I knew that Zacat had also seen what lay plain before us and that he too was sifting and weighing impressions gained on the morning tour. We sat together at dinner in the eating hall but there was little talk between us until we had finished and I turned to him.
"Well?"
He shook his head. "What man can discipline shadows? What I have seen here is but what I face in Ru. And what advice have I to give when I cannot put my own house in order? But I swear upon the Sword Hand of On Himself, lad, that in this I am with you to the end, be that what it may. Now let us go to this palace of yours, since you are so determined upon it.”
We sought my dressing room and there got ourselves into rich but inconspicuous undress uniforms, for I hoped to conceal our identity if I might. Anatan had been warned to do likewise and, after I had fastened a pouch heavy with the bar-like coins of the city to my belt, we found him outside the door, breathing hard through pure excitement.
"Hold in mind," I cautioned him, "that we must remain unknown if possible and tonight we are on duty. Do not allow yourself to be seperated from us and, above all, keep a quiet tongue between your teeth."
"To hear is to obey, Lord."
I took one last look about me. Some inner sense must have warned me that it would be long before I returned down that corridor. "Let us go."
On the landing stage a plain flier, unmarked by any betraying insignia, awaited us and we climbed in. Anatan took the controls and we arose in lazy spirals from the military quarter. According to my aide, we must land on the public stage adjoining the palace, as only regular and well-known habitues were allowed the privilege of using the private stage on its roof.
Zacat protested this strongly but my desire for secrecy led me to overrule him, to my regret. A few moments later the violet lamps of the public stage were below us and Anatan set the flier down. The attendant approached to wave us into line with the other ships and accept the fee Anatan had ready for his hand. Zacat and I kept in the background, our helmets pulled far down so that their bird-like beaks overshadowed our faces.
Anatan pouched the receipt for the ship and we sought the ramp which led down to the street level. There, without being noticed, we slipped into the throng. Yu-Lac was always at its best after nightfall. Then did the rhythm of its life grow loud and full, an illusion of carefree gaiety cloaking the idle pastimes of the city dwellers.
"To the right," Anatan guided us.
I literally gasped when I beheld our objective for the first time. Wealth must have been poured forth like water to create the dream which stood before us. The walls, carved with beasts and flowers, were of a creamy crystal faintly flushed with rose which shaded to deep saffron at the foundations.
The broad portal was open according to regulations but a thin shimmering curtain veiled the delights within from the eyes of the casual passerby. On the twelve rose steps leading up to it lounged the bodyguards and serving men wearing the liveries of a half dozen or more of the wealthiest lords of the city. All castes save the military were represented.
A slim brown slave girl, with the slanting, provocative eyes of a Teriation, stood waiting to draw the curtain for our passage. She flashed a sly and impish grin at me.
"So you favor us tonight, Lord Garan?"
My faint hope of secrecy was gone.
"Aye, moon-flower. Shall a humble warrior of the Fleet be barred from partaking of your joys?"
"Never!" She laughed strangely. Then, plucking from her girdle one of those flute-like whistles of her native desert land, she blew a low sweet note.
A slender white hand slipped through the curtain and beckoned us within. The Teriation smiled.
'The guide awaits you, my Lord. Enter."
With my two companions I passed through the slit in the curtain.
Chapter Four
Ila and Lania
The square entrance hall in which we found ourselves was lighted with a mellow yellow glow from one of the new sun lamps. A broad archway, veiled in purple shot with metallic green, faced us. With hand upon the folds of this curtain stood our waiting guide, a maid from the ice-bound shores of Northern Ahol. Her slight limbs were swathed in amber silk and wide bands of soft copper confined her breast and waist. The artfully tangled mass of her red-gold hair concealed all but a thin white wedge of her face.
At our entrance she sank forward to her knees and touched her hands, palm down, to the pavement "Will the noble Lords be pleased to follow me?" Her voice was thin but shrilly sweet.
Zacat plucked at my arm. "They seem to take too much pleasure in our company, lad. I feel as if we were walking into the mouth of a sapt cage."
I pressed his fingers in warning. But I too felt a tingle awaken my flesh. His illustration was apt. Only three days before had I witnessed a worn-out and aged grippon being coaxed along the ramp which led to the cage of a giant sapt. And he had gone willingly enough to his end, trusting the men who urged him on.
The girl held back the curtain. Without hesitation I entered.
Like a golden bowl, carved to meet the lips of some mountain godling, was the room in which we found ourselves. It was oval in shape, ringed by twenty archways like the one through which we had come, each curtained by a sheet of bewildering and melting color. Overhead the walls domed sharply into a cone, the point of which was open to the stars.
From where we stood the floor sank down, by a series of wide steps completely encircling the room. In the center of this nest of ever-narrowing rings was a shallow oval pit from which arose lazy strings of colored, scented vapor. The massive steps were crowded with heaps of priceless metallic fabrics, flagons of gem-set stone, tiny tables heaped with dainties. And here lounged most of those who had preceded us, ministered to by the beauties of the palace.
And they were beautiful. Never before had I seen all the race types produced beneath Krand's sun assembled together, each startling in her loveliness. Like the brown-skinned Teriation at the outer door and the white Aholian at my side, each was a perfect specimen of her race.
I heard Anatan draw a deep breath and Zacat chuckle.
"A pleasure to loot, this place," the latter observed dryly. "It is not hard to understand why these palaces are barred to those below the rank of wing officer. A few of my Ruian lads in here—"
"By the Breath of Zant," broke in Anatan, "look to that maid in black. Have you ever seen her like?"
He pointed to one of the Lapidian cave dwellers. Her hair, bleached to bone whiteness by the generations her people have dwelt away from the light, was wreathed around her proud head in heavy coils. From throat to heel she was wrapped in dead black, but her white arms were naked to the shoulder. She was a striking and outstanding figure as she moved slowly through the ranks of her more brightly-robed companions.
"Would you linger here, my Lords? Or are you for the inner courts, perhaps?" the Aholian asked softly when we had looked our fill.
'The inner courts," I answered quickly before Anatan could protest.
We followed her around the uppermost step from which opened the twenty curtained archways. Anatan tugged at my cloak, whispering: "Ask to see the Lady of the Palace. It is customary to do so upon the first visit."
Wondering where he had gained his knowledge, I obeyed his instructions. The Aholian nodded and immediately pulled aside a flame and silver hanging at another door. Many were the wonders through which we passed. I remember one room that was walled with transparent crystal behind which swam living monsters from the outer seas, queer things with phosphorescent bodies or jaws gleaming in the dim light. And there were other chambers as strange or as weirdly beautiful.
Then at length we came into a small room, white-walled and floored. But the dome was lacquered night-black, studded with great stars of crystal. Here on a couch of vivid scarlet rested the one who was ruler of all this maze of color.
By her dress and heavily painted face she was a woman of Arct. In contrast to her maids outside she was hideously plain. Thin to the point of emaciatio
n, her sheath-like covering of silver net revealed every bone and hollow. Her face was thickly enameled after the fashion of her country, huge purple circles about her sunken eyes, orange slashes for lips and the rest flat white.
But her glorious hair was her claim to a place in that palace of charm. Black and very long, it was undisfigured by any fastenings or pins, rippling in freedom down to lie upon the floor when she was seated.
However, it was not at the ruler of the pleasure palace that I stared open-mouthed in amazement, but at the man who lolled, thick-tongued and sprawling at her feet. Thran of Gorl, a two-handled wine cup in his unsteady hands, leered at me. Dragging upon her couch for support, he rose waveringly to his feet.
"Other friends of yours, Da? But then I cannot complain if others seek your company, can I? Your sweetness is not mine alone, alas. But may I stay a while or must I go?"
She shook her head and the eyes she turned upon us were chill with unfriendliness. "Stay, my Lord. As for you, my Lord strangers, I bid you welcome to my domain. But whisper your desires into Lania's ears and what you wish shall be set before you." She motioned toward the Aholian. So negligently did she dismiss us.
Thran laughed jeeringly and swayed toward me. "This sweet is not for your plucking, soldier. Go search other gardens for your spoil."
Something clicked faintly against the throat buckle of my cloak and fell down into the folds of my sash. Playing the abashed boor, I edged myself and my companions out of the chamber, leaving Ha and her lordling to the solitude they so desired.
My fingers touched Anatan's shoulder and I put my lips close to his ear.
"You amuse this Lania for the moment."
He glanced at me quickly and then slipped forward to keep pace with the glide of the Aholian handmaid. I fumbled in my sash and drew forth an oval silver bead the size of my thumb. A moment's inspection under the direct rays of one of the corridor lights revealed the faint line of cleavage about its middle. I was familiar enough with such devices for the safekeeping of secret messages. A single twirl of my fingers separated it into halves and then I was unrolling a bit of writing silk. It read:
In the Room of the Grippons. One hour from now. Trust no one here.
In silence I passed the note to Zacat. He scanned the single line and then grinned wolfishly. "We seem to have bayed upon a hot scent after all, Garan. The Room of the Grippons it is. Now it lies with us to play the roisters. Your boy Anatan will aid us there."
It gave me a twinge of uneasiness when I looked up to see Anatan's dark head so close to the golden one of the Aholian. For it was plain to the most stupid beholder that they had reached some understanding and were embarking upon a flirtation. The boy must be warned not to play the fool now.
I quickened my steps and came up to them. By displaying the manners of a pothouse bully I shouldered Anatan away and hailed his companion brusquely. "How now, mistress. We have paid our duty to your lady, now lead us to your haven of joys. Set your wonders before us."
Anatan was about to protest my unseemly behavior when, using a fold of my cloak as a blind, I thrust Thran's message into his hand. A tug at my back informed me that he had read and understood.
"What would you, my Lords?" asked Lania, sweedy submissive. "Wines? We have the best. Heady white vintages of Ru, rich purple streams from Hoi, golden from Koom —and others in abundance. Dancers to amuse you? In one of our halls the golden maids from the forbidden temples of Qur tread the mystic mazes of the olden gods, the like to be seen nowhere else in all Yu-Lac. Or do you wish companions for the evening? A girl from the deserts of Teriatia, as hard to withstand as one of her country's fierce winds, a Lapidian of the silver hair and passionate lips, a woman of Arct with all the pleasing city vices at her' command? All nations, all natures have we here."
"The temple dancers," selected Zacat quickly and I applauded his choice for, of the three Lania had given us, that seemed the least likely to involve us in future difficulties.
Without a word she turned into a cross corridor which soon became a ramp leading downward. Then for the first time I saw a shade of uneasiness cloud Zacat's face. Anatan was definitely sober and walked a little behind, as if he had his doubts of our enterprise. At the time I believed him sulking, but later I learned that he had good reason to distrust our hasty choice of evening entertainment. Hoi borders the tropic jungle land of Qur and he suspected what lay at the foot of that ill-omened ramp.
Although Krand was united in the worship of On and had been so united for centuries, yet there still persisted in such primitive nations as Qur and Ru temples to the olden gods, those dark entities our people worshiped before they dragged themselves up out of the pit of the beast. I, myself, knew very little concerning these forbidden and now secret practices; in fact, few but the adepts did. And of those adepts Qur was the last stronghold.
A thin piping, so high in scale that our human ears could barely distinguish its notes, broke the silence. And with that piping came a low throbbing, as if air, dead and heavy with the weight of untold years, were pulsing out the measure of some unhuman rhythm.
Zacat hesitated suddenly, shuffling his feet and changing step. "Rhythm—hypnotic control," he murmured. "Do not surrender to it."
Anatan, too, was constantly changing step, from stride to shuffle and back. Clumsily I began to follow their example. The ramp seemed to run down into the depths of Krand itself and there was no break in its smooth polished walls. The ever-glowing lights, placed at intervals in the roof above our heads, changed gradually in shade from warm gold to icy blue and then to a sort of misty gray. But still the strange shrill piping and the deep throbbing marked the measure of our steps while we hopped and shuffled to escape its binding spell. But Lania went onward unconcerned, without a backward glance.
At last we came out into a sort of anteroom floored and walled with dull gray. Lania lifted up her high voice in a wailing cry and at once a section of the wall moved inward exposing the darkness beyond.
"A precaution we must take." Lania nodded toward the secret door. "Some of our enchantments are not for common eyes."
Through the slit-like door the weird music came louder, sounds which seemed to have some strange life and being of their own. The Aholian passed within and we followed, but Zacat, always quick of wit, snapped loose his sheathed sword and placed it in the crack of the door so that it remained open a good two inches.
We were in utter blackness, a darkness so thick that it seemed a tangible veil. A hand touched mine and my fingers closed about Anatan's gemmed wristlet. A moment later I heard Zacat's heavy breathing at my right.
"Wait and watch, soldiers." There was faint subtle mockery in Lania's voice.
The strange and broken rhythm was growing louder, menacing. "Move your fingers, your hands, in opposition to it," whispered Anatan. I felt his wrist twist free from my grasp. Obediently I strove to carry out his suggestion.
Then, out of the darkness above us, came a single ray of light, green and yet gray. A light which seemed the corrupting emanation of something vilely and anciently dead. There was a scheming wary evil in that light. As we watched it, fascinated, winged shapes of gold swam into and through it, circling ever downward until at last they touched a black pavement, the blocks of which might have been hewn in the quarries of that Elder Race, they who held Krand before human foot touched its surface.
The great golden wings drooped, closed, and were gone as if their wearers no longer had any use for them. Then the fifteen shapes of living yellow began their dance. Wild and beautiful, yet full of an age-old meaning which was utterly evil, was that dance. Each pose of seductive invitation, each gliding step, seemed aimed to draw out of the depths of the watcher that darker part of him which is his heritage from the beasts.
When I sensed this, I fought with every ounce of strength within me to master those far in-dwelling thoughts and passions which the dancers recalled with their weaving spell. Before me I saw again the blood-drenched streets of Ulal when we sacked it,
and all that chanced therein when, drunk with bloodlust, we poured into the city which had withstood our might for so long. And there were things done that day—
I clutched in the dark at my companions. "Come, let us out of here!" I cried. I felt them awaken under my hands as if they were shaking themselves free of some numbing dream. And then we turned and fled from the sight of those golden dancers and the evil web they were weaving about us.
Setting our fingers in the crack of the hidden door we tore it open. Zacat retrieved his sword and then we were on the ramp, eyes strained and staring, hearts pounding as if we were engaged in a race which was taxing us to the very limit of our strength. We were halfway up when an amber shadow joined us.
"The dancers are strong meat, soldiers." Again mockery overlay Lania's tones. "Too strong for you, it seems."
I rounded on her, half in earnest, half playing the role I had set myself. "Give us no more of your devilish mysteries. We wish human pleasures, not those subscribed to by night demons!"
"To hear is to obey, Lord. What do you say to a quiet supper in a private room—with suitable companions in attendance?"
"That will do, mistress," Zacat growled acceptance.
With the air of knowing well how to please us, she led the way through a maze of turning, twisting corridors and elaborate chambers until we came into a small, but fanciful, room done in steely blue. Four life-sized figures quartered the hemisphere that was dome and wall. Great, gray grip-pons they were, rearing as though in anger.
I did not need Zacat's sudden grip upon my arm to tell me where I was. We stood in the room Thran had appointed for our meeting place.
There was a low divan at the far end of the chamber and there Lania bid us seat ourselves while she went to give orders for our serving. But as she was going she looked full into my face.