The Valley of the Flame, Henry Kuttner [ready player one ebook .TXT] 📗

he knew he spoke the truth.

“There is death here,” he shrieked. “Too much death for one man. I shall not die alone. I think you must fail with the Flame, Janissa, Craddock, Raft! I think you must fail and doom us all, for this room reeks with death.”

Raft felt a thrill of horror. Utter conviction rang true in the king’s voice. Conviction and madness.

“Death over all Paititi!” said Darum, lifting his face suddenly and showing them a wild and shining glare mat saw nothing before it.

And suddenly “Death!” wailed a shiver of resounding strings from the curtains behind him. If ever music spoke a word, that music spoke and threatened. The promise was as clear as the sudden flash of a bared blade. It needed no articulation to speak its single syllable of prophecy.

The curtain swept aside, and Yrann’s veiled figure stood there, fingers poised above the still-quivering strings. Faceless and veiled, like the Norn Atropos, ready to cut the thread that held Darum’s life.

For a moment nobody moved. The room was too full of that certainty of doom which Darum’s mad voice had made them all believe whether they would or no. For that instant, against all hope and reason, even Craddock, even Raft, knew certainly that there was no chance for life. In the single moment, they were all as mad as the king.

But only Raft understood what happened next. Only he knew what must have passed through Yrann’s clouded mind. Death hung over Doirada Castle and the whole world she knew. The king had spoken, and in this moment there was no doubting the king. And she had waited so long for vengeance. The Flame would rob her of it now, unless—unless—she acted.

One last wild shrilling cry came shivering from the harp-strings. With the same motion that swept music across the instrument she flung the harp aside, letting it crash to the floor with a last jangling discord of its own.

She moved forward with a swift, stooping rush toward the couch. Her white hand, darting from the”veils, was like a flung weapon in itself as she snatched up the long dagger he had dropped. Headlong, she hurled herself against him, swinging the blade like a scythe.

He was off guard. He tried to rise, to leap away from the blade’s glittering descent, but the tangling silks caught and betrayed him. He managed only to writhe, aside, so that the first blow only raked his ribs in a glancing wound. Yrann, still silent, brought up the knife again with deadly singleness of purpose.

Then Raft had her.

He felt her arch against his restraining arm with the desperate strength he remembered from their other struggle in this room, and a shock of unreasonable horror went through him as that veiled face turned to his.

She flung herself against his grip with a cat’s sudden, explosive fury, and with one last frantic surge broke free. Springing back, still gripping the dagger, she turned her faceless gaze toward the king.

He was on his feet now, facing her, ready. Her chance was gone. She knew it. They could see the knowledge slacken the tautness of the lovely body beneath her veils. They heard her sigh once, deeply, in the tense silence of the room.

Then she moved suddenly, her draperies swirling like slow smoke, and sank the knife hilt-deep in her own heart!

Motionless, speechless, they watched her sink to the floor. Red came slowly out through the gray veils pinned by the knife against her.

Darum brushed past Raft. He knelt beside Yrann. His hand went out, poising over the veiled face. But he did not touch the gauzy webs that hid her.

“Yrann?” he said. “Yrann?”

But she did not stir. The red stain widened upon the gray.

Darum’s fingers closed upon the hilt that stood up from her chest. He knelt there for a heartbeat, his hand caressing the weapon as if it were Yrann herself. Then his grip tightened.

He tore the knife free, dripping scarlet drops, and rose in a lithe, inhuman motion, facing Raft. His lips had flattened back, and the light in his eyes was the dark blaze of pure madness. He lifted the blade, and the red drops spattered in an arch across the carpet.

Raft stood motionless, his mind racing. He was too close to the king, and he was unarmed. There was no way of escaping that blow, unless he came to grips with the man, and he had no illusions about which of the two was stronger. Power flowed tremendously through the feline’s rippling body, and madness lent it double strength.

“You saved my life,” he said in a hissing snarl. “You came between us! You turned the knife against her as surely as if you held the blade. What use do you think life is to me now?” His features convulsed in the mad inhumanity of feline rage. “You—ape!”

Darum sprang.

From behind Raft a thin, shining flash of light darted, to quench itself in the king’s throat. Darum’s body arched. He strained to take one step more forward—to keep the dagger raised for its blow —

Then with shocking suddenness, all the strength went out of him and he dropped to the silks with the lithe, silken limpness of the silks themselves. His fingers released the dagger, and he pulled the rapier from his throat, blood gushing from wound and mouth as it came free.

“Vann,” he said, and coughed. “Vann. We have dueled before—but never thus!”

Vann’s deep voice answered heavily.

“I served you, Darum, but I serve Paititi first. Yrann was not worth any man’s love.”

“She was so beautiful,” the king whispered. “She could not bear to die—with Paititi—without slaying me. She hated me always. And—and—” He tried to choke back blood.

He lifted himself on suddenly strong arms and dragged himself forward a few feet. He ran gentle fingers down the dead woman’s arm. Her harp lay where it had fallen, almost beneath her fingers. He touched the strings, and their sad music hung forlornly in the quiet air.

“I would have crushed Paititi,” Darum said. “I would have—crushed the world—for her. Rather than have her harmed. She was so beautiful.”

The king’s head fell upon the soft body of Yrann. The tiger eyes closed. One hand sought for and found Yrann’s.

His blood mingled with hers.

The red stream flowed slower and slower —

And flowed no more.

Vann stood motionless, his heavy shoulders sagging.

“Go now, while there’s time,” he said. “I did this to save Paititi, and now I find myself wondering whether I have struck steel into the wrong throat.”

“Vann,” Janissa said.

“Take them away, Janissa. Take these men from another world out of the king’s presence. Let them stop Parror if they can.”

“Parror?” Craddock whispered. He touched Raft’s arm. “We’ll have to move fast.”

“Yes,” Raft said tonelessly.

He turned and led the way out of the chamber. His face was gray, and sweat stood out in fine droplets on his cheeks.

Once outside, he did not mention the king.

“We’ll need the machine,” he said. “It’s a portable, so we can manage the weight. But I’ll want some straps.”

They found silken scarves that would do as well, and the machine was adjusted on Raft’s back. The light alloys made its weight less than its bulk would have indicated. That would help, since fast travel would be necessary if they hoped to forestall Parror.

Silently they left the castle, darkened now for the sleep-period. Outside the cool, clear daylight of Paititi was dazzling.

“We should have remembered weapons,” Craddock said.

“It’s too late now,” Raft told him. “Janissa, you’ll guide. Do you know the secret way to the Flame?”

“I think I can find it, yes. The thought in Parror’s mind was clear enough. But it is a long way.”

Yet it was shorter than they expected. They did not head for Parror’s castle. They angled off toward the base of the rock barrier that guarded Paititi. Four hours of fast travel brought them to it. There, however, time was lost as Janissa searched for the secret entrance.

“There are ruins here,” she said. “Ruins of the Old Race. There should be a double column. Parror was thinking of it when I read his mind.”

Silently Raft pointed. With a little cry Janissa ran to the spot he indicated. She felt the smooth surface of the rock-face, searching for a key.

Silently, smoothly, an oval opened in the bare stone.

Raft turned to stare back the way they had come.

“No sign of Parror,” he said. “He may be ahead of us. Or he may not. We’ll soon know.” He followed Janissa and Craddock into the opening. Behind him the hidden door closed.

But they were not in darkness. A pale, cool glow came from the walls and roof and the smooth floor on which they stood. The tunnel wound upward at a steep slant, and the silence made Raft feel the blood beating in his ears.

“Come on,” he said, shouldering the machine.

It was not long, that passage in the cliff. It made a shortcut through the rock to the cavern of the Rame. But, before them there was another cavern.

Ah oval door barred their path. Janissa opened it easily, bur she did not pass through the portal. Raft saw her slender figure poise, hesitate, and shrink back. He brushed past Craddock.

“What is it?” he asked.

Janissa did not answer.

“The First Race,” Craddock said, in a breathless voice. “The First Race.”

It was the cavern Raft had seen when he had first entered Paititi. Leprous violet light bathed the dripping stalactites and crept over the thrusting stalagmites that made an upthrust forest. High overhead, slanting down at a dizzyi angle, was the gravity-defying, nearly transparent tube of the unseen road, made visible now only because of the hordes of creatures that crawled upon it, as though striving to break through the glassy barrier.

The monsters!

Raft had seen them before, but only dimly. Now he felt his throat go dry and close with loathing.

Bat-winged and beast-snouted, degenerate and horrible, the things swarmed in the violet light there in the great cave. They were the descendants of what had once been the First Race, the mighty civilization that had reared the proud castles of Paititi.

And fallen now—fallen into the primal pit of horror.

The baleful radiations that had once raged through Paititi when the Flame waned long ago and had changed them to demons. Few were alike. Some had immense bat-wings, while others flopped and dragged their fat, shining bulks among the stalagmites. And some were dwarfed. Some were giants. Some had the clawed feet of giant birds.

Straight as a lance across that arena of terror ran the path they had been following, a faint white glow that ended at the farther wall, before an oval panel that was obviously a door.

“Through—there?” Craddock said.

Raft looked at Janissa. She was white-faced, but she caught her breath and stepped out of the tunnel’s protection, into the violet light of the cavern.

“We’ll run for it,” Raft said. “If we can reach that other door, we’ll be all right.”

They ran, panic spurring their heels. The sight of the nightmare horde flapping and crawling and leaping all about them was horrible. And the thought of those black talons actually touching them—it was not a good thought.

A stir went through the monsters, a ripple of interest. As Raft ran, he saw from the corners of his eyes that shapes were converging upon them. But the three were more than halfway across the cavern now, and there was more than an even chance mat they could reach their goal before the monsters rallied to investigate.

Raft reckoned without the winged beings. Something struck him heavily from behind, sending him to his