The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt
CHAPTER XI
The Flame-Tipped Shadows
Marakinoff nodded his head solemnly as Olaf finished.
"Da!" he said. "That which comes from here took them both--the womanand the child. Da! They came clasped within it and the stone shut uponthem. But why it left the child behind I do not understand."
"How do you know that?" I cried in amazement.
"Because I saw it," answered Marakinoff simply. "Not only did I seeit, but hardly had I time to make escape through the entrance beforeit passed whirling and murmuring and its bell sounds all joyous. Da!It was what you call the squeak close, that."
"Wait a moment," I said--stilling Larry with a gesture. "Do Iunderstand you to say that you were within this place?"
Marakinoff actually beamed upon me.
"Da, Dr. Goodwin," he said, "I went in when that which comes from itwent out!"
I gaped at him, stricken dumb; into Larry's bellicose attitude crept asuggestion of grudging respect; Olaf, trembling, watched silently.
"Dr. Goodwin and my impetuous young friend, you," went on Marakinoffafter a moment's silence and I wondered vaguely why he did not includeHuldricksson in his address--"it is time that we have anunderstanding. I have a proposal to make to you also. It is this; weare what you call a bad boat, and all of us are in it. Da! We need allhands, is it not so? Let us put together our knowledge and our brainsand resources--and even a poonch of a mule is a resource," he lookedwickedly at O'Keefe, "and pull our boat into quiet waters again. Afterthat--"
"All very well, Marakinoff," interjected Larry, "but I don't feel verysafe in any boat with somebody capable of shooting me through theback."
Marakinoff waved a deprecatory hand.
"It was natural that," he said, "logical, da! Here is a very greatsecret, perhaps many secrets to my country invaluable--" He paused,shaken by some overpowering emotion; the veins in his forehead grewcongested, the cold eyes blazed and the guttural voice harshened.
"I do not apologize and I do not explain," rasped Marakinoff. "But Iwill tell you, da! Here is my country sweating blood in an experimentto liberate the world. And here are the other nations ringing us likewolves and waiting to spring at our throats at the least sign ofweakness. And here are you, Lieutenant O'Keefe of the English wolves,and you Dr. Goodwin of the Yankee pack--and here in this place may bethat will enable my country to win its war for the worker. What arethe lives of you two and this sailor to that? Less than the flies Icrush with my hand, less than midges in the sunbeam!"
He suddenly gripped himself.
"But that is not now the important thing," he resumed, almost coldly."Not that nor my shooting. Let us squarely the situation face. Myproposal is so: that we join interests, and what you call see itthrough together; find our way through this place and those secretslearn of which I have spoken, if we can. And when that is done we willgo our ways, to his own land each, to make use of them for our landsas each of us may. On my part, I offer my knowledge--and it is veryvaluable, Dr. Goodwin--and my training. You and Lieutenant O'Keefe dothe same, and this man Olaf, what he can of his strength, for I do notthink his usefulness lies in his brains, no."
"In effect, Goodwin," broke in Larry as I hesitated, "the professor'sproposition is this: he wants to know what's going on here but hebegins to realize it's no one man's job and besides we have the dropon him. We're three to his one, and we have all his hardware andcutlery. But also we can do better with him than without him--just ashe can do better with us than without us. It's an even break--for awhile. But once he gets that information he's looking for, then lookout. You and Olaf and I are the wolves and the flies and the midgesagain--and the strafing will be about due. Nevertheless, with three toone against him, if he can get away with it he deserves to. I'm fortaking him up, if you are."
There was almost a twinkle in Marakinoff's eyes.
"It is not just as I would have put it, perhaps," he said, "but in itsskeleton he has right. Nor will I turn my hand against you while weare still in danger here. I pledge you my honor on this."
Larry laughed.
"All right, Professor," he grinned. "I believe you mean every wordyou say. Nevertheless, I'll just keep the guns."
Marakinoff bowed, imperturbably.
"And now," he said, "I will tell you what I know. I found the secretof the door mechanism even as you did, Dr. Goodwin. But bycarelessness, my condensers were broken. I was forced to wait while Isent for others--and the waiting might be for months. I took certainprecautions, and on the first night of this full moon I hid myselfwithin the vault of Chau-ta-leur."
An involuntary thrill of admiration for the man went through me at themanifest heroism of this leap in the dark. I could see it reflected inLarry's face.
"I hid in the vault," continued Marakinoff, "and I saw that whichcomes from here come out. I waited--long hours. At last, when the moonwas low, it returned--ecstatically--with a man, a native, in embraceenfolded. It passed through the door, and soon then the moon becamelow and the door closed.
"The next night more confidence was mine, yes. And after that whichcomes had gone, I looked through its open door. I said, 'It will notreturn for three hours. While it is away, why shall I not into itshome go through the door it has left open?' So I went--even to here. Ilooked at the pillars of light and I tested the liquid of the Pool onwhich they fell. That liquid, Dr. Goodwin, is not water, and it is notany fluid known on earth." He handed me a small vial, its neck held ina long thong.
"Take this," he said, "and see."
Wonderingly, I took the bottle; dipped it down into the Pool. Theliquid was extraordinarily light; seemed, in fact, to give the vialbuoyancy. I held it to the light. It was striated, streaked, as thoughlittle living, pulsing veins ran through it. And its blueness, even inthe vial, held an intensity of luminousness.
"Radioactive," said Marakinoff. "Some liquid that is intenselyradioactive; but what it is I know not at all. Upon the living skin itacts like radium raised to the nth power and with an element mostmysterious added. The solution with which I treated him," he pointedto Huldricksson, "I had prepared before I came here, from certaininformation I had. It is largely salts of radium and its base isLoeb's formula for the neutralization of radium and X-ray burns.Taking this man at once, before the degeneration had become reallyactive, I could negative it. But after two hours I could have donenothing."
He paused a moment.
"Next I studied the nature of these luminous walls. I concluded thatwhoever had made them, knew the secret of the Almighty's manufactureof light from the ether itself! Colossal! Da! But the substance ofthese blocks confines an atomic--how would you say--atomicmanipulation, a conscious arrangement of electrons, light-emitting andperhaps indefinitely so. These blocks are lamps in which oil and wickare electrons drawing light waves from ether itself! A Prometheus,indeed, this discoverer! I looked at my watch and that little guardianwarned me that it was time to go. I went. That which comes forthreturned--this time empty-handed.
"And the next night I did the same thing. Engrossed in research, Ilet the moments go by to the danger point, and scarcely was I replacedwithin the vault when the shining thing raced over the walls, and inits grip the woman and child.
"Then you came--and that is all. And now--what is it you know?"
Very briefly I went over my story. His eyes gleamed now and then, buthe did not interrupt me.
"A great secret! A colossal secret!" he muttered, when I had ended."We cannot leave it hidden."
"The first thing to do is to try the door," said Larry, matter offact.
"There is no use, my young friend," assured Marakinoff mildly.
"Nevertheless we'll try," said Larry. We retraced our way through thewinding tunnel to the end, but soon even O'Keefe saw that any idea ofmoving the slab from within was hopeless. We returned to the Chamberof the Pool. The pillars of light were fainter, and we knew that themoon was sinking. On the world outside before long dawn would bebreaking. I began to feel thirst--and
"Da!" it was Marakinoff, reading my thoughts uncannily. "Da! We willbe thirsty. And it will be very bad for him of us who loses controland drinks of that, my friend. Da!"
Larry threw back his shoulders as though shaking a burden from them.
"This place would give an angel of joy the willies," he said. "Isuggest that we look around and find something that will take ussomewhere. You can bet the people that built it had more ways ofgetting in than that once-a-month family entrance. Doc, you and Olaftake the left wall; the professor and I will take the right."
He loosened one of his automatics with a suggestive movement.
"After you, Professor," he bowed, politely, to the Russian. We partedand set forth.
The chamber widened out from the portal in what seemed to be the arcof an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, andfrom this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully three hundredfeet above us.
The floor was of smooth, mosaic-fitted blocks of a faintly yellowtinge. They were not light-emitting like the blocks that formed thewalls. The radiance from these latter, I noted, had the peculiarquality of _thickening_ a few yards from its source, and it was thisthat produced the effect of misty, veiled distances. As we walked, theseven columns of rays streaming down from the crystalline globes highabove us waned steadily; the glow within the chamber lost itsprismatic shimmer and became an even grey tone somewhat like moonlightin a thin cloud.
Now before us, out from the wall, jutted a low terrace. It was all ofa pearly rose-coloured stone, slender, graceful pillars of the samehue. The face of the terrace was about ten feet high, and all over itran a bas-relief of what looked like short-trailing vines, surmountedby five stalks, on the tip of each of which was a flower.
We passed along the terrace. It turned in an abrupt curve. I heard ahail, and there, fifty feet away, at the curving end of a wallidentical with that where we stood, were Larry and Marakinoff.Obviously the left side of the chamber was a duplicate of that we hadexplored. We joined. In front of us the columned barriers ran back ahundred feet, forming an alcove. The end of this alcove was anotherwall of the same rose stone, but upon it the design of vines was muchheavier.
We took a step forward--there was a gasp of awe from the Norseman, aguttural exclamation from Marakinoff. For on, or rather within, thewall before us, a great oval began to glow, waxed almost to a flameand then shone steadily out as though from behind it a light wasstreaming through the stone itself!
And within the roseate oval two flame-tipped shadows appeared, stoodfor a moment, and then seemed to float out upon its surface. Theshadows wavered; the tips of flame that nimbused them with flickeringpoints of vermilion pulsed outward, drew back, darted forth again, andonce more withdrew themselves--and as they did so the shadowsthickened--and suddenly there before us stood two figures!
One was a girl--a girl whose great eyes were golden as the fabledlilies of Kwan-Yung that were born of the kiss of the sun upon theamber goddess the demons of Lao-Tz'e carved for him; whose softlycurved lips were red as the royal coral, and whose golden-brown hairreached to her knees!
And the second was a gigantic frog--A _woman_ frog, head helmeted withcarapace of shell around which a fillet of brilliant yellow jewelsshone; enormous round eyes of blue circled with a broad iris of green;monstrous body of banded orange and white girdled with strand uponstrand of the flashing yellow gems; six feet high if an inch, and withone webbed paw of its short, powerfully muscled forelegs resting uponthe white shoulder of the golden-eyed girl!
Moments must have passed as we stood in stark amazement, gazing atthat incredible apparition. The two figures, although as real as anyof those who stood beside me, unphantomlike as it is possible to be,had a distinct suggestion of--projection.
They were there before us--golden-eyed girl and grotesquefrog-woman--complete in every line and curve; and still it was asthough their bodies passed back through distances; as though, to tryto express the wellnigh inexpressible, the two shapes we were lookingupon were the end of an infinite number stretching in fine linkedchain far away, of which the eyes saw only the nearest, while in thebrain some faculty higher than sight recognized and registered theunseen others.
The gigantic eyes of the frog-woman took us all in--unwinkingly.Little glints of phosphorescence shone out within the metallic greenof the outer iris ring. She stood upright, her great legs bowed; themonstrous slit of a mouth slightly open, revealing a row of whiteteeth sharp and pointed as lancets; the paw resting on the girl'sshoulder, half covering its silken surface, and from its five webbeddigits long yellow claws of polished horn glistened against thedelicate texture of the flesh.
But if the frog-woman regarded us all, not so did the maiden of therosy wall. Her eyes were fastened upon Larry, drinking him in withextraordinary intentness. She was tall, far over the average of women,almost as tall, indeed, as O'Keefe himself; not more than twenty yearsold, if that, I thought. Abruptly she leaned forward, the golden eyessoftened and grew tender; the red lips moved as though she werespeaking.
Larry took a quick step, and his face was that of one who aftercountless births comes at last upon the twin soul lost to him forages. The frog-woman turned her eyes upon the girl; her huge lipsmoved, and I knew that she was talking! The girl held out a warninghand to O'Keefe, and then raised it, resting each finger upon one ofthe five flowers of the carved vine close beside her. Once, twice,three times, she pressed upon the flower centres, and I noted that herhand was curiously long and slender, the digits like those wonderfultapering ones the painters we call the primitive gave to theirVirgins.
Three times she pressed the flowers, and then looked intently at Larryonce more. A slow, sweet smile curved the crimson lips. She stretchedboth hands out toward him again eagerly; a burning blush rose swiftlyover white breasts and flowerlike face.
Like the clicking out of a cinematograph, the pulsing oval faded andgolden-eyed girl and frog-woman were gone!
And thus it was that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent Ones, andLarry O'Keefe first looked into each other's hearts!
Larry stood rapt, gazing at the stone.
"Eilidh," I heard him whisper; "Eilidh of the lips like the red, redrowan and the golden-brown hair!"
"Clearly of the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, "a development of thefossil Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
"Ranadae, yes," I answered. "But from the Stegocephalia; of the orderEcaudata--"
Never such a complete indignation as was in O'Keefe's voice as heinterrupted.
"What do you mean--fossils and Stego whatever it is?" he asked. "Shewas a girl, a wonder girl--a real girl, and Irish, or I'm not anO'Keefe!"
"We were talking about the frog-woman, Larry," I said, conciliatingly.
His eyes were wild as he regarded us.
"Say," he said, "if you two had been in the Garden of Eden when Evetook the apple, you wouldn't have had time to give her a look forcounting the scales on the snake!"
He strode swiftly over to the wall. We followed. Larry paused,stretched his hand up to the flowers on which the tapering fingers ofthe golden-eyed girl had rested.
"It was here she put up her hand," he murmured. He pressedcaressingly the carved calyxes, once, twice, a third time even as shehad--and silently and softly the wall began to split; on each side agreat stone pivoted slowly, and before us a portal stood, opening intoa narrow corridor glowing with the same rosy lustre that had gleamedaround the flame-tipped shadows!
"Have your gun ready, Olaf!" said Larry. "We follow Golden Eyes," hesaid to me.
"Follow?" I echoed stupidly.
"Follow!" he said. "She came to show us the way! Follow? I'd followher through a thousand hells!"
And with Olaf at one end, O'Keefe at the other, both of them withautomatics in hand, and Marakinoff and I between them, we stepped overthe threshold.
At our right, a few feet away, the passage
A yard at left of us lifted a four-foot high, gently curved barricade,stretching from wall to wall--and beyond it was blackness; an utterand appalling blackness that seemed to gather itself from infinitedepths. The rose-glow in which we stood was cut off by the blacknessas though it had substance; it shimmered out to meet it, and waschecked as though by a blow; indeed, so strong was the suggestion ofsinister, straining force within the rayless opacity that I shrankback, and Marakinoff with me. Not so O'Keefe. Olaf beside him, hestrode to the wall and peered over. He beckoned us.
"Flash your pocket-light down there," he said to me, pointing into thethick darkness below us. The little electric circle quivered down asthough afraid, and came to rest upon a surface that resembled nothingso much as clear, black ice. I ran the light across--here and there.The floor of the corridor was of a substance so smooth, so polished,that no man could have walked upon it; it sloped downward at a slowlyincreasing angle.
"We'd have to have non-skid chains and brakes on our feet to tacklethat," mused Larry. Abstractedly be ran his hands over the edge onwhich he was leaning. Suddenly they hesitated and then grippedtightly.
"That's a queer one!" he exclaimed. His right palm was resting upon arounded protuberance, on the side of which were three small circularindentations.
"A queer one--" he repeated--and pressed his fingers upon the circles.
There was a sharp click; the slabs that had opened to let us throughswung swiftly together; a curiously rapid vibration thrilled throughus, a wind arose and passed over our heads--a wind that grew and grewuntil it became a whistling shriek, then a roar and then a mightyhumming, to which every atom in our bodies pulsed in rhythm painfulalmost to disintegration!
The rosy wall dwindled in a flash to a point of light and disappeared!
Wrapped in the clinging, impenetrable blackness we were racing,dropping, hurling at a frightful speed--where?
And ever that awful humming of the rushing wind and the lightningcleaving of the tangible dark--so, it came to me oddly, must the newlyreleased soul race through the sheer blackness of outer space up tothat Throne of Justice, where God sits high above all suns!
I felt Marakinoff creep close to me; gripped my nerve and flashed mypocket-light; saw Larry standing, peering, peering ahead, andHuldricksson, one strong arm around his shoulders, bracing him. Andthen the speed began to slacken.
Millions of miles, it seemed, below the sound of the unearthlyhurricane I heard Larry's voice, thin and ghostlike, beneath itsclamour.
"Got it!" shrilled the voice. "Got it! Don't worry!"
The wind died down to the roar, passed back into the whistling shriekand diminished to a steady whisper. In the comparative quiet O'Keefe'stones now came in normal volume.
"Some little shoot-the-chutes, what?" he shouted. "Say--if they hadthis at Coney Island or the Crystal Palace! Press all the way in theseholes and she goes top-high. Diminish pressure--diminish speed. Thecurve of this--dashboard--here sends the wind shooting up over ourheads--like a windshield. What's behind you?"
I flashed the light back. The mechanism on which we were ended inanother wall exactly similar to that over which O'Keefe crouched.
"Well, we can't fall out, anyway," he laughed. "Wish to hell I knewwhere the brakes were! Look out!"
We dropped dizzily down an abrupt, seemingly endless slope; fell--fellas into an abyss--then shot abruptly out of the blackness into athrobbing green radiance. O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed downupon the controls, for we leaped forward almost with the speed oflight. I caught a glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge ofwhich we flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through theincredible spaces--gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel, whichare so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like anestling--and then--again the living blackness!
"What was that?" This from Larry, with the nearest approach to awethat he had yet shown.
"Trolldom!" croaked the voice of Olaf.
"Chert!" This from Marakinoff. "What a space!"
"Have you considered, Dr. Goodwin," he went on after a pause, "acurious thing? We know, or, at least, is it not that nine out of tenastronomers believe, that the moon was hurled out of this same regionwe now call the Pacific when the earth was yet like molasses; almostmolten, I should say. And is it not curious that that which comes fromthe Moon Chamber needs the moon-rays to bring it forth; is it not? Andis it not significant again that the stone depends upon the moon foroperating? Da! And last--such a space in mother earth as we justglimpsed, how else could it have been torn but by some giganticbirth--like that of the moon? Da! I do not put forward these asstatements of fact--no! But as suggestions--"
I started; there was so much that this might explain--an unknownelement that responded to the moon-rays in opening the moon door; theblue Pool with its weird radioactivity, and the force within it thatreacted to the same light stream--
It was not inconceivable that a film had drawn over the world wound, afilm of earth-flesh which drew itself over that colossal abyss afterour planet had borne its satellite--that world womb did not closewhen her shining child sprang forth--it was possible; and all that weknow of earth depth is four miles of her eight thousand.
What is there at the heart of earth? What of that radiant unknownelement upon the moon mount Tycho? What of that element unknown to usas part of earth which is seen only in the corona of the sun ateclipse that we call coronium? Yet the earth is child of the sun asthe moon is earth's daughter. And what of that other unknown elementwe find glowing green in the far-flung nebulae--green as that we hadjust passed through--and that we call nebulium? Yet the sun is childof the nebulae as the earth is child of the sun and the moon is childof the earth.
And what miracles are there in coronium and nebulium which, as thechild of nebula and sun, we inherit? Yes--and in Tycho's enigma whichcame from earth heart?
We were flashing down to earth heart! And what miracles were hiddenthere?