The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt
CHAPTER XXXV
"Larry--Farewell!"
"My heart, Larry--" It was the handmaiden's murmur. "My heart feelslike a bird that is flying from a nest of sorrow."
We were pacing down the length of the bridge, guards of the _Akka_beside us, others following with those companies of _ladala_ that hadrushed to aid us; in front of us the bandaged Rador swung gentlywithin a litter; beside him, in another, lay Nak, the frog-king--muchless of him than there had been before the battle began, but living.
Hours had passed since the terror I have just related. My first taskhad been to search for Throckmartin and his wife among the fallenmultitudes strewn thick as autumn leaves along the flying arch ofstone, over the cavern ledge, and back, back as far as the eye couldreach.
At last, Lakla and Larry helping, we found them. They lay close tothe bridge-end, not parted--locked tight in each other's arms, pallidface to face, her hair streaming over his breast! As though when thatunearthly life the Dweller had set within them passed away, their ownhad come back for one fleeting instant--and they had known each other,and clasped before kindly death had taken them.
"Love is stronger than all things." The handmaiden was weeping softly."Love never left them. Love was stronger than the Shining One. Andwhen its evil fled, love went with them--wherever souls go."
Of Stanton and Thora there was no trace; nor, after our discovery ofthose other two, did I care to look more. They were dead--and theywere free.
We buried Throckmartin and Edith beside Olaf in Lakla's bower. Butbefore the body of my old friend was placed within the grave I gave ita careful and sorrowful examination. The skin was firm and smooth, butcold; not the cold of death, but with a chill that set my touchingfingers tingling unpleasantly. The body was bloodless; the course ofveins and arteries marked by faintly indented white furrows, as thoughtheir walls had long collapsed. Lips, mouth, even the tongue, waspaper white. There was no sign of dissolution as we know it; no shadowor stain upon the marble surface. Whatever the force that, streamingfrom the Dweller or impregnating its lair, had energized thedead-alive, it was barrier against putrescence of any kind; that atleast was certain.
But it was not barrier against the poison of the Medusae, for, our sadtask done, and looking down upon the waters, I saw the pale forms ofthe Dweller's hordes dissolving, vanishing into the shifting gloriesof the gigantic moons sailing down upon them from every quarter of theSea of Crimson.
While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, wereclearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of the dead, welistened to a leader of the _ladala_. They had risen, even as themessenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been the struggle in thegardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara hadleft behind to garrison it. Deadly had been the slaughter of thefair-haired, reaping the harvest of hatred they had been sowing solong. Not without a pang of regret did I think of the beautiful, gailymalicious elfin women destroyed--evil though they may have been.
The ancient city of Lara was a charnel. Of all the rulers nottwoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which todescribe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the _ladala_ fared sowell. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had takentheir part in the swift war, not more than a tenth remained alive.
And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick,thick--they whispered.
They told us of the Shining One rushing through the Veil, cometlike,its hosts streaming behind it, raging with it, in ranks that seemedinterminable!
Of the massacre of the priests and priestesses in the Cyclopeantemple; of the flashing forth of the summoning lights by unseenhands--followed by the tearing of the rainbow curtain, by colossalshatterings of the radiant cliffs; the vanishing behind their debrisof all trace of entrance to the haunted place wherein the hordes ofthe Shining One had slaved--the sealing of the lair!
Then, when the tempest of hate had ended in seething Lara, how,thrilled with victory, armed with the weapons of those they had slain,they had lifted the Shadow, passed through the Portal, met andslaughtered the fleeing remnants of Yolara's men--only to find thetempest stilled here, too.
But of Marakinoff they had seen nothing! Had the Russian escaped, Iwondered, or was he lying out there among the dead?
But now the _ladala_ were calling upon Lakla to come with them, togovern them.
"I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him. "I want to go outwith you to Ireland. But for a time--I think the Three would have usremain and set that place in order."
The O'Keefe was bothered about something else than the government ofMuria.
"If they've killed off all the priests, who's to marry us, heart ofmine?" he worried. "None of those Siya and Siyana rites, no matterwhat," he added hastily.
"Marry!" cried the handmaiden incredulously. "Marry us? Why, Larrydear, we _are_ married!"
The O'Keefe's astonishment was complete; his jaw dropped; collapseseemed imminent.
"We are?" he gasped. "When?" he stammered fatuously.
"Why, when the Mother drew us together before her; when she put herhands on our heads after we had made the promise! Didn't youunderstand that?" asked the handmaiden wonderingly.
He looked at her, into the purity of the clear golden eyes, into thepurity of the soul that gazed out of them; all his own great lovetransfiguring his keen face.
"An' is that enough for you, _mavourneen_?" he whispered humbly.
"Enough?" The handmaiden's puzzlement was complete, profound."Enough? Larry darlin', what _more_ could we ask?"
He drew a deep breath, clasped her close.
"Kiss the bride, Doc!" cried the O'Keefe. And for the third and,soul's sorrow! the last time, Lakla dimpling and blushing, I thrilledto the touch of her soft, sweet lips.
Quickly were our preparations for departure made. Rador, conscious,his immense vitality conquering fast his wounds, was to be borne aheadof us. And when all was done, Lakla, Larry, and I made our way up tothe scarlet stone that was the doorway to the chamber of the Three. Weknew, of course, that they had gone, following, no doubt, those whoseeyes I had seen in the curdled mists, and who, coming to the aid ofthe Three at last from whatever mysterious place that was their home,had thrown their strength with them against the Shining One. Nor werewe wrong. When the great slab rolled away, no torrents of opalescencecame rushing out upon us. The vast dome was dim, tenantless; itscurved walls that had cascaded Light shone now but faintly; the daiswas empty; its wall of moon-flame radiance gone.
A little time we stood, heads bent, reverent, our hearts filled withgratitude and love--yes, and with pity for that strange trinity soalien to us and yet so near; children even as we, though so unlike us,of our same Mother Earth.
And what I wondered had been the secret of that promise they had wrungfrom their handmaiden and from Larry. And whence, if what the Threehad said had been all true--whence had come their power to avert thesacrifice at the very verge of its consummation?
"Love is stronger than all things!" had said Lakla.
Was it that they had needed, must have, the force which dwells withinlove, within willing sacrifice, to strengthen their own power and toenable them to destroy the evil, glorious Thing so long shielded bytheir own love? Did the thought of sacrifice, the will towardabnegation, have to be as strong as the eternals, unshaken by faintestthrill of hope, before the Three could make of it their key to unlockthe Dweller's guard and strike through at its life?
Here was a mystery--a mystery indeed! Lakla softly closed the crimsonstone. The mystery of the red dwarf's appearance was explained when wediscovered a half-dozen of the water _coria_ moored in a small covenot far from where the _Sekta_ flashed their heads of living bloom.The dwarfs had borne the shallops with them, and from somewhere beyondthe cavern ledge had launched them unperceived; stealing up to thefarther side of the island and risking all in one bold stroke. Well,Lugur, no matter what he held of wickedness, held also high courage.
The cavern was paved with
Upon Lakla's insistence we passed on to the palace of Lugur, not toYolara's--I do not know why, but go there then she would not. Andwithin one of its columned rooms, maidens of the black-haired folks,the wistfulness, the fear, all gone from their sparkling eyes, servedus.
There came to me a huge desire to see the destruction they had told usof the Dweller's lair; to observe for myself whether it was notpossible to make a way of entrance and to study its mysteries.
I spoke of this, and to my surprise both the handmaiden and theO'Keefe showed an almost embarrassed haste to acquiesce in my hesitantsuggestion.
"Sure," cried Larry, "there's lots of time before night!"
He caught himself sheepishly; cast a glance at Lakla.
"I keep forgettin' there's no night here," he mumbled.
"What did you say, Larry?" asked she.
"I said I wish we were sitting in our home in Ireland, watching thesun go down," he whispered to her. Vaguely I wondered why she blushed.
But now I must hasten. We went to the temple, and here at least theghastly litter of the dead had been cleaned away. We passed throughthe blue-caverned space, crossed the narrow arch that spanned therushing sea stream, and, ascending, stood again upon the ivoried paveat the foot of the frowning, towering amphitheatre of jet.
Across the Silver Waters there was sign of neither Web of Rainbows norcolossal pillars nor the templed lips that I had seen curving outbeneath the Veil when the Shining One had swirled out to greet itspriestess and its voice and to dance with the sacrifices. There wasbut a broken and rent mass of the radiant cliffs against whose basethe lake lapped.
Long I looked--and turned away saddened. Knowing even as I did whatthe irised curtain had hidden, still it was as though some thing ofsupernal beauty and wonder had been swept away, never to be replaced;a glamour gone for ever; a work of the high gods destroyed.
"Let's go back," said Larry abruptly.
I dropped a little behind them to examine a bit of carving--and,after all, they did not want me. I watched them pacing slowly ahead,his arm around her, black hair close to bronze-gold ringlets. Then Ifollowed. Half were they over the bridge when through the roar of theimprisoned stream I heard my name called softly.
"Goodwin! Dr. Goodwin!"
Amazed, I turned. From behind the pedestal of a carved groupslunk--Marakinoff! My premonition had been right. Some way he hadescaped, slipped through to here. He held his hands high, came forwardcautiously.
"I am finished," he whispered--"Done! I don't care what _they'll_ doto me." He nodded toward the handmaiden and Larry, now at the end ofthe bridge and passing on, oblivious of all save each other. He drewcloser. His eyes were sunken, burning, mad; his face etched with deeplines, as though a graver's tool had cut down through it. I took astep backward.
A grin, like the grimace of a fiend, blasted the Russian's visage.He threw himself upon me, his hands clenching at my throat!
"Larry!" I yelled--and as I spun around under the shock of hisonslaught, saw the two turn, stand paralyzed, then race toward me.
"But _you'll_ carry nothing out of here!" shrieked Marakinoff. "No!"
My foot, darting out behind me, touched vacancy. The roaring of theracing stream deafened me. I felt its mists about me; threw myselfforward.
I was falling--falling--with the Russian's hand strangling me. Istruck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for amoment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; felt that I was beinghurled with dreadful speed on--full realization came--on the breast ofthat racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft andrushing--where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggledwith the devil who clutched me--inflexibly, indomitably.
Then a shrieking as of all the pent winds of the universe in myears--blackness!
Consciousness returned slowly, agonizedly.
"Larry!" I groaned. "Lakla!"
A brilliant light was glowing through my closed lids. It hurt. Iopened my eyes, closed them with swords and needles of dazzling painshooting through them. Again I opened them cautiously. It was the sun!
I staggered to my feet. Behind me was a shattered wall of basaltmonoliths, hewn and squared. Before me was the Pacific, smooth andblue and smiling.
And not far away, cast up on the strand even as I had been,was--Marakinoff!
He lay there, broken and dead indeed. Yet all the waters throughwhich we had passed--not even the waters of death themselves--couldwash from his face the grin of triumph. With the last of my strength Idragged the body from the strand and pushed it out into the waves. Alittle billow ran up, coiled about it, and carried it away, duckingand bending. Another seized it, and another, playing with it. Itfloated from my sight--that which had been Marakinoff, with all hisschemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.
My strength began to come back to me. I found a thicket and slept;slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened thedawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it tosay that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk hadrecovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discoverwhere I was.
The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal. To the northI caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-Tauach, where was the moondoor, black against the sky. Where was the moon door--which, someway,somehow, I must reach, and quickly.
At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and bound it togetherin shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshiftpaddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up toit. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on thelittle beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giantsteps, made my way to the inner enclosure.
And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down mycheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with disappointment and withweariness.
For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose thresholdwe had crossed to the land of the Shining One lay shattered andbroken. The monoliths were heaped about; the wall had fallen, andabout them shone a film of water, half covering them.
There was no moon door!
Dazed and weeping, I drew closer, climbed upon their outlyingfragments. I looked out only upon the sea. There had been a greatsubsidence, an earth shock, perhaps, tilting downward all thatside--the echo, little doubt, of that cataclysm which had blasted theDweller's lair!
The little squared islet called Tau, in which were hidden the sevenglobes, had entirely disappeared. Upon the waters there was no traceof it.
The moon door was gone; the passage to the Moon Pool was closed tome--its chamber covered by the sea!
There was no road to Larry--nor to Lakla!
And there, for me, the world ended.
Transcriber's note: I have made the following changes to the text:
PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO 3 14 sinster sinister 17 11 Nam-Tauach Nan-Tauach 22 20 on on on 69 39 'Didn't "Didn't 75 21 'But "But 90 36 "Trolde!" _"Trolde!"_ 91 35 'We "We 96 11 shown shone 96 14 smiled smiled. 105 11 drank drunk 106 24 acomplish accomplish 109 23 'Shake "Shake 111 18 overtstressed overstressed 116 11 increduously incredulously 120 30 Yolar Yolara 128 12 spirtual spiritual 150 13 cushoned cushioned 172 29 semed seemed 204 34 there?"' there?" 208 25 "Its "It's 231 8 meal metal 239 6 suling sulting 248 28 finshed finished 280 29 much