The Valley of the Flame

CHAPTER XI. CREEPING MENACE

IT CAME SO slowly, so imperceptibly, that eerie voice, that Raft could not tell when it took form and shape in his brain. Yet it was not exactly a voice nor a thought. Rather, it was something akin to each, but with a difference. Communication is aimed at what psychologists call empathy—the transference of the senses from one mind to another, so that perfect understanding may be approached. It is rapport, never complete, always groping —

Till now.

Because the Intruder understood Raft. With its ancient wisdom it knew the very structure of his soul. Like ivy sliding through crevices in a wall, the thing permeated Raft, as though he stood bathed in a light that flowed into his body. As though he were a living sponge through which tidewater stole.

The slow tide mounted.

The heavy scent of the forest was not so unpleasant now. Raft could sort out the component elements which made up the perfume, the sharp, pungent fluid that the armadillo-creatures liked, the warm, oily, sweet ichor that fed the nerve-things. Other juices, musk-heavy, eucalyptus-keen, salty and sour and pungent were present. It was oddly fascinating, this business of analyzing the odors and recognizing each one.

For they were, in essence, food-odors. Not human food.

But nevertheless those smells stimulated the purely physical part of Raft and, through that, struck deep into his mind.

Feeding was an integral part of the life-cycle, the purpose for which all things were created. Dulled senses could not appreciate the pure ecstasy of absorbing nourishment. Only specialized beings could understand the delight which went through every cell of the body.

The nerve-things. They lay immersed in their warm, steaming liquor, tingling with electric pleasure as they absorbed the fluid mat was food and drink to them. The armadillo-beasts. The feeling of taste on the taste-buds of a tongue. Cool liquid slipping down a dry throat, sharp and refreshing. The pleasure of taste, and taste alone.

You have always known hunger, Brian Raft.

He was standing in the center of that patterned carpet, he noticed. It did not matter. He was trying to concentrate on that message, that inviting whisper which spoke to him of delights so purely physical that they transcended anything else.

Not only animal-beings, but plants as well, knew hunger and satiation. For plants fed through their root-sytems, set deep into the breathing earth that is the primal source of all life. Something utterly unimaginable crawled through Raft, the physical sensation of having roots, of feeling himself absorb nourishment through vegetable tissue. Plant-cells. He was part of the earth itself, and it fed him.

He sank to his knees on that smooth, vivid carpet.

Now he was looking up at a shimmering dance of faint light. He was on his back, arms flung wide, and a tingling, delightful warmth was saturating him. He was on quicksand which very slowly, very gently, settled beneath him.

Or it was not settling. It was he who was dissolving, being absorbed into that alien substance on which he lay. He was becoming part of the composite, hungry life that beat distantly all around him, murmuring in the slow motions of the trees, shuddering through the very earth.

You have always known hunger, Brian Raft. You are one. I am many.

Therefore feed and be content, the silent voice said. Sip the sharp, tingling essence that nourishes the armored beasts. Steep yourself in the warm smoothness of the liquor in the fungus-cups. Thrust roots into the soil, and know the subtle delight of a feeding which permeates all of you, body and mind.

Brighter grew the swirling mists. They blotted out vision. But there was no need for eyes. The trees were blind, yet they thrilled with ecstasy as their roots sucked up food.

The trees?

No, they could not feel. And yet they could. Something bound them to all other life here, by an unbreakable cord.

The Garden of Kharn hungered and was fed.

Memories flashed through Raft's mind. The Intruder was questioning, seeking, probing for what? He remembered the sharp catnip taste of beer, the peppery spiciness of curry, the fresh hot taste of newly-baked bread. The sweet juice of tangerines was in his mouth, and the heavy richness of cocoa. The aromatic tickling of old brandy.

Eagerness touched Raft. The probing grew more violent. He half roused himself from his trance.

Still the memories were dragged into the forefront of his consciousness. The tastes of things he had known once, elsewhere.

Where, then?

In a world where brandy was sipped from sleek glass inhalers, where bread was baked in ovens, where cocoa was served in cups, on tables upon which white linen was spread. Association clicked in Raft's brain. He remembered more than food now.

He remembered civilization. And with that thought came realization of himself, of Brian Raft. He was not a sensuous machine for sucking up nourishment.

The bright mists swept down like a shrouding blanket. The Garden of Kham sent its heavy perfume like a tide over Raft. But he remembered, very suddenly and chillingly, another Garden, and a Tree which had borne strange fruit A command that said, "Ye shall not eat of it."

You have always known hunger, Brian Raft. Feed as I feed. Know ecstasy as I know it.

A still, cool, distant voice, infinitely alluring, impossible to resist, although it, too, aroused memory. That indefinable familiarity was stronger now. The presence that infiltrated the Garden was one that Raft had known before, in different form.

Then he remembered.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.

The blind shock of realization stabbed through Raft with abysmal violence. His muscles jerked into tenseness. He attempted to spring up, and found that he could not.

That gelid carpet had flowed upon him, over him, as he had lain motionless.

Yet it was possible to move. With infinite effort he dragged his arm down till his hand closed over the hilt of the dagger. He could feel the treacherously pleasant embrace of the thing all around him. A winding sheet that would have absorbed him, he thought, as he lay helpless.

He stabbed up, claustrophobia bringing dry panic to his throat. He slashed in a blind frenzy of panic till the living carpet was ribboned. The worst part was that the entity did not try to flee. It let itself be cut to rags, till all that flowery beauty was torn and spoiled. Raft stumbled away into the dubious shelter of the saffron forest, choking for a breath of clean air. He felt filthy and contaminated.

It revolted him that any one of his senses, the purely animal one of taste, could be so treacherous!

What monstrous dead-end evolution had developed such a devil's Garden as this?

It was more than symbiosis. It was an attunement of all life within these walls. Outside, on the cyclopean trees, various species killed each other, ate, propagated, and died. But in Kharn there had been a gradual absorption, a bond growing into existence between plant and animal life.

One species—dominant!

Raft presently saw that species.

Deeper in the forest, the shapeless mound of flesh lay under a transparent hemisphere that seemed to be unbreakable. Raft yielded to impulse and smashed a rock down upon it, without result. He did not wish to fire his revolver, for fear of forewarning Parror, but he had an idea that a bullet would not harm that protective barrier either. Immersed in a watery liquid the gray mass floated. Small conduits like arteries led down into the ground.

A brain? Only partially. Sections of it were abnormally developed, others vestigial. There were other additions which

Raft could not understand. But he felt more strongly than ever the intangible evil that throbbed out from the thing.

For it was reptilian. Here in Kharn the reptilian species had become dominant, subjugating all other life into a fantastic rapport that made the Garden itself a single entity. There was no really recognizable intelligence in the being. Reptilian instincts are not mammalian, and a tremendously evolved reptile might have nothing at all in common with other creatures.

The thing lived only for the specialized pleasure of taste. It had developed the necessity of feeding into a sensory ecstasy that was exclusive of all other faculties. Intelligence there might be, or a sort, but it was applied only to purposes that would aid the monster's dominant instinct.

Through the Garden, through living trees and and living flesh, that horrible, ravening hunger-urge had swept. Trees and flesh ate as their—brain—commanded. In return, they transmitted their sensory reactions to the reptilian thing that had gone beyond the touch of any sense but one.

Impregnable, alien, living only for blind delight, the horror floated within the transparent dome.

Shuddering, Raft turned away. Once more he turned to the easily-discernible trail of Parror and Craddock. The sooner he caught up with them, the sooner he could get out of the Garden. Unless they themselves had fallen victim to Kharn's menace.

They had not. The white gleam of pillars showed ahead. A figure was visible there, working at something, and Raft recognized Parror's sleek hair and the velvet beard that shadowed the jaw. The Flame's guardian sensed Raft's presence instantly. He whirled, eyes narrow, and then, relaxing, laughed.

The familiar anger began to rise in Raft. As always, he was conscious of Parror's calm arrogance, his complete self-assurance. He tried to fight down the feeling.

"So you got away from Darum," Parror said, smiling with some secret amusement. "You're shrewder than I'd thought. How did you know where to find me?"

Raft ignored the question. "Where's Craddock?" he asked.

Parror's head moved slightly. Beyond a pale column lay a motionless figure, eyes closed.

"There he is. Don't bother to take out your knife. He's unharmed." Parror finished winding up a thin coil. He dropped the silvery wire into a pocket and fumbled there for a moment. When his hand emerged, it wore one of the taloned gauntlets.

"You touched me once in anger," Parror said silkily. "I haven't forgotten that. I've no further use for you or Craddock." He was almost purring. "I've an extra glove. Here."

Raft said, "Thanks. I can take care of myself." He had an idea that might remove the careless smile from Parror's face. It would be a pleasure to do just that.

He took out the jeweled glove he had stolen from Darum's treasure-chamber and slipped it on his right hand. Parror nodded.

"You learn fast," he said, flexing his fingers so that the dull claws spread and closed menacingly. Raft poised himself and waited silently.

Dull claws.

They were bright metal where they joined the gloves, but their three-inch blades were stained dark. Raft suddenly guessed the significance of that. He had an idea that if those razor-sharp talons penetrated his skin, he would die, no matter how slight the wound.

Treachery, to a feline, was not dishonorable, it seemed.

Too late now to call a halt. Parror was stalking forward, his eyes shining. Moveover, Raft still had an ace in the hole. But he dared not fail.

Then Parror sprang. He was laughing, his velvet motion almost careless, as he came in with the agility of a jaguar. With rippling, nimble speed he charged, swerving at the last moment, while the talons raked straight at Raft's face.

Raft ducked under the slash. His hand came up, clenched into a fist. That short, deadly blow cracked solidly against Parror's chin. Raft felt flesh grind against his knuckles as hard gems ripped through skin and grated on bone.

Whatever Parror had expected, it was not this. He was flung back, dazed and reeling, and for a few seconds was actually unconscious as he wavered there. Then the blinding berserk rage dropped upon him like a scarlet cloak. His lips flattened. His eyes flamed green. His face was that of a devil—or a beast.

Raft had torn off his glove. He held da Fonseca's revolver now, and he was smiling coldly.

"Come on," he whispered. "Come on, Parror. It's just what I want. Close quarters. So I won't be able to miss."

Parror's gaze flashed to the weapon. Briefly mad fury and caution battled within him. He strained forward with tigerish blood-hunger in his contorted face.

He—hissed!

Raft started to walk toward his opponent. Parror snarled something that sounded like an oath. He made a furious, baffled gesture and whirled away. Raft's finger tightened on the trigger, and, on impulse, he sent a snap shot after Parror.

Either he missed completely, or the bullet was too slow in this accelerated world. For the cat-man was gone in the saffron jungle. The tangled underbrush swallowed him.

Raft shrugged and turned to the motionless Craddock. He worked on the man for a short tune. Respiration was slow, and the skin was moist and clammy. Shock, probably. And with good cause, Raft thought, his mouth twisting into an ugly shape.

At last Craddock's eyes fluttered open. There was intelligence behind them, not the hypnotic stupor Raft had feared. He managed a crooked, weak smile.

"Brian. How—how's tricks?"

"Okay, for the moment," Raft said. "How do you feel?"

"Nearly normal," Craddock murmured, his voice growing stronger. "It's just reaction from hypnosis, I think. It'll pass."

"Don't try to get up. Just take it easy."

"Where's Parror?"

Raft explained. Craddock nodded slowly.

"He won't be back. He got what he wanted."

"You mean—what?"

"Information. He had a machine, a little gadget that probed my mind. It dug up memories I didn't even know I had. That was why he brought me here. He needed time to adjust the thing to my brain. I'm of a different species, so there were difficulties. But he solved them."

Raft frowned.

"Too bad he's such a devil. He's smart."

"He's no devil, except by human standards," Craddock said oddly. The maimed hands lifted. Craddock rubbed his eyes and shook his head as though to clear it. "A different psychology. To them, the end always justifies the means. Parrot's end is to stimulate the Flame. Curupuri."

"And he can do it now?"

"When he gets the equipment he needs. That'll take time."

"Yeah," Raft said thoughtfully. "And Darum's got the unseen road guarded by his soldiers."

"Darum?"

"The king of Paititi. Listen, Dan. Do you feel strong enough to tell me what happened?"

"There isn't much," Craddock said. "I was in a trance, but I could see what was going on. Parror brought me here. He had a claw-tipped glove he'd poisoned, and he fought off some creatures with it, pretty nasty specimens."

"In here? In the Garden?"

"The yellow forest," Craddock said doubtfully. "Yes, it was here. When we got to this place, he rigged up a barrier of some sort, with wire. I don't know what it was. But it worked. It must have. We weren't bothered after that.

"Parror put his gadget on my head and kept adjusting it, dragging out all the memories I'd ever had. Eventually he got the secret of the Flame. The part I'd read, from the old records of the First Race, but that I hadn't understood."

Craddock hesitated.

"Funny. The symbols were stored up in my brain, though I never knew what they meant. You never really forget anything, you know, Brian. It's all there, in your subconscious, layer after layer of submerged memories that go back to the time your brain first became capable of storing up thoughts and impressions.

"Eventually I remembered. But I had to write it out. It had been written, not spoken. The Indio language is a degraded version of it. Just the same Parror figured it out. And he's going to waken the Flame, when he gets the equipment ready."

"That's dangerous," Raft said.

"I suppose it is. Still—" Craddock looked at his deformed hands. "—I risked it once. Blindly, of course. Parror knows what he's doing."

Raft thought of that tremendous power unleashed and raging unchecked through Paititi. "I wonder."

Craddock shivered a little. "I hope so, Brian! If the Flame ever gets out of control, the game is over."

"We'd better get out of here. This isn't a safe spot. Are you able to walk yet?"

"Sure, if you can help me a little."But Craddock was stiff weak, and he needed more than a little assistance as they retraced their steps through the saffron jungle. Raft supported him over the rougher spots, and he leaned heavily on the younger man's arm.

They kept a sharp eye out for Parror, though Raft felt certain that the Flame's guardian had left the Garden by now, intent upon gathering the equipment he would need for the ultimate experiment.

Nevertheless, there was still danger. Kharn—watched. Raft could sense the hidden, reptilian menace lurking in the yellow shadows under the trees.

They were almost at the river-gap when Raft touched Craddock's arm and they halted. There was something ahead, blocking their path. Not the nerve-bushes, but a sickly, saffron thing which lay like half-solid dough along the bank for twenty feet or more. Raft's brows contracted.

"It wasn't here before," he said slowly. "I don't like it."

Craddock straightened and drew a deep breath. "Guess I'll have to stand on my own feet for awhile. You may need both hands. See those pseudopods sliding this way? The thing's alive."

"An amoeba?"

"It isn't that. It's—there's no sharp line of demarcation between animal and vegetable here. It may be protoplasm but, I think, it's allied to those fern-mushrooms. If it caught us we'd probably get digested. However, it's slow."

"Yeah. But it's big. You feel up to running?"

Craddock drew himself together. "Okay. Where?"

"Let's move along the shallows here and then run like blazes for the tunnel."

Craddock nodded. They stepped into a cold, slow current and waded forward, feeling the water slide leisurely around their legs as they watched the jellied, saffron entity on the bank. They came abreast of it, and the tunnel-mouth lay only a little way ahead.

Raft began to think, as he splashed on, that they would make the tunnel without trouble after all. The monster of Kharn, he told himself, was not a creature of action. Its danger lay in the mind. It used purely mental power to attract and overpower its prey. Nor was it accustomed to highly developed minds, able to resist. Perhaps it had never needed to develop physical offense.

The water suddenly boiled just before them, sliding with nightmare slowness from a round saffron arm. A pseudopod, stretching after them from the bank, broke the surface. Another lifted out of the water close behind it.

They tried to circle farther out to avoid them, but the footing shelved off steeply into dangerous depths. The pseudopod reached inexorably out—farther—farther—and touched Raft.

It was filled with a living, hothouse warmth that made his flesh crawl. It wound about his waist, its moist heat striking inward against his skin as if digestion were already at work upon him.

He felt its strong pull toward the bank. He tried to get out his knife, but another coil came up from somewhere and laid a warm, wet embrace about his arms, fastening them to his sides. He felt himself being pulled shoreward, and struggled hard to keep his footing in the slow water.

"Hold firm, Brian!"

Craddock stumbled forward, lips set, fighting his own weakness.

He got the knife from Raft's belt with a violent surge of effort, and slashed at the tentacle. That yellowish, half-fungoid flesh gave like cheese. It had surface tension, apparently, but it was not more than half solid. Craddock slashed, and the pseudopods fell away and were washed slowly, slowly off down the current. The incident was like a nightmare in its gentle, deliberate, inexorable sluggishness.

The whole mass of the thing was sliding into the stream now.

"Come on," Raft said. "Can you make it?"

He seized Craddock's arm as they ran for the archway, the water sucking like glue around their feet.

On their right the entire bank seemed to be giving way and dropping toward them in a hungry, malignant pile that could afford to take its time.

Craddock's weakness hampered them. The water parted reluctantly under their splashing feet. It was like running through semi-liquid rubber, with the great, slow, yellow thing rolling its bulk forward to intercept their way.

The mouth of the tunnel opened before them, and the nerve-networks that acted as sentries made a quick, concerted, abortive motion to stop them, as if the whole valley answered a single brain, as perhaps it did. But Craddock slashed weakly at them with the knife, and when the blade had severed two or three the rest shrank and folded down out of harm's way as the two men plunged through.

"They've—stopped," Craddock panted, glancing back. "They won't—follow outside, I guess."

"Keep going," Raft urged him grimly. "No use taking chances now."

They stumbled on, out of the gloom at last into the cool green light from the leafy vault, far overhead, that roofed Paititi. It was like finding sanctuary.

But not quite. A quarter of a mile away, rounding one of the giant trees, a little column was moving steadily toward them. Raft groaned.

"Darum's soldiers. That looks like—yeah, it's Vann, all right. Come on, Craddock. Maybe we can make it."

"I—I can't." The older man staggered as he tried to keep up with Raft's quick strides. "Go on ahead. Don't mind about me."

Raft halted and shrugged. "They'd have caught us anyway. We'll wait, I guess. And fight it out." He touched the butt of the revolver, and watched that glittering column draw nearer.

Finally, the column deployed, showing two score of soldiers, wary, armed men who spread out to surround their prisoners. Vann's scarred, hard face was impassive.

"You're captives," he said. "There'll be time for a duel later, if you want, but the king needs you both now. So you are Brian Raft, after all, eh? And this.man is Craddock?" He stared curiously.

"What does Darum intend to do?" Raft asked. "Cut my throat?"

"No," Vann said. "Not yet, at least. Where is Parror?"

"Gone. I don't know where."

"We'll find him." Vann issued swift orders. Half of the group broke up, spreading out into the forest.

"Now we'll go back to Doirada Castle. Meanwhile, you can tell me, Raft, what lies in the Garden of Kharn. I'd have entered it to carry out my orders, but not with any pleasure. What devils lair in Kharn?"

"I'll tell you later," Raft said wearily. He let the revolver drop back into his pocket. "Right now, I'm too tired to care. Let's go back to Doirada."