Генри Каттнер - Lands of the Earthquake

Irathe in all her vivid aliveness had drained from that other self the very stuff of life itself. When living returned to the Oracle, it could come from no other source than Irathe. She must have felt her own power sink within her at the abrupt upward surge of strength in the Oracle.

Now suddenly in the icy darkness a new voice sounded—a clear, cool voice, very sure, chanting that blasphemous tongue which Irathe still spoke. Almost in chorus for a moment the two voices chanted, one cool and not strong, but gaining in strength, the other rich and high, brimming with passion—but fading a little as the new tones sounded through the dark.

But it was not a chorus. Strophe and antistrophe rang through the icy hall. And at the chant of that new, clear speech, Boyce thought the cold began to ebb a little. He could move again—not much, but a little. Blindly he stumbled forward.

Voice fought against voice. The two who had been one woman battled in the dark. And Boyce knew now the truth behind that battle. For Irathe was not, after all, the one human creature who could command Them. She was only half of that one being who alone spoke Their tongue with human lips. The Oracle too knew the chant, knew They must obey it. And in the dark the Oracle chanted on, her voice gaining little by little in volume as it strove with Irathe’s.

Groping, Boyce touched something warm and breathing. Even in the darkness, he could not be mistaken who it was. He seized her waist, and Irathe struck out at him fiercely, pausing in her chant. The Oracle’s voice soared instantly in the pause, strength surging up in it.

Boyce’s arms swept around Irathe. Her nails ripped his cheek. He dragged her close, prisoning her arms, one palm clamping across her mouth. It was like holding one of the tiger–beasts. Her knee drove up viciously; she writhed in his arms and he tightened his grasp until it seemed as though her ribs must collapse under the pressure. But she could not speak.

The Oracle’s voice poured forth that inhuman chant, clear and strong. It was a command—and an entreaty.

Darkness was paling around them. Over Irathe’s twisting head, Boyce saw robed figures moving in an intricate ritual about the marble–white girl whose voice still echoed through the room. He saw, and looked away, setting his teeth against the shudders that racked him whenever his eyes even glancingly crossed those hidden shapes.

But something was happening.

In his arms Irathe suddenly froze. Something brushed past, a touch that exhaled cold, and Boyce was for a moment weak with horror at the touch. Then a single ringing sound like a struck gong vibrated through the lifting dimness.

And from Boyce’s arms he felt Irathe—melt….

When he could see again, the room was clear. He was not wholly aware of the great surging lift and fall of the floor beneath him, for one thing held his gaze like a spell of sorcery. And there was sorcery indeed in her violet eyes and the vividness of the smiling face beneath her iron crown.

“Do you know me now—my dear, oh, my dear—do you know me now?”

He was not sure of his own body any more. He took one forward step as the floor pitched beneath him, not daring to believe the strange evidence of his own stunned mind.

“We are one again now,” the sweet, familiar voice was saying. And he did remember, from long ago and from another world. His heart was beating suffocatingly as he crossed the heaving floor toward her, holding out uncertain hands.

Her warm fingers clasped them. It was the face he knew tilting to his now—vivid and alive as Irathe, yes, potent for evil as Irathe—but not evil. All the strength was there, but under the control the Oracle had always known.

She thrust herself between his arms and laid the crowned head back to lift her lips to his, smiling as she had smiled so long ago, on Earth.

Yes, he remembered now. This was the real Irathe … !

The pitch of the floor beneath them interrupted the kiss. She drew back and looked anxiously about them.

“We must go,” she said. “I wish—but unless you mean to stay here forever, we must go quickly.”

He followed her glance. Through the crystal ceiling, clear now except for the drift of mist outside, he could see the City roofs and the mountains beyond them, with Kerak crowning the heights. And Kerak was slipping slowly backward. The mountains moved—no, not the mountains, but the City.

“The bond is broken,” the girl in his arms said. He could not quite think of her as Irathe, though he knew it was truly her name now. “I’m no longer an anchor to hold the City here and the tide is pulling us out and away. What do you think we should do, William Boyce?”

He dropped one arm from her to touch his belt where a faint chill from the crystal struck through his clothing. Yes, it was still there.

“Go back,” he said. “Back to Earth, if we can.”

She nodded.

“Yes, I hoped for that. This City is no place for me now. My place is with you—if you want that?”

He grinned and dropped his head to reassure her, but she smiled, pushing him gently away.

“Later, later, my darling. We— look .”

He turned his head. Then in an awed voice he said, “ Jamai! ”

And yet it was no startling thing he saw. Terrible, yes, and tragic, but somehow not strange in this strange and lawless place.

On the high throne of the Sorcerer King the Huntsman sat. The King’s yellow–robed body lay at his feet on the heaving floor. The Huntsman’s chin was on his chest and his face was turned toward them as they stood before the throne. But the Huntsman’s eyes did not see them. His eyes were fixed upon the bright face of madness and he saw no other sight.

They left him there, stumbling as they went over the pitching floor, his dead beasts lying about the throne and the dead King at his feet.

* * * * *

Through the mist they stumbled, over ground that swelled and sank beneath their feet like the tides of a solid sea. Great gaps opened and closed again with a screaming of rock far underground. The depths groaned beneath them.

“Hurry!” Boyce heard himself gasp as the ground shook itself and rose in a mountainous billow that sank as they began the climb up its slope. “It isn’t far now—only a little way. I remember that cliff. It’s the one I came through.”

“I think—it’s steadier now,” Irathe panted. “The ground—it’s rising into the foothills here. Only the valley—flows.”

Wreathed in mist, they climbed. And it was true that as the rocky hillside rose underfoot, the billowing subsided. Once they paused and looked back. Far away, gleaming with jeweled lights, glittering with enchantment, they saw the warlocks’ City drifting like a ship into the misty distances, pitching on the land waves that surged in long quakes around it. And beyond the City, Kerak.

High on the crags, the great castle stood, its scarlet banner blowing above it like a flame. Other lands would drift through this valley at its feet. Other cities and people would know Tancred and Guillaume du Bois, who was Boyce’s distant forebear and would never know it. Kerak, he thought, would sit through an uncounted forever on its crag while the drifting lands flowed slowly by, carrying unknown adventures past its gates.

They turned and climbed again.

“Here—no, farther. Here, I think.” Boyce searched the ledges with anxious eyes. Incredible to think that just beyond one of them his own world lay. He caught a glint of something, and bent close to look.

“Yes, this is it. See, the glass I broke when I came through.”

It lay on the ground in glittering fragments that crackled underfoot. Boyce fumbled in his belt, brought out the small, cold crystal whose chill struck into his palm as he held it.