Абрахам Меррит - The Face In The Abyss

She pressed her palm against his forehead, held it there. He had the sensation of whirling across the lake and through the cliffs, the same vertiginous feeling he had experienced when he had thought he stood, bodiless, within the Temple. And now he seemed to halt beside the hull of the ship in the dim cavern. He looked over its shrouded, enigmatic shapes. And as swiftly he was back in Adana's chamber.

"You see!" she said, "nothing of you went forth. Your sight was lengthened—that was all."

She picked up a silver mirror, gazed at herself complacently.

"That is fine, daughter," she said. "Now coif it for me." She preened herself before the mirror, set it down. "Graydon, you have aroused old thoughts. Often I have asked, 'What is it that is I, Adana'—and never found the answer. None of my ancestors has ever returned to tell me. Nor any of the Old Race. Now is it not strange, if there be another life beyond this one, that not love nor sorrow, wit nor strength nor compassion has ever bridged the gap between them? Think of the countless millions who have died since man became man, among them seekers of far horizons who had challenged unknown perils to bring back tidings of distant shores, great adventurers, ingenious in artifice; and men of wisdom who had sought truth not selfishly but to spread it among their kind; men and women who had loved so greatly that surely it seems they could break through any barrier, return and say—'Behold, I am! Now grieve no more!' Fervent priests whose fires of faith had shone like beacons to their flocks—have they come back to say—'See! It was truth I told you! Doubt no more!' Compassionate men, lighteners of burdens, prelates of pity—why have they not reappeared crying, 'There is no death!' There has come no word from them. Why are they silent?

"Yet that proves nothing. Would that it did—for then we would be rid of sometimes troublesome thoughts. But it does not, for look you, Graydon, we march beside our sun among an army of other stars, some it must be with their own circling worlds. Beyond this universe are other armies of suns, marching like ours through space. Earth cannot be the only place in all these universes upon which is life. And if time be— then it must stretch backward as well as forward into infinitude. Well, in all illimitable time, no ship from any other world has cast anchor upon ours, no argosy has sailed between the stars bearing tidings that life is elsewhere.

"Have we any more evidence that life exists among these visible universes than that it persists in some mysterious, invisible land whose only gateway is death? But your men of wisdom who deny the one because none has returned from it, will not deny the other though none has come to us from the star strands. They will say that they do not know—well, neither do they know the other!

"And yet—if there be what you name the soul, whence does it come, and when, how planted in these bodies of ours? Did the ape–like creatures from which you grew have them? Did the first of your ancestors who crawled on four pads out of the waters have them? When did the soul first appear? Is it man's alone? Is it in the egg of the woman? Or in the seed of the man? Or incomplete in both? If not, when does it enter its shell within the mother's womb? Is it summoned by the new–born child's first cry? From whence?"

"Time streams like a mighty river, placid, unhurried," said the Lord of Fools. "Across it is a rift where bubbles rise. It is life. Some bubbles float a little longer than the others. Some are large and some small. The bubbles rise and burst, rise and burst. Bursting, do they release some immortal essence? Who knows—who knows?"

The Serpent–woman looked at herself again in the silver mirror.

"I do not, for one," she said, practically. "Suarra, child, you've done my hair splendidly. And enough of speculation. I am a practical person. What we are chiefly concerned about, Tyddo, is to keep Nimir and Lantlu from bursting those bubbles which are ourselves.

"There is one thing I fear—that Nimir will fasten his mind upon those things of power which are within that cavern of the ship; find some way of getting them. Therefore, Graydon and Suarra, you shall go there tonight, taking with you fifty of the Emer to carry back to me what I want from it. After that, there is another thing you must do there, and then return speedily. Graydon, arise from that coffer."

He obeyed. She opened the coffer and drew out a thick, yard–long crystal bar, apparently hollow, its core filled with a slender pillar of pulsing violet fire.

"This, Graydon, I will give you when you start," she said. "Carry it carefully, for the lives of all of us may rest upon it. After the Emers are laden and in the passage, you must do with it what I shall shortly show you. Suarra, within the ship is a small chest—I will show you where it lies—you must bring me that. And before you set this bar in place, take whatsoever pleases you from the ancient treasures. But do not loiter—" she frowned at the throbbing flame—"I am sorry. Truly! But now must great loss come, that far greater loss does not follow. Suarra, child—follow my sight!"

The girl came forward, stood waiting with a tranquility which indicated it was not the first time she had made such journey. The Serpent–woman pressed her palm upon her forehead as she had on Graydon's. She kept it there for long minutes. She took away her hand; Suarra smiled at her and nodded.

"You have seen! You know precisely what I want! You will remember!" They were not questions, they were commands.

"I have seen, I know and I will remember," answered Suarra.

"Now, Graydon, you too—so there may be no mistake, and that you work quickly together."

She touched his forehead. With the speed of thought he was once more within the cavern. One by one those things she wanted flashed out of the vagueness—he knew precisely where each was, how to go to it. And unforgettably. Now he was in the ship, within a richly furnished cabin, and saw there the little chest Suarra was to take. And now he was beside a curious contrivance built of crystal and silver metal, the bulk of it shaped like an immense thick–bottomed bowl around whose rim were globes like that of the sistrum, ten times larger, and with none of its quicksilver quivering; quiescent. Within the crystal which formed the bulk of the bowl was a pool of the violet flame, quiescent too, not pulsing like that within the rod. Looking more closely, he saw that the top of the bowl was covered with some transparent substance, clear as air, and that the pool was prisoned within it. Set at the exact center, and vanishing in the flame, was a hollow cylinder of metal. Before him there appeared the misty shape of the rod. He saw it thrust sharply into the cylinder. He heard the voice of the Serpent–woman, whispering—"This must you do."

He thought that even at the spectral touch, the globes began to quiver, the violet flame to pulse. The rod vanished.

He began the whirling flight back toward the Temple—was halted in mid–flight! He felt the horror he had known when bound to the bench before the jet throne!

Red light beat upon him, rusted black atoms drifted round him—he was in the cavern of the Shadow, and on its throne, featureless face intent upon him, sat the Shadow!

The dreadful gaze sifted him. He felt the grip relax; heard a whispering laugh—

He was back in the room of the Snake Mother, trembling, breathing like a man spent from running. Suarra was beside him, his hands clutched in hers, staring at him with frightened eyes. The Serpent–woman was erect, upon her face the first amazement he had ever seen. The Lord of Folly was on his feet, red staff stretched out to him.

"God!" sobbed Graydon, and caught at Suarra for support. "The Shadow! It caught me!"