Абрахам Меррит - The Face In The Abyss

"Lad," he said, "I have forebodings. It was in my own mind to suggest that meeting with Suarra, nevertheless I like it ill coming from Dorina. So Suarra is to meet us not at the fifth hour, but the third. Also, the place will not be the first cavern, but the cavern of the Frog–woman."

"But the message has gone," said Graydon. "How is Suarra to know?"

"Don't worry about that," retorted the giant. "In my subtle fashion, I sent a message of my own with that other. Even the messenger who bore it did not know what it was. If we get a caraquenque feather back from Suarra, it means she understands. If we don't—why, then we'll have to go to the first cavern."

He nodded gloomily.

"I repeat. I don't like that idea coming from Dorina. Oh, well—"

He grumbled a good–night, and stalked out

THE MORNING of the third day Graydon heard from Regor that Suarra had got his message, and had set that night for their meeting. She had sent a plume of the caraquenque bird to show she had understood, and would be at the cavern of the Frog–woman.

"Not even Huon knows it is there we go," said Regor. "If he did, Dorina would wheedle it out of him. And two nights' sleep have not diminished my distrust. In making that suggestion she had something more in mind than making easy your way to Adana, or gratifying your desire to see the young woman whose aunt, in a manner of speaking, she is," he ended with a grin.

Graydon had given considerable thought to that matter himself; and now he repeated to Regor his curious conversation with Dorina.

"She may," he said, "plan a trap to deliver me to Lantlu. She may reason that if I get to the Mother, the issue will be joined at once. Then, if Lantlu is conquered, Huon will rule and open the Door of Death, whatever that may be, which she so greatly dreads. Whereas, if I am put out of the way definitely, things will probably go on much as now, which will give her time to persuade Huon from his resolve. That is the only basis I can think of for your suspicions, if there is any basis for them."

Regor listened thoughtfully.

"It is no secret that Dorina opposes Huon in that matter. There has always been that conflict between them. His desire for children is as strong as hers for deathlessness. Before we came here, he urged her to join him in opening the two Doors. She would not. There are other women who would. But Huon is a one–woman man. He would kill Dorina if he found her in treachery, but he will be the father of no other woman's child." He paced the room, grumbling.

"You have given words to my thoughts, true enough," he stopped his pacing. "Yet there is another side to the matter which I do not think Dorina would overlook. If you are trapped, so in all probability will be Suarra. She runs great risk in meeting you. Enough to secure her condemnation by the Council, which Lantlu controls—it would mean at best her outlawry. The Council would be within its rights in so dealing with her. But if I know anything of women, and remember the Snake Mother is woman, she would not allow that foster–child of hers to suffer. And then the issue would be joined indeed, and in a way that only the destruction of Lantlu or Adana herself could end."

"And that, if you are right, is exactly what Dorina does not want."

"Good God, Regor!" exclaimed Graydon, aghast. "Why didn't you let me know that before I told them how Suarra came back to me? Surely that puts her in Lantlu's power if that hell–cat gets the information to him."

"No," answered the giant, "no, it doesn't. You see, lad, then she had the Lord Tyddo with her. She was but obeying his bidding."

"Perhaps he'll come with her to–night," said Graydon, hopefully.

"No," Regor shook his head, "no, I don't believe he will. This is different. Then there were four of you, going to punishment. And if it had not been for the Mother, you would have gone rolling down the abyss, a bit of golden sweat with the others. The Mother interfered there, and I think she would again—for Suarra. But she might not for you. Also, you told me she said you must win to her by your own wit and courage. So, I hardly think that we can count on any protection to–night beyond what we ourselves devise."

Again he grumbled, inarticulately. "Furthermore," he pointed his bar at Graydon like a finger, "Adana is woman, and therefore changeable. She might decide that, after all, you are not essential to Suarra's welfare, or she might grow momentarily weary of the whole matter, and that brief abstraction might occur at a most unfortunate time for you—"

"Hell!" cried Graydon, springing up, "you are certainly a cheerful companion, Regor!"

"Well," chuckled Regor, "if it's a cheerful thought you want, here is one. The Mother is woman true enough—but certainly not human woman. Therefore neither of us can possibly know what she may or may not do!"

He left Graydon to wrestle with the depressing conviction that he was completely right.

The balance of the day Graydon spent with Huon and certain members of the Fellowship, as he had the day before, all of them eager to know more of that world which had grown up outside the Hidden Land. Dorina did not appear. They were interested in his rifle and pistols, skeptical as to their effect upon the dinosaurs; like children, they were more interested in the explosions than the work of the bullets. The Xinli, they explained, were vulnerable only in one unprotected place in their necks under the jaw, and an upward thrust from a lance into this spot was about the one way to kill them. There were some two hundred in the hunting packs, and not more than a score of the monsters used for riding. They bred scantily, and their numbers were slowly but steadily lessened by fights among themselves. The greater creatures were tractable as horses, and could be ridden by any one. The packs were ravening devils over which only Lantlu had complete control. There was an amphitheater where races of the great dinosaurs were regularly held; and it was also the arena of combats between selected fighters of the hunting packs and small bands of the lizard– men, raids upon whom were periodically made to keep down their numbers. And now Graydon discovered why none of the Indians died in ways that would have given Huon the enlightenment he sought as to the varied guises of death. When they began to age they were fed to the packs.

Then, too, it appeared, Lantlu had a passion for hunting human game. Offenders against the law, and offenders against him, were often taken—openly in the case of the first and secretly in that of the other—beyond the barriers, given a start and run down. That, he also discovered, was how Regor had gotten his scars and lost his arm. Daring to oppose Lantlu in one of his cruelties, he had been trapped, loosed and hunted. He had managed to evade the pursuers, all except one questing dinosaur; had fought and killed it. Fearfully wounded, he had by some miracle of vitality reached Huon's lair, and had there been nursed back to life. Lantlu's price for his capture was only a little less than that for Huon's.

Rapidly Graydon's understanding of this lost people clarified. Scant remnants of what must have been a race more advanced than any following it on earth—a race that had reached a peak of scientific attainment never afterward touched by man—they were all that was left of a mighty wave of prehistoric civilization, a little pool fast becoming stagnant Over–sheltered, over–protected, made immune from all attack and necessity for effort, they had retained the beauty of their bodies; but initiative, urge to advance, impulse to regain the lost knowledge of their ancestors had atrophied, or at best was comatose to the point of extinction. Except for that beauty—and the disquieting thought of their age—they seemed normal people, charmingly courteous.