Caves of Terror, Talbot Mundy [best books under 200 pages txt] 📗

a candle, reading a roll of manuscript; and he did not trouble to look up—did not take the slightest notice of us.

But around the crypt there were more cells than I could count off-hand. Some were dark. There were lights burning in the others. Each had an iron door with a few holes in it, and a small square window, unglazed and unbarred, cut in the natural rock. Enough light came through some of those square holes to suffuse the whole crypt dimly.

"None but an aspirant has ever entered here," said the Gray Mahatma. "Even when India was conquered, no enemy penetrated this place. You stand on forbidden ground."

He turned to the left and opened an iron cell door by simply pushing it; there did not seem to be any lock. He did not announce himself, but walked straight in, and we followed him. The cell was about ten feet by twelve, with a stone ledge wide enough to sleep on running along one side, and lighted by an oil lamp that hung by chains from the hewn roof. There were three bearded, middle-aged men, almost naked, squatting on one mat facing the stone ledge, one of whom held an ancient manuscript that all three were consulting; and on the stone ledge sat what once had been a man before those devils caught him.

The three looked up at the Gray Mahatma curiously, but did not challenge. I suppose his nakedness was his passport. They eyed King and me with a butcher's-eye appraisal, nodded, and resumed their consultation of the hand-written roll. The characters on it looked like Sanskrit.

The Gray Mahatma faced the creature on the stone ledge, and spoke to King and me in English.

"That," he said, "is one of those who crossed the Pool of Terrors and became insane with pride. Consider him. He entered here demanding knowledge, having only the desire and not the honesty. But since there is no way backward and even failure must subserve the universal cause, he was given knowledge and it made him what you see. Now these, who know a little and would learn more, make use of him as a subject for experiments.

"That thing, who was once a man, can imagine himself a bird, or a fish, or an animal—or even an insensate graven stone—at their command. When he is no more fit to be studied he will imagine himself to be a mugger, and will hurry into the tank with the other reptiles, and that will be the end of him. Come."

I felt like going mad that minute. I sat down on the rock floor and held my head to make sure that I still had it. I wanted to think of something that would give me back my grip on sanity and the good, clean concrete world outside; I don't think I could have done it if King had not seen and applied the solution. He kicked me in the ribs as hard as he could with his naked foot, and, that failing, used his fist.

"Get up!" he said. "Hit me, if you want to!"

Then he turned to the Mahatma.

"Confound you! Take us out of this!"

"Peace! Peace!" said the Gray Mahatma. "You are chosen. You are needed for another purpose. No harm shall come to either of you. There is one more cell that you must enter."

"No!" said I, and I met his eye squarely. "I've seen my fill of these sights. Lead the way out!"

He did not appear in the least afraid of me; merely curious, as if he were viewing an experiment. I made up my mind on the instant to experiment on my own account, and swung my fist back for a full-powered smash at him. I let go, too. But the blow fell on King, who stepped between us, and knocked nearly all the wind out of him.

"None o' that!" he gasped. "Let's see this through."

The Gray Mahatma patted him gently on the shoulder.

"Good!" he said. "Very good. You did well!"

CHAPTER V FAR CITIES

The Gray Mahatma led the way toward one of the great square pillars that supported a portion of the roof.

In that pillar there was an opening, about six feet high and barely wide enough for a man of my build to squeeze himself through, but once inside it there was ample space and a stairway, hewn in the stone, wound upward. Still swinging the lantern he had brought with him from Yasmini's palace the Mahatma led the way up that, and we followed, I last as usual.

We emerged through a wooden door into a temple, whose walls were almost entirely hidden by enormous images of India's gods. There were no windows.

The resulting gloom was punctuated by dots of yellow light that came from hanging brass lamps, whose smoke in the course of centuries had covered everything with soot that it was nobody's business to remove. So it looked like a coal-black pantheon, and in the darkness you could hardly see the forms of long-robed men who were mumbling through some sort of ceremony.

"Those," said the Gray Mahatma, "are priests. They receive payment to pray for people who may not enter lest their sinfulness defile the sanctuary."

There was only one consideration that prevented me from looking for a door behind a carved stone screen placed at the end wall screen and bidding the Mahatma a discourteous farewell, and that was the prospect of walking through the streets with nothing on but a dish-rag and a small red turban.

However, the Gray Mahatma, as naked as the day he was born, led the way to the screen, opened a hinged door in it and beckoned us through; and we emerged, instead of into the street as I expected, into a marvelous courtyard bathed in moonlight, for the moon was just appearing over the roof of what looked like another temple at the rear.

All around the courtyard was a portico, supported by pillars of most wonderful workmanship; and the four walls within the portico were subdivided into open compartments, in each of which was the image of a different god. In front of each image hung a lighted lamp, whose rays were reflected in the idol's jeweled eyes; but the only people visible were three or four sleepy looking attendants in turbans and cotton loin-cloths, who sat up and stared at us without making any other sign of recognition.

In the very center of the courtyard was a big, square platform built of stone, with a roof like a canopy supported on carved pillars similar to those that supported the portico, which is to say that each one was different, and yet all were so alike as to blend into architectural harmony—repetition without monotony. The Gray Mahatma led the way up steps on to the platform, and waited for us at a square opening in the midst of its floor, beside which lay a stone that obviously fitted the hole exactly. There were no rings to lift the stone by from the outside, but there were holes drilled through it from side to side through which iron bolts could be passed from underneath.

Down that hole we went in single file again, the Gray Mahatma leading, treading an oval stairway interminably until I daresay we had descended more than a hundred feet. The air was warm, but breathable and there seemed to be plenty of it, as if some efficient means of artificial ventilation had been provided; nevertheless, it was nothing else than a cavern that we were exploring, and though there were traces of chisel and adze work on the walls, the only masonry was the steps.

We came to the bottom at last in an egg-shaped cave, in the center of which stood a rock, roughly hewn four-square; and on that rock, exactly in the middle, was a lingam of black polished marble, illuminated by a brass lamp hanging overhead. The Mahatma eyed it curiously:

"That," he said, "is the last symbol of ignorance. The remainder is knowledge."

There were doors on every side of that egg-shaped cave, each set cunningly into a natural fold of rock, so that they seemed to have been inset when it was molten, in the way that nuts are set into chocolate—pushed into place by a pair of titanic thumbs. And at last we seemed to have reached a place where the Gray Mahatma might not enter uninvited, for he selected one of the doors after a moment's thought and knocked.

We stood there for possibly ten minutes, without an answer, the Mahatma seeming satisfied with his own meditation, and we not caring to talk lest he should overhear us.

At last the door opened, not cautiously, but suddenly and wide, and a man stood square in it who filled it up from frame to frame—a big-eyed, muscular individual in loin-cloth and turban, who looked too proud to assert his pride. He stood with arms folded and a smile on his firm mouth; and the impression he conveyed was that of a master-craftsman, whose skill was his life, and whose craft was all he cared about.

He eyed the Mahatma without respect or flinching, and said nothing.

Have you ever watched two wild animals meet, stand looking at each other, and suddenly go off together without a sign of an explanation? That was what happened. The man in the doorway presently turned his back and led the way in.

The passage we entered was just exactly wide enough for me to pass along with elbows touching either wall. It was high; there was plenty of air in it; it was as scrupulously clean as a hospital ward. On either hand there were narrow wooden doors, spaced about twenty feet apart, every one of them closed; there were no bolts on the outside of the doors, and no keyholes, but I could not move them by shoving against them as I passed.

The extraordinary circumstance was the light. The whole passage was bathed in light, yet I could not detect where it came from. It was not dazzling like electricity. No one place seemed brighter than another, and there were no shadows.

The end of the passage forked at a perfect right angle, and there were doors at the end of each arm of the fork. Our guide turned to the right. He, King and the Mahatma passed through a door that seemed to open at the slightest touch, and the instant the Mahatma's back had passed the door-frame I found myself in darkness.

I had hung back a little, trying to make shadows with my hands to discover the direction of the light; and the strange part was that I could see bright light in front of me through the open door, but none of it came out into the passage.

It was intuition that caused me to pause at the threshold before following the others through. Something about the suddenness with which the light had ceased in the passage the moment the Mahatma's back was past the door, added to curiosity, made me stop and consider that plane where the light left off. Having no other instrument available, I took off my turban and flapped it to and fro, to see whether I could produce any effect on that astonishing dividing line, and for about the ten thousandth time in a somewhat strenuous career it was intuition and curiosity that saved me.

The instant the end of the turban touched the plane between light and darkness it caught fire; or rather, I should say fire caught it, and the fire was so intense and swift that it burned off that part of the turban without damaging the rest. In other words, there was a plane of unimaginably active heat between me and the rest of the party—of such extraordinary heat that it functioned only on that plane (for I could not feel it with my hand from an inch away); and I being in pitch darkness while they were in golden light, the others could not see me.

They could hear, however, and I called to King. I told him what happened, and then showed him, by throwing what was left of the turban toward him. It got exactly as far as the plane between light and darkness, and then vanished in a silent flash so swiftly and completely as to leave no visible charred fragment.

I could see all three men standing in line facing in my direction, hardly ten feet away, and it was difficult to remember that they could not see me at all—or at any rate that King could not; the others may have had some trained sixth sense that made it possible.

"Come forward!" said the Gray Mahatma. "We three came by. Why should it harm you?"

King sized up the situation instantly. If they intended to kill me and keep him alive, that would not be with his permission or connivance, and he stepped forward