CHAPTER XXV
The Three Silent Ones
The arch was closer--and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry andaught else. For this was no rainbow, no thing born of light and mist,no Bifrost Bridge of myth--no! It was a flying arch of stone, stainedwith flares of Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as theGulf Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies, splashes ofchromes and greens--a palette of giantry, a bridge of wizardry; ahundred, nay, a thousand, times greater than that of Utah which theNavaho call Nonnegozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, andwhich is itself a rainbow in eternal rock.
It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one lowarc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in some ancient paroxysmof earth it had been hurled molten, crystallizing into that stupendousspan and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it.
Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound; now we were atits head, and the litter-bearers swept upon it. All of five hundredfeet wide it was, surface smooth as a city road, sides low walled,curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges ofthe plastic rock had curled.
On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon which thebridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enigmatic, dully shiningdome loomed ever greater. Now we had reached that end; were passingover a smooth plaza whose level floor was enclosed, save for a rift infront of us, by the fanged tops of the black cliffs.
From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long, perhaps,widening at its centre into a broad platform, continuing straight totwo massive gates set within the face of the second cliff wall likepanels, and of the same dull gold as the dome rising high beyond. Andthis smaller arch leaped a pit, an abyss, of which the outerprecipices were the rim holding back from the pit the red flood.
We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my bearers werestriding closely along the side; I leaned far out--a giddiness seizedme! I gazed down into depth upon vertiginous depth; an abyssindeed--an abyss dropping to world's base like that in which theBabylonians believed writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; apit that struck down into earth's heart itself.
Now, what was that--distance upon unfathomable distance below? Astupendous glowing like the green fire of life itself. What was itlike? I had it! It was like the corona of the sun in eclipse--thatburgeoning that makes of our luminary when moon veils it an incredibleblossoming of splendours in the black heavens.
And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when withits dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm ofcrystal bell sounds!
The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; theyswung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us,and on its threshold stood--bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzlewide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome--the womanfrog of the Moon Pool wall.
Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair andgazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to herside; gazed down upon Larry; spoke--_spoke_--to the Golden Girl in aswift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Laklaanswered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face,felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up thepassage.
Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until atlast they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrantrushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimsonlight from without.
I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition;still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Radorand Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be gone from him--came and stoodbeside me, silent.
"I go to the Three," said Lakla. "Wait you here." She passed througha curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through thehangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her.
"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart the SilentOnes would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf'sdisconcerted, almost fearful start.
Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.
"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."
He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast. The dwarfglanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.
"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.
Of that journey I have few memories. I only know that we went throughcorridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, somecarpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank asinto deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, andspaces in which softer lights held sway.
We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the greendwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished surface weaved thesame unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; itslipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of theopening--and as one in a dream I entered.
We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught inthe flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being heldwithin a fire opal--so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed myeyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of theglobular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them,through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridgeand the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; againstthe light from within beat the crimson light from without--and waschecked as though by a barrier.
I felt Lakla's touch; turned.
A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above thefloor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscatingmist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller'sshining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up itstretched like a wall.
Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two clearly male,one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyesof them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and ifI could admit the word--_supernaturally_--alive.
They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex ofthe angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leapingred flames.
Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad and visored;their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, anupright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the greatlizards--and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twicethe size of mankind's!
Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty I knew thatthey were _not_ caps--long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, featheredscales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of thegiant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins;the--_flesh_--of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathingup to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, mistyfires of opalescence!
Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly. What--what were thesebeings?
I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze streamed a currentof reassurance, of good will--nay, of intense spiritual strength. Isaw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despitetheir strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way,benign and sorrowful--so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at themfearlessly. Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness,the despair wiped from his face.
Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searchedhers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed topass between the Three and the Golden Girl. She bowed low, turned tothe Norseman.
"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of the SilentOnes."
She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, staredfrom Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes--andsomething like a smile drifted through them. He stepped forward,lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light. Itwavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again--andwithin it there was no sign of Larry!
Again the mist wavered
, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding thechins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity--butbefore it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent;sensed a movement as though they lifted something.
The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.
And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais,leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinkingas one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang toher, gripped her in his arms.
"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!" She slipped from his embrace,blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I sawthe tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the womanbeing; and a tenderness in the others too--as though they regardedsome well-beloved child.
"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said. "And the Silent Onesdrew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they aregood and they are mighty!"
She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--and he lookedinto the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had beenOlaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of--of--whatcan I call it?--_holiness_ that streamed from them.
Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Anothermoment he stared--and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head beforethem as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And--I amnot ashamed to tell it--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla andOlaf and Rador.
The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them.
And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew himto his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder.
But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where theThree sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the doorinto their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth inwhich glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, ofgreen flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself?