Collected short fiction, p.124
Collected Short Fiction, page 124
About us swam and floated the careless, idle throngs of Yothanda’s decadent race, for whose vain pleasureseeking Sharothon held such contempt.
Then we swept through an arch of dully gleaming jet. Its opening was miles wide—Cyclopean. Beyond it, we drove through void upon void of sparkling, red-violet mist. Through vast gulfs of space, filled with glittering atoms of amethyst and ruby.
Then we stood in the Place of the Nine.
Beneath us was a crystal floor of sapphire blue. It seemed that one could see through yards upon yards of translucent, azure depth, beneath its polished surface. We stood between twin rows of square blue columns—monolithic pillars of intensely blue crystal, unbelievably Titanic.
Those colossal pillars of sapphire crystal must have been a hundred feet on a side. The distance across the unbroken floor of polished blue, between the two rows of columns, must have been fully half a mile. The pillars leapt up, sheer and straight, until they were lost in the red-purple, brilliant mist, which filled this strange space within Yothanda’s core.
Beyond the azure pillars, above and in all directions, nothing was visible save the haze of glittering purple particles.
This Palace of the Nine was most astounding. It awed me with its inconceivable vastness. It slowed my heart with a sense of unknowable mystery, of the strange working of incredible forces.
Into the center of that Titanic, mist-shrouded hall of blue pillars, came—the Nine!
From the floor of sapphire crystal upon which we had lighted sprang up an amazing dome of pure white flame, prismatically brilliant. It was like a jetting fountain of vividly white radiance. A motionless dome of splendid, milky, opalescent light.
Within that wondrous fountain of soft, argent fire, the Nine—floated.
In the lower part of the splendrous dome, in various attitudes, four men and four women were swimming, drifting. They wore silvery girdles, studded with tiny ruby cylinders, like all the other people of Yothanda whom we had seen. Their silken tunics were vividly white. And they clasped ytlan rods of milky crystal. Each of the eight was evidently young, and all were handsome, in a cold, passionless sort of way. But their faces were usually loose, sensual, lacking in any apparent strength or nobility of character. Upon them was printed something of Kerak’s cold intellectuality.
Above them, as if their leader, a stranger and more likeable figure was drifting free within the dome of white opalescence. An old man. His body was withered, shrunken, yellowed. His face was puckered with a thousand wrinkles. A purple garment was held against his meager frame by his silver belt. A hand that was but a gnarled claw gripped a ytlan rod that was purple as amethyst. His short, scanty hair was white.
But aged as he seemed, his eyes were singularly bright. Infinite wisdom was in their clear, twinkling brown depths—but mingled with the gay humor of youth. There was kindness in them, and tender understanding, as he looked down upon Sharothon and Eric and myself, from his high place in the opalescent dome.
I knew that he was Luroth, chief of the Nine, whom Sharothon had called a friend, because he had saved her from the lust of Kerak.
We had come to rest upon the blue crystal floor, near the base of that supernal fountain of milky flame, and were held to it by some slight force of artificial gravitation. The Nine had changed their positions in the white dome, looked down upon us expectantly.
Kerak stepped forward a little, toward the white flame, while his men kept their alert watch over the three of us. I saw Sharothon looking anxiously up at the aged figure of Luroth. Some message must have passed between them. Then I saw that the old man’s brown eyes were troubled, and that hope seemed to flow out of Sharothon.
“Why must you drag Sharothon before the Nine?”
Luroth’s brown eyes, with bitterness in them, were on Kerak, as my thought-transmitter caught this query.
A leering smile of triumph came again upon the cold hard features of Kerak. And his deliberate reply came to me:
“Because she is a willful criminal, who has broken many of the laws of the Nine and of Yothanda, Given to me by lot, which was conducted as the Nine ordered, she refused to accept her duty—and Luroth sustained her in her disobedience.”
Kerak, I noticed, seemed to be ignoring Luroth, addressing his charge to the younger members of the Nine, who seemed more in sympathy with him. He went on, after a fleeting, sinister glance upward at the old man:
“Again she broke the law of Yothanda, and went beyond the Portal—through what evil power she evaded the watchers, I know not. In the jungles of the third planet, she found for mates these queer beasts you see beside her—prefering them to Kerak of the Black!
“Breaking another law of Yothanda, she brought them secretly into the city, hid them in a secret den of evil, where we caught them—together!
“Is this not matter enough for attention of the Nine?”
“I demand that Sharothon be restrained, so that she will be unable to do such black deeds again. And that she be compelled to fulfill her obligation to me—according to the lot, and to the old original rule of the Nine.
“As for these brutes to which she seems to have chosen to mate herself, a painless death is good enough for them—the third planet is foul with such spawn; their fate matters little.”
THE eight members of the Nine, who wore white, accepted this indictment with evident approval. Some of them nodded and looked at Kerak with expressions upon their cold, lax faces, of utter duplicity, then glanced sneeringly up at Luroth.
A shadow seemed to have fallen upon the bright-eyed oldster of the purple tunic and the purple ytlan staff. His face was solemn. There was regret, even pity, in it, when he looked down at the other members of the Nine, and at Kerak and his black-clad henchmen. And a kindly but sorrowful gleam came into his clear brown eyes, as he looked long at Sharothon and us beside her.
The lesser members of the Nine seemed to become restless; they stirred, looked questioningly up at Luroth, above them in the dome of shining opalescence, or shot glances of sinister meaning at Kerak. Luroth moved suddenly, addressed the girl.”
“Sharothon you may answer this charge.”
The lovely Sharothon hobbled forward a little in advance of our guard, shuffling slowly in her fetters. Her ytlan staff had been taken from her. The silver girdle she still wore, but her hands were fastened behind her back in such a manner that it was impossible for her to touch the ruby studs. Despite her bonds, she was still gloriously lovely. A slim, proud princess, her eyes of deep blue flashing with defiant scorn upon her captors. Her thought-images came swiftly:
“First, it is no crime that I have not born a child to Kerak, when the Nine itself has freed me from that odious task.
“It is true that I have broken a law, which I think foolish as it is ancient, that forbids me to leave the Portal of Yothanda. I can only say that the call of adventure, the love of life’s joys, the impulse to explore the unknown, are forces stronger than any law man has made. Yothanda would be a thousand times greater if each of her people had broken that law.
And it is not true that I found these men upon the third planet. They had left it, in a crude machine they had built, to explore the wonders of the void. I found them not as jungle beasts, but as brave adventurers in the gulf in which we live—daring to conquer it as our fathers dared in ages past.
“Nor is it true to say that I have taken them for mates. Though,” and she added it with a naive and unhesitating frankness, “I do love Eric Locklin, as I could never love Kerak.
“I did break a law, in bringing them into Yothanda—because of love. Remember the great history of our fathers—all the brave and the noble things they did for love. For love—that seems dead in Yothanda, or degenerated into bestial lust.
“I can only ask the mercy of the Nine, for these men and for myself, in the name of those great lovers of history, who fought so desperately to conquer space for their loved ones, who built Yothanda.
“And if you can spare no mercy for me,” she pleaded, “at least set these two men back upon their own planet. They, at least, are guilty of no crime save courage.” She shuffled back to Eric’s side, among our guards. Their eyes met; they smiled bravely.
Once more Kerak stepped forward, almost arrogantly. His thought-forms were almost a command:
“I demand the judgment of the Nine!”
Luroth was looking down upon those beneath him in the fountain of white flame. He must have been conferring with them. His wrinkled face bore an expression of sad regret. They wore black, challenging looks of anger and scorn. Evidently there was discord in the Nine.
Suddenly the old man straightened to an erect position, and rose majestically to a higher position in the dome of milky opalescence. His brown eyes flashed, and the message came strongly and decisively from him:
“Such laws as men make should be merely a clarified interpretation of the laws of Nature, made to aid men to follow those higher laws. There are situations in which our laws should be tempered with justice of a tenderer kind, and with human understanding. In this case no stern enforcement of the law will contribute to anyone’s happiness.
“This situation is above and beyond the law’s that men have made.
“Sharothon, this lovely child of Yothanda, has said—and proved—that she loves Eric Locklin, a native of the third planet. And he has proved as well that he loves her. Their love faces an obstacle stronger than any law.
“You know that Sharothon, or any member of our race, cannot live upon the surface of the third planet. Because there she would be beyond the force of the ytlan, from which she draws the current of her life. Without it, she would soon droop and die.
“And these men, though Sharothon seems not to have realized it, can live no better in Yothanda. Their bodies are unused to the penetrating radiation of the ytlan, which is slowly consuming their tissues, wasting them away. They must soon be returned to their planet, or die.”
I looked at Eric and Sharothon. Grief, and dazed horror, were in the girl’s blue eyes. But Eric had managed to grin at her, even though he looked rather pale and shaken. I suppose that he was not greatly surprised, nor was I. We had feared something of the kind.
Now I understood the true cause of our weakness, and the soreness of our muscles, of our fever, dizziness and continual headache, of the inflamed patches upon our bodies and of their slow wasting away. It was not, as Sharothon had thought, the effect of our short period of invisibility. It was the all-prevailing power of the Cosmic Ray, of the ytlan, beating endlessly through our bodies.
The ytlan was slowly killing us, and there was no escape but to return to the shelter of Earth’s atmospheric blanket, where Sharothon could not live!
“Appeal to the law can do these three no good, nor bring them happiness. They have difficulty enough to face, in the laws of nature, without being hindered by those of man. They need aid from us, not cruder hardships against which to struggle.
“This is the judgment of the Nine—with which, unfortunately, they of the White do not agree:
“Sharothon shall be set free, and these men with her. They shall be permitted to leave Yothanda if they wish, and to solve their great problem in the best way they can.
Vast thankfulness filled me, and huge admiration for the courage and the goodness of Luroth. I turned and looked at Eric and Sharothon. They were staring at each other, faces transfigured with great joy. Then they looked gratefully up at Luroth.
But astonishment and anger were upon the faces of the eight who wore white, as well as upon the black-garbed followers of Kerak, who guarded us.
Kerak rushed forward toward the opalescent dome, his hard face black with rage. His thought-impulses burst out in an angry stream:
“It is time, and long has it been time, for change in the Nine. Shall Yothanda be ruled by a doting, sentimental fool? Shall justice be cast aside, and laws be broken with impunity?
“You of the White, who may choose or cast out your leader, have you no spines? Are you weaklings, to be ruled like children by a silly dotard? Can you not select a man to govern Yothanda?”
I hardly understood the gravity of what was taking place. I saw Luroth gazing down upon Kerak, at once stern and regretful. I watched the eight in white following Kerak, at first in surprise, then with evident approval.
Then abruptly, the eight raised their rods of milky crystal. Luroth was drawn down toward them, from his high place in the opalescent dome, as if by an invisible hand. And then he was flung from the fountain of white flame, to fall weakly on the floor of polished sapphire crystal, outside it.
He lay there, trembling, a heart-broken old man.
I seemed to catch the suggestion of a tear, upon his wrinkled cheek.
And the eight pointed their white rods toward Kerak.
They chose him to be leader of the Nine—ruler of the untold millions of Yothanda!
Spurning Luroth’s quivering body with his foot, as he passed, he moved toward the edge of the opalescent fountain. Hands reached from the white flame, drew him within—from the sly and sinister glances I saw, I am sure the whole affair had been plotted in advance, the matter of Sharothon being a useful excuse for this strange and abrupt revolution.
The eight lifted Kerak above them. He floated where Luroth had been, high in the dome of white flame.
Soon came from him this mocking message:
“The Nine speaks again, and in better accord than before. Know my words upon this case. I cannot change the old ruling of the Nine, for that is sacred. But I can explain it.”
He leered malevolently.
“The Nine judged that these three are free, and that they may leave Yothanda if they wish, to seek their happiness. That they may do. If Sharothon chooses, I must set her and her beasts upon the third planet.
“But mark this,” and Kerak sneered mockingly. “No girdle of life, and no yltan rod, will be left with them upon the third planet—there was nothing in the judgment about that. If Sharothon chooses to live with the beast, she must live the life of the beast! And die the death!
“Or, if Sharothon does not choose to die upon the third planet with these jungle creatures, she may live On in Yothanda—if her pride will let her bear the child of the leader of the Nine.
And the men may still be set alive upon their jungle planet.
“Sharothon may choose!
“And Luroth may surrender to the Nine the purple ytlan rod that now is rightfully my own!”.
CHAPTER VIII
Through Yothanda’s Walls
SLOWLY, though with little apparent effort, Luroth got to his feet. His manner had somehow changed. No longer did he seem merely an aged and broken man. There was pride and determination in the way he straightened his shrunken body. Unconquerable spirit flashed anew in his bright eyes.
A strange scene, there in the mystic Place of the Nine, in the hidden heart of wondrous Yothanda!
The vast floor of polished sapphire crystal, with the twin rows of Cyclopean pillars of blue leaping up from it, to vanish in the sparkling infinity of bright purple mist that mantled this seat of mysterious power. The dome of milky opalescence, with Kerak floating high in it, in evil pride, with the eight in white below him. Eric and Sharothon, manacled, standing defiantly side by side, silently scornful of their captors. And aged Luroth, who had just been thrown from his place of strange power, getting slowly to his feet. . . .
“Don’t show the white flag, little one,” the thought-transmitter brought me Eric’s whisper, which must have been meant for Sharothon alone. “Remember, you tricked him once!”
The girl smiled feebly, relaxed against his shoulder. Then Luroth, who had been slowly lifting his purple ytlan rod, as though to give it up as Kerak had commanded, moved with astounding swiftness. He snapped the rod to a horizontal position, pointed it first at Sharothon, then at Eric, then at myself, with his claw-like fingers moving quickly over the staff’s silver keys.
Sharothon and Eric were suddenly free! The black fetters upon their limbs had been broken, obliterated, by the invisible force that streamed from Luroth’s purple staff. And my own manacles were gone!
An instant later, we were snatched up, as if by an invisible hand, from the azure floor. We were hurled away from the Place of the Nine, past the Titanic sapphire columns, into the brilliant void of purple haze.
In a moment we were floating—the lovely Sharothon, Eric, the aged Luroth and myself—alone in that vast space filled with the glittering purple mist. The gigantic blue columns of the Place of the Nine had vanished behind us. No solid object was visible. Nothing but the myriad twinkling atoms of frozen red-blue light.
“This is revolt against the Nine,” Luroth assured us calmly. “And the penalty, for me, is death—extinction.” As he spoke, his fingers were playing over the levers upon his purple ytlan rod. And three identical objects took quick form before it, condensed from the fluid energy of the Cosmic Ray. Three small, glistening hemispheres of brilliantly transparent crystal, with black handles fastened to them, and little white levers.
Luroth snatched them to him, handed one to Sharothon, one to each of us from earth. He showed us how to grasp the black handles, with thumbs upon the white levers, holding the plane surfaces of the hemispheres from us.
“With these weapons,” his calm, projected thoughts informed us, “you must hold them back until I can build a barrier within which we can be safe—safe for a little time, at least.”
Once more he fell to manipulating the keys upon the ytlan rod. But no visible ray came from it, nor did I see any visible thing materialized before it.
