“No, game is plentiful in and around the lake, as you’ve seen. Guess again.”
“By the number of torches you could readily prepare, whose light the two would need in order to do your bidding?”
“No, the preparation of torches proved in no way inconvenient.”
Tarra frowned. “Then in what way limited?”
He heard Dyzm’s gurgly, self-satisfied sigh. “I cannot be sure,” he finally said. “It was only…something that my friend in the sulphur pits warned me about.”
“Oh?”
“Aye, for I also had it from him—in his dying breath, mind you, which was a deep one—that the ancient race of kings whose tombs and treasures these were, had set certain guardians over their sepulchres and sarcophagi, and that even now the protective spells of long-dead wizards were morbidly extant and active. Which is to say that the place is cursed, Tarra Khash, and that the longer you stay down there—in what you will shortly discover to be a veritable labyrinth of tombs—the more immediate the horror!”
IV
Horror? And the Hrossak cared for that word not at all! Nor on this occasion did he doubt the veracity of what Dyzm had said: it would explain why the pool and country around had not been settled. Nomads and hill men alike were wary of such places, as well they might be. Finally he found voice: “And the nature of this doom?”
“Who can say?” Dyzm replied. “Not I, for the two who went before you did not live to tell me. But they did tell me this: that in a certain tomb are twin statues of solid gold, fashioned in the likeness of winged krakens not unlike the dripstone idols of these cavern antechambers. And having loaded three half-buckets of treasure for me, they went off together to fetch me one of these statues; their last trip, as would have been. Alas, they returned not… But you need a fresh torch, Hrossak, for that one dies.” He let fall a fat faggot and Tarra quickly fired it.
“Now then,” Dyzm continued in a little while, “this is what I propose. Find for me that tomb and fetch me a kraken of gold, and that will suffice.”
“Suffice?”
“I shall then be satisfied that you are a sincere man and worthy to be my partner in future ventures. And when I have the statue, then shall I lower the ladder and we’ll be off to Chlangi together, and so on to Klühn.”
Tarra could not keep from laughing, albeit a mite hysterically. “Am I to believe this? Fool I am, Hadj Dyzm—great fool, as you’ve well proved—but such a fool?”
“Hmm!” Dyzm gruffly mused. He dropped more torches. “Well, think it over. I can wait awhile. How long the demon guardians will wait is a different matter. Meanwhile: ‘ware below!—I lower the bucket.” And down came the bucket on the end of its rope.
Tarra at once tugged at the rope, testing it, and as the bucket came to rest upon the floor he swung himself aloft, climbing by strength of his arms alone. Man-high he got—and not an inch higher. With soft, twangy report rope parted, and down crashed Hrossak atop bucket and all. “Ow!” he complained, getting upon his feet.
Above, Dyzm chuckled. “Ow, is it?” he said. “Worse than that, Tarra Khash, if the rope had held! Did you think I’d sit here and do nothing until you popped up out of the hole? I’ve a knife here you could shave with, to cut you or rope or both. Oh, I know, ’twas desperation made you try it. Well, you’ve tried and failed, so an end to tomfooleries, eh? Now I’ll lower the rope some and you can make a knot; after which you can get off and find me my kraken statue. But a warning: any more heroics and I’ll make you
fetch both!”
“Very well,” Tarra answered, breathing heavily, “—but first tell me something. Right here, a pace or two away, lies a great stone box of treasure. Doubtless your two dragged it here for you. Now tell me: why were its contents never hauled aloft?”
“Ah!” said Dyzm. “That would be their fourth haul, when they told me about the statues. I had forgotten.”
“So,” said the Hrossak, nodding, “returning with this box—their fourth haul and not the third, as you first alleged—these idiots told you about the golden, winged kraken idols, so that you spurned this latest haul in favour of the greater marvel they described. Is that it?”
“Something like that, aye. I’m glad you reminded me. Perhaps before you get off searching you’d like to—”
“I would not like to!” answered Hrossak hotly. “It’s either contents of this box or one of these damned idols—if I can find ’em—but not both. Which, I rather fancy, is what they told you, too.”
Hadj Dyzm was peeved. “Hmm!” he grumbled. “Perhaps you’re not so daft after all, Hrossak. But…I’ve set my heart on an idol, and so you’d better be off, find and fetch it.”
“Not so fast,” said Tarra. “Your word before I go: you will fetch me up, when I return with the statue?” (Even though he knew very well that Hadj Dyzm would not.)
“My word,” said the other, very gravely.
“So be it,” said the Hrossak. “Now, which way do I go?”
“I was right after all,” said Dyzm. “You are daft—and deaf to boot! How should I know which way you must go? I would suggest you follow prints on dusty floor, as so recently you followed mine…”
V
A little while later Tarra knew exactly what the fox had meant by a labyrinth. Following sandal prints in the dust, he moved from cavern to cavern, and all of them alike as cells in a comb of honey. A veritable necropolis, this place, where bones were piled about the walls in terrible profusion, and skulls heaped high as a man’s waist. Not all dead kings, these ossified remains; no, for most wore fetters about their ankles, or heaps of rust where ages had eaten the metal away. And about their shoulders small wooden yokes turned almost to stone; and each skeleton right hand with its little finger missing, to mark him (or her) as property of the king.
Tarra wrinkled his nose. They had been savages in those days, he thought, for all their trappings of civilization, their carving and metal-moulding, their love of jewellery, their long-forgotten death-rituals, of which these bones formed the merest crumbling relics. Still, no time to ponder the ways of men whose race was old when the desert was young; there was much to be done, and not all of Hrossak’s searching concerned with golden idols, either!
Tarra Khash remembered all too clearly the years he’d spent trapped in Nud Annoxin’s well-cell in Thinhla. Hah!—he’d never thought to be in just such predicament again. And yet now…? Well, life is short enough; it was not Tarra’s intention to spend the rest of his down here. Ideas were slowly dawning, taking shape in his brain like wraiths of mist over fertile soil as he pondered the problem.
Shuddering a little (from the cold of the place, he told himself, for he had not brought his blanket with him), he passed through more of the domed caves, always following the print tracks where they were most dense—but to one side of them, so that his own trail would be clear and fresh—and knowing that these ways had been explored before. At least he had something of an advantage in that; but they, his predecessors, had had each other’s company. Company?—in this place of death Tarra would be satisfied right now by sight of rat, let alone fellow man!
His predecessors… He wondered what fate had overtaken them. Aye, and perhaps he’d soon enough find that out, too.
But for now—if he could only find something to use as grapple. And something else as rope. For the fox couldn’t sit up there forever. He too must eat and drink. Grapple and rope, aye—but what to use? A long golden chain, perhaps? No, too soft and much too heavy, and all other metal doubtless rotten or rusted utterly away. And Tarra aware with every passing moment, as ideas were first considered, then discarded, that the “guardians” of this place—if they weren’t merely frighteners conjured out of Hadj Dyzm’s own imagination—might even now be waking.
Such were his thoughts as he came by light of flaring fagot into a central chamber large by comparison as that of a queen at the centre of her hive. A queen, or a king, or many such. For here the walls had been cut into deep niches, and each
niche containing a massy sarcophagus carved from solid rock, and all about these centuried coffins the floor strewn with wealth untold!
But in the middle of this circular, high-domed cavern, there reposed the mightiest tomb of all: a veritable mausoleum, with high marble ceiling of its own held up by fluted marble columns, and an entrance guarded by—
Guarded? The word was too close to “guardian” to do a lot for Tarra’s nerves. But like it or not the tomb was guarded—by a pair of golden krakens, wings and all, seated atop onyx pedestals, one on each side of the leering portal. Somewhat awed (for this must surely be the last resting place of the greatest of all these ancient monarchs) the Hrossak moved forward and stuck his torch in the rib-cage of a skeleton where it lay at the foot of the pedestal on the left…stuck it there and slowly straightened up, felt gooseflesh crawl on naked arms and thighs and back—and leapt backward as if fanged by viper!
Long moments Tarra stood there then, in torchlight flickering, with heart pounding, longing to flee full tilt but nailed to the spot as if his feet had taken root in solid rock. And all the while his gaze rapt upon that cadaver whose ribs supported the hissing brand, that skeleton which even now wore ragged robe, upon whose bony feet were leather sandals of the sort that had made those recent prints in dust of ages!
The Hrossak took a breath—and another—and forced his hammering heart to a slower pace and the trembling of his limbs to marble stillness. And breathing deeply a third time, he slowly crouched and leaned forward, studying morbid remains more closely. The bones were burned as from some mordant acid. In places their surfaces were sticky and shiny-black with tarry traces, possibly burnt and liquefied marrow. Tatters of skin still attached, but so sere and withered as to be parchment patches, and the skull…that was worst of all.
Yawning jaws gaped impossibly wide in frozen scream, and torch-flung shadows shifted in empty sockets like frightened ghosts of eyes. Still crouching, shuddering, Tarra took up his torch and held it out at arm’s length toward the other pedestal. As he had suspected (without, as yet, knowing why he suspected), a second skeleton, in much the same condition, sprawled beneath the other kraken. And again the word “guardians” seemed to echo in Hrossak’s head.
But the images were only of gold, not loathsome flesh and alien ichor, and even were they alive—if they were, indeed, the guardians—their size would hardly make them a threat. Why, they were little more than octopuses, for all the goldsmith’s loathsome skill!
Tarra gazed into sightless golden eyes, glanced at wings folded back, laid his hands upon tentacles half-lifted, apparently in groping query. Cold gold, in no wise threatening. And yet it seemed to the Hrossak there was a film of moisture, of some nameless tomb-slime, on the surface of the metal, making it almost slippery to the touch. That wouldn’t be much help when it came to carrying the thing. And if he could not find means to manufacture grapnel and rope, then for certain he must put his faith in Hadj Dyzm—initially, anyway.
He moved round behind the pedestal, closed his arms about the belly of the idol until his hands clasped his elbows, lifted. Heavy, aye, but he thought it would fit into the bucket. Only…would the rope be strong enough?
Rope! And again a picture of rope and grapple burned on the surface of his mind’s eye. Tarra eased the idol back onto its pedestal, bent down and tore at the tatters which clothed the mysteriously slain cadaver. At his touch they crumbled away. Whatever it was seared the bones—seared the flesh from those bones—it had also worked on the coarse cloth. No, he could hardly make a rope out of this rotten stuff; but now he had a better idea. Dyzm himself would furnish the rope!
First, however—
He checked his torch, which was beginning to burn a trifle low, then turned toward the open door of the sepulchre. This was sheer curiosity, he knew—and he minded what Hadj Dyzm had said of curiosity—but still he had to know what sort of king it was whose incarceration in some dim bygone age had warranted mass slaughter in and about these tomb-caves.
Pausing before the high, dark portal, he thrust out torch before him and saw within—
No carven coffin here but a massive throne, and seated thereon a shrivelled mummy all of shiny bone and leather, upright and proud and fused to marble seat by nameless ages. Indeed, the very fossil of a thing. A thing, aye, for the huge creature was not and never had been human.
Entering, Tarra approached a throne whose platform was tall as his chest, staring up at what in its day must have been a fearsome sight. Even now the thing was terrifying. But…it was dead, and dead things can hurt no one. Can they?
He held his torch high.
The mummy was that of a lizard-man, tall, thin and long headed; with fangs curving down from fleshless jaws, and leathern chin still sprouting a goatlike beard of coarse hair; and upon its head a jewelled pschent, and in its talon of a hand a sceptre or knobby wand of ebony set with precious stones.
So this had been the living creature whose likeness Tarra had seen carved from the dripstone of the upper caves. Also, it had been a king of kings, and crueller far than any merely human king. He looked again at the wand. A fascinating thing. The Hrossak reached up his hand to jewelled, ebony rod, giving it a tug. But it was now one with dry claw, welded there by time. He tugged harder—and heard from behind him a low rumble!
In the next split second several things…
First: Tarra remembered again his dream of a great slab door slamming shut. Then: he saw that in fact the wand was not held fast in claw but attached by golden link to a lever in the arm of the throne. Finally: even thinking these thoughts he was hurling himself backward, diving, slithering out of tomb on his belly as the door, falling in an arc from the inner ceiling, came thundering down. Then Tarra feeling that monstrous counterbalanced slab brushing his heels, and its gongy reverberations exactly as he had dreamed them!
His torch had gone flying, skittering across the floor in a straight line; but now, its impetus spent, it rolled a little in the dust. This had the effect of damping the flame. Still rolling, it flickered lower, came to rest smoking hugely from a dull red knob. The darkness at once crept in…
Ignoring his fear (snarling like a great hound at his back) Hrossak leapt to the near-extinguished brand, gathered it up, spun with it in a rushing, dizzy circle. This had the double effect of creating a protective ring about himself in the sudden, gibbering darkness, and of aerating the hot heart of the faggot, which answered by bursting into bright light. The shadows slunk back, defeated.
Panting, fighting to control mind and flesh alike, for this last close call had near unmanned him, the Hrossak suddenly found himself angry. Now berserker he was not—not in the way of the blood-crazy Northmen of the fjords—but when Tarra Khash was roused he really was roused. Right now he was mad at himself for ignoring his own instincts in the first place, mad at whichever ancient architect had designed this place as death-trap, mad at his predicament (which might yet prove permanent), but most of all mad at the miserable and much-loathed Hadj Dyzm, who must now be made to pay for all. Nor was Hrossak temper improved much by the fact that the skin of his hands, arms and chest had now commenced to itch and burn terribly, an affliction for which he could find no good cause or reason unless—
—unless nothing!—for these were precisely the areas of his person which he had pressed against the golden kraken idol!
Was that vile metallic sweat he had noticed upon the thing some sort of stinging acid, then? Some poison? If so, patently the centuries had detracted from its potency. Before striding from the main chamber and following his own trail toward the entrance shaft, Tarra stooped, scooped up dust, layered it upon the stinging areas. Also, he glanced once more at the golden idols.
They crouched, gleaming, upon their pedestals exactly as before…and yet somehow—different? Were they not, perhaps, more upright? Did their eyes not seem about to pop open? Had their tentacles not stretched outward fractionally, perhaps threateningly, and was not the sheen of slime upon their metal surfaces tha
t much thicker and slimier?
The Hrossak snorted. So much for a wild imagination! But enough of that, now he must put his plan into action without delay. This place was dangerous; something hideous had happened to the men who came here before him; time was wasting and there could well be other horrors down here which as yet Tarra knew nothing about. He returned quickly to where the bucket lay upon the floor at the end of its rope.
“Ho!” came Hadj Dyzm’s harsh greeting as Tarra fired a fresh torch. “And where’s my idol, Hrossak?”
Tarra looked up. Dyzm’s evil face peered down from the ceiling hole, but anxiously, Tarra thought. “Oh, I’ve found your damned idols, foxy one,” he called up, “and nearly came to grief doing it! This place is booby trapped, and I was very nearly the booby!”
“But the idol,” Dyzm pressed, “Where is it?”
Tarra thought fast. “Three things,” he said. “First: the kraken idols lie on a lower level. Not deep, but impossible to scale carrying idol. Second: I have a solution for first. Third: as you’ve seen, I had to return for a fresh torch.”
“Clown!” snapped Dyzm. “Waster of time! Why did you not take spare faggots with you?”
“An oversight,” Tarra agreed. “Do you want to hear my solution?”
“Get on with it.”
“I need hauling gear—namely, a rope.”
“What’s this?” Dyzm was suspicious.
“To hoist idol up from below,” Tarra lied again. “Also, ’twere a good test: a chance to see if the rope is strong enough.”
“Explain.”
“Easy: if the rope breaks from weight of kraken alone, certainly it will break with bucket and idol both.”
“Ah!” Dyzm’s suspicion seemed confirmed. “You want me to toss down the bucket rope in order to make yourself a grappling hook.”
Tarra feigned exasperation. “What? Have I not already tried to climb, and did not the rope break? The idol, however, is fairly small, not quite the weight of a man.”