Chapter VI: Fowler Recovers

I read it in the faint glow of the phosphorescent globe, and read it again. So Austen was beyond the crescent, if he had been able to carry out his plan. The date of the letter was ten months back. Then the radio message had probably come from the other side. And why had it been sent? Austen was not one to appeal for aid for himself alone. Had he feared some general danger to the human race? I thought of his phrase, "for the sake of mankind," and shuddered at a picture of the red lights sweeping like destroying angels over a great city like New York decimating the terrorized population.

I tried to think what was best for me to do, if ever I got out of Astran alive. I supposed that Austen had been able to round the Silver Lake in the north. I should be able to follow him. Clearly there was nothing for me to do but to find out as much about this strange world as possible, and to get the equipment to him as soon as I could do so.

I stayed in the cellar-like home for a week. Twice each day the young chap came to bring food and drink. He knew but a few words of English, and during the hour or so he stayed each time I had him to try teaching me the language of Astran. But my progress was slow, and I never learned more than a few score words. The language seemed much more complex, even, than English, with bewildering rules of inflection. But I developed quite a liking for the boy. He had a simple, straight forward manner, and a good sense of humor. His name was Naro. He was the brother of Melvar, and two years younger. Their father, it seemed, had been carried off several years before, when the flying lights made a great raid, and the mother had soon after fallen a victim to the sacrificial rites of the hated Jorak. And the boy himself bore the scars of wounds he had suffered a few months before in a terrific battle with one of the Purple Ones, as those monsters were called, which so mystified me then, and with which I had such terrible experiences later.

On the second day Melvar came. She brought a great flask of aromatic oil that she poured over my wounds. It must have been remarkably healing, for in a few days I found myself entirely recovered. Before she left she told me that the priests had heard of my arrival, and that it was whispered among the people that I was a supernatural being, sent as an omen of an attack by the Krimlu. She told me, too, that there was talk that a sacrifice would soon be offered at the altar of the Purple Sun, to appease the angry Spirits of the dead. Sweet and innocent child, she seemed to have no fear that she, who had brought me into the city, would be the sacrifice, and I did nothing to let her know my misgivings, although I did propose that we leave the city together as soon as possible. How I hated to see her leave the apartment!

* * * * *

The Shrine of the Purple Sun

During the following days I questioned Naro constantly as to the doings of his sister, and of the Astranians, but I was able to elicit no very satisfactory information, except that none of the Krimlu had been seen for several days, and that the headmen of the nation were beginning to expect a raid in force. Also I persuaded him to keep a very close watch on the movements of Melvar, and to come to me at once if Jorak made any attempt to get her into his power, or if the sacrificial ceremony was begun with the victim unselected.

During the interminable periods when I was alone, I was driven almost insane by the monotony and the anxiety of my existence. But I had my scientific equipment, and I had the boy to bring me a few assorted fragments of the crystal building stone, which I tested and found to be real gems, of several varieties. Many of the gems were simple enough in chemical formula, and composed of the most common elements, so the synthesis of them by scientific means is not unreasonable.

For example, it is a well-known fact that diamond is just a crystal form of carbon, which element occurs in three allotropic forms. Those three forms are diamond, graphite, which also crystallizes, and amorphous carbon, of which charcoal is a form. Since carbon occurs in the air in carbon dioxide, it is not impossible that latterday science would be able to manufacture diamonds from the air. Sapphires are aluminum oxide, or alumina, colored with a little cobalt, and rubies are composed of the same oxide, with a trace of chromium, to which the color is due. A clay-bed would supply an inexhaustible amount of the elements needed for the synthesis of these gems, and I think the people of old Astran had been able to accomplish it. I examined the little glow-lamp, too, and found it to be simply a crystal bottle filled with the moist crushed leaves of the red plants, which formed a culture of some kind of luminous bacteria.

On the seventh night, when the pale ray of daylight that filtered down into my hiding place was dimmed, Naro burst into the chamber, panting, and wild-eyed with terror. His crystal sword was gone, his metallic mantle was torn, and blood was falling, drop by drop, from a deep scratch on his arm. He thrust into my hand a tattered scrap of paper, evidently the flyleaf of a book. On it, in an ink that I took at first to be blood, although it was probably the juice of the red plants, the following words were formed in hastily drawn printing characters.

"Winfield, There is no hope. The priests will offer a gift to the
Purple Sun. I am the victim. Already I am in the hands of Jorak. I
am sorry, for I loved you. It may be that I can give this to Naro,
who could take it to you. The Krimlu are coming tonight. Already
their lights flicker above the mist. In the morning my brother will
take you to the gate, and you may escape. If only it had been one
night later we might have all been away together. Farewell.

Melvar."

No time was to be lost. I had been anticipating something of the kind. The guns were cleaned and loaded. My pack was soon ready. Naro took a part of my equipment. I followed the boy up the stair, with the phrase, "For I loved you," ringing in my heart.

We reached the top and walked out into the red brush. Beneath the purple starlight the vast fantastic columned halls of Astran were gleaming faintly, and I caught a brief blue flicker from the great machine on the ruby dome.

Suddenly, with a sharp thrill of terror that made me catch my breath, I heard the awful distant whining sigh that grew until it rolled and reverberated through the heavens, and the air seemed alive with its deep intensity. Above the emerald wall I glimpsed the green-tipped needle of crimson that made the sound. It was sweeping through the sky meteor-swift, while the pale blue beam stabbed out at it ineffectually. It passed in an instant, but others came, and soon the sky was lighted with the weird red radiance, and the very mountain top vibrated with the whistling roars. The things swept around and around in a mad confusion of darting flames. They were like moths about a candle.

We passed an amber palace wall and came suddenly upon a great, metal-floored court. Marching across it were a half score of the Astranian men-at-arms, their accoutrements gleaming weirdly in the light of the strange things above. They saw us at once, and charged upon us with a shout. I dropped to my knees. Once my rifle spoke, and I rejoiced at its heavy thrust against my shoulder, and the acrid odor of the smoke. I felt a man again. And the leader of the soldiers fell upon his face.

* * * * *

Melvar Saved

Naro gripped my shoulder and pointed upward. One of the red things was plunging down, like a great red Zeppelin with a great green light at its forward end, its purple phosphorescent track swirling up behind it. The soldiers forgot us and scattered in mad terror. Naro jerked my arm and in a moment we had tumbled into a copse of the red brush. For a moment the bloody radiance was thrown upon us in an intense flood, and the screaming roar was deafening. A few minutes more, and the thing had flashed up and away. A breath of hot purple mist passed over us. When we got to our feet and crept out of the thicket the soldiers were gone.

Swiftly, Naro led me on, keeping in the shadows of the building, on in the cover of the thickets. Once a man sprang suddenly at us from behind a sapphire pillar, diamond sword drawn. My pistol exploded in his face and blew his head half off. Naro possessed himself of the dead man's weapons, and we went breathlessly on. Three times, in other parts of the city, we saw the red shapes drop to the ground for a few minutes, and then dart up again, while ever the blue ray played back and forth upon them.

At last we passed between vast ruby columns and stood beneath the huge red dome. Before us lay a great space, fairly lit with a rosy light from the crystal walls. Around the farther side were seated tier upon tier, thousands of the brilliantly clad people of Astran. In the center of the great floor, resting upon a pedestal, was a globe of shining purple--a sphere of coruscating flame--itself immense, perhaps forty feet in diameter, but insignificant in that colossal hall. Standing at rigid attention, in regular rows about the pedestal were a few score bright-armed soldiers, and as many other erect men in long purple robes. All eyes were fixed on a point in front of the gigantic globe, and hence hidden from where we stood.

We hurried silently across the smooth metal floor, our footsteps drowned in the rushing sounds of the flying things above. We ran around the great purple sun-sphere of crystal, and came abruptly upon a dramatically terrible scene. Beneath the sphere was an altar of glowing red, with the priests and soldiery all grouped about it. By the altar, kneeling and silent, clad in a filmy green robe, was the beautiful form of Melvar. Just behind her stood a tall hawk-like man, in his hands a great transparent crystal vessel full of a liquid that gleamed like molten silver.

As we came around the sphere he was holding up the vessel and repeating a strange chant in a monotonous monotone. At sight of us he dropped into alarmed silence, with an ugly scowl of hate and fear distorting his harsh features. For a moment he stood as if paralyzed, then he rushed toward the silent girl as though to empty the contents of the crystal pitcher upon her.

I fired on the instant, and had the luck to shatter the vessel, splashing the shining silvery fluid all over his person. The effect of it was instantaneous and terrible. His purple robe was eaten away and set on fire by the stuff; his flesh was dyed a deep purple, and partially consumed. He tottered and fell to the floor in a writhing, flaming heap.

In the confusion, and the dazed silence that fell upon the vast assemblage at sight of that horrible thing, Melvar, aroused from her resignation of despair by the report of the pistol, sprang to her feet in incredulous surprise. For a moment she looked wonderingly at us. Then she turned and shouted a few strange and impressive words at the priests. Her white arms swept up in a curious gesture.

Then she turned and sped toward us. We started running back the way we had come. The dramatic fall of Jorak, and the evident terror that Melvar's courageous and timely words, whatever they had been, had inspired, served to hold the Astranians motionless until we had traversed the better part of the distance to the columns. But then they started after us en masse. I dropped to my knees at the columns and began firing steadily with the rifle. They fell, sometimes two or three at a shot, but still they charged on, and their number was overwhelming.

Then, outside, there was a sudden louder shrieking roar. A flood of red light poured through the columns, and there was a terrific crash upon the dome. Dense clouds of hot purple vapor poured into the vast room. One of the flying lights had landed upon the roof. The charging throng behind us stopped and ran about in confusion. We darted out through the purple clouds and ran for the shadow of the nearest building. We kept close by the mighty walls until we reached the gate. Daring the terrors of the night, we ran out and down the narrow trail. By dawn we were several miles from Astran in the direction of the shining lake.