Leaping back in alarm, he saw the golden snake, coiled between him and the bridge that was the way to Aysa.
The reptile’s thick coils were gathered in a conical heap. Every scale shone xanthic yellow, glittering, metallic. The tapering gold column of its neck was lifted. Ten feet above the floor, its vast flat head swayed back and forth as it hissed.
Price stared for a moment, fascinated again by those terrible eyes. The ugly head was gold-hooded, triangular. The vast, yellow-fanged mouth yawned wide as it hissed with such startling volume of sound.
The eyes transfixed him.
Dreadful eyes.
Purple-black, glowing with strange fire of age-old, evil wisdom.
Hard and fascinating as giant gems.
Price found himself unconsciously responding with his own body to the swaying of the eyes, felt the chill of them stealing into his body, freezing his limbs, choking him, oppressing his breathing, slowing his heart.
Desperately he fought against the power of the snake. Once, when the reptile appeared in the mirage, he had broken free. He could again! And he had seen Malikar overcome the snake, whip it into submission. The serpent itself was not immune to fear.
Calling upon every atom of his will to lift each foot, Price walked stiffly, unsteadily, like a mechanical doll, directly toward the snake. Awkwardly, he raised the yellow ax, with numb and nerveless hands. Malikar, he remembered suddenly, had shouted at the snake.
Price found his throat dry, his voice a hoarse croaking. But he began gasping out the ax-song of Iru, in short, harsh phrases.
The undulatory motion of the flat head ceased. It drew back, and, still hissing, struck at him. Price called upon flagging muscles to fling up the oval buckler to guard his face.
But the yellow head did not quite reach him. The snake was afraid. It drew back again, its movement doubtful, frightened.
The chill of strange fascination thawed from Price’s body. Shouting the ax-song louder, he continued his deliberate advance.
The wedge-shaped head drew back. It sank upon xanthic coils, lay motionless. Purple-black eyes glittered at Price, alien, hostile—yet afraid.
Still he moved forward, fighting down, striving to conceal the naked terror of his revolting soul.
His legs came against the cold, smooth scales of its outermost coil. The flat head, yellow-hooded, was sunk down before him, strange eyes watching him with glittering intentness, evilly aflame with supernormal intelligence, terrible with wisdom older than men.
Shuddering, Price slapped the frightful head, as he had seen Malikar do, with his open hand. He was sick with fear, weak, trembling. Every fiber of his body shrank trembling from contact with the snake. But he was afraid
not
to strike it.
The thick body against his legs shook a little, but the great head, the sinister, glittering eyes, did not move.
With open hand he struck the cold, metal-scaled head a dozen times, so hard that his fingers stung, still shouting out the ax-song.
Then he turned away, forcing himself to move deliberately, not daring to look back. He walked to the end of the narrow bridge, and set foot upon the giddy way across the cavernous abyss of golden-green radiance, to the niche where he had found Aysa, sleeping.
29. GOLDEN BLOOD
ODDLY, Price felt no vertigo, nor any fear of falling, as he started once more across that dizzy span, through thick, shimmering mist of gold.
A single arch of black, gold-crusted rock, springing sheer across the yellow-green, infinite void, its unrailed path not two feet wide.
In his concern for the sleeping girl, he was unconscious of any danger.
In the exigencies of his uncanny struggle with the serpent, he had even forgotten the soporific influence of the yellow vapor. He was midway across the abyss before it was recalled to him by sudden and overpowering lassitude, by a dullness of brain and a heaviness of eyes.
He held his breath to run the remaining hundred feet to the great niche, with its four slabs of gold-rimmed rock, for he dared not stop above the abyss. Safely upon the shelf, he fumbled for his handkerchief, wet it from the canteen old Sam Sorrows had so generously provided, and knotted it about his head, so that it covered his nose and mouth.
Aysa still lay upon the slab. Again he saw her lovely face, a-glitter with powder of gold. Still she was sunk in deepest sleep, breathing regularly, very slowly. Fearfully he brushed her cheeks and forehead, her small hands—and voiced a shout of pure joy! Beneath yellow dust, her hands and face were softly pliant, naturally white. The dread change had not yet taken place. It must require months, perhaps even years.
He tried to wake the girl. Utterly limp, completely relaxed, she did not rouse when he shook her, nor respond to his calling of her name.
Then a rushing sibilance roared through the temple. The snake, coiled before the entrance to the Cyclopean hall, was hissing angrily again. And Vekyra was riding toward it, upon the golden tiger.
Hissing savagely, the gigantic yellow reptile threw itself toward the invaders. Vekyra flung herself nimbly from the
howdah
and ran to meet it, while the tiger crouched, snarling ferally.
The rich voice of the golden woman pealed out in strange, melodious syllables. Fearlessly she approached the hissing snake. It did not strike, but coiled again before her, lowering its lifted head.
She stood a while before it, her voice still ringing out, and at last it thrust its head toward her. She advanced again, caressed it,
slipped
her yellow arms around the great column of the neck. Her voice sank to a whisper.
Abruptly she turned, left the reptile coiled quietly. The tiger was still snarling uneasily; she silenced it with a shouted word. It sank back upon its haunches, watching the motionless snake.
Drawing from her tunic a flashing golden blade, narrow and keen as a stiletto, she ran past the snake and started swiftly across the narrow bridge. Then Price knew that she had come to murder Aysa, the sleeping girl who had innocently won her jealous hatred.
Snatching up the golden ax, Price hastened out upon the bridge to meet her. He knew that her passion for him had turned to hatred. He would have to fight for his own life, as well as Aysa’s.
The gloating triumph upon Vekyra’s painted yellow face gave way to stunned surprise. And surprise became sinister elation.
They met a hundred feet out upon the gold-frosted bridge. Vekyra stopped a dozen feet in front of him, greeted him with a mocking smile, her tawny-green, oblique eyes flashing maliciously.
“Peace upon you, Iru,” she greeted him, her silky voice taunting. “Peace—if you wish it!”
“And on you, peace,” Price replied solemnly, “
if
you will depart.”
“Lah!
But Iru, have you yet changed your mind?” She spoke mockingly. “You know that I talked with Jacob Garth last night. I promised him all that I promised you. He accepted; together we entered the mountain. He is even now fighting Malikar, in the halls above. I broke past, and came here to cut this wretched slave-girl into pieces and throw her into the abyss, where she can make no more trouble.”
Price cursed her, sputtering with anger.
She smiled at him, enigmatically. “Yet, Iru, have you changed your mind? Will you forget the slave, and accept the crown of Anz?”
“Nothing doing!” snapped Price. “Get out—or fight!”
Vekyra laughed. With her rapier-like golden blade she pointed at the shining chasm below. Involuntarily, Price looked down into the illimitable gulf of golden-green; his head swam with the sheer vastness of the pit beneath the giddy bridge.
“Then you and your precious slave-girl shall be for ever together,” she taunted, “—
there!”
Lightly she darted forward, yellow blade hissing.
Price met her point with the golden buckler, and swung the ancient ax. Vekyra leapt backward easily; and the force of his swing with the heavy ax almost toppled Price from the bridge.
As he struggled desperately to regain his balance, the yellow woman leapt forward again, her sword flashing at his throat. Price had to give ground to save
himself
, and one foot went half off the bridge.
Vekyra laughed at the sudden despair he could not keep from his face.
“Remember, Iru, the golden folk can not die!” she mocked. “And you are a mortal—though you may be born again for me to slay!”
Once more she slipped in, thrust, and repeated, with baffling swiftness. The ancient mail turned her stroke. But it was becoming evident to Price that he had met a very formidable opponent.
His shirt of mail and oval buckler gave him an advantage that was apparent only, for their weight slowed him, made it more difficult to keep his balance. And he could not swing the great ax effectively, lest the force of his own blow carry him off the bridge.
Vekyra, seemingly gifted with a perfect sense of balance, danced back and forth upon the gold-rimmed rock, thrusting, lightning-swift, with her narrow blade, easily avoiding his own awkward blows.
Again and again Price was forced to step perilously backward along the narrow way. He half regretted the impulse that had carried him out upon the dizzy arch; yet he dared not have Vekyra with him upon the ledge beyond, lest she slip past him and stab the sleeping girl.
He determined to try to reach the end of the bridge, where he would have ample footing, and might still keep Vekyra upon the narrow path.
Fending off a score of lightning strokes, as he precariously retreated, he found himself at last upon the edge of the shelf.
A golden witch, Vekyra still danced upon the bridge. And here he could swing the massive ax without fear of its weight carrying him off into the awesome, yellow-green chasm.
Vekyra thrust once more, her yellow blade reaching for his throat. Tightening his grip upon the ax-helve, Price swung furiously.
The ax bit into her shoulder. Her sword-arm went limp. The blade fell from it, clattered on the lip of the abyss, and fell silently into the green-gold flame.
With a choking cry of rage and hatred, Vekyra leapt backward on the narrow path, pressing a pale hand to her wound. It was not deep, but blood sprang from it, fell in little glistening gouts upon the bridge.
Golden blood.
It was yellow and it gleamed like molten metal.
She stood a few moments there on the bridge, glaring at Price with baleful flames in her oblique, tawny eyes. Then, springing with the silent ferocity of a tigress, she leapt forward to attack him with naked golden hands.
Price stood grimly guarding the end of the bridge, with Iru’s ax uplifted. He tried to strike at Vekyra, as she lunged at him, and he found that he could not. Some deep, blind force in him rebelled at hewing down an unarmed woman—even such a woman as Vekyra.
Dropping the ax behind him, he drove his fist at the golden witch. With incredible agility she avoided the blow, and flung herself upon him. She had recovered the use of the arm momentarily paralyzed by the wound.
Price instantly regretted the blind, instinctive chivalry that had made him discard the ax. She was no woman, this golden witch! Like a tigress she hurled herself upon him, clawing at him with yellow talons, slashing at him with her teeth.
Beneath her rush he stumbled, and they fell together on the gold frost at the lip of the abyss.
For a few moments they rolled and twisted in furious struggling on the floor. The golden woman was supernormally strong; she fought with savage, demoniac energy. Then they staggered back to their feet, still locked in a straining embrace.
Price knew a little of wrestling, but not enough to cope with her maniacal strength. He was wet with sweat; his panting breath hissed through the rag tied over his face, and he felt that the thing was smothering him. His body ached with intolerable weariness.
Vekyra was panting, too, her swift breath puffing upon him. Her hot body was slippery with her own golden blood. But again and yet again she eluded his holds, while her own yellow arms held him in an unbreakable grasp.
Slowly, inexorably, she forced him toward the brink of the abyss. Then he tripped her, and they fell again. The sharp lip of the pit bit into his shoulder. His head was over the edge. He had a momentary glimpse of shining, golden-green depths.
Instinctively his grasp upon the golden body tightened. If he went into the abyss, it would not be alone.
The yellow woman screamed, struggled desperately to free herself. Together, they toppled slowly over the chasm’s lip. Vekyra released him, made a last, frantic effort to save herself.
Certain she could reach no
support,
Price freed his own hands and snatched desperately at the edge of the precipice. His fingers closed upon the sharp edge of the rock, and an instant later his weight came upon them, straining weary muscles until they cracked.
The golden woman fell free of him. A single shriek of agonized terror floated upward, as she was swallowed in the golden-green vapor of the pit.
Mutely thankful that he, and not Vekyra, had been next to the lip of rock, and hence able to grasp it in that last frantic instant, Price hung precariously by his arms. Slowly, with infinite effort, he inched his way up, flung his body over the edge of the black rock, and drew himself shakily to safety.
As he stood up, panting and trembling, he heard the crashing of guns and the clatter and roar of the tank. Peering through the golden mist above the abyss, he saw a little group of blue-robed snake-men, making a stubbornly fought retreat into the great hall, before blazing rifles.
30. GOLD AND IRON
WITH A SICK HEART, Price watched the battle across the abyss. The result of it meant little to him. If the snake-men won, he and Aysa would be again at the mercy of Malikar. If the invaders should be the victors, they would share no better at the hands of Joao de Castro and the others.
No more than a dwindling handful, the blue priests stood just at the entrance, savagely contesting the advance with pike and spear. Then the gray bulk of the tank roared through them, its guns beating their march of death.