"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock,"he commanded.We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.
"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.
"But I see no opening," he said suavely.
"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time, realized how incredible the explanation sounded.The derisive gleam passed through his eyes again.But he drew his poniard and gravely sounded the rock.
"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said."It sounds strangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He looked at us quizzically."I wonder where you learned it!
Well, all that you can explain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in a wide salaam."Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly.
"In peace?" I asked.
"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least.""Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry."As long as we're here let's see the sights.Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf.The latter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe with a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman and scanned him with admira-tion; reached out and squeezed one of the immense biceps.
"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself.He stood aside and waved a hand courte-ously, inviting us to pass.We crossed.At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.
Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us in much excitement.The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions and then threw himself beside us.
The vehicle started off smoothly, the now silent throng mak-ing way, and swept down the green roadway at a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward the seven-terraced tower.
As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but I could not--then.There was no sign of mechan-ism, but that the shell responded to some form of energy was certain--the driver grasping a small lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but our direction.
We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens, and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion.
I saw now that these were much larger than I had thought.
The structure to which we had been carried covered, I esti-mated, fully an acre.Oblong, with its slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were like the sliding screens of the Japanese--shoji.
The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great carved serpents, winged and scaled.He stamped twice upon mosaicked stones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside, revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on which lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.
They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be characteristic of all these people we had as yet seen.
"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.
The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great hall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with the opacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff.I examined the--blackness--with lively interest.
It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--and yet it suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption of light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and pal-pable.I stretched, involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back.
"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador."But I forget--you do not know," he added."On your life touch not the blackness, ever.It--"He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared;swinging out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lan-tern upon a screen.Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow.Rising from cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaning over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers and unfamiliar fruits.
About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--were a few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance.On high, silvery tripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the rose glow emanated.At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whose roseate gleam was tem-pered by quivering waves of blue.
"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.
Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass.We entered, the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the doorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadow fill its place.
"Come closer, strangers.Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned voice.
We approached.
The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my throat.Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the Dweller's city--and none of so perilous a beauty.Her hair was of the colour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crown above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm of anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no!
The silken webs that half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness of her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts.But for all her amazing beauty, she was--sinister! There was cruelty about the curving mouth, and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty, but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.
The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes! But her beauty was human, understandable.You could imagine her with a babe in her arms--but you could not so imagine this woman.About her loveliness hovered something unearthly.
A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was Yolara, the Dwell-er's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!
