Part 34 (1/2)

It was just before sundohen Lissa pointed and cried out: 'Look! The towers of Gazal!'

On the desert rireen cluster against the blue sky But for the girl, he would have thought it the phantolanced at Lissa curiously She showed no signs of eager joy at her hohed, and her slim shoulders seemed to droop

As they approached, the details swam more plainly into view Sheer from the desert sands rose the hich enclosed the towers And A in many places The towers, too, he saere aped, spires leaned drunkenly Panic assailed hiuided by a vairl reassured him

No delanced at hi in her deep eyes, turned resolutely toward the desert, then, with a deep sigh, set her face toward the city, as if gripped by a subtle and fatalistic despair

Now through the gaps of the jade-green wall, A within the city No one hailed theh a broad breach in the wall, and came out into a broad street Close at hand, li sun, the decay wasthrough shattered paving; grass grew rank in the small plazas Streets and courts likeere littered with rubbish of masonry and fallen stones

Doaped, vacant of doors Everywhere ruin had laid his hand Then A red cylindrical tohich rose in the extre the ruins, and Amalric pointed to it

'Why is that tower less in ruins than the others?' he asked Lissa turned pale; she treht his hand convulsively

'Do not speak of it!' she whispered 'Do not look toward it -do not even think of it!'

Amalric scowled; the naed the aspect of thea Aquilonian looked warily about him After all, he had no assurance that the people of Gazal would receive hi leisurely about the streets They halted and stared at him, and for some reason his flesh crawled They were men and women with kindly features, and their looks were ue and impersonal They ht have been thein the world for an armed horseman to ride into their city from the desert; yet Amalric knew that was not the case, and the casual manner in which the people of Gazal received him caused a faint uneasiness in his boso Amalric, whose hand she lifted like an affectionate child 'This is Amalric of Aquilonia, who rescued ht me home'

A polite murmur of welcome rose from the people, and several of theht he had never seen such vague, kindly faces Their eyes were soft and mild, without fear and without wonder Yet they were not the eyes of stupid oxen; rather, they were the eyes of people wrapped in drea of unreality; he hardly kneas said to hieness of it all; these quiet, drea with ai the discolored ruins A lotus paradise of illusion? Soht of that sinister red tower struck a discordant note

One of the men, his face s: 'Aquilonia? There was an invasion - we heard - King Bragorus of Nemedia - hoent the war?'

'He was driven back,' answered A a shudder Nine hundred years had passed since Bragorus led his spearmen across the marches of Aquilonia

His questioner did not press hied at his hand He turned, feasted his eyes upon her; in a realm of illusion and drea conjectures She was no dreaible as creao to rest and eat'

'What of the people?' he demurred 'Will you not tell them of your experiences?'

'They would not heed, except for a few minutes,' she answered 'They would listen a little, and then drift away They hardly know I have been gone Come!'

Amalric led the horse and cah, and water seeped froh There he tethered the his hand, she led hiht had fallen In the open space above the court, the stars were clustering, etching the jagged pinnacles

Through a series of dark cha practice Auided by her little hand in his He found it no pleasant adventure The scent of dust and decay hung in the thick darkness At times, what felt like broken tiles underfoot caused him to move carefully At other times there was the softness of worn carpets His free hand touched the fretted arches of doorways Then the stars glea hallway hung with rotting tapestries They rustled in a faint wind, and their noise was Like the whispering of witches, causing the hair to stir next his scalp

Then they ca through open s Lissa released his hand, fuht of soolden radiance She set it on a marble table and indicated that Amalric should recline on a couch thickly littered with silks Groping into soold vessel of wine and others containing food unfamiliar to Amalric There were dates, but the other food, which he did not recognize, was pallid and insipid to his taste The as pleasant to the palate, but no more heady than dish water

Seated on a marble seat opposite him, Lissa nibbled daintily

'What sort of place is this?' he deely unlike'

'They say I ao they careat oasis which was in reality only a series of springs The stone they took from the ruins of a much older city - only the red tower-' her voice dropped and she glanced nervously at the star-framed s - 'only the red tower stood there It was empty - then

'Our ancestors, ere called Gazali, once dwelt in the southern part of Koth They were noted for their scholarly wisdoht to revive the worshi+p of Mitra which the Kothians had long ago abandoned, and the king drove thedom They came southward,with their Shemitish slaves

'They reared Gazal in the desert; but the slaves revolted al, mixed with the wild tribes of the desert They were not treated badly, but word ca madly from the city into the desert

'My people dwelt here, learning to manufacture their food and drink fro was a marvel When the slaves fled, they took with them every camel, horse and donkey in the city There was no communication with the outer world There are whole chambers in Gazal that are filled with maps and books and chronicles But they are all nine hundred years old, at the least, for it was nine hundred years ago that my people fled from Koth Since then, no man of the outside world has set forth in Gazal And the people are slowly vanishi+ng They have become so dreamy and introspective that they have neither human passions nor ambitions The city falls into ruins and none moves hand to repair it Horror-' she choked, and shuddered, 'when horror caht'

'What do youon his spine The rustling of rotten hangings down nameless black corridors stirred dim fear in his soul

She shook her head, rose, and came around the marble table She laid hands on his shoulders Her eyes et and shone with horror and a desperate yearning that caught at his throat Instinctively, his arm went around her lithe fored 'I am afraid! Oh, I have dreamed of such aforgotten streets; but I aer and thirst and yearn for life I cannot abide the silent streets and ruined halls and di else That is why I ran away - I yearned for life-'

She was sobbing uncontrollably in his arrance ainst hi across his knees, her ar her to his breast, he crushed her lips with his Eyes, lips, cheeks, hair, throat, breasts, he showered with hot kisses, until her sobs changed to panting gasps The passion that sluold ball, struck by his groping fingers, tuuished Only the starshi+ne glea in Amalric's arms on the silk-heaped couch, Lissa opened her heart and whispered her dreams and hopes and aspirations, childish, pathetic, terrible

'I'll take you away,' he ht Gazal is a city of the dead; ill seek life and the outer world It is violent, rough, and cruel, but it is better than this living death-'

The night was broken by a shuddering cry of agony, horror and despair Its tiht out cold sweat on Aht fro to hied in a frantic whisper 'Do not go! Stay!'

'Butfor his sword The cries seeled with the sound They rose higher and thinner, unbearable in their hopeless agony, then sank away in a long, shuddering sob

'I have heardon the rack cry out like that!'with horror 'What devil's work is this?'

Lissa was tre violently in a frenzy of terror He felt the wild pounding of her heart

'It is the Horror of which I spoke!' she whispered 'The Horror which dwells in the red tower Long ago it came - and some say it dwelt there in the lost years and returned after the building of Gazal It devours hus What it is, no one knows, since none have seen it and lived to tell It is a God or a devil That is why the slaves fled; why the desert people shun Gazal Many of us have gone into its awful belly Eventually, all will have gone, and it will rule over an empty city, as men say it ruled over the ruins from which Gazal was reared'

'Why have the people stayed to be devoured?' he demanded

'I do not know,' she whimpered; 'they dream-'

'Hypnosis,' muttered Amalric; 'hypnosis coupled with decay I saw it in their eyes This devil has them mesmerized Mitra, what a foul secret!'

Lissa pressed her face against his boso to him

'But what are we to do?' he asked uneasily

'There is nothing to do,' she whispered 'Your sould be helpless Perhaps it will not harht We must wait like sheep for the butcher'

'I'll be daalvanized 'We will not wait for ht Make a bundle of food and drink I'll get the horse and ca them to the court outside Meet me there!'