 Chapter 27 The Coming of Yolara Never was there such a girl! Thus Larry, dreamily, leaning hand in hand on one of the wide divans of the chamber where Lakla had left us, pleading service to the silent ones. And by the faith and the honour of the O'Keeves, and by my dead mother's soul, may God do with me as I do by her!" he whispered fervently. He relapsed into open-eyed dreaming. I walked about the room, examining it, the first opportunity I had gained to inspect carefully any of the rooms in the abode of the three. It was octagonal, carpeted with the thick rugs that seemed almost as the woven of soft mineral wool, fately shimmering, palest blue. I paced its diagonal. It was fifty yards. The ceiling was arched, and either of pale rose metal or metallic covering. It collected the light from the high, slitted windows, and shed it, diffused through the room. Around the octagon ran a low gallery, not two feet from the floor, ballastrated with slender pillars, close set. Broken at opposite curtain dentrances over which hung thick, dull gold curtainings, giving the same suggestion of metallic or mineral substance as the rugs. Set within each of the eight sides, above the balcony, were colossal slabs of lapis lazuli, inset with graceful but unplaceable designs in scarlet and sapphire blue. There was the great divan on which mused Larry, two smaller ones, half a dozen low seats and chairs, carved apparently of ivory and of dull soft gold. Most curious were tripods, strong, pike-like legs of golden metal four feet high, holding small circles of the lapis with intaglios of one curious symbol somewhat resembling the ideographs of the Chinese. There was no dust, nowhere in these cavern spaces had I found this constant companion of ours in the world overhead. My eyes caught a sparkle from a corner. Pursuing it, I found upon one of the low seats a flat clear crystal oval, remarkably like a lens. I took it up and stepped up on the balcony. Standing on tiptoe I found that I commanded from the bottom of a window slit a view of the bridge approach. Scanning it I could see no trace of the garrison there, nor of the green spear flashes. I placed the crystal to my eyes, and with a disconcerting abruptness the cavern mouth leaped before me, apparently not a hundred feet away. Decidedly the crystal was a very excellent lens. But where were the guards? I peered closely. Nothing. But now, against the aperture, I saw a score or more of the tiny dancing sparks. An optical illusion I thought, and turned the crystal in another direction. There were no sparklings there. I turned it back again, and there they were. And what were they like? Realization came to me. They were like the little dancing radiant atoms that had played for a time about the emptiness where had stood Sorghar of the lower waters, before he had been shaken into the nothingness. And that green light I had noticed, the keth. A cry on my lips I turned to Larry, and the cry died as the heavy curtainings at the entrance on my right undulated, parted as though a body had slipped through, shook and parted again and again, with the dreadful passing of unseen things. Larry, I cried, here, quick! He leaped to his feet, gazed about wildly, and disappeared. Yes, vanished from my sight, like the snuffed flame of a candle, or as though something moving with the speed of light itself had snatched him away. Then, from the devan, came the sounds of a struggle, the hissing of straining breaths, the noise of Larry cursing. I leaped over the balustrade, drawing my own pistol, was caught in a pair of mighty arms, my elbows crushed to my sides, drawn down until my face pressed close to a broad, hairy breast, and through that obstacle, formless, shadowless, transparent as air itself, I could still see the battle on the devan. Now there were two sharp reports, the struggle abruptly ceased. From a point not a foot over the great couch, as though oozing from the air itself, blood began to drop, faster and ever faster, pouring out of nothingness. And out of that same air, now a dozen feet away, leaped the face of Larry, bodiless, poised six feet above the floor, blazing with rage, floating weirdly, uncannily, to a hideous degree, in vacancy. His hands flashed out, armless. They wavered, appearing, disappearing, swiftly tearing something from him. Then there, feet hidden, stiff on legs that vanished at the ankles, striking out in division with all the dizzy abruptness with which he had been stricken from sight, was the O'Keefe, a smoking pistol in hand. And ever that red stream trickled out of vacancy and spread over the couch, dripping to the floor. I made a mighty movement to escape, was held more firmly, and then, close to the face of Larry, flashing out with that terrifying, instantaneousness, even as had his, was the head of Yolara, as devilishly mocking as I had ever seen it, the cruelty shining through it like delicate white flames from hell, and beautiful. Stir not, strike not, until I command! She flung the words beyond her, addressed to the invisible ones who had accompanied her, whose presences I sensed filling the chamber. The floating, beautiful head, crowned high with corn-sill care, darted toward the Irishman. He took a swift step backward, the eyes of the priestess deepened toward purple, sparkled with malice. So, she said, So, Larry, you thought you could go from me so easily? She laughed softly. In my hidden hand I hold the keth cone, she murmured, Before you can raise the death-tube I can smite you, and will. And consider, Larry, if the handmaiden, the cholla comes, I can vanish, so. The mocking head disappeared, burst forth again, and slay her with the keth, or bid my people seize her, and bear her to the shining one. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on O'Keeffe's face, and I knew he was thinking not of himself, but of Lakla. What do you want with me, Yolara? he asked hoarsely. Nay, came the mocking voice. Not Yolara to you, Larry. Call me by those sweet names you taught me. Honey of the wild bees, net of hearts! Again her laughter tinkled. What do you want with me? His voice was strained, the lips rigid. Ah! you are afraid, Larry! There was diabolic jubilation in the words. What should I want, but that you return with me? Why else did I creep through the lair of the dragon-worm, and pass the path of perils, but to ask you that? And the cholla guards you not well? Again she laughed. We came to the cavern's end, and there were her aca, and the aca can see us as shadows. But it was my desire to surprise you with my coming, Larry. The voice was silken, but I feared that they would hasten to be first to bring you that message to delight in your joy, and so, Larry, I loosed the keth upon them, and gave them peace and rest within the nothingness, and the portal below was open, almost in welcome. Once more the malignant silver peeling of her laughter. What do you want with me? There was wrath in his eyes, and plainly he strove for control. What! the silver voice hissed, grew calm. Do not, Sia and Siana, grieve that the right I pledge them is but half done. Do they not desire it finished? Am I not beautiful, more beautiful than your cholla? The fiendishness died from the eyes. They grew blue, wondrous. The veil of invisibility slipped down from the neck, the shoulders, half revealing the gleaming breasts. And weird, weird beyond all telling was that exquisite head and bust floating there in air, and beautiful, sinisterly beautiful beyond all telling, too. So even might Lilith, the serpent woman, have shown herself tempting Adam. And perhaps, she said, perhaps I want you because I hate you, perhaps because I love you, or perhaps for Lugur, or perhaps for the shining one. And if I go with you, he said it quietly, then shall I spare the handmaiden, and, who knows, take back my armies that even now gather at the portal and let the silent ones rot in peace in their abode, from which they had no power to keep me, she added venomously. You will swear that, Yolara, swear to go without harming the handmaiden? He asked eagerly. The little devils danced in her eyes. I wrenched my face from the smothering contact. Don't trust her, Larry, I cried, and again the grip choked me. Is that devil in front of you or behind you, old man? He asked quietly, eyes never leaving the priestess. If he's in front, I'll take a chance and wing him, and then you'll scoot and warn Lakla. But I could not answer, nor, remembering Yolara's threat, would I had I been able. Inside, quickly, there was cold threat in her voice. The curtains toward which O'Keefe had slowly, step by step, drawn close, opened. They framed the handmaiden. The face of Yolara changed to that gorgon mass that had transformed it once before at sight of the golden girl. In her blind rage she forgot to cast the occulting veil. Her hand darted like a snake out of the folds, poising itself with the little silver cone aimed at Lakla. But before it was wholly poised, before the priestess could lose its force, the handmaiden was upon her. Swift as the lithe white wolf hound she leaped, and one slender hand gripped Yolara's throat, the other the wrist that lifted the quivering death. White limbs wrapped about the hidden ones. I saw the golden head bend, the hand that held the keth swept up with a vicious jerk. Saw Lakla's teeth sink into the wrist, the blood spurred forth, and heard the priestess shriek. The cone fell, bounded toward me. With all my strength I wrenched free the hand that held my pistol, thrust it against the pressing breast, and fired. The clasp upon me relaxed. A red rain stained me. At my feet a little pillar of blood jetted. A hand thrust itself from nothingness, clawed and was still. Now Yolara was down. Lakla meshed in her writhings and fighting like some wild mother whose babes are serpent menaced. Over the two of them a stride stood the okif, a pike from one of the high tripods in his hand, thrusting, parrying, beating on every side as with a broadsword against Ponyard, clutching hands that thrust themselves out of vacancy, striving to strike him. Stepping here and there, always covering, protecting Lakla with his own body, even as a caveman of old who does battle with his mate for their lives. The sword-club struck, and on the floor lay the half-body of a dwarf, writhing with vanishments and reappearings of legs and arms. Beside him was the shattered tripod from which Larry had wrenched his weapon. I flung myself upon it, dashed it down to break loose one of the remaining supports, struck in mid-fall one of the unseen, even as his dagger darted toward me. The seat splintered, leaving in my clutch a golden bar. I jumped to Larry's side, guarding his back, whirling it like a staff, felt it crunch once, twice, through unseen bone and muscle. At the door was a booming. Into the chamber rushed a dozen of the frogmen. While some guarded the entrances, others leaped straight to us, and forming a circle about us began to strike with talons and spurs at unseen things that screamed and sought to escape. Now here and there about the blue rugs great stains of blood appeared, heads of dwarfs, torn arms and gashed bodies, half occulted, half revealed. And at last the priestess lay silent, vanquished, white body gleaming with that uncanny fragmentariness from her torn robes. Then O'Keefe reached down, drew Lakla from her. Shakily, Yolara rose to her feet. The handmaiden, face still blazing with wrath, stepped before her. With difficulty she steadied her voice. Yolara, she said, you have defied the silent ones. You have desecrated their abode. You came to slay these men, who are the guests of the silent ones, and me, who am their handmaiden. Why did you do these things? I came for him, gasped the priestess, she pointed to O'Keefe. Why? asked Lakla. Because he is pledged to me, replied Yolara, all the devils that were hers in her face. Because he wooed me, because he is mine. That is a lie, the handmaiden's voice shook with rage. It is a lie, and here and now he shall choose, Yolara. And if you he choose, you and he shall go forth from here unmolested. For, Yolara, it is his happiness that I most desire, and if you are that happiness you shall go together. And now, Larry, choose. Swiftly she stepped beside the priestess. Swiftly wrenched the last shreds of the hiding-robes from her. There they stood, Yolara with but the filmiest net of gauze about her wonderful body, shining flesh shining through it. Serpent woman, and wonderful too, beyond the dreams even of Phidias and Hellfire glowing from the purple eyes. And Lakla, like a girl of the Vikings, like one of those warrior maids who stood and fought for Dunn and Babes at the sight of those old heroes of Larry's own Green Isle. Translucent ivory lambant through the rinse of her torn draperies, and in the wide golden eyes flaming wrath. Indeed, not the diabolic flames of the priestess, but the righteous wrath of some soul that looking out of paradise sees vile wrong in the doing. Lakla, the O'Keeffe's voice was subdued, hurt. There is no choice. I love you and only you, and have from the moment I saw you. It's not easy, this. God, Goodwin, I feel like another cad. He flashed at me. There is no choice, Lakla. He ended, eyes steady upon hers. The priestess's face grew deadlier still. What will you do with me, she asked? Keep you, I said, as hostage. O'Keeffe was silent. The golden girl shook her head. Well, would I like to, her face grew dreaming. But the silent ones say, no. They bid me let you go, Yolara. The silent ones, the priestess laughed. You, Lakla, you fear, perhaps, to let me tarry here too close. Storm gathered again in the handmaiden's eyes. She forced it back. No, she answered. The silent ones sow command, and for their own purposes. Yet do I think, Yolara, that you will have little time to feed your wickedness, tell that to Lugor, come to your shining one, she added slowly. Mockery and disbelief rode high in the priestess's pose. Am I to return alone, like this, she asked? Nay, Yolara, nay, you shall be accompanied, said Lakla. And by those who will guard and watch you well, they are here even now. The hangings parted and into the chamber came Olaf and Rador. The priestess met the fierce hatred and contempt in the eyes of the Norsemen, and for the first time lost her bravado. Let not him go with me, she gasped, her eyes searched the floor frantically. He goes with you, said Lakla, and threw about Yolara a swathing that covered the exquisite alluring body. And you shall pass through the portal, not skulk along the path of the worm. She bent to Rador, whispered to him. He nodded. She had told him, I suppose, the secret of its opening. Come, he said. And with the eye-side giant behind her, Yolara, head bent, passed out of those hangings, through which, but a little before unseen, triumph in her grasp, she had slipped. Then Lakla came to the unhappy O'Keefe, rested her hands on his shoulders, looked deep into his eyes. Did you woo her, even as she said, she asked? The Irishman flushed miserably. I did not, he said. I was pleasant to her, of course, because I thought it would bring me quicker to you, darlin'. She looked at him doubtfully, then. I think you must have been very pleasant, was all she said, and leaning, kissed him forgivingly, straight on the lips. An extremely direct maiden was Lakla, with a truly sovereign contempt for anything she might consider non-essentials. And at this moment I decided she was wiser even than I had thought her. He stumbled, feet vanishing, reached down and picked up something that in the grasping turned his hand to air. One of the invisible cloaks, he said to me, there must be quite a lot of them about. I guess Yolara brought her full staff of murderers. They're a bit shopworn, probably, but we're considerably better off with them in our hands than in hers. And they may come in handy, who knows. There was a choking rattle at my feet. Half the head of a dwarf raised out of vacancy, beat twice upon the floor in death-throws, fell back. Lakla shivered, gave a command. The frogmen moved about, peering here and there, lifting unseen folds, revealing in stark rigidity torn form after form of the priestess's men. Lakla had been right. Her acca were thorough fighters. She called, and to her came the frogwoman who was her attendant. To her the handmaiden spoke, pointing to the Batrakeans who stood, paws and forearms melted beneath the robes they had gathered. She took them and passed out, more grotesque than ever, shattering into streaks of vacancies, reappearing with flickers of shining scale and yellow gems as the tattered penance of invisibility fluttered about her. The frogmen reached down, swung each a dead dwarf in his arms, and filed, booming triumphantly, away. And then I remembered the cone of the keth which had slipped from Yolara's hand. Knew it had been that for which her wild eyes searched. But look as closely as we might, search in every nook and corner as we did, we could not find it. Had the dying hand of one of her men clutched it, and had it been borne away with them? With the thought Larry and I raced after the Scaled Warriors searched every body they carried. It was not there. Perhaps the priestess had found it, retrieved it swiftly without our seeing. Whatever was true the cone was gone. And what a weapon that one little holder of the shaking death would have been for us! End of Chapter 27 Chapter 28 of The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt. It is with marked hesitation that I begin this chapter, because in it I must deal with and experience so contrary to every known law of physics as to seem impossible. Until this time, barring, of course, the mystery of the Dweller, I had encountered nothing that was not susceptible of naturalistic explanation. Nothing, in a word, outside the domain of science itself. Nothing that I would have felt hesitancy in reciting to my colleagues of the International Association of Science. Amazing, unfamiliar, advanced, as many of the phenomena were, still they lay well within the limits of what we have mapped as the possible. In regions it is true, still virgin to the mind of man, but toward which that mind is steadily advancing. But this, well, I confess that I have a theory that is naturalistic, but so abstruse, so difficult to make clear within the short confines of the space I have to give it, so dependent upon conceptions that even the highest-trained scientific brains find difficult to grasp that I despair. I can only say that the thing occurred, that it took place in precisely the manner I am about to narrate, and that I experienced it. Yet, in justice to myself, I must open up some paths of preliminary approach toward the heart of the perplexity, and the first path is the realization that our world, whatever it is, is certainly not the world as we see it. Regarding this I shall refer to a discourse upon gravitation and the principle of relativity by the distinguished English physicist Dr. A. S. Eddington, which I had the pleasure of hearing him deliver before the Royal Institution. I realize, of course, that it is not true logic to argue. The world is not as we think it is, therefore everything we think impossible is possible in it. Even if it be different, it is governed by law. The truly impossible is that which is outside law, and as nothing can be outside law the impossible cannot exist. The crux of the matter then becomes our determination whether what we think is impossible may or may not be possible under law still beyond our knowledge. I hope that you will pardon me for this somewhat academic digression, but I felt it was necessary, and it has at least put me more at ease, and now to resume. We had watched, Larry and I, the frogmen throw the bodies of Yolara's assassins into the crimson waters. As vultures swoop down upon the dying there came sailing swiftly to where the dead men floated dozens of the luminous globes. Their slender, very colored tentacles whipped out. The giant iridescent bubbles climbed over the cadavers, and as they touched them there was the swift dissolution, the melting away into putrescence of flesh and bone that I had witnessed when the dart touched fruit that time I saved Rador, and upon this the medusie gorged, pulsing lambently, their wondrous colors shifting, changing, glowing stronger. Elfin moons now indeed, but satellites whose glimmering beauty was fed by death, alembics of enchantment whose glorious hues were sucked from horror. Sick I turned away, O'Keefe as pale as I, passed back into the corridor that had opened on the ledge from which we had watched, met Lakla hurrying toward us. Before she could speak there throbbed faintly about us a vast sighing. It grew into a murmur, a whispering shook us, then passing like a presence, dyed away in far distance. The portal has opened, said the handmaiden. A fainter sighing, like an echo of the other mourned about us. Yolara is gone, she said. The portal is closed. Now we must hasten, for the three have commanded that you, Goodwin and Larry and I tread that strange road of which I have spoken, and which Olaf may not take lest his heart break, and we must return ere he and Rador cross the bridge. Her hands sought Larry's. Come, said Lakla, and we walked on, down and down, through hall after hall, flight upon flight of stairways. Deep, deep indeed, we must be beneath the domed castle, Lakla paused before a curved, smooth breast of the crimson stone rounding gently into the passage. She pressed its side, it revolved, we entered, it closed behind us. The room, the hollow in which we stood, was faceted like a diamond, and like a cut brilliant its sides glistened, though dully. Its shape was a deep oval, and our path dropped down to a circular polished base, roughly two yards in diameter. Glancing behind me I saw that, in the closing of the entrance, there had been left no trace of it, save the steps that led from where that entrance had been, and as I looked the steps turned, leaving us isolated upon the circle, only the faceted walls about us, and in each of the gleaming faces the three of us reflected dimly. It was as though we were within a diamond egg whose graven angles had been turned inward. But the oval was not perfect. At my right a screen cut it, a screen that gleamed with fugitive, fleeting luminescences, stretching from the side of our standing place up to the tip of the chamber. Slightly convex and criss-crossed by millions of fine lines, like those upon a spectroscopic plate, but with this difference, that within each line I sensed the presence of multitudes of finer lines, dwindling into infinitude, from microscopic, traced by some instrument compared to whose delicacy, our finest tool, would be as a crow-bar to the needle of a micrometer. A foot or two from it stood something like the standee of a compass, bearing, like it, a cradle-dial, under whose crystal ran concentric rings of prisoned, lambent vapours, faintly blue. From the edge of the dial jutted a little shelf of crystal, a keyboard in which were cut eight small cups. Within these cups the handmaiden placed her tapering fingers. She gazed down upon the disk, pressed a digit, and the screen behind us slipped noiselessly into another angle. "'Put your arm around my waist, Larry, darling, and stand close,' she murmured. "'You, Goodwin, place your arm over my shoulder.' Wondering, I did as she bade. She pressed other fingers upon the shelf's indentations, three of the rings of vapours spun into intense light, raced around each other. From the screen behind us grew a radiance that held within itself all spectrums, not only those seen but those unseen by man's eyes. It waxed brilliant and ever more brilliant, all suffusing, passing through me as day streams through a window-pane. The enclosing facets burst into a blaze of coruscations. At a neat sparkling panel I saw our images, shaken and torn, like penance in a whirlwind. I turned to look, was stopped by the handmaiden's swift command. Turn not on your life!' The radiance behind me grew, was a rushing tempest of light in which I was but the shadow of a shadow. I heard, but not with my ears, nay, with mind itself, a vast roaring, an ordered tumult of sound that came hurling from the outposts of space, approaching, rushing, hurricane out of the heart of the cosmos. Closer, closer! It wrapped itself about us with unearthly mighty arms. And brilliant, ever more brilliant, streamed the radiance through us. The faceted walls dimmed. In front of me they melted, diaphanously, like a gelatinous walled in a blast of flame, through their vanishing, under the torrent of driving light, the unthinkable, impalpable tornado. I began to move, slowly, then ever more swiftly. Still the roaring grew. The radiance streamed, ever faster we went. Cutting down through the length, the extension of me, dropping a wall of rock, foreshortened, clenched close. I caught a glimpse of the elfin gardens. They whirled, contracted, into a thin slice of color, that was a part of me. Another wall of rock, shrinking into a thin wedge, through which I flew, and that at once took its place within me, like a card slipped beside those others. Flashing around me, and from Lakla and O'Keefe, were nimbuses of flickering scarlet flames, and always the steady hurling forward, appallingly mechanical. Another barrier of rock, a gleam of white waters incorporating themselves into my drawing out, even as were the flowered moss-lands, the slicing, rocky walls, still another rampart of cliff, dwindling instantly into the vertical plain of those others. Our flight checked. We seemed to hover within, then to sway onward, slowly, cautiously. A mist danced ahead of me, a mist that grew steadily thinner. We stopped, wavered, the mist cleared. I looked out into translucent green distances, shot with swift prismatic gleamings, waves and pulsings of luminosity like midday sun glow through green tropic waters, dancing through scintillating veils of sparkling atoms that flew hither and yon through depths of nebulous splendor. And Lakla and Larry and I were, I saw, like shadow shapes, upon a smooth breast of stone twenty feet or more above the surface of this place, a surface spangled with tiny white blossoms gleaming wanly through creeping veils of phosphorescence, like smoke of moon fire. We were shadows, and yet we had substance. We were incorporated with, a part of, the rock, and yet we were living flesh and blood. We stretched, nor will I qualify this, we stretched through mile upon mile of space that, weirdly enough, gave at one at the same time an absolute certainty of immense horizontal lengths and a vertical concentration that contained nothing of length, nothing of space whatever. We stood there upon the face of the stone, and still we were here within the faceted oval before the screen of radiance. Steady, it was Lakla's voice, and not beside me there, but at my ear close before the screen. Steady, Goodwin, and see! The sparkling haze cleared. Enormous reaches stretched before me, shimmering up through them, as though growing in some medium thicker than air, was mass upon mass of verger, fruiting trees and trees laden with pale blossoms, arbors and bowers of pallid blooms, like that sea fruit of oblivion, grapes of leaf that cling to the tide, swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides. Through them, beyond them, around and about them, drifted an eddy to horde. Great is that with which Tamerlane swept down upon Rome, vast as the myriads which Genghis Khan rolled upon the calyphs, men and women and children, clothed in tatters, half nude and holy naked. Slant-eyed Chinese, slow-eyed Melaes, islanders black and brown and yellow, fierce-faced warriors of the Solomon's with grizzled locks fantastically bedisoned. Papuans, feline Javans, dyacs of hill and shore, hook-nosed Phoenicians, Romans, straight-browed Greeks and Vikings centuries beyond their lives, scores of the black-haired Myrians, white faces of our own Westerners, men and women and children, drifting, eddying, each stamped with that mingled horror and rapture, eyes filled with ecstasy and terror entwined, marked by God and devil in embrace, the seal of the shining one, the dead alive, the lost ones, the loot of the dweller. Soul-sick, I gazed. They lifted to us visages of dread. They swept down toward us, glaring upward. A bank against which other, and still other waves of faces rolled, were checked, paused. Until as far as I could see, like billows piled upon an ever-growing barrier, they stretched beneath us, staring, staring. Now there was a movement far, far away, a concentrating of the lambency, the dead alive, suede, oscillated, separated, forming a long lane against whose outskirts they crowded with avid, hungry insistence. First only a luminous cloud, then a whirling pillar of splendors through the lane came, the shining one. As it passed, the dead alive swirled in its wake like leaves behind a whirlwind, eddying, twisting. And as the dweller raced by them, brushing them with its spiralings and tentacles, they shone forth with unearthly, awesome gleamings, like vessels of alabaster in which wicks flare suddenly. And when it had passed, they closed behind it, staring up at us once more. The dweller paused beneath us. Out of the drifting ruck swam the body of Throckmarten, Throckmarten, my friend, to find whom I had gone to the pallid moon-door, my friend, whose call I had so laggardly followed. On his face was the dweller's dreadful stamp, the lips were bloodless, the eyes were wide, loosened, something like pale phosphorescence gleaming within them, and soulless. He stared straight up at me, unwinking, unrecognizing. Pressing against his side was a woman, young and gentle, and lovely, lovely, even through the mask that lay upon her face. And her wide eyes, like Throckmarten's, glowed with the lurking, unholy fires. She pressed against him closely, though the hordes kept up the faint churning these two kept ever together, as though bound by unseen fetters. And I knew the girl for Edith, his wife, who in vain effort to save him, had cast herself into the dweller's embrace. Throckmarten! I cried. Throckmarten! I'm here! Did he hear? I know now, of course, he could not. But then I waited, hopes driving to break through the nightmare hands that gripped my heart. Their wide eyes never left me. There was another movement about them, others pushed past them, they drifted back, swaying, eddying, and still staring were lost in the awful throng. Vainly I strained my gaze to find them again, to force some sign of recognition, some awakening of the clean life we know. But they were gone. Try as I would, I could not see them, nor Stanton, and the northern woman named Thora, who had been the first of that tragic party to be taken by the dweller. Throckmarten! I cried again, despairingly. My tears blinded me. I felt Lachla's light touch. Steady, she commanded pitifully, steady, Goodwin, you cannot help them now. Steady and watch. Below us the shining one had paused, spiraling, swirling, vibrant with all its transcendent devilish beauty, had paused and was contemplating us. Now I could see clearly that nucleus, that core shot through with flashing veins of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of glory, through the shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing, lacy opalescences, vaporous spiralings of prismatic phantom fires. Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst, of saffron, of emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life and moon-white. They poised themselves like a diadem, calm, serene, immobile, and down from them into the cellar, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals, ran countless tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun thread of spider's web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to run power from the seven globes. Like, yes, that was it, miniatures of the seven torrents of moon flame, that poured through the septicromatic high crystals in the moon-pool's chamber roof. Swam out of the coruscating haze the face. Both of man and of woman it was, like some ancient, androgynous deity of Etruscan fame's long dust, and yet neither woman nor man, human and unhuman, syraphic and sinister, benign and malefic, and still no more of these four than his flame, which is beautiful whether it warms or devours, or wind whether it feathers the trees or shatters them, or the wave which is wondrous whether it caresses or kills. Subtly, undefinably, it was of our world, and of one, not ours. Its liniments flowed from another sphere, took fleeting familiar form, and as swiftly withdrew whence they had come. Something amorphous, unearthly, as of unknown unheeding, unseen gods rushing through the depths of star-hung space, and still of our own earth, with a very soul of earth peering out from it, caught within it, and in some unholy way, debased. It had eyes, eyes that were now only shadows darkening within its luminosity like veils falling and falling opening windows into the unknowable, deepening into softly glowing blue pools, blue as the moon pool itself, and then flashing out, and this only when the face bore its most human resemblance into twin stars large almost as the crown of little moons, and with that same baffling suggestion of peepholes into a world untrodden, alien, perilous to man. Steady, came Lakla's voice, her body leaned against mine. I gripped myself, my brain steadied, I looked again, and I saw that of body, at least body as we know it, the shining one had none, nothing but the throbbing pulsing core streaked with lightning veins of rainbows, and around this, never still, sheathing it, the swirling, glorious valings of its hell and heaven-born radiance. So the dweller stood, and gazed. Then up toward us swept a reaching, questing spiral. Under my hand Lakla's shoulder quivered. Dead alive, and their master vanished. I danced, flickered within the rock, felt a swift sense of shrinking, of withdrawal, slice upon slice, the carded walls of stone, of silvery waters, of elfin gardens slipped from me, as cards are withdrawn from a pack, one by one, slipped, wheeled, flattened, and lengthened out, as I passed through them, and they passed from me. Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval chamber, arm still about the handmaid's white shoulder, Larry's hand still clutching her girdle. The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the outposts of space, was still. The intense, streaming, flooding radiance lessened, died. "'Now you have beheld,' said Lakla, and well you trod the road, and now shall you hear, even as the silent ones have commanded, what the shining one is, and how it came to be.' The steps flashed back. The doorway into the chamber opened. Larry, as silent as I, we followed her through it. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 of The Moon Pool, by Abraham Merritt. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Moon Pool, Chapter 29. The Shaping of the Shining One. We reached what I knew to be Lakla's own boudoir, if I may so call it. Smaller than any of the other chambers of the dome castle in which we had been, its intimacy was revealed not only by its faint fragrance, but by its high mirrors of polished silver, and various oddly wrought articles of the feminine toilet that lay here and there. Things I afterward knew to be the work of the artisans of the Aka, and no mean metal-workers were they. One of the window-slits dropped almost to the floor, and at its base was a wide, comfortably cushioned seat commanding a view of the bridge and of the cavern ledge. To this the handmaiden beckond us, sank upon it, drew Larry down beside her, and motioned me to sit close to him. Now this, she said, is what the silent ones have commanded me to tell you to. To you, Larry, that knowing you may weigh all things in your mind and answer as your spirit bids you a question that the three will ask, and what that is I know not, she murmured. And I, they say, must answer too, and it frightens me. The great golden eyes widened, darkened with dread. She sighed, shook her head impatiently. Not like us, and never like us, she spoke low, wonderingly. The silent ones say were they. Nor were those from which they sprang like those from which we have come. Ancient, ancient beyond thought are the typhoo, the race of the silent ones. Far, far below this place where now we sit, close to the earth-heart itself were they born. And there they dwelt for time upon time, laia upon laia upon laia, with others not like them, some of which have vanished time upon time agon, others that still dwell below in their cradle. It is hard, she hesitated. Hard to tell this. That slips through my mind, because I know so little that even as the three told it to me, it passed from me for lack of place to stand upon. She went on, quaintly. Something there was of time when earth and sun were but cold mists in the heavens, something of these mists drawing together, whirling, purling, faster and faster, drawing as they whirled more and more of the mists, growing larger, growing warm, forming at last into the globes they are, with others spinning around the sun, something of regions within this globe where vast fire was prisoned and bursting forth, tore and rent the young orb, of one such bursting forth that sent what you call moon flying out to company us and left behind those spaces whence we now dwell, and of life particles that here and there below grew into the race of the silent ones, and those others, but not the aqqa, which, like you, they say, came from above. All this I do not understand. Do you, Goodwin?" The appeal to me. I nodded. For what she had related so fragmentarily was in reality an excellent approach to the Chamberlain-Molton theory of a coalescing nebula contracting into the sun and its planets. Astonishing was the recognition of this theory. Even more so was the reference to the life particles, the idea of Arrhenius, the great swede of life starting on earth through the dropping of minute life spores propelled through space by the driving power of light, and encountering favorable environment here developing through the vast ages into man and every other living thing we know. Nor was it incredible that in the ancient nebula that was the matrix of our solar system, similar or rather dissimilar particles in all but the subtle essence we call life, might have become entangled, and resisting every cataclysm as they had resisted the absolute zero of outer space, found in these caverned spaces their proper environment to develop into the race of the silent ones, and only they could tell what else. They say, the handmaid's voice was sure, they say that in their cradle near earth's heart they grew, grew untroubled by the turmoil and disorder which flayed the surface of this globe, and they say it was a place of light and that strength came to them from earth-heart, strength greater than you and those from which you sprang ever derived from sun. At last, ancient, ancient beyond all thought they say again was this time, they began to know, to, to realize themselves, and wisdom came ever more swiftly, up from their cradle because they did not wish to dwell longer with those others, they came and found this place. When all the face of earth was covered with waters in which lived only tiny, hungry things that knew not save hunger and its satisfaction, they had attained wisdom that enabled them to make paths such as we have just traveled and to look out upon those waters. And Leia upon Leia thereafter, time upon time, they went upon the paths and watched the flood recede, saw great bare flats of steaming ooze appear, on which crawled and splashed larger things which had grown from the tiny, hungry ones. Watched the flats rise higher and higher, and green life began to clothe them, saw mountains uplift and vanish. Ever the green life waxed and the things which crept and crawled grew greater and took ever different forms, until at last came a time when the timing mists lightened and the things which had begun as little more than tiny, hungry mouths were huge and monstrous, so huge that the tallest of my aca could not have reached the knee of the smallest of them. But in none of these, in none, was there realisation of themselves, say the three, not but hunger driving, always driving them to steal its crying. So, for time upon time, the race of the signet ones took the paths no more, placing aside the half-thought they had had of making their way to earth-face, even as they had made their way from beside earth-heart. They turned wholly to the seeking of wisdom, and after other time on time they attained that which killed even the faintest shadow of the half-thought. For they crept far within the mysteries of life and death, they mastered the illusion of space, they lifted the veils of creation and of its twin, destruction, and they stripped the covering from the flaming jewel of truth. But when they had crept within those mysteries, they bid me tell you, Goodwin, they found ever other mysteries veiling the way, and after they had uncovered the jewel of truth, they found it to be a gem of infinite facets, and therefore not wholly to be read before eternity's unthinkable end. And for this they were glad, because now, throughout eternity, might they and theirs pursue knowledge over ways illimitable. They conquered light, light that sprang at their bidding from the nothingness that gives birth to all things, and in which lie all things that are, have been, and shall be. Light that streamed through their bodies, cleansing them of all dross. Light that was food and drink. Light that carried their vision afar, or bore to them images out of space, opening many windows through which they gazed down upon life on thousands upon thousands of the rushing worlds. Light that was the flame of life itself and in which they bathed, ever renewing their own. They set radiant lamps within the stones, and of black light they wove the sheltering shadows and the shadows that slay. A rose from this people, those three, the silent ones. They led them all in wisdom so that in the three grew pride. And the three built them this place in which we sit, and set the portal in its place, and withdrew from their kind to go alone into the mysteries and to map alone the facets of truth-jewel. Then there came the ancestors of the Aqa, not as they are now, and glowing but faintly within them the spark of self-realization. And the taithu seeing this spark did not slay them, but they took the ancient long untrodden paths and looked forth once more upon earth-face. Now on the land were vast forests and a chaos of green life. On the shores things scaled and fanged, fought and devoured each other, and in the green life moved bodies great and small that slew and ran from those that would slay. They searched for the passage through which the Aqa had come and closed it. Then the three took them and brought them here, and taught them, and blew upon the spark until it burned ever stronger, and in time they became much as they are now, my Aqa. The three took counsel after this, and said, We have strengthened life in these until it has become articulate. Shall we not create life? Again she hesitated, her eyes rapt, dreaming. The three are speaking, she murmured. They have my tongue. And certainly, with an ease and rapidity, as though she were but a voice through which minds far more facile, more powerful poured their thoughts, she spoke. Yay, the golden voice was vibrant. We said that what we would create should be of the spirit of life itself, speaking to us with the tongues of the far-flung stars, of the winds, of the waters, and of all upon and within these. Upon that universal matrix of matter, that mother of all things that you named the aether, we labored. Thick knot that her wondrous fertility is limited by what ye see on earth, or what has been on earth from its beginning. Infinite, infinite are the forms the mother bears, and countless are the energies that are part of her. By our wisdom we had fashioned many windows out of our abode, and through them we stared into the faces of myriads of worlds, and upon them all were the children of aether, even as the worlds themselves were her children. Learning we learned, and learning we formed that ye term the dweller, which those without name the shining one. Within the universal mother we shaped it, to be a voice to tell us her secrets, a lamp to go before us, lighting the mysteries. Out of the aether we fashioned it, giving it the soul of light that still ye know not, nor perhaps ever may know, and with the essence of life that ye saw blossoming deep in the abyss, and that is the pulse of earth-heart we filled it. And we wrought with pain and with love, with yearning and with scorching pride, and from our travail came the shining one, our child. There is an energy beyond and above aether, a purposeful, sentient force that lapsed like an ocean the furthest flung star, that transfuses all that aether bears, that sees and speaks and feels in us and in you, that is in corporate, in beast and bird and reptile, in tree and grass and all living things, that sleeps in rock and stone, that finds sparkling tongue in jewel and star and in all dwellers within the firmament. And this ye call consciousness. We crowned the shining one with the seven orbs of light, which are the channels between it and the sentience we sought to make articulate, the portals through which flow its currents and soul-flowing become co-eight, vocal, self-realizant within our child. But as we shaped, there passed some of the essence of our pride. In giving will we had given power, perforce to exercise that will for good or for evil, to speak or to be silent, to tell us what we wished of that which poured into it through the seven orbs or to withhold that knowledge itself. And in forging it from the immortal energies we had endowed it with their indifference, open to all consciousness it held within it the pole of utter joy and the pole of utter woe, with all the arc that lies between, all the ecstasies of the countless worlds and sons and all their sorrows, all that ye symbolize as gods and all ye symbolize as devils. Not negativing each other, for there is no such thing as negation, but holding them together, balancing them, encompassing them, pole upon pole. So this was the explanation of the entwined emotions of joy and terror that had changed so appallingly Throckmarten's face and the faces of all the dweller's slaves. The hand-main's eyes grew bright, alert again, the brooding past from her face, the golden voice that had been so deep found its own familiar pitch. "'I listened while the three spoke to you,' she said. Now the shaping of the shining one had been a long, long travail, and time had flown over the outer world leia upon leia. For a space the shining one was content to dwell here, to be fed with the foods of light, to open the eyes of the three to mystery upon mystery, and to read for them facet after facet of the gem of truth. Yet as the tides of consciousness flowed through it they left behind shadowings and echoes of their burdens, and the shining one grew stronger, always stronger, of itself within itself. Its will strengthened, and now not always was it the will of the three, and the pride that was woven in the making of it waxed, while the love for them that its creators had set within it waned. What ignorant were the tithew of the work of the three? First there were a few, then more and more, who coveted the shining one, and who would have had the three share with them the knowledge it drew in for them. But the silent ones in their pride would not. There came a time when its will was now all its own, and it rebelled, turning its gaze to the wider spaces beyond the portal, offering itself to the many there who would serve it, tiring of the three their control and their abode. Now the shining one has its limitations even as we. Over water it can pass, through air and through fire, but pass it cannot through rock or metal. So it sent a message, how I know not, to the tithew who desired it, whispering to them the secret of the portal. And when the time was ripe they opened the portal and the shining one passed through it to them, nor would it return to the three though they commanded, and when they would have forced it they found that it had hived and hidden a knowledge that they could not overcome. Yet by their arts the three could have shattered the seven shining orbs, but they would not because they loved it. Those to whom it had gone, built for it that place I have shown you, and they bowed to it and drew wisdom from it. And ever they turned more and more from the ways in which the tithew had walked, for it seemed that which came to the shining one through the seven orbs had less and less of good and more and more of the power you call evil. Knowledge it gave, and understanding, yes, but not that which clear and serene lights the paths of right wisdom. Rather were they flares, pointing the dark roads that lead to—to the ultimate evil. Not all the race of the three followed the council of the shining one. There were many, many who would have none of it nor of its power. So were the tithew split, and to this place where there had been none came hatred, fear, and suspicion. Those who pursued the ancient ways went to the three and pleaded with them to destroy their work, and they would not, for still they loved it. Never grew the dweller, and less and less did it lay before its worshippers, for now so they had become the fruits of its knowledge. And it grew restless, turning its gaze upon earth face even as it had turned it from the three. It whispered to the tithew to take again the paths and look out upon the world, though above them was a great fertile land on which dwelt an unfamiliar race, skilled in arts, seeking and finding wisdom, mankind, mighty builders were they, vast were their cities, and huge their temples of stone. They called their lands Muria, and they worshipped a god Thanaroa, whom they imagined to be the maker of all things, dwelling far away. They worshipped as closer gods, not indifferent but be prayed to and to be propitiated, the moon and the sun. Two kings they had, each with his council and his court. One was high priest to the moon, and the other high priest to the sun. The mass of this people were black-haired, but the sun king and his nobles were ruddy, with hair like mine, and the moon king and his followers were like Yolara or Lugur. And this, the three said good-win, came about because for time upon time the law had been that whenever a ruddy-haired or ashen-trest child was born of the black-haired, it became dedicated at once to either sun god or moon god, later wedding and bearing children only to their own kind. Until, at last, from the black-haired came no more of the light-locked ones, but the ruddy ones, being stronger, still arose from them. CHAPTER 30 The Building of the Moon-Pool She paused, running her long fingers through her own bronze-flector ringlets, selective breeding this with a vengeance, I thought. An ancient experiment in heredity, which, of course, would in time result in the stamping out of the tenancy to depart from type that lies in all organisms, resulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of black-haired, ruddy-haired, and silver-haired. But this, with a shock of realization it came to me, was also an accurate description of the dark-pulled Ladala, their fair-haired rulers, and of the golden-brown-trest Lakla. How! Questions began to stream through my mind, silenced by the handmaiden's voice. Above, far, far above the abode of the shining one, she said, was their greatest temple, holding the shrines both of sun and moon. All about it were other temples hidden behind mighty walls, each closing its own space, and squared, and ruled, and standing within a shallow lake, the sacred city, the city of the gods of this land. It is the non-matal that she is describing, I thought. Out upon all this looked the tithu, who were now but the servants of the shining one, as it had been the messenger of the three, she went on. When they returned the shining one spoke to them, promising them dominion over all that they had seen, yea, under it dominion of all earth itself, and later perhaps of other earths. In the shining one had grown craft, cunning, knowledge to gain that which it desired. Therefore it told its tithu, and may have told them truth, that not yet was a time for them to go forth, that slowly must they pass into that outer world, for they had sprung from heart of earth, and even it lacked power to swirl unaided into and through the above. Then it counseled them, instructing them what to do. They hollowed the chamber wherein first I saw you, cutting their way to it, that path down which from it you sped. It revealed to them that the force that is within the moon flame is kin to the force that is within it, for the chamber of its birth was the chamber too of moon birth, and into it went the subtle essence and powers that flow in that earth child. And it taught them how to make that which fills what you call the moon-pool, whose opening is close behind its veil hanging upon the gleaming cliffs. When this was done, it taught them how to make and how to place the seven lights through which moon-flame streams into moon-pool, the seven lights that are kin to its own seven orbs, even as its fires are kin to moon-fires, and which would open for it a path that it could tread. In all this the tithu did, working so secretly that neither those of their race whose faces were set against the shining one nor the busy men above know ought of it. When it was done they moved up the path, clustering within the moon-pool chamber. Moon-flame streamed through the seven globes, poured down upon the pool. They saw mists arise, embrace, and become one with the moon-flame, and then up through the moon-pool shaping itself within the mists of light, whirling, radiant, the shining one. Almost free, almost loosed upon the world it coveted. Again it counseled them, and they pierced the passage whose portal you found first, set the fires within its stones and revealing themselves to the moon-king and his priests, spake to them even as the shining one had instructed. Now was the moon-king filled with fear when he looked upon the tithu, shrouded with protecting mists of light in moon-pool chamber, and heard their words. Yet, being crafty, he thought of the power that would be his if he heeded, and how quickly the strength of the sun-king would dwindle. So he and his made a pact with the shining one's messengers. When next the moon was round and poured its flames upon the moon-pool, the tithu gathered there again, watched the child of the three take shape within the pillars, speed away and out. They heard a mighty shouting, a tumult of terror, of awe and of worship, a silence, a vast sighing, and they waited, wrapped in their mists of light, for they feared to follow nor were they near the paths that would have enabled them to look without. Another tumult, and back came the shining one, murmuring with joy, pulsing, triumphant, and clasped within its vapours a man and woman, ruddy-haired, gold-knide, in whose faces rapture and horror lay side by side, gloriously, hideously, and still holding them it danced above the moon-pool and sank. Now must I be brief. Lat after lat the shining one went forth, returning with its sacrifices, and stronger after each it grew, and gayer and more cruel. Ever when it passed with its prey toward the pool, the tithu who watched felt a swift, strong intoxication, a drunkenness of spirit, streaming from it to them. And the shining one forgot what it had promised them of dominion, and in this new evil delight they too forgot. The outer land was torn with hatred and open strife. The moon-king and his kind, through the guidance of the evil tithu and the favour of the shining one, had become powerful, and the sun-king and his were darkened. And the moon-priests preached that the child of the three was the moon-god itself come to dwell with them. Now vast tides arose, and when they withdrew they took with them great portions of this country, and the land itself began to sink. Then said the moon-king that the moon had called to ocean to destroy, because wroth that another than he was worshiped. Many people believed, and there was slaughter. When it was over there was no more a sun-king nor any of the ruddy-haired folk. Slain were they, slain down to the babe at breast. But still the tides swept higher, still dwindled the land. As it shrank, multitudes of the fleeing people were led through the moon-pool chamber and carried here. They were what now are called the ladala, and they were given place and set to work. And they thrived. Came many of the fair-haired, and they were given dwellings. They sat beside the evil tithu. They became drunk even as they with the dancing of the shining one. They learned, not all, only a little part but little enough of their arts. And ever the shining one danced more gaily out there within the black amphitheater, grew ever stronger, and ever the hordes of its slaves behind the veil increased. Nor did the tithu who clung to the old ways check this. They could not. By the sinking of the land above, their own spaces were imperiled. All of their strength and all of their wisdom it took to keep this land from perishing. Or had they helped from those others mad for the poison of the shining one? And they had no time to deal with them nor the earth-race with whom they had foregathered. At last came a slow, vast flood. It rolled even to the bases of the walled islets of the city of the gods, and within these now were all that were left of my people on earth-face. I am of those people. She paused, looking at me proudly. One of the daughters of the Sun King, whose seed is still alive in the Ladala. As Larry opened his mouth to speak, she waved a silencing hand. This tide did not recede, she went on. And after a time the remnant, the Moon King leading them, joined those who had already fled below. The rocks became still, the quaking ceased, and now those ancient ones, who had been laboring, could take breath. And anger grew within them as they looked upon the work of their evil kin. Again they sought the three, and the three now knew what they had done, and their pride was humbled. They would not slay the shining one themselves, for still they loved it. But they instructed these others how to undo their work, how also they might destroy the evil tithew, were it necessary. Armed with the wisdom of the three, they went forth, but now the shining one was strong indeed. They could not slay it. Nay, it knew, and was prepared. They could not even pass beyond its veil, nor seal its abode. Ah, strong, strong, mighty of will, full of craft and cunning, had the shining one become. So they turned upon their kind who had gone astray and made them perish to the last. The shining one came not to the aid of its servants, though they called, for within its will was the thought that they were of no further use to it, that it would rest awhile and dance with them, who had so little of the power and wisdom of its tithew, and therefore no reins upon it. And while this was happening, black-haired and fair-haired ran and hid, and were but shaking vessels of terror. The ancient ones took counsel. This was their decision, that they would go free from the gardens before the silver waters, leaving, since they could not kill it, the shining one with its worshippers. They sealed the mouth of the passage that leads to the moon-pool chamber, and they changed the face of the cliff so that none might tell where it had been. At the passage itself they left open, having, for knowledge, I think, of a thing that was to come to pass in the far future. Perhaps it was your journey here, my Larry and Goodwin. Verily, I think so. And they destroyed all the ways save that which we three trod to the dwellers abode. For the last time they went to the three to pass sentence upon them. This was the doom, that here they should remain, alone, among the akka, served by them, until that time dawned, when they would have will to destroy the evil they had created, and even now, loved. Nor might they seek death, nor follow their judges, until this had come to pass. This was the doom they put upon the three, for the wickedness that had sprung from their pride. And they strengthened it with their arts that it might not be broken. Then they passed, to a far land they had chosen where the shining one could not go, beyond the black precipices of duel, a green land. Ireland, interrupted Larry with conviction, I knew it. Since then, time upon time had passed, she went on, unheeding. The people called this place Myria, after their sunken land, and soon they forgot where had been the passage the tythu had sealed. The Moon King became the voice of the Dweller, and always with the voice is a woman of the Moon King's kin who is its priestess. And many have been the journeys upward of the shining one, through the Moon Pool, returning with still others in its coils. And now again it has grown restless, longing for the wider spaces. It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugor, even as it did to the dead tythu, promising them dominion. And it has grown stronger, drawing to itself power to go far on the Moonstream where it will. Thus was it able to seize your friend Goodwin and Lolaf's wife and Babe, and many more. Yolara and Lugor plan to open way to Earth-face, to depart with their courts and under the shining one grasp the world. And this is the tale the silent ones bade me tell you, and it is done. Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a long lost world. Now I found speech to voice the question ever with me, the thing that lay as close to my heart as did the welfare of Larry, indeed the whole object of my quest, the fate of Throckmarden and those who had passed with him into the Dweller's lair, yes, and of Olaf's wife, too. Lakla, I said, the friend who drew me here and those he loved who went before him, can we not save them? The three say no, Goodwin. There was again in her eyes the pity with which she had looked upon Olaf. The shining one feeds upon the flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say the three, is the best that can come to them. Yet will that be a boon great indeed. But they have souls, Mavernine, Larry said to her, and they're alive, still, in a way. Anyhow their souls have not gone from them. I caught a hope from his words, skeptic though I am, holding that the existence of soul has never been proved by dependable laboratory methods, for they recall to me that when I had seen Throckmarden, Edith had been close beside him. It was days after his wife was taken that the Dweller ceased Throckmarden, I cried. How, if their wills, their life were indeed gone, how did they find each other mid all that horde? How did they come together in the Dweller's lair? I do not know, she answered slowly. You say they loved, and it is true that love is stronger even than death. One thing I don't understand, this was Larry again, is why a girl like you keeps coming out of the black-haired crowd, so frequently, and one might say, so regularly, Lakla. Aren't there ever any red-headed boys, and if they are, what becomes of them? That, Larry, I cannot answer, she said, very frankly. There was a pact of some kind, how made, or by whom, I know not. But for long the Murians feared the return of the Tythu, and greatly they feared the three. Even the shining one feared those who had created it, for a time, and not even now is it eager to face them, that I know. Nor are Yolara and Lugor so sure. It may be that the three commanded it, but how, or why, I know not. I only know that it is true, for here am I, and from where else would I have come? From Ireland, said Larry O'Keefe, promptly. And that's where you're going, for it is no place for a girl like you to have been brought up, Lakla, what, with people like frogs, and a half-god, three-quarters devil, and red oceans, and the only Irish things yourself, and the signet ones up there, bless their hearts. It's no place for you, and by the soul of St. Patrick, it's out of it soon you'll be getting. Larry, Larry, if it had been but true, and I could see Lakla and you beside me now. End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Of the Moon Pool By Abraham Merritt This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Moon Pool Chapter 31 Larry and the Frogmen Everything had been her tale in the telling, and too long, perhaps, have I been in the repeating, but not every day are the mists rolled away to reveal undreamed secrets of earth-youth. And I have set it down here, adding nothing, taking nothing from it. Translating liberally it is true, but constantly striving, while putting it into idea-forms and phraseology, to be readily understood by my readers, to keep accurately to the spirit. And this, I must repeat, I have done throughout my narrative, wherever it has been necessary to record conversation with the Merians. Rising I found I was painfully stiff, as muscle-bound as though I had actually trudged many miles. Larry, imitating me, gave an involuntary groan. "'Faith, mavernine,' he said to Lakla, relapsing unconsciously into English. Yaw Rhodes would never wear out shoe-leather, but they've got their kick just the same. She understood our plight, if not his words, gave a soft little cry of mingled pity and self-reproach, forced us back upon the cushions. "'Oh, but I'm sorry,' mourned Lakla, leaning over us. I had forgotten, for those new to it the way is a weary one indeed. She ran to the doorway, whistled a clear high note down the passage. Through the hangings came two of the frogmen. She spoke to them rapidly. They crouched toward us, what certainly was meant for an amiable grin wrinkling the grotesque muzzles, bearing the glistening rows of needle-teeth. And while I watched them with the fascination that they never lost for me, the monsters calmly swung one arm around our knees, lifted us up like babies, and as calmly started to walk away with us. "'Put me down! Put me down,' I say.' The O'Keeffe's voice was both outraged and angry. Squinting around, I saw him struggling violently to get to his feet. The Aka only held him tighter, booming comfortingly, peering down into his flushed face inquiringly. "'But, Larry, darling,' Lachla's tones were, well, maternally surprised, "'your stiff and sore, and Craw can carry you quite easily.' "'I won't be carried,' sputtered the O'Keeffe. "'Dammit, Goodwin, there are such things as the unit is even here, and for a lieutenant of the Royal Air Force to be picked up and carted around like a bundle of rags, it's not discipline. "'Put me down, ye old madden, or a pokey and a snout,' he shouted to his bearer, who only boomed gently and stared at the handmaiden, plainly for further instructions. "'But, Larry, dear,' Lachla was plainly distressed, "'it will hurt you to walk, and I don't want you to hurt, Larry, darling.' "'Holy shade of St. Patrick,' moaned Larry, again he made a mighty effort to tear himself from the frogman's grip, gave up with a groan. "'Listen, Alana,' he said, plaintively, "'when we get to Ireland, you and I, we won't have anybody to pick us up and carry us about every time we get a bit tired, and it's getting me in bad habits, you are.' "'Oh, yes, we will, Larry,' cried the handmaiden, "'because many, oh, many of my aqa, will go with us.' "'Where do you tell this, boob, to put me down?' gritted the now thoroughly aroused O'Keeffe. I couldn't help laughing, he glared at me.' "'Boo-b,' exclaimed Lachla. "'Yes, booo-b,' said O'Keeffe, and I have no desire to explain the word in my present position, light of my soul.' The handmaiden sighed, plainly dejected, but she spoke again to the aqa, who gently lowered the O'Keeffe to the floor. "'I don't understand,' she said hopelessly. "'If you want to walk, why, of course you shall, Larry.' She turned to me. "'Do you?' she asked. "'I do not,' I said firmly.' "'Well, then,' murmured Lachla. "'Go, you,' Larry and Goodwin, with cry and gulk, and let them minister to you. After, sleep a little, for not soon will Rador and Olaf return. "'And let me feel your lips before you go, Larry, darlin.' She covered his eyes caressingly with her soft little palms, pushed him away. "'Now go,' said Lachla, and rest.' Unashamed, I lay back against the horny chest of gulk, and with a smile, noticed that Larry, even if he had rebelled at being carried, did not disdain the support of Krah's shining, black-scaled arm, which, slipping around his waist, half lifted him along. They parted a hanging and dropped us softly down beside a little pool, sparkling with the clear water that had heretofore been brought us in the wide basins. They then began to undress us. At this point the O'Keefe gave up. "'Whatever they're going to do, we can't stop them, Doc,' he moaned. "'Anyway, I feel as though I've been pulled through a knothole, and I don't care. I don't care,' as the song says. When we were stripped, we were lowered gently into the water. But not long did the Aka let us splash about the shallow basin. They lifted us out, and from jars began deftly to anoint and rub us with aromatic ungwits. I think that in all the medley of grotesque, of tragic, of baffling, strange and perilous experiences in that underground world, none was more bizarre than this, valaying. I began to laugh. Larry joined me, and then Krah and Gulk joined in our merriment, with deep, patrachian cacanations and gruntings. Then, having finished appalling us and still chuckling, the two touched our arms and led us out, into a room whose circular sides were wrinked with soft devans. Still smiling, I sank at once into sleep. How long I slumbered, I do not know. A lull when thunderous booming coming through the deep window-slit, reverberated through the room and awakened me. Larry yawned, arose briskly. Sounds as though the bass drums of every jazz band in New York were serenading us, he observed. Simultaneously we sprang to the window, peered through. We were a little above the level of the bridge, and its full length was plain before us. Thousands upon thousands of the aca were crowding upon it, and far away other hordes filled like a glittering thicket both sides of the cavern ledges crescent strand. On black scale and orange scale the crimson light fell, picking them off in little flickering points. Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span over the abyss were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador, the handmaiden clearly acting as interpreter between them and the giant she had called Knack, the Frog King. Come on, shouted Larry, out of the open portal we ran, over the world-heart bridge and straight into the group. Oh! cried Lakla. I didn't want you to wake up so soon, Larry, darlin! See here, maverine! Indignation thrilled in the Irishman's voice. I'm not going to be done up with baby ribbons and laid away in a cradle for safekeeping while a fight is on. Don't take it. Why didn't you call me? You needed rest. There was indomitable determination in the handmaiden's tones, the eternal, maternal, shining defiant from her eyes. You were tired, and you hurt. You shouldn't have got up. Needed the rest, groaned Larry. Look here, Lakla! What do you think I am? You're all I have, said the handmaiden firmly, and I'm going to take care of you, Larry, darlin! Don't you ever think anything else? Well, pulse of my heart, considering my delicate health and general fragility, would it hurt me, do you think, to be told what's going on? He asked. Not at all, Larry, answered the handmaiden serenely. Yolora went through the portal. She was very, very angry. She was all the devil's woman that she is, rumbled Olaf. Never met the messenger, went on the golden girl calmly. The Ladala are ready to rise when Lugor and Yolora lead their hosts against us. They will strike at those left behind. And in the meantime we shall have disposed my Aka to meet Yolora's men, and on that disposal we must all take counsel, you, Larry, and Rador, Olaf and Goodwin, and Nak, the ruler of the Aka. Should the messenger give any idea when Yolora expects to make her little call? Asked Larry. Yes, she answered. They prepare, and we may expect them in. She gave the equivalent of about thirty-six hours of our time. But Lakla, I said, the doubt that I had long been holding, finding voice. Should the shining one come, with its slaves, are the three strong enough to cope with it? There was troubled doubt in her own eyes. I do not know, she said at last, frankly. You have heard their story. What they promise is that they will help. I do not know any more than you do, Goodwin. I looked up at the dome beneath which I knew the dread trinity stared forth, even down upon us. And despite the awe, the assurance, I had felt when I stood before them. I too doubted. Well, said Larry, you and I, Uncle, he turned to Rador, and all out here had better decide just what part of the battle will lead. Lead! The handmaiden was appalled. You lead, Larry! Why, you are to stay with Goodwin and with me. Up there. There we can watch. Hearts beloved! O'Keefe was stern indeed. A thousand times I have looked death straight in the face, peered into his eyes. Yes, and with ten thousand feet of space under me, and burst in shells tickling the ribs of the boat I was in. And do you think I'll sit now on the grandstand and watch while a game like this is being pulled? You don't know, your future husband, soul of my delight. And so we started toward the golden opening, squads of the frogmen following us soldierly and disappearing about the huge structure. Nor did we stop until we came to the handmaiden's boudoir. There we seated ourselves. Now, said Larry, two things I want to know. First, how many can your Lara muster against us? Second, how many of these Aka have we to meet them? Your gave our equivalent for eighty thousand men as the force your Lara could muster without stripping her city. Against this force it appeared we could count roughly upon two hundred thousand of the Aka. And there some fighters, exclaimed Larry, hell, with odds like that, what are you worrying about? It's over before it's begun. But Larry, objected Rador to this, you forget that the nobles will have the Keth and other things. Also that the soldiers have fought against the Aka before and will be shielded very well from their spears and clubs and that their blades and javelins can bite through the scales of nax warriors. They have many things. Uncle, interjected O'Keefe, one thing they have is your nerve. Why, we're more than two to one, and take it from me. That warning dropped the tragedy. Lakla had taken no part in the talk since we had reached her bower. She had seated herself close to the O'Keefe, glancing at her I had seen steel over her face that brooding, listening look that was hers whenever in that mysterious communion with the three. It vanished, swiftly she arose, interrupted the Irishman without ceremony. Larry, darling, said the handmaiden, the silent one summon us. When do we go, I asked, Larry's face grew bright with interest. The time is now, she said, and hesitated. Larry, dear, put your arms about me, she faltered, for there is something cold that catches at my heart and I am afraid. At his exclamation she gathered herself together, gave a shaky little laugh. It's because I love you so that fear has powered to plague me, she told him. Without another word he bent and kissed her. In silence we passed on, his arms still about her girdled waist, golden head and black close together. Soon we stood before the crimson slab that was the door to the sanctuary of the silent ones. She poised uncertainly before it. Then with a defiant arching of the proud little head that sent all the bronze-flecked curls flying, she pressed. It slipped aside and once more the opalescence gushed out, flooding all about us. Asled as before I followed through the lambent cascades pouring from the high, carved walls, paused and my eyes clearing looked up, straight into the faces of the three. The angled orbs centered upon the handmaiden, softened as I had seen them do when first we had faced them. She smiled up, seemed to listen. Come closer, she commanded, close to the feet of the silent ones. We moved, pausing at the very base of the dais. The sparkling mist thinned, the great heads bent slightly over us. Through the veils I caught a glimpse of huge columnar necks, enormous shoulders covered with draperies as of pale blue fire. I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for our benefit. For whatever was the mode of communication between those whose handmaiden she was and her, it was clearly independent of speech. "'He has been told,' she said, even as you commanded. Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes? Wondering, I glanced at Lakla's face, and there was a dawn of foreboding and bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude. Even the gaze of the three left her, focused upon the O'Keefe. Thus speak the silent ones, through Lakla their handmaiden. The golden voice was like low trumpet notes. "'At the threshold of doom is that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye dreamed, and the shadow of which, looking into your mind, they see, say the three. For not upon earth and never upon earth can man find means to destroy the shining one.' She listened again, and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear. They say, the silent ones, she went on, that they know not whether even they have the power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered into its shaping and are part of it, and still other energies it has gathered to itself. She paused, a shadow of puzzlement crept into her voice. And other energies still, forces that ye do know and symbolize by certain names, hatred and pride and lust, and many others which are forces real as that hidden in the Keath, and among them fear which weakens all those others. Again she paused. But within it is nothing of that greatest of all, that which can make powerless all the evil others, that which we call love. She ended softly. I'd like to be the one to put a little more fear in the beast, whispered Larry to me, grimly in our own English. The three weird heads bent ever so slightly, and I gasped, and Larry grew a little white as Lachla nodded. They say, Larry, she said, that there you touch one side of the heart of the matter, for it is through the way of fear the silent ones hope to strike at the varied life of the shining one. The visage Larry turned to me was eloquent of wonder, and mine reflected it, for what really were these three to whom our minds were but open pages so easily read? Not long could we conjecture, Lachla broke the little silence. This they say is what is to happen. Hosts will come upon us Lugor and Yolara with all their host. Because of fear the shining one will lurk behind within its layer. For despite all the dweller does dread the three, and only them. With this host the voice and the priestess will strive to conquer. And if they do, then will they be strong enough too to destroy us all. For if they take the abode they banish from the dweller all fear and sound the end of the three. Then will the shining one be all free indeed. Free to go out into the world, free to do there as it wills. But if they do not conquer, and the shining one comes not to their aid, abandoning them even as it abandon its own tithew, then will the three be loosed from a part of their doom, and they will go through the portal, seek the shining one beyond the veil, and piercing it through fear's opening, destroy it. That's quite clear, murmured the O'Keefe in my ear. Weak in the morale, then smash. I've seen it happen a dozen times in Europe. While they've got their nerve there's not a thing you can do. Get their nerve, not a thing they can do. And yet in both cases they're the same men. Lakla had been listening again. She turned, thrust out hands to Larry, a wild hope in her eyes, and yet a hope half ashamed. They say, she cried, that they give us choice. Remembering that your world doom hangs in the balance, we have choice. Choice to stay and help fight Yolara's armies, and they say they look not lightly on that help, or choice to go, and if so be you choose the latter, then will they show another way that leads into your world. A flush had crept over the O'Keefe's face as she was speaking. He took her hands and looked long into the golden eyes. Glancing up, I saw the Trinity were watching them intently, imperturbably. What do you say, mavernine? asked Larry gently. The handmaid hung her head, trembled. Your words shall be mine, O one I love, she whispered. So going or staying, I am beside you. And you, Goodwin, he turned to me. I shrugged my shoulders. After all, I had no one to care. It's up to you, Larry, I remarked deliberately, choosing his own phraseology. The O'Keefe straightened, squared his shoulders, gazed straight into the flame-flickering eyes. We stick, he said briefly. Shame-facedly I recall now that at the time I thought this colloquialism not only irrelevant, but in somewhat bad taste. I am glad to say I was alone in that bit of weakness. The face that Lakla turned to Larry was radiant with love, and although the shamed hope had vanished from the sweet eyes, they were shining with adoring pride. And the marble visages of the three softened, and the little flames died down. Wait! said Lakla. There is one other thing they say we must answer before they will hold us to that promise. Wait! She listened, and then her face grew white, white as those of the three themselves. The glorious eyes widened, stark terror filling them, the whole lithe body of her shook like a reed in the wind. Not that! She cried out to the three. Oh! Not that! Not Larry! Let me go, even as you will, but not him. She threw up frantic hands to the woman-being of the trinity. Let me bear it alone! She wailed. Alone, mother! Mother! The three bent their heads toward her, their faces pitiful, and from the eyes of the woman-one rolled tears. Larry leaped to Lakla's side. Mavernine! he cried. Swayed heart! What have they said to you? He glared up at the silent ones, his hand twitching toward the high-hung pistol holster. The hand-main swung to him, threw wide arms around his neck, held her head upon his heart until her sobbing ceased. Yes, they say. The silent ones, she gasped, and then all the courage of her came back. Oh! Heart of mine! She whispered to Larry, gazing deep into his eyes, his anxious face cupped between her white palms. This, they say, that should the shiny one come to succour your Lara and Lugor, should it conquer its fear and do this, then there is but one way left to destroy it, and to save your world. She swayed, he gripped her tightly. But one way, you and I must go, together, into its embrace. Yea, we must pass within it, loving each other, loving the world, realizing to the full all that we sacrifice and sacrificing all, our love, our lives, perhaps even that you call soul, oh loved one, must give ourselves all to the shining one, gladly, freely, our love for each other, flaming high within us, that this curse shall pass away. For if we do this, pledge the three, then shall that power of love we carry into it, weaken for a time all that evil which the shining one has become, and in that time the three can strike and slay. The blood rushed from my heart. Scientists that I am, essentially, my reason rejected any such solution as this of the activities of the Dweller. Was it not, the thought flashed, a propitiation by the three out of their own weakness, and as it flashed I looked up to see their eyes, full of sorrow, on mine, and knew they read the thought. Then into the whirling vortex of my mind came steadying reflections of history changed by the power of hate, of passion, of ambition, and most of all by love. Was there not actual dynamic energy in these things? Was there not a son of man who hung upon a cross on Calvary? Dear love of mine," said the O'Keefe quietly, as it in your heart to say yes to this. Larry, she spoke low. What is in your heart is in mine, but I did so want to go with you, to live with you, to bear your children, Larry, and to see the son. My eyes were wet, dimly through them, I saw his gaze on me. If the world is at stake, he whispered, Why, of course, there's only one thing to do. God knows I never was afraid when I was fighting up there, and many a better man than me has gone west with shell and bullet for the same idea, but these things aren't shell and bullet, but I hadn't locked her then, and it's the damn doubt I have behind it all. He turned to the three, and did I in their poise sense of rigidity and anxiety that sat upon them as alienly as with divinity upon men? Tell me this, silent ones, he cried. If we do this, Lachla and I, is it sure you are that you can slay the thing and save my world? Is it sure you are? For the first and the last time I heard the voice of the silent ones. It was the man being at the right who spoke. We are sure. The tones rolled out like deepest organ notes, shaking, vibrating, assailing the ears as strangely as their appearance struck the eyes. Another moment the O'Keeffe stared at them. Once more he squared his shoulders, lifted Lachla's chin, and smiled into her eyes. We're a stick, he said again, nodding to the three. Over the visages of the Trinity fell benignity that was awesome. The tiny flames in the jet orbs vanished, leaving them wells in which brimmed serenity, hope, and extraordinary joyfulness. The woman sat upright, tender gaze fixed upon the man and girl. Her great shoulders raised as though she had lifted her arms and had drawn to her those others. The three faces pressed together for a fleeting moment, raised again. The woman bent forward, and as she did so, Lachla and Larry, as though drawn by some outer force, were swept upon the dais. Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enormously long, six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of golden scales upon their white backs, utterly unhuman, and in still some strange way beautiful, radiating power, and all womanly. They stretched forth, they touched the bent heads of Lachla and the O'Keefe, caressed them, drew them together, softly stroked them, lovingly, with more than a touch of benediction, and withdrew. The sparkling mists rolled up once more, hiding the silent ones. As silently as once before we had gone, we passed out of the place of light, beyond the crimson stone, back to the Handmaiden's chamber. Only once on our way did Larry speak. Chair up, darlin', he said to her. It's a long way yet before the finish, and you are thinking that Luger and Yelara are going to pull this thing off, are you? The Handmaiden only looked at him, eyes, love, and sorrow filled. They are, said Larry, they are, like hell they are. End of chapter 32.