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

vaguely, for a towering pillar of mist dimmed his vision. Looking down, he understood the reason.

Beneath him a gulf opened. The porch overhung a broad platform lower down which jutted out over an abyss clouded with white fog. A silver torrent of ice shot out in an arc and fell away into that incredible depth.

Not ice, no, for it moved slowly. It was the river that flowed beneath the castle, to drop into the gulf that lay directly under Raft. He tried to probe the depths, but the boiling maelstrom of mist baffled him. The cataract fell and was lost.

Fell—slowly. Mist rose slowly too, a gelid ghost towering high above the castle. The deep humming was louder now, and the stone beneath Raft’s feet vibrated to its murmuring. Subsonic. The crashing roar of a waterfall, resolved by some physical warp or distortion into that dim throbbing he felt rather than heard.

Frowning, Raft left the balcony. He was beginning to understand a little now. His mind, refreshed by deep sleep, was clearer. Slow water, stones that fell like feathers, a sun that dragged itself wearily across that green sky. Time, it seemed, was different here. Was this lost land actually on Earth? The same Earth that held the Amazon Basin, and Rio, and New York? Perhaps not.

He tried to fathom the mystery of the oval door. He could not, but it slipped upward and vanished suddenly, and Vann stood on the threshold, his scarred face alert.

“So you’re awake,” Vann said in the Indio. “Good. Darum wants to see you, but he’s resting now. You’ll want a bath.”

“And food,” Raft said. “Does Darum wear those gloves all the time?”

Vann called a command over his shoulders. Then he stepped forward into the room, smiling.

“Only for tourneys. He’s less dangerous when he wears the gloves. I’ll show you the bath, Craddock.”

“I’m not Craddock. I told you before I’m not Craddock.”

But Vann paid no attention. He moved levers on the wall, and part of the floor slid aside, revealing a shallow, wide basin filled with a liquid the color of creme de menthe. Gratefully Raft slipped out of his ragged clothes and lowered himself into the bath. Vann watched with a grimace of distaste.

“It’ll take several washings to get you clean,” he remarked.

“Here.” He found a jar and sprinkled blue powder into the water. An astringent, tingling sensation ran across Raft’s skin.

There were brushes, many of them, instruments like Roman strigils, and other gadgets Raft experimented with under Vann’s guidance. The water was awkward to handle because of its sluggishness.

Once Raft dropped a brush. He watched it float gently down till it dug a hole in the water, a hole that gradually refilled, while ripples crept out to the rim.

But a bath was luxury, and the aches began to leave Raft’s muscles. Vann watched unblinkingly, commenting once on the coarseness of his prisoner’s hair, and providing a gleaming unguent which Raft’s skin absorbed leaving him stimulated. Finally a page appeared, pushing a wheeled table laden with unfamiliar food, and stood motionless, struck with amazement as he eyed the figure in the bath.

Vann gestured, and the loose-limbed, dapper youngster, with his daintily malicious triangular face, bowed and fled, without removing his startled gaze from Raft.

“No wonder he’s surprised,” Vann remarked. “Your musculature is so different from ours that you looked deformed to him. But I’d like to fight you some time, if opportunity arises.”

“Thanks,” Raft said. “You’d have a fine time cutting my throat with one of those gloves.”

“Not at all.” Vann smiled savagely. “Killing is a different thing entirely. The point in murder is not to be found out. But a fight, a duel—they’re very seldom fatal.” He found tight garments like his own and helped Raft don them. “I’d have too much of an advantage if I wore the gloves. What weapons do you use usually?”

“Rifles,” Raft said. He explained about duels.

“Strange,” the soldier said. “I should think there’d be little satisfaction in propelling a missile. You wouldn’t be able to feel your blade go in. There’d be.no physical pleasure.”

“All right. We’ll box, fight with our fists.”

“Depending on impact alone? That doesn’t seem interesting. Don’t you use swords at all?”

“Some of us do,” Raft said. “But I’m no swordsman myself. What was that you said about murder? Is homicide legal here?”

“No,” Vann said. “We’re not barbarians. A murderer has to pay restitution, if he’s found out. But only the stupid are caught.”

“Oh,” Raft said blankly, tackling a pulpy, acrid fruit like an orange. “There’s a police force, then?”

He had to explain, but finally Vann understood.

“We have specialists in detection. If a murderer can escape their skill, he’s safe enough. The trick is—I think—to conceal the motive. Killers are caught because they haven’t disguised their motives.” He shook his head deprecatingly.

“Just what is the set-up here?” Raft asked. “Does Darum rule all Paititi?”

Vann nodded.

“Yes. The set-up is—well, that of any civilized land.”

“Sure. Homicide for fun. How is it you can talk the Indio tongue?”

“You aren’t the first outsider to enter Paititi. We have had brown-skinned men here in our fathers’ time, though it has always been difficult for us to leave our valley. Parror’s ancestors had captive Indios sometimes, and most of us know the language.”

Raft thought that logical. Linguist ability was a mark of the cosmopolitan, even if it never left this hidden valley.

“And Portuguese?”

“What?”

“Falam portugues?”

“That is strange to me,” Vann admitted.

“Then Parror picked it up? And Janissa, too.” Raft nodded thoughtfully.

Then he remembered the aviator. “Was there a man of my race here, a man named da Fonseca, who had a machine which flew through the air? About—about fifty sleeps ago?”

Vann’s face lighted up. “The machine that flies fell into Paititi about four hundred sleeps ago, killing all but one man, whom Parror took to his castle. Yes, that was da Fonseca, for with his aid Parror read the notebook you left in the Cavern of the Flame.”

Raft put down a morsel untasted.

“Four hundred sleeps?” he said, a queer hesitation in his voice. “Over a year ago. How long have I been in Paititi, Vann?”

“I captured you yesterday,” the soldier said. “And that was

directly after your arrival. I was watching for Parror’s return from the outer world. So I knew when to strike.”

“I see,” Raft said, though he didn’t. “What about this notebook, and the Cavern of the Flame? What’s that?”

“You did not see the Cavern?”

“I saw a cavern, with some unpleasant creatures in it. Is that what you mean?”

A shudder shook Vann. Briefly a touch of fear showed in his eyes. “No—no. That is not what I mean.” He changed the subject abruptly. “You must see Darum now. Are you ready?”

“As ready as I ever will be, I suppose.”

“Very well.” Vann stood up, turning toward the door. Raft accompanied his guard into a dimly-lighted hall and along it. After a while Vann broke silence.

“The Great Lord has fought and had his pleasure afterward, and slept. He will be strange now. A word of advice, Craddock.”

“I’m—well, what is it?”

“Something hangs in the balance now,” Vann said thoughtfully, his gaze on the floor as they walked. “For myself, I arn not sure. I am on neither side as yet. Darum, too, hesitates.

“He had you taken from Parror before the—the final step could be taken, but he may yet side with Parror. If he does, that will be well for you. Or perhaps evil, in the end. I cannot see that far ahead. But I will say this, since you are of an alien race, you would do well to heed it. Darum—is mad.”

A little shock went through Raft. He stared at the soldier.

“Mad? Your king?”

“Yes.”

“And he rules?”

“Of course,” Vann said. “Why not? For often he is not mad, and when he is, that does not matter much. But with you it may mean the difference between life and death. Perhaps,” he went on musingly, “life and death for Paititi. Remember that Darum is not your kind.”

“I hope not,” Raft said candidly.

“He is of our kind,” Vann murmured, and his eyes were luminous. “Now—I hope you live. For I’d enjoy a duel with you, Craddock. And here is your way.” He held aside a heavy tapestry, revealing a dim corridor. “Go in.”

“Thanks,” Raft said.

He stepped forward. Behind him, Vann let the curtain fall. There was silence, except for the never-ceasing vibration that shook the castle. Even here its steady humming could be felt.

Raft walked toward another drapery that barred the way ahead.

A different race, he thought, and a different species. They murder for intellectual pleasure and duel for physical excitement. They see nothing amiss in a mad king.

He hesitated before the curtain. Then he pushed it aside and stepped through, into a ruddy darknenss.

The dim, faint glow came from all around. How large the room might be Raft had no way of guessing. He saw shrouded shapes looming before him, and, in heavier shadow, something stirred and looked at him with eyes that were glowing disks. A cool, sharp perfume was in his nostrils. That infernal humming seemed to shake the dark air.

There was no sound. Raft, after a moment, moved forward. The eyes watched him steadily. At last he could make out a slim figure reclining on a bulkier, shapeless mass—the smooth outline of a jaw, and the cloudy mist of hair fading into invisibility.

Raft stood there, waiting.

He sensed that this was not the same man he had seen fighting and laughing in the courtyard. There was a difference, even physically. In the gloom a change had come upon Darum, a strangeness that was indefinable and yet unmistakable.

“Sit down,” the king said, in the Indio tongue. Even his voice had altered. It was passionless, like music heard from very far away.

Raft fumbled, found a couch, and dropped upon it. The eyes had a touch of green in them as they watched.

“Listen,” Darum said.

At the king’s feet a shadow stirred. Its soft curves were those of a woman, but from that vague figure a subtle breath of terror breathed out, chilling Raft. There was a sound, almost a voice. Woodwind and sighing strings—plaintive, questioning.

Again the king spoke.

“Yrann wonders. She wonders why you come to Paititi, Craddock. Music is her voice, for she will not speak. But she asks who are you? What is your world?”

The soft strings sang again. Sang a question.

Raft leaned forward, as though to break the spell. But the king’s eyes held him.

“He is a god, Yrann. Craddock was in the beginning, and now he comes again, very near the end. Since his eyes first saw Paititi, a race has been born and draws close to the shadow. The shadow that the Flame casts over all living things.”

The sighing oboe-flute spoke of a gathering darkness, of a cloud that stooped above the land,

“And yet there are other shadows,” the king whispered. “There was a woman once, Yrann, whose loveliness burned like magic fires. Fires that could make men drunken. A fire that could make men mad, as I know. As I know.”

Stealthy fear circled Raft’s heart. Poignant, eerie, the music sang, and the dim gloom showed the half-seen, half-veiled curves of soft skin and rounded shoulders. At Darum’s feet Yrann swept slim fingers across sobbing strings.

“And the fire burned,” the king went on softly. “In all Paititi there was none so beautiful as this woman. When she danced, th’e tall trees inclined in homage. When she smiled, the stones bowed down.”

A note of pride crept into the wordless song. The sundrenched spring of green forests came