CHAPTER III
_Realm of Mystery_
"We wish nothing of you," the man said, "save that you accept from uswhat we have to offer. You are hungry. You will let us bring you food."
It was a simple rustic room to which they had been brought--a room in ahouse seemingly of plaited straw. Crude furnishings were here--table andchairs of Earth fashion, padded with stuffed mats. Woven matting was onthe floor. Through a broad latticed window the faint rose-lightoutside--like a soft pastel twilight--filtered in, tinting the room witha gentle glow. Thin drapes at the window stirred in a breath ofbreeze--a warm wind from the hills, scented with the vivid blooms whichwere everywhere.
It had been a brief walk from the space-globe. Lee had seen what seemeda little village stretching off among the trees. There had been peoplecrowding to see the strangers--men, women and children, in simple crudepeasant garb--brief garments that revealed their pink-white bodies. Theybabbled with strange unintelligible words, crowding forward until therobed men from the globe shoved them away.
It was a pastoral, peaceful scene--a little country-side drowsing in thewarm rosy twilight. Out by the river there were fields where men stoodat their simple agricultural implements--stood at rest, staringcuriously at the commotion in the village.
And still Lee's captors would say nothing, merely drew them forward,into this room. Then all of them left, save one. He had doffed his robenow. He was an old man, with long grey-white hair to the base of hisneck. He stood smiling. His voice, with the English words queerlypronounced, was gentle, but with a firm finality of command.
"My name is Arkoh," he said. "I am to see that you are made comfortable.This house is yours. There are several rooms, so that you may do in themas you wish."
"Thank you," Lee said. "But you can certainly understand--I have askedmany questions and never had any answers. If you wish to talk to mealone--"
"That will come presently. There is no reason for you to be worried--"
"We're not worried," Franklin burst out. "We're fed up with thishighhanded stuff. You'll answer questions now. What I demand to know iswhy--"
"Take it easy," Lee warned.
Franklin had jumped to his feet. He flung off Lee's hand. "Don't make melaugh. I know you're one of them--everything about you is a fake. Yougot us into this--"
"So? You would bring strife here from your Earth?" Arkoh's voice cut in,like a knife-blade cleaving through Franklin's bluster. "That is notpermissible. Please do not make it necessary that there should beviolence here." He stood motionless. But before his gaze Franklinrelaxed into an incoherent muttering.
"Thank you," Arkoh said. "I shall send you the food." He turned and leftthe room.
* * * * *
Vivian collapsed into a chair. She was trembling. "Well--my Gawd--whatis all this? Lee--that old man with his gentle voice--he looked like ifyou crossed him you'd be dead. Not that he'd hurt you--it wouldbe--would be something else--"
"You talk like an ass," Franklin said. "You've gone crazy--and I don'tblame you--this damned weird thing. For all that old man's smooth talk,we're just prisoners here. Look outside that window--"
It was a little garden, drowsing in the twilight. A man stood watchingthe window. And as Lee went to the lattice, he could see others, likeguards outside.
The man who brought their simple food was a stalwart fellow in a drapedgarment of brown plaited fibre. His black hair hung thick about hisears. He laid out the food in silence.
"What's _your_ name?" Franklin demanded.
"I am Groff."
"And you won't talk either, I suppose? Look here, I can make it worthyour while to talk."
"Everyone has all he needs here. There is nothing that you need giveus."
"Isn't there? You just give me a chance and I'll show you. No one hasall he needs--or all he wants."
Groff did not answer. But as he finished placing the food, and left theroom, it seemed to Lee that he shot a queer look back at Franklin. Alook so utterly incongruous that it was startling. Franklin saw it andchuckled.
"Well, at least there's one person here who's not so damn weird that itgives you the creeps."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Lee said. With suddenimpulse he lowered his voice. "Franklin, listen--there are a few thingsthat perhaps I can tell you. Things that I can guess--that Viviansenses--"
"I don't want to hear your explanation. It would be just a lot of damnlies anyway."
"All right. Perhaps it would. We'll soon know, I imagine."
"Let's eat," Vivian said. "I'm hungry, even if I am scared."
To Lee it seemed that the weird mystery here was crowding upon them. Asthough, here in this dim room, momentous things were waiting to revealthemselves. A strange emotion was upon Lee Anthony. A sort of tenseeagerness. Certainly it was not fear. Certainly it seemed impossiblethat there could be anything here of which he should be afraid. Againhis mind went back to old Anna Green and what she had told him of hisgrandfather. How far away--how long ago that had been.... And yet, wasAnna Green far away now? Something of her had seemed always to be withhim on that long, weird voyage, from the infinite smallness andpettiness of Earth to this realm out beyond the stars. And more thanever now, somehow Lee seemed aware of her presence here in this quietroom. Occultism? He had always told himself that surely he was nomystic. A practical fellow, who could understand science when it wastaught him, but certainly never could give credence to mysticism. Thedead are dead, and the living are alive; and between them is a gulf--anabyss of nothingness.
Now he found himself wondering. Were all those people on Earth whoclaimed to feel the presence of dead loved ones near them? Were thosepeople just straining their fancy--just comforting themselves with whatthey wished to believe? Or was the scoffer himself the fool? And if thatcould be so, on Earth, why could not this strange realm be of such aquality that an awareness of those who have passed from life would bethe normal thing? Who shall say that the mysteries of life and death areunscientific? Was it not rather that they embraced those gaps of sciencenot yet understood? Mysteries which, if only we could understand them,would be mysteries no longer?
Lee had left the table and again was standing at the latticed window,beyond which the drowsing little garden lay silent, and empty now. Theguard who had been out here had moved further away; his figure was ablob near a flowered thicket at the house corner. And suddenly Lee wasaware of another figure. There was a little splashing fountain near thegarden's center--a rill of water which came down a little embankment andsplashed into a pool where the rose light shimmered on the ripples.
The figure was sitting at the edge of the pool--a slim young girl in abrief dress like a drape upon her. She sat, half reclining on the bankby the shimmering water, with her long hair flowing down over hershoulders and a lock of it trailing in the pool. For a moment he thoughtthat she was gazing into the water. Then as the light which tinted hergraceful form seemed to intensify, he saw that she was staring at him.
It seemed as though both of them, for that moment, were breathless witha strange emotion awakened in them by the sight of each other. And thenslowly the girl rose to her feet. Still gazing at Lee, she came slowlyforward with her hair dangling, framing her small oval face. The glow inthe night-air tinted her features. It was a face of girlhood, almostmature--a face with wonderment on it now.
He knew that he was smiling; then, a few feet from the window shestopped and said shyly:
"You are Lee Anthony?"
"Yes."
"I am Aura. When you have finished eating, I am to take you to him."
"To him?"
"Yes. The One of Our Guidance. He bade me bring you." Her soft voice wasmusical; to her, quite obviously, the English was a foreign tongue.
"I'm ready," Lee said. "I'm finished."
One of her slim bare arms went up with a gesture. From the corner of thelittle house the guard there turned, came inside. Lee turned to theroom. The guard entered. "You are to come,"
he said.
"So we just stay here, prisoners," Franklin muttered. He and Vivianwere blankly staring as Lee was led away.
* * * * *
Then in a moment he was alone beside the girl who had come for him.Silently they walked out into the glowing twilight, along a littlewoodland path with the staring people and the rustic, nestling dwellingsblurring in the distance behind them. A little line of wooded hills layahead. The sky was like a dark vault--empty. The pastel light on theground seemed inherent to the trees and the rocks; it streamed out likea faint radiation from everywhere. And then, as Lee gazed up into theabyss of the heavens, suddenly it seemed as though very faintly he couldmake out a tiny patch of stars. Just one small cluster, high overhead.
"The Universe you came from," Aura said.
"Yes." The crown of her tresses as she walked beside him was at hisshoulder. He gazed down at her. "To whom are you taking me? It seemsthat I could guess--"
"I was told not to talk of that."
"Well, all right. Is it far?"
"No. A little walk--just to that nearest hill."
Again they were silent. "My Earth," he said presently, "do you know muchabout it?"
"A little. I have been told."
"It seems so far away to me now."
She gazed up at him. She was smiling. "Is it? To me it seems quiteclose." She gestured. "Just up there. It seemed far to you, Isuppose--that was because you were so small, for so long, coming here."
Like a man the size of an ant, trying to walk ten miles. Of course, itwould be a monstrous trip. But if that man were steadily to grow larger,as he progressed he would cover the distance very quickly.
"Well," Lee said, "I suppose I can understand that. You were born here,Aura?"
"Yes. Of course."
"Your world here--what is it like?"
She gazed up at him as though surprised. "You have seen it. It is just asimple little place. We have not so many people here in the village, andabout that many more--those who live in the hills close around here."
"You mean that's all? Just this village? Just a few thousand people?"
"Oh there are others, of course. Other groups--like ours, I guess--outin the forests--everywhere in all the forests, maybe." Her gesturetoward the distant, glowing, wooded horizons was vague. "We have nevertried to find out. Why should we? Wherever they are, they have all thatthey need or want. So have we."
The thing was so utterly simple. He pondered it. "And you--you're veryhappy here?"
Her wide eyes were childlike. "Why yes. Of course. Why not? Why shouldnot everyone be happy?"
"Well," he said, "there are things--"
"Yes. I have heard of them. Things on your Earth--which the humanscreate for themselves--but that is very silly. We do not have themhere."
Surely he could think of no retort to such childlike faith. Her faith.How horribly criminal it would be to destroy it. A pricelessthing--human happiness to be created out of the faith that it was thenormal thing. He realized that his heart was pounding, as though nowthings which had been dormant within him all his life were comingout--clamoring now for recognition.
And then, out of another silence he murmured, "Aura--you're taking me tomy grandfather, aren't you? He came here from Earth--and then he sentback there to get me?"
"Yes," she admitted. "So you know it? But I was instructed to--"
"All right. We won't talk of it. And he's told you about me?"
"Yes," she agreed shyly. She caught her breath as she added, "I havebeen--waiting for you--a long time." Shyly she gazed up at him. Thenight-breeze had blown her hair partly over her face. Her hand brushedit away so that her gaze met his. "I hoped you would be, well, like youare," she added.
"Oh," he said awkwardly. "Well--thanks."
"And you," she murmured out of another little silence, "you--I hope Ihaven't disappointed you. I am the way you want--like you wished--"
What a weird thing to say! He smiled. "Not ever having heard of you,Aura, I can't exactly say that I--"
* * * * *
He checked himself. Was she what he had wished? Why yes--surely he hadbeen thinking of her--in his dreams, all his life vaguely picturingsomething like this for Lee Anthony....
"I guess I have been thinking of you," he agreed. "No, you haven'tdisappointed me, Aura. You--you are--"
He could find no words to say it. "We are almost there," she said. "Hewill be very happy to have you come. He is a very good man, Lee. Theone, we think, of the most goodness--and wiseness, to guide us all--"
The path had led them up a rocky defile, with gnarled little treesgrowing between the crags. Ahead, the hillside rose up in a broken,rocky cliff. There was a door, like a small tunnel entrance. A woman ina long white robe was by the door.
"He is here," Aura said. "Young Anthony."
"You go in."
Silently they passed her. The tunnel entrance glowed with the pastelradiance from the rocks. The radiance was a soft blob of color ahead ofthem.
"You will find that he cannot move now," Aura whispered. "You will sitby his bed. And talk softly."
"You mean--he's ill?"
"Well--what you would call paralysis. He cannot move. Only his lips--hiseyes. He will be gone from us soon, so that then he can only be unseen.A Visitor--"
Her whisper trailed off. Lee's heart was pounding, seeming to thump inhis throat as Aura led him silently forward. It was a draped, cave-likelittle room. Breathless, Lee stared at a couch--a thin old figure lyingthere--a frail man with white hair that framed his wrinkled face. It wasa face that was smiling, its sunken, burning eyes glowing with a newintensity. The lips moved; a faint old voice murmured:
"And you--you are Lee?"
"Yes--grandfather--"
He went slowly forward and sat on the bedside.