The Conquest of the Moon Pool/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
VON HETZDORP STRIKES!
"MY HEART, Larry—" It was the handmaiden's murmur. "My heart feels like a bird that is flying from a nest of sorrow."
We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of the Akka beside us, others following with those companies of the ladala that had rushed to aid us. In front of us the bandaged Rador swung gently within a litter; beside him, in another, lay Nak, the Frog King—much less of him than there had been before the battle began, but living.
Hours had passed since the terror I have just related. My first task had been to search for Throckmartin and his wife among the fallen multitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves along the flying arch of stone, over the cavern ledge, and back, back as far as the eye could reach. Had they been of those who, clutched In the arms of the amphibians, had dropped by the thousands into the red waters where now myriad upon myriad of the giant Medusae feasted and gleamed? Fervently I prayed that their bodies had been spared that at least.
At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them. They lay close to the bridge-end, not parted—locked tight in each other's arms, pallid face to face, her hair streaming over his breast! As though when that unearthly life the Dweller had set within them passed away, their own had come back for one fleeting instant—and they had known each other, and clasped before kindly death had taken them.
"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was weeping softly. "Love never left them. Love was stronger than the Shining One. And when its evil fled, love went with them—wherever souls go."
Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our discovery of those other two, did I care to look more. They were dead—and they were free.
We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's bower. But before the body of my old friend was placed within the grave I gave it a careful and sorrowful examination. The skin was firm and smooth, but cold; not the cold of death, but with a strange chill that set my touching fingers tingling unpleasantly.
The body was bloodless; the course of veins and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as though their walls had long collapsed. Lips, mouth, even the tongue, were paper-white. Yet there was no sign of dissolution, as we know it; no shadow or stain upon the marble surface. Whatever the force that, streaming from the Dweller or impregnating its lair, had energized the dead-alive, it was barrier against putrescence of any kind; that at least was certain.
But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae, for, our sad task done, and looking down upon the waters, I saw the pale forms of the Dweller's hordes dissolving, vanishing into the shifting glories of the gigantic moons sailing down upon them from every quarter of the Sea of Crimson.
While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, were clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of dead, we listened, to the leader of the ladala. They had risen, as the messenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been. the struggle in the gardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara had left behind to garrison it. Deadly had been the slaughter of the fair-haired, reaping the harvest of hatred they had been sowing so long. Not without a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gaily malicious elfin women destroyed—even though they may have been wicked.
The ancient city of Lora, where the enigmatic Taithu had dwelt before the Murians came to it, was a charnel. Of all the rulers not twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which to describe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the ladala escaped so well. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had taken their part in the swift war, not more than a tenth, remained, alive.
And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick,
They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil, comet like, its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in ranks that seemed interminable!
Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclopean temple; of the flashing of the summoning lights by some unseen hands—followed by the tearing of the rainbow curtain, by colossal shattering of the radiant cliffs; the vanishing behind their debris of all traces of entrance to the haunted place wherein the hordes of the Shining One had slaved—the sealing of the lair!
Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in immortal Lora, how, thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of those they had slain, they had lifted the Shadow, passed through the Portal, met and slaughtered the fleeting remnants of Yolara's men—only to find the tempest stilled here.
But of Von Hetzdorp they had seen nothing. Had the German escaped, I wondered, or was he lying out there among the dead? But how could he have escaped? And even should he by some miracle be able to pass the Portal, what chance was there for him beyond? None, it seemed to me; and slender indeed the chance that he had survived the debacle. Still, it was strange that none of these had seen him with those fear-crazed troops racing straight into their arms.
BUT now the ladala were calling upon Lakla to come with them, to govern them.
"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," She told him, "I want to go out with you to Ireland. But for a time—I think the Three would have us remain and set that place in or- der."
The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the government of Muria.
"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us, heart, of mine?" he worried. "None of those Siya and Siyana rites, no matter what," he added hastily.
"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously. "Marry us? Why, Larry dear, we are married!"
The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw dropped; collapse seemed imminent.
"We are?" he gasped. "When?" he stammered fatuously.
"Why, when the mother drew us together before her; when she put her hands on our heads after we had made the promise! Didn't you understand that?" asked the handmaiden wonderingly.
Quickly were our preparations for departure made. Rador, conscious, his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds, was to be borne ahead of us. And when all was done Lakla, Larry, and I made our way up to the scarlet stone that was the doorway to the chamber of the Three.
We knew, of course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whose eyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the aid of the Three at last from whatever mysterious place that was their home, had thrown their strength with them against the Shining One. Nor were we wrong. When the great slab rolled away, no torrents of opalescence came rushing out upon us. The vast dome was dim, tenantless. Its curved walls that had cascaded light shone now but faintly. The daïs was empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone.
A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts filled with gratitude and love—yes, and with pity for that strange trinity so alien to us and yet so near. Children even as we, though so unlike us, of our same Mother Earth.
And what, I wondered, had been the secret of that promise they had wrung from their handmaiden and from Larry?
Then Lakla softly closed the crimson stone and we passed down—down the corridors, out of the abode, to where, upon the span, a few score of the handmaiden's own black-and-orange-scaled warriors awaited us. They were those who had been pressed back into the castle by the onrush of the dead-alive and those who had remained to garrison the island after Lugur's surprise attack. The mystery of the red dwarf's appearance was explained when we discovered a half-dozen of the water coria moored in a small cove not far from where the Sekta flashed their heads of living bloom.
The dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from somewhere beyond the cavern ledge had launched them unperceived; stealing up to the farther side of the island and risking all in one bold stroke. Well, Lugur, no matter what he held of wickedness, held also high courage.
The. cavern was paved with the dead-alive, the Akka carrying them out by the hundreds, casting them into the waters. Through the lane, down which the Dweller had passed we went as quickly as we could, coming at last to the space where the coria waited. Rador and the frog-king we placed in our own, where sat, too, the little frog-prince and Lakla's woman monster. As we sped toward the Portal, my eyes were busy with the marvels of the fern-land.
Not long after we swung past where the shadow had hung and hovered over the shining depths of the Midnight Pool.
Here the bodies of the green dwarfs lay thick. Guards from the ladala manned the ebon fortresses and the bridge. Loud were their shouts of welcome to us, and clamorous the greetings of the throngs that lined the emerald road as we swept out upon it.
THERE came to me a huge desire to see the destruction they had told us of the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself whether it was not possible to make a way of entrance and to study its mysteries.
I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden and the O'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to acquiesce in my hesitant suggestion.
We went to the temple; and here at least the ghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away. We passed through the blue-caverned space, crossed the narrow arch that spanned the rushing sea stream, and, ascending, stood again upon the ivoried pave at the foot of the towering amphitheater of jet.
Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web or Rainbows nor colossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had seen curving out beneath the Veil when the Shining One had swirled out to greet its priestess and its voice and to dance with the condemned. There was but a broken and rent mass of the radiant cliff s against whose base the lake lapped.
I dropped a little behind Larry and Lakla to examine a bit of carving—and, after all, they did not want me. I watched them pacing slowly ahead, his arm around her, black curls close to bronze-gold ringlets. Then I followed. Half were they over the bridge when through the roar of the imprisoned stream I heard my name called.
"Goodwin! Dr. Goodwin!"
Amazed, I turned. From behind the pedestal of a carved group slunk—Von Hetzdorp! My premonition had been right. Some way he had escaped, slipped through to here. He held his hands high, came forward cautiously.
"I am finished," he whispered—"kaput! I don't know what they'll do to me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and Larry, now at the end of the bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drew closer. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deep lines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took a step backward.
A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the German's visage. He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at my throat!
"Larry!" I yelled—and as I spun around under the shock of his onslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race toward me.
"But you'll carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Von Hetzdorp. "No, by God!"
My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy. The roaring of the racing sea stream deafened me. I felt its mists about me; threw myself forward.
I was falling—falling—with the German's hands strangling me. I struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for a moment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; I felt that I was being hurled with dreadful speed on—full realization came—on the breast of that racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft and rushing—where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggled with the devil who clutched me—inflexibly, indomitably.
Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe in my ears—blackness!
Consciousness returned slowly.
"Larry!" I groaned. "Lakla!"
A BRILLIANT light, was glowing now through my closed lids. It hurt. I opened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles of dazzling pain shooting through them. Again I opened them cautiously. It was the sun!
I staggered to my feet. Behind me was a shattered wall of basalt monoliths, hewn and squared. Before me was the Pacific, smooth and blue and smiling.
And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been, was—Von Hetzdorp! Von Hetzdorp, following me to the last—but dead!
The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal.
At dawn of the next day I got to-together driftwood and bound it together in shape of a rough raft, with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tanach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the little beach between the ruined sea gates and, creeping up the giant steps, made my way to the inner enclosure.
And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down my cheeks.
For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose threshold we had crossed to the land of the Shining One, lay shattered and broken.
There was no Moon Door!
Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their outlying fragments. I looked out upon sea. There had been a great subsidence, an earth shock perhaps, tilting downward all that side—the echo, little doubt, of that cataclysm which had blasted the Dweller's lair!
There was no road to Larry—nor to Lakla!
Shall I ever see them again? Shall the world ever see them to do them that homage which they deserve?
I do not know.
But this I am sure. In that far land of mystery which seems now so irrevocably set apart from us they live—and are happy—gathering the fruit of their love and their high courage.
As for me—my heart is heavy, and I have much to do preparing the data I gathered in that too short time—hardly a month—for the study of my colleagues; the results of which will no doubt from time to time be placed before the public.
With my heartfelt thanks to my associates who have assisted me in this narrative, and, to Mr. Merritt for his guidance and always ungrudging aid, I bid you all: Farewell!