Абрахам Меррит - The Face In The Abyss

The Lord of Evil staggered, dropped Graydon, struck out at the beating wings.

The coils about his legs drew closer. The Lord of Evil toppled.

He went rolling down the steps. Graydon's body lay, motionless, where it had fallen.

The Serpent–woman clicked. The spider–man scuttered down the steps, grasped Graydon, rushed back with him, and dropped him beside her.

Buffeting wings and clinging coil of the winged serpents withdrew from Nimir. He stumbled to his feet. He hopped to the Face.

He reached its chin. He turned, facing the Mother. Two faces of the Lord of Evil were there. The great Face of stone, lifeless, indifferent—and its miniature of dream stuff and rusted atoms interwoven, instinct with life.

Against the cliffed chin pressed the Lord of Evil, arms outstretched, facing the Serpent–woman. In living eyes that matched the glittering ones far above them was neither fear nor appeal for mercy.

Only hate—and merciless threat. He spoke no word, nor did she.

The Lord of Evil turned. Like a great frog, he swarmed up the stone.

The Serpent–woman raised her sistrum. Out shot a radiant sphere. After it another—and another. The first struck the Face squarely upon the brow, the other two, almost simultaneously, upon eyes and mouth.

They burst and sprayed. Tongues of white lightning licked out. The Face seemed to grimace; contorted. Its stony mouth writhed.

Out sped a fourth sphere. It struck the climbing body of the Lord of Evil, and climbing figure and Face were hidden by the tongues of the white lightning. They vanished—those tongues.

There was no Face in the abyss! Only a smooth smoking surface of black stone.

There was no Lord of Evil! Only a smear of rusted atoms against the blasted rock. The smear quivered. It seemed to be feebly trying to cling.

Another of the brilliant spheres struck it. The white tongues licked it—

The rock was clean!

And now shining sphere upon sphere shot from the sistrum. They struck the walls of the cavern, and the tempests of shining atoms died. The gemmed flowers and fruits upon those walls dulled, and dropped.

Darker grew the cavern where the Face in the abyss had been—darker and darker.

Densest darkness filled it.

The Serpent–woman's voice lifted into one long, wild, shrilling, clarion note of triumph.

She beckoned the spider–man and pointed to Graydon, She turned her back on the black tomb of the Lord of Evil. She glided into the portal of the passage.

Behind her followed the Lord of Folly, and Kon…holding Graydon's body to his scarlet breast like a child—nuzzling him with his lips— crooning to his unhearing ears.

IT WAS FIVE DAYS before Graydon opened his eyes to consciousness. During all that time he had lain in the bower of the Snake Mother, Suarra attending him. Nor would the Mother take the collar of Nimir from his neck.

"I am not yet sure," she told the girl and Regor when they begged her to open it, rid Graydon of it. "It will not hurt him. Or should it threaten him, then will I take it off quickly enough—I promise you. But it was a link, and a strong link, between him and Nimir, and may still be so. I am not yet sure that which we knew as Nimir has been wholly absorbed in what sent him forth. I do not yet know what was that Shadow. But if something of it still survives, it will be drawn by that symbol, try to enter him through it. Then I will see what measure of strength that something possesses. If nothing of Nimir survives, the collar can do no harm. But until I know—he wears it."

That ended the matter. The first day Graydon was restless, muttering of the Dark Master, listening as though to spoken words, speaking now and then to one unseen. Whether to some beseeching wisp of Nimir or to some phantom of his sick mind only the Serpent–woman knew. His unease increased until the second night, and so did his mutterings. The Mother came now and then and coiled herself beside him, lifting his lids, examining closely his eyes. On that night when his restlessness reached its peak, she had Regor lay his naked body on her own nest of cushions. She took the smaller sistrum and held it over his head. A soft radiance began to stream from it. She moved the sistrum around him, bathing him from head to feet in its light. On the third day he was much quieter. That night she examined him intently, nodded as though satisfied, and sent a strong ray from the sistrum upon the collar. Graydon groaned feebly, began to raise trembling hands as though to protect it.

"Hold his hands, Regor," said the Mother, impassively. A stronger ray sprang from the sistrum. The collar of the Lord of Evil lost its sullen gleaming; changed to a lifeless brown. She took it between her hands and broke it. It crumbled to a pinch of dust in her fingers. Immediately Graydon relaxed and passed into deep normal sleep.

On the morning of the fifth day he awakened. Suarra and Regor were beside him. He tried to rise, but his weakness was too great. He was drained of all strength. His mind, however, was crystal clear.

"I know everything you're going to say against it," he told them, grinning faintly and holding tight to Suarra. "But it's no good. I feel as though I've been shot through a dozen windmills. In fact, I feel like hell. Nevertheless, I'm not going to close my eyes again until I'm brought up to date. First—what happened to Nimir?"

They told him of the pursuit of the Lord of Evil, and of his end in the cavern of the Face, as they themselves had been told it by the Mother.

"And then," said Regor, "she blasted the tunnel through which Nimir had gone so that it is sealed forever. She blasted Nimir's throne and the dais. The strange garden she destroyed utterly. It screamed and shrilled its agony as the tongues of the white lightnings licked it up."

"Evil was that garden," said Suarra. "Evil beyond all imaginings, the Mother told me. And that for its creation Nimir alone deserved annihilation. But what sorcery he wrought there, to what uses he had put it or what uses he intended it—she will not tell me."

"The Urd had fled from the red cavern," Regor took up the tale. "Ran, what was left of them, to hide in their deepest dens. And so the three came back to the Temple, bearing you. The next day the Mother took stock of what remained in ancient Yu–Atlanchi. Of the Old Race who defended the Temple, there was a scant hundred left. Of those who had fought for Lantlu, some four–score sent an ambassador to the Mother asking truce and pardon. She ordered them before her, slew a dozen of them, and forgave the others. There are, I suppose, as many more who, knowing they can expect no mercy, have taken to the caves and forest— become outlaws, as we were before you came, Graydon.

"She had the Dream Makers, over whom the battle had passed unheeded, awakened and brought to the chamber of the thrones. Or the most of them—for there were some she commanded slain out of hand. She gave them the choice of abandoning their dreams and opening upon themselves the Doors of Life and Death, or—well, just death. Some fifty preferred to live. The others could find no attraction in it. They were allowed to go back to their homes, enter their favorite world of phantoms—and shortly thereafter they and their worlds ceased altogether to be.

"Of the winged serpents, the Messengers of the Mother, not more than a quarter survived. Of the Emer there are about a thousand left—I mean men. Mostly, they are those who took no part in the battle. Our soldiers and those of Lantlu were rather thoroughly wiped out. Nimir's shadows and the Mother's flames made no distinction between friend and enemy. Two days ago, at the command of Adana, the bulk of these Emers were sent to the caverns to exterminate the remnants of the Urd. Oh, yes—about a half dozen of the hunting Xinli escaped, and an equal number of the riding Xinli The first are being tracked down and killed; the others we will keep.