Part 23 (1/2)
To reach the tower, he would be forced to traverse the ruins.
Recklessly he plunged into the black ma.s.s, groping for a door. He found one and entered, thrusting his sword ahead of him. Then he saw such a vista as men sometimes see in fantastic dreams.
Ahead of him stretched a long corridor, visible in a faint, unhallowed glow, its black walls hung with strange, shuddersome tapestries. Far down it he saw a receding figure-a white, naked, stooped figure, lurching along, dragging something the sight of which filled him with sweating honor. Then the apparition vanished from his sight, and with it vanished the eerie glow. Amalric stood in the soundless dark, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; thinking only of a stooped, white figure, which dragged a limp human form down a long black corridor.
As he groped onward, a vague memory stirred in his brain: the memory of a grisly tale mumbled to him over a dying fire in the skull-shaped devil-devil 'hut of a black witch-man-a tale of a G.o.d that dwelt in a crimson house in a ruined city-a G.o.d wors.h.i.+ped by darksome cults in dank jungles and along sullen, dusky rivers. And there stirred, too, in his mind, an incantation whispered in his ear in awed and shuddering tones, while the night held its breath, the lions had ceased to roar along the river, and the very fronds had ceased their sc.r.a.ping, one against the other.
Ollam-onga, whispered a dark wind down the sightless corridor.
Ollam-onga, whispered the dust that ground beneath his stealthy feet.
Sweat stood on his skin, and the sword shook in his hand. He stole through the house of a G.o.d, and fear held him in its bony fist. The house of the G.o.d-the full horror of the phrase filled his mind. All the ancestral fears and the fears that reached beyond ancestry and primordial race memory crowded upon him; horror cosmic and unhuman sickened him. The realization of his weak humanity crushed him as he went through the house of darkness, which was the house of a G.o.d.
About him s.h.i.+mmered a glow so faint that it was scarcely discernable.
He knew that he was approaching the tower itself. Another instant, and he groped his way through an arched door and stumbled upon strangely-s.p.a.ced steps. Up and up he went; and, as he climbed, that blind fury, which is mankind's last defense against diabolism and all the hostile forces of the universe, surged in him. He forgot his fear.
Burning with terrible eagerness, he climbed up and up through the thick, evil darkness, until he came into a chamber lit by a weird, golden glow.
At the far end of the chamber, a short flight of broad steps led upward to a kind of dais or platform, on which stood articles of stone furniture. The mangled remains of the victim lay sprawled on the dais, an arm dangling limply down the steps. The marble steps were stained with a pattern of trickles of blood, like the stalact.i.tes that form around the lip of a hot spring. Most of these streaks were old, dried, and dark brown; but a few were still red, moist, and s.h.i.+ny.
Before Amalric, at the foot of these steps, stood a white, naked figure. Amalric halted, his tongue cleaving to his palate. It was to all appearance a naked white man that stood gazing at him, its mighty arms folded on an alabaster breast. The eyes, however, were b.a.l.l.s of luminous fire, such as had never looked from any human head. In those eyes, Amalric glimpsed the frozen fires of the ultimate h.e.l.ls, touched by awful shadows.
Then, before him, the form began to grow dim in outline-to waver. With a terrible effort, the Aquilonian burst the bonds of silence and spoke a cryptic and awful incantation. And, as the frightful words cut the silence, the white giant halted-froze. Again his outlines stood out clear and bold against the golden background.
”Now fall on, d.a.m.n you!” cried Amalric hysterically. ”I have bound you into your human shape! The black wizard spoke truly! It was the master word he gave me! Fall on, Ollam-onga! Till you break the spell by feasting on my heart, you are no more than a man like me!”
With a roar like the gust of a black wind, the creature charged.
Amalric sprang aside from the clutch of those hands, whose strength was more than that of a whirlwind. A single, taloned finger, spread wide and catching in his tunic, ripped the garment from him like a rotten rag as the monster plunged by. But Amalric, nerved to more than human quickness by the horror of the fight, wheeled and drove his sword through the thing's back, so that the point stood out a foot from the broad breast.
A fiendish howl of agony shook the tower. The monster whirled and rushed at Amalric, but the youth sprang aside and raced up the stairs to the dais. There he wheeled and, catching up a marble seat, hurled it down upon the horror lumbering up the stairs. Full in the face the ma.s.sive missile struck, carrying the fiend back down the steps.
It rose, an awful sight, streaming blood, and again essayed the stairs.
In desperation, Amalric lifted a bench of jade, whose weight wrenched a groan of effort from him, and hurled it.
Beneath the impact of the hurtling bulk, Ollam-onga pitched back down the stair and lay among the marble shards, which were flooded with its blood. With a last, desperate effort, it heaved itself up on its hands, eyes glazing. Throwing back its b.l.o.o.d.y head, it voiced an awful cry.
Amalric shuddered and recoiled from the abysmal horror of that scream, which was answered. From somewhere in the air above the tower, a faint medley of fiendish cries came back like an echo. Then the mangled white figure went limp among the bloodstained shards. And Amalric knew that one of the G.o.ds of Kush was no more. With the thought came blind, unreasoning horror.
In a fog of terror, he rushed down the steps from the dais, shrinking from the thing that lay staring on the floor. The night seemed to cry out against him, aghast at the sacrilege. Reason, exultant over his triumph, was submerged in a flood of cosmic fear.
As he put foot on the head of the stair, he halted short. Up from the darkness, Lissa came to him, her white arms outstretched, her eyes pools of horror.
”Amalric!” It was a haunting cry. He crushed her in his arms.
”I saw it,” she whispered, ”dragging a dead man through the corridor. I screamed and fled; then, when I returned, I heard you cry out and knew you had gone to search for me in the Red Tower-”
”And you came to share my fate.” His voice was almost inarticulate.
Then, as she tried to peer in trembling fascination past him, he covered her eyes and turned her about. Better that she should not see what lay on the crimson floor. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his torn tunic but did not dare to touch his sword. As he half led, half carried Lissa down the shadowed stairs, a glance over his shoulder showed him that a naked white figure no longer lay amid the broken marble. The incantation had bound Ollam-onga into his human form in life but not in death.
Blindness momentarily a.s.sailed Amalric; then, stimulated into frantic haste, he hurried Lissa down the stairs and through the dark ruins.
He did not slacken pace until they reached the street, where the camel and the stallion huddled against each other. Quickly he mounted the girl on the camel and swung up on the stallion. Taking the lead line, he headed straight for the broken wall. A few minutes later, he breathed gustily. The open air of the desert cooled his blood; it was free of the scent of decay and hideous antiquity.