The Valley of the Flame - Henry Kuttner (a book to read .TXT) 📗

after all. The monster of Kharn, he told himself, was not a creature of action. Its danger lay in the mind. It used purely mental power to attract and overpower its prey. Nor was it accustomed to highly developed minds, able to resist. Perhaps it had never needed to develop physical offense.

The water suddenly boiled just before them, sliding with nightmare slowness from a round saffron arm. A pseudopod, stretching after them from the bank, broke the surface. Another lifted out of the water close behind it.

They tried to circle farther out to avoid them, but the footing shelved off steeply into dangerous depths. The pseudopod reached inexorably out—farther—farther—and touched Raft.

It was filled with a living, hothouse warmth that made his flesh crawl. It wound about his waist, its moist heat striking inward against his skin as if digestion were already at work upon him.

He felt its strong pull toward the bank. He tried to get out his knife, but another coil came up from somewhere and laid a warm, wet embrace about his arms, fastening them to his sides. He felt himself being pulled shoreward, and struggled hard to keep his footing in the slow water.

“Hold firm, Brian!”

Craddock stumbled forward, lips set, fighting his own weakness.

He got the knife from Raft’s belt with a violent surge of effort, and slashed at the tentacle. That yellowish, half-fungoid flesh gave like cheese. It had surface tension, apparently, but it was not more than half solid. Craddock slashed, and the pseudopods fell away and were washed slowly, slowly off down the current. The incident was like a nightmare in its gentle, deliberate, inexorable sluggishness.

The whole mass of the thing was sliding into the stream now.

“Come on,” Raft said. “Can you make it?”

He seized Craddock’s arm as they ran for the archway, the water sucking like glue around their feet.

On their right the entire bank seemed to be giving way and dropping toward them in a hungry, malignant pile that could afford to take its time.

Craddock’s weakness hampered them. The water parted reluctantly under their splashing feet. It was like running through semi-liquid rubber, with the great, slow, yellow thing rolling its bulk forward to intercept their way.

The mouth of the tunnel opened before them, and the nerve-networks that acted as sentries made a quick, concerted, abortive motion to stop them, as if the whole valley answered a single brain, as perhaps it did. But Craddock slashed weakly at them with the knife, and when the blade had severed two or three the rest shrank and folded down out of harm’s way as the two men plunged through.

“They’ve—stopped,” Craddock panted, glancing back. “They won’t—follow outside, I guess.”

“Keep going,” Raft urged him grimly. “No use taking chances now.”

They stumbled on, out of the gloom at last into the cool green light from the leafy vault, far overhead, that roofed Paititi. It was like finding sanctuary.

But not quite. A quarter of a mile away, rounding one of the giant trees, a little column was moving steadily toward them. Raft groaned.

“Darum’s soldiers. That looks like—yeah, it’s Vann, all right. Come on, Craddock. Maybe we can make it.”

“I—I can’t.” The older man staggered as he tried to keep up with Raft’s quick strides. “Go on ahead. Don’t mind about me.”

Raft halted and shrugged. “They’d have caught us anyway. We’ll wait, I guess. And fight it out.” He touched the butt of the revolver, and watched that glittering column draw nearer.

Finally, the column deployed, showing two score of soldiers, wary, armed men who spread out to surround their prisoners. Vann’s scarred, hard face was impassive.

“You’re captives,” he said. “There’ll be time for a duel later, if you want, but the king needs you both now. So you are Brian Raft, after all, eh? And this.man is Craddock?” He stared curiously.

“What does Darum intend to do?” Raft asked. “Cut my throat?”

“No,” Vann said. “Not yet, at least. Where is Parror?”

“Gone. I don’t know where.”

“We’ll find him.” Vann issued swift orders. Half of the group broke up, spreading out into the forest.

“Now we’ll go back to Doirada Castle. Meanwhile, you can tell me, Raft, what lies in the Garden of Kharn. I’d have entered it to carry out my orders, but not with any pleasure. What devils lair in Kharn?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Raft said wearily. He let the revolver drop back into his pocket. “Right now, I’m too tired to care. Let’s go back to Doirada.”

CHAPTER XII. POWER OF SCIENCE

QUIETLY THEY STOOD before the king, waiting, in the dim-lit room where Yrann’s harp had sung. But it was brighter now. The veiled woman was not around. In her place Janissa sat on a cushioned couch near the dais. She had looked at Raft once, given him a cryptic smile, and turned back to watch Darum, who squatted cross-legged amid his silks.

Darum watched Raft out of hooded eyes.

“You think I am going to kill you,” he said. “Why? Don’t trouble to answer. I can read that much in your face. Because you tried to kill me, with that knife Vann took from you. Also because you stole my amulet.”

Raft attempted to speak, but the king lifted his hand.

“Wait. Your race is not as mine. I see no great evil in your attempt at murder. You’d have succeeded had you deserved to succeed. Since you didn’t—” He nodded “—it is over and done with. What is past is past. Tomorrow you may try again, or I may, and succeed. And I will take back the amulet too. Meanwhile, Janissa has told me a great deal.”

“When I found you’d escaped, Brian—I told Darum,” the girl said. “I knew you’d gone after Parror.”

“Yes,” the king said silkily. “And I wanted Parror. He goes too far, I think. After all, I rule in Paititi, not Parror.”

“For a while,” Raft said quietly. “If he starts the Flame, and it gets out of control, you won’t rule anything.”

“So he learned Craddock’s secret.” Darum sighed. “He is outlawed now. Every man’s hand is against him. And I have guarded the unseen road so he cannot enter it. I do not think he will reach the Flame.”

“Parror is clever,” Janissa said.

Craddock broke in.

“He’ll need instruments. I know that much. It’ll take time.”

Darum shrugged.

“I am no scientist. I know only that there is danger both ways. If the Flame fades below a danger level—well, Janissa? What then?”

“We will become as the cavern-beasts,” she told him. “We will degenerate as the First Race did.”

“But when that day will come none can say. In our lifetime, or our children’s, or perhaps not even then. And if Parror tries to rouse the Flame, and fails to check it, that will mean immediate destruction.”

“He doesn’t think so,” Craddock said. “He’s sure he can control the Flame.”

“But can he?” Darum leaned forward. “That is what I seek to know. Can he—surely?”

“I wish I knew,” Craddock said. “Parror got certain memories out of my mind, but they were mere superficial memories, not knowledge. I don’t even know what most of the symbols I wrote down, for him meant. I didn’t know thirty years ago, when I translated part of the record.”

“The record that was destroyed when the Flame wakened,” Darum said. “A secret only Parror and you know now?”

“I don’t know,” Craddock said. “It was dragged out of my mind by hypnosis. I wasn’t conscious most of the time. I’ve only the vaguest idea what Parror intends to do.”

“Well, the first step is to capture Parror, so he won’t rouse the Flame,” Darum said practically. “I hope my guards will find him soon. Meanwhile, how am I to deal with you two?”

“Why not just let us go?” Raft said slowly.

“Simians are too curious. Your race would try to enter Paititi. Two species, both dominant, cannot live together successfully.”

“Why not?” Raft asked. “There’s the possibility of mutual benefit.”

“Our minds are too unlike.”

“I think you underestimate Parror, Darum,” Janissa said. “He’s clever, and he has more knowledge than I. There are—powers connected with the Rame that not even I understand. But Parror understands them. Also, I have heard legends of a secret way to reach the cave where Curupuri burns.”

“He must not reach the Flame!” Darum said.

Raft glanced at Janissa, and drew courage from her steady gaze. “Suppose he does though. In spite of everything. That means that he’ll waken the Flame. If he makes a mistake, nothing can save Paititi. Right?”

The king nodded.

“True.”

“All right,” Raft said.“Here’s an answer. Forestall him.”

Darum jerked his head up to stare.

“Waken the Rame ourselves?”

“Why not?” Raft asked. “We’ve got the science of two cultures here in this room, which gives us an edge on Parror. Janissa knows the Rame. She’s its hereditary guardian. I know biochemistry, and Craddock isn’t a layman. And you must have technicians here.”

“We do.”

“Well, then, what’s to prevent us from making the device ourselves?”

“The question of possible failure,” Darum said. “The First Race never tested their machine. They waited too long. There is absolutely no way of fortelling whether it would actually control the Rame. Trial and error is the only way, and one error means destruction.”

“There is a way,” Raft said.

Janissa breathed a question.

Raft took out the amulet. Seeing it, the king’s eyes narrowed.

“You know what this is, Darum. It holds a spark of Rame. It is the Hame, but too tiny to be very dangerous. Why not use this as the control? If this spark from the Rame itself can be stimulated, and leashed, you’d know the machine was successful.

Darum shrugged.

“Parror may have the same idea,” Raft continued. “I hope so. But in case he doesn’t, we’ll have the jump on him, and know definitely whether the device the First Ones planned is safe.”

Darum hesitated.

“Perhaps that is true.”

Raft talked fast. “If this works, it’ll remove the menace of the Rame forever. It’ll mean complete control of that source of energy. The threat of degeneration will be removed from Paititi completely. Suppose we do fail—we’ll simply.be right back here where we stand now, won’t we?”

“He’s right,” Janissa said breathlessly. “It’s a chance, Darum. The only one, if Parror outwits us. And it may mean safety for Paititi forever.”

Darum did not speak for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.

“I agree, then. Janissa, this is in your hands. And now leave me. We will talk later.”

The girl led them out. Behind them the lights dimmed, and, as Raft moved along the passage that led from the king’s chamber, he heard a murmuring of faint music.

Yrann. Should he have warned the king against her? Perhaps. But he doubted whether Darum would have believed him. He shelved the thought for future reference.

Meanwhile Craddock was pulling at his arm.

“Brian.”

“Well?”

“I didn’t want to queer the pitch, but—” His voice lowered “—you forgot one thing. I can’t remember what Parror dragged out of my mind. He forced it out with his gadget, but I was in a trance. I don’t remember now.”

Janissa had overheard even Craddock’s soft whisper.

“It is well you didn’t mention that to Darum,” she said. “But I think the problem can be solved. I don’t know what device Parror used. Nevertheless, when a gate has been opened once, it opens more easily the next time. I have some knowledge of the mind, Craddock, and possibly we can succeed.”

“We’ll get it out of you,” Raft said. “If it means a course in psychonamics!”

It did, almost. Raft had used medical hypnosis himself, and could help Janissa, who otherwise might have been hindered by the alienage of minds, the more than racial difference