Yolara Priestess Of The Shining One

: The Moon Pool

"You'd better have this handy, Doc." O'Keefe paused at the head of the

stairway and handed me one of the automatics he had taken from

Marakinoff.



"Shall I not have one also?" rather anxiously asked the latter.



"When you need it you'll get it," answered O'Keefe. "I'll tell you

frankly, though, Professor, that you'll have to show me before I trust

you with a gun. You shoot too straight--from over."



The flash of anger in the Russian's eyes turned to a cold

consideration.



"You say always just what is in your mind, Lieutenant O'Keefe," he

mused. "Da--that I shall remember!" Later I was to recall this odd

observation--and Marakinoff was to remember indeed.



In single file, O'Keefe at the head and Olaf bringing up the rear, we

passed through the portal. Before us dropped a circular shaft, into

which the light from the chamber of the oval streamed liquidly; set in

its sides the steps spiralled, and down them we went, cautiously. The

stairway ended in a circular well; silent--with no trace of exit! The

rounded stones joined each other evenly--hermetically. Carved on one

of the slabs was one of the five flowered vines. I pressed my fingers

upon the calyxes, even as Larry had within the Moon Chamber.



A crack--horizontal, four feet wide--appeared on the wall; widened,

and as the sinking slab that made it dropped to the level of our eyes,

we looked through a hundred-feet-long rift in the living rock! The

stone fell steadily--and we saw that it was a Cyclopean wedge set

within the slit of the passageway. It reached the level of our feet

and stopped. At the far end of this tunnel, whose floor was the

polished rock that had, a moment before, fitted hermetically into its

roof, was a low, narrow triangular opening through which light

streamed.



"Nowhere to go but out!" grinned Larry. "And I'll bet Golden Eyes is

waiting for us with a taxi!" He stepped forward. We followed,

slipping, sliding along the glassy surface; and I, for one, had a

lively apprehension of what our fate would be should that enormous

mass rise before we had emerged! We reached the end; crept out of the

narrow triangle that was its exit.



We stood upon a wide ledge carpeted with a thick yellow moss. I

looked behind--and clutched O'Keefe's arm. The door through which we

had come had vanished! There was only a precipice of pale rock, on

whose surfaces great patches of the amber moss hung; around whose base

our ledge ran, and whose summits, if summits it had, were hidden, like

the luminous cliffs, in the radiance above us.



"Nowhere to go but ahead--and Golden Eyes hasn't kept her date!"

laughed O'Keefe--but somewhat grimly.



We walked a few yards along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced

the end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point the

oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed,

like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their drivers

sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high with

cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. From

the pavilioned gardens smaller channels of glistening green ran into

the broad way, much as automobile runways do on earth; and in and out

of them flashed the fairy shells.



There came a shout from one. Its occupants had glimpsed us. They

pointed; others stopped and stared; one shell turned and sped up a

runway--and quickly over the other side of the bridge came a score of

men. They were dwarfed--none of them more than five feet high,

prodigiously broad of shoulder, clearly enormously powerful.



"Trolde!" muttered Olaf, stepping beside O'Keefe, pistol swinging free

in his hand.



But at the middle of the bridge the leader stopped, waved back his

men, and came toward us alone, palms outstretched in the immemorial,

universal gesture of truce. He paused, scanning us with manifest

wonder; we returned the scrutiny with interest. The dwarf's face was

as white as Olaf's--far whiter than those of the other three of us;

the features clean-cut and noble, almost classical; the wide set eyes

of a curious greenish grey and the black hair curling over his head

like that on some old Greek statue.



Dwarfed though he was, there was no suggestion of deformity about him.

The gigantic shoulders were covered with a loose green tunic that

looked like fine linen. It was caught in at the waist by a broad

girdle studded with what seemed to be amazonites. In it was thrust a

long curved poniard resembling the Malaysian kris. His legs were

swathed in the same green cloth as the upper garment. His feet were

sandalled.



My gaze returned to his face, and in it I found something subtly

disturbing; an expression of half-malicious gaiety that underlay the

wholly prepossessing features like a vague threat; a mocking deviltry

that hinted at entire callousness to suffering or sorrow; something of

the spirit that was vaguely alien and disquieting.



He spoke--and, to my surprise, enough of the words were familiar to

enable me clearly to catch the meaning of the whole. They were

Polynesian, the Polynesian of the Samoans which is its most ancient

form, but in some indefinable way--archaic. Later I was to know that

the tongue bore the same relation to the Polynesian of today as does

not that of Chaucer, but of the Venerable Bede, to modern English.

Nor was this to be so astonishing, when with the knowledge came the

certainty that it was from it the language we call Polynesian sprang.



"From whence do you come, strangers--and how found you your way here?"

said the green dwarf.



I waved my hand toward the cliff behind us. His eyes narrowed

incredulously; he glanced at its drop, upon which even a mountain goat

could not have made its way, and laughed.



"We came through the rock," I answered his thought. "And we come in

peace," I added.



"And may peace walk with you," he said half-derisively--"if the

Shining One wills it!"



He considered us again.



"Show me, strangers, where you came through the rock," he commanded.

We led the way to where we had emerged from the well of the stairway.



"It was here," I said, tapping the cliff.



"But I see no opening," he said suavely.



"It closed behind us," I answered; and then, for the first time,

realized how incredible the explanation sounded. The derisive gleam

passed through his eyes again. But he drew his poniard and gravely

sounded the rock.



"You give a strange turn to our speech," he said. "It sounds

strangely, indeed--as strange as your answers." He looked at us

quizzically. "I wonder where you learned it! Well, all that you can

explain to the Afyo Maie." His head bowed and his arms swept out in a

wide salaam. "Be pleased to come with me!" he ended abruptly.



"In peace?" I asked.



"In peace," he replied--then slowly--"with me at least."



"Oh, come on, Doc!" cried Larry. "As long as we're here let's see the

sights. Allons mon vieux!" he called gaily to the green dwarf. The

latter, understanding the spirit, if not the words, looked at O'Keefe

with a twinkle of approval; turned then to the great Norseman and

scanned him with admiration; reached out and squeezed one of the

immense biceps.



"Lugur will welcome you, at least," he murmured as though to himself.

He stood aside and waved a hand courteously, inviting us to pass. We

crossed. At the base of the span one of the elfin shells was waiting.



Beyond, scores had gathered, their occupants evidently discussing us

in much excitement. The green dwarf waved us to the piles of cushions

and then threw himself beside us. The vehicle started off smoothly,

the now silent throng making way, and swept down the green roadway at

a terrific pace and wholly without vibration, toward the

seven-terraced tower.



As we flew along I tried to discover the source of the power, but I

could not--then. There was no sign of mechanism, but that the shell

responded to some form of energy was certain--the driver grasping a

small lever which seemed to control not only our speed, but our

direction.



We turned abruptly and swept up a runway through one of the gardens,

and stopped softly before a pillared pavilion. I saw now that these

were much larger than I had thought. The structure to which we had

been carried covered, I estimated, fully an acre. Oblong, with its

slender, vari-coloured columns spaced regularly, its walls were like

the sliding screens of the Japanese--shoji.



The green dwarf hurried us up a flight of broad steps flanked by great

carved serpents, winged and scaled. He stamped twice upon mosaicked

stones between two of the pillars, and a screen rolled aside,

revealing an immense hall scattered about with low divans on which

lolled a dozen or more of the dwarfish men, dressed identically as he.



They sauntered up to us leisurely; the surprised interest in their

faces tempered by the same inhumanly gay malice that seemed to be

characteristic of all these people we had as yet seen.



"The Afyo Maie awaits them, Rador," said one.



The green dwarf nodded, beckoned us, and led the way through the great

hall and into a smaller chamber whose far side was covered with the

opacity I had noted from the aerie of the cliff. I examined

the--blackness--with lively interest.



It had neither substance nor texture; it was not matter--and yet it

suggested solidity; an entire cessation, a complete absorption of

light; an ebon veil at once immaterial and palpable. I stretched,

involuntarily, my hand out toward it, and felt it quickly drawn back.



"Do you seek your end so soon?" whispered Rador. "But I forget--you

do not know," he added. "On your life touch not the blackness, ever.

It--"



He stopped, for abruptly in the density a portal appeared; swinging

out of the shadow like a picture thrown by a lantern upon a screen.

Through it was revealed a chamber filled with a soft rosy glow. Rising

from cushioned couches, a woman and a man regarded us, half leaning

over a long, low table of what seemed polished jet, laden with flowers

and unfamiliar fruits.



About the room--that part of it, at least, that I could see--were a

few oddly shaped chairs of the same substance. On high, silvery

tripods three immense globes stood, and it was from them that the rose

glow emanated. At the side of the woman was a smaller globe whose

roseate gleam was tempered by quivering waves of blue.



"Enter Rador with the strangers!" a clear, sweet voice called.



Rador bowed deeply and stood aside, motioning us to pass. We entered,

the green dwarf behind us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the

doorway fade as abruptly as it had appeared and again the dense shadow

fill its place.



"Come closer, strangers. Be not afraid!" commanded the bell-toned

voice.



We approached.



The woman, sober scientist that I am, made the breath catch in my

throat. Never had I seen a woman so beautiful as was Yolara of the

Dweller's city--and none of so perilous a beauty. Her hair was of the

colour of the young tassels of the corn and coiled in a regal crown

above her broad, white brows; her wide eyes were of grey that could

change to a cornflower blue and in anger deepen to purple; grey or

blue, they had little laughing devils within them, but when the storm

of anger darkened them--they were not laughing, no! The silken webs

that half covered, half revealed her did not hide the ivory whiteness

of her flesh nor the sweet curve of shoulders and breasts. But for all

her amazing beauty, she was--sinister! There was cruelty about the

curving mouth, and in the music of her voice--not conscious cruelty,

but the more terrifying, careless cruelty of nature itself.



The girl of the rose wall had been beautiful, yes! But her beauty was

human, understandable. You could imagine her with a babe in her

arms--but you could not so imagine this woman. About her loveliness

hovered something unearthly. A sweet feminine echo of the Dweller was

Yolara, the Dweller's priestess--and as gloriously, terrifyingly evil!