A. Merritt

“ There are far, far stranger things than the weaver in Yu-Atlanchi, Graydon.”
“Suarra,” he asked abruptly. “Why do you want to save me?”
A moment she hesitated; then:
“Because you make me feel as I have never felt before!” she whispered slowly. “Because you make me happy—because you make me sorrowful. When I think of you it is like warm wine in my veins. I want both to sing-—and to weep. I want your touch—to be close to you. When you go—the world will be darkened—life will be drab.”
“Suarra!” ”

“ All that Graydon could see was the hillock top, and on it the llama bathed in the moonlight, the giant prone at the foot of the mound and Soames now nearly at its crest. And the horn sounds were ringing, scores upon scores of them, like the horns of a fairy hunt. But what it was that made those sounds he could not see. They were not visible; they cast no shadow. ”

“ As they wheeled into it Graydon again felt a pang of pity. They were like doomed men marching to execution; hope less; helpless and—drugged. Nay—they were men who had once been slain and drawn inexorably on to a second death!
Never speaking, never turning, with mechanical swing of feet, rifles held slack in limp arms, their march was a grotesquerie tinged with horror.
The new road was darker than the old. He had an uneasy feeling that the rocks were closing high over his head; that what they were entering was a tunnel. The gray lichens rapidly dwindled on walls and underfoot. ”

“ Graydon’s three jailers stared at the caravan struck immobile with amazement, incredulous, like dreaming men. Graydon himself strained at his bonds, a sick horror in his heart. Why had Suarra returned deliberately back to this peril? He had warned her; she could not be so innocent as not to know what dangers threatened her at the hands of these men. And why had she come decked out with a queen’s ransom in jewels and gold? ”

“ The scarlet lips half parted in a smile—almost she preened herself! A slender red and pointed tongue flicked out and touched her scarlet lips. The tiny hands fell; she raised her head; up from her circled coils lifted and swayed a pearled pillar bearing that head aloft, slowly, sinuously, foot by foot until it paused twice the height of a tall man above the floor, twisting, it turned its face to the alcove.
Graydon, following the movement, saw that the alcove was tenanted. Within it was a throne—a throne that was as though carved from the heart of a colossal sapphire. ”

“ What he had taken for mail of sapphire and emerald were the scales of this dwarfed dinosaur. They overlapped one another like the scales upon an armadillo and it was from their burnished blue and green surfaces and edges that the sun rays struck out the jewel glints.
The creature turned its head upon its short, bull-like neck; it seemed to stare straight at Graydon. He glimpsed little fiery red eyes set in a sloping, bony arch of narrow forehead. ”

“ Why, it was only yesterday that science had learned what really were their huge bones, buried so long that the rocks had molded themselves around them in adamantine matrix. And laboriously, with every modern resource still haltingly and laboriously, science had set those bones together as a perplexed child a picture puzzle, and timidly put forth what it believed to be reconstructions of these long vanished chimeras of earth’s nightmare youth.
Yet here, far from all science it must surely be, some one had modeled those same monsters for a woman’s bracelet. ”

“ They dripped slowly down to the crawling golden stream, were merged with it—were carried to the lip of the abyss—
And over into the gulf!
From high over that gulf came a burst of the elfin horns. And now, in that strange light, Graydon saw at last what it was that sent forth these notes—what it was that had beaten out on the moonlit barren the souls of the three; breaking them; turning them into dead men walking.
Their bodies were serpents, sinuous, writhing and coiling, silver scaled. But they were serpents—winged. ”

“ The elfin horns were now a ringing, raging tumult—death in their notes!
Sterrett dropped to his knees, arose and lurched away. He fell again close to Dancre’s body, covered his head with a last despairing gesture and lay—as still as the little Frenchman. And now Soames went down, fighting to the last.
There on the sands lay the three of them, motionless, struck down by the invisible!
Graydon shook himself into action; leaped forward. He felt a touch upon his shoulder; a tingling numbness ran through every muscle. With difficulty he turned his head. ”

“ Why should they mate with their kind—these women and men who have lived so long that they have grown weary of all their kind can give them? Why should they mate with their kind when they can create new lovers in dream, new loves and hates! Yea, new emotions, and forms utterly unknown to earth, each as he or she may will. And so they are—barren. Not alone the doors of death, but the doors of life are closed to them—the dream makers! ”

“ Their eyes were young; as incredibly young as their settings were ancient. And incredibly—alive! And those vital, youthful eyes were reading him; the minds behind them were weighing him; judging him. Judging him—with what purpose?
Floated through Graydon’s mind—or Whatever it was of him that hovered there in dream or in spell or in obedience to laws unknown to the science of his world—the memory of Suarra’s vow. ”

“ The wilderness, the loneliness of it, their disappointment, had brought out the real man that lies hidden beneath the veneer we all of us carry. Sterrett kept himself at a steady level of drunkenness, alternately quarrelsome and noisy or sunk in a sullen mood of brooding, brutal rage. Dancre had become silent and irritable. Soames seemed to have reached the conclusion that Graydon, Sterrett and the Frenchman had combined against him; that they had either deliberately missed the trail or had erased the signs. ”

“ Slowly, steadily through another age the mountains arose. Until at last they girdled Yu-Atlanchi like a vast wall—a wall that could never be scaled. Nor did my people care; indeed, it gladdened them, since by then they had closed the doors of death and-cared no more to go into the outer world. And so they have dwelt—for other ages more.”
Again she was silent, musing. Graydon struggled against his incredulity. A people who had conquered death? A people so old that their birthplace was buried deep beneath eternal ice? ”

“ A city rushed up to meet him, a city ruby roofed and opal turreted and fantastic as though built by jinn out of the stuff of dreams.
And then it seemed to him that he came to rest within a vast and columned hall from whose high roof fell beams of soft and dimly azure light. High arose those columns, unfolding far above into wide wondrous petalings of opal and of emerald and turquoise flecked with gold. ”

“ God in heaven, it had a man’s head!
“It was a man!” gasped Dancre.
“No,” she paid no heed to him, speaking still to Graydon. “No—it was no man. At least no man as you are. Long, long ago, it is true, his ancestors were men like you. But not he. He was just—a weaver.”
She stepped out upon the path. And Graydon, following, saw waiting there, as quietly, as silently, as tranquilly as though they had not stirred since first he and his companions had fled—the blue cowled and yellow cowled familiars of Suarra. Immobile, they waited while she led forth the white llama. ”

“ Soames looked at him, blankly; then stumbled up and stood staring, as though waiting further command. Graydon leaned down and shook Sterrett by the shoulder. The giant mumbled, opened dull eyes; lurched to his feet. Dancre awakened, whimpering.
As they stood before him—gaunt man, little man, giant—a wonder, a fearful wonder, seized him. For these were not the men he had known. No! What was it that had changed these men so, sapped the life from them until they seemed, even as Suarra had said, already dead? ”

“ The Indian stood aside, bowed low and waited for him to pass down with the burro. He began the downward climb. The Indian stood watching him; and as Graydon reached a turn in the trail, he waved his hand in farewell and slipped back into the forest.
Graydon plodded slowly on for perhaps a mile farther. There he waited for an hour. Then he turned resolutely back; retraced his way to the hillside and driving his burro before him, quietly reclimbed it.
In his brain and in his heart were but one thought and one desire—to return to Suarra. No matter what the peril—to go back to her. ”

“ She stood a dozen paces away, hand on the white llama’s neck and gazing intently over the plain. There was anxiety in her gaze—but there was none in the attitude of those two strange servitors of hers. As silent, as unconcerned, as detached as ever, they seemed to await the girl’s next move.
And now Graydon noted that they were on a wide ledge that bordered this vast oval bowl. This shelf was a full hundred feet higher than the bottom of the valley whose sides sloped up to it like the sides of a saucer. And, again carrying out that suggestion of huge dish, the ledge jutted out like a rim. ”

“ It is death that blots out not alone the body, but that lord whose castle is the body; that which looks out through the windows of your eyes—that presence, that flame, you believe can never die. That, too, our death blots out; makes as though it never had been. Or letting it live, changes it in—dreadful—ways. Yet, because you came to me in my need—nay, more because of something I sense within you—something that calls out to me and to which I must listen and do desire to listen—because of this I would not have that death come to you.”
Strange as were her words, Graydon hardly heard them ”

“ Soames took a step toward her, face grown grim and ugly; instantly Graydon thrust himself between him and the girl. There came a curious, dry chuckling from the hooded figure in yellow. Suarra started; her wrath, her hauteur vanished; she became once more naïve, friendly. She pushed Graydon
“I was hasty,” she said to Soames. “Nevertheless it is never wise to threaten unless you know the strength of what it is you menace. And remember, of me you know nothing. Yet I know all that you wish to learn. ”

“ I am one of them—and yet I long to go out into the new world—the world where there are babes, and many of them, and the laughter of children, and where life streams passionately, strong and shouting and swiftly—even though it is through the opened doors of Death that it flows. In Yu-Atlanchi those doors are closed—except to those who choose to open them. And life is a still stream, without movement. And there are few babes—and of the laughter of children—little.”
“What are your people, Suarra?” ”

“ Her face was ageless, neither young nor old; it came to him that it was free from time forever, free from the etching acid of the years. She might have been born yesterday or a million years agone. Her eyes, set wide apart, were round and luminous; they were living jewels filled with purple fires. Above them rose her forehead, wide and high and sloping sharply back. The nose was long and delicate, the nostrils dilated; the chin small and pointed.
The mouth was small, too, and heart shaped and the lips a scarlet flame. ”

“ They streamed from beneath it and around the side, swiftly now, like countless swarms of fireflies, each carrying a lamp of diamond light.
“There”—Suarra pointed to the rocky curtain’s edge—“there lies your way. Beyond it is that place I promised I would show you—the place where the jewels grow like fruit in a garden and the living gold flows forth. Here we will wait you. Now go.”
Long Graydon looked at that curtain and at the streaming radiant atoms pouring from beyond it. Gaunt man, little man, giant man stood, beside him, soulless faces staring at him—awaiting his command, his movement. ”

“ For remember, I saw his wound, I saw the bracelet of the dinosaurs and I listened to Graydon in his delirium. A man does not tell percisely the same things in the cool blood of health that he raves of in delirium, not at least if these things are but fancies born of that delirium. ”

“ Graydon thought there was admiration in the voice; wondered whether all that delectable beauty was after all but a mask for primitive woman, worshiping brute strength; looked into the eyes scanning Sterrett’s bulk, noted the curious speculation within them, and knew that whatever the reason for her comment it was not that which his fleeting thought had whispered. ”

“ Graydon’s glasses dropped from a nerveless hand. What manner of people were these who hunted with dinosaurs for dogs and a dinosaur for steed!
His eyes fell to the base of the monolith where had crouched the scarlet thing. It was no longer there. He caught a gleam of Crimson in the high grass not a thousand feet from him where he watched. Cautiously the thing was creeping on and on toward the rim. He wondered whether those spider legs could climb it, carry it over the outjutting of the ledge? He shuddered. A deeper dread grew. ”

“ Straight across the sands Suarra led them until she had reached a mound close to the center of the barren. Here she halted.
“You will camp here,” she said. “Water is close by for you and your animals. You may light a fire. And sleep without fear. By dawn we must be away.”
She turned and walked toward another knoll a hundred feet or more away. The white llama followed her. Behind it stalked the silent pair. Graydon had expected Soames to halt her, but he did not. Instead his eyes flashed some crafty message to Dancre and Sterrett. ”

“ And, save for what he handled, he thought with grim humor, this was a commonplace thing enough surely to satisfy her. She accepted his aid without comment, looked at him no more. And after a while the fever in his blood cooled, his hot revolt crystallized into cold determination. For the moment he would accept the situation. He would let matters develop. His time would come. He could afford to wait.
Without a word when the last shining cup was in the pannier and the mouth of the latter closed he turned and strode to the tent to get together his duffle, pack his burro. ”

“ Under Soames’s left arm pit was another. He took it out and put it in the holster from which he had withdrawn his. He slipped into Sterrett’s a new magazine of cartridges. Dancre’s gun was ready for use.
“They’ll have their chance, anyway,” he said to himself.
He stood over them for a moment; scanned them. The scores of tiny punctures had closed. Their breathing was normal. They seemed to be asleep. And yet—they looked like dead men. Like dead men, livid and wan and bloodless as the pallid sands beneath the growing dawn.
Graydon shuddered; turned his back upon them. ”

“ And if they don’t come to terms, well, Graydon, the first bullet out of this gun goes through your guts. That’ll give you time to see what goes on before you die!”
Graydon did not answer him. Nothing that he might say, he knew, would change them from their purpose. He closed his eyes, reviewing that strange dream of his—for dream he now believed it, thrust back among the realities of the camp. A dream borne of Suarra’s words and that weird bracelet of the dinosaurs from which gleamed the purple orbs of the serpent woman. ”

“ Suddenly he became conscious of others near him; turned his head and saw close behind him Suarra and the hooded pair. The eyes of Soames, of Sterrett and of Dancre turned with his own. And now he knew that not even memory had been left them! Blankly, with no recognition—unseeing—they stared at Suarra.
“It is time to start, Graydon,” she said softly, her own eyes averted from their dead gaze. “We leave the llama here. It cannot walk. Take with you only your own animal, your weapons and what belongs to you. The other animals will stay here.” ”

“ And as Graydon glared into their chill depths swift visions passed from them to his own. Ravishing of cities and looting of ships; men drunk with greed wresting great golden nuggets from the breast of earth; men crouching like spiders in the hearts of shining yellow webs and gloating over hordes of golden flies. ”

“ The beast sank to the path, twitched and lay still. Suarra leaped from the llama’s side and faced the giant, eyes blazing wrath and behind that anger, or so it seemed to Graydon, fear.
“Fool!” she cried, and stamped her foot. “You fool! Get back to the cleft. Quick! All of you.”
She ran to the llama; caught it by the bridle; drove it, the burros and the four men back to the shelter of the ravine mouth.
“You—” she spoke to Soames, “if you desire to reach that gold for which you thirst, see that this man uses no more that death weapon of his while we are on this path. Nor any of you. ”

“ Graydon’s temper awakened under the insult, his anger flared up.
“All right, Soames,” he said. “I’ll tell you. What I’ve said about freeing her for our own safety is true. But outside of that I would as soon have thought of trusting a child to a bunch of hyenas as I would of trusting that girl to you three. I let her go a damned sight more for her sake than I did for our own. Does that satisfy you?”
“Aha!” jeered Dancre. “Now I see. Here is this strange lady of so much wealth and beauty. She is too pure and good for us to behold. He tell her so and bids her fly. ”

“ Do what you want with Graydon. But save the girl for me. I’d be willing to make a bargain with you on that—give up a part of my share.”
“Oh, hell,” drawled Soames. “We’ve been together a good many years, Bill. There’s enough and plenty for the three of us. You can have the girl for nothing.”
Little flecks of red danced before Graydon’s eyes. With his hand stretched to tear open the tent flap and grapple with these two who could talk so callously and evilly of Suarra’s disposal, he checked himself. That was no way to help her. Unarmed, what could he do against these armed adventurers? ”