The Face In The Abyss

Chapter XIX The Snake Mother

THEY WENT SILENTLY, Regor's arm around Huon's shoulders. The five Fellowship men had passed the Weavers; they marched with drawn swords behind their chief. The Indians followed Graydon. Whenever he turned he found their eyes upon him—as though they now regarded him as their leader. The one who carried his rifle had plainly become a personage, stepping proudly ahead of his fellows almost on Graydon's heels. They came to the end of the passage, and opened without difficulty its entrance.

They stepped out of it into the columned hall of Graydon's dream!

The beams of dimly azure light played down from its soaring, vaulted roof like the lanced rays of the aurora. Mistily radiant, they curtained a spacious alcove raised high above the tesselated, opaline pave. Behind their veil Graydon saw a sapphire throne, and lesser thrones of red, golden and black at its base of milky crystal—the seats of the Seven Lords.

A girl stood there, just beyond the top of a broad flight of steps dropping from the alcove, a girl with white hands clasped tightly to her breast, red lips parted in wonder, soft black eyes staring at him incredulously—

"Graydon!" she cried, and took a swift step toward him. "Suarra!" the warning voice was lisping, tinglingly pure, in it the trilling of birds. A pillar of shimmering mother–of–pearl shot up behind the girl; over her shoulder peered a face, heart–shaped, coifed with hair like spun silver, purple–eyed—

The Snake Mother!

"Let us see who are these visitors who come so unceremoniously in the train of your man," she lisped, "and by a way I thought surely none now in Yu–Atlanchi knew."

She raised a little hand, in it a sistrum within whose loop, instead of bars, a glistening globule danced like quicksilver.

Regor stifled an exclamation and dropped upon his knees, the others hastily following suit with the exception of the spider–men, who stood quietly watching. Graydon hesitated, then also knelt.

"Ah, so you have remembered your manners!" there was faint mockery in the tinkling voice. "Come nearer. By my ancestors—it is Regor—and Huon…and since when did you don Lantlu's green, Notalu? It is long since you bent the knee to me, Regor."

"That is not my fault, Mother!" began Regor, indignantly. "Now that is not just—"

A trilling of laughter silenced him.

"Hot–tempered as ever, Regor. Well, for a time at least, you shall have much practice in that neglected duty. You too, Huon, and the others of you—"

Graydon heard the giant groan with relief, saw his scarred face light up; his bellow interrupted her.

"Homage to Adana! We are her men now!" He bent until his bandaged brow touched the floor.

"Yes!" said the Mother, softly, "but for how long—ah, that even I cannot tell…" She dropped the hand that held the quivering globe, bent further over Suarra's shoulder, beckoned to Graydon—"Come up to me. And do you shut that door behind you, Regor."

Graydon walked to the alcove, mounted the steps, his fascinated eyes upon the purple ones fixed upon him so searchingly. As he drew close, the Serpent–woman moved from behind the girl, the shimmering pillar from which sprang her childish body between him and Suarra. And he felt again that curious, deep–seated throb of love for this strange being—like a harp string in his heart which none but she could pluck. He knelt again, and kissed the tiny hand she held out to him. He

looked up into her face, and it was tender, all age–old weariness gone, her eyes soft—and he had not even memory of those doubts which had risen in the Painted Cavern; so strong her witchery—if witchery it was.

"You have been well brought up, child," she murmured. "Nay, daughter— "she glanced at Suarra, mischievously, "be not disturbed. It is only to my years that he does reverence."

"Mother Adana—" began Suarra, face burning—

"Oh, go over there and talk, you babes," the scarlet, heart–shaped lips were smiling. "You have much to say to each other. Sit on the golden thrones, if you like. What were you thinking then, Suarra's man? That a golden throne was symbol to you of journey's end? Surely, you were. Why it should be, I do not know—but that was your thought. Well then, take one."

Graydon, beginning to rise, dropped back on his knee. When she had spoken of the golden thrones lines of an old negro spiritual had cropped up in his head—

When I'm through with this weary wanderin', When I'm through, Lawd! I'll sit on a golden throne—

The Snake Mother was laughing. She beckoned Suarra. She took the girl's hand and put it in Graydon's. She gave them a little push away.

"Regor," she called. "Come to me. Tell me what has happened."

Swinging his bar, marching jauntily, Regor approached. Suarra drew Graydon back to a nest of curtains at the rear of the alcove. He watched Regor mount beside the Serpent–woman, saw her bend her head to him, prepare to listen. Then he forgot them entirely, absorbed in Suarra, overflowing with concern for him, and curiosity.

"What did happen, Graydon?" her arm slipped round his neck. "We had gone quickly, and were close to the cataract. It was very noisy, but I thought I heard your weapon. I hesitated, thinking to return. But there was no further sound, so I went on. And Regor and the others— how did they get their wounds?"

"Lantlu sacked the lair. Huon was betrayed by Dorina. Lantlu took Huon and matched him against one of his cursed Xinli. We rescued him. Huon killed Dorina," he told her, staccato.

"Dorina betrayed him! He killed her!" Her eyes widened.

"She was an aunt of yours, in some way, wasn't she?" he asked.

"Oh, I suppose so—in a way—long, long ago," she answered.

And suddenly he determined to settle once for all that question which had been tormenting him—he'd find out if she was one of these "deathless ones" or just the normal girl she seemed…if she was like the rest of them, then he'd have to accept the fact he loved a girl old enough to be his great–grandmother, maybe—if she wasn't, then he didn't give a damn about all the rest of the puzzles—

"See here, Suarra," he demanded, "how old are you?" "Why, Graydon, I'm twenty," she answered, wonderingly. "I know," he said, "but do you mean you're twenty, or that you were twenty, the Mother alone knows how many years ago, when you closed those infernal Gates, whatever they may be, on yourself?"

"But, beloved," said Suarra, "why are you so disturbed? I've never gone into the Chamber of the Gates! I'm really twenty—I mean not staying twenty, but getting older every year."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Graydon, fervently, a load rolling from his mind. "Now after the good news, comes the bad. Lantlu, and most of Yu– Atlanchi, I gather, are out hunting for us at this very moment."

"Oh, but that doesn't matter," said Suarra, "now that the Mother has accepted you."

Graydon had his doubts about the accuracy of that, but he did not trouble her with them. He began the tale of his adventures. In the middle of his first sentence he heard a hissing exclamation from the Serpent–woman; heard Regor rumble—

"It is truth. Kon found him there."

He looked toward them. The Snake Mother's eyes were upon him. She beckoned him; and when he stood beside her she raised herself, swayed forward until her face was almost touching his.

"The Shadow, Graydon—tell me of it. From the moment you saw it appear upon the black throne. Nay wait—I would see while you tell me—" she placed a hand upon his forehead—"now speak."

He obeyed, going step by step over his ordeal. He lived it again; so vivid were the pictures of it that it was as though his brain were a silver screen upon which a camera unreeled them. At his recital of the death of Cadok he felt the hand upon his forehead tremble; he spoke of Kon, and the hand dropped away.

"Enough!"

She drew back; she regarded him, thoughtfully; there was something of surprise in her gaze, something of wonder—something, the odd idea came to him, of the emotion a mathematician might feel if in a mass of well studied formulae he should suddenly come across an entirely new equation.

"You are more than I thought, Graydon," she echoed that odd ideation. "Now I wonder…up from the gray ape–men you came…yet all I know of men is from those who dwell here … what else have you developed, you who have grown up beyond our barrier…I wonder…"

Silent again, she studied him; then—"You thought the Shadow real—I mean, no shadow, no shade, not—immaterial—"

"Material enough, substantial enough to pour itself into Cadok," he interrupted. "Substantial enough to destroy him. It poured into Cadok like water in a jar. It sucked from him—life. And for—ten heartbeats—the Shadow was no Shadow, Mother. If indeed you saw into my mind you know whose face it wore." "I saw," she nodded. "Yet still I cannot believe. How can I believe when I do not know—" She stopped; she seemed to be listening. She raised her self upon her coils until her head was a full foot above tall Regor. Her eyes were intent, as though she looked beyond the walls of that great chamber. She dropped back upon her coils, the rosy pearl of her body slowly deepening.

"To me, Huon!" she called. "Your men with you. Kon—" she clicked some command, pointed to the opposite side of the alcove.

Again she listened.

"Suarra," she pointed toward the girl, "Suarra, go you to your rooms."

Then, as Suarra faltered, "Nay, stand behind me, daughter. If he has dared this—best for you to be near me!"

Once more the Serpent–woman was quiet; gaze withdrawn. Huon and his men climbed the steps; ranked themselves where she had bade: Suarra stepped by Graydon.

"She is angry! She is very angry!" she whispered. She passed behind the Serpent–woman's coils.

And now Graydon heard a faint, a far–away clamor; shouts and ring of metal on metal. The tumult drew close. At a distant end of the columned place was a broad entrance over which the webbed curtains fell. Abruptly, these were torn apart, ripped away, and through the opening poured blue–kirtled Emer soldiers, fighting to check some inexorable pressure slowly forcing them back.

Then over them he saw the head of Lantlu, and behind and around him a hundred or more of his nobles.

They made their way through the portal. The Emer fought desperately, but gave way, step by step, before the push of long javelins in the hands of those who drove them. None fell, and Graydon realized that their assailants were deliberately holding back from killing, striving only to break through.

"Stop!" the cry of the Snake Mother had in it something of the elfin buglings of her winged Messengers, the flying, feathered serpents. It halted the struggling ranks.

"Dura!" an officer of the blue–kirtled Emer faced her, saluting. "Let them through! Escort them to me!"

The guards drew aside, formed into two lines; between them Lantlu and his followers marched to the foot of the steps. He smiled as he beheld Graydon, his eyes glinted as they roved from Regor to Huon and his band.

"All here, Bural!" he spoke to a noble beside him whose face was as beautiful and cruel as his. "I had not hoped for such luck!"

He made an ironic obeisance to the Serpent–woman.

"Hail, Mother!" Rank insolence steeped the greeting. "We ask your pardon for our rough entrance, but your guards have evidently forgotten the right of the Old Race to do you homage. We knew that you would punish them for their forgetfulness, so we did them no harm. And it seems we have come barely in time to save you, Mother, since we find you beset by dangerous men. Outlaws whom we have been seeking. Also an outlander whose life was forfeit when he entered Yu–Atlanchi. Evil men. Mother! We will lift their menace from you!"

He whispered to Bural, and took a swaggering step up the stairway. Up came the javelins of the nobles, ready to hurl, as they followed him. Graydon threw his rifle to his shoulder, finger itching on the trigger. Under stress, he reverted unconsciously to his English.

"Stop! Or I'll blow your rotten heart out of you! Tell them to drop those javelins!"

"Silence!" the Mother touched his arm with the sistrum, a numbing shock ran through it; the gun fell at his feet.

"He said you would be safer where you are, Lantlu. Safer still with javelins lowered. He is right, Lantlu—I, Adana, tell you so!" lisped the Snake Mother.

She raised the sistrum high. Lantlu stared at the quivering globe, a shade of doubt on his face. He halted, spoke softly to Bural; and the javelins were lowered.

The Serpent–woman swayed slightly, rhythmically, to and fro, upon the upper pillar of her coils.

"By what right do you demand these men, Lantlu?"

"By what right! By what right?" he looked at her with malicious, assumed incredulity. "Mother Adana! Do you grow old—or forgetful like your guards? We demand them because they have broken the law of Yu– Atlanchi, because they are outlaws, wolf–heads, to be taken where and how it may be. By right of the old law, Mother, with which, by virtue of a certain pact between your ancestors and mine, you may not interfere. Or if you do—then, Mother, we must save your honor for you, and take them nevertheless. Bural—if the outlander stoops to pick up his weapon, skewer him. If one of those outlaws moves toward his, let the javelins loose. Are you answered. Mother?"

"You shall not have them," said the Serpent–woman, serenely. But the pillar of her body swayed in slowly widening arcs, her neck began to arch, thrusting her head forward—like a serpent poising to strike.

Suarra slipped from behind her, thrust her arm through Graydon's. Lantlu's face darkened.

"So!" he said, "Suarra! With your lover! Your people howl for you, you wench of the Urd! Well—soon they shall have you—"

Red light flashed before Graydon's eyes, there was a singing in his ears. Hot hatred, dammed up since Lantlu had taunted him in the shrine of the Shadow, swept him. Before the Serpent–woman could stay him, he leaped down the steps, and shot a hard fist squarely into the sneering face. He felt the nose crunch under the blow. Lantlu tottered, staggered back. He recovered his poise with cat–like quickness; he rushed at Graydon, arms flexed to grip him.

Graydon ducked under his clutching arms, drove two blows upward into his face, the second squarely upon his snarling mouth. And again he felt bone give. Lantlu reeled back into the arms of Bural.

"Graydon! Come to me!" the Snake Mother's cry was peremptory, not to be disobeyed.

He walked slowly back up the steps, head turned on the watching nobles. They made no move to stop him. Halfway up, he saw Lantlu open his eyes, break away from Bural's hold, and glare uncomprehendingly about him. Graydon halted, fierce elation filling him, and again, unknowing, he spoke in his own language.

"That'll spoil some of your beauty!"

Lantlu glared up at him, vacantly; he wiped a hand over his mouth, stared at its scarlet wetness stupidly.

"He says your women will find it difficult to admire you hereafter," trilled the Serpent–woman. "Again he is right!"

Graydon looked at her. The little hand holding the sistrum was clenched so tightly that the knuckles shone white, her red forked tongue flickered upon her lips, her eyes were very bright…The Mother, he thought, might be angry with him, but she appeared to be uncommonly enjoying the sight of Lantlu's battered countenance…he had seen women at the prize ring watch with exactly that expression the successful mauling progress of their favorite. He drew up beside her, nursing his bruised knuckles.

And now Lantlu was trying to break from the hands of his men who were holding him…Graydon rather admired him at that moment…certainly the brute had courage…quite a hog for punishment…

"Lantlu!" the Snake Mother raised herself until her head swayed a man's full height over them, her eyes were cold purple gems, her face like stone—"Lantlu—look at me!"

She lifted the sistrum. The globe stopped its quicksilver quivering, and out of it sprang a ray of silvery light that flashed on Lantlu's forehead. Instantly he ceased his struggling, grew rigid, raised his face to her. The silvery ray flashed across the faces of his followers, and they too stiffened into men of wood, silent.

"Lantlu! Carrion carrier for Nimir! Listen to me! You have defiled the Temple, the only one of all the Old Race to do that. By violence you have forced your way to me, Adana, of the Older Race who fed your forefathers with the fruit of our wisdom. Who made you into men. You have mocked me! You have dared to raise armed hands against me! Now do I declare the ancient pact between my people and yours broken—broken by you, Lantlu. Now do I, Adana, declare you outlaw, and outlaws all those with you. And outlaw shall be all who hereafter throw their lot with yours. I cast you out! Go to your whispering Shadow, tell it what has befallen you. Go to your Dark Master, Lantlu, and beg him to make you whole again, restore your beauty. He cannot—not he, whose craft has grown so weak that he cannot find himself a body. Let this comfort you. Tempted as he may have been, he will not now try to hide behind that face of yours. Tell him that I, who worsted him long time ago, I, Adana, who prisoned him in the stone, am awake, and on guard, and will meet him once again when the hour has struck—aye, and worst him again. Aye, utterly destroy him! Go, you beast lower than the Urd— Go!"

She pointed with the sistrum to the tattered curtains. And Lantlu, head swaying in weird mimicry of hers, turned stiffly, and paced away. Behind him, heads swaying, went his nobles. The blue–kirtled soldiers herding them, they passed from sight.

The Serpent–woman's body ceased its movement, her pillared coil dropped, she rested her little pointed chin on Suarra's shoulder. Her purple eyes, no longer cold or glittering, weighed Graydon quizzically.

"As the brutes fight!" she mused. "I think there must be something human in me after all—so to enjoy those blows and the sight of Lantlu's face. Graydon, for the first time in ages, you have lifted all boredom from me."

She paused, smiling at him.

"I should have slain him," she said. "It would have saved much trouble. And many lives—maybe. But then he would have had no time to mourn his vanished beauty—nor to eat his vain heart out over it. No, oh no—I could not relinquish that, not even for many lives. Augh–h!— " she yawned, "and for the first time in ages, I am sleepy."

Suarra leaned against the side of the alcove. A golden bell sounded. A door opened and through it came four comely Indian women, carrying a cushioned litter. They set it beside the Serpent–woman, stood waiting, arms crossed on brown breasts, heads bowed. She swayed toward it, stopped—

"Suarra," she said, "see that Regor and Huon and the others are shown to their quarters, and that they are properly cared for. Graydon, wait here with me."

They knelt to her once more, then followed Suarra through the opened portal.

Graydon stood with the Mother. She did not speak, was deep in thought. At last she looked at him.

"That was a boasting message I sent to Nimir," she said.

"I am not so sure of the outcome, my Graydon, as I seemed to be. You have given me several new things to think about Still—it will also give that creeping Evil something to think on besides his deviltries— perhaps."

She was silent until Suarra returned. Then she slipped out of her nest, thrust her body into the litter and slowly drew her shimmering coils after her. She lay for a moment, chin cupped in her tiny hands, looking at them.

"Kiss him good–night, daughter," she said. "He shall rest well, and safely."

Suarra raised her lips to his.

"Come, Graydon," laughed the Serpent–woman, and when he was close, she put her hands on each side of his face, and kissed him, too.

"What abysses between us!" She shook her head, "and bridged by three blows to a man I hate—yes, daughter, I am woman, after all!"

The women picked up the litter, Suarra beside her, they moved away. From the entrance came two blue–kilted Emers, who with low bows, invited him to follow them. The Mother waved a hand toward him, Suarra blew a kiss. They were gone.

Graydon followed the Indians. As he passed the red throne he saw a figure within it—a shrunken figure all in tasseled robe of red and yellow.

The Lord of Folly! He had not seen him enter. How long had he been there? He paused. The Lord of Folly looked at him with twinkling, youthful eyes. He reached out a long white hand and touched him on the forehead. At the touch, Graydon felt all perplexities leave him; in their place was a careless gayety, a comfortable feeling that, despite appearances, things were perfectly all right in a world that seemed perfectly all wrong. He laughed back into the twinkling eyes.

"Welcome—son!" chuckled the Lord of Folly.

One of the Indians touched him upon the arm. When he looked back at the red throne, it was empty.

He followed the Indians through the portal. They led him to a room, dimly lighted, cobweb curtained, a wide couch in its center. There was a small ivory table on which were bread and fruit and a pale mild wine. As he ate, the Indians took from him his suit–of–mail, and stripped him to the skin. They brought in a basin of crystal, bathed him, and massaged him and rubbed him with oil. They drew a silken robe around him, and put him to bed.

"'Welcome—son!'" muttered Graydon, sleepily. "Son? Now what did he mean by that?"

Still wondering, he went sound asleep.