MAGIC CITY

by Nelson S. Bond

CHAPTER ONE

OUT OF THE SWEET, dark emptiness of sleep there was a pressure on her arm and a voice whispering an urgent plea.

“Rise, O Mother! O Mother, rise and come quickly!”

Meg woke with a start. The little sleep-imp in her brain stirred fretfully, resentful of being thus rudely banished. He made one last effort to hold Meg captive, tossing a mist of slumber-dust into her eyes, but Meg shook her head resolutely. The sleep-imp, sulky, forced her lips open in a great gape, climbed from her mouth, and sped away.

Sullen shadows lingered in the corners of the hoam, but the windows were gray-limned with approaching dawn. Meg glanced at the cot beside her own, where Daiv, her mate, lay in undisturbed rest. His tawny mane was tousled, and on his lips hovered the memory of a smile. His face was curiously, endearingly boyish, but the bronzed arms and shoulders that lay exposed were the arms and shoulders of a fighting man.

“Quickly, O Mother—”

Meg said, “Peace, Jain; I come.” She spoke calmly, gravely, as befitted the matriarch of the Jinnia Clan, but a thin, cold fear-thought touched her heart. So many were the duties of a Mother; so many and so painful. Meg the Priestess had not guessed the troubles that lay beyond the days of her novitiate. Now the aged, kindly tribal Mother was dead; into Meg’s firm, white hands had been placed the guidance of her clan’s destiny. It was so great a task, and this—this was the hardest task of all.

She drew a deep breath. “Elnor?” she asked.

“Yes, Mother. Even now the Evil Ones circle about, seeking to steal the breath from her nostrils. He bides His time, but He is impatient. There is no time to waste.”

“I come,” said Meg. From a shelf she took a rattle made of a dry gourd wound with the tresses of a virgin; from another a fire-rock, a flaked piece

Copyright 1942 by Nelson Bond. Reprinted by permission of the author.

of god-metal and a strip of parchment upon which a sacred stick, dipped into midnight water, had left its spoor of letters.

These things she touched with reverence, and Jain’s eyes were great with awe. The worker captain shuddered, hid her face in her hands lest the sight of these holy mysteries blind her.

Dry fern rustled. Daiv, eyes heavy-lidded, propped himself up on one elbow.

“What is it, Golden One?”

“Elnor,” replied Meg quietly. “He has come to take her. I must do what I can.”

Impatience etched tiny lines on Daiv’s forehead.

“With those things, Golden One? I’ve told you time and again, they won’t bother Him—”

“Hush!” Meg made a swift, appeasing gesture lest He, hearing Daiv’s impious words, take offense. Daiv’s boldness often frightened Meg. He held the gods in so little awe it was a marvel they let him live. Of course he came from a sacred place himself, from the Land of the Escape. That might have something to do with it.

She said again, “I must do what I can, Daiv. Come, Jain.”

They left the Mother’s hoam, walked swiftly down the deserted walk-avenue. The morning symphony of the birds was in its tune-up stage. The sky was dim, gray, overcast. One hoam was lighted, that of the stricken worker, Elnor.

Meg opened the door, motioned Jain quickly inside, closed the door again behind her that no breath of foul outside air taint the hot, healthy closeness of the sickroom. She noted with approval that the windows had been closed and tightly sealed, that strong-scented ox-grease candles filled the room with their potent, demon-chasing odor.

Yet despite these precautions, the Evil Ones did—as Jain had told—vie for possession of Elnor’s breath. On a narrow cot in the middle of the room lay the dying worker. Her breath choked, ragged and uneven as the song of the jay. Her cheeks, beneath their coat of tan, were bleached; her eyes were hot coals in murky pockets. Her flesh was dry and harsh; she tossed restlessly, eyes roving as if watching some unseen presence.

Jain said fearfully, “See, O Mother? She sees Him. He is here.”

Meg nodded. Her jaw tightened. Two women and Bil, Elnor’s mate, huddled about the sickbed. She motioned them away. “I will do battle with Him,” she said grimly.

She poised a moment, tense for the conflict. Elnor moaned. Then Meg, with a great, reverberant cry, struck the sacred stones together, the bit of fire-rock and the rasp of god-metal. A shower of golden sparks leaped from her hands. Her watchers cried aloud their awe, fell back trembling.

Meg raised the gourd. Holding it high, shaking it, the scrap of parchment clenched in her right hand, she began chanting the magic syllables written thereon. She cried out reverently, for these were mighty words of healing power, no one knew how old, but they had been handed down through long ages. They were a rite of the Ancient Ones.

“ ‘I swear,’” she intoned, “ ‘by Apollo the physician and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and stipulation—’”

The gourd challenged the demons who haunted Elnor. Meg crossed her eyes and crept widdershins three times about Elnor’s cot.

“ ‘—I will give no deadly med-sun to anyone—’ ”

The sonorous periods rolled and throbbed; sweat ran down Meg’s cheeks and throat. Beneath her blankets, Elnor tossed. In the corner, Bil muttered fearfully.

“‘—will not cut persons laboring under the Stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work—’”

The candle guttered, and a drop of wax spilled on the floor as the door behind her opened, closed gently. Meg dared not glance at the newcomer, dared not risk halting the incantation. Some of the hectic color appeared to have left Elnor’s cheeks. Perhaps, then, He was leaving? Without His prey?

“‘—while I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me—’ ”

Meg’s voice swelled with hope. Oh, mighty was the magic of the Ancient Ones! The spell was succeeding! In a vast, triumphant clamor of the gourd, tone shrill and joyful, she broke into the peroration.

“‘—to enjoy life and the practice of the Art, respected by all—’”

A sudden, blood-chilling sound interrupted her. It was Elnor. A gasp of pain, a stifled cry, one lunging twist of a pain-racked body. And then—

“It is too late, Golden One,” said Daiv. “Elnor is dead.”

The women in the corner began keening a dirge. The man, Bil, ceased his muttering. He moved to the side of his dead mate, knelt there wordlessly, staring at Meg with mute, reproachful eyes.

Choking, Meg stammered the words required of her. “ ‘Aam6, the gods, have mercy on her soul.’” Then she fled from the hoam of sorrow. It was not permitted that anyone should see the Mother in tears.

Daiv followed her. Even in his arms, there was but little comfort—

Later, in their own hoam, Daiv sat watching in respectful silence as Meg performed the daily magic that was an obligation of the Mother.

Having offered a brief prayer to the gods, Meg took into her right hand a stick. This she let drink from a pool of midnight in a dish before her, then scratched it across a scroll of smooth, bleached calfskin. Where it moved it left its spoor, a spidery trail of black.

She finished, and Daiv gazed at her admiringly. He was proud of this mate of his who held the knowledge of many lost mysteries. He said, “It is done, Golden One? Read it. Let me hear the speech-without-words.”

Meg read, somberly.

“Report of the fourteenth day of the month of June, 3485 A.D.

“Our work is going forward very well. Today Evalin returned from her visit to the Zurrie territory. There, she says, her message was received with astonishment and wonder, but for the most part with approval. There is some dissent, especially amongst the older women, but the Mother has heard the Revelation with understanding, and has given her promise that the Slooie Clan will immediately attempt to communicate peace and a knowledge of the new order to the Wild Ones.

“Our crops ripen, and soon Lima will have completed the new dam across the Ronoak River. We have now fourscore cattle, fifty horses, and our clan numbers three hundred and twenty-nine. All of our women are supplied with mates.

“We lost a most valuable worker today, when He came for Elnor, Lootent of the Field Coar. We could ill afford to lose her, but He would not be denied—”

Meg’s voice broke. She stopped reading, tossed the scroll on a jumbled heap with countless others, some shining new, some yellow with age, written in the painstaking script of Mothers long dead and long forgotten.

Daiv said consolingly, “Do not grieve, Golden One. You tried to save her. But eventually He comes for each of us. The aged, the weak, the hurt—”

Meg cried, “Why, Daiv, why? Why should He come for Elnor? We know He takes the aged because in their weakness is His strength; He takes the wounded because He scents flowing blood from afar.

“But Elnor was young and strong and healthy. There were no wounds or sores upon her body. She did not taste of His berries in the fields, nor had she touched, at any time, a person already claimed by Him.

“Yet—she died! Why? Why, Daiv?”

“I do not know, Golden One. But I am curious. For I am Daiv, known as He-who-would-learn. There is a mystery here far greater than all your magic spells. Perhaps it is even greater than the wisdom of the Ancient Ones.”

“I am afraid, Daiv. He is so ever-near; we are so weak. You know I have tried to be a good Mother. It was I who made a pilgrimage to the Place of the Gods, learned the secret that the gods were men, and established a new order, that men and women should live together again, as it was in the old days.

“I have worked to spread this knowledge throughout the world, through all of Tizathy. One day we will reclaim all the Wild Ones of the forests, bring them into our camps and together we and they will rebuild the world.

“Only one stands in our way. Him! He who strikes down our warriors with an invisible sword, reaps an endless harvest amongst our workers. He is our arch-foe. A grim, mocking, unseen enemy, against whom we are powerless.”

Daiv grunted. There were small, hard lines’ on his forehead, between his eyes. His lips were not up-curved in their usual happy look.

He said, “You are right, Meg. He, alone, destroys more of us each year than the forest beasts or our occasional invaders. Could we but find and kill Him our people would increase in knowledge and power swiftly.”

He shook his head. “But we do not know where to seek Him, Golden One.”

Meg drew a swift, deep breath. Her eyes glinted, suddenly excited.

“I know, Daiv!”

“You know where He lives, Golden One?”

“Yes. The old Mother told me, many years ago when I was a student priestess. She spoke and warned me against a forbidden city to the north and eastward—the city known as the City of Death! That is, must be, His lair!”

There was a moment of strident silence.

Then Daiv said, tightly, “Can you tell me how to reach this spot, Meg? Can you draw me a marker-of-places that will enable me to find it?”

“I can! It lies where the great creet highways of the Ancient Ones meet with a river and an island at a vast, salt sea. But… but why, Daiv?”

Daiv said, “Draw me the marker-of-places, Meg. He must be destroyed. I will go to His city to find Him.”

“No!” It was not Meg the priestess who cried out; it was Meg the woman. “No, Daiv! It is an accursed city. I cannot let you go!”

“You cannot stop me, Golden One.”

“But you know no spells, no incantations. He will destroy you—”

“I will destroy Him, first.” The happy look clung to the corners of Daiv’s lips. He drew Meg into his bronze arms, woke fire in her veins with the touching-of-mouths he had taught her. “My arm is strong, Meg; my sword keen. He must feel its bite if we are to live and prosper. You cannot change my mind.”

Then Meg decided.

“Very well, Daiv. You shall go. But I will make you no marker-of-places.”

“Come now, Golden One! Without it I shall not be able to find—”

Meg’s voice was firm, unequivocal. “Because I shall go with you! Together we shall seek and destroy—Him!”

CHAPTER TWO

So STARTED MEG AND DAIV for the City of Death. It was not a happy parting, theirs with the men and women of the Jinnia Clan. There were tears and lamentations and sad mutterings, for all knew the law that the eastern cities of the Ancient Ones were forbidden.

There was bravery, too, and loyalty. Stern-jawed Lora, Captain of the Warriors, confronted Meg at the gate. She was clad for battle; her leathern plates and buckler were newly refurbished, her sword hung at her side. Behind her stood a squad of picked warriors, packed for trek.

“We are ready, O Mother!” said Lora succinctly.

Meg smiled, a sweet, proud smile. She knew only too well the mental terror, the physical qualms of fear these women had overcome to thus offer themselves. Her heart lifted within her, but she leaned forward and with her own fingers unbuckled Lora’s scabbard.

“You are needed here, my daughter,” she said. “You must guard the clan till I return. And”—she faltered an instant, continued swiftly—“and if it is the will of the gods I return not, then you must continue to see that the law is obeyed until the young priestess, Haizl, is finished her novitiate and can assume leadership.

“Peace be with you all!” She pressed her lips to Lora’s forehead lightly. It seemed strange to none of them that she should call the harsh-visaged chieftain, many years her senior, “My daughter.” For she was the Mother, and the Mother was ageless and of all time.

Others came forward then, each in their turn to ask a farewell blessing, to offer silent prayers to the gods for Meg’s safe return. Young Haizl, the clear-eyed, inquisitive twelve-year-old maiden whom Meg had selected to succeed her as matriarch of the Jinnia Clan whispered: “Be strong, O Mother, but not too daring. Return safely, for never can I take your place.”

“But you can, my daughter. Study diligently, learn the speech-without-words and the magic of the numbers. Keep the law and learn the rituals.”

“I try, O Mother. But the little pain-demons dwell in my head, behind my eyes. They dance and make the letters move strangely.”

“Pursue your course and they will go away.”

Came ‘Ana, who had been a breeding-mother before the Revelation, and who was now a happily wedded mate. Her eyes were red with weeping and she could not speak. Came Izbel, strongest of the workers, who with her bare hands had crushed the life from a mountain cat. But there was no strength in her hands now; they trembled as they touched Meg’s doeskin boots. Also came Bil, eyes smoldering with hot demand.

“I would go with you to destroy Him, O Mother! It is my right. You cannot refuse me!”

“But I can and do, Bil.”

Bil said rebelliously, “I am a man, strong, brave. I fought beside Daiv when the Japcans attacked. Ask him if I am not a great fighter.”

“That I know without asking. But now we fight an invisible foe. Of all the clan, only Daiv and I can stand before Him. I am a Mother, inviolate; Daiv is sprung of an ancient, sacred tribe. The Kirki tribe, dwelling in the Land of the Escape.

“And now—farewell—”

But after they had left the town, Daiv repeated his objections, voiced many times in the hours preceding this.

“Go back, Golden One! This is a man’s task. He is a potent enemy. Go back to the clan, wait for my return—”

Meg said, as if not hearing him, “See, the road lies before us. The broken creet road of the Ancient Ones.”

It was not a long journey. Only eight days’ march, according to Meg’s calculations. Scarce one fifth of the distance she had covered in her pilgrimage to the Place of the Gods in ‘Kota territory a year before. And Daiv was an experienced traveler; alone, he had wandered through most of Tizathy from sun-parched ’Vadah to bleak Wyomin, from the lush jungles of Flarduh to the snow-crested mountains of Orgen. Only this one path he had never trod, for all tribes in wide Tizathy knew the law, that the east was forbidden.

So their journey was one filled with many wonders. It was difficult walking on the crumbled creet highways of the Ancient Ones, so Meg and Daiv walked in the fields but kept the white rock roadbed in sight. They passed through an abandoned village named Lextun or Ve6mi—the old name for it was confused in the records—and another known as Stantn. Only by the intersections of the roads could they tell these towns had once been. No hoams stood; grass ran riot where once had been fertile fields and pasture land.

On the morning of the fourth day they took a wrong turning, departed from the high plateau and climbed eastward into a blue and smoky ridge of mountain. Here they found a great marvel. High in the hills they came upon the broken walls of an ancient shrine, stone heaped upon stone, creet holding the blocks together. Spiked with god-metal on one wall was a green-molded square. Daiv, scraping this out of curiosity, uncovered oddly shaped letters in the language. The letters read:

URAY CAVER

—dmiss————-One dol—

Beyond the shrine was a huge hole, leading deep into the bowels of the earth. Daiv would have gone into it, seeking a fuller explanation of this wonder, but cold dampness seeped from the vent, and the stir of his footsteps at the entrance roused a myriad of loathsome bats from below.

Meg understood, then, and dragged Daiv from the accursed spot hastily.

“This is the abode of one of their Evil Gods,” she explained. “The bats are souls of his worshipers. We must not tarry here.”

And they fled, retracing their steps to the point at which they had made the wrong turning. But as they ran, Meg, to be on the safe side, made a brief, apologetic prayer to the dark god, Uray Caver.

Oh, many were the wonders of that journey. Perhaps most wondrous of all—at least most unexpected of all—was their discovery of a clan living far to the north and east, near the end of their sixth day’s travel.

It was Daiv who first noted signs of human habitation. They had crossed a narrow strip of land which, from a rusted place of god-metal Meg identified as part of the Maerlun territory, when Daiv suddenly halted his priestess with a silencing gesture.

“Golden One—a fire! A campfire!”

Meg looked, and a slow, shuddering apprehension ran through her veins. He was right in all save one thing. It could not be a campfire. Flame there was, and smoke. But in this forbidden territory smoke and flame could mean only—a chamel fire! For they were nearing His abode. Meg’s nostrils sought the air delicately, half-afraid of the scent that might reach them.

Then, surprisingly, a happy sound was breaking from Daiv’s throat, he was propelling her forward.

“They are men, Golden One! Men and women living in peace and harmony! The message of the Revelation must somehow have penetrated even these forbidden regions. Come!”

But a great disappointment awaited them. For when they met the strange clanspeople, they found themselves completely unable to converse with them. Only one thing could Meg and Daiv learn. That they called their village Lankstr. Their tribal name they never revealed, though Daiv believed they called themselves Nikvars.

Meg was bitterly chagrined.

“If they could only speak the language, Daiv, they could tell us something about His city. They live so near. But perhaps—” She looked doubtful. “Do you think maybe they worship—Him?”

Daiv shook his head.

“No, Golden One. These Nikvars speak a coarse, animal tongue, but I think they are a kindly folk. They have never received the Revelation, yet they live together in the fashion of the Ancient Ones. They plow the fields and raise livestock. They have sheltered and fed us, offered us fresh clothing. They cannot be His disciples. This is another of the many, many mysteries of Tizathy. One that we must some day solve.”

And the next morning they left the camp of their odd hosts. They bore with them friendly gifts of salt and bacca, and a damp-pouch filled with a strange food, krowt. And with the quaint Nikvar farewell ringing in their ears, “Veedzain! O Veedzain!”, they continued their way east into a territory avoided and feared for thrice five centuries.

Through Lebnun and Alntun, skirting a huge pile of masonry that Meg’s marker-of-places indicated as “Lizbeth,” up the salt-swept marshes of the Joysy flatlands. The salt air stung their inland nostrils strangely, and the flatland air oppressed Meg’s mountain-bred lungs, but she forgot her physical discomforts in the marvels to be seen.

And then, on the morning of the tenth day, the red lance of the dawning sun shattered itself on a weird, light-reflecting dreadfulness a scant ten miles away. Something so strange, so unnatural, so absolutely incredible that it took Meg’s breath away, and she could only clutch her mate’s arm, gasping and pointing.

Hoams! Ba^ such hoams! Great, towering buildings that groped sharded fingers into the very bosom of the sky; hoams of god-metal and creet—red with water-hurt, true—but still intact. Some of them—Meg closed her eyes, then opened them again and found it was still so—must have been every bit of two hundred, three hundred feet in height!

And as from afar, she heard Daiv’s voice repeating the ancient description.

“ ‘It lies where the great creet highways of the Ancient Ones meet with a river and an island at a vast, salt sea.’ This is it, Meg! We have found it, my Golden One!”

The sun lifted higher, spilling its blood upon the forbidden village. There was ominous portent in that color, and for the first time fear crept from its secret lurking place in Meg’s heart, ran on panicky feet to her brain. She faltered, “It… it is His city, Daiv. See, even the hoams are bleached skeletons from which He has stripped the flesh. Think you, we should go on?” Daiv made a happy sound deep in his throat. Still it was not altogether a happy sound; there was anger in it, and courage, and defiance. He said, “We go on, Golden One! My sword thirsts for His defeat!” And swiftly, eagerly, he pressed onward. Thus came Meg and Daiv to the

City of Death.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS NOT so EASY to effect entry into the city as Meg had expected. According to the old marker-of-places she had brought, the city was connected with the road by a tunl. Meg did not know what a tunl was, but clearly it had to be some sort of bridge or roadway.

There was nothing such here. The road ended abruptly at a great hole in the ground, similar to that which they had seen at the shrine of Uray Caver, except that this one was begemmed with glistening creet platters, and everywhere about it were queer oblongs of god-metal scored with cryptic runes. Prayers. “O Left Tur,” said one; “O Parki,” another.

Daiv glanced at Meg querulously, but she shook her head. These were —or appeared to be—in the language, but their meanings were lost in the mists of time. Lost, too, was the significance of that gigantic magic spell can-en in solid stone at the mouth of the hole—

N.Y.—MCMXXVII—N.J.

Discouraged but undaunted, Meg and Daiv turned away from the hole. Fortunately this was uncivilized territory; the forest ran right down to the water’s edge. It eased the task of hewing small trees, building a raft with which they might cross the river.

This they did in the daytime, working with muffled axes lest He hear, investigate, and thwart their plans to invade His domain.

At night they crept back into the forest to build a camp. While Daiv went out and caught game, a fat young wild pig, Meg baked fresh biscuit, boiled maters she found growing wild in a nearby glade, and brewed cawfee from their rapidly dwindling store of that fragrant bean.

The next day they worked again on their craft, and the day after that. And at last the job was completed, Daiv looked upon it and pronounced it good. So at dusk they pushed it into the water. And when the icy moon invaded the sky, forcing the tender sun to flee before its barrage of silver hoar-shakings, they set out for the opposite shore.

Without incident, they attained their goal. Behind a thicket, Daiv moored their rough craft; each committed the location to memory. Then they climbed the stone-rubbled bank, and stood at last in the City of Death, on the very portals of His lair.

Nor was there any doubt that this was Death’s city. So far as the eye could see or the ear hear, there was no token of life. Harsh, jumbled blocks of creet scraped tender their soles, and there was no blade of grass to soften that moon-frozen severity. About and around and before them were countless aged hoams; their doors were gasping mouths, their shutterless windows like vast, blank eyes. They moved blindly forward, but no hare sprang, startled, from an unseen warren before them; no night bird broke the tomblike silence with a melancholy cry.

Only the faint breath of the wind, stirring through the great avenues of emptiness, whispered them caution in a strange, sad sigh.

A great unease weighted Meg’s mind, and in the gloom her hand caught that of Daiv as they pressed ever forward into the heart of Death’s citadel. High corridors abutted them on either side; by instinct, rather than sense, they pursued a northward path.

A thousand questions filled Meg’s heart, but in this hallowed place she could not stir her lips to motion. But as she walked, she wondered, marveled, at the Ancient Ones who, it was told, had built and lived in this great stone village.

Perhaps the creet roadbed on which they walked had once been smooth, as the legends told, though Meg doubted it. Surely not even the ages could have so torn creet into jagged boulders, deep-pitted and sore. And why should the Ancient Ones have deliberately pockmarked their roads with holes, and at the bottom of these holes placed broken tubes of red god-metal?

Why, too, should the Ancient Ones have built hoams that, probing the sky, still were roofless, and had in many places had their fa9ades stripped away so that beneath the exterior showed little square cubicles, like rooms? Or why should the Ancient Ones have placed long laths of metal in the middle of their walk-avenues? Was it, Meg wondered, because they feared the demons? And had placed these bars to fend them off? All demons, Meg knew, feared god-metal, and would not cross it—

How long they trod those deserted thoroughfares Meg could not tell. Their path was generally northward, but it was a devious one because Daiv, great-eyed with wonder, was ever moved to explore some mysterious alley. Once, even, he braved destruction by creeping furtively into the entrance of a hoam consecrated to a god with a harsh-sounding foreign name, Mcmxl, but from there Meg begged him to withdraw, lest He somehow divine their presence. Yet it was Daiv’s insatiable curiosity that found a good omen for them. Well within the depths of the city, he stumbled across the first patch of life they had found. It was a tiny square of green, surmounted on all sides by bleak desolation. Yet from its breast of high, rank jungle grass soared a dozen mighty trees, defiantly quick in the city of the dead. Meg dropped to her knees at this spot, kissed the earth and made a prayer to the familiar gods of her clan.

And she told Daiv, “Remember well this spot. It is a refuge, a sanctuary. Perhaps, then, even He is not invulnerable, if life persists in His fortress. Should we ever be parted, let us meet here.”

She marked the spot on her marker-of-places. From a plaque of the Ancient Ones, she learned its name. It was called Madinsqua.

Through the long night they trod the city streets, but when the first faint edge of gray lifted night’s shadow in the east, Daiv strangled in his throat and made a tired mouth. Then Meg, suddenly aware of her own fatigue, remembered they must not meet their powerful foe in this state.

“We must rest, Daiv. We must be strong and alert when we come face to face with Him.”

Daiv demanded, “But where, Golden One? You will not enter one of the hoams—”

“The hoams are taboo,” said Meg piously, “but there are many temples. Behold, there lies a great one before us now. I am a Priestess and a Mother; all temples are refuge to me. We shall go there.”

So they went into the mighty, colonnaded building. And it was, indeed, a temple. Through a long corridor they passed, down many steps, and at last into the towering vault of the sacristan.

Here, once, on the high niches about the walls, there had stood statues of the gods. Now most of these had been dislodged, their shards lay upon the cracked tiles beneath. Yet a few stood, and beneath centuries of dust and dirt the adventurers could still see the faded hues of ancient paint.

The floor of the sacristan was one, vast crater; a wall had crashed to earth and covered the confessionals of the priests. But above their heads was suspended an awesome object—a huge, round face around the rim of which appeared symbols familiar to Meg.

Daiv’s eyes asked Meg for an answer.

“It is a holy sign,” Meg told him. “Those are the numbers that make and take away. I had to learn them when I was a priestess. There is great magic in them.” And while Daiv stood silent and respectful, she chanted them as it was ordained, “One—two—three—”

The size of this temple wakened greater awe in Meg than anything she had heretofore seen. She knew, now, that it must have been a great and holy race that lived here before the Great Disaster, for thousands could stand in the sacristan alone without crowding; in addition, there were a dozen smaller halls and prayer rooms, many of which had once been provided with seats. The western wall of the cathedral was lined with barred gates; on these depended metal placards designating the various sects who were permitted to worship here. One such, more legible than the rest, bore the names of communities vaguely familiar to Meg.

THE SPORTSMAN—12:01

Newark

Philadelphia

Washington

Cincinnati

This was, of course, the ancient language, but Meg thought she could detect some similarity to names of present-day clans. She and Daiv had, themselves, come through a town called Noork on their way here, and the elder legends told of a Fideffia, the City of Endless Sleep, and a Sinnaty, where once had ruled a great people known as the Reds.

But it would have been sacrilege to sleep in these hallowed halls. At Meg’s advice they sought refuge in one of the smaller rooms flanking the corridor through which they had entered the temple. There were many of these, and one was admirably adapted to their purpose; it was the tiny prayer room of a forgotten god, Ited-Ciga. There was, in this room, a miraculously undamaged dais on which they could sleep.

They had eaten, but had not slaked their thirst in many hours. Daiv was overjoyed to find a black drink-fountain set into one of the walls, complete with a mouthpiece and a curiously shaped cup, but try as he might, he could not force the spring to flow.

It, too, was magic; at its base was a dial of god-metal marked with the numbers and letters of the language. Meg made an incantation over it, and when the water refused to come, Daiv, impatient, beat upon the mouth part. Rotten wood split from the wall, the entire fountain broke from its foundation and tumbled to the floor, disclosing a nest of inexplicable wires and metal fragments.

As it fell, from somewhere within it tumbled many circles of stained metal, large and small. Meg, seeing one of these, prayed the gods to forgive Daiv’s impatience.

“The fountain would not flow,” she explained, “because you did not make the fitting sacrifice. See? These are the tributes of the Ancient Ones. White pieces, carven with the faces of the gods: the Red god, the buffalo god”— her voice deepened with awe—“even great Taamuz, himself I I remember his face from the Place of the Gods.

“Aie, Daiv, but they were a humble and god-fearing race, the Ancient Ones!”

And there, in the massive pantheon of Ylvania Stat, they slept—

Meg started from slumber suddenly, some inner awareness rousing her to a sense of indefinable malease. The sun was high in the heavens, the night-damp had passed. But as she sat up, her keen ears caught again the sound that had awakened her, and fear clutched her kidneys.

Daiv, too, had been awakened by the sound. Beside her he sat upright, motioning her to silence. His lips made voiceless whisper.

“Footsteps!”

Meg answered, fearfully, “His footsteps?”

Daiv slipped to the doorway, disappeared. Minutes passed, and continued to pass until Meg, no longer able to await his return, followed him. He was crouched behind the doorway of the temple, staring down the avenue up which they had marched the preceding night. He felt her breath on his shoulder, pointed silently.

It was not Him. But it was someone almost as dangerous. A little band of His worshipers—all men. It was obvious that they were His followers, for in addition to the usual breechclout and sandals worn by all clansmen, these wore a gruesome decoration—necklaces of human bone! Each of them —and there must have been six or seven—carried as a weapon His traditional arm, a razor-edged sword, curved in the shape of a scythe!

They had halted beside the entrance to a hooded cavern, similar to dozens such which Meg and Daiv had passed the night before, but had not dared investigate. Now two of them ducked suddenly into the cavernous depths. After a brief period of time, two sounds split the air simultaneously. The triumphant cry of masculine voices, and the high, shrill scream of a woman!

And from the cave mouth, their lips drawn back from their teeth in evil happy looks, emerged the raiders. Behind them they dragged the fighting, clawing figure of a woman.

Meg gasped, her thoughts churned into confusion by a dozen conflicting emotions. Amazement that in this City of Death should be found living humans. The ghouls, His followers, she could understand. But not the fact that this woman seemed as normal as her own Jinnians.

Second, a frightful anger that anyone, anything, should thus dare lay forceful hands upon a woman. Meg was of the emancipated younger generation; she had accepted the new principle that men were women’s equals. But, still—

Her desire to do something labored with her fright. But before either could gain control of her muscles, action quickened the tableau. There came loud cries from below the ground, the sound of clanking harness, the surge of racing feet. And from the cavern’s gorge charged the warriors of this stranger clan, full-panoplied, enraged, to the rescue of their comrade.

The invaders were ready for them. One had taken a position at each side of the entrance, another had leaped to its metallic roof. As the first warrior burst from the cave mouth, three scythe swords swung as one. Blood spurted. A headless torso lurched forward a shambling pace, pitched to earth, lay still. Again the scythes lifted.

Daiv could stand no more. A rage-choked roar broke from his lips, his swift motion upset Meg. And on feet that flew, sword drawn, clenched in his right fist, bellowing his wrath, he charged forward into the unequal fray!

CHAPTER FOUR

NOR WAS MEG far behind him. She was a Priestess and a Mother, but in her veins, as in the veins of all Jinnians, flowed ever the quicksilver battle lust. Her cry was as loud as his, her charge as swift. Like twin lances of vengeance they bore down upon the invaders from the rear.

The minions of Death spun, startled. For an instant stark incredulity stunned them to quiescence; that immobility cost their leader his life. For even as his scattered wits reassembled, his lips framed commands to his followers, Daiv was upon him.

It was no hooked and awkward scythe Daiv wielded; it was a long sword, keen and true. Its gleaming blade flashed in the sunlight, struck at the leader’s breast like the fang of a water viper—and when it met sunlight again, its gleam was crimson.

Now Daiv’s sword parried an enemy hook; his foeman, weaponless and mad with fright, screamed aloud and tried to stave off the dripping edge of doom. His bare hands gripped Daiv’s blade in blind, inchoate defense. The edge bit deep, grotesque-angled fingers fell to the ground like bloodworms crawling, bright ribbons of blood spurted from severed palms.

All this in the single beat of a pulse. Then Meg, too, was upon the invaders; her sword thirsted and drank beside that of her mate. And the battle was over almost before it began. Even as the vanguard of clanswomen, taking heart at this unexpected relief, came surging from the cave mouth, a half dozen bodies lay motionless on the creet, their blood enscarleting its drab. But one remained, and he, eyes wide, mouth slack in awestruck fear, turned and fled down the long avenue on feet lent wings by terror.

Then rose the woman whom the invaders had attempted to linber; in her eyes was a vast respect. She stared first at Daiv, uncertain, unbelieving. Then she turned to Meg and made low obeisance.

“Greetings and thanks, O Woman from Nowhere! Emma, Card of the Be-Empty, pledges now her life and hand, which are truly yours.”

She knelt to kiss Meg’s hand. Then deepened her surprise, for she gasped:

“But… but you are a Mother! You wear the Mother’s ring!”

Meg said quietly, “Yes, my daughter. I am Meg, the Mother of the Jinnia Clan, newly come to the City of Death.”

“Jinnia Clan!” It was the foremost of the rescuers who spoke now; by her trappings Meg knew her to be a lootent of her tribe. “What is this Jinnia Clan, O Mother? Whence come you, and how—”

Meg said, “Peace, woman! It is not fitting that a clanswoman should make queries of a Mother. But lead me to your Mother. With her I would speak.”

The lootent flushed. Apologetically, “Forgive me, Mother. Swiftly shall I lead you to our Mother, Alis. But what—” She glanced curiously at Daiv who, the battle over, was now methodically wiping his stained blade on the hem of his clout. “But what shall I do with this man-thing? It is surely not a breeding-male; it fights and acts like a Wild One.”

Meg smiled.

“He is not a man-thing, my child. He is a man—a true man. Take me to your Mother, and to her I will explain this mystery.”

Thus it was that, shortly after, Meg and Daiv spoke with Alis in her private chamber deep in the bowels of the earth beneath the City of Death. There was great wonder in the Mother’s eyes and voice, but there was respect, too, and understanding in the ear she lent Meg’s words.

Meg told her the tale of the Revelation. Of how she, when yet Meg the Priestess, had made pilgrimage, as was the custom of her clan, to the far-off Place of the Gods.

“Through blue-swarded Tucky and Zurrie I traveled, O Alis; many days

I walked through the flat fields of Braska territory. In this journey was I accompanied by Daiv, then a stranger, now my mate, who had rescued me from a Wild One. And at last I reached the desolate grottoes of distant ‘Kota, and there, with my own eyes, looked upon the carven stone faces of the gods of the Ancient Ones. Grim Jarg, the sad-eyed Ibrim, ringleted Taamuz, and far-seeing Tedhi, He who laughs—“

Alis made a holy sign.

“You speak a mighty wonder, O Meg. These are gods of our clan, too, though none made your pilgrimage. But we worship still another god, whose temple lies not far away. The mighty god, Granstoom. But—this secret you learned?”

“Hearken well, Alis, and believe,” said Meg, “for I tell you truth. The gods of the Ancient Ones—were men!”

“Men!” Alis half rose from her seat. Her hands trembled. “But surely, Meg, you are mistaken—”

“No. The mistake occurred centuries ago, Mother of another clan. Daiv, who comes from the sacred Land of the Escape, has taught me the story.

“Long, long ago, all Tizathy was ruled by the great Ancient Ones. Mighty were they, and skilled in forgotten magics. They could run on the ground with the speed of the woodland d6e; great, wheeled horses they built for this purpose. They could fly in the air on birds made of god-metal. Their hoams probed the clouds, they never labored except on the play-field; their life was one of gay amusement, spent in chanting into boxes that carried their voices everywhere and looking at pictures-that-ran.

“But in another world across the salt water from Tizathy were still other men and women. Amongst them were evil ones, restless, impatient, fretful, greedy. These, in an attempt to rule the world, created a great war. We cannot conceive the war of the Ancient Ones. They brought all their magics into play.

“The men met on gigantic battlefields, killed each other with smoke and flame and acid and smell-winds. And at hoam, the women—in secret magic-chambers called labteries—made for them sticks-that-spit-fire and great eggs that hatched death.”

“It is hard to believe, O Meg,” breathed Alis, “but I do believe. I have read certain cryptic records of the Ancient Ones—but go on.”

“Came at last the day,” continued Meg, “when Tizathy itself entered this war. But when their mates and children had gone to Him by the scores of scores of scores, the women rebelled. They banded together, exiled all men forevermore, set up the matriarchal form of government, keeping only a few weak and infant males as breeders.

“When they could no longer get the fire-eggs or the spit-sticks, the men came back to Tizathy. Then ensued years of another great war between the sexes—but in the end, the women were triumphant.

“The rest you know. The men, disorganized, became Wild Ones, roving the jungles in search of food, managing to recreate themselves with what few clanswomen they linberred from time to time. Our civilization persisted, but many of the old legends and most of the old learning was gone. We finally came to believe that never had the men ruled; that it was right and proper for women to rule; that the very gods were women.

“But this,” said Meg stanchly, “is not so. For I have brought back from the Place of the Gods the Revelation. Now I spread the word. It is the duty of all clans to bring the Wild Ones out of the forests, make them their mates, so our people may one day reclaim our deserved heritage.”

There was a long silence.

Then asked Alis, “I must think deeply on this, O Meg. But you spoke of the Land of the Escape. What is that?”

“It is the hot lands to the south. Daiv comes from there. It is a sacred place, for from there—from the heart of Zoni—long ago a Wise One named Renn foresaw the end of the civilization of the Ancient Ones.

“In the bowels of a monstrous bird, he and a chosen few escaped Earth itself, flying to the evening star. They have never been heard of since. But some day they will come back. We must prepare for their coming; such is the law.”

Alis nodded somberly.

“I hear and understand, O Mother to whom the truth has been revealed. But… but I fear that never can we make peace with the Wild Ones of Loalnyawk. You have seen them, fought them. You know they are vicious and untamed.”

Meg had been so engrossed in spreading the news of the Revelation, she had almost forgotten her true mission. Now it flooded back upon her like an ominous pall. And she nodded.

“Loalnyawk? Is that what you call the City of Him? Perhaps you are right, Mother Alis. It would be impossible to mate with the children who worship Death as a master.”

“Death?” Alis’ head lifted sharply. “Death, Meg? I do not understand. They do not worship Death, but Death’s mistress. They worship the grim and savage warrior goddess, the fearful goddess, Salibbidy.”

“Her,” said Meg dubiously, “I never heard of. But you speak words unhappy to my ear, O Alis. A long way have Daiv and I come to do battle with Him who nips the fairest buds of our clan. Now you tell me this is not His city—

“Aie, but you must be mistaken! Of a certainty it is His city. His tumbled desolation reigns everywhere.”

Alis made a thought-mouth.

“You force me to wonder, Meg. Perhaps He is here. Of a truth, He takes many of us to whom He has no right. A moon ago He claimed the Priestess Kait who was young, happy, in wondrous good health.

“A sweet and holy girl, inspired by the gods. Only the day before had she been in commune with them; her tender young body atremble with ecstasy, her eyes rapt, her lips wet with the froth of their knowledge. Oft did she experience these sacred spells, and I had planned a great future for her. But—” Alis sighed and shook her head. “He came and took her even as she communed with the gods. It was a foul deed and brutal.”

Daiv said grimly, “And by that we know that this is His city, indeed. For where else would He be so powerful and so daring?”

“Yes,” said Alis, “the more I think on it, the more I believe you are right. Above ground must be His domains. We have not guessed the truth, because for countless ages we have dwelt in the tiled corridors of Be-Empty.”

“Tell us more,” demanded Daiv, He-who-would-learn, “about the halls of Be-Empty. Why are they called that?”

“I know not, Daiv. It is the ancient name, yet the corridors are not empty. They are a vast network of underground passages, built by the Ancient Ones for mystic rites we no longer know. Great wonders are here, as I will later show you.

“These corridors are tiled with shining creet, and upon their roadbeds lie parallels of god-metal, red and worn. Aie, and there is a greater wonder still! From place to place I can show you ancient hoams, with doors and many windows and seats. These hoams were tied together with rods of god-metal, and whensoever the Ancient Ones would move, they had but to push their hoams along the parallels to a new location!

“Once we were not all one clan, but many. There were the Women of the In-Deeps, and there were the Aiyartees. But we were the strongest, and we welded all the livers-underground into one strong clan.

“We have many villages, wide creet plateaus built on the sunken roadways of the Ancient Ones. Each village has its entrance to the city above, forbidden Loalnyawk, but we use these only when urgency presses. For there are openings aplenty to the sun, there are streams of fresh water. Safe from the Wild Ones above, we raise our vegetables and a few meat-animals.

“Yet,” continued Alis proudly, “there is no spot in all Loalnyawk to which we have not ready access should it be necessary to get there. Above ground there are many shrines like that of great Granstoom and the fallen tower of Arciay. There is also the Citadel of Clumby to the north, and not far from where we now sit could I show you the Temple of Shoobut, where each year the Ancient Ones sacrificed a thousand virgins to their gods. There is the forbidden altar of Slukes—”

The Mother’s mouth stayed in midsentence. Her eyes widened.

“Slukes!” she repeated awfully.

“Well?” Meg and Daiv leaned forward, intent.

“That must be it! In the ancient legends it tells that there was where He visited most often. That must be His present lair and hiding place!”

“Then there,” proclaimed Daiv, “we must go!”

CHAPTER FIVE

MEG STUMBLED on a sharp stone, lurched against Daiv and steadied herself on his reassuring presence. Her eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the endless gloom, now, though they ached and burned with the concentra-tion of peering into murky blackness, then having the blackness lighted from time to time, unexpectedly, by a shaft of golden sunlight flooding into the corridors of Be-Empty from the city above.

Her feet, though, thought Meg disconsolately, would never accustom themselves to this jagged, uneven roadbed. She had been told to walk between the parallels of god-metal, for that was the best, driest, safest walking. Maybe it was. But it was treacherous. For there were creet crossties on which her doeskin-clad feet bruised themselves, and ever and again there were rocks and boulders lying unsuspectedly in the road.

How far they had come, Meg had no way of guessing. It must have been many miles. They had passed, easily, twoscore tiny, raised villages of the Be-Empty Clan. At each of these they had tarried a moment while the warrior lootent, under whose guidance Alis had dispatched a small foray party at Meg’s disposal, made known herself and her mission.

Meg panted, hating the heavy, stuffy air her lungs labored to suck in, fuming at the slowness of their march, eager only to reach their destination. It did not improve her temper to slip on a round rock, submerge one foot to the ankle in a stream of sluggish water. Of the lootent she demanded, “How much farther, my daughter?”

“We are nearly there, O Mother.”

Daiv grunted. It was a think-grunt. Meg tried to see him, but in the darkness his face was a white blur.

“Yes, Daiv?”

“There’s more to this than meets the eye, Golden One. These passageways are not the purposeless corridors Alis thought. I was wondering—”

“Yes?”

“Well—it sounds ridiculous. But do you remember those hoams on wheels? The ones with the windows? Suppose the Ancient Ones had the magic power to make them run like horses along these parallels?”

Meg shrugged.

“But why should they, Daiv? When it would have been so much simpler to make them run on top of the earth? These grottoes were built for some sacred purpose, my mate.”

“I suppose you’re right,” acknowledged Daiv. But he didn’t sound convinced. Sometimes Meg grew a little impatient with Daiv. He was, like all men, such a hard creature to convince. He couldn’t reason things out in the cold, clear logical fashion of a woman; he kept insisting that his “masculine intuition” told him otherwise.

Much time had passed. They had broken fast at the hoam of the Mother, and had eaten a midday meal here in the depths of Be-Empty. The last opening under which they had passed revealed that the sun was being swallowed by the westward clouds; for twelve hours it would pass through the belly of the sky, then miraculously, tomorrow, a new sun would be reborn in the east.

So it was almost night when the lootent halted at a tiny, deserted creet platform, turned and touched her forehead to Meg.

“This is it, O Mother.”

“This?” Meg glanced about. There was nothing unusual about this location.

“Above this spot lies the forbidden altar of Slukes. I… I fear—” The lootent’s eyes were troubled. “I fear I dare take you no farther, O Mother. You and your man are inviolate; I and my warriors are but humble women. That which lies above would be destruction for us to gaze upon.”

Meg nodded complacently.

“So be it, my daughter. We shall leave you now, go to dare Him in His den.”

The lootent said, “We shall wait, Mother—”

“Wait not, my child. Return to your village.”

“Very well, Mother. Your blessing ere we leave?”

Meg gave it, touching her fingers to the lips and the forehead of the kneeling lootent, chanting the hallowed phrases of the Ancient Ones’ blessing. “ ‘My country, Tizathy; sweet land of liberty—’” Then there were stifled footsteps in the gloom and Meg and Daiv were alone.

Only briefly did Meg consider the possibility of entering His temple at this time—and then she abandoned the project. It would be suicidal. Everyone knew He was strongest at night. His powers waned with the waxing sun. So she and Daiv built a tiny fire in the quarters of a long-vanished warrior named Private Keepout, and there huddled together through the long, dank, fearsome night.

They awakened with the sun, broke their fast with unleavened biscuit given them by Alis. Daiv, who was expert at such matters, then examined with painstaking care their swords and hurling-leathers. He approved these. And as if feeling within his own breast an echo of the dread that fluttered in Meg’s, he pressed his lips hard against hers in a touching-of-mouths. Then, hand in hand, they climbed a long flight of steps, into the sunlight, forward to the threshold of His stronghold.

It was a majestic building.

How many footsteps long and wide it was, Meg could not even conceive. It reached half as far as the eye would reach in one direction; in the other, it branched into many smaller buildings. And it was pine-high. An awe-inspiring sight.

Daiv, standing beside her, stared dubiously at the main portal. He said, “This may not be the place, Meg. Alis said the name of the temple was Slukes, didn’t she? This is called—” He glanced again at the weather-worn carving atop the doorway. “This is called Stlukes.”

Again, as oft before, Meg felt swift pride at her mate’s intelligence. Daiv was a living proof that men were the equals—or almost, anyway—of women. It had taken her many, many summers to learn the art of reading the speech-without-words; he had assimilated the knowledge from her in a tenth the time.

“It is the right place, Daiv,” she whispered. “The Ancient Ones were often careless in putting down the language. But can you not jeel that this is His abode?”

For she could. Those grim, gray walls breathed an atmosphere of death and decay. The bleached walls were like the picked bones of a skeleton lying in some forgotten field. And the great, gaping vents of windows, the sagging lintels, the way one portion of roof had fallen in—there were marks of His dominance. Meg did not even need the omen of the red-throated carrion buzzard wheeling lazily ever and ever about the horrid altar of Slakes.

“Come,” she said, “let us enter.”

Daiv held back. There were anxious lines about his eyes. “He does not speak, Meg?”

“No one has ever heard His voice, Daiv. Why?”

“I thought I heard voices. But I must have made a mistake. Well”—he shrugged—“it does not matter.”

Thus they entered the secret hiding place of Death.

All the great courts lay silent.

What Meg had expected to see, she did not rightly know. Perhaps a charnel house of human bodies, dismembered and gory, raw with frightful cicatrices, oozing filth from sick and rotting sores. Or perhaps that even more dreadful thing, chambers in which were imprisoned the mournful souls of the dead. Against flesh and blood, no matter how frightful, Meg knew her courage would hold. But she did not know whether her nerves would stand before the dim restlessness of the gray unalive.

She found neither of these in the temple of Slukes. She found only floors and walls and ceilings which had once been shining white, but were now gray with ages of floating dust. She found her footsteps muffled beneath her upon a mat of substance, now crumbling, but still resilient to the soles. She found silence, silence, silence that beat upon her eardrums until it was a tangible, terrifying sound.

And finding that, she took comfort in Daiv’s keen, questing, ever-forward search for Him.

Down a long hallway they strode on catlike feet; a chamber they passed in which heaped dust outlined the seats and stools of Ancient Ones. Past a god-metal counter they walked, and saw within its confines not one but a half-dozen water fountains like that Daiv had wrenched from the wall of Ited-Ciga’s shrine.

Above their heads, from time to time, they glimpsed strange, magic pendants of green and red god-metal; beneath one of these was a greater marvel still—a pear-shaped ball with wire seeds coiled within. Transparent was the skin of this fruit, and slippery to the touch. Daiv tried to split it, hungering for a taste of its newness, but it exploded in his hands with a fearful pop! —and there was nothing but its stem and seeds!

The fruit itself had vanished, but the skin, as if angered, had bit Daiv’s palm until the blood flowed.

Meg blessed the wound, and begged forgiveness in a swift prayer to the gods of the harvest at having destroyed the magic pear.

And they went on.

Either side of the corridor through which they moved was lined with doorways. Into one of these they looked, believing He might have hid there, but the rooms were vacant except for strange, four-legged god-metal objects humped in the middle, on which reposed parasitic coils and twists of metal twined inextricably together. Dust lay over all, and in one room more carefully shuttered, barred and sealed than the others, they saw tatters of something like homespun covering the coils. But when Meg attempted to touch this, the wind from her motion swept the gossamer cloth into nothingness.

Aie, but it was a mighty and mysterious place, this altar of Slukes, where dwelt Him who steals away the breath! There were rooms in which reposed great urns and pans of god-metal; these rooms held, also, huge metal boxes with handles on the front, and their platters were crusted with flaked and ancient grease. Meg shuddered. “Here,” she whispered to Daiv, “He burnt the flesh of them He took.” In the same room was a massive white box with a door. Daiv opened this, and they saw within neat metal racks. “And here,” whispered Meg, “must He have stored the dwindled souls until again He hungered. But now He does not use this closet. I wonder why?”

And they went on.

Until at last, having climbed many flights of steps, Meg and Daiv came at last to the chamber they had been seeking. It lay on the story nearest the roof. Oh, but He was a methodical destroyer. The compartments in which he imprisoned His victims were all carefully labeled in the language. Contagious Ward, Infants’ Ward, Maternity Ward—all these Meg saw and read, and shuddered to recognize. And this, His holy of holies, was symbolized as His workroom by the sign, Operating Room.

Once it had been a high, lofted chamber; now it wore the roof of infinity, for some antique cataclysm had opened it to the skies. Crumbled plaster and shards of brick heaped the floor.

But in its center, beneath a gigantic weapon defying description or understanding, was His bed. It could be nothing else, for even now, upon it, lay the lately-slain body of a woman. Her face was a mask of frozen agony; His touch had drawn taut her throat muscles and arched her back in the final paroxysm. Her lifeless fingers gripped the sides of the bed in unrelaxing fervor.

And the room bore, amidst its clutter and confusion, unmistakable signs of recent habitation! The trappings of the newly slaughtered woman had been tossed carelessly into a corner, along with countless others. Feet, many feet, had beaten firm the rubble on the floor; in one corner, not too long since, had been a fire. And the blood that had gushed from the dead woman when her heart had been roughly hewn from her bosom still clotted the floor!

Meg cried, a little cry of terror and dismay.

“He is here, Daiv!”

Then all things happened at once. Her cry wakened ominous echoes in chambers adjacent to this. Daiv’s arm was about her, pulling her away. There came the patter of footsteps, voices lifted, and the door at the farther end of the room jerked open.

And Daiv cried, “Not only He, but His ghouls! Behind me, Golden One!” Then the deluge. A horde of Wild Ones of the same tribe as those whom they had fought two days before, charged into the room.

CHAPTER SIX

THERE WAS NO TAINT of cowardice in the heart of Meg the Mother. Had she any fault, it was that of excess bravery. Oft before had she proven this, to her own peril. This time, Daiv’s speed left her no opportunity to become a courageous sacrifice to His minions.

His quick eye measured the number of their adversaries, his battle-trained judgment worked instinctively. For an instant he hesitated, just long enough to strike down with flailing long sword the foremost of their attackers. Then he swept Meg backward with his mighty right arm, thrust her irresistibly toward a doorway at the other end of the room.

“Flee, Golden One!”

Meg had no choice. For Daiv was on her heels; his body a bulwark of defense against hers and a battering-ram of force. They reached the door, crashed it shut in the face of the charging ghouls. Daiv braced himself against it stanchly, his eyes sweeping the small chamber in which they found themselves.

“That!” he commanded. “And that other, Golden One. And that!”

His nods designated objects of furniture within the room; heavy, solid braces of god-metal. Meg bent to the task, and before Daiv’s strength could fail under the now clamorous pounding on the doorway, the portal was braced and secured with the massive frames that once had been chairs, a desk, a cabinet.

Now there was time for breathing and inspection of their refuge. And Meg’s soul sickened, seeing the trap into which they had let themselves.

“But, Daiv—there is no way out! There is but one door to the room. The one through which we entered!”

Daiv said, “There is a window—” and strode to it. She saw the swift, dazed shock that creased his brows, moved to his side and peered from the window.

It was an eagle’s aerie in which they stood! Down, down, down, far feet below, was the sun-lit courtyard of this building. But the wall was sheer and smooth as the jowls of lean youth; no crawling insect could have dared that descent.

Daiv looked at her somberly, and his arm crept about her.

“Since we cannot flee, we must outwait them, Golden One. If we cannot get out, they, at least, cannot get in.”

He did not mention the thought uppermost in his mind and in hers.

That their food pouches lay far below them, in the murky grotto of Be-Empty; that they had no water. And that the shortest of sieges would render them impotent before their adversaries.

For he was Daiv, known as He-who-would-learn. And even in this moment when things looked darkest, he was roused to curiosity by the chamber in which they were immured.

It was a small and cluttered room. More dusty than most, and that was odd, because it was not open to the dust-laden air.

But Daiv, questing, discovered the reason for this. The floor was gray not with rock dust, but with the fragments of things which—which—

“This is a great mystery, Meg. What are, or were, these things?”

Meg, too, had been staring about her. A faint suspicion was growing in her mind. She remembered a word she had heard but once in her life, and that when she was but a young girl, neophyte priestess under the former Mother.

“Shelves,” she whispered. “Many long shelves, all of water-hurt god-metal. Desks. And crumbled fragments of parchment.

“Daiv, long ago the Ancient Ones had houses, rooms, in which they kept, pressed flat between cloth and boards, parchment marked with the speech-without-words. These they called—” She cudgeled her brain for the elusive word. “These they called ‘lyberries.’ The flat scrolls were known as ‘books.’ This room must have been the lyberry of Slukes.”

“And in these books,” said Daiv in hallowed tones, “they kept their records?”

“Aie, more than that. In them they kept all their secret knowledge. The story of their spells and magic, and of their foretelling-of-dreams.”

Daiv groaned in pain as an unhappy-imp prodded his heart.

“We stand at the heart of their mysteries, but He who withers all has ripped their parchment into motes! Meg, it is a sad and bitter thing.”

He saw, now, that she spoke truth. For he pawed through the piles of rotted debris; in one spot he found a frayed leather oblong from which, as he lifted it, granules of charred black sifted. Once, again, he found a single bit of parchment marked with the language, but it fell into ten million bits at the touch of his fingers.

“There have been fire and flame in this room,” Meg said. “Water-hurt, and the winds of the ages. That is why no books remain. It must have happened in the wars, when the fire-eggs fell upon the building. Daiv! What are you doing?”

For Daiv, still pawing the ruins, had uncovered a large, metal cabinet deep-set in the wall. This alone seemed to have escaped, unhurt, whatever holocaust had destroyed all else. With a swift grunt of satisfaction, he was tearing at the handle of this cabinet.

“Don’t open it, Daiv! It is a forbidden thing! It may be a trick of the Ancient Ones. Of Him—”

But Meg’s warning was futile. For Daiv’s fumbling fingers had solved the secret of the antique lock; creaking in protest, the door swung open to reveal, in an unlighted chamber from which a faint, musty breath of wind stirred—booksl

Books! Books as Meg had described them. Books as Meg had learned of them from the lips of the elder Mother. Books, still encased in jackets of cloth and leather, unhurt through thrice five centuries of time, preserved, by a whim of the gods, in a locked and airless cabinet!

And again it became Meg’s lot to save Daiv’s life and soul, for he, manlike, impatient, paused not to placate the gods, but groped instantly for the nearest of the forbidden volumes.

Fervent were the prayers Meg made then, and swiftly, that the gods destroy him not for his eagerness. And she was rewarded graciously, for Daiv did not fall, mortally stricken, as he knelt there muttering over his find.

“Behold, Meg—the secrets of the Ancient Ones! Ah, Golden One, hurry —read to me! This speech-without-words is too mighty for my powers; only the knowledge of a Mother can tell its meaning. But, lo! here are drawings! Look, Golden One! Here is a man like me! But, behold, this is a mystery! The flesh has been stripped from his body, disclosing hordes of tiny red worms covering his carcass—but he still stands erect!

“And, see, Meg—here is a woman with white sheets of bandage about her head. What means this? And behold this man’s head! It lays open from front to back, but Meg, there is no village of tiny pain-imps, and like-imps and hate-imps dwelling within! Only red worms and blue, and inside his nostrils a sponge—”

Meg took the book with trembling hands. It was as Daiv said. Here were drawings without number of men and women who, their bodies dismembered horribly, still smiled and stood erect. Little arrows pierced them, and at the end of the arrows were feathers of the language, saying magic words. Ser-ratus magnus—Poupart’s ligament—transplyoric plane.

And the name of the book was “Fundamental Anatomy.”

In their moment of wild excitement, both Meg and Daiv had quite forgotten the danger of their situation. Now they were rudely reawakened to a memory of that danger. For the sounds outside the door of the lyberry, which had never quite ceased, now sharpened in tone. There came the sound of a voice raised in command, cries of labor redoubled, and with an echoing crash, something struck the door of their refuge!

The door trembled; the braces gave a fraction of an inch. And again the crash, the creak, the strain.

“A rarn! Daiv, they are forcing the door!”

Daiv the dreamer became, swiftly, Daiv the man of action. With a single bound he was on his feet, his sword in hand. His brows were anxious.

“Take you the right side of the door, Golden One; I will guard the other. When these ghouls burst in upon us, we shall split them like pea pods—”

But a great idea had been born to Meg.

Her face glowing with a sudden happy look, she spun to face her mate.

“No, Daiv. Open the door!”

“What? Golden One, has fear softened your brain?”

“Not my brain nor my heart, belovedl But do as I say! Look youl I am a Mother and a Priestess, is it not so?”

“Yes, but—”

“And I have just discovered a mighty secret. The secret of the knowledge of the Ancient Ones.”

“Still—” said Daiv.

“Would not even the underlings of Him,” cried Meg, “pay greatly for this knowledge? Open the door for them, my mate! We will parley with them or with Death, Himself, for an exchange. Our lives in payment for the sharing of this secret!” Daiv might have withstood her logic, but he could not refuse the eager demand of her eyes. Like a man bedazed, he moved to the door, started, scraping the bulwark away even as the horde outside continued their assault.

When he had almost completed, the door shook before imminent collapse—

“Stand you out of sight, Daiv. I would meet them face to face.”

And she took her post squarely before the door. In the hollow of her left arm she cradled the Book of Secrets. On her face was the smile of triumph, and a look of exalted glory. The door trembled; this time it split away from its hinges. Once more, now! Came the final crash, and—

“Hold!” cried Meg, the Priestess.

Through the oblong of the door, faces frightful with fury and blood lust, tumbled the ghouls of Death. Their hook-shaped scythes swung ready in their hands; a scream of triumph hovered on their lips. Hovered there— then trembled—then died!

And of a sudden, a miracle occurred. For the flame died from their eyes, their sword-arms fell, and as one man the attackers tumbled to their knees, groveling before Meg. A low muttering arose, was carried from man to man as the breath of the night wind is passed through the forest by the sad and whispering pines.

It was a murmur, then a cry, of fear and adoration.

“Mercy, O Goddess! Slay not your children, O Everlasting. O Goddess— great Goddess Salibbidyl”

CHAPTER SEVEN

NOT IN HER MOST HOPEFUL MOMENT HAD Meg expected so sudden and complete a victory as this.

For her plan she had entertained great hopes, true, but she had wagered her life and Daiv’s on the balance of an exchange. But here, suddenly, inexplicably, was utter capitulation. Surrender so complete that the leader of His warriors dared not even lift his eyes to meet hers as he slobbered his worship at her feet.

She glanced swiftly at Daiv, but for once Daiv had no knowledge in his eyes; they were as blank and questioning as her own.

Still, Meg was a Priestess and a Mother. She was a woman, too, and an opportunist. And instinct governed her actions.

She stepped to the leader’s side, touched his brow with cool fingers.

“Rise, O Man! Your Goddess gives you grace.”

The ghoul rose, shaken and fearful. His voice was the winnowed chaff of hope.

“Be merciful unto us, O Goddess. We did not know—we did not dream —we dared not hope for a Visitation.”

Meg chose her words carefully, delivered them as a Mother intones a sacred chant, in a tone calculated to inspire dreadful awe in the hearts of her listeners.

“You have sinned mightily, O Manl You have laid siege to the holy refuge of the Goddess. You have linberred and slain women of the Be-Empty Clan, a grievous deed. You have forgotten the Faith, and have bowed down in worship before Him, the arch-enemy, Death—”

“No, O Goddess!” The contradiction was humble but sincere. “These other sins we confess, but not this last! Never have we worshiped Him! Never!”

“You dwell in His citadel.”

“His citadel!” There was horror in the Wild One’s voice. “We did not know it was His, O sweet Salibbidy! We live many places as we journey through Loalnyawk. Today we rested here because we had a sacrifice to make unto thee; a woman unfit for mating whom we linberred last night.” His eyes pleaded with Meg’s. “Was the sacrifice unpleasing to thee, gracious Salibbidy?”

“It was foul in my nostrils,” said Meg sternly. “Her blood is a wound upon my heart. This is the law from this time henceforward! There shall be no more linberring or slaying of women. Instead, there shall be a new order. You shall go to the women and make peace. They will receive you with singing and soft hands, for unto them I have given the law.

“Together, you shall form a new city. They shall come out of the caverns of Be-Empty. You and they shall reclaim the hoams of the Ancient Ones. When again I visit the village of Loalnyawk, I shall expect to see men and women living together in peace and harmony as it was in the days of old.

“Do you understand the law?”

“Yes, mighty Goddess!” The cry rose from each man.

“You will obey it?”

“We will obey it, sweet Salibbidy.”

“Then go in peace, and sin no more.”

The vanquished worshipers, intoning prayers of thanksgiving, crawled backward from the chamber. When the last had disappeared, and they were again alone, Meg turned to her mate. His strong arms soothed the belated trembling of her body.

“Fear not, Golden One,” he whispered. “Today have you performed a miracle. In bloodless victory you have borne the Revelation to the last out-post. To the accursed and forbidden city of the Ancient Ones. To the stronghold of Him.”

“But they said they did not worship Him, Daiv! And they dared not lie, believing me their Goddess. If He does not rule them, if He reigns not here, then where is He, Daiv? And why did they accept me as their Goddess? Why?”

Daiv shook his head. This was unimportant now, he thought. It was sufficient that the enemy had been overcome. There were great things to do. He returned to his cabinet, and drew from it its precious store of books—

Afterward, in the hoam of Alis, Meg learned part of the answer to her questions. When she had told Alis what had happened, and received the Mother’s pledge to accept the Wild Ones’ envoys in peace and good will, she told again of their sudden surrender.

“I sought but to parley with them, Mother Alis. At the door I stood, and thus I stood, waiting calmly—”

She struck the pose. Book cradled in her arm, the other arm lifted high above her head, chin lifted proudly.

And then Alis nodded. But in her eyes, too, came unexpectedly a worship-look, and she whispered brokenly, “Now I understand, O Goddess who chooses to call herself Meg, the Mother. From the beginning I felt your sanctity. I should have known then—”

She rose, led Meg to the surface above Be-Empty, now no longer forbidden territory to the women. Once there had been many and great buildings here, but ancient strife had stricken them as the whirlwind hews a path through solid woodland.

Far to the southward, where the green ocean waters met the creet shores of Loalnyawk there was a figure, dimly visible. But not so dimly visible that Meg and Daiv could not recognize it.

“There is thy image, sweet Salibbidy,” whispered the Mother, Alis. “Still it stands, as it did in the days of the Ancient Ones. Forever will it stand, and you remain the Goddess of broad Tizathy.”

Meg cried petulantly, “Alis, do not call me by this name, Salibbidy! I am Meg, Mother of the Jinnia Clan. Like yourself, a woman—”

A smile of mysterious understanding touched Alis’ lips.

“As you will—Mother Meg,” she said.

But it was strange that her head should still be bowed—

Thus it was, that with the breaking of the new dawn over the creet walls of Loalnyawk, Meg and Daiv said farewell to these friends and converts, and turned their faces south and west to the remembered green hills of Jinnia.

Nor was this a sad parting. An envoy of the men had come this morning; long had he and the Mother parleyed, and an understanding had been reached. As ever, there were women who demurred, and women who disapproved—but Meg had seen a young maiden looking with gentle, speculative eyes upon the envoy. And a grim warrior had spoken with unusually gentle warmth to one of the envoy’s guards—a bristle-jowled man of fighting mold.

These things would take care of themselves, thought Meg. The new order would come about, inevitably, because the men and women, both, would wish it so—

Then the last farewell had been spoken, the final blessing given. And once more Meg and Daiv were striding the long highway to Jinnia.

Daiv was strangely silent. And strangely inattentive, too, for he was attempting a difficult task. Trying to march without watching the road before him. His eyes were in one of the many books he had brought with him; the others he wore like a huge hump on his back. He stumbled for the hundredth time, and while Meg helped him reset the pack on his shoulders she said, ruefully:

“There is but one thing I regret, Daiv! Much we accomplished, but not that one thing we came to do. We found not Him, nor destroyed Him, as we willed. And our problem is still great, for ever and again will He pluck the ripest from our harvest of living.”

But Daiv shook his head.

“Not so, Golden One.”

“No?”

“No, my Priestess. It has come to me that we have more than fulfilled our mission. For you see—”

Daiv looked at the sky and the trees and the clouds that floated above. He took a deep breath, and the air was sweet. Life flowed strongly and true in his veins, and the knowledge he was eking, laboriously, from the magical books was potent liquid in his brain.

“You see, Golden One, we were wrong. He does not, nor ever did, live in Loalnyawk. He has no hoam, for He is everywhere, waiting to claim those who violate His barriers.”

Meg cried bitterly, “Then, Daiv, we are forever at His mercy! If He cannot be found and destroyed—”

“He cannot be slain, Meg—and that is well. Else the crippled, the sick, the mad, would live forever, in endless torment. But He can be fought— and in these books it tells the ways in which to do battle with Him.

“They are not the ways of magic, Golden One. Or of any magic you know. These are new ways we must study. These magics are called by strange names—serum, and vaccination, and physic. But the way of each is told in these books. One day we shall understand all the mysteries, and Death’s hand will be stayed.

“Boiled water He fears, and fresh air, and cleanliness. We shall not fight Him with swords and stones, but with sunshine and fresh water and the soap of boiled fats. For so it was in the old days—”

And a great vision was in Daiv’s eyes; a vision Meg saw there, and, seeing, read with wonder. Of a day to come when men and women, hand in hand, should some day climb again to assail the very heights lost by the madness of the Ancient Ones.

His shoulder touched hers, and the day was warm and the road long. Meg was afire with impatience to get back to Jinnia, to bring this new knowledge to her clan. But there was other fire within her, too, and the message could wait a little while if she and Daiv tarried in the cool of a leafy tree.

Her hands met his and clung, and she turned her lips to his in the touch-ing-of-mouths. She was Meg, and he was Daiv, and they were man and woman. And the grass was soft and cool.

So, too, it was in the old days—