Then it happened. Elak saw the guard’s mouth open in a square of amazement; saw horror spring into the cold eyes. The man’s face was a mask of abysmal fear. He flung himself back desperately—the sword-tip just missed Elak’s face.
The soldier raced
away into the shadows.
With a snake-like movement Elak turned, rapier ready. He caught a blur of swift motion. The man facing him had lifted quick hands to his face, and dropped them as suddenly. But there was no menace in the gesture. Nevertheless Elak felt a chill of inexplicable uneasiness crawl down his back as he faced his rescuer. The soldiers of San-Mu were courageous, if lacking in human kindness. What had frightened the attacking guard?
He eyed the other. He was a medium-sized man, clad in voluminous gray garments that were almost invisible in the gloom—saw a white face with regular, statuesque features. A black hollow sprang into existence within the white mask as a soft voice whispered, “You’d escape from the guards? No need for your rapier—I’m a friend.”
“Who the—but there’s no time for talk. Thanks, and good-bye.”
Elak stooped and hoisted Lycon to his shoulders again. The little man was blinking and murmuring soft appeals for more mead. And the hasty thunder of mailed feet grew louder, while torchlight swiftly approaching cast gleams of light about the trio.
“In here,” the gray-clad man whispered. “You’ll be safe.” Now Elak saw that in the stone wall beside him a black rectangle gaped. He sprang through the portal without hesitation. The other followed, and instantly they were in utter blackness as an unseen door swung creakingly on rusty hinges.
Elak felt a soft hand touch his own. Or was it a hand? For a second he had the incredible feeling that the thing whose flesh he had touched did not belong to any human body—it was too soft, too cold! His skin crawled at the feel of the thing. It was withdrawn, and a fold of gray cloth swung against his palm. He gripped it.
“Follow!”
Silently, gripping the guide’s garment, bearing Lycon on his shoulders, Elak moved forward. How the other could find his way through the blackness Elak did not know, unless he knew the way by heart. Yet the passage—if passage it was—turned and twisted endlessly as it went down. Presently Elak had the feeling that he was moving through a larger space, a cave, perhaps. His footsteps sounded differently, somehow. And through the darkness vague whisperings came to him.
Whispers in no language he
knew. The murmurous sibilants rustled out strangely, making Elak’s brows contract and his free hand go involuntarily to the hilt of his rapier. He snarled, “Who’s here?”
The invisible guide cried out in the mysterious tongue. Instantly the whisperings stopped.
“You are among friends,” a voice said softly from the blackness. “We are almost at our destination. A few more steps—”
A few more steps, and light blazed up. They stood in a small rectangular chamber hollowed out of the rock. The nitrous walls gleamed dankly in the glow of an oil lamp, and a little stream ran across the rock floor of the cave and lost itself, amid chuckles of goblin laughter, in a small hole at the base of the wall. Two doors were visible. The gray-clad man was closing one of them.
A crude table and a few chairs were all the furnishings of the room. Elak strained his ears. He heard something—something that should not be heard in inland San-Mu. He could not be mistaken. The sound of waves lapping softly in the distance… and occasionally a roaring crash, as of breakers smashing on a rocky shore.
He dumped Lycon unceremoniously in one of the chairs. The little man fell forward on the table, pillowing his head in his arms. Sadly he muttered, “Is there no mead in Atlantis? I die, Elak. My belly is an arid desert across which the armies of Eblis march.”
He sobbed unhappily for a moment and fell asleep.
Elak ostentatiously unsheathed his rapier and laid it on the table. His slender fingers closed on the hilt. “An explanation,” he said, “is due. Where are we?”
“I am Gesti,” said the gray-clad one. His face seemed chalk-white in the light of the oil lamp. His eyes, deeply sunken, were covered with a curious glaze. “I saved you from the guards, eh? You’ll not deny that?”
“You have my thanks,” Elak said. “Well?”
“I need the aid of a
brave man. And I’ll pay well. If you’re interested, good. If not, I’ll see you leave San-Mu safely.”
Elak considered. “It’s true we’ve little money.” He thought of the purse in his wallet and grinned wryly. “Not enough to last us long, at any rate. Perhaps we’re interested. Although—” He hesitated.
“Well?”
“I could bear to know how you got rid of the soldier so quickly, back in the alley behind the tavern.”
“I do not think that matters,” Gesti whispered in his sibilant voice. “The guards are superstitious. And it’s easy to play on their weakness. Let that suffice!” The cold glazed eyes met Elak’s squarely, and a little warning note seemed to clang in his brain.
There was danger here. Yet danger had seldom given him pause. He said, “What will you pay?”
“A thousand golden pieces.”
“Fifty thousand cups of mead,” Lycon murmured sleepily. “Accept it, Elak. I’ll await you here.”
There was little affection in the glance Elak cast at his companion. “You’ll get none of it,” he promised. “Not a gold piece!”
He turned to Gesti. “What’s to be done for this reward?”
Gesti’s immobile face watched him cryptically. “Kill Zend.”
Elak said, “Kill—Zend? Zend? The Wizard of Atlantis?”
“Are you afraid?” Gesti asked tonelessly.
“I am,” Lycon said without lifting his head from his arms. “However, if Elak is not, he may slay Zend and I’ll wait here.”
Ignoring him, Elak said, “I’ve heard strange things of Zend. His powers are not human. Indeed, he’s not been seen in the streets of San-Mu for ten years. Men say he’s immortal.”
“Men—are fools.” And in Gesti’s voice there was a contempt that made Elak stare at him sharply. It was as though Gesti was commenting on some race alien to him. The gray-clad man went on hurriedly, as thought sensing the trend of Elak’s thoughts. “We have driven a passage under Zend’s palace. We can break through at any time; that we shall do tonight. Two tasks I give you: kill Zend; shatter the red sphere.”
Elak said, “You’re cryptic. What red sphere?”
“It lies in the topmost
minaret of his palace. His magic comes from it. There is rich loot in the palace, Elak—if that’s your name. So the little man called you.”
“Elak or dunce or robber of drunken men,” Lycon said, absently feeling the bosom of his tunic. “All alike. Call him by any of those names and you’ll be right. Where is my gold, Elak?”
But without waiting for an answer he slumped down in his chair, his eyes closing and his mouth dropping open as he snored. Presently he fell off the chair and rolled under the table, where he slumbered.
“What the devil can I do with him?” Elak asked. “I can’t take him with me. He’d—”
“Leave him here,” Gesti said.
Elak’s cold eyes probed the other. “He’ll be safe?”
“Quite safe. None in San-Mu but our band knows of this underground way.”
“What band is that?” Elak asked.
Gesti said nothing for a time. Then his soft voice whispered, “Need you know? A political group banded together to overthrow the king of San-Mu, and Zend, from whom he gets his power. Have you more—questions?”
“No.”
“Then follow.”
Gesti led Elak to one of the oaken doors; it swung open, and they moved forward up a winding passage. In the dark Elak stumbled over a step. He felt the cloth of Gesti’s garment touch his hand, and gripped it. In the blackness they ascended a staircase cut out of the rock.
Halfway up, Gesti paused. “I can go no further,” he whispered. “The way is straight. At the end of the stairway there is a trap-door of stone. Open it. You’ll be in Zend’s place. Here is a weapon for you.” He thrust a tube of cold metal into Elak’s hand. “Simply squeeze its sides, pointing the smaller end at Zend. You understand?”
Elak nodded, and, although
Gesti could scarcely have seen the movement in the darkness, he whispered, “Good. Dagon guard you!”
He turned away; Elak heard the soft rush of his descent dying in the distance. He began to mount the stairs, wonderingly. Dagon—was Gesti a worshipper of the forbidden evil god of ocean? Poseidon, a benignant sea-god, was adored in marble temples all over the land, but the dark worship of Dagon had been banned for generations. There were tales of another race whose god Dagon was—a race that had not sprung from human or even earthly loins.…
Gripping the odd weapon, Elak felt his way upward. At length his head banged painfully against stone, and, cursing softly, he felt about in the darkness. It was the trap-door of which Gesti had spoken. Two bolts slid back in well-oiled grooves. And the door lifted easily as Elak thrust his shoulders against it.
He clambered up in semi-darkness, finding himself in a small bare room through which light filtered from a narrow window-slit high in the wall. A mouse, squeaking fearfully, fled as he scrambled to his feet. Apparently the room was little used. Elak moved stealthily to the door.
It swung open a little under his cautious hand. A corridor stretched before him, dimly lit by cold blue radiance that came from tiny gems set in the ceiling at intervals. Elak followed the upward slant of the passage; the red sphere Gesti had mentioned was in the topmost minaret. Up, then.
In a niche in the wall Elak saw the head. The shock of it turned him cold with amazement. A bodiless head, set upright on a golden pedestal within a little alcove—its cheeks sunken, hair lank and disheveled—but eyes bright with incredible life! Those eyes watched him!
“Ishtar!” Elak breathed. “What wizardry’s this?”
He soon found out. The pallid lips of the horror writhed and twisted, and from them came a high skirling cry of warning.
“Zend! Zend! A stranger walks your—”
Elak’s rapier flew. There
was scarcely any blood. He dragged the blade from the eye socket, whispering prayers to all the gods and goddesses he could remember. The lean jaw dropped, and a blackened and swollen tongue lolled from between the teeth. A red, shrunken, eyelid dropped over the eye Elak had not pierced.
There was no sound save for Elak’s hastened breathing. He eyed the monstrous thing in the alcove, and then, confident that it was no longer a menace, lengthened his steps up the passage. Had Zend heard the warning of his sentinel? If so, danger lurked all about him.
A silver curtain slashed with a black pattern hung across the corridor. Elak parted it, and, watching, he froze in every muscle.
A dwarf, no more than four feet tall, with a disproportionately large head and a gray, wrinkled skin, was trotting briskly toward him. From the tales he had heard Elak imagined the dwarf to be Zend. Behind the wizard strode a half-naked giant, who carried over his shoulder the limp form of a girl. Elak spun about, realizing that he had delayed too long. Zend was parting the silver curtain as Elak raced back down the corridor.
At his side a black rectangle loomed—a passage he had overlooked, apparently, when he had passed it before. He sprang into its shielding darkness. When Zend passed he would strike down the wizard and take his chances with the giant. Remembering the smooth hard muscles that had rippled under the dead-white skin of the man, Elak was not so sure that his chances would be worth much. He realized now that the giant had seemed familiar.
Then he knew. Two days ago he had seen a man—a condemned criminal—beheaded in the temple of Poseidon. There could be no mistake. The giant was the same man, brought back to life by Zend’s evil necromancy!
“Ishtar!” Elak whispered, sweating. “I’d be better off in the hands of the guards.” How could he slay a man who was already dead?
Elak hesitated, his rapier half drawn. There was no use borrowing trouble. He would keep safely out of sight until Zend was separated from his ghastly servitor—and then it would be an easy matter to put six inches of steel through the wizard’s body. Elak was never one for taking unnecessary risks, as he had a wholesome regard for his hide. He heard a shuffling of feet and drew back within the side passage to let Zend pass. But the wizard turned suddenly and began to mount the steeply sloping corridor where Elak lurked. In Zend’s hand was a softly glowing gem that illuminated the passage, though not brightly.
Elak fled. The passage was steep
and narrow, and it ended at last before a blank wall. Behind him a steady padding of feet grew louder in the distance. He felt around desperately in the dark. If there was a hidden spring in the walls, he failed to find it.
He placed his palms flat against the wall, and with his bare feet found an easy purchase on the opposite one. Face down, swiftly; with his muscles cracking under the strain, he walked up the wall until he was safely above the head of even the giant. There he stopped, sweating, and glanced down.
Only an enormously strong man could have done it, and if Elak had weighed a little more it would have been impossible. His shoulders and thighs ached as he strained to hold his position without moving.
The trio were approaching. If they should glance up, Elak was ready to drop and use his blade, or the strange weapon Gesti had given him. But apparently they did not notice him, hidden as he was in the shadows of the high ceiling.
He caught a glimpse of the girl the giant carried. A luscious wench! But, of course, Zend would undoubtedly choose only the most attractive maidens for his necromancy and sorcery.
“If that dead-alive monster weren’t here,” he ruminated, “I’d be tempted to fall on Zend’s head. No doubt the girl would be grateful.”
She was, at the moment, unconscious. Long black lashes lay on cream-pale cheeks, and dark ringlets swayed as the giant lurched on. Zend’s hand fumbled out, touched the wall. The smooth surface of stone lifted and the gray dwarf pattered into the dimness beyond. The giant followed, and the door dropped again.
With a low curse of relief Elak
swung noiselessly to the floor and rubbed his hands on his leather tunic. They were bleeding, and only the hardness of his soles had saved his feet from a similar fate. After a brief wait Elak fumbled in the darkness and found the concealed spring.