Абрахам Меррит - The Face In The Abyss

She pushed him away from her. Regor wheeled him round; marched him to the edge of the Temple's roof. There he stooped and drew forth a stout rope at whose end was a grappling hook. He fastened the hook to the cornice, threw the rope over.

"There's your path, lad," he said, huskily; "The Mother wants none to see you leave. Over with you! And take this—"

He thrust his long poniard into Graydon's girdle. Rifle slung over his shoulders, he caught the rope, slipped over the parapet. He slid down, the whirring of the winged serpents accompanying him. He reached the end of the rope, stood for an instant in the darkness, wondering which way to go.

He felt the touch of one of the Messengers, urging him on. And suddenly, in his brain, he saw the way to Lantlu's palace sharply outlined as a map.

Graydon began to run along these lanes his sight had followed when the Serpent–woman had touched him. Over him, matching his pace, beat the unseen wings.

IT WAS a luminously clear night. He found his way easily, as though his feet had been long trained to every turn and curve. After a little he stopped running; for one thing, to conserve his strength for what was to come, for another, lest it draw attention to him from those who might also be traveling his path.

He was close to the palace of Lantlu when he had his first encounter. It proved to him the deadly mettle of those animate rapier blades the Mother had assigned to him for servants. From a shrubbery–concealed lane emerged a couple of Emers carrying javelins and flambeaux in which, instead of flames, were globes gleaming with a golden light. Behind them came a litter carried by four Indians. In it was a noble clad in green. He was followed by another pair of guards.

Graydon had no chance to retreat, nor to slip into the shadow. The occupant of the litter waved his hand, greeted him. Graydon, holding his cloak to hide his face as much as possible, returned the greeting briefly, tried to pass on. Such brusque behavior was apparently not the custom, for the noble raised himself, gave a sharp command to his men, then leaped out and advanced toward him with drawn sword.

There was but one thing to do, and Graydon did it. He pointed at the Emers, and hurled himself upon the Yu–Atlanchan. He ducked beneath a vicious thrust of the sword, and the next instant had caught the noble's right wrist in one hand while the other throttled him. It was no time for niceties. Up came his knee, and caught his opponent in the groin. Under the agony of that blow, the Yu–Atlanchan relaxed, his sword dropped. Graydon pinned him through the heart with Regor's dagger.

He did not dare use his rifle, so bent swiftly, picked up the dead man's sword, turned to face the Emers.

They, too, were dead.

They lay, the eight of them, pierced by the rapier bills of the winged serpents before they could make out–cry or lift a single javelin, slain in that brief moment it had taken him to kill one man.

He looked down at their bodies. It seemed incredible that those eight lives could have been wiped out in such little time. He heard the wings of the creatures whirring close over his head, and stared up toward the sound. Above him, as though an unseen finger had traced them in the air, were two slender crimson lines. They shook, and a little shower of crimson drops fell from them—

The winged serpents cleansing their beaks!

He went on with a ruthless elation in his heart. All sense of aloneness had fled; he felt as though he had an army at his back. He sped on, boldly. The lane entered a dense coppice of flowering trees. He crept softly along through the copse. He halted in the deepest shadow. Not a hundred yards away was the palace of Lantlu. The structure covered, he estimated, a little more than an acre. It seemed to be octagonal, not lofty, the bulk of it composed of two high– vaulted floors. From its center arose a dome, shimmering sapphire and opal; and shaped like that which Tamerlane the Conqueror brought back from ravished Damascus to grace his beloved Samarkand. Up to its swelling base pushed clusters of small jeweled turrets, like little bowers built by gnomes for their women.

The octagonal walls were sheathed with tiles glimmering as though lacquered with molten pale rubies, sun–yellow topazes, water–green emeralds. They contained windows, both rectangular and oval, casemented and latticed by fretwork of stone and metal delicate as lace. Out from their base extended a tessellated pave, thirty feet wide, of black and white polished stone. Slender pillars of gold were ranged at its edge, bearing silken canopies. Soft light streamed from every window through webbed curtainings. There was no door.

Graydon crept forward to the edge of the copse. Between him and the pave was a smooth stretch of sward, open, and impossible to cross without being detected by any one on watch. He saw no one, but from the whole palace came a confused murmur. A hundred feet or more to his right the flowering trees pressed closer to the walls. He flitted along the rim of the boskage until he reached this verdant tongue. Working cautious way to its tip, he found he was now within fifty feet of the pillars.

He faced another side of the palace. On the ground floor were a trio of wide oval windows, almost touching, through which came a brighter glow than from the others. And now voices came to him plainly, voices of the nobles, both men and women. They came from this chamber wherein shone the brighter lights. Here beside the pillars was a guard of a dozen Indians armed with javelins and bows.

As he stood hesitating, wondering what was best to do, he heard from the room a tumult of shouts and laughter, and the sound of pipes playing a curious jigging tune. Then above all, stilling both clamor and music, the jeering voice of Lantlu:

"Welcome Suarra! Welcome to the bride! Ho, there—bring forth the bridegroom!"

And then the beginning of another tumult of applause and laughter.

Graydon leaped out of the protecting shadow of the trees, and pointed to the Emer guard. He heard the swish of pinions. He ran toward the palace, unslinging his rifle as he went. Before he could take his second step he saw two of the Indians go down, then another pair, while the others stood frozen, paralyzed by this invisible death striking among them. And here was sword–play swifter than he had ever beheld in any salon of French or Italian master of fencing. He had not covered half the fifty–foot strip before all that guard lay stretched at the edge of the pave, hearts pierced, throats torn. Precise, unerring, with the speed of a spray of machine–gun bullets, the rapier beaks had reached their marks. Silently they had struck—and silently those Emers had died.

He strode over a body, and to the curtained windows. Whether there were other guards close by, he neither knew nor cared, gave indeed no thought to it. The oval windows were grilled like those he had first noted. He tried the first, but it was immovable. The second swung quietly under his hands. He snapped open the safety lock of his rifle, gripped the gun in his left hand, softly parted the curtain webs with his right, and looked into the chamber.

His gaze flew straight to Suarra—took her in, and for the moment nothing else.

She stood on a dais in the center of the great room beside a flower– decked couch. She was clad in a robe of green through which her white body gleamed. Around her head was a wreath of crimson flowers. Her feet were bare. Her hands were crossed over her breasts, and around their wrists he saw the glitter of golden manacles.

Her mouth had been painted, her cheeks rouged, and these spots of color stood out against the waxen pallor of her face like those upon a doll's. Like a waxen doll she seemed, lifeless, eyes closed, scarcely breathing. And even as he gazed, she shuddered, swayed, and dropped upon the edge of the couch.