The two humans fled up the passage, black fear pacing them.
Were there more of the monsters in the tunnel? Mason gripped the metal bar tighter at the thought. The sounds of pursuit grew fainter, but did not die away.
Slowly the couple’s speed grew less. Their hearts were throbbing painfully; their throats parched and dry. An increasing tumult from below made them increase their pace. But they could not keep it up. Once more the Deathless Ones gained.
Alasa stumbled, almost fell. Mason dragged her upright, ran on supporting her with his arm about her waist. “We ought to be near the surface now,” he told the girl, and she looked up with a quick smile.
“Soon, now, Kent…”
The pursuers came faster. Mason caught sight of a gleam of silvery daylight lancing down from overhead. The door to the outer Earth!
They reached the ladder, climbed it with frantic haste, the clamoring monsters almost within arm’s length. In the ravine Mason pointed up.
“The ladder, Alasa. I’ll hold ’em back and then come after you.”
She hesitated, and then obeyed. Mason’s inattention was almost his undoing. A talon-like hand seized his foot, almost overbalancing him. A frightful skull-face rose out of the pit, screaming with wordless, dreadful hunger. Mason sent the metal bar smashing down, sick revulsion clawing at his stomach.
Bone and brain shattered under the blow. Blindly the thing tried to crawl up, though its head was a pulped, gory horror. The mouth of the pit was choked with dozens of the Deathless Ones, greedy for flesh to feed their avid maws, heedless of blows, pushing up and up…
Mason battered them down, till the very weight of the monsters bore them in a tangled heap to fall back into the passage. Then, gripping the bar in one hand, he ran swiftly up the ladder and rejoined Alasa on the surface.
“I’ve an idea,” he said, grinning feebly, swaying on his feet. “Those things can’t be very intelligent. The plant-men are, but—”
Mason stooped, pulled up the ladder. A group of Deathless Ones emerged from the pit, roaring menace. Spying Mason, they tried to climb the walls of the ravine, but failed. Presently a few of them set off to right and left.
“There may be another way out. We’d better scram—depart, I mean,” Mason said at Alasa’s puzzled look. “Come on.”
“But—where?”
The man scanned the dark sky. A wan Sun glowed huge and red. The Moon had vanished. A chill wind blew over a plain of wet, featureless silt.
“I don’t know. Away from the coast, anyway. If we can find Murdach and the ship…”
Silently they set out, trudging across the lonely waste, shuddering in the icy wind that rushed bleakly over the surface of a dying planet.
For hours the two struggled through the sticky ooze, up the slope of a slowly rising plain. In the thin air their lungs pumped painfully. Twice Mason saw something flying overhead, vague in the distance, but he could not make out its nature. It was apparently winged, and was clearly not the time-ship.
“Yeah,” Mason nodded. “And I’ve just thought of something. That hole in the roof. We’d better be careful, or we’ll both vanish for good. There may be a stairway going down it, though.”
Trying to remember the location of the gap, he stepped forward cautiously, gripping the girl’s hand. They waded through intangible rocks that sometimes came up to their waist. It was fantastic, incredible science of an alien world.
And suddenly Mason felt a mighty throbbing that grew and pulsed all about him. The wilderness of barren rock trembled and shivered, like a painted curtain rustling in the wind, and abruptly it—changed! Like a motion-picture fading from one scene to another the panorama of rocks that seemed to stretch to the horizon grew vague and disappeared, and in its place grew another scene, a weird, alien landscape that hemmed in the pair as though they had been transported to another world.
All about them now was a tangled forest of luxuriant vegetation and the bark of the trees, as well as the leaves, the thick masses of vines, even the grass underfoot was an angry brilliant crimson. Nor was that the worst. The things were alive!
The vines writhed and swung on the trees, and the trees themselves swayed restlessly, their branches twisting in the air. No wind stirred them. They were living beings, and even the long, curiously serpentine red grass at their feet made nauseating little worm-motions.
There was no Sun—just an empty blue sky, incongruously beautiful and peaceful amid the writhing horrors that hemmed them in, the forest that was as immaterial as the phantom rocks had been.
“Wait a minute,” Mason said. He took a few steps back, for a curious theory was forming in his mind. And again came the mighty throbbing and the strange crawling and shifting of the red forest, and as he retreated it melted swiftly into the familiar wilderness of jagged rock. Alasa had vanished. Looking over his shoulder, Mason could see the time-ship beside the great boulder. He moved forward again and Alasa sprang into view, her golden eyes wide and frightened.
“Okay,” he told her. “Let’s hunt for the hole, eh?”
“Here it is, Kent. I almost fell into it. She pointed at the wormy tangle of red grass near by. Mason stared. Of course, he could not see down into the gap. The scarlet, vegetation hid it. He knelt and, overcoming his repugnance, thrust his face down through the twisting grasses. He was in empty blackness—below the ground level in the world of the red plants, Mason knew.
A curious conviction came to the man that these scenes, the strange mirages on the tower, were not merely created phantoms, but actual reflections of real worlds that exist, or did exist, or will exist in the future. He circled cautiously about the gap.
It was about twenty feet across. His fumbling hands found an incline going down into the darkness, slippery and too steep to walk upon. It went down at an angle of about forty-five degrees, as well as Mason could judge, crawling on his hands and knees and feeling there in the empty darkness.
“Kent,” the girl said with quiet urgency. “Listen!”
“Eh? What—”
Then he heard it—a harsh, very loud scratching noise. It came from the depths of the invisible shaft. It grew louder, and a sudden premonition made Mason seize Alasa’s hand and retreat swiftly. It was lucky that he did.
The thing came out of the shaft, and first they saw a bristle of waving antenna, and two huge claws jerking convulsively in empty air. It came rising inexorably out of the ground, and in a moment they saw the whole frightful being.
“An ant!” Mason heard himself whispering. “A winged ant!”
But it was a colossus. Twenty-five feet long it towered, mandibles clashing, wings outspread, rustling dryly as they clashed against the wing-cases, crawling up blindly.
The creature moved forward. It was blind, Mason guessed. No eyes were visible, but the antennae apparently took their place. The claws clicked menacingly.
Horror turned Mason cold. As the thing advanced he flung himself back, pulling Alasa with him.
“The ship!” he said unsteadily. “Come!”
The white-faced girl nodded, kept pace with him. At a venture Mason raced in the direction he thought the ship lay. His guess was wrong.
Almost immediately he heard the throbbing and saw the wavering and shifting, and then they were rushing through—nothingness! Empty fog, gray billows of thick stuff that were so turbid he was completely blinded. Thinking with lightning speed, Mason turned at right angles, dragging Alasa, and cut across in a frantic attempt to locate the ship.
He heard a clashing, a dry rustling—the giant ant, hurrying in pursuit. Madness of fear tugged at Mason’s brain. It was the quintessence of horror, wading through rocks he could not feel, racing through trees that did not exist. The ant trailed its prey by scent, or by some less familiar sense, and as it was blind the shifting three-dimensional mirages made no difference to it. They had been created, apparently, to confuse the enemies of the ant-monsters.
Mason and Alasa would be sprinting through what seemed to be a field of emeralds, glinting under a hazy sky with a low-hanging moon, when there would come the shifting and throbbing, and the panorama would fade away like the mirage it was. And in its place would come, perhaps, a vast field of frozen white, with not an object visible and a black, starless sky overhead. Once they were hurrying through a green swirl of water, with seaweed drifting by and curious creatures swimming past them—through them! A thing like a great opaque white ball, pulsating and writhing, drifted at Mason, and he leaped aside, shuddering.
Then they would hear the dry rustling, and it would be bolt, sprint, race with temples throbbing and sweat running into their eyes, till the two would be forced to fling themselves down and rest while they gasped for breath. They went zigzagging and plunging through a weird and fantastic array of alien worlds and scenes. Mason could not help flinching when a great tree or wall of ice would loom in his path, though he knew the thing was an impalpable phantom.
Then, too, there was the ever-present fear that they would plunge off the edge of the tower. What saved them was nearly their doom, for as they went racing through a curiously regular rank of thin columns, like bamboo, that stretched up to a far whiteness that was either the sky or an incredibly lofty roof, they burst suddenly into the world of living vegetation. Mason went rushing through a swaying red tree. The rasping sound of pursuit was loud in his ears—and his feet went from under him.
Letting go of Alasa’s hand, he fell heavily on his side, sliding down till his hips were on the polished slide that led down into the interior of the tower and the lair of the ant-monster. He kept on sliding.
Desperately, Mason gave a frantic twist and squirm that nearly broke his back; he felt Alasa’s hands pulling him to safety. The girl’s white body gleamed through the flaring cloak. Somehow, Mason scrambled to his feet, his breath a flaming agony within his lungs.
The monster was nearly on them. Remembering Murdach’s weapon, Mason clawed it out, aimed it. A thin beam sprang at the giant ant. Light crawled weirdly over the frightful head.
And the thing—died! Without a sound it dropped, though its impetus carried it forward till it slid over the brink of the abyss and vanished from sight. No sound came from below.
Trembling a little, Mason replaced the weapon. “Come on, Alasa,” he said shakily. “We’ve got to find the ship. There may be more of those devils around.”
But it was not easy to locate the vessel. The two played a weird game of blind-man’s-buff there on the top of the tower, hurrying through mirages, some they recognized, others totally unfamiliar. Some were horrible and others pleasant enough.
The worst was hurrying over a black, gelatinous substance that heaved restlessly underfoot, like the hide of some Cyclopean monster. It might have been, for all he knew, Mason thought. The black, heaving skin seemed to stretch for miles around, and sometimes the two were buried to their hips in it.
Again they were hurrying across a field of hard, frozen brown earth, with a phenomenally beautiful night sky overhead, studded with constellations and gleaming planets, entirely unfamiliar. A great comet glowed in its white glory among the stars. Then there was a surface of ice or glass, and looking down Mason could see, far below, vague and indistinct figures that seemed entirely inhuman, as far as he could make out through the cloudy crystalline substance.
They staggered through a world of blazing fire, flinching as heatless tongues of flame licked at them. They reeled across a vast desert of sand that crawled and billowed beneath them, stirring with a monstrous embryonic life.
But at last they found the ship. With heartfelt relief Mason followed Alasa aboard and closed the door, sent the vessel lancing up. The girl sank down in a limp heap, her breasts heaving tumultuously.
At a safe distance above the tower Mason stopped the ship, hovering there, while he pondered. Were Erech and Murdach captive within the huge eidolon? Or—
A cry from Alasa made him turn. She was pointing.
“Look! It’s—”
“Erech!” Mason finished excitedly. “And Murdach!”
Crawling across the gray plain, almost at the foot of the tower now, was one of the giant ants, carrying in its claws two limp figures that were, even at the distance, unmistakably human. His hand closing on the weapon in his pocket, Mason sent the ship flashing down.
But—the thought came—could he use the ray projector on the monster without killing his friends? No, he couldn’t risk it.
The huge ant seemed to sense danger. It paused, antenna questing, as the ship dropped toward it. Then, dropping its burdens, it spread its wings and mounted to do battle!
Grimly Mason guided the ship forward. The tensile strength of the craft he did not know, but he suspected that under the ant’s chitinous armor it was fragile. In this he was wrong.
A blow of the monster’s wing crashed against the ship, sent it whirling, hurling Mason and Alasa from their feet. He caught a glimpse of the tower rushing toward him, managed to drag himself upright against the controls. With scarcely a foot to spare the vessel looped around, went driving back toward the winged colossus.
The creature came to meet them. In the last moment before impact Mason’s fingers stabbed at the panel, attempting to change the course. But he was too late. With a grinding, frightful impact winged monster and time-ship came together—catastrophically.
Mason was hurled back, his fingers raking blindly over the control keys. He had a flashing vision of the ant’s shattered body plummeting to the plain below, and then intense blackness was all around him. Something thudded against his head, and in his last second of consciousness Mason realized what the darkness meant. The ship, unguided, was racing through time!
Only for a moment, it seemed, was Mason out. Groaning with the pain in his throbbing head, he lifted himself to his feet and fumbled blindly in the darkness for the controls. Then, suddenly, he realized that the gloom was not complete. Through the ship’s transparent walls he saw a star-bright sky above, and an uneven black wall around, apparently a rampart of trees. The ship lay tilted perilously on its side. He saw a pale blotch in a corner, Alasa’s face.
He could not aid her while she lay on the sharply-slanting floor. Mason opened the port, managed to scramble out, half carrying Alasa. Underfoot was a layer of humus, half-rotted vegetation with a dank, musky odor. The air was uncomfortably hot and moist.
Fumbling in the starlight, Mason tried to revive the girl. She sat up eventually, clinging to him, rubbing a bruise on her shoulder.
“That ant—where are we, Kent? Did we find Erech and Murdach?”
“I guess not,” Mason told her. “Apparently the time-controls were accidentally moved when we hit the giant ant. We’ve probably come through time to this sector, and crashed while we were unconscious. It’s sheer luck that we didn’t have our necks broken. I guess the ground surface is higher here than in the future-time—that may account for it.”
“But where are we?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t think we went forward—this thick forest, and the heat, indicates a past era. I hope it isn’t the Cretaceous. I’d hate to meet a tyrannosaur.”
“What’s that?” the girl asked, her eyes wide.
“A—a dragon. The name means thunder lizard. But—”
And then the attack came. Mason had heard no noise in the underbrush. But out of the forest dark figures came charging. There was no warning. Before Mason had a chance to brace himself he went down, a dozen wiry bodies swarming over him—and then fire burst in the back of his head. Red fire that was swallowed up by abysmal blackness…
He awoke in the dimness of what seemed to be a crudely-built hut. Warm sunlight slanted through the doorway; a human shadow—shadow of a guard—darkened the floor. Mason shook his head, groaning. He heard a low, muffled chanting.
And—recognized it! In his archeological work, probing into the far corners of the globe, Mason had acquired a sound knowledge of little-known dialects. He had heard similar sounds, long ago, floating down a South American river in a hollow log dugout, his arm throbbing and festering with the wound of an arrow.
Had he, by some incredible chance, returned to his own time-sector?
The doorway darkened. Men filed in, near-naked little men, with brown, muscular bodies. They were grotesquely painted, and feathers nodded and waved in their hair. Chanting, they freed Mason’s legs. Leathern thongs, he realized, still bound his wrists.
Hesitatingly Mason spoke, trying to remember that alien dialect of years ago.
“I am—a friend—”
A native struck his mouth. “Silence!” The word was oddly accented, but recognizable. “You are to watch, not to speak.”
Again the chant rose.
“Hear our prayers, O Thunderer! Hear the prayers of the Curupuri—”
The natives urged him outside the hut. Mason blinked, accustoming his eyes to the strong sunlight. He stared around.
The towering walls of a crater marched on the horizon. Black basalt ramparts hemmed them in. To the east was a jagged gap, apparently a pass. At their feet the ground sloped down to the motionless, sullen waters of a lake.
No wind ruffled its surface. Dark, enigmatic, it filled the crater, save for the narrow strip of land on which the native village stood. The score of flimsy huts were in curious contrast to the stone pyramid that stood on the lake’s shore.
Mason was pushed toward it. Its shadow fell on him. It was perhaps thirty feet high, built of huge blocks of stone, without mortar. In one side was a gaping aperture. Into this the white man was conducted.
A short passage, and then a room, half underground—a temple, Mason realized. Amazement lanced through him. At one end of the chamber was a raised dais, on which stood a chair—a throne, gleaming dully in the light of torches. A golden throne, jewel studded!
Its build was suggestive of Incan workmanship. Yet these brown-skinned natives were not Incas. Perhaps Incas had built this pyramid, and had been killed by the invading tribe—the Curupuri, as they called themselves, Mason hazarded.
This was the past, he knew. A time perhaps long before Columbus had reached the Indies, certainly prior to the coming of the Spanish Conquistadores.
On the throne a corpse sat. A mummy, withered and shrunken and dry, in whose eye-sockets glowed two flaming rubies. Golden breast-plates and a girdle of gold hung loosely on the skeletal figure.
Beside the throne stood a native girl, her amber body scarcely hidden by a translucent feathery cape, through which alluring curves were visible. Her sullen eyes brooded on the white man.
On the walls were heads. Smaller than cocoanuts, shrunken by some secret process that preserved flesh and features, their multitude almost hid the rough stones. Natives’ heads, all of them.
The chanting grew louder. A dozen gaudily-painted Curupuri filed into the chamber. Among them was Alasa. For a moment her golden eyes met Mason’s.
“Kent!” she cried. “They—”
A guard clapped a rough hand over her mouth. Cursing, Mason wrenched at his bonds. His captors held him, silent and impassive.
The Curupuri took the girl up to the dais, clamped golden rings about her ankles. From the throng a dwarfish native stepped to stand beside the girl. His face was hideous with paint. From a bald, shaved head white feathers nodded, set in a jewel-studded headdress. The man lifted his hand, and the noise quieted.
From the Curupuri came a great shout.
“Zol!”
The native girl stepped forward. Mason read hatred in her eyes as she glanced at the dwarfish Zol.
Again came the deep-throated roar.
“Yana! Ho—Yana!”
Zol threw back his head, the white feathers bowing. He cried, “The Thunderer looks with favor upon us.”
He pointed to the withered corpse on the throne.
“For years she has sat there, ruling the Curupuri in death. Since she lived we have found no girl with a skin white enough to be our priestess. So Yana has served—”
He glanced slyly at the priestess beside him.
“But now her toil has ended. From the skies has fallen a maiden with a skin white as foam. Almost we slew her—but the Thunderer stayed my stroke.”
From the Curupuri came a roaring chant.
“Ho! Dweller in the Abyss, Dark Thunderer—hear us!”
The girl Yana cried, “Hear our prayers! Drink—eat of our sacrifice!” Her red lips were cruel.
“Lord of the Lake!” thundered the Curupuri. “Look on our sacrifice!”
Then silence, heavy and ominous. Yana said, “The priestess must be unblemished.” Her voice was sweetly malicious.
Zol nodded, turned to Alasa. His hands went out, ripping the tattered cloak from her. A gasp went up from the natives.
The girl stood nude. Her bronze hair spilled in a tumbled mass on bare shoulders. Instinctively her hands went up in an attempt to cover herself.
Zol shouted laughter as he gazed at the nude girl, at the sweeping curves of her body, flawless in its beauty. Then the priest tore the feather cloak from Yana and cast it about Alasa’s shoulders.
Nausea tore at Mason’s throat as he saw the body of the priestess, naked save for a brief loincloth. From neck to ankles she had been tattooed. Red and blue designs circled the mounds of her breasts, fled across her rounded hips. Understanding of the months of agony the girl must have endured made Mason feel suddenly sick.
The shouting died. Zol chanted, “She is unmarred—perfect! Tonight the testing begins. The mark of the Thunderer shall be put upon her.”
The mark of the Thunderer? Alasa shuddered, drew the translucent cloak closer. In the eyes of Yana, Mason saw a red blaze of rage. Her lashes drooped, she turned away.
The Curupuri closed about Mason. Vainly struggling, he was forced from the temple, taken back to the hut. There, legs once more bound, he was left alone.
The afternoon dragged on. Occasionally the guard would enter to test the captive’s bonds. Though Mason tried to engage in conversation with the man, he met with no success. Perhaps the Curupuri were forbidden to converse with their prisoners.
Just after sunset Mason heard voices outside the hut, and presently Yana, the priestess, entered. Two natives were at her heels.
One was the guard. He freed Mason’s feet, and with the other Curupuri, left the hut. The priestess knelt beside Mason.
In the dimness the disfiguring tattooing was invisible, and Mason could see only the smooth curves of the girl’s body, scarcely hidden by thin cloth. She said softly, “The guard is gone. I told him Zol wished him to hunt in the forest. And the other who waits without—is my friend.”
Mason stared at her. Fumbling with the Curupuri dialect, he said, “One has need of friends here.”
She nodded. “It is true. I—would like to save the white girl?”
“Yes!” Mason said swiftly. “Will you help me?”
“Perhaps.”
“Why?” He did not entirely trust this girl in whose eyes murderous rage sprang so easily.
“In your place I should not hesitate. You are strangers, I know that. You are not gods, as some said, else you would not be bound and helpless now. Whence you come I do not care, so long as you leave here swiftly.”
“The—the place where we were captured. Is it far from here?”
“No. You saw the gap in the mountains—the pass? It is not far, just beyond that. You can reach it in a fourth part of a day. And as for why I shall help you—it is because the white girl will take my place! For years a pale-skinned priestess of our tribe has ruled us. When the last one died I took her place. Zol did not like that—for I would not always obey him. Now he sees a chance to depose me and gain a puppet priestess … I would kill this white girl, but it would be sacrilege. I would be tortured … but if you escape with her, it will be different.”
“Then untie me,” Mason said, his voice eager.
The girl bent down, her hair brushing Mason’s face. “But you must not fail! For there is another way—” Again the mad rage flared in her eyes. “I have been the priestess of the Thunderer for more than a year. And I have learned much—the words of power that call the Dark Lord from the lake.” Her tone was brooding. “I had it in mind to use those words. Once before it was done, ages ago, and the Dweller rose from the depths. The Curupuri died—all but a few, who fled.”
She shrugged, and her knife flashed, slicing through the last thongs that bound Mason. He stretched cramped muscles.
“Tell me,” he said curiously, “have you ever seen any white men not of your tribe? Like me?”
“No. Never. I did not think any existed. Our priestesses had golden skin, not as white as yours.” She watched Mason speculatively. “You must wait. It will be dark soon. If you leave the hut now you will be killed.”
The hard anger was gone from Yana’s eyes; they were strangely tender. “You are not like the Curupuri. And—since I became a priestess—I have not known—love…”
Suddenly her arms were about Mason’s neck, her breath hot against his cheek as she strained against him. Mad torrents of passion seemed unleashed in the priestess. She whispered softly, “I have not known love. And—”
Mason tried to free himself. The girl drew back, her face hardening. She said, “No? Remember—you have not freed the white girl yet. If I should summon aid—”
Mason grinned wryly. Then Yana was in his arms once more. It was not easy to resist—no! Under the thin cloth of her garment he felt the alluring curves of her body.
Shrugging, Mason bent his head, touched the girl’s lips. He did not draw back. The moist inferno of her mouth quickened his pulses. Within the priestess was the hot soul of flame, breath of the searing
Zonda
that blows across the pampas—hungry passion that surged through Mason like a rushing tide.
She shuddered, moaned. A noise came from outside the hut. Instantly Yana pulled away, a finger at her lips.
“Wait…”
She disappeared outside. Mason heard her voice raised in dispute with a deeper one; then the two died slowly in the distance. He crept to the entrance, peered out. No one was visible nearby, though a few Curupuri moved aimlessly about the village in the distance. The sun was already low.
He would not have to wait long.
Two hours later it was dark enough to make the venture. The guard had not returned. He slunk out of his prison. The moon had just risen, and he kept in the shadows of the huts. A heavy club discarded by a dying fire caught his eye, and he confiscated it.
He moved toward the pyramid, a muffled chanting waking ominous apprehensions within him. He caught a glimpse of motion on the summit, and he thought he saw Alasa’s bronze hair, though he could not be sure.
Glancing aside at the lake, Mason involuntarily shuddered. What had Yana said? A Thunderer in the depths—a monster-god to whom the Curupuri sacrificed. In this dawn of history, could some strange survival actually exist beneath those sullen waters? Even in his day there had been legends of the South American swamps and jungles…