Elak of Atlantis (5 page)

Elak leaned forward tensely. “Elf? These dwarfs—Pikhts—know him?”

“Yes; they serve him. They give him magic in return for strong men whom they sacrifice to their god. For ages they’ve dwelt on Crenos Isle worshiping—” The man’s voice dropped to a thin reedy whisper, and madness crept into his eyes. “The Shadow took my son. The door opened, and I went out into the passage where the pool was. I saw water below me, and a Shadow lying upon it. The Shadow leaped up at me, and as I drew back it touched my brow… it was not hungry then. It had just fed on Halfgar… it took him from my side as I slept… there are doors which are not to be opened.…”

The whisper
stopped. The man’s eyes widened. He sprang to his feet, clawing at his breast with ripping fingernails, tearing away skin and flesh in long ribbons. He screamed, a frightful, agonized shriek that resounded through the cell.

And he fell, a boneless huddle in the corner. His bearded face stared up blindly, and Elak saw that he was dead.

A soft rustling made him turn. Very slowly, very gently, the iron door was swinging outward. From the vagueness beyond the portal a misty gray light crept into the cell.

Elak heard the lapping of water.…

Dalan’s black galley lay beached on Crenos Isle, battered and bruised by the storm. The same gale that had flung the ship ashore had sent Duke Granicor’s craft driving northward till it had been lost to view in the scud. Now the oarsmen were busy calking seams, mending the ruin the tempest had wrought.

But Dalan, in the cabin, crouched over his crystal globe, his ugly face set in harsh lines. Velia and Lycon stood beside him, curiously eyeing the sphere, watching the flashing images that swept through its depths.

“Elf’s magic is strong,” the Druid muttered. “He battles me at every step. But—”

“Is Elak alive?” Velia asked anxiously. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because I don’t know. Keep quiet, girl! Elf’s spells war with mine, and I see nothing—yet.”

He peered into the shimmering sphere. Lycon squeezed Velia’s arm reassuringly. And suddenly Dalan expelled a long breath of relief.

“So! He lives—see?”

Within the crystal a
picture grew, a tiny image of a beach flanked by towering gray rocks. On the slope a man lay bound and unconscious.

“Praise Ishtar!” Lycon said. “Is he far? I’ll go after him—”

“Wait,” the Druid commanded. “I know that beach. Elf’s allies, the Pikhts, have an underground temple there. And—look!”

Velia gave a soft little cry. There was movement within the crystal; a man emerged from a cleft in one of the tall rocks and approached Elak’s prostrate figure. As they watched they saw Elak prodded to his feet by the Pikht, urged into the darkness of the fissure. For a second the sphere was a ball of jet; then it brightened and showed a long corridor cut out of solid rock. Three dark-skinned dwarfs thrust Elak forward.

“Mider!” Dalan said tonelessly. “He’s in the temple! And that means he’s to be sacrificed to—”

“Not if I know it!” Lycon snapped. “How far is this temple? The crew have swords and know how to use them. Tell me how to go, Dalan—north or south?” He was at the door, grinning unpleasantly as he figured the hilt of his blade. “I’ll butcher those little devils for you!”

“Good! Go south, Lycon—and swiftly. You’ll know the place?”

“I’ll know it. How far have we to go?”

“Half an hour’s march, if you travel fast.” The Druid turned to his globe. “I’ll stay here. You must fight the Pikhts—but I battle Elf. And—” His huge hands swept down, gripped the crystal. “Hurry, Lycon! Elak’s in danger now—deadly danger!”

Lycon thrust the door open, sprang on deck. His shrill voice shattered the morning calm. And in response the crew leaped to obey, dropping oar and hammer, taking up sword and ax, dropping over the rail to the beach. A half-naked, villainous-looking band, they trotted south, urged on by Lycon’s searing oaths and the flat of his blade.

And with them came Velia, keeping always at Lycon’s side, eyes flashing with battle-hunger, lips parted in a smile that was not pleasant to see. They went so swiftly that they reached their destination before the time Dalan had allotted. Recognizing the black cleft in the stone, Lycon halted his men to take the lead.

He stepped into the
darkness with a strange crawling of uneasiness, sword bared, blinding in an attempt to pierce the gloom. Something moved, and he cut at a menace he sensed rather than heard. Steel gashed his thigh, but he felt his blade rip through flesh and grind against bone. A squealing, scarcely human cry sound. In a frenzy of loathing he struck and struck again, cutting his way forward against soft bodies that resisted briefly and then broke and retreated under his onslaught.

The oarsmen poured into the cleft, led by Velia, and in the darkness the Pikhts rallied and came at them, snarling rage. For a little while there was a black madness of battle, a chaos of yells and oaths and death cries. In the end Lycon won through, and the Pikhts scattered like rats before the sweep of thirsty blades.

Before Lycon now was a dim-lit corridor, one wall set with barred doors. He cut down a screaming dwarf that plunged at him, dagger bared, and left the rest to Velia and the crew. Swiftly he raced along the passage, casting hasty glances into each cell as he passed. Captives stretched out imploring hands, begging for release, but Elak was not among them.

Near the end of the corridor, one door was open. Lycon sprang over the threshold, saw a bare, empty cell with an iron slab ajar in the opposite wall. He went forward, sword dripping red on the stones as he lifted it.

Water was lapping softly nearby.…

6. THE NIGHT OF GODS

Elak stepped through the portal and found himself in a narrow passage. Gray light bathed him. In the distance he saw a sparkling surface that rippled in the cold glow.

And suddenly he heard Dalan’s voice. It came softly from empty air, urgent, peremptory, calling his name.

“Elak!
Elak
!”

Searching the bare walls
with incredulous eyes, Elak whispered, “Dalan? Where are you?”

The Druid’s voice rang out sharply. “No time now, Elak—the Shadow comes as I speak. Leap into the pool—dive into it, now! At the end of the passage—”

Still Elak hesitated. “But where are you—”

“There’s not time to talk now! Hurry—”

The stark urgency of Dalan’s words spurred Elak to action, sent him racing along the corridor. He checked himself sharply on the brink of a square basin. Little menace in that, or in the blue-green water that filled it. But within the pool dwelt horror. A Shadow lay upon it.

The shadow of a man, cast by—nothing! An opaque outline that lay incredibly on the surface of the pool. And it darkened into blackness, while the gray luminescence of the corridor dimmed.

“’Ware, Elak!”

Dalan’s voice, loud in warning! Elak whirled, saw a dark-skinned dwarf almost upon him, pale eyes blazing, bestial face menacing. In the Pikht’s hand was a dagger.

The two men smashed together on the pool’s brink, went down, clutching and tearing, the oily body of the dwarf squirming like a snake in Elak’s grasp. Steel grated on the stones. Elak’s fingers closed relentlessly on his opponent’s knife wrist.

With a powerful lunge the Pikht brought his dagger down, its point touching Elak’s chest. The two rolled over, snarling oaths, and—dropped into emptiness!

The pool took them—dragged them down into water icy as polar seas, blue as turquoise. Elak could see nothing but that illimitable blueness as he went down, choking for breath, battling against blinding panic. Was the pool bottomless?

The sapphire tint deepened to indigo, foamed in fantastic patterns before Elak’s eyes. He realized abruptly that his was not water surrounding him—could not be, or he would have drowned minutes ago. There was a swift accelerating rush, and abruptly frightful cold, incredible agony, tore at the citadel of Elak’s brain. He was conscious of a
change
.

Air rushed into
his lungs—air stale and dead, as though it had never been breathed, yet curiously refreshing. Dim, flickering shadows were all about him. And the swarthy devil-mask of the Pikht’s face swam into view from the vagueness.

Pale eyes glared into Elak’s; the dagger came down viciously and buried itself in the ground as he writhed aside. He clutched at the dwarf’s wrist, missed, and flung himself bodily upon the Pikht, bearing the smaller man down by his weight. But he could not maintain a hold upon the muscular, oily body.

Snarling, the dwarf lunged forward, teeth bared. Elak smashed his forehead into the Pikht’s face, felt blood spurt into his eyes, blinding him. He shook the scarlet drops away.

Abruptly he released the Pikht’s wrist. His hand shot up and gripped the dwarf’s throat—sinewy hands that had been trained on battle-ax and rapier. The knife bit into his body, ripped flesh from his breast as he twisted desperately. But the Pikht had struck too late.

Elak’s tapering brown fingers almost met in oily flesh. Tendons stood out like rigid wires; there came a brittle cracking sound. A bubbling scream of agony died in the dwarf’s throat before it could emerge.

The pale eyes glazed. The stunted body went limp.

Elak stood up, bracing himself. He stared in sheer astonishment.

It was no earthly landscape which he saw. Obscure color-patterns, shifting and dancing strangely, weaved in the cool air all about him. He thought of the shadows of trees painted on white rock, flickering arabesques of dancing leaves fluttering in the wind. Yet the weird pattern was not only on the pale clay-colored plain on which he stood, but rather all about him in the air. He stood alone in a fantastic weave of somber shadows.

Colorless shadows, dancing. Or were they colorless? He did not know, nor was he ever to know, the color of the grotesque weavings that laced him in a web of magic, for while his mind told him that he saw colors, his eyes denied it.

Suddenly darkness swept
down, engulfing him. And very faintly a thudding sounded, and swiftly grew louder. With a giant pounding of Cyclopean feet something strode past Elak in the blackness, something that shook the plain with the thunder of its passing. There was no other sound save for the tremendous booming thuds of the Titan feet.

They died in the distance; the darkness lifted. Again the flickering shadow patterns grew in the air. And again they darkened into blackness.

The sound of wings came to Elak. Something was flying far overhead, something that wailed endlessly and mournfully, keening the cry of one lost and wandering in eternal night. A sense of overpowering awe touched Elak, and horror beyond all imagination—the horror one feels in the presence of a thing so alien that the flesh of mankind instinctively shrinks and shudders. Elak knew, somehow, that he had entered a land in which men had not been intended to exist.

“
Elak
…”

Faintly, from very far away, the thin whisper came—Dalan’s voice. Elak whispered the Druid’s name as the darkness changed into the vague shadow-patterns. The distant voice came again.

“You are in a perilous place, Elak, but you live. Lycon’s swordsmen slay the Pikhts now, the crystal tells me… you are very far away, Elak, but I come swiftly. Mider aids me.…”

Blackness again, and a roaring as of great winds. Power unimaginable shuddered through Elak’s body like a spear shattering on a shield. And it passed, and the darkness lightened to the crawling shadows.

“You are with the gods, Elak,” came Dalan’s far whisper. “You are no longer in Atlantis, or even on earth. You are in a far land. And with you are those the Shadow has engulfed—the gods! Not the gods of Atlantis, nor the Viking gods, but the gods that have died. Around you move those whose flesh is not our flesh, whose lives are alien to ours. I come, Elak.…”

Piercingly sweet, throbbing almost articulately, a harpstring murmured through the gloom. Dalan’s voice faded into silence, and again the note sobbed out. Above it a soft-toned song lifted in the words Elak knew were in no earthly language.

Startled, apprehensive, the Druid called, “Elak! Elf’s magic battles mine—he—”

Then silence, till a
gentle voice spoke.

“Dalan,” it whispered. “Dalan, Elak… my enemies. Now you shall die, Elak, for the Druid cannot reach you. The power of my harp keeps him from our side.”

Very faintly Dalan called Elak’s name. Once again he called and was silent. Shifting shadows moved through the dim air. Elak’s hand went involuntarily to his side. Remembering that he was weaponless, he stooped and pried the dagger from the Pikht’s cold fingers. But despair was mounting within him. How could he fight Elf, alone in this lost hell, without Dalan to aid him?

“Your doom comes,” Elf murmured, and the harpstring twanged eerily, laden with bitter sweetness. “You live, Elak, and there is no life in Ragnarok. Only the dead gods, and the dust of the souls of men.”

The dancing shadow-patterns slowed their fluttering and became motionless. The sound of Elf’s harp died; it was utterly silent.

And, far in the distance and gigantic, towering above the horizon, a Shadow began to form in the air. In form it was human, but from its darkening nucleus there breathed chill horror that made Elak grip his dagger with desperate fingers. Fear shook him—the fear that attacks the citadel of man’s soul when it faces the Unknown.

7. SOLONALA—AND MIDER

A sound behind him made Elak turn swiftly, his weapon ready. What he saw made him pause in wonder. Even in the shadowy gloom he sensed something fantastically unreal about the figure that came stealing out of the dusk with curiously rocking gait.

But there was friendliness in the gesture with which the half-seen being beckoned. It glanced beyond Elak to where the Shadow grew and darkened on the horizon and then swiftly bent above the dead Pikht. Dark hands moved quickly—and suddenly the dwarf moved, raised himself stiffly to his feet, and stood motionless as an automaton!

The Pikht had
died—that Elak knew. Even now the bald, misshapen head lolled monstrously on one sagging shoulder. Elak could scarcely see the dwarf’s face, but he knew intuitively that the shallow eyes held no life. An icy shudder shook him.