Northwest of Earth (20 page)

When he opened his eyes again he lay once more upon cold stone in the unfathomable dark to which he had awakened before. He lay as he must have fallen when the searcher dropped him, and he was unhurt. He waited, tense and listening, until his ears ached with the strain and the silence. So far as his blade-keen senses could tell him, he was quite alone. No sound broke the utter stillness, no sensation of movement, no whiff of scent. Very cautiously he rose once more, supporting himself against the unseen stones and flexing his limbs to be sure that he was unhurt.

The floor was uneven underfoot. He had the idea now that he must be in some ancient ruins, for the smell of stone and chill and desolation was clear to him, and the breeze moaned a little through unseen openings. He felt his way along the broken wall, stumbling over fallen blocks and straining his senses against the blanketing gloom around him. He was trying vainly to recall how he had come here, and succeeding in recapturing only vague memories of much red
segir
-whisky in a nameless dive, and confusion and muffled voices thereafter, and wide spaces of utter blank—and then awakening here in the dark. The whisky must have been drugged, he told himself defensively, and a slow anger began to smolder within him at the temerity of whoever it was who had dared lay hands upon Northwest Smith.

Then he froze into stony quiet, rigid in mid-step, at the all but soundless stirring of something in the dark near by. Blurred visions of the unseen thing that had seized him ran through his head—some monster whose gait was a pattering glide and whose hands were armed with the stunning shock of an unknown force. He stood frozen, wondering if it could see him in the dark.

Feet whispered over the stone very near him, and something breathed pantingly, and a hand brushed his face. There was a quick suck of indrawn breath, and then Smith’s arms leaped out to grapple the invisible thing to him. The surprise of that instant took his breath, and then he laughed deep in his throat and swung the girl round to face him in the dark.

He could not see her, but he knew from the firm curves of her under his hands that she was young and feminine, and from the sound of her breath that she was near to fainting with fright.

“Sh-h-h,” he whispered urgently, his lips at her ear and her hair brushing his cheek fragrantly. “Don’t be afraid. Where are we?”

It might have been reaction from her terror that relaxed the tense body he held, so that she went limp in his arms and the sound of her breathing almost ceased. He lifted her clear of the ground—she was light and fragrant and he felt the brush of velvet garments against his bare arms as unseen robes swept him—and carried her across to the wall. He felt better with something solid at his back. He laid her down there in the angle of the stones and crouched beside her, listening, while she slowly regained control of herself.

When her breathing was normal again, save for the faint hurrying of excitement and alarm, he heard the sound of her sitting up against the wall, and bent closer to catch her whisper.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Northwest Smith,” he said under his breath, and grinned at her softly murmured “Oh-h!” of recognition. Whoever she was she had heard that name before. Then,

“There has been a mistake,” she breathed, half to herself. “They never take any but the—space-rats and the scum of the ports for Julhi to—I mean, to bring here. They must not have known you, and they will pay for that mistake. No man is brought here who might be searched for—afterward.”

Smith was silent for a moment. He had thought her lost like himself, and her fright had been too genuine for pretense. Yet she seemed to know the secrets of this curious, unlit place. He must go warily.

“Who are you?” he murmured. “Why were you so frightened? Where are we?”

In the dark her breath caught in a little gasp, and went on unevenly.

“We are in the ruins of Vonng,” she whispered. “I am Apri, and I am condemned to death. I thought you were death coming for me, as it will come at any instant now.” Her voice failed on the last syllables, so that she spoke in a fading gasp as if terror had her by the throat and would not let her breathe. He felt her trembling against his arm.

Many questions crowded up to his lips, but the most urgent found utterance.

“What will come?” he demanded. “What is the danger?”

“The haunters of Vonng,” she whispered fearfully. “It is to feed them that Julhi’s slaves bring men here. And those among us who are disobedient must feed the haunters too. I have suffered her displeasure—and I must die.”

“The haunters—what are they? Something with a touch like a live wire had me awhile ago, but it let me loose again. Could that have been—”

“Yes, one of them. My coming must have disturbed it. But as to what they are, I don’t know. They come in the darkness. They are of Julhi’s race, I think, but not flesh and blood, like her. I—I can’t explain.”

“And Julhi—?”

“Is—well, simply Julhi. You don’t know?”

“A woman? Some queen, perhaps? You must remember I don’t even know where I am.”

“No, not a woman. At least, not as I am. And much more than queen. A great sorceress, I have thought, or perhaps a goddess. I don’t know. It makes me ill to think, here in Vonng. It makes me ill to—to—oh, I couldn’t bear it! I think I was going mad! It’s better to die than go mad, isn’t it? But I’m so afraid—”

Her voice trailed away incoherently, and she cowered shivering against him in the dark.

Smith had been listening above her shuddering whispers for any tiniest sound in the night. Now he turned his mind more fully to what she had been saying, though with an ear still alert for any noises about them.

“What do you mean? What was it you did?”

“There is a—a light,” murmured Apri vaguely. “I’ve always seen it, even from babyhood, whenever I closed my eyes and tried to make it come. A light, and queer shapes and shadows moving through it, like reflections from somewhere I never saw before. But somehow it got out of control, and then I began to catch the strangest thought-waves beating through, and after a while Julhi came—through the light. I don’t know—I can’t understand. But she makes me summon up the light for her now, and then queer things happen inside my head, and I’m ill and dizzy, and—and I think I’m going mad. But she makes me do it. And it grows worse, you know, each time worse, until I can’t bear it. Then she’s angry, and that dreadful still look comes over her face—and this time she sent me here. The haunters will come, now—”

Smith tightened his arm comfortingly about her, thinking that she was perhaps a little mad already.

“How can we get out of here?” he demanded, shaking her gently to call back her wandering mind. “Where are we?”

“In Vonng. Don’t you understand? On the island where Vonng’s ruins are.”

He remembered then. He had heard of Vonng, somewhere. The ruins of an old city lost in the tangle of vines upon a small island a few hours off the coast of Shann. There were legends that it had been a great city once, and a strange one. A king with curious powers had built it, a king in league with beings better left unnamed, so the whispers ran. The stone had been quarried with unnamable rites, and the buildings were very queerly shaped, for mysterious purposes. Some of its lines ran counter-wise to the understanding even of the men who laid them out, and at intervals in the streets, following a pattern certainly not of their own world, medallions had been set, for reasons known to none but the king. Smith remembered what he had heard of the strangeness of fabulous Vonng, and of the rites that attended its building, and that as last some strange plague had overrun it, driving men mad… something about ghosts that flickered through the streets at mid-day; so that at last the dwellers there had deserted it, and for centuries it had stood here, slowly crumbling into decay. No one ever visited the place now, for civilization had moved inland since the days of Vonng’s glory, and uneasy tales still ran through men’s minds about the queer things that had happened there once.

“Julhi lives in these ruins?” he demanded.

“Julhi lives here but not in a ruined Vonng. Her Vonng is a splendid city. I have seen it, but I could never enter.”

“Quite mad,” thought Smith compassionately. And aloud, “Are there no boats here? No way to escape at all?”

Almost before the last words had left his lips he heard something like the humming of countless bees begin to ring in his ears. It grew and deepened and swelled until his head was filled with sound, and the cadences of that sound said,

“No. No way. Julhi forbids it.”

In Smith’s arms the girl startled and clung to him convulsively.

“It is Julhi!” she gasped. “Do you feel her, singing in your brain? Julhi!”

Smith heard the voice swelling louder, until it seemed to fill the whole night, humming with intolerable volume.

“Yes, my little Apri. It is I. Do you repent your disobedience, my Apri?”

Smith felt the girl trembling against him. He could hear her heart pounding, and the breath rushed chokingly through her lips.

“No—no, I do not,” he heard her murmur, very softly. “Let me die, Julhi.”

The voice hummed with a purring sweetness.

“Die, my pretty? Julhi could not be so cruel. Oh no, little Apri, I but frightened you for punishment. You are forgiven now. You may return to me and serve me again, my Apri. I would not let you die.” The voice was cloyingly sweet.

Apri’s voice crescendoed into hysterical rebellion.

“No, no! I will not serve you! Not again, Julhi! Let me die!”

“Peace, peace my little one.” That humming was hypnotic in its soothing lilt. “You will serve me. Yes, you will obey me as before, my pretty. You have found man there, haven’t you, little one? Bring him with you, and come.”

Apri’s unseen hands clawed frantically at Smith’s shoulders, tearing herself free, pushing him away.

“Run, run!” she gasped. “Climb this wall and run! You can throw yourself over the cliff and be free. Run, I say, before it’s too late. Oh,
Shar, Shar
, if I were free to die!”

Smith prisoned the clawing hands in one of his and shook her with the other.

“Be still!” he snapped. “You’re hysterical. Be still!”

He felt the shuddering slacken. The straining hands fell quiet. By degrees her panting breath evened.

“Come,” she said at last, and in quite a different voice. “Julhi commands it. Come.”

Her fingers twined firmly in his, and she stepped forward without hesitation into the dark. He followed, stumbling over debris, bruising himself against the broken walls. How far they went he did not know, but the way turned and twisted and doubled back upon itself, and he had, somehow, the curious idea that she was not following a course through corridors and passages which she knew well enough not to hesitate over, but somehow, under the influence of Julhi’s sorcery, treading a symbolic pattern among the stones, tracing it out with unerring feet—a witch-pattern that, when it was completed, would open a door for them which no eyes could see, no hands unlock.

It may have been Julhi who put that certainty in his mind, but he was quite sure of it as the girl walked on along her intricate path, threading silently in and out among the unseen ruins, nor was he surprised when without warning the floor became smooth underfoot and the walls seemed to fall away from about him, the smell of cold stone vanished from the air. Now he walked in darkness over a thick carpet, through sweetly scented air, warm and gently moving with invisible currents. In that dark he was somehow aware of eyes upon him. Not physical eyes, but a more all-pervading inspection. Presently the humming began again, swelling through the air and beating in his ears in sweetly pitched cadences.

“Hm-m-m… have you brought me a man from Earth, my Apri? Yes, an Earthman, and a fine one. I am pleased with you, Apri, for saving me this man. I shall call him to me presently. Until then let him wander, for he can not escape.”

The air fell quiet again, and about him Smith gradually became aware of a dawning light. It swelled from no visible source, but it paled the utter dark to a twilight through which he could see tapestries and richly glowing columns about him, and the outlines of the girl Apri standing at his side. The twilight paled in turn, and the light grew strong, and presently he stood in full day among the queer, rich furnishings of the place into which he had come.

He stared round in vain for signs of the way they had entered. The room was a small cleared space in the midst of a forest of shining pillars of polished stone. Tapestries were stretched between some of them, swinging down in luxuriant folds. But as far as he could see in all directions the columns reached away in diminishing aisles, and he was quite sure that they had not made their way to this place through the clustering pillars. He would have been aware of them. No, he had stepped straight from Vonng’s stonestrewn ruins upon this rug which carpeted the little clear space, through some door invisible to him.

He turned to the girl. She had sunk upon one of the divans which stood between the columns around the edge of the circular space. She was paler than the marble, and very lovely, as he had known she would be. She had the true Venusian’s soft, dark, sidelong eyes, and her mouth was painted coral, and her hair swept in black, shining clouds over her shoulders. The tight-swathed Venusian robe clung to her in folds of rose-red velvet, looped to leave one shoulder bare, and slit, as all Venusian’s women’s garments are, to let one leg flash free with every other step. It is the most flattering dress imaginable for any woman to wear, but Apri needed no flattery to make her beautiful. Smith’s pale eyes were appreciative as he stared.