through the softened eyesdrifted swiftly a shadow of sorrow, and on its fleeting wings deepestinterest, and hovering over that a naive approval as reassuringlyhuman as had been her smile.

  She spoke, and her voice, deep-timbred, liquid gold as was Yolara'sall silver, was subtly the synthesis of all the golden glowing beauty
of her.

  "The Silent Ones have sent me, O Yolara," she said. "And this istheir command to you--that you deliver to me to bring before themthree of the four strangers who have found their way here. For himthere who plots with Lugur"--she pointed at Marakinoff, and I sawYolara start--"they have no need. Into his heart the Silent Ones havelooked; and Lugur and you may keep him, Yolara!"

  There was honeyed venom in the last words.

  Yolara was herself now; only the edge of shrillness on her voicerevealed her wrath as she answered.

  "And whence have the Silent Ones gained power to command, _choya_?"

  This last, I knew, was a very vulgar word; I had heard Rador use it ina moment of anger to one of the serving maids, and it meant,approximately, "kitchen girl," "scullion." Beneath the insult and theacid disdain, the blood rushed up under Lakla's ambered ivory skin.

  "Yolara"--her voice was low--"of no use is it to question me. I am butthe messenger of the Silent Ones. And one thing only am I bidden toask you--do you deliver to me the three strangers?"

  Lugur was on his feet; eagerness, sardonic delight, sinisteranticipation thrilling from him--and my same glance showed Marakinoff,crouched, biting his finger-nails, glaring at the Golden Girl.

  "No!" Yolara spat the word. "No! Now by Thanaroa and by the ShiningOne, no!" Her eyes blazed, her nostrils were wide, in her fair throata little pulse beat angrily. "You, Lakla--take you my message to theSilent Ones. Say to them that I keep this man"--she pointed toLarry--"because he is mine. Say to them that I keep the yellow-hairedone and him"--she pointed to me--"because it pleases me.

  "Tell them that upon their mouths I place my foot, so!"--she stampedupon the dais viciously--"and that in their faces I spit!"--and heraction was hideously snakelike. "And say last to them, you handmaiden,that if _you_ they dare send to Yolara again, she will feed _you_ tothe Shining One! Now--go!"

  The handmaiden's face was white.

  "Not unforeseen by the three was this, Yolara," she replied. "And didyou speak as you have spoken then was I bidden to say this to you."Her voice deepened. "Three _tal_ have you to take counsel, Yolara. Andat the end of that time these things must you have determined--eitherto do or not to do: first, send the strangers to the Silent Ones;second, give up, you and Lugur and all of you, that dream you have ofconquest of the world without; and, third, forswear the Shining One!And if you do not one and all these things, then are you done, yourcup of life broken, your wine of life spilled. Yea, Yolara, for youand the Shining One, Lugur and the Nine and all those here and theirkind shall pass! This say the Silent Ones, 'Surely shall all of yepass and be as though never had ye been!'"

  Now a gasp of rage and fear arose from all those around me--but thepriestess threw back her head and laughed loud and long. Into thesilver sweet chiming of her laughter clashed that of Lugur--and aftera little the nobles took it up, till the whole chamber echoed withtheir mirth. O'Keefe, lips tightening, moved toward the Handmaiden,and almost imperceptibly, but peremptorily, she waved him back.

  "Those _are_ great words--great words indeed, _choya_," shrilled Yolaraat last; and again Lakla winced beneath the word. "Lo, for _laya_ upon_laya_, the Shining One has been freed from the Three; and for _laya_upon _laya_ they have sat helpless, rotting. Now I ask youagain--whence comes their power to lay their will upon me, and whencecomes their strength to wrestle with the Shining One and the belovedof the Shining One?"

  And again she laughed--and again Lugur and all the fairhaired joinedin her laughter.

  Into the eyes of Lakla I saw creep a doubt, a wavering; as though deepwithin her the foundations of her own belief were none too firm.

  She hesitated, turning upon O'Keefe gaze in which rested more thansuggestion of appeal! And Yolara saw, too, for she flushed withtriumph, stretched a finger toward the handmaiden.

  "Look!" she cried. "Look! Why, even _she_ does not believe!" Hervoice grew silk of silver--merciless, cruel. "Now am I minded to sendanother answer to the Silent Ones. Yea! But not by _you_, Lakla; bythese"--she pointed to the frog-men, and, swift as light, her handdarted into her bosom, bringing forth the little shining cone ofdeath.

  But before she could level it the Golden Girl had released that hiddenleft arm and thrown over her face a fold of the metallic swathings.Swifter than Yolara, she raised the arm that held the vine--and now Iknew this was no inert blossoming thing.

  It was alive!

  It writhed down her arm, and its five rubescent flower heads thrustout toward the priestess--vibrating, quivering, held in leash only bythe light touch of the handmaiden at its very end.

  From the swelling throat pouch of the monster behind her came asuccession of the reverberant boomings. The frogmen wheeled, raisedtheir lances, levelled them at the throng. Around the reaching rubyflowers a faint red mist swiftly grew.

  The silver cone dropped from Yolara's rigid fingers; her eyes grewstark with horror; all her unearthly loveliness fled from her; shestood pale-lipped. The Handmaiden dropped the protecting veil--and nowit was she who laughed.

  "It would seem, then, Yolara, that there _is_ a thing of the Silent Onesye fear!" she said. "Well--the kiss of the _Yekta_ I promise you inreturn for the embrace of your Shining One."

  She looked at Larry, long, searchingly, and suddenly again with allthat effect of sunlight bursting into dark places, her smile shoneupon him. She nodded, half gaily; looked down upon me, the littlemerry light dancing in her eyes; waved her hand to me.

  She spoke to the giant frog-man. He wheeled behind her as she turned,facing the priestess, club upraised, fangs glistening. His troop movednot a jot, spears held high. Lakla began to pass slowly--almost, Ithought, tauntingly--and as she reached the portal Larry leaped fromthe dais.

  "_Alanna_!" he cried. "You'll not be leavin' me just when I've foundyou!"

  In his excitement he spoke in his own tongue, the velvet brogueappealing. Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant,unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mindwhether she dared or dared not take a delectable something offeredher.

  "I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own speech. "Come on,Doc!" He reached out a hand to me.

  But now Yolara spoke. Life and beauty had flowed back into her face,and in the purple eyes all her hosts of devils were gathered.

  "Do you forget what I promised you before Siya and Siyana? And do youthink that you can leave me--me--as though I were a _choya_--like_her_." She pointed to Lakla. "Do you--"

  "Now, listen, Yolara," Larry interrupted almost plaintively. "Nopromise has passed from me to you--and why would you hold me?" Hepassed unconsciously into English. "Be a good sport, Yolara," heurged, "You _have_ got a very devil of a temper, you know, and so haveI; and we'd be really awfully uncomfortable together. And why don'tyou get rid of that devilish pet of yours, and be good!"

  She looked at him, puzzled, Marakinoff leaned over, translated toLugur. The red dwarf smiled maliciously, drew near the priestess;whispered to her what was without doubt as near as he could come inthe Murian to Larry's own very colloquial phrases.

  Yolara's lips writhed.

  "Hear me, Lakla!" she cried. "Now would I not let you take this manfrom me were I to dwell ten thousand _laya_ in the agony of the_Yekta's_ kiss. This I swear to you--by Thanaroa, by my heart, and bymy strength--and may my strength wither, my heart rot in my breast,and Thanaroa forget me if I do!"

  "Listen, Yolara"--began O'Keefe again.

  "Be silent, you!" It was almost a shriek. And her hand again soughtin her breast for the cone of rhythmic death.

  Lugur touched her arm, whispered again, The glint of guile shone inher eyes; she laughed softly, relaxed.

  "The Silent Ones, Lakla, bade you say that they--allowed--me three_tal_ to decide," she said suavely. "Go now in peace, Lakla, and saythat Yolara has heard, and that for the three _tal_ they--allow--hershe will take council." The handmaiden hesitated.

  "The Silent Ones have said it," she answered at last. "Stay you here,strangers"---th
e long lashes drooped as her eyes met O'Keefe's and ahint of blush was in her cheeks--"stay you here, strangers, till then.But, Yolara, see you on that heart and strength you have sworn by thatthey come to no harm--else that which you have invoked shall come uponyou swiftly indeed--and that I promise you," she added.

  Their eyes met, clashed, burned into each other--black flame fromAbaddon and golden flame from Paradise.

  "Remember!" said Lakla, and passed through the portal. The giganticfrog-man boomed a thunderous note of command, his grotesque guardsturned and slowly followed their mistress; and last of all passed outthe monster with the mace.