The Three Silent Ones

: The Moon Pool

The arch was closer--and in my awe I forgot for the moment Larry and

aught else. For this was no rainbow, no thing born of light and mist,

no Bifrost Bridge of myth--no! It was a flying arch of stone, stained

with flares of Tyrian purples, of royal scarlets, of blues dark as the

Gulf Stream's ribbon, sapphires soft as midday May skies, splashes of

chromes and greens--a palette of giantry, a bridge of wizardry; a

hundre , nay, a thousand, times greater than that of Utah which the

Navaho call Nonnegozche and worship, as well they may, as a god, and

which is itself a rainbow in eternal rock.



It sprang from the ledge and winged its prodigious length in one low

arc over the sea's crimson breast, as though in some ancient paroxysm

of earth it had been hurled molten, crystallizing into that stupendous

span and still flaming with the fires that had moulded it.



Closer we came and closer, while I watched spellbound; now we were at

its head, and the litter-bearers swept upon it. All of five hundred

feet wide it was, surface smooth as a city road, sides low walled,

curving inward as though in the jetting-out of its making the edges of

the plastic rock had curled.



On and on we sped; the high thrusting precipices upon which the

bridge's far end rested, frowned close; the enigmatic, dully shining

dome loomed ever greater. Now we had reached that end; were passing

over a smooth plaza whose level floor was enclosed, save for a rift in

front of us, by the fanged tops of the black cliffs.



From this rift stretched another span, half a mile long, perhaps,

widening at its centre into a broad platform, continuing straight to

two massive gates set within the face of the second cliff wall like

panels, and of the same dull gold as the dome rising high beyond. And

this smaller arch leaped a pit, an abyss, of which the outer

precipices were the rim holding back from the pit the red flood.



We were rapidly approaching; now upon the platform; my bearers were

striding closely along the side; I leaned far out--a giddiness seized

me! I gazed down into depth upon vertiginous depth; an abyss

indeed--an abyss dropping to world's base like that in which the

Babylonians believed writhed Talaat, the serpent mother of Chaos; a

pit that struck down into earth's heart itself.



Now, what was that--distance upon unfathomable distance below? A

stupendous glowing like the green fire of life itself. What was it

like? I had it! It was like the corona of the sun in eclipse--that

burgeoning that makes of our luminary when moon veils it an incredible

blossoming of splendours in the black heavens.



And strangely, strangely, it was like the Dweller's beauty when with

its dazzling spirallings and writhings it raced amid its storm of

crystal bell sounds!



The abyss was behind us; we had paused at the golden portals; they

swung inward. A wide corridor filled with soft light was before us,

and on its threshold stood--bizarre, yellow gems gleaming, huge muzzle

wide in what was evidently meant for a smile of welcome--the woman

frog of the Moon Pool wall.



Lakla raised her head; swept back the silken tent of her hair and

gazed at me with eyes misty from weeping. The frog-woman crept to her

side; gazed down upon Larry; spoke--spoke--to the Golden Girl in a

swift stream of the sonorous, reverberant monosyllables; and Lakla

answered her in kind. The webbed digits swept over O'Keefe's face,

felt at his heart; she shook her head and moved ahead of us up the

passage.



Still borne in the litters we went on, winding, ascending until at

last they were set down in a great hall carpeted with soft fragrant

rushes and into which from high narrow slits streamed the crimson

light from without.



I jumped over to Larry, there had been no change in his condition;

still the terrifying limpness, the slow, infrequent pulsation. Rador

and Olaf--and the fever now seemed to be gone from him--came and stood

beside me, silent.



"I go to the Three," said Lakla. "Wait you here." She passed through

a curtaining; then as swiftly as she had gone she returned through the

hangings, tresses braided, a swathing of golden gauze about her.



"Rador," she said, "bear you Larry--for into your heart the Silent

Ones would look. And fear nothing," she added at the green dwarf's

disconcerted, almost fearful start.



Rador bowed, was thrust aside by Olaf.



"No," said the Norseman; "I will carry him."



He lifted Larry like a child against his broad breast. The dwarf

glanced quickly at Lakla; she nodded.



"Come!" she commanded, and held aside the folds.



Of that journey I have few memories. I only know that we went through

corridor upon corridor; successions of vast halls and chambers, some

carpeted with the rushes, others with rugs into which the feet sank as

into deep, soft meadows; spaces illumined by the rubrous light, and

spaces in which softer lights held sway.



We paused before a slab of the same crimson stone as that the green

dwarf had called the portal, and upon its polished surface weaved the

same unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; it

slipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of the

opening--and as one in a dream I entered.



We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught in

the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held

within a fire opal--so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my

eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the

globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them,

through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge

and the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; against

the light from within beat the crimson light from without--and was

checked as though by a barrier.



I felt Lakla's touch; turned.



A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above the

floor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscating

mist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller's

shining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up it

stretched like a wall.



Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two clearly male,

one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyes

of them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and if

I could admit the word--supernaturally--alive.



They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex of

the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leaping

red flames.



Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad and visored;

their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, an

upright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the great

lizards--and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twice

the size of mankind's!



Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty I knew that

they were not caps--long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, feathered

scales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of the

giant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins;

the--flesh--of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing

up to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, misty

fires of opalescence!



Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly. What--what were these

beings?



I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze streamed a current

of reassurance, of good will--nay, of intense spiritual strength. I

saw that they were not fierce, not ruthless, not inhuman, despite

their strangeness; no, they were kindly; in some unmistakable way,

benign and sorrowful--so sorrowful! I straightened, gazed back at them

fearlessly. Olaf drew a deep breath, gazed steadily too, the hardness,

the despair wiped from his face.



Now Lakla drew closer to the dais; the three pairs of eyes searched

hers, the woman's with an ineffable tenderness; some message seemed to

pass between the Three and the Golden Girl. She bowed low, turned to

the Norseman.



"Place Larry there," she said softly--"there at the feet of the Silent

Ones."



She pointed into the radiant mist; Olaf started, hesitated, stared

from Lakla to the Three, searched for a moment their eyes--and

something like a smile drifted through them. He stepped forward,

lifted O'Keefe, set him squarely within the covering light. It

wavered, rolled upward, swirled about the body, steadied again--and

within it there was no sign of Larry!



Again the mist wavered, shook, and seemed to climb higher, hiding the

chins, the beaked noses, the brows of that incredible Trinity--but

before it ceased to climb, I thought the yellow feathered heads bent;

sensed a movement as though they lifted something.



The mist fell; the eyes gleamed out again, inscrutable.



And groping out of the radiance, pausing at the verge of the dais,

leaping down from it, came Larry, laughing, filled with life, blinking

as one who draws from darkness into sunshine. He saw Lakla, sprang to

her, gripped her in his arms.



"Lakla!" he cried. "Mavourneen!" She slipped from his embrace,

blushing, glancing at the Three shyly, half-fearfully. And again I saw

the tenderness creep into the inky, flame-shot orbs of the woman

being; and a tenderness in the others too--as though they regarded

some well-beloved child.



"You lay in the arms of Death, Larry," she said. "And the Silent Ones

drew you from him. Do homage to the Silent Ones, Larry, for they are

good and they are mighty!"



She turned his head with one of the long, white hands--and he looked

into the faces of the Three; looked long, was shaken even as had been

Olaf and myself; was swept by that same wave of power and of--of--what

can I call it?--holiness that streamed from them.



Then for the first time I saw real awe mount into his face. Another

moment he stared--and dropped upon one knee and bowed his head before

them as would a worshipper before the shrine of his saint. And--I am

not ashamed to tell it--I joined him; and with us knelt Lakla and

Olaf and Rador.



The mist of fiery opal swirled up about the Three; hid them.



And with a long, deep, joyous sigh Lakla took Larry's hand, drew him

to his feet, and silently we followed them out of that hall of wonder.



But why, in going, did the thought come to me that from where the

Three sat throned they ever watched the cavern mouth that was the door

into their abode; and looked down ever into the unfathomable depth in

which glowed and pulsed that mystic flower, colossal, awesome, of

green flame that had seemed to me fire of life itself?