The Face In The Abyss

Chapter XVII Taking of Huon's Lair

DAWN WAS FILTERING into the painted cavern. Graydon sat up and looked uncomprehendingly about him. He was upon a bed of moss. One of the spider–men squatted close to him, studying him with puzzled, sad eyes. There was no sign of the others.

"Where's Kon?" he asked. The spider–man answered with a string of rapid clicks.

"Kon! Hey, Kon!" called Graydon.

The Weaver sensed his anxiety, and its reason; he sidled to him, patted him with his small upper hands, nodding and softly clicking. Graydon gathered he was being told there was nothing to worry about. He smiled and patted the Weaver upon a shoulder. The spider–man seemed much pleased. He scuttled over to the crevices, returning with the bread–like fungi. The two went down to the pool and breakfasted; the Weaver keeping up an amiable succession of clicks between bites, and Graydon companionably answering with a totally unrelated monologue. He felt refreshed, ready to cope with anything.

There was a movement in one of the large crevices. Through it came the scarlet body of Kon, and following him the second Weaver. The trio clicked busily. Kon waited until Graydon had finished his last piece of fungi, beckoned him and moved over to the crevice through which he had entered. The other spider–men crawled through it, vanishing. Kon followed, and disappeared. His long red arm stole back into the slit, and looked out. Far below was the plain of the monoliths.

Kon's arm crooked round him, and drew him out. Graydon's head swam, for below him was a sheer half–mile drop.

The spider–man was hanging to the face of the cliff, his supple fingers gripping cracks and projections which only they could have made use of. He tucked Graydon under his arm, and began to crawl along the precipice. Graydon looked down just once more, and was convinced he would feel better if he kept his eyes on the rock. They swung along for about two thousand feet Another crevice appeared. Kon thrust him through it, and scrambled after him.

They were in a wide passage which had probably once run into the painted cavern. The same destructive agency had been at work. Its end was blocked by a rock fall, and its wall was pierced by scores of holes and fissures. Its floor was littered with fallen stone. Kon looked doubtfully at Graydon and stretched out his arm. Graydon shook his head violently, tired of being carried around like a baby. They set off down the corridor, but his progress was comparatively slow; so slow that Kon shortly picked him up with a conciliatory click. The three Weavers set off at a fast pace over the debris. He resigned himself. After all, as well ride a spider–man as a camel or an elephant; if one had never seen a camel or an elephant they would seem just as unusual as Kon and his kind.

The passage darkened, blackened and finally curved into a cavemed space filled with a dim twilight. There were no fissures. The light was the same as that which streamed from the walls in Huon's lair, but here it seemed to be dying, old and outworn, as though the force which produced it were almost spent. The place was a vast storehouse. Graydon caught glimpses of enigmatic mechanisms of crystal arid black metal, among them huge globes of silver; once he saw something which appeared to be the hull of a ship, and once he passed by what was certainly one of the crystal disks painted in the battle in the primeval swamp. They loomed all around him, these vague, shrouded shapes of mystery. The spider–men paid no attention to them, threading their way rapidly.

They entered another black tunnel. They had gone along this for a mile or more when Kon gave a click of warning.

He set Graydon down, and the four stood listening. He heard men walking slowly and cautiously, and not far away. A cloudy light abruptly impinged upon the wall of the tunnel, as though a little luminous ball of cloud had been thrown against it. It came from a transverse passage only a few yards ahead. The spider–men gripped their bars, stole softly forward.

Before they could reach the opening, a man's head projected around the side—a head whose hair was silvery–white over a stained bandage, the scars of claws upon its cheek—

"Regor!" shouted Graydon, and rushed by the spidermen.

The giant bounded into the tunnel, embracing him, bellowing amazed joy. The spider–men came forward, clicking like castanets. From the transverse passage emerged five of the Fellowship men, clothing torn, carrying swords and maces and small round shields; all showed the marks of heavy fighting; After them trooped a dozen of the Emers with spears and swords and the same small shields, kilts tattered and none of them without some wound.

One of these grinned at him out of a battered face and held up his rifle.

"How the devil did you know where to look for me?" demanded Graydon when at last Regor had grown coherent.

"I wasn't looking for you, lad," he answered. "I was looking for a way into the Temple to tell Suarra of your capture, hoping she would raise such a storm about it that the Mother could not refuse to aid you—if you were still alive. Also I admit hoping this would involve protection for myself and these with me. And on second thought, I'm not so sure I am glad I did find you. It was our only hope, and now I have no excuse to appeal to Adana." He grinned.

"Protection!" exclaimed Graydon. "I don't understand you, Regor. You must have gotten back to the lair safely."

"The lair is sacked!" said Regor. "Ripped open, gutted. Huon is prisoner of Lantlu. The Fellowship, what's left of it, dispersed, wandering like us about these burrows." "Good God!" Graydon was aghast. "What happened?" "Dorina did it," said the giant, and there was a murmur of hatred from the others. "Something told me to kill her, when I managed to get back to the lair after you had disappeared. But I wasn't sure she had betrayed us. Last night, while we were asleep, she opened a secret door to Lantlu and a few of his friends. They stole in and killed quietly and quickly the guards at the great door. Dorina lifted it, and let in more of Lantlu's supporters and a pack of the Urd. There was no time for us to gather. Many were slaughtered in their beds. After that it was group fighting all over the place. I saw them drag Huon down and truss him. Some of our Emers managed to escape—how much of the Fellowship, I don't know. Not many, I fear. We were fortunate. They added a few more scars to my decorations," he touched the bandage, "but they paid for it."

"Dorina!" whispered Graydon, "Dorina! Then the Shadow did not lie!"

Regor started, looked at him keenly. "Lad—you've seen the Shadow! The Dark Master!"

"I'll say I have!" said Graydon, grimly, in his own tongue, then in the Aymara, "I was his guest for a night and a day. He was bargaining for my body!"

Regor drew back a step, scrutinizing him. He clicked to Kon and the spider–man answered at some length. When he finished, Regor stationed the Indians at guard at the opening through which they had come, and seated himself on a block of fallen stone.

"Now, tell me everything. And this time—keep nothing back."

Graydon did, from the first stealthy onslaught of the hidden lizard– man. Regor and the five Yu–Atlanchans listened, silent, fascinated. When he told the fate of Cadok, Regor groaned, his face livid, and beat his breast with clenched fist.

"Good lad! Good lad!" he muttered brokenly, when Graydon had ended, and sat for a time in thought.

"That cavern where you thought you saw a ship," he broke his silence. "If you are right—it was a ship. One of those upon which our ancestors came to the Hidden Land with the serpent–people, and preserved there with many other precious things. So long has that cavern been locked away, unentered, that it was thought to be but another legend, a wonder tale. None but the Snake Mother and the Lord of Folly remembers the way into it, unless it be Nimir. And if he does, it is plain he has not given the secret to Lantlu.

"The cavern of the Lost Wisdom!" there was awe in Regor's voice. "And it exists! By the Mother, what we have forgotten! How we have fallen from the ancient strength! Once, Graydon, so the story runs, there was a wide entrance to it opening upon the lake. This was blocked with rocks, and the rocks melted, by some device the Old Ones knew, after the war that ended in the prisoning of Nimir. So cunningly was it done that none now can tell that sealed place from the surrounding stone. Yet I have heard a way was left to it from the Temple, through which the Lords and the Snake Mother passed from time to time when desire came to them to look again upon its ancient treasures. Once in, I think we can find its door, and if we do I have that which will open it."

He drew Graydon aside.

"Did you think I had abandoned you, lad?" he whispered, huskily. "The Urd were too thick around me to break through. Although I fought as never before. Then by lucky chance that Emer over there who held your noisy weapon set it going. The Urd scattered squealing and even Lantlu dropped from the platform. But you were nowhere in sight, or hearing. I knew you had been carried off. The Emer and I were away before Lantlu could gather his pack together. When I reached the lair, we took council. It was Huon's idea to send Kon after you. Huon was strange—strange as when he bade you farewell. There was a cavern of red–dust light, he said. There Kon and his Weavers must search. They must start, he said, from the opening through which we passed when we left the lair…always have we known that there was danger of meeting the Urd in that place…but never dreamed that it was a way to the throne of the Dark One. Back, far back you must go, Huon told Kon. And then…his face became drawn and white as when he spoke of the slaying shadows dropping from the red sky…and he told of a black precipice ending in a black shrine beside a garden. There they would find you."

"I opened that door and let them out. I watched them merge at once into the murk, and realized how wisely Huon had picked them. Kon says they made their way swiftly far, far back, seeing no Urd, until at last the black cliff sprang up before them. Now which way to follow that wall, he did not know; by chance decided upon the left. On they went and on until he heard the sound of many Urd, and a man's voice, and a voice which Kon says 'spoke without a man to hold it.' They waited until the Urd had gone away and until the bodiless voice had gone—"

"And there you were, in the black shrine beside the garden! Strange…strange that Huon…"

He paused, shaking his head perplexedly.

"That little beast of yours is done for, I fear," he said. "But just before the raid I took some of your weapon's food."

He called the Indian who held the gun. Graydon took it, rejoicing in the feel of it. The Emer thrust a pouch out to him. Within it were about a hundred cartridges and several, clips for his automatics. He looked the rifle over, it was unharmed. He loaded it.

"Put your hand through the slit of this damned armor, Regor," he said. "Reach up under my arm and give me what you find there."

Regor obeyed, drew out the automatic. Graydon thrust it into his belt. He felt much better; swords and maces were all right in their way, but every man knew his own weapons best.

"Let's go," he said.

Regor whistled to the guard, and touched Kon. The spider–man beside him, he led the way up the black passage, retracing Graydon's journey. The two Weavers fell in behind them, Graydon and the Fellowship men followed, the Indians brought up the rear. Regor did not depend upon Kon's eyes for guidance. Now and again he cast ahead of him the vaporous, light–stimulating ball.

They came to that place Regor had called the Cavern of Lost Wisdom. As he crossed its threshold, he dropped upon his knees and kissed the floor. The Yu–Atlanchans whispered among themselves but did not imitate him.

They threaded their way through it in the crepuscular dusk of the dying atoms; past the dim, vague shapes of the mysterious machines, past immense coffers of metals red and gray that held, Graydon wondered, what relics of the lost world; by the huge silvery globes they went, and he saw that upon them were traced enigmatic symbolings in lacquers of gold and blue; they came to the shadowy hull of the great ship, and here again Regor bent his knee. On and on they went, through the dusk, past the science, the art, the treasures of the serpent–people and the mighty forefathers of the Yu–Atlanchans. They came to their end, and looked out over an empty space whose further side they could not see.

"We must cross there," Regor said, "until we come to the rock that seals the ancient entrance. The corridor of the Lords, so said he who told me of this, is at its edge and in the direction of the cataract, which is at the right. The tunnel runs under the lake and skirts the amphitheater of the Xinli. There we must go softly, for I do not know whether other passages may not open into the one we travel. If so, it seems to me they must be sealed—indeed, must be, since the Old Ones planned to shut this cavern off for all time. Still, we will take no chances. And, somewhere near, there is an entrance into the tunnel which Suarra traveled from the Hall of the Weavers that night she met us."

They set off across the empty space. They came at length to a wall of rock which appeared to be formed of bowlders fused by volcanic heat. Regor grunted complacently. They skirted the wall to the right until Regor saw, set high within the rock, an oval black stone like that Kon had searched for in the red cavern.

Regor clicked to the spider–man. Kon felt carefully around the stone as he had the other, turned and shook his head. Regor took from his belt the cone he had used to open the door from the lair and gave it to him. Light sprayed from it as the red Weaver pressed it methodically over the face of the barrier. The rock began slowly to open, like the two valves of a sliding door. They peered into a corridor, much more brilliantly lighted, dropping at an easy decline. After they had entered, Kon pressed the cone to the inner sides. The rock portal closed. Look closely as he might, Graydon could see no traces of it; the rock was smooth and unlined.

They went through that passage for a mile or more. Straight at first, it soon began to twist tortuously, as though it had been cut from some soft, meandering vein.

"We have passed beneath the lake, I know that if nothing else," whispered Regor.

Abruptly the corridor terminated in a small crypt. Two of its walls bore a black oval. Regor looked at them, and scratched his head.

"By Durdan the Hairy!" he grumbled. "There were so many turns that I know not which side is toward the Temple and which away from it."

Nor could the others help him.

"Well," he decided, "we go to the right."

Kon manipulated the cone. Almost immediately a stone slid upward. They were in a tunnel brighter still, and running at right angles.

"If this is right, then we go right again," said Regor. They slipped along, cautiously. They stepped out of the tunnel without warning into a guard chamber in which were half a dozen Emer soldiers, not in yellow but in green–kilted kirtles, and an officer, a noble clad also in Lantlu's green.

These stared at the motley intruders, like men of wood. Before they could recover from their amazement, Regor signaled Kon. Instantly the three spider–men sprang upon the Indians and throttled them. Regor's strong fingers went round the officer's throat. And all so quickly that Graydon himself had had no time to move.

Regor loosened his grip, and raised his bar. Kon scuttled over, stood behind the Yu–Atlanchan, pinioned his arms.

"So right was wrong!" muttered Regor. "Speak softly, Ranena. Answer briefly. What place is this?"

Ranena glanced at the bodies of his guards at the feet of the two Weavers, and little beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

"No need to treat me so, Regor," he said thickly. "I have never been your enemy."

"No?" asked Regor suavely, "and yet I thought I saw you in the lair last night. Perhaps I was mistaken. However—answer quickly, Ranena!"

"It guards a way to the amphitheater," the answer came sullenly. As though to confirm him, there came a rumbling as of far–away thunder, and the sound of cheering. "They race the Xinli," he added.

"And Lantlu, of course, is there?" asked Regor.

A shade of malice crossed Ranena's fine face.

"And Dorina," he said.

"What have they done with Huon?"

"Listen, Regor," Ranena's clear eyes darkened craftily, "if I tell you where Huon is and how to reach him, will you promise not to kill me, but truss me up and gag me before you go to him?"

"What have they done with Huon?" repeated Regor.

He clicked to the spider–man. One of Kon's hands covered Ranena's mouth, with the others he began slowly to lift his arms behind him and twist them. Ranena writhed, his face distorted with agony. He nodded.

Kon withdrew his hand, lowered his arms. Little drops of blood ran down the cheek where the needled fingers had pierced it.

"After the next race—he fights the Xinli," he groaned.

"So!" said Regor quietly. "So! And now do I see that though right was wrong, wrong has become right!"

He signaled Kon. The spider–man bent back Ranena's neck and snapped it.

Regor looked down into the glazing eyes, and turned to his Indians.

"You and you—" he pointed in turn to six of them, "dress yourselves in their clothes. Notalu," he spoke to one of the Yu–Atlanchans, "strip Ranena, and change your yellow for his green. Then watch. Probably none will come, but if they do—slay them swiftly before they have a chance to cry out I will leave you two of the Weavers—you know how to command them. Kon goes with me. But first we must get rid of this carrion."

He clicked to Kon. The spider–man picked up the bodies, and carried them into the corridor which Ranena had said led to the amphitheater. They laid the stiffening figures along its walls, out of sight of the guard room. They returned and two of them dropped behind the stone benches, hidden.

"Now let us see what can be done for Huon," said Regor.

They stole down the corridor, past Ranena, glaring at them with dead eyes.

There was a blaze of sunlight, dazzling Graydon. Squares of black danced in it. He heard the thunder of monstrous feet.

His vision cleared. He stood before a door grated with heavy metal bars. He looked through it into the arena of the dinosaurs.